Mind Blowing

A little rough, but this is too cool.

What's True and What's Good

This makes a grand point about quality over surfeited quantity of our "national debate," but I'm predicting that, after being fooled by the media and their general sense of public awareness and all the input that entails, to vote for a man that's been definitively outed as an utter douchebag at long last, people aren't going to able to trust anything coming from their TVs, radios, etc to inform their decisions. Which very very earnest gasbag, the polar opposite of his counterpart (billed as just as qualified to bloviate), speaks the truth?

Don't Let the Paperwork Grind You Down

I'm in Ohio once again, having come back from the field at the end of the workday, and I've got more forms, files, and phone calls to work through tonight, lest they pile up and give me twice as much to do tomorrow night. Even so, I did manage to take a short trip back to see Athens in all its now-deserted familiarity. O'Hooley's is now a brew pub -- the bearded brewmaster is probably 25, and makes a remarkably good porter, and a very tasty stout.

Half the stores there are different, and I was struck that I couldn't remember what a lot of them used to be. The old Woolworth's building looks like it's been through a few further incarnations, and is now once again closed. My old slavemaster Burger King is gone. School Kids is gone. Casa Nuevo is still around, although one of my crew members, an OU student, mentioned that it's been through some changes. The short walk along Court Street was strangely affecting, and the sense of conflict between distance of time and proximity of place was pervasive. Same Taco Bell in a very different world. Gone is the Athens of Heather and Josh, here is the Athens of brief escape from thirty-something job responsibilities. Not that Burger King and Subway weren't obstacles to my leisure. Urban Bosche, more like.

Fifteen Minutes and Counting

Public Censure

Well, it's done: we've had our lovely, venerable row house called the ugliest dump on the block on national television. I'll write more about this shortly, but for now I'm off to Ohio for a quick assessment of a few access roads. Woohoo...

Three Cheers for the Thoughtful

A-freakin'-men. Bush has officially been called out as the historical perfect storm of Presidential shit-headedness. That's gotta be like being called an asshole by Carl Sagan.

RIP, Dave Cockrum

Sad news from the world of comics this hour. Dave Cockrum was always second fiddle to the great John Byrne in the mind of a 10-year-old me rummaging through Donn Erik's magic box o' comics in the 80's, but he did as much as anyone to sling the X-Men to the heights they achieved. Sad to hear he, too, has passed.

On a more solipsistic note, the Good Morning America film crew will be here to film a segment tomorrow afternoon. And I believe Mario Cuomo's youngest will be on premises for Carter to drool on.

Through a Computer Smugly

Up early for a delayed trek to the Eastern Shore -- last night saw 15.5 mile backups at the Bay Bridge and an 8-mile-per-hour speed limit enforced by the guy in front of you (this info courtesy of Traffic.com; I didn't actually see this nightmare). We're taking all two or so gallons of Janine's stuffing, made from her grandmother's recipe, and heading out shortly, no doubt giving self-satisfied nods to all the other wise motorists who slept blissfully when others raged at each other in an immobile haze of monoxide.

Hope everyone has a very, very happy day.

The First Broadcast

>From: xxx
>To: "Janine Davis"
>Subject: RE: Schedule updates
>Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2006 16:13:12 -0500
>
>Thanks for touching base! We will definitely want to shoot some time
>the week of 11/27...probably toward the middle or end of the week. We
>will then want Barbara to be LIVE from your house Monday morning 12/4
>with you two there. Does that help? Is there a day/evening the week of
>11/27 that will work well for both of you?
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Janine Davis
>Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006 4:10 PM
>Subject: RE: Schedule updates
>
>Dear xxx,
>I just wanted to update you on our schedule. My husband will be
>out-of-state next week on business. Depending upon your plans with the
>show, with ample notice, he can inform his employer to make the
>schedule fit the filming schedule. Please let us know what you have in
>mind as soon as possible. There is some flexiblity with my husband's employer, but they
>also budget time/ billing with every contract he works with and there
>is some advanced planning required. Thank you for your understanding and
>we hope to hear from you soon. Happy Thanksgiving!
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Janine Davis/ Andrew Bockhorst

TV Savage

I'm up too late once again -- I've got to be up at 5 in the morning for a very long week of digging in Roanoke, although it seems like this actually may be an interesting project to be involved in. This comment after month after month of mostly fruitless shovel testing, followed by three weeks of heading an excavation in which I discovered a large quantity of mulch. I might actually get my trowel on a couple of skeletons this week. Yee haw.

And it's now official, we have been asked by ABC to help out with a segment they're preparing called "Dud to Dreamhouse" -- the title might be all you need to put together the focus and how we fit into it. They should be here at the end of this month or the beginning of December to get some preliminary footage of the house, after which they'll apparently be lending us a camera to film the transformation as it happens. Such as it'll be. I've been told the finished product will air sometime in the Spring -- maybe I can do something from the inside about ABC's reported reluctance to permit advertizing on Air America...

Want the TV hounds on your trail, boy? I think this is the lady behind the shakedown.

Stay tuned.

Renovation

I'm feeling wordy once again, and perhaps I may even populate this personal forum with verbiage more regularly now. For some reason, I've gained quite a bit of unearned confidence suddenly over the past month or so. Perhaps it's the increased responsibility at work, perhaps it's just a pleasant side-effect of flipping the chronometer from 32 to 33 a while back (at an Orioles game, no less -- I can't think of anything less inspiring).

Either way, I'm back on the annual NaNoWriMo bandwagon again, which in the past has been a source of equal parts determination and dauntedness. And as I haven't won yet, haven't even come anywhere close, the daunt has been a powerful force. Somehow, this year, this past month, it's seemed markedly less so. The words don't necessarily come any more freely than they have in the past couple of years, and certainly not as freely as they did back when I was writing about zombies chasing candy-obsessed children in high school, the internal critic we all hate seems to not give as much of a fuck as he did in the past. And that's what I've been waiting for.

So I've started, and while the beginning isn't particularly good, and I've got no idea what the middle or end is going to be about, I think I've come to that happy place where I really don't care if it's publishable as it unspools itself across the rows of my word processor. It's just sentences following sentences, coming straight outta that spot in the back of my skull. Definitely, definitely couldn't hope for anything better than that at this point.

Meanwhile, Janine and I may have been selected to be featured on Good Morning America, on a segment about home renovation. We've been contacted through our realtor, we've sent in photos of our house and ourselves, and we've been alerted to the impending phone call and possible interview by the producers. I don't know if there's anything in it for us besides being able to say we were on national TV. Maybe they'll give us a vacation to scenic Washington DC or Annapolis.

Our House (Extended Dance Mix)

Just north of happenin' Fells Point -- our bid has been accepted, and we should be moving in sometime this summer. We're the proud owners of a row house in an alley. Being in Georgia as I am, and not having actually seen our new property yet, I'm just going to go ahead and assume this kicks ass.

Georgia On My Nerves

I suppose I have some updating to do... Unfortunately, I'm on my way away from the computer at the moment, off to Augusta for a very, very quick look around, then back here to the Thomson Best Western for a brief, seven-hour nap, then back out into the really pretty woods of Wilkes County. Combine Arizona-style surface survey with the immersive, fragrant forests of this place, and you got yourself an archaeologirrific time. Jesus, that sounds bad.

I Can Have Both?!

Just minding my own business online today, and what should I run into but two leaked songs from Morrissey's Ringleader of the Tormentors, both proving that middle age and decades of affluence haven't blunted his creative edge the way it has with, say, well pretty much every successful pop artist (God help Sting).

And here's something especially for my sweetie:

Legoth

Brilliant!

Oh What a To Do to Die Today

I've had this to-do list that's been bothering me for quite a while, many of its contents have gone postponed for a very long time. Add on top of that everything I have to do before I slip the surly bonds of Arizona, I have some time management to consider. Not... really my strong point. I'll check in later.

A terrible difficult thing to say
But a harder thing still to do.

The Wait is On. Again.

April 2006

Real cover. Really.

I, Whore

I finally caved to the temptation to put the scant "popularity" of my weblog to the test and pimp out some space for advertisements. I've got no idea exactly how much actual cash I stand to make from people clicking on generic ad links on my blog, although I ran across something that lit up the cliched dollar signs in my eyes:

My blog is worth $2,258.16.
How much is your blog worth?

My blog is apparently worth thousands! I'm still not completely clear what this is based on, but to whomever is valuing Fillet of Soul at over $2200, is that monthly, yearly, or a one-time sale? Either way, deal. E-mail me and you'll have full ownership the minute the check clears.

Meanwhile, I'm swinging my pink boa Google's way, with the assumption that I'll be hearing from them about accruing advertising revenue in the form of a check, auto-deposit, or periodic addition to my IRA. I'm thinking I should be able to pay off my student loans by next weekend.

FUCNN

This makes me want to puke.

My e-mail to CNN:
"I've been increasingly despondent over the apparent abdication of responsibility most media outlets have shown in covering the abuses of power perpetrated by the current administration; however, until recently I've held CNN in high regard among major news channels. Your hiring of Glenn Beck is entirely beyond the pale. I'm certain your staff is fully aware of the inexhaustible catalog of execrable, indefensible, and disgustingly misanthropic statements he's made on his radio show. Why not round it off by digging up Anne Coulter and bring back Michael Savage? Nauseating. This is a very sudden last straw."

If you have any doubt or confusion about what an unearthly abomination Beck is, have a look here. And it mentions something that I was unaware of -- CNN also just hired Bill Bennett, who lost his own radio show after claiming that "[Y]ou could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." FOX squared. Shameful.

Melancarly: FrankenMetro 1993 - 2006

FrankenMetro passed away while on work transport duty last Wednesday after a short illness (it had been stalling at stoplights). Its last journey was one of approximately 80 feet from my habitual parking spot to the mailbox, after which it was meant to take its wonted route to ACS. It was not to be. After cranking but failing to catch, I pushed its still-warm body back to its space and called AAA. It was towed approximately eight miles to The Car Shop, where dedicated mechanics labored to resuscitate it for two days before it was pronounced totaled at approximately 3:00 pm on Friday.

Over the course of its exceptional life, it had traveled over 127,000 miles -- I learned only after its passing that a Geo's aluminum engine is reliable only up to 100,000 miles, afterwards it drives on borrowed time. I had hoped to push it onwards past 200,000 miles, but apparently that's akin to my hoping my dog lives to be 40. As it was, in Metro years, it was probably already around 105.

I drove a company car back to the mechanic's, where it rests still, and cleaned it out for the last time, relieving it of its jumper cables, funnel, and registration documents. I rubbed its hood and bid farewell. It wrung my soul to see it finally and eternally still, defeated, immobile. After so many miles, after bearing me to view the breathtaking Anasazi palaces of Chaco, the remote and stunning Canyon de Chelly, and the beaches of Mexico and Florida, it could carry me no farther.

Some day this week, perhaps tomorrow, it will be towed to its final destination at the behest of the American Cancer Society, the proceeds of its sale to be donated to cancer research. It's what it would have wanted.


"Oh Geo Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling..."