the mornings were rough at first, without any weather forecast. i learned to cope, though, by layering my loincloths, so that i could take off the appropriate amount of garments throughout the day. life without high-speed internet. i’m learning it goes on, albeit a little slower. i’ve recently taught myself to sew. the pelts i have collected from my many hunting victories have piled high, and i needed to do something with them! i’ve now constructed a two-story tent out of rabbit skin and buffalo. the buffalo are rare in southern california, which i think speaks highly of my hunting skills.

during my stay in this wilderness, this – “wild” – land, if you will, i came to befriend a local tribe of indigenous monkeys, the elegant dirt monkeys of southern california. these are a very quiet species, but nonetheless a very sociable and generous collection of beasts. at first, they were hesitant to accept my presence within their boundaries. slowly over time, I have gained their trust, and now i am able to sit within their ranks and eat with them. booboo, the dominant male, has even been brave enough to teach me how to eat and hunt insects using rudimentary tools. i often find myself so caught up in the moments of the day watching the little dirt monkeys frolic that i often stay far longer than i should before retreating to my humble lair! watching them throw fecal matter at one another is so darned cute!

but then just the other day, i realized it would be nice if i could access my ol’ friend ‘the internet’ through my trusty sidearm, ‘high-speed dsl,’ to look up information on discolored excrement and rashy anuses. not that i suffer from that, you know, but just if someone happened to be curious about it, is all. and there i was, hairy and full of wondrous odor from my time away from civilization, reminiscing about surfing and navigating a superhighway.... so i chanced the treacherous way of my current dsl connection, and to my dismay, it was still dial-up slow. the letdown was a monstrous one; one that affected not only me, but booboo and his clan also felt the impact. the look of despair on their faces was more than i could handle; i had to take action!

i called sonic today, my internet service provider. after being ‘disconnected’ at least twice, then put on hold for over 15 minutes, they informed me that it’s a known issue that is being worked on, though no date for the future could be set for it’s repair.

so i dumped ‘em. dumped ‘em like a an ugly girl at prom, i tell you. didn’t hesitate, told them right then and there that this is fucking retarded, i had great speeds two weeks ago with at&t, what the hell is wrong with them that they can’t get it going on the same line, dammit!

so now i’m all clean and good-smelling again, and am going to have to brave the call to at&t for service again... i hope they don’t make me say i’m sorry or anything. because i will if i have to. and i just don’t want to. i mean, hey, it’s great that you guys can answer the phone fast when you’re not busy hanging up on me, and sound friendly when i finally talk to someone, but seeing as how it’s internet service i’m paying for? y’all gotta get that one right before we talk about marriage, you know? damn!

moral of the story? i think internet is like crack for smart people.... which may mean i was implying that stupid people, monkeys, and those without high-speed internet are all one in the same. eh, whatever.

peace.

the night began with dinner. we didn’t do much special, i figured sizzler since it would easily allow us to pay separately, thereby avoiding splitting the bill 5 ways and irritating the hell out of the help. it seemed like a marvelous plan, until everyone for some reason decided to get the salad bar. i myself opted to eat like a king (not sure if that’s entirely possible as sizzler, but i tried), and got the steak & chicken combo, with baked potato and all. overall, a nice little deal for $10.99! problem was, everyone else wanted to cheap out and get the salad bar... only to pay the same damn amount as me. so i ate like a king, and they were my peasants. which was fitting seeing as how i blew them all away later with the lowest bowling score of the night, thereby crowning myself the victor!

thing was it took a while to even begin bowling. i picked sizzler and bowling because they’re close to work and happen to be in the same parking lot, so it’d be real easy for everyone. but, it so happened that although bowling is dead, and it was only 7:30, we couldn’t get lanes until after 9pm. after getting the goofiest looks from the people behind the counter (something akin to well, if you had called ahead, dickweed; we are the most popular spot in town, you know), we loitered in the parking lot and discussed our options. then we went back in and killed those assholes behind the counter.

ok we didn’t do that. we tossed around ideas ranging from going to my place and laying down some super smash bros. mayhem, playing mini-golf, shooting pool, shooting children (kidding), and going to an alternate bowling alley a few miles away. so as should be obvious, we decided on the bowling.

now before anyone starts in.... yes, i know that bowling isn’t scored like golf... the guys already filled me in on that one ;-). we got in 3 damn games, and the good news is that one of them i actually won! it was close, so it didn’t count for much, as the other two i rather handily lost. so it was more like beginners luck, if you can call it that. i sort of figure that if you only bowl once every 10 years or so like i do, that you can safely call it beginners luck every time. which i do. the breakdown went something like this: action jaxan won the first round by a ball, nathan won the second round by a hairy ball, and won the 3rd round by a... well, not much.

i must say that at first, i was concerned that it wouldn’t be that much fun for everyone, but by the end of the night that sentiment seemed to be a distant memory. it was pretty entertaining overall, with highlight footage courtesy of nathan and his herman-munster-with-a-mouse-in-his-undies bowling style. times like those call for a video phone, i swear.... maybe someday i’ll justify it somehow, but until then – use your imagination and laugh at his expense. especially since he ended up winning a game, which i guess would make it at our expense, but i’m ok with that.

the gang has decided we should set something like this up again, and i agree. though i don’t want to do it as frequently as they seem to want to do it. and it’s not that i’m not a fan of the fun, it’s just that i feel as though if we do it too frequently, it’ll be mundane and orchestrated instead of fun and novel; i don’t want the novelty of it to wear off, mostly. but definitely again, though i’m voting for a different venue, like the air hockey tourney or mini-golf. and i’m going to try and set it up with a few more friends that couldn’t make it this time around. nick the knuckle-dragger was invited but couldn’t make it, but i thought that it would be more fun if we could get his monotone ass down to play.

eh, my birthday is coming birthday is coming up; maybe we can do it again then! probably not, but i just got some people’s hopes up, which is funny. sorry guys, that’s my night to request that the girl dresses up like a nurse. and i’ll play doctor. and you know damn well you can’t compete with that.

peace out.

thank you, www.sonic.net. not 2½ days after i ordered my high-speed internet through them, i noticed my modem said that the dsl line was up. good freakin’ deal. and since i didn’t know how the hell their setup worked and what my settings needed to be on the modem, i thought i’d give ‘em a call. their tech support was very nice (and, so very thankfully, american, not indian), and helped me both set up my modem in the right mode and explain why (I like to know things). but as we were getting ready to hang up, i asked the guy to stay on the line until i had tested the speed. sorta glad i did, because it sucked. i mean, sucked worse than my work connection, which is bad to say the least. and when i say bad.... imagine ¼ the speed of dial-up, and you’re getting warm.

so tech support tries to run a few tests, and they come up with nothin’ on their end. look, guys, i run a mac, and it was fine last week. trust me, it’s you. or you didn’t set up the modem correctly. really. mac. good. long story short, they said that since technically my service isn’t supposed to be on until the 20th, they can’t do anything for me until then. they said something about it’s probably just the line is fresh and needs time to be “trained.” ok, fine, i’ll let the line get “trained,” but as of the 20th, expect a phone call if my speeds are less than they were a week ago.

because, um, dial-up stinks. really really badly. porn is so slow right now, it’s almost not even worth it. almost. thankfully, the connection has gotten a little better through the nights, now up to a speedy 233kbps, which is roughly 4x dial-up speed. i’m hoping for speeds faster than a speeding tortoise by tomorrow. wish me luck.



proof that god is real, and hates me
so i’m a recovering 49er fan... after following them for the better part of a decade near the top, and then falling suddenly to the bottom like marlon brando chasing a bon-bon over a cliff, i found myself waving farewell with clean conscience. and there they sat, enjoying the view from the bottom for so long that i thought maybe it was all a dream...

and then with the football pool... well, victory is king, and former fan or not – no point betting on a lame horse. next thing i know, san fran looks respectable against st. louis. oh hell no! this just can’t happen! i mean, they’re really trying to get me to bet on a lame horse now, and i’m trying to win it, dammit! and god is trying to cloud my judgement. no! no highlights of the 49ers unless they’re getting their asses kicked, dang it!

so my picks for the week? mediocre. but luckily, almost everyone on the pool had similar picks, so we’ll all sink or swim together, mostly. but i did just get through watching the redskins suck madly against the cowboys, who sucked slightly less. talk about porn – had the sucking gotten any worse, i would have had to cover my own eyes. well, next week i may give the cowboys more credit. definitely not the redskins anymore, though.



why the recent emphasis on porn?
no reason, really. because you’re blushing. that’s about it. no, really. i’m not an addict, i just play one on the internet.



bowling tomorrow; update to follow
so tomorrow me and some guys from work and maybe a few guys that used to work there are going to get together for dinner and a night of bowling. at which i royally suck. like, you know how mike tyson ruled the boxing ring? yeah, i’m the antithesis to that idea. my bowling score is like something you’d see in forrest gump. and by that i don’t mean an idiot savant, but rather that on a good day, my bowling score could eclipse the local winter high on a cold day in wisconsin.

gotta go; family guy is almost on, and i love my random comedy about dysfunction in america. feels like home ;-)

peace out.

see, at&t signed me up for a 6-month contract back in january. for $21.99 a month. then went on to advertise the same deal for $17.99 a month. no biggie, i can deal with that. but then comes august, and i get a bill that has no bill. zero. so i call, thinking the contract is up, right, and i need to get it carried over into the future. but the customer service rep says that’s not the case, there was a billing glitch this month and lots of customers didn’t get a bill. then, september comes. and my bill is almost $80. so obviously, the contract is now up... when i called to renew, everything seemed to be going great, the lady on the other end was really helpful, fixing the bill and then transferring me to the renewal dept... where things got interesting. see, now that i’m already a customer, they won’t get me on for the $17.99 they advertise, they’ll only renew me at $24.99 a month. because i’m such a loyal customer...(?) yeah, still searching for the logic there.

so i cancelled my service. yep, cancelled it. told her that if that service is only for new customers, that i might as well cancel today and call back in a few days. as a, uh, new customer. that was last tuesday. then last thursday i tried calling back, and you know what, the plot thickened. now, they tell me that the offer is only available online, and that they can only renew me for – gulp – $32.99 a month. what? what? ok, whatever, i’m through with you people. treat me like this..... grrrr.

so i waited another few days and contacted a company i had seen advertised online, www.sonic.net, and got the same service for about $16 a month. nice. and this is what more people need to do: make the switch, vote with their dollars, and just say ‘no’ to this sort of back-handed service. because they’re not going to stop if they think they can get away with it. see, this situation is a great argument against monopolization without regulation; at&t owns the line, and at some point, no matter what, you have to go through them. even www.sonic.net states you have to have an sbc/at&t line to get service, with which whom they place the order for you. and in 12 more months (if i’m still here), i’ll have to cancel with them and renew through someone else – maybe at&t, to get the advertised deals. gay, very gay. seriously, why don’t they show some appreciation to the loyal customers who have stuck around, through thick and thin? maybe it’s a parenting problem. maybe at&t needs a spanking.

but in the meantime (the next 3-5 days for processing), i’m still without. to me, it’s sort of funny how fast the darned thing went from novelty to luxury to necessity. I’ve had high-speed at my home for the better part of two years now, and i guess i have taken it quite for granted. this week without porn is killing me. ok ok, just kidding. if the kids are looking, anyways ;-). i’m looking forward to the little niceties that come with high-speed internet, like not waiting for the weatherman to give the forecast in the morning, or finding little web pages to link to for my blog, or hell, even posting a blog in less than an hour. being able to keep up with world news is nice, as i hate watching local news about this park and that park and some cute kitten stuck in a tree. oh well; i’m learning to deal again. and 3-5 days is only mere hours from being 2-4 days.

peace.

Tags: hate

so can we like, start a petition to have this guy’s acting license revoked? how many screens does he have to stink up before they stop hiring him for films? get this straight: he’s a two-bit character actor that can barely pull off an idiot, something he’s highly qualified to be in real life. and he can barely pull it off on a camera. yet we try –over and over – to show the world that he’s more than a skinny tweaker from the 70’s or something. ok, so let’s review the current state of asston cooter’s fuckups -- er, films: 1) dude, where’s my dildo, a live-action portrayal of bert & ernie high on crack. two thumbs way down. 2) my bosses dildo, a heart-wrenching screenplay of gay aiken’s touching ballad, invisible fag. again, two thumbs way down. 3) the dildo effect, a gripping psychological thriller about a boy who travels back and forth through time to find his long-lost dildo. two thumbs down. and now, 4) the dildo, a teary-eyed drama about a large, blunt object at sea, drowning in an ocean of suck. two thumbs down. again. ray charles could see this pattern developing in a dark room with a blindfold on. while dead. Seriously, who’s going to see The Guardian? Raise you hands so I can aim.

so about that petition? keep on eye on your email, i think i’m going to do like that gas tax one and the no illegal immigrants one, where you put your name on it and the last person to get it sends it to the white house or something. shit, i think bush really should take some time out of his busy vacation schedule to tackle this national crisis. seriously, before more innocent eyes are tortured. for the kids, dammit! and while we’re at it, should we, say... ask for costner’s retirement? it’s been like 20 years since he attempted fourplay with canines or whatever it was, and seriously he hasn’t done much since then, except for age not-so-well in front of our eyes. and one has to wonder, how much of that aging is due to sucking in large suck-fest movies? has to take a toll on you, know what i mean?



chevron takes show on the road, tickets on sale now!
as us californians know, it’s time for the airwaves to thicken with advertisements (for you brits out there, that’s ad-ver-tis-ments) for various propositions, which for those of you without a clue is a time for us regular-folk to vote on important issues that can bypass the legislature. one of vital importance this time around is prop 87, a state-imposed gas tax which directs funds to alternative fuels research. sounds good, right? know what sounds better? chevron trying to make it sound bad.

see, the basic idea of the prop is to make gas companies pay for the research without passing on the cost to consumers. but, to here chevron spin it? night at the improv, i swear. the commercial starts out with a woman filling up her oversized su-fucing-v, asking us if we’ve heard about the new proposition. then she explains most of the points, and the viewer is thinking “wow, this sounds great! I’m all for it!” and then the chevron lady says... “i don’t think so....” and leaves the whole audience just confused, and then goes on to say how this is the wrong time for this and it’s just bad, just because she said so at the beckoning of a large oil firm. and at some point, you start laughing because it’s just so wrong and so not true, that you can’t help but wonder how the hell she kept a straight face for the whole taping. or maybe she didn’t, what do I know. maybe she had to do like 15 hits off the peace pipe and 30 takes of film later to get that scene out. or maybe high-dose tranquilizers and they edited out the drooling? toss up, i know.

but the important thing to remember here is, yes to prop 87. and stick it to the gas companies. they’re rich enough, let’s get something going to get us off their black crack.

peace.

Tags: earth conditions, hate

This website – for those of you who don’t already know – is done on my Mac.  Done on my Mac with a cheap (in cost) $49 program.  You like what you see?  I hope so.  But even if not, we can at least agree that it’s manageable, appropriated, and organized.  All that it takes is some time, and a program like iWeb (free on all new Macs), and some forethought into what you may want to accomplish.  Many people who use iWeb complain it’s missing features; I agree.  But for a free program, it can overcome most of the obstacles with just a little bit of thought into the task.  But enough about iWeb – there’s more to the Mac than just a silly website. :-)

I grew up on Macs.  I had the original Macintosh  with the B&W screen, the all-in-one that was the predecessor (distant predecessor) to today’s iMac.  But it’s not like I never tried the nefarious dark side; Windows.  In fact, I grew to be rather proficient at that, as well.  I joined the military at some point in my life (I can’t remember exactly), and lo-and-behold, they use Windows.  And most of the people around me did, as well.  I learned to navigate the system, find things I needed to find, accomplish tasks, and find porn on the internet.  

But things never worked like they should.  Getting around windows was pretty annoying.  Dragging & dropping didn’t exist (if you’ve never used a Mac, you may still be unfamiliar with that term.  You’ll learn).  And it crashed all the time.  Have a problem?   Of course you do.  Restart.  Something happened & explorer had to quit?  Of course it did; now restart.  System encountered an error, you got a big blue screen (The BSOD, or Blue screen of death), and were forced to restart.  And no one is oblivious to this: the Three-Finger salute, Control-Alt-Delete.  Ah, the ultimate cure for computer ailments, which essentially leads to a restart.

But these ailments are not at the computer level.  They are the OS.  They are failures of Windows.  Moving to the Mac, one of the last things you’ll notice is that it infrequently – if ever – crashes.  I say last, because it never happens, and as such you’ll be hard-pressed to recall that you were ever ailed at all.  This point came home to me after I switched my parents back to the Mac.  My stepfather was complaining about a printer problem they have had with the Mac.  You have to understand of course that they are trying to run a Windows-Only program, and it’s not really supposed to work in the first place.  But anyhow, he was complaining that it wouldn’t print out of this one particular program, and they never had this problem with Windows.  “Yeah,” I said, “but when in the last two years has the Mac crashed on you?”  None was the answer.  “And didn’t you switch to the Mac because you couldn’t even log on to the Windows Machine for more than a minute or two before it crashed, meaning you didn’t do anything on it anyways?”  Yes was the answer.

My point is, it becomes easy to complain about a few this & that things on the Mac, because all-in-all, it’s so stable that you’re actually using it long enough to contemplate things such as printing incompatibilities & the choice if system alert sounds (which you can change).  

What can you expect when switching to a Mac?  A small learning curve for sure.  While similar in a lot of respects, the design is different.  I like to describe the Mac as “intuitive;” it behaves in ways that if you looked at a given task you wanted done and contemplated what would be the easiest way to do it, that’s the best way to do it on a Mac.  Want a picture here?  Drag it there.  Done.

What can you expect when switching to a Mac?  Let me tell you this.  Of all the people that I have seen make the switch, not a single one regrets it.  Not a single one complains.  Each person thinks about their computing experience before & after, and smiles at the realization that it’s now fun & easy,  where before it was frustrating & exasperating.

But your shiny new Mac will have more & more useable software you can get started with immediately.  And most of the tasks you need software to accomplish have cheaper, easier-to-use alternatives on the Mac (consider iWork, which replaces MS Word & Powerpoint - only $79 as opposed to $299 or more).  Then there’s the things that you need on Windows that you’ll probably do without on the Mac.  Spyware programs?  There’s $79 and up per year right there.  And anti-Virus programs?  Yeah, that’ll cost you yearly, too.  Of  course you can buy a suite for a little bit of savings, but…. I have nothing of the sort installed on my Mac.  I take security seriously, and I recommend you do too, but I have certain settings configured on my machine as it is, and leave it at that.  No recurring yearly cost.  Less additional software needed.  In the end, about the same cost as the Dell machine properly configured.  Remember, when you see those Dell ads, it’s like a car commercial:  $199 a month as shown, without tires, A/C, radio, Oil, windshield wipers, & tax title & destination charges.  By the time you add it all in, the actual cost usually varies quite a bit from the advertised cost.  

Tags: Apple

so, I like totally figured out what this place i live in is. it’s hell. no doubt, no lie. it was boiling by 10am today, over 100º (look, I know boiling is 212º. it’s called creative license, so give me a break!). w.t.f. this is ridiculous. i mean, it’s already september, and here i am suffering like this. i’m thinking that perhaps a call to god is in order. “hey mr. landlord. um, the air is broken again. i’m not trying to nag or anything, but it’s really hot here, and um, i was hoping that – yeah, i know, i know, i’m not paying much rent, but still – look, really, letter of the law here says that it’s the landlord’s responsi – no, i have not violated my lease! look... nevermind, you’re right damn i hate my landlord! damn him to hell!”

so it seems the best thing right now is to move? yeah, that’s right. i feel like i just can’t take it anymore. i was hoping that the heat would break by now and we’d be ok until next summer at which point we’re moving... but shit, did i mention it’s september already? and look at the 5-day! dammit! this is ridiculous. oh, and don’t let the cooling trend fool you, either. read my post about this related topic? yeah, do that. and even if it does cool down, it won’t matter, because what’s causing it is the remnants of hurricane john, and with the “cooler” air it brings monsoon moisture and humidity. oh great. it’s the difference between getting your groin kicked and getting your groin punched; either way you’re going to cry, so does it really matter?



ok, whoever had today, you won
steve irwin, “crocodile hunter” died today. look, we all knew essentially how it was going to happen, it was just a question of when. unfortunately, i had february 19th, 2007, so i’m a little bummed right now. but on a more serious note: i read that his wife has yet to be informed; kinda sad that we all know before she does. you’d think they would notify her first. oh well. time to add “don’t play with sting rays” to my list of things to avoid, right next to “don’t make fun of the girl while she’s on her period” and “don’t be a menace to south central while drinking my juice in the hood (thanks, wayans bros! at least you weren’t a total waste!),” and, oh yeah, “don’t freaking wrestle crocodiies!”

peace.

Tags: earth conditions

“you all open today?”

um, no. just happened to be in the neighborhood, thought i’d open the building, turn on the phone system, and put you on hold, so that i could explain that i just happened to be in the neighborhood..... did you seriously just ask me that?

it’s times like those that you really wish it were perfectly acceptable to let people know how stupid they sound. jaxan had a moment like that as well, except over email.

a customer emailed him to complain that when she ordered her part online and it said 3-5 days shipping, and she assumed that was business days, that she thought she had waited too long and should thus give us an earful. except that, um, she had gotten her part. within 3-5 days. so really, what’s up with the 3-paragraph email trying to belittle us? instead try kindergarten, where people usually begin the long road to counting. by ones. on, ah, one hand. to, say, between 3-5. just saying. and actually, after a few attempts that were a little harsh, jaxan did tell her. kind of. only problem is she might still not get it. such is life with retards; if you tell them the truth bluntly, they get offended. if you allude to it, they don’t get it. whatever. though i must say, sort of makes me rethink the whole civil war thing; hell, let them have their own country. then we can tax their dumb asses the stupid tax.

any guesses on where she was from, by the way? pat on the back to anyone who said “the south” or some equivalent answer; bravo. and although it was a little easy, i’m finding it’s pretty hard to make the question difficult if that’s eventually the answer. oh well.

Peace.

Tags: hate

and it was me! so, why is it that we figure things out just a little too late most of the time? I get to the gym, and man does something stink (i’m sure you know where this is going, and you’re right). every time i point my nose to the right or left, man it really smells funky. well, it’s because that is where my shoulders are, which happen to have my shirt draped over them. funny place to find it, i know, but hey, whatcha gonna do? so i was thinking ‘wow, i just took a shower not 24 hours ago, and up until now i had not done anything strenuous; what’s up?’ well, a little covert investigation (trying to sniff around whilst maintaining your cool, so no one suspects you can be difficult work) led me to the real culprit: the shirt, not me. ok, the shirt stinks like mad; what happened?

wait a minute, this seems awful familiar... oh yeah, i did this same thing mutherfunking less than a week ago. well, let’s get this straight: my socks don’t stink, my ass doesn’t stink, my pants don’t stink, my ‘pits don’t stink... my shirt stinks. it’s cursed, i guess? it’s not me, dammit, i smelled myself and i smell wonderful, but that shirt –through two washings – stinks within a block. look, i know i said that i was stubborn and wasn’t going to give up on this shirt, but apparently i’m a liar! fuck that, it’s in the garbage already. it’s now been washed twice in the last 4 days and it still reeks. not fair, and um, not again. take this stink and shove it, i ain’t wearin’ that no more...



hours in a day
why is it that i have to sleep 1/3 of my life? that just sucks. i once read a book in which there was a mention of some people who only sleep like 2-3 hours a day, and wake up refreshed anyhow, ready to tackle the other 20 hours.... boy i wish! i mean, i like my sleep, but that’s because i need it! today for instance, i slept in until 9am. then up to do breakfast and go look at some manufactured homes (which, by the way, are really really nice!), and do lunch. before i know it, after those few things, it’s already almost 3pm. and shit, now that i’m back and blogging, it’s almost 5:30pm. i was gonna wash the 4runner and take the dogs out to the park, but it doesn’t look like i’m going to have time! shit, if i could have done with just 3 hours of sleep last night, gotten up around 3am.... it’d only be 1pm right now, and i could do all i wanted to and take a nap. not that, um, i’d want to, if i was refreshed after only 3 hours. shit, i could fit in a jerk off session or maybe cure cancer, i don’t know. the point is that i could get everything done. and still have time left over.

shit. time to go to bed. damn. well...

peace.

Tags: Gym

peace.

Tags: women, Gym