January 2007 Archives

I had another of those plaguing 3am wake-ups last night; 3am, which I've taken to calling the worrying hour for it's always the hour at which people wake to brood, or dread. It's the hour when we stare into the back heart of despair and can't see a way out.

It's not a singular thing that wakes me up at 3am; the BIG ISSUE I can sleep on; i know it, I understand it, I can cope. No, it's Bukowski's Shoelace, it's the small, sharp implements of life, boring tiny holes into the skull. You can hear them at 3am; the world, and the mind, quiet down, and let in the grinding, scraping sounds of creeping madness.

I lie awake at 3am and stare at an invisible ceiling and make fatigue-addled lists of things I need to be doing; lists in my head that will be gone before morning, sleep or not. I let hopes run away with me, dread both named and un-named all the while dragging me down into the mire.

I dare not hope at 3am; it's the meat the night's demons feed on.

I lay in the dark for two hours, chasing elusive sleep, knowing that around me people blissfully slept, or rose for jobs that start at ungodly hours; finally one thought drew me from bed.

Coffee.

I sat in the dark waiting for a sunrise, drinking hot, black coffee and thinking; giving in to thoughts and hopes and dreams but not fears; they're swept away with the cobwebs of sleep, at least for a moment. Chased by caffeine and sunrise, they retreat into dark, grim holes of night.

I look for a battle to fight. Enemies evaporate like smoke; I've nothing to smite, and the prize of my mind's eye remains just beyond reach.

I hate nights like these.

Well, I'm suddenly up on 25peeps.

No, not those peeps, 25peeps.

I have no idea why. But go 'head and click me, early and often.

EDIT:

Well, 25peeps, which started out as a great idea (put up your face and see who clicks you and goes to your blog) has already degenerated into a farm for T&A and splogs. That didn't take long. Pretty much any pic that ain't T&A gets pushed off right quick.

...maybe if I posted an up-kilt shot?

Anyway, I thought about re-upping but fuck 'em.

Pardon me a moment while I grumble.

This has been a very long week; various dramas of real life involving parents, a sudden huge uptick in my workload, drama from unexpected sources here and there.

The kind of week where you really look forward to weekends.

No; I have to work. One of the things I inherited from Mr. Disappeared is a big project to roll out a bunch of new hardware libraries (if you don't know what that mans, don't worry, it's irrelevant). Now, I sort of figured it was a quick morning of work due to how much time he'd had to set up for it. Not so much, it turns out.

I had to bag out on going to a San Jose Stealth game last night (our local pro lacrosse team) because of this; I had this image of bein' outta the office today by one or two o'clock, maybe doing some useful or entertaining thing.

No. I'm still here trying to get all this shit working, flyin' blind because I was just supposed to be dropping changes in place and didn't have time to get a full view of what the changes would be.

And you know, days like this, there has to be an 'and to make things worse'.

I carry this knife. Only mine, well, mine's what you might call a switchblade. So today I went to pull my new phone out of my pocket, and somehow between skull ring, knife, and phone, there was something of a miss-fire.

What that means is that my hand went in fine, but when it came out, there was suddenly a knife blade in the mix; this left me with a 3/4" furrow carved into my right middle finger (The L finger, for those keeping track).

As luck would have it (or you could call it foresight, given how I am, though you'd be wrong), i happen to have band-aids at my desk (batman, in case anyone was wondering). So I was able to staunch the blood flow with super-heroic power, without ever loosing focus on the task at hand. I'm just that good.

But having a finger out of commission just adds that one extra irritant to my day; it's now nearly six PM and I stay anchored to my desk, with no end to this job in sight.

I had much much better things to do today. Much better things.

From Fifth at Shoeless - Fuck Memes.

     Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one or two (maybe even three) reasons why I hate you.

     Then put this in your own journal, and spread the hate.

I love this.

EDIT:

New rule. After I tell you why I hate you, you don't get to respond. BECAUSE I HATE YOU.

I was talking to a friend the other day, and she mentioned how many years she'd been working without a break.

I started to do the math for myself.

I started working when I was 18 or 19. Seriously working, full-time working.

The next couple of years I went through a few jobs, fired twice (once my own fault, once not, and then a few temp or short term jobs). Started my own business doing hauling and odd jobs, working as hard as I've ever worked in my life for crap pay (but damn, I looked good, tan and fit, hands calloused, covered with bruises and scratches. My hair was long and sun-bleached, I looked like a surfer and I was my own boss).

While the work wasn't constant, there was no break; when I was outta work I was also completely out of money, no one taking care of me, no one funding me, and constantly struggling to get work.

By the time I was twenty-two or twenty-three, I had full time work (at Seagate). I worked there for three years, and then was laid off, and went to a startup company as quick as I could find work. That also ended in a layof,f after a couple years where I built computer systems, tested them, managed inventory, worked shipping and receiving, wired computer rooms and phone systems, and drove the company truck. After that I went on to my other most physical job, working in a used computer parts warehouse; a filthy, dusty warehouse full of the most amazing junk you've ever seen. I ran the warehouse, driving a forklift (god DAMN I was good at that), packing weird, heavy equipment, climbing pallet racks like a monkey to get shit we could not reach with a forklift. I came home every day sweaty, filthy, covered in greasy black dirt. The job sucked, but not because the work was hard; I liked that. No, it sucked because my boss was not just a crook, but a madman in all the wrong ways. But again, it was work that made me strong, and work that connected me, via a random association of friends-of-friends, into some friendships I still have today. And I thanked the boss when he fired me, saying I needed to get myself the fuck out of here.

From there, I went directly on to temp jobs; Apple being one of the places I work for a short time (in what's now the iPod team headquarters building, though in between then and now it's been several other companies), and then went to Sun; not a break in between.

Six years at Sun; hard work, and connections made, friends I still have. Some of them even read this blog. And then Cisco, a job I had before I even left Sun. Nine long hard years, where I learned to be an engineer (a complete career re-boot), got a taste of managing people, and burned myself out in a lot of ways, working harder and harder for little or no recognition (but for a good chunk of money thanks to the dotcom era). Cisco was where I learned how big corporations eat people alive.

And then out of Cisco and to Apple; another career reboot, moving from software to hardware; six and a half years now, both some of the best times and the worst times in my adult life (for reasons that have little to do with work, yet which make getting through the day and getting to work even harder than usual).

I add all this up, and I get something like twenty-seven years. That's how long I've been working. Twenty-seven years, and while there are gaps in there, the gaps are times when I was trying desperately to find work. Not times when I had time.

Almost 8000 work days. 16000 commutes. 64000 if we only count eight hours a day; though I average more like ten hours a day in truth.

The numbers freak me out a little bit. This wasn't quite how I visualized my life; wage slave.

I was talking to my friend Jeff - my long (very long) time friend, my tattoo brother, my former boss, my current bosses bosses boss (or something like that); and it was one of those bizarre conversations you can only get with a long time friend. It started with Jeff peeking over the divider between urinals while we were taking a leak; he's theatrically checkin' out the business; I of course, with the week I'm having, didn't even notice that the man next to me was looking at my cock.

"You're extra spaced today", he said, and I had to agree. And Jeff is the kind of guy who's seen me as spaced as I get, so he should know.

We started chatting - we don't see each other as much as we used to at work. We talked about how hard we're working, how burnt we both are; we talked about the tattoo I'm getting and my choice of who to do it. He asked how old my kids are now, and was aghast at the numbers I gave him. We stood looking at each other, shaved heads no longer tight and shiny, 5 o'clock shadow hair-lines receding now on their own under the shaving that has always been a style choice. Both of us with bright silver-gray threads in our facial hair that were not there a year or two ago.

"We're fucking old, Jeff" I said to him, and he shook his head.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to me," he answered. And I agreed.

"We were supposed to be dead by now," he said.

"That's what I'd planned on on."

He's right. We didn't figure, when we were twenty, on someday being tired, over-worked middle-aged guys. We rode our motorcycles and did drugs and didn't always do safe things, we didn't worry. We looked for risks to take. We were not afraid. We tattooed ourselves and pierced ourselves and didn't think about what it'd be like to be old men.

Jeff's right. We really were not meant to live this long; Jeff and I were our own sort of warriors, and we should have gone into battle of one sort or another, shone bright, flashed, and then gone down. Fight and drink and die.

Somehow we didn't. And neither of us are sure how that happened. But it's nice to have a brother there who understands.

Someone in my group got disappeared today.

It's one of those corporate moments that just freaks 'ya out, you know? Friday you're talkin' to a guy about a project you're working on, monday he's mysteriously out of work and your boss is saying you might need to handle that.

And then they start with the euphemisms about won't be here. No one uses the word fired.

And no one seems to know why. The ones who know don't say; they can't.

And we all look over our shoulders, and then at the train headed our way, carrying a shitload of work that someone else was doing; work no one else knows how to do.

That train has my name on it.

Maybe a bullet's a better metaphor; because it's that jumpy feeling you get, like there are cross-hairs trained on your back. You don't know when it's coming, but you know sooner or later it will.

EDIT:

Well, the coworker in question didn't get disappeared; there's still the romulan cloaking device over what exactly happened, but evidently he was asked to leave, though evidently he expected it, and it wasn't over anything beyond work performance. He was at work today clearing out his office and answering questions while waiting for his goodbye check. Fortunately he's a good guy and was willing to spend a lot of hours doing a brain dump for those of us who have to clean up after.

However, what this all means for me (because it's all about me, and don't you fucking forget it) is that all the shit he's been doing but not documenting for nearly two decades is now mine and all the schedules that he's months behind on, also, are now my slipped deadlines.

The light at the end of the tunnel? C'mon say it with me - is a train. And it's pickin' up speed.

Chris Moore - one of my favorite authors - has a new book out already.

Chris. Dude. Slow down a little, k? You're gonna burn out.

This is a sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends (A love Story); an utterly fabulous book, just as good as it's title.

Moore's written a number of great books, and a smaller number of terrible ones (*cough*fluke*cough*); his last, A Dirty Job, was a step up from his recent run of clever-but-weak work.

Bloodsucking Fiends is always the one I start readers on. If you love it, you'll love Moore. If you don't love it, you've just seen Moore's best, so don't bother to go on.

So I look to a sequel with a small thrill and a large amount of suspicion. Still, though, I believe in Moore; he's just too damned clever to be done writing great books yet.

I got this last night, but have yet to crack it open. I'm trying to force myself to finish the three books I'm already reading first, but I bet this one wins out by the end of the day.

Well, i wasn't sure it was possible to reduce a person's essence, the totality of what makes them them in a few brush strokes.

Bit it kinda seems like cartoonist Doug Shannon does a pretty good job.

This guy was at a party I went to saturday (a Bar Mitzvah, actually, which was a unique experience for this california gentile), and of course I had to shoulder kids out of the way and say do mine next. The best thing is to watch the guy doing this, seeing which people he reads and captures instantly and who he does not. It requires not just a particular cartooning talent to do this nonsense, but also a certain intuition about people. We all have varying degrees of how well we read faces and body language; some people just seem to have an extra gift.

Arrive in neurotica
Through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming heards
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery

I have
no fin -
no wing -
no stinger -
no claw -
no camouflage

I have -
no more to say...

You know it's that kinda day when you wind up with King Crimson songs stuck in your head.

I've had no time to post, though in general I've been in a much better mood. My life, typically, is still in a state of constant upheaval (when, I wonder, does it get simple? Oh, right, when they shovel dirt over my face.)

So here's something silly meantime, 'til I get time to put virtual pen to virtual paper and produce something virtually interesting.

This is old. But my kids are walkiing around singing it - and they know all the goddamn words so I had to look it up.

You have to watch this first, then you can read the words, which are almost brilliantly surreal.

Thus - The Llama Song

Ok, now you can read the words.

I was going to post some fluffy light-hearted thing today about it being the anniversary of three years blogging. Today though I don't feel like a party.

I feel more like a silent, angry brood. I feel more like banging my head against a wall than like waving the big foam finger.

Why? Fuck if I know. Maybe I just slept wrong. Maybe I'm just grumpy 'cause it's a holiday yet I'm working. Maybe I'm exhausted with other people's problems.

Whatever.

This is the kind of day where i tend to take my blog down 'cause I'm generally so out of sorts it just makes me angry. So if this all goes away, you know why.

EDIT:

I for some reason woke up in a total fuckin' funk this morning. Dunno what's up. I somehow managed to turn my day around a bit by just gettin' outta work a little early for a change. So I'm not feeling anywhere near as sullen and I did this morning.

I would have deleted this entry if there were not already comments on it. But I'm nowhere near as crabby.

I feel like all I've been writing about lately are objects of lust - material objects, not the lickable, suckable kind (nevermind that someone wanted to lick my new washer).

Which makes this all seem one-dimensonal. Karl has a new object of material desire is all this blog seems to be about.

I'm a big fan of lust. I think it's just about the best thing in the human condition. There is nothing quite so glorious as working lust up to the point where one's READY - TO - EXPLODE; and then getting the object of said lust right at that frantic, frenzied peak.

But when that thing is, well, a thing, of silver or iron or shiny-bright plastic, no matter the lust, no matter the usefulness of the object, it is, still, only an object and only as good as it is useful

The funny thing is, though I so often blog about things I like or want, I'm not all that materially driven. Most of what I care about, of the many things I own, are the ones that solve a problem in some particularly good way. My coffee maker which looks cool in shiny stainless, but more importantly makes a damned fine cup of java to get my brain working in the morning. My knives, bright steel or dull carbon, chef's knives, pocket knives, switchblades and tactical folders, all of which do a job for me on a daily basis.

My Jeep and my motorcycle please me for aesthetic reasons, but more importantly, they move me from here to there in ways quick and efficient; I can go over almost anything and park almost anywhere in my jeep, I can slice through traffic and park where I will on my Triumph. They have limitations and impracticalities, but they do exactly what I want them for.

I love that they please my eye; I keep them because they do the job well.

I own fine audiophile components, home entertainment centers, video game consoles. I like these things, and I use them, but in the end it's the art and the play that matter, the music, the movies, the games, not the things. They solve a problem.

I struggle between the lustful desire for pretty things and the desire to keep my life simple, clean, easy, functional.

One of my dreams is to live somewhere to basic, so physically simple, that everything goes and I'm down to what I absolutely need. The gypsy life with no roots, no more belongings that I can fit in a wagon, a van, or best of all, a boat. The nautical existence draws me and I struggle with the idea; give it all up, strip my life down and go, vs the comfort and plenty of my daily life. Because that comfort and plenty is a cage of sorts; I am a keeper for the things I own and the space they take up. A slave to the material goods that make up my life.

One of the things I struggle with is art. I long to collect, to own; I want beautiful things, from jewelry to sculpture to hand-made clothing like my best Aloha shirts. From original paintings to framed prints to odd posters collected over my lifetime. I love these things, yet so often, owning art seems somehow wrong. And it traps me again, for I must provide space and shelter and protection for the fragile, beautiful things I own.

My other lusts are simpler. For those lusts are pure, focused desire, for things that are not things; living, moving, thinking, speaking, lust is for the entire organism, not simply as an object but as a complete person.

Lust isn't free of complications. No, it's got outrageous complications of it's own. But it's not the same. For when I choose to take on a role of owner, keeper it's not the trap of ownership of a thing, it's a choice shared, and a reciprocal role.

Those, in truth, are the lusts I'd rather be writing about; fictional and real, fulfilled and unfulfilled. I'd rather spend my energy describing my heart's dearest and most salacious desire. Though for some reason, that sort of writing flows only occasionally, where the lust itself is never-ending. That writing requires a special touch from the muse.

However, the muse who inspires material lust seems always nearbye, and so I write as I am able, and talk about shiny rings, bright red washers and fast cars rather than sweat-glstening skin and the musky smell of love; I describe my desire for a garment or a vehicle rather than the wrenching physical need a simple touch can bring, when said touch is from the right person.

Though who knows; tomorrow that muse may come back to visit and I may find it easier to write about stolen moments of embrace and finger-bruised skin, about the familiar scent of desire and the need one can feel like a white-hot knife in the belly.

Maybe.

This is one of those things. You'll either get it or you won't.

I am absurdly excited about this.

The new washing machine & dryer were delivered today. Thus, Appliance Porn.

Here's the old one. When I got it, eight, ten years ago, it was pretty much the best on the market; but it's astonishing how much laundry two little girls can make in that time.

Now, I do the laundry. So I care about this shit. And that thing did an ok job in an un-sexy way. It's pretty much this, where the new one is more, you know, this.

But the time has come to retire the 'ol neptune, and move on. So here's the new one.

I've seen this before but it's most recently stolen from Merrick.

Thus, the iTunes 'Soundtrack of my Life' meme.

Here's the instructions:

1. Open your library on your iPod (or in iTunes).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that’s playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the Next button.

Here's what I got (with itunes, I don't have my nano handy):

Opening Credits: "Time to Kill!" - Horslips, 'The Tain;'
Waking Up: "Beside You Heros" - totom, 'With Boots' (I don't even know what this is or where I got it)
Falling in Love: "Ecstasy" - Spacemen 3, 'Perfect Prescription'
Fight Song: "Making Memories" - Rush, 'Fly by Night'
Breakup Song: "Little Angel" - Bleed the Day, 'Bleed the Day'
Making Up Song: "High Friends in Places" - Giant Drag, 'Hearts and Unicorns'
Life’s Okay Song: "Crimes of Paris" - Elvis Costello, 'Blood and Chocolate'
Mental Breakdown: "Subhuman" - Blue Öyster Cult, 'Secret Treaties'
Driving: "Master of Puppets" - Metallica, 'Damage, Inc'
Flashbacks: "I Love You" - Matthew Sweet, 'Kimi Ga Suki'
Happy Dance: "Reconsider Me" - Warren Zevon, 'Genius' (and Kirsten, I owe you a huge thanks for that CD)
Regret: "FireFly Theme" - Sonny Rhodes, "Firefly"
Final Battle: "Sam's Tune" - Cannonball Adderly, 'Sophisticated Swing'
Death Scene: "Not Ready Yet" - Eels, 'Beautiful Freak'
Final Credits: "Crystal Gazing" - Be Bop Deluxe, 'Sunburst Finish'

I'm somewhat amused at a few of these, though I keep wanting to make edits or switch them around. And I'll admit that one of these I did edit, not using the song that came up. I'm not saying which one.

I've talked to a few of you about the project I've been busting ass on since before xmas - up nights supporting a development team in another time zone, etc.

Here's why:

It won't be out 'til june. But I want one.

I've been trying to lay hands on these images for ages.

Finally, as I said, skin stories is out on DVD. What this means is that the image that I've long, long wanted to use as a design source for my tattoo backpiece is in my hands.

Now all i have to do is decide who. And there are only two artists i know who can do this justice, and who i wanna spend months with working on it. My friend Klem, or my friend Freddy (sorry, that links to a stupid flash thing, click on 'artists' - but it doesn't work on Safari).

But here's the image in three pieces. I might later try'n stick these together in one but it doesn't matter, this is enough to take to the shop.

Finally.

I've posted a mini version previously - below is the whole thing, and here is the verse that inspired it.

This is so utterly fucked up.

"Immolate Me Elmo" - click to play

Uh, props, or something, to Cory at boingboing for that.

I just noticed that my third blogiversary is coming up; middle of this month.

Jan 15, 2004, as a lark, I posted my first blog entry. My friend Jen had offered me hosting space for a domain I owned; I just wanted a place to park the name, and maybe a few pages of storage.

Want a blog, while we're at it? she asked me. And I figured, hell why not, though I've nothing to say and no one's gonna read it.

So, on a sunny california mid-january day in '04, I sat down and asked that question that almost every new blogger asks - why am i doing this?

Three years later, and I still don't know the answer to that. But I do know that I was wrong, and people are, for some unknown reason, reading.

The phrase Long, Strange Trip comes to mind.

Thus, on Jan 15th, I'll celebrate three years. And I expect you all to celebrate with me, taking a sip or a hit or a snort or a swallow of your favorite poison, and touching yourself or someone else (or, you know, me, if you can reach that far) in the most indecent way possible. Show me some dirty love, people.

I've had a couple users report trouble with the comments on my blog - seems like they're running afoul of some of my anti-spam measures.

If you're having trouble posting a comment, let me know.

Edit - I switched off one of the more agressive anti-spam agents, so anyone who was foiled by this (it would have told you somethning like 'you've commented too recently'), try again and let me know. It seemed to be working sometimes.

God DAMN comment spammers for making this necessary.

Julian's been working on some new stuff, and just gave me some previews.

The first and second are the lady's skull ring in rose gold and silver. And it's sweet. I can just picture that ring on a delicate lady's finger (and, you know, that lady's hand on my...)

The third is a couple variations on Julian's screaming lunatic skull (well, that's what I call it, i dunno what he calls it). I have one of them with Elvis carved into the forehead, but here are examples of some other brilliant customizations, once gold-toothed-ruby-eyed, the other with vampire fangs and 666 carved into the forehead. Tasty indeed.

I need to get a better pic with a size compare of the lady skull and the full-size version; if i can get a decent one I'll post it.

EDIT: Julian just me this pic, a great size compare shot. I have rings like those on the left (the first is huge, it's the biggest ring i have). So you can see the size of the lady skull. I'll also post my own version of this pic with my rings to get another viewpoint.

Tony Creed, the Mad Doctor of Skulls, has been off the jobs for a bit due to a (i think minor) surgery on his arm; between that and the holidays he hasn't done much new work lately.

He's back at it now though - he just sent a couple pictures of this fantastic Boneman skull ring.

I want it. Which isn't unusual with Tony's work. I think this turned out fabulous.

(click 'em for close-ups)

He hasn't got this on his actual web site yet, i think he will soon - and he tells me (when I tried to buy this ring from him, though it wasn't for sale, I think it's already got a buyer) he'll soon have a couple new rings including a more realistic full-jaw skull available.

I'm counting my pennies. I think i may need a new creed piece Real Soon Now.

(Also while I'm at it I should mention Julian Lamb at Ruby Crush - he has a new lady-sized skull ring that rocks, I'll get pictures posted soon but if you're in a hurry, let me know and i'll shoot you a picture. He doesn't update his web site so there are no pix of it there)

I spend far too much time looking at web stats.

I know who hits from where, when - for most of my regular readers, anyway. I know who's in NYC and who's in DC; who's in NO and who's in what part of TX; I know who's on the peninsula and who's in KC and who's in AZ; I know who's in belgium, who's in the UK and who's in the Great White North.

There are a few that puzzle me though.

For example - who's that in Beverly Hills? I've seen you here a few times.

Who's the reader in San Jose, CA, who was reading my decmeber archives for almost an hour today?

Who's the one on Irvine who spent three hours on my writing blog?

Who are the people who visit from strange places and never say a word? A blogger has to wonder. When readers slip in and out almost silently, leaving only a hit counter's trace behind, who are they?