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Category: Random Stuff

Neat Life

For the past few years I’ve bellyached pretty much all the time about how much I wanted to move home to Canada and near to my old home town.  I’m sure I drove a great deal of my co-workers and friends crazy with it.  Two things have always kept me from it, the lack of a job to go to and the lack of cash to make the move.

Now, as I’m facing the last 10 months I have on my work visa, I’m facing a more untenable reality, I don’t want to leave yet.  I’ve lived here for as long as I have lived any place since leaving Kincardine in 1994.  In fact, I think I will have lived in this Townhouse longer than I’ve lived anywhere (excepting my parent’s house in Kincardine where I lived for 8 years.

On top of all that, I’m very comfortable here in Eugene.  I mean, look at the views I get!

I know the staff at the local comic shops, by name even.  I’ve made a few friends that I really value and I’ve made a real life here.

I’m not saying that I want to go the citizenship route, but I don’t think I’m totally burnt out on Eugene yet.

That being said, if the right job came along and I could live someplace just as picturesque (but still urban enough…) I’d probably move along.

It’s the dilemma I face.

It’s so much of a dilemma I was trying to sell my comics.  All six Long Boxes.

C’est La Vie.

Top 5 in '06

What were your top 5 TV shows of 2006?

  1. House
  2. Venture Brothers
  3. Metalocalypse
  4. Family Guy
  5. American Dad

That’s a great deal of Fox.  Simpsons is number 6.

James Brown is Dead

[Removed Link to “Beat the Devil” Video]

Thanks to 007Ben for the last video.  Sorry to see you go, Soul Brother Number one, thanks for “The Big Payback” and “Sex Machine” but thank you especially, for “I Feel Good”

I miss the very few parties

In my late teens and early 20s I started hanging around with a “Bad Crowd”(c)6000BC that had these kinds of parties.  Full of people and booze and drugs.  I was always a DD so I didn’t take part in the drinking/drugs (I was a major dork too) but on occasion, even totally sober, these parties were trippy beyond all reckoning.

I wouldn’t trade any of my memories of those parties for anything, even all the drama and heartache that came from them.  I doubt many of the people there would.  We all experienced life, and I got to see what I missed when I spent my teen years reading comics and going to “dances”.  Sure I had glimpsed “real partying” in my teen years, but this was on a level I never experienced.

I look in on those people from time to time.  A great number of them have tried to get as far from their pasts as possible. Some are still there, living in their flop-house lives.

It was gutter-born magic for a while.

Some Stuff that Happened

It was NiteCat’s birthday, only 3 kids showed up fro her party (of about 30 that got invites).  She loved it either way, and they had a blast winning all the prizes for the party games and utterly destroying the pinata.

Got to see Rocky Balboa, I loved it.  It was great way to bookend the whole story with Rocky (spoiler) losing his last fight.  They did sort of lose the page with the sub-plot, but who cares. It was a great way to close out Rocky. I truly loved the movie and really got into it.

I highly recommend it.

Books from my Childhood

What books did you love as a child?
Submitted by hearts.

One Book was my absolute favorite:  “Adventures with Hal” about a boy who visits his Grandparents house for the summer and ends up having to spend the whole time with his unfamiliar cousins.  It was just a fun little book about being young and having fun out in the forest (getting lost and stuff)

Don’t ask me why I liked it so much.

Proud and Happy

I’ve been fighting with XGL and Beryl on my Ubuntu box for ages, the other day there I tried out the Live DVD for Sabayon linux (a Gentoo Distro) and it just “worked” with Beryl.  I plotzed after so many failures, here it was, working!

The problem was that it was on the spare computer (belonging to NiteCat)  damn.

Anyway, NiteCat was so taken by the 3D desktop and graphic stuff that she asked to go over to Sabyon on a permanent basis.  After a few false starts I installed it (and dual booted it with the existing Windows installation)

Sadly, Beryl didn’t work.

Shit.

Some forum diving got me to the point where I was installing a new driver (which didn’t seem to work)

A reboot later and it all works (even after more reboots)

I’m so happy, NiteCat can still play her games and can get into using Linux!

Good for her!

Such a Klutz

What’s the most klutzy thing you’ve ever done?
Submitted by Jecka.

I think every injury I’ve ever had was due to my own klutziness, but here is the best:

Have you seen “Mary Poppins”?  I have, tons of times; it was on “Disney Sunday” or whatever that show was over and over as I was a kid, so I’ve head the damn thing over and over.  Anyway I’ve seen That movie a ton, and when I was younger (under 8 I think) I’d seen it enough times to make me believe that the whole Umbrella thing was a workable plan for flight.

One blustery and windy day I took a big umbrella and with a weary look over my shoulder at the poor grounded people; ( who wouldn’t be flying that afternoon) I opened up the umbrella and felt the wind pull me.  It Pulled me right off my feet , and in a moment of joyous flight, right onto my knees.   Right onto my knees on a broken bottle.  In fact, in a moment of cosmic kismet right onto the thick upturned bottom of a glass bottle, waiting hungrily for young knees.

Initially it didn’t even hurt, or bleed.  I looked down into the innards of my knee and saw the off-white goo inside.  Then it bled.  It bled like crazy and so I cried.  I cried and yelled and got hustled off to the hospital.

It sucked.

I still have a scar, but at least I got to fly for a little… like Mary Poppins.  D’Oh.

Icy Mornings

The BatMobile (My Car) is a dependable vehicle, with some peculiarities.  It has had a few major repairs and a few parts replaced; but it runs reasonably well for an 11 year old car. However, the locks freeze and seize in cold temperatures; and this morning they locked tight.

I ended up having to pour warm water over the locks to get them loose (there was a satisfying/scary “crack” noise when the water hit the lock).

After getting the car warmed up and the windows clean I was away.

I’m going to have to invest in lock-deicer and a better window scraper for this winter it seems.

Clarks 2 DVD Set

The Clerks 2 DVD set arrived today, much to my joy.  It’s a two disc set including a Mooby Hat, a funployee badge, a Mooby cup and the awesome Mobby’s Happy meal style box!

Check out my whole set at Flickr.