9/26

SHAWTs just aren't what they used to be. An old woman said "Hold on, I'll get you the 3 cents" when she was paying. As I held on, she abruptly snapped, "What, you have to have the 3 cents to finish the sale? Are you afraid I'm gonna rip you off?!" I said, No that's not all what I meant, but was THIS CLOSE to asking "What the fuck is YOUR problem?!" She walked away mumbling something. The woman behind her snickered at the little psychodrama.

As promised, LP scans. This may be next week's Ob in some form, just to warn you from future disappointment.

The cover for "Music for Dreaming." It was also used for the cookbook, "Food Storage Tips for Your Donner Party."

Hey, look! It's AreSo-Fake-o & Copyright-Infringeo!

DECAPITATION! It solves some many problems!

OY! Bust a move! OY! Bust a move!

The Chicken Woman from Kids in the Hall learns to Cha Cha Cha! And makes a new friend in Ferret Boy!
This one's like 1 of those "What's wrong with this picture?" games. The guy on the left with the tongue. The 1 on the right, who's never seen anything more amazing than Chicken Woman's butt. The fact that they're dancing to an organ grinder. And, oh yeah--nice fuckin' socks, guys.

This is amusing.

9/27

Not to keep ripping off the null device, but that legendary English non-phrase book English As She Is Spoke has been webbed! If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the 1888 version of Babelfish. The section titled "Eatings" (ie, food) lists "some wigs."
"Colours" has:

White
Gridelin
Cray
Musk
Red.

If you want a random quote generator on your page, well...quotes don't get much more random that these "Familiar Phrases"!

Dress your hairs.
These apricots and these peaches make me and to come water in the mouth.
He laughs at my nose, he jest by me.
He burns one's self the brains.
I have mind to vomit.
Take that boy and whip him to much.
All trees have very deal bear.

Umm, "webbed," is that a verb? In the "Verbing Weirds Language" dept, today I heard a radio ad for a company that "architects web sites." I suppose that if I put a fire out, I firemanned something. If I use the ATM, did I just teller myself?
Of course, when I get an instant message, the next day I say that Kitty "messaged" me. What the hell else can you call it?

Damn...I'm updating every day, aren't I? Crimeny. And the most exciting thing that happened to me today was discovering an exciting giant knot in my exciting hair. Knots must spontaneously generate in my scalp, like the ancient Greeks thought flies did in rotted meat. And I look forward to them as much as I do a big, fly-ridden plate o'rotted beef as well.
Well, let's..."brush" it out. ha ha ha. "Brush"!! YANK. RIP. RI-I-I-I-IP! OWWW!!!
It was the size of a mouse when I tore it from my scalp. Someone tiny & white watched my torment in fascination, going "Eeeyow?" with curiosity all the while. I tossed it down to Kays & she began to EAT it. NO! I said, as KK has in the past swallowed my 2-foot long ponytail hairs, then tried to poop them--This becomes a cat poo with a 2-foot filament attaching itself to poo still gestating in her intestines, meaning she drrrrags this shit parade behind her along the floor, screaming "GET THIS OUT OF MEEEE!"--HELL, you'd scream TOO! So NO! NO! said I, before remembering that Kill Kill hears the word NO so rarely it'd be like running up to a Frenchman covered in gasoline, & screaming as he started to light his cigarette, "POLYESTER! SYZSYZGY! SQUIDNUNC! SMALL PEARL TAPIOCA! SMAAAALL PEEEEARL TAPIOOOOCAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!"
**KABOOM!!**
So instead I just grabbed my hairball & threw it away.
No one exploded.

9/29

Who is Van Heusen? And why does he keep chasing me with his blimp?

I'm back to working 40 hour weeks, but that doesn't mean 8 hour days. I work 10 on Saturday (but 1 a week is better than 4), & 2-8PM Friday. So I slept till noon, had a cup of tea while checking my email, played with KK, then went for a walk in the woods.
And there was that bastard Van Heusen & his blimp.
Due to a weird bit of perspective, it seemed to be a toy being pulled by a hawk. Actually, the blimp was much higher up than the bird. I know how big a plane is, but, having never taken the dirigible anywhere, all blimps look like models. Is the gondola underneath as big as a truck, or a bunk bed?
I'd seen the blimp a week before around here, but forgotten about it. Why I'd forget seeing a flying gasbag, I dunno. Especially given my odd love of them. They make no sense; an aircraft that only works if there's no wind? That's like a car with brakes that don't work when you go faster than 45. Author Michael Moorcock insists (with a smirk) that blimps actually never existed; they were some mass hallucination from the pre-WWII era.
The last time the blimp went by, I saw it from a different side, where it'd been labeled Geoffrey Beene. I have no idea who he is either, but it somehow clickd that it sounded like a clothing store. Isn't there a shirt company called Van Heusen? Yes, there is, & here's the blimp. (Note: readers with weak constitutions may want to avoid this link. There is an unpleasant picture of a creepy guy) But WHY am I to buy their shirts due to a BLIMP? It would make sense if it was for the Plus-Size Big Men's Dept, but I don't think that that would gain them any friends, either.

I have a tendency to get excited when I see a blimp. I always have a good day on those rare occasions when I see 1, but this is prly cuz seeing a blimp makes my day better anyway.
Back in the darkest days of the last recession, I was unemployed for 19 months after being illegally fired by Sam Goody/Musicland/Media Play. Yes, it was illegal, but no one in the days of the dead economy had any need to hire someone with any "blemish" on his job record. I saw a mail-in job app in the classifieds for Lechmere, an area department store chain that had a record dept. I filled it out, then forgot to bring it with me the next time I went out. "Oh, why even BOTHER to go back home & get it?!" I thought. "I've put in a hundred applications in a year & a half, & haven't had even ONE call-back! Why BOTHER?!"
Then I saw a blimp. Right there, hangin' over the highway.
Super-un-superstitious me said, "This is a sign." I went home, mailed out the application.
2 days later they called me in for an interview, on a rainy, windy day. They offered me part-time work at $6.50/hour. My unemployment having run out, I took it, knowing that I'd need 2 more part-time jobs to survive. It was that, or use up the very last of my savings account. I had 1 month's more money left before I started living out of my car...
2 hours later, they called back after checking my references. They were impressed enough to create a full-time position, just for me.
I had 2 promotions & 3 raises in the next few months. 2 of the promotions were to job descriptions that they created from thin air, just for me. Lechmere no longer exists (damn you, Montgomery Ward!!), but thanks to them (bless you, Holly & Gail!), I survived.
The funny thing is...After that interview, I saw that blimp again. It wasn't up the day I went to the interview cuz of the wind. And it wasn't a blimp. It was a blimp-shaped balloon, a Budweiser prop that was attached to a wire & fluttering above a liquor store a mile up the road. I just wonder what would've happened if I'd known that, or if it'd been windy the day I'd forgotten to mail the application.
Bless you, Mr Fake Blimp.

Pot News!! Best bit: speaking of medical marijuana, "It is the 'the wrong message to send to our children,' said Dr. Joel Karlin."
"Hey, Timmy! We can get high on all sorts of maryjane dope grasses! And all we have to do is GET CANCER! WHOO-HOO! Good thing that we live downstream from the dioxin plant!!"

Why not go to MP3.com's attempt to stop the ultimate music file-sharing law--the 1 that doesn't want to let you use the music that you already paid for on your own computer?

It's a good idea to support the last hope for non-corporate mass media, Low-Power Radio, before it's killed in utero by NAB.

9/30

11PM & I've only just finished with my mail. Snail mail consisted of finally ordering my Get Out Of Hell Free cards, which was something I'd meant to do for months. It became a sudden priority when Hasbro took offense at them...Obviously, Hasbro could never win a court case over this, but like most megalomaniacal corporations, would have no problem throwing money at it, just to bankrupt 1 guy & remind the rest of us who really owns the world.

In the email was Starchaser Tyger, a guy I hadn't heard from in a while, thanking me for restarting the SHAWT. Gosh, I'm all ablush! He has his own variant, which he freely admits is more venting than humor. He works tech support, which takes a skin several layers thicker than even mine to do. Kevlar style skin.
I went to answer his mail, wanting to point out that other readers work phone lines too, namely JetWolf & Lutherian. And lo & behold, there in my inbox was Lutherian, saying that there was only 1 thing wrong with the SHAWT baby:

Eeeeeeeeeeet's aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive!! 

Just when I had lost all hope, man.  Groovy.  Glad to see you're still kicking in your fight for
life, liberty, and the pursuit of kittens to avoid them having two foot long poopstrings coming
out of them.

SHAWT:
The hideous mutates that perform in the Planet's Biggest Freak Show have influenced the wine industry. Yep, the McLympics have stirred new interest in Aussie wine.
A man asked me for "something I heard about on TV last night--Kendall Cabernet." I took him to the Kendall Jackson cab. "Is this it?" he asked. "I thought it was called Bin 65 or something." "The only wines with bin numbers are from Australia," I said, & showed him Lindeman's Bin 65 cab. "Oh, yeah, that's it!" he cried. Just as I was wondering, "How could you get 'Kendall' out of 'Lindeman'?" he read the label. "Yeah, that's it. Lemon's."

BLOG:
The Supreme Court may soon hear the case about alcoholic robot copyright infringement. Thank Gourd we live in a nation where this matters! There are probably whole countries out there with pointless drug wars & death penalties applied excessively to minorities that never once address the problem of drunken robot dopplegangers!

10/2

This has nothing to do with the rest of today's entry.
Out of nowhere, yesterday it hit me:
Life Is Good.
This is a thought that has never, ever occured to me before.

Gorgeous blue-sky-perfect day yesterday, & a fine coincidence as I was going antiquing.
I bought a silly 60s orange ceramic lion with a made-in-Japan gleeetery mane, as a companion for my silly 60s green ceramic lion. Both were bought for $3. As was a *sealed* 8-track of the "The Story of Star Wars." OK, I know, this is the type of thing that excites no one but me--

Sorry about that pause. KK has developed a weird obsession with the box from Atari 2600 I got at the SalvArmy a while ago. Don't eat the masking tape, dear. It'll stunt your growth.

Where was I? After antiquing, on a whim I went to the Willington Volunteer Fire Dept's tag sale. It was late in the day, so there was no one buying but me & 1 woman. She was incessantly gabbing to the person she was paying about...something. I need to develop better peripheral hearing. I was also aware & unattentive of another ambient noise. Some boy, maybe 8, whining about whatever to a younger boy. I was looking over the "All Books 10 Cents" table when the chatty woman left, & the kid said "That lady's leaving! I coulda made a big chunk of change offa her!"
Now, if you just thought, "Oh, how cute!" it was NOT fucking cute. He was whiny, greedy little Bad Seed kid. He was viciously bitching about how "MY Steven King books got put on this table!" He had a really unpleasant vibe about him; a little bully/firecrackers in the mouths of frogs vibe.
Then I spotted a copy of the paperback version of Yellow Submarine! The cover was a bit worn, the whole thing a bit bent, but there it was! For a DIME!
Sadly, it was not the magazine-sized version I'd bought as a kid through the Weekly Reader Book Club, that I bought after seeing Sub at the...umm, theater on Block Island. Said "theater" was an old barn with folding chairs. But this is the same book. "128 GLORIOUS FULL-COLOR PAGES! NOTHING IS REAL." It's a truly...well, trippy experience. Every page is a shot from the movie with minimalist plotting, & ending with pages of strange footnotes ("The Care & Operation of a Yellow Submarine," "The Society for International Trust And Respect (SITAR) Submarine Insurance Dept.", a classified ad listing a lost Boob ("Last seen babbling Boob-like near Hole 769"), some Sgt Pepperish cutouts, & a really info-dense parody of a scholarly treatise. Man, this book's a beaut. Totally wacked, as only something 60s can be.
For a DIME!
"Man, that lady's back again!" said Mini-Trump, as his cash-cow drove back into the parking lot & little dollar signs floated above his head. There was no else to pay, so I asked the kid "Do I pay you?" I got the answer I expected: "UHHH--yeah!" "Here ya go," I said as I pressed the dime into his hand & turned away. He made a sputtered, choked noise as I left, as if he was going to say that I was ripping him off. But to whom was he going to cry? He was pocketing money for the Volunteer Fire Dept, fer chrissakes.
Little bastard. Hope your house catches fire, & the truck can't make it cuz it runs out of gas. A dime's worth of gas.

The latest This Modern World is funny in a way that's ...really not funny, if you think about it. Too bad for Wen Ho Lee that he wasn't building drunken robots; his case would've been heard a lot earlier.

Went for a walk in the woods early today. It hit me again, for no real reason:
Life Is Good.
Good job, good pay, good bennies, finally good hours. A car that's paid for. A little website that's found it's niche. A less-than-a-handful of wonderful friends. And a small sweet playful cat that's turned a house into a home.

Looking out a sunset on a glorious autumn day, I ask myself "What more do you want?" For the first time in my life, I can only say "Nothing."
Unless there are trained ninja monkeys out there, with flamethrowers & a price on my nose. In which case, I want a fire extinguisher. Or a nose-job. Either or; no biggie.

10/3

It's prly pointless for me to post debate stuff, but...

"Top One Percent!"

"Work with Republicans AND Democrats!"

"LOCK BOX!"

"FUZZY MATH!"

Blather, rinse, repeat. Yawn.

Sadly, no perfect Bushisms. Sure, he still has that problem with plural nouns (it turned up more than once, as in "younger workers can't have their own asset"), but he only had a few funny lines. Such as when he referred to the president of Mexico as "a man I know from Mexico," or when he correctly pointed out that "Banning partial birth abortions would reduce the amount of abortions." There was also the story about disaster relief that ended with Bush hugging a man, & W. saying "That's what governors do." Hell, if CT's fat-ass governor Rowland tries pawing me, I'm punching him in the throat.

It's clear that Gore won on pure debating (well, Nerd vs Frat Boy, whadja expect). But debates are more image than substance. Which was more annoying, Gore's big theatrical SIIIIIGHs, or Bush's weird nose-sniffling? If I had cocaine-use allegations dogging me for years, that would be something that I'd really, really avoid. Was he trying to goad Gore into saying, "Say, Georgey Jr, spare some toot for your bud Al?" Or were his advisors too dense to recommend he buy some Sudafed? Another odd moment was when W said that Al outspent him on the campaign...
I'm a-votin' Green, anyway.

I had a thought that might jazz up the resurrected New (please don't call this the SHAWT; that bit's been marginalized). It would be a serial that I'd add to every so often! Oh Boy! Doesn't that Sound Cool!

Jim Static threw the magno-wrench down onto the lab floor. "It's done! My masterpiece--the Electro-Vacuu-Totalerizer! With its power, America can harvest the mighty energy of static electricity, and power the homes of hundreds by merely rubbing their socks on the carpet!"

"Oh, Jim!" said April June Mae. "This will mean that we can be married!" For, indeed, did the invention of the free static energy machine fufill her dowry.

"Yes," said Jim. "Unless VAN HEUSEN and his BLIMP SQUADS get ahold of our machinery, and use it for EVIL!"

"Um, dearest," said April June Mae, "you're really kinda fixating on this 'evil use for static' thing, I think in my weak and piddling woman-in-a-1930s-serial kind of way. Exactly what kind of use could the evil Van Heusen use your big static-electricity machine for evil uses?"

Jim set his jaw grimly. It made unpleasant popping noises as he did. "The socks, April June Mae," he said, "AMERICA'S socks!"

DOCTOR STATIC, The SANE SCIENTIST
EPISODE ONE: WHERE DID OUR SOCKS GO?

Yeah, it'd be great. But that's where it's sat since Fri. Oh well...

10/5

I am sick.

Well, you're prly thinking "Yeah, I knew that already, you weird fuck." But I mean physically. With a something. I don't know what it is, but I HATE IT! Got that, squiggly microbes doing the limbo in my intestines? I HATE YOUR GUTS! Maybe you don't have any guts, what with the unicellarity & all, but if you do, I HATE THEM!
But I don't suppose that anybody likes being sick. I can't recall ever hearing anyone say, "WOW! Waves of nausea! This ROCKS! Ooh, do I feel that special tingle in my colon? Could it be that I'm getting a visit from my special friend, Mr Explosive Diarhhea? I sure hope I get some phlegm action going, so all my bodily orifices can leak goop!"

It's a few hours later, & I feel better. Perhaps the cat gives off a healing aura. I'm also glad that I left work early, as most of my time has been spent ...well, let's just say I was visited by my special friend. Repeatedly.
How I missed this pic on JetWolf's page, I dunno.

Heh...What's with the Domesday Book font? I wish I knew how to do crap like that, so that I could make my own lil banner for the Ob.

Kitty has a LiveJournal page. It's most amusing!

Well, time to go. Literally.

Next, I'm taking some echinacea, some 5-HTP, & a B-50. This is the chemical equivalent of a crowbar to the base of the neck. GOOD NIGHT!

10/7

Highlight of my very busy day (& 1st not-sickly 1) was a visit from Jessica & her boyfriend Ron (he's also an ex-coworker). We talked about his new kitten, who was to be called Buffy until he discovered that Buffy was male. Can't give a boy cat a name like Buffy; he'll grow up all gender-confused, playing with Barbies & slaying vampires. So he named him "Bogart." I said "Don't bogart that cat!" & Ron laughed "You got it!" (Ron is a Deadhead)
I was originally the 1 with a date with Jess this weekend, but she put me below the man she wants to spend her life with instead. Shows where I stand in this relationship! I was supposed to go over to her swingin' bachelorette pad & help her set up the computer Ron gave her. Since he professionally geeks for Compaq, I figged that we'd finally get Jess online, & in sty-y-y-le. And I have disks of stuff to install on her pookie--Norton, Photoshop, MemTurbo, etc. I asked Ron what type of computer he'd given her. He rolled his eyes. Jess said, "It's my father's computer." What kind, I asked her. "A GOOD 1!" she said, shooting a quick shut-up glance at Ron. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "A 386," he said. "with a 5&1/4 drive."
I guess that I won't be installing anything on that computer...except maybe Zork. Zork I.

Tammie Fritsch! Where do I know that name from? Seems she knows me, if you look here. So...am I cool, kinda, or not? Make sure that you check out the Useless Link & then click on it. Everyone needs Eternal Life!

10/9

Autumn in New England: I hate it! Yeah, there's a week or 2 of wild red & yellow trees, & I guess that if you're from some part of the country where that doesn't happen, it seems neat-oh. If you live here, it means 6 months of bare branches & cold. A tree that has dropped all its vibrant red leaves into a pool on the ground looks to me like a bloodstain. It's beautiful in the same way a ballerina dancing herself to death would be.

Due to the vile & bland prescence of Blockbuster in town, another indie video store is closing. I bought a few videos from them yesterday: Ghost in the Shell, City of Lost Children, MST3K The Movie, Darkman & Python's Meaning of Life. The last 2 are the 1s I was psyched over. I haven't seen MoL since it was in the theaters!
Boy, did it suck. The only memories I had of it turned out to be the only good parts. The rest of the humor is waffer-thin. The funniest part was the scene where a condemned prisoner is chased off a cliff by a bunch of topless women--cuz there was an obvious quaver in the audio as soon as the bimbos erupted, & a big video smear when it ended. From 17 years of guys running that part in slo-mo...
Now I own it, yay. Since it's out of print, I may go the eBay route.

Went to bed early last night (possibly put to sleep by Python). I expected to wake up early as well, but ended up sleeping for 14 hours, only awakening when Small White decided I'd been abed too long. When a cat thinks you're lazy, you've got a problem.
I was pretty deep into a very long dream set in the Mall of Earth. Yes yes yes, I know that there is little that's less interesting than someone describing a dream, so I'll keep it short.
The Mall of Earth is never called that in the dream, but I've had so many set there that I've named it. It's not a very imaginative concept. The world gets so overpopulated & dangerous that people live in 100-story buildings, mall on the bottom stories & apartment complex on the higher 1s. You can go outside if you want to, but nobody wants to. The interesting thing about these dreams is that I'm never in them in the same time frame. In some, the Mall is 1 building in a city 30 years from now; in others, it's so far in the future that it covers all of North America, right up to the seashore. In the later 1s, I'm not "me," but basically me in the role of a person from that time. In that last 1, I was genetically engineered a la Gattaca, with cybery implants in me. In last night's I was actually myself for once, as this was the 1st dream set at the very beginning of society's move to the Mall. I was working in a department store 5 stories high, but with each floor the size of a city block. The big problem was parking--I forgot where my car was, & the place was surrounded by miles of parking lots. This is why people eventually start living in the Malls, as the outside world is grimy & crime-ridden & Blade Runneresque & my car got stolen as soon as I found it. But I had my near-future remote, with which I not only got a GPS lock on where the car was, but was able to turn the engine off. The lil screen on the remote indicated that the thieves were hot-wiring it, so I kept shutting it off, & they kept trying to start it again. I caught up to them & pulled out my gun & shot the thief in the shoulder, threatening to kill him if tried starting it again. Then the cat jumped on me.
There's a mall the next town over. 10 years ago that's all it was, but now every square inch around it is crowded with "luxury apartments" & fast food & hotels & more & more retail. The seed of the Mall of Earth is the modern unzoned Ant Farm.

Blog: A guy named N@ sent me this comic book ad in the English As She Is Spoke vein. Mike Snard sent me a story on the locust-powered car. Stories in a SHAWTy vein can be found at Gas Pains. Govynda has an opinion on brilliant minds that uses someone as an odd example, here, in the 0010.6 entry.

10/10

The CHECK HAS CLEARED! The car is PAID FOR! YEEEE-HAHHHH!
Yes, that's the highlight of the day for me. The day, & the last 2&1/2 years. Instant $300 a month raise.

That's, uhh, all I got here. But go see/hear Dave's Record Collection, as seen on the Letterman Show. I'll bet that this is 1 of those things that everyone goes, "Oh, THAT. Just heard of that, Bill? What, did yo decide to get a peep of daylight after it got too slimy under that rock of yours?" But I thought the same about The Brunching Shuttlecocks, until I tried impressing people by saying Lore Sjoberg thought I was funny, & also cute in a girlish way. It's just that 15 years ago Dave's Records, The TV Show, sent me on an endless, fruitless quest to find my own copy of "Jack Palance's Love Songs."
But the only thing I own on this list is the Evel Knievel LP (of which they don't even play the worst part, Evel singing/mumbling the song "Why?" Evel sings? WHY?! Is there NO GOD?!). These are like Lays Potato Chips: You can't have just 1. Actually, that also makes them like heroin or serial killing. Highlight: Singing DJ Intros. I want this LP, so that I can tape with extra bass, then circle residential neighborhoods, blasting it from my car stereo. In order to see how soon everyone goes insane.

10/12

Briefly, as we're hitting the 30K limit:

Burger King. Don't go. Bad sammich. Pictures of Backstreet Boys are now accompanied by pics of horrible, horrible Scooby Doo. 1 Scooby Doo toy involves a ghost that chases Scoob via a rope coming out of Scooby's ass. Not lying, folks. And why does the BK menu say "Picture Menu Available," when the only way that you'd know that is if you could READ?

Debate: turned it off. Boring. Interesting that Bush was in favor of every Yankee military intervention of the last 20 years, except Haiti & Somalia. Hmm, aren't those nations of Black people?? Bush WAS in favor of Senile Ron's Beirut adventure, which led to 200 American deaths. He must really be pumping his fist in the air over the USS Cole.
Israel & its Playmates: WTF? There'll be peace in the Middle East when all you psychos have killed each other. WHY is everyone being blamed for the violence BUT that asshole Sharon who started it? Why anyone would want to live in a constant state of war is beyond me, but after 50+ years of trying to sort this thing out like not-crazy people--Have fun, guys. Give us a call when everyone's dead; we can prly broker an agreement then.

Jeff Mayer sent me the perfect Halloween costume: The "OBSERVE! He has a Pirate's crotch!" costume.

I am now the proud owner of whatever the fuck this thing is.