Thoughts From An Empty Head

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Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Break-Up Songs
2009-03-13 17:52:00
Simple Together by Alanis Morissette Hurt by Johnny Cash Live With Me by Massive Attack
More About: Songs , Break Up , Break

Scars
2009-02-23 19:44:00
damaged by Dawn Simon (Dawn Ashley) Worst scars:* Ripped the skin and upper muscle layer on my left hand when I was six or seven. The trail of blood and screaming up the four flights of stairs to my grandmother's apartment made it impossible to watch scary movies ever again.* Took a long nail to each kneecap when I was twelve. Chased my stupid mutt out on the porch, where Pop had taken apart pieces of the railing and told us, in on uncertain terms, NOT to walk around. Fell down on my knees and became attached to a 2x4. I don't remember how the board was removed.* Deep inch-long scar on my right ring-finger where I punched a plate glass window. $300 later, I learned that anger has a price.
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Letters from Texas
2007-07-03 03:37:00
ED: Holy crap! Someone gave my brother a laptop and webcam! He's gonna end making a movie with lonelygirl15 before you know it.
More About: Texas , Letters

I've Changed My Address
2007-07-01 23:09:00
And just when I was getting this place the way I like it, too.Yeah, I finally bit the bullet and moved the blog over to silas216.com. I'm still transitioning everything, but that's where I'll be from now on.I really liked Blogger, but it's time I moved on.
More About: Address , Chang , Chan

Still Alive
2007-06-30 09:12:00
Barely, anyway.I'm working on something new, so I won't be around for a bit. But I'm very excited about it, so posts will be few in the coming days.Laters.
More About: Alive

I Love Mika Brzezinski
2007-06-28 07:49:00
I seriously love this woman more than I can properly express.Oh, yeah, and Scarborough and other dude on the show, sniffing the news reports? Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.technorati tags: Mika Brzezinski , Paris Hilton, MSNBC, news
More About: Love , Mika Brzezinski

One More Thing
2007-06-28 07:37:00
So, yeah, one other thing about the new job and all the other stuff going on - it means I'm not going to post as often as I want to, either. No more memes for a while.That really bugs me, because I genuinely love writing. But something has got to give, and in this case, I like having a roof over my head and food in my belly a little bit more than blogging.So, if I don't post for a few days, I'm not dead. Just thinking.
More About: Thing

The Night Janitor Cometh
2007-06-28 07:19:00
Today, I'm swinging the axe. I've started deleting feeds from my reader.I really didn't want to do this, but the idea of coming home every day to 1200 items and only a few hours to do anything about them - well, that idea exhausts me greatly. So I've started clearing out the ones I only kinda-sorta follow.Not the way I wanted to do this, but I really need my sleep.In other news, the new job goes quite well. I started a new assignment that's only slated to go two to four weeks, but this one could go for quite a good deal longer, which would suit me down to the ground, as I have a nice group of people to work with.Three more weeks, and Joel and Ruth (and Celeste, though she won't make much of an appearance - I hope) will be here. Which will be nice, since I promised Ruth that she would be paying a visit to the San Diego Zoo. It will also be quite painful for me, since I bought my niece the first in a long line of Winnie the Pooh items that's sure to drive Ruth crazy. Ruth...
More About: Night , Comet

This Time, I Didn't Forget the Gravy
2007-06-27 07:49:00
There are currently 413 feeds in my feed reader.You never quite realize how many of those feeds pile up until you come home from a hard day away from the internet (note to self: there are jobs out there that actually require that you stay off the net all day; we hate those jobs) and find 1,245 news items staring you in the face and only four hours before you go to bed.It's moments like these that make me wonder if my constant exasperation these past two days at the enormity of the task is just a case of me getting too old for this stuff anymore, or if I genuinely amazed that I managed to spend most of the last two years in job assignments designed to give me lots of spare time to browse the net.To be sure, no employer will tell you that you have a job that leaves you with vast sums of time to yourself and a (mostly) open internet port that allows you to wallow in minutiae to your hearts content. Good God, there is no employer that foolish. And yet, I've spent the better part of...
More About: Time , Forge , The G , Gravy

The Good Stuff from Last Night
2007-06-27 07:42:00
Way late, but I've been busy.Stewart Colbert technorati tags: Stewart, Colbert, video, funny
More About: Stuff , Night , Good

Crashing and Burning in the Off-Ramp
2007-06-27 03:38:00
I am very tired right now. I am seriously contemplating taking a dip in the pool, if for no other reason that the sight of me in trunks will freak out the neighborhood kids and make them run home screaming for their mamas, thus ensuring that the pool is mine for the night.Still, the past two days have been rather interesting.On the positive side, I've been working, which doesn't seem all that great until one realizes that working beats not working any day of the week. This job may have been physically taxing, but at least I got some exercise, not to mention how nice the morning walks to the Starbucks across the parking lot have been. And I have another job for at least the next two to four weeks, so I'll able to eat for the next month, at least. On the negative side, every single muscle in my back and legs is telling me that I went fifteen rounds with Godzilla. I have over 900 feed items waiting for me once again in the old reader. And it looks like blogging during the week...
More About: Burning , Shin , The O , Burn

Rape Is Not Funny
2007-06-27 03:00:00
It's been bugging me since it started, and now I'm full on angry.Melissa's blog went down under a denial of service attack four days ago. What was the thing that offended so many hacker idiots out in the wilds of the internet? The idea that rape is not funny, of course.I've struggled to come up with a proper rebuttal, something to properly express my anger and dismay at my friend taking another hit from brain-damaged trolls who think that slamming a person's website or e-mailing her death threats is a proper response to the reasonable idea that it is profoundly wrong to force a person to engage in sex against their will. And, at the end of the day, I can think of no better way to honor the brave stance of my friend Melissa than by reproducing here the offending post. Judge for yourselves if her pain is deserved.Rape is Hilarious: Jerry Seinfeld Editionby Melissa McEwanAnd not just hilarious, but sophisticated:Jerry Seinfeld is busy building buzz for his ?Bee Movie.?? ?Bees have...
More About: Funny , Shakespeare

Your Moment of Lunchtime Depression
2007-06-26 21:48:00
I'm sitting outside at Wahoo's, reading Artyam Borovik's THE HIDDEN WAR. Written in 1990, this first-hand account concerns the Soviet Union's ill-fated decision to invade Afghanistan in 1979 and how that decision destroyed that country. I've only finished the introduction, but if you changed the politicians' names and the locale from Afghanistan to Iraq, it could have been written today, right down to the passage about how the war would go much better "if only we can add another twenty or thirty thousand men".I wonder if this place serves vodka.
More About: Depression , Moment

Monday Night Jam
2007-06-26 08:45:00
900+ feed items? Bah. I need my sleep.*hits the MARK ALL ITEMS AS READ button*seal, prayer for the dyingtori amos, silent all these years [live]lunascape, mindstalking [live]technorati tags: video, music, YouTube
More About: Night , Monday , Onda

One Web or the Other
2007-06-26 07:32:00
The BBC reports that there seems to be a cultural and racial divide between users of Facebook and Myspace. It quotes the research of Danah Boyd, who puts the argument thusly:The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who ar...
More About: The Other , The O

Rabid Wolverine
2007-06-26 06:54:00
Whoa.WWE wrestler Chris Benoit, his wife, and son were found dead Monday and police said they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide.Detective Bo Turner told television station WAGA that the case was being treated as a murder-suicide, but said that couldn't be confirmed until evidence was examined by a crime lab.The station said that investigators believe the 40-year-old Benoit killed his wife, Nancy, and 7-year-old son, Daniel, over the weekend, then himself on Monday. A neighbor called police, and the bodies were found in three rooms.Via the Engine.technorati tags: Benoit, WWE, murder
More About: Wolverine , Erin

Playing Catch-Up
2007-06-26 04:46:00
Catching up on the weekend stuff that I really wanted to blog about, had I not been too sleepy from a trip to the Olive Garden on Sunday (sloth, thy name is tiramisu):Bill O'Reilly, pwned. You know that kid got under his skin when Captain Falafel whips out the "pinhead" blast. Congrats to Jesse Lange for making my day.Condi Rice says that the world has failed Darfur. That's a little like being lectured on the evils of drug use by a meth addict. Heckuva job, Condi.The Houston Chronicle notes that only four percent of Mexican households have cable TV and 19 percent of the population uses the Internet. Duh. Have you seen Mexican TV? More sex and violence than HBO on a Friday night. And all the really good novelas already come on teh old school broadcast TV, so who would be stupid enough to spend perfectly good money on cable? As for the 19% of the population who use the internet, that would be the segment of the population made of young people and gringos e-mailing back to t...
More About: Catch , Shirley Bassey

Writing the Second Act
2007-06-26 03:41:00
What a day. No internet. Tons of files. My muscles are clearly not happy.And now begins the second part of the day: all the blogging stuff I've been sitting on since yesterday.I will sleep well tonight, I think.
More About: Writing , Econ

Monday Morning All Over Again
2007-06-25 08:41:00
Programming note: I'm gonna be at a new job in the morning, so it's very likely that I won't post anything until I get home tomorrow evening. (And the new job does not entail tracking down and dispensing hot, gravylicous justice a la Chow Hound to whoever is responsible for jamming up Melissa's blog. That job, I would do for free.)Just saying, in case anyone wonders where I went.
More About: Morning , Monday , Onda , Monday Morning

"War Is America's Way of Learning Geography"
2007-06-24 23:15:00
It's been a few weeks since I gave CNN the long kiss goodnight. I wonder how things have been over at "The Most Trusted Name in News" since I left.CNN Gets Lost Looking For AfghanistanSo. Not much has changed, I see.Via Chet, from whom I shamelessly borrowed the title of this post.technorati tags: CNN, geography, Afghanistan
More About: Learning , Geography , Graph , Earning

Gainfully Employed For the Moment
2007-06-23 07:48:00
Today, at lunch, I got the phone call that I have been waiting for. (No, it wasn't the one from Jane Monheit asking me to meet her for lunch.) Stacy, one of my headhunter contacts, called me to let me know that I would have to wake up bright and early on Monday morning, because she had found something short-term for me not too far away from my former job.Yeah, my former job. Today was my last day at the help desk.It couldn't have come at a better time. I learned quite a bit while manning a phone, chief of which was the fact that I am not meant to take a help desk position of any kind. I just don't have the patience or temperament to listen to people's problems with their computers all day. So it's best that I find something else.Not that it was all bad. I liked the crew I found myself with, and I managed to make a one-month assignment last for a whole year. Now I just need to find something to help either fix or replace my car, and I'll be sitting pretty for a while.To...
More About: Moment

Friday Night Jam
2007-06-23 03:47:00
It's Frida y . One job ends, and today I found out that another one begins next week. So much for sleeping in late on Monday.Oh, well, let the weekend begin.lenny kravitz, are you gonna go my waymaxwell, ascensionojos de brujo, corre lola corretechnorati tags: video, music, YouTube
More About: Night

A Pill for Everything
2007-06-22 22:23:00
Sometimes, science is a wonderful thing.For instance:A British company has developed an insulin pill that may provide better control of diabetes symptoms than daily insulin injections.The company Diabetology said it has found a way to enclose the insulin in a capsule that resists stomach acids and passes intact into the small intestine, where it dissolves. The insulin is then transported to the liver, where the body uses it as needed, The Times of London said Friday.A Cardiff University team found that an oral dose taken before breakfast and before dinner controlled glucose levels successfully in 16 patients with type 2 diabetes.Good news indeed. Having diabetic family members, I can attest to the brilliance of this medical breakthrough.Then again, sometimes science just misses the mark.Indian scientists have patented two new tea-based products -- a pill and a fizzy drink they hope will give consumers the same pleasure as drinking a freshly brewed cuppa.A four-member team based in ...
More About: Thing

Top Five On Friday ? Week 129
2007-06-22 20:18:00
Skynatalie merchant, come take a trip in my airshipbeth orton, concrete skynick drake, northern skymoby, the sky is brokenenya, paint the sky with starstechnorati tags: Music Memoirs, music, meme, Frida y
More About: Week , Five

The Good Stuff from Last Night
2007-06-22 20:09:00
StewartColbert technorati tags: Stewart, Colbert, video, funny
More About: Stuff , Night , Good , Stewart

Old School Sports
2007-06-22 19:57:00
Now this is old school. These don't have any audio, but they are still a kick nonetheless.Chicago Bears vs. Chicago Cardinals, 1929Yes, those stadiums that they are playing in are Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field.Chicago Blackhawks, 1929Via the Fanhouse.technorati tags: football, hockey, Chicago, YouTube
More About: Sports , School , Old School , Spor

Fear and Loathing at the Carnival
2007-06-22 17:08:00
OK, this brought back some bad memories.A girl's feet were cut off Thursday when a free-fall thrill ride malfunctioned at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.A cord wrapped around the 16-year-old's feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the "Superman Tower of Power," a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.Not that I've actually lost any limbs in a theme park ride, but there has always been this fear that something bad is about to happen when I get on them. Which is why I haven't been on a roller coaster since the turn of the millennium. Well, that and the fact that I am truly too large to go on most rides anymore.John Rogers notes his own fear of the shaky rides:The queasiness of my irrational fear's sudden gripping return is leavened somewhat by the "ah-ha" of "I KNEW it", but it's a hollow moment. A bit like your irrational fear of zombies being validated by the appearance of actual zomb...
More About: Carnival , Fear , Fear and Loathing , Oath , Thing

Master Blogger
2007-06-22 06:33:00
OK, someone's been tooting on the cigaweed.SAP --[noun]:A master blogger'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.comVia the Cap'n, who is all right, for a pirate.
More About: Blogger , Master , Logger , Blogg , Mast

Thursday Night Jam
2007-06-22 01:30:00
One more day, and then I rejoin the ranks of the unemployed.Or, as we in the temp business like to call it, "between assignments".the little willies, easy as the rainmono, life in monosarah mclachlan, good enoughAnd one more for the road, straight from the comic book bar.technorati tags: video, music, YouTube
More About: Night , Thursday

Jazzed Up Over the News
2007-06-21 23:31:00
Captain Falafel has a problem with NBC News : they talk too much about dead kids killed in wartime by US forces.But last night, all three network newscasts reported seven Afghan children were killed in fighting between the Taliban and U.S. forces. ABC News spent 15 seconds on the story, just told you about it. CBS News, 10 seconds. But NBC News gave it a full two minutes. Dead Afghan kids killed in an American air strike, NBC News is jazzed. But why? You make the call.I can understand his anger. How long has it been since Brian Williams did serious reporting about Middle Eastern snack foods or bathroom hygiene products?Seriously, though, US forces kill seven kids in Afghanistan, and his biggest problem is that NBC talked about it too long? What a clown.Of course, there was no way that this loofah-wielding weirdo would go unchallenged.This just in: BEARS!!!!technorati tags: O'Reilly, news, Iraq, stupidity
More About: The News