August 2008 Archives

I kind of assume everyone knows this by now, but there's a massive hurricane that right now looks like it's taken direct aim on the city of New Orleans.

I have loved ones there (though I hope they're the fuck out of NO already like Brutha Ray and his family are).

But i think it's time now to remind people - donate to the red cross.

They're the people who were there when Katrina tried to wipe NO off the map, and they're the ones who will be there when Gustav tries to finish what Katrina started. They're the ones who will be there when Hanna hits the east coast, and when the next and the next hit wherever they hit.

Donate now. Don't wait til after shit come down. If Gustav listens to all our anti-hurricane mojo and turns aside, there are still disasters that need help.

I may be in love with the wearer of this tattoo. Or the artist who did it. Or something. Click the image for a bigger version.

Tattoos byAmanda Cancilla and feet belong to Alicia (dig the toenails). Found on All Things Cupcake via a random search for cupcake images.

This is a thing of pure brilliance. I'm not sure where it comes from though I imagine a 30 second google would tell me (click for full size).

Come on, you know you want to play with my knob. Admit it!

I'm still filtering ideas about a full custom shift knob; there are too many great ideas, and I don't wanna rush because then I'll have a better idea the day my first one arrives, and need another. I found Bruce at Koolknobs can make 'em out of printed material also so I can use original artwork emailed as well as physical objects.

I've also considered using a MacRae clan badge, or even a piece of tartan fabric (I have a kilt sample in MacRae Red).

Too many ideas. Hence, I'm getting the above rattle-snake knob, because you know what I am?

B-b-b-Bad!

(sing it with me now)

I'm only posting this because I'm sick of looking at those stupid fucking ferrets.

While I certainly have plenty to talk about, I'm actually way too aggravated - not to mention fatigued - to be all that eloquent.

It's just been one of those weeks at work. The ones where everything breaks and you get caught holding the bag for crap that's someone else's fault. You know the kinda think I mean, you know you do.

In our case, it's a combination of tool problems, pilot errors, and impossible expectations, coupled with new management and executive personnel who haven't quite figure out that mean team are the Ghostbusters and Team America and Winston Wolf all rolled into one. Oh, they're figure it out after a while, but not 'til after they try to manage us for a while (and when I say manage, I mean et in our goddamn way).

Oh, and there's that choice to double our workload, now, with no resources and no ramp time, and no budget. Thank You Sir, May I Have Another.

But nevermind. I just want those ferrets gone.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out what to have embedded in one of these incredibly cool custom-made shift knobs for my car. I can't decide if i should take one of my skull rings (one of the ones I like the least), or if I should get a flaming spade from my friend Carlos from Sinners in. Or maybe some kind of pin that says elvis if I can find the right one (I want something in silver script). The guy can also embed stuff like pins or badges or even something like a poker chip or a spade cutout from a playing card.

Too many choices. And I'm open to ideas. I don't wanna spend a shit-load of money though 'cause I'm already spending too much on crap for this car (it's that kinda car)

There. Now at least we're somewhat ferret-free.

Does it ever seem like somehow, without anyone planning it, blogging just sort of ended?

I look over the list of blogs I generally follow (almost to a one they're friends blogs, though some only after I began to follow as a reader), and on by one, they're quitting, going on extended hiatus, moving, or just sort or dying of attrition.

Is it just my circle? Have we just sort of all spent our wad, as it were, all at the same time? Or is it everywhere?

Maybe a wave just crested; to mis-quote Hunter S Thompson, maybe we're at that place where the wave finally brakes and rolls back.

Or maybe we're just all too busy; we've built a debt of wasted time and now we need to pay, working harder for all the time we spent blogging about the work were were not getting done.

I'm not sure what it is; but it seems to be going on everywhere.

Maybe it's that we're so over-saturated with outlet. Facebook, myspace, meebo, bebo, flickr, fetlife; twitter and jaiku and plurk and pownce, orkut and friendster, okcupid, adult-freind-finder, livejournal, and a hundred more college boys are hacking up now.

We have so many places to talk about ourselves, that no one can ever find each other; and when we do, who can read it all?

Or maybe it's me; maybe I'm just tired of reading and not writing. Because, egotist that I am, I cannot read a blog when comments are off, cannot browse a forum unless I'm signed on to post. Maybe my own failure of output deadens my desire for input.

Yet, still, I see blogs ending all around me, writers closing doors vocally or silently. It means something, even if I'm not sure what.

What's interesting, though, is that I suddenly feel motivated to create. And I know, this time, exactly why. Several friends from other sites have, lately, happened upon my fiction; and their interest, their feedback, sparks my desire, sparks my writer's voice. I remember why i did this.

I've never been that kind of artist who creates for the act of creation, then destroys of gives away. I've never been the un-signed artist who leaves beauty scattered behind. I create, simply, because it feels so very good to give that gift to someone. It is, almost exactly, like the engendering orgasm; that moment of power, control. I am, completely and utterly, in control of your pleasure and pain, and I see/feel/hear it.

It isn't simply the joy of creation; it's the joy on control, the joy on causing joy.

I like to think, given the tools, and the solitude, I would create. Mountain top, or dungeon cell, or lonely island, I would create to create. But in truth I wouldn't. I'd do what I've been doing the last two years; I'd start, and then I'd start again, and then I'd start again, and never finish. Creating for no one is masturbation with no orgasm, it's cooking food no one will eat.

Art should be for arts sake, we like to say, but I cannot find my creativity there. I find it in my audience.

My hope - and it may be in vain, because time is never on my side these days - is that an audience of only one, may be enough.

Who knows, though. Maybe flood-gates will open, not just for me but for all of us. Maybe we just need something to write about.

Shed a sad, sad tear for the death of the land yacht.

(waves goodbye)

A year ago, I made a silly, whim purchase. It was a deal, as they say, too good to pass up, on a vehicle I loved, but never really felt good about.

Since buying my Titan, I've loved driving it, hated parking it, enjoyed it's roominess, made great use of it's functionality for hauling, and increasingly, raged at it in gas stations.

My friends asked to borrow it, asked me to help them move, and lambasted me over global warming, the death of polar bears, melting ice caps.

And I've never quite dealt with it being, you know, tan.

Today I gave up. Dinosaurs, inevitably, must seek tar pits.

You're only as young as you drive, and my new ride is pretty fucking young.