Did you feel it?  That little cold front that blew through this past weekend that blissfully knocked us out of the path of not one, but two nasty storms?  Did you notice that it blew in on Friday the 13th?  Did you feel the extra sensation that piggybacked with it?

I sure as hell did.  But then again, I’m hypersensitive to it.

That cool weather was the calling card for my ultimate favorite time of year — the supreme holiday season to me.  It was a steel-toed-and-cleated boot to the head that shifted my perspective 45 degrees.  It was a hand engraved reminder that Halloween is just around the corner and that I should get cracking on preparations for the big party and the opportunity to scare a whole new neighborhood of people.

The weather may have warmed back up, but it is not enough to banish the demon stirred up inside.  My clock-spring is wound and I’m ready to go.  The weather inside my head will remain comfortably fall-like.

It’s time to create heaven and hell.  I suggest you all get started too.

I am in one supremely fucked up mood today.  Can’t explain it, let’s just call it a bad batch of poorly mixed brain chemistry.  I’m agitated, mildly hostile and a little on the sad side — and on that note, I will leave you with two very moving quotes (for me) from the two movies I watched today.  They nearly threw themselves off of the shelf at me so that I might watch them.

The first one is from Conan The Barbarian.  Conan stands in an ancient burial place, about to do battle with an outrageous number of foes.  He offers a short prayer:

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before — I have no tongue for it.  No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought, and why we died.  All that matters is that today, two stood against many.  Valor pleases you, so grant me this one request.  Grant me revenge!  And if you do not listen, to HELL with you!"

The second is from Hair.  Burger has swapped places at the Army base with Claude so that Claude might go and spend time with the Sheila before he has to go off to war.  While Burger is still on the base, the call to move out has been given and Burger, a pacifist and un-trained civilian is hustled in his guise as Claude onto a troop transport.  While marching to their fate, the soldiers in formation begin to sing about their fear and disquiet about what faces them.  The song is called The Flesh Failures:

We starve, look at one another short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new-told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes

Somewhere, inside something, there is a rush of greatness
Who knows what stands in front of our lives
I fashion my future on films in space
Silence tells me secretly everything, everything

Eyes look your last
Arms take your last embrace
And lips oh you the doors of breath
Seal with a righteous kiss
The rest is silence

It’s all the rage.  Everybody’s doing it.  C’mon, you know you wanna’.  It’s not habit forming. 

It’s not gonna’ hurt.  Ok, it only hurts a little the first few times.  It gets better the more you do it.  You’re gonna’ want to do it all the time.

*sigh*

Those two innuendo-riffic paragraphs apply to the very same thing.  Exercise.  And on that note, here we are again after a long while.

The last time we saw our hero, he was attending Kuk Sool Won classes in an attempt to lose some weight, regain some of his old dexterity and have some fun learning a new ass-whoop skill.  Then he went and bought a house.  The house sat in the passenger seat, grabbed hold of that Kuk Sool Won emergency brake and yanked with all it’s might.  It took everything our brave hero had to keep from going through the windshield as the exercise vehicle skidded and shuddered to a noisy halt with the tires smoking and going molten.

So, at least for the near foreseeable future Kuk Sool Won is off the menu as it costs more than I have to dedicate to it these days — both in terms of money and time.  With travel figured in, every Kuk Sool Won session would gobble upwards of three hours of my day, several days a week.  I know, it’s oh so easy to rationalize and justify not attending an exercise program.  I feel like such a cop-out.  One day I’d like to get back to the classes as I was having a pretty good time while I was there.  Don’t ask when, I dunno.

So, now you’ve been brought up to the present day.

What with the seeming whirlwind movement by some of you towards the "get healthier" and "move around more" camps, I’m going to give in to the modern day incarnation of peer pressure.  I’m going to be weak and crumble under the weight of the need to become stronger.  And lighter.

But I’m going to do it on my terms.  I’m going to get violent.

When I was a kid, I used to box.  I’d wrap my hands, don the gloves and knock the ever-loving shit out of another human being (who incidentally was trying to do the same to me).  I had formal training, learned all the moves, the form and how to jump rope.  It was a good time and it was hard work.  It’s a lot more than just swinging your fists till you connect with something solid.  Ok, it IS that right up to the point where you get knocked loopy and decide to learn how to duck & weave and how to plant a glove squarely and accurately in the face of someone who is doing a lot of the same calculated wiggling you’re up to.  That’s the part that takes a lot of work.

Here we are many years later.  I know myself well enough to know that a headlong rush into an ironclad and rigorous exercise regimen will have a shorter life span than a fart in a wind tunnel.  I need something that I can do at my own pace and doesn’t come with a laundry list of instructions, that I will enjoy, that costs relatively little, that doesn’t rely on another human being, that can be done in any weather, and doesn’t require an extended road-trip to get to.  This is the building block that can and will — if successful — lead to further vigorous movement that will get and keep me in shape that hopefully can be described as something better than "doughy".  What can I say… I’m inherently lazy.

After a metric ass-ton of research, pricing, driving around and looking at equipment (and subsequently being shocked at how relatively inexpensive the gear is) I have bought an 80lb boxing "heavy bag".  I’m going back to my roots.  Punching the heavy bag is the portion of boxing training that offers the most thorough all-body workout and development of strength.  It does not require me to buy a roomful of fancy equipment and weights and it’s moderately cheap and simple.  Eventually I will mooch off of "Club Mensa" over at GonzO and ShortBus’ place for weight training, but that is a plan for later.  The accessories include wraps for your hands, a decent pair of heavy bag gloves and a jump rope for warming up and getting some aerobic exercise (boxing being anaerobic in nature).

So now I’m geared up.  The bag has been hung and a few test pokes have been made at it.  Pretty soon I’ll be beating the crap out of it, but first I need to reacquaint myself with the basic forms and techniques.  I still mostly remember them, but it’s gonna take a few sessions of practice to get back into good habits.  Good habits are necessary if you don’t want to fuck up your wrists.  Good equipment is necessary if you don’t want to walk away with broken fingers.  Fun!

I’m also looking forward to using this as a stress reliever.  Jebus knows I’ve demolished enough shit over the years when I’ve been pissed off.  Now I have a device created for the express purpose of absorbing physical abuse.  I just need to continually remind myself not to use knives on it.

*sigh*

I swear, the cake fumes must be getting to me.

Here I sit on the eve of the big anniversary/birthday BBQ fiesta.  I’m taking a break to shovel some food into my mouth.  Not wanting to put on the TV for fear of getting hooked into a program, I sit and surf for a minute of two.

I run across THIS LINK.

I laughed myself silly for a solid five minutes — big hearty guffaws complete with snorts, while bordering on drooling on myself.  Really I have no excuse, it’s probably not all that funny.  The picture of the completed hot dog just cracks me up beyond all belief.

I WILL have one!

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.

Hey.

How’ve you been?

It’s been a while.

Yeah, you’re right… this is a little awkward.  I can only hope we’ll warm back up to the conversation we left dangling oh, so long ago.

So, the story so far:

I have a wonderful wife, great house and fantastic friends.  Work’s a treat, the family is (mostly) just dandy. 

Money is tight and getting tighter through random acts of stupidity.  My brain has had all it can stand and rather than do something productive about it, has basically put the blinders back on.

Mild sadness compounded by an even milder depression has descended upon me.  I’m a walking contradiction some days, an outright lie others and just dandy in between.  Every so often my paranoid side taps me on the shoulder, cups it’s mouth to my ear and proceeds to whisper evil, sharp little barbs that stir up dust in the irrational cortex of my brain.

My self-image is a little tattered and is getting more threadbare by the day.  Once again, my brain has adopted the same attitude about this as it has about money — if I metaphorically put my hands over my eyes, I can’t see the problem, and therefore it goes away.

Rest escapes me.  My schedule is off just enough that while I’m not getting to bed too late, I’ve been doing it so long that I can’t catch up.  Quite frankly, I’m of the opinion that I’m subconsciously doing it to myself but haven’t bothered to leave a manifesto pinned to the door of my mind with a Bowie knife.  If I ever get my hands on my subconscious, I’m going to kick it square in the balls.

I’m managing to distract myself with comics and 80’s music.  The borderline obsessive drive to collect and organize both has kept my mind quite occupied.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m nowhere near eating a bullet or delivering one (or more) at high speeds into anyone else.  I’ve hit a low point, as we all inevitably do now and again.  This too shall pass… eventually.  That doesn’t mean I’m any less inclined to be feeling this way, even armed with that logical little gem.  And this is all despite the best efforts of the people around me who have both knowingly and unconsciously tried to buoy me up.

Thus endeth the mope-of-the-moment.  Maybe next time I’ll be entertainingly angry or ranty at something or someone.

Let me just start by saying "Thanks a lot GonzO, you rotten bastard, for getting me completely addicted to this fucking comic.  I’m powerless to do anything else but read it now."

This particular comic is Transmetropolitan, the life and times of outlaw journalist Spider Jerusalem as he wanders the not-too-far-in-the-future streets of what the world has become and essentially gives folks shit by the metric ass-ton… then writes about it to his great financial and sadistic gain.

He smokes, his assistants smoke and his cat smokes.  He has an unholy love for his favorite toy… a bowel disruptor.  His life is devoted to poking the scabs off of society and those who foul it (worse than he himself can) then liberally sprinkling the wound with salt.  What’s not to like.

The comic is superbly, yet simply drawn without the wholly unnerving and distracting amount of detail that you would get from, say, Todd McFarlane (which has a time and place, like in the Lobo comics I adore so much).  While the artwork is definitely a treat, it is not the shining star of the comic… the writing is.  It is razor sharp and clever, at times mocking itself and at others weaving pointed, almost painful stories from the fictional world Spider lives in.  The dialogue ranges from an observation of a manufactured, bloody riot:

"It’s a show of power.  How dare anybody ignore the authority of Civic Center?  How dare a bunch of freaks try and think for themselves?  So let’s go out and stomp on children, lunatics and incompetents, because by damn it makes our balls feel big.

I can see a blatantly unarmed Transient man with half his face hanging off, and three cops working him over anyway.  One of them is groping his own erection.

I’m sorry.  Is that too harsh an observation for you?  Does that sound too much like the Truth?

Fuck you.

If anyone in this shithole city gave two tugs of a dead dog’s cock about Truth, this wouldn’t be happening."

… to the harassment of the President himself (to his face, and just before Spider disrupts his bowels):

"You ought to be peeled, salted, driven through the streets by mental patients with spiked planks, and then used as a toilet and jizz-catcher by baboons in heat.  At best."

I’ve just started reading, and I’m hooked.  If you run across the graphic novels in the bookstore or online (in one format or another), I strongly advise you snag them.

Oh, and I’ll leave you with this last little bit which is taken an issue after I was introduced to the "Air Jesus" all-terrain sneaker that lets you walk on water, or pretty much any surface:

"So this Zealot comes to my door, all glazed eyes and clean reproductive organs, asking me if I ever think about God.

So I tell him I killed God.  I tracked God down like a rabid dog, hacked off his legs with a hedge trimmer, raped him with a corncob and boiled off his corpse in an acid bath.

So he pulls an alternating-current taser on me and tells me that only the Official Serbian Church of Tesla can save my polyphase intrinsic electric field, known to non-engineers as "the soul."

So I hit him.  What would you do?"