Wontar's Ramblings

You Blew It, Terra Nova

2011-10-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

A show set 85 million years in the past. Dinosaur time. You know what I'd do if I had a show set in the dinosaur-riddled past? I'd show some damn dinosaurs! Holy friggin' crap, how hard is that to figure out? Instead, the show with more children on it than Sesame Street now adds two more little lisping nitwits to the show. Great. Makes sense, though, as I think those kids are the same ones who wrote the script. I've seen more plot twists on a book of matches than in this show. I'm done with it, but should anyone associated with the show happen to stumble drunkenly across this blog I offer the following advice: watch Primeval, and take notes. They show dinosaurs (or some other prehistoric or future critter) multiple times each episode! With no children! It got its seasons expanded because of rabid fans, plus it's getting a spinoff. The only thing spin-worthy about Terra Nova is the water that's swirling around with it in the bowl.

I Hope It's A Coincidence

2011-08-30T20:43:00.002-07:00

I'm performing a test to see what food(s) make my gout feel worse. Since meat is a culprit, I'm doing the unthinkable: spending a week meat-free. Yes, really. No, my account hasn't been hacked. We bought Boca burgers, and I made a dish with those and rice, peppers, mushrooms, onions, and some whole grain wrap things. I had that for a couple days, and today we went out to a restaurant with a menu chock-full of meaty goodness and I ordered a black bean burger with a salad. (Really, my account hasn't been hacked. Get off the floor.)

Today is the first day in a couple weeks that I have had no pain in either my toe or knee. I really, really hope it's a coincidence. Next week I'll eat beef and see what happens. Turkey the following week. Not terribly exciting, I know, but necessary.

Oh yeah... Deb is not partaking of this experiment, and I wouldn't expect her to. She still gets to eat normal food. Lucky.

You Gouta Be Kidding

2011-08-07T18:08:00.002-07:00

I've adjusted my diet in order to combat high cholesterol. Just a part of being 40+, I guess. Little did I know that in so doing, I was eating a bunch of things that trigger a gout attack. I had also cut out things that helped stave off an attack. Neat. I guess I'm down to three choices: eat for my cholesterol and deal with the pain and occasional limping, eat for my gout and maybe have a heart attack sooner rather than later, or switch to a vegetarian diet and kill myself inside of a week. Oh yeah... through the magic of the intertubes, I learned that cherries have some sort of mystical voodoo property that helps to reduce swelling from gout and other types of arthritis. That's great, because cherries are delicious! (I keep saying that in an attempt to keep from vomiting as I force them down.) Cherries are like most other vegetables and fruits to me, in that they evoke the same mental image whenever I eat them. It's an image I'll share with you now for your dining and dancing pleasure. Picture a decent-sized beetle. The size of your thumbnail or so. Now imagine the sounds and the sensations that flood your senses when you step on that beetle. The squishy crunch, the goo oozing from the shattered carapace. Now take that packet of sensations and put them in your mouth. Now go eat a salad, or as I like to call it, a bowl full of beetles. Sure, it's a delicacy to some. Some freaks.

So, yeah, vegetarianism isn't really in the cards for me. Beetletarianism, absolutely. Crunchy and delicious.

Survivor Pawn Housewife Bachelor Idol Factor

2011-06-04T22:31:00.001-07:00

“You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. In God's name, you people are the real thing, WE are the illusion.”
- from Network (1976)

Running Gag Store

2011-05-22T13:21:00.003-07:00

My brother has gotten into the whole making designs on T-shirts for fun and profit thing. His store, RunningGag, is all about running, biking, swimming, marathons, duathlons, triathlons, and all that kind of fitness and athletic stuff.

What?

2010-10-20T20:13:00.002-07:00

The Mrs. and I got our hearing tested today. One of the nifty things about Tucson is the overabundance of medical places that enjoy teasing the populace with free stuff. Despite the joyful whistling/ringing of tinnitus that's significantly less enjoyable than holiday chimes pealing away in my head 24/7, the ear lady said I have excellent hearing. (That's what I heard, anyway.) Deb has slight hearing loss, but that's only when I ask her to make me chocolate chip cookies. Doesn't impact her too much, and it helps keep me on my diet. Grumpy, sure, but that happens with or without cookies.

Shopping

2010-10-16T16:49:00.004-07:00

Dear Everybody Who Does It,

Here's the new rule: when you're in a store and traversing the aisles therein, do so in the same manner you would drive on the road. By that I mean for those of you in the states, stay to the right. If you have to stop, pull over and give the rest of us room to move around your bloated carcass. If you stop in the center, I get to stab you. If you go down the wrong side of the aisle, I get to stab you. If you pull the cart from the front rather than pushing it from the friggin' handle designed for that purpose, I get to stab you and shove your head through the cart so it gets all julienned. If you travel down the wrong side of the aisle and then look at me with gigantic, uncomprehending cow eyes, I not only get to stab you, but you're going to experience the thrill that is the store's industrial-strength meat grinder. Toes-first. If you have children and you need to go shopping, leave the kids at home. Or at a family member's house. Or a serial killer's house. Do not, under any circumstance, bring your children to the store. If you have no other recourse but to bring your children with you to the store, you can't come in. You can't even come in to the parking lot. (See all the stabbing rules, above.)

Addict

2010-06-24T00:17:00.003-07:00

I'm trying to be healthy. We go to the gym for 30-60+ minutes per day, every day. At the very least, we do 30 minutes on the treadmill or stationary bike. As opposed to the stationery bike, because it's hard to work up a sweat writing notes. I've also started counting calories. That's quite possibly the single most depressing activity ever devised by man. We don't eat three meals a day. We just don't. Even with that, it's remarkable how quickly one reaches that magically recommended 2,000 calorie mark. People who eat three meals a day must double or even triple that figure.

My rambling point is about how moderation is a lie. Sure, people tell you that you can eat things in moderation, and you'll be fine. Bull. One glass of 2% milk is in the 120 calorie neighborhood. Excuse me... one 8 ounce glass. That's the wee bitty juice glass, a.k.a. the thimble. I could drink about 6 of those and still feel thirsty. If I were moderating, I'd drop it down to 4. Words cannot describe to you how much I miss whole milk. I've settled for 2% in the quest to lose weight. I'm not going lower, as we've already got water in the fridge, thanks.

That's probably one of the harder things about this quest to no longer be fat. Drinks. I can't drink regular diet drinks because nutrasweet makes my head split open. Until recently, I thought I was having adverse reactions to splenda, but I think I've ruled them out. That may be something. Iced tea tastes like iced ass, so that's out. Water is... icky. I drink it, but there's no way I'm drinking it with food. I want flavor, dammit. I go to sleep thinking about what I'm going to have for lunch the next day. (Hence the title of the post.) I want to enjoy it.

I weigh about 170 right now. (I say "about" because it keeps fluctuating.) At my towering height, if I lose 20 more pounds I'll be in the high end of "normal". According to BMI charts, at any rate. It's going to be a hell of an uphill climb to get down that far, and not only because I have a lousy sense of direction. I miss eating. I'm lighter than I've been in a long time, I'm in better shape than I've been in a couple decades, and that's all lovely and heart-healthy and good for me with unicorn glitter and rainbows and whatnot. Still, I'd be a very happy man if I could sit down with a jar of peanut butter, a few bags of funyuns, and a gallon or two of whole milk and while away the time with my old friends.

After all, what the hell is the point of living longer if you don't get to enjoy it?

2010 Census

2010-03-15T18:40:00.002-07:00

We received the census form today. Filled it out, but with a bit of a twist. In the "race" field, we put "human". (Thanks for the idea, Kathy!) I mean, honestly, what the hell difference does it make? I heartily encourage the tens of people who wander this way to do the same.

Dear Comcast

2010-01-06T14:47:00.003-07:00

Dear Comcast,

I hate you. I hate you so very, very much. This is no ordinary hate. I confess I say that I hate a lot of things. In comparison to what I feel right now, those have to be downgraded to "mild dislike". To be fair, I hate all cable monopolies. But Comcast, I hate you most of all. Why? Because you're the monopoly I have to deal with. Here's why I hate you...

My wife and I bought ourselves an HD television for Christmas. We don't watch TV all that much, but we figured that when we do watch it'd be nice to watch it on something bigger and sharper than our old TV. I hooked it up, and much to my surprise we started to get new channels! Wow! My wows soon turned to curses after a couple weeks pass, and I learned that you are now taking away digital channels from my cable package. Bastards. I can now see one out of four major networks in HD. (PBS doesn't count, though I get two of those in HD. Whoop-dee-shit.)

"Just upgrade!" you say. You know, if you gave me the option to upgrade so that I could see the networks I might just consider it. Or if you gave me the option to have a cable package that has channels I may actually watch, and not 100 channels of crap. But you don't give me that option. The upgrade you so gleefully want me to buy is EIGHT TIMES what I'm paying now. I'm not kidding, and I don't suck at math. EIGHT. TIMES. "Fuck you!" is far, far too short of a phrase to completely describe how I feel. Even if I stretch out every single letter until the veins stick out on my forehead.

So, I used part of our Christmas present to buy an indoor antenna. I'm currently trying to find the best place to put it where it will get the most channels. I'd *like* to put it deep in the heart of Texas of the CEO of Comcast or whoever decided to take channels away from their customers. I don't think I'd be alone in that regard. Hell, I'll buy two of them and give the same treatment to the person who thought that half of the channels we get should be in Spanish. But that's a whole other rant right there.

In conclusion, I'd like to say once again: Comcast, I hate you.

Don't Ask If You Don't Want To Know

2009-10-30T11:27:00.002-07:00

I just got off the phone. (Those of you who know me, and you all do, know where this is going.) We apparently have a new insurance guy. I've never met the man, but he's called a few times before and left messages. The only reason I answered the phone is because we're expecting a call. Here's the Reader's Digest version of how the call played out:

Me: Hello
Annoying Guy (AG): Hi, Wontar? This is Annoying Guy from your insurance place! How are you today?
Me: Fine.
AG: Have you met your new representative Connie Whatshername yet?
Me: No.
AG: Well, I'd like to set up an appointment so you could meet with her and go over your insurance needs.
Me: Is that absolutely necessary?
AG: (blink) Well, no. It's just a courtesy.
Me: Then I don't think we'll be doing that.

I have to admit that I was impressed that he didn't press the issue. I mean... strike one for calling in the first place. Strike two for asking me to leave the apartment in order to talk with someone. I already spat venom at the last insurance idiot who called me in response to an e-mail I sent. If I send an e-mail and I ask for an e-mail reply, how mad do you expect me to get when you call? I'm sorry if writing a semi-grammatically correct sentence hurts. Not my problem.

In unrelated news, we are both the proud owners of ergonomic keyboards. You'd think that two people who spend 20 or 30 hours per day on the things, we would have done it sooner. You'd be wrong. Still getting used to them, but I have to say that they're comfy as all get out. Next up: ergonomic mice! Good luck finding ones that aren't cordless.

Oh. Here's something for the family: it was 37 here when I woke up yesterday. I think it was 39 this morning. I know those are your highs right now, but take some small pleasure in the thought of me wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants and being cold at those temperatures. Don't gloat too much, though. Saturday's high: 80.

Results Inconclusive

2009-10-03T20:52:00.002-07:00

I got a message from the brain place on Friday. There's another study of some sort, and they want to know if I'm interested. I'm assuming it's for migraines. Could be for hair loss, but I doubt it. I'll find out more on Monday, but here's hoping there's more experimental drugs and minimal side effects in my future!

Hoover? Damn!

2009-09-24T16:33:00.002-07:00

We recently purchased a carpet steamer/shampooer/cleanifier thingy. I've never been so simultaneously delighted and horrified with a purchase. Put aside for the moment the fact that the thing is cheaply made, with cheap toy-grade plastic, by our dear, dear friendly neighbors in Mexico. Disregard the fact that the instructions do not actually show how to attach the hose to the device. Overlook the Hoover brand name no longer means diddly, and that there's no way in hell this machine is going to last 20 years. Observe instead the horrors that are coming up out of the carpet. Ick. Arizona is a filthy, filthy state. Despite its shoddy construction, the cleaner seems to work well. The carpet feels better.

I Want To Be An Electric Eel

2009-09-06T22:00:00.003-07:00

We went out to lunch the other day. To my right was a table full of cackling hens of varying ages who were extremely excited about their recent/upcoming trip to China. I know this because they wouldn't shut up about the two young girls learning Chinese. At the table. Over, and over, and over again. Now, I fully support the idea that those who are going to visit a foreign land have at least a passing familiarity with the language. I do not support you screaming Chinese while I'm trying to eat. The exception being that I'm in a Chinese restaurant, and some buffet buffalo just stomped on the foot of a waiter.

Behind me sat a family with an infant and a small child. The infant started out in a high chair, but cried so much they moved him/her/it to a seat with one of the parents. At more than one point during my meal, the baby kept touching my back. Now, many people will go "awww, how cute!" This is why I don't get along with most people. Up until that point, I had no idea the baby was immediately behind me. While I'm not the most massive person around, I guarantee you that my mass is more than enough to harm the baby had I leaned back, sneeze, or whatever. Tiny baby fingers will lose out every time. And in that scenario, I would be the bad guy. Because the goddamn parents aren't watching their friggin' infant. At home, where they should be until he/she/it is old enough to vote.

I'm waiting for some entrepreneur in Tucson to open a restaurant that only serves adults. They will get 100% of my business. Except on Screamin' Mandarin Tuesday.

Yep, Still Breathing

2009-07-08T15:18:00.002-07:00

You know you're working hard when you get an e-mail from your parents that say they never hear from you. Then you check your blog and see you haven't posted in a month and a half. Wow. We've been a bit busy. Moreso than usual since the online empire took a severe kick to the groinular region. We're cranking out new shops, new blogs, and basically scrambling to lessen the impact of it all. Hey, it still beats waking up to an alarm clock and going through the day with homicidal thoughts. Plus, we're learning at an almost constant rate. Scary, perhaps, but true.

Sunday marks our sixth wedding anniversary for those of you keeping score at home. It seems that the traditional gifts for year six are candy and iron. Don't get those confused. The modern gift is wood. We'll take the candy, thank you.

Western Tanager

2009-05-22T21:38:00.002-07:00

Nothing really blogworthy going on. The most interesting non-work-related thing to happen was two-fold: it rained, and during the rainstorm we were lucky enough to see a pair of amazingly colorful birds out of our sliding glass door. Glowingly bright yellow body, orange head, and black wings on the male, and yellow and grey on the female. I later learned that it was a pair of Western Tanagers (not teenagers, though some of those are colorful). They made for a nice splash of color on what we've come to term a "grey New York kind of day".

Other than that, not much. Working. Go figure. We're exciting like that.

Red Rock, Sedona, and Trains

2009-03-13T06:48:00.005-07:00

The weather was darn near perfect. The above was taken at Red Rock State Park, where we walked several miles of trails. The train ride was downright nifty, even though there were far, far more people on the train than I had expected. ("Any" counts as far more people than I expected.)

It was a cloudy couple of days, which in any place other than Arizona would be bad. In Arizona, clouds are welcome. They add greatly to photographs, and cut down the blasting bleaching badness of the big hot thing in the sky.

My Brain Hurts. Or It Will.

2009-02-11T20:21:00.002-07:00

I got a call today from the migraine study place. They're cancelling the study. She said it was because the company felt they weren't getting the results they wanted, but I find that hard to believe. So that means that early next month I go in for my last appointment. We'll see how many days it takes until I start getting migraines again. It was a nice vacation. Maybe they'll be nice and give me a going away present of a few metric tons of pills.

The Last of the Thirties

2009-02-06T00:37:00.003-07:00

I turned 39 a few minutes ago. At least as far as the calendar is concerned. If you want to be a stickler about it, it won't be for another 18 hours or so. I don't remember the exact time. I didn't have a digital watch then. (Or now, for that matter.) It's the last year I can be 30-something. I'm OK with that, because that was a crappy show. Deb has already made her famous chocolate chip cookies in honor of the event, so our plans for the day will involve cookies, lunch out somewhere, and more cookies. Sounds pretty darn perfect to me!

Next year at this time, I'll be cursing at turning 40. Because it just sounds old. And in 2012 when the Mayans come back from the dead and their gods kill us all, I'll be 42. Assuming they wait a couple months before they snuff out all existence. If you're a Douglas Adams fan, that age is significant. If you're not, then it isn't.

It's A Tradition

2009-01-03T00:25:00.003-07:00

Whilst taking down some Christmas decorations outside today, I heard something that really put me in the mind of Christmases (or Christmasi) gone by back on the hill. As I was outside in my T-shirt, taking down garland and tending my peppers (yes, they're still growing), I heard the lilting notes of an ice cream truck. Not the engine, but the plinking music. It's just what one would expect to hear on the second of January, no?

End of December

2008-12-29T23:12:00.002-07:00

Isn't this what the end of December looks like for everyone? T-shirt weather. Sunny, green, low 70s... No? Sucks for you, then. We spent part of the day breaking in our new walking sticks at the Catalina State Park. We walked for a couple miles. Had to cross actual water on multiple occasions, too! A rarity in Arizona, for the most part. The sticks were invaluable in that regard, so thanks again Kathy and Dan!

Nothing to Say

2008-11-19T20:36:00.002-07:00

So I'll say it. That's what a blog is for. The usual here: working, making stuff, putting things in both shops. No real post-election insight to share. When the choice is between a slogan and the Manchurian Candidate, it just cements how bad off we really are.

Unrelated to anything: it was 84 today. 84 tomorrow, too. It's mid-November. Enough already! Make with the 60 degree temps!

Decision 2008

2008-10-16T20:22:00.002-07:00

I have started a list. It contains the names of all the candidates who have called our phone in the last few days. It's so I can remember who absolutely will not receive votes from us.

One really took the cake today. (Not surprising, really. Politicians taking stuff.) We received a call today, and since I didn't recognize the number I didn't answer. The voice mail was a recorded message for one of the AZ candidates for whatever. I looked up his website, found a contact form, and used it to tell him that his phone call cost him two votes. I actually got a response, and the response has made me laugh. A lot. Why? He wanted me to call him so he could speak to me. Not kidding. I did not call. I will not call. I did e-mail him back and explain how insulting it is not only to be bothered by phone calls, but to be asked to call when I said quite clearly that it was the phone call that pissed me off in the first place.

Oh! There were typos in the e-mail, too. I let him know about that as well. I'm not voting for someone who can't spell. (I know, it's not from him. It's from a volunteer lackey. Don't care.)

Really Expensive Lunch

2008-10-15T16:50:00.003-07:00

Yesterday, my lovely wife and I decided to go out for lunch. I got in the car, turned the key, and was greeted with a ticking sound instead of an engine-turning-over-and-running sound. Color me cursing. Since I know as much about cars as I do particle physics (actually less), I started calling. First my brother, then my father, and then Dan. (Good thing Dan was there, because that's pretty much it as far as the "people we can call" list goes.) Dan figured it out, we called the emergency roadside thing offered by our insurance company, and they showed up inside 20 minutes. A jump-start later, and we were off to the mechanic to get a new battery and an oil change. Since they couldn't take the car right away, we walked to IHOP for lunch. A leisurely lunch later, plus another 20 minutes or so, and the car was done and the wallet was about $190 lighter. Not counting lunch.

One Angry Man

2008-09-29T23:31:00.002-07:00

Jury summons. I have to be at the courthouse at 8:30. A.M.. Why can't I be called for jury duty to night court? I'd like to watch a judge that can do magic tricks. I wish I had had more than a couple days' notice. I would have made a t-shirt that said something like "You are all guilty in the eyes of Gorto the Sock Demon, and you will burn forever in the Dryer of the Damned!"

Instead, I'll take a pill in a few minutes to put me to sleep, wake up to a damnable alarm clock, put on friggin' pants!!, and have my lovely-but-groggy wife chauffeur me to the court house. Where I will be summarily dismissed for one reason or another. Hope hope hope...

That reminds me. I've got to grab some books. How low-tech.

Still Breathing

2008-09-15T09:35:00.002-07:00

We're still alive. Just busy. The blog suffers, but that's OK. Nothing much exciting here, anyway. Keeping two shop sites going is still taking some time, but we're getting the hang of it. And of course, when really busy there's nothing better than opening yet another site! Yes, I'm a moron. For the curious (and the search engines) it's shirtgazer.com. Stargazer... shirts... shirtgazer. Made sense to me! The site isn't 100% complete yet, but all the links go where they're supposed to go. That's good enough for right now.

Other than that, not much. The weather has finally cooled off a bit in the last few days. Enough so that we've actually had the windows open until about 1 pm, and can open them again at night. Well, have them open without letting the burning hellfire inside and melt the carpet.

Not Funny

2008-08-17T13:47:00.002-07:00

Guess who just got another jury duty summons in the mail? ("Another" is the key word in that sentence.) Yep, me. Federal court this time. No, it turns out I'm not exempt. In order to be exempt, you have to actually have served on a jury that delivered a sentence. The sentence I'm delivering has lots and lots of expletives.

Color me pissed yet again.

Wordle

2008-08-14T16:08:00.000-07:00

This one's for Sam. My blog is apparently about phones and problems, which I find terribly funny as those two words go hand-in-hand.

Never Let It Be Said That I Have No Sole

2008-08-07T20:44:00.001-07:00

I've been spending some time recently doing something different. Designing shoes. It's a nifty new thing at Zazzle, and quite honestly I'm having fun doing it. (This coming from the guy who has purchased exactly one pair of shoes since moving to Arizona.) (Not that I'm going to buy any of these. I stopped wearing women's shoes years ago.)

We Really Shook The Pillars Of Heaven, Didn't We Wang?

2008-08-06T12:46:00.002-07:00

CafePress has a problem with its shopping cart. The problem isn't widespread, and that's probably why a fix is slow in coming. It's been about three weeks now, maybe more. I've submitted bug reports, as have other people, yet the problem remains. Yesterday, I decided that I'd had it.

I e-mailed the CEO and told him all about it.

I told him about the problem, told him where to look to see that I wasn't the only wacky person experiencing the problem, and I told him how bad it was for business for all of us. (I used more words than that. You know how I get.)

To his credit, he responded in about six hours. I know it was from him and not from a lackey. He thanked me, and said he was going to make sure it got investigated. About an hour later, I received an e-mail from the EVP. He said the same thing.

Now, according to a post on the CP forums, they've changed the way these bug reports are handled. More informative, straight to the IT department, good stuff like that.

While I'm not thrilled with CP right now, I am impressed by their executives. Hopefully they'll see to it that the problem gets fixed ASAP.

I'm just glad to have successfully tilted at a windmill. I have to mark my calendar.

(Bonus points if you know the movie quote.)

That Old Familiar Feeling

2008-07-25T13:54:00.002-07:00

CafePress announced that it will be changing the way it pays its contributors. As you may have guessed, the change is not in favor of its contributors. Some of you may remember that I worked on a project that the IRS projected would save them seven million dollars its first year, for which I received a $900 bonus. Before taxes.

I can't help but have flashbacks. The people doing the work that enables the site to exist are getting screwed seven ways from Sunday, and they're only pulling in $50 million or so. My heart bleeds.

Oh, and through all of this we were finally treated to words straight from the fingers of the CEO. (By that I mean typing, not the finger that I'm currently pointing at him.) The man can't spell. At all. You know I judge people by their usage of the language. Moreso when it's the only thing I have to judge. After reading his words, I can only hope that his lackeys have an education greater than fourth grade. That way, they've got a good four more grades' worth of intelligence to bank on.

In case the subtleties were lost on anyone, I'm downright fucking pissed off.

You've Heard of Money Laundering?

2008-07-23T00:05:00.004-07:00

Here's a quiz: Do you know what happens to a cell phone when you leave it in your pocket? What's that? Nothing? Oh, did I mention that the pocket was on a pair of shorts that had just been in the wash? (Not the dryer, though. That would just be stupid.)

So, yeah, I wrecked the cell phone. Or the only phone, as the case may be. I'm sure the calls were just a-rollin' in in the interim. (The phone rings maybe four times per month.) (Yesterday was probably the day we got that call informing us we had one a kajillion dollars.)

We took a trip to the Verizon store today. The phone was officially declared dead. The ceremony was lovely. Luckily, we still have our old cell phone. Gorto the giant tech-who-can't-keep-his-gum-in-his-mouth reactivated it, and we're ready to make and receive calls once more. A hell of a lot cheaper than buying a new phone, too.

Next week, I'm going to take a power washer to my computer. We'll see how that goes.

For My Better Half

2008-07-12T11:00:00.002-07:00

Happy Anniversary to the best person ever! (It's as simple as that.)

For those of you buying gifts, the traditional gift for five years of marriage is wood. So I guess... toothpicks, cedar chips, tongue depressors, scrap lumber you have lying around, and an end table. Mix and match, or glue it all together!

Logic in Advertising

2008-07-06T15:31:00.002-07:00

You know those commercials informing the panicked citizenry of these United States about the impending switch to cable-only TV in 2009? You know how the whole point of the commercial is that there will no longer be TV signals broadcast over the air, right? And if you've already got cable TV or satellite, you won't even notice the change?

So... why do they run those adverts on cable-only channels?

Thief Part II

2008-06-28T17:37:00.002-07:00

At the beginning of the month, I mentioned the thief who stole a few hundred designs and made a bunch of shops out of them. I contacted the powers-that-be, and the thief's shops were deleted. Until two weeks later, when she re-created them all. So, I jumped through all the hoops again. She seems to have been deleted, or mostly deleted. Why they don't just delete her account is beyond me. I guess when I open my t-shirt printing company, I can deal with thieves in the way I'd like... with my awesome telekinetic powers. (Shudder at *that* thought, dear reader! What a barren wasteland it would be if I had anything approaching telekinetic powers.)

Nothing too exciting beyond that. Working on two shops of ours, plus the off-site, plus another one with one of my online buddies... keeping busy, to say the least. That's good, because we can't go outside. Burst into flames quicker than if someone had pyrokinetic powers. (Anybody see a theme here?)

Oh! On the plus side, I've only had about three headaches this month. No migraines. Hooray for experimental drugs!

Rhymes With "Done With Jury Duty"

2008-06-12T20:46:00.002-07:00

Two sleeping pills taken around 9pm (that did nothing), up at 6 (I slept a little. Deb didn't sleep at all.), Deb dropped me off at the court a little after 7 with two books in hand. At about 8:30, they called a bunch of people up. I wasn't one of them. The remainder were told it could be "a few hours" before we knew whether they'd need any of us or not. 10:30 rolled around, and we were excused.

The plus (other than being excused): there was a bank of computers in the room. They were ancient, but they had internet access. I was able to e-mail Deb to tell her I was all done. (Much better than calling someone else to e-mail her to tell her to come get me.)

The annoying: The summons thing, as well as the website used to register, specifically say how you should dress. No jeans, no rubber sandals, no t-shirt. One guy had all three, and he got selected to be on the jury. I guess I'd make a pretty shitty judge, because I'd send him home and make him come back again and again until he learned how to read. Actually, if he did it more than once I'd find him in contempt. Oh! And some woman showed up at 8:30, asking for a note to prove that she'd been there. Timmy the jury greeter pleasantly told her that she was supposed to have been there at 7:30, so he couldn't do anything for her. He sent her to see someone else, but I hope they didn't help her. (I'd have found her in contempt, too.)

That's pretty much it, other than lunch and a nap. I only read one book, and didn't get to curse at anybody. I'd stick my head out the window and curse at random people, but it's too hot to open the window. Maybe I'll just put a sign up.

Rhymes With "Truck"

2008-06-11T16:20:00.003-07:00

Those of you keeping score at home may recall that prior to our trip to Vegas, I received a jury summons. Said summons was postponed so we could go on said trip. Today was the day I found out whether I had to go or not. Since I'm still cursing, you can probably guess the answer to that little mystery. There were nine juror groups. Guess how many were selected to serve? One. Mine.

So... I have to be there at 7:30. AM. (Fucking diurnals. I'd love to sue the legal system for discrimination against people who have given up the asinine tradition of worshiping the sun god.) I have to wear pants. Not jeans. Pants. Forecast high for tomorrow? 102-ish. I'll be the juror drowning in my own sweat. Hey, there's an idea! I'll pass out, get rushed to the hospital, and then sue the court system.

Oh! I nearly forgot. There's no place to park. Well, there's no place to park for free. The court doesn't provide parking, but you can get your parking validated for a "reduced" fee. Gee, thanks for that, Pima county!

So, my plan is to go there as if I have Tourette's. I'll use my New York-honed cursing skills to their fullest as a response to every question. I'm working on a facial tic now for that extra-special touch.

To Catch A Thief

2008-06-09T14:50:00.002-07:00

Deb found something interesting the other day while browsing through designs in the CafePress marketplace. Specifically, one of our designs was in the "newest arrivals" category. The reason that was odd was because that particular image has been up since mid-2005. It really wasn't "new" by any definition. It was, however, newly stolen. Someone decided to copy it and use it as her own. After a little digging, it turned out that she did that more than once. Not to our images (thankfully), but to several hundred other people.

After some moderate to severe cursing, I sprang into action. (Well, I typed into action. My keyboard is a bit springy, so the saying still applies.) I fired off e-mails to other shopkeepers who had things stolen, and even made a phone call! (Yes, it was that important.) It took two days, but the thief's account was completely deleted. Hundreds of designers were protected from a conscienceless thief. Even if they didn't even know about it.

I've tilted at a lot of windmills in my day, but this one made me feel good. The response, while not as swift as I would have liked, was the appropriate one. And despite receiving one canned response, the other human-crafted response more than made up for it. Hell, just the fact that a windmill was successfully tilted made me happy.

It's Still Spring, Right?

2008-05-31T23:29:00.002-07:00

The forecast is calling for triple-digit temperatures for the next few days. Summer is still, what, three weeks away? I think this means that August is going to be around 80 Kajillion degrees. At night. On the plus side, that means it won't be dusty. All the dust will have melted into glass. It'll look neat from space. Sure, there won't be any life here, so tourism will be tricky. Unless you count the Lava Men. And people won't even acknowledge they exist under the best of circumstances. Prejudice is an ugly thing.

Laughlin, Vegas, Valley of Fire

2008-05-17T14:29:00.004-07:00

Our whirlwind vacation of gambling has come to a close. We didn't win big, but we didn't lose much. Especially considering that 85% of the time was spent in a casino. Well, apart from driving. With this trip, we have officially put 30,000 miles on our car. You know, the one we bought with nearly 9,000 miles on it. Five years ago. (We don't drive much, can you tell?)

The picture is from our day trip-within-a-trip to The Valley of Fire. It's the place that inspired us to move west. Our first visit to the park was on a tour. This time around, we got to drive through it ourselves and explore it more. I'd go there again in a minute. Fascinating rock formations, petroglyphs all over the place, and busloads of cranky Japanese tourists who only know the English word "shithole". (If you think you're in a shithole, honey, you need to just stay home.)

Apart from a bit of an inconvenience with the last night's check-in that wound up taking three hours, and also found me growling at an exceptionally snotty old bat who I then called "meat" (in the consumable, liver-and-a-nice-chianti sort of way), it was a good trip. I'm in no hurry to go gambling again, but that's really nothing new.

New Neighbor

2008-05-02T11:23:00.002-07:00

Yet another perk of having actual trees right outside the front door. We've got hummingbirds, house finches, golden finches, doves, woodpeckers, and now this guy. He's pretty big, too. And loud. I think we're going to need a bigger bird bath. And chunks of raw meat.

Tippi Got Off Easy

2008-04-21T22:48:00.002-07:00

Fresh from the shower, I went outside today to drop off some outgoing mail at the office. The office is roughly 300 feet away from our front door, if that far. I went down the front stairs, through the gate in the security fence, and was halfway to my destination when three things happened in short succession: I heard a bird up in the trees, I felt something warm on my head, and a brown streak obscured my vision.

Yes, a bird shit on my head. Not only my head, but my glasses, shirt, and jeans. I took my glasses off, because despite my years of government service I have difficulty seeing through shit. This turned my world into a big smudge, because I'm nearsighted as all get-out. I made my way back through the gate (after trying to unlock it with the wrong key) and back into the apartment. The clothes came off and were immediately run under water, my glasses were blasted with water that was hot by Arizona standards, and I had my second shower of the day. My second shower of the hour, really.

I went back out and managed to make my delivery without incident. Deb got a good laugh out of it, so that makes it all worthwhile.

Tomorrow, though, we're having squab for dinner.

Headaches and Headache Fodder

2008-04-16T23:17:00.002-07:00

I had a migraine yesterday. It was fortunate as far as my little study is concerned, but unfortunate in that we were supposed to go visit our friends. I slept for about 3 hours, all of it after 9 A.M., so needless to say we didn't go. (Sorry guys.) I also learned something I probably should have known for a while: the dosage for Advil Migraine is two pills every 24 hours. Oops. Ah well. I didn't really need those internal organs much.

As for the headache fodder, I received in the mail today something of interest. A jury summons for May 14. Under normal circumstances, that wouldn't be much of a big deal. True, I have zero desire to be at a courthouse at whatever ridiculous hour you diurnals dispense justice. It just happens that May 14 falls in one of the times where we plan on being away. So, I filled in the form online and checked the request for postponement due to vacation. We'll see how that goes. I should just tell them that I think everyone is guilty before noon. Actually, I'm pretty much pro-death penalty for everything prior to sundown. If it's early enough, they may send me home because they'll think I have Tourette's.

Braiiinnnsss

2008-04-09T15:39:00.002-07:00

I've been accepted into a migraine study. It's a double-blind test with a half gainer. Or something like that. All I know is that I got an EKG yesterday, my blood pressure was 112 over 60, and Legos follow me wherever I go. (There were two Lego bricks under the examining table.) (I did not bring them.) The best part is that I get to use a PDA to keep track of migraines. It's password protected, and only has input fields pertaining to the study. It's got a modem in the docking cradle, which is unfortunately of no use to me as we have no landline. I'd e-mail the info to them, but they're not set up for that. Oh well. We'll see how it goes. It'd be nice to see if the medicine actually does anything for my headaches, but I won't know whether or not I'm actually taking the real medicine or the placebo. (Those tricky scientists!)

On a completely unrelated note, and just because I want to, Stargazer Designs News. Because I don't have enough websites to maintain. This one is made out of Joomla, which is absolutely friggin' awesome. I love all the features and plug-ins and whatnot. It still takes tweaking to get it to work well, but huge chunks are taken care of for you, and that makes me happy. I did it mainly to have a decent newsletter for the shop, and the newsletter is pretty darn cool. If I say so myself. I'm the only one qualified to say so, because I'm currently the only subscriber. Go me being the president of our fan club!

Reason # 8,529,852 That My Wife Is Amazing

2008-03-21T20:16:00.003-07:00

We have a computer in the bedroom. It's connected to the internet so we can watch things like Joost, streaming Ghost Hunters on scifi.com, and things like that there. It's also proven to be beneficial because the DVD player in the tv has started to skip. So, pop the DVD in the computer, and watch with glee and popcorn.

Ever the tinkerer, I modified one project (my version of the Sun Jar) to get its power from the computer rather than a solar cell. Why? Despite living in Arizona, our place is actually quite shady for 85% of the day. Solar cells don't really have a chance to do their thing in here. So, the jar lights up when the computer is turned on.

The other day, a little gooseneck lamp took a goose dive off of a desk. It wasn't worth replacing the bulb, as we had only used it a few times here. We were going to throw it out, but instead I got a bright idea. (Get it? It's a lamp!) I gutted the lamp, added a white LED where the bulb once was, and routed the power to the same source as my sun jar. (Which I guess is now a computer jar.) The result looks a lot less blurry than this:

Yes, the switch on the lamp works.

My wife is amazing because she lets me do this stuff. So there.

I'm Better At Math Than That!

2008-03-14T20:56:00.002-07:00

OK, so... watching a news story about the little old lady in New Mexico who beat the crap out of the guy who tried to steal her purse. The news reporter said that the would-be purse snatcher was "four times younger" than the aforementioned little old lady. The woman is 83, so negative four times 83 is -332. Wow! Kids today! They're turning to crime hundreds of generations before they're even born!

I need to stop watching the news. My tolerance for stupid is lower than ever.

It's Called "Toilet Water" For A Reason

2008-03-10T22:16:00.003-07:00

Ever the idea man, I've come up with something that will benefit both wearers of scents and the unscented alike. It's a device one could wear on one's person that would give off some sort of warning signal if the wearer was wearing too much scent. Something memorable, like, oh I don't know, a taser to the nether regions. Or possibly a light mist of pepper spray into the ol' eyeballs. Of course it would have to have a security setting, so that if anyone tampered with the device it would unleash a constant shock until a technician arrives in 2-3 business days.

I'm not sure what to call it. "Anti-Stink-O-Meter" is just too cumbersome. "Serves You Right You Rat Bastard! Why Don't You Try Bathing With Water Instead of Perfume/After-Shave?" even more so. Maybe "Stench-B-Gone". I guess it doesn't really matter what they're called. People aren't going to buy them for themselves, and they're installed with a nail gun. (In my world, they are.)

Can you tell I had to deal with people today?

Not The Casino

2008-03-09T17:34:00.002-07:00

Thanks to mom for the six-month Netflix subscription, we saw Stardust yesterday. Not a bad film. Not a great one, but an OK one. I had no idea who the female lead was, and my thought upon seeing her was: "She looks like Michael York." Not a female version of Michael York, but Michael York. To be fair, she looks like Michael York from his Three Musketeers days, as opposed to now. Turns out the woman is Claire Danes, which still meant nothing to me. However, according to IMDb, she was voted one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world by "People" magazine.

Somehow, I hope that makes Michael York happy.

Looking For A Cave With Internet Access

2008-03-07T21:03:00.003-07:00

A week or whatever ago, CNN had a little question on its little website. The question they put out to their viewers was: How much air time should we give to Ralph Nader now that he has announced he is running for the presidency? As you can imagine, I was more than a little put off by that question. Not because I really have anything against Ralph Nader. He's Pat Paulsen without the funny. I was angry because, by announcing that he was running for president, they had already given him more air time than they had given to Ron Paul. So, I left a comment on CNN's site to that effect. There were many other comments from other posters saying basically the same thing I did. I checked back the next day to see how many comments the article received.

All the comments that mentioned Ron Paul had been deleted.

No, I'm not kidding. All of them. Color me pissed. I know you don't care, but I'm still voting for him. Especially since I can't muster up anything past antipathy for any of the others running.

Edit: Sam found the site, and it seems at least some of the comments are back. Mine isn't there, which is odd. I wasn't caustic or anything, so that's odd.

Remember That I Suck At Math

2008-02-28T10:46:00.003-07:00

I saw a commercial last night with an interesting statistic. It said: "4 out of 10 high school students don't graduate". If you're like me, you are marginally relieved that those high school students who do not graduate are still able to obtain employment writing copy for commercials. Do they no longer teach the children about the lowest common denominator? That was second or third grade for me, so in my world if you're over the age of nine and don't know how to reduce a fraction then I get to hit you. With a bat. Or a vampire. (Hmm... that would mean that I get to hit people with Tom Cruise and/or Brad Pitt! That's a bonus!) I mean, hell, we're not a metric society. You're telling me that base ten has more of an impact than "2 out of 5"?

I guess I should try to be more positive. After all, they spelled it correctly. Baby steps.

38th Parallel

2008-02-06T00:48:00.000-07:00

I'm officially 38. Deb and I went out for my obligatory "free" steak dinner and meringue-covered flaming brownie on the 5th, and also went to church. Why? To vote, of course. (Yes, I voted for Ron Paul. No, I don't agree with him on everything. I just agree with him on the things that matter most to me. So there.)

This is one of the reasons why I know I'm spiraling towards 40. I'm talking politics. Add the grey hairs, and the dull ache that's been in my knee for two days now, and I'm a regular crotchety old man. If I had a lawn, I'd be yelling at the kids to stay the hell off of it. Then again, since it's Arizona, if I had a lawn I'd be knocking the little bastards into the cacti. (cactuses. cactoozles.)

The birthday festivities will consist of leftovers, work, and a heating pad and/or ice on my knee. If I can keep the face-to-face human contact down to just my wife, it'll be the best birthday ever.

Formulaic

2008-01-28T01:41:00.000-07:00

My 38th year is approaching in a matter of days, and with it are some lovely grey hairs. This is particularly depressing because I shave my head, yet I still have grey hairs. They're on my face, in my oh-so-roguish goatee. I suppose it could be worse, and the grey hairs could be sprouting out of my ears. I'm reasonably certain that my lovely wife would come after me with tweezers, or a match, if that ever happened.

Beyond that, nothing terribly exciting. Working on the shop, avoiding human contact as much as possible... the usual.

I Are Smart

2008-01-05T17:45:00.000-07:00

Seeing that, I am reminded that Wile E. Coyote was also a genius, and he couldn't grasp the concept of ordering a friggin' pizza. Of course, with the state of pizza in the desert southwest, I have a greater appreciation of his quest for decent fast food.

Merry New Year

2008-01-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Happy 2008, everyone! Remember that when you write your next check. All the best to the half dozen or so people who read this, and I guess to everyone else as well. (I'm feeling festive.)

Popularity

2007-12-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

Today marks the day that our shop has officially received more page hits than this here blog thingy. That's pretty neat, considering the blog has been in existence for nearly 4 years. The shop has existed since mid-May of this year, so I guess I'm doing something right as far as online promotion is concerned. We're still not getting 5,000 hits a day or anything, but it averages out to 2,000 hits a month. Boring? Perhaps. Interesting to me nonetheless. So there.

Stargazerdesigns.net

2007-11-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.stargazerdesigns.net/

Did I mention... Stargazer Designs? Yeah, I know. Bought a new domain for the shop, and will be working on that for a while. The other links still work, but this will hopefully help with some "brand name" recognition. We hope.

Sick

2007-11-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

Yep. Sick. So much for me being disease-free in Arizona. Tired, coughing, congestion... the usual. The fever seems to be gone, though. That's a plus. I'm quite tired, yet I can't sleep. That's nice and frustrating. Still, I haven't been sick since we moved, so that was a nice hiatus from feeling like crap.

Stuff

2007-11-03T23:59:00.000-07:00

Haven't put words on here in a while, so here's a brief recap:

Went to see Bill Cosby for Deb's birthday. Not for a lunch or anything, but an actual concert type venue. He was quite funny, and I learned he has very visible glaucoma.

I've been doing web design work. Sorta. I'm customizing people's CafePress shops. On purpose, you know, because they ask me to. And pay me. That's an important detail. It's fun, and makes a nice break from trying to crank out designs.

Today marks the first day since March or so that I've worn pants all day. No, not because my kilt is at the cleaners. We're sick. Kinda. It's weird. Deb got symptoms first, and actually felt bad for more than ten minutes. I got them late the next day. She's mostly better. I think I'm OK. But then, I've gone to work with fevers and other nasty ailments, so I'm not one to talk. I guess I've been bragging too much about not being sick since moving to AZ. If this is "sick", though, I'll take it.

Nothing much other than that. We're terribly, terribly dull. And we like it that way.

Yippikya.com

2007-10-15T23:54:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't snapped. Well, haven't snapped more, I guess. I have been spending far too much time at Yippikya.com. No, it's not about cowboys. It's one of them there social networking sites, but with a twist. It's geared towards creative types. Artists, designers, singers, musicians, photographers. I like it so much, I even wrote a yippikya squidoo lens about it. Doing that brought me to the attention of one of the founders of the site. (Yes, really.) I was nervous at first, because I thought he was going to be pissed. I don't know why, that's just the way my brain works. He was actually happy that I wrote the post, and even invited me to visit their offices. Of course, they're in Houston, so it'd be a bit of a long trip just to say "Hi", but I appreciate the gesture all the same.

If you're interested in joining, here's my affiliate link. If you're not interested in joining, that's fine too.

Just To Prove Sam Wrong

2007-10-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

... and because I'm too tired to think more clearly about it. The meme regarding writing strengths. In no particular order:

1. Relentless, ever-functioning internal spell-checker. The thing that makes me curse and/or twitch whenever I leave the apartment and read something with typos.
2. Not to steal from Sam, but I'm also visual. Probably has something to do with that art stuff. I can see the scene in my head, play it out, pause it, rewind... it's like having a DVD player wedged in my skull. Only without the searing pain. usually.
3. Stories pop into my head nearly fully-formed. I just have to "watch" them, and write it all out. Very little editing required.
4. Completely unnecessarily good memory for trivia. Why does that matter? I wrote a story in 7th grade that my teacher really liked. Want me to tell you about it? I can. I can take the parts that were good then and make them even better now, remember what worked and what didn't. But I can't remember where I left my keys or my hair. Go figure!
5. I have a 19th century vocabulary. By that I mean I use words like "propinquity" and never stop to think that the reader doesn't know what the hell I'm on about. If I write "singular" it doesn't mean "alone" or have anything to do with astrophysics. (Usually.) For me, it means "unique".

There you go, Sam.

Explicit Lyrics

2007-10-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

We stopped at our friendly Verizon Wireless store today to upgrade our cell phone. Part of the contract renewal, not because we're phone-happy. (We're decidedly phone-unhappy people.) The transaction complete, the nervous anime-eyed sales rep asked that we fill out a customer satisfaction survey online. I completed the survey, and it presented me with a button to close the window. I clicked on the button, and started to laugh. Why? Because I saw this:

How, exactly, do I close the browser window explicitly? Is there some sort of flourish I'm lacking when I click buttons that make my actions not as explicit as they should be? Do I need to adjust my chair if I'm going to start doing explicit things with my browser? I'm going to have to do some research into this. There's a whole world of internet inactivity that's thus far escaped me!

Half News

2007-10-03T17:11:00.000-07:00

I'm really tired of the news. That is, news programs such as CNN. It's annoying not only because it's the only channel we watch with any regularity, but because of the way the news is dished out. Half a story or less, with occasional facts thrown in there, all for the sake of ratings? Shouldn't ratings not matter when it comes to the news? Shouldn't the news be, well, news? Facts? Things that are currently happening around the globe, as well as across the nation? I don't care about celebrity custody battles. Save those oh-so-juicy stories for the entertainment shows. And... hey, media? I know there's a big hullabaloo about the Navy building that looks like a swastika from the air, but could you maybe provide some facts for people? You know, like how that particular symbol has been around since the neolithic, has been used in all manner of religions and cultures the world over, and to focus on its history since 1920 is really just a drop in the bucket and does nothing but feed into the negativity associated with it. Learning from history means all of history. As far back as we're able to go. Not just to when talkies were a novelty. Despite what creationists may think, humans didn't just pop into the scene a hundred years ago. No need to spend $600,000 taxpayer dollars on fixing a building just because it looks like something, OK? There are many, many other things that need fixing first.

Or, the short version: stop being stupid.

Border Potty

2007-09-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

On the right side of the image, you'll see one section of our existing border fence with Mexico. It's slightly higher than waist-high on me, which means that most adults can step over it with ease. Those that can't step over it can easily go under it. This is, of course, assuming that they were able to pass the daunting barbed wire fence. It's barbed! Ooooooh!

On the left side of the image, you'll see a convenient port-a-potty. Situated so that illegal immigrants can shit on America right away.

We also got to see the new fence. Well, what is hopefully the early stages of the new fence. They have yet to install the land mines, laser-guided typhoid vultures, and moat of flesh-eating bacteria. I believe those are later stages. I'm not going to post a picture of the new wall, because it makes me angry. I'm also not going to post a picture of the (currently) dry riverbed with all the footprints in it. That makes me really, really angry.

Instead, I'm going to sit in my chair and hum happy songs to myself while I complete the designs of these laser-guided typhoid vultures.

Reason # 8,529,458* That My Wife Is Amazing

2007-09-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

Why, you ask? Yesterday I had a bright idea. As is so often the case with my bright ideas, it involved one of the computers secluded in one of the rooms of the apartment. I put up a good fight for a couple hours, but eventually the need to try it overwhelmed this "patience" thing normal people seem to have. So, I started my little project. A couple hours later, I was drenched in sweat and cursing. "But that's normal for you", you say. "Bite me", is my rejoinder.

Eventually, I finished, and believe it or not my wacky idea worked. Believe me, I was shocked too. The Mrs. wasn't shocked, though. Go figure.

(*Don't make me list them. I'm stubborn enough to do it.)

9/11 - Six Years Later

2007-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

A year ago, I posted a write-up about Jonathan Eric Briley, one of the victims of 9/11. In the past few days, hits to that post have gone up dramatically. I assume that it's because school kids are doing reports about 9/11 victims. I found it interesting that many of the hits came from the UK. It's more than a little sad that my post comes up on the first Google page of a search for his name. (And Yahoo page. And ask.com...) Sad, because there really should be more out there than just what came from me. I don't just mean about Jonathan specifically, but everyone who was killed that day. We should not be as we are, or at least as a recent survey CNN yammered on about... people couldn't say what date the 9/11 attacks were. Not the year, the date. And the question asked was: "On what date were the 9/11 attacks?" That's atrocious. I also learned that Tucson has a 9/11 memorial. I understand the spirit of the gesture, but I think it's misplaced. Monetarily and physically.

Ah well. If you do nothing else today, just remember. That's all. Remember.

But don't forget, folks, that's what you get, folks...

2007-09-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

While watching the news today during our midday repast, we were treated to the musings of Whoopi Goldberg and her take on the whole Vick thing. While I understand the point she was trying to make, she used a lousy example. If she had perhaps said that it would be along the lines of a Hindu being horrified at anyone who ate a hamburger, since eating a cow is right up there with having a Jesus sandwich. Rare. Instead, she said it was a part of his "culture", because he's from the south. Now, I realize I'm no beauty queen, but last time I checked a map "the south" was still a part of the good ol' U.S. of A., and in all of them there states it's illegal to do what he did. Period. If it's part of your culture to engage in human sacrifice, as soon as you do that in a country in which it's illegal your ass is going to jail. Same same. Personally, I think he and his little friends should be forced to fight each other, and then electrocuted, burned, and everything else they did to those dogs. Revived, if necessary, to fight each other all over again. Make it a pay-per-view event, and the proceeds should go to animal shelters across the land. Anything less isn't justice. If you think I'm not being rational, that's a lovely opinion for you to have. I'd tell you where to stick it, but you can probably figure that out for yourself. I've always liked dogs a hell of a lot more than I like people, and the older I get the more that conviction is vindicated.

Verdant

2007-08-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

Catalina State Park beckoned us once again. When a state park calls you, you must heed. That's in the state park bylaws. We heeded our way out into the 101 degree temperatures to walk around and take pictures. This is one of several ways you can tell we're not natives of Arizona. We're too stupid to stay inside when it's friggin' hot. The picture is not representative of all the trails we traveled yesterday. It's just an example of a little bit of erosion from all the rain we've been getting. Another example is how friggin' green the place was. It was downright verdant.

Viz:

Remember, this is the desert. Cacti and lizards and stuff like that there. Not lush groundcover ivy that's going all over the place, nor green grasses waving softly in the breeze. (Of which there was very little.) (Breeze, that is, not grass.) It was like a second spring. As if Vertumnus himself came and frolicked a bit in the park before heading off to another party. (You know how those Roman gods are.) (Or Etruscan. Whatever.)

The barrel cacti seemed to like it. They were blooming like bloomers. Without any suffragettes to be found, though. They may have gone south for the winter already.

Zookoda

2007-08-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't sneeze. Zookoda.com is an email marketing service for bloggers. It's supposed to help you build your readership by sending e-mails of your posts to subscribers. It's free, so like many free things I checked into it.

For starters, the home page has the word "Yeh". Here's a message for all businesses out there: it's not cool to be illiterate. If you want to be professional, stick with "Yes". If you want to be hip and casual, it's "Yeah". If you want to sound as if you were just hit in the stomach with a wayward elbow, it's "Yeh". It's one small step up from "Ug".

For seconders, the signup page isn't secure. If you want me to type in my personal information, you better make sure that nifty little "https" is up in the address bar. I don't like submitting information in the open. I did anyway for two reasons: even when it's printed, few people can spell my last name correctly; and I want to write a review that's more than five syllables.

The "About" page has the "yeh" as well. I'm reading it as I wait for my confirmation e-mail to arrive. Oh, that's another personal note... I call it "e-mail". Running the letters together, without the dash, makes the word sound like "emale" in my head because that's how English works. So stop it. Use the dash.

It was 10:30 AM when I signed up. I had to wait for an e-mail before I could continue. It's now 8:22 PM, when I got the first confirmation e-mail. I'm now waiting for another before I can actually do anything with the service. Color me not happy.

8:52 PM, and I'm finally registered. Here we go...

Typo on one of the templates. The grey one. "Enter You E-mail". They need to hire a pirate, so they get an extra R. I got a site timeout once, and it loads slowly. The majority of the templates are Blogger templates, with one Zookoda template. Meh. Hopefully they'll have some more templates soon, but as it is it's not bad. Not great, but not bad. There is an option to make a custom template of your own, though. I may revisit it once I actually get going, but for now I'm going with one of the Blogger templates. Different than the one you're currently viewing. It's good if you've got a default Blogger blog, since the e-mail's theme would match your blog. Sort of a brand recognition kinda thing.

I can't send anything yet. Seems I've not been authenticated. So, if I was a spammer, I'd be stymied. (That means "stopped cold", for those of you unfamiliar with slang from 1928.) Your outgoing newsletter things will all have your actual name and mailing address. Well, they'll have whatever name and mailing address you provided when you signed up with the service. As a real person who has gone to some lengths to keep his real name separate from his internet name, I don't like that. However, it's a necessary evil in this age of Spam and roses. Without the roses. Legitimate subscribers will have to be patient before they can send anything. Legitimate subscribers can be patient, so that's OK.

After all is said and done, I don't think this is for me. It may be good for someone, but I'm not that someone. I thought it may be a viable alternative for the default newsletter option for our shop. But I really don't want my name going out like that. If that's the way it has to be, then no alternative is going to suit my needs.

Oh, one last thing... they call the members of their community "Zookodans". As an Arizonan who is a Tucsonan, I say go with "Zooker" or something. That's where you can get your hip, edgy made-up word jollies out all you want.

Lumen Squeak Force! Twist Meat!

2007-08-24T00:32:00.000-07:00

This is the funniest spam I have ever received and or read. I present it in its unedited glory for your amusement. I laughed so hard, I had to read it to Deb. It's much more enjoyable if you read it aloud.

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One Of The Healthiest Things I've Ever Eaten

2007-08-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

Corn, black beans, red and green peppers, onions, and diced chicken in a flour tortilla. Yes, I made it. It's also as close as I get to eating salad without death threats. (Even with death threats.) See, mom? All you had to do to get me to eat vegetables was move me 2,000 miles away! I'm surprised you didn't do it sooner. (I'm sure you thought about it sooner...)

PayPerPost

2007-08-15T11:26:00.000-07:00

As you can probably tell by the title of the post and the purple button on the sidebar, I have signed up at payperpost. It is not an intentional misspelling of "paper post", but rather it is a service which provides opportunities for bloggers like yours truly to make money. The money is made not through the normal means available to bloggers (i.e. blood donation and black market kidney auctions), but rather bloggers get to give their opinions, thoughts, ideas, and rambling diatribes about a variety of services and products available. In other words, you get to read what I think about stuff. Pretty much the sole purpose for most blogs out there, no? Advertisers get to build "buzz" about their product or service or whatever, and the blogger gets a little extra spending money. (And also gets to keep whatever major organs he or she still had.) Not a bad deal! I think it's an equitable trade for both parties, really. I don't expect it will enable me to buy a mansion or a yacht any time soon, but a few extra dollars never hurt anyone. Well, unless it's in the form of pennies, in bags, dropped from a skyscraper. That'd be bad. Luckily, that's not how they pay. PayPerPost uses the more logical and far safer choice of PayPal to complete transactions. I learned about the service thanks to Sam and her recent efforts to embiggen her blog empire. She has been using a wide variety of tools which have made me look at my blog in a different light. So, thanks to Sam and PayPerPost, you'll be seeing a few unusual posts here from time to time. Oh, I'll still rant and blather on about different things that happen to me in my sheltered life. Brushes with humanity still send me off into Rantville. I'll be writing more, and posting pictures less, as my days are spent up to my bald head in pictures and I really don't seem to find the time to make "unsellable" ones just to put here. So, I'm going to ramble more, and render less. That's good, because my writing has been lacking of late. My typing, I mean. Not my handwriting. That's an entirely different story.

Boy, it's a good thing they don't have a maximum word limit! I don't call this "Wontar's Ramblings" for nothing. If you're interested in PayPerPost, just click on the purple button with the same name off to the right. If you've got a blog, have time to write about stuff, and don't want pennies dropped on your head, it's worth a look. Share your thoughts and opinions, and get paid for it. Not too shabby!

The Calls Are Not Coming From Inside The House

2007-08-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a wee bit strange. I woke up after having a rather bad dream. Remembering a dream is itself unusual, because I normally don't. In this dream, I was back at my old workplace, trying to get from one part of the room to the other. Boring, you say? Oh, did I mention that I was stopped every few feet by people asking me questions, so a trip across the room that should have taken seconds lasted hours? The thing is, with slight exaggeration, that used to describe a trip across the room for me. I may never get over this "don't want to deal with people" thing if I have any more dreams like that to remind me what it's like.

Roughly twelve hours later, we were struck with more weirdness in the form of a phone call. The caller ID said it was from our friend, but the voice that came out of the phone was decidedly not our friend's voice. The biggest clue was that the person on the phone was yammering on in Spanish. Our friend does not speak Spanish, and neither do we, so the sounds coming out of the phone had an even greater level of incomprehensibility than they normally would. We then tried calling her husband's cell phone, but got no answer. We tried their home phone, and got the machine. It wasn't terribly late at night, but when two out of three alternate forms of communication come up empty after the first has been compromised, one tends to worry a bit. Toss in the fact that they live somewhat close to the border, and have had incidents with illegals literally in their back yard, the worry becomes a bit more pronounced. By "pronounced" I mean that we decided to call the cops.

Yes, really. We called the cops.

Not 911, but their town's police department. They redirected me to the county sheriff's office. To both departments' credit, though, they were very good about listening to me blather on about our non-Spanish speaking friends and the mystery phone call. They also got to our friends' house reasonably quickly. They were there when our friends finally got home. They were fine, of course. She just lost her phone, and the person who found it was calling everyone in the phone's book.

None of whom speak Spanish. Unless you count my ability to count to 10 thanks to Sesame Street, but that severely limits communication in anything other than binary. Not terribly popular.

It's nice that the person who found the phone tried to contact people who knew the owner and didn't just abscond with it. However (and here's where the rant comes in), you mean to tell me that you couldn't find one friggin' person who could speak even a little English? In America?!?!?!?!? Call me racist, I don't care. America = English. Speak it. You don't have to speak it well, you don't have to write it well (we got that one covered already). Speak the damn language. Yeah yeah... "America doesn't have an official language!" My rebuttal: bite my hairy ass, it's English. American English, but it's English, dammit.

That's a mini-rant, as I could just type about this for hours on end. I just hope she gets her phone back, even though they have to find a friggin' translator to do so.

Condensation

2007-08-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

It's been quite humid here lately. Cloudy, rainy, floody... It has rained on occasion during our time in AZ, but it's been so sporadic that it's really helped me to see that humidity really makes my head hurt. A lot. (Hear that, family?) Sure, our high temperature today didn't get above 79, which meant that we got to leave the windows open and enjoy the cool weather. In August. But I've been eating Advil Migraine tablets and sitting near-motionless with an icepack on my head for two days. Humidity sucks, and this monsoon season can end any time now, thank you.

The cooler weather can stay.

Gravity and the News

2007-07-31T11:35:00.000-07:00

Four people died in Phoenix when two news helicopters collided with one another while filming a fleeing suspect. I have no idea why the news helicopters were filming it at all. Do people really need to see the live action thrill of a car chase so much that it needs to be covered by five news helicopters? Five? You know who needed a helicopter there? The cops. That's it. If a news station has a helicopter, then it also has a station owner who has severe issues with his penis. Or her penis, as the case may be. There was another big ol' car chase in Texas yesterday. We were watching the news while eating lunch, and the reporter said: "We don't know exactly where this is, or whether it's a man or woman driving, or why they're being chased, but here's the chase." It's like a nation of magpies attracted by shiny objects. Ooooh, a speeding car! Let's watch! Um... why? Maybe it's the NASCAR gene, which I thankfully lack. People like to watch speeding cars for whatever reason. Or speeding anything. Chariot races, cars, whatever. I guess watching things move around in a circle is hypnotic. Toddlers get the same effect watching water (and such) get flushed down the toilet.

You see the metaphor here, right?

Anyway, regarding the Phoenix crash... the driver who was being chased (not chaste) may be charged with the deaths of the four people who crashed in the helicopters. Yes, the person on the ground may be charged with the deaths of the helicopter pilots and passengers who were in the air and crashed into each other. I think that's ludicrous. If anyone should be charged with their deaths, it should be the station owners who sent them out after a friggin' car chase in the first place. (Somebody grew up watching too much CHiPs.) There was another incident a week or so ago where a robbery or some such was committed, and the officer responding to the call died en route. The robber was charged with the death of the officer. If you're going to use that logic, don't just stop with the robber. I mean, come on! This is America! There are many more people to sue, and many more people to blame for your own actions! We can blame the robber's parents for screwing up at their parenting job. We can blame the car manufacturer for not including enough safety measures in the cop car. We can blame the cop's supervisor for not ensuring that the cop take his requisite defensive driving classes. We can blame the cop's parents for not providing good enough genetic material to give the cop superhuman cop reflexes. Of course, if the cop collided with another driver, there's a whole tree of blame to follow. If the cop collided with a stationary object, there's yet another avenue of litigation and finger-pointing to traverse.

Personally, I'm going to blame the city of Phoenix for the helicopter crash. I mean, really... why isn't the entire city covered in soft, spongy foam?

I Want To Buy A Ghost Town

2007-07-26T22:56:00.000-07:00

Really. How cool would that be? Nice and isolated. Quiet. Scenic. Sure, I'd have to farm. Or have supplies air-dropped in. Satellite internet, of course. Solar and windmill for electricity. Oh, did I mention the land mines? And the giant moat filled with electric crocodiles? See, I want to keep the stupid out. I'm not sure how else to do that. What the hell am I talking about? Deb was taking a break from our marathon shop-maintenance stuff, and she was flipping through channels of suck. I went in to see what she was up to, because my wife can find her way to mischief quickly. (Oh wait. That's me.) She had stopped on the new Candid Camera show. I have no idea what it's called, but it's a hidden camera show, where they set up people with all manner of wacky shenanigans which results in a family-friendly laugh riot for young and old. Feh. I shouldn't call it Candid Camera, because Candid Camera had personality. This one was made by mimes, because nobody talks. Only goofy music that Benny Hill rejected. Anyway, the bit was that an old woman needed help carrying a box of groceries to her door. The unsuspecting victim was carrying the box. The wacky bit came into play when a skunk was released into the old woman's front yard. (See! Comedy gold right there! How could you not love the show?) The part that made me sit up and curse was that they had digitally blurred out something on a woman. Not on her clothing, and not to mask an expletive.

They blurred out the cigarette in her hand.

I'll say it again: They blurred out the cigarette in her hand. I do not smoke, yet somehow I doubt that the wee children watching the funny camera clip show are going to run out and grab a pack of Lucky Strikes because they saw the skunk lady hold one in her friggin' hand! Now there's a push to make movies that depict smoking have an automatic R rating.

Maybe it's because I listen to old radio shows so much. Everyone smoked, everyone drank, and everyone was quick to commit murder. I honestly don't think that everyone who listened to these old shows went out on a killing spree, nor do I think they plotted and schemed in order to get their rich uncle's fortune by pushing him down a flight of stairs/giving him 18 doses of sleeping powder/playing a recording of ghost sounds in order to give his weak heart that final push over the edge in his haunted mansion. In fact, I think a very small percentage of radio listeners ever killed anyone. Fewer still inherited anything. People smoked. People drank. People died. You know what? If you don't smoke and you don't drink, you're still going to die. You might live longer, but you're going to be boring as hell and won't have any good stories to tell. So you'll be boring, dead, and people will smoke and drink over your corpse. That's a life well lived, right there.

"Why do we care about this?"

2007-07-17T15:25:00.001-07:00

I realize I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but it's been jangling about in my head. Time to set it free...

Our television consumption consists primarily of watching the news. CNN Headline News to be specific. Why? Well, it's one of the channels we get that's in English, and does not have Judge Smurfy or whatever the hell their names are on 24/7. It's good for about ten minutes, which is pretty much all of the entertainment news I can stomach. Oh, they'll occasionally hit on a story and not tell you the whole thing, but then they're off on three or four stories in succession about what some Hollywood person is having for breakfast.

Which brings me to this: Last week, the story they were incessantly looping was the one about David Beckham joining a professional soccer team in California. I think. I'm not about to look it up, and I don't care. See, it's soccer. Not "football". We're in America, and it's called soccer. By the same token... we're in America and it's soccer! Why is this on the news? I don't mean the sports segment, I mean the news segment! Building burned down, war going on, school bus full of nuns and blind orphans crashed, and soccer?!? Yeah yeah yeah... most popular sport in the rest of the world... blah blah blah. It's a bunch of guys in shorts and knee high socks who run back and forth. It's great for little kids, as they need to run around and get tired and sleep and shut the hell up. But I mean... really... professional soccer in America? The most interesting thing I've ever seen in a soccer match is when that Zidane guy rammed his forehead into that other guy. (Again, don't care who. Don't care where. Remember: Soccer = more boring than baseball.) Apparently, he wasn't supposed to do that. But I'll tell you, if they made that a play, and had a point system surrounding the move, we'd watch it.

For some reason, the media wants us to care. My better half saw something that sums it up nicely. She was watching newscasters discuss this Brit soccer whosis, and the newscasters started laughing and saying words to the effect of "Why do we care about this?" Exactly. I miss the days when I could get news by watching the news. Now it's just entertainment interspersed with the occasional shooting. I don't think I'm going to watch the news anymore. I'll just read the good stuff online.

Books, Flowers, and Fruit

2007-07-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

It was our anniversary today, so we decided to break with tradition and go out to eat. We put on our Hawaiian shirts, and headed off to the local Tony Roma's. We had been there twice previously, and heartily enjoyed our meals. We even had a coupon! We were set for some fine dining. When we pulled in to the parking lot, I remarked: "Gee, there aren't any cars here." Sure, it's a weekday, but it was only a few minutes before noon. There should have been some sort of lunch crowd. The lights were off, and there was a single piece of paper taped to the main entrance. I got out and read it, and came back to the car laughing. The paper did not just inform the reader that the establishment was closed, but rather that the building and all of its contents had been seized. I guess business wasn't booming for them. It wasn't even mildly fizzing.

Luckily, Tucson has more restaurants than cacti, so we trundled off in search of an anniversary meal. We traveled roughly 200 feet and went to another restaurant, had a lovely meal wherein I stunned yet another server with my ability to drink my weight in soda, and left. In another break with tradition, we paid the bill before we left the restaurant. Not as exciting, sure, but there's less running involved. I don't like to run when I'm full. Or empty, for that matter. (It's friggin' Arizona! I won't run unless guns are involved.) (Even then...)

Oh, as for the "Books, flowers, and fruit"... those are the traditional gifts for a fourth wedding anniversary. The modern equivalent is electronic appliances. So, if you're shopping for a guilt gift, get us an electric tomato-flavored page turner that smells of chrysanthemums. Covers all bases.

Eight Random Things

2007-07-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

OK, Sam, you asked for it...

1 - I started reading at age two. I haven't stopped yet, and it's probably the main reason why typos leap off the page and stab me in the head. Relentless practice.

2 - My hands occasionally shake uncontrollably. Calm or relaxed, without warning. They've been doing so for years. I have no idea why, and I don't want to know. Call it fear, call it stubbornness, call it both. Whatever.

3 - The second thing on this list makes me amazingly angry, because I feel that, if nothing else, I should be able to have at least some control over my own damn hands.

4 - I am starting year three in Arizona, and I still have not made any friends of any natives. I have not made the attempt. I have no desire to. After years of being the guy who heard "Thank god you're here!" from people he never met before, in different friggin' states, I'm enjoying the anonymity.

5 - I don't miss my hair. Really. Though I am a bit annoyed that grey hairs have started to sprout in my goatee.

6 - I saw a UFO when I was about 13. As far as I know, I have no implants. Again, I don't want to know.

7 - I am not religious by any means, but there was a time in my life when I went to church every day. (Only one person who reads this blog knows what the hell that means. Who's ready?)

8 - There was a time that I wanted to draw comic books. Mainly because it's as close as I'd ever get to having actual super powers. (Heroes is a good show. I was pleasantly surprised.) (Hiro.)

There you go, Sam. I'm not tagging anyone else, though. So there.

What Do Vegetarian Zombies Eat?

2007-07-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

Graaaaaainnnns... Graaaaaiiinnnssss...

I know, I know. I didn't write it, I just laughed at it.

The above picture is my submission to a contest at J!NX, of which Sam informed me.

In less surprising news, I received two more hits from the IRS this week. Someone looking at the archives. I'm tired of being angry about it, so instead I'll just start posting IRS secrets. Hey, I'm beyond my two year "vow of silence" they make you take. Most people who take it probably don't even remember doing so. I do, because that's the way my brain works. I remember all sorts of crap I don't need, and forget where I left my pants. (Yes, again.) I won't post anything too drastic. Just little things. Like tolerance amounts. Hey... maybe I can post it in code! That'll drive them wild trying to find it, and subsequently decode it! Cool! Better drink your Ovaltine, kids. Gotta get that decoder ring. Not that it'll help, ya bastards, but who can resist rich chocolatey Ovaltine?

I Still Tilt

2007-06-24T19:33:00.001-07:00

As you know, we're on a CafePress bent of late. (Which sounds painful, but it isn't.) On a whim, and my chair, I searched their site for LEGO-based products. I wanted to see how many people had zero regard for copyright and/or intellectual property. There were quite a few responses. So, I did what any normal LEGO fiend would do... I wrote to LEGO and told them all about it. It took a while for the information to get through to their legal department, but eventually a search for "LEGO" on CafePress comes up with zero results. Unfortunately, a search for "LEGOS" still comes up with something. A follow-up letter to the fine folks at LEGO was sent, and now I'm just waiting.

Can you tell I don't like it when people use someone else's creativity to make money? I still tilt at windmills. I guess that will never stop. I guess the difference is that people are listening now, so I'm actually accomplishing things. It's a nice change.

First Day Of Summer

2007-06-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

From the ForecastFox weather alert on my happy browser window:

"THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN TUCSON HAS ISSUED A HEAT ADVISORY.WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM TO 6 PM MST THURSDAY.

STRONG HIGH PRESSURE ALOFT WILL BRING THE HOTTEST TEMPERATURES TO DATE FROM TUCSON WEST. HIGH TEMPERATURES ON THURSDAY ARE FORECAST TO BETWEEN 108 AND 114 DEGREES...WITH THE HOTTEST TEMPERATURES IN WESTERN PIMA COUNTY AND IN SOUTH CENTRAL PINAL COUNTY. THESE HOT TEMPERATURES WILL HANG AROUND INTO FRIDAY AND SATURDAY.

A HEAT ADVISORY MEANS THAT A PERIOD OF HOT TEMPERATURES IS EXPECTED. THE COMBINATION OF HOT TEMPERATURES AND HIGH HUMIDITY WILL COMBINE TO CREATE A SITUATION IN WHICH HEAT ILLNESSES ARE POSSIBLE. DRINK PLENTY OF FLUIDS...STAY IN AN AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM...STAY OUT OF THE SUN...AND CHECK UP ON RELATIVES AND NEIGHBORS. DO NOT LEAVE
ANYONE OR PETS UNATTENDED IN A VEHICLE."

If you need us, we're going to be spending a couple days in the freezer. I'm not sure if the computers will work in there, but I really don't care.

Pirate Gecko

2007-06-14T08:35:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 5 A.M. yesterday. While that is considered "sleeping in" by my family, it's really friggin' early in my book. So early, in fact, that for a long time I considered 5 A.M. as "almost time for bed". My early rising had nothing to do with the hippie with the leaf blower. If that were the case, the hippie would have gone from gardener to mulch in a hurry despite my attempts at becoming a more mellow member of the Arizonan populace. (Oh, and I still dislike the terms "Arizonan" and "Tucsonan". They're very boringan.)

The point of the matter is that I seem to come up with anthropomorphic non-mammalian critters when I've been awake for great swaths of time. I don't know if it's just the heat, or some deeper psychosis. If anyone out there would care to study this, I'll happily take grant money so that I can be studied. There may be a direct inverse proportion to the order of the species compared to the number of wakeful hours. I came up with a squid last time, and this time it's a gecko. If I stay up longer, who knows what could be next? Goldfish? Dragonfly? Or if it's a really, really long time, maybe a dinoflagellate* cowboy. That'd sell like hotcakes. Or paramecium cakes. (Not as filling, but you get more maple syrup that way.)

*Unrelated to anything: Blogger has no problem with the word "paramecium", but it doesn't understand "dinoflagellate". Don't make me test your spell checker, boys. I know phyla.

Technorati Madness

2007-06-12T22:54:00.001-07:00

Technorati Profile

It's best if you don't ask.

Camouflage

2007-06-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

No Cursing This Time

2007-06-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

For the curious as well as the indifferent, our CafePress store has moved. It is now located here: http://www.cafepress.com/stargazerdesign.

If you're reading this from work, you're required to go to the store and buy something. Unless you work for a governmental agency. If that's the case, you're required to buy ten things. Or more.

Lots more.

Don't Look, Mom.

2007-06-06T11:30:00.000-07:00

Dear DoD: Stop fucking wasting my fucking tax fucking dollars and get the fuck back to fucking work instead of using fucking StumbleUpon on my goddamn dime.

(If you delete all the curse words, this post is four letters long. It's math in action!)

My apologies to my legions of fans for the foul words. This kind of thing really, really, really pisses me off to no end.

Moment of Power

2007-06-05T18:36:00.001-07:00

You know how it is... you're driving along, and another car makes a special effort to pull out and get in front of you... only to drop down to a speed so slow you could be passed by a parade of Shriners in their Hoverounds. In reverse. Or perhaps you're in the supermarket, and another shopper has combined the witdh of their cart and the width of their person to block the aisle completely. Are people just that self-absorbed? Do they truly exist in such thick bubbles that they are blissfully unaware of any other people around them? Maybe some of them are, but I think that most people do it on purpose. Why? Power. For that moment, however fleeting, that person is in control of someone else. Their actions directly impact the daily lives of another. They are in control, and they have your attention. Sure, the attention may be in the form of a string of expletives shouted at ear-shattering volume, but it's an affirmation of the degree of impact they have made. They may be the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, or the parent of the kids who never listen, or the one who is always compared to the more successful member of the family, but in that moment they are the ones who make the decisions. They know it, they revel in it, and it may be the only time they actually get to feel anything approaching control. It may not be a good feeling, but it's something other than powerlessness, so it'll do in a pinch.

With this line of reasoning in place, I find it much easier to deal with these encounters. Don't get me wrong. It certainly does not mean that I curse any less. (I'm from New York, baby. Cursing is an art form, not to mention a law.) It just means that the footnote of my reflexive expletives is laughter. After all, if the best they can do to feel good is inconvenience others, that's pretty pathetic. Mockingly so.

Maybe I'm wrong, and people really aren't doing it willfully. Maybe they are just rock stupid, and so deeply mired in their own little worlds they have no idea that anyone else exists. I'd rather accept evil in its most minor form than stupid, even though I've had more than my fill of both.

After all, I used to work for the government.

Winter

2007-06-04T22:46:00.001-07:00

This one has annoyed me for one simple reason: I cannot stop typing the title as "Wintar". That's what happens when a nickname collides with reality, I guess.

Autumn

2007-06-04T22:43:00.000-07:00

It doesn't really show up on these, as I had to make them relatively tiny for the sake of my family and their steam-powered internet connection, but I really liked how the skin came out on her.

Summer

2007-06-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

She looks a trifle miffed. Probably because we've reached the stage where we get consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures. In other words: her flowers are screaming as they burn to cinders.

Spring

2007-06-04T12:52:00.000-07:00

I realize I'm a little late in the season, but "Spring" is the title that popped into my head after this image was made. It's almost certainly going to turn into a traditional series, so prepare to be confused as to which equinox is closer.

Death Upon Death

2007-05-28T17:02:00.000-07:00

We went on one of our excursions today. Actually, this was a "do over" of a previous excursion, because we really screwed up the first time around. We were looking for the ruins of Sasco, and despite internet resources aplenty we missed it by a good 20 miles or so the first time around. The "roads" we were driving the first time were more like ideas of general direction which didn't have quite so many plants as the other bits of the desert. (I don't care what the "Ironwood Forest National Monument" signs said. That's a friggin' desert. It's a "forest" like I've got hair on my head. Sparse, short, and depressed in its singular loneliness.)

Today was different, in that we looked at one of them there newfangled things called a "map". Perhaps you've heard of it? It's a cartographic dream! Thanks to the map, we found Sasco with no difficulty whatsoever. The ruins are in relatively good shape. The cemetery had a headstone with a date as recent as 2006, which took some of the mystique out of the whole thing. A cemetery for a ghost town shouldn't have anything more recent than the early 1900s to be chill-worthy. Most of the markers had no names or dates. They were apparently somewhat mass-produced, in a homemade sense. Concrete crosses formed in a mold, and placed at the heads of the graves. Some were original, though, so that made up for the recently departed. This particular image is of a nameless tomb that had a nameless cactus take hold and grow in the concrete. The fishhook barrel cactus, though small, was still strong enough to crack open the concrete in search of nutrients and moisture. It found enough of both for a while, but eventually it died as well. Now, an unmarked grave in the desert in a ghost town has only a sun-blackened cactus to distinguish it from the other graves.

Death doesn't fool around in Arizona.

Smite, Smote, Smottled

2007-05-18T23:37:00.000-07:00

7:05. A.M. That was the time I heard the sound of the gas-powered leaf blower. The earliest time to date. When you've been having trouble sleeping for a few days and finally drift off a little after 3, the last thing you want to hear is the grinding whine of a two-stroke engine right outside your window. Well, maybe in the top ten, in the general vicinity of Mariah Carey in a yodelling competition.

In other news, I've been dabbling in alchemy. No, not because I've got gold fever, or even Saturday Night Fever. (Though I did wear the suit once.) It's because some of our plants have a bit of an infestation. They're impatiens. So I had to hurry. (Ba-bing!) It turns out that the infestees, spider mites, don't like garlic or hot pepper. Since we live in Arizona, it's a state law to have both on hand. Not literally, of course, but in the kitchen. So the little buggers have been subjected to "Wontar's Mist O' Delicious Death" for two days now. I think it's working, but it's still too early to tell. All I can say for sure is that the balcony smells fantastic.

If it works, I may fill a few water balloons with the stuff and chuck them at the maintenance monkey the next time he wakes me up with that damnable leaf blower.

A Graphic Graphic

2007-05-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

This looks rather graphic, doesn't it? I guess it's a carryover from watching murder-type shows on TV. I guess it'll have to be banned, because I'm so darned impressionable. Nothing but interior decorating shows for me from here on out. That way, all the images I make will be people killed by swatches and uncomfortably-placed paint rollers.

Actually, the background is the result of some random filters in Photoshop and is completely artificial. I just changed the accent color to red because green that originally came up was too... otherworldly. In an X-Files kind of way. I know she looks a bit decomposed and all, but don't worry. She isn't. (She's not real.) The texture on her skin is actually from a rock next to a little shack in Saguaro Mountain Park. So the background is artificial, and her skin is somewhat natural.

I know that wasn't exactly riveting. I'll blame it on the insomnia. We've been getting our sleep in two or three hour intervals lately. Very annoying, to say the least. Luckily (I guess), we're experienced insomniacs.

Malachite

2007-05-12T11:31:00.000-07:00

101 degrees yesterday, 104 degrees in the forecast today... Hooray for air conditioning and less than 10% humidity!

Gemini

2007-05-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

Umbra Aurum

2007-05-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

Lamont Cranston, fallen on hard times, digs in the dirt looking for precious metals and loose change. Or interesting rocks, at the very least.

We went prospecting. (Yes, really.) Somewhere in Arizona. (Maybe.) I will say with unrestrained certainty that we found neat looking rocks. And since the title of this post isn't "WOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" you can pretty much guess we didn't find our weight in gold. Or even loose change. Still, it was fun, and we're going to do it again. I guess that's the official definition of "gold fever".

In other news, thanks to Sam's sleeplessness I get to pitch Contactify as well. I tried it, it works, it's linked on this very page. Not that people were clamoring to contact me or anything, but I like nifty little things like that. Thanks Sam!

In other, other news, today marks the anniversary of the date we arrived in Arizona. Goodbye year two, hello year three. Tempus fugit and all that.

Finally, I have learned something annoying from our recent gold-hunting excursion. See, it was very, very quiet at night. Quiet enough to hunt wabbits. That means that the only thing I could hear late at night were the noises in my own head. Since I normally fall asleep with the TV on, I did not know that the noise count is up to two distinct frequencies: one high, one low. They do not harmonize well at all. All that means is that it's nearly impossible for me to fall asleep in silence without drugs or extreme exhaustion. Sucks for me. (Yeah, I know. Boo hoo.)

Not Who You Think It Is

2007-04-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

It's not Gillian Anderson. Really. It's a Poser figure.

On a totally unrelated note, I'd like to start a movement. Not the musical kind. I hope that I can get Al Sharpton involved, mainly because I wouldn't be bothered if some people got fired over this particular bee in my bonnet. See, I'm a night person. Always have been. Today I was forced to greet the day courtesy of one of the maintenance monkeys here at the apartment complex using a leaf blower. Before 7:30. A.M. Because of this,I learned that Tucson's noise ordinance ends at 7 so I couldn't even throw that at them. But still... a leaf blower at 7:30? I know my family is laughing at me, because they get up at about the time I'm thinking of possibly going to bed. Regardless of the time zone difference. (If I didn't look like them, you wouldn't know we were related based on their diurnal habits.)

So, I'd like to start a national movement. Or even an international one. Why not? The rights of the nocturnals have been trodden for far too long. We may be a minority, but that doesn't give you diurnals the right to just bang pots and pans together when the sun comes up. (You selfish bastards.) I'm quiet when you're asleep, and I should be afforded the same courtesy. Your laws have a decidedly anti-nocturnal bent, so I say that infringes on my rights. Not to mention my lefts. I'd like to call it something like "Everybody Shut the Hell Up" movement. But that's mainly because I'm no good at coming up with slogans. And having a movement called "ESHU" will just make people say "Gesundheit" in confusion, and that doesn't even begin to address the issues.

So? Who's with me? Down with daylight oppressors! We want meridian equality and we want it now! (Or something. I said I was no good with slogans.)

The Benefit Of Insomnia is a Squid Ninja

2007-04-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

This is the other thing that came of my sleeplessness. Call me shallow, but I dig the way this came out.

What Do You Do When You Can't Sleep?

2007-04-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Mrs. and I seem to be alternating our sleepless nights. At least we're creative during our rest-free episodes. Yeah, I know, this is just a variation on a theme. But it's not a shop-related image, and that's what's important.