|
|
Friday, September 29th, 2006
| |
12:04 pm
|
So to start my morning I flattened somebody's cat. It was standing by the side of the road. I was only going 25 mph but slowed down a bit. It seemed to be just chilling, but then at the last possible instant it dashed into the road. Feline suicide? I hit the brakes but still heard a double thump. In the rearview mirror it wasn't moving. I stopped anyway but it was obvious that there was nothing I could do. I had nailed it square in the head. Twice. So I left, feeling terrible. At least it didn't suffer, isn't that the usual salve applied in situations like this?
As a pessimist, I have to assume the worst possible scenario. I'm a cat murderer--at least guilty of involuntary catslaughter--and some little kid walked out of his door this morning to find the evidence of my crime. But then my inborn American sense of entitlement kicked in. Why shouldn't I just be able to drive to work without being put in the position of killing someone's cat? After all, it's not like left home this morning with the urge to kill a cat. I tried not to hit it. I really did. So even though you're cursing me for killing your cat, and I'm wishing that I hadn't killed your cat, WTF are you thinking, letting your cat roam around town where there's lethal threats around every corner?
current mood:  uncomfortable
current music: Magnetic Fields - Kiss Me Like You Mean It
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Friday, October 14th, 2005
| |
11:10 am - Yeah, once every 7 months is about right
|
My car slowly is degenerating into a state of true ghettofabulousness. Lost a hubcap the other day and immediately the car started to rust. It's like one of those elderly people that has just given up on life..."lost a hubcap, commence downward slide immediately." Yes I realize that I'm anthropomorphizing, but wait for it, I'm just getting warmed up. I've owned this particular car for longer than I've owned any other car ever, 6 years. But unlike every other car I've ever owned, I have no emotional attachment for it. Or, more correctly, if I do feel any emotion toward it, that emotion would be somewhere between "boredom" and "mild disgust." See, my car is of the standard-issue parental-type practical child-hauler variety. As is apparently my life these days. Were I a better writer I would make a subtle and witty connection between my life and my car but I'm not (at least not today) so you connect the dots. I lust for a Scion xB (still practical--affordable, can haul the kids, not like I'm needing to feed my mid-life-crisis with a Porsche full of Viagra and a hairpiece or anything). I've scheduled replacement for 18 months away (when my wife's standard-issue parental-type practical child-hauler is paid for) but that's seeming like an eternity and far too much of a centrally-planned Soviet-style way to deal with the situation.
So maybe I'll just go buy a cool car to help regain my lost youth. Yay consumerism.
current mood: boredom / mild disgust
current music: Tullycraft / Cowgirls on Parade
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 28th, 2005
| |
9:06 pm - Signs of the End Times, part XVIII
|
Seen on a label today: Eucalyptus Oil (Industrial Use Only)
current music: Propaganda - La Carne, La Morte e Il Diavolo
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Wednesday, March 23rd, 2005
| |
8:11 am - A spot of envy
|
I wish I could play the Hammond B-3 organ.
current music: Belle and Sebastian - Don't Leave the Light On, Baby
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Monday, March 14th, 2005
| |
8:37 pm - The Real vs. the Synthetic
|
OK, more on the topic of active resistance then. So I joined a gym, I've lost 20 pounds (about 8 years worth of sloth and gluttony undone right there). And I'm trying to imagine explaining this to my grandmother who lived on a farm during the Great Depression. "Yes, Grandma, I run in place for an hour, 4-5 days a week. I pay money to do this. Sometimes I go to a class where a whole room full of people jump up and down in unison too..."
From the beginning of time until, well, my generation came on the scene, it was reasonably hard to get enough food, and have enough Slack, to become fat. So it was pretty much only the tribal chief who got to be gluttonous and slothful (and, perversely, got all the hot tribal chicks too, adding lust to the list). That was just the reality of life. Now, we (here I'm engaging in the vanity of "we," implying the unlikely presence of "you," the reader...) live in such plenty that we (again with the "we") have to take deliberate action to avoid gluttony and sloth if we want any chance at hot tribal chicks.
I love food. Making it, eating it, talking about it, etc. But yet part of the anti-gluttony program involves eating a lot of synthetic food. Sure, salads are real and I eat a lot of those now, along with fruit smoothies. But realistically trying to minimize calories and still get the right nutrition almost mandates eating things out of boxes with detailed information on them. I wonder if this is an improvement. It certainly is for things like drugs...I'd rather take penicillin than eat mold. It seems scientific somehow, which makes me feel like I live in the future...I kinda like that.
Not sure exactly where I'm going with this but since "you" the reader don't exist I guess it's not too important.
current music: The Clash - Know Your Rights (live)
|
|
(1 comment | comment on this)
|
| Friday, November 26th, 2004
| |
10:40 am - Gamer Funk
|
I had a hand recently in designing a board game. Not the next Trivial Pursuit or anything, but we did manage to get it published. I mean one of these deals where we actually get paid by the publisher, not one of those vanity press things. Anyway, it just came out and now it's out in the world to be judged. I'm one of these personality types for whom external approval is important, no matter how much I wish that weren't the case. Not earth-shatteringly important, but important enough that it does matter to me and I watch the board game review web sites at a level which borders on "obsessive." Anyway, so far the reviews have been mixed, and loud complaints about minor issues (at least, they seem minor to me) are more frequent than praise.
If anyone is actually reading this, you'll notice that I haven't linked to anything that would identify the game or the complainers or the publisher. Sort of like the Mixerman. This is because some of the complaints came over something one of my partners put in his blog on our company web site, so I'm a little leery of being too public here.
Anyway, I guess I could have saved a lot of typing and just linked to this which summarized the situation nicely.
current music: Man or Astro-Man? - A Simple Text File
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004
| |
9:15 pm - Articles I Wish Had Been Available At The Time, Part 1
|
Saw this today and cringed. I spent my wild 20's at work (and not even getting rich, in fact quite the opposite) and actually felt superior to normal 20-somethings at the time. What a maroon. What a mirage. So now I'm doing things backwards, trying to unsettle myself rather than settling down. Bought a motorcycle...then another...then sold the first one...then bought another...and another...and another. Trying vainly to fill some void? You bet. Started riding motorcycles on racetracks. Not racing, though...too many real 20-somethings who haven't internalized the concept of mortaility race, maybe I'm regressing but not that far.
current music: EBN - Get Down ver 2.2
|
|
(comment on this)
|
| |
8:59 am - But I'm not a Goth Teen, so why a LiveJournal Then?
|
Who knows? It seems that in the absence of an active resistance, quality of life goes steadily downhill. So then consider this part of my active resistance.
Plus of course the opportunity to be a ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jwz fanboy, albeit a doughy nearly-middle-aged one.
current music: Crispy Ambulance - Not What I Expected
|
|
(comment on this)
|
|
|
|
|
