Shitposting since 2005
“You know, when you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all: Grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid…and that’s it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker…and so much madder…and so much better” ~ Elton, from the Doctor Who episode Love & Monsters
0 comments
1 comments
I had every intention of writing a personal “year in review” post last night, but frankly, after running around all day I simply had no motivation. While I did manage to be awake to ring in the new year with my Ben, I had been napping in my chair most of the evening. Ah, the joys of getting older. Stuff they never told you in school…
I’m still not motivated, and since it’s now January 1st, it’s probably better to just look ahead. As of tomorrow (while not actually being there) I begin work as a permanent employee of the firm I’ve been contracting at since August. This goes a long way toward making Denver feel a little more like home.
Something I’m also looking forward to in 2012 is the fact that Anderson will be paid off in June.
This will free up a wad of cash that almost compensates for the difference between what I’m earning now and what I was making in Phoenix. Almost. In any case it will at least initially allow me to catch up on some much needed vehicle maintenance that I’ve been putting off.
And of course we have months and months of the circus sideshow that are the Republican primaries to look forward to. As it stands right now, the most anticipated event for me in 2012 will be hearing the concession speech of whichever right-wing loon ends up with the nomination after Obama whups their ass on November 6th.
2 comments
3 comments
0 comments
1 comments
The other day I happened to hover my cursor over the battery icon on my task bar and I was surprised to see “Service Battery.” I tried all the home-brew fixes suggested on the interwebs, but to no avail. I realized I was going to have to make a trip to the Apple Store. I was not looking forward to this, or to potentially being without my laptop for an extended period—especially on a holiday weekend. But the one glimmer of hope I had was reading online that if I got the machine in early enough, the non-user-replaceable battery could usually be swapped out that day.
I went ahead and made an appointment to bring it in, and this morning we arrived at the Cherry Creek Apple Store promptly at 10 am. While it took about 20 minutes after checking in to meet with a Genius, and I was expecting the worst, not only did they have the battery in stock, the in-house tech was able to swap out the battery—not in hours or days, but in about fifteen minutes…and because I had the foresight to purchase Apple Care when the laptop was new, it cost me nothing.
Bravo, Apple.
This type of service is why I am a Fanboy.
3 comments
1 comments
I’ve been wearing this brand of daily-wear lens since the early 90s. They’re no longer being made and nothing else (including the recommended substitutes that I tried a several weeks ago) fit as well. In fact, the manufacturer has phased out all their vial lenses for the more profitable disposable variety. I mean seriously, WTF?
And I’m not alone. A quick search on the interwebs reveal a lot of folks who are plenty pissed off that these lenses have been axed. Hopefully I’ll be able to stretch a few more months out of my last pair of CSIs before I’m faced with having to give up on contacts altogether and go back to glasses full time. (Yeah, the “new” lenses I tried are that bad.) Since I’ll once again be insured after the first of the year I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find a competent eye doctor who is willing to work with me to find a suitable substitute. (PSA: Avoid Target Optical.)
3 comments
3 comments
If only. Kim Kardashian could never fit down a toilet, no matter how big…
I also approve of this message:
1 comments
In response to this:
It’s all bullshit—the currently fashionable “God” is no more real than the pantheon of deities were to the ancient Romans, Greeks, or Egyptians (plus countless others) and yet I’m sure those folks believed in their mythic sky fairies just as fervently as the current crop of “believers” who also need to desperately believe in something—anything—to absolve them of all personal responsibility for their lives, give it meaning, and explain away the wonderful, horrible, brilliant, and often unfathomable mysteries of the universe.
Personally, I have no problem with anyone’s personal beliefs, as ridiculous and unsupportable as I may find them. HOWEVER…
2 comments
0 comments
0 comments
I still find it so very odd to see snow covering a pool area. I guess it’s just the Southwest/West Coast boy in me…
And I still don’t understand why my iPhone camera sometimes takes excellent pictures, and other times they’re crap.
3 comments
0 comments
1 comments
1 comments
6 comments
1 comments
Sometimes when you can’t sleep, your mind wanders to some interesting places…
A Christmas Fantasy
We first saw him one afternoon as he was leaving Starbucks: an otherwise unremarkable older man in tweed coat, a button-down shirt, black trousers, black lace-up boots and a red bow tie.
I pointed out to Ben the man’s resemblance to the fabled Doctor Who of BBC fame (albeit much older) and added that with the Universe being as unfathomably huge as it is, the possibility of a character like The Doctor actually existing (if not in our unfathomably huge universe, then perhaps in one or more of the the innumerable parallel ones) was undoubtedly quite high.
I didn’t think anything more of it until this man reappeared at Starbucks several days later, quietly sitting in one of the padded chairs by the window. Neither Ben or I had noticed him sitting there when we arrived, or had we noticed when he’d come in. He was sipping some hot beverage, and I could tell from his expression he wasn’t quite sure if it suited him or not. He’d take a sip, make a face as if trying to decide whether or not he liked it, and then put the cup back down on the low table in front of him, studying it intently. He repeated this several times until our eyes met.
There was a twinkle in them, something that said he was either much younger than he looked—or much older, having lived through enough that he now found wonder in the most common of occurrences.
I went back to my reading, but from that point forward, every time I looked up our eyes immediately met. He wasn’t flirting; I know what flirting looks like. No, it was almost as if he was studying me.
I got caught up in reading some article online, and the next thing I knew, this very odd gentleman was standing beside our table.
“Excuse me,” he began in a decidedly British accent, “but this beverage…what do you think of it?” And he held out the steaming cup.
I took a cautious sniff and said, “Peppermint mocha. It’s a seasonal thing they brew up. Not my personal favorite, but not bad overall.”
He looked at Ben and then back to me. “Forgive me for saying this, but you two are a very unusual couple.”
Ben looked up. “How do you know we’re a couple?”
“Oh it’s obvious,” he said. “The way you look at each other, your body language. How long have you been together?”
“A little over three years,” I said, wondering why I was even having a conversation with this stranger.
“Ah, newlyweds!”
“Not exactly,” Ben said. “We can’t get married in Colorado.”
“That’s rubbish!” he exclaimed. After a brief pause: “What brought you here?”
“Ben is in the Denver Teacher Residency Program,” I said.
“Brilliant!” he said. “This world needs more teachers!”
“Yes it does!”
“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, looking directly at me, “your voice…?”
“Cancer,” I said. “Nine year survivor and counting.”
At that point he pulled up a chair and sat down, and stared at me intently. I glanced at Ben, who had a frozen, puzzled look on his face, and then the rest of the world ceased to exist. It seemed as if a cone of silence had descended around the stranger and I.
He reached toward my neck and uttered those infamous words, “Don’t worry, I’m a doctor.” He palpitated my neck and gently drew back my collar. “A tracheostomy?”
“In the beginning it kept me alive, and my doctor said I would probably have it the rest of my life.”
“Barbaric!”
At that point I knew I’d slipped into an alternate universe, because from his jacket pocket he withdrew something that could only be a sonic screwdriver. It gave it a quick twist, the end lit up green, it emitted that distinctive sound, and he pressed it to my neck.
I blinked. He was gone. And the rest of the world had returned to normal.
I reached up and felt my neck. The trach tube was gone.
“OH MY GOD!” I said, shocked by the return of my old voice.
Ben looked up. “What?”
I pulled down my collar.
His mouth dropped. “Wha…? When…? Your voice!”
“Do you remember the old guy in the tweed coat?”
“Yeah, he came up to the table and commented how we were such an unusual couple and then wandered off.”
“No! He did more than that! He’s fucking Doctor Who! We have to find him!”
We packed up our backpacks and rushed out onto the snowy street. Looking back and forth he was nowhere to be found.
“It’s a Christmas miracle!” Ben said.
After a few minutes we gave up looking for him and started walking back home. As we passed the parking lot north of Starbucks I happened to glance left and saw it: the big blue British Police Box, sitting right in the middle of the lot. People were getting out of their cars and walking right past it, as if it was the most common sight in all of creation.
The door opened, and the bow-tied stranger stepped out.
“All right, you lot. Don’t just stand there! We have places to go!”
1 comments
Baby it’s cold outside…
To clarify my earlier post, I don’t mind the cold, or even the snow. It’s driving in the damn stuff that I loathe. To that end, I’m going to start taking public transit to work on snow days, even if it takes me twice as long to get there. (One bus to the train, and then one train to work.) It just isn’t worth the stress to drive. (I almost didn’t get back into my apartment building this afternoon.) Since I brown bag it already, I don’t need the car to run out at lunch, and as long as I don’t have to go to our Colorado Springs office, this will work out just fine. (I’m reasonably certain that if an emergency arose there on a snow day that required my physical presence, my boss and I would drive down together in his car.)
9 comments
