previously:
Double trouble coming?
Home Again

Half an hour after talking to Patty Thursday evening I left Felber's and went home to greet her. She'd arrived from Ohio the day before but hadn't gotten home yet. She got off the couch and we gave each other hugs.

"Who's here?" she demanded.

"What? Nobody's here. Just me and you."

"There's a woman living here, I can tell. The place it too clean!"

"Well, I told you Tami was staying here. She was a godsend after my eye operation, I don't know how I would have gotten through it without her."

She got a troubled look on her face, and I could see she felt bad about not being there for her dad. "Where is she?"

"I threw her out for you. She's staying with some friends while you're here."

"Thanks, Dad."

We had dinner at D'Arcy's Pint, and she went out galavanting with her friends and I got Tami and drank at Felber's some more, and took her where she was staying and went home. Patty called, she was spending the night at her friend's house.

So I logged on to slashdot.

Slashdot's helpful hints at the bottom of each page are often fucking retarded. Incredibly stupid.

"Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe."

OK, that one was a deliberately funny play on "measure twice, cut once". Judging by most commercial software, "Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe." is the first rule of programming. Like another Slashdot Handy Helpful Hint for (karma) Whores says, "if houses were built like software, they'd be built out of matches".

But this one pretends to be serious:

"Can you buy friendship? You not only can, you must. It's the only way to obtain friends. Everything worthwhile has a price. -- Robert J. Ringer"

Note there's a supposedly famous author that made that incredibly stupid statement. But he's not famous enough to have a wikipedia entry. He's famous enough to be on google, but so are you. If you want profound sayings, look no farther than 1970s popular music. There's a Billy Holiday song made famous by Blood, Sweat, and Tears that says the opposite of the incredibly stupid Bob the Dumbass Mammon Worshiper:

And when you got money, you got lots of friends crowding round the door. But when the money's gone and all your spendin' end, they won't be round any more, no no

These "friends" are called "fair weather friends". Anybody will be there when they're in need. When you have a friend that's there for you when you're in need, then you have a true friend indeed. Anything else is just an associate.

The only way to obtain friends is by asociation, not by spending. Only a fool tries to buy friendship.

As to "Everything worthwhile has a price", How worthwhile is air? What is its price? I get sick of my country's obsession with money. True friends not only can't be bought, they're priceless.

Why do people listen to this garbage the mammon worshipers spew without giving it a second thought? When I was young my mom told me "Steve, you think too much". I disagree, I think everybody else should think more.

The computer is dog slow; it's one I dragged out of the basement after the last one I built five years ago died from heat exhaustion after getting filled with cat hair. I fell asleep at the keyboard. The phone woke me up about the time the alarm clock would have if I'd actually set the dumb thing.

It was Tami's alien husband. I told him where she was and hung up. He called back half an hour later wanting the number; I gave it to him.

I met both my daughters at Top Cat's for lunch. I stopped by the bank afterwards, and as I was running late I didn't stop for gas. I ran out two blocks from work. I called Patty and Leila and asked them to bring me a can of gasoline.

No sooner did I get the car back to work and Tami comes walking up. She had some errand or another to run and wanted to borrow my car. She'd been walking all day and was dead tired. The people she'd been staying with had been fighting and "I just had to get our of there before I went crazy".

I told her she had to go to a gas station before she went anywhere else and gave her a ten, and to be back by two because I was going to take a two hour vacation. She came back and we went drinking.

Patty called; she was absolutely spending the night at my house that night. Tami was going to be out of luck again.

Saturday morning found Patty asleep.

I drank my coffee and sat on the pot, and the phone rang.

It was Tami. "Whatcha doin?"

"Sitting on the toilet and drinking coffee. What are you doin'?"

She laughed. "That's not a pretty sight. I have to get out of here, can you give me a ride or something?"

I told her I'd call her back after the bank.

I finished my business and woke my daughter up, and told her I was going to the bank and the gas station and she might get a call if I ran out of gas. She loanded me a twenty until I could get to the bank.

I filled the gas can halfway up and put the rest of the twenty in. It didn't even give me a quarter of a tank.

If you are an oil company executive, know that you are the scum of the earth and everyone on this planet hates your filty guts, hates the air you breathe, hates you with a passion unmatched by anyone. The Jews didn't hate Hitler as much as the world hates you. You are the lowest of the low.

If you meet an oil company executive, please beat the hell out of him, cut his balls off and shoot his family.

IMPEACH THE OIL BARON. Then try him for treason, find him guilty, put him in front of a firing squad and shoot the son of a bitch. And his vice Baron, too.

And then charge his family for the bullets like they do in China.

If you own stock in an oil company, sell it - your very soul is in peril for owning oil company stock. If you work for an oil company, quit your job.

BLOW UP A REFINERY TODAY!

There was a news item a month ago about one of the Arabs that own a gas station on Cook street getting shot in the ass. It's the first time I ever read about someone getting shot that I actually cheered the shooter. If I'm ever on a jury where someone is on trial for murdering anyone that has anything to do with the oil industry, they will be acquitted.

Anyone having anytyhing to do with today's oil industry is selfishly inflicting misfortune on the entire world for their own greedy benefit. It's just plain evil.

I went to the bank, cashed the check, and called Tami back. I dropped her off at Farley's with ten dollars for beer money. "I sure hope Danny isn't here!" she exclaimed. Danny is her son's father, a friend of mine of several years who had introduced her to me. He says he still loves her, she says he always used to beat the shit out of her.

I then went to the dollar store with my list of things to buy. Everything cost twice what it did the last time I was there.

The price of everything is dependant on the price of oil. Almost all plastics are oil based. Everything must be transported. Nothing fuels inflation like the rising price of oil. meanwhile they claim untruthfully that "corrected for inflation" oil is as cheap as it was in 1980. That's a joke; everything else (except labor) since rose to match the price of energy, which is required for manufacture and delivery of everything from food to trinkets. A more meaninfgul metric is the Federal Minimum Wage. Compare how long a minimum wage earner had to work for a gallon of gas in 1980 to how long they have to work for a gallon of gas in 2008 and you'll see just how meaningless that "adjusted for inflation" metric is.

Nixon and his economists blamed the 1970s inflation on labor. What a bunch of lying sacks of shit. If economists aren't snake oil salesmen, why are there poor people?

I'd planned on doing an entire journal on mowing the lawn just to see if anybody complained, but decided not to. OK, actually I forgot but I'm already this far so what the hell. I'd planned on getting about five or six paragraphs at the beginning, at least, wiith "you're still reading?" before anything more noteworthy was noted, but I blew it.

I changed the oil in the lawnmower, filled it up with the $3.95 per gallon gasoline, and pulled the ripcord. It started right up.

Sometimes it does pay to pay more for an item. The lawnmower I had before that one cost about $150, and my elderly (now deceased) neighbor (at the time; I've moved a couple times since then) liked it so much he bought one exactly like mine at the same place I bought it, a week later. A year and a half afterwards, it died from metal fatigue.

A week after my lawnmower died, the neighbor's died the exact same death as mine. I replaced it with the name brand mower that cost $450, but it's self propelled and convertable between a bagger, mulcher, and side blower. Or was; most of the parts got lost in the move from the house on 7th street. The thing's almost ten years old and still starts on the first pull.

The noise of the lawnmower was enough to get my daughter woke up. I gave her the twenty back, and she went out to visit her friends. I went up to Farleys.

Tami was playing one of the damned poker machines. I was annoyed. I'd given her drinking money and here she was feeding it to a gambling machine that was only in the bar because that sort of gambling is a losing proposition to the gambler. And you can't single out Farley's, as every single bar in town (at least the ones I've been in, and I've been in most) has them, despite the fact that they're illegal. All the bars have signs that read "for amusement only" but all the bars pay out if you win.

But it turned out she was playing for Tammy, the bartender.

Danny was there, and he was drunk. I hadn't seen Danny much in the last year or so, ever since he wound up homeless. His stuff is all stored in my basement. Every time I've seen him he was in a bar, drunk. He'd been staying with some friends, had gotten drunk and gotten himself tossed out and was homeless again. I poured him a beer out of my pitcher. He handed me a pipe full of some of Pippin's best pipeweed.

Yes, there is a fellow here named Pip, but Danny probably bought the weed from someone else. I don't think Pip sells weed any more. Actually I don't think he even smokes it any more; he got a job where they piss-test.

In the US, if you have a menial job like janitor or fry cook or something equally harmless they test you for drugs, but if your job is, say, Senator or Bank President or some other occupation where you can fuck people's lives up real good, you can snort all the cocaine (that people doing menial jobs can't afford) you want with impunity.

I know people who were formerly pot smokers, but switched to crack because their employers test for drugs and the drug dealers tell them that cocaine only stays in your system for three days while pot stays in your system for a month, so the formerly productive members of society who stopped using the least harmful drug in existance became unemployed cocaine addicts.

Marijuana doesn't lead to harder drugs, the "war on drugs" does.

Nobody tests for alcohol. Funny, that.

I went into the ladies' room to smoke Danny's weed, because the lock is broken in the men's room and since there's no toilet paper in the men's room there would be no reason for anyone to spend that long in there unless they were smoking.

It's illegal to smoke in a bar in Illinois. Esecially if you're smoking pot.

There didn't used to even be a seat on the toilet in the men's room there. I guess the health department must have said something.

Tami and I finally wound up at Felber's, a far more respectable, nice little redneck bar that is, as I've mentioned, in the ghetto. Where else but Springfield would you find redneck bars in the black part of town?

By then Tami had figured out what the ladies had meant earlier by the "keep one eye open when you sleep and a rolling pin next to the bed". After she explained that my bringing Amy in was no secret, that Tami and I weren't lovers and we were all friends, one of them told Tami "We'll tell you if he brings another woman in here!" I said "hey, tell me if she brings her husband in here!" They all laughed at that, Tami laughing harder than anyone. I told them "what's bad is first I brought the girlfriend, then I brought the wife. Unfortunately for me it's not my girlfriend and not my wife!"

I have lots of girlfriends. Unfortunately I have no lovers.

I took her home after a couple of drafts. The beer is cheaper than Farley's and better tasing because they clean the lines at Felber's often. I doubt they ever clean the lines at Farley's.

Shortly afterwards she called and asked me to pick her up again. Apparently there was some other ruckus where she was staying, my guess was that her "psycho bitch from hell" had come out and gotten her booted from where she was. I couldn't leave her in the streets, so I called Patty and informed her that Tami would be there that night.

The next morning after getting up, Tami told me that Patty had schlepped in about 5:00 am. I dropped the fat lady off at McDonald's and told her I'd meet her at the library downtown, and went back home.

Patty was up. She went and got a new tattoo, and after a tearful farewell started her trip back to Ohio.

I can actually spell "Ohio!"

I pictured Tami breaking into song at the library.

What's wrong, what's wrong now?
Too many, too many problems.
Don't know where she belongs, where she belongs.
She wants to go home, but nobody's home.
It's where she lies, broken inside.
With no place to go, no place to go to dry her eyes.
Broken inside.

previously: Double trouble coming?

Patty didn't quite make it to the house Wednesday night.

I collected my beers and a funny look from the bartender, a new one. I'd been in Felbers earlier in the afternoon with Amy, and now I was there with Tami. The bar was pretty full, with no unsat-on stools, so we sat at a table.

Ever since Tami's been staying with me there have been few times I've been at Felber's without her. One guy there once said what a good couple we made, and I had to point out that we weren't, in fact, a couple but that she was married to some other guy. I imagine, though, that folks there must think Tami and I are a couple.

One time t Felber's the bartender said simething about us beihng a couple, and Tami said "him? No, my husblan'd in the national Guard. I just sleep with him!" She was joking, but my face turned red nonetheless.

Debbie, one of the owners (not Crazy debbie, this is a different Debbie. She looks kind of like the figure on the left in this illustration) sat at the bar with Barb, a woman I've known for several years who used to work at Top Cat's and is some sort of relation to the Felbers' owners, who are some sort of relation to Top Cat's owners. I told you this was a cartoon city!

I was apparently the subject of their conversation. "Keep one eye open when you sleep", Barb told Tami. "And a rolling pin next to the bed!"

Patty called as I was sitting in Felber's with Tami. She was in town, and was going to visit her mother before coming to see me.

She called later from her friend's. Her friend had moved to Virginia or some place, and was home for a visit, which was Patty's actual purpose for her visit to Springfield.

She never showed up. She called in the morning, she'd fallen asleep at her friend's and would see me when I got off work.

Then Tami called, depressed. There were little kids where she was staying, and they were driving her crazy. I invited her to McLunch.

Traffic was a fucking bitch. Half the streets are closed for repairs and private business construction, and the closed streets were strategically placed so as to make any journey through town as unpleasant as possible. Two of the one way sixth street's four lanes have been closed all year while they build a tunnel over it for pedestrians to cross from one half of the Urgent Care building to the other, new half they're building, and they closed three of the lanes by South Grand while they're tearing doen one perfectly good commercial building to construct another.

And Monroe was closed for some remembrance to fallen firefighters, even though I can't remember the last time a Springfield firefighter died on the job. In fact, fighting fires is less dangerous than construction work. Why aren't they closing streets in honor of the fallen construction workers who died falling off of roofs?

And some inconsiderate bastard had the gall to die, and have his funeral procession right at lunch hour. He's dead, Jim, why can't he make his last trip at one instead of noon?

After work I went to Felber's, and called Patty to tell her to call me when she got home. "I'll be there in half an hour", she said.

She wanted to take me out to dinner. "I wish you'd have said something," I said. I'd been eating peanut butter on crackers ever since McLunch. I'm trying to gain some weight. "So where do you want to go?"

"You need to ask? D'Arcy's!"

Of course. D'Arcy's was packed, with a half hour wait for a table, and it was only 5:00. If you're in Springfield, know that D'Arcy's food must have heroin in it, because it's addictive as hell. It's also reasonably priced (almost cheap), and the service is always excellent. It's my favorite restaraunt, too. I noticed that most of its other patrons were obese. Not just fat, obese to the point that a few more pounds of lard under their skins and they'd break their legs from the weight.

As we were waiting for a table, Tami called. "Whatcha doin'?"

"We're at D'arcy's waiting for a table, what are you doin'?"

"Going crazy!"

I got a pint of some flavor of Irish beer or other while we waited for a table. Half hour later or so a waitress seated us. Patty had corned beef and cabbage (of course). I had the second best cup of soup I've ever eaten (the best was actually potato soup at Top Cat's, which is perhaps my second favorite restaraunt) and a stuffed portabella mushroom.

I only finished half the huge mushroom.

We went home and watched "Earl", which Patty said she was sick of. Turns out her fiance is an Earl fan too and they have the first couple of seasons on DVD. I made Patty promise to supply me with some Earl, since they sell DVDs at her game store.

When Earl was over she said she was going to her friend's for a while. As she left, Tami called. "Wacha doin'?"

"I just finished watching Earl with my daughter."

"I forgot it was even on!"

"You missed it, it was a good one. I laughed my ass off!" Well, I had smoked a little pot after dinner, but Patty doesn't touch the stuff and she laughed quite a bit, too. Not as much as me.

I went back to Felber's with Tami.

Next: The Hamish

Well it seems to me, lord that this ol boy just dont fit
Well I can jump into a rosebush and come out smelling like shit

-Allen Collins and Ronnie VanZant

"You have 28 new messages waiting for you, and 0 old messages." And with slashdot's fucktarded new five minute wait between replies for people with excellent karma, which is gotten by making witty, insightful, interesting comments, I'm supposed to answer these guys? AND comment on any new topics that may be posted?

Tami's been squatting at my place since her alien husband joined the National Guard. It's been a while. First he had to go to Lackland AFB in Texas to learn English. He spoke English already, but must not have spoken it well enough to be in the army.

He flunked the class and had to take it again.

Then somebody in his class got busted for dope, and they had to wait two weeks for the urine test results.

Here it is months later and he's en route to Ft Benning, Georgia for Basic Training. Then, he tells his unemployed, now-homeless wife, he's taking paratroop training.

I haven't said anything to Tami but I think he's lying. Meanwhile she's been staying at my house. She was a godsend when I was recouperating from the vitrectomy. This wasn't some easy LASIK laser surgery. It wasn't even an easy needle stuck in the eyeball ("Piece of cake", my mom said of her cataract surgery when I talked with her before my own). This involved having the vitreous fluid removed from my eyeball, a nitrogen bubble inserted, and having to keep my head down for a week and a half afterwards.

She's been cooking and cleaning and generally earning her keep, unlike the others who have stayed at mcgrew's home for wayward women.

But I had to kick her out.

For a while, anyway. My daughter had called from Cincinnati and was coming for a visit. One of my "house rules" is that wayward woman aren't allowed when my daughter's here.

"I'm leaving Cincinnati now, is it raining there?"

"No, let me look at the weather channel site... nope, looks like Cincinnati's on the west side of the rain, you'll drive out of it in no time."

"Good! I'll see you around seven then".

Tami, still at my house, was going to stay with John and Jennifer while my daughter was home.

The phone rang. It was Amy. I hadn't seen her in over a month, when she borrowed twenty bucks from me with the promise of paying it back that Friday.

That, coupled with a few things I won't talk about here, not only has her in the top ten of my shit list, but she IS the top ten of my shit list.

She wanted me to come out to pick her up from her boyfriend's out in the country. She was SO lonely and worse, was out of alcohol. I said no. Actually what I said was "Are you fucking JOKING? You still owe me that twenty dollars and it'll take fifteen bucks in gas just to get out there", an exaggeration, but still... "No, I ain't taking off work to go drinking with you."

Half hour later the phone rang again. It was Amy, again. She missed me and wanted to party with me at Farley's or somewhere. And she had some private stuff she wanted to talk about. She had taken a cab to town, could I take off and buy her a drink?

Somehow I let myself be talked into it. Actually I talked myself into it, wanting to bitch her out about the money she owed me, as well as some other things I'm pissed about. I took off work and went and got her.

I took her to Felber's. She'd not been in that bar before. "Isn't it weird," she said as we stood outside Felbers, she with a roll-yer-own cigarette, "how here it is in the ghetto and these bars here are all white bars?"

"Well, black people come in these bars sometimes too" I said. But she was right; it is a bit weird.

She unloaded her personal problems on me, and I bought her a shot and a beer.

When my daughter goes back to Cincinnati, I may be saddled with two room mates.

I'm an idiot.

I dropped her off where I'd picked her up and went home, collected Tami, and went back to Felber's.

The bartender gave me a REAL funny look as I ordered beers for us.

Next: Home Again

Mines a tale that cant be told,
My freedom I hold dear;

I guess I got to ramble on,
And nows the time, the time is now
To sing my song.

The new word of the day is "corporatti". That's the rich people who control the mainstream media and have chandeliers and red carpets in their horse barns.

If you made a comment to a comment I made and am wondering why I neglected to answer you, it's because all of a sudden it's as if I'm not logged on. I'm waiting a LOOOOONG time to not get the "slow down cowboy".

It appears that other slashdotters have noticed this, too. It's annoying, especially considering that slashdot's trying to become a "myspace for nerds" with friends, foes, freaks, fans, and fishheads, and their "message center".

"You have 30 new messages waiting for you, and 5 old ones." Yeah, well with a five minute wait between posts It's gonna take a while.

Is this slashdot's answer to the need to upgrade server capacity? I noticed that Friday it was pretty slow loading pages, I was afraid I slashdotted slashdot by linking slashdot on slashdot again.

But enough slashdot, you want to hear about women and drinking and more women. Oh yeah, and women.

No whores today, sorry.

Saturday morning I got up to the smell of frying eggs. That's one of the advantages of having a fat woman stayng with you.

We ate, drank our coffee, and went to the bank to cash a check, then to Farley's.

As we sat there drinking our minipitcher, an elderly old geezer sat on the other side of Tami taking notes with a pencil on a white pad of paper.

Farley's will let anybody in there. Kind of like slashdot.

Tami spied Bobo at the other end of the bar. "There's that asshole Bobo", she said. "I ought to lick your face just to give him something to talk about!"

"Ewww!" I said. "Please don't!"

She thought the thought was funny. If it had been anyone else whose face she'd threatened to lick I might have found it humorous. I had been trolled by the very troll I brought in with me!

The old guy with the pencil kept looking towards us, then looking away as we looked over. It kind of spooked me a little, but Tami, AKA Lucy Furr, wasn't the least bit perturbed.

"Do you MIND?" she finally said to the old coot. "You're getting way too close there, buddy. My brother and I are trying to enjoy our date! And it isn't easy finding a babysitter for our kid!"

The old man got a horrified expression on his face and left.

We laughed our asses off until the pitcher was done, and went to Felbers, since I don't like drinking more that two beers that far from home.

Well, and the beer's cheaper at Felber's, too. Which is strange, because Farley's is a shithole dump downtown right across from the train station, while Felber's is a nice respectable redneck bar in the middle of the ghetto.

Crazy Debbie got herself barred from Felber's. Nobody gets barred from Farley's.

Back in cyberspace, slashdot had a thread titled Google's Shareholders Vote Against Human Rights.

Google's shareholders have mod points, it seems! And unlike the two guys that started Google and made it what it is today; no, strike that, made it what it WAS before the boys who control the root of all evil got hold of it, they don't know HTML.

The worship of mammon, our national religion, forbids laughter. The root of all evil can't abide jocularity. Especially when their golden cow is the butt of the joke.

They don't have a fucking clue how HTML works, either.

Going for "funny" I replied Do<strike>no</strike> evil. Now, those of you who dabble in HTML and post at slashdot know how this particular thing is constructed at slashdot, where there is no <strike> tag. It looks something like this: <b>do</b>&;lt;strike>no&;lt;/strike><b>evil</b>

The freak "anonymous coward" is obviously a google shareholder. It wrote (as ignorant of grammar as HTML) "Google has to listen to it's investors. Also, if you plan on trolling, at least use the preview button. Fucking newfag."

Emphasis is mine; the poor illiterate doesn't know that it's he's she's it's, and his, hers, its.

I don't know what a "newfag" is. Is that the first cigarette a Brit pulls out of the package?

It looks like there was a modwar on that comment. Another AC answered (or was it the same guy?) "'Newfag'? Fucking 4chan-reading imbecile."

Apparently I'm not the only one never to have heard that particular... is it an insult? I would imagine it must be, as I was accused of trolling. From the linked Wikipedia article:

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]

Sorry, mr ac, if you were trying to insult me with the "fag" moniker, you're going to have to try harder. Call me a "fag" in meatspace and I'll laugh at you. Only homosexuals are offended by "fag", you dimwitted coward.

Well, striking the "not" from Google's "do no evil" is certainly not controversial any more, since they do not, in fact, support human rights any more (and was the subject of TFA).

Why whether or not a search engine is evil would be controversial is beyond me. Their search engine is certainly the best on the internet, but their purchase of the dastardly doubleclick, an entirely evil company whose only purpose is internet stalking, certainly is evil.

Google put the lie to "do no evil" when it bought doubleclick.

I must not be the only one to whom "newfag" is new. Mr. Baggins (s4ck) wrote

i like this one. newfag. what the hell ever it means.. why new? i'll try to call someone that at the office.. see what happened.
as far a 4chan-reading imbecile.. what is 4chan?

i like reading /. ... always something new to learn through the redundancy... hmmmm...

Klaus replied "Evil in who's eyes? Robbing shareholders of profits can be seen as evil too."

This is a good point, even if Santa doesn't know that "who's" is the contraction for "who is". Amazing that intelligent nerds can be illiterate (but I've been guilty of illiteracy at times myself, particularly when I don't get my coffee). Mammon worshipers' religious pursuit of profits is, to mammon worshipers, the ultimate good and anything that keeps the rich from aggregating the wealth created by the poor is in their eyes, evil.

I never looked at it that way. To a mammon worshiper, "do no evil" means "you must make as much money as possible, and harm as many non-stockholders as possible".

Maxo-Texas points out, oblivious of the tenets of mameity, that "Google is helping to censor and erase the existence of chinese citizens. Yahoo is helping to imprison people for their speech. Both are giving aid and comfort to an enemy government."

But giving aid and comfort to whose enemy? Google has shareholders all over the world! Like ADM, it is NOT an American company. If it were, it would be owned by Americans.

Amazing how a zero rated "troll" can generate such good discussion. If that was a troll, I need to troll more.

I wonder if the coot we saw at Farley's is at slashdot?

Tami's family has money. When she was young, they raised show horses. When she was young, she showed them at horse shows. She says she ate, breathed, and lived horses. She was reading a novel about horse shows (and the author's first name was, coincidentally, Tami) and she'd read a paragraph out of it as I was driving.

The book was incredibly ignorant. The passage said that there were rich and poor showing horses, and I interrupted her.

"What the fuck? Poor people don't have horses! I'm middle class and I can't afford a horse!"

"Well, compared to some of the other owners, we were poor. We were lucky to afford a stall at the faigrounds, the rich people had whole buildings, with chandeliers and red carpet!"

"In a BARN?"

"Yeah, those are rich people. Everybody else is poor."

I dropped her at the library so she could trade the horse book she'd just finished for some murder mystery or other and went to Farley's.

"Pitcher?" Tammy asked. "No, it's just me today and it'll get hot before I finish it. Just a glass, please."

Halfway throught the glass and the old guy comes in with his note pad - and again sits down next to me. But my troll was at the library, so I didn't have any fun.

Well, ok, I did have a little fun. I cut a silent but deadly fart, loudly asked "Who farted?" and glared at the old fart sitting next to me with his pad and pencil.

He left.

As I was starting on my second beer, the phone rang. Sheila, the owner, (who the horse-showing rich people with chandelliers in the barns would consider poor) answered it. "No, he's not here."

I got Tammy's attention. "That wasn't for me, was it?"

It wasn't. "I left Tami my phone and she's supposed to call me when she's ready for me to get her, would you let me know?"

Soon enough the call came, and I went to collect Tami, whose poor familiy showed horses.

If you've been in Farley's with a pad of paper... man, you're in the wrong bar. You could get hurt in there. I mean, Roger beat the shit out of some woman one night, and I hear she's a badass. You need to go next door to the gay bar, I'm sure the people in there are more interesting than a bunch of pot smoking hippies and alcoholics.

How do you tell if a troll has met Bilbo? He's stoned, of course!

Despite going to the Biters anonymous meetings, sometimes I backslide. It happens; just ask any reformed alcoholic, for example.

My latest bite was extra egregous.

A troll posted a hate-filled racist flamebait and I bit, and bit hard.

The anonymous cowardly lyin' wrote

If you live in the ghetto and there's a lot of crime and you're poor, just keep having sex without birth control! That's right, if you thought birth control was expensive, just wait until you pop out 3-5 kids that you know damned well you can't afford! But that's okay, you can always go on welfare, that way you can have the government use force-or-the-threat-of-force (confiscatory taxes) to take someone else's money away and give it to you to support what you knew you could not afford. Isn't that wonderful! And if most people who do this happen to be black, don't you dare point this out, because why that might harm their self-esteem and OH NO we can't have that! If you then blame Whitey for your lot in life and for the fact that you refuse to make better choices, then and only then are you a TRUE NIGGA

Go ahead and mod me down for responding to this offtopic troll. I deserve it for biting. In fact I'm modding myself down with the "no karma bonus" box.

If you live in the ghetto and there's a lot of crime and you're poor, just keep having sex without birth control!

I live very near the ghetto and there's a lot of crime, but I'm middle class, you elitist piece of shit.

That's right, if you thought birth control was expensive, just wait until you pop out 3-5 kids that you know damned well you can't afford!

I was married ten years before I realized that there's no such thing as being able to afford kids. I now wish I'd had them when I was 25 instead of 35.

But that's okay, you can always go on welfare

No you can't; not in the US anyway. In case you've been asleep for over a decade, in 1996 Congress passed and Clinton signed welfare reform into law. Ir abolished the entitlemen AFDC, welfare with the goal of subsidising families and replaced it with TANF, which has the goal of getting poor people into the workforce and has a two year limit on benefits, five years lifetime. There is no longer welfare in America, Bubba. Tell your lord and savior Rush Limbaugh, would you?

And if most people who do this happen to be black, don't you dare point this out

Actually, most people who were on AFDC were as white as me, and I have hazel eyes, you stupid racist dumbass.

Go troll a non-tech forum with your stupidity. Judging from the troll you used, I suggest this one [democratic...ground.com]. Hiint: I've never been to that site.

-mcgrew

ps: FOAD.

There is no longer welfare in America, Bubba.

Sure there is. It's called the Earned Income Tax Credit, and even if you have no tax liability you are still "entitled" to it and more children = more tax credit. Note that more than 40% of the USA adult population has zero federal tax liability. They did not abolish welfare; they gave it a new name and a new face. It's still the same ol' idea though - income redistribution. This kind of micromanagement of our lives via carrot-and-stick tactics is precisely why an income tax is a bad idea. There is a good reason why the Constitution had to be amended to allow an income tax, and it wasn't because the Founders accidentally forgot to include it.

At any rate, the persistence of some kind of welfare that always rewards having children you can't really afford is simple (to put that another way, since your sensibilities seem rather tender, the reason why there is no government incentive to remain childless is simple). Our economy is based on lending money at interest. This is thanks to the idiotic decision to abandon the gold standard and embrace the private corporation known as the Federal Reserve. Basically, this means that if the population does not continue to grow, the economy collapses in a way that will make any "recession" seem like a picnic. So, whether it's really a good idea or not, whether there is any logical or moral justification for it or not, whether it's a sound long-term investment or not, and whether it is their province or not, the government has a strong vested interest in encouraging people to reproduce.

Actually, most people who were on AFDC were as white as me, and I have hazel eyes, you stupid racist dumbass.

The question is not whether a counter-example like you exists. The question is not whether there are more white people who received welfare than black people who received welfare. The pertinent question is, proportional to their percentage of the population, which group received more subsidies? There really is no debate about that one. The only debate is whether it is caused by racism or by things like a culture that does not value education etc.

Sure there is. It's called the Earned Income Tax Credit

Key words are "earned income". You have to have a job to get it, and what's more, a job that pays starvation wages. It isn't the poor person getting this welfare, it's the company that he generates wealth for that gets the government largess. Raise the minimum wage so that a wage earner can afford the cost of living and nobody will get the earned income tax credit.

But I'm sure a right wing facist like yourself doesn't belive in the minimum wage at all, that rules and regulations are for the poor while the rich and the corporations they run should be left alone by the government.

Corporate welfare is indeed still around, but welfare for poor people is not.

more children = more tax credit

That's the Child Care credit, and it's there so that widow White can afford babysitters for her two kids so she can go to work for starvation wages.

The question is not whether there are more white people who received welfare than black people who received welfare.

And I already gave you your answer, Mr. Limbaugh. More white people were on AFDC than all other races combined.

I'll try to have a journal about meatspace next week. maybe one about a meatspace troll; there are certainly plenty of them here in Springfield.

"One whom crosses Duke Nukem is comparable to one whom is dead."
~ Oscar Wilde on Duke Nukem

"Come get some!"
~ Duke Nukem on opening a new McDonald's restaurant

"If that don't teach you a lesson, might show you his Smith and Wesson"
~ Foreigner (Headknocker)

According to the uncyclopedia, Duke Nukem was 2nd on the Rolling Stones "500 Baddest Motherfuckers of all time" following Chuck Norris.

Every now and then somebody at slashdot mentions the old guy, and laughs about him. Man, you shouldn't laugh at an old war hero whose seen better days like that! I don't see anybody laughing about John Wayne. Uh, ok, that link does, but they're assholes. Not serious assholes, just your every other day garden variety assholes.

Well, maybe that link and Jackie Chan in the movie Shanghai Noon.

Oh, and at Felber's, too. There's a big framed portrait of the Duke (Wayne, not Newton... I mean, Nukem), and somebody put a speech balloon on it that says "I never pushed 1 for English".

But I digress. I was hanging around with Duke (Nukem, not Wayne) when he was a squeaky little side scroller. I saw him yesterday, the poor old guy isn't doing too well.

"Duke!" I said. "Hey, dude, it's mcgrew, haven't seen you in a while! Where you been?"

"Hey mcgrew, hi, howarya, haven't seen you since you took that vacation to Stroggos. I' been in the hospital lately mostly." He was bald, wrinkled, walked with a stoop and carried a cane. No doubt the cane had a sword in it. Or even more likely, a chain saw.

"What happened?"

"Well, after Mr. Broussard and the guys retired me I started drinking pretty heavy. I wound up homeless and depressed, and tried to kill myself. They said I had PTSD and put me on Paxil. Boy, mix that stuff with alcohol...

"Then I got a bad case of gout. I have arthritis all over now."

It was sad, seeing my old hero like this.

"Who's your doctor?" I asked.

"I'm indigent, so I have to go to the VA hospital and take whoever they give me. The new doctor's name is 'Proton'. They tell me he's pretty good."

originally posted as a comment that I fattened up a little and edited somewhat. This journal may or may not be continued. Until then, you can find a trailer for Duke Nukem 4ever here

Slashdot poll:
Favorite Newton:
Fig
Sir Isaac
Wayne
Duke
Natalie
Olivia

Fool me once, shame on you (Score:0, Troll)

Fool me twice, shame on me.

I'd been playing DOOM since I played the first one on my old 386, with the graphics turned down enough that it was playable. As soon as I saw DOOM 2 on the shelf I bought it, too. I had hundreds of user-created levels for the two DOOMS.

DOOM 3 came out. I'd just had my CPU fry from its fan failing, and bought a new motherboard and video card. I bought DOOM 3, knowing I had enough hardware to throw at the game.

It required the new Windows OS, XP. Sixty bucks for a game that wouldn't run on my OS. It still sits on the shelf uninstalled. I didn't RTFA, but don't think I have to to know that it's going to require a four CPU machine with a $10,000 video card and Windows Vista (service pack six) to run.

I'm done with Id's software. R.I.P. Springfield Fragfest.

-mcgrew

Slashdot's moderation system is seriously broken. In China Wants US-Owned Hotels to Censor Internet, the summary states ""The Chinese government is demanding that US-owned hotels there filter Internet service during the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, US Senator Sam Brownback has alleged." I responded

Sam Brownback doesn't exist. If he did, there would be an uncyclopedia article about him.

Oh wait, he does exist, here [uncyclopedia.org] is the entry on the honorable Senator Browbakc from Kansas [uncyclopedia.org]

The link to Brownback's name went to the uncyclopedia entry on "fucktard" and "kansas" went to the Kansas entry. I quoted the Kansas entry.

It was moderated offtopic. Clearly brownback's slutty wife (I only pay her five bucks but damn it she won't shave her legs) has mod points.

No, I do not like Sam Brownback or his politics or his Godforsaken state. But that comment was on topic.

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore." ~ Dorothy on noticing a school teaching actual science

A fellow named wattrlz (1162603) replied to War Brewing on the Inexpensive Laptop Front with subject "Oblig,", comment "Imagine a beowulf cluster of those.". I replied

I, for one, welcome... OW! OW! STOPPIT!

(lame humorless slashdot filter encountered. don't use so many caps. it's like shouting. really, tone it odwn in here mcgrew, this is a library not a goddamned bar)

Both our comments were moderated "troll". An AC responded to wattrlz (1162603) with "Yeah, a beowulf cluster of those *might* end up being just as fast as my T61 Thinkpad" and it sat at 1, no moderation. The time stamps say all three comments were within ten minutes of each other.

In the thread Tesla Motors Opens Retail Store someone said that the >200 mile limit was short range; I commented that I seldom travel more than a hundred miles one way, and a binary number (or at least, a number consisting only of ones and zeros) listed all the long long trips he takes frequently. I answered "You, sir, are a very big contributor to global warming and the price of fuel. I sincerely hope you're not driving an Escalade."

It was moderated "troll". Slashdot - Fox News for nerd wannabes, stuff that mutters.

But the post that really pissed me off and caused this flaming pile of shit I'm writing now to be posted was in answer to this comment in the armageddon poll. Someone said he wanted to be shot to death by a jealous husband at age 100, and an answering comment (rated 2, insightful) read "wow that is some goal in life. Make sure said husband has a 20 year old wife too."

I responded quite truthfully and sincerely

You're a sicko. I'm only 56 but if I fucked a 20 year old I'd feel like a pedophile. Actually anybody under 30 looks like a child to me, imagine being twice my age?

Yes, it was moderated "troll"! Both my daughters are younger than that, you sick fucks! WHAT THE GODDAMNED FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE???

I guess IHBT - by the mods. But as one slashdotter's sig says, "Karma: Excellent. Try again, mod boy".

Update (today, imagine that!):
Today, you have 10 moderations to meta-moderate.

Re:Where are the Cheetos?
by - on Monday January 07, @08:31PM (#21948634)
The original skit is better. Its sad how popular that skit is and yet it seems 99% of people do not know of the creators =(.

Best video rendition imo had to be the one they did with the Summoner crew.
--
Ice Cream has no bones.
Original Discussion: Ask the Designers of D&D Fourth Edition
Rating: Informative.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

Re:deja vu
by - on Thursday January 10, @08:03PM (#21992976)

The last I heard, the NSLU2 will NEVER spin down the hard drives. This may accelerate the wear on the bearings, and cause premature failure. Drives also consume more power while spinning.

Actually, what I learned a long time ago (in a technology-land far, far away) is "never shut down your equipment." The only times hard drives and other computer hardware experience physical wear is startup, shutdown, and under G force loads.

A spinning platter running on new bearings essentially maintains bearing-on-lubricant-on-bushing contact the entire time it is on, and has zero wear. But when the platter is spun down, the bearings will of course stop. At that time the bearings "poke through" the lubrication layer, causing metal-on-metal contact. Over time the weight of the platters on the bearings will cause microscopic deformations to be created on the surfaces of the bearings. These no-longer-round bearings then have high spots that also poke through the lubrication layer, causing metal-on-metal contact while the drive is spinning. This becomes a source of vibration, which leads to more metal-on-metal contact, causing wear.

There are other physical reasons to not shut down your computer, too.

Surge currents are a problem. They occur in a hard drive because a stopped motor takes much more torque to spin up than a running motor. That means that a component which is spec'd to carry the running current of the motor, say 80ma, has to temporarily provide startup current of perhaps 200ma. Most components can handle that much extra current for a very small amount of time, but a marginal component may fail under the extra stress. Avoiding power surges maximizes the life of those components

There is another source of wear that people often ignore, and that is thermal stress. Powering equipment up causes it to heat up, expanding the materials it's made of. And all materials have different coefficients of expansion -- aluminum expands quite a bit more per degree than steel, and both expand much more rapidly than ceramics and fiberglass. When a computer is powered off and cools down, everything shrinks at its own rate -- traces on the circuit boards, soldered joints, the case, the screws holding the heat sink to the motherboard, the gold wires connecting the chip package to the die, everything. That's the only mechanical wear these otherwise solid state components will ever have. The more heating/cooling cycles, the more often they will tug at each other, causing wear.

However, many things have changed since I learned this stuff. The technology of hard drives is vastly different than it was when I learned this; especially the properties of the lubricants that are now used. Also, cheap hard drives may have poor bearings to start with, and may already be vibrating when you purchase them (sound is a good way to detect this -- a good drive is a silent drive.) Hardware designers who are building quality equipment specify components with the capacity to handle the thermal and electrical stresses. And energy efficiency is of concern to everyone. But unless it's really crap gear, I'd suggest that powering down to attempt to preserve the longevity of your equipment might not be the appropriate answer.

--
John
Sed quis debuget ipsum debugatorem?
Original Discussion: Current Recommendations For a Home File Server?
Rating: Interesting.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

Re:RIAA
by - on Thursday January 24, @11:39AM (#22167660)
Ticketmaster. Unfortunately, there's a $1000 service fee per ticket.
Original Discussion: Internet Group Declares War on Scientology
Rating: Funny.
This comment is Unfunny Funny | See Context

Re:solve the cause, not the symptom
by - on Thursday March 13, @01:41AM (#22736338)
1. Do you write scripts for the white house by any chance? how much do you make? start considering it... they need someone to save ass this last year. 2. "The police officer, in self defense, shoots back. " 1--> Since when did the Israeli military become Palestine's police? 2--> Assuming Gaza/West Bank are sovereign as Israel "claims" they are, wouldn't the so called "terrorists" be defending the Palestinians, hence isn't Israel shooting at the Palestinian military/police/civilians thereby causing retaliatory acts? "The terrorists in Israel fire rockets. Palestine fights back. Some innocent people get killed on both sides. Palestanians feel terrible when this happens. But it's not Palestine's fault. Palestine is fighting in self defense." Good job, that was a great loop of a sentence. (FYI I think the 120 vs 5 number matches the previous sentence more. ;))
Original Discussion: Israelis Sue Government For Laser Cannons
Rating: Flamebait.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

please... dogs people
by - on Tuesday April 08, @08:23PM (#23007238)
if you live in a society where there are dogs

Dogs are not necessary, nor particularly useful in our society. Children, however are 100% required for the perpetuation of the human race.
the default should be that if you wish to bring a wild (or a domesticated wild) animal into our society, it is your responsibility to conroll it. The whole reason we built walls, then cities was to keep filthy animals from killing us. It is insane to insinuate that because you have chosen to bring a beast into this human society, that the rest of the humans should accomidate you by learning the beast's behaviors, quirks, and psychology.

Don't get me wrong, I take personal responsibility to teach myself and my children to deal with other people's borderline narcissistic need to train animals to serve them, but the responsibility that comes with bringing an unpredictible animal into society still rests squarely on the shoulders of the person who has opted to negate the reason why we have society and let in the beast. Sure I teach my kids, but if you brought your animal into society, you are the one that played the first losing card in the blame game.
Original Discussion: Cylons Are ... ?
Rating: Insightful.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

It was a little off-topic for the FA but on-topic for the comment it was responding to. It showed the kind of intelligence often lacking in many slashdot comments these disenlightened days.

Re:Responses
by - on Saturday April 12, @10:24AM (#23046478)
If DISH network has corrected the problem with a new software download, why do they need to pursue this to the US Supreme Court?

It would seem that it is SOP for a manufacturer to EOL a piece of equipment. Tell the users they need to upgrade. There will be some gnashing of teeth, some users will flee, but if the new product is better... Some people need a shove to move on.

Having said that, I would be pissed off if someone told me I had to abandon a perfectly functional piece of kit and upgrade. I sure a community of terrorists that have hacked their own distro of Linux onto it to maintain functionality could be found. Someone would do it because they could.

Any idea how this affects Bell Express Vue in Canada? I notice about 3 months ago we received new software that did more things that were TIVO like. Record all eps, record all new eps, priorities and so on...
Original Discussion: TiVo Patent Victory Over Dish Network Upheld
Rating: Interesting.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

Wonder if they are afraid to start their own cars?
by - on Monday April 14, @04:13PM (#23068706)
Just imagine walking out to your car in the morning, getting in, turning the key, and kaboom!
Original Discussion: Eco-Marathon Team Hits 2,843 mpg
Rating: Funny.
This comment is Unfunny Funny | See Context

I have no idea where that comment could possibly have come from. Kaboom? Why would an eco-friendly car explode? It's not like this contest was held in Iraq! A non-eco-friendly car, holding more fuel, would be far more likely to explode.

Maybe I'm stupid but I didn't get the (woosh) joke.

Chose what you like better
by - on Wednesday April 16, @05:52AM (#23087536)
I'd probably go for the liberal arts college. You'll meet some interesting people, have a good life for a while and probably get a better education if the groups are small anyway. You can always go to MIT for your masters. I'd also not discount the value of theory. I've always prefered hiring the math student with some programming knowledge over the CS student who took all the Java classes.
--
Think inside the box!
Original Discussion: For CS Majors, How Important Is the "Where?"
Rating: Interesting.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

Re:I don't think that...
by - on Sunday April 20, @09:48PM (#23138202)
Get real, the only damage done to the project was via corporate marketdroids. As soon as it was obvious that the OLPC was a threat to corporate profits in school computer sales and overt attack campaign was launched via web trolls.

The underlying reality is the OPLC had to get out there as soon as it good, so that it be refined, and continue to develop, a continuing process. Along the way, there will always be for profit corporations who see the OLPC as nothing more but a source of profits and seek to take shortcuts and cheat the concept in order to increase profits.

For many countries, the ideal school notebook should be locally manufactured, as part of the education and development process. This is also necessary to ensure reliable supply in the event of any disruptive issues be that natural or man made disasters. For every child to have a notebook consistent supply becomes very important and the OLPC project as an open development process does teach a lot of lessons.

Of course the attacks on OLPC by various parties, also teaches other lessons, that corporate greed knows no bounds and billionaires remain greedy no matter how much money they have.

--
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Original Discussion: Widespread Keyboard Failures on OLPC's XO-1
Rating: Interesting.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

christian science?
by - on Monday May 05, @05:38PM (#23305234)
Christian Science?...zzzt....bing!...rrrr....does not compute!!!!
Original Discussion: War Brewing on the Inexpensive Laptop Front
Rating: Troll.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

I didn't metamoderate this one, and left it alone. The author was clearly trying for "funny" but failing miserably at it. He was clearly not troilling, either. But a great many scientists ARE Christians (and Bhuddists and Muslims etc). There is nothing anti-science about religion, and there is nothing anti-religion about science. Sceince and religion (and philosophy) answer entirely different questions. "Thou shalt not fuck thy neighbor's wife" has no meaning to science, and E-MC2 has no meaning in religion. You might well ask "which is redder, white or black?"

Offtopic Update 5/8/8
Newton wasn't the first to say "if I see farther than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants" although the quote is often (usually?) attributed to him.

In the last couple of days I saw two "fair use" uses of Newton's "stolen" phrase in slashdot sigs, one funny and the next both funny and ironic. If I see many more of them I'll excise this update and make a whole journal out of it.

"If I have seen farther than other men, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars"

"If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of Giants"

DAMNED SLASHDOT!!!! I typed

Only if you're female

-mcgrew

To which I got "slow down cowboy, it's only been 16 seconds since you hit reply". So I back up, enter it again... and leave out the "mcgrew". Which totally ruined the joke.

Slashdot is the only nerd site on the net where you're penalized for reading or typing too fast.

"But, but" you say, "we have to do that to protect ourself against bots!"

Well if a bot has excellent karma so what? If the slashdot audience thinks my comments are interesting, insightful, informative (and they must since my karma is excellent and I have a "fans" list a mile long) what difference would it make if I was a bot? Bot or not, if I were to start blathering (shut up, a/c) and trolling the karma wouldn't last long, now would it?

I have a ton of "messages" to respond to, so shat happens? Slashdot tells me I've made too many posts in four hours! Now how damned hard would it be do NOT COUNT IT when you're responding to comments posted to your own journal or the "slashdot message center?"

Who's in charge of this zoo, anyway? If I ran the zoo...

Just s short update to Ask Slashdot: Health Care, The Springfield paper has a story today by their staff writer Dean Olson titled Musician on mend fights for uninsured.

Bill Laymon, a high-profile rock musician who grew up in Springfield, says he's "coming back from being dead." And he is starting to speak out about the plight of the uninsured.

Laymon says he'll never forget the day in 2005 when he trudged into the emergency room at Maui Memorial Medical Center in Hawaii, sick with typhus and encephalitis.
"I was so sick, I wasn't sure what month it was," he recalled in a recent interview.

"I had suffered neurological damage by that time."

The doctor gave him some pain pills and refused to do any more.

According to Laymon, the doctor told him: "'There's nothing wrong with you. You're uninsured. Get out of here.'"

[this journal is unfinished]

The former mayor is under indictment, the Village Board is hamstrung by infighting and a defiant landowner has vowed to put a pig farm on his property to stop the town from building a water tower.

But the news on everyone's lips in far north suburban Island Lake is about Greg Kachka and his T-shirt.

The Tribune has me fuming today. First, DOW firing the Midwest Administrator for the EPA (it's in the firehose, I submitted it this morning) and now this.

Only in a police state do you get arrested for speech. Liberty? What liberty?

The guy, a Vietnam veteran and retired postal worker, was at a city council meeting wearing a t-shirt with a Marine Corps insignia that said, "Don't Move. If You Run, You'll Only Die Tired", and wagged his finger at a councilcritter, who was obviously afraid that Kachka migh fire the menacing finger finger at her.

In other government misdeeds, the "DC Madam" that got some nanny-state politicians, married men who wagged their loaded tongues at hookers and hypocritically spoke against prostitution while being johns reportedly killed herself.

Like one of her girls killed herself. Like Clinton lawyer Vince Foster killed himself.

I'm reminded of an old racist joke (actually it's more of an anti-racist joke, albeit a sick one) about a black man in the old south found dead hanging from a tree, with a shotgun wound in his back and five knives sticking from his chest. "Worst suicide I've ever seen", says the sheriff.

Here in Cartoon City, Illinois, a man was arrested for "allegedly leaving a suspicious-looking cooler outside the Pavilion building at St. John's Hospital." The terrorists have indeed won, as our cowardly governments are indeed not just terrified, but scared shitless.

In the same linked page is an incident where a man was run over by a train. Good thing he was a cartoon character from Springfield or he might have been killed!

A Springfield man suffered only broken bones and a cut to his head when he was hit by a train Thursday morning.

Police said they do not know why Michael Watkins, 59, was on the 10th Street tracks at Cook Street. They took a criminal trespass report, but it was unclear Thursday if Watkins was to be arrested.

I don't even know why the next item was even in the paper: State worker allegedly took bribes. NO! In Illinois? Not here!!!

Now, the next item truly is a "man bites dog" story: Northwestern dean admits mistake.

Must be a typo or something, a university dean admitting he made a mistake? What's next, McCain admitting that Bush fucked up when he invaded Iraq? Obama admitting that going to Wright's church was fucktardedly stupid and made voters question his judgement and intelligence? Clinton admitting that she's a fucking bitch almost as bad as offline troll Ann Coulter?

--------
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and we know that we have a great impact on today's culture and every little aspect of your puny life.

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We know where you want to go today.

We, are The Microsoft.

You will not be assimilated. We are not the Borg.

You idiot.

MSN is our version of what life should look like
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I added the following as a remidnder to the mods that they should think before moderating. I usually metamoderate every day or so.

Today, you have 10 moderations to meta-moderate.
Devolving backwards I think
by - on Thursday December 13, @10:17PM (#21692506)
If the Christian church had evolved any sooner we wouldn't have evolved as far as we did.
I think the chruch is the cause of the lull, every mutant human born has to be kept alive and allowed to procreate its defective genes.
I not saying who should choose in these cases, only that we have no NO selection pressure on improving the gene pool and a significant pressure from the church to weaken it severely.
The right to lifers would have us breed ourselves back into vegetables.
Original Discussion: Recent Human Evolution May Have Been Driven By Self-Selection
Rating: Offtopic.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

Just because I disagree with the comment doesn't mean it should be downmodded. It was on topic, so an "offtopic" moderation is unfair. Mod just got downmodded.

Doesn't make sense
by - on Sunday January 06, @12:57PM (#21932994)
It doesn't make sense to me: first you burn coal, which basically creates energy by oxidizing carbon and creating CO2; then you use solar energy to undo that and turn the CO2 back into CO. Wouldn't it make more sense to make electricity directly from the solar energy and not involve the coal at all? Besides which, if the CO is later used as fuel as they say, then eventually you're going to oxidize that anyway and create the same CO2 you would have in the first place. It seems like a very roundabout way to add solar energy into the mix.
Original Discussion: Scientists Recycle CO2 with Sunlight to Make Fuel
Rating: Insightful.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context

How does "It doesn't make sense to me" show insight? If it had been moderated "interesting" I'd have marked it as fair. Mods, consult a dictionary if you don't know what "insightful" means.

Re:All I need do is replace my whole OS
by - on Wednesday January 16, @06:58PM (#22072898)
Maybe you haven't stepped outside the university much, but most users have those apps boot at start-up because they don't know how to disable them (or worry they'll break something if they did).

Couple that with the persistence of certain vendors installing unnecessary applications into their taskbars (and as services) and of course there's a lot of cruft that could be cleaned up.
--
You never actually own anything with data rights management in it.
Original Discussion: Startup Offers Instant-Boot Windows Alternative
Rating: Insightful.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context
--

yuck!
by - on Thursday January 17, @03:55PM (#22084196)
What about those of us who are squicked by the thought of anything getting near our eyes, let alone contact lenses?

While I have no expertise in the field, I've always assumed that we'd first see this with glasses. The classic HUD on aircraft is an image projected onto glass in the pilot's line of sight. I figured we'd see this when we either had a) some sort of transparent material with a tiny lcd grid so that wireframe graphics could be overlaid on the real world objects or b) VR goggles scaled down to the size of comfortable glasses with the world projected inside with the overlays on top.

The one other variant I could think of for a projector technology would be glasses with a tiny low-power laser tracking the retina and beaming photons into it.

Thinking about VR, though, it does make you wonder about the interrogation potential for completely controlling someone's environment. If you thought the Ministry was scary in 1984, just imagine the interrogator controlling your entire reality. There was actually a surprisingly good TNG episode where Riker was put through VR interrogation so that he would reveal something important. Each of those constructed realities seemed entirely convincing at first but as he started to find flaws, the reality would shatter and be replaced by something new. Scary.
--
Kwisatz Haderach sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Original Discussion: Bionic Contact Lens May Lead to Overlay Displays
Rating: Interesting.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context
--
Re:It's not a church
by - on Thursday January 24, @11:25AM (#22167410)
Cult: organization pretending to be a religion. Keeps true beliefs secret from recruits, one would think because they would have no recruits if beliefs were known. Viciously attacks any and all who expose secret beliefs. Has tendency to lock people up, either through social pressure or actual locked doors. Uses any means possible to intimidate press, infiltrate government, and co-opt police forces. See: Moonies, Scientology, any number of local Jesus franchises in USA, and yes, even the Mormons, tho they succeeded in all points listed above so long ago that no one remembers they are a cult. Hell. the Salvation Army is a cult, but people rarely look at its belief system. A uniformed army, eh? But I digress.
Original Discussion: Internet Group Declares War on Scientology
Rating: Insightful.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context
--
Usefulness
by - on Thursday February 28, @07:07PM (#22594448)
Granted, I don't know to what extent they're using this to drive their development, but...

Most people seem to be commenting that if just suggestions drive their development, the end result will be terrible. That's probably true. But often as a developer you just have no real idea if implementing X, which is on your to-do list, is a feature people even care about, wheras people may really care about implementing Y, another item you know you can take care of but just haven't gotten around to.
Original Discussion: Ubuntu Brainstorm Launched
Rating: Insightful.
This rating is Unfair Fair | See Context
--
What the article fails to pont out is ...
by - on Wednesday April 02, @09:01PM (#22946906)
This newly discovered Black Hole is the final result of a Large Hadron Collider, that caused a microsopic black hole on the third planet formerly circling the former star now known as 'XTE J1650-500'. So, this is not a naturally occuring black hole, but an alien-created one. Sadly this alien species is now extinct so they can't tell us how to avoid their mistake.
Original Discussion: Scientists Discover Teeny Tiny Black Hole
Rating: Funny.
This comment is Unfunny Funny | See Context

OK, I didn't have coffee shooting out of my noise but it was humorous, and its moderation doesn't affect karma one way or another.

Oh sorry, ladies and gentlemen, we've run out of time. Tune in again for another exciting game show with your host, Alex Tribbin and the lovely Alice DeFrye. RIP, Doctor Albert Hoffman, the inventor of LSD who passed away on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at the age of 102.

Last week a fellow named Paul Gesterling (I don't know the fellow personally) wrote a letter to the Illinois Times about abortion (do an in-page search of the link for DELIVERING A DOUBLE OUCH for the letter). He wrote:

Illinois Times has made a concerted effort to sadden me over the past few weeks. First, in its recent cover story, it suggests that the reason I will not vote for Barack Obama is not because, despite his nonpartisan rhetoric, he is unwaveringly pro-choice but because I am a racist [Jeannette Cooperman, "Demonizing Obama," April 3]. Ouch. If the Christian right is guilty of demonizing Obama, is Illinois Times guilty of divinizing the man?

Then, as if that were not a direct-enough indictment of my character, they suggest in a recent lead commentary that I am actually increasing abortions in my efforts to promote life and chastity [Cristina Page, "Results matter," April 10]. Ouch again. However counterintuitive, the charge still hurts.

Thus, Illinois Times has inspired me to ask a few of my many questions:

If abortion is in fact morally acceptable, why is limiting its occurrence important to a pro-choicer? Or is there some part of this medical practice that is abhorrent to him or her as well?

How are my pro-life aspirations "guided by ideology" when I support the very unideological material life of a fellow human being? A living human is not an idea but a substantial empirical fact indeed, right?

How is it that we tell students that they can be anything they want to be or that they can achieve whatever their hearts desire but then say that they are incapable of living chastely? Do we not believe they have the ability to see each other as subjects rather than as objects? When we teach gravity, we do not give them parachutes. Why, then, if we are able to teach them fully and appropriately about their sexuality, should we give them contraceptives?

Isn't it better to reason, simply and with logic, than [to rely on] irregular, convoluted, and ambiguous statistics? Do any supposed statistical results justify immoral means?

I forgot that I fired off another letter to the editor. They printed it.

If this keeps up I'm going to start thinking that I don't suck at writing!

At any rate, lest the cartoon characters here in Springfield get to see it while my fellow nerds do not, here is the letter, and unlike most of my stuff at slashdot a real live editor, presumably who has a degree in journalism, actually edited it. I think; they've edited letters I've written before, and sometimes improved them immeasurably. I didn't keep a copy of what I sent the IT editor.

At any rate, I just copied and pasted it from the online version of their letters to the editor page.

As someone who truly is pro-choice, I think I can answer Paul Gesterling's questions ["Letters," April 24]. You see, unlike the "pro-life" people, I am actually anti-abortion. I don't like the idea of it. If one of my daughters wanted one, I would discourage it as much as I could. If anyone else asked my opinion, I would discourage them as well.

However, your abortion is none of my business. The abortion should concern only three people: the fetus' father, its mother, and their doctor. I should have no say in the matter unless I'm the daddy, Mr. Gesterling should have no say in the matter unless he is the father, and my government should have no say in the matter, either.

Life doesn't begin at conception, as the Catholics and some fundamentalist Christian religions claim. It doesn't begin at all. It only started once on this planet (and perhaps nowhere else) and has just continued afterward. Your sperm are alive, a woman's eggs are alive, your skin cells and red blood cells are alive. The abortion of a blastocyst destroys less life than when you cut yourself shaving. I cannot consider a blastocyst a human.

Unlike most others who fraudulently call themselves pro-choice, I support a woman's right to inject herself with heroin, cocaine, nicotine, or fast-food grease and otherwise screw up her life in any way she chooses. Like abortion, it's none of my business and should be none of my government's business. If you support the war on drugs or the anti-smoking laws or anti-prostitution laws or anti-gambling laws, you cannot truthfully call yourself pro-choice.

Likewise, if you support the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan or the death penalty, you cannot truthfully call yourself pro-life.

Both sides of the abortion issue are disingenuous.

Backlash writes
"Massive surveillance? Check. Building a DNA database? Check. Laws against thought crime? Not yet, but coming very soon. The UK government is soon to pass legislation that would criminalise possession of certain types of 'violent' pornography, even if it was part of a consensual session between two adults. Lord Wallace of Tankerness pointed out an ideological schism during last week's debate in the House of Lords: 'If no sexual offence is being committed it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offence for having an image of something which was not an offence. ... Having engaged in it consensually would not be a crime, but to have a photograph of it in one's possession would be a crime. That does not seem to make sense to me.'"

  Combine laws like this with widespread computer ownership, and it makes a whole lot of (Orwellian) sense.

My first thought was, a lot of my journals involve sex in one form or another (in contrast to my old K5 "Paxil Diaries", which involved unsucessfully seeeking sex, and which were, with one or two exceptions, entirely non-violent) and could be thought pornographic by some people. Two of them involve attempted murders, and more than two of them involve the police in one way or another. My response:

UK readers banned from slashdot? (Score:0, Troll)
Lifestyles of the Poor and Obscure [slashdot.org] involves sex with a prostitute. It isn't graphic, however. But an earlier journal, NSFW [slashdot.org] does contain graphic descriptions of a sex act, although it is revealed in the story that the sex is in fact only a dream. The journal "Dork Side of the Moon [slashdot.org] concerns an attempted murder, as does Ask Slashdot: Women [slashdot.org] (which also has hookers, as do many other of my journals).

If they pass this stupid law will I have to add a disclaimer that EU residents may be incarcerated for reading my journals?

It seems that the US and the UK are in a fucktarded race to see who can become the worst police state. I pointed out in yet another journal, Police State: In USSA, cops hassle YOU! [slashdot.org] as well as a blagh on my site (down at the moment) that the US is in fact already a police state, and that any country that uses secret police (in the US they're called "undercover agents" or "plainclothesmen") IS a police state.

At leat in the UK they're not torturing people or holding them without trial, as we do in Guantanimo. But I guess given enough time, they will.

-mcgrew
--
Don't try to outweird me, three eyes" -Zaphod [slashdot.org]

Anonymous Coward says

Re:UK readers banned from slashdot? (Score:1)
You mistakenly believe that EU residents, or anybody for that matter, are interested in your posts and journals. Stop screwing hookers and stop posting worthless crap.

Apparently he hasn't seen this page. Or he's trolling. His response is most decidedly flamebait, but I didn't bite.

The dictionary says

troll1 Audio Help /trol/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[trohl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation,
-verb (used with object)
1. to sing or utter in a full, rolling voice.
2. to sing in the manner of a round or catch.
3. to fish for or in with a moving line, working the line up or down with a rod, as in fishing for pike, or trailing the line behind a slow-moving boat.
4. to move (the line or bait) in doing this.
5. to cause to turn round and round; roll.
6. Obsolete. to hand around, as a bowl of liquor at table.
-verb (used without object)
7. to sing with a full, rolling voice; give forth full, rolling tones.
8. to be uttered or sounded in such tones.
9. to fish by trolling.
10. to roll; turn round and round.
11. to move nimbly, as the tongue in speaking.
-noun
12. a song whose parts are sung in succession; a round.
13. the act of trolling.
14. a lure used in trolling for fish.
15. the fishing line containing the lure and hook for use in trolling.

[Origin: 1350-1400; ME trollen to roll, stroll MF troller to run here and there MHG trollen walk or run with short steps]

--Related forms
troller, noun

LA la la la LA la la la... ok, maybe I was singing a bit too loudly in that comment.

Britannica says

in early Scandinavian folklore, giant, monstrous being [sic], sometimes possessing magic powers. Hostile to men, trolls lived in castles and haunted the surrounding districts after dark. If exposed to sunlight they burst or turned to stone. In later tales trolls often are man-sized or smaller beings similar to dwarfs and elves. They live in mountains, sometimes steal human maidens, and can transform themselves and prophesy. In the Shetland and Orkney islands, Celtic areas once settled by Scandinavians, trolls are called trows and appear as small malign creatures who dwell in mounds or near the sea. In the plays of the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen, especially Peer Gynt (1867) and The Master Builder (1892), trolls are used as symbols of destructive instincts. Trolls in modern tales for children often live under bridges, menacing travelers and exacting tasks or tolls.

Wikipedia says

An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and usually irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, with the intention of baiting other users into an emotional response[1] or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.[2]

Uncyclopedia says

Trolls can be found under network bridges, and actually post factual information, and are kind and considerate to other posters on Internet forums. They try very hard to give people a good experience.

Because they are so nice, they are usually banned from the Internet, or at least from Conservapedia.

They often use humour and tell the truth, which upsets the pathological liars and liberal terrorists out there who believe in only lies and lying liars.

Oddly, of all these I have to say that the mods must have missed all those definitions except the uncyclopedia one!

Here's a hint to you mods: if you care about your slashdot karma you should know that if you mod someone with excellent karma as a "troll", they are very likely to come back themselves and metamoderate your moderation! When your mod is modded "unfair" you are far less likely to get mod points to abuse people with again.

Just because you disagree with a post does not make it a troll. If someone posts a link to goatse or tubgirl or malware, it's a troll, especially if it's accompanied by "you know you nerds love it". If someone defends the Sony corporation or SCO or the RIAA it is either a troll or an astroturfing corporate shill or a fucktard.

If someone defends Microsoft it is usually not a troll, it's either Bill gates, Steve Ballmer, or just a poor witless luser who doesn't know any better. Be kind to these poor souls, as if it's Ballmer there could be winged chairs.

A quickie: I did a google news search.

democratic party
Results 1 - 10 of about 103,287 for democratic party. (0.33 seconds)

republican party
Results 1 - 10 of about 49,075 for republican party. (0.48 seconds)

libertarian party
Results 1 - 10 of about 921 for libertarian party. (0.50 seconds)

green party
Results 1 - 10 of about 18,697 for green party. (0.45 seconds)

I seem to be having tremendous difficulties with my lifestyle.

Oh, I'm sorry. I seem to be plagiarizing. Please let me correct that. The above sentence comes from chapter 31 of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by the late Douglas Adams, who in my opinion wasn't late at all but left the planet way too early.

Fucking party pooper.

I got laid Satuday, and it ruined my whole weekend. And mcgrew.info lapsed, and when I tried to log into the registrar to renew it I discovered that it was registered under an old email address supplied by an ISP that I no longer have. I'm going to have to send a bunch of documentation to Canada to get my domain back.

Anyway, Tami has been staying with me since her alien husband joined the National Guard and left her homeless. Bipolar Tami was a godsend while I was recouperating from the surgery; she doted on me and helped nurse me back to health. She's been cooking and cleaning ever since she's been staying with me. It's like being married, only there's no sex.

I'd told her I was done with the whores, who always seem to get the best of me. I've been telling friends "I need a slut, because I can't afford a whore". Why is it that a woman who sleeps around is a slut but a man who does isn't? We thought that whole "slut" thing was done and over with back in the seventies with the "free love" movement, when birth control was cheap and easy and there were no incurable STDs. I guess AIDS derailed that.

I'd told Tami, only half jokingly, that I wanted her to be my agent and hire a whore for me. It turned out to be a less than humorous joke; well, maybe it was humorous but the joke, as usual, turned out to be on me.

Saturday morning I got up before she did, made coffee and ate breakfast and took a good healthy shit. Why "healthy" and "shit" can be used in the same sentence has always been a mystery to me, but what the hell.

She finally got up and took her shower, and donned her "hugs not drugs" t-shirt. So I gave her a hug. She made more breakfast, and I couldn't finish the second breakfast. I'd make a lousy Hobbit.

Bipolar Tami was exceptionally animated and said "I think this is going to be a manic day!" That's a good thing. When she's in her manic phase she's funny as hell and has everybody busting a gut laughing. Our friend Charlie hates seeing her in a manic mood, as he always winds up with beer shooting out of his nose, which has everybody else laughing even harder.

Wnen I'm in a bad mood she works it until she has me laughing. Last week she spoke of it, saying that when I'm in a bad mood and she's being funny and I'm trying hard to stay in my funk "and I see that little half grin on your face, I almost have an orgasm!"

We went to the bank, and since It was near payday I moved some money from savings to checking and withdrew some more. Fucking gasoline and food are impoverishing me. Someone needs to start going postal on some God damned oil company executives. The motherfuckers are going to burn in hell.

If you are an oil company executive, the President of the US (an oil man) or the Vice President of the US (another oil man) I hate your fucking guts. Especially if you are the latter two; when Bush and Cheney took office gasoline was $1.05 here in Springfield, it was $3.69 yesterday when I bought gas and I saw in the news today that there's a strike in England so of course the price of oil hit a record high and the shit will be even more outrageously expensive today. Lot of good going on strike is doing them, the people they're striking against are making record profits because they went on strike. No wonder labor unions worldwide are hurting so bad, we workers have no leverage at all any more.

I'm afraid that little light that tells me I'm almost out of gas is going to burn out, as even when I put ten bucks in the car the damned light still shines. If you are a violent person, please put an oil company executive in the hospital for me and the rest of humanity. If you are an oil company executive know that you are universally hated by nearly everyone on Earth. You're hated even more than a lawyer for the RIAA.

As we pulled into the bank parking lot, Tami exclaimed that there was a garage sale right there!

"Somebody's selling their garage?" I asked. "No, they're selling old stuff they don't want any more."

"Oh", I said. "It's a misspelling then, they mean garBage sale!"

She said something uncomplimentary. Women seem to have no sense of humor, especially when it comes to things women like, like garbage sales.

She went to the garage sale while I went in the bank to further bankrupt myself. When I got out she was still at at the sale, so I walked over there to collect her. The ladies holding the sale were amused by the fact that she was wearing a Cubs hat and buying a Cardinals t-shirt.

For those of you in other parts of the world, the St Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs are professional baseball teams and bitter rivals. I used to be Cardinals fan, as I grew up in the St Louis area, until a strike/lockout cancelled the World Series. Fucking millionaires and billionaires don't give a healthy shit about anything or anybody except their God damned selves and their God damned money, the love of which is not only the root of all evil but the root of all the world's woes. I'm rooting for the striking oil workers on strike in England (or is it Wales?).

Tami's rooting for the Cubs, who haven't won the World Series since 1908, while the Cardinals win the Series every five or ten yesrs (yay Cards). My late grandmother, who I thought was early but was in a hurry to leave since she'd already hung around this godforsaken planet for a hundred years, was five years old when the Cubs won the series. The only other time they were ever in the series was back in WWII when all the able-bodied men were in Europe and Asia shooting at each other. And even against cripples the Cubs lost.

The Governor of Illinois, who will probably be in prison after he loses the next election, is a fan of those losers.

Springfield is a third of the way betwen Chicago and St Louis, so it's a strange place. In a bar here you can talk about sex, or religion, or politics, but you damned well better not talk about baseball or you might get your ass kicked.

At any rate, I wound up with three t-shirts and a VHS movie for two bucks. I think I'm seeing why women like those garbage sales so much!

As usual when in her mania she had me cracking up. We went up MacAurther from the bank to Martha's Magic Comb where haircuts are onlly five bucks. We had planned to go to Farley's from the bank. "If I'd known you were getting you hair cut I'd have stayed home!" I reminded her that I'd talked of a haircut all week, as my hair was starting to look stupid. I hadn't had it cut in months.

I parked in Family Video's parking lot and crossed the street to the Magic Comb (actually it's a beauty parlor but for a five dollar haircut I don't care) while she went into the video store. There was an old fat lady wearing bright red lipstick and a breathing tube hooked to an oxygen bottle, reading a misnamed "People" magazine. Misnamed, of course, because it isn't about people at all, but rather about celebrities.

Martha came out and had me sit by the sink to get my head wet, then move to the other chair to get it shorn. Tami came in when the haircut was almost finished. Martha gave me a mirror, it looked ok. "You look ten years younger!" the red lipped oxygenated woman said.

"That's because she cut off all the gray hair" I replied. I left her a ten; I'd feel like a cheapassed bastard if I didn't. An oil company executive would probably bitch about the price of the five dollar haircut before leaving in his chauffer-driven Rolls Royce. That is, if he didn't go to barbers who charge hundreds.

The phone rang and Tami answered. "It's for you," she said, and handed me the phone. It was "Jayjay", one of my hooker friends who I'd never had sex with. "Hi Steve, hey I need a real big favor from you. I'm stranded at the Quest and I need a ride".

The Quest Inn is a hotel in the far east side that is a drug haven and whore hotspot. If you need a police officer you can usually find one there. I told Tami, who grumbled a little; Jayjay is a very thin middle aged woman with a cute face and big silicone titties and Tami dosn't like her one little bit. Ladies, if you are contemplating getting a boob job you should know that in twenty years those tits won't sag, they'll be rock-hard. Jayjay's are, at any rate.

Tami spoke of being my hooker agent. "I guess I'll be your pimp now" she joked. "No, my agent" I replied. "You'll be HER pimp!" We picked Jayjay up, and she thanked me profusely and asked to borrow my phone. Nobody was home, she said, and could she hang out with us for a while?

Like I said, Tami never did like Jayjay; it was hate at first sight. The first time she met Jayjay, last year, Tami pretended to be a lesbian hitting on her to get rid of her. It was hilarious. We went to Farley's.

Like I've mentioned before, Farley's is the sleaziest dump in town, but you can get big brown farm eggs for a buck-fifty there, and they'll cash a check for me if I need it so I like going there sometimes when I don't need it. And you can often find a slut who will go to bed with you for a drink or two. The place is dingy and dimly lit, and when you go inside on a bright sunny day like Saturday was, it takes a bit for your eyes to adjust.

I bought a pitcher of beer and the three of us sat down at a table. I saw Brian was there. Brian said he'd been off of the heroin since the last time I'd seen him, maybe a month ago. I think it was right before my operation.

He'd been in a bad way then; a real bad way. I'd seen Amy go through the throes of alcohol withdrawal, but Brian had been in a whole lot worse shape going through withdrawal than Amy had been, and Amy is a hardcore alky.

I was happy that Brian was off the unhealthy shit. He went outside for a cigarette (oh the irony) and I went in the can to take a piss. "Moo Dog must die at home!" someone had scrawled on the door. Moo Dog is a homeless black man who haunts Farleys and bums drinks. He's a real character. But Springfield is a cartoon city and Moo Dog is as cartoonish as they come.

"This IS his home!" someone else had scrawled beneath it.

Tami was going into the ladies romm as I was coming out of the men's room. Why they call it the "ladies' room" I have no idea, as there are usually plenty of women at Farley's but never any ladies. She was grinning hugely. "I did it!" she exclaimed proudly. "Did what?" I asked. "Scared her off again?"

"No! I lined it up for you with her. Twenty bucks!"

This was a surprise to me, as I'd talked to Jayjay before about her services, but she was too expensive for my tastes, wanting at least fifty. I went back to the table. Brian was still outside smoking. Jayjay tried to renegotiate it. "Twenty for a blow job," she began, ending with "fifty for the whole enchelada!"

"Um" I said, "I told you before I don't just want a blowjob. You're going to have to talk to my agent." Tami came back and I explained the situation. "Look" she said to Jayjay, "the deal was a straight fuck for twenty!" Jayjay agreed.

"Wow" I said to Tami, "You're good!"

Shiela, a white country woman who is the bar's owner (she supplies the eggs), had gone to the ghetto on east South Grand for some catfish. There's a stand there where few other white people dare to go, with the best fish ever to not see the fish hook. Brian had given her some money for catfish, which he shared with me, Tami, and Jayjay.

We all left for my house, stopping for beer on the way. Tami and Brian sat in my dining room drinking while Jayjay and I went into the bedroom. When we came out, Tami seemed agitated, her manic mood nearly gone and fast slipping into "psycho bitch from hell" mode.

Unable to get rid of Jayjay and with Tami getting more and more psycho as the day went on, we finally dumped Jayjay and went back to my house. Brian said a friend was coming by to help him program his TV remote, whose on-off switch was the only thing to work. "I'll call you maybe in a half hour" he said.

I drank and listened to Tami's bitching about Jayjay for the next three hours. It was after dark when Brian called; he was walking from way over in the west side of town. I drove out and met him halfway.

"Man", he said "that was pure crazy! I never did get my remote programmmed. She had her boyfriend and her kid with her, they were fighting and screaming and the six year old was crying and it kept up until this other girl came by with heroin, so I had to leave. Damn but that was hell!"

We drank a little more at my house and I drove him home. He said he was going to take a couple of pizzas to Farley's the next day at noon, to meet him there for some pizza. Tami was asleep when I got back.

The next morning she was just as bitchy as the day before. It was starting to get on my nerves. The car's tank was on fumes when I'd gotten back from taking Brian home, so after listening to Tami bich some more I walked to Felbers in the cold misty rain. "Hi Steve", the bartender said. "Beer?"

"Hi John, yeah, and a pen, too. God damned oil bastards." I drank a couple of beers, joked around with John and his other patrons, and walked back home. Tami was in the shower. When she got out she was still in a foul mood. We were going to stop at the Shell station on the way to Farley's - and all the pumps were closed. Shit, a couple of weeks ago I went to the drug store to buy drugs and the pharmacy was closed and they would sell everything but drugs, now the gas station would sell anything but gas. I crossed my fingers and drove south to Ayerco, hoping not to run out of gas on the way.

Brian was nowhere to be found at Farley's, and wasn't answering his phone, so I bought a pitcher and a pizza. Even food wasn't helping the fat woman's foul mood. As we were about to go, Brian called. "We just got done with a couple of steaks", he said. "Where are you?"

"At Farley's" I replied. "We just finished a pizza."

Tami didn't lighten up until later that night. If I didn't know better I'd swear she was jealous!

I've been watching TV. Really. Honest.

****YAWN!!!****

The Illinois Times published my letter to the editor (HEALTH CARE AND THE "FREE" MARKET) I posted at slashdot in the April 15th journal.

I haven't read it yet, I wonder what I said? God but I'll be glad when Dr. Odin tells me I can read again! I was in the mniddle of Hitchhiker's Giude to the Galaxy yet again, and to quote Beetlejuice, "It just keeps getting funnier and funnier every time!"

Tami's still hanging around, but I don't mind a bit. She's been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry, actually earning her keep. It's like being married, except for the lack of sex. And she doesn't nag me like the wife did. Well, not as much anyway.

The bubble in my eye has shrunk to the point that it's very, very small. I had bigger floaters before the vitrectomy. Of course, there are no floaters at all in that eye now, except the annoying little bubble that completely filled my field of vision the day after the surgery.

Life's been boring. The week and a half after the surgery it was hellishly boring, but it got better when the doctor said I didn't have to keep my head down any more.

I found I must be part of an epidemic. I was talking to my old friend Mike (known as "Pig Farmer" in the old K5 Paxil Diaries, but he stopped raising pigs when the price of hog feed shot through the roof), who told me that he'd been talking to our old friend Tom Egbert, who lives twice as far from here as Mike. Tom's brother Vernon, a career Air Force man (AKA "a lifer") had a detached retina the same time as I did. They put a rubber band around his eyeball!

I was in Felber's with Tami a couple of days ago, and the bartender said she'd had her eye lasered. "LASIC?" I asked. "No" she said, she'd had a blood vessil rupture and they used a laser to cauterize it. "I can't remember the doctor's name, he's at the Prarie Eye Institute".

"Dr. Odin?" I suggested. "Yeah," she said, "how did you guess?"

"He's my doctor, too. Did you know that Odin was a Norse god who sacrificed an eye for wisdom?"

"No," she replied rather uneasily. And then promptly changed the subject.