Happy new years! Me, my wife, her sister, are getting ready for a big old house party. We invited Merril, but this is party might end with gay sex in the hot tub (not that non-gays have to take part) and that makes him a little uncomfortable. Plus, he wants to give the two of us our space, as I was nice enough to let them have the house last night. I went over to my Mom's, too see her and also say goodby to our gay republican native american friend Malcolm, who has been living with her and is kind of her adopted kid, which in his culture is fairly common. It being a matriarchal culture and him being first born male, it is kind of an accepted way for him to get away from his family.

He's moving in with his wife. From what I understand, they met in the army, in Korea. They got married for the pay and tax benefits. I think they really like each other, as friends, but I haven't met her yet. That's an even better way of getting away from your family amongst the Dine or Navajo as we call them. His family are all pretty messed up. His mom is a university professor with a gambling problem, and the rest of them are in and out of jail all the time.

Merril and Jenny and I had a great conversation the other night. We're on the same page. This next phase is the make or break phase, where the infatuation fades and you start to be real with each other. It's definitely more than just sexual between her and Merril at this point. And we are all starting to feel safe to contemplate what the medium and long term might look like.

Merril and I still have a great geek connection. I talked his ear off the other night and then apologized, saying I was in my manic phase and he confided that he's actually bipolar. Ouch. He's on good medication, but I had a friend who was bipolar, and that's serious. Not a deal breaker by any means, especially with modern treatments, but a hard road nonetheless.

I'm quitting smoking tomorrow. It's easy, I've done it a million times. Fortunately, my wife has pretty much already quit, her sister smokes three cigarettes a day, outside, and Merril doesn't smoke except when he's drinking and smokes are around. Me, I'm an addict. I did quit for two years once, and only started because I was around smokers all the time. Wish me strength of will, I'll need it.

Deep breaths. The cravings will pass. Cravings always do, because the present moment provides plenty of other stimuli to engage other seeking-circuits if you just wait. It's a good lesson that doesn't just apply to drugs.

It also applies to sex. I've been trying to be very conscious of my desires there. I'm very sexual, not destructively so, but way more than average. But I don't like feeling desperate. And if I don't get it every day, I feel desperate. I mentioned this to my therapist and said it would be one of my goals to turn it down sometimes between then and the next session. I have, and I don't feel guilty because I know my wife is getting some of the hottest sex she's ever had from Merril.

I came home today and he was still here. I'd specifically invited him to stay fro dinner, but he felt like he was taking advantage. Sadly, he had a dead battery and needed a jump. Unlike Mr. Y., Merril has a moral center telling him what's fair and what isn't.

I have to wrap this up, my lovely wife who is watching me right now has reminded me that we have a party to go to.

Steve,

How things going? Same old thing? I am writing to you because I am so bored and I thought that you would like to hear some of the fascinating facts from prison! That and of course you just couldn't wait to get a letter from am inmate in prison for the first time in your life!

These are little known but true-life tidbits, or maybe you would like to check them out just to see if they are really true.

1. The state is paid $30,000 / yr per inmate. How much do you think is truly spent on inmates especially the ones that get 1 yr. and are there 61 days?
2. Also did you know that there is a correctional officer here who is an actual member of the KKK? He was actually on the Jerry Springer show. When we came here several people recognized him after about a week we have not seen him since. He was what they call a white shirt. Which means a higher ranking officer!

Another thing that really bothers me is they don't give you enought to drink and then they tell you to drink the water if you get thirsty. But none of them drink it they are drinking soda or bottled water! Some of them carry a gallon jug around to make sure that they don't run out!

I think everybody is in for a surprise when I get back. I don't want to go back to my old ways I think I have changed for the better! Have any of you? I guess I will find out and so will you! Write me if you can find a stamp & if you can spare the time!

Linda

P.S. Don't make any bets on me unless you are willing to bet on yourself doing the same! You know what I mean?

No, I'm not talking about bankrupcy; that was '04. I'm talking about the year seven, which is over in a few days. I'm not likely to write any more journals this year.

I should have done this in the last journal but what the hell.

The story starts back in '02 when my ex left and I took Paxil, drank, and wrote diaries at K5. They became known as "the Paxil Diaries" and to my great surprise became popular. Folks there seemed to like how I wrote; almost everything I submitted was posted, seventeen stories in all, and most of what was posted got the front page.

Then I pissed off a K5 editor with a story I intended to be humorous, but the humorless prick was offended and began a vendetta against me. I wound up being banned for crapflooding, and Rusty himself reinstated my account with an apology. Apparently I'm the only one to ever be banned for crapflooding where all the crap was posted and three of four posted to the front page!

But Pete kept up his vendetta and I finally had enough, and left. I stopped writing for a while, then started posting my stuff to my own web site, but with a catch- there were no links to it, so I wouldn't repeat my K5 celebrity but would still have an outlet for my frustration.

Then I started posting to /. again. And the slashdot journals started looking like the K5 diaries.

So here are the "Paxil Diary-like" journals, layed out as chapters in a book. I've already taken the Paxil Diaries and put them in book form, one of these days I'll get around to publishing both volumes. Oddly, the journal before last, A Paxil Diary Christmas Story, was the final chapter of the second volume. The first volume ends with Fifty Cents (Believe it or not) where I finally got a blow job from some whore that walked up to me on the street as I was walking home.

Here so far are the Slashdot Chronicles: Tales of drunken whoredom, 2007.

Behind my sig
Ask Slashdot: Women
A Nerd's Guide to Getting Laid
Blagh!
Cockblocked by a nice surprise
My Friends, the Whores
Oh hell...
mcgrew's home for wayward women
Pure Prairie League
NSFW
Asses, asses, all fall down
The calm before the storm
Tis the season to commit suicide
Murder at the Sangammon County Jail
Alien Invader
The Crackwhore and the Nerd

A bit of an update to "The Story So Far:" Amy broke up with her Boyfriend last night, Tami's husband has been stalking and harrassing Amy trying to get in her pants, so Tami's on the outs with him. Last night she showed up wearing makeup and seemed crestfallen that Amy was there, as if she wanted to get in my pants.

And I wound up not getting laid, my nerd license still intact. Nobody's surprised, I'm sure.

Here's wishing you a happy and healthy eight, and may your nerd license be often suspended.

Well, I'm a-runnin' down the road, tryin to loosen my load
I got seven women on my mind.
Four that wanna stone me,
Two that wanna own me,
One says she's a friend of mine

OK, it's that time of year again. The time of year when everyone and their dog waxes nostalgic about all the shit nobody cares about from the year past, and stupidly predicts the next year in the grim knowlege that when the next New Year comes along nobody will remember that the dumbass predicted a bunch of foolish shit that turned out to be complete and utter balderdash.

I might as well, too.

January saw me moving into my new house and breaking up with my 300 pound alcoholic girlfriend Robyn. It was a first; I'd never broken up with a girl before. They always broke up with me, or rather than breaking up just left.

It was also the second time a woman ever cried over me. I should recount the sad but hilarious breakup.

The first woman to ever cry over me was the toothless flat chested Chris when she found out about Robyn, shortly before I broke up with Robyn. But hell, I hadn't seen Chris in six months.

Another sorta first (sorta because it actually started in 2006) was having guys want to kill me out of jealousy. In 2006 it was only two guys, one of whom thought I was porking a woman that I wasn't, but the floodgates opened in 2007. I've had sex with seven women this year (so far, fingers crossed), more women than any time since 1974, and they all seem to have men who think they own the women I've been sticking various body parts into. And some who thinnk I'm sticking various body parts into their women when I really am innocent.

Take Amy's boyfriend, for instance. He has to think I'm having sex with her, especially since he once threatened violence when Amy stupidly and drunkenly said something that was easy to misconstrue. And everybody thinks I'm fucking Tami, but I'm not. All you have to do to keep my dick out of your woman is put a ring on her finger.

Three of the seven women are or have been in alcohol rehab, and two are or were in drug rehab. Which doesn't do my self-esteem a lot of good...

February saw me with "Cassie" and "Annie". Both went into rehab, "Cassie" for drugs and "Annie" for booze. "Sam" sorely needs rehab, she's in bad shape. She was staying with me for a while back in April, before she went to jail for not showing up to the community service she was sentenced to for a traffic ticket.

May saw Linda staying with me for a while, after Ralph threw her out and before he had a change of heart and let her back in.

And there were two girls who I will neither name nor describe for fear that they'll see themselves here. But I still can't find a GF.

2007 saw eight stories submitted to slashdot actually get on its front page:

Matter Discovered Traveling at Near Light Speed
Racketeering Trial of MS and Best Buy Can Proceed
Carmack's Armadillo Aerospace Rocket Crashes and Burns
Diebold Voting Machines Vulnerable to Virus Attack
Leonard Nimoy to Play Spock in Next Star Trek Movie
Student Arrested for Writing Essay
Brains Hard-Wired for Math
Group Plans to Bring Martian Sample to Earth

I got my first "first post", and for bonus points did it accidentally. It was modded "flamebait".

The last time I did the New Years predictions I scored 100%.

Yes, I got each and every prediction wrong, as I'd wished.

So for this year's predictions, first that I'll not find a monogamous relationship. I have no reason to believe I will, as I have yet to five years after my ex wife left. As Robyn was only with me for a month before she wanted to go home with someone else, she doesn't count. And as Chris had a live-in boyfriend (who wants me dead of course) when we were going out, that can hardly count either.

I predict more financial trouble, maybe even financial ruin, Because I'm a complete and utter fool when it comes to women. I'd be better off if I were addicted to the crack you smoke, rather than the crack you stick body parts into.

I predict the geriatric Callie won't stop shitting in the bathtub unless she dies of old age. Callie is a calico cat my daughter owns that I got suckered into taking care of.

I predict that I will continue to get modded flamebait, troll, and offtopic despite the fact that when I get modded troll, flamebait, and offtopic I'm almost always shooting for "funny". Despite the fact that "funny" garners no karma, my karma remains excellent. I should predict I'll lose it I guess.

You can't predict how the mods will mod. Just today I made a funny comment; well, I thought it was funny anyway. It was supposed to be funny. It was modded 5, interesting. I just can't win!

I predict the earth will continue rotating around the sun, and we'll be right back here next year, only a little older.

Seven women, eight slashdot articles. I met a woman last night, a very attractive young (to me) blonde. Maybe I'll get lucky and seven will be the year of eight, but I won't predict it. After all...

Lighten up while you still can
No need to try and understand
Just find a place to make your stand and take it easy.

In fall of '02 my wife left me and my two then-teenaged daughters for another man. A couple of weeks after she left, my youngest, then fifteen, caught me sitting in the kitchen crying. "What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.

"My wife left me for another man" I replied.

"So what, my MOM left me!" That put me in my place, I'll tell you. The three of us sought counseling, and were prescribed SSRIs. Mine was Paxil, which has strange effects when mixed with alcohol.

I trolled the bars in fruitless search of female companionship. I spent three celebate years without as much as a dinner date. I kept a K5 diary of this lonely time, which greatly amused many nerds at K5 as "the Paxil Diaries", as they were called, becamne popular.

I eventually overcame my "adjustment disorder with depressed mood" and got off the Paxils. The final chapter of "The Paxil Diaries" came after I was off the Paxils, and I actually got a girlfriend, Chris, who I've mentioned once or twice in slashdot journals.

The final Paxil Diary was posted in my personal Blagh that nobody ever read because there were no links to it anywhere; I was busily trying to keep from getting famous again while still writing.

So here in a more public place is the final chapter of the Paxil Diaries, penned December 26, 2005.

The Angel's Mother - Chris at Christmas
A Paxil Diary Christmas Story

Christmas is such a heartbreakingly lonely time.

Many if not most believe the Paxil Diaries are fiction. I can't blame them; my whole life has been pretty unbelievable. This one will likely not be believed by anyone at all, but it's true nonetheless.

I had met Kim and Vickie and their sister Valerie a month or two earlier at a bar I frequent often, one that more women my age go to than any other bar in town I know. I was the only one there when they came in.

Valerie was almost anorexically thin, and I had been smitten. I'm a fool for skinny women.

This was yet another unwritten and unbelievable Paxil story. Valerie was very, very attractive and somehow, I'm not exactly sure how, she wound up with her legs draped over my lap very pleasantly, with me massaging them.

"Steve sure is smiling big," Vickie said to Kim.

"Of course he is," Kim said, "Valerie has her legs on his dick!"

Valerie said she had a tumor, and gave me her Saint Jude medal. Saint Jude is the Catholic saint of hopeless causes (I know this from the movie The Untouchables). So fitting; as you will read shortly, my lonliness was hopeless indeed.

I was sure I was finally going to get lucky, until the bar owner came in and the three abandoned me for the monied man. I had yet again gone home alone after having my hopes raised high. I found out later that Dave wasn't the least interested in any of them.

But this isn't the story of the three lovely ladies, I digress. Sorry, I'm bad about that. Back to the Angel's mother...

The Angel's mother gave me back one of my most important posessions, one that had been stolen from me.

When a man's wife cheats on him, it is a wound that is hard to heal. It rips and tears his self confidence, leaving his soul in tatters. The first time the Evil-X cheated on me was barely into the second year of our marriage. Despite the pain and wounds to my soul, I forgave her.

By the time all that was left of the wound was a scar, by the time I had managed to repair the rips and tears to my self confidence and self esteem, she did it again.

It happened over and over. By the time the marriage ended twenty seven years later, my soul had no more flesh left, only scars. My self confidence was in horrible ragged tatters. I took Paxil and drank far too much.

The Paxil took away the pain of my soul like morphine takes away the pain of a flesh wound. But like morphine, the Paxil has its down side and I gave it up a year and a half later, and bore the pain as the wounds to my soul healed naturally.

A year after the Paxil stopped, my tattered confidence was still tattered. A very young woman stitched a few threads of my esteem back by asking me out. I met her at a Posamist show at the late Eleven West, and she called me the next day. No, there is no use looking at the Paxil diaries for the story as I didn't write that one either.

She saw me not as a prospective lover but as a prospective friend, and our relationship has been a platonic one, even though I would gladly lay her down if she wished. But that friendship restored my confidence enough to at least ask a woman on a date, and although she may feel as she's using me, helping heal my tattered soul was worth far more than the money I loaned her that I don't expect to get back.

She restored a few threads of my confidence, a gift that was invaluable. Gifts for the soul are worth more than Bill Gates' entire fortune. I was finally well anough to ask a woman on a date.

No real date materialized, but the women I asked were kind in their rejections. Most gave excuses; one said yes then stood me up, giving the lame excuse that she was too old to go to a rock show and besides, was afraid of being hurt again, as she had been through two bad marriages and feared heartbreak more than she feared lonliness. One was going through a divorce and promised she'd go out with me when it was final; we'll see, I guess.

And then one night last summer, there was a woman I had worked with who moonlighted as a bartender. I asked her out.

She laughed in my face.

The tattered threads of self confidence I had worked so hard to regain were completely ripped away. I could no longer get up the nerve to ask anyone out again. I was resigned to lonliness, a forlorn life free of sex and companionship. My flesh ached for flesh, but I couldn't bear the possibility of such cruelty again.

Christmas eve day I visited family at my sister's house (she's a grandma now) with my oldest daughter, and that evening sat alone in my little apartment feeling sorry for myself. I was in misery, and I prayed to God for my lonliness to be lifted.

No sooner than I said "amen" the phone rang. It was my young platonic girl friend, and she was lonely, too. We decided to go out and have a few drinks, and I picked her up and went to one of her haunts, a bar where she knew everyone but I knew nobody. I had some fun nevertheless, and my loneliness was lifted, my prayer answered.

Yes, unbelievable but true. Miracles happen.

Christmas day I watched Jesus Of Nazareth on the History Channel, alone in my little apartment. My youngest daughter hadn't been able to attend the family Christmas the day before because she had to work 12 hours, and came by and exchanged hugs and presents later in the afternoon. She brought raggae, the blues, and Jerry Lee Lewis on CD, Cream's farewell concert on DVD, and the guitar strings I had asked for. She was thrilled with the new Nintendo DS I bought for her. It turns out that her boyfriend has one, and they can now play video games together with the nintendo's wireless link.

She left for work, and as I was listening to Lightning Hopkins and Bob Marley I got the lonley blues again. I had been reminded by the History Channel that Jesus had said not to pray for stuff, because God knows what you need before you do, so I said the Lord's prayer. I then decided to go out and find a place where I wouldn't be so alone.

I went to about the only bar open, and there behind the bar was the woman who had laughed in my face.

I wasn't exactly nice to her. The owner was there, and we told blond jokes with another fellow who had a list of them in his pocket.

The cruel bartender had been a blond before her hair went gray. This was pretty gratifying to me, as you might imagine.

Then my phone rang. It was my oldest daughter; her TV had quit, she wanted her nerd father to come over and see what I could do about it. I left for Chatham, got her TV going, and searched for somewhere to buy dinner. No room at the inn? Hell, they were all closed for Christmas. I went back to the bar I had been drinking and laughing in earlier.

As I pulled in, an attractive young woman and two men were getting into the car in the space next to mine to leave.

I went inside, and the stool I had been sitting in was still empty. There was a woman named Chris I had known (at that bar) for a couple of years sitting there by herself. When I had seen her before, she was always with someone - her ex husband, or her boyfriend; one of the two.

Chris was likely a beauty in her youth, before she lost her teeth. But she was still thin and short, with pretty brown (probably dyed brown) hair, and I'm a fool for thin short women, as I said before. I'm also a fool for women who don't wear makeup.

She was wearing no makeup, and was crying.

Chris has some mental and emotional problems, and hadn't been taking her Paxil. Her live-in boyfriend's children were driving her crazy "running around the house nekkid" and she had needed to get out. I wiped her tears, and actually had her laughing at one point.

She was about fed up with the boyfriend, a fellow twenty years her junior who had no job, who was leeching off of her and who she was about to throw out "after the holidays."

We talked some more, and she said she had always thought I was married, as when I'd go to the bar I'd drink one or two beers and leave. "Do you think I'm pretty?" she asked.

She told me she was attracted to me the first time she saw me, and I asked if she would let me buy her dinner the next day. She'd love to!

The bar phone rang, and Nellie the mean old bartender yelled "Chris?"

It was Chris' daughter, who wanted her to come home. "She's coming here," Chris said, disapointedly.

A few minutes later the woman I had seen leaving as I got there came in. It was Chris' daughter. She introduced me her daughter, Angel.

I bought Yaeger Bombs for Angel and myself and we toasted her mother, who was drinking draft. I bought Chris another beer, and one for me, and we all talked. Chris had a skin infection on her hands and hadn't been able to wash her hair in a couple of days. Angel had planned to do it for her mother the next day, and they were going to get their pictures taken.

I told Angel of the date I had made with her mother, and promised to get her mother home safely when we were done at the bar. Angel and I exchanged phone numbers, as Chris had no cell phone. She was to call me when they were done with the festivities, and I told Chris if I didn't hear from her by six I was just going to show up at her house.

I promised Angel I'd get her mother home safely, and she left (after a second bomb).

Kim and Vickie came in. The bar was filling up. I got a bag of peanuts as the kitchen was closed for Christmas (of course).

I had looked the Saint Jude medallion up on the internet, and found that it was worth twenty or thirty dollars. I didn't feel like I could accept a gift like that from someone I had just met, and tried to get Vickie (or was it Kim?) to give it back to Valerie for me.

Valerie said I couldn't give it back, but I could give it to someone else.

I gave it to Chris. I thought she needed it more than I did.

Kim and Vickie and Chris and I talked, and Kim turned out to be a beautician. She put makeup on Chris' face and put her hair in a young style pony tail. My hand was resting on the back of Chris' chair, and at one point my hand was lodged between Chris' and Vickie's breasts.

Heaven on earth! I certainly had goodwell to all God's creatures at that moment! God, but what a merry Christmas it was! I wasn't even mad at mean old Nellie any more, who was getting increasingly angered at my attitude to her (but what in the hell did she expect?) In my heart I forgave the heartless old bitch. Hell, if Evil-X had walked in I might have even been pleasant to her.

I had a wonderful time, and when last call came, none of us could believe it so late. Chris and I got in my old junker, and it was cold in there. We snuggled up, and kissed passionately; the first time I had been kissed like that since I was married.

As I drove her home I told her that, and she didn't believe me. "Three years? What, are you gay?"

I pulled up in front of her house, and we sat in the car and kissed goodnight. And I won't go into more detail about what else.

But at the verge of sinning on Christmas, God sent Angel out to the car.

Yes, I went home alone yet again. Alone, but happy!

A belated Merry Christmas to all of you!

Well no, I haven't logged on in a couple of days. Usually I see that little message every time I log in, slashdot's bots must like me, I guess. Sometimes I metemoderate three or four times a day!

So I'm metamoderating, and one of the remarks was a reply to one of my own comments! But it was moderated fairly, the fellow commenting on my comment did well, it was a positive moderation.

One comment was funny; well, not the most rip-roaring hilarious thing I ever saw. That would be the scene in The Life of Brian where the guy gets stoned. I watched that again yesterday with Amy, who hadn't seen it before.

She hadn't had her Zoloft yet and was in tears, so I stuck the tape in (somebody stole my DVD of it, damned crack whores, one of these days I'll learn not to let them in the fucking house but shit it's cold in the garage).

The stoning scene is better than Zoloft.

She spent the night with her boyfriend last night and came home this morning as I was drinking coffee. She wanted to watch it again. The guy was getting stoned once more as I left the house.

After seeing what I still think is the funniest movie ever filmed, the slashdot comments modded "funny" are mildly humorous, which is good enough. At least they didn't mod it "troll" or anything, the commentor was obviously joking. The parent post was ignorant, however.

The truth of the matter is that vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way - distortion, dynamic range, frequency response, signal to noise ratio, you name it.

My memory of this is a little fuzzy, but it seems like my vinyl records produced superior Wow and Flutter to anything I've ever heard from a CD

The parent was almost right in a few ways and completely ignorant in others.

Actually the statement about Nyquist's theorem is poppycock. This a mathematical fact, not some weird subjective result open to interpretation. Saying that Nyquist's theorem is wrong is equivalent to stating that the value of pi is really 6.

That's true. However, most people misunderstand what the Nyquist theorum says, which is simply that it is impossible to represent a tone at more than half the frequency of the sampling rate. Contrary to popular belief, says nothing whatever wbout the accuracy of the waveform. It says nothing whatever about aliasing.

The higher the frequency the greater the aliasing. Nyquest does not speak to this at all, one way or another.

The truth of the matter is that vinyl records are crap compared to CD's in every measurable way

This is completely ignorant. I'm glad I wasn't metamoderating it, because it was modded "interesting". If it had been moderated "informative" the mods would have been wrong. The fact of the matter is that CDs and vinyl each have their own strengths and weaknesses.

- distortion

No, LPs had distortion levels at less than a decible; i.e. subaudible, by definition of "decible". CDs are inferior to vinyl when it comes to distortion. Cd's aliasing is audible, even to my old worn-out ears if you know what to listen for. And what you need to listen for is how much it sounds like a live performance.

I've heard few LPs that I could close my eyes and be fooled into thinking that there was a human being in the room playing a real musical instrument. It took an incredibly good engineer to pull that off. But I've never even once heard a CD that I would confuse with a live performance.

...dynamic range,

Yes, CDs have a far greater dynamic range than vinyl. But I don't think the commenter even knows what dynamic range is.

In music, the "dynamics" is the difference in volume between different parts of the piece. The "1812 Overture" is the one piece of music with more dynamics than any other work, simply because it uses cannons as a musical instrument.

The fact is, back in the vinyl days the engineers worked hard to wrest the most dynamic range out of the medium they could. Radio used dynamics compression to remove dynamics because of the limited bandwidth of radio. If you listen to a modern, remasterd CD version of an old vinyl work you'll find that despite the fact that CDs have superior dynamic range, the CD version will have LESS dynamics than the vinyl version, despite the fact that the CD's capability for dynamics is greater!

...frequency response,

This is complete and utter bullshit. According to the commenter's precious Nyquest theorum that he completely misunderstands, the highest frequence attanable by a CD is 22kHz. Vinyl's frequency respons is so high that in the early 1970s they came up with a really stupid idea called "quadraphonics" with four separete channels, two in front and two in back. The rear channels of a quadraphonic record were modulated with a 44 kHz tone, twice the highest tone Nyquest says CDs are capable of, and mixed with the front channels, and demodulated on playback.

...signal to noise ratio,

This is true - CDs introduce no noise. However, noise in a new LP was less than a decible. Analog equipment differed from digital in that with digital the playback equipment (except the speakers) makes no difference at all, while with analog every piece of gear except the amplifier itself (once the cost of quality amplification became cheap enough) mattered. A cheap turntable would introduce "rumble", which was the sound of its cheap bearings. A Radio Shack turntable would not only rumble, but attenuate the bass tones to diminish the rumble, and also attenuate the treble tones to make up for the attenuated bass tones, which is where the fellow I'm quoting likely got is misguided ideas about frequency response.

Belt driven turntables overcame the rumble of cheap direct driven tables, but a cheap belt driven turntable would also have wow and flutter. However, a quality (i.e., $$$$) turntable had no audible rumble or flutter. The German made Dual I'm now using to sample my vinyl to CD originally cost over six hundred dollars including its stylis and cartridge (I bought it used, I only paid fifty bucks for it).

...you name it.

Ok I will - today's engineers are crap. One of the fellows from the band Boston (which was started by a nerd, BTW) stated that he was going to remaster the albums because the CDs "sounded like shit". Indeed they did. Like many other originally analog recordings, if you sample a clean vinyl LP it will sound better than the CD you buy at th erecord store.

One of the things the Boston CD lacks that the album has is, ironically, dynamics. Led Zepplin's Presence CD lacks the presence found in the vinyl, and a home sampled CD won't have the presence of the vinyl but will have more than the factory version. Van Halen's first album, played through six driver per enclosure speakers with fifteen inch woofers would convince you the band was in your living room, while the CD will convince you that today's engineers suck.

CDs should be obsolete. With today's technology there is no reason why music couldn't be sampled at 36 bits at ten times the sampling rate and stored on DVD. They would indeed be better than vinyl in every respect. At ten times the sampling rate the supersonic harmonics that color real sound (and vinyl music) would be there.

Today, whether the LP or CD sounds better comes down to one thing - how was the original recorded? If the album was recorded digitally, then the CD will sound better. If it was originally recorded in analog, then the LP will sound better. Because with either a digital recording of an analog master, or an analog recording of a digital master, you get the worst of both worlds. You get the disadvantages of both with the advantages of neither.

A Led Zeppelin LP will sound better than a Led Zeppelin CD. A Nirvana CD will sound better than a Nirvana LP.

Vinyl has one more advantage: Rap DJ's can't make the "voop" sounds with a CD like they used to back in the '70s when rap was born before it got on the radio and died a horrible commercial death.

It's my birthday and everyone pooled their money and got me a Wii! I told them not to bother, they'd never find one, but they did, after much searching and calling and running about. First thing I'm getting is a Wi-Fi USB connector.

Now I need to figure out what games to get. I'd like to get some good multi player games that my wife, a non-gamer, might like. She like puzzle, rhythm, and party games. I'd also like some good games for me, on consoles I like action (side scroller, platform, etc.) and RPG games.

Any ideas?

I met a new whore last night. But I wouldn'y fuck "Sally" with your dick!

I stopped by Farley's after work for a beer, and I'm sitting there at a table sipping, listening to the annoying beeping of the illegal gambling machines that are in every bar in town when a skinny, ugly, skanky looking bitch sits down at my table.

"Hi, I like to fuck and smoke crack. My husband's in prison, he likes dick even more than I do. Ya wanna smoke some crack and fuck? Hey buy me a beer!"

The uncyclopedia has this to say about crack- "Crack is something that is sold by both drug dealers and prostitutes. The only difference is that a prostitute can wash her crack and sell it again."

I politely refused, but the bitch wouldn't leave me alone. That's what I get for walking into a bar like Farley's wearing my white collar shirt that buttons up the front that I wear to work; in that place I'd have looked like Donald Trump, only without the extra weight and stupid looking combover. Can't that damned fool afford a decent wig? I thought he was supposed to be rich? WTF?

But anyway, if you're looking for a prostitute don't pick one up in a dive like Farley's, and don't get a skinny one even if, like me, you''re attracted to thin women. Skinny whores are almost always crack whores. Find one that's got a good figure if you can afford her or a fat one if you're a cheapass like me.

As the skank was talking crack, I realized that we nerds have much in common with crackheads.

They smoke crack, some of us crack computers. What normal people call hacking, nerds call cracking, by crackey!

Crackwhores call their crack pipe's screen a "chore". I can only guess that maybe it's work to them? At any rate, as I mentioned in a K5 article a couple of years ago tiitled Growing Up With Computers, the first documented (that I could find) contract for ENIAC, the first computer, was an Ordnance Corps contract with the University of Chicago called "Project Chore" (Wikipedia article unavailable).

Crackheads stay up all night smoking crack. Nerds stay up all night programming and playing video games and posting to slashdot.

When a crackhead has just taken a big hit, they're said to be "geeking".

About the time crack cocaine was being invented, being a nerd was starting to become somewhat acceptable. Apparently the crackheads took over our role as social pariahs.

It took a shot of Captain to put up with this crazy bitch that woudn't take a hint. I finished my beer and left. "What are you, a fag or something?" she shouted out as I walked out the door. Trolling is something some slashdot nerds do, too, although the crackheads are trolling for crack money.

That's one of the things I don't like abut Farley's, the crack whores. I mean, I like whores better than anybody, but crack whores are a different species altogether. Fortunately you can usually tell a crackwhore from a respectable prostitute, as a prostitute will usually smell like perfume while a crack whore will smell like she hasn't bathed for a while.

So I stop by the gas station for a six pack and a few bucks gas on my way home, and as I'm walking up guess who do I ran into?

Odie, the crack whore who stole my car and traded it for crack to another crackwhore who used it to try to kill her parents, as well as my bank card and some blank checks last year. You can see why I'm a bit down on crackwhores.

The last I'd heard from her was six or so months ago, when she'd called me from drug rehab in Bloomington begging me to not press charges for the hundreds of dollars she stole that ultimately cost me a couple thousand.

She greeted me like a long lost friend, wanting a hug. I gave her one. She'd gained weight, most likely because she was clean (and she didn't stink any more either). She said she was working at Hardee's and trying to get her life back together. She'd just gotten back in town a few days earlier.

I went home with my six pack feeling good about myself. Some good had come from that expense; an addict was clean for six months because I'd breezed through her life. I hear "Cassie" is in drug rehab now, too.

I should have studied psychaitry in college.

Tami was on the phone, and she was very upset. In fact she sounded like she was about to cry. "Do you know anybody named Shannon?" she asked.

"I have a niece named Shannon in St Louis" I replied. "Why?"

"Because there are some messages on my phone for 'Steve' from someone named 'Shannon'. And Pedro erased the messages as soon as he found them. It's really suspicious. Look, I'm trying real hard not to cry right now but if I need to could I come to your place after work?"

I told her "sure" and we rang off. It was about an hour before quitting time.

I'd given Amy fifteen bucks in the morning to buy minutes for my cell phone, and she was supposed to meet me with the PIN number at lunch. She didn't show. I'd left a message on Tami's machine asking that if Amy called or came by to have her get hold of me, as I only had 3 minutes left and needed to know if I had to get minutes myself or if she had.

Tami called back twenty minutes later. Amy had been by and had gone to work and she'd give me the fifteen bucks when she got off. Tami was very very upset, crying. "I called the number from the answering machine back and asked her to describe 'Steve' and she said he was Spanish," she sobbed. "She's a crack whore, Pedro's buying hookers. Please come get me when you get off work. I don't think he knows I busted him, I kept a straight face. I don't know how I did it."

Stupidly unable to refuse a damsel in distress, even one whose husband calls "Lucifer", I agreed. "When you get here come on up and have a couple of shots with me." So When I got off work I drove over to pick her up. She handed me a nearly empty whiskey bottle and sipped from a coffee cup. "Do you have a shot glass?" I asked. "No, she replied, "I'm using this coffee cup, just use the bottle."

I stood there sipping cheap whiskey from a nearly empty pint bottle while she stuffed things in a valise. We went down and got in the car. I'd planned on buying cat litter and phone minutes and repaying twenty I owed Ralph. Ralph was the first stop, but his car wasn't there. So I got minutes and a six pack and more whiskey and Tami talked me out of going to get cat litter. We went home and drank until it was past my bed time, and I went to bed. She was still sitting at the table crying. I'd wanted to stay up until Amy got off work and felt bad about leaving her alone in such distress, but I had an alarm clock that was going to be very annoying before the sun came up.

The sounds of arguing woke me up. I got out of bed, put on my bathrobe and went in the living room to see what the commotion was all about. Tami's husband was there, walking around my house peeking into every nook and cranny. "Where my document?" He demanded.

Tami told me she'd cracked the door to tell him "go away" and he'd pushed his way in. She told him she didn't know anything about any documents and yelled at him about the whore he'd been fucking. "I have work in the morning" I told him calmly. "I think you'd better leave."

"You gonna die!" he yelled.

"Everybody dies" I replied calmly. "Now get the hell out of my house!"

"I not leaving until I get my document!" he repeated. I asked "what document?" Tami said "Documents. I think he's talking about his passport and shit." She turned to her husband. "Look motherfucker, the only documents I have are your goddamned fake social security number papers and god damn it cocksucker I'm using them to send your sorry ass back to Peru!"

"Get out of my house," I told him again, "before I call the police."

"Go ahead, call the police!" he exclamed. "I tell them you be smoking drug. I want my document!"

I grabbed the phone, called 911 and reported a home invasion. The police were there within five minutes, to their credit. When Tami's husband saw the police car he went outside. A young policeman came to the door and I let him in, hoping I had put the bong away.

He took some information, and went outside and told the Peruvian he had to leave. The stupid alien argued with the two police officers; I could hear much of the conversation. The policewoman's voice was stern and harsh; he was lucky there had been no violence. He almost got himself put in jail anyway.

I turned out the lights and went back to bed to the sound of the alien invader arguing with the policewoman about drugs. "You can't even keep your story straight" she said, the last thing I heard before dropping off to sleep again.

No sooner, it seemed, had I gone back to sleep when Tami woke me up again. My phone had rang and it was Amy needing a ride from work to her car, which was at Tami's. She'd called Tami's apartment and Tami's husband had answered, saying Tami was asleep and he'd go to pick her up at work.

But unknown to him, Amy had talked to his prostitute as well and knew that there was little chance that Tami would be there; she knew she'd be at my house and had dialed hers unthinkingly. I got dressed and we drove to the cab company to pick up Amy. Tami's husband's car was leaving as we pulled up.

"That God damned cocksucker!" Amy exclaimed as she got in the car. "I told him I wasn't riding with him but the son of a bitch showed up anyway, screaming about some damned documents as if I belonged to him or something. At my work! And I'm already in trouble with them!" She swore she was going to have her six foot five inches tall boyfriend kick the five foot five Peruvian's ass. She gave me the fifteen dollars back.

We got home and Amy wanted alcohol, having been sober in her taxicab. I told her we'd polished off the beer and whiskey and reefer, and she wanted me to take her to a 3:00 bar. I glanced at the clock; the three oclock bars would be closing in forty minutes, and if I said "no" I'd be arguing with her at least that long.

So we went to Third Base, which smelled like vomit. We didn't stay 'til closing, thankfully.

As I write this I'm tired as all hell. I hope I get some sleep tonight.

Interesting post in an interesting discussion. The reading list and suggested exercises is also a keeper.

What goes up must come down. I should have figured I was going to have a really shitty day pretty soon after Friday's luck.

It started when the Chicago guy asked if any ladies ever went to Farley's.

"No," I said. "Lots of women but no ladies." Of course, two attractive ladies walked in and heard me just as I was saying it. I took my foot out of my mouth, finished my beer and slunk off after attempting to recover with "damn, first time for everything."

I hadn't checked the mail Saturday so I brought it in. Several pieces of bad news dampened my spirits. I hate the mail, all I get is people wanting money - bills and junk mail.

Grr.

The cat puked in my shoe. I spilled stuff all over the kitchen trying to cook. I was glad I was stone cold sober, imagine what I'd have been like drunk!

I went to back the car into the garage and somehow managed to hit the door and ruined it. The car is OK, but my garage is now just a big shed.

I was not having a good day.

I remembered that I owed Ralph twenty bucks so I decided to just write him a check, and drove over there.

Ralph is my oldest friend. I've been friends with other people longer than I have with Ralph, but at 86 he's the oldest. Ralph served in the Navy in World War Two. He gave me a beer.

His favorite is a "tall blonde" except what he had at his house was in a can. If a Miller High Life in a bottle is a tall blonde, what is it in a can? A Puta Gorda?

"Did you know Moe?" He asked.

"Yeah, what do you mean 'did'?" Moe was a good guy, five years younger than me. He's helped Ralph out quite a bit with some odd jobs that are pretty hard to do after surviving eighty six years. Moe would give you the shirt off his back.

Ralph handed me a newspaper.

The younger Burris said his father started complaining about stomach pain on Dec. 2. On Dec. 4, a jail doctor looked at him, and the jail staff put Burris in the medical unit. He collapsed the next day.

When Burris reached the hospital, he had flatlined. Doctors worked 25 minutes to resuscitate him and then operated on a perforated bowel.

"The surgery was successful, but there was a lack of oxygen to the brain, and that caused a lot of complications," Jake Burris said last week.

"Everyone feels, even the doctors, that if he'd gotten help, he'd still be OK."

It seems that the Ministry Of Truth has been working on the online version of the paper, because the paper version said "Everyone feels, even the doctors, that if he'd gotten help a half hour earlier we'd be talking to him instead of talking about him."

The charges against Maurice Burris were dropped two days after Burris was taken to the hospital, a move that released the jail from being liable for Burris' medical bills.

Meaning an innocent man was murdered by jail staff's negligence.

An earlier journal used black humor to highlight the rediculousness of the media's attempts to demonize the internet, having you fear predators on the internet who are after your children rather than being careful of people who actually have physical contact with them and are far more of a threat than some stranger a thousand miles away. The journal in question was Klutzo the Clown tasered to death, although it later became apparent that he was killed by neither a taser nor heart problems but by an obese jail guard sitting on his back until his toes turned purple.

"Klitzo", whose real name was A. Paul Carlock, is mentioned in the story about Moe. Unlike Moe, Carlock, who was formerly a policeman, Christian preacher, day care worker, and clown, really was a menace to society - he was a baby-fucker.

Moe's "crime" was having his marriage unravel, which really fucked up his mind. He and I had drank and talked about how fucked up it made one; I was on Paxil for quite some time after my ex left me and my two then-teenaged daughters for another man.

Moe's death was nothing short of negligent homicide. Moe was murdered. Someone should go to prison for killing him.

Maurice "Moe" Burris, 1957-2007. May he rest in peace.

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord". And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down.

As I begin typing this, it's Sunday. I fully intended to go to church this morning. I went to Farley's later instead with my last eighty cents before the bank opens tomorrow morning; the girls drained my pockets yet again. Draft is only seventy five cents there on Sunday. There were only a couple of grizzled old men in the bar.

I was in an excellent mood, despite the fact that I think I tore the retina in my right eye, I discovered that all my Led Zepplin CDs had been stolen, and the girls had somehow gotten me to spend all my ready cash once again. I got a draft.

The fellow on my left started talking about the women he saw in church. "There were a whole lot of redheads", he said. I replied "how could you tell if they had their pants on?"

The gay bartender made some snide remark about the women I brought in there. What would he know? Good for him, though, the more of you turn gay the better. If you all turn gay I can have your women! So long as you don't hit on me, that is. If you try to pick me up I'll puke on your shirt, so be warned.

The guy on my left ordered a "Bloody Susan". I'd never heard of one of those. "It's like a Bloody Mary" said the bartender, "only there's more flow".

"Oh" I said, "Susan must wear a maxipad."

The fellow on my right said "I saw a couple of black girls in the store yesterday. They were standing in front of the female products and one said to the other 'so many choices! How do I know which one to get?'

"The other one asks 'what's you flow?' and the first one says 'linoleum.'"

He had just moved down from Chicago. "Are there ever any ladies that come in this bar?"

"No," I said. "Lots of women but no ladies." Of course, two attractive ladies walked in and heard me just as I was saying it. I took my foot out of my mouth, finished my beer and slunk off after attempting to recover with "damn, first time for everything.".

I refuse to "kiss and tell" so if you want to suspend my nerd license again you're going to have to come up with Gimped photos.

"Hell yes he got laid," said Tami. "Look at that smile on his face!"

"You're right," Amy said."He ain't foolin' nobody. He hasn't bitched and whined about not getting any pussy even once. And there's only one thing that will make him smile like that!

What was better than the date itself was that it turned out that Kelly hadn't been married after all; the court proceedings hadn't been for divorce, but custody. She hadn't married the child's father, but he had custody. When you're a political bigshot in Illinois, home of Al Capone, Dan Walker, George Ryan and "Big Jim" Thompson you can pretty much have anything you want, especially when your adversary is dirt poor.

I don't think I have one friend that I don't pity. I need low friends ion high places, but all I have is high friends in low places.

Tami says her husband calls her "Lucifer". The poor fool's right; the woman seems to be posessed by the spirit of pure evil. "It's easier to be bad than to be good" she says. Some of these women I've been hanging around with make Becky, AKA Evil-X, the adulterous slut that I used to be married to, look like an angel by comparison. And there's no way in hell I'd be with that ugly bitch again.

I should have never put my dick in Becky; perhaps she would have been a lifelong friend had I not. But then again, not only would my two daughters nave ever existed, who knows what my life would have been like?

Tami's one redeeming feature is that she's faithful to her womanizing husband, who's had sex with my prostitute friend Linda and most likely every other woman he could get his pecker into. I'll never forget the night Linda met Tami.

I was partying with Linda when Tami called trying to find some illegal contraband to frame an enemy with. Linda said she could get some, so we went to pick up Tami. As we pulled up next to Tami's apartment Linda made a nervous giggle and pointed to her apartment. "I had a 'date' that lived there," she said. To the rest of us, a "Date" is dinner and a movie and maybe a frew drinks, to a hooker a "date" is sex and money.

We pulled into the parking lot. "Oh shit," Linda said, "Her husband isn't Mexican is he?"

"No," I said, "He's from Peru."

"Oh my God" Linda said. Her face was white as a sheet when she met Tami. Linda made me swear to never tell Tami about Linda's tryst with her husband, who she'd not known was married. Not that it would matter. But apparently Linda told "Sam", aho told Amy, who spilled the beans to Tami. Tami was furious with me for not telling her, but I would have been wrong to break my promise to Linda; it would have only hurt Tami, and besides, I'd rather piss off a woman I couldn't have sex with than Linda.

Linda eventually became friends with Tami. Her husband called Tami "Lucifer". His pet name for her is "Puta". She desn't speak Spanish and I never told her what Puta is Spanish for.

I've discovered that Tami is a thief. She'd stolen from her own mother, shoplifted, stole medical supplies and toilet paper (which she uses more of than air, having to urinate seemingly every half hour) from her doctor, and emptied her husband's wallet and bank account on many occasions. I found out that the reason he was so mad about the flat tire was that she'd traded the jack out of his car for whiskey money and yuks. Apparently she enjoys seeing others suffer, and gets a kick out of people's anger.

She's a troll - an offline troll. When I'd been partying with her baby's father, a good friend of several years the previous Monday, he apologised for introducing me to her.

She's cockblocked me on many occasions, being there when I could have had a single woman in my abode. I mean, not even a prostitute will bang you when there's another woman in the house (unless she's getting paid for a threesome). She almost did it again Friday, calling when I was in the car with Kelly. "No you CAN'T borrow twenty dollars and God damn it I'm busy!" She knew I had that date with Kelly and I might get lucky! Like the Tom Petty song says, "even the losers get lucky sometimes".

She says she doesn't get much sex from her husband (the poor bastard), who's getting it from prostitutes and anyone else he can stick it in. She had just complained a few days earlier that he'd fucked her for the first time in a month and it didn't even last two minutes. "At least that means he hasn't been getting any anywhere else" she said. I'm sure that she thinks that since she's not getting any, nobody else should be getting any, either.

Tami makes it damned hard to be a good Christian. At least she hasn't tried to seduce me. Yet.

Friday morning I'd called Amy's boyfriend as I'd promised her, telling him she was in the hospital. She called later telling me she'd been transfered to a mental institution but was being discharged later. My cell rang as I was talking to Amy on my work phone. I told her call me back in five minutes.

It was her boyfriend, who'd called the hospital and been told she wasn't a patient. "I just got off the phone with her," I told him, "They transferred her to Westlake and she's supposed to get released today" I said. "She said she'd call me back."

"Well tell her to PLEASE call me" the poor fool said. Never fall in love with a lunatic. "Tell her I'm not mad at her, I'm just worried sick!" I promised to tell her. I did when she called back. She wanted me to meet her at Tami's when I got off work, which was at my usual lunch hour; I'd planned on taking the afternoon off for my date with Kelly. Amy's SUV was out of gas (of course it was out of gas, SUVs get about two miles per gallon) and at the hospital. I stopped by Tami's, who had promised me lunch (no, not pink tacos, Commander), said "hi" to her husband, and dropped the two of them off at Amy's car after loaning Amy twenty bucks for gas.

I called Tami's after my date and told them they could come over now but bring their own alcohol. It would be whiskey, of course, as the two of them are hopeless alcoholics. I didn't want to get the usual two beers out of my twelve pack as always happened when they showed up alcohol-free.

Kelly was supposed to come back Saturday night at six thirty, she was going to call. Tami's husband was supposed to fetch Tami from my house when he got off work. When he didn't call, Tami spent the rest of the night crying on my shoulder over the adulterous alien (yes, kids, it's aliens on slashdot).

Amy's boyfriend picked her up fairly early in the evening, before Tami's husbamd went AWOL. As Tami and I were on our way to the gas station for another half pint of cheap whiskey, Amy called. I gave Tami the phone and she cried to Amy about her adulterous husband's not showing up. Aparently Amy tried to cheer her up with some news of a personal problem of her own.

"You fucking bitch! Tami screamed. God damn you!" and laughed. "She just started her period, damn her! Every time she starts I start the next day!"

Her husband showed up the next night as if nothing was wrong, and she acted as if nothing was wrong as well.

Kelly never called.

Tami's husband brought some lame, boring sports movies that almost put me to sleep rather than Bad Santa , which Tami said was hilarious and which he was supposed to bring. "Did Amy leave any of those women things?" she asked. Luckily for her and my couch she had. I loaned Tami and her husband my last twenty bucks; I had eighty cents left to last me until tomorrow (Monday).

In June of '06 I had cataract surgery, which completely cured the cataract, extreme nearsightedness, astigmatism, and age-related farsightedness in my left eye. It doesn't, however, change the shape of the eyeball, which is the cause of nearsightedness. That shape leads to torn retinas, and the retina in the eye I had fixed tore six months after trhe surgery.

If you are extremely nearsighted, especially if you are over 30 or have suffered a blow to the head, and you see a shower of black snow and snakes, you have a medical emergency. Your retina is torn, and if you don't get it fixed the retina will detach and you will go completely blind in that eye.

A retina specialist at the Prarie Eye Center welded the retina back with a laser, and the parts the laser couldn't reach because of the struts in my implant (I'm now a cyborg, I guess. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile!) he used the old-fashioned therapy for, which involves holding a metal probe supercooled by liquid nitrogen on the outside of the eyeball where the tear is on the inside.

If I'd been strapped to a chair at Guantanimo and they did that to me, I'd confess to smoking pot, mass murder, child rape, and being Osama Bin Laden. I'd even confess to copyright infringement, which as anyone who listens to the RIAA, Kiss, Metallica and Madonna knows is far worse than any of the other henous crimes I mentioned. The therapy proved once and for all to me that torture is NOT an effective interrogation method - I'm not, after all, a child raping mass murdering terrorist and I'm not an Arab. Bush needs to cut that shit out. He calls himself a Christian?

Anyway, I haven't been to church in a few months, even though the church is two houses down from my house.

Just about everything I've ever prayed for in my fifty five years on this planet I've gotten, and the things I didn't get, I later I realized that not getting them was a far greater gift than getting them. I've also been shown that thanking or praising God for His gifts is the kind of hubris that really pisses him off, as every time I've thanked him for answering a prayer, He took the gift back.

The last time I was in church they were passing around the microphone and I completely forgot hat praising God for a gift pissed him off, and told the congregation about being so nearsighted that if there were no such things as glasses I'd be legally blind, and how my blindness was cured. When I said my eyesight was now better than 20-20 and I didn't even need reading glasses over my aged eyeballs, the congregation gasped.

The sermon the preacher had prepared was mostly about Christ curing the blind. God was making Himself apparently evident to everyone there that day.

Later that day the eye started bleeding inside again, and by nightfall it was completely black. The eye that had beeen cured was completely blind.

Of course, I went to the doctor the very next day, and the retina was still intact. It cleared up eventually; I could see a little when I went to see him Monday but it was still too full of blood for him to tell if the retina was damaged, but by the end of the week it was clear enough for him to see it was ok, and eventually my sight came back. One hell of a warning!

My right eye, the one that's still nearsighted and farsighted has been flashing all weekend. This morning there's a shower of black snow and snakelike things in it. I'll call Dr. Odin first thing tomorrow.

Somehow I never made it to church. I went to Farley's later and spent all but a nickle of my vast fortune on a beer.

If you are a Christian, I wish you a Merry Chriatmas. If you are a different religion I wish you peace and prosperity.

If you are an athiest I thank God that you've never found Christ.

First, let me apologize for my near incoherence. I'm quite drunk, but I've had a great night with my wife, her lover, and her sister tonight, and I have to get this down before I forget.

It started last night, with our plans for tonight. Merril was eager to apply some of the cooking lessons he'd learned from me on our previous nights together. Unfortunately, he is living in the house he's flipping right now, and it's in a sorry state. Even if we could make use of the dysfunctional kitchen, he's got no furniture, so we would be sitting on the floor and eating.

Therefore, we planned to cook and eat here, and Merril would go home with Jenny. But two hours before dinner time, Tawni called Jenny saying she had a free moment. Tawni is one of Jenny's acting disciples. She's a brilliant writer on her own regard, but she learned everything she knows about acting from my wife. She is also a tall, gorgeous amazon who would make any fan of Wonder Woman get a full on stiffy.

Too bad she's off limits. I had to clue Merril in to that fact when we went out to buy groceries for tonight's meal. No fucking Jenny's friends, anyone else is okay. Jenny and I put together a perfect Thai green curry chicken menu from memory and first principles tonight. Merril and I hunted down the ingredients, going to two different stores to find everything Jenny and I had decided to include.

The recipe was 3 pounds of chicken breast; 1/2 pound each of cherry tomatoes, green peppers, onions, and green beens; two cans of coconut milk; one tablespoons each of coriander, fish sauce, and Thai green curry paste; 1/4 cup of basil; and 1/2 cup of cilantro added at the end. It turned out fucking phenomenal. And Merril learned a lot.

Not the least of which was the value of compromise in relationships. Damn it, I wish they weren't so much like she and I were when we are first going out. I try to offer them both short cuts based on what I've learned, but that only works when people know what the hell you're talking about in the first place.

After buying all the ingredients, Merril and I were walking to my car and talking about relationships. His failed ones and ours with Jenny. I told him he was lucky, because he has a relationship on training wheels. First, he doesn't have to worry about being partner material for Jenny, she has me. Second, he has me to give him advice. He took it well, for all the audacity involved.

The dinner turned out great, but the meal was marred by strife. Jenny, still feeling like she had to assert her place, was a little bossy towards me. That pushed Merril's buttons, and he told her if she ever talked to him that way, he would break up with her. I ended up the go between for my wife and her lover. Thankfully, I really like them both, so it's not hard for me to engage empathy and act thoughtfully towards them both, even caught in middle.

To Jenny, I presented the remembrance of what I was like when we first met, and how much I've learned since then. To him, I merely said, "You can fight a woman for control, and then you are just fighting each other all the time; or, you can give in and let her win, then she will share control with you. Be a man, show a little weakness. It will pay off."

He heard me. She was so pissed she didn't even want to go home with him tonight, even though it was their night tonight. He admitted a little weakness, she softened right up, they went home together, and her sister and I ended up having a very nice conversation about family, Christianity, and the holidays.

I still think Rachael is a demanding pain in the ass, but I know she knows what family means, and that is what Christmas is all about, to agnostic old me. It seams like we'll all be going to Christmas mass this year, even though half of us aren't really Christians.

Is it weird to think that Christ would be proud of that? I'd say "Merry Christmas!" but I just know I'm going to have a few more things to blog about between now and then.

Did I mention that Jenny and Rachael's parents are coming out for the holidays? And did I mention that we're going to try to sneak Merril in to the Christmas diner & then the Mass with all of us, as my friend?

"Oh yes, parental units, this is my dear geeky friend Merril who would be all alone for the holidays were it not for our festively cheerful inclusiveness."

We learned with the whole Mr. Y. Disaster not to mention this sort of thing to Jenny's parents. My mom knows, but I was born into a three way marriage so Jenny and my polyamory has never been something to hide from her. Merril was raised Mormon, so this isn't too much of a stretch for him, though it might be for his family if he talked to them. But Jenny's family are all proper Protestants, so the whole concept makes them uncomfortable.

We're going to see how things progress before announcing anything this time. They both push each other's buttons like crazy, even as they turn each other on like crazy. Merril needs to shit or get off the pot. If he wants a fuck buddy, he doesn't have much time left. If he wants a relationship (on training wheels) then he needs to show some vulnerability, step up, and be real with her. Please, he can do it with me, girls are not THAT much more scary.

Oh brother. We've got our major in house application running on HP-UX. Apparently, the security team has port scanned this behemoth before, and crashed it. Port scans shouldn't crash a decent server, I know. It's behind multiple firewalls, so it never even gets seen by outsiders. Anyway, today the security team asked me for permission to port scan our IBM Bladecenter environment. I know there's nothing there they can crash with Nessus, so I said, "Fire away!"

The HP-UX server isn't even on that network segment, but we gave them a list of 'off limits' IP addresses anyway. Here's a tip: don't give scan monkeys a list in two columns, such as "primary interface" and "secondary interface." They may not look at the second column. They scanned the secondary interface, which all 2,500 fricken' clients in the state connect through, and crashed it, hosing the IP stack. And bringing a big Sybase server down and back up is not quick. We're talking an hour, multiplied by 2,500 people. And they lost everything they were working on at the moment.

Between 9 Ultrium-3 tapes going bad all at the same time (maybe heat stress from the cooling failure a month ago) and this, it's been a stressful week.

Don we now our gay apparel
Fa la la, fa la la, la la la,
Troll the ancient yuletide, Carol
Fa la la la la, la la la la

I think I have seasonal affective disorder. I'm starting to think it's universal, that everyone at this latitude has it. Certainly my paternal Grandmother did, but she had very good reason to have the blues this time of year - she outlived two husbands and three sons, and all died between the middle of December and the middle of January.

If strong language offends you stop reading now. I'm in a really shitty mood. Don't worry about me killing myself, I've never had thoughts of suicide except once. That was when they forclosed on my house as I was going through Paxil withdrawal. It was a few years back, and even then it was only a fleeting thought, hastily quashed by knowledge of what it would do to my children and my parents.

I don't think the lack of light only affects mood; I know my body goes to hell this time of year, too. I had a torn retina in my left eye this time last year, and I fear the other eye's retina is due to tear any time now, as there were flashes in that eye last night. I sure as hell hope not, I can't afford any more medical bills.

I ran into an old friend's wife in a bar yesterday. I didn't know she was his wife until we talked for a while and she was bitching about her "goddamned faggot husband". I never new the guy was gay. I hadn't seen him in a while, but apparently he failed at killing himself and left a suicide note confessing the fact that he's been living in a closet. He's in the hospital and she's in a bottle now.

The word "gay" when referring to homosexuals is a horribly sick joke, as half of all "gay" people attempt suicide.

I got out of bed in a really bad mood yesterday. The hooker had kept me up until midnight and I never did get any sex. Somehow the promised cocksucking had turned into "I'll clean your house". I let her crash on the couch without the promised sucking.

She was on her period; getting your dick sucked is a poor substitute for real vaginal sex but it's better than sticking your johnson into a bloody hole. But I didn't even get my dick sucked.

About ten minutes after I'd gone to bed I heard the front door. I got up to see what was going on, and "Julia" was gone. I locked the door, shut out the lights and went back to bed, fully expecting to get awakened by the doorbell. The doorbell went off twenty minutes before the alarm clock did, and there was "Julia" with more lame excuses that I didn't believe a word of - she's been off sucking somebody else's dick for cigarette money, and there's no way in hell she would convince me otherwise.

I was not in a good mood.

Then Amy showed up, surprisingly sober but very tired. Her boyfriend had called the night before looking for her, but I'd not had a clue where she was. She needed to talk, but not to her lover, she needed a friend. And the talk had to be private. And no, I'm not going to recount what she needed to talk about but it wasn't pretty.

She wanted me to take the day off, I said I'd take the afternoon off. I'd snarled at the hooker, who was cleaning my kitchen by then, that I needed a whore not a housekeeper. Amy crashed on the couch and I went to work. "Julia" called about ten saying she had some "business" to attend to, which made my mood even more sour. I need to get laid, God damn it, I really don't give a fucking shit how goddamned filthy my kitchen is. She said she'd be back about four thirty.

I've finally figured out why prostitution is so frowned on. It's not because they have sex with you, it's because of the times they won't. This one was definitely on my shit list.

I was glad she was gone for a while; I wasn't going to get any sex but at least I'd get a chance to help Amy out if I could.

I stopped off at a bar on the way home for a few shots of something to brace me for my georgeous friend's inevitable waterworks; God but a crying woman hurts my soul. There I met my closeted friend's wife, who was drunk and trying to get drunker, as if getting drunk enough would make her spouse not want a dick up his ass.

She's not a bad looking woman, maybe she'll divorce him and... oh fuck, thank's a lot, cockbreath, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or ass, or wife's ass, or something or other, I don't remember . But now the Romans are going to beat the shit out of Jesus some more and it's all my fault for lusting after a married woman. Fuck!

But you know what? I wish all you assholes would turn gay. Then I'd have all the women to myself instead of not having any of my own at all. Everything I've ever prayed for I've eventually gotten, except one thing - a faithful woman, the one thing I want and need more than anything in the world, have never had and at my age looks like I never will have.

Rather than lifting my spirits, the trip to the bar just reminded me how utterly alone in the world I am. I went home and let Amy cry on my shoulder, and Jesus H. Christ but my problems aren't shit. Holy fuck, be glad I can't tell you what's going on with her or you'ld be depressed and you don't even know her!

After I got her tears settled down I gave her a ride to her car, which she'd left at the north end of town, and followed her to the gas station and bought her some gas. She'd left her car up there afraid of running out of gas and gotten a ride home.

"Julia" showed up and we got into a shouting match about the promised cocksucking. She was mad because I brought it up in front of Amy and I replied that I would keep sex discrete, but no way in hell would I keep quiet about being lied to. It got smoothed over by the end of the evening, but when she left my balls were still full.

Amy's cigarette lighter wasn't, so she left to buy a new one. Half hour later I went to bed; it wouldn't be the first time she went to the store and stayed gone for a week. It's not like she's a wife or lover, but it's still pretty damned thoughtless. She could at least call. But that's Amy, and most likely every other drop dead gorgeous "to die for" woman as well.

The phone woke me up. It was Amy, calling from the hospital. She'd had serious thoughts about killing herself and checked into the psych ward.

Merry Christmas, everyone.