In every industry, there are the kickbacks, the skimmings, the tricks of the trade that allow the core products to be competitively priced, and accessible to Joe Consumer. In some cases, it even allows the core products to be given away for free. In the late 90's, for example, we used to actually sell computers for below cost, knowing that, within six months, we could charge thousands of dollars to check these same computers for Y2K-compliancy. I ran the (mostly ceremonial) test procedures at least a thousand times during the last six months of 1999, and not once did a customer ask me why we didn't check the things before we rolled them out, sometimes mere days before returning to certify them. I must have gained 40 pounds in 1999.

Another great example of this particular business model is Microsoft's XBox. Every XBox in the world is sold at a horrifying loss. The hardware costs alone are something like 90% of the price tag, and the other 10% couldn't even put a dent in the massive R&D, marketing, and licensing costs The Beast poured into this fine piece of machinery. Nevertheless, Microsoft made (and still makes) a killing off this thing. The secret is the game licensing. GatesCo. basically gives away the hardware, so that they can make money off of the games that are sold to run on it. The XBox's anti-"piracy" technology ensures that only those games which have been blessed with The Key can run on it, and The Key, my friends, costs the pudenda for those who wish to use it.

Which brings us to my fucking haircut. Throug whispered confessions in nervous, back-alley meetings, it came to my attention that there exists here in Germany a reasonably-priced barber shop, hidden within the steamy bowels of a department store. Department stores are, in Germany at least, the Grand Mufti of Commerce, because they are often open until the ungodly hour of 8:00 PM, instead of closing at 4 in the afternoon like every other shop on the continent. People who do not belong to unions, and therefore do not enjoy the 11-hour work week and 45-hour lunches which seem to be commonplace here, might, in such an establishment, actually be able to buy an overpriced pair of Italian shoes after work that will turn into shredded leather foot wrappings during the first snow like something out of a grainy, black and white Operation Barbarossa documentary which will only lead to cannibaliism at some point, God help us all.

So, armed with the forbidden knowledge and secret pass-phrase, I walked casually into said cut-easy at 6 in the afternoon, curious as to what awaited me. I walked confidently to the counter, where the tell-tale scent of Barbicide betrayed the establishment's true purpose, and announced that I was there for a...haircut! I was promptly greeted by an attractive young nymph, probably fresh out of art-school, in need of funds, in a lowly state, ready for every degradation I could muster from my addled id.

I can't really recall much about the haircut. It was alright, the barbress turned out to be not that attractive after all, which is gang und gebe, a little pudgy, actually, though she did have magic hands at the hair-washing sink, though the fact that she didn't ask if I wanted the "special treatment" was not lost on me, and therefore was likely to affect her tip, negatively. The wrong kind of rub was in coming, though. She did a bad job on the head. Now, I know I've got a difficult head to cut, and I'm usually very understanding when newbies have difficulty with it. After the damage was done, the nymphette looked askance, and inquired as to whether I would like some gel on my hair. In a moment of weakness, I said, well, maybe just a little dab to hold back the humiliation when I walked out the door. So, she being responsive, and subject to my every whim, she took out a tube of hair gel, squeezed out a miniscule drop of the sticky, sensous fluid, and rubbed it on my battered skull. I looked in the mirror, and, swallowing my distaste, mussed a bit till I looked like something other than a month-old jack-o-lantern. I thanked her, and proceeded to the cash register. I paid my due, and realized she'd tacked €1.50 onto the price for the fucking hair gel!

I realize the people have to earn their money. I realize that the price for the haircut was suspiciously reasonable for these dark post-Deutschmark days, but a fucking €1.50 for a fucking cum-dab of hair gel!!!!!1

At this point, I was confronted with the decision, do I scream, at the top of my lungs, YOU FUCKING BACKSTABBING CUNT I'LL FUCKING DO YOU IN YOU GODDAMN BITCH FOR THAT FUCKING HAIRCUT YOU GONNA FUCKING PAY MOMMY MOMMY, or do I just meekly pay the €13.50, thank the nice lady, and walk out the door like someone actually did me a favor? People who know me will have no trouble believing that, not only did I pay the full tab, I also dropped a Euro into the tip jar. What a twat I am.

At two points in this story, as with so many cases in life, I could have been saved with one simple question: What would the Duke do? First off, John Wayne probably would have declined the hair gel, I'm guessing. Failing that, he most certainly would have shot every fucking customer in the department store amid myriad shoulder-rolls and hat-tips, which, honestly, is exactly what this pussified gay-bar of a country needs a bit more of.

Where's my fucking big-airn?

is a Bavarian wedding. I'm not really sure which is more important in such a regional affair, the unbridled alcohol abuse by everyone over the age of 16, or the abject humiliation of the bridal pair.

The intentional self-poisoning began on Thursday, with the Bachelor party. Pubs were crawled, bottoms were pinched, and, in the end, Rube showed that he could still run with the young dogs.

There's Rube, passed out in a chair in some nightclub he doesn't even know the name of, at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. And yes, the next morning's 9 o'clock meeting was a rousing, unqualified disaster, thanks for asking. By some weird twist of fate, Friday night was the birthday party of a family of immigrants out of somewhere over in Vampireland, which is anything east of Czechoslovakia. That was good for yet another night of binge drinking, though I must admit the heart, she was not really in it.

Which brings us to Saturday, the aforementioned wedding. Apparently, it's traditional in Bavaria to steal and make a copy of the Groom's house key while he's not paying attention. On the day of the wedding, while he's preparing to feed and bedrink his guests, they break into his apartment and trash the place. I heard stories of dismantled furniture, toilets stuffed with chocolate, pulled circuit breakers, and something about 150 gallons of mashed potatoes. With friends like these...

The entire evening of the Wedding was an endless stream of humiliation for the groom, the pinnacle of which must have been when we, in the tradition of the region, kidnapped his bride, took her out drinking, and he had to come search for us. I'm not exactly sure what the point of that particular ritual is, but she seemed to enjoy it just a little too much.

At any rate, congratulations to Herr Doktor Probst and his lovely new bride Martina for a beautiful wedding, and my heartfelt sympathies for the fact that some asshole went through his cd collection and swapped all the cases.

CNN.com - Inventor denies dead cat fuel story - Sep 15, 2005:

The underlying truth is, of course, that should you ever have to even deny such a thing, you've already lost.

Hallo, Hans

I vanted to assk you vhy ze american und british tourists, ze are alvays giggling vhen zey come here for skiing.

Danke,

Fritz Weber
Wank-Lifte Ski Lift

Jottings from yesterday's bar napkin, from the daily evening meeting-of-one:

I'm the chair of your misfortune, 4 legs of strength compared to your two. I loathe your cushions.
There are 3 people you should never lie to: Your lawyer, your doctor, and your accountant.
Your bits of SuSE architecture, you will not get in there. You will stare in amazement, at the amount of trust there.

Unvollständig.
Speth was eyeing my unit.
With Windows,you've got a whole other set of problems. I am the leader of the technik. Keep your fucking hands off of them. Dicknose.
There's no denying it: Things have been better.
Rsync software: No network access. How many revolutions? (backup rev's)(under normal usage)?
Why do I busy myself with such nonsense?
I'm surrounded by freaks and losers, traitors, liars, bitchy little people I'm supposed to give a fuck about.
Perfect coif, unimpeachable ascot. Saaaaah-weeeeet.
Wearing a green ascot on St. Patrick's day is probably not the best way to keep from getting pinched, I fear.
In a few years, I'll look back on these days and think, "What the fuck was that all about?"
Jeepers, I'm tired.
I'm tired of being tired. But I'm more tired of being broke.
Man, I guess TCP/IP, in retrospect, scales pretty well.
I can't believe I actually used to be an IPX bigot.
I also can't believe I used to own a class C subnet, namely 38.221.9.0/24. Merc, Fred, Medusa, Thor, Zeus, NS, man oh man, those were some days!
Here's some helpful advice for the ladies out there: If you're ugly, show some tit! C'mon, it's a date!
People sit around and compare their tools...
Tomorrow, I'm going to have a blister under my fingernail. Damn.

Well, I guess it's about time to stop smoking. I found a brown spot under my tongue today. I've probably got jaw cancer. Which probably means they'll need to cut off the lower half of my face, and reduce me to a freak whose tongue just hangs out of a jagged hole under his nose, wagging impotently with every attempt to speak, unable to articulate a sound, just emmitting some sort of excited whistle of gratitude when it's time for my mush.

Fuck, how did it come to this? I'm only thirty-five. My grandfather smoked for 60 years and only quit because he died. Otherwise, he'd be right here next to me, hooting appreciatively through a tube sticking out of his chest, then we'd go outside and pick up some hookers. Sleep well, Grandpa Arry, you deserved everything you got.

You know, that moment when you start typing, when you start groooooovin', not working at it, let the blog do the work for a change. This thing's been buggin' me, beggin' me, asking me please feed the hole, your publikum is waiting on you, Rube. But you know what, Blog? I'm fucking busy, whiny ass. I've got things to do, people to meet, bills to pay and letters to send. T'aint room here for two jefes, so one of us needs to get a-buggin, and I do believe that would be me. So, now, as long as I'm the one doing the buggin', you be the one doing the list'nin'. Now you listen to me, Blog, and you listen good. Velociman has a boil on his choad, Acidman's got a bug up his ass, and Lousiana ain't feeling so good his damn self. But me? I'm doing jes fine. Rube done took his blood pressure yesterday, after speed-snorting a liter of coffee, and it was 106 over fucking 60. I was on my way to work on a fuckin' Sunday, hands shaking like Katherine Hepburn's favorite vibrator, and you just sat here like a bump on a log waiting for it to find you.

Write yourself, you ungrateful little fuck. What's that? Oh, yeah, anytime, pussy, anytime.

Since I'm too busy at the moment to keep this rickety jalopy running, I've decided to post anything which the dregs of society decide to throw my inbox's way. I need a spam filter...

Case in point:

Chapter 1: A Viking Funeral
Author Unknown

He's gone, I heard the good doctor tell my wife and sister who apparently were somewhere in the near vicinity. No I wanted to scream out but couldn't. What the hell is going on? My eyes were shut tight and try as I might they would not open or even flutter. My entire body was frozen and refused to respond to any mental commands that I issued. Darkness held me captive.

"He wished to be cremated and have his ashes strewn over the homes of all his exes and meaningful lovers etc., the meaningless to receive condolences thru the mail or whatever", my beloved wife Andy relayed the info to the Doc or someone.

Then my beloved, somewhat frugal Sister, chimed in "My God stamps alone will cost a small fortune". "Just put a notice in a few fish-wrappers". As for scattering ashes, forget the former wives as they would make every attempt to bring the aircraft down before the payload could be delivered. The meaningfuls would be more receptive but squirm with discomfort while trying to explain the gesture to their current meaningfuls. We were only friends won't wash".

"Well, his 2nd wish was for a "Viking funeral", Andy offered. Maybe we could get some of his old drinking buddies to heave "Molotov" cocktails at a small vessel as it floats near the "Lil' " River Bridge that spans the infamous Alatoona Lake. Henry Bryan and Jackie Dempsey will gladly secure an old fishing boat I'm sure".

The 2nd wish prevailed. Somehow my wife and sister pulled it off. It was near dusk on a late August day when the much publicized event began. Bells Ferry road was closed to traffic in both directions, so the bridge would be open to the throngs of expected onlookers. Twenty cocktail hurlers waited in formation for the funeral barge to pass beneath, carrying yours truly to Valhalla. All at once the small boat came into view in tow behind a larger ski boat. When it neared the bridge, someone severed the tow line. Now the vessel was drifting under the L.R.B. Finally it emerged on the other side as the cocktails were lit, awaiting the Hurl command. Then it came, Ready! Hurl! All at once 20 arms obeyed the order! A few struck the small craft, causing it to ignite. The burlap wrapped corpse was now slowly engulfed in smoke and flame.

"My God it moved" a horrified deputy sheriff screamed!"Saw it thru my field glasses". Henry Bryan snatched the glasses from the grasp of the now hysterical lawman. "Let me have a look see"! Naw, must've been your eyes doin' tricks, what with it being nearly dark and all.

Only small remnants of the remained by now, floating on the surface near a large patch of ashes, surrounded by a mysterious ring of grease, all floating away toward a distant beach. Show was over and the crowd began to thin out. Some were puzzled by the behavior of Henry B. and Jackie D. however. Both were giggling and high-fiving anyone nearby. Eventually they were joined by the widow and sister of the deceased. Both ladies suppressed their own laughter all were aboard the Merc convertible belonging to J.D.. Now as the white Mercedes sped south on Bells Ferry Road, Henry B. broke the silence! There must be a God, what an unexpected bonus!He was refering to the fact that one of the hurlers was none other than George Tweedy.

It seemed that "Old Pruneface" (George) inadvertantly dropped his flaming cocktail all over himself! J.D. quickly pushed the "Human Torch" over the bridge railing and downward toward the murky water some 50 feet below. As luck would have it, George missed the water and upon the rocky shore. "Close but no cigar" would be this poor old wretches final epitath.

All 4 occupants wiped tears caused by derisive laughter from their eyes as the speeding vehichle reached it's destination. Now all entered the Villas of Kennesaw clubhouse bar, which had been previously reserved for the evening. "Did he suffer"? I asked. "Which one?", my wife asked. "Huh"!

Finally H.B. was able to speak and relay the tale of "Old Lonesome George's demise". Loud guffaws filled the room, it was gonna be a great night!!!

Stay tuned for Chapter Two:
Where in the world Is Gary ASSitelli?

Didja ever sit and wonder, just how horrendous X1-X10 must have been? I mean, network transparency is admirable, but it's all in the impelementation, folks.

At these sorts of cabbage-patch spectacles that crop up every now and then, it's important to remember the training. Macs are special. Macs are different. Macs are premium consumer items not meant for every 300 lb. frizzy-haired slushee-sucker who buys her computers at the grocery store.

Remember the training. Steve? Are you there? Have you forsaken us? SAY SOMETHING FOR THE LOVE A JESUS!

But Steve's probably just cackling like Renfield in some white marble penthouse, calling Gates on the phone; "Bill, you couldn't buy this kind of publicity!"

"Plates & Dishes: The Food And Faces Of The Roadside Diner" (Stephan Schacher)

A trip across America is the dream of many Europeans. At the tender age of nineteen, photographer Stephan Schacher undertook a typical sightseeing tour of the United States, from coast to coast on the Kerouac trail, visiting the cities and monuments, both natural and man-made, along the legendary Route 66. Almost 20 years later, Schacher decided to take a second trip across North America. This time, however, things would be done a little differently: Driving from upstate New York to Northern Alaska, almost 11,000 kilometers across Canada and the United States, Schacher decided photograph every meal along the way, as well as every waitress who served it.

What may sound like a goofy, drunken college idea dreamed up at three o'clock in the morning became a serious undertaking for Schacher. Eating exclusively in roadside diners, the author blazes a low-brow culinary trail across the continent, braving greasy hamburgers and questionable seafood platters. The book itself is handsomely crafted. After turning page after page of greasy diner cuisine, one begins to wonder just how many t-bone steaks and onion rings a man can eat before his heart explodes.

Using specialty paper, muted colors, and creative typography, it sits well on the nightstand or coffee table for the casual reading session. Making meticulous records of his mileage, food expenditures, and the times of arrival and departure, Schacher is able to painstakingly recreate his entire journey in facts and figures to complement the irresistibly personal experience of the solitary roadside meal.

This is a good sign...

[root@freak1 chkrootkit-0.45]# ls -al
bash: /bin/ls: Input/output error

On my poor little Linux box, who just sits in the corner and never hurts anybody. When he was in the kitchen, next to my refrigerator, he once had 700 days of uptime, damn near 2 years without a reboot. He even spent the better part of an afternoon in a half-inch of standing water, when I accidentally left my freezer door open.

Brave little man, go gently into that great /dev/null in the sky. And take my fucking django projects with you, you weak little twat. Jesus, why do I only do backups for other people?!

That's what I'll be. Sitting in the server room, surrounded by untold generations of in-bred housecats, all playing little banjos and admiring my pouty lips. Crazy ol' Cat-Rube, wondering where all my friends have gone, why my children never call, and why, way back when, in aught-five, nobody wished me a happy System Administrator Appreciation Day.

Fuck you guys. I'm deleting all your mail.

As I was googling around, debating whether or not to install the copy of Office XP I've recently come into, in order to upgrade my slowly rotting-yet-beloved copy of Office 2000 Pro, I came across 1) enough evidence to deter me, and b) what has to be the best screenshot caption I've ever seen:

Some may have noticed that in the last 6 months, YouBitch.org has skyrocketed in popularity, owing to various influences viz bribery and dirty, dirty tricks.

It's grown so popular, in fact, that you'll find YouBitch.org in the Truth Laid Bear ecology sandwiched between ROFASix and "Test Page for Apache Installation".

How the hell do you come in behind a Test Page for Apache Installation?

Sometimes it's the little things that make it worthwhile. Today, for example, I spent 2 hours working on a network firewall whose brand name, Ben Hur, is eerily close to the Bavarian phrase, bin a hur, which means, roughly, I am a prostitute. This is why I giggle to myself when I think there's no one watching.

Also, I get to swear a lot a work, since none of these cretins speak English well enough to know what "oh you cocksucking piece of fucking shit" actually means, in the book sense.

In a related train of thought, I was in Kissing, Bavaria yesterday. Streams of consciousness being what they are, I immediately thought of Henry Kissinger, whose name means someone who comes from Kissing, and then I thought to myself, jeez, I haven't come from Kissing since high school, which then dead-ended into a search for a half-joke that cratered into a mixed-metaphore here at the usually-reliable youbitch.

Indeed, the little things can make an otherwise dreary, grey, and cloudy day all smily.

Oh, and there was a bug.

I never thought I'd see these words written by an adult:

why do I get the feeling you guys are yanking my chain? I guess I'll have to ask Sandy, she will be straight with me!

I would suggest that Lippy Livey prepare herself for amazing new levels of betrayal, shaming, and a chain-yanking most people only read about in Penthouse Forum. Sandy?!

I had all kindsa Sandy riffin' on Zonker links to pan out here, but sandy moved :-(

Sandy's new home is here. By the time Longhorn/Vista comes out, or Duke Nukem Forever, whichever comes first, I'll even update my sidebar template!

Hugs,
Rube

Check out the smoke on slashdot. There are a few very important reasons for a company to switch over to Macs. Viruses, Spyware, and Solitaire, to name just three. I just installed Windows XP on a fairly run-of-the-mill mini-PC, the ASUS Pundit-R. It took me two day to get all the drivers sorted out. I've still got an entry in the device manager for a mysterious "USB Controller" with a yellow exclamation point next to it which doesn't seem to be covered by the ASUS or ATI driver downloads. You can re-install a Mac in about an hour, all drivers and applications included, no matter what model. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even tell the install program to leave your home directory alone, and all your application settings will remain.

On the other hand, I've had a lot of customer contact lately. Most of my customers have irresolvable reasons to stay on the platform they're on, almost invariably Win32. Whether it's a Tax-Consulting program that makes extensive use of COM and the Windows version of Microsoft Office and Outlook, or an embedded controlling program for an industrial baking machine that only runs on Win98 SE, these people are locked in, and generally at ease with that fact. But with that, the 'vendor lock-in' argument against Apple Computer goes right out the window.

Companies shouldn't switch platforms just because somebody on Slashdot can provide an overpowering argument. Switching is expensive, no matter which direction. If you switch to Mac, you have to know that you can't realistically have more that one choice for an office productivity package, ironically MS Office. On Windows, you've got native versions of OpenOffice, Hansa Office, Corel WordPerfect Office (my personal choice at the moment), and just about anything else you can think of, none of which exist on Mac. Mac does have Pages, which beats rings around Word for 99% of what you're going to want to do, as long as what you want to do doesn't involve other companies being able to interact directly with your documents.

There are many arguments against Macification, and many more in favor. It all comes down to whether or not the boss wants to pony up the money for some sexy-ass hardware.

[are you there?]
yes

There's a lot to be said for good work habits. At least that's what I've heard, mostly from people who have good work habits, and also have, perhaps not coincidentally, fairly recent iPods. It's hard to balance abject sloth and material greed, I've found, so at some point you just try to find the path of least suffering. Just give a smile on the sidewalk to some girl who's trying so hard to make an impression. You don't have to express your loathing each and every minute to the untermenschen that you are forced by God and man to walk past when all you really want is to get from point A to point B to take the money from party C. Party C understands that you're not there to talk about the weather, but it's protocol, so just fuckin' do it.

Good work habits are more than just Knowing Your Shit. Good work habits include getting out of bed before noon, whether you have to or not [glance at Andy]; not masturbating in front of customers [glance at Thomas]; coming within 4 significant digits of your proposed budget [glance in mirror]; using your spellchecker when norms will be reading; and, last but not least, not fucking the co-ops [no glance necessary].

Good work habits involving knowing your product, and know when not to bend your customer over a barrel, which does occasionally make sense. Call your mother every now and then; do your paperwork; and for God sakes, stop using the fucking copier to make visuals of your goddam buttocks. I know this is all very difficult for you scrubs, but please, do make an effort: We're in this game to win. Now get out there and kick some ASS!

It seems as though Lawrence's fattest cat, Eldloe, has passed away. As a catperson, I propose a drink to the memory of Edloe. As a drunkard, however, I didn't need a dead cat to drink a beer, now did I.

There's a place in Heaven for good cats, assuming Edloe was one, and the cat waits for you there, in the fields, when you're dead.

Sleep.

bling!

borf!!!!1

Puew! Brweeeeeeeeg! Noooooörf!

So are the dangers of drinking and blogging. Normal, hätte I the bling to glop what I blingin' dorf. You know?

Plow!

Here I am again, waiting on the old lady in the Worst Bar in the World. The Worst Bar in the World, by the way, has improved itself. It, like a woman, responds to slaps and degradations in the correct manner, vis it adjusts, tries to understand the reasons for its punishment, evolves. The Worst Bar in the World is no fool, and has its sights set on my money apparently. In short, the staff no longer spends its time smoking cigarettes behind the bar, wondering what all these people want from them. They pour beer now, and do it quickly.

On the other hand, there's the New Worst Bar in the World. I'm not a completely negative person, so I'll start with the positives: The New Worst Bar in the World is very clean. This is probably because after about 11 P.M. the staff do nothing other than clean the kitchen. They are nowhere to be found. You can walk in, take a seat, have a cigarette*, and proceed to load all the furniture and silverware that isn't currently being polished into the back of your car and drive home, nary an eyebrow raised. The New Worst Bar in the World is purportedly without pre-defined closing time, meaning, from my admittedly biased perspective as customer, that you can can drink all night, it being a bar and all. Such tag-lines can be deceiving, of course. Open all night means different things to different people, and here the customer is not always right. The bar, as you or I would understand it, closes about 11:15. After that point, it becomes more of a non-contact peep-show for dishwashing fetishists. The staff are not to be disturbed, and, if you don't mind staying overnight until the doors open up again, you can stay as long as you want.

The service in Europe sucks, still, even 2 months after my return.

*-The New Worst Bar in the World hides the ashtrays behind the bar, so you'll have to ash on the floor.

Oh, I'm droolin' here. Sam gives us the enviable role of doing exactly what we want with a comment/trackback spammer, without fear of retribution. Normally, I'd say turn him over to the police for a hitherto non-existing statutory transgression that will bring nothing, seeing as the perp more than like lives in a country whose name consists of 17 letters, not one of which is a vowel. So let's think outside the box for a minute.

First, you take a 12-foot length of 400lb fishing line. The you put a mess of fish-hooks on one end of it, and a ping-pong ball tied on the other end. Now, you take your subject and remove all his teeth, or at least the upper incisors. Then, you bind his hands behind his back, and lay him face down, naked, on your basement floor. You take the ping-pong ball, and force him to swallow it.

There's some funny things about the human body. One of those funny things is peristalsis, which is the process by which things are moved along the intestines 'til they get to the business end. Seeing as the human digestive tract is about 24 feet long on average, and needs about 5 hours for a complete tour, your subject will have about two and a half hours to watch that roll of fishing line unravel, and the fish-hooks travel towards his maw. There will be a lot of comic relief during this period, seeing as he'll be trying desperately to chew through the fishing wire with his gums, but this stage is all about anticipation.

Once the hooks get inside, the subject will have another 2 and a half hours to contemplate exactly what it feels like as his own body's muscular contractions pull a handful of fishhooks through his alimentary canal, and into his large intestine. The pain will be excruciating, but that's irrelevant, as this is a dead man walking. Well, a dead man laying toothless and naked on a cold concrete floor with a gut full of fishhooks, but we've all been there, now, haven't we. Once the intestinal wall is breached to any significant extent, the poisons there will flow out into the abdominal cavity, condemning all the vital organs to a slow, toxic death, and the host to death by septicemia.

At this point, the innkeeper can go for the quick thrill, letting the subject's small intestine take over, with its quicker peristaltic pace, raking the hooks 12 feet behind, leaving the subject screaming in agony until his inevitable death through internal blood loss. Or, if he has the time and/or patience, he can take the subject to a secluded parking lot, toss him out, and call an ambulance. There's no helping him, of course, but it will be amusing to watch him mutate into a swollen, jaundiced, piss-smelling monster while paying $5000 a minute for all manner of dialysis and blood-purification procedures, all of which will not stop the fact that his liver and kidneys have been handed down the death penalty. This could go on for six to eight months, and never ceases to amuse.

I'm a quick-thrill kind of person, myself, but to each their own.

There are cases, of course, where nobody wants to be number 1.

So, I was just sitting here, and I realized that my last blog entry was in something like 1963, and I thought to myself, how the hell do you fuckers do it? It's bad enough when you want to post, but don't have time. What's even worse, is when you don't want to post, when the shining light within you has guttered and died like a wet match, but the hole calls. The hole must be fed.

But I think now, I've taken a little break. I would like to start putting stupid little thoughts into glass boxes again, and have to defend them against Gentoo zealots and Islamic terrorists. But drawings are always good. So, here's an old drawing that I kinda like.

Makes me think of Guantanamo.

marcy say:

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had so much time
To sit and think about myself
And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had too much caffeine
And I was thinkin' 'bout myself
And then there she was
In double platform suede
Yeah there she was
Like disco lemonade
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream
Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this must be my dream

"I was overwhelmed by the hellish imagery, the abject violence, and the complete inhumanity. A vision right out of Bosch's worst nightmares, with Hell let loose upon the Earth with brimstone and sulfurous fumes. An utterly loathsome firestorm of Evil waiting to be unleashed upon this world of ours, just biding its time till it bursts out into the open and wreaks destruction. I could barely sit through the whole thing. Man, I've got to lay off the pesto gnocchis.

"The movie? Oh, it was OK, I guess."

Here's one more reason to watch the Keynote Monday.

I guess it doesn't really matter if Apple switches to Intel chips. They go where they want, and always seem to come out unharmed. For the record, though, I don't believe a word of it. I've heard OS X-on-Intel fantasies since the '90s, and I don't think Apple will be doing that particular dance in the foreseeable future.

If they do, though, it will disappoint me terribly. I wanted a new Cell-Driven Powerbook.

not a shrinking violet » Moooooo-vie Meme:

Well, on about a week ago, Liv meme-tagged me. Unfortunately, the email all my blog notifications get sent to is gone, for whatever reason, so I failed to notice. I'll have to be updating that. Also, I've been unable to either blog or read blogs for the past few weeks, seeing as I've been busy 'n' stuff. Sorry, Liv, I'll get to the meme now.

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:

Well, I think it's about 30 now. I used to have more, but I've sold about half of them on Amazon over the past few weeks.

2) The last film I bought:

The last film I bought was...hmmm...let's see...

"Der Soldat James Ryan (DTS)" (Steven Spielberg)
(saving private ryan, subsequently sold for a handful of magic beans)

3) The last film I watched:
Star Wars, Episode IV. Meeee-mo-reeeeees.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

"Memento (2 DVDs)" (Christoper Nolan)

"Die üblichen Verdächtigen" (Bryan Singer)

"L.A. Confidential" (Curtis Hanson)

"Die Verurteilten" (Frank Darabont)

"Affliction [UK IMPORT]" (Paul Schrader)

5) Tag 5 people:
I don't think I will, because I've missed the meme-wave. Sorry folks, I'll try to get my blog-butt in gear.