Friday night and I’m watching re-runs. They were being properly neurotic on Seinfeld. George wouldn’t kiss a beautiful woman because he wanted to meet her boyfriend first. It made me wonder if I would kiss a beautiful woman if I had another chance. On one hand, there are all the stories I remember as a kid of things never being as good as they seem; every cloud has its black lining. On the other hand, throwing caution to the wind is always good.

So, I think it depends on one thing: Blood Alcohol Content.

Hmmm. I wonder if “Monk” is on tonight.

I was just thinking of what I have to be thankful for, and I really do have a lot. I mean, living in America we have it pretty good. Even with the people in charge trying to take it away from us, we still have it pretty good. I’m fairly healthy, I have a place to live, my parents are well, my sister seems happy living in Republican California (anything south of San Mateo in my estimation), and most of my friends are doing OK.

But at the same time, it really depends on what scale you measure things on. By American standards, I start describing my life and people start prefacing their comments with, “At least you’re not …”

There seem to be two scales. For example, I have a friend who has been working in jobs where he does no work and gets paid enough money. Well, say “enough” is about $15/hr and that works out to approximately $30,000/yr. My guess is that he gets paid more than twice “enough.” He has a house, two cats, often goes out drinking with women half his age, and complains he has no life. For a guy like him you start counting his blessings by listing what he has. In my life, people start counting my blessings by listing what I don’t have.

Not having any income and not having any savings aren’t uncommon, but most of the things I did shouldn’t have left me out in the cold for the last ten years. Getting a degree at MIT was enlightening as well as educational. But if I knew it would just leave me without a job, I think I would have gotten vocational training of some sort. I even tried to get into medical school to prove my worth. No one cares how smart I am; all that matters in America is how much money you have.

That’s one problem with a classless society, we all get judged on a different superficial criteria than birthright. And here, it seems like it’s material wealth. There’s no respect, no admiration, no appreciation unless you have or can get money. No power, no advantage, not even any attractiveness. So really, in any normal situation, it means until I get a job, I might as well be a hermit.

So, first it was Movable Type. I really had a hard time setting it up, and I’m no newcomer to compiling software on various unix systems. Refusing to run Linux means I get to try to compile things for Solaris, NetBSD, and MacOS X. Most of the time it isn’t so hard and installing Movable Type didn’t require any compilation. But it was a large two-week pain in the ass.

Since I’m no fan of having to pay for software, and since it was really just my sister’s ridiculous request, I tried to avoid it. Unfortunately, she was very insistent, and here it is: Super Eggplant.

So, really, this wasn’t all about Movable Type complaining. I also want to complain about the software I’m using for my blog: Blosxom. It’s all kind of hacked together, but FREE. There’s even a version in Python, but I’m not comfortable enough with the Python installation to use it. The original Perl version was hard enough to get going.

Anyway, one big problem with Blosxom is that it uses file creation dates to determine blog entry dates. There’s a way to use a plug-in to dynamically render different dates, but that doesn’t work with static pages. Basically, if you didn’t understand that, it means Blosxom is also a pain in the ass.

Anyway, there really isn’t anything else going on in my life, so there it is.

So, what do I usually do for a hangover? Go running! It’s been nice and wet and grey and cold, so I’m usually numb after the first few minutes. Why not add the added fun of having an upset stomach?

There were lots of dogs on Leif Erickson, but since it’s a wide, gravel fire lane, that isn’t a big problem. The trails like Wildwood are a big pain in the ass, since dogs are always off-leash and trying to bump you off into a ravine.

Anyway, none of my teams are winning this weekend, so it’s time for another nap!

I was out running some quick errands and as I walked down a dark street, I saw several Mormons in a circle by an idling mini-van. I heard some inaudible voices, but then a stern voice was clear.

“So how many kids do you you have?”

The reply was inaudible.

“And they’re all married?”
“And they’re all married?”

I thought it sounded a bit mysterious and even a little ominous, but it was just my friend Bill’s big brother, who has always had a stern sounding voice. And that’s why I knew they were Mormons.

Hmm. I just found out South Park was about a Mormon family moving into town. Oh, well. Synchronicity.

I finally got some work that pays $50/hr, but I’ve only done 1 1/2 hours in the past three months so that isn’t going to pay the bills. But work is work and I decided to blow it by celebrating. I called my friend Il, who has been locked up at home playing some on-line Star Wars game for at least a month, and he wanted to see the ladies at the local strip club. I’ve now realized that while it was interesting to see those particular dancers naked, I really didn’t need to see them naked for more than a couple of minutes, max. I’m back to being frightened by that place again.

Man, the cigarettes people smoke make a big difference. At My local McPub (McMenamin’s Tavern) one woman was smoking some cigarettes so foul that 15 feet away I was coughing. I thought it was the table behind me, but no one was smoking there. At least it kept me from drinking too much more of the little money I made today. I just have to remember to bill the guy.

Today was the first day of the fall where I had to run in the rain. Actually, it stopped after 10 minutes, so it was mainly the splashing through the leaves that was different. It could have been worse, the wind was blowing rain into my face for the first couple of minutes and I had to run with my hat pulled low, staring at the ground. The worst part is that my knees have started to hurt again. I changed to running a hilly gravel road instead of flat concrete. That’s probably it.

For some reason, I think there was something I was supposed to do today, that I didn’t. I finished most of my errands and spent a lot of time trying to load FreeBSD onto a horrible Compaq I got from a friend. I still haven’t succeeded and it’s time for bed.

Well, at least I sort of enjoy doing this. I spent $8 on Sunday to get into the Woodworking show, and I found that I had very little interest in the gadgets they were trying to sell. Drill bits that can drill through files? Who needs a holey file? Super straight cutting blades? If I replaced my blade every few cuts, my cuts would be straight as well. Wonder squeegee? Well, buddy, you’re cleaning and re-cleaning a brand new pane of glass.

At least it was worth hanging out with my friends at the show.