Third time's a charm

This post might look familiar to those of you who have been reading my blog for a while. That's because it's a continue-a-story that I have posted (at various stages) twice before.

I'm hoping that this time I get some more responses, and that maybe this story will actually conclude. [I have an idea of where I want to take this narrative in mind, but I'm willing to let it go wherever it gets taken as well.]

So, yeah. In case you are unfamiliar - the idea is that I will post the beginning of a story. The comment section is where the next person continues the story, and it just builds from there. The only 'rules' that I ask are that 1) you don't end the story (that's for me to do) and 2) that you don't post twice in a row.
If you want to add a sentence, or you want to add 452 sentences, it's cool by me. If you don't like the direction the story is going, then change it. And note that the previous incarnations are also still up, so if you want to visit the old tellings and have those stories wind up differently, feel free.

Whew! With that, I will now post the story...

Paul Washington was woken up by the ringing of the telephone. A beam of almost-noon sunlight sneaked in his bedroom window between the thickly drawn curtains. Groggily, he reached for the phone, willing the hangover away. "Hello?" he answered.

The voice on the other end shouted something in German. Paul didn't understand it, but there was no mistaking the urgency, whatever the message may have been. "Sorry, dude. Wrong number." He hung up and fell back into a deep slumber.

Ten minutes later, the door was kicked in. Paul sat up instantly, heart pounding. The adrenaline raced through his body and he was sweating as three men in dark black uniforms and brandishing machine guns surrounded his bed. The men were all yelling at him, obviously irate. Paul stuck his hands up, terrified. Well, at least my hangover
is gone, he thought mindlessly as his brain attempted to understand the bizarre situation he found himself in. The leader of the men poked the nozzle of his machine gun into Paul's ribs and barked some sort of question. Paul shook his head and said, "I...I don't speak German."

The leader said the same phrase again, and again poked Paul with his weapon. Paul's vision blurred and he feared he would faint. He willed himself to stay conscious and said, "Take whatever you want. Just don't hurt me. Please." The leader grabbed Paul's arm roughly. He looked at his forearm, but obviously didn't like what he saw - or as
Paul quickly determined, what he did not see. All three men had a barcode tattoo on their forearms, and they were expecting Paul to have the same. One of the other men asked a question - most likely, "Where's his tattoo?" - and the leader barked angrily at him. Paul was ferevertly wishing this was all a horrific nightmare that he'd soon wake up from.

Paul protested as the leader placed a pair of handcuffs on him, but these men did not seem to understand English any better than he spoke German. "You've got the wrong guy!" he yelled, as they forced him to get out of bed. He had on his jeans, but no shirt.

Realizing that dealing with these thugs wasn't going to work, Paul decided his best course of action was to get help from a neighbor. As the men started to march him out of his apartment, he screamed, "Mrs. Johansen! Mrs. Johansen, call 9-1-1!" His yells brought his next door neighbor to her door. Mrs. Johansen had been Paul's neighbor for the past 4 years. They attended the same church. He knew she'd help. The woman opened the door, and Paul nearly did faint when he saw that Mrs. Johansen had a barcode on her forearm...
It occurred to Paul later that perhaps he had fainted, because the next thing he knew he was sitting at a metal table in a small room with no windows. It looked like he assumed a police interrogation room might look, based on his impressions from television, but there was no mirror and he couldn't see any other sort of surveillance system.

One of Paul's arms was handcuffed (or otherwise tied - he couldn't actually see it) to the back of his chair. It was, incidentally, a very uncomfortable chair, made of metal or plastic or some other material that makes you feel as though there is no padding between your bones and the seat. His other hand was cuffed - if that's the
right word - to the table with one of those plastic zip-ties that he was pretty sure cops and maybe soldiers carried. His head felt very heavy and he couldn't turn it properly. It crossed his mind that he might have been drugged, but he wasn't sure what that would feel like.

He was pretty sure that people on drugs had hallucinations, but he wasn't sure what those were like, either.

Paul blinked and suddenly there was a man standing at the other side of the table. Now Paul was certain he'd been drugged. Either he had blacked out and the man had come into the room, or the man was a hallucination. Paul squinted his eyes in an attempt to focus better.

The man's gun looked real enough. He wasn't sure what kind it was. It looked like something from a Sci-Fi movie, but for all Paul knew, that's what all guns looked like. He wasn't exactly an expert.

He tried to ask the man where he was, but his mouth was dry and no sound came from it. He cleared his throat, because he wasn't sure what else to do, and managed to croak out something along the lines of, "May I have a glass of water?"

His vision became blurry again and, wondering if perhaps he needed glasses, he blinked a few times again.

Now there was a woman standing next to the man. She looked familiar, though Paul was certain they had never met.

Placing her hands on the table, she leaned toward Paul and said something, but now his ears weren't working properly either and he thought he heard wind blowing, or the ocean, like when you put a conch shell to your ear.

"I'm sorry?"

She leaned closer. "I said..."

"Can you understand me? Is the translator operating?"

Paul blinked. This day was becoming stranger and stranger. When the woman had spoken, he had heard her ask in English, but also slightly speak in German. Additionally, her mouth had not quite been in sync with the English he had heard. It was very similar to seeing someone on television who spoke a foreign language and hearing the translation spoken over it. All the while, the ocean wind noise was faintly whispering in his ear.

In a state of shock, Paul simply asked, "Translator?"

The woman, who must have been wearing her own translator - or who understood English - nodded and tapped her ear. Paul then noticed that something was in his own right ear. It felt like an earplug, but was, undoubtedly, a piece of machinery that was translating the conversation into English for him.

Paul thought all these thoughts, along with "Who are these people??" before realizing that the woman was again speaking and the machine was translating:

"...you will do best to answer my questions honestly. We do not know what connection, if any, you have with Fredrick Muller, but the fact that you were found in his apartment implies at least a casual relationship with that criminal."

Even though the translator did not convey much tone, it was obvious to Paul that this woman despised Fredrick Muller, whomever that was.

The woman went on, "My first question is - how do you not have any identification? Where is your mark?" She pulled up her sleeve, revealing her own bar code tattoo.

Paul swallowed, trying to get his bearings and determine exactly what he was going to say in response. The man with the gun made him nervous and he was confident that if he said the wrong thing, that he would end up a dead man.

"First," he said, "I do not know Fredrick Muller. The apartment you people pulled me out of was mine. You've obviously got the wrong person. As for identification, I have my driver's license at home in my..." the woman smacked him across the face, hard, silencing Paul.

She snarled, "Do not lie to me!" in German and the translator managed to chill Paul.

"How did you remove your identification?" she asked, yanking on Paul's free arm, looking again for his nonexistent bar code. "How?!"

Paul didn't know what to do, but didn't think that attempts at deceit would work with these people. Besides that, he didn't know what it was they wanted him to say, so he stuck with the truth. "I'm trying to tell you I've never had one!" he said in an exasperated tone.

The woman heard this in her translator and looked at Paul like he were crazy (Paul was beginning to think she might be onto something there). "That is not possible." she said flatly.

At that moment there was a knock on the door and another guard (Paul assumed, he had the look of a guard) entered and spoke to the woman. Paul's translator picked up the conversation and converted it to English for him, despite the fact that he probably wasn't meant to hear any of it. "Burr," (Paul at first thought the guard had said
"brr", but then quickly realized that 'Burr' was the woman's name - or title, perhaps), "there is something you must see."

"I am interrogating the suspect right now." Burr growled back. The guard said, "There is another like him. Another person with no identification. A Negro in his thirties. He only speaks English. He was found in district five, trying to break into someone's home. Schmidt has him in the other room and is requesting you come right away."

Burr looked at Paul and then at the guard. "Bring the other man in here. I will interrogate them both at the same time. Perhaps the lack of identification and the English language are not all these men have in common."

The guard nodded and left the room. Paul didn't think his request would be granted, but saw no major harm in asking - especially since he could now be understood - "May I get a drink of water, please? And perhaps a shirt?"

Burr considered Paul briefly, then said to the man with the gun, "Water. Shirt." The man nodded and left the room without a word.

At that time the other guard entered, forcing a scared looking black man in front of him. He looked at Paul and seemed to draw several conclusions quite quickly. "They arrest you, too?" he asked Paul. Paul nodded, afraid to say anything aloud, but inside he was ecstatic to hear another person speaking his native tongue. The black man was forced into a chair beside Paul, and the guard with the gun said to Burr, "I'll go get a translator for him." The black man said, "I told you! I don't speak German. No shpreckin the Deutsch!" Paul smiled in spite of himself. He liked this man.

Burr frowned. "Tell your friend to shut up," she ordered Paul, "or I will kill him."

Paul had no doubt she would do it, either. He said to the man, "Hi. I'm Paul. Paul Washington. That woman there? She's in charge. Don't piss her off. Right now she doesn't want you to talk. I suggest you listen to her."

"Huh." the man replied. Then to Paul, "Oh. My name is Derrick. Derr..." but at that moment Burr smacked Derrick across the face.

Derrick leapt up and was going to retaliate, but Burr kneed the middle aged man in the groin, dropping him instantly. "I told you to tell him not to speak." she said coldly to Paul. Paul simply gaped at the whole scene, unable to help Derrick up, since he was still handcuffed to his chair.

The other guard returned at that moment with a glass of water and a light blue shirt for Paul. The shirt was tossed into Paul's lap, the glass of water was put in his free hand.

Derrick slowly got back up and sat in his chair. The guard took that opportunity to handcuff his arm. Derrick didn't object - at least verbally - but Paul knew he wasn't happy about this development. This guard also had a translator and he placed it in Derrick's ear.

Burr asked Derrick if he could understand her, if his translator was working and to simply nod if the answer was yes. Derrick nodded.

"Good." Burr said. "Now we will begin to get some answers...

"First, you will tell me why you were breaking into a district five house."

There was a half second pause before Derrick answered, in which Paul could see him swallow all manner of emotion. He had a fire in him, and Paul could tell that he wanted to let it out. But that hit to the face seemed to have sobered him pretty well. When he spoke, it was in a low and even voice.

"Like I told your boys when they came up behind me, it was my house I was getting into. I was not breaking in. My key was stuck."

It was hard to tell from her face what Burr made of this answer. Then she smiled.

"You certainly cannot expect me to believe that ... one of your kind ... has a home in district five."

"That so?" Derrick bit out.

Burr continued to smile. "So were you there for stealing, or were you sent to terrorize our good citizens?"

Oh how Paul understood (as much as he understood anything) what was going on behind his new friend's bewildered face. If he was that - "friend" was an appropriate word for a guy you instinctively trust in an utterly foreign situation - right? Paul wondered idly when the Germans would leave them alone so they could make sense of everything and ... maybe make a masterful escape? Somehow, he didn't that was
going to happen. He had to do his best with these unnerving guards staring him down. It was like trying to solve a crossword puzzle with a bomb counting down. They both had to play their hands well. "But our hands are tied," he thought ridiculously. What was Derrick going to say?

He wouldn't get to know, it seemed. The door opened again, and again, an urgent message was calling Burr to the door. Paul strained to hear the hushed tones, and he saw Burr's eyes narrow.

"...Jackson."

"Huh?" Derrick had whispered to him.

"Jackson," he repeated. "The other half of my name."

"Oh." Paul smiled. He pushed down the urge to laugh. He felt a little crazy.

"SO!"

The harsh, reverberating syllable brought Paul back to reality (assuming that word fit).

"Separate them!" Burr barked. She was smiling again. Maniacally.

The two guards swooped down on Derrick. One of them cut the band around his wrist. Derrick's eyes were painfully wide as they pulled him from the room. So much for company.

The woman was approaching him again.

"Now we have you," she said.

"You do?" said Paul, blankly. He had given up all illusion that he could control this situation.

"The phone call to the apartment..." she began.

The phone call to the apartment.

"...was traced from your friend's house."

A deafening noise from outside the room followed this pronouncement, as Burr glared at him, unblinking.

"I swear I don't..." Paul started to object, convinced that it would do him absolutely no good. These people didn't listen to reason, they wouldn't listen to the truth, and Paul didn't even know what the hell the truth was anymore. But it didn't matter, and Paul didn't get to finish his declaration because another loud boom interrupted him, this one much closer. It was accompanied by the smell of smoke and the sound of panicked screams of anguish and confusion. Burr had turned to face the door when it exploded inward.

Paul screamed and attempted to hide himself underneath the table. His arm was still handcuffed to the chair and his wrist was cut badly as a result. Burr had been knocked backward from the explosion, but was regaining her composure quickly. She pulled a gun (Paul wasn't sure what type, but it was small enough to have been concealed earlier) and fired into the smoke that was pouring into the interrogation room. Paul closed his eyes and so he did not see the number of people who came into the room, and he did not see the shot that hit Burr in the abdomen. When he opened his eyes, there were three strangers in the room and Burr was lying beside him with a bullet wound in her gut, possibly dead.

One of the men reached into Burr's pocket, pulled out the keys to the cuffs, and tossed them to the man standing above Paul. He unlocked Paul's chains and offered his hand to Paul. Part of Paul's mind that wanted to retreat to a fantasy land thought, "Now he'll say 'Come with me if you want to live', just like in the Terminator movies."

The man did speak, then, but he did not quote Arnold Schwarzenneger. Instead, he spoke in German, and the translator whispered in Paul's ear, "Paul Washington, my name is Fredrick Muller. We don't have much time."

November Mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
August - car = 0.0; minivan = 944.6
September - car = 0.1; minivan = 1725.3 - total for Sept. is 1725.4
October - car - 0.0; minivan - 1283.9
November - car = 0.0; minivan - 703.6

Year to date - 12,725.4

Come together...

I don't know what effect this will truly have on the world, but, hey, it can't hurt.

Buh-log-ing.

Well, huh.

And of related interest (and what I was originally going to link to before discovering the above posted "quiz" from Annika's blog) is this article from the Las Vegas Weekly about blogging. I disagree with bits of it, agree with other parts, and mostly just found it kinda...well, like a blog entry. Not really important in the scheme of things. [shrug]

Today is the end of November, which means the end of NaNoBlogMore. I somehow managed to post every day for the past 30 days, so I guess that's something. I seriously think that I am going to take December off, though. I've got a few more posts in me for today (the mileage, another link, and a really long post that will hopefully garner some interaction) and then I'll see you all in 07.
If I'm really lucky, Blogger will be able to upgrade me by then.

buttons pushed

Someone pushed the Winter button. (Tonight's low is going to be 27. Which, granted, isn't as cold as some [most] parts of the country, but this is Nevada. It never gets this cold this early in the year.)

Someone pushed my Tired button. I overslept majorly this morning, and I am really very tired now, too.

And now i'm going to push the Publish Post button, because I can't think of anything else to mention.

a little bit from column a, a little bit from column b.

sometimes I despise myself.
sometimes I am so damn impressed with myself that I marvel that people aren't on their knees when i walk into a room.
(usually it's a compromise between the two extremes)

sometimes I know exactly what I want to say.
Sometimes I have no freaking clue.
(usually, regardless, I have a difficult time actually expressing it.)

sometimes the future looks very bleak, other times it looks quite optimistic, the truth is a mixture of the two, but my outlook flip-flops.

soemtimes i cant' spell or use grammar very goodly.

ahh, life. it's (un)predicatable and wild.

homestretch

If this post were being made on Steph's blog, it would be labeled with the "This Post Refuses to be Labeled" label.
Also, it would be funnier.

You know what's really ...weird? Memory. How the hell does the brain record things - record everything - and filter it all and have it stored for recollection? Does the brain have storage limits? I would suspect that it must, and I'm tempted to quote Homer here, but at the same time, your brain would have to continue to remember stuff if it went on existing, right?

I mean, if we could somehow keep a brain alive forever - say hooked up to a machine ala many sci-fi stories - and keep it constantly stimulated with experiences, wouldn't it just continue to remember the events it witnessed in case such memories needed to be played back?

And I know that a lot of stuff (everything??) is stored in the subconcious, but doesn't that have limits too?
If we took our hypothetical brain and taught it 1 new word everyday, how long would it take before it could not recall the first word that it was taught?
Or maybe I'm thinking of memory (and memory storage) incorrectly and the computer analogy is not right. Or helpful.
Maybe memory is like a body of water - an ocean or a really big lake (or a pond, ha ha ha) - and we're constantly swimming in it as we remember past experiences, but at the same time, it's raining, which is adding drops of water to the overall amount of water to swim in. Since memories in this case would be liquid, they would all flow together - how does one keep track of a single drop of water in a lake - and that would explain why some memories are difficult to bring back to your mind - they're deeper in the water. Also, it would go a ways toward explaining why sometimes something you've not thought about for ages suddenly comes rushing back to you - the water has been stirred up enough to bring those drops of memory back to the surface.

I don't know.

In other news, the internet can be an incredibly frightening, depressing, and infuriating place. I'd link to what I'm talking about, but it's not worth it. Plus, I'm sure you can find your own examples.

In other other news, 99 Red Balloons is hilarious, and sad. I mean, the army overreacts to a bunch of balloons, and destroys the world, and then the singer starts the whole thing over again because she's in mourning over her friend having been killed in the attack. Um. Unless I'm interpretting that wrongly. Which might be the case. But my point still stands.

I, III, V, and X

So we just returned home from Steph's mom's house where we had a 3 hour game of Risk with Steph and her brothers. We didn't finish the game all the way, but it was a foregone conclusion that Steph's army (aka Green Mama, aka Green Peace, aka Gang Green) was going to wipe out the last two forces in her way. Namely me (the Black Death or Black Plague) and Sean (the Blue Bombers), so we called it early.

Although who knows how that fight between Ural and Irktusk would've turned out. I mean, really.

Good times were had by all. I had originally planned on giving a fuller description of the night's game, but it's pretty late now, and I (unfortunately) have to wake up early tomorrow, so that'll have to do. Anyway, now that Steph knows how to play Risk (OBVIOUSLY!), I hope that we can play here at home more. Although I don't know how much she actually enjoyed the game, and more just kind of kicked ass and took names.

These will never stop being funny

I don't feel like blogging right now, so instead, some YouTube clips. These are three pop culture moments that never fail to make me laugh.

First, from Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy:



"That's how I roll!!"

And, from Invader Zim:


And Eddie Izzard:

So much to blog about!

It's like a cornucopia of blog topics!

1) For the past week or so, Blogger has had a display at my dashboard claiming that "my blog is ready for the switch to the beta version", which, as I've mentioned before, I have been wanting to upgrade to forever.
But.
Whenever I attempt to switch to it, I get a nice huge error message saying, "COULD NOT SWITCH TO BETA."
Which is it, Blogger? I mean, obviously, it's that I can't, but if that's the case, why tease me with the false promise of being able to upgrade? It's just cruel.
Anyway, it helps to make blogging a really negative experience, and I'm sure that my posts the last few [whatevers] have reflected that.

2) In much happier news, today is the 10 year anniversary of when Stephanie and I first met in person! Holy time pass, Batman! It's amazing that ten years have flown by this quickly.
Ten years ago, I was 21, had jet-black hair (dyed a few weeks prior because I was still young, stupid, and had expendable cash flow), weighed at least 15 pounds less than I do now, was working at KFBT, and had no car.

3) To celebrate, we had our Thanksgiving dinner tonight, rather than yesterday. Steph made a turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, biscuits, corn, salad, cranberry sauce, lasagna, and sparkling apple cider. Yumola! Plus, there is pumpkin pie (yuck) and apple pie (yum!) for dessert coming up. Feastolicious!

4) We have a kitten in our house again. The neighborhood kids across the way found a kitten - probably only three or four weeks old - at the park. They knocked on our door and asked us if it was ours. They said that they could not take it to their house because they would get in trouble. So, rather than throw it back out "to the wolves" (Steph's words), we took it in so that we could feed, shelter, and bathe it, and then tomorrow put up signs and/or offer it up on Freecycle. Steph is currently taking pictures of said animal, and I'm sure she'll blog about it eventually, so as is always the case, check her blog for a more detailed, more amusing and more worthwhile entry on the matter.

5) I don't think that there is anything else. The plan for the rest of the night is to play Trivial Pursuit and have pie. Good times.

best in show

TV's been on pretty much all day. We watched the 80th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was, um, paradey.

After it ended, there was some crazy dog show on. We left it on and did other things, but, man dog shows are a strange thing.

When the Toy Poodle won Best in Show, my cynical (and hilarious) reaction was, "It's fixed!". Steph was just upset that that bitch won.

Next on was Babe which we had never seen before, but I was just yesterday considering adding it to our quueeue. Now I don't have to! That'll do, pig.

In other news, I was thinking that Jesus would be a great person to invite over for dinner. I mean, water into wine? Making fish and bread just magically appear? That dude rocks!

monkey monkey monkey monkey monkey

The movie Curious George was watched by the girls today. I only caught the last half-ish of it, but was pleasantly surprised. It's not a bad movie at all. Plus, the word "monkey" is said more times, I think, than in any other movie ever. And "monkey" is a great word. More movies should say it more often.

Today feels like a Friday.

Yesterday I was going to write a big long blog entry about taking a stand in matters, but then it got late and I got tired and it just wasn't worth it. Which is an ironic thing for me to say, because that is a big part of what the (hypothetical) entry was about. When do you stand up for things and when is it not worth it?
Oddly, as I age, I find that it's "not worth it" as much as I used to. Or maybe I'm just more cowardly as I get older. [shrug] I don't even know if I'm making sense.

In other news completely, Blogger still hates me. Frickin' Blogger. Lying to me every single day about the betaversion. Oh well. Some day, I suppose.

Eh. I feel like I'm forgetting something semi-important but the chord just isnt' being struck right now, so I guess it's not that vital.

In conclusion, monkey!!

Those were the good old days

I really was funnier in the past. Archives are quite underrated.

um...no.

Disturbed (or is it there no "e", I forget? Disturbd? I could wiki it up, but it's not worth it. The band sucks regardless of how they spell it.) has made a cover of Genesis' "Land of Confusion".

Just...no.

And now I just saw a trailer for a remake of Charlotte's Web that appears to be very CGI-influenced.

There are rumors (or maybe it's fact now) of:
Indiana Jones 4 (mixed feelings on that one)
A Battlestar Galactica prequel series (I haven't even watched the current series! Why go and make a prequel??)
A "next generation" type of series for V. (My inner child really liked V, but I suspect that a) it woldn't hold up to viewings now and b) that an updated series is not really needed)


And definitely on the way (but by no means necessary):

A 5th (6th?? I lost count) Rocky movie.
Oceans 13 (didn't Oceans 12 bomb??)
A 4th Die Hard movie (Die Hard, Die Harder, Die Hardest, Die Hard infinity!)

Interactive time! What remakes/sequels/prequels are you currently dreading/fearing/shaking your head in disbelief over?

null/void

First, the whiny section:
My back hurts.
I have a canker sore right now.
I can't find the remote control.
I have to work tomorrow.
It's both too hot and too cold in this house.
I don't have anything interesting to blog about, and there are still 11 days left in this month.I wonder if taking a month and NOT blogging would be simpler. I may have to try that in December.

And now the rest:

We went ice skating today at the Fiesta Hotel and Casino's ice skating rink. Kinda weird to be driving around in late November to go ice skating and requiring the air conditioning in the van. Eh, it's Vegas weather, whatchya gonna do?
Saren really enjoyed the skating. Steph snapped a few pictures of her and I skating, so I bet if you ask nicely, she'll post them.

Next week is a short work week. So, that's a plus. We're planning on playing Risk with Steph's brothers on Sunday, which should be fun. I always enjoy Risk, but it takes so long to play, and the girls are still a little too young to really get into it (plus Irina would totally disrupt any game that we might have on the floor), so I'm very much looking forward to Sunday night.

2 great tastes...

My newest million dollar idea:

Cookie burgers.

It's a regular cheeseburger, but instead of buns, you have chocolate chip cookies.

I'm lovin' it!

I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.

I had a big long post about stuff, but ...now I don't.

Question for the P@riots reading this - what are your thoughts on malevolent spirits? People can be influenced by negative energy, can machinery? Does it become a sort of feedback loop where it just builds and builds? Is there a way out of such a cycle? (Short of a baseball bat to the harddrive, or some other violent and expensive release of pressure?)
What about exorcism? Or exercise, maybe? Mabye that's what I need. Work off some of this stress that seems to have built up in me for whatever reason. Who knows? (The Shadow knows.)

Or maybe I just need to be able to laugh at something. It's been a while (read: at least three hours) since I've found anything really funny.

museless

(and other thoughts)

I think my muse (or is it my Muse? Is Muse supposed to be capitalized? even if you are not talking about the band?) has left me. I wonder why that is. (hee! I'm musing why I don't have my muse.)
I bet it's from nto sleeping enough.

CSI type shows have been on television for years -decades, really, if you go back and include mystery shows like Columbo and Murder She Wrote- and you've got to wonder how the writers manage to week after week think up different ways of homicides being committed. If I were the real police, I think I'd keep a very close eye on those writer types. Or make sure to stay on their good side, if you know what I mean.

So glad tomorrow is friday.

One week from tdoay is Gro...Thanksgiving. (Yes, I was originally going to type out Groundhog Day.) I still marvel at how quickly time goes by now.

Um.

Sleep time! To cycle this back around to the topic at the beginning (and in an effort to get mroe comments) - what is your muse? What inspires you? How can i get my (groove) back?

ymoyl

Huh. I thought I'd blogged already today. Good thing I checked twice, eh?

I did not run over any alien fox babies today. (Unless I did.)

I did have an idea for something to talk about earlier today, but now that I'm sitting in front of the white screen of death (heh), I am much much less compelled to type about it. It's been brewing in my head off and on for a while now, so I'm sure eventually it'll make it's way into the world wide web for all to enjoy and/or mock.

Here's one way that life is disappointingly NOT like a video game: There's no awesome catchy 8-bit music accompanying us as we go about our adventures.
Another way - when people fail, there's no big GAME OVER that appears.

I think the Universe might be out of line somehow right now due to the fact that it is a Wednesday - in Sweeps, no less - and there is NOT a new Lost on.

I can't stand your product, but your commercials are amazing.

Said at Target today:
"Something crazy needs to happen so that I have something to blog about."

Nothing did, though.

Maybe tomorrow I'll find an abandonded baby or run over a marmot fox or be visited by aliens who will deliver the following message to humanity: "WHAT THE FUCK, HUMANS?!?" or something.

I'll let you know.

8 hrs

man, what i wiulodn't give 4 that aniunt if sleep right ow,

i promiused the story of yesterday yesterday, but it's nit wirthj it. or i'm 2 tiredm,

long story short- we didn't have the last 10 minytes of a movie we were syioosed to air that night. i got caalled. i had to go down 2 the station to help remedy rhe situation. doimng such things is whuy i gaet paid the big bucks, thouygh, right? right??? ha ha ha.

anyway. dince it'as minbday againb, i'm mr. lack fo sleep huy. and we are supposed 2 watch deadwood in a few minutera.

this wntry more or less sucked.

I'm not even supposed to be here today!

Two schools of thought here. I can either blog about how my entire day was interrupted by work, and explain the whole sordid mess, and get restressed out about it (I'm STILL very upset over the goingson of the day, and it was more or less over 2 and a half hours ago).
Or, I can just let it go, realizing that it's not the worth the energy and thought that I've already devoted to it and try to enjoy the remainder of my weekend.

I'm going to go with option 2. Because lord knows that I'm going to have to deal with enough bullshit tomorrow when I go in to work. And because I need practice at dealing with stress in positive ways. (I have done a lot of deep breathing during the writing of this. It's... not really helping.)

Tell ya what. Tomorrow, after I've had the ability to cool down some - and we see what fallout occurs from today's screwup - I'll come back and relate the tale. Yay! That means tomorrow's blog entry is covered as well as today's! So, there's a positive spin on the whole thing.

pass

I'm blogging every day in November, except for the 11th.

mundane entry #5302

The problem is that I'm bored by my own thoughts - you know, because I live with them 17/7 - so I'm wondering why I should even bother transfering them to blogper. But, my thoughts are new to you (heh) and additionally, some day down the road I will have forgotten these thoughts and this will serve as a reminder. A snapshot of my brain at the time. Or something.

Of course, now that I've typed all that, I've forgotten what I originally was going to say.

Let's see. Finished reading The Husband today. I don't know why I bothered. 400 pages of ...Koontz.

I've more or less given up on NaNo. Emphasis on the more, actually. I've not written anything story-wise since Tuesday. Oh well. I think I'll just wait until I want to write, rather than having the goal enforced upon me. That being said, good luck to everyone else who is continuing to partake in the craziness of NaNo. And, hey, maybe the world of Wolf will someday call to me again, and if/when it does, I'll listen. I think the bigger problem is that I come up with these ideas, and I want someone else to do the writing for me.

If anybody wants to write Wolf, I'll tell you the gist of what I want to happen, and you can go from there. Really. I'll even forward on the 2000ish words I had written, but they're pretty bad.

Moving on.

So many aspects of our culture (or probably any culture, really) seem... crazy when you try and figure out where it began.
Case in point - circumcision. What the hell possessed the first human beings to say, "Hey, let's cut off some of our skin? And better yet, let's make it some of the skin from the most sensitive part of the body!"
And what's even crazier? The fact that it caught on. Other people were like, "Oh yeah! That mutilation thing is da bomb!"

I had some other idea for yet another story, but I have forgotten it now. Doesn't really matter, because I would have just wanted someone else to do the writing for me. [doh]

New Lost Theory

I think that Craphole Island might be Sunnydale, circa Season 7.

Some spoilers now, for S3 of Lost and S7 of Buffy, so highlight only if you've been watching, or don't care about such matters:


The Smoke Monster seems to be able to take the form of dead people (Yemi, Jack's Dad (?), Hurley's friend Dave (?), maybe Kate's horse), which makes it The First Evil.

The guy with the patch is Xander.

And last night's episode ("I Do") had Caleb (or Mal, if you watched that Firefly show). So Season 7 just keeps on intruding into the Lost world.

I had some other pieces of evidence to back me up, but I've forgotten it now.

In other news, I've decided that Dean Koontz wrote The Husband as a NaNovel. Because a) it certainly couldn't've been planned [the twists are just too...out there] and b) the dialouge is, in many instances, just filler.
It's a crappy book, but I can't stop reading it. Weird.

Come on down!!!

Apparently, Bob Barker has decided to retire. There has not (as far as I know) been word yet on who will be replacing him. (Or if they'll simply shut The Price Is Right down once he leaves. Honestly, can you imagine anyone else hosting it?? [and, yeah, I know that others have hosted it, but let's face it Bob Barker is TPIR])

I always imagined that I'd do pretty well on TPIR. Whenever I watch at home, I always play along (god, I spent so many of my summers as a young 'un watching Price is Right, Press Your Luck, and a slew of other daytime game shows), and I always do reasonably well. I'd want my game to be either Cliff Hangers (I love watching the little mountain climber yodel as he goes up. And I always morbidly laugh when he falls off.) or Pathfinder. Or, most appealing - Plinko. Man, Plinko is awesome. Plus, it's fun to say. "Plinko!"

I would NOT want to play That's Too Much!. Because the cheapass in me always yells, "That's too much!" at the first price that Bob says. Because it is.
I would also not really want to play one of Lucky Seven. Yeah, the prize on that is always a BRAND NEW CAR!!!, but it's just too difficult to win.

Of course, it's all pretty much moot now, unless I happen to get down to LA before June of '07. :(
Oh well. There's always Wheel of Fortune.

7th

I posted twice yesterday. Doesn't that let me off the hook for today? [/whine]

Oh, but, hey, look at that. I've done blogged again. Go team me.

And, since I have this open, I'll ramble a bit, eh?

Random thoughts:

How in the world could so many people have been involved with the making of Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties?? I swear the credits went on and on and on and on. I think more people were in the credits than actually saw the movie. It just amazes me whenever we watch a film to realize how much work goes into them.

Ducks, geese, and pigeons are all pretty crazy.

My knees ache. I swear that someone flipped the "old" switch in my body, because I am seriously getting all these pains just overnight. The old (er, that is, the 'young') me would have just shrugged these things off. Now, the healing takes a lot longer.

regurgitate

A few days back, Steph read some advice about NaNo that she read to me. It was (paraphrased) "The key to NaNo is to lower your expectations from 'best seller' to 'won't make someone vomit'.".

I think my Wolf story is a notch or two above the puke level. Or at least, I hope it is.

Today I wrote some 200, 250 words while at work. And then I lost it all. Talk about wanting to throw up.

And, yeah, 250 words isn't that much, but the slowness that Wolf has been coming, every word counts. At this point, I'm pretty much not gonna even try to hit 50,000. I just want to get the story out. (Although you got to wonder why I keep trying to force something that doesn't seem ready to be born. Hmmm.)

In other news, we just got back from the libe, where I picked up Ginger Snaps, An American Werewolf in London, Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, Weezer's Make Believe CD, and The Husband by Dean Koontz.

And now, it's time for Heroes.

Oh, god, i'm old.

I did pushups (15), situps (5? 10?), squat thrusts (not many) and jumping jacks (I didn't count, but I went nonstop for nearly three minutes. I did a LOT of them.) yesterday.


I am in so much pain today it isn't even funny.


Last night during the Treehouse of Horror.... I fell asleep during the 3rd segment.

I also dozed off a couple of times during I ♥ Huckabees.

My back aches. And my hair is thinning.

Aging. Happens to the best of us.

This was totally not the post I was originally going to make. Maybe later.

Sunday School

A humourous take on the Book of Job:



See? I've said for years that the Bible is a goldmine of comedy, just waiting to be plucked for television. This type of thing should be a weekly series.

Title goes here

Blah.

Didn't work on my story today - I'm at 2000someodd words right now, which is way behind schedule, but still is 2000 more words than I had four days ago (although, really, the story is just not...great.) - and I almost didn't blog today either.

Harper slept for like 12 hours today and she also threw up when she was awake, and I wonder if I'm catching what she had, because I am just not feeling... active. In fact, I'm gonna go veg out watching some lame Jet Li movie for the rest of the night. Maybe tomorrow I'll be more mentally here. Or there.

synaptic rebounding

ugh. I have a headache.

Partly due to haveing (yeah, I know it's misspelled. I'm too lazy to go back and correct it. But not too lazy to spend an extra however many words talking about it. I'm odd. And this is just a stream of conciousness type of entry anyway, so of course it'll be rambling and nonsensical and probably kind of boring and maybe have a nugget or two of real insight or wisdom or humor or whatever inside it. Point?? Oh! right, I was saying my headache is partly due to having) so many thoughts going on.

And partly due to too much television. (And it's political season. Again. Which at least means I'm not alone in my headache having.)

And partly due to lack of food.

And I think partly due to some sort of virus that's moved into our home within the past twenty-nine hours or so. Bah. Stupid sicknesses.

Things that are missing:
1) The latest cell phone card for my rechargeable phone. The units I have expire today, so I really need to find it.
2) The deodorant I bought a few days ago. I still have my old one, but it's running low, so finding the new stick would be helpful.
3) I ♥ Huckabees. It was next on our Netflix Q, and was supposed to have arrived on Wednesday. Apparently it got lost in the mail. :(
4) My ability to wrap this up with a witty conclusionary conclusion.

2

As in, the second day of the month.
And the 2nd attempt at Wolf(er, or maybe the 3rd, really, if you count the 'false start' from last month on my blog). The good news? I've written 600someodd words now! Hooray! And, while it's still rather cringeworthy, at least it's WAY better than the 176ish words I had written yesterday. That stuff was just... no.

And "2" also counts for the two writing projects (progects? no. projects) going on this month. Nano and Nablo. I'm going to try and do both. AND!! I'm going to see if Nablo can have 50000 words. Which means I'd have written between the two, 100000 words in 30 days. Okay, put in that light, it's kinda insane. But, I still suggest that those who are doing NaBlo should have the 50k word count goal. Just to see.

In other news, Saren is also attempting NaNo. She wants to write 300 words in her story, which so far is about spiders. Although she just said she wants to write something "that she knows more about". And then she disappeared into her room to start typing on the computer.

I'm rambling. I should be working on my story. Or eating. Man, all the time with the eating and needing of food. So inefficient.

Sigh. Lon.

So, I went ahead and added Battlestar Galactica to our Netflix Queueueueue. (Starting at position 149. [sigh]) I added Season 1, Season 2.0 and Season 2.5. I noticed there is also a miniseries. AND there is the 1 hour special "The Story So Far" (which I've already seen). My question to all the BSGers is do I need this miniseries thing? And if so, where does it fall in? Before Season 1 or after? Or not at all? Or if you watch the miniseries, do you need to see season one? Why'd they make a season AND a miniseries? And what are BSG fans called?

Okay, that's more than one question, but I usually like to ask a bunch of them. ;)

In other news, today is Day One of Nano. And it. just. ain't. happening.

Try as I might, I could NOT get into my writing today. Steph suggests I try writing a different scene, and I might do that, but really, my heart is just not into (fiction) writing today. Or right now, at least. [sigh] Where is that inspiration I had during all (or most) of October?? I guess the lesson to be learned from this is to write when you want to write, huh?
Maybe I'd be better off joining Annika in her blogging adventure that is NaBloPoMo.
We'll see.

October mileage

January - 730
February - 1357.8
March - 872.4
April - 1056.9
May - 278.3 (car, which is currently not running); 486.6 (minivan) --total for May is 764.9
June - car = 0.0; minivan = 1489.6
July - car = 0.0; minivan =1796.3
August - car = 0.0; minivan = 944.6
September - car = 0.1; minivan = 1725.3 - total for Sept. is 1725.4
October - car - 0.0; minivan - 1283.9


Year to date - 12,021.8