We’ve all been there. You’re in a relationship and you sense the other party has lost interest. In order to save face and avoid wasting any more time on something that is going nowhere, you break it off first. Maybe you say, “Ha ha. Beat you to the punch,” or maybe you’re far more mature than I. In any case, it just wasn’t meant to be.

Such was my relationship with Yahoo mail.

Wait a minute. Let me revise that analogy a bit. Have you ever had a stalker who finally gave up and moved on with his or her life? That was my relationship with Yahoo mail.

After the third time Yahoo would not allow me access to my own e-mail and accused me of undisclosed unscrupulous practices of which I was not guilty, I finally stopped driving by his house.

He’s got a new girl now. She’s smart and pretty, and I think she’s about to dump him on his ass.

Book meme I snatched from Ren.
(more…)

Andy kindly took the time to interview me, and I’m finally gonna respond. I wasn’t able to do so before I left for Chicago, but better late than never:

1. If you had the power to “un-invent” a single invention, what would it be
and why ?

I’d un-invent the atomic bomb, so we could all sleep a little better at night. A close second choice would be the George Foreman Grill, simply because I’m sick to death of hearing about how great it is.

“The fat just drips away!”

“Bite me.”

2. You have a choice of loosing your sight or your hearing which would you
go for ?

First off, this choice sucks. I love music, so I lean toward keeping my hearing. But, in the end, I’ll keep my sight, because I quite enjoy looking at my family.

3. You can spend a year living in any historical setting, choose one.

Well, I don’t want to exist before indoor plumbing exists. So, I’ll choose to be a flapper in the early 1900’s.

4. What was the last item you bought that cost over $500.

A washer and drier.

5. Here in the UK, we have a Radio Show called Desert Island Disks, where
the famous choose what 5 songs and 1 luxury item and 1 book they would
choose to be marooned on an island with !! and as your famous in my Blog
(well you have the most comments LOL) you can be my first Andy Island Disks
Contestant. No cheating with luxury items like yachts to escape with !!

The book would be The Complete Works of Mark Twain. But, then it gets confusing. If I don’t choose a cd player of some sort as my luxury item, how am I going to hear my five songs? I guess I want a radio/cd player that I can power with a bamboo bicycle, you know, kinda like the professor had on Gilligan’s Island.

For my five songs, I want these and whichever others I can talk you into:

“Longer Boats” by Cat Stevens (A bit of irony there.)

“The Galaxy Song” from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life

“Shelter from the Storm” by Bob Dylan (More irony.)

“Into the Mystic” by Van Morrison

“Wonderful World” by Sam Cooke

If you’re in a charitable mood you could let me have Morrison’s entire Moondance album or Cat Steven’s Tea for the Tillerman album, and I’d be happy as a clam…except for that whole being stranded problem.

So, you know the rules…

If you want me to interview you, just leave me a comment.
THE RULES:
1. Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I’ll ask you five questions.
3. You’ll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You’ll include this explanation.
5. You’ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

My phobias are mind games that I can enjoy playing all by myself, just like solitaire.

As I grow older I find I prefer these sorts of head games to the kind that more actively involve other people.

This wasn’t always the case. My exes would all be happy to attest that I used to love to play Guess How You Fucked Up, which is perhaps more commonly known as Passive-Aggressive Charades. The object was simple. I would sulk in various poses (hands on hips, face in a book, fetal position etc.) and my companion would then guess at what he had done that day to upset me. It was fun, so I offered more than just one edition. For example, there was the Guess How You Fucked Up Deluxe Edition which featured 50% more sniffing. Or, the Guess How You Fucked Up Family Edition. The family edition required that before the game I’d called my sister who’d told me (Duh!) that I was absolutely right to be all sulky and pissy.

But, since those kinds of couples games tend to be detrimental to relationships, I try not to play them now.

No. These days when I get a hankerin’ to be nutty I seem to choose my phobias more often than not.

I’m a germophobe, first and foremost, with a few other phobias thrown in for good measure. And, let me tell ya, a hotel room offers up a veritable smörgåsbord of fun for a person such as myself.

One game I highly recommend is Take As Few Steps as Possible to Reach the Bed After Bathing Because You Don’t Want Your Bare Feet Touching The Potentially Scuzzy Hotel Room Carpet Any More Than Necessary.

Then, once you’ve reached the bed, you can play a little game I like to call Try Not to Think About All the Microscopic Creatures Who Are Waiting Expectantly for You to Lie Down So They Can Eat Your Skin, But Then Think of Little Else.

Or, if that’s a bit too Sci-fi for you, you could enjoy a quick round of Try Not to Think of All the Skanky People Who Left Semen and/or Boogers on the Very Mattress You’re Lying On, But Then Think of Nothing Else.

I’m a master at that last game I mentioned. In fact, I’d like to have my prowess at it tested someday.

The test would involve hundreds and hundreds of mattresses being piled one atop another. Then, of course, they’d have me attempt to sleep on the topmost one.

I’d awake all bruised and sore and everyone would be absolutely stunned. They’d say, “How could you have possibly felt that booger we wiped on the bottom mattress? How? How?”

I’d reply, “Give it up, buddy. I’ll always know the booger is there. It’s always there for me - even when it’s not there.”

The plaintive, mournful cry of an animal becomes clearer as you approach the Holiday Inn.

Could it be a coyote? A wolf? A bear?

No. It would seem not. For as you tread closer still to the source, you begin to discern some distinct syllables mixed in with the howls and screeches.

“I waaanna go hoooOOOoome. HooooooooOOOOme. Hooome. ArrrooOOOOOh.”

Yes, I had spent one too many days in Illinois, and was anxious to feel Kentucky bluegrass under my feet, even if that meant I’d have to mow it myself.

So, that poor creature was me begging Michael to let me drive home last night.

“You’ll get off at nine p.m., I’ll have everything packed and in the car by that time, and I’ll drive right over and pick you up. We’ll be back in Louisville by five tomorrow morning.”

“Uh, I don’t think so. You’re night-blind.”

“Only a little. I’ll be fine on the interstate.”

“No. It’s only one more day. We’ll leave bright and early tomorrow morning.”

After that, I whined and howled and scratched my toenails on the mosaic print carpet of the hotel room, but it was all to no avail.

Don’t get me wrong. Chicago was fun*, especially the first few days of our stay.

Thing is, on certain days, for various reasons, we ended up spending a little too much time in the hotel room.

It was in those moments that my own words echoed in my brain, “No, Michael, I’ll be fine. There’s no need to drag that big clunky pc along on what will most likely only be a one week** visit.”

Well, believe me, hind sight is indeed 20/20 when you are sitting in a hotel room watching crappy reality tv because you only have eight channels to choose from and half of those are news channels.

Hmm, Fox News or For Love or Money? Yep, that’s right. My choice was made for me.

Stupid Bimbos on Ice Meet Stupid Bimbos of the Outback and They Do Stupid Stuff to Win a Stupid Shallow Guy could have been on following For Love or Money, and sadly enough, I’d have watched that too.

Anyhow, I was about half way through my second episode of For Love of Money when I had a not so riveting thought: “I hate each and every one of these people, but boy I hope that bitch Rachel wins, chooses the money and gets nothing but a crisp dollar bill for her trouble.”

Then, I had another thought that seemed a bit more to the point:

“God help me. It’s come to this.”

So, I guess the main thing I want to convey to you today is that, from now on, no matter how short our stay may or may not be, my computer will be coming with me whenever we leave town. It can sit in my lap on the drive or on the plane if need be, but it’s definitely coming along.

By the way, I have this idea for a reality television show called Come Hell or High Water™. The premise is this: A dozen or so narcissistic women and men who have only narrowly mastered walking erect will attempt to extract my computer from my arms by burning me or drowning me or poking me with their crude weapons and/or grooming tools. If they manage to get any part of my pc away from me, they win a trip to The Bahamas. The downside for them is that they’ll probably die trying.

ArrrrooooOOOOh.

So, how are you? ‘Cause I missed you. You’ll never know how much.

ArrrooooOOOOh.

* I’ll give you more details about the trip in my next few posts. Overall, we had a lovely time.

**We ended up having to be there for two weeks. Arrrooooh.

One day a long time ago, I was working in a dry cleaners and had wet socks. Maybe there’s irony to be had there, but I can’t find it. Call me if you do.

Anyway, I was the sole employee in the store that day which meant anything that went wrong was my baby. Additionally, I was stuck there until closing time - come hell or high water. Normally, I didn’t mind having the place to myself. I could read or do crosswords when I didn’t have any customers to wait on or laundry to tag. So, truth be told, it was almost an ideal job for a lazy geek such as myself.

But, on this day the toilet overflowed. I mopped up the water which, mercifully, seemed as sanitary as toilet water can be.

But, in so doing, I got my socks soaking wet. Now Michael had planned to bring me lunch that day. So, determined not to wear wet socks for the remainder of the afternoon, I called and asked him to pick me up a pair of socks while he was out buying me lunch.

He took pity on me, and about an hour later, he showed up with some black socks and some lunch. I was savvy enough to eat the lunch and not the socks. This is a point of pride.

Anyhow, I enjoyed my dry feet and my full stomach and was generally a happy little camper - that is - until I got home and removed my brand new socks to find my feet were all covered with splotchy black dye.

Still no big deal, right? I simply washed and scrubbed my feet a few times and the inky stuff came off.

But here’s the part of the story where a few more IQ points might have served me well. Instead of just cutting my losses and tossing the offending socks in the garbage can right then and there, I washed them and put them in my drawer.

Do you even want me to tell you how many more times my feet were dyed black before I finally threw those socks away?*

Let’s just say more than three. I didn’t want to be wasteful. In fact, I sorta wish I could have sent those socks to the Island of Misfit Toys where they’d await their big chance to ride on Santa’s sleigh.**

I’m digressing from a digression there. Getting back on track now.

Help me out. What’s that old adage about other people’s lives sucking more than yours does so you should just accept the hand that fate has dealt you and shut the fuck up?

Erm, it’s something like, “I felt sorry because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.”

Well, for me it’s more like, “I felt sorry because I had wet socks until I wore some that dyed my feet.”

It’s not pretty or prosey, but it’s absolutely true.

*Please note: I would not have donated those particular socks to charity any more than I’d have donated a dribble glass to someone who was dying of thirst.

**Santa isn’t just any old charity. He’d have searched and searched until he found someone who enjoyed having her feet all inky and sploochy.