30 March 2006
I have been stressing over my financial situation with increasing nail-biting and antisocial behaviour. Well, after a fun day riding around the national forrest listening to Iron Maiden and Phil Collins, I was barrelling to work Tuesday morning when I noticed that the temp gauge on my little blue car's indicator panel was lit up. I immediately pull over and pop the hood, half-heartedly chuckling at the fact that it was in front of the very sign I took a picture of for my first web site so long ago.
The motor is smoking. Gag.
(By the way, if you are going to travel out of the country, why the HELL would you go somewhere like Sandal's? That stupid commercial was just on. I could invent a 'resort' in my back yard. Jeez, people. Enjoy the country you're in, not some prepackaged American tripe where the locals are kept out by fencing and armed guards. Pahh...)
I waited an hour and my boss showed up. He helped me nurse my car 2 more miles down the road before it re-overheated. I called a wrecker named Peanut to drag it to a radiator shop, where I received the news that my motor is blown.
I now have no way to go to and from work. I don't know what I'm going to do. Oh well.
24 March 2006
This is me right now in my office, waiting for it to be time to go. I'm looking around, propped up and relaxed since I've gotten all my work done. If you click the picture, you can see how random the north wall of my office really is. In case you didn't know, I work out of a doublewide trailer (not kidding!) for right now since my office is torn down and a new one is being built in its place here in Buttholeville, MS.
By the way, hey Jenn!! :)
==================
23 March 2006
Ok, now that you have that, look at what this fat ass had to say:
Sensenbrenner said in a statement last year that his bill would help "regain control of our borders and prevent illegal immigration" as well as "help strengthen and promote our compassionate and welcoming legal immigration system."
This is LAUGHABLE. How he DARES to call our so-called "system" of snared-up (and jacked-up) laws that could also pass as a reader on "How to be a Xenophobic butthole" is beyond me. I also appreciate, once again, that the loudest mouths on the anti-immigration issue have the most foreign sounding screwed up names. Stupid Kraut... (I'm part German, i can say it.)
I am SO mad at this article I can't even think objectively or coherently. I am leaving it be and going to attempt to eat dinner.
Jesus, what a stupid, ignorant fat ass.
I apologize for the profanity, but those close to me appreciate how passionate I am about this issue and how close to my proverbial family jewels it hits me.
21 March 2006
Moustache Man.
The Camera Gods were not on my side today as I visited chik fil-a, but it was hilarious to watch this guy dig crumbs out of that...nest...on his top lip. Not since The World Beard Championchips have I seen a more horriffic display of facial hair.
I applied for a second job. We'll see how this goes.
17 March 2006
I have been busy trying to stay sane and to not stay busy. I’ve failed miserably at both.
I haven’t heard from my friend the Whyzeman in a few days - I fear the worst with his current family drama. I remember as kids he’d tell me that his grandma would call him from down the street, he’d come running, and she would tell him to go in the kitchen and bring her a glass of water. I would understandably be upset and can only imagine that frustration of a young man in the 80’s trying to save the world from the Decepticons and C.O.B.R.A. (Or go-bots, if you were Ghetto like me and your mom bought you dollar-store transformers. I had to school her with a quickness.)
That made me remember my own situation with my grandpa that died in 1987. He bought this computer that cost thousands and thousands of dollars back then. It was a TRS-80 Model 4 Microcomputer, from good ol’ Tandy. (Tandicapped? Definitely. By today’s standards it was a 100lb calculator) I would ask could I play with the computer. He would reply, somewhat annoyed, that I could, but only if I asked if I could “Work with the computer.” I would do that, boot the thing up off a 5.25” disk, and enter any pre-1982 date so it would boot up properly. I could run the ‘BASIC’ command and start basic, and somehow magically print out stuff, but only if I included the command line statements, like 10 PRINT and then ended it. Dad could never figure that out. IT DIDN’T HAVE A WORD PROCESSOR PROGRAM, OKAY. NOW I UNDERSTAND, 19 YEARS LATER.
Anyway, I got tired of asking to ‘work with the pc’. I didn’t have extended cable, so I had to watch MTV and Nickelodeon at my grandparents’ house because I only had channels 1-13 like a good cheapskate. So when the MTV top 20 countdown would end, with Bon Jovi’s ‘living on a prayer’ inevitably winning #1 as usual, I would leave their living room and head down the hall toward the computer room. Now at the end of this short hallway, the right turn was into grandpa’s bedroom, with him in it. He was a severe arthritic and was bedridden. Smart as a whip, a professional engineer even. But cripply and withered and deformed. Looking back, maybe it depressed me on some subconscious level to see him like that. So I would belly-crawl to the left, into the computer room, without him seeing me. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes I would hear that “HEYYYYY BABBBYYY” call, which meant I had been discovered. I would go in there and lay with him in his bed and watch tv and then after the obligatory time frame, would ask the inevitable question about working with the computer. To a fat kid who was aspiring to be a hacker, convenience was the more important issue in this case.
And now, to look back on it, I would give my life up to have just an hour or two at my grandpa’s bedside. I would tell him about school, how I didn’t relate well to my parents during my teenage years and how I was depressed for so long. I would tell him how bad I suck at math and could never have been a great engineer like him. I would tell him that after he died that December I sneaked into the cemetery every afternoon after it closed and cried at his grave. I would sneak in and lay by his grave, choking on my tears and snot and sobbing, beating the tomb stone until my knuckles ached for days afterward. Once, I cried myself to sleep and the caretaker woke me up and told me he had been watching me for days and told me it was time to go home.
I would tell him how much I missed him growing up, how much I needed him and how I had become a musician at heart. I would show him how far I’ve come because of his Trash-80 Model 4 computer, and I would show him my wife and three wonderful kids. I would die in peace to have a weak embrace from those deformed, arthritic hands just one more time. To see him in his pj’s, working notes out that were indecipherable because his handwriting and coordination had deteriorated so bad. To see him studying his bible intently, explaining things to me, and to drink ice cold coca cola with him, eating frozen cool whip (his weird favourite treat, which surprisingly tastes great in a cone) and talking about
Enjoy your family while they’re with you, people. The “What if’s” are too frequent in this life.
14 March 2006
(Editor: I graduated from college and am quite confident that my grammar usage is correct. The last two letters I have sent were butchered in such a way that their message was muddled by someone on the CL staff. I humbly ask that in taking my letter into consideration you refrain from altering its contents. Thanks.)
================================
In observing the debate on immigration from the perspective of a fly on the wall, it has become obvious to me that there are passionate participants on both sides of the issue. A common sentiment in both camps has been that immigrants need to "Go through the proper channels," so to speak. There was a time when this worked. All one had to do was show up on a ship at any major port and sign a registry. This is how the majority of our ancestors came to this country, in case any of us have forgotten the fact that unless we are of Native American blood, we too are seventh and tenth generation "anchor babies".
Then there came a moment when the very laws that govern immigration became a tool to keep people out. They are designed in such a way that it is nearly impossible to come here unless you fall into a very narrow set of circumstances and, of course, have a lot of money. (We won't even get into the need for an attorney, since the language of the paperwork is purposefully indecipherable.) I have tried for over 5 years to bring my mother in law from Mexico. She is completely alone and has no family members there. Yet these laws have kept her (and countless others) away from her loved ones. She hasn't been able to even get a visa to come on vacation for a few weeks! She has two grandchildren that she only knows from pictures and occasional phone calls. I agree there needs to be immigration reform: reform to make it easier for families to reunite!
There is a human side to this debate that is not being given the scrutiny that it so clearly deserves. The emotional cost of being separated by a miserable trickle of water called the Rio Grande is one that is too great to bear for many.
===============
There we go, Clarion Ledger, and a big 'screw-you' for not publishing that due to your small, narrow minds. Commentary, unless it is serious and sympathetic in nature, is unnecessary and for this post will be axed. Thank you. That is all.
11 March 2006
I had a training classroom to set up today at 7:00 AM SHARP.
The alarm rang at 8. I got up hysterical, got dressed, upset, nervous, thinking of the impending disaster at hand. I called the office to apologize profusely, and no one answered. 'great' I thought to myself.
I got on the road, and as I barrelled down the road, I tried again to call the office. Only this time I noted the time/date on my cellphone as I slid it open.
Today is Saturday, and there is no training classroom to set up. I am a moron.
Until Monday.
*sigh*
10 March 2006
I had been feeling SO much better with my arm. I was regaining feeling and didn’t feel pain as often anymore…
…then the witch complained about a monitor sitting in her office and she had never even told me about it or asked me to remove it. I had it gone within five minutes of her trouble ticket, and even dragged it back to my office, putting it up on a file cabinet. BIG MISTAKE. My arm was asleep all night, and when it did manage to perk up, all I felt was stabbing pain. Does this crap end? Sleep/pain/sleep/pain/sleep/pain. It sucks. I can’t play guitar like I’d like to, the rumble pack in the console controllers HURTS when it goes off. It’s all miserable man. I can’t write normally, or drive normally. IT SUCKS.
Too caffeinated to think clearly so I’m ending this.
Live and unblocked from the place of employment…
Gimp, for Gimp’s World News.
05 March 2006
If you're the 1,000th viewer, then congrats, I owe you my undying affection.
I'm running out of meds, my head hurts constantly, and my wife is beginning to thing I have migraines like she does. (I'm not so inclined to think it, but when you have a headache that is the size of a hangover headache and 1>tranquilizers 2>tylenol 3>tranquilizer/tylenol combo 4>opioid lovliness won't kill it, I wonder what kind of friggin headache it is.)
------------
Reading friends' blogs, you learn things you didn't know about people you've spent half your life around. I got that feeling today reading about a dear friend who also suffered water heater troubles. As long as his dad doesn't like force him into handing back my SegaCD again, we're good. It's in better hands with him anyway. :-)
I finally got some and it's been an interesting week to say the least. I have been incoherent, moody, dreamy, and just all-around off kilter and NO ONE CAN SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT.
We gave up trying to make the English subtitles work on Final Fantasy VII - Advent Children. We are currently watching it with nothing other than the fast-paced Japanese dialogue. Whyze, I still owe you a copy. Get with me on that.
==========
They opened a new pizza joint in town. It's amazing how a new eating establishment can bring the hill scoggins out in droves. It's PIZZA, for God's sake. By the wait in line, you'd think they were handing out locks of Dale Earnhardt's hair.
==========
My neighbourhood is slowly but surely going to the dogs, as did my previous one. I grew up here. Over the holidays, a dillhole going down the street threw out a beer bottle IN FRONT OF MY DRIVEWAY and it shattered all over the entrance to my crib. I've got gangsters in front and NASCAR-loving PWT (That's 'poor white trash' for the uninitiated) next to them. I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you look like or who you worship, just BE DECENT.
==========
Nothing fun tonight.
Get Cakewalk Guitar Studio, Fruit Loops, and Sony ACID. I've gone recording-gaga this weekend.