floorpie

Dave’s Personality Profile Questionnaire
Section IIA: Personal Hygiene

When in the shower, do you:
__ wash your hair
__ wash your body
__ shave your face/legs
__ shave, err, other things
__ brush your teeth
__ use the shower massager in inappropriate ways
__ pee

This one time, at band camp… actually this one time, in the freshman dorms, someone had graciously taken a big, fat, steaming crap in the shared showers for everyone on the floor to enjoy. We all outwardly agreed what a capital prank it had been, while inwardly thinking, ‘Ohmygodtheresabigfatsteamingcrapintheshower! This is college?! Help!’ It was particularly disgusting, as the janitors were a bit slow, and we had get clean. Granted it was at the other end of the showers, behind a curtain, but we could still hear it talking:

“I’m over heeeeeeere. I’m big! I’m fat! I’m steaming!”

Yeah. So that made me think of things people may or may not do in the shower, which led to the above. I’ve added it to the questionnaire I make all casual acquaintances fill out before I consider them friends…

Of dogs babies, their owners parents, and the parks they play in

It seems to me that recently the in vogue thing to do is to take your progeny to a little green-space; and, let him or her run wild and free amongst animals of similar species and age.

You know, like in a dog park.

You, as a parent, don’t seem to actually have to know any of the other kids there, or even interact with them necessarily; you just unleash your kid and let It run around until It seems ripe for napping, and/or non-crying indoors. I know, at least in my own experience, that these sorts of things weren’t around when I was much much shorter, and that my parents never just set me loose in some loosely designated area to run around in circles, or play on a Jun-Gull-Jim™. And I’m happy about that. My interactions were with kids I would actually see again, and were not (I think) quite so contrived. I made friends. I played organized games, mostly consisting of turning that mound of dirt into a car and that stick into He-Man’s sword. I never had a leash and I never felt limited in my fun choices (as you would if, say, you were in a park specified for certain activities like this slide, this swing, this rock to stand jauntily on)

I don’t know, it just makes me uncomfortable to look out and see a scene like the above, and to have been compelled to literally yell out, “Where’s your plastic baggy?! You better pick up after your dog-kid!”… which I did, to really only my own great great amusement.

Floorpie.net’s Pretentious Post of the Day
This post brought to you by the good people at Post Cereals

The only thing I like more than playing the ” target=”new”>LA Times crossword puzzle, is finishing the LA Times crossword puzzle.

A-ha-ha-ha… oh Jean-Jean, you are, so droll.

annnnnd scene!

Movies that I’ve seen in the last week that were either really very good, really good, or sorta pretty good, in no particular order

.: Catch Me If You Can
.: Signs
.: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
.: The Ring

[editor’s note: it was fairly impressive that the large multi-plex theatre I saw LOTR in was absolutely packed… even though the movie has been out for umpteen weeks]

The hardest thing about being unemployed is not:
.: the dwindling bank account
.: the lowered self-esteem
.: the renewed relationship with Top Ramen
.: the derisive glances of employed individuals
.: the relationship strain induced by lack of surprise mutual funds, land purchases, jewels, and of course, the furs.

The hardest thing about being unemployment is:
.: the TV. The awful awful awful TV

Finally some good news!

OK, I’m uncharacteristically really excited. Something awesome is happening to me, and I feel elated, lucky, and nervous all at the same time. Basically, I got this letter. This amazing, wonderful, life-changing letter:

Dear Dave:

Only a select few will receive this exclusive invitation, and you've been chosen as one of them.

Why you?

Because you're the type of man we're designed for. Smart. Savvy. Sophisticated.

Someone who wants only the best. And want it before others even know about it.

A man of style. Substance. And a passion for all the details of living.

A man, in short, like you.

That's why I've reserved a copy of the next issue of the new DETAILS in your name. I simply need your O.K. to send it to you!

DETAILS is the kind of bold, tasteful, refreshingly different men's magazine you've been waiting for. I know you're going to like what you see.

Cordially,
Slimy Slimerson
VP, Consumer Marketing

Wow.

Just… wow!

Calgon, take me away! ‘Cause baby, I’m swoonin’! Don’t envy me, I’m just really really, very very, lucky.

“We shall call this Day 1…”

Unbeknownst to me at the time, January 6th marked my two year blogiversary! Here’s what I had to say a year ago about the matter (no, I didn’t find it that interesting, either).

As I did then, I now think that it’s odd to have so much of my life documented online (or documented at all, actually). I suppose that it’s the nature of our ever-changing society; at least in this, the most first of the First World countries.

Though I’ve had a blog for over two years, I’ve had web pages in general for something like five. My earlier attempts were (gasp) even more awful and unpopular than this one, but hey, whad’yagonnado?

My first page was a particularly good example of bad web design. Interminable scrolling with an unnecessarily busy background. I’m sure you all know the sort, basically a long list of links with witty comments indicating what they were about, pictures of “cool” things like that one of the fighter jet breaking the sound barrier. I think I updated it all of twice and it was seen by my girlfriend at the time, a few of my friends, and, of course, myself some hundreds of times (as if I thought something new was going to happen without my knowing). As I recall, I had found out that I was given some free web space at school, and decided to do something with it. PINE was still the way to do e-mail, Mosaic was still the bomb-diggity, and I was all about *cough* AOL *cough cough*.

After that, I was all about Photoshop and the whole “web portal” concept (see above). Yes, that actually says “Welcome to Dave’s Page!” (shakes head sadly). My “interface” was pretty trick, though (at least I thought so at the time). You rolled over the buttons on the left, and images would appear on the “screen”. I had such interesting pages as “Freaks”, which pretty much had one picture of Phineas Gage, “Portfolio” that was, of course COMING SOON, “The Cosmic Punker” a weekly (read bi-annual) cartoon about a intergalactic space punk, and then the largest section “Aquarium” which was actually a fairly comprehensive section about setting up reef tanks (which I’m into, you see). That baby got all of maybe 15 unique hits.

And then entered Blogger. And it was good. I was actually surprised (and still am) at how faithfully I update(d) my blog, having tried to do handwritten journals on many many occasions, and failing miserably after less than a week. It’s also, somehow, garnered me a certain level of online popularity, but nothing to really crow about… and besides, this is all for my own enjoyment, right?

And so here we are, two years in and hopefully the wiser. It’s been fun, and I expect it to continue to be so for years to come. Thanks for coming, tell your friends, and y’all come back now, hear?

The thing about getting older is the alignment. When I was younger, the alignment, for the most part, wasn’t an issue. Everything worked and hummed well together, without any real doubt that it would ever become a point of consternation. It wasn’t perfect, of course… the alignment. There were instances where the alignment was off. Once, when I was younger, the alignment was a bit off and I broke my arm. Then later, in another instance, I broke my arm again, the bones being misaligned somehow, or perhaps something in the neurons had been askew. Save for those two notable moments, however, the alignment was rather spot-on, day to day, and it was good

Running to anywhere was never an issue, nothing made me think that any boulder would be too heavy, tying my shoes was not a sit-down operation, leaping over hedges never gave me pause. Not that these things have changed now; but they do, sometimes, and temporarily. “Temporarily” may someday become “dependably”, and then it won’t be so much that the alignment is off, but that the alignment has changed; and, for any given day then, the alignment won’t be aligned so well… thatvoodoothatyoudo, so well.

And that’s the thing about getting older.

Well, this whole California quarters thing is becoming the blog-world’s latest meme… which I’d like to attribute (wrongly) to my overwhelmingly popularity in having mentioned it a few days ago. Either way, the results have changed “dramatically” (where by “dramatically” I mean rather “predictably” in a not all together “exciting” turn of events but it’s a slow “Tuesday” and my life is “sad” so “there you go”) since I posted about them, and now the worst (in my opinion) option is the forerunner. I loathe even to post a picture of it I dislike it so much. It depicts a money-hungry miner panning for gold next to a grizzly bear about to get shot, a sequoia about to get logged, and below a bald-eagle also about to get shot.

And some flowers. There are also flowers.

If any of you, the reading masses (where by “masses” I mean misguided “dozens” looking for floorguy.net) happened to vote for that one, it’s my duty to tell you that you were wrong. It happens. Just try harder next time.

You know when you’re dirty, and I mean really just DIRTY. It’s not when you’ve been out digging in the mud all day (you know, like you do), and it’s not when you get back from that first night at your girlfriend’s cardio class where you look like an extra from Flashdance (what?), it’s when It’s baked into you. You may not smell bad at all, or even look soiled in any way, but It’s in there, in your pores, and you only know it when you take a shower. That warm water hits you and starts to loosen things up. Then, pretty soon your eyes are stinging. “Why the fuck are my eyes stinging?!” you inwardly shout. Because you’re DIRTY, that’s why, and now it’s in your eyes!