RECAP

OK, So it's been a little while. I got some comments like this:

Hey, you haven't published in twelve days. WTF? It's your job to entertain me, goddamn it. So get cracking.

Yeah, yeah. I've been busy. I had a little bet with myself... who could this be? A friend? A sister? My wife? Sadly enough, all of the people in my life are comfortable enough speaking to me with this degree of disdain that I can't distinguish when someone sends me a remoark like this. That may seem pathetic, but it's a two way street. All of my interpersonal relationships are mutually abusive.

So what have I been doing, you ask, that I cannot spare a few moments to write? Well, apart for recovering from the chaos involved in the camping trip from Hell, I've been trying to buy a house. I recently got in trouble with the apartment complex I rent from, because my lease had expired earlier than I thought it was supposed to, and my rent went up while I was still paying the old rate. So now I'm looking for a house. We found a really sweet deal the other day that we were about to make an offer for when some other agent came along and made a contract. That road bump aside, I will one day again hold a taco party.

What else have I been doing? Watching a lot of TV. Comedy Central's started airing the frist season of Scrubs and I must've been asleep for the last 5 years, because I've been missing out on the funniest shit ever. Along the same lines, my wife and I have found House, so we're going back and forth between the first season that comes in on Netflix and the stuff they're airing now. Finally, one of my sister's sent me the series Firefly on DVD, and now I've found something else I should've been watching a few years ago. This trifecta of TV nose candy has kept me busy enough in the evening's so that I don't want to write anything more.

But tonight, I'm catching up, and recommitting to writing. Another sister of mine had asked me for my birthday wishlist, and I have complied. If you'll look to the right, a friend of mine has exposed a sweet little script for me that allows me to display a few items from my Amazon wishlist, by getting the feed they expose and making a template from the results. Feel free to buy me something.

Another update - I plan to move all of the political commentary to a new blog - Rabbertics. I've gotten some mixed responses to my left leaning rantings. Some appreciate the commentary, some choose to engage me in debate, and some would rather I did not preach. Politics, I think, is like religion. There is no argument that going to change anyone's mind unless they're already sitting the fence and looking for direction. The only thing that will change the mind of someone who's already picked their position are the events that shape their experience. It was the same case for me - no pundit managed to change my mind about the GOP. I was certainly willing to stand behind the President until the decision to invade Iraq came, when I hesitated. While I beleived it to be a mistake, I still thought good could come of it if it were done right. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, I broke my ties and burned my bridges. After that, I started watching what the pundits said, but only to confirm the position I had already chosen.

Still, they keep doing shit that pisses me off, and I can't keep quiet about it. So I'll take the forum somewhere else, and preach to the choir. Here, I'll bitch about my life and my wife and create serial killer fan fiction, and save bitching about the President for Rabbertics - soon to be.

So, let me end this with a good old-fashioned rant. You know what I would like to see? A keyboard made for big boys. I continually make typos because I'm typing on this instrument that's obviously designed to accomodate fine feminine fingers, and not my big fat ones. They make men's clothing and accessories bigger than women's - how about men's keyboards? All you need to do is make the keys 25 to 33% larger, and I promise you in no time, my typing rate will double. Yeah, it's kind of a boring rant.

I can't be funny all the time. So get bent.

IT'S HERE!

YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
KNOW MY BIRTHDAY AND DESPAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!




You don't count.

I do.

Your opinions don't mean anything.

It's my day.

(sung to the tune of The Wind Beneath My Wings)

Fuck you.
Fuck you.
Fuck all of you,
the ants beneath my feet.

Give me your worship!
Give me your praise!!!

Ahh, sweet, sweet external validation. If I could freebase it, I would.

Birthday Fever!

The day of my birth is rapidly approaching... only a few more hours to go. Can you feel the excitement?

I have one friend who has a birthday a day before mine, and one who has one a day after, making it actually a birthday trifecta. The fact that their birthdays revolve around my own makes mine feel all the more important.

Some people think that for a 29 year old to expect gifts on his birthday is ludicrous. I think that's crap. I deserve a present for just being me.

My Birthday

My birthday is coming up this Friday; I'll be turning 29, which feels like it should be ominous, but really isn't. I guess the anxiety will start to hit a year from now when I realize that I'll be turning 30. Then I might have to make some life changes.

Last year, I had a little celebration for my birthday. I sent out a notice to my family and a few of my friends that had been inspired by something my mother had done. One day, we were at my sister's house discussing plans for the day. It was still breakfast time, and my mother had no milk for her cereal, so she said, to the best of my memory:

"You may pick me up a gallon of milk from the grocery store"

as if it were a great honor that she was bestowing on me. I was so amused by this that I responded excitedly:

"May I?!?!"

And we all had a good laugh at my mother's expense. The phrase still stuck with me, and inspired this invitation to last year's birthday party, an email titled "A celebration for the ages!":

First there was nothing...

then there was James!

Bear witness to the man behind the legend as he celebrates the culmination of the 28th year of his gracious presence on the Earth. You would be honored to attend his birthday celebration at Kanki restaurant in Durham at 8:00 pm on Thursday, September 15, 2005 (http://www.kanki.com/). Enrich your own dull lives with tales of his heroic exploits over the years. Feel like a part of history as the story of his many triumphs unfolds before you. Allow him to touch your heart and free your mind as he has done for countless millions before you. While the offering of gifts is by no means mandatory, James understands that a tangible token of one's gratitude can suffice when even the words of the great poets fail to convey the heartfelt joy and ephoria that James has shone upon your soul like the piercing rays of the morning sun. Should words fail you, James can forward you a list of trinkets that amuse him.

P.S. Be prepared to pay for your own meal, as The Chosen does not deign to pay for the meals of The Unwashed, especially so many Unwashed (While God has gifted upon James a great many gifts, unfortunately he has not blessed James with great wealth, lest he become immodest).

This year, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know what I want to do. I want to find a party store where I can pick up a cape and scepter and crown, because I play to make sure everybody knows that I'm King for the day. Of all of the holiday's, I like birthdays the best, because they're a time for celebration and presents, but really nobody else gets to share in the glory. Everyone else is insignificant and their opinions don't count. This is true on every day, but on my birthday, people have to face facts. Do you know that you cease to exist when I'm not conceiving of you? It's sad to hear, but it's true.

When it rains...

... it not only pours, but I can hear a disembodied voice telling the neighbors to start collecting sets of male and female animals.

This is me at my wedding. I'm screaming because my wife is a half an hour later because she decided to go shoe shopping on that morning of all mornings.

But that's not what this is about.

Have you ever had something bad happen to you, and you just hang around waiting for the other shoe to drop? Except, not only does the other shoe drop, but your socks fall off as well. Then your pants fall down around your ankles, and lo, your boxers follow. Then you try to move around, but you have to take baby steps because your legs are bound by your pants, but you fall any way, face forward, and bang your head against the floor. Now you're unconcious, sprawled out on the floor, with your bare ass sticking straight up into the air.

Did I forget to mention that you're in prison?

Anyway, that was this weekend for me. What a nightmare. I started off by going to mountains to go camping for the weekend. I plan to go fishing with my wife. There's a four and a half hour drive up there, and already my blood is up because I'm leaving after work, and by the time I get there after a long drive, it's dark, and because it's the nature of all these woodsy campsites to have nice, cozy, unlit wooden signs, I'm wandering in the darkness forever.

But I get set up anyway and go to bed. Now, I've been camping before, but back in those days I used to sleep on a bunk bed, and the mattress was like fiberboard, so I had no idea what it was like to miss a good night's sleep on a decent mattress. But I felt the effects that morning as any sort of bending procedure quickly becomes a Pavlovian experiment in pain.

My wife and I begin to go fishing, when we realize that the river we're fishing in is about a foot deep, and while suitable for fly fishing if that's your thing -it's not our thing. That doesn't stop us from trying, and in the process, my wife drops part of her reel into the river. I go to fish it out for her, getting my shoes moderately wet in the process, and throw it up to her. She misses the catch and it rolls down the hill into the deeper part of the river, where I have to circumnavigate some sort of beaver dam, thoroughly soaking my shoes in the process. She insists my shoes are ruined and we go get some new ones. We hang out at the campsite the rest of the day. I wanted to read one of my books, but we had forgotten to pack them.

The rest of the trip pretty much goes smoothly, with the notable exception that as we are packing to leave, she finds one of the books I wanted to read. Damn. She wants to add a quart of oil to our tank, and asks of me and my freinds if someone strong can help her get the oil cap off of the engine. I manage to prove that I'm totally weaksauce and can't get the damn thing off when she reiterates that she meant someone strong. My freind Eric gets it off but I am convinced I loosened it for him. She also wants to stop at the state fair that we passed on the way, so after I have an argument I know I'm not going to win about getting back early so that we're not coming in late at night, we go to the fair. This is always a time of great stress for me, because I'm not only mildly phobic of crowds, but I am easily distressed (enraged, infuriated) by fair traffic and just what it takes to get a car into and out of a fair alive. We pass several happy hours at the fair, where I avoid riding all of the stomach churning rides that she wants to go on, because I know the last thing I need is to be nauseous for a 4 hour car trip.

Still, I have eaten one of those jumbo turkey legs with some Texas Pete on it, so it's not too far after we take off that a case of mudbutt starts to set in. We make a stop some 20 minutes into the trip, where I go to the bathroom and buy some chewable Rolaids, and it looks like I'm all set for the rest of the day, if I can just manage this car drive while my back is killing me (I ask my wife earlier, "Are you going to help me drive back?". She replies, "Did I drive for any part of the way up?". I responded, "No.". "Then you have your answer.").

This ends the amusing, whoa is me, funny-if-you-look-back-on-it portion of the trip. About 30 minutes after we pass Asheville begins the Nightmare Proper.

I hear a load rumbling on the road, the tell-tale sign of a flat tire. The motorists we are trying to pass gestures wildly and confirms, yes, we have a flat tire. We pull over, just before an exit. From the mile marker I can tell we are 200 miles from home. The front passenger tire has gone flat. Didn't we just buy new tires recently. Yes, we did. That was one tire of a set of two that we bought from Walmart one year and one month ago. Damn. We have a spare tire, but sadly, we left our jack in the other car. When then one got a flat. Thankfully, I have AAA. My wife's cell phone still has a charge, so we call them up and ask them for a tow. They suggest that they can come out and change the flat, which will work just as well, except that we are going to need to get a new tire anyway, because we can't ride home 200 miles on a spare, let alone avoiding exceeding 50 miles per hour on an interstate where the posted speed limit is 70 and most motorists are going close to 80.

The AAA guy shows up. While he's changing the tire, he informs us of two things. One, that the closest Walmart is likely in Hickory, 60 miles ahead of us, or in Asheville, 30 miles behind us. We could make it on a spare but we'd have to take it slow and a spare won't take us that far. The other thing is that we seem to be leaking some kind of fluid, probably radiator fluid, as evidenced by a puddle around the tire. We pop the hood, and find out that the oil cap is missing, and we've been losing engine oil.

Now I'm not laying blame here, but I seem to recall that the oil cap was there that morning when my wife emasculated me for not being able to unscrew it. She swears to me that she put it on, but it may not have been tight enough.

Now I really need a tow. The tow truck driver doesn't seem particularly happy about it, but we're covered and AAA compensates him for the tow, so we decide to take the car back to Asheville to go get a new tire for it. The new plan has us rolling home somewhere about 11:00 to midnight or so, but it can't be helped. However, after we are towed to Asheville, one thing becomes very clear. There is no tire place that's actuially open that we can use to get new tires. We're going to need to spend the night in Asheville and work on it in the morning.

The tow truck drivers drops us off at the Walmart. We can still drive, as long as we're careful to drive real slow (<50>

I also don't know how to get to a hotel, or to an auto parts store to get an oil cap. I ask the locals for directions, but they all see, to be in reference to some landmarks or roads that I don't know, and I'm not doing a very good job of conveying that I've practically been dropped into Asheville and I don't have any bearings. Thankfully, my wife remembers enough of the area from the trip in to guide us to a Days Inn, where we check in for a room for the night. At this point, a headache that has been brewing for most of the day is hitting me full force, to the point that I'm actually sick to my stomach and have to vomit. I'm not sure what brought it about, maybe the fair food, but if I were to wager a guess I'd have to say... oh, stress.

My wife orders a pizza for dinner, but I can only manage about half a slice, and I go to sleep, weak, nauseous, and drained with a headache. The next morning, my wife makes some calls and finds an AutoZone, and gets directions from the hotel staff on how to get there. It involves getting on a freeway, and driving real slow while other angry motorists pass us by, but that can't be helped, and we make our way to AutoZone, where we finally get our prized oil cap, and seal that fucker on tight. Then, we wander around Asheville for a while, trying to find the Walmart again, check in, and get our tires repaired. I remember that I'm supposed to be on an important conference call at work that morning, and after a fruitless effort in getting the cell phone charger to work, I have to make a credit card purchase for a set of pencils so I can get cash back so that I can use the pay phone to call someone at work to get them to cover my call. After wasting the first set of change calling someone's cell phone that went straight to voicemail, I get a hold of a coworker about 5 minutes before the call so he can get that straightened out.

The tire is done, and thankfully, Walmart gives us a discount on the tire, prorating the cost of the tire against the considerable amount of tread left so that we get the tire for a fraction of the price. In our excitement to get going again, we neglected to take any further preventative measure, say, buying a jack or checking out the condition of the other tires.

So I drive the rest of the way home. My wife sleeps most of the way, but the trip isn't bad. The sun is shining, and I'm just listening to my music as the hours while by. Normally, I'd be working now, so this is a change of pace and a time to reflect on my life. At the rate I'm at, I'll be able to go back into work in the early afternoon. I feel like a dick for having to take advantage of the good graces my boss has shown me in working with my missed work hours, but I can make up the hours through the rest of the week, and all will be well before long.

If you remember the tale of Odysseus, you'll know that even after he returned home from his fucked up voyage around the Mediterranean on his return home from the Trojan War, he still had shit to deal with at home when he had to battle it out with his wife's suitors. Or so I remember.

So about 3 miles from the exit that I'm supposed to take, I hear a farmiliar rumbling sound. Do you recall that the tire that went flat was one of a set of two that I bought from Walmart a year and a month ago? Can you guess which fucking tire went flat now? Well, if you can't you must be one of those sunny, happy-go-lucky assholes for whom everything goes right. You've never even heard of Murphy's laws because they don't apply to you. Well you can can choke on a fucking beam of sunshine and die, you asshole, because you exist to balance out the spectrum for me.

Now we have to pull over kind of close to an exit, but it's a big ramp. This is important because if you recall, both cell phones are dead, so I've got to get out and walk to the nearest gas station to call AAA. Thankfully this time I've got some cash with which to get some quarters, so when I walk out to the pay phone, sweating like a pig, I call AAA, and then I call one of my friends from work to come pick me up and take me back to the car. As soon as I hang up, I wonder why I did it, when I could probably just as quickly have walked back. I think some part of me wanted a witness. I didn't think anybody would believe me that I've got another damn flat. I know I wouldn't believe me. I would think I was trying to get out of work.

I have to guide my friend the long way around, since we got stopped before the exit, and he needs to come at it from the other side. When we pull up, there's already someone else helping us changing the tire (IMAP - different from the mail protocol I know, they're the Incident Management Assistance Patrol. These guys rock). I call AAA from my friend's phone to cancel the call, and after we get the spare back on, it's back to Walmart, but this time the local one. This time, they argue that the alignment's bad, and they won't cover as much of the tire, but I don't want to argue.

My wife drops me off at work with about 30 minutes left in the work day, and I give her my card so she can go get the car aligned. Another $70 later, she relays something from the mechanics to server as a fitting footnote to this sad, fucked-up affair.

I need new rear tires.