We Can Do It, Together

Solonor is a cool guy.

Not only does he play a mean guitar, he also sings better than a drowning cat, is more handsome than Marty Feldman, is smarter than Gilligan and is sexier than Margaret Cho in a thong. I could go on complimenting him, but he might kill me if I do.

Did I mention how modest he is?

Anywaste, Solly (as his close, longtime, personal friends like me call him) was nice enough to help me out last night by doing some background work here on the site. In truth, he upgraded TMG from its aging blogging tool to a more up-to-date and modern tool for blogging. What does this mean to you? Absolutely nothing, I’m sure.

But it means a whole lot for this site.

You see, now that I’m using newer blogging software all I need to do is update the look of TMG and I’ll finally be finished with reworking the site and can get back to the business of writing again. I know, I know. You’re all excited. Try to calm down. Breath… Breath…

Hey! Put that back in your pants!

One last thing… anyone out there really, really good at CSS? I’m pretty good with it and I’ve got my new design pretty much done, but there’s a few things that have me confuzzled. I’m sure I’ll figure them out eventually, but I’m getting a bit impatient with things that just don’t work no matter what I seem to try. So, if someone out there was willing I could send them the files and they could maybe lend a brother a hand and make some suggestions…?

Hey! Hey! Get your hand out of my pants!

Designer Is Dummy

What was I thinking?

I spent the entire day yesterday designing a new look for this site, choosing colors, layout, fonts and graphics and only now, after I’ve committed too much time and effort to back out and start fresh, do I realize that my nice, clean and simple design is fricking difficult as all get-out to build!

Sigh. Sometimes I’m too smart for my own good.

So now, instead of having a funny story to tell to entertain you, I can only sit here and complain about how sad my coding skilz are and bemoan the fact that I can’t get layer X to align with layer Y in IE even though it looks just fine and dandy in Firefox. I tell you, it’s enough to make a real manly-man cry.

If I was a manly-man, that is.

Instead, I think I’ll just pull out some more hair, scream a bit louder at my screen, and chug along in the hopes that one day all this stuff will make sense to me. Stupid CSS box model, bane of my existence. You will rue the day you defied me. You hear me, CSS?! You will rue! RUE!!!

Man, I need a life.

Grape Juice

A little story, just for you.

When I was but a young lad of 8 or so, I was sent off to sleep-away camp in upstate NY. My second year of being sent to what I lovingly called ‘kiddie-prison’ I was introduced to a special ritual that had been passed down through the years, from camper to camper, until it finally reached my good friend David. Now David, it must be pointed out, was a good friend in the same way that Hannibal Lector was a good chef.

Meaning, they both scared the bejeebies out of me.

The method by which a Neanderthal like David managed to find the brain cells necessary to recall this ritual is of such astounding scientific importance that even now, decades after the event, some of our government’s greatest minds are attempting to discover it in the hopes of it leading to a cure for Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately for the Alzheimer sufferers of the world, at present the leading theory is, and I quote;

“Sometimes, even stupid gets lucky.”

Anywaste, back to our story. One fine day, David and his cronies managed to corner me outside of the main eating establishment of the camp, which was known far and wide as the “Mess Hall”. This building was called that due to its almost supernatural ability to cause all who passed through its doorway to become violently ill within 3 hours and empty their stomachs all over its floors, tables, chairs, walls and, in at least one case that I witnessed with my own eyes the year before, the rafters in the ceiling. The truly astonishing part was that the person who hit the ceiling for some odd reason actually stood up in their chair to do it.

And it was a 10 year old girl.

On the beautiful day at camp that I have been talking about now for about an hour, David, who liked to lovingly refer to me as, “Shrimp-Nerd”, cornered me outside the mess hall and thrust a plastic cup filled with fluid into my hands. This caused me pause for two reasons; first, when a timid, shy and tiny mouse is cornered by a giant, angry and menacing cat the very last thing the mouse would expect the cat to do is hand him a drink and invite him to dinner.

Secondly, the liquid was black.

I’m not talking brown and fuzzy, like a cola or root beer. I’m talking deep, deep, dark black. Like distilled midnight, or death’s blood, or liquid evil. It was a dark color the kind of which nightmares are made of and, not to put to fine a point on it, just by the look on David’s face I deduced that drinking the contents of that plastic cup would be Bad.

“Hey, Shrimp-Nerd. See what a good friend I am? I went and got you some grape juice to drink on such a hot day like today.”
“Gee, David. You shouldn’t have.”
“But I did, Shrimp-Nerd. And since I was so nice, you wouldn’t wanna make me mad and not drink it, would you?”
“Heaven forbid.”
“So?”
“So?”
“Ain’t you going to drink it?”
“Now?”
“Yeah, now.” [knuckles cracking]
“Oh. Uhm, ok…”

Have you ever eaten or drunk something that you thought was tasty only to realize after it was in your mouth that it was something so horrible that Satan himself had a patent on it for use in Hell’s Kitchen? You know, like when you drink some milk only to discover that it has the texture of cottage cheese? Or when you think you’re eating a piece of delicious bread pudding only to realize afterwards that it was actually week-old mayo that had been sitting in the sun?

Oh yeah, you’re all with me now.

Well, as I brought that tiny plastic cup of demon-diarrhea to my lips I knew it would be bad, I just didn’t know how bad until that viscous liquid made its initial assault on my poor, defenseless tongue. David and his crew had never laughed so hard and for the next two weeks anytime they saw me they would ask if I needed a drink. And every time they did my eyes would fill with tears and my body would convulse as I began to dry-heave for the next hour or so at just the thought of what I could only imagine was the irreparable damage I had done to my gastrointestinal tract. And what was the disgusting liquid I had been forced to ingest? A mixture of salt, soy sauce, vinegar, coffee, chocolate syrup and, of all things, ground red pepper.

And to this day, grape juice still makes me gag.

Better Late Than Never

Boy, am I ever late.

You know, I was hoping to have the new site design ready to launch today, but alas, my busy schedule and inherent laziness have once again conspired to keep me from making my grand debut.

Well, for a little bit longer, at least.

This week I plan on finishing the new layout and also upgrading my Blog tool from MT to WordPress. So, if you notice things acting a bit weird around here this week you can honestly say that it’s not you, it’s me. Now, I know some people out there have been wondering if I would ever come back, and looking through my comments (ignoring the 1,735 spam comments added in the last three months, of course) I see that many of you would have been more than happy to see me miss my self-imposed deadline and fail.

And yes, I’m looking at YOU Mr. Hentai.

But a pox upon you Mr. Hentai, and all of those others who didn’t believe I was coming back! Naysayers and disbelievers, all! Look and see, for I have not failed! I did not betray your trust! Gaze upon your screen and be awed, for lo and behold, GeekMan has come again!

Ahem.

Uh…

Stop laughing at me.

You know what I meant.

Stop… please?

No, I am not crying.

[sniff]

Dammit.

I hate you.

Another Apology

Sometimes life really does get in the way of my plans of world domination.

I’m not dead (yet).
I’m not taking a (planned) break.
I’m not trying to find myself/inspiration/a nice pair of slacks.
I’ve just been so fricking busy over the last three months that even HoBiscuit has forgotten what I really look like.

The sad thing is, it’s not over… yet.

However, it’s not all bad. Soon things will calm down and I’ll be able to once again regale you with my inane and idiotic stories. I’m hoping that one month from today I’ll be back and better than ever, with a new design here and even a new site or three to accommodate some of my other silly hobbies. It’s going to be a red-letter day for anyone’s diary so mark your calendars for the weekend of March 17th friends, because The Mighty Geek is coming back, baby! Bigger and better than ever!

And this time not even Bread can stop me!

A Quick Update During My Moment Of Silence

My Most Awesome of Electronic Computing Devices Ever is dead.

On Sunday evening, as I was working on my computer, the screen suddenly went dark and I heard a soft popping sound. “Hmmm, that’s odd.” I thought, and looked over at the big box that sits to my immediate right thinking that my Vunder-Machine had powered down or something. That’s when I noticed the wisp of grey smoke coming from the back of the computer and the acrid stench of melting plastic.

“Huh. I wonder what that could be…?”

It took a second, but I got there eventually. At that moment the synapses in my brain began firing the way they’re supposed to and I dove for the power cord and fire extinguisher. But I was too late. Long story short, although there was no actual fire, my motherboard, graphics card and power supply are all crispy in that “fresh from the nuclear reactor” kind of way. Luckily, I keep most of my files on an external hard drive which is fine and dandy, but there are a few things I still need to get off of the internal hard drive of the computer. You know; things like my QuickBooks files and client lists.

And my pr0n.

So, although I was hoping to be posting here again by next week, that hope has been thoroughly dashed to pieces as it now seems that I will have yet another thing added to my list of Things To Do. I’ve already decided to buy two computers, one for business use and one for home/entertainment use, which hopefully will make my life a little easier in the “networking computers is easy, like teaching theoretical astrophysics to a retarded chipmunk.” kind of way.

Because I’m a glutton for punishment, that’s why.

Well, I might as well do a full update while I’m here. Wouldn’t want to disappoint my adoring fans fan. During the time that I’ve been away, HoBiscuit and I have bought another new apartment and are in the process of killing ourselves by bleeding to death from paper cuts due to all the forms we need to fill out to get a stupid mortgage for the new place. And, just in case that alone doesn’t kill us, we’re also trying to create the world’s largest ulcer, in my very own body, by attempting to sell our current place at the same time. Also, HoBiscuit and I’ve been working non-stop for months and we’re very, very tired.

Woooo, what fun.

Well, that’s all for now. I’ll be back when I can. Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate it and remember; when life gives you lemons, kick life in the nuts and demand better service.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled silence…

The Big Apology

Dear Geek Minions

Due to circumstances beyond his control, GeekMan will be unable to update this site for the next few weeks. Maybe not even until after the new year. He apologizes profusely for being unable to humor you at this time and he promises to be back again as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Winning Friends On Halloween

HoBiscuit and I had to work late yesterday. Here’s the sign I left on our door.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it home until almost 9pm which is past the bedtime of most of our building’s children. That means the children never did get to see Mr. Flaming Skull, although Mrs. Flaming Skull (HoBiscuit) was happily handing out candy to the Greedy Children by 7:30. HoBiscuit tells me that many of the kids kept coming back to our door until their mothers made them go home to bed to ask if I was home yet, which is nice I guess.

Ah, who am I kidding? Stinking Greedy Children probably just wanted more candy.

Days Go By

Whoo-boy, have I been busy.

The last couple of weeks have been fairly crazy for me, but now that I’m finally back to a somewhat more normal schedule my posts should ratchet back up from ‘never’ to ‘infrequent’. This announcement of my pending return to somewhat regular posting should make you smile in a way that clearly conveys to me that you’re merely humoring my delusional belief that someone out there actually cares whether I live or die. Now you should be heaving a mighty sigh of martyred resignation as you pat me on the head and tell me how much you missed me.

Go on, lie. I’m so pathetic I’ll believe you.

Anywaste, many things have happened during my absence but none of those things are very funny so I won’t bother to mention them here since doing so would probably bore you all to tears. Instead, I think I’ll just wish you all a happy Halloween and end here with the understanding that I’ll try harder to be funny tomorrow when I’m not at a clients office party dressed up as a woman’s giant, hairy naughty bit with a name tag that says; “Hi! My name is George.”

Hey, a fur coat and a pink bodysuit is so a real costume!