Killing me softly with enchiladas and Twinkies

So, for the first time in I think two or three years (it all melts together), I'm heading off to Florida. The place where I spent 14 years of my life, and the place I pointed a U-Haul away from in 99.
I think I'm going to call this the Nostalgia Tour 2007. I was thinking of calling it In Search of a Cheap Enchilada 2007, but that just doesn't seem to roll off the tongue quite as well. At least, this time I'll have a convertible.
Lucky!

Killing Me Softly...
Yes, Hostess, the maker of the revered Twinkie, I'm looking at you! There's one thing I don't understand...why haven't y'all come up with chocolate twinkies? Or, for that matter, vanilla Swiss Cake Rolls? There's a huge market you guys are missing here. The people want a choice in artery-clogging, sugar-saturated snacks, and you guys just aren't providing it. What's the hold up, brothers? All it takes is a bit of food coloring, and I thing you guys should be all set.

Answer me these questions three

1) Am I just imagining things, or are people becoming snippier. On my various errands today, all I saw were people in various degrees of grumpiness. Just a general degree of rudeness everywhere. That negative energy is a drag to be around.

2) Why do I bother trying to find a good spot in the parking lots? It serves absolutely no purpose, as there is a pretty good chance I won't even remember where I parked. I usually walk half way down the wrong aisle until I remember, "Hey, twit. You got the third spot away from the store!"

3) I have no third question...oh wait. Yes I do. Why did I spend $3 on lottery tickets tonight? Why did I spend any dollars on lottery tickets?! I have about as good a chance of winning as I do getting hit by lightning after having a cuppa tea with the ghost of John Lennon in a parlour room in Buckingham Palace.

I'm happy with this the way it is

I'm fairly well aware that I should be writing something more meaningful than this...like my attempt at the Great American Novel (or more appropriate, the Next Nick Hornby Wannabe Novel).
It's not like I don't have the ideas to write down. The ideas are there, but I have a hard time starting it, and then I stare at a blank screen. Being hyper self-critical about what I write also doesn't help either; I hold myself to high standards that I really have no right or reason to hold myself to.
So, instead of staring at blank screens and allowing my self-critical nature to kick in full force, I usually just distract myself and I allow myself become complacent...content to one's detriment.
The time will always be there...the ideas will always be floating around.
Not quite.
These are some thoughts I had on what complacency is like. I'm not sure whether these hit the mark or possibly touch upon something else, but for the time being, they'll do.

1) Complacency is like watching the clock tick...realizing in your head "hey, i don't get too many of those ticks" but then still watching the clock (OK, maybe that one doesn't quite work.)

2) Seeing the opportunities and then watching as the opportunities walk past.

3) Complacency is like watching a clock tick, getting pissed that you are watching a clock tick, and then still staring at the clock tick. (Try number 2 at thought number 1. Still doesn't work. Damn.)

4) Complacency is like staring at a gigantic white board on which everything that you want to do and accomplish is written, and then being distracted by a bag of potato chips. When you turn around, the white board is erased, and you only see the faint online.

5) Letting the days pass to the point that the idea to do something meaningfull generally comes when such thought is meaningless,

Do these make any sense?

Birds are punks

As possible as it is, I think I got mooned by a Canadian goose.
Since yesterday's weather was perfect, I was at my usual spot where I go when I want to read a book out in nature.

There were several people hanging out there as well, everyone generally minding their own business. I made myself comfortable and cracked open the book. I was distracted, and I looked past what I was reading. Out in the water, there was a gaggle of geese (I just wanted to say "gaggle") doing their regular goose-y things. One had completely upended itself, sticking its head and neck completely in the water like an ostrich sticks his head in the sand. Thus, it was completely perpendicular to the water, sticking its ass up to the wind. It did this several times, each time pointing his white feathery underside in my general direction.
What the hell did I do to this thing? I'm one of those people that cuts the little plastic holder things that come with 6-packs so that his kind don't get their beaks caught in them (Granted, Canadian Geese aren't generally the landfill trolling variety of bird, but still). Yet, it moons me still.
Punk.

Digital cobweb

I met up with an old friend of mine with whom I used to work years ago at a Web site called OnTap.com. I've yet to meet anyone who actually saw it.
It was my introduction to the work world, which some mistakently consider the "real world." It felt more surreal than anything.
I remember in particular going to a company-sponsored party (ie, open bar!) up at some loft in the West Village in NYC. I just couldn't get over the fact that only three months ago I was packing up my stuff in Gainesville, with no real idea of where I'd end up.
The whole dot com thing was a fun ride while it lasted, so we reminisced a bit about it today. Scooter races in the building, two-hour, beer-fueled lunches at a dive in Jamesburg, one ill-advised game of Ultimate Frisbee (Ultimate Frisbee is hard! How do the hippies do it?!)...
He told me of a site that actually archives old Web sites. Check out the Internet Archive, and while you are there, type in www.ontap.com in the search field (or just click here. Not quite sure the link works.) Anyway, it's nice to get a blast from the past now and again!
*Geek speak: Most of what they have for OnTap doesn't quite work anymore, as we used quite a few .inc files that resided on servers that no longer exist. Oh well. Digital cobwebs.

Is that a monkey in your hat?

Man smuggles monkey into NYC airport
I couldn't make this up if I tried. You know your Wednesday won't go badly when you wake up to stories likes these.

You can't get there from here

In a book I just finished reading, the author quotes a fortune cookie fortune:
"If you don't change direction soon, you're liable to end up where you're heading."
I wish I could get a fortune like that...it's bloody brilliant!
In the last few weeks, except for the weekend I was caught up with Harry Potter, I've been reading the books by a guy named Jonathan Tropper. Something about his stuff that seems to draw me right in. I think it might be because his characters are angst-ridden, fairly self-absorbed, just barely Gen-Xers who are in the process or have turned 30 during the course of the book. Granted, I turned 30 almost three years ago, but I'm always a few years behind anyway, so I feel as if I can somehow relate.

If you have the time...

The Virtues of Avoiding Interstates
Sure, the interstates can save you a bunch of time when you are traveling somewhere, but you miss quite a bit doing so. There's a rather big country that exists out there beyond the reach of the 6-lane blacktops.
Well, the story says that that kind of travel is coming. I suppose people are coming around to the idea that how you get there can be just as fun as where you are going. This is what I get for reading On the Road and Travels with Charlie when I was young and impressionable.

A cure of insomnia

You ever have one of those nights where you feel you have to force yourself to go to bed so that the next day isn't completely ef'd up? I have this sneaking suspicion that this might one of those nights for me; I'm playing amateur insomniac.
I think I've discovered a cure though, and that's staring at an empty blog post box, with that annoying blinking cursor. It's like trying to stare down a cat. That thing just keeps on blinking. This has made me extremely tired.
As a side note ...beware the nostalgia that can arise from viewing pictures in your photo library.

In which I answer why you'll never see me in a grocery store in Xmas eve.

I'm going to ask you to forgive me for writing this post, as at the moment, I am listening to "story" songs from the 70s by Dan Fogelberg and Harry Chapin. I don't know why, but anyone who is familiar with these pop culture gems from the 70s and early 80s, they are mind. numbingly. depressing.
I shit you not.
Right now, Danny boy is singing about how he meets a lost love in the supermarket on Christmas eve. So, let me put this in context. You are shopping on Christmas eve, alone of course, and if that's not sad and pathetic enough for you, you see a lost love you haven't seen in forever, and then both of you start to talk about how growing up has sucked and that nothing will ever match the innocence of youth.
Then, both of you get started drinking luke warm beer in a car, where you continue talking about the past and how good it was and how the present hasn't quite matched to what you expected. The conversation invariably begins to stall, and she kisses you goodbye. A goodbye of finality.
Then, of course, it begins to snow. Of course. Bloody typical. So, now you are left with the memories of a depressing conversation with a person you probably didn't want to see in the first place. Even though it's a loveless marriage, she at least is married, and you're shopping for groceries on Christmas eve.
Effin' hell.
Next up is "Taxi" by Harry Chapin. Are you at all familiar with this song? No? OK! Let's pretend you are a drug-addicted taxi driver. Are we there, mentally? Then, let's pretend you just happen to pick up a former lover, who of course doesn't even recognize you. And she's rich!
So, much like the the Dan Fogelberg song, you begin to talk about how life hasn't quite met your expectations. I mean, you were going to learn how to fly, and she was going to become an actress. Ha! The fates have intervened, as you get stoned in a taxi and she acts as if she's happy in a mansion.
Then, you get the joy of dropping her off at her mansion, where she pities you by paying you a 700% tip (I think I figured out the math right).
I don't know about you, but I think I'd prefer to pretend I was happy in a mansion. Getting stoned in a taxi sounds about as much fun as you'd imagine getting stoned in a taxi could be.
Now, it's John Mayer singing about facing the mortality of parents in "Stop this Train."
Why on earth would anyone set up an iTunes mix this masochistic?

Yay, Switzerland!

Toward the end of the 13th century, some guys collective said "screw this" and formed their own little country in the middle of the Alps, calling it "Switzerland." Then, some dude used some wicked mad archery skills to hit an apple balanced on top of someone's head. Afterward, they all gathered around a fondu pot to eat bread dipped in molten cheese, and then they set a bonfire.
Soon after, they developed a way to keep everyone else's money safe, and they lived happily ever after.
I'm not quite sure if that's the accurate order of events, but it's all completely, 100% totally true (except where it's not.)

In other news, Keith Richards got a boatload of money to write his memoirs. I'm surprised if he can actually remember anything.
"In the late 40s or 50s...or maybe early 60s, I think I formed this band called the Rolling Beatle Byrds. After that, it's all a haze, until we made our autobiography, called 'This is Spinal Tap.'"