Cthulhu is my Copilot

Look, I didn’t say there was no time for Twittering. I just can’t bothered with joining yet another community site, remembering another password, failing to read another Terms of Service list, explaining every last step in the process to DG... it’s all just too much right now.

Nevertheless, I guess that’s what I’ll be doing in this post: “Twittering”. Sounds like a style of blogging you’re supposed to do with one hand, if you ask me, but despite my desk being down here in the rec-room, I haven't anywhere near the privacy required for that sort of thing. Sorry.

Anyway, marvel at my pithy insights:

♠ Used dryer sheets are the new banana peel.

♠ All a necktie really says about you is that you’ll wear whatever expensive, dangerous, ridiculously uncomfortable thing The Man tells you to wear and even convince yourself you like it.

♠ Strangers who knock on my door and insist they technically aren’t “soliciting” anything since they merely wish to force-feed me their religious beliefs always fail to realize that their fancy rationale is completely lost on my German Shepherds.

♠ I used to believe it was decidedly better to burn out than to fade away... until I watched Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick attempt to play a guitar on the Colbert Report the other night.

♠ Taking complicated detours through suburban housing developments to avoid slowpokes and controlled intersections might make driving less stressful for you, but you must avoid the temptation to refer to them as shortcuts.

When setting side-by-side in descending order of size, Russian nesting dolls look a lot like a giant set of human toes. Jolly, squinting toes wearing patterned head kerchiefs and waiting – patiently waiting – for you to fall asleep.

Peeps, it is important that you never, ever leave your Matryoshkas un-nested for any significant amount of time. Trust me on this one. You will be forced to smash them into tiny, malevolent shards the very first time you wake up with a couple of the larger dolls perched on your chest. (Number two was holding a sickle, for crying out loud! I'd never noticed that before!)

Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to break the smallest one. That one fact will likely be my eternal undoing.

UPDATE: ken has finally bored me (yet again) with his circular inanities and insulting attempts at intellectualism, so I have disabled his ability to comment on this post any further. It won't discourage him, but since he has no intention of honoring the bet he propositioned, there's no reason this post needs to be constantly refreshed with new doses of ken's mouthshit.

Uh, hey Ken, I just wanted to take a moment to say:

My list of Incredibly Important Dates That Blew By Completely Unacknowledged continues to grow ever longer. If missing DG’s third birthday wasn’t proof positive I’m far too busy for my own good, then taking over a week to notice I’d completed my sixth straight year of sobriety settles the issue once and for all. I need a vacation. And a calendar.

Anyway, I have about seven minutes and twenty-two seconds before I have to get back to work on the new ads for tomorrow’s push, but I finished my Manwiches a tad early and thought I’d see if I couldn’t at least let my VOX peeps know I haven’t imploded or transformed myself into a being of pure energy or been sucked into a cartoon or anything like that. I’ve been doing normal stuff – just a lot of it is all.

One thing is design a t-shirt for Karin. The idea jumped into my head and I immediately became so obsessed with it that I simply had to make it a reality before I could go about doing anything else. In retrospect, it would have probably gotten done faster if I had at least taken the time to remove the pushpin I stepped on a few moments prior.

The design combines two things Karin loves – Space Invaders and Bass Guitar – into a single, brilliantly clever graphic message:

BASS_INVADER

If you like it, you can get one of your own for not very much money by clicking the link below. Note that the public version depicts a four-string bass. The five-string version is exclusively for Karin. Sorry.

Well, I gotta get back to work. I leave you with a little peek into a private moment between Karin and me. Why? Because dedicating an entire blog post to shamelessly promoting one of your products is trashy and lame. So much so, in fact, that its offense can actually be mitigated by the addition of a little lowbrow humor. Amazing.

One Fine Morning at the Breakfast Table

Karin: [pointing to an open IKEA catalog] So that’s the couch I’m thinking of getting... with this slipcover [points elsewhere on the page].

Me: You’ve decided to go with a sofa instead of two loveseats, then?

Karin: Yeah, because there’s room to stretch out.

Me: Good point. Loveseats are certainly useless in that regard.

Karin: And the couch is only $40 more than the loveseat, so...

Me: Then you’d have no choice but to get the couch! You’d be getting totally fucked on the loveseat... [short pause] ...probably not enough room for that, either. Heh, heh.

Karin: Well, at least the slipcover’s there if anything gets on it.

What day is it?

No, I mean what day of the month is it? Don’t even tell me we’re halfway through May already! Still a couple days yet, you say? Well, good. Hate to think I’ve missed so many weeks without getting the rest a coma provides.

Truth is I’ve been so buried in Duties Of Dire Import that any activity not directly affecting my personal security and well-being have become practically nonexistent.

I’ve flaked out on numerous social engagements.

I’ve barely even glanced in the direction of VOX.

I missed DG’s birthday, for crying out loud!!!*

I even failed to call my mom on Mother’s Day.

I’m probably blowing off some appointment right now. Feels like it, anyway. Karin’s birthday is still over a month away and our anniversary has already passed, so at least it's not life-threatening.

Sadly, none of the stuff I’ve been doing lately is in any way interesting or humorous.

Don’t believe me? Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The best material I can recall from the past several weeks consists of:

1. The most annoying (and potentially dangerous) interruption to an overworked person with ADHD is the seemingly perpetual need to urinate.

2. When your medication goes generic, it instantly becomes impossible to find the brand name version and when you inform the pharmacist you don’t want the cheaper meds, he looks at you like you have a lactating nipple on your forehead.

3. The nostalgic inclination to fire up the old black light tube you found in storage is inversely proportional to the relative number of cats you have living with you.

4. As I’ve been compiling my notes for a book I’m writing on music theory applied to guitar**, I’ve come to realize my guitar method is sort of like the Jeet Kune Do of the six-string world. If a style or technique works for me, I incorporate it, regardless of its relationship to the rest of my system.

5. Aaaaand here’s the coolest thing I’ve seen from the world of advertising in the time I’ve been gone:

That's What I Call Clever Advertising

4 comments

I’m hopeful things will slow down soon and I’ll be able to dedicate more time to VOX again. Karin will be effectively jobless in a few weeks which, ironically, will make things a tad easier (at least for a little while).

Well, lunch is over and I must get back to work. Hope everyone in my ‘hood is doing well and feeling loved. Have a great day, peeps!

*It could be successfully argued this one does, in fact, affect my personal well-being.
**Right, like we need another one of those.

It's easy to see why so many people anthropomorphize animals. I wonder what weights he carries on those thin shoulders. Does he know those troubles will eventually pass? What is it he's looking for, exactly? Shelter? Food? Companionship? Purpose? Does he believe he'll find it? Does he even have the capacity to believe in anything?

This Too Shall Pass

Eh, he's probably just a wet bird on an unknown rooftop.

I don't know about you, but it seems like my personal objectives have lately been behaving like offensive, poo-eating insects...

WANT

We Assume You Want To Kill Us

I was out grabbing something for lunch at a local strip mall the other day when I spied the sign shown here in the window of an Advance America Cash Advance Center – one of those seedy joints specializing in exploiting the poor by offering two-week loans at interest rates that make Satan blush (and he enjoys plucking out peoples’ entrails and pouring molten lead in their ears, so, you know...)

I guess when your business model is shrewdly constructed on taking advantage of the desperate by placing them in a nigh-unbreakable payment loop, you’re bound to eventually start thinking every customer coming through the door wants to cut your thieving throat.

Interestingly, despite the high volume of cash exchanging hands and the industry’s insanely high profit margin, this particular loan-sharking establishment doesn’t utilize any kind of barrier between the tellers and the customers. No bulletproof window or wrought iron bars or even that glass with the chicken wire inside it. This pitiful sign must have been found an acceptable alternative at the upper management focus group.

That said, I suppose it is probably a good idea to note the faces of those you shamelessly screw over.

My obligatory responses to the troll who strolled through my ‘hood last week pretty much made for my entire VOXing experience since my last post. I have a lot of catching up to do, so if you recently announced your pregnancy/promotion/sex-change, I apologize for my delay in congratulating you on your new fetus/status/genitalia.

So, what the hell have I been doing? Some juggling. Have you ever noticed the hardest thing to juggle – even harder than flaming chainsaws – is time? I’m dropping hours all over the damn place!

Anyhoo...

Those who need a fix of The Deej will want to pop over to Karin’s VOX. DG spent some time on the sofa with Tosh over the weekend. Karin has the heart-melting photo documentation.

Marley recently had a resurgence of his infection in several areas, which you can clearly see in the newest photo. The hair is once again vanishing from his rear paws, chest, neck, and the fronts of his elbows and the skin in these areas is beginning to harden again. The more I read about Malassezia, the less guilty I feel about it afflicting Marley so. It turns out German Shepherds are notorious for having this particular problem and controlling it is far more difficult than some people would have you believe. Trust me when I tell you feeding your dog a perfect diet and dosing him daily with probiotics will not in any way guarantee Malassezia won’t overrun his system. Marley has an excellent diet, receives daily probiotics and digestive enzymes, is bathed with 4% clorhexidine shampoo and kept up-to-date with his flea medication. Save for the yeast infection, he is a completely healthy dog. It's very frustrating.

My New Amp

From the Walking The Walk department comes a report on what I did with my tax refund this year. As you know, I’m a big proponent of spending money like crazy in this recession even though the instinct is to horde. Hording will not help matters. Spending money on non-essential items just might. That was really all the justification I needed to go out and by myself this sweet new amplifier for my guitar.

What’s that? You didn’t know I played guitar? Huh, I thought I’d mentioned it. Yeah, I started playing when I was 15, so it’s been... HOLY CRAP! I’ve played the guitar for 27 years! Wow. Time flies.

Certain peeps out there (you know who you are) will be happy to hear that I’ve been jamming to a lot of Muse lately. Bellamy’s a brilliant guitarist and I’ve really gotten into his bluesy style. I know, I know, the music of Muse bristles with energy and doesn’t sound anything like Muddy Waters. It is true that the chord changes aren’t particularly bluesy, but when you start digging into Bellamy’s leads, the blues scale continues to pop up in very interesting ways. He makes excellent use of the augmented fourth blue note. Those of you who play guitar should go have a listen to Knights of Cydonia and you’ll see what I mean.

Some of you probably long for one of my wonderful political rants. Sorry to disappoint. The best I can do is gripe a little about this.

“...three teenage girls who allegedly sent nude or semi-nude cell phone pictures of themselves... are charged with child pornography.”

OK, I’m guessing that by now you all know what sexting is. I’m also sure most of you will agree with me that parents need to rethink their Birds-n-Bees lesson plans in light of the staggering freedoms created by new technologies.

Common sense stuff so far.

Here’s the part I don’t get: if the deservedly heinous status of things like child pornography and statutory rape are grounded in the simple, unequivocal fact that children lack the level of understanding required to make informed sexual decisions, then how is it when they ignorantly send nude photos of themselves to their boyfriends, they’re charged with felony sex offenses as if they do have that understanding? Either they know what they’re doing or they don’t. We’ve determined that as far as sex is concerned, children are innocently clueless, so these sexting indictments in which under-age children are accused of being child pornographers betray a significant lack of understanding on the part of the prosecutors...

...I guess they haven’t considered that since the girls sent photos of themselves, winning the case will mean sentencing the victims.

That Can't Be Right

See that? That's my angry right ankle. It's also my most recent excuse for being a lazy loser. Feeling sorry for myself is very time-consuming.

X-rays showed no fractures, thankfully, but the swelling is too severe to determine the condition of the tendons yet. I have a follow-up appointment tomorrow night.

Boy, I'll tell you what: that's the last damn time I "enjoy some friendly sparring" with the Batman. Everybody thinks he's soooooo valorous, but that snuvabitch thinks nothing of stomping on your ankles if he's starting to lose. What a dick! Kicked me in the nuts, too.

Spider-Man would never have pulled that shit...

4-10-09 If you decide to read the comments thread, I should warn you it eventually falls prey to a troll going by the name of "ken" who, I suspect, is a Florida school superintendent with a few students he badly wants to strip search. He never uses the shift key I suspect it is because his other hand is busy doing something besides typing. That's about as far as I want to take that. Anyway, ol' ken piped up over here because the host of the VOX where this farse began got sick of his ass and blocked him. If you really care to know more, this comment should clarify things a tad.

Seriously, how much do I love the internet?