Monday, August 30, 2004

Gencon Photos now online!

Finally, start the three pages of mediocre photos here.

Someday, I'll get the Vegas ones up, I swear! Kory wanted these soon, so this project took precedence.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:30 PM EST [Link]

Sitting on the cork

I may... may... have some seriously good news in my life. I can't say what it is yet, but once it is confirmed, I will be zipping around the room like Eric Cartman. "Ah my Ged... Ah my Ged... Ah my Ged... ! Ah my Ged you gehs!"

No, Christine's not pregnant.

I have been working on something, in secret, for a while. It might pay off in a big way. That's all I have to say right now, and I am bursting to tell the details, but it's not a sure thing yet, so I have to wait until everything is settled on both sides. This is one of those home stretch things where you know you are ahead, the winning ribbon is in sight, but you still have to finish that last few yards, and hope no protester tackles you and the Italian guy wins, and you come in 3rd.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:09 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, August 29, 2004

The Fear of Fleaing

A long time ago, in a house far, far away... we had fleas. They came from a rabbit we tried to adopt, and these weren't regular fleas, oh no, they were voracious man-eating fleas. These were the days before Frontline or Advantage, which were as revolutionary as Penicillin in the pet world, IMHO. Before those enlightened days, we had to suffer a flea infestation that would not go away. It spread to our cats, and even though we found a home for the rabbit on a friend's farm in less than 2 weeks, the fleas stayed for a year and a half. They came back and forth in waves. We were very poor at the time, and so getting flea bombs were about a day's worth of of pay at $35/can (with a 3 can minimum). We tried over the counter bombs to save money (like Raid, Black Flag, etc.), but they never really worked, and the only thing that did keep them at bay were the ones we got from the vet, which is why they were so expensive. We didn't even have carpeting, but they were voracious and lived in the cracks of the cheap parquet flooring as well as our laundry, furniture, and even in the dust by the floor molding.

Christine is allergic to bug bites. Severely. Her legs were always bumpy and swollen from the flea attacks that went to her far more than they went to Christopher or myself. Pookie, one of our cats, had been attacked so harshly, she lost most of her hair for about 2 years. We tried all kinds of cheap home remedies, like smoke, milk jugs filled with hot water and covered in Vaseline, and various herbs and powered in the cats' coats. The best of them was the milk jug, but I still shudder when I think of the jugs hours later, covered with sticky fleas like I'd sprinkled pepper on it. The cats were bathed almost twice a week. Each time, you'd see dozens of fleas go down the drain, and afterwards, I had to wrap the cats in a towel and pluck more fleas off of them with tweezers.

These fleas were not small little black dots, they were some larger brown kind, which made them easier to comb out and pluck, but they wouldn't die. We learned more about fleas for a year than we ever knew; their life cycle, the eggs, the larva, the time they could exist without a host before they starved to death (14 days), and the time their eggs could lay dormant (3 months).

Finally, in an unrelated incident, our house flooded during the winter (townhouse, neighbor's pipes froze and burst). That actually crippled them enough to get a head start, and since a lot of our lower floor was open to the cold winter air for the while it was being repaired, I suspect those that survived the flood froze to death. The upper floors got bombed, clothes were sealed in ziplock bags, and we got a new mattress for our bed.

That was over ten years ago. Since then, we have had a huge, heaping fear of fleas. Now we have 4 cats and two dogs. And carpeting. The dogs get Frontline, but the cats (not being outdoor cats), don't. We have "emergency supplies" of doses for the cats, should we end up with the beginning of an infestation. When we got Thisby, she was infested, and I suspect her deep hatred of me stems from the first few days with her as a kitten when I bathed and scrubbed her long hair in the sink. Frontline is a Godsend. It was first introduced to us by our friend Jenny who is a dog groomer. She said when you apply it onto dogs, you literally start to see the fleas dying within minutes. Wait about 20 minutes, then brush the dog out, and there will be a ring of dead fleas around where the dog was.

I hate fleas.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:57 PM EST [Link]

On Villains...

[Alyson Hannigan voice] "This one time, at Gencon..."

I have always prided myself in the fact that I have hosted many panels at many conventions, sometimes with very little notice beforehand. The least notice occurred when I was finishing on panel at some Castlecon or Evecon, and Eric Silverhands (what ever happened to him?) showed up for his panel on Robert Henlein that was right after mine. "Please stay," he asked. I didn't know anything about the sci-fi master, except I read "The Cat Who Could Walk Through Walls" and didn't understand it (yes, yes, I know, "part of an ongoing world," I get that comment a lot with suggestions on what to read next, but I haven't the time). I told Eric I didn't know Henlein well enough to be on a panel with him, but he said, "No, I just need an advocate on someone who hasn't read him." Or something. Honestly, at that moment, I thought he was full of crap. Anyway, I spent half the panel discussing themes Eric had spun, and thus, we did the panel together, and he said, "See, I told you I needed you." Touche, Punkie!

"Grig," said Kory, as I was helping him burn Gaming Manual CDs in his basement almost two weeks ago, "I need you on my villains panel."

I felt at least I had a few days prior warning, with some writing and gaming background in villains. I thought a lot in my spare time about villains, and while I think I did a good job, as with many panels where I am one of many, I learned something. This time, I learned something very profound, which I have been thinking about for quite some time.

I believe it was Liz (on the panel) who said that "Heroes are merely reactionary, while villains are the driving force behind most good fiction." How true. In fact, I never really thought about it until now. While I mulled over the various books, games, movies, and even cartoons where this is true, I began to apply it to real life. And then some of my old, semi-Buddhist training came back to me where one principle is very true:

Life is struggle. Pain shows we are alive.

Sounds kind of mopey Goth-like, doesn't it? But a strange sense of knowledge flooded over me when I made the connection, especially all that has happened to me recently. For a long time, I muttered these words under my breath, almost like a defiant cry out against my pains and struggles. It was said in an almost sarcastic gritted smile, like I wanted to show God that his "Don't worry, be happy" attitude was wearing a little thin. But for the first time, I saw some kind of truth in this statement that was not a "shut up and put up" kind of deal.

Life IS struggle, but struggle makes us stronger. Life is a resistance against the natural forces that shape and dictate the movement of inert objects like rocks and water. Life is a kind of balance to the natural forces, which, while still shaping it, life has a mind of its own. Life resists the natural flow of gravity and environment. And yet, nature compels us and changes us. As we react to it, we change.

I don't have villains in my life. Yes, my dad is an ass, but he's not even important enough to be a villain. All I am doing is fighting the echoes of my childhood like boxing shadows. He doesn't call me and yell at me, he doesn't come to my house and steal anything, nor does he get drunk and try and beat the crap out of me. I have friends who have parents that do that, and I have it pretty good. Growing up, my father was a villain, however, but as I get older, and realize that I don't have to be like him, I realize that my hatred and revulsion for everything he did gave me a warped frame of reference of how NOT to act, and for that, I became a pretty good person despite his horrific treatment. I grew in spite of him.

Christine and I have been married for over 15 years. When we were married, I think the only person who didn't look at us with rolled eyes and shaking heads was her mom. People at our reception said it wouldn't last 2 years. I can't fool you by saying our first few years didn't have their problems. Poverty, sickness, and meddling no-gooders were frequent problems. But the real test came about 4 years later, when a very manipulative person tried to break us up. She was an expert at meddling in other people's relationships, and while she has been accused of over half a dozen breakups (both married and unmarried), I have to say at least half of them were in trouble to begin with and would have ended on their own anyway. The other half... I am not so sure. She was happy when others were miserable, and would play the game so one would come to her for help, and she'd drive the wedge in as hard as she could. Why did she do this? I suspect for attention. Boredom with her own marriage, probably, because she married someone she wanted to be a knight in shining armor, only to have him only be a knight at the gaming table, and in the real world, he was as flawed as the rest of us. So when Christine and I, who had a solid communication link, found out what she was up to... my friendship with her was severed. I was mad at her for YEARS, and couldn't get over it, how betrayed I felt, and how embarrassed and foolish she made me look. But, she was the villain, and I reacted to her, and became a stronger person. Our marriage passed the test, and we became stronger. To this day, we NEVER complain about each other to other people, which I think is good advice for any married couple.

A villain at work has forced me to react, and while villains where I work are really, really rare, it is my fear that he will drag our whole department down in a fiery mess. I could lose my job, not because I'd get fired, but because he would make our whole department useless if he got his way. He has methods I won't explain in detail, but he's really good at backstabbing, secret deals, and taking advantage of people who aren't aware of just how dangerous he is. That has prompted me to seek employment elsewhere. I am a programmer, not a diplomat. This junior-high nonsense is not my cup of tea, and I recently got a really, really good lead that I am crossing my fingers for. I have been doing node testing now for over four years, which in the IT world, is like decades. Time to move on.

So, villains do have their uses. They make heroes, martyrs, and reaffirm who the Good Guys really are.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:23 AM EST [Link]

Saturday, August 28, 2004

The Trio of Terror... not

Until today, the most kids I have ever taken care of alone at the same time was 2. I broke that record by one kid for about 4 hours.

Sean and Lou had to attend a funeral, and their nanny was out, so I got to take care of all three of their kids. While a tale of terrible antics of three children would have been entertaining to write, I am sort of glad to say that they were almost perfectly behaved children. It was not a surprise thing, so I had time to plan and think about it. I knew Christine and CR would be gone this weekend; they are at cousin Janita's house, which is some where west of nowhere in the middle of Virginia. I thought about the kids age, 10, 6, and 3, and decided that, since thew weather was good, we'd go for a walk. This would tire out the two younger kids, and give the eldest and I some badly needed exercise.

It was hot out today! But we walked to the shopping center, saw some pets for adoption, got some water, then went to Five Below and they each got something before going home. When we got back, we learned how to give massages. Chance, the eldest, already knew a little about how they worked, and she said her neck "tensed up like mom's." I tried to give her ideas on how she could make her mom's neck feel better, but I think Chance and her sister Scarlet just liked having their shoulders and neck rubbed. Keiran, who is 3, wouldn't sit still long enough for one, but who needs a massage at 3, anyway? I couldn't believe Scarlet wanted one, and she not only didn't need it, but I think I'll start saying something like, "Less tense than a 6 year old," because if I could get my back muscles as loose as a little kid's I am sure I'd be a happier man. I once got advice from a masseuse that said, "Massage a cat at some time, you'll feel the perfect set of muscles; loose and relaxed, but powerful and can get rock hard and strong at a second's notice." Scarlet's shoulders were like Jello, and I was jealous. Damn little kids and their lack of worry! Sadly, my arthritis prevented my from giving decent backrubs, even on the relatively small real estate of a child's back.

Massage is also a GREAT way to get somewhat hyper kids to calm down, and while I wouldn't say Sean and Lou's kids are hyper, I think I diverted some of their energy they might have focused on the "MINE!" factor little kid siblings have with each other (and to some extent, Chance, but at her age, she will alter behavior you point out that might reduce dignity). I also tried to add some anatomy lessons (a technique of self-relfections taught by my friend April A), but I don't think they were listening to anything except about how damage to the spine could cause paralyzation. "Really? Like how???" Kids and their quest for gorey tales...

So, all it all, a good day, but when they were picked up, I went to be to watch some Olympics, and fell asleep from 5 until 9pm. Rats. Now I'll be up ALL night...

Posted by Punkie @ 09:37 PM EST [Link]

Friday, August 27, 2004

"I'm sorry, but you brown-eyed white shirts have to leave..."

Okay, this makes me sick:

Security guards at the mall are handing out yellow code of conduct slips to anyone who doesn't pass "their" test when it comes to dress and behavior.

When I worked at Springfield Mall (two companies, spanning 1989-1994), I saw a lot of stuff that I am still trying to disseminate in my brain. The "Rent-a-Cops," as we called Mall Security, were a two-edged sword. On one hand, they did, for the most part, keep the peace. We also had a real police officer who wandered about. We also had a lot of local youths, and some of them had dark skin. I never differentiate between the two, since separating people by skin color is a stupid as separating people by left-handedness or eye color, but maybe I have lived a sheltered live, and that's just me. Many of the RaC were also dark-skinned, and I think that helped other dark-skinned urban youths respect them a bit more.

But the Mall Management were a bunch of old fat pink-skinned rich bastards. No, really, I met them. The problems I had with them were not their skin color, but the ruthless penny-pinching attitudes they had in their rules and regulations. They didn't give a tinker's cuss about mall employees or customers, only about getting rent and charging fees. Now, I am all for making money, that's not the issue, but I am not for making money at the danger and cruel expense of others. That mall stayed open through natural disasters, holidays (except Christmas), and national tragedies or events (4th of July, solar eclipses, 9/11). If you got snowed in, you had to HIDE in your own store to avoid getting caught overnight and tossed outside. It didn't matter that the snow was over a two feet deep, busses stopped running, government was closed, and the mall was dead. They stayed open, regular hours. And if your store opened up late because there was an ice storm that made the parking lot completely inaccessible? Fined. And stores were not fined a flat rate, like $100 or something, you were fined per square foot, per 5 minutes. I am not sure what the ratio was, but my 20' x 40' (approx.) store was once fined almost $35,000 for being open late by 2 hours.

But the real issue here is the article. Back when I went to the "Mall education seminars" (voluntary, but I went to a lot of them to see what new shoplifting techniques were being discovered), one of the owners answered a question about a new policy put into place that if a RaC saw a person who had been in the mall for 30 minutes or more, and hadn't bought anything, they could throw them out. How they determined whether they bought anything or not was sketchy, but most agreed it had to do with a shopping bag and a timed receipt (thus, stores with older cash registers that didn't have a time stamp were asked to upgrade - luckily, that wasn't many). In reality, there was no way they could tell how long you had been in the mall, and this rule was really to keep teens from hanging out, and thus, "prevent gang activity." To old fat rich people, teens = gang. So the question asked by the manager in the audience was, "How come black people keep getting thrown out over white people? White kids steal more than black kids, especially the girls!" Well, to be fair, that was the manager of Claire's, a boutique that caters to teen girls. But that question got this unexpected response:

"Listen, ma'am, this mall is PRIVATE PROPERTY. We OWN it, and we DICTATE the rules! We don't even HAVE to let black people, or Jews, or even women in. That right is protected by the Constitution. We decide who comes in and who leaves based on pure economics, and black teens do not have the purchasing power as the rest of our regular customers."

That comment turned my stomach. Okay, aside from the racist undertones that has, from "pure economics," the mall did not gain that much revenue from its customers (apart from 50 cent shopping bags). It gains it from the stores, and I know, I paid the damn bills for my store. I paid rent, not a percentage of my sales, and while I don't know if other stores did, that's moot. The facts that he stated were incorrect as well, because Civil laws state that a place like a shopping mall, while private property, unless it's a residential area, and assuming it's open to an otherwise unregulated public, does not have the right to discriminate any more than a company is allowed to segregate employees by skin color, sex, or religious persuasion.

I was glad a lot of the managers in attendance immediately booed the man. His comrades prevented him from speaking up the rest of the conference, but it was apparent that almost every stereotype of the rich republican was represented there. I don't know his name, or if he officially represented Springfield Mall management policies, but shortly after this was threatened to go public, the rules "relaxed" and black youths weren't asked if they had any receipts on them.

Some people don't know how deeply the subtle effects of racism can go. They don't know how quickly they spread, either. And if anyone participated in a version of the famous Jane Elliott "Blue Eyes Brown Eyes" experiments, they would know just how ugly racism is, and what it can do to other people's behavior. It's astounding.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:25 AM EST [Link]

Polyamory

Recently, a friend of mine posted in his private "friends only" blog about how he got burned due to a one-two punch of an open relationship that changed rules without his knowledge, and gossipy people who stick their nose into places they really shouldn't. I don't pass judgment on his open relationship, so I am as upset as he is about how some people thought they were being "responsible" by telling his spouse that my friend was having an affair without asking him first. I guess that's one of the hazards to having a "secret open relationship," but in my mind, the problem is much deeper.

This isn't a slam on my friend, or a judgment call, but in my experience, I have yet to see an "open relationship" work out in long term. I have known many people who have some kind of agreement that they and/or their spouse can go cavorting around in a physical manner, boinking others with free abandon. I hear debates about whether a man can truly be monogamous in his heart, and while I think I am, I realize those that don't will just think I am in denial or something.

Now, don't get me wrong, I have no argument with the idea, as long as it is between two or more consenting adults. The problem always seems to be it was really only one "consenting" adult and one "resenting" adult all along, usually sucking some innocent bystanders in a collapsing underground lava tube of boiling psychodrama and jealousy ("You said she was okay with it!!!"). I personally don't know of one open relationship, and I have known of many in fandom, that worked out. Yes, I have seen some last for years, but in the end, one leaves the other, and often in some horrible collapse where the true feelings finally come out.

In Islam, there are sects that allow for multiple marriages, but the caveat there is that what you get one wife, you have to get all of them. So if you get wife #1 a BMW, you have to give wives 2 - 7 the same BMW. Thus, most polygamy is a status symbol of being rich. In some cultures, and I hear the French quoted a lot in this, there is the wife and the mistress, where the wife is the security blanket/mother figure, and the mistress is the fun concubine (not meant in a derogatory term). It's just accepted, but since I don't personally know any French people that also have a mistress, I can only speculate resentment, which would be unfair of me, so I am leaving that sub-topic alone.

I have several personal theories why I think open relationships fail.

It's usually the guy who wants it, the girl will "put up with it to keep him." This is my number one prevailing theory. I have seen all kinds of reasoning, from "he can't help it, it's genetically abnormal testosterone levels" to trying to realize a "spiritual bond" of some kind (common in some Pagan open relationships). I hate to say this, but I think that the girls who buy into this are just delaying the inevitable: their man can't commit to one person. They allow this sort of thing because they believe they won't ever find a decent man, and they better put up and shut up with what they have, because even though he doesn't commit like most others, he's the best you can ever get because deep down you fear you're not desirable and can't find a good man. Bullshit. I have known several Pagan relationships that have reached an uneasy truce with "my man must have sex with a younger woman because [fill in Pan-based reasoning here]," but it always ends when the man only sleeps with said younger woman. Now, if it's a guy letting his girl roam around, it's almost the same thing, but they tend to lose the girl much, much faster than a girl loses a guy. There's another lesson in there, I know it.

It's just FANDOM open relationships that don't work. Maybe, instead of "fandom allows open marriages," the ratio is the same in non-fandom, and it's just the fact that fandom relationships are wonky to begin with, polyamory or not. The only weakness to this theory is that I know many monogamous fandom relationships that are well into their second decade, with no signs of breaking up.

It's only "public open relationships" that don't work out. Maybe there is a slew of secret polyamorous relationships out there among friends I think are monogamous, but they don't make a big deal about it, or keep it secret, because it's no one's business but theirs.

Being monogamous, I just "wouldn't understand." I have been accused of this, but then, inevitably, I am right about how it will end for them. I don't like being right, because I just hate seeing people get hurt. Maybe I don't understand how a deep love can be shared, and I don't think it's "just like loving multiple kids," because you don't have sex with your kids. Physical love and parental love are two very different things, even if they share the same word.

Bad luck. Maybe, out of the dozen or so relationships I have seen, I just got a lot of bad coincidences.

Maybe it's a combination of these. Or something I haven't thought of. Then there's also the bisexual angle, which seems to have the same rate of failure, but then it's a loop they can't seem to get out of, sometimes with the added spin of "watching someone else make out with my spouse as I make out with both of them is a massive turn on."

I debate whether we are monogamous creatures, but I know I am. I have never even considered having sex with another woman, nor can I imagine being tempted. I know many of my friends are the same way, and maybe it is all cultural and in our head, but when I think of the logistics of having a mistress, a second wife, or whatever... I get a headache and thank God I am married to Christine.

I don't judge those who want to have an open relationship, but I kind of cringe in the same way like when someone tells me they have "a hot new business opportunity with a brand-name distribution system," or that they have found a new religion that requires a lot of money to keep being a member. "This is going to end badly," I think. A majority of "Open Relationships" never start out that way, and it always seems to be a signpost pointing to the first landmarks of a breakup. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Relationship stagnates. Boy brings in second girl. Things seem fine for a while, then boy starts being with second girl too much. First girl finally breaks down and cries. Relationship ends, usually with only one of them claiming it was a "mutual decision."

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see one work out. I'd like to see 3 or more people, all having sex, living under the same roof, raising several children, sharing incomes, and giving equal loving time to one another until death parts them. I WANT people to be happy. But I haven't seen ONE polyamory situation end well, or even last more than 5 years. I have seen too many photos in polyamorous albums where often the trio is only shown two at a time. I have yet to see some Sears Portrait on top of someone's TV where they go, "This is my wife Lisa and our lover Betty." The only exception seems to be a recent one, where a death did part them, but even wife #1 said she had to work through her resentment before she finally made peace with "this is how it's going to be, I love him, and that's that." And I am sure somewhere, there are people who have no problems with an open relationship.

I've just never seen one, that's all.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:08 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Gencon - Day 6 (Monday, Indianapolis to Frederick in 12 and a half hours)

I got up feeling pretty good. We had been told to wake up at 5:00am so we could leave by 7, but that didn't happen. Scott said he was going to "kill the Irish bastard,"
meaning Kory, because we woke up at 5... but everyone else didn't get up until 7.

We HAD to leave by 9, because an Indianapolis policeman got killed in the line of duty a few days ago, and they were shutting down the city for a few hours, starting around 9.

Paul left around 8 with some friends, because he lives in Kentucky. We left around 9:30, barely getting out of the city before it shut down for the funeral procession. Scott, who promised to murder Liz if she played folk music again, was quelled because we literally talked, joked, and laughed all the way back to Frederick with no music at all. Somewhere along the way, Scott started dreaming about a place he used to go to when he was young, a place called "Steak and Shake." It was a diner chain, and he said they had the best burg--- STOP THE VAN!!! THERE IT IS!!!! We stopped for lunch at the SteaknShake somewhere in St. Cantonsville, Ohio. Scott was in heaven. Heather was so mad...

We didn't get to Frederick until almost 10pm, which was almost 9pm back in our jet-lag time. Allison was so happy to see Kory, we unpacked, and Jason gave me a ride home in his Chevy F41 Station Wagon. At first, Jason's car sounded horrible, and we thought we weren't going to make it. It turned out the power steering fluid ran dry while the car was parked for a week. Huh. Jason fixed that, and we were on our way. During the trip, I found out a lot about Jason's life, and I wish I had my head on as straight at his age (22). He's a bartender, but he's going to school, and has a 2-year plan of how he's going to manage his school and career. I mean, wow. My life isn't as organized NOW, much less when I was 22. What a cool guy. Turns out, he lives about 3 miles from me. Cool! I hope to see him at game demos.

Well, I got home around 11pm, and crashed. I gave out everyone's gifts, unpacked most of my stuff, but didn't get to do the laundry like I wanted, so I had to wear stale jeans and a polo shirt I have with a small hole that needs sewed the next day at work. Yuck.

All in all? Glad I made the trip. I regret a few things, like sucking ass at the table (I only sold 2 things, and each purchase required help), not going to as many events, being in pain and trying not to pass along my "bum factor" to others, not selling my book, and realizing it's really been a long time since I gamed. But, I'll do it all over again next year, and if I play my cards right, I can afford to get CR and Christine to come along.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:02 PM EST [Link]

Gencon - Day 5 (Sunday, Indianapolis)

My back is almost fine now, but the blisters on my feet and the bad limp remain. I suppose they will go away soon as well.

All of us were real dead to the world. While yesterday we did have intermittent hot water for showers, this morning was cold again, with periods of lukewarm. Fuck you, Marriott Courtyard. I didn't go to breakfast, but drank some hotel coffee and had some of my peanut butter.

Kory felt bad I was trying to save money, and kept trying to give me some. he also paid for a few appetizers. When he wasn't looking, I snuck cash back into "Junior," the name of our cash register. Hah! I'll be no one's charity case! Haaaaaarrr!

I was supposed to open the table, but we had so many people there, I skipped out with Kory's permission. I got CR some tee-shirts, and gave my new friend Butch at Honeck Sculpture one of my books. Then I went back to the hotel room to pack up some, catch up on this blog, and rest.

I went back by 4pm to help pack up the table, load it on the vans, and then we have a big dinner to discuss how we did. Last I saw, we did okay... not great, but okay. Kory and I were supposed to have a meeting with two gamer groups, but that fell through because Kory was too tired.

The reasons to go to the con were mostly met. If I had to give a summary of the con, I'd say it wasn't my cup of tea, but I am still glad I came all the same. I am just not a real gamer anymore. Gencon is selling commemorative tee-shirts that say, "I'm a real gamer," and I didn't get one because... I felt that would be pretending to be something I am not. Like most other cons, the real benefits I have gotten were from meeting people. Kory wants me to come back, and I think I will because I love doing the panels, and I love being with MSD. I have met some strange, but really cool people, plus got to "reunite" with some friends I hadn't spoken to in a while.

I really regret not pushing my book. I got distracted, and didn't sell a single one. I could have. I could have sold out, because at the panels, not only were people eating up what we were telling them (some even vigorously taking notes), Kory said panels and demos account for more than half of his table sales at most cons. Next year, I am leading a panel on "Humor and Gaming: How to add spice to your player's funny bones." I'll mention my book a lot. A lot.

I took a lot of pictures. When I get time, I'm going to upload them here.

Since Chris R, Ludachris, and Tubbie had to leave early, I got to sleep in a real bed. Paul also got a bed, and I got to spend a lot of time with him and Scott in the room (I was in the room with Heather, Kory, and Jason the rest of the con). Paul is awesome. Scott is cool. What can I say?

I think 90% of the joy I have gotten at this con has been the company. This doesn't come as a surprise, but it's worth mentioning. Our next big con is I-Con in New York.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:01 PM EST [Link]

Gencon - Day 4 (Saturday, Indianapolis)

Not a lot happened today.

Matt and Moria had a spare inflatable bed, and loaned it to me. Thank goodness, because with that to sleep on, plus my heating pad, I was felling a lot better this morning. God bless them.

I had the table for an hour, then a three hour break, then the table for two hours, then a one hour break, and then we closed. Honestly, I wansn't at the table as much as that because they always seemed staffed.

There was a lot of talk about Tynie being gone, and people having to do his demos (Tynie got a job, and couldn't go), and someone named "Bill" who got a girlfriend who, if the gossip is anything to compare, doesn't like us, and doesn't want Bill to be with us. Who knows if this is true, but the term "pussywhipped" was not used lightly by some of the younger employees.

I got some games Christine wanted.

- Beer Money
- Quist
- Lord of the Fries
- The Big Idea
- Summer Camp

When we got back to the room around 6pm, I just crashed. Heather came in after a "Knights of the Round Table" reading, tired from laughing so hard, and she crashed. Around 10, Kory called, told us to come to dinner at TGI Fridays, where we relentlessly teased Scott. He's a really proud Scotsman, and we make horrible sheep jokes at his expense, but he loves it, and gives as good as he gets. Scott seems to be the type of person who you abuse to be friends with him. Kind of like a 24/7 celebrity roast.

Then we went back to bed. I joked about how boring we were, going to sleep before midnight at a huge con, and Kory just repeated he'd done several gaming demos, panels, and the table and that shut me up.

Some random thoughts:

At Gencon, there are a lot of nerds, myself included. In fact, in a display I haven't seen since high school, some car full of guys on the way to a football game at the stadium next door shouted, "NNNERRRRDDDS!" at us as we waited by a stoplight. "Damn RIGHT!" said one of the girls next to me. But not all the insults were about nerds, some were from them. It amazes me how many nerdly people can be so damn rude. When you run a table, you see a lot of rude people. One of them was a guy who just ruffled through our stuff, ruining the displays, not putting stuff back where he got it from, and generally made a huge mess. He was also demeaning to Heather in a dismissive "I only care what you say if I asked a question" manner, and at one point, when we thought he had left, Scott hugged Heather and said, "Shall I punch the bad man and make him go away?" We didn't know he was still behind us. I don't know if he didn't hear Scott, or didn't care. In many cases, saying "Hello" was flat ignored, or even responded not with another greeting, but an dismissive affirmation:

MSD: Hello!
Nerd: Uh huh.
MSD: How are you?
Nerd: Yeah, whatever.

Damn. You must be a lonely person, lady.

Now let's talk about Utilikilts. I have seen their website many times, but they had a booth at Gencon, and were doing well. Very well. In fact, they sold out of their stock, and were taking mail orders by Saturday. On Thursday, I saw maybe 1 or 2 people in kilts. By Saturday, I saw several dozen roaming around. I think, and I may be wrong, that Kilts are going to become big in the "alternate crowd" pretty soon, and thus, get to MTV in a few years, then it will be a teen phenomenon by 2010. Just you wait. Hell, if I didn't want to worry about showing my manly parts to everyone, I'd wear them. They look comfy, and in person, you can tell they are very well-made.

I really, really miss the Internet. I never did find the "Internet lounge" but I heard you had to pay for it, and that made me even more angry about the whole thing. I am addicted. Pure and simple.

I miss Christine horribly. I hope she doesn't run off with our gay lover, Julio (the one we keep under the bed).

Posted by Punkie @ 12:46 PM EST [Link]

Gencon - Day 3 (Friday, Indianapolis)

Friday I woke up in even more back pain. Gaaaah.

I gave up on the deflated bed, and tried to sleep on layers of rolled-up blankets on the floor. But because I toss and turn, they all got messed up, and my back retaliated by forming knots in my shoulder blades and spine. This, in turn, caused me to walk crooked, so I got a HUGE blister on my right foot, which caused me to limp horribly, and then my right leg started to hurt right where the hip joins the femur. I thank God that I am wearing my "comfortable walking shoes." I think my steel-tipped Doc Martens would have ripped my feet apart.

We got up, ate breakfast at the "TGI Buffet," which went straight through Kory and I. We have since decided not to eat there again (that was broken two days later). I decided I HAD to find some place with chips and chocolate, and because of my back pain, it affected other parts of my health, and I found I got fever spasms, depression mood swings, and buddy, I needed chocolate. It also rained all day, which did NOT help my mood.

Quote of the day, from a t-shirt, "English does not borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleys, knocks them out, and searches the pockets for loose grammar".

Oh, and for the second day in a row? No hot water for showers. We got a message yesterday apologizing for this, but here it was again. It's really annoying not having hot water. And when they fix it, the water goes out altogether. I had to take my medicine with Mountain Dew Dark. Yes, Mountain Dew Dark. I haven't seen it on the East Coast yet, but it's a "Dark Grape" Mountain Dew. It's okay. Tastes more like Dark Cherry soda.

I worked the table again, but we had so many people hanging out around the table anyway, I left early with Heather's permission. I was bound an determined to get to CVS to get a heating pad and some chocolate. I got directions from a helpful lady at the Information booth, and her directions said it was 3 short blocks away.

It was 2 short blocks, and one LOOOOONG block with a significant gap between them for a huge war monument. The map the lady gave me was apparently not to scale. But, I ended up seeing a lot of downtown Indianapolis, which seems to be a big financial center. I saw a Schwab, Merril Lynch, Citibank, as well as tech companies like SBC take up large city blocks with their skyscrapers. But as a city... maybe I am spoiled, but it seems about half the size of downtown Baltimore, and there seems to be more of a distinct line between urban and the rest of Indiana. I mean, in the DC-Baltimore area, the urban sprawl gives way to the suburbs gradually, giving the city a much bigger, more blanket-like feel. Indianapolis is like a lot of cities in Texas I have seen; you know where the city ends and begins. But Indianapolis seems kind of clean and boring, too. It has a "generic new" feel to it. I did see a lot of really cool old buildings, however, some of which I have taken pictures of. The massive "State Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument" is pretty impressive close-up, and I also saw old government buildings, banks, and churches scattered about the modern city. In one area, the lines between sidewalk and traffic circle are completely unclear, and I almost got run over by a cop because I assumed that the brick areas behind the cement columns were pedestrian only. Oops.

I was glad to see the CVS up ahead, and I luckily got there 12 minutes before it closed. I got my chocolate, some chips, heating pad, and the "Mountain Dew Black."

Over the last few days, I have met several people I haven't seen in a while, and a few I have seen within the past year.

Newton Ewell: One of Katsucon's three major artists, He's promoting his artwork to various companies, and getting a lot of hits.
Vic Martin: After being banned from a lot of east coast cons for licentious behavior in the late 1980s, he's changed his company name to "Silver Sword and Stone." When I questioned if he used to be on the eastern coast, he got real defensive, and some older Asian lady came up behind him and told me to go away.
Derek Cha: An old friend from my ancient McLean gaming days, he's retired military now (serious leg injury in the Gulf war), and has an ex-wife, and custody of his youngest daughter, whom I met. She's 11, going on 30. Damn, I feel old.
Steve from Anime Pavilion: I didn't recognize his booth, it was only 4 tables! He asked, "Whattia mean?" And I said "At Katsucon, you have--" "Oh, at ANIME conventions... yeah..."
Stemmi: A guy I knew from FanTek way back, he's still doing the gaming thing, still single, living out in Colorado.

...and a bunch of people who recognized me, but I didn't remember who the hell they were.

Quote of the day, from Heather, "Thank you for listening to WTMI..." I ended up making a skit about this, which almost killed her with laughter.

DJ: It's the top of the hour, and you are listening to WTMI out of Indianapolis, the radio station that give too much information. We just heard from Tony and the Pustones with their new hit, "Do my Fingers Smell Funny to You?" We'd like to thank our sponsors, "Billy Bob's Ass Cream: Keeps that Rim Pink and Fresh," and our new sponsor, "Wiggle's Wormz-no-Mor: Wiggle's new anti-staining formula can remove genital ringworm twice as fast as the normal leading brand. Now in a new vanilla scent!" Up next we're taking calls about unusual smells around the house, but first, here's the new hit from Smegma Frogs... My girlfriend has pimples on her thighs/I really don't know why/but I love her anyway...

Later, I was on the Villains panel with Chris R and Liz. We kicked serious butt. Kory has now stated, "Don't inflate your ego too much, but from now on, I want you on my panels." Yippie!

Aftwards, we ate dinner at TGI Fridays, and then crashed. I found out that we won't be leaving until Monday Morning, which means I won't get home until Monday night. Oh, bother.

Scott is funny as hell, once you realize 90% of his personality is an act.

I miss Christine, CR, the dogs, the cats, and my house and bed so much...

Posted by Punkie @ 12:39 PM EST [Link]

Gencon - Day 2 (Thursday, Indianapolis)

Holy. Mother. Friggin'. God.

Gencon is huge. I mean, I thought Otakon was big, but this is easily 50% larger and, ironically, probably has the same amount of anime video rooms. Wow.

I got up this morning in a buttload of pain. I had inflated my inflatable bed, which apparently had a sizeable leak in it because it almost fully deflated about 3 times in the night before I just got tired of reinflating it. Apart from that, I actually slept pretty well, and we had enough "bleaaaah" time in the room to wake up. My back feels a bit better as I type this, but when I woke up, the way I laid on a deflated airbed left me crooked and my back was full of knots. I ate at the breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant, but since the restaurant is a TGI Fridays, their buffet left a lot to be desired for $10.

I got to meet Paul, and MSD employee who is a Gulf War veteran who was seriously wounded in battle. He's really nice, but due to his various head injuries, understandably out of it a lot. He's also not expected to live very long, which is a shame because he has a wonderful wife and two kids at home. Paul's such a nice guy, and I hate seeing someone like him suffer. Paul does some of our back end work and gaming support, and I was really glad to get to know him.

Quote of the day, from a t-shirt, "I would be Goth, but I can't afford to shop at Hot Topic." Bwah!

I got to tour the exhibit hall, which is ginormous. Our table is dwarfed by the t-shirt vendor across from us, who has a merchandise display easily 20 feet high. They have to get some shirts down with a long pole. The table next to us is selling something that was "just released with the new rules," and when the floodgates opened at 10, already had a line that wrapped around their table and down the isle to get the new version of whatever they sell. On top of that, we're close to the rest rooms and refreshment stands, so we're on a highly-trafficked corner.

Kory still remains skeptical of sales, however. I plan to prove him wrong. He's never seen me sell, and there's a reason I kept winning sales awards when I did retail (I got both trips to Cancun for breaking annual quota). I am not a pushy sales guy, but I speak many "languages" to different people, and always have convincing arguments.

Those Lab Rabbit friends of mine at Looney Labs would be pleased to know LL has a huge booth, and there are also present fandom favorites like Out of the Box (Apples to Apples), Atlas Games (Lunch Money), and Cheap Ass Games (Give Me the Brain).

Sadly, most vendors take credit cards, and I suspect I will be regretting my spending this weekend for a long time.

[time passes]

Man, I wish I could write this live. Anyway, I haven't spent a lot yet, but I did get Beer Money, and since I paid in "exact change," the folks at Steve Jackson Games (where I got it from) all shouted "Hooray!" because... well, it's what they do. In fact, they not only shout, but they wave checkered flags (they are promoting a game called Cthulhu 500), and I got a free bartender's key that says, "Beer Money" on it. Hooray! I also got a 3' tall stuffed Jabberwok, because it was on sale for $30, down from $60 online, and I really wanted it badly.

I really wasn't going to buy anything, but when I called Christine, she shocked me by telling me she was envious I was going, and demanded I buy her cool games and shirts. So that's my goal.

Working the table has proven arduous. The company is nice, but the space in cramped, and often I have to spend long hours standing or sitting in such a way that my back is not supported, and my feet are still taking most of the weight (like sitting on a barstool). On top of that, I know less than 10% of the products. When Kory runs the table, I try and listen, and he's a great salesman. Heather seems to be tolerant of me. So I get really bored and frustrated because the salesman in me wants to jump up, babble about the products, and sell sell sell... but I don't know a lot about it. Kory tells me not to worry. "As long as you haven't murdered anyone, and haven't stolen anything, you're doing well." Then he put me on the "Plot Twists" panel.

That was an interesting adventure. First, the panel was during the "30th Anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons" party, which everyone said was a death knell to those who had programming against it. It was supposed to be in the courtyard across from the Crown Plaza Hotel (a former train stations turned into a train-themed hotel), but for some reason, they put it inside... which made for a... well, let's just say I didn't start out wanting to go to the party, but I got sucked into it.

No, really.

I showed up about 45 minutes early for the panel, and tried to enter the hotel, only to be told "You can't enter through here, only across the street." Okay... so I went around the corner, and saw a line about 3 people wide and THREE CITY BLOCKS LONG. I kid you not. So, since this was my only entrance to the hotel, I shuffled along with a lot of other people for about 20 minutes before getting swept into the D&D party. Once inside, I had no choice but to drift with the shoulder-to-shoulder until I found a volunteer or a hotel person. "How do I get to 'Grand Central A???'" I'd shout over the blaring techno music and thronging fans eagerly grabbing for free tote bags, shirts, cups, posters, turkey legs, and ears of corn on a stick. "I don't know!!!" said most of them. Over time, I realized they shut off that wing of the hotel from the other parts to prevent people sneaking in. Great. Finally, I broke free of the mob, and carrying a tote bag with a tee-shirt and several cups (hey, when in Rome...), I managed to escape through the bar area back to street level (after finding a lost Moria looking for Matt). I went back to the other entrance (and found Matt looking for Moria... heh), and this time, they let me in. I still managed to get to my panel a few minutes early.

Chris R, who was supposed to be with me, was not there. Luckily, Kory had a panel right before that, and kept me company until Chris arrived 30 minutes late (his demo game ran long). The panel was pretty good, and the audience was great.

People now joke about me getting sucked into parties. "Sure you were, Punkie," they rib. Truth be told, I did kind of like the free stuff. But I swear I didn't mean to. I hope my pictures came out, because it was very dimly lit, with a lot of red and purple lighting.

Afterwards, I went back to the room, and crashed.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:29 PM EST [Link]

Gencon - Day 1 (late Tuesday - Wednesday, parts unknown)

It's been a blur, but here's where we are so far.

Lost.

No, wait, that was a few hours ago. But let me back up about a day.

My "day" started Tuesday, kind of where I left off my last entry. I got a ride back from Baltimore, and we got lost trying to find the Silver Spring Metro. When we found it, the small "Kiss and Ride" dropoff was pretty hard to navigate in, and I left Christine in a hurry. I got on the Metro, turns out the wrong train, which meant I had to backtrack. I wanted to get to Shady Grove by 7pm, and missed it by about 10 minutes, even thought I left about an hour of "fudge time." It turns out this was no big deal; Allison and Kory were also running late.

I got to the house, and Kory said he was actually not as behind as he usually is before a big event like this. I got to meet the other people of MSD, most whom I had met before at FanTek cons, like Heather, for instance. I helped burn some CDs and learned some things like...

... I'm doing panels. I had not prepared to do panels, and as I type this, I am not so sure what panels I am doing, except a vague idea about how to create villains in gaming. I also found out that MSD panels got "highlighted" on the Gencon website, which hit the MSD website with a "slashdot effect." Kory has been too busy to give complete details, so I am sure more will develop.

We had the "ritual" things done before we left. Kory got new socks, Scott washed his hair with cat shampoo, and we had steak and eggs as a "last meal." All these mysteries are steeped in old MSD tradition, and became blessed with the "first bloodletting" when I banged my head real hard on the back door of Liz's van... and bled. Only a little.

Chris R, Ludachris, and Tubbie took the lead by about 30 minutes. Chris R (Rubenstahl) does a lot of events and panels. Ludachris got his name from "Little Chris" until he went insane. Tubbie got his... oh, I didn't ask. The rest of us started out late, like 12:40am. I rode with Liz and Scott in Liz's white Dodge Caravan. Liz, it turns out, loves folk and Barbershop Quartet, so along with some Muppet CDs she had, we got along very well musically. Scott... is a different beast. He's nice. Just a little course. Heather and Kory were in Kory's station wagon, and Jim and Jason were in Jim's car.

We hit Pennsylvania around 2am. Lots of tolls. Was this on the map? I don't remember this on the map...

Ohio came next at about 6am, but then we got seriously lost because the "Trip Tik" map system they were using sent us north up towards Cleveland. I swear we stopped about 20 miles short of Lake Erie, where my friend Dan lives. Kory was already a bit upset because we were running behind schedule and we ended up driving 250 miles out of the way before we had to backtrack down southwest across Ohio. Thus, we didn't even hit Indiana until 2pm (EDT.. I am on CDT right now). We got to Indianapolis at around 3:30 EDT, and then we got totally lost in a confusing maze of bad neighborhoods around the river area there. Part of the problem was Mapquest was completely incorrect when it came to things like... oh, extra turns and one-way streets. On top of that, police were everywhere because of some baseball game across the street, and they blocked off a lot of other entrances. We had to go around the city twice to get the right way down a one way street to find an entrance to the hotel (which we had to go in the back way past the restaurant).

I was sent ahead to the hotel room while they dumped off the merchandise in the dealer's room. They didn't even get to set up, and we're going to have to do it tomorrow because we got here so late. It turns out the hotel screwed us over by not accepting the credit card that we used to hold the three rooms, and we had to use Liz's to pay for the rooms, which then led to other problems I am not sure I understood. Next, the "High speed Internet access in every room"... is not in ours. In fact, we believe they consider the word "high speed" to mean "a data port in the phone." We couldn't even use AOL to connect, the data line is so bad. So that screwed up a LOT of last-minute stuff we were planning to do, and is why these journal entries are going to be posted after the con. Later I found out the hotel "has wireless" but no one could seem to connect to it, or even detect it. Not even in the lobby, where the wireless modem was. I wish I had thought to bring my spare Cisco 350 card, then use Kismet, but I didn't even consider wireless. That is a mistake I won't make again.

We are all so zonked. I got a few hour-long catnaps for the last 48 hours, but it's not enough, even though I tried delta-sleep a few times. I was so tired, I actually fell asleep sitting up in the van, which is a major accomplishment for me, since I can almost never sleep sitting upright. But Kory has to finalize the schedule because he forgot to bring a copy and they changed stuff around anyway. I am not only doing panels, but I get to be Kory's ... "advisor" during a meeting on Sunday between two warring gaming group factions. He wants my "personal opinion," and since I have studied fandom and their politics for years, I should provide some insight.

We had a short meeting, ate some dinner, and then went back to the hotel room to crash.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy, busy day.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:23 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Gencon - Day 0

Pre-Gencon - Day 0 (Tuesday - Baltimore)

Typing to you from a hijacked laptop running Slackware...

As I type this, I am in a building older than most of your grandparents. I am guessing it was built in the 1860s, judging by the decor and the "Established 1869" on the marble front. It's in downtown Baltimore, and some of you may be asking, "Weren't you going to Indianapolis?" Yes, I still am, but today I am in Baltimore, typing from a disused office in an area decorated with pictures and ads from the late 1860s to early 1900s. I am not kidding. In the kitchen are some finely dressed men advertising alcoholic brews called "Tom and Jerrys" and "Slides" (which were only 5 cents at one time). The rest of the office has old and faded pictures of old ships and things the rich elite of Baltimore were doing around the Civil War. This building is old, and despite some modern touches covering the older facades, one with an eye for hints of history will note lines of marble demarking original floors, aged sconces and borders that speak of another time, and newer plaster and lathe or drywall barely covering up aged marble and basement walls that look less like masonry than they look like an archaeological dig in progress. The post-installations of several decades and various OSHA requirements lay in sagging rates of neglect here and there. The restrooms here, for instance, have a bumpy floor made of several layers of linoleum worn smooth and shiny from over a century of waxing and wear. Plumbing and electrical work hide behind crumbling ceiling panels like a technological afterthought.

This is where Christine works about twice a week, in a shipping company founded in the late 1800s. I am here to help out a little, but also to spend some time with her before I am gone for the next few days.

I got a huge headache yesterday, and spent most of Monday in bed, and not packing as much as I would have liked. Part of this stemmed from the fact that I couldn't find the duffel bag I wanted, and thus, was forced to try and pack things into a smaller one with a zipper about to break. Most of the packing was done in a scramble this morning, and I am sure I have forgotten something.

The plan is this: I leave Baltimore around 4:30, get to a Metro stop roughly at 5:30 (depending on traffic), then ride the rail and get there around 6:30 or 7 (depending on how Metro behaves). I'll be meeting Allison as she comes home from work around 7 at that stop, and then Kory is picking both of us up. Then packing the vehicles, then dinner, then around midnight, I get into Liz's van and we start the 9 hour drive to Indianapolis.

I plan to do this on the cheap, which won't be easy, but hopefully they'll be a supermarket nearby.

We shall see how this works. The best laid plans in fandom...

Posted by Punkie @ 02:07 PM EST [Link]

Monday, August 16, 2004

Innocence Lost...

It's like 4:30 in the am. I couldn't sleep, do I did bills, and then I got so upset about bills I won't be sleeping for a while. So I decided to write an entry.

Hi.

No, wait, I'll think of something better.

Before I wrote this, I wrote and deleted two other rants that were pretty mean. I figured they weren't my style, and I was just pissed at the lack of money, and I was being bitter and jealous. Then I questioned, "Well, why not show the real me? Late at night, still bitter about some fight he had with a guy 13 years ago? What does 'not represent the real me' mean, anyway? People need to know I get jealous and bitter sometimes, right? I'm only human..."

I wrote this really long thing about that guy, and thought someone else might think I was talking about THEM, which, as ol' Sara A. taught me last year, can happen and lead to bad things. This led me to wonder if people knew the real me, and then this anecdote popped into my head.

When I worked retail, my fandom life was separated as far as possible from my work life. I had an "issue" back at Chesapeake Knife and Tool that got complicated because of fandom being both an innocent bystander and a scapegoat. When I started working for Cargo, I kept very squeaky clean and as normal as I could. Of course, that was an act worthy of the greatest Broadway performer, not myself, who quit acting after Prune Bran died. So a few managers knew I was "odd" in some ways, but then again, half our male managers were flaming queers (in a good way), so ostracism was never an issue. But my boss made assumptions about my naive nature I never confirmed nor denied.

When I worked at Springfield Mall, I worked next to a place that sold upscale leather goods, like purses, belts, jackets, and so on. I think it was called "The Leather Factory," but my memory has grown dim with time. Everyone there wore a suit, usually a nice suit. One guy who worked there was a really nice fellow I am going to call "Fiji Joe." I forgot his real name, but he was a big and handsome young Polynesian man with a great weightlifters body. He wasn't very tall, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in bulk and charm. Fiji was a nice guy, and the ladies loved him.

My boss was a very... animated woman. Her name was Phyllis. Some managers hated her guts, but I always got along with her. Phyllis was the type of person with NO qualms about starting personal conversations with strangers, often bringing out smiles in people you would have ignored. Before she became district manager, she was a crack salesperson, and it showed. She often thought of me, I assume from the way she spoke to me, as some kind of slightly slow but lovable oaf. It was a good position to be in because she explained things slowly, and didn't seem to get as upset about my mistakes as she did with other people. She also felt it safe to tell me all this personal stuff about herself and... other managers.

One night, Phyllis was finishing her monthly "store visit," and we had a conversation about another manager she needed to get off her chest. Fiji Joe passed by our store, and Phyllis stopped in mid conversation and said, "Oh my God, what a hunk!" I told her he worked next door. She gasped melodramatically, and asked if I could introduce her. I said, "Well, I am not sure I could go up t him and go, 'Hey, my DM wants to have a conversation with--'"

"Oh, it's not a conversation I want with him, honey," she said.

The topic changed quickly (as it did with her all the time), but shortly afterwards, Fiji Joe passed by the store again. At the time, my glasses were WAY out of perscription because I couldn't afford to get new ones. So Fiji was in a slight blur, but I noticed he wasn't wearing a suit, but some kind of leather jacket with flames on them. Phyllis gasped, and motioned for him to come in. Fiji came in, looking at me, then at Phyllis, who then announced Fiji was gorgeous. Fiji might have blushed, I don't know, but Phyllis started asking him a lot of personal questions. One of them revealed he had worked next door for quite some time, back when Phyllis was manager of this store. She she asked, "Home come I never hired you?" and he said, "I applied, you never hired me!" Phyllis was aghast with herself, and speculated aloud of how crazy she must have been.

During this weird conversation, I noticed that Fiji had something on his shoulder that looked like handcuffs on a very long chain, but they weren't handcuffs. I didn't know what they were. So I stared, and squinted with my blurry vision, and thought they looked like they were coated with rubber tips. What were they? I strained, guessed, and thought. Then suddenly, I remembered what they were!

Phyllis, at that exact moment, asked, "What are those on your jacket?"

"Nipple clamps!" I said, a bit too loudly.

Phyllis gasped in shock. "GRIG!" she said, with a sarcastic disapproval. "How would YOU know?"

"Oh, he's been to Traxx, he knows. He hangs out with Suzi and her flock of friends," said Fiji.

"And who would this SUZI be??" asked Phyllis, stunned.

I was stunned Fiji knew I knew Suzi. "She's ah... well, she illustrated my book."

"I didn't know that!" said Fiji. "What did you write, for Blue Blood?"

Phyllis looked at me. I was on the spot. Blue Blood was an erotic vampire magazine at the time. Oddly enough, I also knew several of the models, one of them being a daughter of a Republican senator. "No, I never wrote for Blue Blood. I published my own science fiction humor book, and Suzi was the house publisher for FanTek at the time, and we got to be really good friends."

"Does CHRISTINE know about Suzi?" asked Phyllis, with a sly look.

"Yes, she does. Suzi comes to my house a lot, often with Rogue."

"Heh heh! Rogue! Yeah, what a pistol." said Fiji. "I have to go, I came to pick up my paycheck. Nice meeting you, Ms. Phyllis."

Suddenly Phyllis and I were alone in an empty showroom.

"So," she said, "tell me how you would know someone with the name of Rogue?"

Heh. It was then she was exposed to a piece of my life I never wanted to share with my manager, but it was too late. For the rest of the time I worked under her, she assumed I knew all about BDSM stuff, which I'd have to ask Suzi, and thus... I got exposed to the BDSM community. And Daddy games. And the Kerchief code.

Some people still think I am this naive, innocent, non-sexual person. I kind of like it that way, but occasionally, it slips out. My close friends know (and some of them were the ones that taught me), but not everyone, and it's always funny to see the looks on their faces when I can explain what a "Violet wand" is, or why strapons have two sides, or how I knew half the staff at Black Leather Times (NSFW) once.

Oh, and reading the old issues of BLT brought back happy memories, so now I feel better and can go to sleep. Thanks, Sarah M. Oakes, wherever you may be...

Posted by Punkie @ 05:58 AM EST [Link]

Odd's n' Ends

I had this big entry, and then Windows crashed. [sigh...] And it wasn't even some big news or anything, just a brilliant essay on the commonality of... okay, it was a lot "odds and ends."

Teach me not to use Linux.

The entry is courtesy of Kwrite and Firefox. All hail Open Source.

Bad Haircut, no Groomer Biscuit!
Our dogs got a bad haircut. Ahfu more than Widget. This news is actually over a week old, but we had the dogs groomed after putting it off for months (financial issues). We budgeted the expense, because while grooming may seem frivolous, it's about as necessary as a haircut and style are for most people. Our dogs have long hair that mats, and without propergrooming, they are stinky knotted grouches. Our normal groomer, Wendy, was out, so we got her alternate instead, and she sucked. First of all, we told her, specifically, not to shave the dogs, or even cut their hair. We specifically told her to shampoo and dry, then trim around the feet, ears, and their nails only. Instead, she also shaved about 50% of Ahfu's hair off, including most of his butt. Now, those who groom Pekes should know that their scrawny back legs should not ever be exposed. He looks horrible from the back. He looks like some kind of weird pig. I hope to God it grows back. For you ladies out there, this would be like going to a stylist to ask for your "dead split ends" to be cut, and ending up with a cut the WAC would be proud of. Widget almost got totally shaved, but luckily, Christine got there early and stopped it before it occurred. He would have looked like a Chihuahua had this happened. No tip for you, Lady.

I Have Olympic Fever
I know I hate sports, but the Olympics are somehow different for me. We saw the Opening Ceremonies on our big screen TV and were totally impressed and floored by the whole thing. I was really pissed off that they did narration over Bjork's song, however. Maybe some don't like her, but that's disrespectful to talk when she's performing. I wish I could have heard her sing rather than listening to Costas and Kurick blab like spoiled children under the bleachers, trying to impress the freshmen with their knowledge.

Did anyone see that Russian(?) guy dislocate his finger on the parallel bars? [wince]

NBC is shamelessly whoring themselves. I was half considering watching some of their new Fall line-up, like LAX, Hawaii, and that animated Lion thing, but now that they keep pushing me, I instinctively am turning my head to the side like a baby refusing sour applesauce in a high chair. I mean, dear God, people... And it seems that this year, the narrators are especially catty. Think you can do better out there? No? Then shut the hell up! Some people's segues are really bad, too. "We feel sorry for those suffering under Hurricane Charley down there in Florida, and speaking of winds, the winds of change are sweeping the ranks of the men's swimming finals..." Tacky, tacky, tacky.

And this is really disturbing: "Strict regulations published by Athens 2004 last week dictate that spectators may be refused admission to events if they are carrying food or drinks made by companies that did not see fit to sponsor the games." Okay, I know the Olympics are a franchise like Worldcon, but this is getting out of hand. The restrictions, which have drawn criticism from Amnesty International, are even harsher for the thousands of stewards and volunteers working at Athens 2004 who have been supplied with uniforms but no shoes. "We have to provide our own shoes and we were told that we shouldn't wear trainers with a bright logo from a sports brand which is not an official sponsor like Adidas," said one.

Great... that sound you just heard was Punkie's faith in international friendship deflating.

The Visitors I have Seen...
Let's see... on Saturday, Christine drove Rogue out to West Virginia, to see Rouge's mom at the hospital (she's doing better), and then Rogue stayed the night here. Then Sawa came over, and they all went out to eat. Then Sawa came back with Christine, and then Sean, Lou, and the kids came over, and we all watched the Women's gymnastic tryouts on our big screen. Good to see both of my Scorpion Sistahs again. Rogue can't be touched by another living thing for another year as part of her cleansing ritual, and Sawa got back from Witch Camp a few weeks ago. Sean is going to law school starting this week. I feel somehow spiritually behind. I may take my tarot cards with me to Gencon, but that doesn't seem like much.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:35 AM EST [Link]

Friday, August 13, 2004

Cats, Doors, and Pointers

I have this theory: Cat's don't under stand the concept of doors.

I didn't come up with this idea on my own, but someone had sparked it when they were so annoyed that when they let their cat out, it just sat in the doorway. "My cat doesn't understand doors!" she screamed. That's when I wondered, does any cat? And can you blame them?

Think about the wild. Does a door, or a door-like concept happen in the wild? Generally, if a path is blocked, it stays blocked for a very long time (fallen tree, for example) and the cat adapts. But what in the wild blocks the path randomly throughout the day, preventing the cat from even seeing what's on the other side? I can't think of anything.

I think cats have a general idea that the path is accessed by calling out a social cry to the other cats (i.e., you), which magically opens the path. It's kind of a learned trait, but one which probably baffles them. They don't understand doors open and close for a reason, so when the door opens, often they just sit there, or they ... go ... through ... slow...ly...

Cat doors are not really doors at all, because they are really openings that the cat can go through at any time. Now if you kept your cat door locked sometimes, this would confuse the cat, and they may not use it as much. I have never had a cat door (I don't want wild animals to get in either), so I am not sure what the "random lock ratio" would be to confuse the puss.

Dogs? I think they are used to them by now, being domesticated for that length of time. You open the door and ZOOM! Also, I have this half-assed theory that since canines used to dig through burroughs for prey or sleep in ones they made themselves, the concept of making an enclosed space with a sealed entrance makes slightly more sense. I say "half-assed" because I have really thought this one through yet, and I am sure the argument of cats not having this is full of holes.

Cats also REALLY don't understand pointing at all. "What's this hand doing up there? Why is he shouting?" I have been told only a few breeds of dogs understand pointing, called, oddly enough, "pointers." The concept of pointing is so abstract, that it's not immediately apparent. Pointing means you are conveying your thoughts to another person, which means the receiver has to actually have a concept that others outside themselves think differently than they do. Some dogs can me trained to look in the diurection you are pointing because, and I was told this by a duck hunter, they respond to the throwing action of the point, like you just tossed a toy. If you pointed at them, for instance, they look behind them, turn in circles, and act confused.

So don't feel bad if your cat doesn't understand doors. I have one cat I think has an idea that doorknob = open door, but sadly, he has no opposable thumbs, so he grabs the doorknob and hangs there for a few moments. I have heard of cats that do open doors, usually door handles, but some actually use loose doorknobs.

I'm not sure where my theory fits there.

Posted by Punkie @ 02:35 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Want some mon-ay...

Having no money sucks. One of the worries I have about Gencon is food and incidentals. I am hoping wherever our hotel is, I can get to a supermarket and get what I used to eat at cons back when I was poor: a jar of peanut butter and a loaf of bread. Not much to sustain on for 5 days, but Kory's company can only afford two meals for everyone for the whole trip. Small business and all. I mean, apart from what we sell of our own works, none of us are getting paid to work the table. This is not a part-time job by any standards, and I will also make sure it's not an expensive hobby, either. I just feel this is the right thing to do.

Back when I worked at Springfield Mall, they had this huge meeting for store managers where the head of the Mall PR said that they were borrowing on the advertising budget of the next two years to fund today's ad budget. Uh... stupid. But then I went and did the same thing a few months ago.

Part of our ongoing crisis is that we owe a relative $1000. In cash. I so didn't want to borrow it for this very reason, but she kind of forced it on us while we were weak, and without it, no one could have gotten Fran. We normally are not doing that bad this time of year, but after Fran's death... well, Christine tells it better than I can. Frankly, all the taking care of him, with travel, hotel, food, and the like... I am in credit card debt hell. I tried to back out of Vegas, but that would have fucked over Tracie's wedding (which I am really glad we got to see), plus a lot of stuff we already paid for way in advance to get it on the cheap (Grand Canyon, Hotel, etc.) and thus, was not refundable. That was before we knew about Fran. Funny thing is, we only found out about it because of this big family reunion Christine was planning, but due to lack of interest and money... we ended up canceling. Of course, the thought of Fran dying alone sucks worse, so I would still make the same decision all over again. But as I look at our financial situation right now... I am worrying about Christmas big time. I won't pay off this debt until at least June of next year. And what sucks about credit card debt is the interest. I am used to paying off the balances every month. Now my interest alone is an additional $120/month. Two of these cards were for "emergencies only," and these WERE emergencies, but now we're one more emergency from some serious insolvency. And she wants that $1000 back? I want to say, "Jesus, I am sorry, Hon, but I did tell you that it was a bad idea to loan us money." I knew when she was all "I got this huge court case settlement, pay me back when you want," it was buying a solution today in exchange for tomorrow's problem. And I knew she would turn the "pay me back whenever" to "uh... whenever is now..."

The other job (the one with the raise) is going nowhere. Christine doesn't want me to take a second job, and I know in my heart I might be able to take a second job health-wise. But that voice of guilt keeps coming up, the one where I hear about someone's parent working two jobs and going to night school. Christ, Sean had three kids, a full-time job, and he's going back to college to get a law degree. It's not a fable. I get so angry at myself for reaching so high and falling so short. That's me, the C+ Kid.

Anyway, amid this purging of guilt of my own lack of aptitude, I am looking forward to having this next week "off," or at least away from my job. The morale of my office is really hit rock bottom, and has started digging. I don't want to go into it, but when people are openly insulting each other in frustration of lack of action under a lack of management... it sucks your soul. Part of me wants to be thankful I have a job I am good at but I have to clear my head a little.

Posted by Punkie @ 04:26 PM EST [Link]

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Com'ere little boy... give daddy the naughty book... [pant pant pant]

Okay, this sucks...

This is why I fear security. This is why I hate being searched. Shit like this. Many years ago, before 9-11, airline security confiscated my Albuterol inhaler (needed to prevent asthma attacks). Why? "No aerosol propellants allowed in the aircraft." I have since been told by many people that this was insane, they have been allowed to take their inhalers, yatta yatta... I have heard it all. And since I hate being confrontational, I just hope I won't get an asthma attack until I am reunited with my luggage.

Then, after my infuriation wore off, I thought, "Maybe he made it up. Maybe this blogger just had a bad day and wanted some attention. Maybe they were stalling him for some other reason he failed to mention, like his winter jacket on a summer day, dark glasses, and thick accent. I have been fooled this way before." Then I feel bad for thinking that, because God knows how much crap happens to me that people give me the raised eyebrow. It's gotten to the point I've stopped telling people a lot of stuff that happens to me because it's just not worth wondering whether they'd believe it or not. But this guy's story seems ... well, fishy. I am not sure why. I have read it and reread it, and nothing he says sounds way out of line (I look for movie quote like moments, indicative of an exaggerated story), although I would have held the book aloft and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen who are waiting to get on the Ferry. May I have your attention for a few moments. Ferry security has deemed that this book, a gaming supplement in my bookbag, is inappropriate and wants to confiscate it. Does anyone else feel threatened or uncomfortable that I bring this book with me, sealed in my backpack? Or would they feel a security escort to be a better idea? A show of hands for those who do not care if I bring this book with me on the ferry." Maybe I have been fooled too many times, or stood behind someone who changed their story to a lesser version that really altered how I would have supported them if I had known. "How dare you hit my friend?? Oh, he hit your first? With a ballpeen hammer? And there's the film to prove it ... well, look at that ... yes, there you are hitting him, in a desperate flail to stop the deadly blows from crushing your skull ... sorry, I didn't know... grrrrr..." [this never happened]

But if it is true? First I said to myself, "this would be one of the first hints I have to leave this country." But then I thought about it. The security person was obviously a dick. Over the vast array of human history, there have been dicks like this security guy. I have met a few that have really pissed me off. Part of me wonders if the security guy really thought it was hard core pr0n, and wanted to "confiscate it" for himself? [pant ... pant ... pant] It reminds me of a scary question someone once asked aloud, "What kind of person reviews the child porn they confiscate for evidence? Who would volunteer for such a job?" You know they say that those who crave power only to abuse it will always seek positions of power. That's why a lot of checks and balances have to be put in place. That's why we must ensure that no one person has all the power.

And I'm not totally convinced any other country is any better off than we are.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:59 PM EST [Link]

Tired...zzzzz

I am not a happy camper.

I got my usual 6 hours of sleep last night, but I woke up so tired that even 2 cups of ulcer-irritating coffee didn't do the trick. I am so sleepy, and spacing out so much. What the hell happened? Next, and I am sure this is worse because I am so tired, my back hurts a lot. My lower back has been hurting more and more as the week has progressed. It's a muscular thing, no asking about my kidneys, they are fine.

One of the things I am concerned about is getting sick for Gencon. My luck for going to events haven't been good in that department. I am so going to take it easy the few days before. No experimental diets, heavy lifting, or hanging around sick people. I also hope I don't overshoot my target and get sick worrying about being sick.

Why am I so flippin' tired? Gaaah...

Posted by Punkie @ 03:20 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Gencon musings...

I finally found the updated MSD schedule for Gencon today. I think Kory's a little stressed. We have lost more people due mostly in part to people finding actual, working, paying jobs. He is trying not to leave me alone at the table, but I am working longer hours than he would have liked. I don't mind, really, since I primarily went to Gencon to work with MSD. In fact, part of my concern is, "What am I going to do there when I don't have to work the table?"

Maybe nap.

Actually, I think I am going to wander around a bit. Not just the merchant's room, but maybe see a little of Indianapolis. I have never been there, nor anywhere in the state of Indiana, for that matter. All I see that might interest me is a Zoo, but their hours are only 9-5 (most of those hours I am working), and it's not free like the DC Zoo; you have to pay $13 to get in. Plus, there doesn't seem to be a way to get there that doesn't involve a car, and it's $5 for parking. There's the Indiana State Fair, which led me to think, "Uh oh ... same week as Gencon? Good-bye parking..." It's only 5 miles away, and costs about $6 and ends at 10pm on weeknights. I might try and gather some interested folks. Yee-haw.

Oh, at the con itself? Well, I think I'll visit the Atlas Games booth, and try and mooch freebies. They make the game "Lunch Money," and are promoting their new expansion packs, "Sticks and Stones," and "Beer Money." Looney Labs also has a booth, and I know some of the people who work there, so I'll go say hi. But the trouble is, each event requires a separate ticket. True, most events start off at a price of only $1.50 per 2 hours, but still. I am used to going to cons and noting badge = all access. Maybe pay extra for a LARP, but it seems a majority of events require tickets. I think. They don't exactly make it clear, but I think any tournament requires 1-2 tickets (depending on length), all the major events and talks require a ticket, and the rest is hard to guess. That whole thing kind of bums me out, because what if I go to a talk, and the person is boring? I recall one Philcon where Timothy Zhan cleared a room with his monotone drone and constant interaction with one or two fanboys arguing over his Cobra series.

David Carradine (from the TV Series "Kung Fu" and, of course, the recent blockbuster "KIll Bill") will be there for signing autographs. In fact, they have an unusual cavalcade of stars, including Linda Blair. The most surprising thing about this is that Gencon claims the guests are not being paid (thus, will charge $20-25 per autograph), and I am surprised for not being paid, and as famous as David is right now, that he has such a brutal signing schedule! I mean, like almost every day, with two 3-hour shifts a day. I doubt he needs the money. Maybe he just really likes the fans.

I thought I'd volunteer, but they only have "programs." You have to commit to 16 hours (more than I want to do) or 32 hours (yikes!). But at 16, your badge gets reimbursed, and at 32, you get your hotel room paid for, which is kind of cool. Now, here's an interesting sidenote for their volunteers.

At the conclusion of the convention, volunteers should turn their completed and signed time sheets to the customer service desk. You will be required to fill out a W9 form.

A W9? For getting paid nothing? And submitting my SSN and personal info to essentially a bunch of total strangers? Ah ... no. No, no, no. Sorry, Gencon. Speaking with my Balticon insider pal Seth, he brought up a lot of liabilities they would now be under, like Workman's Comp and so on. Then, technically, you'd have to pay taxes on your refunds. All I can think of is that Gencon isn't a volunteer-run convention (in fact, it used to be a TSR-sponsored event in the olden days, IIRC), and fall under some employee law in Indiana. Totally weird.

So... I wonder what the room parties will be like? Kory knows a lot of industry people, so I have a feeling if we're not too tired, we'll be attending a few after-hours social events. He already said he'd introduce me to "the real creator of D&D," Dave Arneson. I have already met Gary Gygax, but he is always under some dark web of intrigue and accusations of past tomfoolery which I don't really want to touch. All I know is D&D gave me a social life and a ticket out of my childhood hell. It's D&D's 30th anniversary, by God, and I want to toast my inner child for choosing the right path.

We shall see. I am looking forward to next week with both anticipation and trepidation.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:51 PM EST [Link]

Monday, August 9, 2004

The Dollhouse

Something April had said to me over the weekend has been mulling around in my head. She spoke of a PTSD case where a woman had said that when she was a little girl, she never played with toys. Instead, she had a dollhouse, and all she did was set the dollhouse up to the finest details. All the furniture was arranged just so, and when everything was perfect, she just sat there, looking at it. As an adult, she was the same way, and her life drove her nuts because she could not control her own life like that dollhouse. Like, for instance, she only let her child play with one toy at a time, and when that child was done, the toy was to be put away, and the child was allowed to pick a second toy. The caseworker assigned to her said this was an extension of what she did as a small child. One of the major symptoms of PTSD was that fine detail of control.

I can relate on many levels to that story. April says that childhoods like mine are like PTSD, but I even though I don't quite agree with that, I agree there may have some of the same symptoms, and when I was a kid, my "dollhouse" was my obsessive D&D collection or the constant sorting of my Legos. But I hate to slap a severe label on my childhood to claim it's PTSD, like comparing it to Auschwitz or something. I mean, it sucked, but not that bad. Maybe my mother's suicide was the closest to PTSD I came.

Then I ran into this essay about being good. And suddenly, a light bulb clicked on. Then it popped and cracked, but a lot of the article still makes sense to me:

Our vision of goodness has developed from the accumulated experience and folk wisdom of many centuries. Unfortunately, almost all of those centuries differ from our own in certain key ways. Our ideas about what it means to be good are severely out of date. We may not have realized it yet, but many of our best people are suffering for it.

I really try to be a good person, and I always fall far short of my goals. A lot of people say I am a good person, but I always think, "No, I am not. I am only 10% of what I should be. Because I can't stay on top of the housework, I have an ant problem, I don't exercise enough, and when people need me, I am often unable to do a damn thing to turn their life around for the better." My own dollhouse of being good comes from a desire for perfection; a strict control on being perfect and almost angelic.

I had a friend who used to say he didn't hate anyone. Not a single person. He said that frequently on his own and dropped it into random conversations with suspicious frequency. Yet, he had a position of power, and people in that position tend to become targets for others. I am not sure if he felt that being in that position meant he could not actually state he hated anyone for fear of starting wars, or he just had a desperate need for being liked. And when he was alerted to the fact that some people had publicly stated he was awful in some way (usually out of context, or said by people who were not pleasant people to begin with), he would either dismiss the person, or in rare cases, define them in one of two ways: head injury or child molester. At a particularly stressful time in his career, there seemed to be a lot of child molesters with head injuries in his life. It was from him that I learned that there was no such thing as being a total martyr. We are all human, and whether we admit it or not, we have human frailties. How he defined them was his own business, and it was interesting to see how he dealt with them. If the data does not fit the hypothesis, redefine the data. Later, he stopped defining people this way, and he actually got to the point of stating that some people were, indeed, jerks. He progressed just fine.

Yet, I have not progressed as far. I want to be good to everyone, and I want everyone to have a good time. I obsess over some of my friend's problems sometimes, like how so-and-so is finally going to get a good boyfriend, or maybe this friend can get a job where his mortal soul isn't being compromised on a daily basis. When shit happens to me, I look at the huge vast array of shit piled upon me, and shrug. "Eh," goes myself. But when shit happens to a good friend, or even worse, Christine and CR? "Why why why whyyy????" I am psychodramatic so they don't have to be, I guess. I strive so hard to be good, and to do good things on a daily basis, like how that woman arranged her doll furniture just so, and when I do a good deed, especially anonymously, I feel a Zen-like peace. Even for small stuff. Like getting another round of coffee started at work if the coffee is low, or wiping the counter from some other slob's spill even though was have a cleaning staff that comes into the kitchen twice a day. I pick up trash that's not mine and throw it away, pray or think good thoughts for strangers, and volunteer for stuff no one else wants to do. Hell, I had to stop that last one because I couldn't handle it all.

What got me was this part of the essay:

The good person of today lives with a constant sense of inadequacy and in the presence of many poorly articulated and hence unmet personal needs. To the extent that the good person realizes what is going on, he/she feels trapped and helpless. He/she may project the resulting anger onto particular people (while at the same time guiltily sensing that it is not really their fault), internalize it as depression, or project it onto the culture as a whole in the form of bitterness. The good person constantly searches for practical techniques that will yield greater efficiency or for spiritual practices that will allow him/her to draw on an infinite source of energy. From time to time some new trick or insight does unlock new energy, but inevitably the good person's unbounded commitments suck up the new energy and leave him/her no better off than before. To disconnect from the sources of the unbounded demands would mean becoming a bad person (or admitting to being a broken person), and it would be unbearable. Moreover, if this device worked it would throw the formerly good person into a grave spiritual and philosophical crisis. What kind of world do we live in if a bad person can live a more deeply satisfying life than a good person can?

This hit a nerve. I think this is what the term "Patience of Job" stems from. I mean, crap kept happening to him, but he remained faithful. Most people would have cracked; I know I certainly would have after losing all my children. But I am left with this nagging doubt of "admitting defeat means you have succumbed to evil." Every moment I take for myself increases my guilt in some way. And after a while, it reaches a level of saturation and I actually fulfill my worst fears, like how I was unable to attend Bobbie's funeral. I knew I couldn't take it. The ultimate act of shameful selfishness, but I knew if I went, I'd commit an even bigger act by getting hysterically emotional, and then people would have to support me, and that would have been rude and inappropriate. My stomach is in a knot of guilt about that whole thing, but the soothing voice of, "I guess you did the right thing, you didn't fuck up other people, so there is that ... but you should have been able to show your support, now Betty and Jim won't like you anymore. And should they? You suck." Depression is like a heavy blanket: comforting, but suffocating as well.

I have questioned my decision to be good so much. A lot. I feel guilty for questioning it, but I have to be honest. Is it because I want to be a martyr? No. Or I'd go around telling people what an awesome, great person I am. Is it even for attention? Not really, since I do "good deeds" anonymously that most won't notice all the time. I think I do it for control. Why?

Maybe because many thought of my dad as evil. I mean, other kids feared him. You know that sixth sense kids have that something's wrong? The voice that tells them not to go into the woods, or talk to that strange man in the car? That's how my peers reacted to my dad. When I grew up, I found a lot of adults did, too. My father left a wake of angry and pissed off people. Most held their tongue in front of me, but a few did know I was listening, or some didn't care. "It's like your father has no soul," said one man at an IEEE function to me. He was referring to my father's jovial nature right after my mother died. I didn't know what to say, I just nodded. I was still in shock about the whole thing then, and I didn't know why he dragged me to these functions in the months after my mother died and before he started dating Nicole. I guess he didn't want to be alone, although he left me alone right after he came through the door. Another person I spoke to years later about my father being IEEE Chair (for the Northern, VA Section) said, "He was more harmful than useless, but only just." The most striking thing I recently heard about my dad was from his Navy days. I always assumed he left the Navy to either pursue an electronics engineer education or because he knew Vietnam was around the corner, and didn't want to me in actual conflict (he served 1958-1962, I believe). But after his mother's death, I heard some of his former shipmates state that my father was "unwilling to taking orders from superiors" and "no one would serve under him." He was very disliked by his shipmates, it would seem. He was, as they say, "a bad apple." So I am sure his parting with the Navy was a mutual agreement. This was his legacy. I uncover more stuff about him as the years go by in the most unexpected places. And I have also found that many people were scared of me, thinking along the lines (metaphorically) that if my dad was Satan, then I was the son of Satan.

So is it any wonder I really don't want to be like him? My father was cruel, cold-hearted, selfish, uncaring, and uncooperative. I have strived very hard to be the opposite. My hatred for him and what I saw him to other people is part of my driving force to be a decent person. Maybe that's "why" (in a destiny sort of way) my childhood was so bad, if my father had been nice to me or something, I would have turned out to be a selfish prick. Maybe the streak of insanity that runs through my ancestral veins has been redirected into this drive for perfection in a totally opposite manner by some divine force or freak of happenstance. How I got that way is a mystery, I certainly had plenty of opportunity to be otherwise. Maybe the desire to be good is because I am insane.

And is that such a bad thing? I don't know. But if you'll excuse me, I have to sort my Legos and make a dollhouse.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:50 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, August 8, 2004

Party Weekend

This weekend went pretty good. I like getting used to no calamities.

April A. came by late Friday night/Saturday morning. She was still wide awake, so we discussed a whole bunch of stuff, from head injuries to how the brain works. We even discussed a bit about our pasts, and how we have dealt with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), which is currently April's specialty. She works with both kids and adults.

The next morning, I got ready for our "There's No Con - We Need a Party" party. Around this time, Christine used to host her Castlecon artist party, but because there was no Castlecon, we had this one instead. In attendance were my family, Sean, Lou, April, Dave, Kris, Mark, Bruce, and Cheryl. We had a pretty good time, and since it was pot luck, a lot of great dishes were brought in. Christine made her famous meatballs, and also made a cheesecake and a raspberry mousse cake. Dave brough some kind of chicken dish that was fabulous, and Mark brought some awesome cookies. I dragged out my Legos, and Bruce and CR built things while everyone else played games.

I also did some Tarot readings. I have not done Tarot in... ages. I was afraid the cards would not speak to me, but they spoke VERY loud and clear. I did two readings for two different people, and it wore me out. I can't divulge what readings came out, but one of them was really strong; one of the strongest I have done in ages. Every time I do Tarot, I wish I could do more, but the mental concentration is really taxing. I was tapped out by 2am, and went to bed. The party ended around 4.

Today, I have been mostly cleaning up, although it wasn't so bad this time because everyone else had mostly picked up after themselves. Christine had cleaned the kitchen pretty well, which was helpful when a wave of ants came in. I hate ants. I don't know why I pay Orkin, I have ants whether they come or not. All it ever seems they do is spray, and I spray, and I get the same results. Why am I paying $45/month to have them spray?

Oh, and thanks to Travis, I got 2 free monitors. Thanks, Travis!

Posted by Punkie @ 05:40 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, August 7, 2004

There's more to life than this...

A long time ago, I got turned onto a group known as "The Sugarcubes." I don't recall who, but it was someone in the FanTek writer's group who turned me onto this group. Some of you punk/emo/goth people know who the female lead vocalist was, and what she ended up doing. The history of this girl is interesting, and only when I became an older teen did I find out the semi-glam punk band was from Iceland, which I thought was "tre exotic." I found out she was a teen, who had a varied musical background. Her father Gundomnd was a producer, and she ended up being a very talented musician. She appeared as a star on Icelandic TV by age 8 or so, and by 11, she had her first album. I later found out I had listened to an LP of her first punk band, Tappi Tikarass, from a friend of mine who got me hooked onto early Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Shortly after I got married, the lead singer broke out on her own with a solo work. The way I found out was I was watching MTV late at night, and came across "Human Behavior," a totally weird video with a great song. And the the singer's distinct voice and poetic lyrics was very familiar. Yes, it was Bjork from the Sugarcubes! Since my eclectic taste in music was shared only with the voices in my head, we all went out and bought "Debut," and listened to the cassette over and over again while I was taking the bus back and forth to work. I almost wore it out.

First of all, Bjork is nuts. I mean, certifiably, over-eccentric, raised-by-artistic-parents-in-a-commune nuts. She represents what happens to the human brain when they have been raised outside of society's norm, given a ton of intellect, and reacted to the real world with the grace and style of a gibbon. I doubt I could meet her in person, because I bet after a few hours, we'd get into a physical altercation. I have seen her in interviews, and she's what my wife and I would call "touched." Part child, part animal, and all poetic genius. I mean, she's smart. Real smart. But her temper tantrums, anger, and soulful primitive cries wailed into a microphone make me believe if she didn't have music, she'd be in an insane asylum. Her music and poetry are raw, primitive, and emotional.

I love her work, but she scares me.

In the last few days, I have been converting a bunch of albums I have to vorbis ogg files, and I just burned a CD version of Debut I didn't know I had. I think I got it from a friend who asked if I wanted it when I got my first CD player (in 1994, I know I am behind the times, but you'll be happy to know the first album I bought was Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon"), or maybe I ordered it from Half.com, or from a promo back when SecondSpin.com kept sending me voluminous coupons. I don't recall. So I burned it to my hard drive, and spent part of last night and this morning listening to tracks I haven't heard since... well, 1993 or so.

The memories it brought back...

One track in mind was "There's More to Life Than This," which seems to be the effect of someone singing over a generic dance club music and mocking it. Like the real song had generic club lyrics and pseudo-Motown backup singers (the kind that Lou Reed called "the colored girls that go 'doo do doo do doo do do doo'"). The effect of the song is that Bjork's voice seems to be singing in your ear over the other song, and even as you go into the women's restroom with her, and you can picture her singing into the mirror, adjusting her makeup, before kicking open the door back into the lame dance club floor. This song was so... close to my experiences at really bad parties, and the people I hung out with.

come on girl!
let's sneak out of this party
it's getting boring
there's more to life than this!

As a gothy young teen, we'd sneak into some dumbass kid's party, who was too drunk or stoned to notice, grab free food, and maybe even nick some stuff (I never did, but I had some friends who actually stole albums and small stuff like that). The parties got boring real quick. I mean, they were usually half over by the time we got there, as the punk and goth element were one of the first signs your party has been crashed in general, and within a few hours, the cops would be there for some reason. Not that I ever tossed billiard balls into some rich kid's parent's greenhouse windows. Nope. Who would have guessed plastic shatters, too?

it's still early morning
we could go down to the harbor
and jump between the boats
and see the sun come up

This is awesome. Marinas in the morning are often chilly, and everything is wet from the dew, even if it was 80 degrees last night. The air is crisp, maybe misty, and you can sometimes see your breath and the breath of your comrades. At sunrise, the marina is dead except for a few early fishermen, and you feel alone, like the world was really only open you those that had beaten the night.

we could nick a boat
and sneak off to this island
i could bring my little ghettoblaster
there's more to life than this!

I never stole a boat (cars I would never admit to), but sometimes a friend would bring their little ghetto blaster (does anyone use that term anymore? It used to mean "boom box" or a portable stereo with a big handle on the top), and we'd play something. Well, honestly, among my friends, that wasn't too common because the goth crowd doesn't exactly try and get noticed by blasting Robert Smith or Black Flag. And back then, ghettoblasters were fairly big and heavy, like the size of 4 reams of copier paper.

but then we'd have to rush back
to the town's best baker
to get the first bread of the morning
there's more to life than this!

Or the first Krispy Kreme donuts, or when the coffee at some diner was just brewed. We didn't have many bakeries in downtown Vienna, except the Amphora's, and they baked bread all day and night, being a 24/7 restaurant. The Krispy Creme on Route 1 used to have these laminated steel outdoor tables and benches, and we'd sit and share a box of donuts, drinking hot coffee, getting our asses wet from the dew that had condensed on the metal overnight. You were kind of loopy on sleep-dep, high on coffee and sugar, looking at the Saturday morning traffic starting to pick up.

Goth1: I am so tired.
Goth2: Fuck, yeah.
Goth3: Where can I get some chocolate?
Goth2: This coffee is terrible.
Goth3: Don't eat all the donuts!
Goth1: So, like, do you think that girl at the counter was scared of us?
Goth2: Who gives a shit.
Goth3: She was so establishment. So bourgeoisie.
Goth1: I want chocolate, too.
Goth2: How much money you got left?
Goth3: I am tapped out, I just gave you my last nickel for the coffee.
Goth1: I got about a buck fifty. Let me have another donut.
Goth2: Between us, we have enough for 4 candy bars at High's over there.
Goth3: There's more to life than this...
Goth2: When does the Dairy Queen open?

Oh yeah. Good times.

Posted by Punkie @ 06:09 PM EST [Link]

On sickness, bills, and lactose intolerance...

I didn't feel well after class Thursday, which ended early, but gave the option to stay if we were C programmers who wanted to apply Perl to C. I left after the official class was done, thanked the teacher, and went home. I spent some of the day cleaning, and some copying CD songs into ogg files for my server. I didn't get much sleep. I was pretty sick, and I think it was the lunch I had there. I ended up finally getting into sleep around 5am, and woke up at 2. Luckily, Christine called me in sick.

I have been having blood pressure problems, the return of migraines (they come and go), and just general malaise today. A friend was supposed to come by Friday, but she got stuck in traffic from Boston to here, and as I am writing this, she probably won't arrive until 1am or so. I have to stay up for her, because someone has to let her in.

I killed some time going through bills early, and good thing I did because our insurance has REJECTED Christine's hospital stay, saying it was longer than necessary, and require a meeting with the doctor, the hospital, and Christine to prove she was really sick. This is ironic because Christine didn't want hospitalized in the first place. They forced her, stating her life was in danger. Gaaah!

Last time this happened, we were bilked, and bilked HARD because of these "three-way meetings." CR was about 4, and he went to the emergency room for an asthma attack. They gave him some meds, he felt better, and we went home. Then, a few hours later, he got very much worse. So they treated him with different drugs, and those worked, he was sent home, and we thought insurance would pay for it. here's how that went:

1. Insurance paid for it.
2. About six months later, they changed their minds and rejected it.
3. The hospital sent us a bill for the first visit. Over $1200.
4. We called the insurance company, They said it was a double bill. We explain he went twice in the same day. They said they'd pay it.
5. The hospital calls a few weeks later: they haven't been paid.
6. Call insurance company. The said it was a double bill. We re-explain he went twice in the same day. This time, they said they'd call the hospital and straighten it out.
7. A month later, the hospital calls and says if we don't pay them in full immediately, they are sending us to a collection agency. We explain the insurance company was supposed to pay it.
8. The insurance company seems baffled: they claim to have paid it.
9. We conference call in the the hospital, insurance, and ourselves. They get it all straightened out.
10. A YEAR later, we get a call from a collections agency. The bill is now $1500, and we are delinquent for over a year.
11. We call the hospital, furious. They claim it was an accident. They don't know how it got referred to collections. They seem sympathetic, but it takes a long time to get them to alert the collections company.
13: A few months later, the collections company FREEZES OUR BANK ACCOUNTS. Since this was done illegally, the bank realized their mistake, and unfroze them about 48 hours later. They also paid for the bounced checks this caused. We start the whole hospital-insurance-bill collector conference waltz again.
12: Several months later, the collections company says they will settle for $425. We tell them we owe nothing to anyone, insurance paid for this over a year ago. We get a letter from our previous insurance company, which was very difficult, because now we were under another plan. We fax everyone proof of payment. We don't hear from anyone.
13: It's now 4 or 5 years later. While trying to get a car loan, the $425 is showing "unresolved." In order to get the car, we have to pay it off. GRRRR! Now the case is SO old, it's easier to pay the bullies the $425. They won. Fuckers.

This has happened with another bill, one to a vet's office. That's a whole 'nother story, but the summary was that the vet did a procedure we did not approve, the cat died, they billed us, we told them we didn't have the money, they sent us to a collection agency in less than 4 weeks (and this company hired the worst, most unscrupulous people), and we ended up paying them off. They never recorded we paid them off, so we had to pay them off again to get the car loan. Then, when we bought the house, they STILL claim we never paid them, and we had to pay them off AGAIN. The same $350 has been paid three times now!

So you can see why this whole affair makes us nervous.

In other news, I tried Lactaid for the first time. As a kid, I drank milk in huge quantities. The concept of Lactose-intolerant was know to me, since many of my friends had it, but I felt invincible. Then, around age 24 or so, I began to notice that milk and I were not getting along. Now, over ten years later, a glass of milk makes me very sick indeed. It's gotten to the point where milk-based items like ice cream and cheese are starting to have the same effect. I keep hearing all kinds of stuff from people about this being common, or it was because I didn't keep drinking milk. All I know is I am having the same allergic reaction to milk that I do with certain types of vegetables and legumes (notably beans and corn), and eggs. Honestly, living without corn, beans, milk, and ice cream don't bug me much. Living without cheese sucks, though. So I tried my first glass of Lactaid Milk, that supposedly has the enzymes I need to digest milk.

Bzzzzt. Thank you for playing.

Luckily, I was very cautious with the Lactaid. I only drank about half a cup, and it was hard to swallow. It was sweet and thick, and tasted like I was drinking melted weak ice cream. Not more than a few minutes later, I had a mild reaction which turned pretty severe after about an hour. In fact, with the half-cup I drank, I had more of a reaction than I do with two cups of milk. The symptoms went away about an hour later, but I can just imagine if I drank a whole glass! Misery, misery, misery...

Posted by Punkie @ 01:11 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Buildings and blood pressure

So far, it's been a pretty slow week as far as events go, which is a VERY good change. Most of the time, I have sitting in a classroom, stuffing my brain with programming knowledge until it leaks out my ears like an overstuffed turkey.

I am in the Dulles campus for this class, even though I work at the Reston office. This campus still has that "squeaky new" feeling; the building I am in is less than 2 years old. Reston was a building we bought, and it used to be part of a viral research lab until one of its sister labs accidentally released an ebola monkey just down the road in 1989. When we bought it, it was like a fortress, but then my company added some nice windows, bulged out some corners to make conference rooms, and even more recently, with the sale of a huge data center in nearby Gainesville (home of soft burgers for dogs), they are planning to somehow add more space by building into the parking lot, putting in a garage, and possibly buying the old Sprint building across the street (all just speculation, currently). The thing I like about Reston is I have an office. A real office with a door I can close and everything. In Dulles, it's all about open space and pods. To get a real enclosed office, you have to be some real bigwig, but then you also get huge windows that usually overlook the construction of yet another building on campus. Our offices in Reston only have windows if you are on the ends of hallways, which means 80% of us don't know the weather, or even if it's light or dark outside unless we go down a hallway.

To change the topic: healthwise, my blood pressure is getting out of hand. I switched to a new medication a few months ago, and it's slowly beginning to show that it's not up to the job. Yesterday, I was in class, feeling my skin pulse, feeling my joints swelling up, hearing the blood rush through my ears, and I was sitting perfectly still. Then later, it dropped suddenly (I was still sitting), and I almost fainted. Yeah. Not good. I don't think the HCTZ is working, and I am going to try and get back on the Verapamil. In the meantime, I REALLY have to stay away from caffeine, which will make my alertness go way down, especially in the mornings. ZZZZZZ... Bleah.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:30 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Worst chicken

Not you, Travis

Okay, right now, I am forcing down my lunch. I am having the worst "fried chicken" I have ever been served. No, I don't think it's spoiled, or poisoned, it's just prepared badly. Why?

First, the menu in the cafeteria said "Fried Chicken - 5.95." I had the other item on the menu, "Terragon Tuna wrap," yesterday. It was... well, not horribly bad, but the menu of this place is filled with stuff that sounds like some exotic French chef was trying to impress his mother. "Mustard Chicken with Fennel," and "Rice Pilaf - with Plum Vinagrette." This entry just said "Fried Chicken" with a sub-explanation of the "seasoned flour" it used. Since I didn't want to have a salad, a wrap, or a salad, I ordered the Fried Chicken.

It was a salad. What I actually got was a salad, composed of leathery, limp, vinegary, and dry lettuce that the weak plastic fork they give you cannot puncture, really spicy purple onions, tomatoes with a skin as hard as the lettuce, two ... crouton substitutes (baked torillla wedges which taste like salty paper mache), and the "Fried Chicken" on top of it were actually some kind of cold chicken chunks about the size of popcorn, where half of them were actually just crusty/chewy batter with NO chicken in them, and the total volume of chicken/batter chunks were less than a 4-piece chicken nugget order from a McDonald's Happy Meal. No dressing, either, which isn't as bad as it would be for some, because I don't like dressing. The whole salad has this spicy, vinegary, onion flavor.

In top of that, I HATE salad. I will eat it when forced to, but I wanted A MEAL, and $5.95 is a f**king hell of a lot for a salad. I didn't have a chance to return it because it's one of those assembly line cafeterias where you only find out what your food looks like at the register, and I'd have to backtrack against the traffic flow, create a scene, and then my whole day would be ruined as I spent hours afterwards thinking about what I should have said, but was so angry, I just made a lot of spoonerisms and mixed up syntax. You know, "Chake this thicken back, I fried wanted chicken, not salad this lettuce meal for rabbits... aw, huck it to fell..."

I never can speak right when I get mad.

So I just took it, and I have to eat this wretched "chicken" salad with my fingers because the fork tines broke on the rubber ball sections they probably try and pass off as a tomatoes. I have since found out the cafeteria went "seriously downhill" due to a lobby on campus for a "more healthier menu."

Posted by Punkie @ 12:53 PM EST [Link]

Yawn... and clean those feet!

My first day of Advanced Perl class ended yesterday, and so far, so good. I don't have much to comment on it except by the end of the day, my brain felt like it was hemorrhaging. I didn't sleep well last night because my back hurt a LOT from changing the cat box (it was nasty), and I had laundry to do anyway, so I have had about 4 hours of sleep. That's not abnormal for me, I'd say I have about 4 hours of sleep about two nights on any given week, but I would really rather not have that little sleep and then have to attend a hard core class the next day.

Because my ulcer is finally calming down, I want to stay off the Java Juice, but today is not going to be one of those days. Thank goodness I carry a pack of antacids with me.

On another note, I seem to have stumbled upon a new trend: people stopped giving a damn about their shoes. I started noticing it among the younger crowd a few years ago; people who wear flip-flops or those one-banded sandals. I am not talking about Burkenstocks, I am talking about footwear that I only used to see around swimming pools and beaches. I know it's the summer, but I see less and less shoes and sandals, and more and more of these cheap-ass dimestore flip-flops. But now it's like 75% or more of the population I meet at the supermarket. I have a message for a lot of you out there, mostly the ladies and teen girls:

Look, I am not one to tell people what they should wear and what they shouldn't, but if you are going to wear flip-flops in public, here are a few things you should know. First of all, walk properly in them. Stop shuffling your feet like you are ice skating. Next, and this gets to me, some of you out there have ugly, ugly feet. I never noticed this before, but now it's become such a problem, I feel I have to mention it. I am not talking about the feet you were born with, I am talking about fungal infections, soiled skin, cracked skin, badly trimmed or ragged nails, and the worst: worn toenail polish. Okay, I expect to see this on little kids. After all, a 5-year old shouldn't be expected to keep her nails nicely painted, they have a lot of other stuff they need to be doing, like running around and learning stuff. But when you are a 38 year old mom, and your big toe looks like the hull of an abandoned ship with 50% of the paint still peeling from age and wear ... damn. I mean, if it's that hard to keep it up, trim those nails, and leave them natural. I also see a lot of women with the brightest painted nails on dark skin tone, and that's just wrong. If you have an olive complexion, don't choose Coast Guard Safety Orange for your tootsies. It's not fashionable in any area of the country. Lastly, CLEAN your feet! Jesus, this is the major reason one should not wear flip-flops in urban areas: all that grime and pollution, added to the dried cracking around the edges, makes your feet look less attractive that a peeling painted statue one finds at discount carnivals. Would you go out with your face looking like that? This doesn't even mention the bunions, warts, and corns I had never noticed before.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:03 AM EST [Link]

Monday, August 2, 2004

Looking for an old sci-fi book...

I am trying this one more time, in hopes that some new blood can help me out. I am looking for a book, but I don't remember the exact title, the author, or the publishing date. This makes it kind of hard! But every few years, I post this, in hopes someone on some mailing list knows the book title and author. Sorry for duplicates...

I read this book a lot as a kid, but lost my copy before I became a teen. It was a science fiction book, and I thought the name was "Deathworld," but that's apparently another series of titles by Harry Harrison. The hardback book cover was very dark, with abstract symbolic pictures on it, which suggests a printing date of around the mid-60s to mid-70s (when I started reading it), but who knows, could be as far back as the mid-50s.

The plot is this: some guy is on a planet, and gets accused of a murder. All he knows was that he was walking down the street, went unconscious, and when he woke up, he was on the site of a crime scene where someone was murdered. He was obviously framed. Because they can't quite exactly prove his guilt, he is sentenced to leave the planet within 24 hours, or risk life imprisonment. The only ship leaving the planet in 24 hours is a scientific vessel.

He manages to get on that vessel, and I don't recall if he got assigned, or stowed away. They go to a planet where everything is carnivorous: the animals, plants, and even the ground tries to eat you with sticky yellow sap traps which dissolves you like some flat hellish sundew. I recall one grisly line about how some creature got its head ripped off by a carnivorous tree, and still runs around headless, "too stupid to know it had died." Everything is eating everything else on this planet, it seems.

Not surprisingly, one by one, the scientific staff gets killed off by the flora or fauna. Something suspicious is going on. Much plot intrigue ensues. Then, it turns out that the real killer of that guy back on the planet is actually on this ship as one of the scientists. He gets killed in the end, as such stories usually go, in a grisly way.

I loved this book as a kid. It sounds gory, and some of it was, but it was more a murder mystery kind of a book, and one of the first books that got me to enjoy sci-fi. As I recall, it was in the adult fiction section (before our library had a sci-fi section), so it wasn't some "adventure junior novel" kind of thing. It had an "older sci-fi" flavor to the writing, circa 1950s-1960s.

Any good guesses?

Posted by Punkie @ 08:03 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, August 1, 2004

Disaster Free for almost a week!

So far, this weekend has been disaster-free. It's been interesting, though.

On Friday afternoon, we had coffee with Anya and Matt. Both of them are very interesting friends, and it turns out that Anya and I have another thing in common: a hellish customer. Time for the Little Black Notebook again. Back when I worked at Cargo Furniture in Springfield Mall (this would have been about 1994), there was one of my top 5 worst customers ever, a short, angry, crazy Italian man named Patrick Capriglioni. His name is burned into my skull. He ranks as the only customer that threatened to actually kill me. It's a long story I don't have time to write at the moment, but to ease curiosity, here's a summary:

I open store, Pat calls, order messed up, calls my drivers racial slurs, beats his wife, wants correct order or cash refund in 1 hour, calls ever 5 minutes with a countdown, calls police, threatenes to come to my store and kill me, mall security gets involved, I get police protection, Pat calls home office, screams at all the women managers, makes the head of our customer service cry, the president of company won't talk to him, calls me back, stating he's coming to shoot me, my assistant gets terrified Pat's in the mafia, and then Pat accepts new terms of delivery given to him by 3 corporate people, but only if the drivers are not black. The end.

I never actually met the guy face to face. Well, it turns out, at Anya's second job (her part time job at an animal hospital), this is one of their customers. Apparently, he's still just as crazy. What another weird coincidence for the Little Black Book.

Matt, Anya's husband, is a really nice guy, too. He's got a new job working for a defense contractor, after his last job passed him over for several promotions. These days, I see more and more of this. Both abused techs and a lot of new jobs with defense contractors. I guess Bush is good for one thing, he does give jobs if you work with a company that builds weapons or defense systems. And techs are snapping these up, because these jobs will be a lot harder to outsource. Trickledown. It's like living under Reagan again.

So, then Christine goes to our friend Gay's house to watch some of the missed episodes of "Queer as Folk" (Gay had On Demand TV). I mull the irony of seeing a show about gay people at Gay's house. I got some serious writing done on my book, about another chapter's worth, making the total up to 7 of 23.

Saturday, I had nothing planned. I slept late, and woke up going "Day 5 of no disaster." It's the little things, you know? And truthfully, the bad day I had on Monday was almost entirely reversed. Nate's not leaving my company, I am still in the running for the other job, and the code that was swiped from me has been proven to be more annoying than helpful. Christine got her nails done, and then we went to Fair Oaks Mall, where I browsed through one of my favorite stores, Hot Topic, and looked at all the Glam Goth stuff. You goth girls? Have the coolest stuff nowadays. We had to make our own rubber washer jewelery back then. Christine and I spent some time people watching and discussing gastric band surgery, which her doctor has recommended she have. It turns out our insurance will cover it, but we're worried about all the after effects.

Earlier in the day, I got a call from Sean, almost in a panic, because his whole family was at their friend Rob's wedding, and it was running late. There was a wedding, then a reception, and newly discovered "after hours - adults only" party that was going to last until 3-4 in the morning. They needed someone to sit their kids, because it was their nanny's day off, and they didn't know where she was, anyway. So later that evening, my family went to their house, and we "took care" of their kids. I put that in quotes because Keiran was already zonked out from dancing, Scarlet fell asleep after only an hour, and Chance and CR played video games until I sent everyone to bed at 2 (Scarlet had fallen asleep on the couch). Christine was very tired, and left early, so CR and I were going to spend the night there, but Sean and Lou got back early (a little before 3), and Sean gave me a ride home. I ended up staying up until 4, because apparently, a Possum had gotten loose in our yard, and Christine got really excited about it. We've decided we don't want him, because I think he's been eating some (like 2) of our tomatoes, and I am afraid of it going through our garbage, or biting our dogs, who have no sense whatsoever when something they don't like is in our yard.

I fell asleep around 4:30, and my sleep was really restless. I had a lot of dreams, including, embarrassingly, I was a student at Hogwarts. I was embarrassed because I really had a good time there, apparently. I was in House Ravenclaw, and I was a really good and popular student. That thought has kept me cheerful all day. I am like, 12. next thing you know, I'll be at the Jedi Academy or something.

Anyway, Brad came over around 4. Christine and Brad are going to see M. Night Shymalan's "The Village," which I started reading reviews about after they left. Not good. I didn't want to see it because I have gotten to the point I can't take suspense in movies anymore. If I want suspense, all I have to do is just wait, and reality comes along and gives me some.

I have had enough suspense to last me for the rest of my life. For about ten years of my life, I lived under suspense daily: "is my mother drunk?" and "is my dad in a bad mood?" These days it's, "will I still have a job next week?" and "do I have enough money to pay all the bills this month?"

Shortly after they left, Sean, Lou, and the kids came by unexpectedly. They had driven out our way to see a movie, and it was all sold out! So since we were nearby, they dropped in apologetically so they wouldn't have to have driven up our way for nothing (also, all day it's been raining REALLY hard in short bursts). I got in some good talks with the adults, and kids ran around and were... well, kids. They didn't stay long, and so I cooked dinner, watched TV, did some more writing, and finished this entry.

So, unless something terrible happens in the next 3 hours... it's been a good weekend!

Posted by Punkie @ 09:21 PM EST [Link]