Monthly Archive

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I know, I know, I’m a bad blogger for not posting more often. I just haven’t had a whole lot to talk about. There’s not much going on in my life at the moment. The job search continues to be fruitless, which is frustrating, but doesn’t give me a whole lot of blog material. Absence of job also means a minimum of social interaction, so that doesn’t give me a whole lot of blog fodder.

Heh, I suppose I should be grateful that things are so routine. I may be bored, but that’s better than bouncing from crisis to crisis…. Right? I’m actually perversely proud of myself for maintaining this level of bland. I’ve never handled boredom well and the old pattern was to run out and do something stupid and self-destructive to get the thrill back in my life. So far, I’ve managed to fight down any urges in that direction. Does that mean I’ve matured or that I’m getting old? Is there a difference?

Hopefully, once I get a job, my life will get more interesting without increased drama. I can deal with bland…. for now.

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*Check out Punch An’ Pie for more snarky fun

~~~~~~~~~

A young man asks his father, “Dad, how many kinds of breasts
are there?”

The father, surprised, answers, “Well, son, there are three
kinds of breasts. In her twenties, a woman’s breasts are like
melons, round and firm.

In her thirties to forties, they are like pears, still nice
but hanging a bit. After fifty, they are like onions.”

“Onions?”

“Yes, see them and they make you cry.”

~~~~~~

A young woman asks her mother, “Mom, how many kind of penises
are there?”

The mother, surprised, answers, “Well, daughter, a man goes
through three phases. In a man’s twenties, a man’s penis is
like an oak, mighty and hard.

In his thirties and forties, it is like a birch, flexible but
reliable. After his fifties, it is like a Christmas tree.”

“A Christmas tree?”

“Yes, dried up and the balls are there for decoration only.”

In my last photographic foray, I decided to try something a little different and take close up shots of turbulent water with the high speed setting on my camera. It was an experiment and I came out with some interesting pictures. The problem is, one looks much like the other. The second picture in the series has been photoshopped for artistic effect:

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Free association is described as a “psychoanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content.” Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

I say … and you think … ?

1. Questioning :: Authority
2. Immunity :: Disease
3. Online dating :: Mine Field
4. Calcium :: Supplement
5. Dressing :: Room
6. Bucket :: there’s a hole in the
7. Stain :: Grape Juice
8. Advanced :: Degree
9. Dramatic :: Flair
10. Self-medication :: Never Works

Spring has most definitely sprung. The past couple of days it’s been sunny and in the low eighties here, just perfect spring weather. I took advantage of it to go out and take pictures this afternoon. I got some good ones, but I just wasn’t feeling too inspired. I had a bad case of ‘been there, done that’, like my photography is in a rut. Of course, it didn’t help that I was at a local park I’ve been to a bunch of times before. I need new locations and more variety in my subject matter. Anyway, here are my favorites of what I took:

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Sinfest! It’s sacrilegiously good.

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This would have been such a cool picture if it had just come out clearer. I took about five different pictures when I saw this jumping spider on my windowsill, but none of them came out decently. Grrrrr. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a shot of a spider with the eyes like that.

Sunny, warm spring days are definitely giving me the photographic itch. The job search has to come first though. Having to pay out almost four hundred dollars for taxes certainly didn’t help my financial situation, but at least I’ll get it back in my “incentive” check later this year.

So, that’ pretty much the latest news. Still poor, unemployed, and celibate. Film at eleven.

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I got the first disk of season one of The Riches from Netflix over the weekend. Eddie Izzard is one of my favorite stand up comedians of all time, so I was looking forward to seeing how he did as a dramatic actor. I ended up having mixed feelings about the show though. On the plus side, the acting is good and the story-line is involving. I like that they have the youngest child be a transvestite without making that fact an issue, though I suspect we can thank Eddie Izzard’s influence for that. My main objection to the show is that they perpetuate the tired old idea that anyone is living an alternative type of lifestyle (in this case, the ‘Travelers’ who are a clan of modern day gypsies) secretly yearns for the “American Dream” of a white picket fence, wife/husband, 2.5 kids, dog and cat kind of life.

Don’t get me wrong. If that’s your dream and it makes you happy, more power to you. However, not everyone shares that dream. If you go by what TV and movies tell you, though, it’s the only way to find happiness. Get a ‘real’ job, marry, breed, and purchase real estate, then settle down in your little nest and enjoy paradise. ‘Cause y’ know, a rock star (for example) traveling the world, and shagging beautiful women on a daily basis may seem happy, but give that rock star amnesia and, through a zany mishap, have him end up working on a farm with a single mom raising three kids and he’ll realize the true meaning of happiness, throwing away that jet-setting lifestyle when his corrupt business manager tries to have him killed and re-awakens his memory instead….. Hell, they even did it to Lex friggin’ Luthor on the extremely lame “Three days of Lexmas” Smallville Christmas episode.

Ok, end of rant. My point is that not everyone buys into the “American Dream”, but that doesn’t make them any less happy than the people who do. I’d just like to see a TV show that has the guts to acknowledge that.

My dad wrote this poem as an anniversary gift for his friends, then got the idea to combine it with one of my pictures. I kept the design simple and I’m fairly happy with how it came out, so I thought I’d share it here as well:

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I walked into my sister’s kitchen and found my nephew, Mitch, having a snack.

“Where’s your mother?” I asked.

“She said she was going to have a shower. Just a minute, I’ll see.”

Mitch went to the kitchen tap and turned the hot water on full blast.

An sharp yell came from above.

Mitch calmly turned off the tap and said, “Yep, she’s in the shower.”

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Sometimes, you have to take the time to appreciate the little things in life:

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I spent part of my morning doing chainsaw work for my dad. He’s been obsessing about getting it done, going on about how it would be an all day job, maybe even two, but he canceled the chainsaw rental twice because of the threat of bad weather. So, today he finally rented the thing and the work he wanted me to do took all of two hours to get done. So much for all the build up and trepidation.

Part of the reason I got done so quickly is that my father had jury duty and wasn’t able to help me. I love the man dearly, but he only slows me down. It’s not entirely his fault. He’s old and has a bad leg, so that doesn’t help. Mostly though, he’s a futzer. For him, yard work has always been a leisure activity, something to piddle around with on the weekends. That gives a much different mindset than if, like me, you’ve done it professionally. I want to get as much done as quickly and efficiently as possible, just really attack whatever the job is, while my dad like to just poke along, doing this, then doing that. Hence why his “all day job” took me two hours.

It did feel good, getting outside and doing some hard physical work. I’m really feeling it in my back from using the chainsaw, but it’s a good kind of sore. Now the question is; what to do with the rest of my day?

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Everyone in the hotel was talking about the wedding where the
groom was 95 years old and the bride was only 23. The groom
looked pretty feeble, and some of the guests thought that the
wedding night could kill the old man, because his bride was a
healthy and vivacious young woman.

But the next morning, everyone was surprised to see the bride
come down the main stairway slowly, step by step, and pain-
fully bold-legged. She finally managed to hobble to the front
desk.

The clerk looked very concerned, and he asked the bride, “What
happened to you? You look like you just got done wrestling an
alligator.”

“My God,” said the bride. “He told me that he had been saving
up for 75 years…. I thought he meant his money!”

*Comic shamelessly stolen from Nodwick

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I’ll tell you, spring is feeling pretty good to me. It’s not quite warm enough to drive around with the top down, but just having the sun shining and plants blooming really helps my mood.

Thanks to all for the kind comments on my pictures. I was chatting with a friend the other day and she said my photographs “move her”. Then, my dad of all people told me that my pictures make him look at things differently and that he’s really impressed with how I notice and frame the small things. It’s always surprising and gratifying when people say things like that about my work. I’m very critical of myself, which has been one of the problems in my attempts at freehand drawing, so the positive reinforcement is much appreciated.

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In answer to Shannon’s question about my avatar, I thought I’d post a couple of L’Arc~en~Ciel’s videos, featuring the seriously sexy Hyde (And I say that with full confidence in my heterosexuality. Face it, the man is gorgeous.)

*Edit just to make Lez happy: