Sometimes things just stun me.

So today, I am working from home. Because I’m in a horrible mood to start with and figuring, better to stay away from people. People suck. I hate people today.

And suddenly, my DSL line drops out. The lights are all on, everything looks ok, but no connection.

No big deal, I think, it drops out and comes back all the time. It’s a constant low-grade irritation, but I can live with it.

Only it does not come back. And I wait. And it does not come back.

I go through the usual debugging routine. I check all the connections, two and three times. I power-cycle everything. Then I start stripping it down. I pull out the wireless stuff, then I pull out the VPN box that lets me connect to work without having to run performance-degrading VPN software. So I’m down to just my DSL router, and a cat5 straight into my laptop.

Nothing. Bupkis. nil, nix, nada, null, goose egg, naught, zilch, zip. Bugger all, fuck all, Sweet Fanny Adams.

Fuck me I say, out loud.

So I get on the phone to SBC, who I will always think of as Pac Bell. Of course, I have to call 411 to get a number, and of course I get on hold where they tell me over and over how I can go to the fucking web site to get help, where I would already fucking be if my fucking DSL was working.

But, you know, I’m not pissed yet.

Read more “Fuck You SBC”

Twenty Five years ago, Pac-man was born.

Boing Boing: Happy birthday, Pac-Man!:

I had a funny conversation with my buddy Chris (Papa Christo) the other day. He had a shirt on that said Tower Records Campbell – 30 year anniversary, with a date. And I looked at that date, and said, god dude, we worked there twenty five years ago.

Chris and I met at Tower, and I should do a whole entry about that. But we worked nights, in the posters/plants/bongs store. We both worked the closing shift, 3:30-midnight. And you know, we were nineteen, twenty, working nights, so what we did most nights on our ‘lunch’ break was drink. Sometimes we’d hit the mexican place, and drink shots and eat nachos. But more often, it was a burger and pizza place called “The Garret”

Now, that was where, when I was a younger teen, I played my first game of Pong, and then later a game no one remembers called Flim-Flam. But one day, they got this new game; a table-top thing called pac man. And it was perfect; we’d get a couple pitchers of cheap beer, a couple burgers, and he’d drink while I played, I’d drink while he played.

We’d drink and play for an hour, and like the old WKRP episode, we’d get better with each beer, for a while. But then we’d start getting worse with each beer, about the time lunch was up.

And Chris and I would wobble back across the street and take over running cash registers, selling bongs and pipes and scales, posters of Peter Frampton and Farrah Fawcett-Majors.

How can this be twenty-five years ago? Damn, we were young.

If you love me, you’ll get me this t-shirt.

Dirty American Devil, it says.

Also available in orange.

How the Scots keep things clean under the kilt:

The WillyBrush.

No, I have not tried one. I know better ways to keep the old weapon clean.

The makers of my favorite shaving product, Total Shaving Solutions, just updated their web site.

I’ve tried several shaving oils, and without question, these guys make the best. For a head shaver, this is important. You use this stuff either instead of shave cream, or before shave cream (Which is what I do). Close shave, no skin irritation.

But the real point is, I’m featured on the site. Thanks, Dan!

Ok, so I blogged about Body Worlds last summer in my Fiji journal.

But you see this story and you wonder — what the fuck they gonna do with it?

LOS ANGELES – Police are searching for two women who they believe made off with a preserved 13-week-old fetus from an exhibit at the California Science Center.

The fetus, infused with polymers in a process called plastination to prevent decay, was part of a traveling display entitled “Body Worlds 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies.”

The whole story is here.

I was gonna say, pick any two celebrities to engage in a hot three-way with you.

Who are they?

But enough of that.

How about, my top-ten bloggers I’d like to nail? Ok, make it a top N. I know I’ve got a list of those for damned sure. But then, they’re mostly on my blogroll.

Fine. Enough with the top lists. I’m one step from fucking quizilla here.

I had more to write here but I just burned the hell out of my hand. Never lift pan straight out of a 400 degree oven with bare hands, I tell ya. Anyway, the biggest blister is right where I rest my hand when I type, so I need a couple talwin before going on.

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Nevermind the typos. I’ll fix them later. Talwin doesn’t help my typing.

However, Talwin and Carnivàle? Good combination. Carnivàle is pretty fucking hallucinogenic already.

Read more “Other Hits”

I know, I know. It’s all been links and pictures lately.

I need to go all introspective and philosophical.

Or write something lascivious about some true-life adventure.

Or some pornographic excerpt from a piece I’m working on.

Only…

Only I’m doing nothing but work, even with my boss out. I got nothing new to talk about other than the fucking Amazing Race.

I can’t even say much about the trip I’m trying to get planned to dive the florida keys because I’m not even sure yet that I’m gonna go; I might not be able to swing the time of get things schedules the way I want. I might not be able to fit my agenda in with the realities and limitations of my schedule.

So I got nothin’.

I’m not even really reading much, or watching much TV. Ok, there’s Carnivàle, which fucking rules this season, twice as creepy and not as slow (and oh lord, the scene where the old priest is listening to — well, if you watched it, you know what I mean). But there’s not a damned thing on that I care about other than that.

I need a vacation. I’m starting to get that compressed feeling, where I want to cut and run and get as far from work and home as I can. Like my head’s gonna explode pretty soon if I have to look at another pile of laundry, fix the same software problem or explain the same issue with a tool’s limitatations one more time.

I’m thinking warm breezes and water and rum, no telephones or televisions. A lot of time sleeping in a hammock.

One way tickets. I like the sound of that.

Maybe just a little rape and pillage. To, you know, keep from getting bored.

This is me, long ago, before I started shaving my head. Eleven to thirteen years ago is my best guess; I know where this was taken, in Kenny’s back yard in Santa Clara, but I’m not sure the years he lived there.

Yes, I just got a scanner. Boy do I have a lotta pictures to scan in.