Taco Shop Psychic's Answers to Burning Questions

2002-11-09T06:26:00.000-08:00

2002-08-06T17:01:00.000-07:00

1.) Is honesty always the best policy? Relate a plausible scenario where this might not be the case.

Of all the policies one could have, honesty is the best. It does not mean that it's a binary choice. I'll have to come up with a scenario worth writing about.

2.) Are you someone of who can't say no? If you're not, tell those of us who are, how to overcome the yes syndrome.

At home I have a tough time with no. At work, it's easy.

3.) What's your remedy for sleepless nights?

Alka-Seltzer Plus.

2002-07-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

(From Linda, just for jf!)

2002-07-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 23

1.) Do you have a friend like Mr. Potatoehead? In other words do you have a friend that trouble seems to follow like a bad penny? Tell us about that friend or one of his/her bad pennies?

jf, I'm not sure anyone has a friend like Mr. Potatoehead. My name used to come up with the words 'bad' and 'penny', but that's rather a copout, and you all already get all my bad penny stories. There is a woman I know, she's the friend of my girlfriend's mother, that has a lot of medical problems that seem to get misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed frequently. The latest of these led to half her foot being amputated. I don't know the specifics well enough to comment on them here.

2.) Was there something you really meant to accomplish, or really wanted to do that you didn't do last week? How come you didn't do it?

I wanted to get information on worker retraining and get that underway last week. I went yesterday to explore this instead, and have a one-hour thingie to go to today at 2:30 for this.

3.) Pretend you're in the market for a therapist. What would be the therapist's most desirable quality? Why that one?

I want a cute female therapist. Well, actually, I want a therapist that is female, but not gorgeous. I find it easier to talk to women, but I can be easily put off by tremendously good-looking women. I've actually given this a lot of thought, believe it or not.

2002-07-23T05:57:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 22

1.) Do you think pornography is dangerous? Why, or why not?

This statement is true. But then is that the real question?

Pornography, like most everything else can be dangerous. Eating meat is dangerous. Sitting in the sun is dangerous. The X-Files is dangerous. Is all pornography dangerous? Is some pornography dangerous? My opinion is that all pornography is not dangerous, but some is. What constitutes dangerous in this case? Hell, I don't know. And does it even matter? As a body of work, I can't say that pornography is more dangerous than some other pieces of work, such as The Holy Bible or the The Koran.

The differences are thus: pornography may provide certain people with an urge or an idea to do something they probably ought not to do (so would the X-Files, I'd wager). The holy books of the world's religions not only give people urges and ideas to do something they probably ought not to do, they also give an excuse.

2.) What do you think about people being held in jail without charges, without access to a lawyer, or a phone call for an indeterminate period of time?

In most cases, I would be against that. The exceptions are when it could be reasonably stated that this was for the greater public good. The exceptions would need to be accounted for however, and I'll bet that if you have a certain specific incident in mind that provoked this question, jf, the accountability is probably not there.

3.) How do you feel about this US program?

I'd be really surprised to find that you could find someone more ambivalent towards this than me. I really don't think that this is such a big deal. True, it can be abused, but everything the government does has the potential of abusing some citizen or groups of citizens, or even groups of non-citizens somewhere. It does not mean that this will be the case.

And honestly, I don't get the big deal. Effectively, they're asking certain industry workers to do what they're already doing in post-September America, being vigilant, but instead of notifying local authorities via 911 for suspicious, non-immediate, possibly dangerous activity these workers note, they call a national hotline. They're not being disabused (although they're not being encouraged, which I think they should be) of also still notifying the local authorities, so states' rights versus federal obligations ought not to be an issue. If the privacy wonks are concerned about the government having information about someone's movement that someone else considered 'suspiscious', well guess what? They've already got a means of getting that information. You cannot tell me that in this day an age, the average Teamster or postal worker upon noticing something they consider out of the ordinary isn't going to tell someone. And you can't tell me that the Justice Department, if they so desired and haven't done already, couldn't ask local law-enforcement to copy them on anything that matched this criteria that came across their desks.

2002-07-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Top Five

Movies, summers, etc.

Robocop
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Pocahontas
Mystery Men

The Pocahontas one was funniest. I was in Okinawa when that came out, and worked across the street from the Camp Courtney Theater. When they put it up on the marquee, they left out the 'n'. I never actually saw the film, I just sat across the street and laughed at the seemingly X-rated name they'd turned it into with the omission of a letter.

2002-07-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

Early Tuesday Too (aka the Monday Moo, Tuesday Too # 21)

1.) What is the most important thing going on in your life this week?

My girlfriend is going to Utah this week. (Note to the single women that read this, I'm available until August 4. Don't flood my email with offers too fast! Yes, that was sarcasm.)

2.) Tell us about your quintessential faux pas.

I can give you one per year. The worst one was when I was twenty-three, I almost wound up in bed with one of my best friend's fifteen year-old sister. Very happily, I came to my senses at the last moment. I'd rather not go into more detail then that, as it was not one of my more shining moments.

3.) Why would you most likely be nominated to speak your mind, and what is it you're going to say?

I like to pretend that I'm the kind of fellow that most people would like to hear an opinion about most anything from (awkward sentence there). Truthfully, I'd probably be tapped for something droll like the parasitic symbiosis between the modern capitalist system in the digital era and it's relationship to software.

In a nutshell, there have been a host of articles recently that attempt to tackle the problems that happen in software these days that by all rights should not. There are a lot of very stupid errors that make it into software these days (Windows 98 almost shipped with a file called teensex.jpg -- and actually I'm not too sure about the 'almost' part of that claim) and a lot of the problems we face have everything to do with capitalism as a whole and only a little bit to do with software quality. (Not saying that capitalism is bad, it just presents challenges that need dealt with.)

Essentially we do not lack from talent, we lack the commitment industry-wide to pay for it -and- we don't put it where it's most needed. In every other business model I can think of, those that are most able to produce things -- the old hands -- are usually placed over a system of other folks who actually do the producing and the old hand checks their work. In software, if this is done, it is done badly with the manager (old hand) often sidetracked by everything else he needs to get done. He's still responsible for coding unless he's upper management, in which case he would probably make one or two trips down into the trenches to give advice. The devs are largely on their own and their work is often only checked by testers who have a pitious fraction of the knowledge of the developer and often miss bugs because they don't know what their looking at.

Pretty boring, huh?

2002-07-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 20
1.) Yes conflicting theories abound, what do you think dreams (nightly adventures) mean, or do you subscribe to a particular theorist and why?

I don't remember my dreams often enough to care. When I do, they're usually fairly frightening so I tend to ignore the whole dreamworld altogether.

2.) When you are confronted by a homeless person asking for change, how do you respond? How does it make you feel? If you've never been in this situation, imagine it, and calculate your response.

If I have money, I'll generally give it. If I see the same beggar over and over again, well -- there is such a thing as a worn out welcome. If I don't have money, I won't. I also won't give money to people with signs at the sides of the road, unless it's ostensibly for them to get home on.

3.) Do you feel you have been short changed in any way by destiny/fate/god? If so, how?

Nah, I usually put the blame for things like this squarely on me. There are exceptions to that, but in my mind it pretty much holds that if I had made better choices I'd be better off. Besides, it all seems to balance out, as I get lucky too.

2002-07-08T03:07:00.000-07:00

Take the Purrsonality Quiz!

2002-07-02T04:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 19

1.) What do you find most troubling about your way of life? If your life is carefree please give me a hint, which has nothing to do with winning the lottery.

I don't care. I mean I really don't care enough about (most) anything to give a damn anymore. I don't care if I have a job, I don't care if I suck at work and it doesn't get done. I have a real lack of motivation.

2.) What is your prescription (non psychotropic), or outlet for dealing with stress and anxiety?

Well, I've been known to drink a bit. When I was informed that Veritas no longer needed my services, I had three bottles of vodka on (not in, but on) my desk. That was a crappy company to work for though, the drinking made their stupidity tolerable. I sleep a lot so I don't have to be awake to face my problems. And as you all know, I surf the net far too much.

3.) What's the real reason you get up every morning?

No joke, it's to make coffee for my girlfriend. Even as good as I've been feeling lately isn't enough to make me want to face another day. Tuesdays theres this, but that leaves six days of mostly stupider memes to decide that I'm not going to answer, and therefore don't look forward to.

2002-06-28T01:05:00.000-07:00

Friday Five.

When was the last time you...

1. ...sent a handwritten letter? I've actually got one in the works. My friend Melissa from high school wrote me a couple of months ago and I've still got my reply sitting here. By now she probably thinks she sent it to the wrong address.

A couple of months ago I sent one to my best friend.

2. ...baked something from scratch or made something by hand? The last thing I baked was cookies on Tuesday night. The last thing I made was a little "count down until Grandma comes" chain for the girls.

I bake by scratch all the time, and I'm in the middle of a Trompe l'oeil piece.

3. ...camped in a tent? Summer of '98. Waaaay too long, if you ask me.

Summer 2000 I think.

4. ...volunteered your time to church, school, or community? I used to do church work once a month when I was actually going to church. For now I'm currently working on knitting preemie caps for a local hospital, and I'm doing the Blogathon to raise money for BFAS. Not exactly charity work, I guess, but it's all I have time for at this point.

I'm in the process of my backround check so that I can work with King County Search and Rescue.

5. ...helped a stranger? This one's pretty tough. I don't have a lot of contact with strangers and I'm more likely to spend my time and energy helping a friend. We did give money to BFAS last time we were in PetsMart.

I give money all the time. I also like giving directions. The most helpful I've been recently was last year when I helped this woman get her stalled truck off of 46th and ran her to a parts store for a new starter and helped her put it in.

2002-06-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

2002-06-27T02:10:00.000-07:00

My Bloginality is ENTP!!!

2002-06-25T03:31:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 18
1.) When was the last time your pet gave you a scare? What happened? If you're not a "pet person", how come?

Hmmm...

I've blogged aboout my old dead cat Archie. The cat that came to live in Archie's place is Ally, whom I brought home as a kitten. I vowed to never bring home a kitten as there are so many cats that need homes, and kittens are easy to place. But this one was special in that she shares my birthday and was born with a hernia (as was I). Obviously, this had to be my cat.

Despite being nine weeks old, she was kept with the adult cats at the shelter, even with her stitches in. She was keeping her own against cats that had been feral all their lives, so I figured that she would be ok in my cantankerous brood. I knew BC wouldn't be a problem, and Spaz would be a nuisance, but Majik would be the test.

So I brought kitty home, and she decided she liked to bat at the birds, so the birds bit her. She didn't seem to notice, which eased my concerns since the parrots brook no trouble with pesky cats.

One evening, I left Ally wandering around in the kitchen and went to watch TV. An awful commotion and clatter arose from the kitchen and I ran back because I recognized by the vocalizations and other fighting noises that she had been jumped by our bulldog-shaped and over-muscular Majik. I arrived in the kitchen to see Ally's face covered in blood, with her mewling in anger. It was the meanest look I have ever seen on the face of a cat, and she was three months old. Despite the look of defiance, Majik had punctured Ally's sinal wall and hooked another claw into Ally's lower left eyelid. I spent fifteen minutes addressing Ally's injuries, and stalked off to find Majik.

Majik pulled crap like this all the time, but this was major. I was not in the mood for her shit, it was not a simple case of "Bad Kitty". I was going to whup her so badly that she would remember the pain forever. I didn't need to, because it turns out that despite Ally's injuries, she had indeed held her own against my big brute. I found her cowering in the corner with a colossal goose-egg over her right eye, which had swollen shut.

Because both my girlfriend and I worked at the time, I decided that I had to separate them during the day, as I could not bear to come home to a kitten with her eyes clawed out by Majik. Had that happened, I quite likely would have killed Majik, which is not something I like to remember or admit. The separation has led to Ally being unable to socialize with any cat, especially the still-agressive Majik, and they live separated to this day. Ally lives in the basement, Majik and Spaz live upstairs. My efforts at trying to make Ally live upstairs have led only to a cat that will not touch the floor, and live only on bookshelves.

2.) How do you think the things that you think, in other words what do you think consciousness is?

I think consciousness is whatever the dictionary defines it to be. How do I think? Like no one you've ever met before.

3.) Taking off from last Tuesday's question # 3, check this out: Women's Treaty, and do something about it. If you don't live in the United States, check out the position of your country on the treaty. This isn't so much a question as a challenge, so I affirm that I shall.

2002-06-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

Friday Five

1. Do you live in a house, an apartment or a condo?

Duplex.

2. Do you rent or own?

Rent.

3. Does anyone else live with you?

Girlfriend, brother, furry cat, thick cat, stripey cat, smart light-green birdie, smartass dark-green birdie, thick-headed dog.

4. How many times have you moved in your life?

I count this as my fiftieth (50th) mailing address. I've physically lived in various places in Wisconsin (two residences), Pennsylvania (two residences), Iowa (one), Missouri (two), Kentucky (one), Tennessee (one), Georgia (one), Virginia (two), South Carolina (one), North Carolina (one), California (thirteen), Washington State (three), the states of Hesse (six) and Lower Rhine-Westphalia (two), Germany and Okinawa (one), Japan. So, fifty mailing addresses and thirty-six physical addresses by my count.

5. What are your plans for this weekend?

My best friend is coming up to Seattle with her boyfriend for a CD-release party. I'll probably do dinner with them, and my girlfriend, brother, dog and I will be journeying down to the Fremont Street Fair.

2002-06-20T03:40:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 17

1.) What's your favorite browser? Why do you hate "the other one"?

Netscape has always been buggy, and I've always preferred the usability of Mosaic and IE, even in my anti-Microsoft phase. Microsoft bought the rights to Mosaic, and that's where IE came from.

2.) Are you fascinated by technology and the internet, or is it just a handy tool for you? How did you get involved in blogging?

Not as much as I used to be. I'm kind of burned out on technology. I got involved in blogging by being sent a link from daypop.

3.) What do you think about the alliance of conservative U.S. Christian organizations with Islamic governments (Iran, Libya, Iraq) "to halt the expansion of sexual political protections and rights of gays, women and children at United Nations conferences" (Washington Post article by Colum Lynch, June 17, 2002)?

Believe it or not, I think nothing of this. It is neither bad, nor good, it just is.

That's probably confusing. I do not agree with the ends that the administration is working to here. I shall not however, condemn the method.

It is easy to miss that in the world outside the US, countries that are typically secular are not terribly industrious, and vice-versa. We are often condemned for the weirdness that because of our secular roots, we have a good work ethic, which makes us prosperous, which makes us enjoy the finer things in life. It's not an oxymoron here, but it is most everywhere else. If you look at the rest of the wealthy countries on the globe, they are either oil-rich or (traditionally) left-leaning socialist. So, I think in this situation, you have to pick your oxymoron. It makes sense that secular entities would stick together, even if the secularity of the various countries has led to vastly different outcomes.

In a bizarre way, it heartens me that we just don't knee-jerk policy because we don't happen to like all of the things a particular government says or does. I just wish it had become evident some other way.

This whole thing is pendular, anyway. I've seen many people compare these times to that of the late Sixties and the VietNam War era. If it is, I think it is because the right is enjoying the same sort of 'rebirth' the left went through then. While on one hand, the current counter-culture seems vastly irreligious, the current spate of religious and semi-religious overtones in today's popular rock would suggest otherwise.

I think we've not quite seen the end of the right's resurgence. Also, it's not going to be long before the religious right goes too far and in reltaliation, the extreme left turns their attention away from eco-terrorism, to the kind of murderous bent the extreme right has been known to profess their support and desire for.

2002-06-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 16

(Your archive links appear somewhat borked, jf -- just in case you'd not yet noticed.)

1.) The New York Times recently had an article by David Gallagher on the war bloggers (after 9/11 and mostly right-wingers) vs. techie bloggers or so called veteran bloggers. Do you think the very nature of blogging is revolutionary? NOTE: you need to create a user name and password to access the NYTs.

One definition of the word 'revolution' is '...a total or radical change...' (dictionary.com) and in that sense blogging certainly is. It's also evolutionary in that people for time immemorial have been chronicling things that affect them, but blogging has given a particular, and so far singular, medium to not only look within but to look out and observe others looking inward.

2.) Are labels (i.e. feminist, left or right) really important? What if the meanings change over time? Is there some particular label you're proud to wear and why?

I think the 'right' answer, the one expected by modern society here is that labels aren't important. Which is nice, but a tad idealistic. Labels are important at least to the person that created them. In a world where we are taught that the individual is the important being and groups of individuals are less so, then labels are necessary in identifying both.

I'm proud to wear several labels, including 'Army brat', 'former Marine', and 'human companion to furry four-legged guardians of the netherworld' chief among them.

3.) Would you be willing to give up, or reassess something you strongly believe in because hard evidence suggests that you are totally wrong?

I've been wrong before. Prove me wrong and I'll admit it. I might get mad about it, but I'll at least admit it. You just have to prove me wrong which sounds much easier than it really is.

2002-06-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 15
1.) Is there a goal, or something you value highly that a simple time commitment would put within your reach? What is it? Why is it important to you? If it's a high school, or college degree that is of the utmost importance to you, why is it significant beyond the obvious reason (i.e. job)?

I dunno how to quite answer this. I gave up on personal goals a long time ago since it seemed that every time I would set one, some uncontrollable circumstance would come and make it impossible (or no longer worth the effort) to achieve. My current kind of fuzzy goals are to move back to Europe -- but there's a lot in the way of that, beyond a 'simple' time commitment -- and to find a job in the interim.

2.) Why haven't you done this already? If you're already working towards it, tell us about a particularly difficult hurtle.

In the case of moving to Europe, a lot of things had me tied to this continent. The biggest one was the household that I had established with my girlfriend. Now that she and I have agreed to split up and go our separate ways sometime in the distant future, it's pretty much only limited by getting my ducks all lined up for it. My girlfriend does not have a high school diploma, so before we split up I want to make sure she has some way to support herself, but after that it's all on me. The only other things keeping me in North America is the logistical-type support that I am providing for my brother while he attends the U-Dub and my best friend. Quite frankly, they both have the ability to deal with me going back to Europe.

As far as getting a job, I am having the problem of being extremely gun-shy after being laid off twice in the last year. That's the biggest problem I have in finding a new one, hands down.

3.) Be realistic. How much time can you comit towards making it happen?

Like I mentioned in the first answer, time is not the problem for Europe. At least not the major one. And I have all the time in the world for getting a job.

2002-06-03T10:52:00.000-07:00

I mean, out of all the Star Wars characters, how can you really want to be anyone else?

:: how jedi are you? ::

I love the coincidence here. I've never been much of a Star Wars fan, but a good friend of mine was fond of comparing my first car, (a Datsun 280ZX) to the Millenium Falcon because of the ZX's penchant for breaking at the most inopportune moments only to automatically revive itself a few seconds later. The scariest one was when I went to pull around some traffic on the two-lane Old Hwy 395 in San Diego County. The car tried hard to die and I narrowly avoided oncoming traffic. Once I came back into my own lane, the car worked fine.

I miss that car...

2002-05-28T09:42:00.000-07:00

Note -- the comments left on this page died when I upgraded my YACCS code. It's because I actually bastardized the old system a bit and had all of the comments from here actually attach in YACCS to the main part of my blog. My apologies for any confusion.

2002-05-28T08:19:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too.

1.) What's the best thing you did over the holiday weekend?

Believe it or not, I bought a rubber raft. I want a kayak, but can't afford it, so I settled for one of these hideous yellow things for the time being.

2.) Who would you want to spend the afternoon/evening with getting the answers to all your questions? What do you really want to know from this person/animal?

*shrug* jf Cates. Daljit Dhaliwal. My best friend. Gert. I dunno, could be any of those. Could be someone else entirely. I like to talk to people, share my stories with them and listen to theirs. In my current sphere of admiration, there's four of the brightest stars right there. jf and Gert say things that make me think, I lust after Daljit Dhaliwal (and am not afraid of admitting this), and I can always use more quality time with my best friend. It really doesn't matter who, I have questions for everybody and anybody.

3.) Why do you think "there must be more to life than having everything"?

I've met, and worked with, and counted as friends people that could buy anything. While this statement is not true of all of them, it really seemed to bring home that old adage about happiness not being a commodity. I learned it the hard way to a lesser extent, and refused to be swayed from who I am because of money. Or, at least I tried. My girlfriend left me once, to seek sunnier times and climes. I converted all of the stock options I had to buy her a truck so she would have reliable transportation when she got there. I probably should have used it to keep from declaring bankruptcy, but I just could not leave her in the lurch. It's just money, after all.

2002-05-26T12:58:00.000-07:00

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2002-05-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

Eight From the Eighties.

1) What's in your room?

My room is the basement. It looks like a basement that's not been cleaned in three years, because, well, it hasn't.

2) Do you have fame?

No.

3) Are you on a road to nowhere?

Seems that way. Unemployed, can't find a job, don't really want to...

4) Ooh, are you a little runaway?

No.

5) Have you ever felt the earth move, under your feet?

I've been in a number of earthquakes. Being in a high-rise during one is especially entertaining.

6) I've been waiting, for a...

...fulfillment in life.

7) If you love somebody...

...run the hell away from them.

8) Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies. (In keeping with the 'sweet' part of the request...)

Deb, I'm going to take you on a whirlwind tour of Europe. We are going to have so much fun! Getting our toes in the sand at Majorca and Cyprus, hiring a motorcar in Greece where we can see Athens and on up the Hellenic peninsula into Austria and the Alps -- you like to ski, right? We'll dip on down into Italy and go see the lovely town of Modena. We can catch a train there and check out the south of France, Monaco, and then Marseilles -- mmm... Marseilles in the summer, tres bien! After that, we can go to the Champagne region and look up an old friend of mine at Moet; he'll give us the personal private tour. From France, mon cher, we'll go into Germany and rent the main hall of the schloss in Heidelberg -- just for the two of us to dance the night away! We'll jet over to Berlin and see what's shaking for nightlife on the old Ku'damm, and then after that it's Copenhagen and the Tivoli Gardens, baby! Our whirlwind romantic tour of Europe, just you and me Deb! You'll love it!

(I always liked that song because it seemed to me that this was the kind of thing that Stevie Nicks was asking for when she sang, "Tell me lies/tell me sweet little lies..." -- like she wanted help to forget who she was and where she was and wanted someone to paint a fantasy life for her to live in, albeit briefly. This is the kind of thing I've always wanted to do with someone that I care about, just spend the summer travelling and spending much money doing it.)

2002-05-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

This is an indication of something...

Thursday Threesome.

Onesome. Readin. Tell me about your favorite book you read as a kid.

None. I can't read! Oh, ok, so I'm fibbing there. I didn't really have a favorite since I read so much as a kid, and I never re-read anything. The thing I'm most proud of is that when I was fourteen I received the complete and annotated Sherlock Holmes stories (fifty-six short stories, four novellas) and I actually read all of them and all the annotations. I had to do this in spurts; it took me two years to complete. I interspersed this with things like The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand or other mysteries besides Doyle.

Twosome. 'Ritin. Everyone does a Senior Research paper. What was YOUR Senior Research Paper about?

Not everyone! This was a graduation requirement at my high school. I didn't do it. I graduated anyway. With honors. And a 2.6 GPA.

Threesome. 'Rithmatic. Using those 'rithmatic skills to balance the checkbook...so, what store seems to have the most entries in your register, and what the heck have you been buying there?

I don't have a bank account!

2002-05-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 13

1.) Do you have a "little kid" adventure story? Consider the term "little kid" relative to your age.

When Dad was stationed in Bad Kreuznach (I was eight or nine at the time, this is the late seventies), Mom and Dad went to the commissary to go do the monthly shopping. They were gone for much longer than usual -- we were too poor to afford a phone, much less a babysitter -- so I went to go find them once it got to be eleven p.m. I must have just missed them, as the big neighbor kid picked me up on his bike just as I got to the main gate of Rose Barracks. I had already looked for them at the commissary, the PX, the Stars and Stripes Bookstore and Mom's work and was on my way to see if they were at Dad's work. Needless to say, they were not pleased. That's what they got for being gone five hours that time though. Just imagine if that were to happen today... Child Protective Services, cops, courts, "Home Alone" stories in the paper...

2.) What issue would you like to see the Supreme Court of the United States grapple with, or perhaps there's a case you feel they should re-think? Why this particular issue or case?

Affirmative action, actually, but not with the current court. Dahlia Somebody of Slate makes a good argument for it here. In the absence of any good opposing piece, I've got to agree with her.

3.) What is the URL of the most weird site, or the URL of what you consider a dangerous site? If it's a dangerous site, why do you think it's dangerous.

One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven, my favorite.

You get the idea. Just keep clicking on things, you'll find more than what I've listed here. Keep in mind 'Back' and 'Next' are not necessarily relative terms to this webmaster. The recipe for deviled eggs is especially good...

4.) You wake-up on death row, and you realize it's not a dream. Even though there is copy of Death Row for Dummies on your bed, you decide to question the guard. What do you ask, and what advice does he/she give you?

"What the hell am I doing here?"

"Drop dead."

2002-05-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

Friday Five

1. What shampoo do you use?

Neutrogena T-Gel Extra Strength

2. Do you use conditioner? What kind?

No.

3. When was the last time you got your hair cut?

November.

4. What styling products do you use?

Unbreakable comb.

5. What's your worst hair-related experience?

Looking in the mirror every morning.

2002-05-14T04:23:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 12
1.) The "ideal" body image has changed over time. During the last 50 years, not only has the image changed; the image is in your face in a way it's never was before (i.e. television). I remember the skinny guy on the back of the comic books, watching forlornly as the muscle boy got the girl, who BTW was not skinny as she would be today (an advertisement for pumping iron). Is it important to you, or your partner that you resemble the current ideal image? Why or why not?

Nah. Lessee... as for me, I'm 5'9", 218 lbs., balding and not the strongest jawline in the world. While I am on a diet, it would be a long time for me to get to the so-called ideal image of a handsome man. My girlfriend is 5'2" and 160 lbs on a good day. She doesn't seem to mind what I look like. The woman I've carried a torch for, as I've mentioned in recent posts, is 5'0" and 100 lbs. on a good day, but last I heard is in the neighborhood of 92, which she considers dangerously low.

Why not? The so-called 'perfect' or near-perfect archetypes have always scared me a bit. I'm more interested in average women.

2.) The Boston Avon 3 Day Walk for Breast Cancer (60 miles) starts on May 17th. My sister and her daughter are going on this trek across generations and gender; it can strike at any age, and while it is uncommon, men also can get breast cancer. Why is it important to give up your time unselfishly for others? Is there an issue or circumstance in your life/family that you would be willing to give up 3 days for? Is there an organization or community action that you are part of, or support that we should know about?

I did know about men getting breast cancer. If I recall correctly, I seem to remember hearing that Montel Williams was medically discharged from the Marine Corps for this. As for me, I've recently volunteered for King County Search and Rescue.

3.) Are you the black sheep, or prodigal son/daughter of your family? How come?, and If not tell us who is and why?

Eh, possibly. I'm not sure how I could since both my parents were black sheep from their families. I mean, if I was the black sheep of a black sheep family, would I then be a white sheep? I'm not the prodigal son though. I think that if you were to proscribe those labels to us, I would be the black sheep and my brother would be the prodigal son. There are eleven years between us, and when I was growing up things were vastly different with my parents. My father and I really didn't talk until I enlisted. In a lot of respects, my brother got a lot of breaks because we had money during his formative years, whereas during mine we were lucky to put food on the table many nights.

2002-05-10T05:27:00.000-07:00

The Monday Mission. On Friday, natch.

1. Do you have any tattoos? If no, why not and what would you get if you did get one. If you do have one or more, tell us how you came to get it, and why you chose the design you got inked with.

No. A girl named Arwen gave me excellent advice regarding tattoos. It went something along the lines of, "Pick a design that you want to have on your body forever. After you've decided what tattoo you want, wait a year. If you have not changed your mind, then decide where you want to have that tattoo. Once you have that, wait a year. If, after that year, you still want that tattoo in that place, then get the tattoo. If you changed your mind about either, don't get the tattoo.

2. Has anything ever happened that caused you to believe, or disbelieve, in a Higher Power.

It's really hard to believe that the complexity of the eyeball evolved without help. Other than that, not really -- but quite frankly, I don't care.

3. Have you ever seriously considered, or even attempted, suicide?

Yes, both counts.

4. Has anyone you have known committed suicide?

Possibly.

5. This weekend you and I are going to the nature park for a picnic. I'll bring the blanket and make all the arrangements. You pack the picnic basket. What's inside?

Sliced necatarines wrapped in prosciutto, yellow pepper soup, fattoush, cashew cookies, garden tea punch.

6. Have you ever been mad at God for something that happened (or didn't happen)?

Not really.

7. Post (or describe) an image of someone that is no longer with us. Tell us about that person.

The fellow I often mention here, Jerry Engelhaupt, was about 6'1" or 6'2", thin as a rail, he weighed about 125 lbs. the last I saw him. His head was shaven, and he was genuinely one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He was unbelievably smart. He knew so much about how computers worked, probably more than any one single person I've met before or since -- and he had less time working with them than I did. One day, it became apparent that we could only fulfill a request for a system by mixing a computer that needed a printer with a printer that we didn't have a print driver for. So he sat down and wrote one. This kind of thing was common for him, I stopped being amazed quickly. I think whatever powers Jerry had must have been passed on, as his son was something else as well. At the age of 18 months, he had gotten ahold of his daddy's tools and completely taken apart a toaster. While it was still plugged in.

2002-05-08T02:08:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 11

No fair, jf! Where are your answers? :)

1.) Over the last few months I've run across a few blogs (disappearing blogs) that state "I've stopped blogging because..." Why might you consider stopping your online journal? If nothing could stop you, and you're totally committed to blogging Why?

Well, I stopped my previous one for being stupid, and I hardly post here anymore out of depression. The only reasons I have kept it going as long I have are because I want something to look back on and because there seems to be at least one person, for the most part a total stranger, that gives a damn. And I like that feeling, even on my darkest days.

2.) You arrive at the gates of heaven, and the gatekeeper says, "there's been a mistake..." What mistake? or Who is mistaken about what?

Ha! Next.

3.) There is a theory in Psychology about silencing the self. Current research looks at whether men and women differ in how much they silence themselves and at what time/stage in a relationship they do so. On Chad's site I once read a post. about how men's blogs differ from women's blogs. Do you think this is true and if so how do they differ?

So you talk about the one post on this blog I most regret making, lol! Of course I believe it, but I still wonder if I'm missing something here, something really important. It can't be as simple as I laid it out, can it? When someone else took that post and blogged about it on his blog, he added some harsher edges to that theory and was more or less flamed about it. I noticed this question on the Tuesday Too did not generate any ire by comparison, which intrigues me. One person who has already answered thought I was wrong when I said that women are doing it for themselves.

If, at the end of the day, you're not blogging ultimately because you want to, because you want to do it, and if that's not satisfying some need that you feel must be satisfied, then why are you doing it? It bloggles my mind, as it were...

2002-04-30T05:41:00.000-07:00

The Wednesday Woo <--just poking fun at ya, jf...
1.) Tell us about your most frustrating experience in dealing with the government, or some kind of authority and red tape. Good grief. This is a long, long story. I will post it when I wake up. I mean honestly, this will go for pages. It has to do with the government not living up to a contract and me being saddled with the fallout and then the fallout from that. It wasn't pretty and was ultimately what made my mind up about getting out of the Corps.

2.) Tell us your crazy kitty or, crazy dog, or crazy whatever story. My girlfriend's dog ate my van. I have pictures, but that's not what I'm going to talk about. We rescued this old, old, ancient cat from my girlfriend's neighborhood in 1996. We thought it was going to die within the week of bringing it to our apartment. She weighed two pounds. Archie wound up living three more years and became my cat. My girlfriend had two cats living at her mom's at the time, one of which she had just gotten back from her ex-boyfriend, who's roomates hadn't treated him well. The roommate had also almost nearly fed him to death. He had been a normal size when they split up, but when she got BC back he had had three known strokes, weighed twenty-four pounds (did I mention he was a Siamese mix?), looked like his jaw had been dislocated or broken and hated everybody. BC and I became acquainted and he liked me as well as he liked anybody at the time and a few months later was diagnosed with a disease which would force him on a special diet, so he came to live with my girlfriend, me and my cat in my apartment.

He wasn't happy to find Archie there. Archie wasn't happy to see him either. She tried to claw my eyes out that night. This is when we learned what a battleaxe my old cat was.

BC had no front claws, they'd been removed when he decided it would be neat to sharpen them in people's legs. This didn't bother him too much, he'd still get out and go fight the neighborhood racoons (!) and come home all beat to hell. BC was so strong, he smacked me in the face once and broke my glasses.

Archie was meaner. Little four-pound (she never weighed more than five pounds the rest of her life) Archie owned twenty-plus pound BC.

One night, BC had decided he'd had enough. Archie decided she was going to have his food, and he had figured this was as good a time as any to stick up for himself. She walked up to him and tapped him between his eyes three times. BC got on his hind legs, wound up so that his right paw was sqaure behind him and let go with all he had. The contact of his white paw thundered into Archie so hard, her head spun as if she had been tagged by Mike Tyson in the ring. And then he did it again.

She wobbled (I've never seen a cat wobble before this) for thirty or forty seconds before she could do anything. Her response was to tap him once more between the eyes -- to get the last word in I imagine --and leave. She may have had the last word, but everyone knew who won. Especially Archie.

Later that evening, Archie was quietly grooming herself when BC passed her on the way to the kitchen. I never would have thought it was in her, but she got up on her hind legs and smacked the holy shit out of him. He wobbled and she did it again. Granted, he didn't wobble for more than ten seconds, but I honestly did not know she could pack that kind of wallop.

3.) You've decided to buy a vanity license plate for your car. What does it say? If it's not obvious, what does it mean to you? Bah, I'm not into vanity plates.

2002-04-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too.

1.) In your state/country is there a required registry for sex offenders? Do you think there should be, and why, or why not?

Yes. As our current system is now, convicted felons do not share the same rights and benefits the rest of us enjoy under our constitution. As a result, they cannot expect privacy upon leaving prison for being convicted of any crime.

The flip side of this is that is obviously works on the public's paranoia and hysteria. And there is the thought that if you've done the time, that should be it -- you're done. Sadly, the chance that these people may reoffend, even if it's not a large number (I'm not professing that I know what it is, any chance suffices for this argument) it would be with such catastrophic results that it is unconscionable to have let it happen.

2.) What did you want to be when you were a little kid? Did you become your initial occupational choice?

I wanted to be everything, I became nothing instead. Although, I must confess something under this heading -- in 1989, I remember unboxing brand new Zenith PC-clones for the government in Germany. Back then computers came with even more manuals and documentation than they do now. I remember looking at the stuff for MS-DOS and wondering what it must be like to work there. Ten years later I was working there, and I was not disappointed.

3.) If you haven't already done so take this test, or if you have provide a link to your prior earth shattering results.

Are you Addicted to the Internet?

78%

Hardcore Junkie (61% - 80%)
While you do get a bit of sleep every night and sometimes leave the house, you spend as much time as you can online. You usually have a browser, chat clients, server consoles, and your email on auto check open at all times. Phone? What's that? You plan your social events by contacting your friends online. Just be careful you don't get a repetitive wrist injury...

The Are you Addicted to the Internet? Quiz at Stvlive.com!

2002-04-16T09:03:00.000-07:00

Tiw's Day Too.

1.) It's your job to come up with a new national anthem. What is it? I thought about this a long time and could not come up with anything other than the obvious choices. I'd probably go for 'Columbia, Jewel of the Ocean', but that's because I want to be different.

2.) There's no getting out of it. You must do karaoke at the next town meeting. What do you sing? Oh, you're going to make me sing, are you? When I get done, you'll never want to hear 'Scarborough Fair' ever again!

3.) You've been called naive before, but this is ridiculous. Why are they charging you with that this time? Because I actually thought that I had a chance to be something in society other than honest, scary or honestly scary.

2002-04-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

I'm thirsty now.

You are the original and therefore very popular. You also have those really cool polar bears representing you. But you have a bad after taste.

Find your inner cola.

2002-04-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

Freitag Funf

1. What is your favorite restaurant and why?

Wing Dome. There are three of these, but only two are worth eating at. Actually, the location that's just up from my house is the one really worth eating at, the Kirkland location does ok with food, but is much better for the ancient sexist sport of waitress-ogling.

2. What fast food restaurant are you partial to? None anymore really. Kidd Valley is a local Pugetropolis chain that I like. If I'm partial to any, it's them -- although they're a tad pricey for an unemployed bum like me.

3. What are your standards and rules for tipping? I've only not left a tip once. I like tipping well. It pays to be a bit extravagant on the tips if you plan return visits. There have been some establishments where I've tipped so well on the first visit that the servers would fight over me on my return visits to that establishment. I always knew I had the best service in the place anytime I went there.

I tip well for quality serving. I had a server tell me that she refused to bring me the soup I ordered because it didn't look right and she wouldn't serve it. I left that woman a four hundred percent - yes, four times the face value of the check - tip. Caring about the safety of your customers is paramount, and I felt it should be rewarded.

I usually won't tip less than twenty percent or more than fifty. Flirting helps. And if it's Christmas Day or New Year's Eve, I won't leave less than twenty bucks, although that can be embarrassing. I had a woman chase me into the parking lot to give me a hug for that once.

4. Do you usually order an appetizer and/or dessert? No.

5. What do you usually order to drink at a restaurant? Coca-Cola. Pepsi is not ok.

2002-04-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Too # 7
1.) What's your opinion on age ranges and intimate relationships? Does it matter? Is it okay for the man to be older, but not the woman? How much older is too old?

Whatever makes you happy. My range for prospective women is about 24-42.

2.) Should stem cell researchers be given the green light?

In a perfect world, you betcha. I think this is something that really needs to happen. The problem is, no matter who performs the research (universities, government or biotech sector) it is going to wind up in scandal somehow.

3.)Googleclimbing, (similar to a googlewhacking) but now your job is to make your site come up as the first result, or at least on the first page of google's results. Ideally you want your site to be #1 of thousands, tens of thousands or if you really want to impress us #1 of millions of results! You may use up to four words, but they may not be in quotation marks.

One of 20,000+; shop psychic comments.

2002-04-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Monday Mission

Monday Mission 2.14

1. When was the last time your computer crashed? What happened? My computer never crashes. I am too good!

2. Recommend a movie (new or old) for us to watch. For everyone except jf, it'sThe Third Man. (Too funny, I just looked at IMDB, and it's their movie of the day!). For jf, I recommend Six String Samurai.

3. When was the last time someone told you that you were attractive (and you
actually believed them)? Years. Like three or four of them.

4. Do you like to sleep in or wake up with the chickens? I just like to sleep, period.

5. Are you gay, straight or bi? Ever been tempted to go the other way? Straight, and yes, I did consider going the other way. (How many guys will admit that?)

6. What will be the next computer-related purchase you will make? A motherboard to replace the one in my computer because of the crash I had last week. Er, no -- wait, I didn't mean that...

7. What is your role when you are in relationships? A giver, a taker, or is it an equal balance? I try to be a taker or for equal balance, but I don't ever seem to get anywhere with it. With both my signifigant other and my best friend, I feel like the giver and get huge feelings of guilt and inadequacy if I try to take.

BONUS: Would I lie to you? How the hell should I know?

2002-04-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Friday Five

1. What are the first things that you do in the morning to start your day? My day does not really have a beginning or an end. I currently have a highly erratic sleep schedule.

2. What are the last things that you do ~~at night~~ before going to bed? Kiss my girlfriend goodnight, unless she's asleep. In that case I make sure the coffee is set up for her and a non-obtrusive channel is set on the TV.

3. What daily routine have you recently added to your day? Excessive monitoring of other people's blogs.

4. What routine do you wish you get rid of? See number three.

5. What's the one thing that makes you feel like something is missing if you don't do it some point within your day? Can't think of anything -- other than the bloggy obvious.

2002-04-02T05:19:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Too

1.) If you're not too paranoid go post your photo on Andy's Sunny Pose. Not paranoid. No digicam.

2.) What do you think about the relatively new phenomenon of student rioting after games?
I think it's part of the larger hooliganism trend. I suspect a lot of the anti-gloabalization protests are effectively the same thing.. "Hey, look! We can trash shit and get away with it!"

3.) Show me your googlewhack. I never could get one of these to go right so I got mad and gave up. I'd always get like two results -- or if I did get one to have only one result, then I would find out that's because me and one other person spelled a word wrong the same way.

2002-04-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

Monday Mission

1. When was the last time you wanted someone to take you seriously but they just humored you? That seems to happen quite often in my line of work. Just because you have a quality assurance staff you can parade in front of your investors and corporate partners, it doesn't mean you need to actually pay attention to them.

2. If you were going to get a vanity license plate for your car, what would it say? (Or if you already have one, what does it say?) VAN.

3. What was written in the sweetest love note you were ever given? What's the story there? This is something that hasn't happened in several years. I don't remember any of the ones I've been given.

4. What is your ethnic background? I am European-American.

5. What, if any, is your personal exercise routine? Get out of bed, stumble upstairs, make coffee, go back to bed.

6. Have you ever had any "one night stands?" How did that come about and how did you feel the next day? No, but close three times. Once I was upset it didn't happen, once I was ecstatic it didn't happen, and the third one, well -- it just didn't happen.

7. What is your fondest Easter memory? Zip, zero, zilch. Easter? I don't do it.

BONUS: Who am I to disagree? Someone with a valid opinion, I presume.

2002-03-31T07:45:00.000-08:00

Eight From the Eighties

1) Do you like Mondays? Tell me why. One-seventh of a week. *shrug*

2) Are you footloose? Gak, no. Never have been. Not even in the Eighties.

3) Are you a smooth criminal? Heh. Let's say I'm known in certain cirlces for being able to procure the strangest, oddest things people could possibly need.

4) When you call me, you can call me... Chad is sufficient. I've also been known as CE and CommElec (short for Communication/Electronics).

5) Do you talk to strangers? Yup, learned this skill from Grandpa Bob.

6) Have you ever had a one night love affair? Been close three times, I chickened out each time.

7) What sad songs make you cry? I'm not going there. Thinking about these will make me blue for days.

8) (thanks Listener!) Don't say a prayer for me now, save it til'... you need it for yourself or your loved ones.

2002-03-31T06:34:00.000-08:00

Some Tests May Be Better Left Untaken...

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	High
Schizoid:	High
Schizotypal:	Very High
Antisocial:	High
Borderline:	Moderate
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	Moderate
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	High
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

I found this link on this blog.

2002-03-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

Beware of Me, I Have No Scruples Either.

Saturday Scruples

1. you reserve seats at a local theatre by phone (without paying). a few hours before curtain, you decide not to go. do you bother to cancel?

If I'm reserving, I'm going. If it's that big a deal to where I can't go (like a major car accident on the way, or my date suddenly keeled over and died, something like that), I'd likely forget about calling as I would most likely be preoccupied. It would have to be major though, as I've been in this circumstance before. The night before a show I had reservations at, I wrecked two Humvees on Camp Pendleton - ran one into another. It was a fairly bad accident, I ate the steering wheel and my forehead smacked the windshield, breaking it. My face was pretty mangled, my neck hurt, I couldn't eat solid food and the theatre was forty miles away. My date and I had as good a time as we possibly could.

2. by mistake, a large department store has failed to bill your account for a vcr. do you notify the store?

Probably. If I experienced extremely poor service, then it's probably no, as I do hold a grudge.

3. a close friend asks you to hide an illegal drug. do you agree?

That would depend on who, what and why, but is not out of the realm of possibility, even though I adamantly refuse to do drugs myself.

2002-03-29T00:36:00.000-08:00

Friday Five

1. If you could eat dinner with and "get to know" one famous person (living or dead), who would you choose?
Daljit Dhaliwal.

2. Has the death of a famous person ever had an effect on you? Who was it and how did you feel?
No, not really. It kind of bothered me that Dick Schaap died of complications relating to a hip replacement, of all things, but other than that...

3. If you could BE a famous person for 24 hours, who would you choose?
Nope, I got enough problems being me.

4. Do people ever tell you that you look like someone famous? Who?
At different times in my life, I have been compared to Mike Myers, Uncle Fester (as played by Christopher Lloyd), Harrison Ford, Jan-Michael Vincent and another Christopher Lloyd character, Dr. Emmitt L. Brown of the Back to the Future series of films. I was most insulted being compared to Mike Myers.

5. Have you ever met anyone famous?
Yes. And in some cases, I was sorry that I did.

2002-03-28T05:33:00.000-08:00

Thursday Threesome:

Onesome. Bed. You spend a few hours a night there, so tell us about your bed - size, favorite sheets, comforter...oh, and do you make it or leave it unmade?
My bed is in the basement. It consists of a queensized box spring laying on the floor, upon which is a queensize mattress and upon that is a shredded (the downstairs cat thinks it's hers to sharpen claws on) twinsize mattress. I use no sheets and I don't make it. I sleep under two blankets, two comforters and quite often the downstairs cat.

Twosome. Bath. OK. How much time does it take you to get "ready" on the average day - from first step into the bathroom to stepping out fully dressed.... Five minutes would be excessive, counting shower, deodorant and brushing teeth. I can do all these in about forty-five seconds, if pressed for time.

Threesome. Beyond. What is your favorite room / area of your home? Tell us all about it... I hate my home. It is the source of a large part of my depression and anxiety. I only feel really happy when I'm not here.

2002-03-28T05:24:00.000-08:00

HumpDayHump:

1) If you could choose any job/career you wanted (experience and education not an issue), what would you choose? Once upon a time, this would have been doing stage management-type stuff for a professional theatre troupe. Nowadays, after eons of depression, I'd much rather sleep for a living. Hell, housecats do it. I could be a housecat.

2) Do you have a hobby? What is it? I play Asheron's Call and I blog.

3) Would you ever consider making money at it? Fat chance.

2002-03-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

Enneagram.

take free enneagram test

take free enneagram test

I tied on 4 and 5, 21 points for the both of them. The remainder of my results are:
8, 19 pts
7, 18 pts
3, 17 pts
6, 16 pts
1, 15 pts
2, 12 pts
9, 7 pts

2002-03-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

Tuesday Too #5

1.) New evidence suggests expansion of the universe is speeding up. Your time is now limited. What unfinished personal business would be your highest priority? I think I would have to finish my nap. My nap is never done, it is an unfinished work of art.

2.) Because you are an expert, you are asked to give a lecture at Harvard. What is your field of expertise (real or imagined)? I'm not an expert on any one thing. I am a true jack-of-all-trades -- in other words, I do nothing really well.

3.) This is your midnight or midday confession. Do you have an embarrassing vice to share? Besides smut? I'm not sure I have an embarrassing vice besides smut... It doesn't need to necessarily be midday or midnight either...

2002-03-26T04:33:00.000-08:00

The PromoGuy dot Net Monday Mission 2.12

1. What helps you get started every morning? Not much. As I am unemployed, I usually don't get out of bed until about 3PM. No joke.

2. What is the most memorable thing anyone has ever made for you? I'm not sure she made it expressly for me, but she made it and gave it to me... My best friend very early in our relationship gave me a thin leather bracelet. It is easily the one thing that I've lost in my vast travels that I miss the most.

3. What music are you currently listening to in your car? The CD player in the van is kaput so I listen to whatever is on the radio. The stations I listen to are KISW, KFNK, KZOK, KYPT, KNDD and KUOW.

4. One thing I like to do is buy USA Today on Wed, Thur and Fri. Even if I don't have the money, I will find a way to buy them, because I just love reading them. What is one "splurge" you allow yourself, even when you shouldn't? Eating in establishments that I really can't afford.

5. Have you ever been given a "second chance?" What happened and did you make the most of it? Yes, I've been given lots of second chances. I've screwed most of them up too. I'd rather not elaborate, it reminds me of the absolute failure I consider myself to be.

6. Do you have a lot of friends outside of your own ethnic background? Not currently, no. But making friends is not difficult for me, same background or otherwise.

7. What was the last situation that really, really pissed you off? On Friday, I went to retrieve some documents I needed that were on file at the county courthouse in downtown. I took my girlfriend's truck (my van is too tall to park in most downtown garages) and as I entered the parking garage, some jackass in a blue mid-nineties Caprice Classic wagon tailgated me up four ramps of the garage and then got pissy when I found a spot I could back into and started backing into it -- it was impossible to get into this spot any other way unless you were coming down the ramps. He started mouthing off and used a lot of choice words, so my brother (who was with me) tells him to fuck off, and he got really mouthy after that. He flipped us off as he went by. I got out of the truck and went up the ramp after him. I calmed down after the third floor of searching for the rat bastard. I was really going to read that asshole the riot act.

BONUS: Who's your friend when things get rough? I got lots of friends when things get rough. Depends on what the things are, and how rough.

2002-03-23T03:22:00.000-08:00

Friday Five.

1. What is your favorite time of year? I like all the different seasons for different reasons, but I guess I particularly like Winter.

2. What is it about your favorite season that, well, makes it your favorite season? Believe it or not, I like overcast skies.

3. What is your least favorite time of year? Summer -- it's too bright. Ever since I was involved in a motor vehicle accident, I have been very sensitive to bright light and Summer can often be hell for me.

4. Do you do anything to celebrate or recognize the changing of seasons? On the Sunday closest to the Summer Solstice, people come to my neighborhood from all over the Pacific Northwest to watch a parade. I make sure that I'm nowhere near home that day -- or if I am to not leave the house because I'm not going to have a parking place when I get back.

5. What's your favorite thing to do outside? I'm not much of an outside person, but I do enjoy driving.