Some people are really clever and have very clever blogs full off clever witty things. Or cartoons. Clever cartoons are good. But really, blogs are kind of rambling and pointless unless you have some connection with the writer. It can even be an imaginary connection, but no connection usually means there’s no point to reading it. Or maybe you have a connection and the writing is boring and pompous or the writer is a jerk. But I guess my point is that some blogs are really boring to me and I was just trying to figure out why. I mean, I could give a rat’s ass about knitting and weird Australian candies, but I have to see what my sister is doing. I even learn stuff about knitting, things I don’t want to know. But yeesh. This one blog I was told to read? What the hell was the point.

Anyway, I’m rambling. It’s much more interesting than what I really did today.

I took a nap. Before and after the nap I did yardwork. It’s raining like the dickens up here. We’re on course for setting rain records for the month of May. We had an incredibly mild winter for us and now we’re getting deluges of rain. That’s the thing about Oregon, we usually get a nice steady sprinkle, not those downpours like you see on the coast or down south. Anyway, the rain is causing the damn grass to grow, so I went out and mowed and got the leaves off of the street with a gas-powered blower. What a mess. In the middle of all that, it started to rain. Later in the day it stopped raining so I decided to go back at it. I was trying to figure out if a weed burning torch would be safe to use in the city and I finally gave up that idea. I tried to start the the weed whacker I borrowed from Greg, but it was DOA. I ended up using the gas mower to cut down the weeds.

Oh, and I also broke out the steam cleaner my dad bought about 20 years ago and plugged it in for the FIRST TIME. It didn’t work for crap. That also got me to thinking about how slowly the drains ran in the bathrooms and I unclogged the sinks. I can describe the goo that accumulates when your dad smokes a pipe and uses the sink as a spittoon, but I’m sure you’re not interested. Also, the steam cleaner was so useless that I just used “Resolve” and a wet rag, and then used the cleaner to vacuum up as much water as I could. The little bit of water I got up SMELLED LIKE PIPE TOBACCO.

On top of all this, my nose was so plugged up last night that I couldn’t sleep.

Now, you see what I’m talking about? Why would anyone without some sort of connection read all that? By the way, propane powered weed burning torches are only about $15 – $20US at Harbor Freight so there’s still a chance I’m going to try one out.

OK, so that’s an exaggeration. One of the movies, Badder Santa had a stripper in it.

My buddy Greg wanted to see The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy today, but when we got to the theatre I saw that Star Wars: Return of the Sucky Movie had no line! So of course I dragged Greg to see it. It wasn’t that bad. The best part was that I was expecting it to be bad, so it dodn’t take much to impress me. I had major problems with the science, but it surely didn’t suck as much as Ewoks or Jar-Jar Binks.

As soon as we left, of course, Greg noticed that The Hitchhiker’s Guide was starting in five minutes so we went into to see that too. The best part was that we missed all the dumb advertising before the movie. I think that’s a movie where you need to read the book first.

Of course, after I got home I watched Badder Santa and then Blade Trinity. Too much sitting today.

The day after staying up too late, I’m often running on adrenaline so I do OK. The day after that is the one where I’m dragging around. I don’t think I did too poorly at work, but that’s just because they provide free coffee.

So last night I went to bed a little early. Just barely. And I also remembered to take my “Atomic clock” back upstairs. It sets itself via radio, and the radio sends signals from the National Bureau of Standards atomic clock in Boulder, CO. It was inside the house, however, and didn’t really hasn’t been quite right since the change to daylight savings time. Somehow, I hit the alarm button and the geniuses who make alarm clocks have them default to an alarm time of 12:00AM. Since the clock was off by an hour (PST vs. PDT) it started beeping at 1:00AM.

Because I only had 3 1/2 hours sleep the night before, and because I’d been asleep for an hour, my brain could not figure out what the damn noise was. I flailed around until I hit the snooze bar, but that just postponed further beeping for ten minutes. I finally had the sense to wake up and turn the alarm off after the alarm went off again. Keep in mind, I never use the snooze button, because when the alarm goes off I have to switch it off and switch the radio back on so NPR can give me my left-wing liberal marching instructions for the day.

Usually if I’m working late, I’m out by 9:30PM or so. I get there between 8:30AM and 9:00AM, so that’s a fairly long day. I knew I could make the Mike Doughty concert if I really hustled, but I didn’t want to risk having to work especially late. Well, I was there until 2:30AM. I’m guessing Mike Doughty isn’t like George Clinton and was probably finished by that time, which is about the time George is getting his second wind.

When I got home at around 3AM, my mail ordered CD of “Haughty Melodic” was waiting for me.

So I only had 3 1/2 hours sleep last night. I’d better try for more today.

I didn’t post last night because I usually remember that I didn’t post about the time I’m ready to go to bed. So I stay up a little later and try to remember what exactly it was that I wanted to kvetch about earlier in the day. Last night I decided to give it all a break and go to sleep early. THAT JUST MEANT I WOKE UP EARLIER AND HAD TO TRY TO GO BACK TO SLEEP.

In any case, I’ve decided that Afrin works well and my nostrils don’t need to have some sort of surgical drilling. The huge solar flare from last weekend didn’t affect me much because I haven’t turned on my radio in weeks. And although Mike Doughty is playing tonight, I may have to work late so I didn’t get tickets. There’s my laundry list for the day.

Of course I had to watch the last show.

In any case, anyone wonder why I don’t like to park under trees?

I took the car to a U-Wash-it before I moved it out from under the tree (in front of our house) to a spot in front of a neighbor’s house because I thought it would be rude to park such a dirty car in front of someone else’s house. Of course, under the leaves was a layer of black grime that dripped off of the trees. I couldn’t get that off with a pressure hose.

So I know I’m supposed to go to see my doctor to get some Flonase, but he’s all the way across town. I bought some generic Afrin substitute to see what that would do. The pharmacist kept telling me that I can’t use it more than 3 days in a row and it was bad for me, but I finally bought it anyway. So far, it’s clearing up my nose! Maybe I really do need to score some Flonase to see how that works.

Is to find out when I get crafty ideas. OK, so I STOLE this crafty idea, but this is really kind of fun. A little creepy, too, but fun! Just remember to make the dragon’s head so it seems inside-out and it works!

So, Costco was entirely pleasant and changed the accounts around without much worry today. They were incredibly busy, as you’d imagine, since it was Sunday. I forgot to mention Ringside was incredibly busy yesterday, too. Almost all the tables were kids on the way to their proms. I didn’t go, and I always point out to my Il that he’s a big stud because he went. Well, he went to a JUNIOR prom, but I figure it counts.

So, I’ve given people directions and for some reason, I’ve sent a couple of people to 24th and Nicolai, in the NW Industrial area. The first guy was looking for the pickup for Wickes Furniture, which is just off of 24th and Nicolai. The second, a young woman, was looking for the other establishment that I know is at 24th and Nicolai, the Nicolai St. Clubhouse, a strip club.

OK, so that’s a stupid coincidence, but I’ve got nothing. I went out to dinner for my friend Greg’s birthday and had a couple glasses of wine and my head feels heavy. Almost hurts, but what else is new?

The long movie rambling with little point. Well, maybe they’re saying Wine Spectator and Richard Parker(?) are ruining the individuality of wines as is the huge Mondavi corporation.

And since it’s so late, that’s it for now. I had something about something but I’ve already forgotten, since I want to hit the hay.

So I spent most of the evening filling out forms and now I still have to write a letter to Costco to switch my membership around. Where did the evening go?

Tiger seems to be working well. It’s supposed to be faster, but I don’t really have two similar systems to compare.

You know, filling out forms sorta sucked the information out of my brain. Sort of like how moving the office is going to suck the productivity out of us as well. Everyone is complaining about having to work in a cubicle. It’s where most people in “high tech” end up. We don’t even know where we’re going to end up, or even if we’re moving, so this is just an additional nonsensical stressor at work. Which is why they have to pay us to show up, I think.

Tasty Japanese hamburgers!

I’m still in the middle of updating my Mac OS X to 10.4 (Tiger) so I have little to say.

I suppose some people use blogs as “news” and even read internet news sites. (I must admit I read the NY Times and BBC headlines online.) But some people are even holding blogs up to journalistic standards that our news media won’t follow. I came to this from reading some unflattering comments about a neighbor. The guy is wound a bit too tight (he’s from Philly) and was “caught” making backroom deals in Portland. Not illegal backroom deals, but ones that we don’t cotton to out here in the west. Well, I know I’m being equally deluded in that comment, but you get the drift.

In any case, the blog post and the subsequent bullying by anonymous sources are around 17,000 words long. And I mean bullying. Than, who is the one under scrutiny, fired off some rather bullyish statements that could be taken as funny but aren’t. And then others got into it, including one guy (male or female I don’t know since they’re ANONYMOUS) who must have had a job writing getting paid by the word. And other thinly hidden Libertarian crap.

Come on people, this is the intarweb. It’s used to host knitting blogs and unsound physics and whatever sorts of pr0n you’d ever want. Come to think of it, maybe wonkism is political pr0n.