Cranky-D

I covered Courtney Love many moons ago. She was one of my junkie ringer picks for the dead pool. The other is Scott Weiland.

While we have heard some noise recently about Courtney backsliding into drug use again (you go girl!), Scott is prominent by his absense from the tabloids. I haven’t heard much about him in a while, the last being a VH1 Inside the Music Episode (or whatever it was) on his latest band, Velvet Revolver. While he apparently isn’t shooting up any more, he is still just as narcisistic as ever. He was apparenlty late to many meetings and recording sessions. You gotta love the prima donna rock star attitude, the same one that probably caused the problems that resulted in him leaving Stone Temple Pilots.

As with Courtney, I happen to like a lot of the music Scott has written. STP was a great band, even though Scott is obviously thoroughly full of himself. I like the sound of Velvet Revolver, though I haven’t heard more than a few of their songs. The behavior of musicians has very little effect on whether I like their music or not. Very few musicians are particularly bright or insightful. They do not channel the words of the gods or anything like that, and if you manage to convince yourself that they do, you will always be disappointed later. Instead, I think what happens is that they push some words around for a while and get lucky enough to find a good combination of words that go with the music. And if they’re really lucky, a lot of people will agree that what they wrote was pretty good, and they’ll make a lot of money. I will laugh at anyone who labels any pop musician as a “genius.” None of them are genuises.

Yes, I have written songs of my own. I know how the process works. Sometimes the words come to you from the ether (probably the origin of the myth that there are muses sent by the gods). Sometimes you have to search for them. Songwriting is like any other kind of writing. Lots of practice and study of other’s work is required. There is nothing magical about it.

Aside from that, many musicians are self-destructive. Scott sure seemed like he was headed for a Lane Staley exit this year. I wouldn’t be happy about it, really, but if they’re going to die anyway, why not profit in points from it?

No such luck. I have one winner this year, the same one most people picked. There is no way I have a chance in heck of even approaching the leader unless a lot of old politicians are on a flight together and get shot down. Instead, I’m rooting for a few of my picks (e.g. Carter and Helen Thomas) to die just because I think the world would be a better place without them. The points are secondary.

This entry also appears at the Dead Pool.

Today’s topic is the word earth.

BTW, I am not trying to open any wounds here. The idea chain that made me arrive here will follow the story.

He put the shovel to the earth one last time.

“Goodbye again, old friend.”

He awaited the next full moon with some anticipation. He heard a scratching at the back door. He sighed, got up, and opened it. There was Sam, looking somewhat the worse for wear after being dead these past six months. There was an offering of a gopher on the porch step.

“Good kitty.”

He let Sam in, noting that Sam’s rib and hip bones were now completely exposed. He knew that tomorrow morning Sam would be lifeless again.

“This time I’ll have to bury you deeper.”

The thought process was earth, as in dirt. Then I thought of burying things. Then I thought of burying pets, and then Pet Semetary. Then, the idea hit: what if your dead pets came back, but instead of being evil, they were just the same as they always were, and ignorant of their condition?

I just went downstairs to get the mail, and there it was. My degree. That and $5 will get me a cup of coffee at Starbuck’s.

If I drank coffee.

I managed to attract the attention of one of my favorite writers a few entries ago, and I screwed up a few facts. I don’t think he ever gets caught that way. He’ll probably avoid this site like the plague from now on.

Also, my plan to build choppers is in jeapordy. There are new smog laws coming which will effect all bike manufacturers, even those who only make a small number of bikes per year, even if you make less than a few hundred. The smog certification process costs at least $25,000 per model sold. Since many custom bikes are unique, that should help to put some people out of business for dubious gains. More on this later.

Gee, I got an email today saying that I would not be further considered as a candidate at the company of warrior women.

Imagine my surprise.

However, my resume would be “kept on file.” The circular file, if I’m not mistaken.

Looking for work is the most humiliating experience in life. Worse than dating.

On another note, I’ve decided that while I may have absolutely nothing to add to the debate on any topic, I’m going to rant about them anyway. I have been holding back on many topics because everyone else (on the sidebar) covers them better than I think I can. But so what?!

I hope to be an uninformed, froth-at-the-mouth wingnut, just like the lefties want me to be.

I’m sure you can hardly wait.

In this post Francis at eternity road posits that surveillance cameras are a good thing since it will allow police to identify known and potential terrorists. He says:

So how can anyone argue that police agencies may not use technological means to observe and record the behavior of persons in a public place? What makes these cameras any more a violation of the rights of private citizens than cameras in the hands of passers-by?

To me, there is a huge difference between being watched by other people and being watched by cameras, and being recorded by other citizens and being recorded by law enforcement agencies. So I will stick to cameras in “public” places (which do not actually exist, of course, since all property is either private property or government property, and with the recent Kelo decision, all property is actually government property, which may render all of my arguments moot).

Allowing the state to observe and record all of our movements when outside our home would be giving them a very dangerous power. I don’t particularly care whether or not we have a right to go about with our every action unrecorded by the police, but I certainly don’t notice any place in the constitution allowing them this power. I invoke the ninth and tenth amendments in my defence.

More from Francis:

It might be arguably bad policy for police agencies to post such cameras under specified conditions, and it’s definitely wrong to use automatic means — e.g., red-light cameras — to impose criminal penalties on anyone. But as instruments for safeguarding the public peace, they appear unexceptionable, especially as the alternative in our terrorism-ridden age is so great an increase in human police presence that even die-hard totalitarians would be moved to cry “Gestapo!”

I’m glad and not surprised at all the he is against the government using cameras to impose criminal penalties, but they are already here, and already being used in such a manner. The new cameras would be no different.

I submit that the government has demonstrated numerous times in the past a proclivity to take what its given and run with it. Furthermore, most people learn to live with such intrusions, so that even if the threats of terrorism were removed at some later date, the cameras would not be removed. In any case, Public Safety™ would be used to ensure that the cameras would stay.

Automated law enforcement is just too enticing to governments since it provides an exceptional way for them to increase revenue. They don’t have to raise taxes, they can raise fines instead. And they can always fall back on the argument that, “As long as you don’t break the law, you have nothing to worry about.” So once those cameras are in place, they will use them.

For those of you who have been confronted by the police during some various state of marginal activities will know that just because they have stopped you does not mean you will be arrested, even if you are breaking the law. If cameras were recording everything, they would probably be recording the encounter as well. They would have no choice but to arrest or at least ticket you every time you were breaking the law. Otherwise, the cop’s superiors would be free to use the information against the cops in performance reviews. “Why aren’t you arresting these people?”

Furthermore, the chance that you are breaking a law at any given time is fairly high. There are laws against all sorts of things. In my town, there is still (or was until recently) a law on the books making it illegal to drive a red car down a certain street.

Some laws you may agree with and some you may not. For instance, every Friday downtown, I call the last train running out the “drunk train.” At least half of the people are way over the limit. Including me. They could all be charged with public drunkenness, a law which was created more as a way to get rid of major troublemakers than anything else (I imagine), but with cameras in place they’d have to round up everyone who couldn’t walk straight or talk straight, whether they were really a nuisance or not.

Maybe, you could say, the cops wouldn’t do it, but since the records would eventually have to be made public for one reason or another, private citizens with nothing better to do might start watching the cameras on the inevitable web interface and start picking out the “criminals.” This may seem far-fetched, but I don’t think my argument is unreasonable at all.

Finally, I see no difference between a state that monitors its citizens by recording their every move and a state that posts police on every corner to monitor them. It’s still the Gestapo, or whatever equivalent name you want to give it. Just because it’s hidden doesn’t change the effect.

Actually, I think cameras would be worse.

Hey, for some reason the posting times match properly to my time. How about that. I don’t think they did before the upgrade. Whatever.

One thing my father and I discussed when I saw him was the fact that he doesn’t get upset about many things any more. I’m with him on that. There are things which could have happened 20 years ago that would’ve got my knickers in a twist that wouldn’t even phase me now. Still, I get bent out of shape about things that my father can ignore, so I have a long way to go before I reach that place where nothing will bother me.

I have a cousin like that. Nothing seems to bother him. Instead of getting upset, he can just figure out a way to either ignore the whole thing or find a quick solution. I wish I had that skill.

I wonder if getting bothered by things has a side effect. The fact that I can’t let some things go has made it possible for me to accomplish things which I may not have done without that impetus. It may just be another “good with the bad” compromise that must be made when dealing with other people as well as dealing with myself.

One example of the compromise is the fact that I prefer women who are willing to say what’s on their mind instead of making me guess what the latest problem is. Dragging things out of the quiet ones can be extremely tiring. The “bad with the good” compromise is that such women are much more likely to verbalize a tad more than the average man might want to hear. And since I prefer them intelligent as well, you can’t ignore what they’re saying since there is almost always a pop quiz later. Still, dealing with the addition yakking is infinitely better than dealing with a quiet woman. Stupid women are not even considered. I’d sooner maintain my accidental celibacy than get involved with an idiot.

From the last paragraph, you can see that I still have a way to go to achieve my goal of nothing bothering me. Then again, if nothing bothers you, you’re probably dead, so maybe that isn’t much of a goal after all.

Well, so far none of the spammers can get through the new barriers. I’m a happy camper.

I still have a can of raid in reserve for them.

I havent’ had this much relief from the trackback spammers in a long time.

Well, after messing around for a while with the new version of wordpress on my local web server, I decided it was time to do the deed and upgrade the real site. Hopefully everything is working properly. If you find something that barfs, please email me. I hacked together the template from someone else’s work and it had a few non-standard items in it. There may be more I didn’t find yet.

I haven’t decided which anti-spam plug-ins to use yet, but I think there’s some kind of default comment moderation which would put people in a queue until I approve them. That might be enough.

It can’t be worse than it was before, that’s for sure.

“Daddy, what’s that smell?”

“Little Timmy, that’s the smell of failure. Smells pretty bad, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does, daddy. I hope I never smell like that.”

“Pray that you don’t, son.”

So, how did that interview go? Let’s just say that I stunk up the room like no one has stunk up a room before. I couldn’t avoid commenting on the stench myself. The guy interviewing me was amused by my comments, so at least something went well.

It wasn’t the talking part. I was fine with that, for a change. It was the code questions. They were easy questions, but my mind was a blank. I took too long for the first one, and couldn’t do the second since my skills at recursion are marginal at best. I consider recursion to be a tool of the devil, and never use it in my own code when I can do things another way. But recursion was about the only way to solve the problem. I knew what had to be done, but couldn’t manage to write it on paper. I managed to fumble through another question, but clearly I was moving too slow.

It is clear that I cannot code my way out of a paper bag. I’m thinking of going to tech school and learning how to weld and do metal work. I might be bright enough to build choppers or something. I’m clearly too stupid to do actual programming.

I guess the job search should start somewhere. I agreed to interview with the engineering team this monday.

The pre-pre-interviewer said it does not, in fact, rain all the time in Seattle. I have my doubts.

I wonder if they have decent conditions for snowmobiling in the winter. I may have to take up a winter sport to avoid going completely insane.

I know the place is full of commies. Concealed carry is not available. Taxes are probably through the roof. True blue state baby I hate you. My state may be blue, but I could get a carry permit easily. We’re trending red as time passes.

The company in question, which I will not name specifically, is an online retailor. Xena the warrior princess would shop there. Her sisters were probably the founders.

The only good thing is that I don’t have to wear a stupid suit.

So much for keeping up with the 100 words project.

I tried, but it’s easy to get sidetracked when you’re away from home. Once my father returned from Alaska I found it easier to go to the gym, take a shower, read a book or some web pages, go to the bar with him, then go home and sleep. Lather, rinse, repeat.

However, now I’m back in my own little part of a house, Southern California a distant or not-so-distant memory. So, time to start writing. Again, I will try to keep up with the topics. We’ll see if it actually happens.

On a lighter note, I’ve had a few job opportunities. They all seem to be in Washington state. It rains a lot there. I absolutely hate rain. The place is full of liberals who seem bent on social engineering the people, as well as taking away their rights to self-defense. I hate that, too.

G-d is laughing at me.

The question is, do I take the plunge and interview with them anyway? I might get desperate enough to move there, but Jeebus, I would probably hate myself for doing it.

I agreed to a phone pre-pre-interview later today. If that goes well, there’s a pre-interview opportunity on monday. I don’t have a suit yet, so I guess I’ve already failed that one.

I hate being a grown-up.

Today’s topic is the word insomnia.

I remember being able to sleep. It’s been a while.

I spend a lot of time reading web pages. Luckily there is so much material out there that I never run out of things to read. I can’t concentrate long enough to read novels any more.

The television is on for the noise.

Every few days I try strong drink. It will induce passing out for a few hours, but as soon as it wears off I’m awake again. Then I’m hung-over as well as tired.

Sleeping was heavenly. Now it’s dark all the time and sleep won’t come.

Hell.

Today’s topic is “discovery.”

“The search is more fun that the finding,” is something he had heard many times before. He wanted to find out for himself.

The object of his desire was elusive. Diligence was required. He systematically examined the various places where he thought his desire could be met. Time and time again, disappointment was his only reward. It became difficult to continue. His soul felt ground down to rubble.

One evening, exhausted from yet another day’s futile search, he sat on the couch. He put his hand under the cushion and found it. Finally, one last small bag of gummi bears.

Topic

“The punishment for your crime is the loss of one of your senses. You have one day to choose.”

Incarceration had proven to not be much of a deterrent to crime. Removing limbs wasn’t either since the advent of powered prosthetics. The one thing that couldn’t be repaired was sense removal. It kept most people in line.

He thought about it. The enjoyment of food was too good to lose. He liked to read, so losing his sight was out. Loss of touch was loss of sex. So he chose hearing.

Now he couldn’t even remember what music sounded like.

Today my father and sister return from Alaska. I already moved the easy chair back to its proper place and returned the nintendo game unit to its storage space. No sense in rubbing it in.

I actually managed to get some work done while they were away. I completed repairs on the brakes of my father’s station wagon, and replaced the alternator in his Fiero. Of the two jobs, the brakes were by far the easiest to do. Replacing brake components on a car with all disk brakes is easy.

Working on a Fiero is a trial, since it’s a mid-engine car and the engine is crammed in fairly tightly. I had to jack the car up and remove the right rear wheel to get the lower alternator bolt off, then put the wheel back on and lower the car to get the upper bolt off. Then I jacked the car up again to replace the air conditioning belt, since it was old and cracked. That inspired even more fun. Still, I know how it’s done now. I have a Fiero of my own, so the knowledge is useful to have. I’m glad it’s over. However, I still have to replace the heater core in my Fiero. It sprung a leak during a smog test last Christmas. My dad says that job is pretty easy. We’ll see.

The last job I completed was to inventory the comic books. Not a small job, since I recounted the entire collection, as well as integrated books from the last 5 or 6 years into the collection. It’s one of those jobs that works best in an empty house, since I had to stack them everywhere.

The comic convention is this coming weekend. I haven’t decided if I’m going yet. There are some holes in the collection that need filling, but the convention is more about stuff than comics these days. Still, there’s a really neat special edition Sin City Marv action figure that will only be available at the con. I haven’t been a collector of action figures so far, but I really liked Sin City. I saw it four times at the theater. There is a feeding frenzy to get those special edition toys, but I may go ahead and join in this time.

Well, tonight will end my care of kitty. She has not tolerated me all that well. I don’t speak cat, and she doesn’t like anyone but my sister to get near her. So when she started complaining a few days ago, I wasn’t sure what her problem was. She had food. She had water. I cleaned the litter box. I picked up any hairballs that she had thoughtfully coughed up on the bed. Still she complained. Her fur was too tight, I guess. She finally gave up on me. I’m sure she’s anxiously awaiting my sister’s return.

I like cats, but I like cats that like attention from people. A cat that only likes one person in the whole world does not go over well with others who take care of her. I guess I just prefer the suck-up cats. When I get one, I will do my best to train it to suck up properly. If that’s possible.

Today’s topic. I didn’t realize it had been so long since I wrote one. I was uninspired by the recent topics, and frankly my contributions are not generating a whole lot of interest anyway. That shouldn’t be an excuse, but sometimes it is.

My foot slipped on the gravel.

“Ow! Dammit! Fucking piece of crap!”

I caught the bike before it fell over, and resumed pushing it. My legs hurt from the exertion and from the road rash. Most of the legs of my jeans had been torn away when I had hit the asphalt. Denim protects you for maybe a second or two, no longer. I knew that, and ignored it anyway. My shirt was soaked with sweat, but was not torn. It had been protected by my leather jacket.

As I pushed my bent bike along, I mentally purchased new leathers.

Today’s topic. I’m not a big fan of it.

Sin. Then sin again. It’s easy. Often it’s fun. And it’s pretty much
unavoidable. Unless you don’t think there’s such a thing as sin, in which case, go for it. Or don’t.

As far as I know, you have to be human to sin. I don’t think rocks or pasta or edelweiss are capable of sin. I could be wrong, though.

As far as what sin is, it’s pretty simple. Sins as they are usually presented
are actions you take that can damage you. A sin is usually a crime against
yourself, even if others are victims or willing participants.

As I have intimated a few times, I am not currently at home. Instead I’m at the old homestead in Southern California, house-sitting while my father and sister are vacationing in Anchorage. I have a sister and two sets of Aunts and Uncles living there. I could’ve gone myself but who would watch the house then? Besides, it would mean yet another adult confined to a rather small space and my clausterphobia would certainly act up.

I arrived here last Tuesday, and I took my father and sister to the airport on Wednesday. I pretty much starting feeling sick before I got here, and it just got worse. Rather than feel too sorry for myself, I did what any good geek would do. I broke out the old 8-bit Nintendo that I left here when I moved and hooked that sucker up. It still works great. I’ve been playing Dragon Warrior IV, the only game in the series that didn’t get ported to Gameboy. Too bad. It’s really long and complicated.

To make things even better, I moved the comfy chair to the middle of the living room and aimed the teevee directly at it. I sit back, relax, build up hit points, and eat gummi bears.

I wonder what the poor people are doing.