October 1999

Entry... 10/7/99 8:52am

Well, let's forget about Fall and move right on to Winter, shall we? Hmmm. It's supposed to freeze tonight. It's October 7th, and my housemates have turned on me and fired up the furnace. I really didn't fight them too hard about it. Fired up the fireplace a few times already, too.

Hollywood Video and I got together this past weekend, and I came out of it relatively unscathed. In my possession, Armageddon and Celebrity. Celebrity was done completely in black and white. For a movie that was an hour and 50 minutes in length, ran about an hour and a half too long. Kenneth Branaugh, usually a fine actor, did a rather hideous Woody Allen impersonation that left me wanting, well, something else entirely. Even DiCaprio couldn't save this picture. Hah! I crack myself up sometimes. Armageddon was simply too far out there to believe any of the action sequences as they just asked for too much suspension of disbelief from us. Of course the big turn off, as my brother put it, was knowing that "Dad" (Bruce Willis) and "Daughter" (Liv Tyler) hooked up during the filming of this movie (leading to a temporary seperation for Bruce and Demi) just cast a pall of weird over this one. Not even Steve Buscemi could save it. But the part when they blew Paris to hell was great. I gotta give them that.

Object Permanance Department.
Hurricane Floyd blew though the States not too long ago and pretty much leveled the Eastern seaboard. Structures and roads that we built out of concrete and steel, wood and stone were devasted in an orgy of wind. It got me thinking as to what do we know in our lives to be permanent and stable? Life is so precious that it takes almost nothing to end one. The institutions we create around us attempt (sometimes vainly) to create some illusion of permanancy. We created careers, retirement, families, marriages, legacies, and trust funds. We have mega corporations today just leaning over and buying up other mega corporations. Remember the days when you knew the name of a structure? It had some historical significance during its time here on the planet, remember? Now it's owned by Pepsi. Or Coke. or MCI. You won't ever be able to hear a pin drop with Sprint anymore. They have been sucked up into a 115 billion dollar maw. Never to be seen again. An aside, that I find somehow ironic and funny at the same time: Remember how when you would be going out with someone and you and your friends would go out for lunch and have drinks. And you would all giggle and laugh and compare everything you could? Eventually the grilling would subside and they would ask you if your relationship is serious. Well now, dear readers, because of advancing divorce rates and the lack of anything permanent, sacred and holy in this modern world you can say with a straight face: "Serious? Oh my, of course not. We're getting married." And then you can laugh and laugh.

I wanna be a crackpot. This looks like a fun job. I want to sit in a room and come up with ridiculous theories and shoot other peoples theories full of holes just like Scott Adams describes in his Dogbert's New Ruling Class newsletter this month. Of course, I have no theories right now so I cannot share them here. When I do, you'll be the first to know. Of course, I don't have the job anyway.

"Get with it, Mom! It's the Zeros!"
Get your catch phrases here. You know how kids were always chiding their parents (well, at least they were on TV) when the parental view on a certain subject (dating, piercing, birth control) was out of date and passe? The kids would hear the parent say something parent-like such as "Go clean your room, young lady!" The child would then sigh out loud, put her hand on her hip, look to the sky and say "Oh, Mom, don't you know anything? It's 1956 now! All the cool kids have their own plastic bubbles!" Were you concerned that now, because of the turning of the century, children would have nothing to say to their parents when thrust into such a situation? Well, now they do! "Come on, Mom! It's the zeros!" Gotta keep that venacular polished. Can you see it in 25 years? "Remember how cool is was to get your genitals stapled to your forehead in the zeros? Wow. I'm glad that there's nothing lame like that in the roaring '20s!"

Recently, I did a couple web pages for two local bands. You can visit them at Arc and Yukon Cornelius. I highly recommend going to see them!

Entry... 10/7/99 2:48pm

I have the Beast in my Sights, Vasily
Driving home from band practice last night was an adventure. I got on the NYS Thruway at Amsterdam behind the wheel of The Beast and got her up to 65 miles per hour. I set the cruise control and searched for a radio station that could still broadcast up to the end of the Mohawk Valley. In radio station news: My favorite light jazz station suddenly is no longer! In its place at 103.1 is a terrible heavy rock metal rip off. Anyway, the car did a little jig and I looked up at the dashboard in time to see the speedometer go from 65 mph to zero. Oh great. So today I call my mechanic and he comes to the office and checks out the car. The short list turns into a longer list, as always, but with luck and hope (and a bucket of cash) the red tank will be roadworthy again.

The desktop pop can count is up to 130 today

I am skipping volleyball to go to Saratoga tonight. I require beer and air hockey.

How about some Tongue Twisters?

Entry... 10/18/99 3:27pm

Congratulations must go out to some friends of mine. They just had their first child last wednesday. A bouncing baby girl named Alexis Reiley. I think the cool thing is that her birthday is on the 13th, so she'll have a fair share of Friday the 13th birthdays, and that is very cool. Hello Alexis! Welcome.

How about them Mets? 15 innings of baseball and they end last nights game with a grand slam home run on a batter who is .056 for the series. A raw deal for the Red Sox, too, but what can you do? Bad calls are bad calls, but the word of the umpires, even when wrong, is law.

Last night my brother and I had a friend over for a jam. Great stuff. I don't know why we don't roll tape during these sessions. I would have liked to be able to listen to this stuff again. It was so much fun.

Desk pop can count is up to 133 now.

Catch up on all of your Urban lore and folk takes at Snopes. For example, we've all heard about the carpet installer who pounds a bump flat, then discovers that the family pet is missing. Then there's the one about the couple at a Halloween costume party that switch disguises.

I went to see "The Sixth Sense" last week. A very enjoyable film. It had me fooled right to the end, and that was pleasureable. Since the movie was rather scarey at spots, we all got a good laugh during the screening. A couple of older ladies were there together, and behind them was a younger couple. About 3/4's of the way through the movie, the young girl got up to go to the washroom, or get some candy or something, and when she brushed by the older ladies she scared one of them who jumped in fright and cried out. Then we all laughed about it. The theater was fairly empty, and I was surprised when a tall couple came waltzing into the theater during the previews and plopped down right in front of me. Nice of them. Amazing how rude and simply clueless people can be these days.

I bought an air hockey table on Saturday and set it up in the basement. Now all I need is a jukebox and a big screen tv.

A buddy of mine called me on Sunday morning and wanted to know if I wanted some more firewood. I told him "Of course, I can use it." The catch was that I would have to help him cut down the dead tree in his yard. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a beautiful fall afternoon than being outside, taking down a tree, chainsaw in hand. Ahhhhh!

Entry... 10/19/99 5:31pm

I was surfing the web, hitting pages at random, when I came across a young girl's observation that in sunday school they were taught the classic story about Eve giving Adam an apple from a forbidden tree in the garden of Eden. Back then, as we all know, it was a legged Serpent that acted as the agent of evil and persauded her to eat of the fruit. The author of the piece I was reading observed that no where in the bible itself is the apple even mentioned in the story. And she's right. I took a peek through my concordance for references to "apple" and found 8. In fact, God himself merely designates the forbidden fruit as being that of a tree "in the midst" of the garden. Good job, God. You're weren't very clear with them, now were you? We didn't have a fair shake, either. It seems that this "evil" so to speak, was merely the same incredible powers that the Lord himself had: The ability to know all, and see everything. If we were, in fact, made in God's image how could he expect us not to want the same exact things? We're simply little versions of him. Well, that aside, we all know what happened then. The snake lost his legs and mankind gets to experience all sorts of nasty things. Some playground. I discovered a couple websites that contain the entire text of the bible, in multiple versions and in multiple languages. Check them out: God's View and Gospel Com Oh, and here is Bill Cosboy's version. Want to learn how to play Ani DiFranco's Adam and Eve song? Ok, I'll stop now.

I got email from a web site reader asking for the date of the full moon next July (July 16th), and it got me thinking that I had better update my moon page soon. I'll do it at the turn of the year. I started my research and found that we will have no blue moons next year. Another rare occurance, almost as rare as the two we had this year, one in January, the other in March.

"Curiosity killed the cat; satisfaction brought him back." Author Unknown
"Humidity built the snowman, sunshine brought him down" - John Prine

I stumbled upon this short essay by Kurt Vonnegut today. He paid a visit to the Free Library of Philadelphia some time back. I thought that I would reproduce it here, but you can hit the original site.

Entry... 10/22/99 10:22am

While I was grocery shopping this week I found more of those Pumpkin Masters carving kits with different templates for just 3 bucks. I also bought a second set of carving tools and a nice scoop. Now I am ready for a weekend of carving! I will try to get some pumpkins tonight and give them a bath so that they will be ready for the weekend. I think the pumpkins will be the primary decoration at my house's annual Halloween bash next weekend.

I sued someone! And won! It seems that I was involved in a class action suit against Sears and Roebuck. Everyone who held a Sears charge card during a specific period of time had their interest miscalculated and a group of lawyers went after them for millions. My take, as a member of this large group of card holders was 7 bucks. And that came in the form of a coupon, so it's 7 bucks in merchandise and I get the privilege of paying sales tax on that. Can you imagine? Forcing Sears to pay out 35 million in coupons, knowing that the government would automatically get 2.8 million (estimated 8% tax) in revenue? Oh my aching head.

I stumbled across this home made trivia quiz of lyrics from the 80's. There are links to other quizes there if lyric trivia is not your bag. I was amazed (and embarrassed) at how many I could identify.

Entry... 10/25/99 4:10pm

Desk pop can count makes it to 135.

I had my teeth cleaned today. I always dread going to see the dentist, since they like to admonish me for keeping my wisdom teeth. I know I should have them cut out of my head, especially one of them that is in bad shape, but it's pretty tough to fork over the cash for that. Insurance doesn't go as far as it used to. Since I had my cleaning done during lunchtime, I stopped by a fast food place on the way back to the office. There's something terribly wrong about going to all that effort to clean your teeth just to gunk them up again. I also got a Snickers candy bar from a coworker's treat bin. Bad me.

Spent most of the weekend carving pumpkins, using those Pumpkin Masters patterns. It took quite a few hours to clean and scrape and carve 8 pumpkins. I can't wait to get some photos of them, as I plan to post them here. They came out great. A new holiday tradition is born!

The following passage I liked. It is from the 1996 film "Out of Sight," by David Sutherland.

"What does reincarnation mean, a cowboy asked his friend.
His friend replied, - it happens when your life has reached its end. They comb your hair and wash your neck, clean your fingernails, lay you in a padded box away from life's travails. The box and you gets in the hole that's been dug into the ground, reincarnation starts in when you're planted neath the mound. Then clouds knelt down just like your box and you who lives inside and when you're just beginning on your transformation ride. Then the grass will grow upon your rended mound, till some day on your molded grave a lonely flower is found. And say a horse should wander by to graze upon this flower that once was you but now has become your vegetative bower. The poetry that's a horse done with you and his other feed makes bone and fat and muscle essential to the steed. But some is left that he can't use and so it passes through and finally lands upon the ground, this thing that once was you. Then say by chance I wanders by and sees this upon the ground and I wonders and I wonders at this object that I found. I think it's reincarnation of life and death and such and come away concluding, Slim, you ain't changed all that much."

Entry... 10/28/99 2:39pm

My Mom saves the Life and Leisure section of the Sunday papers for me because I enjoy reading the Dave Barry column. She also saves the cartoons. Sometimes I don't get these little packages for a month or so, so I have to play catch up. I was caught by surprise when I read last Sunday's Luann. Luann has just turned 16, and to celebrate she got a new make over that included a new hair style. I found the comic zone website for Luann and read the daily cartoons that lead up to the Sunday strip I read. All of a sudden she has accumulated new wisdom of the world, found increased maturity and become a major babe to boot. Although long time fans of Luann are probably tickled to death about Luann's new found ability to be popular and accepted, I think it a sad commentary about our society, underscored in a comic strip. To make it in this world you need to be pretty and exciting. Be popular first, and you are all the better off if you also happen to be sweet and considerate and have half a brain. What lessons are here for our youth? In a cartoon, it is easy to trade in trademarked curly hair for a lovely straight cut. If young girls out there buy this and try it out, they are in for an expensive surprise.

So, what are you going to be for halloween? I learned this week that I should avoid any career in sewing. Any dilusions I had that I might make it behind a sewing machine went right out the window.

Entry... 10/29/99 2:24pm

Tonight is my annual Halloween party. I am at work, but leaving in a few minutes to go home and prepare the final details. I am very pleased! Quite a few people dressed up at work today. We have a superhero, a bat, a doctor, a devil, and a pop rocker. CrazySpoonHead man was supposed to show up, but he failed to make an appearance.

Desk pop can count is up by two again, as I had lunch at the deli. Got a lot of second and third looks, too. The count stands (literally) at 137.

Bad news on the home computer front. The system went belly up on me and I doubt that there is any way I can fix it. I'll be worrying about that some other time, but for now it's out of commission. I can still get my data off, so I haven't lost anything but time.

I found this web site today and I love it - der träumer. Borders on the erotic side, but it has great imagery. Oh, it's in German, so for those of you who don't read it, you can enjoy the pictures.