My Addled Brain

Upgrade complete, comments are good to go. Let me know if something is broken. And yes, I moved a few things, but this 1.5 upgrade makes it so damn easy…

I’m upgrading Wordpress today. Beware of falling style.

Update 1:16 pm - comments borked. Otherwise, all is well.

I like Gina. Not just because she’s the ringmaster of two previous as well as this upcoming third, and final informal gathering of Rawlings cast-offs for some movie you’ve probably never heard of. Not just because she’s an unrepentant geek. Oh no. We like her because she will kick my ass if I don’t, and if liking her means I don’t have to live in mortal fear of her vengeance, then so be it.

I bring her up because she reminded me of a story The Madre likes to tell about me when we’re gathered with people who are unfamiliar with me - give them a feel for what it might be like to be locked in a small room with me for hours on end. I told her this story, and she liked it so much, I have decided to share it with you. Yes, you are special.

In my more formative years, I attended the prestigious La Petite Academy, suffered through grueling classes like coloring and naptime, and after a year of work and non-stop dedication, I had found myself a proud kindergarten graduate. Well, as we all know, graduations require ceremonies, and this one was no different. During this ceremony, each of us had to do a short speech on a part of the body, and I had been given the honor of speaking to the audience about the inner workings and mysteries of the human heart. Displaying the resolve and tenacity that would stick with me to this very day, I completely forgot about this assignment, and it was never mentioned to Madre. So, on that fateful evening, she was very surprised to learn that her son had a speech, and had prepared it all by himself. How proud she must have been!

Well, proud until it was my turn to speechify, anyway. Recent to this event, my grandmother had passed away, and I suppose the event had stuck with me just a little bit. I was introduced, and with a determination to give the best speech I could, I stepped to the front of the stage, stood there with a serious look, and said “When the heart stops, you die.”

With that, I returned to my chair. I’d like to think Madre was stunned at my insightful and eloquent speech, but more likely she was desperately trying to camoflage herself in the sea of parents sitting in neat rows of stackable orange and yellow plastic chairs.

It’s this kind of eloquence in front of others that led me to my now infamous best-man’s speech at my MCG’s wedding, but he can tell you all about that himself. I will say that what it lacked in grandeur was almost made up for with it’s simplistic, guttural utterances.

This is too good not to share. As mentioned by Tommy: NakeDan, the handyman. Oh, the humanity.

My brain is heavy, and feels as though it’s full of a viscous material a child might use to attach popsicle sticks to each other, perhaps to construct an airplane, or maybe a cabin. Well, he would if he could tear his attention away from Grand Theft Auto. But I digress. As mighty as this head cold might be, I have DayQuil, sheathed like Excalibur in my desk drawer, removing it from it’s scabbard to vanquish my congested sinuses, but only every four to six hours as directed by the warning label on the hilt.

MCG got his hands on a PSP last week, and I’m here to tell you that I’m already plotting his demise so I can get my hands on it. Oh, sure, I could buy one myself, but I am a cheap bastard. It’s much easier for me to arrange some sort of horrible accident involving a can of bird seed, a wrecking ball, and the can of Acme “Grip-Tite” Glue I acquired from this coyote on EBay. So far, I’ve only played a little bit of Lumines, a poor decision considering my never ending battle with Tetris-addiction. So very pretty. And I can make squares! The PSP is a gorgeous piece of plastic and metal, and it’s unfortunate my brother has to die in order for me to have his my precious, but we wantssssss it.

Deep Space Communcations Company has beamed the first website into space, broadcasting over 100,000 seperate pages from one website into the inky, vast darkness that cradles this tiny blue rock we toil upon daily. What site did they choose to broadcast? Well, as much as I’d love to say yours truly got the nod, I had to decline when they offered me royalties for doing so. I told them, “No sir! This blog has honor! I will not whore myself out to the farthest reaches of space…not without a book deal and movie rights!”

So, instead, they sent Craigslist.org.

Now, there’s a novel idea. Suppose you’re an alien, and need to find out about a new apartment, or perhaps a new companion for a romantic night of probing and/or implanting technology in the backs of their necks? Craigslist has the answer, my fine one-eyed, multi-tentacled friend! I wish all space endeavors were as philanthropic, but until Richard Branson adds business-class seating to Virgin Galactic, I suppose this will have to do.

I contacted the company, asking for information about the posts submitted, and they sent me some links (some NSFW). I think they made some fine choices (and I totally agree with that last guy).

This is heavy. John DeLorean, sports car manufacturer, alleged cocaine dealer, dead at 80. Sure, he’s better remembered for a movie series he was only involved with tangentally via his failed auto venture, but any man with the balls to take on Detroit should be lauded for at least trying something new.

Sorry, but I saw the obit notice and the line immediately popped in my head. So, I post. What, you’d rather I keep this stuff to myself? It’s either I talk about the dead, or the quasi-dead, but I honestly don’t think I have the strength to put down everything that’s swirling around in my head on this one. I’ve gone from outraged to just sad - sad that this poor woman has been turned into a political pawn for people who more than likely couldn’t care less about her fate, as long as it makes them look good for the cameras.

Today’s lesson: everyone’s funnier when they’re on painkillers. At least, that’s what I learned.

Speaking of learning, Teh One and I are going back to school - she’s going to work on a real live BA, and I’m mostly going back to learn programming languages that are actually widely used and respected, as opposed to ones that they apparently teach in third grade these days. I’m filled with a bit of trepidation. As a man of 31 years (and how the hell did THAT HAPPEN? 31?), I’m not really looking forward to spending two nights a week in a classroom with others fresh out of high school at ye olde community college. But I suppose it will be all worth it when I show them my ever expanding bald spot, so they can check out how truly rad it is to get old.

If the posts from Monday are confusing to you, let me take you back to a simpler time, when this blog was in it’s infancy. Barely a yearling to this medium known as”blogging”, I decided that, in order to separate my own site from the rest of the pack, I needed a hook; something that might scream “read me!” to those who did not know me, and had somehow stumbled upon my site, most likely in a fruitless search for porn.

Lucky for me, I had a nine-foot robot bent on world domination living in my apartment.

Can’t beat that for a hook, right? And not just any nine-foot robot bent on world domination, oh no. I had Robby the Robot, bitches. You can learn about how Robby came to be living with me by following the previous link, but the point of it all was, who doesn’t want to read about the hilarious misadventures of a young man and his psychotic robot roomate, a Felix and Oscar type ongoing adventure for the ‘net? Well, lots of people, most likely, but that didn’t stop some of you, despite your better judgement (or perhaps lack thereof). So for a while, Robby had a voice on this site, and was a pretty active fellow, what with his attempts to conquer humanity with his army of flighted waterfowl or powerful rayguns. But a funny thing happened on the way to world domination - depression.

I can understand this, having been there myself when I was a younger, less self assure lad. Compound on this being forced to live in a closet, and having all your experiments thrown out when your roommate’s girlfriend moves in, and you have a recipe for massive, crippling depression, the kind you hear about in bad romance novels and Morrissey records. Dude made Marvin look like Johnny Five. We had to practically pick him up and move him ourselves when we bought the house, and once there, he situated himself in the hall closet, saying something about not wanting to be in the way. Of course, that’s where we were going to keep the board games, so he sulked off to the guest bedroom closet instead, where he stayed until this week, when he apparently got into the DVDs.

Teh One and I had watched Sky Captain the night before; I guess we had the volume up a little loud, and it must have made it’s way to Robby’s audio sensors. A movie about robots taking over the world must have jostled him out of his funk, I guess, and after watching it, actually hacked my site, made a login for himself, and the result is Monday’s bizarre post.

I’d like to say it won’t happen again, but I can’t be too sure. I’ve heard some strange noises coming from that guest closet this week, and suspect that Robby might be back to his old self. Whether this is good news or not depends on whether or not you welcome our new robot masters.

I knew Robby was going to get out of that closet sooner or later, I just didn’t expect him to hack my website and create a login for himself, much less raid the DVDs and start reviewing them. This is bad.