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Falling Apart

Falling asleep at the keyboard this afternoon from being up half the night convincing myself I don’t have a hernia. I don’t, and I didn’t really think I did anyway, as it still seems more like a pulled muscle which seems to be acting up off and on, especially after long periods in the car. But the way the past year has gone, I figured that if there was a hernia anywhere within a hundred miles of me, I’d probably have it…

It’s been a really sucky year for my assorted maladies, both chronic and acute. And it’s looking like a particularly bad allergy season too. Great. I’m used to being relatively healthy, thanks, and this shit’s starting to get on my nerves…

But since I’m at least not screaming out in pain anymore, pictures from the road trip should start later tonight…

Mid-April Memories

Mid-April through the years:

  • 17 April 2001: Solidly in the midst of the vacation from hell. This reminds me that it’s been a year since I saw my dad and since I met Becky.
  • 17 April 2000: Banking drama, a laundry excursion to Fresno, and semi-public sex with a cute long-haired boy in a porkpie hat. Hmmm. I’ll probably be doing laundry in Fresno this coming weekend too, and spending quality time with an even cuter boy, albeit sans porkpie hat. Or audience.
  • 17 April 1999: Air conditioner envy.
  • 18 April 1998: On being a hermit.
  • 12 April 1997: Returning from my first trip to Vegas.
  • 15 April 1992: My first journal entry written on a computer.

Posted

First chunk of the road trip story is now posted over at Planet SOMA. Those of you who are coming in from this entrance are getting the “sneak preview” as it’s posted; it won’t be linked on the other site until it’s complete. Which may be a while at the rate I’m going…

Randomly Thursday

  • Three more pages posted from the road trip story. You can start with page four or from the beginning. This will probably be all until early next week…
  • Forgot to mention this earlier, but today’s “what the fuck were they thinking?” award goes to Abercrombie & Fitch. And you thought they only knew how to sell to suburban teenage mallrats and to vapid gay clones who try desperately to resemble suburban teenage mallrats. Funny, but this may be the only item they’ve ever marketed where the actual clothing was more attention-grabbing than the A&F logo they slapped on it…
  • $1,739,130.00

The Weekend

Sittting in a diner this morning with Mark, reading the Fresno Bee, I noticed a wire service blurb which mentioned that 14,000 San Franciscans demonstrated on Saturday against “war, racism, and poverty”. I guess it’s always good to have a clear focus…

Seriously, though, how exactly does one demonstrate against poverty? Isn’t that sort of like demonstrating against, say, death by natural causes? No one’s really in favor of it, but it’s something of an inevitability…

Anyway, it was a good weekend. Saw The Shroud, took several bucks off my net worth through sheer gluttony, and watched Mark get his satellite connected. Now I can’t wait for mine…

Otherwise: another of my babies went live tonight, only four days until Siouxsie, and a happy birthday to Jeff, who doesn’t seem to be getting my email…

More pictures from the Northwest tomorrow, along with (just maybe) a new rant…

Love is:

  • Library dates…
  • Being almost as turned on by the fact that he’s getting obsessive about your favorite software package as you are by the assorted snogging…
  • When he’s willing to pull out the blue ones for you…

Sorry. That was a little mushy. It’s late…

And notice that I said “almost”…

Randomly Monday

Random site stuff:

  • For those of you who care (and opted out of the email notification), I’ve posted the answers and results to that “How Well Do You Know Me?” quiz from several weeks back. And may I say that I’m shocked that so many people thought I was a big fan of Adobe GoLive? Blecch. Thanks to all who played…
  • Once again, I’m flattered and all, but I wish they’d warn a guy. Bottles was a “cool site of the day” at Webshots today, bringing me hundreds of extra hits and potentially costing me several extra bucks in bandwidth charges…

Six Months

Six months ago this weekend, I made one of my semi-regular drives to Fresno. A little bit of research for Bottles was on the agenda, but the top item was meeting this guy I’d been trading email with for a month or two…

Damn, I’m glad I made that trip. I knew it would be lots of fun but I didn’t know it was going to change my life quite so significantly…

Mark’s gone now. We saw Siouxsie on Thursday, had dinner with Sarah at Tad’s on Friday, and hit Santa Cruz via Highway 1 and El Camino Real on Saturday. And now I’m sporting the standard stupid, happy grin and thinking about how it’s only five days until Friday…

The weekdays have started seeming more and more insignificant…

 

For those of you who are following the story, two more new pages have been added to the Northwest Tour journal. I may try to do more later tonight…

One last note: when you lift images from someone else’s website, it’s wise not to (a) link them directly from the other person’s server, and (b) neglect to include attribution when you place them on your own server after you figure out that I have a script preventing you from leeching them off mine. I’m just saying…

Dreams

Must be going around. I went almost ten years without remembering a single dream, but the past several months I’ve been averaging at least one biggie a week. And there’s no real logic: for example, they’re just as likely to hit when I’m sleeping alone or in tandem, and my general state of mind seems to have no effect either…

Fortunately, mine haven’t been particularly disturbing, although there was that one about running into Tony Randall and Jack Klugman in a sex club…

Let Me Just Pull That Out of My Magic Asshole

I had two email messages time-stamped between 5:30 and 5:45 this morning from someone who posts to the message board on one of my other sites. He was having trouble posting and accessing messages, and he requested that I “fix it as soon as possible” and that if I couldn’t, I should set up a new message board account. The implication was that I should do THAT as soon as possible as well…

Never mind that this was probably a short-term glitch (about which I had no other complaints) and that it may very well have been a problem with his own browser or ISP. And never mind the fact that I don’t do ANYTHING at 4:30 in the morning, least of all try to figure out glitches with some company’s free message board server for no compensation whatsoever…

What I’m pointing out here is the really annoying sense of entitlement that has accompanied the Internet era. Because people have become accustomed to having instant access to so much information for free, they have begun assuming that it is their absolute right to continue doing so ad infinitum, and that providers like me, who do this purely as a labor of love, must provide whatever they want, whenever they want it. For free. And cheerfully, please…

Fortunately, it’s not a really widespread phenomenon, but it’s enough of one that I’ve written about it several times before, and I’ve fumed about it on even more occasions. I’m amazed at the sheer audacity of anyone who would tell me that I “need to provide reviews of dance clubs, even if you don’t like them” or who are “appalled that you showed a picture of yourself smoking a cigarette on your site” (both more or less actual quotes). And anyone who tells me I need to fix some problem “right now” deserves whatever response I choose to give him…

How dare anyone presume to tell me what content I “must” provide on my own sites, which I do at my own (considerable) expense, for my own amusement, and for no compensation at all. Fuck ’em…

That’s not to say, of course, that I’m not open to hearing other opinions or to rational debate, when presented ina respectful manner. Nor does it suggest that I don’t want to hear about it if something’s not working right…

But this whole entitlement mentality which gives people the impression that they can visit my free website (I don’t believe they were coerced into doing so) and insist that I make certain changes immediately just on their say-so leaves me really cold. These are the same people who somehow manage to convince themselves that their “rights” are being violated when companies start requesting payment for certain content, or (God forbid) begin actually enforcing copyright laws…

My thanks to the 98% of you whose minds don’t work that way. The other 2% can suck my ass while I cheerfully offer them a full refund of all the subscription fees they’ve paid me to date…