Got an anonymous message this morning with a link to a story on a newspaper web site.
The article was about where LaptopGirl lives now.
The article mentioned LaptopGirl!
And it even quoted her a couple of times!
There was nothing about what a creepy asshole she thinks I am, so that was good.
There were, on the other hand, no pictures at all, so that was bad.
Thanks for the link, anonymous internet person!
Last night I told NotGeorge that I really needed to look up my horoscope. It didn't say what I expected:
The more you do to participate in group activities, the better. An opportunity to make personal changes should be taken advantage of. Don't let anyone cost you money.
This is what it should have said:
Last night, your sleep was interrupted by thunder. Similarly, your good mood of the afternoon will be broken by a series of evening encounters that may leave you wishing you'd just stayed in bed. Hang in there, Pisces, for the approaching calm will provide time to reflect, and you will realize that those who appreciate you far outnumber those who mistreat you.
Last night, I had to deal with three bitches before I could even have my first beer. The first, I ignored. The second, I walked away from. The third, well the third I reflected her bitchiness right back at her until she left in a huff. Never to return I hope.
Don't talk shit about my friends when (a) you know nothing about them and (b) they're not around to defend themselves.
Anyway, by the time I ordered my first beer, a Piraat, I was in a pretty shitty mood. NotGeorge showed up and kept asking me stupid questions for which I had no answers, and I pretty much told him as much. He threatened to "jack slap" me if I didn't snap out of it.
We were standing in the annex area and we stayed there until the couple in the living room area left. Neither of us had wanted to interrupt the guy's valiant efforts to get whatever he was hoping for. Don't know if he was successful but the two of them did leave together.
At about this time I had myself an NABC Community Dark.
So NotGeorge and I went to the living room area and sat with OddlyFamiliarGirl and talked for quite a while. At one point it was revealed that OddlyFamilarGirl knew my sister Neisha, a fact that I eventually confirmed by calling my sister and finding out when she'd graduated.
The coincidences piled up even higher when DooRagGirl came in and it turned out that she was OddlyFamiliarGirl's sister, and that she also knew my sister from school.
Oh yeah, there was this professor dude there too, but the circle was broken when it turned out that he didn't remember my other sister's ex-husband James, despite being at IUS at the same time.
Anyway, at one point I had a bottle of Alaskan Smoked Porter, which was quite yummy, then I had a couple glasses of Diet Coke while we all waited for the evening to come to a close.
I would have liked to have talked with DooRagGirl some more, as she was looking as beautiful as ever and I've always thought she was an interesting conversation partner, but TheProfessor pretty much monopolized her time.
Got to Rich O's fairly late last night, and was able to grab a seat on the loveseat pretty much right away.
I talked with TallLady while I had a bottle of t Ij Ijnde Jaars (yes, that seems to be the actual name), a beer recently recommended by Roger in his 'blog. I liked it a lot. Here's my review:
(bottle) Reminded me of a winter seasonal. Lots of fruit that I cannot quite define (cranberries? plums?). Thick and strong, yet refreshing at the same time. I really wish I could drink more than one.
After a while TallLady and I moved to the island to talk with CoffeeDude and I had one of these:
(draft) A fairly mild porter that smelled and tasted of baker's chocolate. No bitterness or coffee taste that I could detect, and I think that's a good thing.
Also, I was talking about how impressed I was that these two girls in the living room area had managed to drink an entire bottle of mead between them, and the bartender, cleaning up their mess, found a second empty bottle! An entire bottle of mead for each of those girls goes beyond impressive and ends up somewhere near insane.
Once I left Rich O's I went to where my uncle and cousin are doing karaoke again. At least they're doing it on Fridays until business picks up more.
A pretty tame night.
Every time I go to Rich O's, I get asked the same questions.
My answers are always the same.
No, I haven't. I don't know. I haven't heard.
How the fuck did I get appointed as the expert? Why do people assume that I'm in the know?
I know nothing, and all these questions just serve to remind me that I know nothing.
And I have a feeling that I'll be the last to know.
It's been a really long time, and I'm sure I've forgotten a lot, but I once read the book Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard.
What I remember most about the book, aside from the ubiquitous anti-abortion theme, was the idea that whatever was bothering you could basically be erased, or at least made impotent, by replaying it over and over in your head.
A parent dies suddenly? Relive the moment you found out - sights, smells, sounds, everything you can come up with - and keep doing it until the shock that was born when it happened has been replaced by something else. Something less intense.
I'm not talking about the kind of shock that happens when you're startled or surprised. The kind where you exclaim, "Oh! My goodness!" and your heart maybe beats a little faster for a while. I'm talking about the shock to your soul that happens when something so bad happens that your mind just won't accept it all at once. It gets shoved down deep, and sometimes it stays there for years. Nagging at you. Whispering at you.
Now I don't agree with a lot of what I remember from that book, but this part I do agree with: The saying is Time heals all wounds but I think what really happens is that we relive and obsess over the bad events, even if we do it subconsciously - and eventually we've relived them so often that our mind is able to accept them.
The worst thing that ever happened to me, at least up to the time I read the book, was the death of my first real girlfriend. It was both sudden and drawn-out at the same time. One night, she swallowed a bunch of pills and then she took three months to die.
It was several years later, just after my divorce, when I read the book, and I found myself trying some of the exercises described in it. What I found, or at least what I think I found, was that what was killing me inside wasn't losing my wife and my stepson, it was losing Jackie all those years earlier. All of the guilt and uselessness I'd felt through all those hospital visits - they were still with me. Dragging me down and holding me back. I was unable to work harder at my marriage because I already felt like a failure.
I was able, finally, to free myself of those demons. Not by trying to control them and keep them underground, but by giving them free reign, by letting those memories replay in my head and my heart over and over until they had lost the ability to affect me.
This was a lesson I learned in my twenties that I really wish I'd have remembered into my thirties. It really would have been handy.
I feel like I'm beginning to ramble here, so I'll go ahead and get to the point I wanted to make.
I believe that the same thing works for stuff that hasn't happened yet.
As I sit here typing this, in early March 2005, I'm a little worried about the future.
In fact, there are two scenarios that I've found myself worrying about:
If you thought I was going to list them here you were wrong.
Either of these events, were they to occur, would simply devastate me. Luckily they're mutually-exclusive, so I don't have to worry about them both happening at the same time, but I still find myself dreading their possibility. I find myself imagining what I'd say, what I'd do, if things went completely to shit.
What's the worst that could happen?
That's what I imagine. The worst. That's what runs through my head whenever I relax too much. Whenever I catch myself imagining the good that's when the bad possibilities rush through my mind and snap me out of my contentedness.
Now, I've never really been much of a worrier. For a long time I was, after all, invincible. Why would I waste time worrying about that which would simply bounce off my impenetrable shield?
Lately, however, my safety is not assured. I have vulnerabilities. I have my own Kryptonite, and I do find myself worrying about it. Worrying about having my own sanity and my own happiness so out of my control. It's like I'm jumping out of a plane, and I'm not sure I trust the person who packed my parachute.
I think it's getting better, though. And that's the point I wanted to make with this rambling excuse for writing.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
My imagining of these horrible scenarios, as annoying as it is, is actually preparing my mind for their occurance. I know this because there used to be three things that I worried about, but one of them has been castrated. It could happen right now and I'd be able to accept it. I wouldn't fucking like it very much, but it wouldn't be the worst that could happen. I ran it though my head so many times that I actually got a little bored with it.
One down, two to go.
At some point, maybe tomorrow, maybe years from now, the time will come when either (a) one of my worst fears will actually come true, or (b) the danger will pass. If one of my dreaded imaginings comes to pass I hope I'll be ready.
I think I will be. If the worst happens, I may not land gracefully, but I think I can avoid a complete crash.
And if the worst doesn't happen? If something good actually comes from all this?
I don't know how I'd prepare for that. Or if it's even possible.
Today I scheduled myself a couple of trips for work-related conferences.
The first one is in Las Vegas in May, and I'm going to take a couple of days of vacation so I can finally visit the Grand Canyon.
The second trip, in June, is in Orlando. That will be cool because I've never been to Florida. I wish Orlando was closer to water though.
I think that the independent auditing firms are purposely hiring attractive people just to throw us off guard while they interrogate us about our security practices.
Not that I'm complaining.
Just a couple of small changes to the site that I want to make public. Very boring stuff.
First of all, I've recently been slammed by some searchbots that are retrieving, then ignoring, my robots.txt file. This file specifically states files and folders that I don't want indexed by 'bots. I make these areas off-limts for bandwidth reasons, or for simple site functionality purposes.
For example, I don't want 'bots bumping up any 'blog entries - those are for actual people who like the entries.
I also don't want 'bots searching the raw 'blog files themselves, and I don't want them downloading all of my movies files.
Well I've become sick of 'bots ignoring these rules, so I've decided to block them completely. This was done with an easy addition to my .htaccess file:
As I see new 'bots ignoring my simple robots.txt file I'll block their asses as well.
(Just after I posted this entry I got slammed by another asshole, so his address is now blocked as well.)
Another thing that's been bugging me lately is that I've been getting what's called referer spam. This is when assholes modify their browser to change where they appear to be coming from. Many people, for privacy reasons, will simply change this value to a blank or something. But these assholes are replacing the real referer value with a URL to a site they're hawking.
My .htaccess file can deal with these people as well:
In the example of above I send anyone with the string viagra in their referer to a site that I'm hoping will get them fired if they hit it at work.
On a completely unrelated note, I've changed my site search function to just go to Google. My own home-made search script wasn't working correctly and I just haven't found the time to debug it. This change was for the site search only - the 'blog search is still home-grown.
And finally, I'm beginning to contemplate another site redesign. If I actually decide to do this then barenada.com V5.00 will feature a cleaner design and will make even more use of CSS.
Tuesday after work I was waiting for my calzone to cook and had a Goose Island Honker's Ale. I really liked it, and it was definitely a good beer to have on an empty stomach. Here's my ratebeer.com review:
(draft) A great beer for starting out an evening, yet interesting enough to make an entire session out of it. Smooth and malty. The little bite at the finish makes it tastes like it should have a higher ABV.
I also had the priviledge of sampling a glass of NABC's new Noble Smoker smoked ale. This is I think slated to be the replacement for their Cone Smoker.
I liked this new stuff at least as much as I liked the old stuff. The smoke was much more subdued than I'd been expecting. Ditto for the hoppy bitterness.
Overall a nice beer with a little smoke and pretty well balanced. Reminded me a lot of Spezial Smoked Lager except with a little bit more smoke. I'm looking forward to its official debut as Gravity Head kicks off next weekend.
It looks like I won't be reviewing the men-only performances because the lack of boobage keeps me from even watching.
Anyway, here's what I thought of tonight's ladies.
Aloha: Stupid stupid name. Took off 10 points for the stupid name, and another 5 for the stupid flower. Sang okay though. (50 points)
Lindsey: Hot as hell. Sang some stupid rockabilly country song. She should sing songs that play up her hotness rather then detract from it. (70 points)
Jessica: Hauntingly good peformance. Wow. (85 points)
Mikalah: I would have loved this performance more in the 1940s. Pretty good though. (80 points)
Celena: OMG OMG OMG She's hot. Did a mediocre performance of a boring song. (70 points)
Nadia: About a zillionth as pretty and talented as she seems to think. Was going to score 60 but took off extra points for those horrible final 10 seconds. (55 points)
Amanda: Spankably hot. Pretty good performance. (76 points)
Jamay: I still really like her voice. Not as nervous this week but still seemed forced. (68 points)
Carrie: Hot. Sounded just like last week. Good but Common. (72 points)
Vonzell: I hate that artifically low voice some of the women do because they think it's sexy. Also took off 10 penalty points for having a stupid name. (59 points)
Overall, I suppose that Carrie has been the most consistent, but I think she's actually been a little too consistent. The performances just blend together.
It's time for Aloha and either Janay or Vonzell to leave my TV now.
Man, that Celena is hot.
