Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Problem Solved! I discovered the solution to my broken console dilemma! My Baseball glove! How could I have been so blind as to not recognize the solution earlier?!

• The glove is leather, my seats are leather.
  
  
• The glove give the car that "new leather" smell again.
  
  
• Baseball season is approaching, so it will look appropriate.
  
  
• It holds the console down, but still allows access.
  
  
• Allow me to officically classify my bonneville as a "Sportscar."
  
  

Hmmmmm..... I wonder if I threw a couple of ball-bats in there if I could legally claim that I drive around in the Batmobile?

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Remember way back in December of last year when the spirit of Karen Carpenter screwed up my car interior? Well today I screwed it up even worse! If you remember, I had used the miracle of Crazy Glue® to fix my console. Much like Oscar did with the bionic man, I made the console stronger, faster, better than before. But it wasn't strong enough!

I started out with the best of intentions; to clean my filthy vehicle and get it all nice and shiny again. So I took the Bonneville to the car wash over my lunch and broke out the cleanser of the gods: Armor All!!! You know the cleaner is the shit when their mascot is a warrior Viking! I mean, think of all of the other product mascots! Charlie Tuna (nothing but a fish! A near sighted fish at that), the Jolly Green Giant (big, but kind of a sissy! Besides, the whole thing of him and "Sprout" is kinda reminiscent of Michael Jackson and Emmanuel Lewis. Too creepy.) The Morton Salt Girl (she's just a little kid!), Morris the Cat (Just a stupid, finicky puss!), the Tidy Bowl Man (He lives in a toilet --- Do I need to say more?), Mr. Whiffle (has a toilet paper fetish!), they all pale besides the fearsome armor all warrior! The only mascots that stand half a chance are Tony the Tiger (Because he's a friggin' tiger for crying out loud!!), and Mr. Clean (One seriously tough looking gay dude!), but even they pale in comparison to the Viking Warrior. The dude has got a sword and shield at the ready. I imagine the sword would make mince-meat of any tiger (anthropomorphic or otherwise)! And I really doubt that hacking off Mr. Clean's bald head would prove to be challenging either.

So while wiping the dashboard with Armor All, I inadvertently leaned against the console, pushing the top towards the side, resulting in a faint "snap", followed by a spring-loaded pop of my console! Even thought the Crazy Glue® was strong enough to secure the up and down pressure of the console, it could not hold the force of sideways pressure. I found the piece and noticed that it had broken along the exact same area that I had repaired. "Good", I thought "I'll just have to glue it again and it will be as good as new!"

So I sat the broken piece in the passenger seat and commenced to cleaning the car. After wiping down the interior, I removed the mats and started vacuuming. It took about three seconds for me to realize my mistake! Before I even thought about it, I ran the vacuum over the seat and heard the plastic piece "zip" through the hose, rattling as it flew towards the canister! Damnation!!! How could I have been so careless???

I finished cleaning the car, but now have a permanently open console. Now instead of resting my arm comfortably on the leather, I have to rest my elbow in a deep, hard plastic hole. I'm miserable.

Saturday, March 26, 2005

I hate blogs that are nothing more that a long list of complaining and ripping on other people, the government, why "the man" is keeping them down, etc. Is it just me or does it seem like 99.9% of the blogs out there are nothing more than a bunch of whine-bags trying to blame things on other people?

Grow up! Learn to write something worth reading. And stop posting stuff that other people have written or created. Be original! With the exception of two items, my entire site is original. C'mon people, get off your lazy asses and do something for yourself. I'm sick of all of the bitching!

AAAAAAaaargh! Now I'M bitching about thier bitching!!!!!!!! It's infectous! Flee! Flee, before it infects you too!

Friday, March 25, 2005

The Good Friday that wasn't so good.

Have you ever had one of those days where absolutely nothing goes right? A day where you realize that the world would be safer if you had simply ignored the alarm clock and stayed in bed? Well, today was like that for me. It began like every other workday, with me awakening not by the alarm clock, but by the aggravated voice of Her Majesty telling me that i had overslept. So I drag myself out of bed, start a pot of coffee and climb into a hot shower. All was going fine so far, but little did I realize that fate had began playing its cruel joke.

After the showering, shaving, and basically making myself super-sexy for work I proceeded to make a salad to take to lunch. It was one of my famous kick-ass salads with fresh mushrooms, bean sprouts, and all of the other sweet goodies provided by Mother Nature. I added all of the components to the master salad and was putting away the ingredients when WHAM, the plastic container of alfalfa sprouts fell to the floor. I stared in amazement as an explosion equal to that of a hundred nuclear bombs pitched the seeds, covering every damn inch of the linoleum floor. I wiped up the seeds with a paper towel, cursing like a sailor the entire time, until I had scooped up every last one of the miniscule brown germinators. "I'll be damned if I get blamed for alfalfa growing out from under the stove!" I thought.

Shaking off the experience, I poured the pot of coffee into my thermos like I have done every day for the past seven years. you would think that I would be able to do this act blindfolded by now, but no! just as I was topping off the thermos, I twitched just enough to pour a dab of piping hot coffee onto my hand. Yep! And damned if it didn't hurt like hell!

undaunted, I took upon the task of preparing breakfast. Since I was running late already, I popped two sausage patties in the microwave for a "quickie" morning meal and I poured myself a large glass of cold milk. I thought it would be a good idea to help out with the dishes while I was waiting on the sausage to be finished so I decided to unload the dishwasher. I walked around the kitchen opening the cabinets and proceeded to spill the whole glass of milk off of the counter. The milk burst from the glass like white napalms, absolutely covering everything within a six-foot radius. There was milk in the cabinets, under the stove, inside the drawers, on the floor, and all over me!

This eruption of milk set off the loudest and most dire string of cusswords that have ever been spoken in the English language! I was swearing so loud that Her Majesty woke up to make sure that I hadn't chopped off a limb in some horrible utensil accident.

She cleaned up the mess while I went and took another shower. Luckily she had taken the day off from work and told me that she would go ahead and finish cleaning up so that I could make a mad dash to work.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

We sold Easter eggs at work today for charity. Some were filled with cash prizes, some contained candy, and some, yes some.....caused you to mutate into an insect!

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Bad Apples!

Those of you who know me realize that I am addicted to my Mac. In my opinion, the world of PCs always seem to be a step or two behind the ingenious innovators working at Apple computer. Since I am such a die-hard fan, it should come as no surprise that all of my previous vehicles have been adorned with the little freebie Apple decals that ship with Mac computers. All of them but my current vehicle that is.

So today, I found the decals that arrived with my new G5 and prepared to apply the sticky little apple onto my back windshield. But as soon as the smallest portion of glue touched the glass, I was struck with a perplexing question.

Is the Apple logo really a sign of the devil? Sure, the little happy Apple looks harmless enough just sitting there in all of its white goodness, but there may be an evil hidden behind that symbol.

Monday, March 21, 2005

The Brat has been on vacation with my parents since last Friday, so I haven't updated the site much since then. Amazingly, I have been spending time alone with Her Majesty. (A rare occurrence, indeed.)

Gas prices reached an all time high of $2.13 a gallon today. Bummer! Now I'm contemplating things that I can do to earn more money. Aside from graphic design, here are some of my non-art related talents:

1. I can spit sunflower seeds very, very, very long distances.

2. I can yell loud enough to make every kid in Chucky Cheese start crying.

3. I am fluent in American foul slang.

4. I am awesome at pretending that I care what other people are talking about.

5. I eat almost all kinds of garden vegetables.

6. I am good at finding weakpoints and stupidity in others' personalities.

7. I can accept blame.

8. I can find humor in everything. (well....except for high gas prices)

9. I can break promises, things, and people.

10. I can dance if I want too.

If you know a part time money making opportunity that suit the above skills (outside of quick turn real-estate or internet terminals), please let me know!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

This whole feeding tube thing is driving me crazy! On one hand, I believe that a person should have the right to die, but on the other I think that if her husband has a kid with another woman, that the parents should become Terri's default guardians.

If Terri Schiavo's "life" is going to end, the doctors should at least have the decency to dope her up with morphine while she is starving to death! Should the tube be in or out?! I don't know, but someone needs to make a final decision and stick with it. Maybe it will come down to a coin toss.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Wow! The Brat is becoming quite the accomplished chef. She even goes all out on the appearance! This is the salad she prepared for Her Majesty and I this evening! Mmmmmmm..........

Monday, March 14, 2005

Her Majesty went to bed early tonight so The Brat and I decided to make emergency preparations for the upcoming alien invasion!

These aluminum foil hats were specially designed to repel the mind control waves that are being sent by the advanced alien intelligence.

The Brat's design reflects the waves from the dome shaped helmet and safely discharges the mind control waves toward the floor. As an added bonus to this design, we discovered that it also interrupts the signals from the alien implants in her brain. Plus, we can pick up all of our local TV channels if she raises one arm to the sky and touches the back of the television.

My helmet design is based upon a combination of the classic "My favorite Martian" design and the ill-remembered "Sleestack" design. The fin gathers all alien transmissions and allows the antennae to dissipate the waves safely. There were only two drawbacks to this design; the dissipating waves cause a slight humming noise and it caused a very worried look on the face of my wife when she awoke to seeing me wearing it.

And what did Her Majesty have to say about the helmets? "You guys are so f***ing weird."

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Just so that you know, I use a stat counter service to keep track of my web hits. It kinda' neat to see whos been checking out your site and how they found it. Sometimes it can be quite disturbing however, as you can see from this screenshot of one of todays "hits".

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Today we went and saw "My Fair Lady" at the OCC theater. It was an impressive production considering the small population that we have in the surrounding areas. Tammy Myers, a friend of the family, was cast in the lead ole of Eliza Doolittle. She was awesome of course and her personality came though to become the character. At one point while changing scenes, she was bumped by someone moving props and she got a bloody nose. So she continued on holding a kleenex to her nose throughout the next two scenes, explaining to Henry Higgins that she had been practicing so much that her nose was bleeding!

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Started teaching tonight and I think its going to be a super class this time. There are on;y seven students this semester which means that i will be able to spend a whole lot of time with each individual student.

Wednesday, March 9, 2005

Her Majesty had a small ar accident today. I can't hassle her too much though, because she was working in her office at the time. Her car was parked "safely" in the parking lot when an old truck pulling a trailer full of junk rounded the corner without slowing down. It was one of those trailers with "redneck tie-downs" or as most of us call them; old tires. when the trailer rounded the corner, the tire flew off of the trailer and bounced into Her Majesty's carriage. It caused a massive $800 worth of damage to the right rear of the car.

Tuesday, March 8, 2005

12 - (124-7 * 44657712.548) + 2123-54111 - 4515674 +([54848 * 645856] /216541)........... Too.... many..... numbers! Must..... shift brain back..... into...... right-side..........mode.

Monday, March 7, 2005

I went through some training today at work. it was a specialized course called "Catalog Math" and it dealt with calculating figures such as response percentages, total promotion cost, and profit per thousands.

I spent the majority of the day listening to the speaker as if I had any clue whatsoever as to what he was saying. I tried to absorb it, but i just couldn't seem to get the left side of my brain to fire up. My synapses were sputtering and coughing and seemed to stall everytime I heard the phrase "break even point" or "contribution to promotion cost". The worst part of it was that I was sharing the classroom with a butt-load of left brained people who were used to crunching numbers. I tried to keep up, but my mind unconciously translated the instructor's lecture into the familiar language of the Charlie Brown teacher. For every "Now calculate the promotion cost' that he spoke, I heard "Wah wah wah whah, wha wah waaaah."

So I'm spending time tonight going over everything at my own pace. I'll be at it all night.

Its funny that I couldn't seem to get shirted into using my left brain. its been so long since i've even really tried. It will sound funny to some of you, but I used to do a mental excercise called "The enchanted loom" when I was in college. Its a visualization excercise that helps to activate your right hemisphere while "powering down" the left side. its freaky, bizarre, and it WORKS! It will even make you feel drunk the first few times that you do it successfully. It took about a year before I got proficient in it, but now I can get results in less than a minute. All of you creative-folk out there should try this if you haven't already. Its effects are astounding. The sensations that this can cause are amazing. Personally, I can "feel " the right side of my brain get heavier, like water rolls into it like a small wave. At first you'll notice some things happening. You may feel dizzy or a little disoriented and you may (or probably will) lose track of time. I think this may be some sort of self-hypnosis or something. Anyway, it works! if you truly need to be creative, you should try to do this excercise.

I didn't invent this. It was compiled by Sir Charles Sharrington and was published in the book "Drawing on the right side of your brain."

1. Visualize in your mind's eye the magic loom inside your head, with its myriad flashing shuttles now coalescing in one part of your brain -- disolving, darkening, then streaming across to another part in an ever changing pattern; glowing and subsiding, glowing and subsiding.

2. Now imagine that you can control the pattern and can cause the flashing shuttles to gather in one part, then to dissolve and gather in another part. Imagine them gathering first on one side then on the other. Imagine that this gathering causes an actual physical sensation inside your brain, a slight change in pressure, a minute shift in weight, a slight warming or cooling, a faint buzzing sound.

Sunday, March 6, 2005

I've been reading a lot of other peoples' blogs lately. I never realized how many thousands upon thousands of people are into the whole blogging thing. Since I've started reading them, i've begun to notice some simiarities between most of them. From my experience, the typical blogger either listens to CNN and rehashes the news after attaching their personal slant, or they ignore the news entirely and report on pop culture and like an angry version of MTV news. There are exceptions though. I find sites like Mightygirl.net, Defective Yeti, and Jennville to be amazingly different.

After a few weeks of intensive blog reading, I discovered that I am not your standard blogger.

1) I do not consider myself to be an expert at politics, world views, or international relations. I tend to vote Republican for high offices and Democrat for local offices. If I don't like a candidate, I will switch paries without a second thought. (I guess this makes me a Republicrat....or maybe a Democan. Perhaps even a conserberal or a libervative.)

2) I don't really hate anyone or anything, and I'm not angry. I do however, like to poke fun at everything

3) I make my own observations about what I notice in my world, and then comment upon it. Sometimes its funny, sometimes its serious. But it is always my personal observation, not someone elses. Most of the other blogs that I've looked at appear to be clones of other blogs. Most are full of the same photos, jokes and rants. And while there is no shortage of blogs, there appears to be a shortage of originality.

4) I am not a good writer and I don't pretend to be. I usually forget to use spellcheck, my syntax sucks, and I often forget to capitalize my letter "i"s.

5) I don't take any of this too seriously. This is kind of a new hobby for me and I enjoy it.

Saturday, March 5, 2005

I just got an email from Maggie Mason giving me permission to link to her site; Mightygirl.net.

Maggie is a freelance writer and editor in San Fancisco and has an awesome website/blog that is smart, funny and rant free. I love it! You'll love it too, so check it out here.

Friday, March 4, 2005

We were returning home from a basketball game around 9pm on the first night of the year that it reached 60 degree weather.

Her Majesty: "Do you hear that?"

Me: "Hear what?"

Her Majesty: "That noise! Is that bugs hitting the windshield, or is it raining?"

Me: "I think its bugs."

Her Majesty: "But, its wet....." (long pause) "Blood."

Me: "Blood?"

Her Majesty: "Clear blood."

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

Okay! Now the skeletal system is starting to take shape. Today I re-enforced much of yesterday's work as well as finishing the legs, feet, neck and head. The whole skeleton stands nearly seven feet tall. The photo on the far right shows a detailed shot of the neck and skull. The bottom photograph illustrates the depth that I am building into this project.

Now that I have the whole body hanging on my door I'm considering not turning it into a skeleton at all. I'm really starting to like it and think that I might just leave it as it is. Maybe even take more wire and "flesh it out" until it gets the depth of a complete human figure. I bet I could do it for under $30 more. I guess I would just hang it in my studio if I did that.

I dunno. What do you think?

Tuesday, March 1, 2005

Well, its been four months since Frightfest 2004 and today I began ny first project for next years party.Since I do most of the decorations by hand, it takes lots and lots of hours to get the new decorations ready for next October.

I always wanted a life size skeleton but never could afford to fork out the hundred or so dollars that the cost. I know, I could get a cheap junky one fro around thirty dollars, but who wants to decorate with junk?! I want a cool looking skeleton that looks like real bones and that is flexible enough to be posed.

So I bought a spool of 9 gauge wire for under $8 and began my design. As you can see, tonight I began with the rib cage, collar bones, pelvis, arms, and hands. I even got the beginnings of a leg!