Gauze

When I started this blog thing, I vowed not to use it to gripe, or at least not to gripe too much, or maybe not to gripe exclusively. Tonight, I go for broke. I got an owee on my elbow this weekend, and the actual bad part is surrounded by parts that aren't so bad but are not something you'd want to stick a bandaid to. Fortunately, we have these big gauze squares that you can tape to stuff, so I did just that. Gross alert ahead.




ok, you were warned. Over the course of the day I evidently formed a scab, which normally is awesome, because that sucker stays around for a week or so and when it goes, behold, you have skin. Unfortunately, whatever it is that forms a scab melded with the gauze, so I had cloth embedded in my arm. it's midly amusing until it comes time to take it out. If that isn't already a thing they do to people who shake babies, we should really look into that.

While I'm thinking about it, check out www.dontshakeyourbaby.com
It is a real and very serious site, but you have to wonder how big the overlap is between people who shake babies and people who would stumble into that website. I've got this venn diagram in my head, and it looks like two hula hoops, only one of those hula hoops is silver and in storage in a European carport, and the other one is bright red, sweet, often found in the center of olives, and not really a hula hoop at all, when you think about it. Sweet Damn, I should've gone into the diagram business.

Oh, Sweet Boredom

I bought a pair of crossbows on the internet today. God Bless America! And capitalism! Yes, crossbows, like the sideways bow and arrow thing with a trigger. Our intent is to convert them to shoot paintballs instead of arrows, because a) we are some industrious and humorous fellows, b) what do we ever do that isnt motivated by paintball these days, and c) why the hell not. A couple weeks ago I hollowed out a pod and hid an air horn in it, and when the time was right I busted out the horn and scared the poop out of some dude instead of blasting him with the traditional gelatin encapsulated pellet. And yeah, that was fun, and obnoxious at distances of up to a mile, but this...well, you dont want to be the poor sap who gets bunkered with a crossbow. Youd never live that shit down.

The online store I got these things from claims to be a purveyor of self-defense equipment. Let us consider the practicality of defending your home or your person with a toy eff'n crossbow, and then let us chortle for a bit. The same store also sells ninja stars*, lockpicks, surveillance and night vision equipment, and a belt buckle that converts into a knife. The only possible conclusions are that either this is in fact not a self-defense store at all, but rather a nerd shop, or that it is some sort of store for ninjas.

Now I will admit to being a fair nerd myself. Im on myspace, for fuck sake. To some extent you have to kind of embrace the inner nerd. When you go to school surrounded by thousands of other nerds of various calibers, the bar drops real far. Its more of a speed bump, really. But I draw the line somewhere well before spy equipment and a knife concealed above my crotch. Evidently crossbows are right on said line, which I wouldnt really have thought, but I promise not to use them for their intended purpose**. Thats got to be worth a few points.

*Thanks to some dude who ventured into town from the river, Ari and I both know that throwing stars are illegal in California. We also know the fear of some guy from the river pulling out a big knife and waving it around while ranting some shit about throwing stars.

**The intended purposes of toy crossbows are to hunt wild chickens and potentially shoot your eye out, as near as I can figure.

--Epilogue--

After I posted this, this guy requested to be my friend. He sells stun batons, rings that shoot pepper spray, and gloves with steel shot sewn into the knuckles so that when you punch somebody the world explodes. They also would go well with my shoes. so....does anybody know how to make it so the blog isn't searchable by keyword?

whatever

I found a journal I was sort of sporadically keeping about 4 years ago, and it contained these sage words:
I bet if we didnt have shoulders sticking out to protect the head, we'd catch our eyes on a lot more nails and stuff when we bumped into things.

True now as it was then.

There's a paintball bunker sort of shaped like a lopsided pyramid that everybody calls a 'Dorito,' after the chip. In England they call it a 'teabag.' I'm pretty sure I couldn't handle everybody yelling that.

I sometimes use a strap wrench to open foods. But my mom uses chopsticks to get stuff from the top shelf, so I figure its a wash in the end.

I bought a cheap little RC plane on a whim, just for kicks. Don't look at me like that. I didn't spend any real money, it was an impulse buy, I tell you! The instructions for charging the battery are 'plug it into the wall and when it starts to get hot, unplug it.' Every time I add to the risk of catastrophic fire, Dave gets another gray hair. Said plane doesn't have flaps or ailerons or a rudder or any of that fancy shit. Just 2 motors, one on each wing, and the controls allow you to go left, right, or forward. Just as well, because I have no idea how to fly a plane and I don't really have the patience to learn. We tried to launch this puppy from the deck of Peter's beach house toward the sea, but the wind caught it and about 2 seconds later it smashed into the house nextdoor. Both wings broke off, the body shattered, the battery went to lands beyond, it was awesome. It has since been repaired with packing tape and coffee stir-sticks.

Oscar the Grouch is probably grouchy because he lives in a trash can. Id be grumpy too if people kept opening up my roof and dumping garbage on me. Maybe he was a regular green fuzzy dude who fell on hard times and everybody dumps on him. Ooh, pun!

Check out the Ask a Ninja podcast at www.askaninja.com

Ive never really seen the point to having a video iPod until now, and now I want to get one at the risk of wetting myself in public while watching this thing. How to kill a ninja is the greatest.

Haikus on the Lifestyle

This is my life in haiku

Sitting on the couch
Working on my butt callus
Man, that's leathery

-----

I made eggs today
But forgot to scramble them
Do we have ramen?

-----

Socks off, ten seconds
Snake is hot, dorito one
Get that guy out ref

Progress

Updates in LIFE. mostly the monetary part. some of the digestive tract too.

1. I got a desk at work. hooray!
1a. I have to sit at it all day and enter data. sheet.
2. I've got health insurance. booyakasha.
2a. Now I can break shit again.
2b. Does anybody know how the hell kaiser works? All the directions say is to "live well and thrive."
3. My bowell movements are becoming quite predictable. What's that all about?
4. I spent my tax return already.
4a. Mostly on cookies. And a data acquisition device.
4b. Everybody needs a DAQ!
4c. Want to buy mine?
4d. I still have not received my tax return.
4e. Ow, my credit.


***Edit: The Strangeness Continues***

Something ain't right this afternoon. We caught one of the patients stealing a huge stack of magazines from the waiting room of our office...she did it in waves. She left the office like 4 times to pile another few magazines in the stack she was forming outside the hallway bathroom. I managed to shut my leg in the car door while standing outside the car, which was quite a feat, and I got a package from newegg that contained some blank dvd discs, some computer cables, blah blah, and a really long human hair. Also, I evidently have been drinking milk that expired 6 days ago. I'm still standing, and the milk hasn't gone chunky or anything, so I'm going to go ahead and call bull doodie on that one.

...and happy birthday to just about everybody, at this point. What the hell happened 9 months before april '82 that got everybody so baby makin?

Resume the Mediocrity!

It came to my attention that there are a few people who actually read my blog, which sort of unnerved me. I resolved that the next post would be something actually worth reading. ...and I haven't posted since then, over a month ago. In an effort to kick start the blog again, at whatever level of smeh is necessary, I present this lousy link.

I bought a lithium ion battery pack to put in my loader, and in a word it doesnt fit. So today's adventure will be to desolder and rewire these things. The following is the warning I found when searching for a how-to on the net.

http://www.able-battery.com/Lithium_batteriy_FAQ.htm

Who's seen happy fun ball?
Rest assured, none of these warnings will be heeded and some shit is going to get soldered tonight. If I look nervous or blowd up later you know why.

....and, of course, the image of the day....

so birds....

Was watching a flock of birds fly around and make turns as a unit today, and considering that while they look all cohesive and natural, some of the shiftier ones are probably thinking some of the following thoughts:

"Oh shit they're going left! oh shit they're going right! oh shit they're going left again! oh shit oh shit oh shit"

"Don't you fucking touch me, Larry. Don't you fucking touch me Larry. Don't you fucking touch me Larry. You fucker! Moooommmmm!!!"

"On lap 8 I'm going to make my move."

"Alright, who farted?"