Looney

Found the following during a round of deconstruction over at the Joyride, and I couldn't bear to part with it.

Top 10 Favorite Bugs Bunny Lines:
10. Could it be that I carried this thing a bit too far?
9. I'll do it .... but I'll hate myself in the morning.
8. You know, someday these scientists will invent something that will out-smart a rabbit.
7. The way I run this thing you'd think I knew something about it.
6. I'll be scared later. Right now I'm too mad.
5. Well, Toodles. Do I get my home back or do I have to get tough?
4. Sometimes my conscience kinda bothers me .... but not this time.
3. I suppose you realize this is not going to go unchallenged.
2. Of course you know, this means war.
1. Oh yeah? Well, I can prove that a rabbit can be more obnoxious than anybody!

Y'all can fill in your own subtext.

And just for fun, here are some Daffy Duck:
5. I may be a coward, but I'm a greeeeeeeedy little coward.
4. Thanks for the sour persimmons, brother.
3. If you wasn't me I'd smack you right in the puss.
2. I'm not crazy. I just don't give a darn. Woo hoo. Woo hoo.
1. Don't shush me. I'LL MAKE ALL THE NOISE I WANNA.

So

I don't know what I want to talk about tonight. I have a few ideas for posts, but they all involve me searching for pictures that I haven't searched for yet, posting them in here, and writing text around them .. and I'm not feeling that ambitious right now, at least not in terms of filling this blog with content. In terms of other things, I am feeling very ambitious indeed. That ambition is tempered somewhat by not knowing exactly how to get where I want to get to, but I'm working on that, and it's also tempered by being distracted with other thoughts. To make a long story short, which is never easy for me, I'm in a good mood, but my mind is elsewhere. More importantly, I am awake. Over the past few months I don't feel as though I've been particularly awake to the world around me. Now I think I am.

And now I have to work on some stuff.

Tina Majorino ...

who played Mac, my favorite character on the exceptionally awesome Veronica Mars, would make a perfect Cindy in the movie adaptation of the book. The Cindy character is roughly based on Krysten from back at FMC, who has only appeared in one scene so far ... but it's one of my favorite scenes in the whole thing.






More evidence!

Magic Eightball

Back in the day, which is to say 1994, the ex-wife and I used to have regular card games with Dan and his future wife/ex-wife Candy. It wasn't Poker but Hearts, Spades, or Pitch -- all of which I was very good at; none of which I can remember the damned rules to now -- and while those games were fun, the actual point I'm getting around to features my legendary Magic Eightball.

I was first introduced to the concept by my Uncle Tom in the 70's, and I thought they were wicked cool. So shortly before the advent of those card sessions I bought myself one, and not content just to ask it questions, I had to turn it into a performance and build some kind of mystique for it. For example, I was the only one who could ask the ball any questions or else the spirits that reside inside the ball would not answer truthfully. All of the mojo resided in me, so to speak. And I couldn't just ask the question, I had to do some hocus pocus to the tune of, "Oh, mighty spirits of the Eightball! (fill in the question here)?" I know I don't seem like a complete ham, but I really am. The other important rule was that a question could be asked once and only once, otherwise the spirits would start to fuck with you. This, of course, does not include the times the ball would give a non-answer like "Reply hazy. Try again later."

I always stressed, like really really hard, that the Magic Eightball was always right. Always. And, I have to say, any of those times I was asked to divine a yes or no answer from the spirits, that little ball was pretty reliable. It *was* always right, and it was always right because I *believed* it would always be right.

Today, just because I felt like it, and because something was on my mind, I pulled that same Magic Eightball out of my desk drawer and asked it a question.

"Concentrate and ask again."

I concentrated. I asked an even more specific version of that first question.

"Yes."

Well, I thought, that was pretty definitive. We'll see how accurate it turns out to be, however. And for the record, I don't do all the abracadabra if I'm asking a question for myself. That's just for the audience.

The question asked of it is going to have to remain with me.

The Wheels are Turning

So today while at work Cooter invited me to come over for pizza. Lately I've been politely declining any and all invitations not sent from family members, for various reasons, but today I decided what the hell and said I'd come over. When I got there he was there with Allison, but Amy and Ashley were out somewhere. Wait, who's Ashley? Well, she's the friend of Amy's I mentioned last week -- the one whose Myspace page Cooter directed me to, and the one who Amy is apparently trying to set me up with. No, I did not know she was part of the plans. There are wheels in some kind of motion then of which I was not aware.

We had some pizza. The two of them have also acquired a pair of kittens that are totally adorable. The small white one attached itself to me and stayed perched on me for most of the eveninig. This is one of my special abilities: I get on very well with cats (and most dogs). While we were watching a movie, Amy and Ashley returned. Apparently, the wheels are turning both ways here because Ashley was a little shy to come inside ... because I was there. Taking the proverbial bull by the horns, Amy brought in Ashley's little baby girl -- so that Ashley would then eventually have to come in -- and gave her to me to hang onto.

I'm a little embarassed for the sake of this post that I don't remember the little girl's name, but I'm sure it'll come up again and I'll fix that later on. She's somewhere in the one year old range, and she was beautiful. And I sat there holding her, and she was just awesome and happy, and really fidgety. And I don't think I could have enjoyed that more. I even fed her from a bottle. She didn't fuss or anything (well, maybe just a little) and seemed pretty content to be where she was. This is another of my special abilities: little kids generally really like me.

And this eliminates one of my deepest, darkest fears, which is how I might end up feeling once my niece/nephew is born, you know, considering. That's out the window. It's going to be fantastic. I am going to have a hell of a good time with that little baby. After this afternoon there's not even a doubt in my mind.

Ashley eventually came in. She was pretty, and really nice, and not what I was expecting at all, considering the idea of her was introduced as 'one of Amy's friends'. I was figuring on someone much more Amy-like. She's kind of quiet and shy, much like I am, so the whole double negative thing that I've run into before came into play here, and we didn't talk a whole lot. But when she came in I was holding her little baby, while juggling a little kitten on my lap, and then a bottle, and I got a good reaction to, "All right, let's see how many things I can handle all at once." And Amy jumped in and backed me up with a remark about how I'm amazing and can handle all sorts of stuff. Ok, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist.

A little while later Cooter and I went to the store for some stuff, and Ashley had to leave while we were gone. But in the meantime I fished around for some information from both Cooter (who seems to be in on this) and Amy (who is definitely behind this). I didn't get a whole lot (didn't want to look like I was being too nosy, while balancing the possibility that I might be interested -- which isn't easy to do). I know that she's 20, has a job, has a car, and the rest I'm working on. I know. I know! Twenty. But I have to stop being an isolationist nation unto myself sooner or later, and I gain nothing by shooting down the possibility right off the bat. Besides, she might not even be interested for all I know.

But now that we've met, it opens me up to communication through an arena that does play to my particular strengths. When faced with such inherent limitations as the ones I have -- the shy and awkward thing -- it's valuable to learn to play to your strengths, and outside of it being a work situation (where I do truly excel in this sort of thing), I'm best when I can talk through my fingers. So I sent a first shot via an e-mail through Myspace. Where it goes from here, including nowhere, is something I cannot possibly predict.

But at least it's something interesting to put some of my attention towards.

Also, the person from whom Amy got those kittens has more kittens, and I might be able to score one for myself. And I really might.

Virgorama

Your role model is Tilly Trotter, a blind, 74-year-old grandmother who lives in the UK. She took up archery two years ago despite her handicap. Recently she pulled off a rare feat, shooting her arrow so precisely that it split another arrow already lodged in the target. Among archers, this is called a Robin Hood. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you now have the power to do something similar, Virgo: overcome a disadvantage in order to accomplish a riveting triumph that would be difficult even for those who don't have to deal with a limitation like yours. You're primed to carry out your personal version of a Robin Hood.

Hmmmm. I wonder what this is going to be.

One Foot in Front of the Other

So what I've been doing for the last couple of hours is ... writing. Yes. I was determined today that I would accomplish something, even if it killed me, and it turns out that it wasn't so bad. Working on a chapter through this thing still feels strange, but I'll adjust. I always adjust. And while I won't say that I made huge progress or anything, what I wrote tonight is more than I've written in weeks, at least since the laptop problem began, which means it was enough. And I have to say that I feel pretty darn good to be back in the saddle. Tomorrow I'll hit it again, and hopefully by the weekend I'll be back into a regular groove.

I really missed Emma and Kelly, so it was nice to get back to the scene I left them stranded in the middle of. It's a nice scene, too, and pretty sweet.

It makes me happy.

Little Guy

So I've pretty much concluded that the little black and white cat does belong to Brittany. I've seen him in the window a couple more times, and I've encountered him several times outside. How in these kind of apartments she can have an outdoor cat is beyond me, but I see him outside fairly often. At first he was a little stand-offish, as cats tend to be, but before long he was coming right up to me, and now he always comes right up to me. He is a friendly little cat. Having no other name to call him (I'm just assuming it's a he, too, btw), I usually just refer to him as "Little Guy".

He's definitely an attention-starved cat. He'll stand there all day long and let me pet him, which of course I always oblige. I mean, not all day, but for a few minutes when I encounter him. When I didn't know for sure it was Brit's cat I was somewhat concerned that he might be a stray. He always comes over meowing at me, like it's hungry or just lonely. I don't know. He often follows me in the hallway door, too, and he'll start up the stairs and then turn around and look at me. That he starts up the stairs everytime was kind of a tell, too. That's his home up there.

I have considered buying some catfood and feeding him, but haven't yet. I was worried he might be a hungry stray that Brit only lets in now and then, but I'm pretty sure he does really live up there. A few times I've let him into my apartment and he goes all around exploring everything. But he has a tendency to want to jump up in my living room window, and that's usually when I end up shooing him back outside. I don't want to get busted with a cat in my window ... yet, but I especially don't want to get busted with somebody else's cat, and especially by that cat's owner.

That's all well and good. Today when I was doing laundry I saw another cat. It was in the apartment next to the laundry room and it was just sitting there in the window. Wait a minute here. Somebody else has a cat, too? I don't really know that neighbor, except that I know an older lady lives there. I don't know if she's alone there or there's a husband or what, but there's definitely a cat living there. I was working under the idea that if Brittany has a cat then I can have a cat, even if she was just sneaking it in. But if Brittany has a cat and that other lady has a cat, then I can definitely have a cat. I suppose it's possible that this older lady has lived there forever and that her cat priviledges were grandfathered in before the landlord decided against pets, but come on. Fair is fair after all.

So I might look into getting a cat.

Since it Was Memorial Day ...

I needed to go somewhere and clear my head. I've been doing that a lot lately, it seems. There was something I was of a mind to do, and it wasn't necessarily a Memorial Day thing, but today seemed as good a time as any to do it. And I needed to have a talk with someone about a few things -- some that have been bugging me, and some that have been bugging me. So I hopped in the car, drove out of state, and went to someplace I haven't been in a fairly long while.

I was there for about an hour. I wasn't talking the entire time, but I did say a lot. I talked about the book, too, and some of the ideas I had for what's to come, and some of the problems I was having with writing it, and how much I wanted to get it done and out there. By the time I left, I was pretty spent.

All in all, I think it was good for me.

The Current State of Annoying

I have yet to actually listen to the messages that have been left on my mailbox, but as there were three calls today -- two from Jen and one from Amy -- I'm not in a big hurry to do so.

Jen's are probably of the 'I just wanted to talk and where are you at?' variety, which is par for the course from her lately. She's been calling here fairly regularly, but I haven't picked up and talked to her in almost a week, so she's sure to be all passive-aggressive with the 'Maybe you don't like me anymore' stuff, which is just an attempt to manipulate my guilt response into calling her back. There is a new dynamic in our relationship now, however, in that I do have a phone number where I can call her back, but am choosing not to call it, which I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is driving her crazy. She expects me to be the good little lapdog and jump at any scraps she's willing to throw my way, and while in the past I was much more eager to talk to her and spend time with her, now that I'm not emotionally involved ... I just don't have that much I want to say to her. That's what happens when you dick me around a little too much.

Amy, on the other hand, is less of a problem. Her message is almost guaranteed to be something like, "Junior (what other people call Cooter) wanted me to call and ask if you could drop whatever interesting thing you're doing and come over here and do him a favor." Said favor would most likely be that Allison has to go back to Amy's mom, and he's too lazy to get off his fat ass and drive her up there, and is hoping I might do it for him, which would be like a 40 mile roundtrip for me, so that he can sit around and look at new four-wheelers to buy on Craig's List. Maybe back when Amy was the other 'little sister' of mine, I might have been persuaded, but as other things have come to pass there, I don't really feel like giving up over an hour on that errand. Besides, have you seen the frikking price of gas lately? If I'm buring that much gasoline right now it's going to be on my own frikking errands.

This is my life right now: phone calls from all the annoying people in the current loop. Whoopita.

The Writing Thing

Apparently, there's going to be a period of readjustment while I get my shit back together after the involuntary writing layoff, because so far it has been difficult for me to concentrate on writing while sitting at this computer. It isn't so much a distraction thing, because I can be easily distracted at Borders or on a laptop just as easily. It feels more like ... how can I put this ... like it just doesn't feel right. Putting that down sounds really strange to me, because in the past I have written at a crowded mall, in the middle of a hospital cafeteria, on the living room floor of one of Jude's friends in Hartland, in a crowded bus terminal, on an airplane, on an Amtrak train, at a very busy diner, at McDonald's, inside a movie theater before the show, and probably several other places that don't spring immediately to mind. The point there being: I used to be able to write anywhere and everywhere, at any time, at a moment's notice ... I would just do it.

And it seems to me, at least a little bit, as though I've lost some of that ability. Granted, I usually do best when I'm somewhere stable, where I'm comfortable, where I'm used to, but I used to be able to readjust fairly quickly. It's fair to say I'm a little distressed about this. Here I am in the middle of a three-day weekend. The ONLY thing I wanted to do this weekend is jump back into the writing with all guns blazing, especially after the excruciating laptop problem, and so far it just hasn't gone down like that.

It makes me feel sad.

Back in Business Revisited

I am of the opinion that my little laptop is the most vexing of all laptops. It was perhaps the recipient of an old gypsy curse at some point. It seemed to be fixed -- twice -- but defied all attempts to fix it. I had the hard drive scraped out and put on a compact disk, only for the material to vaporize from the disk. This is the vexing situation I found myself in last night. Only minutes after writing that post, I put the CD in only for ... nothing to happen. My computer read the CD as empty. So either my computer wasn't able to read the disk or there weren't nuthin on it.

Suffice to say, that was a frustrating development. If not for the appearance of Guinevere on chat to pull me back from the ledge, I might have disintegrated with the disappointment and frustration of it all. It took nearly all of my willpower to not fly apart at the seams, and really only a little anger and bitterness seeped through, and for the most part I can thank Guin for helping me keep it together.

Ok, so then what? The 2nd techie guy, the one who scraped the hard drive, runs a Radio Shack store right here in Newport. As you might expect, that very store was my first destination upon leaving work today. I went in, told him the situation, and he took another look at it. Lo and behold ... the disk was actually empty. His response: "Huh. No shit." So I left everything with him because he wanted to take a second crack at it. Meanwhile, I contemplated going to Lebanon to blow off some steam (and blow some money I shouldn't blow), but ended up coming back here and watching some Veronica Mars, Season 3 on dvd (it's totally awesome and addicting). The phone rang twice, but figuring it was either Jen or some telemarketer crap, I ignored both calls.

But then I checked the caller ID and it turned out to be Radio Shack. I wasn't expecting to hear from him, because he said he needed a doodad from home and it would be like tomorrow that I'd get the stuff back. But he looked into it, and it seems that all the stuff had uploaded onto his computer and was still waiting for the command to send it to the disk. He sent it to the disk and it was ready. Huh! No shit! I didn't even call back. Instead I left a dust trail flying behind me as I sped back over there to collect my precious goods. When I got there he even showed me the files. Everything was intact. Whew. What a frikking relief.

And the CD worked. Everything I wanted is now safe and sound here on this very computer. I checked all the files. All the chapters and a few other things are loaded in and I'm ready to fly again. This all has been an irritating burr in my backside for going on three weeks now, but I'm considering it all's well that ends well.

Now, about that foolproof plan for world domination .....

Back in Business

So today I was finally able to pick up my one(1) disk full of saved items from the old laptop, and the old dead laptop was also returned to me, and this entire two(2) week adventure came to a final cost of $00.00, which was fine with me. I'm ok with the laptop being doornailed, just as long as I have my stuff out of it. Now, I just have to switch over to this computer for the time being until such a time as I'm able to acquire another laptop, which probably won't be right away.

And as soon as I'm done with this post I'm going to put that one(1) disk in and see if everything made it. As you can see, from the hour this is being written, I've stalled a bit in checking it out ... due to that small nagging fear that I'll put it in there and a) it won't work, or b) it won't have everything I want it to have. I'm not looking at this as me borrowing jacks, like I totally used to, but more of a fear of being crushed by disappointment. In fact, I'm positive everything is in there ... I'm just being stupid about it.

Ok. Let's get on with it. Goodnight, folks.

Foolproof Plan for World Domination

1. Finish the book.

2. Continue to grow my small underground following of readers, mostly through Guinevere's help.

3. Find someone to publish me.

4. Buy several copies of the book myself so that I can distribute them amongst every person on Earth that I know, especially the people who have helped and inspired me along the way, especially the people who never thought I'd amount to anything.

5. Send copy of book to Oprah so that she can fall in love with it and put it in her book club.

6. Become fabulously successful. (see #5)

7. Quit working for a living and start book #2.

How could it possibly go wrong?

Zing

Today at work:

Cooter was having wicked trouble with this gun, see. He was swearing and carrying on and calling it a motherfucker ... you know, all the usual stuff.

Me: "You don't handle adversity very well, do you?"

Him: Blank stare.

Me: "You have no idea what I just said, do you?"

Him: "Nope."

A lot of the time taking cracks at Cooter is like shooting fish in a barrel. With dynamite.

Virgorama

"Dear Star-Reader Brezsny: You are the only wizard who can save me. I have a bad job -- just $72,000 a year -- plus a lover who's not all that cute and a home that's not worth as much as it used to be. My health is good but I hate my nose and ass. Can't afford a BMW or a vacation to Spain. My world is unraveling! Hope is fading! Please tell me what to do! - Virgo on the Verge." Dear On the Verge: I suggest that you temporarily suspend your strident yearning. This is one time when it's important to cultivate more appreciation for what you actually have. I urge you and all Virgos to turn your attention away from what you think you lack, and devote your psychic energy to loving what is.

All right. Now there's a horoscope I not only understand, but is useful to me. And I'm already getting to work on that advice.

I Can't Believe I'm Getting Paid For This

So today at work was a good day. We're on something of a spring slowdown for our line, which means nine hour days and no Saturdays for the time being, and the number of guns they want us to make has been reduced as well. It's actually been brought down to a number that I could pretty much bolt-fit alone ... in my sleep. The joke is that it's so easy even a Cooter can do it, except, well, no.

The general idea also is to run the cell with fewer people while rotating a few of us out to work on repairs. Today I got to go on the repair team with Brad, which is something I *never* get to do because I'm always on the line. So it was something of a vacation for me. Brad and I did a shitload of repairs and the day just flew on by. Meanwhile, that left Cooter bolt-fitting alone and he did not acquit himself well. Both Jim and Fred had pretty much lost patience with him well before lunchtime. See, last week I was doing that, and it entailed both slide-fitting and bolt-fitting while Jim gas blocked and bolt locked. And while the slides continued to be miserable, I pretty much handled it. And I'm also the kind of guy who will jump around and fill in wherever a body is needed if somebody else is busy or bogged down with something else, and Cooter is decidedly not that kind of guy.

He had trouble getting slides to work, trouble bolt-fitting, and he was cussing and swearing and carrying on ... and I was over at a bench just outside the cell grinning ear to ear. And whenever Cooter saw me over there smiling he'd shoot some remark in my direction, and I'd just smile back and say, "Well, SOMEONE is certainly grumpy today." It was a hell of a lot of fun, my friends.

Sometime after lunch I jumped back into the line -- not because I was told to, but just to help out -- and I whipped out a few guns and then went back to repairs. And all day long we were in the red, which means we weren't getting the alloted guns for that hour, but during that hour we went into the green. Jim remarked something like, "Yeah, Shaun's back on the line." That just irritated Cooter all the more, and he said something snippy. And I said, "Well, you can't deny it. I AM awesome."

After last break I stayed in the line and we cranked out some guns, bu we still fell short of the goal. I wonder what's going to happen tomorrow? I'll either be back on repairs, which means fewer guns put through (you know, if they're depending on undependable Cooter). Or, and this is likely, I'll be in the line and Cooter will work on repairs, which means fewer repairs done. Last week he was on repairs twice and accomplished Jack squat. I'm saying this less to put over how tremendous I am and more to say that Cooter sucks.

But he sure is fun to annoy.

Frightening Ideas

There is a work related post on the way, as it was an interesting day. However, for this post I'm going to take a piece of said interesting day and spin a different post out of it. Now it is no secret to you, my readers, that a) I am alone right now, and that b) I'm not all that happy about it. Having said that, however, I have found that unhappy though I may be, I can deal with it. This isn't my first time at the rodeo, after all. The people around me, on the other hand, find my situation to be even more troubling than I do, and they seem to be taking it upon themselves to work on it.

So today at work Cooter and I were discussing something and the idea popped into his head that I might like one of Amy's friends. This friend of Amy's is a girl that he doesn't especially like, but as I've always been able to get along with Amy pretty well, and in fact better than he does, he thinks that I might like her. And I kind of half-listened to this idea, knowing that it's almost certainly not a good idea, but thinking nothing will ever come of it. It's just idle chatter from a meatball.

Except he sent me the address of her Myspace page in an e-mail. Just for curiousity's sake, I went to the page, which has this girl's location listed as West Virginia. So I wrote back: "Um, I hate to be a killjoy here, buddy, but it seems she lives pretty far out of town." Ok. That settles that. He wrote back saying I should add her, and -- this is where it gets scarier -- Amy says it's her. They're BOTH in on it now.

One of Amy's friends. Can there be a scarier proposition than that?

So the other night when I talked to Jen, she asked if I was involved with anyone, and I said no. "Well, I'll just have to see about fixing you up with somebody then, Sparky."

AAAAAHHHHHH. There *is* a scarier proposition.

Back to work today. In the afternoon, and I don't remember how we got to this point, Christy was working just next to Cooter, which is on the other side of Cooter than where I am. And I heard him say something like, "Say do you have any single friends who might .... ?"

At which point I loudly interjected: "Cooter, you fucking dumbshit, I'm not a fucking charity case."

And Christy said, "Yeah! He's not a charity case." See, Christy always has my back.

The world, though, is becoming a very scary place.

Bravo, girl upstairs! Bravo!

All right, so there is just no accounting for the racket that goes on upstairs sometimes. Here I was sitting alone in the dark, late on a Saturday night, reading a couple months worth of the Invincible Super Blog*, hoping Guinevere might show up for chat, when it started up again. I hear it now and then, and it even woke me up Friday night, but normally it's a bit more subdued than that other time I posted about. But last night was another showstopper.

And I just can't rationalize the noise. Sure some of it is obvious, what with her moaning her pretty little head off, but that isn't all there is, and I don't think even the presence of that donkey or a film crew really explains it. Here's what you can do, though, to try and replicate it: take a sturdy wooden chair, lift it and bang it down on a hard wooden floor, repeat as fast as you can for about a half hour. That's what it sounds like. Now what the blue hell is happening up there?

It's like they are screwing so hard that the bed is jumping up and down on the floor, again similar to the Exorcist comparison used the last time. But while listening the moans and the rapid thumps don't exactly sync up, and there was one point where the moans seemed to be coming from a totally different location from the thumping. I just don't get it. Is there some kind of machine involved? I'll grant you that it's possible to go at that intensity for that long, but that fast?

It is inconceivable. I can not conceive it. And even the donkey doesn't explain it.

Somehow I just have to find out.

*Seriously, though, that blog is teh awesome.

Decisions, part 2

And that brings us all the way back to Jennifer. Yesterday while I was here stewing over a solution to the work thing the phone rang, and I was just not in the mood to answer it. The caller ID identified the caller as Jennifer, so instead of the private name/number horseshit I have an actual honest to god phone number belonging to the girl. She called twice more while I was here. I'll give her that much -- she is persistent.

I decided to go out for a while. I didn't know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, but I needed to be out. Before I left I hit the button that boomerangs calls off of the ID and called Jen, because otherwise goddess knows how many more times she was going to call here while I was gone. When she picked up I asked if this was her or her twin, just to set the snarky sort of tone I was aiming for. And to be honest, I wasn't in a great mood anyway. It's just been one of those weeks.

I said right upfront that I was going to Lebanon to write (which I did in fact end up doing) so that she'd know that a) I have plans, and b) I couldn't hang out on the phone for too long. I commented on my surprise over the decrypted number, and she eventually admitted that number was the one she'd been calling from all along, which means she was not holed up in some motel like she'd told me the last time. And I let her know that I'd pretty much suspected as much anyway. The number has the Newport prefix, which strengthens my longstanding theory that she is in town here somewhere, but apparently both Croydon and Grantham have that same prefix, so who knows? My money is still on Newport.

This conversation was something of a coming clean on her part ... at least, that's what she wants me to believe. It's possible that everything she says is now part of a new created story, so I'm sticking to my plan of only believing those things I can actually verify with my own eyes first. Everything else is taken with a large grain of salt. She said that I'm going to think she's a (censored)*, and that she's a little afraid to see me in person because I "might throw something at her". She's laying it on a little thick there. I'm not the violent sort, and it would take more than being annoying and lying to me to get me to the point of throwing things.

So then I said, "If what you're going to tell me is that the you I saw all those times was really you ... well, d'oy."

And she admitted that yes, that was her that I saw in and around Newport all of those times when I surprised her by busting her ass on it during our last conversation. I have yet to get the whole "true" story on what she's been doing all these months, but it's sure to be a doozy.

That was about the gist of it. She was going to call back last night, but never did, which is fine. But she did call today about five times. I was here for one of them, but not the others, and I haven't called her back. I'm not in the mood for it right now, and may not be tomorrow either. We'll see.

Instead I took a day trip outta here down to Mass, spent some money, got a little work done, and just enjoyed myself. Upon returning there were four (4) messages: two from Amy (although one of those was left over from yesterday) and two from Jen. That's the state of my social life right now: the only two people calling me are Bad and Worse. Bad--the one I can't have; Worse--the one I want to go away.

There has to be more than this.


*you know what word I mean there. I just try not to use it when I can avoid it. Really, it only applies to Sue, my ex-wife, and maybe Jude anyway. Jen isn't really at that level of malevolent bitchery ... yet.**

**maybe Jenny M, too.

Decisions, part 1

Before I get into any of this, I should state for the record that in my heart I do believe that I'm awesome, and anytime someone is talking to me and it seems that I don't believe that ... I'm probably playing possum, whether deliberately or not (or I'm just frikking burnt out or depressed). I only state that for the record because it ties into this post and the next. Ok then.

Today at work was a difficult day. Cooter was out (not that he contributes much, but he is a body on the line) with some custody related blahderall. Brad left for a doctor's appointment, was supposed to return, but didn't. So that left me, Jim, Fred, and Christy to run the whole shebang. On top of that, there were frequent periods where no guns were ready for us and we had to wait and do repairs. So, to sum it up: we didn't get a lot accomplished. However ...

Mike came by right before lunch and told us that there would be no work on Saturday. We had been solicited the day before, but honestly, I was hoping that tomorrow would be cancelled. Usually we spend the five hours doing repairs, and I wasn't really feeling inspired to come in and do that. Instead, I get to stay up late on a Friday for freaking once, do what I want, maybe sleep in, and my whole Saturday is free. And when is the last time that's happened? I can't even remember.

As Mike was leaving Jim made some snide remark about Cooter, like all of us had been doing all day long, when I remarked, "Speaking of Cooter .... we're not working tomorrow, and ..."

Jim got it right away. Cooter doesn't know! And Jim and Christy both thought that was hilarious. And it is, let's be honest. Cooter thinks we're working on Saturday, which means he'll get up, drive in from Claremont, and nobody will be there, and if there's anything funnier than that I just don't know what it is. So that was a topic of conversation all afternoon. We did call Brad, though, to let him know about tomorrow.

Yeah.

You're already ahead of me, aren't you.

My conscience was bugging me already. It was the full-service Lori vs. Lucy maelstrom in my brain over what am I going to do, and I just didn't know.

On the one hand, it's fucking Cooter, the most annoying boy on Earth. Fuck him!

On the other hand, if I already felt guilty then ... how would I feel tomorrow?

Plus, we might have all been in on it, but ----> I'm <----- the one he's going to be pissed at, and whereas I piss him off several times daily, this would be really pissed to the point where he'd be fucking miserable to have to work next to, which is exactly what I have to do. Plus, I could forsee him banging on my door sometime around 5:15 and disturbing my weekend.

On the other hand, if I just tell Cooter then when the joke isn't played on him and he doesn't go in on Saturday, he'll tell everyone that I told him and the others will be disappointed and I'll be the wet blanket.

How am I going to work this out? I stewed about that all afternoon.

And there was only one solution I could come up with, and the answer was just bizarre enough that the solution could only have come from me. I went on Myspace, logged into Jill's account (which is really my account) and e-mailed the stupid little fucker. I can't reproduce her distinct dialect (I just attempted it and failed), but it was along the lines of a friend of hers at the gun factory said there ain't no work tomorrow and figured he ought to know. Don't ask who it was cuz I won't tell ya. And something to that effect.

Knowing I'd be the prime suspect, I cleared out of the house completely. No Myspace (and I haven't logged in there yet tonight), no telephone, nothing. I distanced myself as far from it as possible. Yeah well there was a SECOND reason I ditched out of here tonight, too, but I'll get to that in the next post. Upon returning I checked my caller ID, and yes there was a call I can identify as Amy's cell phone number. I haven't even listened to the message yet, but I have a good general idea what it might pertain to.

However, and this is important, Shaun has had no contact with Cooter (or Amy) since Thursday afternoon. So come Monday morning when it turns out that Cooter didn't go in (at least, if he's smart and/or believed the message wasn't a hoax), I have enough plausible deniability to cover myself with the others. If he is stupid (oh, he's stupid) and does go in, I can say that I tried to warn him.

I think all my T's are dotted and my I's are crossed and I'm covered both ways.

I do, however, wish I was the sort of person who could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the chaos that could have erupted if I had done nothing at all.

Alas, I am just not that person.

Thumbs in the Middle

Yesterday I got a call from the techie place. The message was from the nice secretary, who said it had something to do with the motherboard, so right away I knew it wasn't going to be great news. But the nice secretary being not altogether tech savvy couldn't tell me much more. I tried to call them back, but their phone was busy, and seeing as it was already after 4:00 and they close at 5:00, I decided it was best to just speed on out there myself.

So apparently there is a problem with the motherboard ... probably. The combined efforts of that dude and the dude he consulted with could not determine that for certain. It could, he also said, just need a new battery. But he didn't know how much I was willing to put into the laptop, particularly since it might not work anyway. And it seems the answer is: not much. Yes, after all this I'm willing to let the laptop die, as inconvenient as that will be, and I'll tell you why.

While I was there the guy mentioned that his consultant could get everything off the laptop for me and put it on disks ... for no extra charge (despite how he worded that, it remains to be seen if I'm going to owe him anything at all, actually). And as my main concern has always been the information on the hard drive, that was pretty much exactly what I wanted to hear. This may be a situation made up out of lemons, but there's the lemonade right there.

But the latest information I have is that I won't be able to get those disks until next Wednesday (and that's prolly at the soonest). Silver lining notwithstanding, I'm really impatient to have my stuff home safe and sound.

It means, also, that for the time being I'll be doing the bulk of my writing on this computer, so some adjustment will need to be done.

Even so, there are things I can work on in the meantime, and I think tomorrow is going to be a long Borders day.

Still Waiting

So today was the day I was supposed to find out about my poor sick laptop and whether or not it was going to live. We busted ass at work today, got our numbers, got out early, so I figured instead of calling I'd just pop on over there and see what was what. I wanted to head into town anyway to see what came out this week at the local comic store, so it was a two birds, killing of with one stone sort of thing. Well.

I talked to the nice secretary once again, but the main dude wasn't there. She said he'd taken the laptop to another guy to see about something or other and ...

Seriously? Really? It needs a consultant? You know, I'm totally paying that guy to fix this ... and he's farming it out?

Anyway, she didn't know much more than that, but he should call me tomorrow. Yeah, and he was supposed to call me yesterday or today, too, but my phone was not ringing off the hook. And I don't know if this thing where he had to call in an extra specialist is good news or bad news or what. I am trying my level best not to borrow jacks while I continue to wait and wait and wait for good news, bad news, or ANY FREAKING NEWS about the state of the darned thing, but this is really starting to grate my cheese. I'm just going to hound them everyday until it's either fixed, dead, or otherwise.

Best case scenario: It's fixed and done tomorrow, so that I'll be able to bring it to Borders on Saturday, where I will spend most of the day into the evening trying to make up some of this ground I've lost. I've got my fingers crossed for this scenario. Even getting it back on Friday would be all right. Just fix it!

Worst case scenario: It's dead, Jim. If this comes to pass I'll have to look into option B, which is to have one of the various tech-savvy people I know help me get what I need out of there, if in fact it is retrievable.

Worser than worst case scenario: Not only is it dead but the stuff in there is kerblooey. If this comes about it's pretty much a guarantee that I'm stopping at the liquor store and drinking myself unconscious.

Well, I guess I'll know (maybe!) tomorrow.

Virgorama

Seems you're pushing to learn all you can from places and ideas you barely even know existed a few months ago. Your experiments continue to provide such valuable lessons that you'd rather not wrap them up yet. That's fine. No rush. Take your time. We here at the Grind will welcome you back anytime you're ready. We completely understand if you want to stay out there on a limb until you're absolutely sure that the butterfly won't have any reason to try changing back into a caterpillar.

Man, I have no idea what you're talking about this week.

Almost There

Tomorrow I should know about my laptop one way or the other. I've been waiting so patiently, trying not to worry, and I've even been able to beat my old jack-borrowing* tendencies in regards to the thing, and until today I've just assumed it was going to work out all right in the end. Then I called there today.

They haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but it's slated for tomorrow. He told me it could just be a blown fuse ($25), and like he said before it could be that interior pin ($200 or so), but then he said ... unless it's a blown motherboard, in which case he'll refund me the money for the changed plug. It took me a full two minutes to realize that would mean it's hopeless and unfixable.

Ack.

In an e-mail Colleen mentioned that Ian could probably rig up a way to retrieve whatever is on the hard drive in the event of the worst coming to pass, but man oh man I really hope it doesn't come to that. I can live with losing that laptop, as inconvenient as that would be, but I REALLY want to get that stuff out of there one way or the other. Losing that stuff would be extremely discouraging, to say the least.

I guess I'll know tomorrow.

*assuming the worst right off the bat

Don't Care

Yeah, so even though I have more than a dozen posts and such stacked up in my head, I have neither the energy nor the ambition to write them right now, and to be honest even my interest is a little low. I don't know what the deal is, really. I'd much prefer to have the interest and to write them, especially seeing as how my other writing is in kind of a stall at the moment. But I just can't make myself do them, and to tell the truth I just feel like going to bed and pulling the covers over my head ... and if I had my way I wouldn't get up and go to work tomorrow, and I'd just blow the world off for a day and do whatever I wanted. I'm just in that kind of mood. And I don't know why.

I think I've crabbed enough for one night. See you tomorrow.

Disclaimer

So I was down in Massachusetts today to wish my mom a happy Mom's Day, and while talking to my dad he mentioned something about one of my cousins. You'll notice I never ever mention my cousins here in this blog, or even for the most part that I have cousins, and that is because they are -- with a few exceptions -- overbearing jerks. And that's just on the one side of the family. I don't discuss the other side and those cousins because they have mostly ceased to exist in my mind to the point where I usually forget all about them. That has to do with a pair of very long stories that aren't worth getting into here, except to say that in the second of those stories I sided with my mom against my aunt, who is a looney bird, and that's that.

Anyway, my dad was saying that one of my cousins got fired from his job over stuff written in his blog, and while he was saying it there was a big HMMMMM going through my mind. Now, this particular cousins is one of the ones I can't stand the most, and he's really kind of an arrogant little prick, so there's a good chance he was spouting off in arrogant prick-like manner, and he probably really deserved it. Even so, seeing as how I talk about my own job in this blog ... it gives me some pause. I don't think I really get into enough detail about anything that I'm anywhere close to revealing company secrets, nor do I say negative things about the company and my employers, but it probably wouldn't hurt to be really careful.

I have been careful enough, at least, that the blog here only has a small handful of readers (is that redundant? does anyone ever say 'large handful'?), and outside of those people nobody else I know even knows that I have a blog. Although, if I didn't know better I would think that my dad does know and was kinda passing that info along to me for this exact reason. But I don't think he does. If he did, he'd also know about that one something else (the big secret I have), and there's been no signs of that. I'll just chalk it up to coincidence that my last post logged here was a work related post.

So then. For the benefit of anyone reading this outside of the five or six readers that I know about: I *love* my job. I think it's the best place I've worked pretty much ever. I'm enjoying myself while doing it, and while it's hard work sometimes, and can be frustrating, I get a feeling of accomplishment out of it that hasn't been there in previous jobs. And I work for good people. My boss and my group leader are worlds better than the morons, assholes, and bitches I've worked for in the past. If I have my way, I'll stay there for years to come.

Ok. I think that covers me.

Master of Slide-Fu

This week was a long -- very long -- brutal work week. For the most part it was business as usual, but the slides continued to be a burr on everyone's backside. Yes, the same slides that I busted my finger open trying to hammer into shape so that they would work correctly. Much hammering was again done this week. Sometimes it works; sometimes not. You kind of have to get a feel for what that particular slide and that particular barrel action requires. There are a few pressure points -- three main ones -- that can be whacked to loosen things up. Most of the time I can get them to work. I call this Slide-Fu.

I actually think my Slide-Fu is superior to most, probably except for Barney's, but he's out for 8 to 9 weeks after a double knee operation. Even Brad, who is really really good, can't always get them to work. And a couple of times today (five to be exact), the guns he gave me that he slide-fit ended up screwing me when I over-reamed the chamber thinking that the bolt was jamming things up when it was really the slide that was stuck on the gas pipe. Luckily, we had some oversized bolts.

Those slides were really hacking me off. Bolt-fit is hard enough, and really slide-fit is hard enough as it is, too, without fucked up slides clogging the works. Having to smash on slides cuts down the number of guns I can get through an hour, and with Cooter as the other bolt-fitter (although WHY he's on that job I'll NEVER know), most of the pressure is on me. It's lucky for them that I'm the kind of guy who accepts the pressure and tries to get a lot done, even if it does make me grumbly.

But the slide snafu makes me even grumblier. Oh, I was swearing and cursing up a storm, brother. It was a profanity hurricane. And that was echoed down at final build by Fred, because sometimes even though the slides work for us, they jam up in the stocks down there and he has to hammer them more and so forth. It's a pain in the ass.

Believe me, the awareness of all ten of my fingers has increased a hundredfold after last week's destruction of my finger, and it has to be because with many of those slides I'm taking a full swing down with that rubber mallet right onto it. And I do *not* want to catch my finger in there again. The finger that did get hurt, while still a bit sore, is mostly all healed up now. I'd like to keep it that way.

And there are some that just won't work no matter what you do. I was so pissed at one slide that was jamming up my bolt-fitting that when I ripped it back off the barrel action it bounced off my bench and onto the floor, at which point I kicked it halfway across the cell. The other guys think I'm pretty funny when I'm mad ... and I guess I am. I dunno.

So in the end we didn't make our numbers today. There were just too many problems.

Only five more hours tomorrow morning and it's weekend time. Woo fucking hoo.

And now ... a word from our sponsors

So as the 301st post, and the start of a new cycle of awesome, I thought I'd dust off one of the wackier gimmicks from the Joyride and absorb it into the Stray Bullets lexicon ... just because. In the old days, before this new technology was at my disposal, it used to be just a big long list. Now, however, I'm able to spruce it up a bit.

This is part of my continuing effort to Outjoyride the Joyride, and even though I do think I've smoked that blog a long while ago (I think I turned that corner back in January), the old blog still does cast a long shadow over me. That's only fair, since in my alter ego I had several years to perfect my schtick. As such, I'm trying to up the ante as much as possible, and while there are numerous things in the pipeline which should show up here real soon now, it's been a long, hectic week and I'm tired. And so, we have this.

The following is but a partial list of the many SBU sponsors -- the people whose generosity allows this little non-profit blog to survive in this consumerist world. I have several others, of course, and they'll be credited in due time.










Peace out, folks.

Crapola

So I was hoping I'd get a call from that techie guy today saying that my laptop was all fixed and I could come get it. Nope. So I called them. While the nice secretary continued to be nice to me, I did get the feeling that I was "bothering" the guy with my request for information about my little laptop that I so desperately want to get fixed. Gee, sorry to trouble you with a simple question, dude. It isn't like the item is IMPORTANT to me or anything.

Anyway, the news isn't great. They apparently have to have some part shipped in or whatever (I missed the first part of what she said because I didn't realize she was talking to me instead of him), and it'll be Tuesday or Wednesday when they call me back about it. Gah! Not until then? That blows. And who even knows if it'll be ready then even, or if they'll then need to keep it additional days to actually fix the problem. Suffice to say, I am unhappy.

I want to work on the stuff that's in there *so bad* that it hurts. There is stuff I can still do, of course, and this weekend I am bound and determined to get something done in oldschool notebook style, because no goddam setback is going to derail my march towards completion of this book, even if I have to put myself up for a human sacrifice to accomplish it. I have to hack out the new Chapter 17 anyway, so this is as good a time as anyway.

Even so....



Yeah. Pretty much.

Misfit

So at work there's this new girl named Ashley. She doesn't work in our cell, since we never seem to get any new people, but she's done work for us -- including doing the sub-assembly on rear sights -- while her new cell is getting up and running. I won't say she's really an attractive girl -- she's really tall and super skinny, kind of gangly, and her eyes seem to look both ways at the same time -- but I hope when saying that you consider the source (as I'm not known for being shallow or overly looks-oriented) and just take that at face value. She is, however, a really sweet girl. Just to chime in here: she is married, so it isn't even that sort of thing. She's just very nice. And there is a certain cuteness about her despite what I've already said.

Others in the cell aren't quite so gracious in their appraisal, though, and Cooter I'm looking right at you when I say that. He always goes well out of his way, egregiously so, to point out how ugly he thinks she is, as though that impresses me or something, going as far as to call her "the Bride of Frankenstein." Now, I don't know what movie he's been watching, but she looks nothing like Elsa Lanchester whatsoever. She really seems more giraffe-like to me. But that is the nickname he's decided to stick with. Whereas I come up with Tigger and Pooh Bear, that's the sort of thing he comes up with, so again we aren't really in sync.

But he is really vicious of his criticism of her (not to her face, of course), to the point where it causes two reactions in me:
1) it makes me want to punch him in the head even more than I usually do.
B) it causes me to be even more nice to Ashley than I would have been anyway.

And to be sure, I am very nice to her. Working for our cell is very much like being thrown headfirst into the shark tank with a bleeding leg, and we can be a rough bunch of assholes, and even though an asshole I may indeed be at times, I am just the same usually thought of as "the nice one". As that is the case, I've become the go-to person for Ashley regardless of whether or not the question she has is one that applies to me and what I do at all. If she needs more rear sight parts she comes to me for them rather than Jim, for instance. And the other day she needed me to check the oil in her car for her after work, instead of going to any of the departement gearheads. It is thought among the others that she *likes* me, and that could be the case -- I don't know -- but she's married so it's a moot point anyway.

It's been pointed out to me in the past (to be honest, it was pointed out of Libby, but let's not split hairs here) that I have a tendency to stick up for the underdog, which I think is pretty accurate. And I do tend to adopt the misfits here and there, too. Back at FMC, for instance, I used to always be extra nice to Kathy M, because even though she wasn't the best worker in the world I always thought that people dumped on her way too much. So I was always nice to her. And especially if Jayme was on the crew that day, because Jayme can be just plain mean. On nights I always had to save Trevor from Justin, who could also be just plain mean. And in the early days I had to constantly save Casey from Meredith, who ... well, you know. I even had to intervene numerous times on Krysten's behalf to save her from Jacquie. I did this kind of thing at LSI, too, and that behavior continues on.

Even if that wasn't true, I'd be extra nice to Ash just to spite Cooter. Because, seriously, boy, have YOU looked in the mirror lately? I'm no Russell Crowe, but you are one funny looking roly-poly short fat round motherfucker, kid.

*****

Also today at work I got to be a complete asshole, and as a bonus it was to someone I don't even know. I'll tell you the story.

The other day at the end of the shift we were all standing around waiting to leave. Christy was over at her locker talking to someone. The rest of us were gathered over by the aisle. This new kid in the 10/22 line came by with his team leader Dave, who was assigning him a locker. All the lockers are over by us, so he walked right by Christy on the way. On his way back by Christy he stopped almost dead, turned his head completely sideways, and gave her the once over twice. Then while leaving the aisle he looked over his shoulder at her leeringly at least twice. I was the only one who saw it. She didn't even notice.

Since then, everytime this kid (he's like 18 tops) walks by our cell he gives her the same once over twice, and it's so blatant and obvious that it amuses me to no end. I mentioned this to Cooter, and told him to watch this, and he saw it, and it cracked him up. So all day today he kept urging me to tell Christy about her secret admirer. I decided that it would be funnier not to tell her, but to tell Jim (our department's smiling asshole) instead. So then Cooter urged me to get the ball rolling, and I kept putting it off. "It's all timing," I said. The time would come.

On our way out that kid was in front of us in the hallway. So I said to Jim, "See that kid right in front of Cooter?" "Yeah." "That's Christy's secret admirer." Then I described what I'd repeatedly seen. Then we were all down by the clock to swipe out. The kid was no more than four feet away when Jim said, "Yeah, that Christy. She's a real looker." Cooter almost fell on the floor. The kid looked over his shoulder and gave Jim the evil eye (Cooter described it as "the look of death"; I didn't see it myself). I was off to the side non-chalantly smiling out of the side of my mouth. Tomorrow he's almost certain to tell Christy, who will then probably come to me and want the whole story, which I'll gladly tell her.

Earlier she and I did have this exchange.
"So is she (Ashley) your girlfriend or something?"
"No. She's married anyway."
"Oh ... Yeah, well when does THAT ever matter?"
"It doesn't really."
"Yeah. See?"
(that wasn't aimed at me specifically, btw. she doesn't know my history well enough to make that jab. she's talking about guys in general)
"It wouldn't be the first time, either."
"You and her?"
"No, the married thing."

And then she was *shocked*. I'm sure she would have pressed me for the rest of the story there, but we both got distracted by other things ... and hopefully she'll forget about it.

She probably will anyway when the fact of her secret admirer comes up.

Outside, that kid went one way and we went the other. Cooter said something about his Corn Flakes being shat in (except he didn't say that; Cooter isn't clever enough to crib from Kevin Smith), and I replied, "Yup. And it's pretty much all my fault."

It isn't everyday I get the opportunity to be Mr. Niceguy and a complete dirtbag during the course of the same shift.

I kind of like it.

Virgorama

My songwriter friend Darius has created some fine music, but he periodically goes through phases when everything he produces sounds contrived. It's not writer's block he suffers from. During his bouts with bad composing, he's often teeming with ideas. The problem is that he gets caught up in a vortex of too much thinking. He can't stop his mind from tinkering endlessly with every raw impulse that wells up. Recently he joined the Immersion Composition Society, an organization that helps "talented basket cases" and "tortured geniuses" cut through their tendency to over-analyze and thereby reconnect to their pure inspiration. One technique: Musicians agree to take on firm deadlines that compel them to create songs wicked fast. I hope you find the equivalent assistance for your own field of expression, Virgo. The time is ripe for you to dissect less and build more.

All right, so .... ZOMG! It's like they know me personally sometimes.

It would help, however, if I could get my frikking LAPTOP TO WORK.

Because I really really want to work on that stuff.

Hey Diddly Diddly Ding Dong Crap

My laptop is out of the house again. The first chance I had to try it out was Monday night, and I was so excited, and after plugging it in ... it just sat there like a dead thing. Not even the lights would come on. Nothing. It was comatose. Naturally, this was disappointing and upsetting and frustrating. I played around with it for quite a while, trying to figure out if I'd done something wrong, but no -- it no work.

I called that place back and left a message. At first I wanted to sound pissy, because I was really really pissy, but I settled for disappointed. Besides, it isn't really his fault. The plug he replaced obviously needed replacing, because it was fucked. And he said he booted it up and it worked. I didn't try it out there myself, so excited was I, and yes I know that was dumb of me, but I thought we'd be ok. We were not ok. He left me a message the next day saying to bring it on back and sorry for the inconvenience. He also asked how long I'd let it charge up, and considering the actual answer was 'zero minutes', I thought that perhaps more of my foolishness had led to this problem, and maybe it just needed to be charged up. Nevertheless, in an effort to be better safe than sorry I brought it down there.

He wasn't in, but I talked to his nice secretary, discussed the problem and the fact that it might be just the charge issue. She said he'd take a look at it as soon as he could. With a heavy heart I left the poor girl there again.

There were no messages today, but since I had to go into Claremont anyway, I stopped by there. He'd taken a look at it and was dismayed to find that nothing happened, much like in my case. He said that when plugged in at least the battery light should come on, no matter what, but like I said before it just sat there like a dead thing. So he thinks it might be the interior pin, or what the plug plugs into, which will be more expensive and might take a day or two. He's hoping to get to it tomorrow.

If it runs to what he explained the first time, I do have the money for that, but damn it ... what a pain in the ass. I was hoping to do something else with that money. But this is an essential fix. I have to have that laptop back up and running, if only to empty it of the files I need. The prospect of having to rewrite those few chapters is mighty discouraging indeed. I have to get them out of there. And that's not even taking into account my large Ebert project, which I would have to start all over again ... or just scrapping altogether. Sigh.

I just want my poor girl fixed.

Back to Basics

And we're home. So I was in Massachusetts, as you know, and I had a pretty good time. The main reason for going down on Saturday was the big barbershops show in Keene, in which my dad is part of the chorus. He's been singing in one barbershop group or another for most of the last 25 years, so he's pretty good at it. The show also featured a chorus from nearby Hanover, and between the two of them -- and this is a sentence I never expected to write -- I thought the show was really fantastic. After the main show we all went to the "Afterglow" in the high school cafeteria (the show was held at Keene High School), where there was food and more singing, and Colleen and I filled our quota of laughing hysterically at something at least once per get-together. By the time we left there, though, I was wiped. I'd been up since 4 AM that morning, having worked, and it was headed towards midnight by then.

Earlier in the day I did indeed make it down to Modern Myths for Free Comic Book Day, which is something of a holiday for our kind. I didn't take any of the free ones (I left those for the kids), but I did make a sizeable purchase that filled in a few gaps in my personal collection. I need to find some time to get cracking on the reading because there is some truly awesome stuff awaiting me.

We had the family dinner on Sunday, but for a lot of the day I wasn't feeling all that great. I had a small headache that alternated with a small stomach ache, and ended up taking a long nap in the afternoon. Overall, however, it was nice to get together with everyone, and considering how I've been feeling lately, it was a good time that I needed.

Now, though, that I'm back I have a lot of things to do. I'm way behind on everything, so there's a lot of ground to make up.

So let's get to it.

Out of Town

Wow, it's been a long week. The evidence of that came yesterday when I just crashed after work and didn't amount to a damn thing. Yeah, I slept through most of it, and therefore didn't do any of the several different things I intended to do and wanted to do. So that kind of sucked. But I did need to catch up on some sleep, so it was going to happen sooner or later. If I don't get enough sleep during the week it's really my own fault, and lately I have been staying up extra late to talk to my favorite person, so really ... it's all worth it.

Ok then. I'm about to head down to Massachusetts to do some family type stuff. I'm determined to squeeze in a quick trip to Modern Myths in NoHo, which is the single best comic store I've ever been inside, and that covers a whole lot of ground. My sis and Ian are coming over, too, so it should be fun.

I'll be back tomorrow.

In the meantime, all of you watch out for your fingers, especially if hammers and/or mallets are involved.

Just trust me on that one.

She's Home

My precious little laptop is home again, safe and sound, and all repaired. I got the call about her yesterday, but by the time I got the message the place was already closed, so I had to wait all day long before I could go pick her up. As it turns out, the problem was entirely with the plug, which the techie dude cut off and replaced with a brand new fancy plug. He gave me the old one back, and it was broken and frayed all to hell. No wonder she wasn't getting any juice. That plug was some messed up, brother.

After that small scare, I'll definitely be going in and saving everything under the sun to some disk or other. We shan't be taking any chances on losing that stuff. A valuable lesson has been learned.

I'm just glad to have her home.

Now I can get to my next project, which is having a copy of the first two seasons of the book printed up for ... a brand new reader! Woo hoo. This new reader, who will be known as Her Royal Grooviness (soon to have a fancy new link from this blog to hers, along with other stellar blogs authored by Rachel and Cinderella), is someone whose acquaintance (via the internet) I've made fairly recently through Guinevere. So yet again Guin has brought a new reader to the table and added to my small book club. When I'm getting published for reals I should find an agent even HALF as aggressive as Guin and I'll be ok. At any rate, I hope HRG enjoys those chapters which should be on their way Real Soon Now.

In a perfect world they'd already be ready for mailing, but I was suffering from so much seperation anxiety with the laptop gone that the idea of also leaving my chapters at Staples for a day or two was just more than I could bear. That might sound crazy, and it probably is crazy, but I have so little that I can actually get attached to right now, and Book related things are about it. That said, I'm going down to Staples right after work tomorrow and get things done.

*****

Of course all I could do this morning was continuously bump that finger into every damn thing. And it hurt like a sonofabitch. It was swelled up to about 1.7 normal finger size, and I could barely bend it at all, and it was just in the way no matter what I was trying to do. In a job like mine you never realize just how often you utilize all of your fingers until you take one out of play. I had to readjust everything until I got into a decent groove with it.

At one point Jim and Christy tried to instigate me into picking on Cooter for his lackluster performance (the truth is, though, that he was better today than normal, and the two of them have completely lost any objectivity when it comes to him), but I didn't take the bait. Jim insinuated something about getting some work done, meaning Cooter, who was telling me ALL ABOUT his four-wheeler, the lifts on his truck, and other redneck-oriented things I couldn't care less about, but since he was talking and working both I didn't mind. So I brought my bolt-fit gun over to Jim and said (deliberately missing the point he was making), "I am doing the best I can here ... with my nine fingers." At first he was like NO, that isn't what I meant, but when I said the fingers part he had to laugh.

Right before break I decided it was time to change the bandages, which would require a stop at the nurse's station again. I'd bought some band-aids at Wal-Mart last night, but I didn't have any of the kind that went over the fingertip, and plus they have some special stuff there to put on banged up fingers the way mine is banged up. Also, I wanted the nurse to look at the finger again and tell me if what was going on there was in anyway normal or if I should plan a doctor's visit.

When I pulled off those band-aids, first to show Cooter the ghastly wreckage, as well as the others, they were *horrified*. Well, in fairness, when I'd applied those bandages the night before my finger was still in full bleed, so it was a mess under there. Even so, the finger was swollen, the skin was bleached white and dead, and that awful circular cut stood out like a sore ... uh, yeah. "Jesus Christ," Jim said, "I knew you smacked it, but I didn't know you did THAT to it." And then Christy insisted that I had to go see a doctor. And then they started talking about infections and what not. Blah blah blah. I was just enjoying the notoriety of my first truly wretched work related injury there. I'm a little sick that way.

The nurse didn't think it was all so bad, at least not something that would require a visit to a doctor. He was, however, more than a little taken aback by the sight of that finger. When you can even shock a nurse, you've really done something.

By lunch time the finger did feel better, and thankfully wasn't as swollen anymore, so that I could go about my job without feeling the constant ouch of my pulverized digit. It's still sore now, and I'm sure it still looks like hell, but it's liveable.

We made our numbers earlyish and there was the option to go home. Last week, suffering from intense Spring Fever, I took that option four out of the five days. But today I stayed. A number of guns had come back for defective (that is "flat") firing pins that were blowing the primers, and as usual, any repairs that come back that can be construed as the result of their bolt-fitting ... I take personally. I used to do that at LSI, too, and it almost led me to an ulcer, but I have a more balanced outlook on that kind of thing now -- it's my responsibility to fix it, but I'm not going to let it eat my stomach. That's easier to do at Rugers because Mike and Barney are reasonable people and not wretched old hags like Sue.

So I stayed. I was determined to switch out as many of the defective firing pins as possible. Cooter was going to leave, too, but after seeing that I was determined to stay, even if I was staying alone, he decided to stay. I believe that I'm the only person in that cell that a) Cooter will actually listen to, and b) has any influence over the boy. I guess that's kind of cool.

I didn't get them all changed out, but I made some good progress ... even if my ability to distinguish between a "flat" firing pin and a perfectly good one is dubious at best.

And while staying to fix those, there was a sighting of a really cute girl. (see previous post)

Woot.

Pooh Bear Sighting

After everyone else left (see next post), Cooter and I were in the cell alone doing repairs. He then alerted me to the presence of Pooh Bear at the vending machine, at which point I devolved into a drooling meatball. She is just teh awesome. That's all.

And this rare Pooh Bear sighting prompted this monologue: "Oh, I really like that girl. She's definitely still #1 on the list. Tigger's probably about #4 on the list. I don't really have a #5 right now, though. You know who #'s 2 and 3 are.* But remember, Cassie is off the list for now until she comes back ... if she comes back. ** Of course, as soon as she does come back she's guaranteed at least the #2 spot, but really I'll have to recalibrate the whole thing. I suspect Pooh Bear will still be #1."

*Karen and the new lady in HR.
** from maternity leave.

At this point Cooter just laughed and said, "You're really something else."

"Well, I'm a Virgo. This is what I do. I can categorize anything in a heartbeat."

Cooter then went on a tangent about how I tend to like the 'chunky' ones while he likes the skinnier girls. While I wouldn't clasify Pooh Bear as 'chunky' by any means, she does have a particular shape that I find extremely pleasing, and the nickname I gave her was given for a reason.

"Well, Cooter, that's the big difference between you and me. Where you see chunky, I just see awesome."

Last Saturday while going outside on break to blacken my lungs, I happened across Pooh Bear down by the door I was headed for. I was able to snag a look at her name badge, which she rarely wears, and found out her name. It's ... Jen. You know, she does kind of look like a Jen.

I understand that it's a common name and all, particularly among people reasonably in my age range, but WHY does the #1 Ruger's girl on my list have to be named Jen?

Why?

That's just not fair.

Safety Tip #2

This is Uncle Sparky again with another safety tip:

If you live in a cramped one room shithole, and happen to have a lot of stuff, and you typically walk around said shithole barefoot, be aware of any plastic milk crates full of books that are placed haphazardly around the floor, or else you might end up breaking your fucking toe.

YOU'RE WELCOME.

(Editor's note: this didn't just happen. I broke my little toe about a year ago that way.)

Safety Tip #1

This is your Uncle Sparky back again with a safety tip:

If during the performance of your job it is necessary to beat on a metal part with a large rubber mallet in order to get the parts to work together correctly, be sure that you make sure where your fingers are. Otherwise, you might accidentally beat the holy snot out of said finger, causing approximately a pint of blood loss and much painful swelling, not to mention a little embarassment.

YOU'RE WELCOME.