floorpie

I have a splitting headache today… which wouldn’t be such a terrible thing if it weren’t also Carnival. I like samba music as much as the next guy (maybe even more than the next guy [the next buy being Bill who, as I understand it, is pretty in to old Slayer and Whitesnake right now. In fact, I can more or less see him saying, “What the fuck is this pussy crap?” if I switched out a Tito Puente album for his Monsters of Rock compilation. Also, he drives a T-bird]), but having those driving, intoxicating rhythms drummed into my aching head hour after hour is a bit distracting.

Then there are the girls.

It’s not even an attraction issue; it’s just that it’s near impossible to get any work done with hundreds of sheened, partially-clothed women running around screaming in Portugese. Nine times out of ten, if I’m looking for a spec or vendor quote that I know I left on my desk last night, I’m sure to find it stuck to someone’s thigh or back, lost in a sea of gyrating flesh and hedonism.

Not to say it’s not worth it, of course.

I was starving this morning and gave in to temptation by getting some Pop-Tarts out of the vending machine. Frosted Strawberry. I ate them straight out of the package, of course… which got me thinking: I’m fairly sure that I’ve never eaten a Pop-Tart toasted. In fact, I would venture that no one, save the kids on the commercials, has.

No, there was no point or humorous insight in there somehwere that you missed.

When I was little, I would have these fantasies as I lay in bed, right before drifting off to sleep. Invariably, it was me, being either shot, or buried in a building, while in the act of saving a girl or girls. I would see a drive-by about to happen and sprint across the schoolyard, ignoring the hail of bullets, as other kids cowered all around me. The cheerleader I had a crush on, or the girl from English class I didn’t know but wanted to, or Cindy Crawford for some inexplicable reason, would be either somehow unaware of the shooting, or completely frozen by fear. Either way, she would be the only clear object in a field of prone students, like a lone oak about to get struck by lightening on a barren plateau., and somehow I knew the killer was after her and only her. Running up to her I would make a dive at the last possible moment, usually getting struck in the chest somewhere just below my right shoulder; which would twist my body half way around as I grunt in resigned agony. This, of course, would make her fall instantly in love with me, and she would cradle my head with new eyes, tears rolling down her face in gratitude and overflowing emotion.

Later, (if I was still awake) I would lie straight out on my bed, and tuck the sheets perfectly along my body. For some reason, I thought this was how everyone slept when they were in the hospital, perfectly still and perfectly straight-bodied. I would pretend that I was unconscious, but just coming out of it, and Cindy Crawford (for instance) would be at my side, nervously questioning the doctor about my condition and expressing her love for me. And they lived happily ever after.

The other fantasy, which was much more active, had me using my body to cover ______ as the building we were in came down around us (perhaps because I live in California, the land of The Big One). I would bury myself in my blankets and pillows, and then lie there as if pinned under some huge weight. I would never panic, of course, and be primarily concerned with ______’s safety, which was always guaranteed thanks to my heroic efforts. In a variant to this theme, we would somehow get separated in the act of my saving her, and then later I would hear ______ and ______ and ______ searching through the rubble for me, no matter the danger, as they were all very much in love with me. When they would finally find me, the bass guitar and sax rifts would begin: bow-chicka-bow-wow…

Epilogue The funny thing is, I was reading druzba’s post about something similar. He would get shot in Die Hard fashion saving the girl of his dreams. I wonder if a lot of other guys had the same thing, and what the girls’ fantasies might have been (somehow I doubt it was being saved by me).

How To Get a Ridiculously Insane Tax Refund Despite Being Unemployed For Over a Year

1. get a job
2. see Step 1

And that really seems to be about it. Becoming gainfully employed on or about September of last year meant that I paid taxes for my higher tax bracket for about 4 months. Having only earned a 1/3 of what I would have if I’d worked the whole year suddenly means that I’ve overpaid quite a bit for my actual lower tax bracket for last year. Which means I will be able to greatly enhance my pimpin’ lifestyle with the addition of Pimpin’ Food, Pimpin’ Gas Money, and Pimpin’ Basic Survival Needs.

As a product designer, I work on consumer products. As such, I have a lot of interaction with various vendors and manufacturers and routinely use their services in creating whatever it is I’m working on at the moment. Being a source of revenue for these companies, you tend to receive a variety of promotional schwag from time to time, to remind you of their great product and your unending need for them. One such company SMK sent some admittedly very nice 2004 diary/calendar/appointment book things that, as part of the indoctrination, include their Philosophy. SMK, love your stuff, but this really made me laugh:

SMK is committed to the advancement of mankind through development of the information society, by integrating its current technological strength and creating advance technology.

Yes, I believe that is a hint of Engrish you detect.

So many of us are struggling with how to contribute to the the advancement of mankind; when all we really needed to do was produce a quality line of 0.3mm spacing FPC connectors.

One of my co-workers just told me that he would ______ if he had his druthers (where “______” is some benign engineering thing of no particular interest to you, instead of “fuck Britney Spears” like you thought it meant [and here come the Google hits]).

“Druthers” is a word I know and recognize, but can not recall ever using… except in the context of, “Did that guy just say druthers?” This rarity of usage is really something I can get behind, having an idiom of my own liberally sprinkled with words only oft used by me… like “oft” for instance. “Druthers” is so rare, in fact, that Blogger’s spell-check didn’t know it. Of course, it also didn’t know “fuck Britney” (Google hit!), and that’s something we all say at least 14 times a day, so so much for that theory.

The point being, if I indeed had one, is that I appreciate interesting language that undoubtedly took effort and concentration to develop. The dictionary is full of words I don’t know, but wish I did; and, when someone passes on a snippet of their Word-a-Day calendar, it’s effects ripple all around to the benefit of us all.

Plus “druthers” is funny sounding.

Truth in Advertising

I have to tell you, this headline got me far more intrigued than I needed to be:

Space station crew notice flying object near space station

In a strange twist of reality, the same anxiety I had about growing out The Facial Hair jumped on me this morning as I went about shaving The Facial Hair. Should I leave it? Should I just trim it? Will people think I’m weird without it… which is the oddest one as, save for a few multi-day camping/biking trips, I’ve never let The Facial Hair grow for more than three days. But do you want to know the truth of how odd I am? This is the truth:

The reason I shaved is because I realized that I was going to need one of those beard trimmer things if I was going to keep the 3-5 day growth look perpetually. Granted, I have hair clippers; but, they are too coarse, and the guards are too large to do me any good unless I’m going for at least Kris Kringle length. So a beard trimmer and hear comes the truth part:

So I had to shave because there was no way I was going to walk into Target with a week’s worth of growth (and obviously in need of a trim) and buy a beard trimmer. I simply could not go through with ambling sheepishly up to the check-out with said beard trimmer and perhaps one other unnecessary purchase such as a Pepsi or some printer paper as a cover, and say without actually saying, “Hi, yeah, this whole Facial Hair thing is obviously gotten way out of control and I had to run over to Target during my lunch hour in a desperate attempt to stem the tide.”

ADG thinks I’m crazy.

Which is true, but you have to understand how incredibly important it is to save face in front of minimum wage Target employees. Wait, what?

ADG has lately decided that maybe I don’t look too bad with a smattering of facial hair. Not a goatee or beard or anything; but, that 3-5 day growth somewhere between George Michael and JT pictured a few posts down. What’s interesting about this is the tolerance curve that I’m going through, and the mounting self-consciousness as I pass from just-a-little-scruffy to you-realize-you’re-going-to-have-to-use-some-clippers-before-you-shave-that-right?

I’ve never been a big fan of facial hair for myself, though I’ve done my share of experimenting. The difference between now and then being that I am now gainfully employed, and likely to be actually seen by people throughout the day; as opposed to shunning society and its harsh brightness as I did while laid-off. Judgment from strangers and acquaintances seems to add a whole new variable in the equation. For instance, I’m meeting with a vendor in a few minutes and I am, for some reason, mildly terrified that he is going to look at me strangely, lean in close, and then burst out into raucous laughter, clutching his stomach with one hand, and pointing derisively with the other.

I figure the likelihood of this actually happening is around 64%.

It is interesting (to me only), how I’m having to get used to walking around with hair that I’m designed to have anyway… especially as I can’t even see it as I look out onto the world. I can however, see it reflected in the way you all look at me. Look away! Look away!

Discuss amongst yourselves