I don't care to consort with those of the robot race

Still dicking around with my laptop, trying to get a setup that's just right for me. After playing around with Kubuntu, and then Gnome in Linux Mint, I've switched to the ubiquitous Ubuntu for the first time. And I must admit I like it.

It appeals to my need for something a little fancy, yet simple, utilitarian. I got rid of the top and bottom panels, which are just an invitation to clutter them up with a couple dozen doodads, and gone with a plain jane empty desktop with Avant Window Navigator for, you know, the navigatin', and such.

Unknown Hinson there in the winder, burnin' up the interstate with his chart toppin' hits.

I'd Rather Watch That Guy Eat Dinner

"Hey, you want to watch this movie? The news? Hey this show's new, how about it?"

"I'd rather watch that guy eat dinner."

That's something that gets said around our house a lot lately. I'm talking about a show called No Reservations.

I tell you, one guy who is clearly very smart is that Anthony Bourdain. I'm no fan of travel shows, and less so cooking shows, and yet I can sit and watch Tony eat dinner all day.

Let me tell you his secret, as I see it:

For every one guy or gal with a mini TV in their kitchen, following along and taking notes with Emeril as he molests yet another piece of chicken tit, there's three or four of us who know damned good and well we ain't never gonna be able to cook anything worth eating. We just want to see what's on the menu, we don't give a shit how it's made. We want an excuse to dig through the phone book and finally give some of those exotic restaurants we've always wondered about a try.

We're a country of backwoods rubes desperate to grow the fuck up and become a little bit more sophisticated, but a not whole lot more. We're just tired of going into restaurants and seeing the same damned twenty dishes offered everywhere you go. Trust me, after 6 years traveling around America, eating out three meals a day, it got to the point that I would scan a menu for even the slightest difference between it and every other menu I've ever seen, and order anything I could find just to break the monotony.

I can't imagine why someone hasn't had the idea to open up a restaurant that serves everything, or at least a little bit of everything. One stop dining, whether you want curry or haggis, sushi or steak and a baked potato.

Bring me a twenty page menu and I'll be your customer for life.

He Say You Brade Runner

I have one friend whom, when I see him on MSN, I initiate conversations with something along the line of, "Hey, how ya been?"

I have another friend with whom I initiate conversations with non-sequiturs, along the line of, "He say you Brade Runner."

I wonder why.

I refer to them as friends because I'm unsure about whether they are bothered by being mentioned by name, rather than pseudonym. They say the most reasonable, thought provoking things from anonymity, while I pull down my pants and air my dirty laundry with my name and all but my address listed in my profile.

I don't get it.

Btw, my address is:

5462 Christy Way
Banning, CA 92220

Anyone who has taken offense to what I've said on this blog is more than welcome to swing by and kill me, at your earliest convenience.


"He say you Brade Runner."

________ is typing.

For like ten minutes. And the whole time I'm thinking, like literally from the moment I hit send, I'm thinking:

"He just married an Asian woman... What the fuck was I thinking? What if she's there in the room? What if she's the one typing right now?"

I do this, almost every time I say or write anything. I'm like a blind man without a cane. I know there are lines out there. I have no idea where they are or when I've crossed them. Sometimes I get handed a trophy, sometimes I get hit by a car.

"I couldn't concentrate on the game, what with all the staring down your fiancee's blouse I had to do." Remember that? An oldie, but a goodie.

I say the things I think are funny, and wait in dread to find out where I stand.

I think part of the reason that I start with the non-sequiturs is that I usually don't have much to say, just a need to talk about something, anything at all.

Sometimes it occurs to me that approximately 99% of these conversations are initiated by me. I once became concerned that maybe I was forcing the continuation of friendships that didn't really exist anymore, other than in my head. I decided to not initiate anymore conversations via MSN, email or phone until one of these old friends contacted me first.

After fourteen months I broke down and made some phone calls.

That was a weird thing to do. I'm still not sure how others perceived that period. The reception my phone calls received was rather positive, on the whole. I wouldn't recommend trying this to anyone. I think it damaged my mind rather gravely.

Today is Sunday. Again. For eight months it's been Sunday.

I had another friend who I tried, with manic effort to stay in contact with. I came to a similar conclusion, and left him alone and waited for him to make contact with me. I forget how many years that lasted, seven or eight at least. I said to someone, "I'm pretty sure this can no longer be called a friendship." Then we talked a few times, on a few occasions, sporadically. Upgraded to acquaintances. Then another long silence. Recent conversations. The reception he got from me was rather positive, on the whole. Friends again?

Human beings frighten me. The fact that I can't do without them...


On my way down to the corner store, 6 AM, about four days ago, I pull up to the corner to make the turn out of the subdivision. A guy I've seen around the neighborhood is standing there, on the corner. He waves. I wave back.

He waves me down, and runs over.

I roll down my window, just enough for him to impose on me. He asks if I'll give him a ride down to the swap meet. I guess he was waiting for the bus. He says he'll give me a dollar.

He speaks with the accent of mental retardation, and the wide eyed plaintive look of a 13 year old in a middle aged body.

"Yeah, come on."

He gets in, he closes the door, my car starts to roll forward, he says, "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?"

I almost hit my head on the steering wheel. I turn to look at him.

I guess he has seen this reaction before. He blurts out, "I don't think it's a personal question!"

I don't say anything. It was just entirely too early in the morning for this. I start driving.

In a cheerful voice, he says, "Hi! My name is something you'll forget in five minutes."

"Hi. I'm Steve."

"I'm going to the swap meet. This lady pays me $10 to help her unload her stuff. On Saturday and Sunday. What do you do?"

"I'm unemployed-able, sorta."

"Oh... I know where you live."

"Do you? That's..."

"Yes, I've seen where you park your car. Under the big trees, with the birds."

"Yeah, thats..."

"There's lots of poop on your car."

"Yeah..."

"Do you have a spare dollar I can have?"

"Uh... no... no, none of my dollars are spare. They're all essen..."

"Hitchhiking is dangerous. For you, and for ME..."

And it went on like that, for the three longest miles I've driven in awhile.


Oh, there's no point to the story. I popped the cap on a Corona a few minutes ago, and now I'm just writing for the fun of it.


Take No Action. That's the classification creditors have for people who have no wages to garnish, no home to auction, a car that by law is too old to take possession of and no other property of value. If I had anything someone would have forced me into a bankruptcy court by now. All I have is potential. The slight chance that I won't file bankruptcy myself, and will get a halfway decent job in the near future, and do the right thing.

Eight months and counting.


The worst mistake I ever made in my life was borrowing money from a friend. He offered me money to live on until this potential job he had for me got up and running. And I knew it was a mistake and told him so, and when he offered a second time I took it anyway. Now I have to pull myself up from my bootstraps and start over again, one way or another, because I can't leave him stuck like this. Stuck doing me a kindness...

I decided to kill myself last November. When my money ran out.

I've been reading up on bankruptcy. If it comes to that I won't include the money my friend loaned me, I forget how they phrased it but you can have certain debts excluded, like you can exclude the debt on your car so it won't be repossessed and you can continue to make payments and keep it. What happens with the rest of it, I don't know, nor do I care.


If I could I would poll every person on MySpace who has more than 20,000 friends. The question would be, "Do you have more than 20 actual, close, real friendships?"

Anyone who thinks they have more than 20 friends is delusional.


BTW, StumbleUpon is probably the finest tool I have ever encountered for finding mediocre, subpar pornography very quickly. But, I recommend you avoid any social networking type interactions with other SU users like the plague... In a kinder, more enlightened society, people like this would be detected in utero through high tech genetic testing, and drowned in a low tech bucket upon birth.

Space Hulk

This is very cool...

Nearly 20 years after the release of Space Hulk someone finally releases a computerized version of it. That Electronic Arts shit from '93 with it's timer, rules changes and first person shooter nonsense doesn't count, of course.

You can get it here: Space Hulk 1.0
News story about it: Strategy Informer
And an interview with the developers

And of course you could probably guess that it's not from Games Workshop or anyone involved with them, what with the fact that they are actually giving the fans of the game what they've actually wanted, and not what they've been told to want...

Word is they are trying to get GW and THQ and whotheverhellelse is involved to figure out some way to get this approved, officially sanctioned, blessed by the LORD, or whatever else has to be done so that they all can make a buck off it and we can enjoy it without being criminals.

I won't hold my breath while I'm waiting, and playing...

The Hard Way Every Time

Never heard this one from Mr. Croce before, but boy does it hit close to home...

Strangers

The Manchurian Electorate

A funny thing just occurred to me. I was reading about the effectiveness of the conservative rumor mill, the number of people who think that Barack Obama is Muslim, schooled in a madrassa, sworn into office with his hand on a Koran, etc, etc, ad nauseum...

And I thought, "I wonder if you polled registered Republicans, what percentage of them still think John McCain has a secret, illegitimate, mixed race daughter he's hiding in backwoods South Carolina?"

Perhaps an effective tactic, or at least a really funny thing to do, would be to spread the word to all the liberals you know to spend the next couple months talking to every conservative they meet as if it were true. The ones who believed it in 2000 and were swayed to vote for Bush may have forgotten it, but once reminded they would still have to believe it, right?

I mean, they wouldn't want to be seen as flip-floppers on such an important issue...