I appreciate the concern and appreciation of those of you who had written things here. Thanks. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the last few months thinking about…oh, the point of it all, I guess. Creatively I think I’ve historically been driven by a need to be heard, to be appreciated, and to get an audience; but I’m coming around to the question, do I really need to? And I’m kinda thinking no. Which for me, in terms of the typical turmoil in my head, is a good thing, because the turmoil’s been pretty calm lately, and I’m thinking of my life less as stresses I create to force myself in certain directions, and more as taking myself in directions because I feel like it.

So I really feel like I let myself down, as far as SpinnWebe is concerned — for a while I had a pretty good audience, and if I had more tenacity I probably could’ve held on to it. So when I think about A1AAA or AV1D or any other number of projects I half-started or barely started or didn’t start, it generally makes me feel guilty, but I still don’t get it done. So I’m trying to shift to not feeling guilty about it anymore. Kinda sucks for those of you who want to see those things happen, but really this is a major step towards happiness for me.

Though having said that, I drew about five Scribs tonight so I can try to get that last arc finished, at least. And I’ve been thinking more frequently about getting back to the podcast, though I’m requiring myself to think of a way to make it actually interesting first. But I’m letting that come to me on its own terms, no pressure.

Fun detail, though — doc said my bronchitis could be caused by two different types of bacteria: one that tends to affect younger people, and one that tends to affect older people. He said each has its own treatment, and he gave me the old guy meds. I’m kinda of split mind on whether I want them to work.

So I got the prescription and took it to the drugstore, and they had to look a bit for my account details — because apparently I haven’t been there in the last five years, and they had old address and phone number info that I had to dig around in my brain for. (Seriously, I just don’t need doctors much.) Got those, taking them, hopefully getting better.

But it reminds me why I don’t like taking medicine. It’s just the way it changes you. That kind of powerful chemistry gets in your body and it has to knock some shit over. Like, I took a nap earlier and suddenly woke up with serious stomach acid. I tend towards acidity, but if the inside of my stomach was painted, it’d be peeling. And I feel like my heart flutters a bit every now and then.

Also, the rancid farting.

I have a pretty good sense of how my body acts, and feels, and is. So when it’s off like this, it makes me uncomfortable. Probably a good thing that I haven’t done drugs, because I’d be endlessly paranoid about the aftereffects. Ach! But right now I’d probably take the uncertainty and weirdness if this goddamn cough would finally go away.

But as I did that I was noticing a theme. Even aside from topics I said I’d revisit — my trip to England, my stint volunteering at the comics expo, et cetera — one thing that kept coming up was my saying “I’ll have to interview X on the podcast.” I’ll give myself the major triumph that was having my boss on the podcast — man did I not enjoy listening to that again — but aside from that (and the no-risk event of recording a call with my parents), I’ve had no one else on the thing.

I gotta. That’s what I have to do, both for the quality of my product and the quality of my own self. It’s the direction of the podcast that has given me The Thought — I think I’ve tapped out the interesting parts of talking into a mic by myself, and now I need to record with other people. But I just cannot bring myself to get that done. But now The Thought has gotten itself hooked into my personal pride, and if I record the next podcast without interviewing someone, my brain’s gonna call it a fail.

So all I have to do, then, is get over my fear of exposing myself to ridicule or rejection. And man have I never had luck with that. I wanted to interview Debb before her Ironman, and geez, it you want to talk about a no-risk proposition, that’s one right there, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Though partly that’s because I am also overly sensitive to being an imposition to someone, and knowing that Debb’s very shy and wouldn’t really want to talk into a microphone, that’s making it hard for me to do that as well. I had four separate opportunities to record a conversation with her and I wussed out on each one.

So I have to force myself into personal growth or decide I’m done with the podcast. Neither of those things I want to do. But if I had to pick, I’d bet the latter would be more likely.

ah, sigh. Well, though anyway here’s who I would like to interview.

- Debb: I had a separate Thought about her a few months ago. Once I realized how awesome her Ironman training was, I was pretty much locked in to interviewing her at some point.
- Toby: friend in the UK, but behing six timezones away has made organizing that difficult. Which is a shame, because I’m pretty sure we could just straight banter for a half hour and make it fun.
- Steve: coworker from years back, sounded into the idea of recording, said he’d call me when he has some spare time to do so. But he hasn’t called me back, and with my irrational fear of being an imposition, I’m not able to follow up.
- Other Steve: coworker who quit from my current job, who is drastically extroverted, so I’d be fascinated to try to get his perspective on what that’s like. He called me yesterday out of the blue, which was nice, but it was just because he wanted tech help, which was not. I may tell him the price of my help is letting me interview him.
- Brian: a SpinnWebe fan and one of the few people who actually left a voicemail on the KBA line. I’ve generally been weird with talking to fans, and now even moreso because I don’t feel like I deserve any.
- Ricardo: This would be a tough one. Guy at work who I talk to a bit, he’s clearly funny. In fact he originally came to Chicago in order to try to get into the comedy scene. But we’re only a little farther along than “hey howzit goin’” hallway greetings, so asking him to do that would be really weird. But a major win for me.
- Jim Brownfield – Now that would also be tricky. He’s a libertarian who’s on my Facebook, and we generally don’t agree about the Way Things Work. So if he had the tolerance for it I would like to have a political/sociology discussion with him, but I am really only confident doing that kind of thing in text, because when I do it realtime I am in way too much danger of trying to come off sounding like I’m the Voice of Wisdom when in fact I am just talking out my ass. But that could possibly be interesting.
- My bastard friends: Hey I actually directly asked a few of them which is cool. Usually I will just throw the idea out there and hope someone offers–oh hey actually come to think of it I was doing that for months already. Well I finally ased, and I got a few lukewarm responses, I think because we’ve been talking in text for so long that talking voice could be kinda weird. Which could just be my brain being paranoid again, but in any case it’s also decided that they’re not that into it and asking again will be another imposition. Soooo dunno. We’ll see.

Not a bad list and worth a lot of material, I’m sure. Now all I have to do is become an entirely different person.

Not sure what I was thinking. I signed up four months ago when I was getting Scribs into swing and had some fanciful notion that I was going to get more involved in the comics community, but now I pretty much don’t care.

Saying I had “plans” for Scribs is likely an overstatement. Probably more accurate to say that I had a certain mindset this time around that I thought was healthier. When I first started getting serious about Scribs four years ago, I sort of assumed that I’d just naturally get popular and such by virtue of making a funny comic and letting the fame pour in. I got frustrated with waiting for the inevitable rush of traffic, so I gave up on it. And then in the intervening time, I saw other comics that started around the same time get wildly popular, and then the frustration and the envy and the glaven.

But last year my more selfish mindset relaxed somewhat, and I decided to start up the comic again, but this time, I’d do it right — instead of thinking I’d let the world beat down my door due to my inherent assumed fabulousness, I decided to make an effort in getting involved in the community, get on some message boards, try to make a connection with some actual people. 

And that’s how I wound up signing up to volunteer for c2e2. Actually at first I thought about getting a booth, but 1) too damn expensive, and 2) nothing to sell. The way I pictured it, it was likely going to be less sales booth than performance art. 

But, dunno. Might have been fun, but in the intervening time my attempts to interface with the human-units went less than well. Tried getting on message boards, but ech, made some shitty entrances and tried to just bluster through, but my tolerance ran out. Tried Twitter, but ran out of interest for that and now my spinnwebe account is just retweeting my scribscomic account, which I’m sure is not going to get it much attention. 

And it’s not even about the comic, really. I was kinda hoping to get myself into a community with some cool people. Though even there I guess I’m failing, because what I really kinda want is a nearby group of people. One, I already know a cool group of people online, and two, getting involved with comic artists online is not really the correct target anyway. I’d like to know what it’s like to have friends that I would pick up a phone and call, you know? Or having a reason to have a phone other than my college to leave messages to try to get money from me. But on the other hand, I’ve seen get-togethers with some comics people and they generally look nerdier than I can deal with.

So, I dunno. Every time I think of c2e2 now, I just find it kind of depressing. I don’t much feel like being around people right now, especially seeing people that are living the kind of life I could be living if I’d properly applied myself.

I’m doing some ads for my sites, which is how I came to notice it, the referral logs said I got a few hits from it. I take a look, and okay, it’s of a certain class of comic where objects are put together and text is put around it which some people find entertaining. I scroll down to the associated blog post.

Two things about micro-story:
1 – Just because Devil can look like a red dot DOES NOT mean he was the red dot from when they went to Japan. it’s just coincidence.
2 – I think I could have done another two strips of just Baron taking off hats to reveal other ones. I have to move towards the end though. Ah well, maybe another day.

It just struck me as so self-important that I had to keep reading. And actually let me stop here for a minute: I’m not trying to put this guy down, and I’m not saying that I’m doing anything great myself. But basically I come into a comic cold and see some rough shapes arguing about something, and then the blog entry essentially tells me that this is NOT to be confused with what happened back in the previous episode (like some regular readers might expect!!), but instead understand this is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT idea going on so just accept it and we’ll retcon the Wiki page later if we have to, and if only there were more space to fill in the story, but unfortunately there’s only so much Internet and we’re not really sure it can contain all the labyrinthine plot twists that these filled auto shapes really deserve.

So, it struck me as self-important, which as I say I’m not trying to attach any judgment to that, but I’m having a mental disconnect at this point. And as I go down the text of the post, my disconnect continues to grow until it gets to be about the size of my own blog entry that I know I’m gonna be required to write about this later. He says he just got back from SugoiCon, which was the end of his convention year, and it’s great to have the support of his fans, but not only did he come back energized and excited, but he now has a plan for kickin’ it into high.

I look up and see I’m looking at #695, so yeah, anything with that kind of longevity is probably going to gather some sort of attention. I click around his quick links a bit, just to kind of get a sense of what the comic is…but I’m not really sure I am. As I write this his last is #700, admittedly quite a milestone, but his post for that one nearly reads like an Oscar acceptance speech.

Sometimes I guess I wonder why and how I’m failing. It’s an unfortunate habit; I tend towards envy. My head likes to compare my life to other people’s lives and remind me I’m doing it wrong. And since I don’t really connect with people that much, sometimes I lack context. But I’ve been opening up more in recent years (if nothing else, saying this at all in a public forum is proof), and it’s helped. And a quote on Lie To Me that I saw the other day has stuck in my head a bit: “Why do people always think they’re the only one with a secret?” It’s a reminder of what I’ve learned a while ago and have to keep relearning: everyone has problems, and nearly everyone wishes they had it better.

Not that that should prevent me from trying to improve my life, but at least it doesn’t mean I’m alone. I guess I’m still measuring my life by comparing it to others, but if nothing else I’m understanding there’s a vast majority of people to whom I haven’t been comparing my life, who probably don’t have it much better. Debb had True Life on TV the other day, and there were stories of people living out of their cars, selling sex for cheap to get through the day, et cetera. And it reminded me that, yeah, my life might be pretty dull, but at least it’s not a wondering-where-my-next-two-meals-are-coming-from sort of excitement. Sometimes I’m sort of vaguely unsatisfied with how my life’s going, but I get to ponder that dissatisfaction while driving home from my job, drinking my Starbucks, on my way to do the happy It’s The Weekend dance with the woman who loves me. Maybe my life’s not as adventurous as it could be, but I don’t even properly comprehend the amount of shit my life has avoided.

So then this guy with the shapes comic. I guess I won’t say my comic’s better, but I will say my own comic appeals to me more. Ah hell, I guess I’m trying to be polite and avoiding saying that I think I’m more talented than him, but it’s true. But he’s clearly more tenacious than me, as I got to around #190 of my own comic before I realized it wasn’t going to magically whisk me into the sort of popularity and praise that I’d hoped. And really whatever I think about his talent, he has engaged fans, he’s going to obscure comic cons, he sells things, and so on. But really the difference is that he’s putting the work in, and I’m not, and it’s pretty much up to me whether I am willing to make things happen.

I’ve done a lot of complaining about my weight over the last year or so, but despite my daily strenuous whining regimen and griping reps, the weight would still not come off. About a month ago that changed; I’ve seriously curtailed extranneous eating, somehow developed the willpower to disregard snacking during the workday, and have been taking advantage of our treadmill. People say things like “it’s easy to lose weight, you just have to decide to do it.” That’s true and false. Yes, making the decision is easy — but you have to get to a point where it’s possible to make that decision, and that’s not so much. I finally did, and now I am.

I was really pushing over the edge of “the heaviest I’ve ever been” and was getting grumpier because of it. And occasionally buying a self-hating bag of mini Reese’s peanut butter cups and finishing them off in three days. (Reese’s are my major junk food weakness. Well really, peanut butter is my weakness, but wrapping it in chocolate makes it a flavor delivery system that my body turns directly into dopamine.) But I kicked that habit through sheer willpower so far and haven’t had a Reese’s since. I had been in the habit of hitting the vending machine for a candy bar after lunch, but I haven’t done that, either.

The interesting part will be to see if I can maintain this down to my target weight. I’m 205 now, and throughout my life I’ve pretty much hovered around 200. I’d like to get down to 180, but the previous pattern has been that I lose weight until I get back down to the mental image I have of myself, and then lose interest. But I haven’t seen 190 for maybe a decade, and even then it was only temporarily. I’d like to try to see 180 once just to see if I can.

This all goes towards my longer-term goal: once I get to that weight, I figure it’ll be good to keep in the exercising habit. So when/if I hit 180, I’ll buy myself a bag of Reese’s mini peanut butter cups and spend the rest of the week working it off.

Talked to my therapist yesterday, and she suggests that I’m feeling overwhelmed. I think I’m getting along with that explanation. The whole health care debate has really been a big weight on me — not so much the health care issue itself, but seeing all these people who are so drastically mistaken, and angrily so. And it’s just…well, I’ve known for a long time that people are dumb, so in itself, people being dumb about health care is no big surprise. But I guess the rational part of me held the belief that, with proper discussion and reasoning, people can general be brought out of the ignorance and into the light. Or at least halfway out of the darkness, to a place where they understand that the only place “death panels” exist are in the minds of those who fear.

But the debate was revealing that illusion for what it was. People are dumb. And what’s worse, it showed my insignificance in the big picture. If somehow I could bring one person into the light of reason, ten more would fall, shoelaces tangled, into their place; if I could bring those ten people to reason, a hundred would fall, angrily, blaming me for their spraying juice boxes, in their place. And if somehow I could bring them to logic, there’s Fox News — which has spent more than I will ever earn on advertising for Tea Party protests — who will always have a greater voice than I will ever have.

And, more than that…it’s not just that they’re big budget, and with a lot of coverage, and unashamedly defend their ability to lie in their news coverage. Fox News wouldn’t exist without an audience that wanted it. The Big Stupid isn’t manufactured by Fox News, it’s simply part of the human condition. If I changed the minds of a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, it wouldn’t matter. If I did, and Fox News fell, then in twenty years there’d be another Fox News.

Simply unavoidable. This is, and will always be, part of Humanity.

I feel myself twisting up a bit inside writing this, in fact. Overwhelmed. In one of those “what’s-the-point-of-it-all” moments of my life, I suppose. Idiots have always existed and will continue to exist long after I am gone. I finally got my job title/description upgraded to the level of what I’ve actually been doing the last few years, but I’m already getting a “what have you done for us lately” vibe from my boss. And in general I’m in an IT field, and pushing 40, and starting to feel like I’ve learned everything I’m able to learn, or everything I’m motivated to learn, and already feel like I’ve slipped impossibly behind the curve. All this and more. Think it was starting to become too much for me.

But in the last day or so I’ve been finding some calm, and it’s been nice. As I type this, I occasionally look over at the box of my new vid card, and wonder if I care. Earlier, I was clicking through Today’s Big Thing, and nearly coming to tears seeing the wonderful ways some people enjoy utterly wasting their time. Wonderful. I’ve always been introspective, and I know this is going to sound entirely too grandiose, but in a way I feel like my introspection is taking a shift — not only why I do or feel the things I do, but more who am I and why am I here sort of things.

This is possibly more defense mechanism than anything; I’ve been too amped emotionally to follow my usual neural paths, maybe. But I’m wondering if this is a reason why I’m having trouble with programming A1…it’s not aiming high enough. I want to create things that give me that emotional response, and while A1 can be pretty entertaining, it doesn’t give me the same feel something else might. (Like DFC, maybe, sigh.)

But with regards my mental state: despite my younger insistence to the contrary, I’m starting to feel like I’m coming to that place where platitudes start to make sense for their likely wisdom. I should consider going placidly amid the noise and haste. The thought is half-formed and not yet clear, but it’s something like: instead of trying to control the off-balance spinning of my environment, I need to find an inward peace and project it outward. My sudden willingness to change behaviors I thought were reasonably unchangeable seems to reflect this.

That’s why I was able to knock out a few Scribs in the last few weeks: the comic existed at all because I wanted to do some visual humor but didn’t want to be slowed down with the foolishness of drawing something and get straight to the humor. But I got tired of my own programming, as I always do, and then continuing Scribs became yet another exercise in trying to deal with old programs I wrote, and hating them, and then wanting to rewrite them, and hating that. And thus Scribs, like so many other of my questionably bright ideas in the past, fell down the languish hole of my own lack of tenacity.

I don’t even know why you’re reading this. Well, I mean a little bit, sure, I just knocked out those two paragraphs straight in one draft and they were really easy to write, and looking over them again (like I do with nearly everything I create; the number of times I re-read/re-listen/re-view something is directly proportional to how much I impress myself) they’re pretty easy to read, too, so okay I can write some good stuff here and there. Ahh and you know what, the whole “why are you here” schtick is a distraction, because that’s not what I care about. I think the real question is why am I here, because I’ve had a severe lack of creative direction in the last few weeks, as I gave up my World of Warcraft habit and just assumed that the invented sense of accomplishment it was filling in my head would be pulled out, drain-basin-stopper-like, and suddenly the exciting and dynamic rush of my creative mind would just effortlessly flood in, with no more effort than the cost of the gravity to push it down and outward. But as it happens the only things that have happened since are a few Scribs, honing my TF2 sniper huntsman skills, and jumping back and forth from my computer where I try to write some javascript for 30 seconds and then to the window where I stare out for a half hour, dumbfounded, depressed, and utterly sick of trying to program any javascript on a web toy that I am utterly sick of thinking about, yet in some way I need to get working.

ach. Well, hell, let me just quickly post the link that actually brought me to my blog to write something, and I was just going to say that McCotter doesn’t understand his kind of behavior is exactly the sort of thing that makes federal politics such a fucking farce, but as you might imagine I suddenly don’t care a lot.

I just got off the treadmill (which, yay me, ‘cos I’m really becoming a fat bastard and getting sick of myself) so I’m working off some endorphins, which explains my sudden desire to write something combined with my lack of happiness with how I’m managing my life, and it’s highly unusual for those two things to get together at once because the latter one generally makes me want to curl up in a ball and push the world outward. I’m also taking hits off this watery iced latte I didn’t finish from earlier, which is clearly some typing fuel, because oddly I have frequently noticed that I get an immediate effect from caffeine and the rest of the drink generally might as well just be eventual baggies of fat stapled to my gut.

uh, yeah, I’m pushing it now. Anyway I guess the point is, Caroline, wherever you are, it turns out I guess I can finally see the point of your diary after all, ever though we’ve all lived through decades or so of Livejournal &c. were online diaries are commonplace. It was weirder for you since you put some really personal things in there, so I can’t imagine the cyclic feedback, but regardless, I guess sometimes I just have to write something in public when I’d really rather keep it private. Usually at this point I’d fuss over “I’m not looking for a reaction, honest” sort of drivel but screw that, because to be honest I probably don’t actually care what you think about what I’m writing. I just feel like writing it in public for some reason, which is sort of odd looking down the arc of my life, but there it is anyway.

Just made this, hence disproving my position that I don’t see the point in Twitter. Though I’ll likely forget it exists when I get back.
10:02 PM May 2nd from web

Pointlessly expensive phone test
10:14 PM May 2nd from txt

ugh, too goddamn early
3:19 AM May 3rd from web

Put this together last minute — diff between 7:25 flight and 10:30 was $150 each. Surprised i’m awake
4:41 AM May 3rd from txt

Someone on this plane has a kielbasa issue
9:45 AM May 3rd from txt

This part of LAX is pretty dull and generic
10:46 AM May 3rd from txt

I’m about to tell Debb that I started a twitter
10:50 AM May 3rd from txt

Okay, we’re still married. I did get the exaggerated eye roll though
10:54 AM May 3rd from txt

Seeing a number of people with face masks due to SWINE FEAR. Every one of them so far has been Asian
11:19 AM May 3rd from txt

I thought about getting pictures, but really, it’d just be people in face masks.

Another over-booked flight LAX -> LV. Someone forgot to tell vegas about the economy
12:03 PM May 3rd from txt

Viva Las Vegas tarmac
1:20 PM May 3rd from txt

Shuttle to baggage claim, I want to say, where’s your mask, asian dude
1:59 PM May 3rd from txt

Albino kid pictures are blurry — maybe his kind can’t be photographed
2:10 PM May 3rd from txt

Luxor, directions from front desk to elevator: down hall, left at starbucks, left at next starbucks
3:19 PM May 3rd from txt

LV without gambling: the world’s biggest mall where everyone wants to walk where you’re walking
5:55 PM May 3rd from txt

@mom: I know nothing about twitter except what you see here
7:25 PM May 3rd from txt

I sent my mom a text about the Twitter I set up, and then she tried to call me for tech support. In Vegas.

A 10:30 show seemed like a good idea until my body reminded me it thinks it’s 12:30
10:26 PM May 3rd from txt

Body also says: sleep 10 hours
11:38 AM May 4th from txt

We figure we walked about 8 miles yesterday. Protip: signs that point to where you want to go spiral inward towards slots
11:58 AM May 4th from txt

The first of many lying arrows pointing towards the monorail. We were tired of walking, wanted to get north to some other hotels, and this particular arrow points to the MGM Grand, in which are other directional arrows pointing “towards” the monorail which are in fact a walking tour of their slot machines.

There may be invisible pedestrian traffic signs in vegas only visible after you breathe the air a while.
12:52 PM May 4th from txt

Seriously, it’s like half the time we were scooting out of people’s way. Although man, later in the trip as we were getting sick of it, Debb totally slammed someone with her shoulder on purpose, that rocked. There was still more crowd coming after that, and I was hoping she’d hit another one (later she told me she was hoping so too), but then people started getting out of her way. A message must’ve gone out on VegasPedestriNet that she was “cool”.

Can anyone out there tell me if this thing is on?
12:53 PM May 4th from txt

I’d mistaken what messages from Twitter were about. I thought you could get messages back on your phone. When I was getting packed for the trip, I had the geeks dilemma: laptop or not? Twitter was gonna be my happy medium: limited connectivity but at least I’d get response every so often. But eh, wasn’t a big loss, really.

I thought Debb and I would be an island me black in a sea of pastel and floral prints — usually the case, but not here, duh
1:34 PM May 4th from txt

Steve: about to drop your 20 in wheel of fortune
2:13 PM May 4th from txt

Steve gave me 20 bucks to blow on something.

Got up to 35 but went back down to 20 and I stopped there
2:18 PM May 4th from txt

…but actually he didn’t, he didn’t have it on him at the time, so I lent him 20 bucks, and said I’d bet it for him, and if I didn’t make him anything he’d owe it to me. But after getting the money back down to 20 bucks, I decided it’d be weird to show up to work Monday and say “okay you owe me 20 bucks now”.

Mom tells me she’s sending messages but I guess it’s not set to send them to my phone, damn
4:17 PM May 4th from txt

oh I see, twitter doesn’t send msgs to my phone how I expected. damn, that would nearly have made it useful
4:35 PM May 4th from web

Seeing Penn & Teller shortly — got here early and got much better seats than we page for
8:41 PM May 4th from txt

Great show! They know real magic, because I actually like the after show pic I got with them
10:53 PM May 4th from txt

Which you won’t be seeing.

Ha ha I just woke up. In Vegas.
10:08 AM May 5th from txt

Amazing weather. Thought it was going to be unbearably hot, but it’s not
12:06 PM May 5th from txt

Takes me a while to loosen up, I only really started relaxing today. Of course I’m leaving tomorrow.
1:40 PM May 5th from txt

During the day, the fremont st experience is just “shade”
2:47 PM May 5th from txt

Google it, I can’t do everything for you.

Circus circus is dull dull
3:55 PM May 5th from txt

Found good shumai. Wonder if they deliver
5:34 PM May 5th from txt

I think I’ll…(pause, smirk, head tilt) *tweet*
7:12 PM May 5th from txt

Pre-show women pretending to be cats and crawling around staring at patrons (go away!)
8:01 PM May 5th from txt

Went to a show called Ignite that was…eh. Well, you could appreciate the work they were putting into it, anyway, but partially it featured old magic tricks that I am surprised anyone is doing anymore. (woman being “covered” by sheet, and then mysteriously floating, and then pulling away the cover and she’s magically disappeared? seriously?) But before the show there were cat women doing that hassle-the-audience thing. One had just come over to start commenting on Debb’s hair, but she was saved by the bell as the show started just then.

Trump Tower is as golden as His flaxen Mane, renewed fortnightly
12:58 AM May 6th from txt

Oh, wanted to try a do-over, forgot:
Trump Tower is as golden as His flaxen Mane, renewed fortnightly on His dazzling Scalp with silken thread by His disposable girlfriends

Ten bucks on the Lions at 80:1 for Dave — vegas says thanks for the tip
10:14 AM May 6th from txt

I did not know that pickup usual limos existed
11:06 AM May 6th from txt

Oh huh…that was supposed to be, “pickup Ford limos”, wasn’t watching my auto-entry there.

Me: Steve, should I play your last $20? Steve: hell no, bring that home
12:25 PM May 6th from txt

Going through Dallas to get home, Debb and I sitting apart from each other, blah
12:59 PM May 6th from txt

Well, twitter’s done one useful thing for me — kept me from forgetting my phone on the plane
3:51 PM May 6th from txt

True. I left it in the front pocket and would totally forgotten it unless I’d had the urge to twitter something.

Making funny faces at your wife across the airplane aisle is received oddly by the guy next to her
4:51 PM May 6th from txt

The airport Taco Bell table at which we ate was judged “LEAST CRUDDY”by Entertainment Weekly
6:11 PM May 6th from txt

Home landing delayed due to Chicago storms; going home to our personal basement aqua-slots where jackpot is “nothing”
8:26 PM May 6th from txt

I’ve found it’s easier on my nerves if I just don’t look forward when my taxi’s on the highway
8:49 PM May 6th from txt

I an amused by the remnants of bad 80′s company name trends
8:55 PM May 6th from txt

I took the Accenture picture because I thought it was funny that their touchscreen thing wasn’t working, especially in such a prominent location…but then I realized that they probably turned it off because of the dumbass swine flu scare, so they didn’t have all random people smearing their DNA all over it.

Home. The damages: about $150 in gambling losses, walking-forever-blisters, slightly bored-cat-scratched rug
9:41 PM May 6th from web

Still, whatever, it’s kind of fun. I always liked the guitar in Sunshine Of Your Love, so I looked forward to that. A couple songs like Hit Me With Your Best Shot and Welcome To The Jungle are a lot more fun to play than they are to listen to. I am surprised to find I like more straight rock than I’d thought.

However, odd thing happened while I was going through Easy mode and got down to One by Metallica. I had like an emotional reaction to it—or hm, no, that’s how I described it at the time, but it’s not quite right. I had maybe a pride reaction. Or honor? Anyway, it just felt wrong to play it on easy. It deserved more. I just cancelled it mid-song and picked a different one.

I was having a difficult time with “medium”, and you have to get through a number of songs before you can get down to the part where One is available to you. But I bludgeoned my way through it just so I could get down to One again and put some effort into it that it deserves.

I don’t even like Metallica all that much. I am fascinated by this reaction in myself, and as self-analysis is my lifelong hobby, I expect to mull this over a fair bit.