I've Got a Baby!

Right now he is about 3 pounds three ounces... I'm so happy... I oiled him today after playing with him for a little while.

Shot off 50 rounds. I managed to do about a 6" cluster once I got my shit together (which was quite a bit of shooting to get there). My dad did a 3" cluster on his first (and only) try. So, for you people out there who thought that the Ruger Redhawk was innaccurate. Fuck you. Admittedly, 6" is shit, but I'm not a very good shot. The gun is fine. I need to buy a couple of hundred more rounds.

Anyway, he doesn't kick much doing single fire. And he is so pretty...

Now I just need to think of a name.

Home Again...

Hey, I'm back home, staring at the x-mas tree.

Drive was long, and boring. Of course, it has been long and boring ever since I defeated the vicious, car eating plains worms and desroyed their ancient city.

Going to sleep soon.

Also, just to warn you, don't play Mario Kart alot. Because when you get a little tired from driving for a long time you hallucinate that the car in front of you just dropped a huge bannana in the road...

Sigh....

This Just In:

Door Frames 1, me 0.

Because Noe did it.

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (60% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

So close to being a Libertarian... must make extra.... few.... steps... NOOOO! damnit.

Yea... I see you...

And I bet you see me.












No?





I'm around here somewhere....











Over there. On your frosty ass porch!







































Took you long enough... Hi. I'm a grumpy ass bird. Heck, I'm THE grumpy ass bird. I'm the one who chirps at 4 in the morning when you are trying to sleep. I'm the one who holds it until you wash your car. I'm the one who shoots for your forehead when you look up. To be short, I'm your worst God damned nightmare, punk.

Wanna fight about it?

Of course you don't. Your scared. Scared of all this. Maybe you watched too many Hitchcock films as a kid, I don't know, all I know is that you are over there making your shoes into a birdbath while I sit here, watching you do it. I bet you even crapped youself a bit. Your daughter is going to laugh at you and you will realize at that moment what a pathetic waste your life has been. The classes you've taken at the Y, your diploma at some cow college, your "loving" family, they are all meaningless wastes of time on a pathetic lump like you.

Oh, and so you know, my scrubby little bird dick is still bigger than yours is.

Bitch.

Just thought I'd drop by and let you know.

Say "Pudgy Bunny" to your wife for me, she'll know what you are talkin' about. I'll see you around... real soon.

Masks

It has been a long while since I last posted, but I had a deep thought of sorts...


Sometimes it takes a person a long time to fully realize how much they hate themselves.

Type One-- For some people it is easy, their environment has taught them that they are without worth. In fact, a lot of the time for those people they are taught to hate themselves for reasons that they really should not hate themselves for which only compounds the problem.

Type Two-- Others do realize they hate themselves at an early age, often for the same reasons above. They deny it, however, and continue to live their lives with only a slight hollow feeling that nags them when they go to sleep and have nothing else to think about.

Type Three-- Then there are the ones that don't realize that they hate themselves until far into their life, usually after their personality has caused some catastrophic event. (Say, they realize they are self destructive after subconsciously orchestrating a break up with a lover.)

Cases one and three aren't the most interesting to discuss. The first having been beaten to death by after school specials, and the third being fairly epiphanic (a word I made up derived from "epiphany") but caused mainly by retarded puppy syndrome (that is, they are devoid of instrospection to an extreme and cannot be or have not been spoken to about it either).

So, that leaves us with the second case-- the denial of self hate. Those who are of the second class generally have some set of personality traits they associate with unhappiness or simply "badness" or maybe "wrongness" that they either naturally want to suppress or have been taught to suppress via upbringing.

The classic example of this is the "heart of sin" where a puritanical sort desires to commit a sin (often lust), but cannot due to his morals. Or something. I'm really better at analogies then examples. Maybe take the Disney "Hunchback of Notre Dame" with the cardinal guy wanting the gypsy, but that fucking with him and making him creepy.

Where was I?

These people tend to wear masks, a "public face" that they don't hate. Some of this stems from a person's need to be accepted. Because they hate themselves they assume that everyone else will hate it too. This is a fairly mild form of self hate, and often is overcome when they are with a comfort group who they do not feel will judge them on the basis of their having that trait.

An example might be the attractive girl who acts stupid because the other pretty girls who act stupid are their friends and would face ostracism otherwise. See type 1.

Others have a more deeply embedded form of the mask. They simply enjoy being the other creature more than their real self. In a way the mask becomes reality. They've come to associate pleasure with the mask and pain with reality. They come to the point where to be happy they need the other reality.

Over time this mask becomes like reality to the point where the person forgets who he or she use to be, except maybe at night when there is nothing else to think about, or maybe (more commonly?) it becomes second nature to the point where they don't recognize the shift anymore. They are themselves one moment, then a person comes by and they immediately become the masked version. They accept the mask as a natural, even better part of their personality until one day they realize one day, in the rare moment of introspection, that they are putting on a mask. See type 3.

I think that nearly all self hate comes back in some way to the need to be accepted in some way. People are not confident enough to walk alone so they make up their new selves. In our society there is even a certain level of antagonism put on being strange or even being a loner. There is a myth that all people who are alone really just want someone to come and connect with them, and due to some failure of personality or logistics they simply cannot make that connection on their own power. (Like Beauty and the Beast.)

This is kind of like the Simpsons episode when Homer gets smart. Suddenly the community of lackwits ostracizes him because they are all stupid and complacent, and his smartness is perceived as a threat. Homer develops the want to be stupid because that makes him accepted and happy.

Our culture likes to think of itself as accepting diversity, but it really does not. Even the most devaint groups demand conformity to their own standards. They are often destructive, violent, or at the very least retarding when they pose as liberating and allowing the individual to be themselves.

What is most interesting is the few who do not put on masks to find acceptance. There are some who simply want to be the mask. They had some personality trait that they found, ultimately, to be disatisfying and attempt to change it. They want to be a better person. This is not uncommon, many people change who they are (for better or worse) due to the many trials and tribulations of life. Those who I am talking about don't change in the same way. They still have their normal selves, and even engage that part of themselves at times (like above). They now have multiple personalities, all of which answer to the same stream of conciousness. They crystalize facets of themselves in a way, and are often drastically (purposefully) different from one another. Not only does no element of one facet remain when another is in focus, but it also does things competely opposite what the other facet would do, or does things the other facet would not do.

Taken all of this, after a long time that person looks back at the various episode of their lives and realizes how much they have fucked up their life because of it, how unhappy they are inside because they have not dealt with the root behind the mask or because the mask has made them do things that they regret deeply.

I think this is partly because of the repression of our culture. Or mothers, fathers, peers, and other assorted figures of importance in our life often teach us behaviors that are opposite our nature which causes discord. Maybe they even teach us to fear expression. Others are caused directly by our own social nature. As I've said earlier, school life can just fuck people up. Part of it is definitely that some people are just plain fucked up.

And then part of it is that we aren't taught to actually be ourselves, to make virtue of our eccentricities. People are taught only to be themselves as far as it is to be socially appropriate. You can be yourself only superficially. You can be proud of a heritage, an interest, or that you have a minor but sometimes useful quirk. You can't be an odd fucker. Of course there are plenty of odd fuckers who are in fact dangerous and/or frightening to others. Those who stalk or peep, for example. I'm not talking about them. They can still go fuck themselves, although that is probably caused by some form of repression too.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

The basic fact of the matter is that some people just don't realize that they don't like themselves. They are abundant in self esteem only as long as the mask holds, and if something happens that makes them rememember what they mask they can become depressed.

So, for your own sake, spend a day thinking about how you act. When you interact with others wonder "why did I do that" or if you know it is a common behavior for youself "why do I do that" and try to be honest with yourself. Find the causal root to your personality(personalities) and wonder if you have a good reason to be the way you are or if they are caused by something that no longer applies. If it is the latter, and negative, try to change. Just stay concious of the way you act and work against your masks.

Just think about why you don't like yourself, and make it so that you aren't that person. Agree with you to actually change, don't just hide it for fear of discovery.

(This incoherent ramble has been written at 3:33 am, since my thing is set to Vatican time otherwise. Just to give an excuse for poor grammar and spelling as well as the general repetion of points and topics.)

WOW, I'M BORING!

Get Thee Hence!

Not a whole lot goin' on around here.

Mostly been a DotA playin' fool.

Went to Alex, that was fun. Lots of food there. I had muffins.

Dunno...

Started a new blog dedicated to DotA.

Woo.

Um...

Woo...

Fire!

Yet another bonfire. I smell really good... like burned stuff. It went really well. Also, there was lots of bratwurst. Not enough people ate it at the fire itself (they were cooked on four pronged harvester rakes) so we grilled at around three in the morning and ate more brats... mmm... brats...

It was nice to burn stuff again, although the logs mocked me. It turned out later that it was fucking ironwood that we were trying to cut through. It didn't go so hot. JM and I took about an hour to try to chop through one log of it, then we broke the stone we were splitting it on.

I chopped a log and the, log won.

Some Hicks showed up with chainsaws for their own lumber needs and chuckled at our newbishness.

But they didn't have brats.

Next time I'm just buying some fucking wood...

Then the Moose Went GWAAAA!

GWAAAAA!


Gettin' ready for a nother exciting and amazing year of school, by which I mean I've bought an axe....

It is really great to be back with people again. I never fully realize how much I've missed having company until I get back here and get to experience it again. This goes double for my female. As I look at my pile of 24 books I really wonder how many of them I'm going to bother to actually read. I suppose all of them... Of course, of them only 4 are actually textbooks. The rest are novels or story collections. It can't be too bad, right?

(Laughter which slowly turns to quiet sobbing.)

Oh well.

With epics such as "The Blithedale Romance" or "The Innocents Abroad" how can I possibly think this will be unpleasant?

On a more personal note... or probably a less personal note... Or maybe as a public announcement- I am planning to have a bonfire on Pomme De Terre on saturday (which is what the axe was for, btw) so get some sticks and marshmellows and it should be a good time.

And So I'm Back to Where I Belong

WOO!

Yay campus. Yay circles! Yay HBO!

We get free cable with HBO. It is very sexy-like.

Oh well.

So far things have been going pretty good. The guys on my hall seem to be pretty nice, but they are all quiet. It is odd. Very few of them appear to contain the warrior spirit of pine.

Watched Cat House. It was kind of funny because the Johns looked like philosophy majors, or maybe trekkies. They were hairy guys with guts and shaggy heads.

What else... I went Golfing with JM before coming here. I beat him by 36 points. Golf scores similarly to Bowling, right? Right... But it was fun to have a short blurt of summer at the very end. I pretty much missed out on such frivolity.

Some women came into the room, they were trying to round up people for a movie. Apparently nobody is fucking awake on this floor. What is wrong with the freshmen? Freaks. They should be awake still enjoying life and whatnot.

Waiting for glorious leader to return.

I've tasked Russ with giving me a referral, he was very surprised that I hadn't gotten a disciplinary referral before. (I seemed like the type?)

Also, Whizzinator is a cool word.

Don't ask.



Of course, if you are a loyal reader you would know better than to do that anyhow...

A Quick Thought

You know, I think that pretty much everything in the world would be better if it weren't for the fact that stupid people exist.

WAAAAAGH! (The story of Shunt, in the original language)

WAAAAGH! WAAAAGH! Zug daboo grog waag.

Hmmmm?

Zug zug, brog grag kroog. Greeg morg lork gabom. Daboo. Graag! ZUG ZUG! WHAAGH! Shunt! Shunt wagga! Shonk wagguth bogn. Krith maggoth daboo. Brog morg shont wagga! Wagga daboo grog waag mago bladom.

Hmmmm?

Growm squig gornath squiggly gorth. Shmeebaum. Grog shonk? Shonk WAAAGH! Shunt thrakka.

Bagoom grag dagon margoop. Shunt thrakka brog grag dagon bladom! WAAAGH! Shonkmaster. Wagga wagguth krith grag qualmagoom zug. Daboo, gag naggoth. Shelbagoo gakk grag dagon. Shunt gragom babgokt. GAAAG!

Shuggothnak zug dab glakkoth. Gag makorth gorg gog wagga! Mork, Gork Shunt wagga grorgnth.

WAAGH!

Shunt gragkightk grag dagon babgokt konkon kaggath!

GRAG!

Hmmm?

BAGHRAGHTHAGAT!

WAAAAAGH! The story of Shunt, Commentary Track

WAAAAGH! WAAAAGH! Zug daboo grog waag.
This is the traditional greeting of orkish bards. It basically means "Shut up idiots."

Hmmmm?
After calling the audience idiots the bard takes a moment to find if anybody wants to fight with him.

Zug zug, brog grag kroog. Greeg morg lork gabom. Daboo. Graag! ZUG ZUG! WHAAGH! Shunt! Shunt wagga! Shonk wagguth bogn. Krith maggoth daboo. Brog morg shont wagga! Wagga daboo grog waag mago bladom.
In this section the bard explains he is telling the story of Shunt, who was much better than everyone in the audience with the exception of the leader. He also shouts a lot for reasons unknown to scholars. Many believe it is because orks just do that.

Hmmmm?
Again, the bard has insulted the audience and is awaiting a challenge before he begins the story.

Growm squig gornath squiggly gorth. Shmeebaum. Grog shonk? Shonk WAAAGH! Shunt thrakka.
At this point the bard introduces Shunt on his squiggly beast of riding who remains nameless. He also yells some more, then explains that Shunt is a warrior elite.

Bagoom grag dagon margoop. Shunt thrakka brog grag dagon bladom! WAAAGH! Shonkmaster. Wagga wagguth krith grag qualmagoom zug. Daboo, gag naggoth. Shelbagoo gakk grag dagon. Shunt gragom babgokt. GAAAG!
There was a dragon being bad, and Shunt is going to bash it. Yelling. It was a dangerous dragon, so he would have to be the master of bashing. The bard explains that he must bash it good, then yells.

Shuggothnak zug dab glakkoth.
It will be easy, Shunt says.

Gag makorth gorg gog wagga! Mork, Gork Shunt wagga grorgnth.
Calling upon the ork gods, Gork and Mork, he bashes things.

WAAGH!
More yelling, to make sure the audience is paying attention. Apparently the good part is coming.

Shunt gragkightk grag dagon babgokt konkon kaggath!
He bashes the dragon good, then does something that is 'great and orky' to the dragon's skull. Most people who have studied the material have decided that they would rather not know what that means.

GRAG!
Grag.

Hmmm?
The bard is waiting for someone in his audience to proclaim it as bullshit, so then he would have to bash that person.

BAGHRAGHTHAGAT!
I'm done with you weaklings. Traditional ork ending. Obviously, at this point he has beaten up a number of his audience to finish the story and, having survived being the nights bard, has increased his status in the tribe.

Dirty Harry

I was an big supporter of vigilanteism. Then my brain began to work again.

The America of today (as opposed to the America I grew up in, meaning barely America at all) is obsessed about safety. The average citizen feels surrounded by enemies, even in their gated communities. In the aftermath of 911 which nobody will ever forget despite the drastically low number of fatalities in comparison to everything else in the world, everyone's lives were affected, but not mine because I am two time zones separated and don't really give a damn.

I just needed to let that one out. I am the most unamerican patriot ever sometimes.

Anyway, because of our growing fears many other great evils are allowed onto our soil despite things like 'rights' and 'fairness' and 'common sense.' Much of this is hypocritical to boot.

One of the main problems are that Arabs actually live in this country. I'm serious, actual Arabs. What's more, some of them are Muslims too. I asked my dad and he said, "Yep, there are Muslim Arabs living in our great nation." And he knows something about Muslims, I tell you. After 911 Muslims, especially Arab Muslims became the enemy of our nation. Therein lies the problem. Many Arab Muslims are honest, law abiding, and productive members of our society. But evil Arabs exist as well. This means we have to assault them and constantly hassle them as threats to our security until the Struggle Against Extremism is finally over.

When I speak to people about the racial profiling they don't really seem to care taking either, "Well, it isn't happening to me" or "well, most terrorists are Arabs, so it is natural." Then I start laughing.

Think of all the big terrorist actions on U.S. soil. How many of them were actually Arabs, or even people with tans? The unibomber- white. Oklahoma City Bomber- Also white. First attack against WTC- Arab. 911- Arabs. Anthrax Scare- I don't think we actually caught them. Um... Hell, I can barely remember anything else... Lots of embassies, but I'm not counting them because they weren't on U.S. soil.

So terrorism is like, fifty fifty disgruntled whiteys Arab extremist.

Really, I think a lot of this comes from people thinking, "Hey, who can lose out because of this except for the bad guys?" Which is wrong, and not just because Orwell said so.

Which brings me back to how I started this odd and rambling tirade about a tangent.

Many states (Mostly Red states, because that matters, inexplicably) pass laws that allow people to shoot people whenever they feel threatened and or confronted. Some states have reasonable restraints such as "The individual is on your property and poses a direct threat to yourself or your property." In which case I would be more than happy to let them shoot the bastard. I would. Some states are less clear and often just mean 'shoot minorities, or maybe people with really bad tans.'

Sometimes in the news there is a story were somebody goes free after shooting people who raped a family member or something like that when the cops did nothing. I've heard at least two such tales. The masses cheer for their hero.

People usually complain when people don't get convicted, often on a technicality.

Then I wonder why we have such feelings. In the end I have to blame Clint Eastwood. (One of my heros, actually.) Not just his fault, but Dirty Harry pretty much brought the general feeling to a cusp. In TV and movies it is always the renegade good guy trying to fight the system who loves the bad guy more than anything else. Of course, the part everybody forgets is that in the movie of course it is actually the bad guy. Nobody watches the movie and in the end the gritty cop goes, "Oh... Shit... I guess you really didn't do it. I'm terribly sorry! Let me buy you a beer."

And when you go back into the real world it suddenly doesn't work like that. People do actually end up being innocent, or they were on the property as a misunderstanding, or they needed help (mental or otherwise) and now they are dead.

It is nice to have bounty hunters. They are licensed individuals that can be held accountable for their actions and whatnot. A vigilante on the other hand usually ends up being some fool with a Desert Eagle who is simply dangerous because he thinks he is on the side of good.

I think in the end it is that people just forget why there is due process, and that it doesn't fail as often as TV makes it seem. Watch CSI, they get the people without running them down in an alley and torturing them.

Basically, I would support vigilanteism if people weren't so damn stupid all the time.

One bold stride against vigilanteism lately has been a congressional ban on lynching. Because murdering black people with no trial is bad. (Not that murder isn't already a crime, but lets forget that... they need to do some ass kissing for the minorities lately.) But, honestly, whoopdifuckingdoo. (Edit, Nevermind this part, although the whoopdifuckingdoo still applies.)

I think people do need guns to protect themselves and their family and property, but giving them an excuse to start wasting people on the slightest excuse just gets good people killed.

My Only Productive Hobby

He isn't my best work, but I did him as a warm up for my other stuff. Also, he was really really small, so he was hard to do. Honestly, some of the flaws he has I can't actually see except with my camera's ultracloseup.

Here is a picture of the same figure next to a nickle for scale.

Humph... Humph? Humph! ... humph...

HUMPH HUMPH HUMPH!

Why do I humph you ponder? Well, it is simple really but it is a secret, so you'll have to get reeeeal close so's that I can tell ya.

(I am incredibly, monumentously, and undeniably bored out of my tiny little mind.)

Don't tell anybody, they might think of something for me to do.

Also, I have a problem spellchecking on this thing. Most of this problem is caused by the fact that I make up words, misspell on purpose, and type like I would pronouce the word on occasion. What doesn't help is the fact that the spellchecker it has on here is pretty crappy, so many actual words or names and stuff come up wrong and it won't have a right for it.

Um... humph...

Hu-UMPH!


humph humph humph....

Had my last day of work today. It was quick. I pretty much showed up for a bus and got to go after that. It was fairly uneventful. On the fifth I get my paycheck and then I am done with those assholes.

After some light shopping tomorrow I'll have nothing to do but sit around and eat.



Oh, and humph.

Motherfuckers

Did you know that "motherfuckers" spellchecks to "motorbike?"

Today I got fired. Fired is a bit of a harsh word, it was more like "let go" or "downsized" but in my little world fired is fucking fired. I get to work the next two days and that is it. I get all of August to myself. I'm very appreciated and I can always come back next year, but after this shit why would I want to? Next stop, the Radisson.

Interesting day this was. One guy who had left for about a month came back, and nobody likes him. He only got the job because he asked the owner's wife, who is the sweetest lady in the world, and she was happy to give him a job because she didn't know any better. At the same time, the general manager decided that we needed to drop down to three bellmen. Apparently, we are overstaffed... which is why we hired so many people in the first place and worked with that many people for three months... (wtf?) We had five, meaning that work was actually comfortable and there was enough people to do everything. So, we needed to drop two and now a third for the asshole who came back and nobody liked.

They decided to drop the last two kids hired and myself because I was leaving the 15th anyway. I was ok with that really, but I kind of expected that extra paycheck. Oh well. I was more pissed about the fact that they canned the other two guys to hire the asshole and that we only got two days notice. One of them is currently on vacation in Dallas, so he will find out when he comes into work and finds out he doesn't have a job. (I had already scheduled past when he comes back.)

To be quite honest, if they didn't fire me I would have fucking quit to give one of them my job, so that worked out ok. My manager told me who they were letting go very slowly, and told me I was leaving last after saying a lot of meaningless manager babble beforehand. He was scared, I think. But the fact that he is a ass kissing yes man is part of the problem to begin with, he won't stand up for his staff.

Even more baffling is that they did this before the Sturgis Rally... our busiest time of the year when we need the most staff... (wtf? again.)

The owner's wife was in tears because she felt responsible for it. That was sad. She talked to me about it and apologized alot. Basically, nobody bothered to tell her that the guy was an asshole nobody liked, or that we didn't actually need him at all. Oh well. She gave me a hug because she was so sorry.

So now I have all of August to screw around and am going to come up about 600 bucks short of where I thought I would be. Good thing I got that MAP grant.

On the plus side, my friend might quit too out of spite. That would be funny. I actually said it might happen before he even knew about it. That would leave them with two bellmen, and the other might go two because one of the kids they canned is his best friend. That would leave them with the asshole. That would make me laugh.

I thought about just quitting now and not coming in those next two days. But that doesn't really prove anything and just makes everybody else's life more difficult for no reason. So all I really have left is to do my job well and take pride in that. Also, if the asshole owner tells me to do something I get to tell him to fuck himself. (His wife is really nice, he is evil. It makes me sad.)

What also pisses me off is that I don't get a new uniform after all that shit I had to go through to get them. Fuckers.



I guess all I can say is that my staff did a damn fine job, and there was not any of them I'm not proud to have worked with.

A Quick Glimpse into My Life

I go to work, fairly simple day. I wander around, lift things, and generally squander company time.

Some time around five a tour bus arrived. "Tauck Tours." I curse my rotten luck, now I have to work. I summon my lackey and we attack the luggage. It is lots of heavy lifting. The driver gives us his count, 52 bags. Fifty two fifty pound bags of doom. Luckily, my lackey is even bigger than me, so it isn't too bad.

I try to lift a bag with an airport "heavy" tag on it. I applaud their flair for dramatic understatement. After much grunting and a possible hernia I lift the bag onto the cart, the wheels gently slump under the strain.

We pull the luggage laden carts into the main lobby just as the herd of old people hit the elevators. Their greeting took just long enough to cause them to get in our way. Using my strategic bellman mind I declare one of the elevators off limits to guest use until the freight is finished. Surprisingly, it works. Apparently if one acts as though he has authority people assume you actually have authority. So, they got the fuck out of our way and we got their bags upstairs in a timely manner.

On our way out, an old man wanted to know how to work his TV. We didn't have time to answer his questions, so we told him we would help him in a few minutes, as we had other bags to deliver. He refused, and challenged us to a duel. Revealing his vampire fangs, he lunged at me. Luckily my lackey clubbed him over the head with a samsonite, throwing him off balance and into the wall. I quickly stomped his head until a foul black ooze squished under my black work shoe. Not enough to kill a vampire, but I was out of stakes from the AAA membership group that was in this morning. Hoping we stunned him enough we finished the bags and returned to the front desk.

Once there, I started working on the schedules when the front desk girl came back wondering if I could teach her something on the computer. Thinking to myself that the computer would be an uncomfortable place to 'teach her something' because I am a bad person, I came out to the desk. After showing her the required keystrokes to make the computer bend to the will of the user I walked back into the office. I sipped quietly on a cup of applejuice and began to type again. I could not hear the Office Daemon stalking slowly behind me. His shadow loomed above me as I patiently typed out the dates and times my henchmen worked. I pretended not to notice and took another sip from my cold glass. Just before he lunged I spun around in my chair and blasted him with my eye lasers. I laughed as his unholy flesh sizzled and burned under my amazing superhuman gaze. He shrieked and returned to the foul pit of bureaucracy he was spawned in.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, I was drinking from a Styrofoam cup, actually.

Anyway, it seemed that the busiwork was done for the day, so I spun around in my chair for a few hours and then my lackey and I went to Perkins for coffee.

That's how boring my life is, but it is true, I swear.

I GOT NEW BOOTS!

I GOT NEW BOOTS!

From Something Awful

If you were basing your opinion of South Dakota purely on what was visible from the highway, then you would think the entire economy of South Dakota was based around a drugstore, a reptile zoo, and a palace made out of corn. This of course would lead you to the logical conclusion that everybody in South Dakota is insane beyond all measure. But believe it or not, driving through South Dakota you see hundreds of billboards advertising "Wall Drug," a reptile zoo, and the mystical Corn Palace. Somewhere I guess they are hiding Mount Rushmore, but really, what's Mount Rushmore compared to a building made out of corn or a gallery of lizards? Maybe if Mount Rushmore was made out of corn and covered with lizards it would be something worthwhile, but it's not.

I couldn't have said it better myself really. Taken from SomethingAwful.com

The Invincible Wheel

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=856&CAT=movies&NSFW=5&rtn=search-856&searchstring=tiger

Go to this web address.
Watch the video.
Your life will change forever.

I am the invincible wheel.

My Life Quests

While Jake had an interesting and colorful guess to what one of my life quests would be, here are the actual quests. I was going to put them on my last post, but for some reason it decided it wanted to double space everything and I couldn't fix it so I gave up for the night.

1: Get the correct version of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
2: Obtain the Silver Monkey Idol.
3: Obtain a Ruger Redhawk and become a halfway decent shot with it.
4: Defeat the Frost Giants.
5: Call my granddaughter a harlot, in the affectionate pet name sort of way. Some of you may have heard that story already.

As you can see, my life quests at this point are less than impressive. I thought about having conquering central Europe as one of them, but that seemed unfeasable and I only really want to do that when I'm drunk. Genetics are funny like that.

And Then There are the Days I Just Want to Poop in Someone's Pants...

I'm not sure either.

We are getting an IHOP in Rapid City. That makes me happy. Soon I can stop going to stupid Perkins and their lousy service and start going to IHOP and their soon to be lousy service.

Not much is really going on around here. Made the mistake of trying to go to Borders the day that Harry Potter came out. (I didn't know.) On the plus side they had the right version of Ride of the Valkyries and one of my lifelong quests is now complete.

A little background in the madness.

A long time ago I watched Apocalypse Now and decided that Ride of the Valkyries was the coolest song ever. The problem was getting the song. I got a Wagner CD, but it was only instrumental. The song is good, but it needs the operatic pieces to be truely good. At one point we had Napster, but I could not find a decent recording of the peice on there anywhere. Also, we only had 56k at that point... so I couldn't do it alot.

The process wouldn't be too hard, except nobody really specifies whether or not they have the opera or not. After a few years of searching half-heartedly I got I-Tunes. Unfortunately, none of the 30 second clips on it were of the part with singing, and none of them said if they had a Diva in the ansemble. After buying two deceptively titled versions that suggested they had the opera and didn't I found one that did have the opera. But, because God doesn't like me, it had the wrong divas. Basically, they were sapranos instead of mezzosapranos or altosapranos or something like that. Anyway, their voices were too high, so it didn't sound right, and at some points it sounded downright goofy. (The high notes came out as a yelping WAAAA.) So, again I was defeated. I turned to Amazon and read lots of reviews of various Wagner CDs until I came upon one that said, "I had been looking for the version of Ride of the Valkyries they used in Apocalypse Now and I finally stumbled upon this one, it is the exact same one and I am very happy." (Only longer and more eloquent.) Then I simply sauntered off to Borders and picked it up.

Dana gave me a Silver Monkey Idol. So that only leaves three of my five life quests left to be completed.

July the 10th and the Days that Have Preceded it Since I Last Posted

It is the 10th, meaning I have 48 days between now and the day I get to go back home. (Not counting today or the Day of Much Driving itself.)

Not a whole lot going on. The other day I won the "Justin Mosier Employee Appreciation Award." It was the first of the season. It is the same sort of award I was the first to win last year, only now it has a really long name because of the death of a beloved employee. Last year I got a surplus backpack with "South Dakota" embroidered on it. They got handed out during some convention to guests, and I guess we had an extra. I filled it with gift packs and took it to school with me and was kept in shampoo and detergent all year.

This year it Sandy (the lady who is in charge of it this year because Justin was related to her I think...) asked me what I wanted so I ended up with a $25 gift card and some other stuff on the side. The card she gave me had a puppy on it, and she asked me if I like puppies.

I replied, "I am a human being, of course I like puppies."

I like puppies.

Anyway, this means I have won Employee of the Month, Excellent Customer Service Award, and now the Justin Award. What I have not gotten is a motherfucking raise. Sandy wrote some nice stuff in the card though, and that made me feel good.

I realized that it really helps to work in a place if you feel like you are appreciated.


What else...

Um...

Wow I'm boring.




(sigh)

An Interesting Thought (I Feel Not Like Posting)

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our own universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

"Think how small such a concept of things makes us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for a race of gnats among an infinitude of a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see ... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, in a chain never to be completed.

"Size, gunslinger . . . size . . .

"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met in a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a Room? ...

"You dare not."

-Stephen King, from "The Gunslinger"

And Here I am Again...

So that was fun. Now I'm back here in SoDak livin' it up on the prairie.

Woo.

Just taking an extra day off to dick around before I go back to work. Because I don't wanna go back to work.

Anyway, my brain isn't coherent enough to make up something funny... So I'm just going to go away...

The Wedding (El Weddingo)

Hey Hey It's Wedding Day! WOO!

Oh well, that went pretty good. I ended up being the best man. Nobody told me about it, but I can deal. My brother did the toast at the reception instead of me, so I got off pretty light. (He had one he had been planning... the best I could have thought up on the spot would have been something like, "And may they have many strong, healthy warrior children to fill the halls of Valhalla!")

He quoted his "favorite author" but neglected to mention it was Stephen King. But he picked one of the more poetic quotes from the Dark Tower books. (Fate (ka) is like the wind.) So that was cool. I told the bride's brother that it was King and he was like "Really?" Of course, the Dark Tower series was kind of King's way of saying, " I can do better than evil clowns and dead animals!"

Everything went well and they were happy and the Bellagio was beautiful and yadda yadda. Apparently their family was impressed by my brother and I's wit and tact and stuff like that. I put on a good face.

Anyway, they are happy which is what matters. (Also, the bride Jennifer "Kat" had a really nice dress. )

The Bride's mother was impressed by my ability to push around people. When we were lining up groomsmen and brides maids and all that stuff I the guy in front of me didn't give enough space so I just kept walking so to stand next to my brother and he got the point that I was going to go into him if he didn't git and started to shuffle off.

Here are some pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Fate is like the wind...

 

 

This makes a really cool wallpaper.

 

A variety of pictures from my Vegas adventure. Most of the non-wedding photos are of sculptures at Ceasar's Palace. The other two are of the Bellagio's Fountain show. I think you can pretty much guess who is who.

Walking The Strip

Loading, Please Wait...
You have entered The Vegas Strip.


A Street Vendor scowls at you, ready to attack.

A Street Vendor Hails YOU!
A Street Vendor Harasses YOU for 5 points of damage!
A Street Vendor Harasses YOU for 5 points of damage!
YOU politely refuse A Street Vendor for 20 points of damage!
A Street Vendor goes to bother someone else!
YOU have become better at Dodging Salesmen (12)
YOU have gained 100 exp.

Or something like that. It is an Everquest thing...

Anyway. Walked around on the stip. It was fun, but there were a lot of jerks handing out coupons and offering amazing opportunities for free shows if they can have just a moment of my time... We politely waited to find out what one of them was about (timeshares) and then just ignored the rest.

There is an entire store dedicated to M&M's. That amused me. Apparently they are coming out with their own brand of Skittles. They were good. Yay free samples.

Oh well.

Our hotel has a couple of areas where they have conveyor belts to drag you around... I feel like a Jetson only without the talking dog.

Today my dad and I had a discussion and determined that there is a "Boyle Gene" that makes us behave stupidly because we think we are funny. Anything more than that will require a private discussion because it is not fit to be posted on a public forum...

VIVA!

VIVA THE BUFFET!

So, I am in Vegas at the Bellagio. So far I haven't done much touristing, but I have eaten a lot of food.

Here is what I have eaten today.

- 1 Egg and Sausage Mc Biscuit
- 3 Cups of Coffee
- 1 Cheese Danish
- 2 Servings Roast Leg of Lamb
- Lots of Barbeque Wild Boar Ribs.
- Some Sort of Cookie with Strawberries and Custard.
- 1 Serving Sea Urchin Sashimi
- 3 Cokes
- 1 Cup of Clam Chowder
- Wasabi
- 4 Pieces Some Other form of Sushi, (California Rolls?)
- Half a skewer of Teriaki Chicken
- Lots of Gulf Shrimp
- 1 Serving Steamship of Pork (Whatever that is...)
- 1 Bowl Tofu Soup of Some Name I Cannot Remember.
- 1 Tiny Bowl of Cucumber Salad (very small)
- 2 Glasses of Fuji Water
- 1 Baggie of Mini Oreos
- 1 Ginger Ale

Eaten (not in the above order) on the road to the airport, on the plane, at the Bellagio's Buffet, and at some Japanese food resturant with my brother and his soon to be.

Really, the interesting thing of this time around was the raw sea urchin. It was ok, it was kind of like eating a bland pudding with chopsticks and rubbing it in wasabi for flavor. It was ok, not something I'd order again, but worth the attempt. Also, wild boar tastes like every other kind of pig in existance.

On the flight over here I learned that the tops of clouds look pretty much like the bottoms of clouds. Also, my state is even more boring from a mile up.

Vegas is 106 during the day and while I was strolling about 102. It is dry heat and I find it quite pleasant... but apparently I am the only one of that opinion. Oh well.


Now to find me some caveman hookers.

I FEEL PRETTY! OH SO PRETTY! FEAR MY PRETTYNESS!


I am very pretty...

Anyway...

Today I wondered what happened to my debit card...

Oh well. I guess I have to go to my credit union tomorrow.

That silliness aside, I bought the Black Eyed Peas CD, "Monkey Business." It is pretty good I think. The thing I really wonder is how they got together. Their setup seems very contrived (or is groomed a better word?). I dunno, I just wonder how they got together. I mean, you have 1 Hot Chick, 2 Black Guys- one slick and one kind of goofy, and a some Mongolian looking guy (probably wrong on that last assessment, but I have no way to quantify that statement.) Add a level 5 cleric and you have a complete party.

I guess they appear to me like a music company created them. I like their music, it just seems odd to me.

Oh well.

Not much going on around here. Mostly just work and sleep. I'm slowly learning to hate my job more than usual. I think it is largely because we got a new manager from last year, and he sucks at his job. Nice guy and all, just mostly useless when it comes to the managering. It makes my life hard.

I wonder if I can get a job at the Radisson next year. That'd be nice.

I mean, the job wouldn't be too bad, but it is hard when nobody else can do their job and me and my guys get stuck fixing it or getting yelled at for it. Examples:

Housekeeping does not clean a room, solution- Bellmen clean the room. Usually there aren't enough supplies in any one place to get everything you need at one time.
Front desk fucks up the room blocking, solution- Bellmen run the luggage around the Hotel for extra mileage. We also get yelled at because it is *our* fault that the luggage wasn't delivered right. Combine this with housekeeping not cleaning a room and even worse things happen.
Sales office sells a special package and doesn't tell anyone, solution- Bellmen make a mad dash to find all the parts to a gift pack which are kept in four different places in the Hotel and/or drive to Wallmart half an hour before they arrive... or afterwards and apologize a lot.
The owner is too cheap to keep the place up- Shit breaks constantly, usually after maintenance leaves. Guess who gets stuck half-assing trying to fix it... Also, the desk promises guests things we don't have, like hair dryers or pillows, because there are not enough to go around... Who gets yelled at for not having them? Bellmen.

Compound the stupid shit I have to fix being a Bellman with the fact that I am the most experienced front desk clerk with exception of Rusty and maybe the useless manager. So I get dragged over to fix the front desk's fuckups too. I've decided I'm not going behind the front desk unless I have to until they give me a raise (laughs).

But this has so far been bitchy and depressing... mainly to me...

On the plus side, we hired a new night auditor. She went to school with me and my mom works with her mom, so we've met. It is nice to see people I know... there are so few of them left out here.

At work I've been stuck scheduling the bellmen, so I've decided to have fun with it. I have to print off two different schedules, the one I turn into the bossman and the one I post for the bellmen. The main difference it that I've begun to put up thoughts for the week. They are often along the lines of, "We sold Boxer to the knackers, we can do the same to you!" Or other odd quips.

Right now I just got to get ready to go to Las Vegas. My brother decided to get married at the motherfucking Bellagio... have I talked about this? I forget. Oh well. Anyway, his logic was that the girly-type's family is in L.A, and we are in Rapid, and they both have family on the East Coast... So Vegas is right in the middle, right? Geography wasn't his strong point. Oh well. If they had waited for a December wedding I would have been able to have fun in Vegas too, but as it stands the best I can do is find a good restaurant and camp out.

But I bought a nice cream colored suit, it is spiffy. I have lots of dress clothes, surprisingly, and I never actually wear them. In theory I can use them for work at some point in my life, but as it stands I am never scheduled in a position that can survive wearing much more than a polo and slacks. So it just sits in my closet.

I bought a neat shirt that has a odd fabric that is a cross between light blue and lavender or orchid purple or some similar crayon. It shows both colors depending on how the light falls on the fabric and how the fabric is wrinkled. I feel secure enough in the fact that I like pussy to wear it. It is really pretty.

I have spent quite a bit of money since I got back, and sadly quite a bit of it was on clothing, and largely dress clothing at that. Odd. Usually I waste it on shiny things and food.

I thought of something else to type about... but I forgot what it was...

Oh wait, I tried to see Big and Rich in concert up in Deadwood. That didn't last long. Their venue was the street, and we didn't get there very early (not my fault.) so there was no room. I basically decided that fighting through a herd of people to listen to something I had the CD of was not my idea of fun, so I took the two friends I have out here to a nearby steakhouse instead. It was much more enjoyable. Sitting in a comfortable place with good food and good people is probably my favorite thing to do. I think.

Recently a church group of some sort has come to the hotel and they weird me out. They always do things like make eye contact and refer to me by my name and act like I am a human being. But in the "I actually care and am not trying to be pleasant" way. I find it off setting. Most people are willing to engage in banter and whatnot, but they seem much more serious about it. One lady even introduced her child to me formally, "Stephanie, this is Patrick." Sort of thing... she didn't drag the kid out to find me, but the kid was with her when we were in the elevator so she made that special effort. I thought it was odd.

Either way, I have been caused to think about Christianity lately. They actually left us some books about having a purpose to your life because of God or something. I read the chapter names and my bitterness forced me to either laugh or editorialize.

You know, things like, "You were created to be like Christ, only get alot more." or "You were designed to please God, because he likes it when you suffer."

I don't know. I guess the set of God is ultimately powerful, knowing, and loving combined with the idea that evil exists in the world and that God has a plan for everybody taken together seems to come up with a whole lot of contradictions. One of them has got to be false...

But then again, having met certain so-called Christians in specific have tinted me somewhat against Christianity in general. I guess it seems to me like a lot of people have decided to forget the "love the sinner hate the sin" and instead have taken the stance of "condemn thy neighbor for thou art more righteous than they."

Many people I have met since leaving high school do not embody this spirit, but then again there are also republicans... :-p

I guess to me it always seemed to be more important to be a good person (insert "try" in somewhere) than it is to be a religious person and there are lots of people who have used their religion as an excuse to be bad people.

I guess I've figgered I'll just shoot for "virtuous pagan" and call it a day. And no, I don't mean Wicca. It has always bugged me. It seems like a teenage angst religion. Honestly, the people they are trying to emulate haven't been published for some time, so anything they come up with gets pulled out of somebody's ass at some point along the way. If there was somebody who actually had some sort of Celtic or ancient Germanic resource to go from I would find it more credible, but as it stands it is usually some middle aged woman who has changed her name to Mother Moon and couldn't figure out what to do with herself once the hippy bandwagon broke down.

I think in the end I am best suited for Universal Unitarianism. As far as I can tell, (and I have not done a whole lot to come up with this one) their point is that everybody makes basically the same point when it comes down to it, so wtf is everybody arguing about?

I guess my thought on the matter is that, given a God who knows everything and loves everyone, what you worship should not matter so long as you live a good life. From that thought there are a lot of things that are generally considered sins which don't really make a whole lot of sense given a such a supreme perspective. (For example, why would God give a damn what we eat on what day, or why would he hate homosexuals so much?)

Of course, God isn't very nice in the Old Testament anyway. I remember seeing a performance of the Elijah and thinking that God was the bad guy in that one.

One thing I happen to be reading about now is Gnosticism. It is (in short) the belief that "God" as we know him is in fact an evil god who uses the flesh to trap the soul and prevent it from progressing. Only the path of knowledge will allow a man to transcend this hell. There is a true god of good who is not Yaweh, the evil god of the Jews. In theory this was an esoteric message that can be construed from the teachings of Jesus. For example, "The truth will set you free," isn't about honesty.

Anyway, take the blue pill.

It is an interesting topic, but not something I could get into. It is very aesthetic due to the necessity of denying the appetites of the flesh. Vegetarianism and chastity were big. I don't do so good on either count. Of course, it is a sin to have children to be trapped by Yaldaboath (no, I'm not sure if I spelled that right) in this world.

Take a look at that stuff though. If the Catholic Church felt the need to mass murder people who believed it is must be something worth looking into, if only for scholarly intent.

Where was I? Um... Oh yea. I'm pretty much going to hell and I reject the divinity if not the wisdom of Christ. Really they are two pretty paradoxical thoughts if you think about it enough.

And, as a philosopher, all I have to do with my time is think about things.

And, if life has taught me anything it is that thinking about things is usually a bad idea...

I Got a New Toy

Once again I have found a way to get rid of money quick. I bought a digital camera. It is a Fuji FinePix E500. It was on sale, so I got it just short of half off. Today was the first day I really got to play with it because I actually had some of my afternoon off. Oh well. It takes pretty good pictures.

I just walked outside and chased a bird from perch to perch hoping it would get in a good position for pictures. Did I mention red winged blackbirds are my favorite kind of bird? I think I did...

Oh well. Here's some of my favorites. I also have one of my dad shaking his underwear-clad ass at me. It is rather odd, but in high definition. I think I'll spare you guys that one...


This one is probably the best pic of a red winged blackbird I could get. They are fast and don't let you get close.


Here is a bird I walked around pissing off to try to get good photo ops.


Here is one I took with "Macro" mode. He is small.


I ambushed my dog, Cody, when I first got it.


And this is Cody's head. He was interested.


This is Angel.


I'm not really sure what this is other than a really big dandelion.