Winds Of Change

For there’s a change in the weather, there’s a change in the sea,
So from now on there’ll be a change in me
My walk will be different, my talk and my name,
Nothing about me is going to be the same
I’m going to change my way of living if that ain’t enough,
Then I’ll change the way I strut my stuff
Cause nobody wants you when you’re old and gray
There’ll be some changes made today,
There’ll be some changes made

For there’s a change in the fashions, ask the feminine folks,
Even Jack Benny has been changing jokes,
I must make some changes from old to the new,
I must do some things the same as others do
I’m going to change my long tall Mama for a little short fat,
Going to change the number where I live at
I must have some loving or I’ll fade away
There’ll be some changes made today
Oh, there’ll be some changes made
Continue reading

Blackout Blogging

This couldn’t be happening.

[click]

My Aeron chair let out a slight squeak in the darkness as I sat in front of my dark computer screen in my dark house on my dark street in the dark city. Moisture from my sweat covered body dripped down my hunched back and gathered in the crack of my anus as I feverishly pressed the power button of my computer for the millionth time in the hopes that some miracle would occur. That someway, somehow my computer would magically turn on without electricity.

[click]

Dammit.

After seven hours of this impulsive/compulsive behavior, I reluctantly concluded that without electricity even my computer could not function. As I lifted myself out of my chair (making the ssshhhhlllip noise of sweaty skin being peeled away from vynil) I noticed that HoBiscuit had managed to find her way home.

“Hey Sweetie. I think we blew a fuse or something.”
“You’re an idiot. The power’s out in the whole city and I had to walk home!”
“Wow. Midtown to Brooklyn? Isn’t that, like, far?”
“It took me three hours, you insensitive jerk! I walked forever! In flip-flops!”
“Oh. Well, you did say you wanted to get some exercise, right? So let’s go get some traditional NY Blackout dinner and look at the stars.”
“But my feet hurt! And what’s traditional NY Blackout food?”
“Pizza, of course.”

This morning we still had no power, so we decided to go out and walk in the park. Meeting up with another friend of ours, we spent a delightful day sitting in the shade of Prospect Park and watching all the other powerless people frolicking on the grass. We then went out for dinner (pizza again) and then walked our way back home.

[click]

Hazzah! Our power had returned!

So, after a beautiful day in the park with my beautiful woman in my arms, what do you think I’m doing with my newfound power?

[click]

That’s right. I’m watching preseason football on tv with all the lights on in my frigidly air-conditioned house as my popcorn cooks in the microwave.

Screw nature. Give me my climate control and cable or I’ll kill you.
Continue reading

No Time

Time to write, I have not.

Much busy am I. Writing time-suckage allowed not. Back when allowed to write I am. Meanwhile, questions for you I have. The following in comments answer please.

  1. Were you affected by the MSBlast worm/virus in the past few days? If so, how were you affected? I only ask because it completely passed me by, but I hear it caused some major grief for others.
  2. When you shower, do you shampoo or soap up first? Why?
  3. Why is it that the posts I think are my best bits garner the fewest comments while my quick and dirty posts get the most? Does anyone out there actually read my longer posts?
  4. If you gave up a seat on the bus or train for someone would you be pissed off if they didn’t even thank you for it?
  5. Why the hell are people treating this post of mine as if it were actually some sort of medical message board? It has more comments on it than anything else I’ve ever written, but I made the whole thing up! It was a joke people! A joke!

All that is. Go I must. Later see you will I.

Don’t Mock The Turtle

“Will you look at that? I didn’t know there was a river back here.”

I was about 12 or 13 years old and had been taking a walk through the woods near my father’s new upstate home when I came across the ‘river’. And by river, I really mean pathetically small stream about a quarter of a mile from my dad’s house, which he shared with his new wife and my new step-sisters. They were nice enough as far as I could tell, I guess. My mother called them evil, back-stabbing, husband stealing, home breaking, whore-slut witches, of course. But still, I thought they were nice. Of course, my viewpoint was a little skewed by my tweenage libido.

You see, they weren’t really related to me and they all had boobies.

Anywaste, my brother and step-sisters had become engrossed in some strange game involving dolls, feather boas and some tiny teacups. And although they tried to make it sound exciting, like what happened in Boston back in 1773, this so-called “Tea Party” seemed very lame to me. The fact that they wouldn’t let me wear the pink hat with the single yellow flower in it had nothing to do with my decision to throw down my powder blue smock, tell them they were ‘poopie-heads’ and stalk out of the room.

In my defense, it was a really nice hat.

So, instead of wasting my time drinking imaginary tea with imaginary friends, I decided to take a walk through the woods and find me some creepy-crawly things to catch. I might have been young, but I knew far more about woodsy creepy-crawlies than almost anyone else in the world. This was long before the Discovery channel, Nigel or the Crocodile Hunter were around to teach kids about the animal kingdom, but somehow I managed to become an expert of snakes, frogs and insects anyway.

You could have called me the Chocodile Hunter.

So, there I was standing by the edge of a small stream behind my father’s house. It was a beautiful summer’s day and I decided that I would search the banks of the shore for wildlife, catch anything interesting and maybe bring it home to show my dad. I thought it was fun to bring things home to my dad because he and I would play 20 Questions whenever I did. It would go something like this;

“What have you got there, son?”
“I dunno.”
“Is it alive?”
“I think so.”
“Did you get it from outside?”
“Maybe.”
“It looks dirty.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is it dangerous?”
“I dunno.”
“So, what is it?”
“I dunno.”
“Sigh. Maybe I should ask it what it is, hmmm?”
“Maybe.”
“Ok then, well? What are you?”
“Well sir my names Dave, but nowadays most people call me ‘Stinkin’ Bum’.”
“See son? That’s why we don’t feed wild things. They tend to follow us home.”
“Sorry daddy.”
“Excuse me sir, but the kid said something about Pudding Pops and Fresca?”

As I was searching the shoreline, I saw what looked like a rock further down the stream move a little, so I walked over to investigate. To my surprise I found that the moving rock was no rock at all, but a wild snapping turtle! Thinking about how proud my dad would be when I came home with a real, live turtle, I quickly reached down to pick him up before he could escape back into the stream. Grabbing him by his shell, I brought him up to eye level for a better look. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see anything because he was hiding from me in his shell.

The little bastard.

Wanting to see his face, I decided to poke at his head with my finger until he came out. I poked and I poked, but he steadfastly refused to expose his head for my viewing pleasure and I began to become upset. But no matter how hard I poked, he still stayed hidden away in his shell. This got me angry to no end, and so I began to mock the turtle.

[poke]
“Hey ugly! Why are you so scared? Don’t you want to come out?”
[poke]
“You’re a stupid turtle, aren’t you? You’re so dumb you forgot how to get out of your own shell, didn’t you?”
[poke, poke]
“Come on! Let me see you’re face, stupid! If you come out now I won’t turn you into turtle soup!”
[poke]
“Why are you still hiding? Are you ugly? Are you disfigured, like Quasimodo? Are you the Turtle of Notre Dame in there? Huh?”
[poke, poke]
Hey! Come out right now or I’m going to smash you on these rocks! I mean it!”
[poke]
SNAP!

Apparently the turtle had had enough.

Have you ever smashed your finger in a car door? How about hitting it with a hammer, or intentionally put it into a vise? If you have, then you’ll understand the kind of pain that turtle inflicted upon my poor, unsuspecting finger. If none of those things have happened in your life yet, then go do them now or you just won’t understand the kind of immense pain I felt when that little bastard clamped down on my finger.

My mind actually shut down for a second or two.

I stood there frozen in time like some sort of statue for what seemed like hours. My body was ramrod straight and my mind was completely blank. My right hand’s index finger, which had been extended for another poke at my little prisoner, looked to me as if a turtle had been surgically affixed to it. The turtle hadn’t taken a tiny bit of flesh, either. Oh no, that would have been too merciful to its tormentor. It had my entire nail, down to the first knuckle, in its mouth. And it was angrily grinding its mouth together for maximum damage. I was in so much pain, and was so surprised, that I couldn’t even scream. I just made that “Ah!” sound over and over as I stared at my finger.

Then it looked at me and I swear to you, it grinned.

Suddenly I could move again, and my only thought was to get this fricking thing OFF of my finger before it swallowed me whole. I began pulling on the turtle, then shaking my hand wildly and finally doing some sort of aboriginal dance involving flapping arms, flailing hands and high-pitched whines and guttural screams of pain, but the little bastard wouldn’t let go no matter how much I begged for mercy.

Finally, in desperation, I put my hand into the stream.

He was gone in an instant. One moment I had a new, turtle-shaped finger and the next my finger was its usual shape and size. Looking at my hand in fear for the damage I was sure he had inflicted, I was surprised to find that my finger was completely unharmed. No broken bones, my nail wasn’t so much as scratched and the skin wasn’t even broken, let alone bloody as I expected. Shaking my head in disbelief at my good fortune, I decided to head back to my dad’s house to see what was on TV and leave the wildlife alone for another day. Since that day I have seen many turtles, and although I have pet them, prodded them, poked them and picked them up, there is one thing I haven’t done. And I suggest you never do it either.

Never, ever, mock a turtle.

When Animals Attack

Anatomy of a Geek bite.

It’s Shark Week on the Discovery channel, so what better time than now for me to share some of my childhood memories of things that have bitten or attacked me? I know you’re all on the edge of your seats right now, barely able to contain your enthusiasm, but you’ll need to wait at least one more day before the stories begin.

I am such a tease.

Actually, I’m very busy today trying to get a few [Dr. Evil voiceover: One hundred billion!] things done so I just don’t have the time to write the first story yet. But come back tomorrow and you’ll be having some fun at my expense, I can tell you! That’s because tomorrow I will be telling a story of my youth that has special meaning to me, because it’s the day I learned one of the most important lessons of any young man’s life. A lesson that I’ll never forget;

Don’t mock the turtle.

Satanic Candy Company

Meeting notes from May 23, 1971

Satan: “OK you demonic slaves, listen up. Sales of children’s souls for candy are down which is bad, but kids lying and stealing to acquire candy is up. That means that overall we’re doing alright, but alright just isn’t good enough in this economy. If we don’t make our numbers next month I’m afraid I’ll have to let some of you go and turn you into fuel for the boilers.”

[general mumbles of anxious denial]

Satan: “Shut up. Now, R&D has just finished their latest study on children and deviant behavior and it turns out that Johnson here was on the right track with his Pop Rocks idea. Johnson’s Pop Rocks have been great for business, they’ve got a lot of sugar in them and kids just love the sound they make when they eat them and drink Coke at the same time. The only problem is that Pop Rocks just don’t have enough sugar in them to make them truly evil. You see, according to R&D, what we need to do is get more sugar into these kids so they’ll get a sugar rush, leading to a sugar high, and finally sugar withdrawal. This will then lead to deviant behavior and the subsequent sale of their soul to one of our reps to get out of trouble, or for nothing less than even more sugar! It’s brilliant in its simplicity. So, there must be some way to get more sugar into human children without increasing our costs and no one’s leaving this room until we figure it out.”

[crickets]

Satan: “Come on, demons! Doesn’t anyone have an idea?”

Johnson: “Uh, Your Unholiness?”

Satan: “Yes Johnson?”

Johnson: “Well, I was just thinking… If it’s sugar we need to give them, why don’t we do just that? You know, give them pure sugar?”

Satan: “I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”

Johnson: “Well, you see, I thought that maybe we could just take some sugar, give it a little drop of flavoring and package it in a way that kids will think is cool. We could even keep its price down to a dime or so, just so they won’t think twice about buying it with their spare change. And to keep costs down, we could put the sugar into paper wrappers that look like straws. Even better, we could use plastic straws and charge a little more! Hey, we’ve got all those surplus Hoola-Hoops from the 60s lying around, right? Well, we could always cut them in half and sell them as extra large, super sugar straws.”

Satan: “Johnson, you’re a genius! I love this idea. Just for that I think I’ll cancel your three o’clock Hot Poker In The Anus appointment for today.”

Johnson: “Oh, thank you sir! Thank you!”

Satan: “But wait, what are we going to call these sugar straws so the parents won’t object when their kids start eating them?”

Johnson: “Well sir, for the sake of irony, you could name it something cute like Pixie Stix. That way it doesn’t sound as disturbing to the parents as it would if you named it more truthfully. You know, like Edible Kiddy Cocaine or Psycho Sand.”

Satan:BRILLIANT! Johnson, I’m taking you down off that crucifix and giving you two hours in the Pillow Room. Hell, you’ve done such a good job today I’m even going to throw in Cleopatra and Helen of Troy.”

[Johnson sheds tears of joy as he is lowered to the floor]

Johnson: “Oh, thank you sir! Thank you!

End of meeting notes.

Plumber: 1, GeekMan: 0

I hate plumbers.

Two days ago there was a note attached to the front door of my building stating that the people directly below my apartment on the first floor had a leak coming through their bathroom ceiling. Knowing that my apartment had no leaks, I merely laughed at their misfortune and promptly forgot about it. Yesterday, as I was entering the building I saw yet another note on the front door. This one however was from the management;

“Due to the leaks being reported in the building, the management has called for a plumber who will be arriving tomorrow (Thursday) and inspecting ALL APARTMENTS between the hours of 7am to 12pm. Please make the appropriate arrangements to allow him access to your apartment.”

Seven am?! Seven am?! Seven-fricking-o’clock in the mothah-fricking morning?! That means I might actually be out of bed before the sun rises! That’s not natural! It’s inhumane! It goes against the Geek Code of Slumbering Sloths and on top of that, it’s just plain wrong, dammit! Needless to say, I did not laugh as the alarm went off at 6am this morning and abruptly ended my much needed beauty sleep. And of course, the plumber never showed up just like we all knew he wouldn’t.

Bastard.

I’m Busy

I’m doing wedding and work related things today, so I really can’t spare too much time for my usually overly wordy and long-winded posts. However, I do have a few things I want to say today, so to make it seem more original and ‘fun’ I thought I’d write them in Haiku. Here goes nothing;

Work demands laptops
I just bought two IBMs
Longed for this, or this

Three new books to read
The Good Die Twice, Death Masks and
Naked Empire

Help me, I’m having
Problems with Moveable Type
My Weblogs pings fail

One day, all will change
The new replaces the old
TMGv4

I have just farted
Choking now on poopie smell
Must open window

That’s all for today
Because time keeps on slipping
Into the future

*update*

Help make me famous
Give me a great rating, please
Five out of five stars!

Congratulations! Condolences! Congratulations!

It must run in the family.

Everyone in my family seems to really, truly enjoy mentally and emotionally torturing the people they love. Not just in a little way, either. Oh, no. We can’t seem to pass up any opportunity to destroy the mental stability of the people around us. And should someone be foolish enough to actually leave their emotions on the table for us to see, well let’s just say that we always carry around a special ‘Emotion Crushing Hammer Of Gotcha!

Let me give you a perfect example.

Last night, after a wonderful evening of watching Shakespeare In The Park with his lovely girlfriend (Papaya), my brother (Fishman) was shocked to find himself being called up on stage. There, in front of a few hundred strangers, Papaya got down on one knee and presented Fishman with a beautiful bracelet and proposed to him.

Isn’t that sweet?

They’ve been together for six long years, a fricking lifetime for someone to put up with Fishman let me tell you, and I guess she finally got tired of waiting for him so she decided to take matters into her own hands. She probably decided this during one of the many, many discussions on the subject when I bet he said something to the effect of, “If you want to get married so badly, why don’t you propose to me?”

Isn’t he a bastard?

Now, I know Papaya pretty well and I bet she planned out the whole evening far in advance of the actual event. She probably planned out everything from what she would wear to what she would say and even various scenarios of what Fishman would say in response to ‘The Question’.

But I bet she never expected the reality.

You see, unbeknown to Papaya, Fishman had done some planning of his own. Knowing her and her stubborn nature he had purposely planted in her mind the thought of proposing to him. His reasons were threefold;

  1. He knew that she would come up with something far more romantic and memorable than his idea of putting a ring inside a dead fish and smacking her in the head with it while screaming “Look out! That’s a North American Killer Proposal Fish! The only way to stop it from attacking you and eating your brains is to say ‘I do’ and then rip open its stomach and remove what’s inside! Quick! Say you’ll marry me or it’s going to eat through your skull and suck your brains!”
  2. He needed to keep her from realizing that he had already begun shopping for a ring.
  3. And because my brother is my brother, and he truly enjoys mentally & emotionally torturing those he loves. The bastard.

So, after making Papaya gather up the courage to reverse the customary roles and do the proposing herself, and making her shop for an engagement bracelet in ‘secret’, and having her plan a very romantic evening out with the man she loves, and arranging for a spectacular proposal in front of hundreds of people she didn’t know, my brother reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring he’d been constantly carrying around for the last two weeks.

Isn’t he a BASTARD!?

Well, luckily for Fishman she really does love him, because instead of beating the crap out of him and shoving that bracelet up his butt, she merely got misty eyed and said yes. He said yes in turn and the audience did what any audience would do in that situation and pelted them with rotten fruit and vegetables for their lousy performance and demanded their money back, even though it was a free concert.

Actually I think they all clapped, but the fruit would have been cool.

So, congratulations to my brother for finding himself a woman who loves him enough to forgive him after putting her through all that. And to Papaya, congratulations, I guess. More like condolences, actually. I don’t know what you’re thinking girl, but you should run away as quickly as you can. Don’t think even for a moment that it’s going to get any easier as the years go by. You’ve met our family, so you should realize that we’re ALL crazy. We ALL like our practical jokes and the mental games and emotional triathlons we put our loved ones through. Don’t believe me? I’ve got three words for you;

Grandma and Grandpa. ‘Nuff said.