You are all blatant alcoholics — you can’t lie to me.

HERE’S your chance to at least practice the fine art of keeping yourself upright while being fucked up and attempting to walk.

I’ve grown very rapidly weary of interruptions both intentional and unintended.

There are days when the world could be crumbling, falling down on all sides of me and I’d never notice it.  Then there are days like today.  Every whisper, giggle and laugh sets my nerves on edge and it seems as though everyone wants me to stop what I’m doing to do something else.  Inevitably they fail to realize that the something that is being stopped was originally set into motion by them.

There are times when mere secondary focus isn’t near enough for the task at hand, and full and undivided attention is required.  It is those times when someone nearby will start to talk out loud in a strong voice, asking themselves questions in order to work a problem out.  You being the conscientious person that you are, tear off a bit of your brain to listen to them and even offer a response only to realize three things: 1) They weren’t specifically asking you a question, 2) They don’t want your answer anyway and promptly ignore you — advice you should have given yourself and 3) Your focus is now totally blown to hell.

There are other times when you might be reading something exceedingly technical with the sincere intention of absorbing the contents.  Almost predictably you are peppered with questions, easily answered or ferreted out by the person asking them.  The questions are fired off every minute or so… just enough time for you to turn your attention back to what you’re doing, start to return to the groove and be distracted again.

This is also the perfect time for someone to initiate phone calls on their exceedingly loud speakerphone, lavishing upon you the obnoxious dial tone generation and ringing of the phone on the opposite end of the call.  Only after the other party has answered the phone do they pick up the handset and resume a conversation in a moderately normal tone of voice (and this is only after you have been used as an go-between by the two people who are now in a direct phone call… when you had nothing to do with either of the conversations to begin with).

Now, I say a moderately normal tone because some people in this world have never grasped the concept that phones, both analog and cellular, have progressed marvelously beyond the two-tin-cans-and-a-length-of-string phase they were in decades ago.  This results in a bellowed conversation and a ruptured eardrum on the other side of the phone.  There is one person I call on a regular basis who insists on shouting my name by way of greeting at the beginning of every call.  He winds up the first letter of my name like the charging of a Ghostbuster proton pack and proceeds to shoot me in the ear with it like Egon going after an ectoplasmic nasty.  I have since learned to hold the handset away from my head at the beginning of any call.  As a measure of contrast, Fiddy is the only person I know who can have a cell phone conversation so quiet that you never hear so much as a whisper… while he’s sitting right next to you.

Back to the topic of speakerphones.  I loathe them.  They are the single most abused feature of any phone.  If there is a necessity to have your hands free — let’s say, while delivering a baby, performing heart surgery or if there is a group of folks on one or both sides of the connection to be addressed — dandy.  Use the speakerphone.  If you’re just being a lazy fuck, then pick up the goddamned handset.  It’s an outright insult to me to if you sit on the other side of a phone call and shout to me because you can’t be bothered to pick up the fucking receiver.  Convenience is one thing, common courtesy is another entirely.

If you have something of importance that requires my attention, opinion or expertise, by all means interrupt me and get me involved.  If you are just asking me things to save yourself a minute or two of hunting around, kindly spend two seconds and see if I’m in the middle of anything important that has my rapt attention before poking me in the brain.  If you’re just being lazy and don’t feel like figuring out something insanely simple on your own, kindly write your request down neatly, fold it carefully four times and jam it forcefully into your rectum.

This has been a public service announcement.

Sometimes my befuddled brain can attain a moment of clarity, as in this quick snippet of an IM conversation with Fiddy/Fiddy (a rather one-sided one since he wasn’t typing anything at the moment).

Me: The lights are on, but nobody is home.
Me: Then again, we’ve known this about you for a VERY long time.
Me: Now that I think about it, I’m pretty much an "empty house" myself.
Me: Except for those bats in my belfry.
Me: They keep me company in the wee hours of the night.
Me: Squeaking Justin Timberlake love-songs to me.
Me: And crapping on my insulation.
Me: Sorry, "dropping guano" on my insulation.
Me: Damn bats… so sensitive.  They love to remind me that their poop is a valuable source of fuel in some countries.
Me: Really, I guess that’s the true test of how advanced your civilization is: what you use as fuel.
Me: I guess it’s a sliding scale from burned flying-rat crap to atomic energy.

Nobody can amuse me like I do, and I am so easilly amused at times.

Well chill’uns, I’ve all manner of little things to talk about but nothing to really sink my teeth into so prepare for Short Attention Span Theatre.  Stream of consciousness — ACTIVATED.

First off, Dave Chappelle of Chappelle’s Show fame is in early negotiations to star in the film adaptation of Memoirs of a Super Freak, the autobiography of — you guessed it — Rick James.  My first thought upon hearing this was "holy crap, who better to choose than the man already famous for parodying good ol’ Rick?"  Well, the problem is this: unless this ends up being a comedy it might end up a tragedy.  Dave does a great job of making a fool out of Rick, but can he pull it off in a straight role?  Is Prince’s life story the next in Dave’s list of movie projects?  "Game… blouses."

Ray Charles has croaked — not a surprise really.  I suspect that recently, for live appearances they had been propping up his corpse behind a piano and putting on a CD.  We made a point to see him at Jazz Fest about five years back under the assumption that it might be the last opportunity to do so.  We were right.

Coincidentally, Ronald Regan recently joined the choir invisible too.  Could there be a link in here somewhere?  A deadly love pact?  Was one impersonating the other?  Was Nancy having geriatric three-ways down on the Reagan ranch?  A little antiquated jungle fever?  I bet the welcome mat at her back door is a bit dusty, if you know what I mean.

Y’know, I bet if Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles were running mates on the "Belly-Up" ticket in a bid for the White House in November, I bet they’d stand a great chance at winning.  After all, a pair of stiffs has infinitely more personality and less potential to do increasing damage to the country and our international standing than any of the other clowns thumb wrestling for the honor.

I’d vote for them.

Finally we are having the electrical work done on the house.  I’ve been assured that it will be a mere six or seven hours to complete the job.  That’s a mere six or seven hours in Louisiana.  In the summer.  With no power.  Joy.  It’s worth the trouble as I am upgrading the paltry 65-Amp service to 200-AMPs.

The old power system was nicely efficient… if you only had a refrigerator and a single 60 WATT light bulb on at the same time.  C’mon — I’m Captain Technology.  I can draw more than that just making toast.  So, the old system gets upgraded… that and our insurance company pretty much told us that they were not going to renew our homeowner’s insurance is we left the old fire hazard in place.  No, really, we had a choice.

The screen for the wHoReS: Walk-In Theatre was completed last week and was given a test-run last weekend.  I declare it a quality bit of engineering, and a beautiful surface to watch movies in a 12′ wide format.  The wHoReS engineers are currently working on a scheme to broadcast audio on the FM band so that we can individually bring tuners and headphones and have the volume as low or loud as we like without disturbing the neighbors.  We at the wHoReS strive to bring you only the highest quality entertainment.

Recently I have been accused, rightly so, of being a "kitchen geek".  All because I bought one of these.  I’m telling you if you use coarse salts like rock, sea or kosher when you cook, this little gem is fantastic.  One-handed operation, holds a fair amount of salt and it looks snazzy too.  Worth every penny.

On that note, watch Good Eats.  It’s a downright entertaining, and more importantly, educational show that doesn’t preach or pander to you like you’re an idiot.  Alton Brown is a weird little monkey like I am, and comes up with some wacky shit that really works.  I’ve picked up a number of really great techniques from the show that I have integrated into my day-to-day cooking regimen.  Wonderful.  I’m a freak.

Thus endeth my ramblings.  Stay alive, and safe journey.