Merril and I have really hit it off. We just started learning Ruby together. I want to do some scripting of Sketchup, maybe make a program to generate random town and village maps for RPGs. He wants to get up to speed fast and then we'd write a book about it. It's so new, there aren't really that many books out yet.

Jenny is a little miffed at him. He's a little misogynistic. Or rather, he's afraid of women and a bit insecure. He can't stand the fact that she can beat him at games like Rummikub. I think smart women attract but frighten him at the same time. He's also a little bit bigoted. We had to let him know that he can't go around assuming people are less intelligent based on their race, at least not if he wants to hang out with us.

Jenny is at the point where she wants the relationship to be about more than just sex. He's still getting his mind blown every time. She really is the best I've ever had. It's very rewarding having sex with a girl who can have internal vaginal orgasms in less than ten minutes, pretty much every time. Plus, she knows how to move, how to show you that she really, really likes it. And she's a screamer, which is great if you like aural sex.

But she's at the point where she wants him to open up to her a little bit, or at least give some token that he likes her for more than just sex. I tried to tell him that he's on a little bit shaky ground on Monday. I didn't tell her, just went over at lunch and said, "You know, she's a little sad. Maybe It's just PMS, but she could use some cheering up. I think she'd like to know that you like her for more than just sex. Maybe some flowers? $5.99 at Albertson's, it's on the way."

Did he show up with flowers? Of course not. If he had, I wouldn't have told her, but we were processing the next day and she brought up her fears and insecurities again, so I felt I had to give her that additional data point. Now, if it was me, I'd be in big trouble for treating her like he does. But he's got a big dick, and evidently that is a "get out of the doghouse, free" card. Sigh.

So, a little bigoted, a little misogynistic, and scared of real intimacy. Another fixer-upper. A friend of ours told us that some friends of his who had started up a polyamory group here were trying to get it back together. We're definitely going to check that out. Sure, there are messed up people in poly circles, too. But in the ones I've been involved with, there was always a core group of really solid, open, honest, and fun people without too many problems or hangups.

But Merril is definitely worth a little effort. You can't change other people, but you can give them both incentive and help in changing themselves. I think Merril wants to change, I mean, who really wants to be scared of intimacy? Connecting with other humans on a heart to heart level is, to me, one of the very best things in life.

As I write this, there's a hooker mopping my kitchen floor.

It's been such a peaceful week! No crazy women driving me crazy, no roommates, no drama, just me and my books, beer, and my daughter's cats. Sweet solitude!

I was bored out of my mind and lonely as hell.

Monday night the phone rang around eight. It was Danny, calling from Farley's, drunk on his ass. "Come get me and I'll get you high!" Ok, I haven't had any reefer in a while so I went and got him. Of course, he didn't have any but needed somebody to help him cop. What the hell, I copped for him and we smoked the bong and drank some beer, and I took him home.

If you have a drunk and rowdy friend, feed him some reefer and he'll calm right down. I took him home about ten, and went home myself and crashed.

Tuesday night was equally peaceful. A single phone call, from Kelly. Sweet sweet Kelly with the voice that makes the angels themselves jealous. If she ever gets a 900 phone number and opens a sex chat line she'll become wealthy beyond Bill Gates' dreams. Damn but I'd love to get intimate with her.

She's very physically attractive, too. Not as drop-dead georgeous as the ten years younger than her Amy, but pretty damned good looking. The contrast is, Amy has a voice that's been abused by whiskey and cigarettes, and sounds like Homer Simpson's sisters. Or is that Marge's sisters? Not to be confused with Homer's brother's wife.

She asked me to take her out! Not Gail Simpson, I don't even know her. I mean Kelly. So I have a hot date tomorrow with the good looking ladylike Kelly and her beautiful sexy voice, and I'm thinking "wow! I have a date with Kelly, whose getting divorced, and there are no roommates or crazy women here! WooHoo! Maybe I'll finally get lucky!"

Yesterday I wasted a bunch of time at slashdot, and discovered that if you have excellent karma you can only post fifty comments in a day, including the thirty replies to comments waiting in the "slashdot message center" you invariably get when most of your comments are rated three to five (+3, interesting. +5 funny). So I could only respond to half of them.

I submitted a journal predicting the doom of civilization as we know it (civilization as my grandfather knew it was also doomed, and died sometime around my birth) to the front page, where it will languish in the firehose for a couple of days and get utterly dejectingly rejected. I submitted Group Plans to Bring Martian Sample to Earth which was at the top of the front page this morning. First one I've submitted in quite some time that wasn't rejected, but hell, with my women problems, "rejected" is my middle name. Like I mentioned in my last diary-type journal Asses, asses, all fall down (my hand is still sore from my slip on the ice), just when I was five minutes from doing it with Crazy Debbie, Amy, who was on the couch sleeping, started snoring. "Debbie remarks that I'm a player, that I have all these girlfriends" as I wrote in that blagh, and all of a sudden I was undesireable. Rejection! Rejection! Rejection! Nudge nudge know what I mean? Know what imeem [parody error 654, out of bounds]

But at least you guys love me, you posted the IMARS thing.

Right before lunch Amy calls, she's going to be there at lunch. I went to lunch, no Amy. Damn, I wanted my spare keys back, as she's been home maybe three times in the last month, all at the exactly right time to keep me from getting laid. She calls again after lunch and says she'll be there after I get off work. I get offf work, no Amy. So I decided to go to Farley's for a beer, and Amy's friend Shawna was there. She hadn't seen Amy since the three of us had drank at the Firehouse last weekend. Shawna says she's going to call me.

Yeah. Right. Ok. Not only that but I'm going to find a winning lottery ticket on the ground, too. And a Nigerian princess is going to make me rich. And a beautiful twenty five year old Russian girl is going to fly to Springfield and marry me.

I leave to go home, stop by the gas station for beer, and the phone rings as I'm walking out of the store. It's "Julia" (not her real name), the hooker with the boyfriend that doesn't know she's a prostitute. Uh, I think maybe he might know now, because she's very distraught; her boyfriend who she's been living with for two or three years threw her out and won't even speak to her. And of course she's too distraught to have sex with me.

Three weeks ago when she had a boyfriend she was willing to have sex for the fifty bucks I was too cheap to spend but now that she doesn't have a boyfriend she won't. Not even for rent; she wants to crash at my house for a few days... and I have that date with Kelly tomorrow. Shit, Kelly will probably stand me up anyway. The ones that don't reject me outright stand me up.

I need a good woman to keep me away from all these bad ones, but I finally have women figured out. The good girls are only attracted to the bad boys so they can rehabilitate them, while the bad girls are attracted to the nice guys they can use and abuse.

Right before the alarm clock went off this morning Amy showed up. She wants me to take her to the hospital after work if she's not feeling any better because she lost her Zoloft a few days ago so she's suicidal now. But after talking with the hooker and me for a while as I'm drinking my coffee, and after listening to me whine about never getting laid and how I'm surely going to be cockblocked again tomorrow night, assuming Kelly doesn't stand me up, she gets cheered up a bit.

Probably because she's going to have another chance to cockblock me again. Women are evil, and men are stupid. And I'm the dumbest man on the planet.

I often see articles at slashdot about The Future of [X} and I invariably ask in a comment "where do I go to get my PhD in Futurism?" The fact, of course, is that nobody holds a PhD in futurism. Futurism is no more real than astrology, Tarot, or divining tea leaves. I've been listening to these guys all my fifty five year long life and haven't once heard a single prediction pan out.

As a nerd, I read and watched as much science fiction as I could get my hands on. The SF writers were inaccurate, but far more accurate than the futurists. The 21st century was "the future" and I find myself in an Asimov novel; or rather, an Orwell or some other dystopian writer's novel. But I'm now living in the science fiction I read as a young person.

I remember when Star Trek first hit the small black and white (in my house anyway) screen. Self-opening doors, voice activated computers with flat screens, communicating devices like telephones that you just spoke someone's name into to connect to them, shuttles that would ferry people and cargo into outer space and back, these were pure fantasy. Nobody would ever see such things; not in our lifetimes, anyway.

In at least one respect we've passed Star Trek. In one of the movies it's middle-aged Kirk's birthday, and McCoy gives him a pair or antique reading glasses because Kirk's allergic to whatever eyedrops they have in the 23rd century that softens the middle aged eye's focusing lens. Never mind that we now have medicines that can alleviate just about any allergy, McCoy had no surgical procedure that would cure age-related farsightedness.

I had the occluded lens in my left eye replaced by an implant that moves with the natural movement of that eye's focusing muscle, which cured the cataract caused by steroid eye drops, my extreme nearsightedness and astigmatism, and my age related farsightedness. I no longer need corrective lenses at all! I still occasionally wear a contact lens in my right eye, but any more I leave it naked more often than not. My doctor did for me what Dr. McCoy couldn't do for Captain Kirk (see Behind my sig for details).

There was no way for a "futurist" to predict the implant in my eye, which was approved by the USFDA in 2003. Nor for a futurist to predict the internet, or cell phones, or microwave ovens, CDs, DVDs, or any of the other scientific and engineering advances that I have seen in my lifetime.

However, the futurists predicted many things would happen by the year 2000. In "The Population Bomb" one futurist predicted world wide famine and starvation by the 21st century. It didn't happen. Hunger today, unlike all other times in history, is a purely political problem. We nerds won; advances in agriculture, horticulture, and engineering have eliminated all hunger not brought about by political upheval. There is now plenty of food. Only politics and greed cause hunger today.

Another predicted that the rate of change was advancing so quickly that by the 21st century we would all be insane, and the rock band King Crimson picked up on this meme in their song 21st Century Schitzoid Man. However, even though there are a lot of nuts where I live, there don't seem to be any more than there ever were. People have adapted to cell phones and the internet and the other things the futurists never predicted quite nicely.

But I'm still waiting for my self-driving, flying car.

Just as someone in 1950 could be a computer scientist without a degree in computer science due to the fact that he was actually doing practical computer science, and that the computer had only been patented three years earlier, I see no reason why I can't pontificate any better than the self-styled futurists, who are invariably wrong. I've lived in the past, I now live in the future. As the future is now, I have direct experience with it, far more experience with the future than a computer scientist in 1950 had with computers.

The theme I have in mind is the Star Trek replicator. Not only am I predicting it, I'm going to discuss how such a device will work, as well as its sociopolitical implications.

A quick google search attempting to find a New Scientist article I saw about a self-assembling robot didn't find the NS article for me, but it did lead to instructions on how to build your own. Advances in miniaturization come every day; we can now build microscopic power supplies. It will surely not be long before advances in miniaturization, nanotechnology, and computer science allow microscopic robots capable of not only building copies of themselves from raw molecules, but copies of anything at all!

In the future, everything but food will be made of microscopic robots linked together. Food itself may be made by these robots. You will have your Star Trek "holodeck" only it won't use holograms; it will be nanoscopic robots, linked together by the billions, that will project images and reconfigure their matrixes at will to whatever you (or your overlords) want them to be.

You may live in a ten by ten foot cube that appears to be the whole universe to you, and you will have no way of telling that you are not in fact outside, but imprisoned in your little cell, never meeting another real human, but interacting with robotic simulations that you will believe are human.

It may get to the point that whoever is in charge (and there have always been power-hungry busybodies) will control your reproduction, with a robotic humanoid that is indistinguishable from a human collecting your semen for whatever mate they deem most appropriate, or taking semen collected from a male in this manner and artificially inseminating you with it from the robot you think is your husband. The child you think you are raising may well be a little robot, while the real child is brought up by the robots with whatever ethics the overlords wish.

If someone finds that they are in a robot society, they may try to hack the system. They may be killed for their troubles; in fact, anyone might be killed at any time and nobody would know, since nobody will really be interacting with real humans, only robotic copies of them.

If you thought the internet revolution shook the foundations of the Imaginary Property crowd, who make books, films (which are of course no longer on film), and music, what is this going to do to the physical property crowd? Like with IP, you will have the megarich trying to pass laws and lawsuits against progress, and most likely will be successful at it. If you think the IP crowd causes problems for creative people and the creative crowd's customers, imagine what's going to happen when all property except land is imaginary?

If you are young, you may live to see it. If your children aren't born yet, they surely will. If we solve the problems caised by the likes of the RIAA, IFPA, MPAA and other IP organizations now, our future will be a lot less rocky. The problem is, in my over half century of nerdily smirking at my fellow huimans, seldom do I ever see a rich person who isn't overwhelmingly a greedy, selfish, power hungry busybody.

How will we get out of this mess?

I've decided to fold up a twenty dollar bill and put it in my wallet next to the condom, because once again I would have gotten laid but didn't, this time I didn't because I needed twenty bucks I didn't have.

I think my problems with women stem from the fact that I'm in Springfield. All the women I know here are cartoons. Take my roommate Amy, for example. When she had her face rebuilt after her ex-husband tried to kill her, her surgeons were very skilled indeed - too skilled. And her body is a caraciture of a beautiful female body as well; she's a few pounds overweight but very shapely, with a thin waist. She reminds me of the receptionist in the old '70s TV show taxi, except she's brunette, not blonde. That itself is a cartoonish coincidence because Amy drives a cab.

I mentioned Tami, who had been staying with me for a while because her husband, who is an alien, was fighting with her.

"Yeah" you're thinking, "now it's aliens on slashdot. McGrew's either writing rediculous fiction or he's out of his mind."

Well, it gets even crazier. She's 42, and every nerd knows the signifigance of forty two.

Her husband is from Peru, rather than Alpha Centauri as most nerds might expect an alien to be from, here on a green card. The fellow is 27 years old, which has Tami often wondering if he just married her to get into this country. I think "duh, wondering?" No way in hell I'd gone after a fat forty two year old woman when I was 27! Hell, most fat forty two year olds turn me off now, and I'm 55 (shut up, you Hagar fans, I can too drive).

Well, anyway, I was feeling a little better Friday afternoon, but maybe not quite well enough for the copious amounts of alcohol the girls were planning on pouring down my throat. It was a good thing, too because by late evening it was very hard to drive.

I should have told the girls "no thanks" but I'm a fool when it comes to women, even married women like Tami who I wouldn't fuck, or Amy who won't get it on with me because she's in love with her boyfriend and besides, I'm a geezer. When I do something stupid and someone asks me "are you addicted to crack or something?" I say "yeah, the crack between a woman's legs!"

So of course when Amy called and said that she'd had some dumbass from New York get a round trip cab ride to St Louis and back, and left her a huge tip as well and she and Tami were partying at Farleys come on down I did. One beer wouldn't hurt too much...

She didn't tell me how huge the tip had been. Amy had been looking for a car, but that was going to be after she got her nursing license back. Well, she paid off the child support and got the license back, and put five hundred bucks down on a 1997 Blazer, which she still owed five hundred on. It started sprinkling; freezing raid had been forecast.

One of the hookers I knew had seen Amy in the bar, and sold her the Blazer. The lady who sold her the car was way out of my price range. Hell, I've gotten laid for the price of a Budweiser befpre, I'm not paying that much even if I could afford it (and I couldn't anyway). Well, this one is one of the few I know who has a pimp, maybe that's why they get pimps. Maybe the pimps get bigger fees for them, I don't know.

But any way, the hooker had a job lined up so after a beer Amy and Tami wanted me to drive them and the pimp to the blazer so Amy could pick it up. He was a personable fellow, I liked the guy. So Tami and I drop Amy and the pimp off at the car and go to my house, where Amy is supposed to meet us. We stop and get beer on the way, and Amy shows up a while later with her new car and a bottle of her favorite cheap rotgut.

Amy's boyfriend had gotten tickets to the comedy club, and Tami had talked them into letting her go along. So about seven o'clock they go to Tami's to put on their makeup and whatever. I cook and eat a hamburger with thoughts of trolling the bars in search of mindless sex. Yeah, I write bad, don't I? Do you have visions of a hamburger that has thoughts of trolling the bars for mindless sex? "Time flies when you're having fun" but why would you want to time flies, especially when you're having fun? Give me that fly's water!

Before I could get out the door, it knocks and its bell rings. Amy and Tami came in. Amy looks mad and Tami's in tears. The spaced alien had locked her out; well, she had keys but he'd pushed a couch up against the door. All the lights were out, and it was obvious that he had a woman in there. Tami had been ready to kick the window in and commit the kind of felony that would have had her in prison for life, but Amy had talked her out of it. "I just want to catch the son of a bitch in the act. I have to. It's the only way I can let him go!"

"Damn", I'm thinking, "it's been so peaceful all week!" It looked like I was going to have two roommates again. They composed themselves, fixed up their makeup the best thay could, and left for the comedy club. I was a bit inebriated so I took off walking south, to the bar on Stanford. It was a good think I left the car, because it was slick.

The place was full of women, and I nerdily couldn't think of anything to say to any of them. I drank two beers and walked home. It was still raining, and the sidewalks were slick. I managed to get home without falling on my ass. About twenty minutes later the doorbell rings; it's Amy's boyfriend. "Are Amy and Tami here?" he asks.

"Huh?" I say. "No, I thought they were with you."

"They were, they were supposed to meet me at your house. And I went all the way home," he said (he's a NEWT), "and fed the dog and a few other things, and drove all the way down here!" I live at the south end of town. "Where the hell are they?" He was angry.

"They'll be here", I said. "Harley locked Tami out, they don't have anywhere else to go."

He has a little pot so we hit his hitter while we waited. They eventually showed up, we hit a few more and Amy went home with him. Tami and I drank, she crying on my shoulder until I was nearly ready to pass out, past the wee hours. It was probably only an hour or so from sunup when I went to bed.

Tami woke me up before nine wanting to start drinking again. I've never been a morning drinker and don't intend to start now... oh shit. Shades of my late grandfather on my mother's side, who, when my uncle installed a bathroom at Grandpa's house said "I did without indoor plumbing all my life and I don't need it now" and continued using his outhouse. Just shoot me now, ok?

By noon I let her convince me to go to the gas station for liquid refreshments. The steps were iced up and she slid down them on her ass. Amy and her BF would have to be back, as Amy had left her Blazer at my house. Sure enough they were there not long after, he dropping her off before going home.

Amy's had a rough life. After her ex tried to kill her she wound up in another abusive relationship that lasted for nine years, before the poor lunatic hung himself about a year ago. Yes, you've heard the expression "to die for" and yes, Amy's a really good looking broad. Too bad she's nutty as a fruitcake, but with the life she's lived it would be hard to remain sane.

At any rate, her ex is under suicide watch at the jail, and Amy's thinking of the poor bastard who hung himslef last year, she blames herself for his death and wants to do what she can to keep her first husband from repeating it. So she'd found that visiting hours were at 3:00, and I said I'd go up there with her. I wanted to visit Linda anyway, who's there for selling pot to America's KGB Secret Police.

If you have secret police you live in a police state. Welcome to the USSA.

We didn't make it to the courthouse; she made a phone call and found you had to be on a list, and she wasn't. I should call the jail and see if Linda's put me on her list.

So they decide they want to go to Farley's. Tami's not dressed (that didn't come out right; I mean she thought she wasn't presentable) and Amy wants to leave, Tami's going to ride with me. We get to Farley's and Amy buys me a beer, and needs to break a hundred. They don't have enough money in the till to break it, so she decides to go next door to the gay bar to cash her hundred. Tami and another woman I didn't know, Shawna, go with her. They're supposed to slam a shot and come back.

So I'm sitting in the bar by myself waiting for these damned women to come back from the gay bar, and there's no way I'm going in there. I hate it when some gayboy hits on me; it's happened at straight bars before and there's no way in hell I'm visiting the bar next door.

They come in and try to talk me into going to the gay bar and insist they're going. I get mad; damn it, they asked me to Farley's and no sooner do I get there than they leave. I tell them I'm going home, with a few choice expletitives. I mean, Jesus, ask someone to go to a bar with you and leave for a place you know full well they wouldn't go to dead as soon as he shows up, that's about as rude as you can get. So I go home.

It's only about 6:00 but I'd only had a few hours sleep the night before, and I'm not 25 any more, you know? I cook some sort of food or other and go to bed. I'm sleeping and the phone rings; it's Amy. Her new car is driving really wierd and making really strange noises and she wants me to come get her. She'd been supposed to meet her boyfriend at five, but had been drinking with Shawna at one of her friends'.

So I go to get her, and of course she's all upset that she'd forgotten about the date with her boyfriend, and was upset about her ex-husband, and is pretty much a mess. The streets are slicker than snakeshit. We stop by the gas station and I spend the last of my cash on gas, beer, whiskey, and a pizza. We go to my house and I call her boyfriend for her, leaving a voicemail explaining about the car breaking down and asking him to come get her. "She really needs you, man," I say.

I sit there sipping beer and the phone rings again. "Hi, Mom!" she exclaims. Turns out it wasn't really her mother, but an older friend of hers closer to my age. They make plans to go find a 3:00 bar and want me to drive. It's slick as hell and I've been drinking a little (but I think my BAC was less than .08, but who knows?) but two women want me to take them drinking, one damned good looking and one close to my age who I've not met, and the good looking one is going to pay, how can I refuse? Especially since I'm a fool when it comes to women.

I met "Mom," who it turned out was Shawna. She was real nice, and Amy bought our drinks while some 21 year old stranger bought hers. Must be nice to be a damned good looking woman. We dropped Shawna off at home and went home ourselves, she crashing on the couch and me in the back room.

I was awakened by the doorbell. I figured it was Tami, locked out of her house again. I was mistaken; it was Julia (not her real name), my thin, good looking hooker friend with the enormous fake boobies. She'd been flat chested in high school, her family had money, and they had silicone implants put in.

She'd run out of gas, she said, and was in trouble with her boyfriend because she should have had half a tank and it was on empty. "I'm desperate, I'll suck your dick for twenty dollars!"

One reason I haven't done it with her is because she charges too much; she normally wants fifty for missionary position and that's too much. Hell, "Cassie" (not her real name either) is only 27 and I only pay her twenty. Julia's in her forties (but looks damned good for her age).

I'm not into getting my cock sucked, because although it's better than nothing I'm a little bit too well endowed for a good cocksucking. But I could have gotten laid had I had the twenty in my pocket. I give her two bucks for 2/3 a gallon of gas, which should have gotten her home to the north end trailor she and her boyfriend share.

The poor sod doesn't know his girlfriend is a prostitute. I wonder what he'd think to know that the mouth he's kissing had some other guy's dick in it an hour before he stuck his tongue in it?

While she's there, Amy's boyfriend calls wanting to talk to her, and he's pissed. Someone had told him they saw Amy leaving Farley's with some other guy. I can't get the unconscious Amy to wake up and tell him I'll have her call when she wakes up.

Julia fell and hit her head on the way to the car, got up, and drove off. I went back to bed.

I was awakened by the door and yelling. Amy was in there arguing with her boyfriend. I went back to sleep. When I got up I woke her up and asked if they were still together; apparently so, someone had been lying to him. She went back to sleep.

The doorbell rang; it was Julia again, still looking for gas money. I called a few friends asking if they wanted a hooker, but nobody was horney and not broke. So I guess now I'm a pimp, albeit a very unsucessful one. I thought maybe somebody at Farley's might be able to "help her out" so we went up there. It looked like it wasn't open yet, so I got out to see while she sat in the car. I fell on my ass and skinned my hand. It wasn't open, even though it normally opens at 7:00 but the sidewalks were still slick as hell, even though the streets were mostly OK by then. We went back to my house, she got in her boyfriend's car and drove home.

As I was getting ready to taka a shower and brush my teeth, the phone rang. It was Brian. Farley's had opened, he was there, , come on up and have a beer. I was going to go there anyway, I still had his jacket and old phone, so I said "sure."

As I was getting out of the shower it rang again. It was Crazy Debbie, what was I doing?

"Getting out of the shower, I'm headed to Farley's for a beer." A seventy five cent beer; I only had three or four bucks. "Want to come along?" What the fuck is wrong with me? Oh yeah - I haven't been laid in a while. Duh!

So I go to the hotel she and the other crazies live in, and sit in the car for ten minutes until it gets cold, since I can hardly knock on her door because she lives with her boyfriend. No Debbie. So I go on up to Farley's, get a beer, and give Brian his jacket back.

The phone rings - it's Debbie. "Where are you?" I told her I'd been there, I'd be back in fifteen minutes "and this time watch for me, ok?" I get her and this time she gets in the car, asking who had answered the phone when she'd called Saturday. I told her I was drinking with married Tami, she'd answered the phone while I was on the toilet.

We leave for my house, as she's got a wet coat that needs to go in the dryer. We're making out in the kitchen, my dick's starting to get hard, and I say let me put your coat in the dryer and we'll get comfortable.

Amy starts snoring. Debbie remarks that I'm a player, that I have all these girlfriends...

Damn! I have too many girlfriends. They all keep cockblocking each other.

I'll never get laid.

Offtopic Update 12/11/7
The beginning of this journal mentioned that I live in a cartoon city; well, a couple of weeks ago, the power plant here in Springfield blew up. I tried to find the original story doing a Google search but it appears to be too old to find.

At any rate, there was a huge explosion and a fire at one of the three generators.

I noticed an editorial cartoon about it today. Note the supberb artistry; Renfrow's image in the cartoon looks just like the photo on this page; Renfrow is the one on the right, partially in front of the giant check.

Here is a photo of Mayor Davlin I dug up from Google Images; it's on this page.

I don't know who the spokesman was in the cartoon, but Gail Simpson is an alderman here. I assume her brother in law is Homer.

And you all thought I was full of shit, talking about aliens and all!

Correction 1/8/9:
It wasn't Taxi with the georgeous receptionist, it was WKRP in Cincinnatti. Unlike Jennifer Marlowe, Amy is a brunette with brown eyes.

I'm working on a GURPS fantasy campaign set in an alternate Earth, Elizabethan era. I've done quite a bit of cartography with the Profantasy suite. It's quite nice, I've got the Fractal Terrains program, and the Campaign Cartographer with dungeon and city add ons. Some months ago I discovered Google Sketchup, a great free version of the Sketchup 3D modeling program used to create buildings in Google Earth. I've got a bunch of models uploaded to the 3D Warehouse site, including some very nice ship and castle models with detailed interiors.

The gist of the campaign is Harry Potter meets Master and Commander. I think the background I've developed is quite ingenious. Basically, Elves, who are more like the Tuatha De Danann than Tolkien's friendly, helpful Elves, invaded from faerie around 1400 years previously; conquered all the advanced races on the planet; instituted religious reform saying that all Gods were mere reflections of the Real, elven Gods; and taught a new system of magic while demonizing the old, spirit based magic. Then they mysteriously disappeared about four hundred years after their conquest was complete, leaving the world to fall into a dark age.

Now, it's a time of enlightenment. A new age of exploration begins, and the people of the island nation of Ghent are determined to outdo their continental neighbors, who currently have more colonies overseas, and a bigger navy. But the Ghentians have a secret weapon: ancient Elven ship building techniques have recently been recovered, and a new type of ship is being built in secret.

The campaign covers three chapters, and in each, players can keep their old characters or play new ones. The first chapter details the finding of the plans in an ancient elven citadel, intrigue in the secret ship yard where the first small prototype is being constructed, exploration of a forbidden Elven island, defeating the guardians and reactivating the old Elven technology found there, and finally, the building of the ship that will be the first to carry humans around the world. The players are a band of adventurers hired by a high placed agent of the Crown to help carry out these endeavors. They go on to help the agent enact the desires of the Queen on the voyage of discovery.

The second chapter involves the voyage itself, discovering new lands and new races, and gradually piecing together the mystery of the elves. The players can keep playing their old characters, or take on the role of midshipmen, mage's apprentices, rangers, or marines. The final chapter begins when the first voyage is complete, as a small fleet is launched to carry out diplomacy and open up trade with the newly discovered civilizations, the mystery is solved at last, and a major excursion into faerie is undertaken to break the last hold the Elves have over the world.

As the Elves were androgynous, assuming whatever form they desired at a whim, they never understood sexual roles in humans or other races and treated them all the same. They tended to use other races more like domesticated animals and never showed empathy or remorse, though they did show lust and possessiveness. They used the other races as fireball fodder in their wars of conquest.

They did not understand other races emotions, and used them sexually, leading to some very great societal differences between our world and that one. For one thing, the sexes are still equal, even after the disappearance of the Elves. For another, sexuality is quite a bit more open, but some strange and disturbing attitudes remain from the days of Elven subjugation.

Anyway, if you are into either RPGs or naval history you might want to download some of the ship models I've made and take a look. Some are realistic, others more fantastical. There are also some nice models of castles and towns.

Sketchup is free, and one of the most intuitive modeling programs I've used. Definitely worth the download. Some of my later hulls were designed using the free version of Delftship, with only the interiors and details added in Sketchup. Delftship is amazing, using subdivision surfaces which allow you to define most hulls using only a few control points, and then subdivide it into as many or as few polygons as you like. And it calculates all the important hydrodynamics, so you can figure out how well your hull would function.

I'll be putting up a site with more world background, maps, models, and pictures a bit later.

Tami was groaning in extasy, her huge legs wrapped around my back. I lay between her giant breasts, pumping hard, sweat drupping off our naked bodies. God but it had been so long! I was both in terrible pleasure and horribly ashamed, as Tami is married. But it had been so long I'd forgotten how good sex could be, even with a woman as grossly overweight as Tami. She panted and groaned in pleasure - and the phone rang.

Tami was on the other end of the line. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I was asleep. What's up?"

"I just got back from the store and it's really nasty out there. I wanted to see if you got home all right."

I was dripping with sweat, even though it was cold in there; I'd turned the heat down. No sooner did I get back to sleep when Tami's son's father, Danny, called. "Hey, can you make me a copy of that Road Rash CD?"

"Sure."

The Music And Film Industry Association of America (MAFIAA) scoundrels who haunt slashdot whenever there's a thread about the dreaded "piracy" are having cows if they're reading this right now, as are the scoundrels from the BSA (not the boy scouts; the software scoundrels), even though Road Rash is twelve years old and long out of "print".

But back to the adultery - damn. I can't get laid and I'm still guilty of adultery. I ought to just fuck her. Ya think? The last time I saw her husband he gave me some really, REALLY dirty looks. He thinks I'm fucking his wife. Everybody thinks I'm fucking his wife.

I think Amy hasn't been around for a while, because her boyfriend thinks I was fucking her. "Larry" (not his real name) hates me because he thinks I'm fucking his girlfriend "Samantha", especially after they got in a fight and she moved in with me for a few weeks last Spring before she went to jail for a traffic ticket - well, I was fucking her so I guess he had a good reason. Except that "Sam" is a hooker and "Larry" knows it. I tried to tell the poor fool it was stupid to fall in love with a prostitute, but nobody ever listens to me.

The steady girlfriend I had before Robyn, named Chris - well, her live-in boyfriend hates my guts too - but I was fucking his woman. He walked into Gloria's once when I was in there making out with her, and he got himself barred for threatening to kill me.

I'm not used to having guys be jealous of me. Damn, I lived over half a century without having a single man jealous, now they all are.

Back to Sam, if you're wondering how someone can go to jail for a traffic ticket, it's easy - just don't have monsy to pay the fine, and when they sentence you to community service in lieu of a fine, only serve half of the service because your mom's dying of cancer. That's what happened to "Sam".

Sam's mom was a prostitute in the old days, too, according to Sam. By the time I met her she was in cancer's end stages, but her drivers' license picture spooked me. It looked like my last steady girlfriend, Robyn. I haven't seen Robyn in months; she still has belongings stored in my basement. Tami said she saw Robyn a few weeks ago, and thinks she's dying from cirrhosis. I don't doubt that a bit, she drank so much she made Amy look like a teetotaler. Come to think of it, so did Chris, the GF I had before Robyn.

Shit, the only women who want to get serious with me are alcoholocs, psychopaths, and alcoholic psychopaths. Like Chris, and probably Debbie too if I hadn't been scared off by her resemblance to my ex-wife, who was also an alcoholic psychopath.

Sucks to be me. Be glad you're you.

The night before last I got off of work, determined to get laid. I have a bad habit of making friends with the hookers I meet, and it makes my buying their services uncomfortable for them. Johns mostly don't know it, but these girls hold them in even more contempt than most people hold prostitutes. They consider taking the money an act of greed, and the men fools for giving it up. The anti-choice busybodies who want to increase the penalties for soliciting and prostitution say that the prostitutes are victims, but ask a hooker what she thinks about it and she'll tell you it's the customers who are the victims.

Treat a whore like a whore and she'll act like a whore. Treat a whore like a lady and she doesn't know how to act. I take it that men like me, who treat them with respect and give them the dignity that all humans deserve, are so few and far between that when they find one, they treasure them.

But what the whores don't realise is that most guys treat all women like whores. Which is my problem, I guess - if I treated women like whores, I wouldn't have to buy whores. Why in the hell do I have to be such a nice guy? Shit!

Linda, my favorite whore, is in jail. Like all women, she likes being treated like a lady but unlike most women doesn't mind having sex with me a bit. In fact, she once paid ME a five dollar bag of pot to give her some oral sex. Does that make me a Reefer Gigolo? She's the only hooker I know that I can trust to give the money to first; if they can get your money without fucking or sucking they consider it a win. Half the time Linda doesn't even charge me, letting me buy her dinner or drinks or something, like most non-prostitute whores. E.g., your wife. Speaking of your wife, Congressman, why is it legal for me to fuck your wife unless I pay her?

I don't pick these girls up of the street, that's just stupid. You're just asking to get busted for solicitation. And picking up strange women can be dangerous, as I found out about four years ago (the linked diary has a sequel). No, what usually happens is I wind up making friends with one whore and she introduces me to her whore friends. I'm pretty sure I know more prostitutes than the local District Attorney.

The DA here is a bigger political whore than Hillary Clinton. And if that bitch ever tries to drag me to court to testify against these girls, well, this is fiction, ok? Fucking worthless politicians. When they start passing respectable laws, I'll start respecting the law. But the problems they say they're passing these victimless crime laws like prostitution and drug laws for are caused by the very laws they pass! Since they legalized alcohol you don't see gangsters shooting up Chicago with automatic weapons now, do you? Oh yeah, they do - but the gangsters are selling cocaine now. Different prohibition causing the same problems that alcohol prohibition caused.

But anyway, I went to Farley's, the hippie bar, where I'd met my last steady girlfriend, Robyn. I wasn't looking for a steady relationship, I just wanted to take some drunken, horney woman home for some no-strings sex. But there weren't many people in there, and only one woman, and she was with some grizzled old bastard who made me look young. Well hell, I do look young for my age, runs in the family. When my Grandmother was 97 she didn't look a day over 80.

There wasn't even anybody to talk to, so I drank a single beer (twelve ounce mug for a buck) and left, and went to Gloria's Kitchen (nine ounce glass for a buck). The more I moved around the more expensive the beer got. There weren't any woman in there at all, except the ugly old owner/bartender. So I drank that, drove home and walked to to JWs for a dollar twenty five draft, and the only women there were with men. So I went to the Track Shack. There were three women there, obviuosly together, and there wasn't any way I was going to pick one up.

So I gave up on getting laid and called Tami. She was out with her husband, and Amy answered the phone. She'd showed up at my house drunk that morning before I went to work. She was sick, she said, and was about to go to sleep. At 6:00 PM. I guess drinking all night and all day will do that to you.

So I walked down to the gas station and bought a forty ounce bottle and took it home, drank one glass and went to bed, lonely and depressed.

They say insanity is expecting different results from the same activity, so yesterday after work I went to Farley's again.

The place was packed, full of aging hippies and alcoholics and ugly women. There was a disk jockey setting up; it was Amy's ex-boyfriend Roger's birthday.

Roger hates me, too. When he and Amy were together, they'd fight and he'd throw her out and I'd let her stay at my house. Of course he thought I was fucking her. I don't know why all these guys think I'm fucking their wives and girlfrineds! Like I said before, one of them is going to shoot me some day.

I saddled in to the bar next to Roger, who turned and glared at me drunkenly. "Happy birthday!" I exclaimed, and shook his hand.

Ain't I a stinker? In Springfield we do our trolling offline.

I drank a beer, and thought that I'd found the right party. If I was going to get laid, this was the place! So I went to the bank to cash a check for beer money and came back.

The disk jockey had no disks, not even compact ones. He had an expensive Ampeg amp head connected to some fifteen inch professional speakers, which he had an iPod plugged into. My fucking car stereo sounded better. But what the hell, there were women there, and if I drank enough the women wouldn't be so ugly and the music wouldn't sound so bad.

I was only on my second beer of the night and an old hag that looked like she was older than my mother was hitting on me. I was going to have to be REAL drunk before... the phone rang. It was Amy, calling from Tami's. "Whatcha doin?"

"I'm at Farley's, they're having a birthday party for Roger."

"I saw him today," she said, "he flipped me the bird and told me 'fuck you' Me and Tami's drinking some Canadian Superior."

The old woman was leering at me evily. "I'll be right over!" I said. I finished my beer and got the hell out of there.

It was starting to snow while I was on my way to Tami's, so I didn't stay long, and went home, cooked a burger, drank a beer out of the bottle I'd gotten the night before, and went to bed.

After the sensual dream I kept waking up with the cold sweats, and woke up this morning feeling like shit. I called in today.

I'm not safe for work.

Update (kinda):
Farley's, the hippie bar, is mentioned in this journal, as in a couple of other of my journals.

Today's local paper has mention of an accidental drug bust. An arrest warrant was issued for DUI, and when the deputy knocked, some dopers opened the door.

The deputy called the warrant into dispatch, only to learn it was no longer valid. However, the deputy told Cantrall that based on what he had seen at the house, he was going to arrest him and the other two men -- Danny H. Farley Sr., 59, and Danny H. Farley Jr., 39, both of the 1800 block of Watch Avenue.

I'm wondering if these are the same folks who own the bar? I also wonder something else:

That glimpse led to the seizure of $12,000 to $15,000 worth of cocaine, nine pounds of marijuana valued at $2,500 to $4,000 a pound, $4,000 cash, a loaded .22-caliber pistol, a marijuana-growing operation in the basement and a variety of drug paraphernalia, including a large, dog-shaped glass smoking device, and a trove of High Times magazines, according to Sacco.

Since when are .22 caliber pistols and High Times magazines illegal? Holy shit, I hope they don't search my house, as I have a "Dope Comix" from 1984! That comic book must surely be illegal as well.

They've disabled comments on the story, so you can comment on it here.

"Reserved error (-1517); there is no message for this error." -Microsoft Access error message

This journal entry will not be as entertaining as the last one. I have the blues. Again. And I'm kind of on edge and a bit angry.

Danny called yesterday afternoon wanting his five bucks back. I said Ok, I'd meet him at Farley's (the hippie bar) after I got off work.

Then Kelly called. It seems she's not going to be my new roomie after all. Damn! She's staying with some guy way up on the north end of town, not far from the bar called NEWT's. That's not Gingrich's bar, NEWT is an acronym, well known in Springfield but not anywhere else, for "North End White Trash". She wanted me to take her belongings, still in the car, up there. I said OK.

So I figured I'd take Kelly's stuff up there and maybe, just maybe, that when she found out that I was sans roommate she'd come to the wise decision that since this guy was WAAAAAY up there and with no car, and I wasn't too far from the courthouse where she has her hearing Thursday (tomorrow I guess) and I actually have transportation, she'd decide to come back with me and be so grateful she'd fuck my brains out.

Yeah, laugh all you want. You're at slashdot, you ain't gettin' laid either!

So I finally find the guy's trailer and Kelly lets me in. The guy gives me a beer (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and I tell Kelly how I don't have a roommate any more. No dice; she's still staying with Newt.

So as I'm heading back south at three bucks a gallon, the phone rings. Probably Danny wondering where the hell I am and is he going to get his money back. But it wasn't; it was Debbie, the girl who had picked me up in Farley's when I was spending Danny's five bucks. She'd been fighting with her boyfriend, could I come and get her?

Hell fucking yes I could! I'd have gotten laid that day if my daughter hadn't showed up. I told her I have to give five bucks to Danny at Farleys, she said that's ok. Cool.

I go to the Bel Aire, where crazy people like Debbie live, to pick her up. She gets in the car. "Go! Go! Go! before my boyfriend sees me!" I swear, one of these guys is going to put a bullet in my brain. So we take off and go to Farley's. I buy us drafts and give Danny his cash. We drink the beer, so far so good.

She comes up with a tiny little joint, and we smoke it in the car on the way to another bar, and bipolar bitch turns on me when we get to the bar. I never saw pot have that effect on anyone; she was a completely different person. I almost left her there, telling her I was going home and if she wanted a ride she'd better go. I walked out to the car by myself, and she came out just as I was about to leave. She'd calmed down and said to drop her back at the Bel Aire. Gladly!

Why can't I ever get with a normal woman? Is it because nerds aren't normal? Shit.

It was close to nine, so I dropped her off and went home and went to bed. I kept getting woke up with strange dreams about my ex-wife, who I used to refer to in the Paxil Diaries as "Evil-X, A.K.A. Satan". It was wierd; I'd go back to sleep and the same dream would take up where it left off. In this dream I'd just moved into a new house, so it was strange to me. This house was for some strange reason furnished; none of the stuff in it was mine, none of the stuff was familiar to me. Anyway, in the first dream, or first part of the multipart dream, my doorbell rings and there X stands, telling me she's moving in with me. And not just her, but some guy and his wife and two kids!

During the whole dream the ex-wife is trying to get me into bed, and it keeps getting interrupted before anything happens, usually by one of the preteen kids and usually when X and I are unclothed or semiclothed. And I keep discovering new rooms in this new house.

I can't even get laid in my dreams. Like I said, I kept waking up, and when I went back to sleep that dream would take up where it left off. I've never, as far as I can remember, had that happen.

For once I was relieved that the alarm clock went off.

So I'm sitting there drinking my coffee and it occurs to me that Debbie resembles my ex-wife, only a hell of a lot better looking. I hear footsteps on the front porch, and the doorbell rings.

It's Amy, who comes in all smiles and drunken happiness, carrying half a half pint of Canadian Superior, telling me about the small SUV she's buying for a thousand bucks. Never mind that she owes me money...

She tries to talk me into taking the day off, and I compromise, and tell her I'll take the afternoon off. So I go to work, get caught up on everything so I can leave, leave for lunch and go home.

No Amy. "Why," I ask myself, "am I not surprised?"

I should put a sign outside my house: "mcgrew's home for wayward Women". As of Saturday afternoon there were technically three women living with me. There were amorous sparks flying with a fourth.

And I didn't get laid. Of course.

Payday was last week, and I spent almost my whole check catching up on bills. I'm still not caught all the way up. There's an old blues song "Women and Whiskey". It's strange that someone I never met could write a song about me before I was even born! I just tried to find the lyrics to it, but Google let me down. "'Women and Whiskey' lyrics" leads me to a Davil Allen Coe song that's not the old blues standard I have a copy of John Lee Hooker singing, as well as something about the muppets, cigarettes, and whiskey. "'Women and Whiskey' lyrics 'john lee hooker'" brings up pages with no lyrics whatever, although if I want to buy a recording of the late Mr. Hooker's music that's as easy to find as cold in winter or heat in summer.

The fucking God damned internet has been ruined by the RIAA and commerce. Women and Whiskey is in the public domain, and its lyrics and sheet music should be easy to find, but like every other public domain work seems to be missing from if not the internet itself, but from Google and the other search engines as well. If it's not commercial, it's not listed on the search engines. If you want to find lyrics to RIAA stuff, there are plenty. If you want free, well, tough shit. "Free" went away some time around the turn of the century.

Love of money is indeed the root of all evil. Especially on the internet.

I hadn't seen Amy since Friday night, when she'd had her boyfriend (who she'd made up with) bring her by to get the taxi-driving stuff she'd left at Tami's apartment. She was spending the night at his house and would call after work Saturday night for a ride home.

My daughter was short of food and her check was a couple of days off, so after work Tami went with me to to the grocery store to get enough provisions to help my daughter out. While I was there I picked up a fifth of Canadian Superior, Amy's favorite whiskey. I knew she was off the wagon and getting it a two dollar half pint at a time as she usually did when she was binging was a dumb as buying whiskey for her in the first place. We drove to my daughter's house to drop the food off, and went home.

I wound up drinking with Tamy Friday night, and we killed the whole bottle of rotgut.

Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of dinner - she'd marinated some chicken breasts Friday but we'd not gotten around to cooking them, as we were getting shitfaced drunk and ate McBurgers instead. So we had marinated chicken, baked potato, and vegetables for breakfast Saturday. Tami didn't remember how the evening went, and didn't remember the McBurgers.

I haven't mentioned it yet but Tami's about five teet tall and must be well over 250 pounds. I'm convinced that obese people are fat because they don't do anything but eat - Tami thought she'd missed dinner, so she'd gotten up bright and early and cooked dinner. Tami's one of the few women that I'm happy to be "just friends" with, even though there's something about her that is sexy.

Maybe it's because she's female.

Halfway through dinner; er, breakfast, my phone rang. It was Kelly. I don't think I've mentioned Kelly here before, as I don't see her very often. Kelly is a very attractive woman in her forties. Well, you younger guys might think she's not too great but I think she's fucking hot. She should get a 900 number and start a sex-chat line, because she's got the softest, sweetest, sexiest voice the angels themselves were ever jealous of. God but I'd love to get in bed with her!

The problem with Kelly is she's still married, and is going through a messy divorce. Her husband is some big shot with the state government who hobnobs with judges, and got custody of their infant daughter and a restraining order against her. Supposedly they had reconciliated some time last summer and were back together again.

"I'm a fucking mess", she sobbed, "please PLEASE come get me!" So I did. What else could I do? I couldn't turn down a damsel in distress, or even a damned soul in this dress. It's just not my nature; I hate to see anyone hurting or in need. In fact, I think one of my biggest failings and the biggest reason I can't get laid is because I'm such a moronically nice guy, especially when it comes to the ladies. Sometimes I think there are three kinds of women - virgins, rape victims, and whores. And that the whores would have been rape victims had they not had an orgasm when they were raped.

Women aren't attracted to niceness. They're all attracted to assholes who treat them like a combination whore/slave and who show no respect whatever for them. Show a woman respect or kindness and they want you for a friend and are afraid if they have sex with you you'll not be their friend any more.

I'll never understand women.

So anyway, I never met Kelly's husband. It's a shame, as I could use some low friends in high places. All I have are high friends in low places. I got to her house, and she brings out a travelling bag and some grocery bags and tells me we have to get the hell out of there before her husband sees her. She's crying, makeup a mess. Can she stay with me a while?

So I have yet another roommate. That's three. She has me take her to another friend of her's house, whose name I can't remember (I never met her before and I'm bad at peoples' names) to smoke some pot. I hadn't smoked any pot in quite some time, let alone first thing in the morning. Full of chicken and veggies I was reminded of George Washington's famous saying, "nothing settles the evening meal like a bowl of good hemp".

As we're smoking, the phone rings again. It was Debbie, the girl who had picked me up in the hippie bar a week earlier. She was at her brother's house, and wanted me to pick her up for a little partying. Seems I make her laugh; we'd had a hell of a good time that day I met her. Kelly said she'd get a ride to my house; Tami could let her in.

So I picked up Debbie and we went to a bar, and I blew the rest of my paycheck. Damn, I'm a fool. When I ran out of cash I took her home. "I haven't seen my boyfriend all week, he doesn't even know I'm back". She'd been at her dying mother's out of state, and had come back for an appointment. It seems she's been living with a guy for nine years. Fuck!

Tami went back home to her husband. I didn't hear from Kelly. I have no clue where Amy is. I spent the last two nights home alone in bed with the runs and an upset stomach and aches and pains, miserably sick. I thought at first it was a hangover, but hangovers don't give you the runs or make all your bones ache. I called in sick to work yesterday.

The phone just now rang - it was Kelly. If you don't hear from me again it probably means that somebody's husband or lover is jealous of the giy that can't get laid, and shot me.

Merril (that, I find out, is how it is spelled) was over again tonight, and I wanted to write about it, but then I reread Friday's entry, and this was a repeat of that. Except that Jenny tried much harder to give us our space to connect.

When I said that the geek connection is as powerful as a sexual connection, that wasn't hyperbole. I've felt it many times in my life. There's something very intense about finding another person with whom you can share certain intellectual parts of your self. Merril and my conversation tonight ranged over mathematics, quantum physics, game theory, Perl programming, object oriented programming, hydrodynamics, war history, and artificial intelligence. Among other things.

Whenever the conversation veered towards topics that Jenny couldn't take part in, she would excuse herself to let us talk. I could tell it was a strain on her. Sometimes she would sit and listen, but with her arms crossed, obviously feeling defensive.

Jenny is incredibly intelligent, but in a different way from Merril and I. Her intelligence is primarily social and emotional, and where it is logical, it encompasses a totally different knowledge base than ours. She can analyze the hell out of any artistic endeavor, in a way that makes the lit-crit pomo liberal arts types seem like the punters they really are.

The thing is, her emotional and social intelligence get short circuited when she feels threatened. She can look at any situation not involving herself, and break down everyone's true motivations in a way that seems obvious, but that most people never would have thought of if she hadn't mentioned it. She can do that with her own motivations, after the fact, and so can I. That has been the main thing that has kept our relationship working over the years.

Merril is a typical guy in that regard. Not nearly as hurt and dysfunctional as Mr. Y., but like most guys, uncomfortable with the illogical complexity of human feelings. He's divorced, and is obviously uncomfortable dealing with "women's issues." He had a strong, overbearing mother and a wife who "nagged the hell out of him." When Jenny and I brought up the fact that we were in couple's counseling, he said, "That's all I need, two bitches in the room yelling at me." Ouch.

Now, one of the things about the way Jenny and I do polyamory: we share everything. When she has a crush, I can be like a big sister to her. Well, maybe like an older cousin who has a crush on you. Anyway, we talk about things, including the emotional state of said crush.

You better be sharp if you get involved with us, because your mental, emotional, and situational state will be analyzed to the umpteenth degree. We may make mistakes, like we did with Mr. Y., but it isn't out of malice. We really want everyone in the world to be intimate with everyone else. That's our strength as a species, our ability to share our experiences with others. You can't share if you are too afraid to be honest, and after seven years and too many close calls to dwell on, I think we are finally there.

While Jenny was in the bathroom, I took the opportunity to tell Merril that he should engage Jenny where she is at, intellectually. There was an interesting Slashdot article recently on early attitudes towards intelligence recently. Basically, if you tie self worth to intelligence early on, you cripple it. If you teach that intelligence is malleable, and that anyone can become smarter through hard study, you enhance it.

All three of us got that bad first message, but Jenny got it far worse than Merril or I. The two of us can still approach intellectual challenges as an opportunity to broaden ourselves, while she sees them as an affront to her self worth. So she has a harder time discussing things that are new to her. So he should meet her where she is at, and talk about directing, acting, art history, cinematography, design, politics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, and human nature.

Now I personally am a true renaissance man. I can discuss mathematics and the intangibles of human feelings, the history of combat and the history of pacifism, art and science: my left and right brain are pretty well integrated. I've had a lot of positive experiences dealing with logical and intuitive types of thinking. So I can see both sides.

This is one reason that Jenny really loves me. It's one of the reasons I'm not afraid to let her have experiences where she is infatuated with another guy. We've been together for seven years, and we were partners above all else from almost the very beginning. Not counting our having sex within fifteen minutes of meeting at the Rainbow Gathering in Oregon, because we were barely ever in the same state for the next two years. But now, we trust each other, that we have each other's back.

Unless you were born rich and privileged, when you find someone that you know has your back, stick with that person. I discount the privileged because they are taught never to trust anyone and to take advantage wherever they can, so they need to work through that before they can be interdependent. I was raised middle class, and Jenny was raised working class, so at least we don't have that hanging over our heads.

Mr. Y. challenged us when we were at a real low point, but we made our peace with being apart and then came back together with a renewed sense of why we wanted to be partners in the first place. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

My story now is that, although Merril rocks her world sexually that is only one part of a complete relationship, and he is not capable of being a real partner. Honestly, if I thought that out of fear or malice, one would think I'd try to use it against him. Instead, I try to tell him what he needs to do to develop an even more intimate relationship with her. Because I want that for her, and I think he needs to experience a relationship with a woman who can be a real partner, not just a ball buster.

One of the many things Jenny and I have in common is that we look at the motivations, psyche, and situation of the people around us and try to figure out how to increase the net happiness of the world. Purely selfishly, I might add: we just happen to like looking at happy, free, and self actualized people more than we like looking at sad and desperate people.

So this is good. A rare win-win-win situation. She gets more affirmation that she is sexually attractive, and that she is desirable as a partner. He and I get a geek friend. He gets some positive experiences working though relationship issues, and a role model, nay advocate, to show him how it's done. I get another opportunity to see where I'm still weak.

Weak? Okay, I'm jealous. And envious. She's getting some of the best sex of her life! How can I not be a little of both envious and jealous? Yes, she and I have had whole weekends together where all we did was fuck, maybe ten or fifteen orgasms for me, and who knows how many dozens for her. And I have had numerous incredibly hot sexual experiences before we got married, unlike her. But the primal feelings are still there.

For all his six foot sevenish masculinity, and his impressive girth if not length (it's far more important!), he hasn't had nearly the depth and breadth of sexual experience I've had. Also, I'll admit that Jenny is the best fuck I've ever had, but some of the things he's impressed by just lead me to believe that he has been with some pretty boring girls, overall. So intellectually I don't begrudge them their fun. But on a primal level it challenges me more then her relationship with poor can't get hard, average sized Mr. Y. ever did.

However, I think I mentioned before that I thought Merril would make a great wingman? All three of us talked about it, and we may all go out soon and try to get me someone new. Last time we were out at a bar together, he was a little pissed off because Jenny was feeling in third place intellectually, so he started pointing out all the girls who were checking us out. "Oh, look at that one, she's totally looking at you, dude, and her friend has been scoping me out! What do you think?"

So he obviously has wingman skills, and if a girl asked about my ring I could say, yeah, ask my wife if it's okay. She's over there with her boyfriend.

P.S. I just reread this JE, and yes, I'm a little drunk and that's why it rambles as it does. Sorry.

So Merrel was over tonight. I don't think he would mind me using his real name, and it is less awkward than the whole "Mr. M." convention. He's not skittish and weird like Mr. Y. He and I hit it off great. In fact, that's the problem.

Jenny is jealous of our intellectual connection. There's more to it than just that, of course. She lived as a fag-hag in San Francisco for so long, and has had so many guys stolen from her by other guys, that she's a little wary when two guys she likes connect.

We were just geeking out, and I have been hit on by enough guys to know the difference, but she felt threatened. Part of it is the fact that, intelligent as she is, her main thrust of intelligence lies in areas different from those traditionally respected as such. You know. Liberal Arts. There, I said it. Get a liberal arts type in a group with science types and they are all like, "No really, my knowledge has relevance!" I tried to mollify the situation, but he's one of those guys who has obviously been hurt by women almost one too many times. So he's nervous because she is acting a little weird.

I say "almost" because if a guy has been hurt too many times by women, it really can turn him "gay." Some guys are born wanting cock. Some guys are thrust into it. Everyone is a little bi, I think, and just like in prison, if you can't get what you need from a preferred source for whatever reason, you'll get it from the next best place.

He's not gay at all. He likes the same things about Jenny that I like. She's got curves like a woman, not like a prepubescent boy. So he listens to Abba and likes musicals, he can't be the only straight guy to do so.

I have real reason to try to make all this work. I like Merrel. I don't know that many geeks who have a surfeit of other geeks in their lives and that kind of intellectual connection is as fun as sex. So I don't want to make my wife jealous of me and the 6'7", hung like a horse guy she's fucking. That's more ironic than a black fly in your chardonnay.

A woman propositioned me the other night in a bar! But I found out she was married. Shit, I'll not only get my nerd license suspended but revoked; I had a chance at sex and turned it down!

Damn.

Lest you think I'm some super stud really good looking guy, I'm not. It's just that crazy women are attracted to me, and the crazier they are the more attracted. Normal women won't give me a second look. It's the psychopaths, alcoholics, and drug addicts that think I'm a really cool guy. Both my girlfriends last year, the toothless shapeless Chris and the 300 pound Robyn were stark raving mad, on psychomeds. If Amy's ex husband had a sister she'd probably fall in love with me.

And speaking of married women, Tami's Peruvian husband, Harley, called the other morning wanting a ride to get some fix-a-flat. As I was leaving the parking lot to go give him a ride, Tami walks up with tears streaming down her face. She wanted to chill at my house because according to her, Harley was going to kill her. "Apparently it's all my fault that I got a flat."

I gave Harley the ride, and it turns out that what pissed him off was that she'd lost the car's jack. Tami's not the brightest bulb on the tree.

Neither, it seems, is Harley. The tire was off the rim; fix-a-flat wasn't going to work. So I loaned him the jack.

Tami crashed at my house that night. She took some pills and was asleep by 7:00. Bored, I went to bed around 7:30. I hadn't seen Amy since last Friday morning when I dropped her off at work, and she came bounding in, drunk on her ass, around 9:30 demanding a ride. I wound up giving her a ride to the gas station to use the phone. After she drunkenly cursed me for not driving across town even though she refused to part with a couple of dollars for gas, I dumped her at the McDonalds. There's only so much abuse I can take, even from a drunk as attractive as Amy.

I ran out of gas as I pulled into the parking lot at work yesterday morning. I got ahold of Linda's BF, who came by with Linda and a can of gasoline.

I'd been thinking about getting hold of Debbie, the crazy woman who'd picked me up in the sleaziest dump in town last Saturday, as gee whiz I haven't been laid in a long time. It was damned hard to turn that married drunk down at the other bar, but shit... anyway, how to get rid of Tami? And Linda's BF said he was bringing a bud by so hell, I was cockblocked anyway.

This morning I'm trying to figure out how to get Tami out of my hair so I can find a less married woman to stick it in and the phone rings. It's Amy, who had been in rehab for her alcoholism since I dumped her Wednesday night, wanting a ride home. Home, to my house. I told her she'd have to wait an hour and a half until lunch.

Right before lunch she called from Farley's - "never mind, I'm drinking today". Sure as anything she'll come stumbling in tonight. Her BF, who she had broken up with, precipitating her fall off the wagon, called today looking for her. Maybe I can pawn her off on him - but it's doubtful; the guy's divorce isn't final and he has his kids on weekends, and he doesn't want them to know about Amy.

I need a good woman to keep me away from all these crazy ones. Ill never get laid.

Well, everyone predicting this Mr. Y. thing wouldn't work out, you were right. He turned out to be a lost cause. But, wouldn't you know, something better turned up: Mr. M. Six foot six, built like a linebacker and hung like a horse. He and Jenny have GREAT sex, from what I hear. And he's not weird, in fact, he and I hit it off perfectly on first meeting. He's very respectful, not very needy, and potentially a great wingman for me getting some strange of my own. He's brilliant, and a great big nerd to boot, a mathematician to be exact. Funny coincidence, my first polyamorous experience was with my girlfriend of the time, Jenny (different Jenny) and a mathematician named Lee.

Jenny and I have been going to individual therapy and couples counseling. Our relationship has never been stronger, and our sex has never been better. Work is going great, got a great review and a raise. About the only thing stressing me out is Jenny's sister. She's still living with us and shows no signs of looking for another place. She's demanding and selfish and expects everyone around her to entertain her. And she is always there, so Jenny and I have a hard time finding the time or privacy to really connect. Well, it's time to have a talk with Rachael.

locokamil asked, in response to a Comment I made in the Verizon Wireless To Open Network story, "So let me get this straight: not only do you have a /female/ roommate, but you are also friends with hookers? Friend, if you have a newsletter, I am interested in subscribing to it."

As I told him, this journal is the closest thing I have to a newsletter. I used to keep a diary at K5 back when I was taking Paxil for "adjustment disorder with depressed mood" after my ex-wife (referred to in the diaries at "Evil-X") left me and my two then teenaged daughters. Hense the name "The Paxil Diaries".

Anyway, Amy, my roomate, is a very attractive young lady (young to me anyway, she's the same age as my nephew) who isn't a prostitute. The pretty face is most likely from the plastic surgery she had after her ex-husband tried to kill her; she had to get reconstructive surgery. The asshat spent time in prison for it, and it looks like he's going back to prison after his latest run-in with the law. I feel priveliged to have never met him.

My tenant/roommate is also a friend. Sadly, we don't have sex. As I said, she's pretty as all getout and is built like a brick shithouse. I wish she was a hooker! Or better yet, attracted to geezers old enough to be her dad. Actually I think I'm older than her parents, but she says they had her when they were very young.

She drives a cab for the time being, until she can get her nursing license back. She lost the license for not paying child support to her ex-husband's parents, who her ex was reportedly on his way to murder when he was stopped after the high speed chase linked above. Most likely she isn't going to be my roommate for long. I dropped her off at work Friday morning and haven't seen her since. Her boyfriend had just dumped her, and she may have fallen off the wagon; she'd been sober since she got out of rehab shortly before moving in with me.

Alcohol may be the second most destructive drug there is, right behind tobacco. I think it ironic that the two deadliest drugs there are are both legal, while marijuana will get you put in jail. Linda's going to prison for reefer next month.

Tami's not a hooker, either. Her Peruvian husband called this morning asking if I could give him a ride to get some fix-a-flat, I said "sure". As I was leaving my work's parking lot, Tami came walking up, tears streaming down her face; she wanted me to let her stay at my house today. Apparently she and Harley had gotten into an argument about the flat. I dropped her at my house went to hers, and gave her husband a ride to tha gas station, then back to his house.

I met most of my hooker friends through Ralph, although not all of them. I'm of course not going to use their real names here, as their occupation is illegal in Illinois. Except for Linda, who got busted for prostitution a couple of months ago and is going to prison soon on a drug charge from last Spring.

Ralph is my oldest friend. I don't mean "oldest" as in I've known him longer htan anybody, I mean "oldest" in the sense that he's the oldest human I know. He's 86, a WWII Navy veteran.

Half of the hookers I know I never had sex with. As I said, they're all friends. I never had sex with "Julia", who has a boyfriend, and her BF doesn't know she's a prostitute! I doubt any of the folks at the grocery store she works at knows she's a prostitute, either. In fact, half of these girls have boyfrends who are clueless that half the men in town are porking their women for cash! If you have a girlfriend (WTF are you doing at slashdot, wierdo?), the next time you're with her, think about that. One of my hooker friends is married; reportedly he knows she's a hooker, but I never met the fellow. If you're married you might think about that, too.

There's "Sam", with a body to die for but wrap a flag around her face and fuck her for old glory. There's "Cassie", who's only 27 and attractive but with a very annoying personality. Good lay, though.

I mentioned Linda, who's one with a BF. Her BF knows what she does, because that's how he met her. He keeps trying to talk her out of being a whore, the poor fool.

There's "Oprah", who is close to my age. She's my drinking buddy, and Ralph is one of her clients.

I avoid paying the good looking ones. I'd hate to get romantically involved with one of them, and as lonely as I get it could happen. A bit of advice that some guys seem to not be able to understand - never fall in love with a prostitute! The money is too easy. Once a woman becomes a hooker, she'll never go back.

Speaking of going back, they say "once you try black you never go back", but that's not been my experience. A fellow known as "Cowboy" (I'm certain he's not Cowboy Niel but who knows?) introduced me to a very attractive, slim black hooker named JoAnne last summer. She was lousy in bed, not worth the money I paid.

But on the other hand, I guess all women are prostitutes. The most expensive sex I ever had cost me a house, a car, and part of my pension.

Update 12/5/7:
I don't know any of the women mentioned in this police beat item, although I'd like to. Bunn Park (a golf course) is walking distance from my house.

Update 12/6/7:
The SJR ran a real news story on the above "Police Beat" blurb today, with a very interesting bunch of reader comments. Most commenting were for legalization! So why is it illegal?

Furthermore, there is no penalty whatever for adultery, not even in a divorce case in Illinois; adultery is grounds for divorce but gets you no more of the marital assets than you would otherwise get.

Why is it legal for me to fuck mycongressman's wife so long as I don't pay her?

I figured out why my slashdot karma's so good, always at "excellent" - I can't get laid. I can't even get any from hookers. So my self esteem has been in the shitter, and I've had a bad case of the blues.

Last Thursday was Thanksgiving here in the USA. My youngest daughter, who manages a Gamestop store 350 miles away in Cincinnatti, couldn't get off work but promised to visit at Christmas. In my family, Thanksgiving and Christmas are traditionally done at Grandma's, and since my little sister has a 5 year old grandson she's the Grandma. So I picked up my oldest daughter on the way to Belleville, a hundred miles south (160 km for those in more civilized parts of the world).

It seems I have a new great nephew, as my sister's youngest son just had a son. The little guy refused to play Guitar Hero with his dad, his Uncle, his great Uncle (me) or anybody else, preferring to cheer on his favorite football team; ok, sleeping the whole time. What the hell, he's only two weeks old.

I wish one of my daughters would have a kid, as I remember when they were babies. I'd push the stroller through the grocery store and every woman in the place would come up and talk to me. I remember bitterly thinking "damn, why didn't I have one of these when I was single?" Now that I'm single again, well, guys if you want to meet some women, borrow someone's infant and take him to the grocery store.

Friday I was broke, so I stayed home. Linda and her boyfriend were supposed to bring a bud by, but they never showed up. Danny, my drunken reprobate friend who is nearly homeless and has stuff stored in my basement was supposed to stop by to pick up a pair of slacks, as he just got a job as bussboy. Amy, my cab driving tenant/roommate who owes me half a month's rent plus forty bucks she borrowed plus another forty she lost in a bet with me was supposed to come by and drop off some cash so I wouldn't be sitting at home bored and broke never showed up either. In fact, I didn't see her all weekend, probably found a new boyfriend.

Nobody showed up. Around dark I decided to go visit my oldest friend, Ralph. By "oldest friend" I don't mean I've known him longer than anybody; that would be my crazy friend Tom. By "oldest friend" I mean I'm a kid by comparison, as Ralph served on a battleship in WWII. He's 86 years old, older than anybody alive that I know.

Linda was there; they had run out of time as her BF had to be at work at 4:00. He'd showered her with gifts and taken her to dinner, as he's going to miss her. She reports to prison in a week to serve time on a drug charge.

America's prisons are filled with drug users and dealers. Drug prisoners are political prisoners; we got nothin' on China and North Korea, what with having over 70% of our inmates in jail on drug charges.

Smoking dope is a political statement!

Ralph fell asleep watching TV so I went home to an early bedtime; very early for a Friday. But what else to do when you're broke? Damned bartenders all want money!

Saturday morning Danny came by to rummage through his stuff in my basement. He was with his seven year old son and his son's mother, who is married to some guy from Peru now. Her husband was at work. We all played the old Road Rash (1995) PC game, it's a lot more fun on the 42 inch TV.

Danny loaned me five bucks, so after they left I went down to Farley's. They have draft for a buck, and sometimes have big brown farm eggs for a dollar a dozen.

Farley's is a dive, a hippie bar, the dumpiest bar in Springfield AFAIK. It's across the street from the train station, next door to the gay bar, which I guess is pretty handy for gay hippie alcoholic railroad engineers.

So I sit between two women, the one on my right is with some guy and the one on my left is attractive and drunk, maybe twenty or twenty five years my junior. She's obviously trolling for free drinks, because she turns away from the two guys on her other side who are hitting on her but not buying her any drinks and starts talking to me. I don't buy her any drinks, either.

There's an attractive woman down the bar, and I'm wishing I had some money because she looks like she's younger than me but a bit closer to my age. But you can't pick up women with only four bucks in your pocket.

The two guys give up and leave when the younger woman next to me starts talking to me. Seems she's from Southern Illinois, maybe 150 miles south, visiting relatives. It's her first time in Farley's and "I really like this place, the people are so friendly". Yeah, dumbass, they want in your pants - but I don't actually say that. "Yeah, I like this bar" I say.

Brian walks in. He's twenty years younger than me; the last time I drank with him I wound up falling on my head. Note to self - don't try to keep up with a professional drunk, as the pros will drink you under the table every time. I say "hi" to Brian, and he says he's lost his phone and jacket. I think he might have left them at my house, so he gives me his new number and I tell him if I see them I'll call. Drunk chick starts hitting on Brian.

I look down the bar at the attractive woman closer to my age and see she's staring at me. I smile, she smiles back. I'm not paying attention to Brian and his new friend, who all of a sudden says "you have WHAT?"

"I have AIDS", he says. "And fleas. Thank God they cured the syphilis!" She hurries out of the bar, and Brian (and everybody else) laughs.

Yes, here in Springfield we do our trolling offline.

The women at the other end of the bar walks down, arms outstretched, and says to me "I haven't seen you in forever!" I hug her and she kisses me, and she says "forever because I never met you before. Buy me a beer?"

Well hell, if a pretty girl comes up and gives me a kiss how can I NOT buy her a beer? Even if I only do have four dollars, and tell her so. She's flattered. We chat, and she aks me if I can give her a ride home. Well, hell, why not? "Sure, if it isn't too far. I've only got anough gas to go maybe ten miles."

So she has me stop by a gas station and buys me some gas, and buys some booze, and has me drive to her cousin's, where we drink and smoke some pot. And no, I wasn't drunk, for those of you who are going to flame me for drinking and driving.

We wound up driving around listening to the radio; she said she almost never gets to do that. Later on, after it seems like ten minutes have gone buy but it's late in the evening, we wind up at my house, drinking beer on my couch, making out.

My tongue is in her mouth, my hand up her blouse, it looks for sure like I'm finally getting lucky, and the doorbell rings. Damn! Probably Linda and her boyfriend.

"Surprise!" It was my youngest daughter, who had driven from Cincinnatti.

But if you ever read any of the Paxil diaries you knew something like that would happen, didn't you?

According to local TV stations, A. Paul Carlock, also known as Klutzo the Clown was tasered to death in the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield Friday morning, dying at St. John's Hospital.

Klutzo the Cop Clergy Clown was a former police officer, former Christian preacher, former "Big Brother", and had worked in two day care centers.

He was in jail on charges of child pornography and "sex tourism" after returning from a trip he made to the Phillipines to have sex with children.

But parents, be afraid of teh intarwebs. A preditor from the internet might get them. Don't worry one little bit about the cop, the minister, the day care worker, or the clown.

UPDATE 11/11/2007
Illinois Times

UPDATE 11/21/2007
The FBI is investigating Klutzo's death.

Marshall Stone, supervisory special agent with the Springfield office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Tuesday his agency will be checking to ensure that Klutzo's civil rights were not violated.

Only in Springfield would you find a Marshall named "Stone".

UPDATE 12/04/2007

In a particularly clownish twist to the Klutzo story, it appears that Klutzo was possibly killed by a jailor who sat on him.

"I didn't like the way it happened," said McLemore, who was facing domestic battery, unlawful restraint and weapons charges. "If it happened to me, I would want someone to stick up for me."

He said that Carlock was not fighting but was acting like "dead weight." McLemore said he saw a corrections officer sit on the back of Carlock, who was chest down on the floor outside his jail cell, while a woman out of uniform and carrying a walkie-talkie joked that all Carlock had to do was go unconscious and the corrections officers would leave him alone. He then saw Carlock's feet turn purple.

Matt Groening, eat your heart out! The 3D Springfield is a lot weirder and funnier than the 2D Springfield.

UPDATE 12/05/2007

There's a Chris Britt political cartoon about the incident in today's paper.

UPDATE 12/21/2007
The Coroner's inquest couldn't find our what killed the clown. From the newspaper story:

A Sangamon County coroner's jury Thursday was unable to determine the specific cause of death of A. Paul Carlock, a clown performer, former police officer and minister accused of sex crimes against children.

Too many factors could have contributed to the 57-year-old Springfield resident's death for a single cause to be cited, the jury of four women and three men ruled.

UPDATE 3/17/2008
A different guy who performs as Klutzo changed his clown name to "Lazy Bonz".

For nearly 20 years, suburban Chicago official Jerry Kautz split his time between his duties as village clerk of Algonquin and volunteer work as a clown named " Klutzo."
That all ended when A. Paul Carlock, a central Illinois man using the same moniker, was charged with child pornography and sexual abuse last year. He later died in custody.

Lets hope Lazy Bonz' Bone is lazier and less child-hostile than Springfield Klutzo's pedophile boner.

UPDATE 3/21/2008
Klutzo estate files suit over treatment in jail

UPDATE 6/16/2008
Carlock family makes new allegations
Includes claim jailer said former clown 'got what he deserved'