“Ounce for ounce, bite for bite… BETTER THAN APPLES.”

Prunes have got it tough, man. I think you need to have some sort of advanced degree in marketing to pur a positive spin on something that looks like a bucket of demon hearts. When you read the little fine-print explanation, they mean”better” in that it’s way more fiber per bite. By that reasoning, Eric Johnson, the performer last night, is second for second better than The Beatles. If “better” means “more notes”.

A closing FYI: t’s painful to watch not-so-attractive girls come on to guys. I don’t know what the exact mixture of desperation of lack of experience is, but it ain’t pretty. “I don’t mean to be rude er nothin, but if you don’t work out you gotta be liftin’ plywood all day er sumthin,” she says, putting her hand on his arm and leaving it there.

I just want to scream, “have some subtlety, woman!”

“Hey, man, I wanna talk to you. Why would you say that about my wife?”

In a situation like this it was best to go on the offense.

“Thing is, point blank, your wife looks pregnant and I feel it’s my responsibility as a bartender to not serve anyone who is. It’s not an easy question to ask someone, but I’d rather be an asshole and ask than to risk harm to some unborn baby.”

“Oh. All right. I guess thanks fer lookin’ out fer us.”

Then I went too far.

“And I’ve gotta say, that shirt she’s wearing just makes her look…” And I couldn’t even finish. I knew there was nothing I could say from that instant on that could reverse the tsunami of awkwardness. The same tidal-force that would lead her to shredding and burning the blouse then snuffing the fire with her sobby tears.

Update: Leigh emailed me this pic a while back, but I’m just now getting to uploading it. This isn’t the exact top, but it’ll help give you an idea why I thought the girl was pregnant.

holy shit, contageous cancer! In dogs, but still.

EyeTV - TV for your mac.

AIDS vaccine! Fuck yes!

This idea to temporarily abate global warming… sounds like it needs to be though through a little more.

AI investing

Specific serotonin gene blocked to produce always-happy mice! Maurice, could you have known?

Jimmy Wales talks about Wikipedia, my favorite online resource. ” Love. It isn’t very popular in technical circles to say a lot of mushy stuff about love, but frankly it’s a very very important part of what holds our project together.”

Good advice to users of public WiFi networks

Music squeeges serotonin. Maurice, enough already!

Cookie Blues

It didn’t help things that Meredith and I were up ‘till past three on Friday playing Monopoly. We arrive a little late, but still on time ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo. After a few hours of packing the McCords treat us to the final lunch in Mebane. Everyone else (Including Meredith who was such a sport helping some family whom she barely knows pack) departs and Donnie, Lance, Arica, Rich (Donnie’s boyfriend) and I drive to Atlanta. On the tip Arica and I stop at an honest-to-goodness truck stop in order to let the rest of posse catch up. Like showers and hair cutter style full-service truck stop. And glimmering in the corner of the complex, a one-roomed, 24-hour “TRUCKERS CHURCH” with a glowing, neon “OPEN” hanging in the window. I stopped in to find a woman of about 80 rising from a small organ on braced legs. “Help yourself to the pamphlets and CDs.” I do.

We roll into Atlanta at around midnight and the sweltering, breathy heat has solidly loitered into the night. In about an hour we (the boys) manage to unpack the van while Arica (the pregnant girl) goes on what sounds to be the worst quest for an all-hours Wal-Mart ever. Unpacking the van, Donnie manages to step on a rusty nail which punctures the sole of his sandal and, consequently, the bottom of his foot. Rich is insistent on seeing the wound, but Donnie is stubbornly reluctant. “Quit being so gay Donnie and let your boyfriend look at your foot,” I want to say.

It was past three when we retired, so waking up for a breakfast-burrito at 11 was painful. We were denied by The Flying Biscuit (assholes!). After a little morning-sickness we’re ready for Ikea. Actually, I wasn’t ready. For the glory. Donnie and Rich joined us a few hours later for some quality awkwardness spurned by some private lovers-tiff. They were set to leave Monday, but it must have been the Hotlanta heat which got to them as they left for home from Ikea. I was thankful for the plane ticket I had as driving home with them would have been six hours of suffocating silence.

Pizza dinner is followed by some nice time on the porch with Lance. A lot is going on in his life however we end up talking about my new cube job. We leave for the airport and are almost thwarted by a roadblock and lack of gas. The trip home was beautiful. Night. The cities looked like glowing circuitry and galaxies. In the distance the atmosphere released it’s static surplus in glowing, orange bolts. This did not calm the Pakistani with the dead eye sitting next to me. The Flaming Lips’ 30,000 ft. of Despair was as beautiful as it has ever been.

Dome project fever has been reignited in me. I feel I need to create something so beautiful that humanity appreciates its own existence. Not to overstate it, of course.

What I’m working on now feels a lot like the y2k bug… just a lot of going through old code… looking for what is out-dated… updating it…

If I had made the movie Office Space I would have had a scene with Peter smoking a cigar in his cube, feet up on the desk, completely naked. Nothing says, “I don’t give a fuck” quite like it.

The new employee training session for sexual harassment is this Tuesday… so I’m trying to work in all the harassment I can before I “should know better.”

It’s been four days at Rho so far and I have yet to do any real work. Oh, I’m “working,” but right now it is the long process of getting me off the on-ramp and onto the motherfuckin highway!

In other news, Lance and Arica are moving away from North Carolina… possibly forever. Lance is finally putting that three years of law-schoolin’ to work as a corporate lawyer. Corporate law. I think he shied away from intellectual property law just so I wouldn’t constantly be bugging him.

They are moving this weekend, so my Saturday and Sunday are booked. I’m driving with them to Atlanta to help with the move-in and flying back Sunday night. With all of the extra airport security (thank-you-very-much dangerous liquids!) it’ll inconveniently cut into the time I’ll have to hang out at their new digs.

One of life’s truisms is that the kind of person who wants to have anal sex with you in the bathroom of a filthy rock club after first meeting you is the exact - again - the exact kind of person that you should not if-you-know-what-is-good-for-you have anal sex with in the bathroom of a filthy rock club after first meeting them. I honestly thought that the punk-rock marching band would be the big story from last night. No, it was some girl who mI’ve never met before wanting to get rammed by the urinals; that pretty much took the cake.

My new job is starting Monday. We’ll see if that increases or decreaes the frequency of my blog posts.

Pure fucking genius, that’s what this is.

An interesting read on fossilize embryos, but out of nowhere is this night-terror-inducing quote:
The images show that one fossil embryo known by the scientific name Markuelia must be most closely related to a modern group of marine invertebrates known as the penis worms, based on the number of teeth it has and the way they are arranged.
Think, if you could have gone back in time and killed this things parents then the penis worm may never have evolved! Also that bit about them dissolving tons of rock to get a few embryo fossils. That just smacks of something that fifty years from now palentologists will slap themselves on the head with regret.

Jack White’s new band’s website is kickin’ it oldschool

Has anyone else heard of the britney-spears-popping-out-a-baby sculpture? Why am I the last?

Bro Rape

The Uncanny Valley

Re: SBF - Why Is It Difficult!!!!! - w4m - 36 - m4w

Migrants troubled by lack of sex

Steve Jobs… his first day on the job looks to be his most difficult. Introduced by the most thunderous applause I’ve ever heard he is then shamelessly booed.

This will make you happy to be alive

A lot of cool stuff has happened and as a result I can’t really write about it in any interesting way. This will happen from time to time. As I don’t have a journal that is just for me, I’m left with this blog, and I’d feel kind of guilty if I didn’t at least make note of some of the things that have happened this week.

• Last Thursday I turned 31!
• Meredith, Josh, Julie, Tony and I went to Akai Hana. D-lish.
• Friday I bought this new laptop and a small MIDI controller. Small enough to maybe have in a cube and kick out some jams during lunch breaks? We’ll see.
• Saturday was the joint party with Emily and Marty. I had a great time with everyone who came out. Even Karen made a cameo!
• Played pool with Meredith, Emily and some guy with a rainbow purse.
• Sunday The Eels were upstaged by a couple second-basein’ it and dry humping on the pool table. (Complete with gross-out style orgasm faces! I win!)
• Monday was all about bodily fluids as a donated platelets then peed for a drug test. Got to see “Failure to Launch” for probably the fourth time at the Red Cross. (Aside to Red Cross nurses: I love you, but could you please rotate out the fucking movie?)
• Tuesday the dentist saw me as a walk-in. I have one minor cavity, which isn’t bad for having not been to the dentist in thirteen years.