Bleh-ger

Blogger has been a little bitch lately, and I'm about to slap it like one. It kept timing out when I tried to publish last night's post, yet today when I tried to re-publish it, it was already there. I guess this is what happens when Google takes something over...

Peace Be With You

I was listening to the radio on the way home from work today, and I caught this news clip about a woman who hung a wreath in the front of her house for Christmas with a peace sign in the middle of it. The homeowner's association threatened to fine her daily if she didn't take it down because they claimed it "offended the relatives of soldiers serving in the Iraq War" and "can also be considered a sign of the devil".

Excuse me? Did I just get teleported to Retardsville, USA or something? When the FUCK did the peace sign become a pentagram? Or the number 666? If you'll pardon the verbal repertoire, what the HELL are this people thinking? I don't know what religion they belong to, but in MINE, Christmas is all about the whole PEACE ON EARTH GOODWILL TOWARDS MEN thing. Which I guess needs to be updated to goodwill towards everyone.

What's next? Religious atheists?

"I'm an atheist, I swear to God!"

Turkey Day

I hope everyone had a happy turkey day. Mine was real nice, did all the typical Thanksgiving day activities, including watching some football, playing some games, and looking at all the ads for tomorrow's big shopping day. Given the current hour that I'm writing this, it should be pretty obvious that I'm not going this year. (I would have to be waking up in about 45 minutes if I were.)

In other news, if you haven't heard Lips of an Angel by Hinder yet, you really should. It's a great song. I believe it's featured in the TV show Grey's Anatomy if I'm not mistaken, and they've been playing it on the radio here pretty regularly. I also think Hinder is a new group, as Extreme Behavior is their first album. I've yet to listen to the rest of the album, but I'll get to that real soon.

Anomaly

As many of you probably already know, Incubus is my favorite band. They belong in a very short list of music performers who, when they release a new album, I generally enjoy every song on it in one way or another.

Incubus' newest album, "Light Grenades" is no exception. While I will point out that it's not going to be my number 1 favorite Incubus album, I will say that it's better than some of their earliest work. Morning View remains my album of choice.

The first single off the album, Anna Molly, is currently my favorite track, followed closely by Diamonds and Coal. The chorus to Anna Molly is typical Incubus -- they write some of my favorite lyrics.

I picture your face, in the back of my eyes.
A fire in the attic a proof of the prize.
Anomaly, anomaly, anomaly.

You can hear it now on my playlist.

New! Improved!

In Google's neverending efforts to take over the world, they've redone the whole blogger program. Of course, all I see are shiny new buttons that do the same thing the old buttons did. Go figure. I really don't see what all you can do with Blogger. I mean, really, you type in a window and post. What else is there?

ANYway, I got skynet back on Thursday. I really don't know how I was surviving this past month without it. And for the curious, the first thing I did when I got it back was delve into my old emails, looking for proof that my system really was under warranty. And lo and behold, I found the emails, and forwarded said information to Alienware with a "WTF, mate?". Confirmation was soon received that my warranty is indeed good until 2007. Boo-ya! No charge for repairs. Mwa-hahahaha.

And I don't know what the hell they put in my liquid cooling system, but the damn thing is running about 20 degrees cooler than it did before. Whoa.

Now I'm off for dinner at Applebees. Mmmmm, Applebees. I like anyplace where I can have BOTH good food and booze.

Skynet's Impending Return

It's been, what, a little over a month now? Honestly, had I known it would have taken them this long to fix my computer, I would have just done it myself; warranty or not. But alas, these are the lessons we learn.

There's one piece of information in the email I received that has me terribly worried:

Your system is undergoing the Alienware® Repair Depot Quality Control process. This
stage includes the reinstallation of the operating system, drivers and any
applications that are specific to the system you ordered.

Hm? From reading that, it sounds like they're wiping my hard drives. Why?! They replaced the POWER SUPPLY, there's no reason to do that. Needless to say, if they did wipe my drives, I'm going to have a lot of work ahead of me. Given the wording of that paragraph though, I'm hoping this was simply an automated message. "Specific to the system you ordered." I didn't ORDER anything, this was a repair job.

But anyway, the scheduled delivery date is Friday. I guess I'll find out then whether I'm going to be sifting through hundreds of discs and redownloading a bunch of shit. *Sigh*

Someone likes it...

I've written several stories now. My desire to write stems from having certain ideas in my head that I realize would create a story that I would like to read, and thus I put the ideas in a notebook until I eventually have the material needed to create a full-fledged, flowing plot. But I don't write the stories so that I can show other people and ask them what they think....I write them because I want to know how they're going to end.

As such, I never really cared to have anyone read anything that I've actually written. This is coming from a person who was actually thrown out of high school for a full two weeks because of something he wrote. (Long story....ask me about it sometime.) This resulted in a particular disconcern for other people's opinions of my creations. This is not necessarily an unhealthy attitude, but many people began pointing out to me that if I'm going to create something, I should at least share it. Even in anonymity.

So, I decided to load a few of the things I wrote onto Fictionpress. I expected a few hits, maybe a few reviews saying "Ok, not great..", and that would be the end of it.

Instead, I got thousands of hits, dozens of reviews, and over 50 people adding the stories to their favorites list. (The site is cool, you can track all that information...) Here's the most recent review I've gotten:

Astonishing...this is by far the best story I have ever read on this or any other site. The fighting is well done, the characters are all different and interesting, and your writing style is great.

Honestly, I never thought anything I wrote was all that great, because like I said I just wanted to tell the stories for my own sake of completion. But I do appreciate that other people enjoy them as well, that's pretty cool.

Mmmmm, forbidden donut...

So I'm driving into work this morning, and as I merge off the main expressway I end up behind a Hostess/Wonder Bread truck. That's nothing new, there are quite a few convenience stores around my office building. We get to the stop sign and are waiting to merge onto the main road. As I'm sitting there, I noticed something on the rear bumper of the truck -- it's 4 packages of donuts! Oopsie.

I was kind of hoping they'd fly off and hit my windshield, so I could grab 'em. I could have gone for a donut this morning. =)

Gesundheit

A lot of people in my family have allergies. I was lucky, however, and don't really have any. I'm not allergic to cats, or dust, or pollen, or mold, or whatever. So unless I have a cold or something, I hardly ever sneeze.

Except at work. The air filtration in this office must really suck, cause I'm always sneezing for no reason. It's less of a problem now that I've gotten a new cubicle (window seat!), but it still happens occasionally. Today, I went to the bathroom, and suddenly had a sneezing fit while taking care of business.

Boy, are the cleaning people going to be unhappy with me. >_<

Rainbow Plucking

I've posted this before, but I was reminded of it today after a conversation here at work somehow spiralled out of control into the area of twangers and plucking.

The Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit

So, yesterday I was listening to the radio again on my way to work, since my car was still in the shop. (Incidentally, I have it back now and the repairs are all done.) Amazingly enough, I actually heard a SONG. On the radio! In the morning! That never happens. It was something I'd never heard before, and of course the DJ didn't allude as to the band or the title of the particular track.

As a result, I went to the station's website when I got into work since they have a lovely "Recently Played" list that shows you what songs have aired in the past 30 minutes or so. After discovering the song in question (Through Glass by Stone Sour), I noticed a strange looking picture at the bottom of the page.



The morning show host always posts links of strange websites he finds, and this one was a doozy:

http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/product.asp?ID=1117

The Peek-A-Boo Pole Dancing Kit.

If you do nothing else, you MUST watch the commercial at the bottom of the page. Golden!

Apparently, this stripper pole was originally a CHILDREN'S TOY over in Europe, before finally being banned and only sold in adult stores. A children's toy! WTF!