Ten Dollar Shirt

It makes giving cash more special

six and two thirds (give or take)

So, I spent that hundred bucks at Amazon and got:
Order Grand Total: $6.66

and in honor of Ray I left it at that.

"He was a good president."

"You're just saying that because he didn't get shot, didn't give away any Panama Canals, didn't get indicted, didn't get us into any wars..."

"I just heard it on the radio. They said he was a good president."

"What are they going to say? That he was a rat bastard? Of course they were going to say nice things."

...

Whenever I joke about my drinking, I most always make a gin reference - refer to the alcohol as gin even when it isn't. It just seems to make things funnier; whiskey is a close second which in turn is followed by the generic booze.

I got a hundred dollars to spend at amazon.

I have an urge to buy things that I normally wouldn't, like poetry books. I sometimes have an urge to see other things even if they are things I have already seen.

So, I'm open to suggestions.

...

If I had my way the New Year would start in the Spring.

...

Sometimes, the suggestions suggested by Word really piss me off. (That's not true, they just irritate me a bit.)

...

Out of my stack of books I started reading "Gun, Germs and Steel" again. Sometimes, I'll put a book down for over a year and a half before I'll finish reading it.

...

I like reading the reviews on Amazon, some folks get so riled up, like the author is forcing them to get on board with some train of thought. I always read as the author is saying 'This could be true" not like it's absolute truth even if the author is saying outrightly that it is.

I'll hear most any sales pitch but that doesn't mean that I'll buy the product. I don't get all indignant at the sales person. I've heard some great salesmen and enjoyed their skill and never bought a thing.

Every author has a message, a point of view, a feeling to express. If you read, you're getting someone's side of the story, even if they are 'facts'. I remember when dinosaurs used to walk around dragging their tails until someone realized that there were no tailprints to go along with the footprints.

...

So, the public transportation system has changed the way you can pay for your fares which in turn changed the way I pay my fare. I no longer will get a monthly pass. I now have a card that gets renewed monthly. The new system has some advantages but I'll miss using the monthly pass as a bookmark. I used to leave the pass in the book once I was done reading it, kind of like an indication of when I read a book. (I rarely read more than a book a month.)

Those passes were very thin and durable and made excellent bookmarks. I don't know how I will ever survive.

before she left

The guy was being an asshole. She was handling the situation herself just fine, so I just watched. Eventually, he left but she was still fired up.

"...If he thinks that then he can suck on my left tit!' She said glaring out the door.

"Oh. I did not know that was an option," I said with a smile.

"Oh, it is," she said still angry, still glaring at the door but then she must have remembered she was among friends and laughed as she added "But for him, believe me when I say, it would not be enjoyable."

Don't waste too much time on assholes.

I don't like this guy

I believe him to be a phony and I don't mean a phony Ben Franklin. What I've witness him do is rude and petty.

And he doesn't look that much like Ben Franklin

insignificant - of no distinction

significant - expressing a meaning a significant wink

important - mattering much

gentleman - a man of gentle birth.

gentle - mild


http://www.epicurious.com/


I can't tell you the best day of my life because I can't reckon it and conversely I can't tell you my worst day for the same reason. I can guess at the best and worse times in general.


I keep to the median mostly but sometimes the scale will slide.


"Once, me and my buddy were working lots of overtime. We would be switching off each night, watching the work progress. One night I was parked on the median and I saw a van drive by and the door slid open and I could see someone inside as they continued up the street. The next morning I heard that someone was gunned down up the street."

That was the third time I had heard the story, only this time I noticed that the way he told it didn't make sense.

Back then there were no vans had sliding doors on the driver's side and if he was parked on the median, he could only see the driver's side. Second, from where he was parked to where the shooting took place is about three blocks which is close enough to hear gunfire, especially at night.

It could be that he noticed the door slide open by looking through the windows on the opposite side from the door but I don't think someone would be using a van with windows all around for a drive by. And it could also be that he didn't hear the gunfire because of construction noise but he should include all that in his story.

I have little doubt that he was in the area on the night of the shooting but I have my doubts that he noticed the shooters.

Her daughter was getting a puppy for Christmas so I offered my video camera. Before I handed it over I checked the tapes: there was the raw footage of me telling that joke, some of my niece, some of what Little g shot when she was visiting one day and some business stuff.

I should do more videos, is what I thought.

...

I got some books, all of which were history, like the history of salt and the cod fish.

"You used to read novels," my youngest sister said. We sometimes call this littlest sister Bookie (because she reads a lot).

"Yeah, but I got tired of caring about the characters."

"And you don't care about real people?"

"Nope."


I do care about real people just not about the real people I read about in books which is slightly odd because I do care about the fake people.


...

I recognized him. He used to be a regular. He was sitting at a table. He used to normally sit at the bar. He always gave off a weird vibe or at least I thought so.

Later, he moved for the table to the end of the bar where I normally sit. I quietly cursed my friends' decision on where to sit but I wasn't the first to get there so I sat were they sat.

She wasn't in a good mood and it only got worse when he sat close to where she rang up the orders. He was talking to her. She offered no reply. I could hear the conversation but I was watching the interaction, waiting for the moment when a line would be crossed, but she made no visible objections even when he got up and placed his hand on her hip, there wasn't even a hint of her pulling away.

"Hey, do you mind not touching her," Jen yelled over. He didn't acknowledge her. So she said "Take you hand off of her." The waitress just went about ringing up her order.

I waited, half hoping he wouldn't respond, I was pretty certain I could take the guy. I consider both the bartender and the waitress as friends and now it was quite obvious he was causing a problem. At that point in time, the situation had risen to 'being my business'.

But the guy removed his hand and retuned to the bar where he finished his beer and then left.

About an hour and half later I left and then returned with a box of chocolates and two hand dipped strawberries. I handed the box to the bartender and waited for the waitress to come by her station.

"Here. Merry Christmas," I said as I handed her the small bag.

She hugged me hard and said "I only like Jen, you and Danielle. I hate guys like that jerk." I wished I had done more as she still held the embrace. She didn't meet my gaze as she let me go and thanked me as grabbed three pints of cheap beer for table 23 and I was glad she didn't.

My world went quiet and in that stillness of the busy barroom I wished for heroic answers but all I got was silence which followed me out the door and up the street.

I was lying on my bed face up with my eyes open because when I closed them the room would spin. It was five o'clock. I think it was the oatmeal cookie martini's that had done me in.

The company party was a seven. I figured I would blow it off so I rolled over and passed out until eight. For some reason I checked my phone; I had two messages waiting and after listening to them I realized I had to go.

I had two cokes and a ginger ale and I stayed chatting folks up until midnight. When I was leaving someone said that we should grab some drinks sometime.

Be careful what you wish for – I get ballsy and mouthy but it's usually with a smile.

So, the bio page.

The 'so' is to get your attention and 'the bio page' is to clue you in to what's about to come. If you're ever just sitting around with me, you will eventually hear 'so.' The mind is always going and 'so' is like a warning buzzer that something is about to come spewing forth.

And I often will get side tracked.

I was asked if I wanted to be on the company bio page; I said no and I gave the same answer a few weeks later when I was asked again, but she told me that she would like me on it. She sent me for head shots and told me someone would be calling me for information. I took a deep breathe because there just isn't that much stuff on me that should go on a company bio page.

The guy called me. He has known me for over twenty years.

What's your educational background?
Technically, just a high school diploma.

Really?
Yup.

No other post high school stuff?
Nope.

How'd ya...Outside interests? Working on the house?
Yeah, basically. You see my life.

Do you read?
Actually I do.

Now you're more of a backroom - back office guy...What is it that you do?
See that's the thing, what does she want to say about me? I don't know.


Basically, he's going to make stuff up.

favorite saying: "You realize the deadline is tomorrow?"

interesting and or unknown and or uninteresting facts: I dream of making a living at creating toys, I blog, I like buying books more than I like reading, I can out drink most of my friends, I never drop before the flop, I've butchered a tune on a piano, a recorder, a fluteaphone, a squeeze box, harmonica, guitar, mandolin - but I can't play any of them.

hobbies: leather craft, woodworking, baking, cooking, silk screening, paper crafts, origami, fishing, shooting, fencing, gardening, photo taking, code writing, needlecraft (mostly to make fun of someone), rock climbing (before it was vogue), hiking, button making, buying books, reading books, buying musical instruments, leaving trailing commas,


(I just shoved a whole mini carrot cake muffin in my mouth. You gotta love that Christmas spirit)

So, I read the bio. My bio. The bio of fiction.

If anyone actually clicks on 'so' as a label and I find out about it, I'm just going to shake my head and maybe feel a twinge of guilt for actually having a 'so' label. I should have a best of label - the ones I like best.

Anyway, the bio - high quality BS with a touch of ridiculousness, I liked it, but I drew the line with me reading science fiction. I have read science fiction and I used to enjoy it but I just got tired of remembering all those made up names and places and devices - it's all just too much work for the precious little reading time I afford myself. Early on though that's basically all I read back when it was cool.

And also science fiction readers are freaks, so it had to go.

so maybe it isn't just the cheap beers

I've rarely ever came across a fork in the road. I've always been more like standing in a meadow; standing there with wings and a shovel.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think that's a lot of wasted words. A good writer can paint a scene with a lot less and the scene will come with sounds and smells and tastes and feelings.




World's tallest man saves China dolphins


"All you've gotta do is reach in that dolphin and pull out any plastic that's in its stomach."

He's probably has had trouble fitting in. He's probably tried just to be normal. He probably still notices the stares. People probably avoid him until they need him to reach something down from the top shelve or out of a dolphin's gut.

He sometimes will hear the users say "Thanks" but most often he doesn't hear the word "freak" that follows.

He's a hero whenever he isn't a pariah.

He sometimes gets to walk through the front door but he always has to leave through the back.


Sometimes people are

Sometimes people just are

big deal

no deal

good deal

bad deal

a raw deal

shut up and deal

new deal

fair deal

what's the deal?

misdeal (Miss Erma Deal)

cut a deal

cop a deal



Yes, I was practicing my ampersands


I think the actual writing of an actual ampersand was more popular in olden days. I usually don't use ampersands while I'm writing, I'll use a plus sign or a poor man's version of an ampersand which is like a roundy small capital E with a small vertical line protruding from the middle top and the same descending from the middle bottom.


if you are bored nearly to tears someday, google the phrase 'how to draw an ampersand' you get a range of things from Cicero's slave to reciting the alphabet what you don't get is actually how one would go about hand drawing an ampersand.

Stop rolling your eyes at me. I know how to hand write a proper ampersand; I just wanted to see it. Just like I know all the words I look up in the dictionary; sometimes I just like to see it in print. And by 'all of the words,' I mean 98.6%. Or if you're using the metric system, my percentage drops to 37.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/LenaWong.shtml


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_temperature


Facts on the armpit (axilla) are hilariously serious over at wikipedia,

There were seven text files. I opened them all and then closed them one by one. They tired me. They worried me, not for what they said because they didn't say much of anything. They were all pretty much dead.

I wonder when I died.

...

Usually by now something would have clicked. Something would have come alone that would have caused me to reach that higher gear.

All my burners are of the back persuasion.

The trouble with friends that know you is that: they know you.

"Not everyone wants you to save them," she said.

I laughed. I had started to play it cool but she knew I was playing it cool and if she knew that then she knew my first reaction was going to be denial. She had effectively won that argument.

I look out for others mostly so I don't have to look out for myself.

"Sometimes, people just want a trusted pair of ears," she continued.

I just sipped my beer; now she was just being a nag. I calculated that the nearest fresh rose was just a block away.

The truth is...

Truth be told.

The truth be told...


Truth be told it is, because it's just a declaration that I'm about to speak. But now I forget what I was going to write.



"She's a whore." (Not a professional whore but a skank). The word dirty was added later. "I'll probably catch something from her just being this close to her," she said as she spanned the space between the bar and the back wall with her hand.

"As long as she doesn't pour my drinks from her snatch, I'm okay with it."

Years ago one of them came in, off duty, and bragged that in the just past twenty four hours that she had done it with two different guys and hadn't showered either.

She didn't pour from her snatch either so I was okay with that too. She didn't last too long, however.

who're - contraction of who are: Who're the people at the next table?

Never wonder that out loud to your paid date because it will end up costing you a lot of money, although it was quite a show.



Blogging will level off in 2007 is a prediction - predicted here.

Of course, as the old saying goes, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

I want to be like the guy who invented handling charges only a lot less of a prick.

See, like that sentence above. I'm certain most of everyone that reads that knows what I mean, but yet I will expound.

Nobody knows the guy who invented the premise of handling charges but yet there are likely very few people in the entire civilized world that he hasn't screwed over.

I don't want to screw the world over but I think it's kind of cool that some guy was sitting around one day thinking about how he could make an extra buck and ended up changing the world.

The conversation creating it went something like this, I think:

"It an okay product. We can get people to want it enough to pay us a profit. And we even have them pay for the postage for us to send it to them and not just the postage but the box and any packing material, and the label and packing tape as well. It's not a bad life," he would say to his co-worker.

"Yeah, that's rich that we get to charge our foolish faithful customers for all that postage stuff on top of our price. I can't believe there was a time when people didn't charge for shipping; it's so easy to rationalize - "We're in the manufacturing business not in the mailing business." Suckers. Too bad there wasn't someway we could charge them for sticking the damn thing into the box as well, but nobody is going to pay for that."

Then some evil grin was grinned, "Not unless you call it 'handling'".

It was a simple stroke of evil genius that everyone jumped on board with, business people and consumers alike.

The dude's grandkids would have bragged about him.

"Yeah, my grandfather invented a multibillion dollar facet of business just by labeling an everyday cost-of-doing-business task as something that could be assigned an arbitrary dollar value to. It like charging a fee to something that you picked up at a retail store just because it was available the day you walked in. "Yes sir, that coat is seventy eight dollars but it has been sitting on that coat hanger for three weeks, so there is an availability fee. It costs us a lot to make these items, that you want, available to you. The rent for this place doesn't pay itself you know. So, with the availability fee, the total is eighty six dollars.""

"Yeah, that's cool. I wish my grandfather invented the restocking fee on returns or something like that," the listener would say.

no hearts survived.


If I were smart I would just post things like "no hearts survived" and leave it at that.

I have a pot of gold and I use it to prop open the broken kitchen door.


metaphor

metaphorsight - most of Nostradamus' prophesies were metaphorsights


"It doesn't bode well for him," is what I thought and I know what all those words mean but I thought I'll have to look up the word 'bode.'

And I did

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bode

bided or bode - Who says bode for bided?

but then I read further and spied the word portend and I was like all "I need to use the word portend more."

What I like about the word portend is that everybody knows the meaning of it but nobody uses it so when you whip that sucker out, folks are all like "What a pompous ass" or "What a pretentious donkey" but they know exactly what you are saying.

Similar to the word pretentious. They are words which seemingly elevate the level of vocabulary used in a conversation but yet leave no one listening behind.

"And what do you portend to do about it?" Is a question that can really infuriate a drunk that just got in your face after you just indicated that he was not dissimilar to a pretentious donkey.

She called to ask me for a favor and then she asked me what was wrong. I really didn't have any answers for her other than that I was bored. I didn't elaborate that the boredom is with the whole of my life. She suggested a trip, I questioned "What's good leaving when you just return to all the same stuff."

She called me later to try to help me out. I said that normally I would have snapped out of it by now, and hoping and waiting was my plan of action.

It's actually something different than just hoping and waiting. Part of the plan is to do all those little things that I hate to do and have been putting off. I figure that I'm already lacking joy and that I might as well get things done that need to be done but I don't like doing.

She thinks I'm just getting old.

I watched the two groups saturating the normal tourist crowd: one group - high schoolers, the other ROTC. The high school students seemed to have an age of innocence. The ROTC seemed to have an air of confidence. Both groups were the same age.

I was pretty certain I could have fouled that air of confidence.

...


It's like working in the cube next to Rainman if he had turrets.

"Oh, boy."

"Sorry"

"God help us."

"Oh, damn it."

"Ahh, boy"

...

You tell everyone to look on the bright side yet you shout if from the dark side of the moon.

I listen to him because he drives me crazy. He's a deep bruise on my forearm that I just can't help poking.

He's a fine example of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It seems like he's trying to win friends by saying all that he knows, trouble is - what he says is untrue. He makes conclusions on half truths and soft facts.

His words are a rope and he has a habit of talking to noose makers.

He's that car wreck that you drive by slowly wishing not to see what you hope to see.


My quote of the day was:

Life is not holding a good hand; Life is playing a poor hand well.
- Danish proverb

I read that and thought "Mmmm, danish."


...

So, here's a story about how awesome I am. I try not to tell my stories of awesome for varied reasons, one being that most of them are truly unbelievable and would be deemed* works of fiction another reason is because it would soon get very old and repetitive unlike the tasty nuggets I usually leave.

I've heard that rabbit dropping come in two varieties: one that should be throw into the garden because rabbit turds are the best turds for the garden and the other kind is a kind that the rabbit can munch on later. I don't know if it's true, I only know that I've heard it somewhere. "Heard" could mean read, as well.

Anyway, back to my story of awesomeness.

I'm a bit gruff sometimes in the second office, it's kind of by design so folks don't bother me unless they really need to bother me. The query was made for a disk and the query went unanswered from the crowd then the query was made at me. I asked floppy or CD. I was told CD and then I showed off my cool tiny flash drive.

"I should get one of those." the query maker said, meaning a flash drive not particularly a tiny one. I agreed with her. I told her I had CD's in my office so she followed me upstairs.

Once upstairs, I closed the door and told her that these CD's were purchased by me, with my own money and that there would be a price to be paid. She asked about the price. I said it could only be paid in the absence of pants as I reached for my dictionary.

None of that paragraph above is true.

Once upstairs, I was deciding which type of writable CD to give her when I spied an unopened flash drive that I bought awhile ago but never used.

"Can your computer use a flash drive, now?"

"Yes, both the one downstairs and the one at home."

"Here, you can have this one but you won't be getting anything from me for Christmas if you take it," I said as I cut open the package and handed her the 512MB drive with the instructions.


*look up word deemed later and try not to be slightly disappointed with what's there.

my lover gets my diction up

So,

Sorry too many so's in a row.

Anyway, today crawled along. The only thing I had to do was to last until eleven thirty, that's it, just survive for three and a half hours. My boss was out and my supervisor was leaving the same time I was - bide my time, that's it for half a day, a short half.

So, you know I looked up he word bide and the indication was that the word is archaic. So then you know I looked up the word archaic.


I make love to the dictionary at least twice a week.


Sometimes I wonder: Where'd that come from? And other times I wonder: Is that a proper contraction?


I like the big unabridged versions, leather bound with that large sweeping curve of the spine with those decorative ridges and those thumb tab showing me right where what I desire hides. I love opening it wide and running my index finger down the column of bolded words lovingly showing the exact rhythm wished for. Sometimes, I'll stop and reverse the direction because I won't be done there, just yet. "Hey, can I look up a word?" I'll hear. I'll say "No, but I'll look it up for you." And I'll spread the hard bound covers apart to right where the choice word lies because I know those pages and they graciously submit to me. I'll read the word and then it's meaning followed by its use in a sentence. I will never look away as I say "Now go. Go! Please, just go."

So, the not all inclusive Christmas party is tomorrow at six thirty o'clock. I have scheduled to take half the day off.

The plan is to get lunch at eleven thirty o'clock, drink until dinner, drink at dinner, after dinner get a cappuccino at the best Italian bakery in the area, get more drinks if we can slip by the cover charge and fit back in to where I will have had lunch.

Which is rather similar to what happened last year, only this time if I run into Danielle during the cappuccino phase, I'm ditching my friends.

So, I thought "labels" or is it labels when your thinking in print?

Anyway,...

or "Labels"

So, anyway - labels, I thought 'so,' meaning I'll label all my posts that start off with so as so. So, I took a quick look and low and behold no so's.

hence this post

from the draft pile 07-05-05 3:44PM

she had a new hairdo

but i didn't say anything

until she complained a little about her day

"At least you have nice hair" I said

then she smiled and thanked me for noticing

- This is some of the stuff I save you from

My greatest claim to fame is that once I kicked Prince Charming in the nuts and it didn't go over too well with the ladies but to this day I contend he had it coming and I believe he dared me to do it.

Of course I heard that dare second hand from the troll that lives under the bridge.

I'm a vengeful bastard but my vengeance often gets tempered with pity so I just come off as being snide.

...

He is a poor communicator because he doesn't take time to know what the issue is.


...

His problem is he thinks everyone is an asshole but he thinks they will change. I know everyone is an asshole and I know they won't change.

...

So, we were talking at coffee about locations and describing those locations by the buildings at those locations and we were describing the buildings by what they used to be. One such building used to be a high school, so we started to talk about high schools. My supervisor and I went to the same high school. When he went there it was an all boys school and he started talking about what that was like and then he turned to me for a confirmation.

I told him that the high school was co-ed when I was there and that it had been for quite some time.

"Oh, I didn't know. '68 is when I graduated."

"I was two."


...

dumb clucks

...

I saw a two foot plastic penguin the other day and I started thinking:

Regina likes penguins



Radio likes ducks



xTx likes cocks

this ain't as cool as spitting dye at the back of your hand

January 18, 2007 will be my three year anniversary or maybe I've got the date wrong but sometime in the first month of the year oh-seven, I will have been posting for three years.

It looks very long in the archives list, which I should change back to just a monthly list.

Three years is a long blink of the eye. I thought I would have been done with blogs and blogging long by now. I never would have guessed that there would be this many posts authored by me.

Probably a fourth more posts never made it to the save button, they lived the life of static electricity. The cosmos would make no more distinction between those lost written words and some wool socked someone touching a doorknob.

These words will take just a moment longer to disappear. This form my survive but this medium will be lost. This medium has not the romance of a charcoal stick.

I was letting things get to me and it looked like I was going to let things get to me for quite some time so I removed myself from those things.

I went to a place I hadn't been to since my dad had died, twelve years prior. I was sitting on the dock watching the river roll by. "Like a River Glorious" was my father's favorite hymn, he liked the paradox of a river being perfect yet growing deeper and fuller.

I liked watching the river because of its quiet power, there were no rapids, no loud rushing water, just a silent force only truly noticed from within the river itself.

We used to fish here, mostly just sitting alone in our thoughts, together, even if one us was had crossed the bridge to the other side. His goal was always to catch fish. My goal was just always to fish. I've never really enjoyed eating fish, most likely because I was witness to the whole once-living-now-lunch process. I've never seen a cow butchered, nonetheless have done it myself. I'm quite certain I would be a vegetarian if I ever had to butcher my own meat.

He would use natural bait. I would use lures. We kept all the fish.

I had never seen him use a lure but I had some of his old ones. I only ever guessed at their ability to catch fish because I would never risk losing them. Dad wouldn't have cared if I lost a lure but I knew there would be few items that would be left behind him, so I treasured the lures. I never told him why I didn't use them.

My dad built his legacy on hearts and souls, both are rather fleeting mediums in the whole scheme of things.

I was sitting there trying to see fish, guessing where I would toss a lure if I had a pole when some old guy shouted from the bridge.

"The river runs on the hopes of raindrops."

I didn't know how to respond, mostly because I didn't know what he was getting at and partly because I thought it was an odd thing to yell at a stranger. He then joined me on the dock.

"You look familiar. What's your name?"

I told him my name with the same attitude as if playing a trump card. I was certain I didn't know him. He was quiet after I played my winning hand. But my victory was short lived because of something he said as he was walking away.

"You look a little like John but more like Cy."

When I first heard him speak my father's name, I reasoned that a lot of people have fathers that are named John. I was safe, my anonymity was intact but that was all blown away when he dropped that second name.

My grandfather's name was Lyman but his friends called him Cy. He died three years before I was born.

I chew chewing gum in work, mostly because I drink a lot of coffee and a lot of gin, and when I'm done chewing the chewing gum I'll wrap it in a small piece of paper and then throw it away.

I do this mostly because I'm drunk on gin and partly because the cleaning crew reuses the trash bags and if you throw gum away without wrapping it in something, chances are that the gum will stick to the trash bag. I don't like the looks or the thought of gum staying around in the trash bag.

I don't actually drink gin during work hours and I actually haven't had any gin since I've been drinking premium tequila.


So, walking back...

This is a brand new story.


So, walking back from lunch, I stopped in my regular coffee place and ordered my regular coffee. I only saw one girl working so I may have been slightly checking out her nicely shaped ass after she turned to pour the coffee when I heard someone say "Hello."

I looked up and passed the large coffee machine and noticed the regular girl who regularly takes my regular order for my regular coffee from my regular coffee place most regularly every day.

"I thought I recognized that voice."

I waved and smiled and maybe blushed a bit from embarrassment. She also has a nicely formed ass but I honestly just go there for the fine coffee.


...

So, for the volume label on my tiny flash drive I typed in "Tim Green" and I was like 'sweet' my name just fits and now every time I go looking for it, it's throwing me off. I see my name and I'm like "Hey, that's me" but I never associate it with being the tiny flash drive.

I really should give it a different name, and maybe toss a readme file on there just in case I loose it.


...

There have been times when I have had to inform people that I'm not magic, that the things I do require a certain amount of effort and usually a sizable amount of time.



....

I'm just one home away from being homeless.

Actually, that's not true. I'm sure I could get someone to put me up.

...

I frequently say "The truth is..." but the truth is when I say that you're not getting anymore truth than usual.

I like to think I'm pretty leveled headed. I also like to think that I have a lot of my default reactionary nature under control. I further thing that if I hadn't routinely witnessed people reacting poorly in certain situations, I would be just like them.

...

I don't know: guilt, maybe, but the odds are on pride.

I question fate's judgment.

I think fate is somewhat of a malleable thing. I think it's changeable but it's not exchangeable.

I think it's like a plot of land and a seed neither of which you get to choose.

...

I have no patience for folks that don't listen. If you can't listen, you can't learn.

If you want to see me crazy, just repeat what someone had just said to you quite incorrectly.

"No! That's not what he said" equals the start of crazy for me.

I have coffee with the guys nearly every morning. Most of us walk to the coffee shop together, although one of us routinely makes it there by himself. The place we purchase coffee is in a public building with little shops. Three of us were waiting third in line, we take turns buying, and the fourth member of our crew enters the building, sees the line, sees us and then proceeds to walk right through to the far side exit.

"What's up with him?" I was asked.

"He thinks this line is too long to wait in. He's not going to wait in line for coffee."

"You've got to be joking."

"No. I bet you that's his reason."

"Maybe he goes there to get his coffee a lot cheaper."

"Cheaper by what, a nickel?"

"Yeah, that's what I mean by a lot. That's a lot to him"


It turns out that he indeed didn't want to wait in line. He got a cup of coffee that wasn't as good and wasn't some funky flavor that he usually like to drink because he's a mental case.

I can understand not waiting in long lines but when the line isn't long and you're with friends whom you're talking with while you wait, you're a retard if you don't wait especially if you get an inferior product elsewhere.

Hello! There is a reason there is a line.

And that other place has no line because the coffee sucks.

How come words like rapscallion have lost favor in the modern world?



You probably could not care less about my tiny flash drive and I don't blame you. It's nothing that anybody with $35 can't obtain but this isn't really about the drive, it's about the stickers that they included with it.



I guess these stickers are to make it...

You know what? I haven't a clue what they were going for with these stickers. Maybe I could understand better if I were a Hello Kitty fan.


So, I really couldn't put off setting up the Christmas tree any longer. I was asked to do it five days prior and every time I got some time, something else got my time. Time was running out. I only set up the faux tree and set the lights; someone else decorates it.

She wasn't at home when I got there at about twelve on Saturday but her back door was unlocked so I let myself in, we're tight like that. I left my iPod else where and was kind of missing it and I was too lazy to turn on the sound system that was in the very same room. When the owner of the house came home she turned on the sound, and Lee Ann Womack started playing.

Lee Ann Womack is a bit hokey, I think. I wanted to question why I was being subjected to her music but the home's owner has caught me listening to that genre of music before, probably 40% of my CD's could fall into the Country category.

And I actually have the CD that was playing, so I just shut up and listened. After Lee Ann was Lee Ann, she was one repeat.

Shouting "My taste in music sucks! Turn this crap off," doesn't seem too bright.

After the repeat was removed Celine Dion came on; I left to get more lights.



How I imagine that meeting for the sticker went.

"Let's see. What can we do for stickers? Colored stripes, colored dots, a heart, a sun...'

"Oh, I know! Let's get funky and do a camouflage one. Oh, and a leopard print!"

"Good, good. We'll need some practical ones too, like icons of computers and folders and some with just solid colors, like yellow, green, pink and gray."

Now I know that gray actually matches well with purple, which so happens to be the color of my little flash drive but who's going to take the effort to remove the gray sticker from its backing and align in onto the flash drive?

You know what? All of those stickers suck. I shouldn't just pick on the gray one.


...I think I'll use the leopard print one.


I miss being able to use the word queer.



Using that leopard print sticker would be queer, and I don't mean gay.

I think I will make it my mission to bring back the word queer for queer's sake


This cushion has a queer odor.

That shellfish made my stomach feel queer.

He spends his day barking in the hallway. He's rather queer.



There is no such thing as self enforcing. Enforcement needs some force enforcing it, 'cause people are pricks.


So, my sister asked what I thought of Fergie.

"I like her singing especially when it's about her humps." I paused and the added "And her lovely lady lumps."

"Doesn't that make you feel like creepy saying things like that? Because it does me."

Then don't ask questions of which you may not like the answers.

But I do love saying things that make people uncomfortable.

She was hawking her wares on the home shopping network, this particular ware was a type of cleaner that would eliminate stains and odors, especially pet stains. It was the top of the hour so she was trying to hook her viewers into waiting for the change over.

"I've used this after parties and you won't believe the story I have to tell you about this."

"Unless it's some story about how that saved her rug after some partygoer peed on it, it won't be worth that buildup."

...

"Thrice did she sink adown." --Spenser.

company logo

It's a gimmick. I haven't quite worked it out yet.

If I start out with the gimmicky part first, I loose too much soul to finish.

In the book I have, that shows how to fold the orchard, it shows them in a tall glass vase. I figure have those glass vases at open houses.

Sometimes, folks are impressed with that stuff.

People like gimmicks.

when he plays the harmonica it sounds like his soul is passing gas

"The river runs on the hopes of the raindrops."

I overheard Emily mention cannolis so I asked her which she preferred and started naming the types. She told me the chocolate dipped with chocolate chips, regular ricotta type were "An orgasm in a box."

I noted that for future reference.

When bored I'll pop open Word and wait. I'll usually won't have to wait too long before the keys start to click. The backspace key gets the most action. Followed by the delete key.

Usually the difference between the backspace key and the delete key is the same difference between changing your mind and quitting.



If I had a chronicler I'm pretty sure I would read her work to make sure she was getting things right. I say 'she' because she would be some hot single chick who rides around on a winged fire breathing unicorn.

I would read over her shoulder, close enough to smell her hair, or look down her low cut blouse but I would never look because I would want her to think that I was something that I am not. I would fall in love with her.

She would only ever wear short pleated skirts that would follow the top half of the curve of her ass before they fell draped from her roundest extreme. Her hair would be longer than shoulder length so she could do that hair tossing thing that hot women do.

She would be within eleven years of my own age so I could defend against some of the 'you creep' statements. Most likely she would be brunette. (I think I just fell in love with the word brunetteness).

She would be smarter than me and regard me with a slight amount of pity. She would belong to some sort of chronicler's guild. I would be her writing project. She would constantly be telling me "Timmy, I'm just supposed to record. I'm not supposed to meddle." She would call me Timmy when talking to me but refer to me as Tim when talking about me because that's what all the hot chicks do.

She knew once she was done writing her project and went her way that it would break my heart. She would know I was trying to hide my brokenness and she would pretend I was successful at it. She would worry about the future me without the present her or at least someone like her.

She would know that when no one is looking, I tend to get lazy and worthless.

She would marvel at how tiny my flash drive was, because size does matters.

I thought it would be a simple thing after all we weren't very close; we only shared a casual thing maybe twice, most like the connection between a friend of a friend and oneself.

We never said too much to each other but I got used to her being around.

And then her schedule changed. The change was a benefit to her, I wished her well. I said "See ya around' even though I knew I wouldn't. I thought it would be easy because we never really talked; I hadn't noticed the comfort level I got when she was around. Even though I never needed her, she was there if I did, and it turns out that that is what I needed.

I could tell her that I miss her and she would inject herself into my life but I would be taking her away from others who do actually need her; I would be taking her away from herself.

So, I miss her quietly

but it's difficult

more difficult than I thought.

Sometimes, I want to talk to a human ear but often those human ears need explainations


To tell you the truth, its tinyness spooks me a bit, to such an extent that if I had gotten the 2GB one I would probably be home in bed right now.

five and a quarter inch floppy disk drive is all I'm saying.

overstated

too familiar

"Hey, Timmy. Come here." I walked over to where she was sitting and she motioned that I should get even closer. "Why did your sister get fired?"

"I don't know. I didn't know she was."

"Is it because of him?"

"I don't know but that's the reason I don't deal with her anymore. I work for the city, my younger sister is a school teacher, she worked for some social service, none of us can be associated with drug dealers or users. I told her so but she did her own thing."

"It's too bad but at least you don't have to worry about her."

"I worry a little because she's my sister but the choices she made where her own."

whata I know?

Walking to work today I had this desire to be great, great at something - to put an effort forth that few others would match but I reasoned that I didn't have time to be great, with all that required effort and all.

The few things that raced through my mind of which I wanted to do in a manner great all involved time I couldn't see the likes of me putting forth.


"What about being great at your job? Either or both."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"At least you would have the time."


I then wondered if people get as exasperated with me during a conversation as much as I exasperate myself.

Why can't that voice just go alone to get along? Why does he always have to be a prick? Why does he have to make points which I hate, but agree with?



To my surprise, writing was on the list. I wish to write greatly. I want to make people laugh out loud or quietly sob with just my mere words. I want them to mouth the word 'wow' afterwards. I want them to have to sit and think, rest up a bit before carrying on.

but...

you write what you know

so i think i'm developing an armpit fetish, a hairy man armpit fetish.

That second part isn't true, it just seemed too ridiculous not to type and I mean no offense to those who like hairy man pits. It's just that I don't like 'em, freak.

am I going to be some weirdo's search results for some weirdo search.

I'm going to google "hairy man armpit fetish" right now.

...

Dudes, I'm trying to listen to a video so shut the fuck up. Why don't you marry each other? We are in Massachusetts.

I need to now something about the new MBTA fees and monthly passes. This video is damn important.

Normally, in cases such as this, I would walk over and just buy a new thumb drive. I actually was in the store looking at a sweet little number that would only set me back seventeen bucks. The thing was tiny. TINY! I say or was that a shout. It was the smallest I've seen so far. It actually has the word tiny in its full and proper name 512MB Micro Vault Tiny USB Flash Drive - USM-512H it's from SONY.

But then that voice chimed in "What about your camera?" Man, I hate that voice. I did forget my thumb drive but I did have my camera and with my camera I carry a memory card reader which acts exactly like a thumb drive. Exactly! I say.

Man! during the research for this post, I've found out that those tiny little USB flash drives normally retail for $34 or so. Now I have to buy one. I'll be right back or since we're online BRB.


"Can I help you?"

"Yeah. You can," I said "I'd like one of those," I further said as I pointed directed at what I wanted.

"Okay," the guy said. A guy I really don't like because he's always asking if he can help me and I'm always, or nearly always, saying that I am just looking and because he can't operate my eyeballs and I have no hook-up to his eyeballs - he can't help. Anyway, the guy opens the case because I live in a land of thieves and the item I want is under lock and key, and he reaches for something I don't want.

"Actually, the one next to it is the one I want."

"This one's the same capacity at half the price."

"Yeah, but that one's tiny."



"Which will make it easier to loose."

I certain I went stone faced at that point in time because if I didn't control myself things were going to get verbally ugly.

"I want the tiny one."



"Okay, I was just trying to save you from just loosing it later."

The guy looks older than me (and I'm forty freaking years old), his job is to walk around his branch of this national chain office supply store and pester every person who happens to simply stop walking. And if you do want to purchase something that is locked away, he will escort the item to the front with you and place the item on the checkout counter with care that is similarly shown to the Queen's jewels.

If I cared about this guy's being even one minuscule little bit more, I would hate him but I don't care enough about him to muster up feelings of hate.

My reply to his latest and to date greatest bit of help was to offer no reply. I just followed the item which I wished to purchase to the front of the store, which is actually off to the side.



So, I guess in my zeal I misremembered certain things, like that the tiny flash drive was actually $34 or so and not the seventeen as mentioned above but I still bought one.



It's tiny

"If he keeps it up, I'm going to say it's harassment."

I rolled my eyes.

"I know you think I'm crazy."

"No. It's not that, I just don't think you have a leg to stand on. He has every right to wonder where you are when you're working and he can always say he's starting to crack down on it and he's starting with you and working his way down."

Your boss asking you where you were when you were over an hour late is not harassment.

...

"No. I can't guarantee that I won't fall in love with you."

...


He mumbled something.

"Excuse me"

"Ten"

"Ten?"

"Yes"

Ten bucks for a cover to that place was steep, or so I thought.

The solution he devised was to make the problem something out of his realm of responsibility. He made the problem someone else's, and when he presented the problem to that someone else, that someone else asked why he couldn't fix the problem by doing something else, and that something was in his realm of responsibility.

"How comes every time I ask him to do something, he puts it back on me? I'm trying to get rid of some work, not take more on."

I just shrugged my shoulders.

...

"You can take that left."

"I don't know if you can," he said, not as an argument, but as if he was answering a question

"I'm telling you, you can."


...


http://www.themoodswings.org/

I believe one the trumpeters was making eyes at me.

...

like magic things pop up

We all know the only reason you're walking around is because you are a spy.

Eve Angel is not a bad looking woman

Easy there big boy. and what's odd is that the preceeding sentence had nothing to do with Eve.



I was goofing around, thinking, and I hit the shift key five times in a row and a window popped up and told me that I had just said the magic word to get that window to pop up.

I was excited there for a moment.

it's a short story but it's a long one

"I'm going to stay and get some sun."

I did a quick look to the sky which I knew was overcast, as my right eyebrow went up and the other, slightly down.

"I mean fresh air."

I smiled with satisfaction because I just want him to say what he means.


...

He never dreamed but all his dreams came true.

All his dreams came true but he never dreamed.

Doesn't one seem sadder than the other?

...

Dreamella

Dreamette - a brief dream, a briefly lasting dream

Novella, Novelette - a brief novel or long short story

...a long short story - seems a lot like my life.

Five miles of dirt road in either direction, which is a lot for a city boy.

'87 four wheel drive Toyota pickup

hubs locked

push it 'til it breaks

push it when you should have braked.

mountain roads and drop offs

I dropped off

forward was down

backward was up

I refused to go forward

the truck refused to go backward

sideways was the hard reached compromise

live and learn - step one live

lesson learned?
slow down?
no. start blind curve even earlier.

Can you calm the f*ck down? How about that?

Bottom line is that I don't want to be crazy like you.

I tire of his sighing

I want to kick him in his nutsack and then say "Things weren't so bad just a moment before now, were they?"

I've been down that road before

Push it until it breaks and then if there is a next time push it until it breaks.

"What's up with all this broken sh%t?"
"Why don't you ever ask, what's up with all the cakes?"


"Everyone has a story to tell. A lot of people only have their own story to tell. I can make up stories." I smiled because I was just thinking that I was being told a story.

Everyone has a story to tell.
Some stories aren't worth the listening

You can tell me how you got that scar but all I'll believe is that you have a scar.

True, could be true, doubt it's true, not true - prove me wrong. I dare you.

pure heart or lusty soul?

The mean was justified in the end.

So I got to speak to her again and she started telling me more about herself and after about her third story, that voice said "She might be playing you."

"She might be playing me?!"

"Yeah, I'm not saying that she is. I'm just saying that she might be. So keep an ear out."

"So, you had me going all weekend that I mightn't have done the right thing and now you go and say that she might be playing me?"

"Yup"

"And you have no problem with that?"

"Nope."

"All weekend you had me thinking about it."

"Yeah. Listen with what we knew Friday night, you didn't do the right thing and that's the bottom line but now we know other things, so just watch out."

"I hate you."

"Whatever"

I never knew I used the word 'quite' so much

So, I hear that Sony digital cameras are sometimes having problems and I worry that my camera is one of the models identified. So, I go to the Sony website and look for cameras trying to find out the models numbers that are having problems but I can't find my model number anywhere.

Most likely because I have a Canon.

...

Why is my quote of the day something from Kevin Costner?

...

My fortune for today is:

You constantly struggle for self improvement.

First - that ain't a fortune*.

Second - I don't struggle for it I struggle with it.


*I wanted to type "that ain't no fortune," which is something I would have no trouble saying to someone in person but I just can't bring myself to type it.

...

She didn't call me old, she just merely stated that those other guys were young but to my surprise it bothered me.

...

(those three dots get counted as a word)

I sometimes wonder how far from normal I am even though I live my life like I'm normal is everyone else is off the mark.

"Spot on" is a phrase I like to use.

...

It's not so much that I can't stand the place it's that I have no reason to keep me at my desk.

Freedom beckons and I oblige

Have you ever read the definition for oblige?

It runs quite the gambit, or so I think - to bind morally or to be kindly accommodating.

Like the difference between a hammer to the head and a welcomed kiss.

...

It's not so much that I can't stand the place, it's just that I can't stand the place.

...

I sit by the conference room so I get a lot of people milling about and sometimes they will start to talk to each other and sometimes they will stand in my way and sometimes I may get a little rude.

...

The place was busy, too busy for anything of an average day. We started to guess at the event.

"Maybe they're swearing in new citizens."

"No, the crowd is too bourgeois."



new lawyers taking the oath

...

"Maybe you hit the speech recognition button by mistake."

"No. I don't think I did."

Well, I think you did especially because it wants you to set up the speech recognition feature.

I don't look because I'm pretty certain of what I'll see

She was new, or at least she was new to me. She was sitting in the have-a-nice-day guy's place; she may have even been using his milk crates for a seat.

I chose not to really hear what she had to say as I walked by but what I did hear was as statement about the Godiva Chocolatier bag I had. But then how could she not have noticed it? The thing was shiny gold and must look huge as it swings at arms length nearly scraping along the traversed sidewalk beneath it. But I had chewing gum to buy so I ignored her, or at least did my best to look like I had.

In Seven Eleven I was standing behind a homeless looking man counting out change for his Lays Sour Cream & Onion potato chips. Behind him was some other asshole like me wishing he was just hurry up. I peeled two one dollar bills from the roll I had in preparation for my turn at the register and when I looked up, the homeless guy was still determined to find enough change.

It was probably a lack of patience and not a burst of compassion that caused me to start to debate on whether or not to pay for his purchase. The sticking point was that I wasn't next in line, it would be ridiculous to pay for the chips and not pay for my gum at the same time but if I did that, then I would be effectively cutting the line and the guy in front of me didn't look like the charitable type.

My debating ended when the guy finally gave up hope on having enough pocket change and pulled out some bills. I caught glimpse of a ten, two fives and several ones. "He doesn't need my charity today" is what crossed my mind followed by "What about her?"

The cash I had in my pocket was pretty much spoken for, I had an open ended commitment to have a drink or two with a former bartender of mine on her birthday at her new place of employment. I didn't know how much my endeavor was going to set me back. But what I did have was premium chocolates. After I picked out what I wanted at Godiva's the total came up five dollars short of me getting a free box of chocolates. The cashier was kind enough to tell me what purchases were available for that amount. I settled on two of the discounted chocolate turkeys.

From the convenience store I walked back across the street and handed her one chocolate turkey.

"I've got no money to give but I do have this? It's from Godiva."

"Hey, that's good. I used to go to Godiva before I was in this situation."

And before I could get away she told me part of her story. She told me she had done two tours in Iraq and when she returned her job wasn't waiting for her. She said she would have gone back to Iraq but that she knew she would be labeled expendable because she doesn't have kids, a spouse or any other family.

She must have noticed my step backwards because she thanked me and mentioned again that she does like chocolate.

"Yeah, before this situation, I used to come Downtown a lot. I would go to Borders and Starbucks and whenever I could get the chance I would pick up something in Godiva's. I'm addicted to books and coffee, unlike some of the others."

I was looking around mainly so I wouldn't have to look her in the eye. I would look to the left in such a way as to cause my body to shift a bit and I would move my left foot back a bit. I would do the same as I looked to the right pretending to watch out for any pedestrian wishing to use the sidewalk. I had an hour and a half to kill before I could deliver my chocolates but I really didn't want to spend any more time on this particular street corner.

"I should be all right though, after this situation, because I have a lawsuit against my employer. I should end up getting more money than if I had worked but things take time."

"Well good luck," I said as I finished my escape.

I walked six blocks to South Station and ordered a number eight from the McDonald's value menu and then sat and watched the hodge podge of people catching trains or trying to get on the bus. When I got bored with that I pulled out a small notebook and started to hand write a blog post.

I had a hundred words or so before my conscience kicked in.

"You could have done more."

"You didn't even give her both turkeys, or that free box you got. You're out nothing."

"And don't you write for a blog whose very existence came to be for people like her, soldiers who have been let down? Or at least didn't you?"

Then I changed the post I was working on to this one. I wasted time until quarter of ten and then started walking to the club. At the front desk, I asked where my former bartender was working and I was told she was on the third floor. I cut through the floor of pool tables at the top of the winding staircase and read the note on the back door, there was a private party for some high school reunion of some suburban town. I didn't bother to work out the age difference between myself and the party goers that I would soon see, I knew I would have at least ten years on them.

I stood mostly out of place at the end of the bar, my former bartender had her back to me. As she turned around, she greeted me with a great smile and introduced me as her favorite customer from her former place of employment. I placed the bag on the bar and wished her a happy birthday.

Our conversation was brief, I was out of place at that particular club, at that particular reunion and in her particular life. I refuse the shot she offered; she promised me an email as I said goodbye.

On my way out, I thanked the girl at the front, who had told me where Danielle was working and as I stepped out into the mild, late Fall air, I heard "She's eight blocks, that way, if she's still there."

Eight blocks in real shoes; I had been walking a lot that day and I almost never wear real shoes, but the club I had just left doesn't let you in if you're not wearing real shoes. Sometimes, I make sacrifices.

"Eight more blocks in real shoes is not a lot, and you didn't spend a dime in there. Everything in your pocket is expendable."

I grinned at that nagging voice's choice of words. He's good. I hate him.

During the walk back, I wondered if I could post her story, maybe even get a picture. I worked on an opening line: "Hey, I sort of write for blog that came to be because of soldiers like you. If you wanted, I could post your story."

As I got closer I relocated a twenty to the left pocket of my four hundred and fifty dollar leather coat, a coat I received as a gift. I still worried about how to approach her. I've been careful all this time not to get too close, all my other help has been through a third person, I've avoided saddened eyes, broken bodies, damaged minds and injured souls. I've done quite well in not getting any on me.

I was half a block away when I could see someone still on the corner. I remember thinking that she hadn't seemed so tall while she was sitting, but it wasn't her, it was some other guy that I've never seen before.

I didn't get his story either.

So, I'm trying to listen to what my bosses are saying but I have some jackass droning on about some foolishness and he's drowning out all the good parts.

"Listen, you jackass. It's the day after Thanksgiving and you're a waste of payroll anyway, nothing you can be saying is important to anybody so just hang up the freaking phone."

...

It doesn't seem like a heavy drinking day but I never really know until I start to drink. Sometimes, I can drink all night long.
Sometimes, I can eat all night long.
Sometimes, I can eat and drink all night long.
Sometimes, I can't do any of those.

...

For every victor there is a loser. Sometimes, I wish not to make losers.

...

I wish

I wish

...

I am judged differently than others.

It's that good guy image I portray.

...

I was surprised to see either of them there and quite surprised to see both of them there together.

One said "Hi, Timmy" and the other gave me the finger. And then for good measure all the bartenders, former and present as well as the wait staff, all said "Hi, Timmy."

I didn't expect to see one of my buddies there but seeing him was no surpris; I started to talk to him.

"Hey! You get to see him everyday," Lauren yelled at me.

"Well, I thought with the whole disappearing from MySpace thing and dumping all your friends, I figured you were done with me."

"Hello! I was being stalked. I'll send you a new invite."

And then she started to talk to her real friends again. She was interrupted when someone told her she was about to be ticketed. She ran out and moved her car.

While she was away Emily sat in the empty seat next to me and turned to face me. She was wearing a sand colored top and white sweat pants; you could still see all her curves.

"I'm sorry for wearing my pajamas."

"I kind of like it."

"Without all my boobs hanging out?"

"Your boobs hang out? I hadn't noticed."

About five minutes later Lauren returned to the same illegal parking spot she had just moved from. She rushed in told Em that they had to go and left out the back door.

Emily waved and said "Bye, guys," as she left.

The phone at the bar rang about seven minutes after that, Jen answered said "Okay" and then hung up the phone. After she was done pouring beers she said "Lauren says 'Bye'"

"Dave, I guess we were wrong about Lauren after all those years with her bitchy attitude and flipping us off, she's really a nice person."

She actually is a nice person and I think she doesn't like people knowing it.

I feel like sometimes I'm gypping my readers but then I think if they come by more than once than it's there own fault.

Hey, it's something to read. I'm like to blogs what rice cakes are to the snack world.

...

"Is the paper--"

"No!"

He was going to ask if the paper for the plotter was the same as for the large scale copier. He has asked me that question at least four times before.


...

Little set backs seem to throw 98% of people off track. Little set backs are work throughable. Little set backs are fixable. Little set back just cause minor delays. Little set back are those two mosquitoes at your cookout. You don't cancel your cookout because of just two mosquitoes.

...

Sometimes, my decisions are based on me not wanted to be labeled like everyone else gets labeled. I am that anomaly.

150

Maybe I'll do all my thought breaks with the running word count.

163

Maybe not

166

"When's that last time you have been satisfied with anything?"

I was asked that Thanksgiving Day. I'm still thinking about the answer.

...

Opps, I mean

193

I'm the spaz that always has all the necessary office supplies at his desk. Red pencils are probably the most common item to be stolen borrowed, followed by rubber bands, tape, stapler, engineering scale and then black sharpie.

"I come here because you always have what I need."

I always have what you need because I'm careful to make certain I always have what I need.

...

If you ask me where I live, my default answer will be the neighborhood I grew up in but before I will erroneously say its name I correct it to where I live now.

hence the delay

297 (301 after the edit)

So I guess that's one problem with the word count thought breaks other than the main problem of it being lame.

I say I don't but I do and not enough - editing.

...

I often prove I'm merely mortal.

...

I'll often bend at the knees while I'm picking stuff up so people don't get a peek up my short skirts.

...

Where the heck did that come from?

...

Sometimes,...


I mean

So, at times I'm like: "is this thing still on?" because sometimes I've got nothing to say. Well, I always have nothing to say but usually I can type out that nothing into a few dozen to quite a few hundreds of words. Other times...

I just wanted to start a new paragraph and I actually started typing on this very line I only got to the 'o' in other but then I told myself "that's no place for a new paragraph" and I agreed with myself so I hit the backspace key three times and started typing the word 'other' and even typed the word 'times' when I then told myself "Screw that. This is my blog and proper formatting be damned."

Okay, maybe it was a little less elegant and a lot more profane than that but I try to keep this a family show so that's the version that will go to print. (yes, sometimes certain four letter words will make it by the censors but it's usually only after 9PM.

Anyways.

Other times, I can't come up with anything to type. I'll open up Word and watch that little impatient flashing cursor tapping out, in some sort of shorthand morse code, "I'm waiting."

I like the word count feature, before this sentence I had 192 words according to Microsoft. I wonder how accurate that thing is?

...Contractions count as one word.

(I only counted the first forty-eight 'words'.)

245

I wonder why I give a shit crap about how many words there are. I don't have any word goals, I have no quotas. I'm pretty sure there is a post in the archives some where that is just one word.

Sometimes, I worry about myself when I'll just type html code right into some post I'm typing. Because what kind of dork does that?

Unless, you're typing code out regularly then it's not dorky.

321

h e l l o = five words. It must count blank spaces that have at least one alphanumeric character to at least one side.

So, I showed him what my request was and then I showed him pictures of what happened in the field.

"I was told there was a conflict."

He picked up a photo and pointed to the conflict, "Yeah, right here."

"Yeah, no shit, but show me where I requested that."

Why would I be pointing out a mistake I made unless I prefaced it by saying "look at how retarded I am"?

...

"In Roman numerals what does a zero mean?"

"There is no zero in Roman numerals," I said as I got up to see what the hell he was talking about.

The cover page on the advance copy of the plan had "Capital Improvement Plan No. 0 X-XX" written on it.

...

Would it make a popping noise if you ever do pull your head out of your ass?

So, hopefully all that complaining is over.

...

"Hey, if you go for take out, I'll pay for yours."

"Yeah, what's in it for me?"

"Um, I'll pay for yours."

...

Sometimes, I check my blog to find out when things happened.

I find it just very ironic that he sings in the office and makes fun of the guy that sings in the market.

...

She threw lime wedge at me the last time I was there and then threw one at my friend or so she claimed after that one hit me too.

She said the fruit throwing was because I haven't been coming by. So, I dropped by for a ginger ale and something off the specials menu. I still wasn't quite right after staying up of thirty six hours and I just wanted to sit and eat.

We were carrying on two conversations: one when the bartender/manger was around and a different one when he wasn't. When the manager went to check on something in the kitchen, she asked about Danielle. I told her that I've only emailed her and she asked about what I said. I told her that I planned to go to her new place this up coming Friday because it's her birthday.

She then gave me her number and asked that I give her call if I do go to see Danielle but then she asked for my phone and she added herself to my contacts.

I caught her gaze which she held as she told me that she likes scratching lottery tickets too. For some reason I keep forgetting that she has light blue eyes.

he ain't the only one that hopes

They all think it's a simple thing to send a print job to the printer to do its job but it ain't that easy.

"It's still printing, huh?" She asked as she came in at five in the morning.

"Yeah."

"And you were here all night."

"Yeah."

"Without any music or anything?"

"Well, I did have my iPod going for a little but you have to listen to make sure the printer doesn't jam. You could loose an hour worth of printing if you don't."

This is why I get cranky when everyone waits until the last minute to do things, there comes a point when it's just me that has to be around, staying up the whole night.


....

"Someday you will be rewarded."

"When? When I get to Heaven?"

"Um, really? I hope you make it."

So, I wondering why my left triceps is bothering me, then it dawned on me that I was stapling while sitting down.

"You should put your name on these or something."

"If I put my name on them, then people would call me."

...

It's all about f.u. money but you see, I have no money which includes but is not limited to f.u. money. So, I do a lot of things pro bono; a lot of in kind donations. I do it for free because then people can not complain that they aren't getting their money's worth.

We ended up using the vellum for the cover. I wanted to use the inside back cover for something, just because I think it's neat, someone suggested a poem. I thought a poem would be cool, kind of like a little whispered treasure to be found on the inside back cover but I was dealing with folks who like shouting over whispering so we placed it on the back cover bold as brass for even the dimwits to read.

I was told I could put in on the inside if I really wanted to but I didn't think they deserved my brilliant design schemes. I'll probably do it in the version I will save for my portfolio.

this really is a thousand word waste of time

So, those invites, the ones I did about two weeks ago, were for an event that happened yesterday (which was Monday). For those of you not in the know, two weeks lead time on an invite is not ideal; I believe three weeks is the minimum and six weeks the max. The non ideal lead time wasn't a problem I could fix because I was only given the finial information that day.

Anyway, that was two weeks ago, which left two weeks to get the program set and printed.

So, ten days go by, I knew I would be doing the programs but that's all I knew until I was told that they wanted an eight page program. For those of you not in the know, most run of the mill programs are simply one sheet of letter size paper folded in half which produces four pages and usually the back page is blank, so eight pages wasn't a good start; eight pages means staples. We scheduled the Thursday before the Monday event to get the program set.

When we met Thursday, things looked promising, there were a couple people around and there were a few items already typed up. When I'm laying out anything to be published, what I like do is to get everything on the page and then make decisions of design, such as font style and size and placement on the page. I got three rough pages done and when I looked for more, I was told there wasn't anymore. We all left early with the plan to show up the next day.

I've been doing these things for quite some time know; I've learned how things shake out so after my day job instead of showing up to work on the program I went out for a beer. I think I was drinking a Margarita when my cell phone rang. I was told that 'we' were still waiting for information and that 'we' wouldn't have it all until Sunday. I was asked when I could show up for that day; I said noon.

I should up at midday on the day before the event as planned. I was the only one there. I reworked some of what I had, when I got more items by fax; people were avoiding me. I placed the items.

At four o'clock people showed up. Earlier, I was told someone other than me would pick up the paper for the job; no one had. When I mentioned that stores close early and we had to start to worry about getting stock, I was asked to get it. I inquired how many programs would be printed so I would know how much to buy. I was told two hundred.

The first office supply place I went to, didn't have enough of the paper I liked; I still had plenty of time before the six o'clock closing time so I went to the next one closest. While I was looking at paper stock I got an ideal for a design change. Before I left I was told that we should do the best we can with the program because the event had taken on a greater significance.

The design change involve the use of vellum. I didn't know where the vellum would end up in the booklet but I would figure that out once we had all the information placed roughly on its page.

When I got back with the stock, I was informed that the booklet might need to be twelve pages. For those of you not in the know a fifty percent increase in page numbers isn't something you wish to hear after the material are purchased and the stores are about to close.

Fortunately, this wasn't my first go-round, I've been there before. I had enough stock. The day was spent with information trickling in which would then be typed, cut and pasted into the working layout, printed out as a drafted and then proofread. We were doing this until half past midnight.

"After this we're done," I was told after the last of the information was gathered.

"No, it isn't. We still have to worry about page placement and design."

I think everything all the paged were placed, proofed and formatted by one o'clock in the morning for the nine o'clock event. I started printing the now three hundred copies when I was asked how long it would take. I timed the copier at three copies per two minutes, someone told me that they figured the printing would be done by five.

It takes nine hundred sheets of paper to print three hundred copies of a document that is comprised of three sheets. The copier only holds five hundred sheets. It was decided that folks would go home and return at five. It didn't need to be said that I would be the one monitoring the printing until five.

Two people showed up at five, I had already stapled and folded one hundred and fifty programs and had enough parts to assemble one hundred more. We finished at quarter to six.

I left to try to get some sleep, I figured an hour and a half might have been possible. When I got to my bedroom my six o'clock alarm was still going off. I was lying in bed debating on whether or not to set the alarm for eight o'clock when I my cell phone rang. Someone was asking where I was. I said that I was at home and that the programs were finished. I hung up, decided not to set the alarm and risk falling hopelessly asleep and miss the event.

At seven my cell phone rang. I was asked if I could bring my camera to take some pictures because it was worried that the person given that job wouldn't show up.

I showed up to the event at quarter of eight. It seemed slightly strange when I was handed one a program by one of the ten year olds holding them in baskets. I staked out a place behind where the news camera were being setup. I figured the pros would know something about getting good shots.

The field of view behind the video camera was good but my little camera could zoom in enough for the shots I wanted so I snuck into a vacant seat up front. I sat next to one of the Board members who had just a few hours prior was helping with the programs. She leaned over and mentioned that she thought it was slightly humorous that she herself didn't get a program. I reached into the pocket of my black leather coat and handed her my program.

I took a couple decent shots and a few less than decent.

I skipped out on the reception.

Sometimes bigger hurts

I don't sit on the floor much because it's only potential trouble, but sometimes I'll be waiting of something or someone and start using the computer at the desk of which I'm sitting.

I was in such this predicament yesterday so I fired up Explorer and started reading the online local paper and the thing was freaking huge. Somehow it hurt my eyes it was so big so I went to the setting for the monitor and changed it to something less cartoonishly large.

That happened twice, if I had to wait longer I would have checked all seven computers.

She kept asking me if I was mad which kind of made me mad.

Oh, and I sometimes drink root beer

As you know, you don't get a lot of personal stuff about me here and sometimes I feel quilty about that so, in order to try to make it up to my faithful readers, I will tell you something that I don't think anybody in my flesh and blood life knows.

That secret thing is: I own two long reach staplers and prior to today they have never been in the same place at the same time.



The Swingline staples better but the Stanley has a much better guide.

my nerves have a high iron content

We were scratching lottery tickets, just like we were last Friday. Last Friday we hit for $65 and I suggested we get 65 quick picks for the Mega Millions game, which was over one hundred million dollars. Of those sixty five numbers, two won money for a grand total of $9, so I donated another dollar and bought $5 scratch tickets.

We didn't hit but she wanted to play some more so she took a twenty from her tip jar and asked me to get more. We started winning enough money which we used to get more scratch tickets.

"So what would you do if you scratched for 5 million?" Jen asked.

"I would probably quietly put it in my pocket and walk out then call you on the phone and tell you we just hit for five million."

She thought for a moment. "Yeah, you're a pretty calm guy."

"Yeah, you wouldn't want to let everyone know you just hit because then someone might follow you," my most reactionary friend added.

Damn straight, whereas you would be jumping up and down showing every body and then when you leave end up penniless and dead in a ditch as someone runs off with your scratch ticket.

When what's let of the money, after the grubby hands of the government get through with it, ends up in my bank, then I'll celebrate.

We scratched tickets my whole lunch hour and we were still winning so I went back after work and then proceeded to finally and completely loose. I think we both ended up spending thirty bucks. It was fun while it lasted.