My ears are bleeding

I happen to be alone in tonight ... no kids, no wife. Instead of holding a poker game, I'm listening to music. Wicked loud.

Right now I'm into opera and classical symphony. Yeah, opera and classical symphony. Carl Orff, specifically, at ear-bleeding volume. Wow! It's been far too long. It's uncomfortable at this level, but it somehow makes it better. It's an experience to behold it at an inappropriate decibels. I'm doing the "air conductor" thing just like I would do the "air guitar."

Whether you realize it or not, you know his "hit" song ...the pounding timpani, the huge chorus. It's been in countless movies. Buy the whole recording. You won't be sorry.

Editorial note -- the iTunes cut sucks ... it should feature the chorus at the peak with the orchestra behind it.

If you don't listen to classical or opera, you're missing out on some great stuff. Kurt Cobain had nothin' on Carl Orff. That guy seriously rocks. So does Bach, Sradella, and Chopin for that matter.

My ears hurt. And it's good. Really good.

I'm such a fucking nerd. Play it loud.

Fun with cell phones

This morning I read about, investigated, and immediately signed up for the free YouMail service. I have to admit that I did it at first for boring reasons ... I wanted to figure out a way to have messages on my cell automatically forwarded to me via e-mail. YouMail does that. But it also has a nifty feature which allows you to record personalized messages for each person who calls you.

Now, when my sister calls me from her cell phone and I can't answer it, she hears the sound clip "Sorry Roger. You tiger now."

My buddy Jeff gets "Chip, I'm gonna come at you like a spider monkey. Leave a message, Jeff."

A colleague of mine who calls my cell phone incessantly hears "Call me at the office first, Mr. [edited], then try my cell if it's important."

Cool. There are a whole bunch of other neat features too. Check it out for yourself.

Highway 10 from California to Florida

≈
I've recently returned home after driving over 2,500 miles from San Diego California to Sarasota Florida. That's a long drive. It's the third long drive I've undertaken in my life, and I found that there are similarities which are too common to be coincidental.


Guy, Jenny, Tami, and me on D-Day (departure day)

1. There is a direct proportion to the number of miles driven to the intensity of which you will laugh at things which would normally only induce a chuckle.
2. Cops are just regular people, and being pleasant with them makes them be nice to you.
3. Never underestimate how much water you can drink (and conversely, how infrequently you have to go to the bathroom) while driving.
4. Even if you're equipped with two iPods stuffed full of music, it will become repetitive.
5. Apparently, based on pictures from this trip, I'm tall. Or conversely, other people are short.

Tami has been a friend of mine since I was an infant. We grew up together, went to high school together, I was her "emergency date" when she got stood up for her junior cotillion. We've always been very close. So, when she said that she was moving from California to Florida and didn't feel comfortable driving by herself (and with her parents' additional subtle pressure), I readily agreed to make the trip. I had no idea into what I had gotten. That's a long f*ing drive, even for her. Yes, a looooooooooooooooooong f*ing drive. Did I mention is was a loooooooooooooong f*ing drive? Yes? Okay, but it was also fun.

First I'll cover the highlights, then the lowlights. The highlights were seeing a billboard for "The Thing," about which I coincidentally blogged on my now defunct "Skiver Don" site. You can here to an NPR audio broadcast about The Thing, or search on Google using this link.

Another highlight was laughing hysterically to the point of facial and stomach pain about absolutely nothing. If I told you about being a Bayou Monkey or Pasha the Killer Lynx, you wouldn't laugh. You'd most likely chuckle politely and hope that the conversation turned quickly to politics or Paris Hilton.

Lastly, I have to admit that driving 1,400 miles in an absolutely straight line on Route 10 at 95 - 110 MPH for hours at a time is fun. Officer Tolley of the New Mexico State Police doesn't share my enthusiasm about driving at that rate of speed, but he's a hell of a nice guy. He's so nice in fact that he knocked down my fine to a mere $60, and then spent ten minutes chatting pleasantly with me and Tami about our professions. Could be the 110-degree sun. Could be loneliness. Could be just that he's a friendly guy. I'll never know.
The lowlights included being accosted by a pissed off cat (one of Tami's three cats is inbred with a f*ing cougar or lynx or bobcat or some such thing ... it's a house cat with an attitude of a goddamn rabid tiger); my sore ass from sitting in the sport suspension seat of a BMW for over 2,000 miles; and, all of the fast food. If I ever eat another Wendy's hamburger or combo meal from KFC, please Lord let the room temperature IQ employees get my order somewhat close to what I've asked.

Another lowlight was the ninth hour of the third day of driving. I don't care with whom you take a long drive ... it could be fucking Ghandi ... you're going to run out of things to say. But, have no fear, the slappy silliness of exhaustion and staring at brake lights ahead of you will soon assuage your boredom. In all fairness to Tami, there were probably only about 90 minutes of silence between us over 26 hours of driving.

Oh, one more lowlight ... why are there so many US Border Patrol stations in the United States? I'll answer my own question based on the number of illegal immigrants we witnessed being detained in plastic handcuffs and sitting on the bumpers of cube vans and 18-wheelers.

It was a long, fun drive. I experienced more adult interaction that I've had in the last five months combined. And I'm a PR professional.

One other random note from the road. At a dusty stereotypical hole-in-the wall gas station a few hundred miles west of El Paso Texas, there was a beat up van emblazoned with "The Freeze" painted on the side. After striking up a conversation while pointing to my Red Sox cap, it turns out that they're from Hyannis Massachusetts. The Freeze is on a 90-day tour of California, Washington, and Europe.

Tami begged me to let her go with them, but no, I promised her dad that I'd deliver her safely.

Cool GUI

I haven't seen a computer GUI nearly as revolutionary as Anand Agarawala's BumpTop since BeOS.

Check it out here.

Sophomoric, Brilliant Humor

This is an actual post on Craigslist.

Neither do I produce a late night comedy television program, nor do I know the identity of the author. If this were not the case I would hire him as a writer immediately. I only use the masculine "him" because no woman would ever write something like this. Ever.

Without further ado (snicker ... you'll understand in a moment), I present the post here in it's entirety:

Yesterday was hell
Date: 2007-05-18, 7:44AM EDT


All in all, it hadn't been a good day. Bad traffic, a malfunctioning computer, incompetent coworkers and a sore back all made me a seething cauldron of rage. But more importantly for this story, it had been over forty-eight hours since I'd last taken a dump. I'd tried to jumpstart the process, beginning my day with a bowl of bowel-cleansing fiber cereal, following it with six cups of coffee at work, and adding a bean-laden lunch at Taco Bell. As I was returning home from work, my insides let me know with subtle rumbles and the emission of the occasional tiny fart that Big Things would be happening soon. Alas, I had to stop at the mall to pick up an order. I completed this task, and as I was walking past the stores on my way back to the car, I noticed a large sale sign proclaiming, "Everything Must Go!" This was prophetic, for my colon informed me with a sudden violent cramp and a wet, squeaky fart that everything was indeed about to go. I hurried to the mall bathroom. I surveyed the five stalls, which I have numbered 0 through 4 (I write a lot of software) for your convenience:

0.Occupied

1.Clean, but Bathroom Protocol forbids its use, as it's next to the occupied one.

2.Poo on seat.

3.Poo and toilet paper in bowl, unidentifiable liquid splattered on seat.

4.No toilet paper, no stall door, unidentifiable sticky object near base of toilet.

Clearly, it had to be Stall #1. I trudged back, entered, dropped trou and sat down. I'm normally a fairly Shameful Shitter. I wasn't happy about being next to the occupied stall, but Big Things were afoot.

I was just getting ready to bear down when all of a sudden the sweet sounds of Beethoven came from next door, followed by a fumbling, and then the sound of a voice answering the ringing phone. As usual for a cell phone conversation, the voice was exactly 8 dB louder than it needed to be. Out of Shameful habit, my sphincter slammed shut. The inane conversation went on and on. Mr. Shitter was blathering to Mrs. Shitter about the shitty day he had. I sat there, cramping and miserable, waiting for him to finish. As the loud conversation dragged on, I became angrier and angrier, thinking that I, too, had a crappy day, but I was too polite to yak about in public. My bowels let me know in no uncertain terms that if I didn't get crapping soon, my day would be getting even crappier.


Finally my anger reached a point that overcame Shamefulness. I no longer cared. I gripped the toilet paper holder in one hand, braced my other hand against the side of the stall, and pushed with all my might. I was rewarded with a fart of colossal magnitude -- a cross between the sound of someone ripping a very wet bed sheet in half and of plywood being torn off a wall. The sound gradually transitioned into a heavily modulated low-RPM tone, not unlike someone firing up a Harley. I managed to hit resonance frequency of the stall, and it shook gently.

-

Once my ass cheeks stopped flapping in the breeze, three things became apparent: (1) The next-door conversation had ceased; (2) my colon's continued seizing indicated that there was more to come; and (3) the bathroom was now beset by a horrible, eldritch stench.

It was as if a gateway to Hell had been opened. The foul miasma quickly made its way under the stall and began choking my poop-mate. This initial "herald" fart had ended his conversation in mid-sentence.

"Oh my God," I heard him utter, following it with the suppressed sounds of choking, and then, "No, baby, that wasn't me (cough, gag), you could hear that (gag)??"

Next door I could hear fumbling with the paper dispenser as he desperately tried to finish his task. Little snatches of conversation made themselves heard over my anal symphony: "Gotta go... horrible... throw up... in my mouth.... not... make it... tell the kids... love them... oh God..." followed by more sounds of suppressed gagging and retching.

-

Alas, it is evidently difficulty to hold one's phone and wipe one's bum at the same time. Just as my high-pressure abuse of the toilet was winding down, I heard a plop and splash from next door, followed by a string of swear words and gags. My poop-mate had dropped his phone into the toilet.

After a considerable amount of paperwork, I got up and surveyed the damage. I felt bad for the janitor who'd be forced to deal with this, but I knew that flushing was not an option. No toilet in the world could handle that unholy mess. Flushing would only lead to a floor flooded with filth.

As I left, I glanced to the next-door stall. Nothing remained in the bowl. Had he flushed his phone, or had he plucked it out and left the bathroom with nasty unwashed hands? The world will never know.

I exited the bathroom, momentarily proud and Shameless, looking around for a face glaring at me. But I saw no one. I suspect that somehow my supernatural elimination has manged to transfer my Shamefulness to my anonymous poop-mate. I think it'll be a long time before he can bring himself to poop in public -- and I doubt he'll ever again answer his cell phone in the loo. And this, my friends, is why you should never talk on your phone in the bathroom.

* it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 333345372

A Groove I Can Use

I created a hacked groove loop from Burnside. I've been listening to it for an hour. Yeah, it's four bars over and over and over again, but it's groove loop heroin. I've also been "singing along" as to what I'd like to hear a guitar soloist play.

If you want to listen, you can download it here. Be forewarned ... don't bother if you don't have the dedication to loop over and over and over (ad infinitum) on your computer's music player. If you don't then it will make no sense. It gets addicting. Trust me.

I'm a huge fan of the blues, and music in general. I cut this groove loop from a particularly cool tune of R.L. Burnside called "Come On In (Part 3)."

If you've been a reader of my blog, then it should come to no surprise to you that I'm also a Macintosh fanatic. As such, I'm hooked on Garage Band.

I'm looking forward to taking this groove loop and hacking away at a guitar solo. Yes, I know full well that I suck, but that's not the point. If I could only make my guitar play what I can do acapella, then I'd be Stevie Ray Vaughan.

I can hear my solo ... can you? No? Well, that's why I'm not a bazillionare.

[Editor's note: For some reason the Box.Net aiff file is off my a fraction of a millisecond. After many, many uploads in various formats, I give up. After all, the loop is for me, not for you.]

Here We Go Again

It was one of those rare and dreaded moments, just after I clicked on the "send" button, that I knew I had made an irretrievable mistake. I inadvertently sent out an e-mail with my blog signature to a number of bigshots in my company. I had to delete the old blog immediately.

There are many friends of mine who do not subscribe to my belief that one's personal life should never, ever, ever cross paths with one's professional life. A good example is Pete Lyons, who posts about anything which comes to mind, from geeky techno-babble about coding to his dog's ailing health. I salute him for his candor, but cannot imagine doing so myself. Others, like Susan Senator, post articles about intimate family relationships which I would never share in a million years.

Why don't I combine both classes of people? Is it cowardice? Is it a matter of privacy? If I were to psychoanalyze myself, I'd say it's a combination of the two, but even simpler. If I know you, then I'm an open book. But the thought of publishing of a blog about very personal matters which co-workers might read makes me cringe. I'd rather not have people with whom I have either a professional and/or un-cozy relationship hearing about my personal life.

So, here we go again. Watch this spot for semi-personal insights. It's odd ... I feel an obligation to blog on a regular basis, and felt a sense of relief once I had deleted the old blog. Today I wanted to post about a new tattoo, but had nowhere to put it. Now I do.