RIP Livejournal... like an old man's hip, you've just been replaced.
From now on all you savvy stalkers can find updates and info on my personal site... LittleWyvern.com
The site isn't finished or anything, but it's at a point where it works. I'll see you over there. |
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Apr. 19th, 2005 @ 12:12 pm
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A quick shoutout to the new pope and his less than great choice of pope names. There is something to be said for tradition, and it's nice to have a connection to the past, but I think after 15 generations it's time to choose a new name. Pope Benedict XVI. When you stretch a geneology too far, you're tempting fate. It isn't scientific, by any means, but take a look at history and draw your own conclusions. France was fine with King Louix I through Louix XV... but then the next guy went and named himself Louix XVI and the people cut off his head. So there's that.
Continuing the religious theme of the day, I came across a fun website for what seems to be a very fun group of people, The Parents Television Council. I'm at work and haven't had much time to dig through the site, but even a cursory browsing of the site produced several gems. I looked up a show rating, choosing Alias on a whim. The show recieved a 'red light' rating, which I assume to mean 'watch this show and you will burn in hell'. Among the reasons it received the rating: Foul language this season has included "bitch," and "son of a bitch." Along the right column is a section titled Best & Worst TV, which roughly translates to Read This Section First. The best show on television is quite definitively Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Meanwhile, Medium, a show about a crime-fighting psychic, will deliver us all unto fiery damnation. Articles highlighted in the same column include Sickos Celebrate 'Sin City' and Moses Vs. 'Desperate Housewives'. Check out the website, bring popcorn. |
What's up everybody. For the record, although it's been a week since my last post, I've thought about you every day since last we met. And boy what a week!! You wouldn't believe so much excitement could be found in one person's life; not even if I wrote it all down in some kind of electronic internet journal. And since I don't like being called a liar (accurately or not), I don't think I'm going to bother trying to convince you. Instead, just close your eyes and imagine an empty room filled with white light.
In the center of the room is an orange shoebox.
Inside the box is a whole lot of excitment.
That's, like, a metaphor.
I spent the weekend in Libertyville with my family. My pops had arthroscopic surgery on his shoulder friday morning so he is pretty much out of comission for the next few weeks. And while human suffering is pretty funny on its own, even funnier than that was watching him try to live a normal life like us non-invalids do. I wish I had my camera with me. I came downstairs saturday night to find my dad at his computer, his mouspad balanced on his thigh, with his sling riddled arm grasping the mouse and trying to control it with the tremendously minimal movement that his bandages would allow. We played a game of Euchre, me and my dad vs my mom and sister. The game went as expected, with my dad and I each going alone once and quickly winning the game 11-1. My dad was in a fair amount of pain, but it was still funny to watch a one-armed man try to shuffle a deck of cards.
Because my dad was helpless and needy, despite his efforts to prove otherwise, I spent the weekend helping out around the house. My brother was super busy playing video games all day so my help was appreciated. I cooked an amazingly delicious spaghetti dinner that even my brother couldn't find cause to disparage. "Yeah... this... is really good." Heather wanted to help, so she filled a pot with water and then watched it boil. She stood on her little stool, looking down into the pot, and stared at the water. "I'll let you know when it's ready." I couldn't help but laugh.
That afternoon, after I finished mowing the lawn, Heather wanted to go on a bike ride. You know it, a bike ride. She has training wheels and I dont have a bike so I walked around the neighborhood while she peddled along. The ride wouldn't have taken so long if we hadn't stopped every time we passed a dandylion. At first it was fun, picking weeds and finding new places to stick them as decoration on her bike. After a half mile I just wanted to go home. The bike ride served to remind me of something I hadn't thought about in a long time. Heather's little bike has brake handles that she uses to stop. I explained to her that she can also brake by turning her pedals backwards, like you would on a dirtbike. Dirtbikes are a pretty key element to growing up and I don't think they get enough respect. In addition to getting kids from place to place and turning ordinary curbs into 'some pretty sweet jumps' dirtbikes are most useful for making long black streaks in the middles of sidewalks, driveways, tennis courts, blacktops, and nearly every other surface. You should all know what I'm talking about. If you don't, you motherfucking should. There was a delicate art to making dark, long streaks; an art that any normal boy in search of acceptance and adulation would secretly practice on his driveway alone. A lot of parents get pissed when they come home from work to see their driveway all fucked up with black marks. When I have kids, that kind of thing will deserve an ice cream.
I woke up sunday morning to a flurry of chaos. Bridgette was having problems breathing and needed to get the hospital. My brother was all worn out from a long night of Warcraft so once again I was called upon to hold down the house. Bridgette was diagnosed with pneumonia and spent a few hours in the hospital until she was stable enough to be moved. Our hospital doesnt have a pediatric intensive care unit so they insisted she be moved to Milwaukee Children's Hospital until further notice. Although her breathing had become more regular, if something were to go wrong she should be in a place equipped to save her life. No arguing with that. An ambulance transferred my sister and Bridge to Wisconsin so my mom needed someone to drive up with her to leave my sister a car. No big deal. You do what you gotta do. The whole trip was supposed to take 3 hours, it ended up taking 6, but that's just the way it goes. There are certain times when, no matter how annoying or inconvenient the situation, you smile and don't complain. My belief in this principle was put to new tests as my mom insisted on driving 65 for much of the 80 mile trip.
I don't think that I am alone in this, but I don't like being in hospitals. They showcase people in their weakest and most vulnerable states, making you feel guilty for being healthy and sorry for those who aren't. I visited my grandpa in hospital a few years ago, and that was hard enough. But there is something smoothly logical to old people and hospitals, they subconciously pair without difficulty. You expect old people to be in hospitals. You expect hospitals to be full of old people. And so while it's difficult to see your grandfather laying on a gurney with IVs in his arms, it doesn't feel altogether unnatural. I visited my mom when she had her hip replaced, and that was similarly uncomfortable. Though, again, the distress of seeing someone you care about connected to tubes and machines is counterbalanced by the knowledge that the person is relatively young and resilient and the problems relatively minor. Yesterday was the worst I have seen thus far. Two year olds shouldn't be in hospitals. They shouldn't have oxygen tubes taped over their noses, IVs in their arms, or PulsOx meters connected to their toes. Bridgette is a gamer though, and took it like a thug. She was happy to see me, too, so it made the trip and all its inconvenience worth it. The children's hospital is really nice, and she was given a private room with seemingly really cool doctors and nurses. Still, I wish she didn't have to go through any of it. If all goes well she will be discharged sometime today, although it's possible that she will stay in the hospital for another few days. The doctors disagree about what's wrong with her, which is one way of saying that they don't really know. Despite the uncertainty, my faith in modern medicine and technology continues unabated. I'm sure that she will be alright, I only hope it happens sometime soon. |
I wrote two fairly serious short stories so I wanted to try something different. Yes, I know that this is stupid.
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They had nothing to say to each other. It had been almost two years since they had last seen one another, more than six years since they had spoken. Words wouldn’t have been appropriate, anyway. To speak would be weakness, to admit defeat even before the battle was joined. In the world of professional mime competition, language was the ultimate taboo.
For everyone who followed the circuit, the night’s face-off was an event to be remembered. Pablo “White Silence” Sanchez was making his triumphant return to the invisible box after his devastating and controversial loss in the championships two years earlier. His opponent in that match was none other than the man he now faced, Barry “Words are for Pussies” Olimar. Although this was to be a championship rematch long in the making, the history between the pantomiming pair extended much further than that.
Pablo and Barry first met in high school where they became fast friends. Being the only two students to ever publicly ‘come out of the box’ in the school’s history, Pablo and Barry found in each other the only friend they would ever know. While each was a prodigy in his own right, together the two boys took pantomime to a level never before imagined. By adapting traditional techniques to their own unique style the duo soon came to be credited with the invention of the now wildly popular Doubles Mime. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a doubles routine that didn’t incorporate some version of their original “Tug-of-War” or “Teeter-Totter” acts.
But with success came rivalry. Barry began to feel undervalued and became viciously protective of his new routines, demanding sole credit for their creation. Pablo, for his part, grew increasingly envious of his partner’s streetwise nickname. The tension came to a head soon after when, in a fit of jealous rage, Barry smashed an invisible chair on Pablo’s back. Pablo responded by filling a bucket with water and tossing it in Barry’s face. Soaked to the bone with make-believe water, Barry stood shivering in the otherwise warm and dry apartment. The two friends glared menacingly. The fight was no longer physical; any further projectiles having been rendered harmless by the force fields erected by each warrior. With a final hand gesture, one clearly understood by mimes and non-mimes alike, Pablo mounted his invisible horse and rode out of the apartment. Barry waited a moment then made a move to the door just in time to see Pablo galloping away. |
InsuranceStudy rolled out a new website design today. At first I thought, "meh... not a big fan." Now I am convinced that whoever designed it was (drunk/colorblind/actual blind) and had only a passing familiarity with the Internet. I don't really know where to begin. You can't even see most of it without logging in, but having two different shades of peach on the home page should give you an idea. The company's primary color has always been yellow, so with that in mind it was a good call to put everything against a peach backdrop where everything washes out into one big puke stain on my computer screen. I checked the source code of the page and would have taken even money that there was an autogenerated FrontPage tag in there. I don't get it.
In other, slightly less depressing news, my dad called me late last night to tell me that he found some paperwork from when I was working at EBX that I was supposed to figure into my taxes. I didn't actually work at EBX a single day in 2004, but my paycheck from 2003 rolled into the first week of 2004, or something. I owe even more money to the government. Somehow I owe another 50 dollars. Almost nothing compared to the thousands of dollars I paid last week, but still... Why can't they just leave me the hell alone? I saw Sin City on Saturday and during the pre-previews session of streaming advertisements they had a 'Did you know?' segment that claimed 35% of all American wage earners pay no federal taxes. How is that possible? Are they mostly just scrubs skipping out on their responsiblity or are that many people actually not required to pay taxes?
... I almost forgot...
My computer locked up mid-defrag friday afternoon, forcing a hard reboot. When my computer came back online the file system on one of my harddrives had been fucked over harder than D'Agostino at the 2004 USPC. Computer and poker references aside, I lost more than 18 gigs of music. Super goddamn awesome. You can only know my pain if you too have spent more than ten hours sorting and tagging mp3s, ensuring that every single one of your 4000 songs has complete track/artist/album information and has the proper filename. Something has been taken from me... I feel incomplete. If anyone knows a way to pull music from an ipod please tell me. My music is intact within the ipod, but unreachable. Help me get it out. |
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