Hey, hey, hey, I’m guilty…

…and you’re guilty, too!

Now that the annual report that’s been hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles all week is almost ready to go to the printer, I can actually write about my weekend.

I catch the rain that turns me to rust, I stand in the flame that turns me to dust
I can’t believe that you might believe I’ll heal you…

Shelly and M were both able to spend Valentine’s weekend with kellyv and I, which was absolutely delightful. My own rant aside, M found a perfect Valentine’s card for all three of us; it said “Our relationship might not be what other people expect, but it works for us.”

On Saturday, all four of us went down to Ft. Myers for Decadence 2003, a BDSM party hosted by the same group who hosts the Ft. Myers Munch. It was a blast, even though the place was absolutely packed.

M and I had the opportunity to tie Shelly to a St. Andrew’s cross and take turns whipping her, whihc was quite a treat. Afterward, we watched a lovely demonstration of fire play, given in part by a woman who could easily be the twin of Carrie Ann Moss’ character “Trinity” in The Matrix.

You stare nowhere do you care
You close your insides and you’re paralyzed by your own fear

M has a talking Stich doll from the movie Lilo and Stitch.

Stitch does not like S&M.

The toy has voice recognition circuitry in it. Whenever you talk to it, it talks back, if it understands what you’re saying. You can tell it things like “You’re naughty!” or “Aloha, Stitch!” or “Can you play?” and it will respond to you.

Upon our return from Ft. Myers, kellyv watched while Shelly and I used the violet wand on M. Stitch sat in a corner, ignored; and whenever M screamed, Stitch would say, “WhatEVER!” Clearly, Stitch did not appreciate the situation one little bit. Foolish little stuffed talking alien. I think he has some unresolved internal issues.

I’m your fear, I’m your monster
What’s hiding in your shadow…”

Sunday was PolyTampa.

I sometimes feel like the token villain at PolyTampa. I do not believe love conquers all, I do not believe that everyone is noble and just, I don’t believe that even the people who are noble and just are always right, I don’t believe int he innate goodness of man, I don’t believe that all relationships can–or even should–succeed, I don’t believe that people of reason can always see eye to eye, and I don’t believe that the world is a very nice place. And, just for the record, I don’t believe Star Trek is a very good show.

These views are not shared by everyone who belongs to Po lyTampa. One trait I have in common with kellyv is that if someone says something I disagree with, I tend not to keep my mouth shut about it.

This at times makes me the bad guy–the one who says “Well, yes, that looks great on paper, but pitchfork it into the world of things that exist and it’ll turn to shit faster than you can say ‘Communism was just a red herring.'”

Which is fine. I don’t mind playing the bad guy.

Afterward, we went out to dinner with several friends, including smoocherie and fritzcat66. kellyv and I have been spending significantly more time with them since Shelly and I started dating, which has been nice.

So violently to touch, it’s tearing me down
So beautifully to clutch is what you believe

This weekend, kellyv and Shelly want to go get tattoos. We’re also considering a trip to the Castle, possibly with smoocherie. Saturday, sunyata__ has invited us to a party, though it’s still up in the air whether or not we’ll be able to attend–I would certainly like to, however. And at some point, I plan to spend some “alone time” with kellyv. Things have been so hectic lately, it’s been difficult for us to meet our recommended daily allowance of together time.

Windows XP: Existential Angst in a Box

For those of you who suspected it, yes, it’s true: Windows XP is not so much an operating system as it is a postmodern work of existential angst.

The final proof is in this Microsoft Knowledgebase article:

A Connection Manager Connection Does Not Connect After Being Disconnected

That really about says it all, doesn’t it?

A bit of this and a bit of that…

Punching Code

Just released a new version of TinyChat, a freeware point-to-point chat program.

Why use TinyChat instead of AOL Instant Messenger or MSN Messenger or something like that? Because it’s point-to-point. You don’t need to be a registered user of any service; you can use it in a local area network; and since you don’t go through a server, you don’t have to worry about someone recording your chat.

I think it’s cool.

Fun for Valentine’s Day Weekend

kellyv, Shelly, myself, and possibly M will be heading into Ft. Myers on Saturday for a big BDSM party…that should be a LOT of fun!

And speaking of Valentine’s Day…

It costs about six cents to print a greeting card. Greeting cards sell for about three dollars and fifty cents. That’s a profit margin of roughly five thousand, eight hundred and thirty-three percent…a margin that’s enviable even in the sex toy industry, much less any other retail industry.

It doesn’t take long for a greeting card company to recoup its investment in printing a greeting card design. So you’d think that Hallmark would’ve figured out by now that not everybody lives the same way.

I mean, c’mon, goddamnit, do they really have to make every card say “To the one I love” or “To the one important person in my life”? Shopping for Valentine’s is getting downright frustrating, I swear. I mean, if they’re really afraid of upsetting the conservatives, they could always foist the job off on Shoebox Greetings or one of their other subsidiaries…

One lousy friggin’ card that acknowledges non-monogamous relationships. There’s money in them. Let’s get with the program here…

And just for the record:

kellyv makes the best damn made-from-scratch homemade chicken soup in the entire world. So there. 🙂

On the brink of war…

So far, I have resisted talking about the imminent threat of war in Iraq. But someone recently asked me point-blank what I thought the solution to the problem in Iraq is.

What is the solution? Ah, now THAT is the right question!

Many of the arguments both for and against war have been focussed on whether or not Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, whether or not he’s a dangerous sociopath, and so on. Those are, I think, the wrong questions.

Does Saddam have weapons of mass destruction? Of course he does! How do we know? We sold them to him!!! We sold them to him because we hated Iran, he hated Iran, and we were hoping he’d use them against Iran.

Is Saddam a raving, murderous psychopath? Of course he is! That’s why we helped put him in power!!! If he wasn’t a psycho, we would never have supported him in the first place. We were just hoping he’d murder Iranians, not Kuwaitis, that’s all.

I consistently find it surprising how many people either have forgotten or genuinely don’t know that we helped put Saddam Hussein in the position he is in today.

So, what is the solution?

Well, let’s see. In the late 1980’s, we found a bunch of unfunded, disorganized Islamic radicals in Afghanistan, and we gave them weapons (including Stinger missiles and rocket launchers), money, and training. We dug bunkers and fortified caverns for them. When we did this, we knew that they hated the West and everything Western. We knew they hated us. We knew they were willing to die to destroy Western ideals. We organized, trained, and armed them. They would later be called the Taliban. Gosh, who knew that giving a bunch of radical, hate-mongering anti-Western fanatics missiles and guns and money would turn out to be a bad idea?

We hated Iran, so we funded, equipped, and armed a raving, murderous psycho lunatic named Saddam Hussein. We sold him weapons, we helped prop up his power base. When we did this, we knew he was a dangerous, sadistic, power-mad, self-aggrandizing madman who genuinely believes he is destined to rule all of the Islamic world. Jeepers, who knew THAT might backfire on us?

In its conduct of foreign policy in the Middle East, the United States often seems like a drunken baboon with a party hat and a chainsaw: Big, dumb, clumsy, sometimes unintentionally funny, and very, very dangerous.

If you go to bed with a monster, don’t be surprised when you wake up the next morning and there’s a monster in your bed.

So what should we do? Well, how about this: How about we stop arming and equipping and training power-hungry, psychotic fanatics just because they hate whoever we hate. How about we stop putting these people in power. How about we stop selling them weapons and then acting all shocked when they use those weapons to kill people.

How about we stop creating monsters, and then whining and crying that there are monsters in the world. How does that sound?

Am I way off base here?

Weekend Follies and More

Baby, it’s Been a Wonderful Trip So Far!

Last Friday marked the moment when kellyv and I have officially been together for seventeen years. Hooray, us! 🙂

Of Dobermans and Deflowering

One of M’s favorite pasttimes is being present at what she calles “de-virginizing”–introducing people to the Castle, one of Tampa’s local goth clubs.

So she was quite delighted when it came to pass that Shelly and I decided to take smoocherie and fritzcat66 to the Castle for the first time on Saturday evening, and more delighted still to learn that sunyata__, in the company of many of her friends, would be there for her first time as well.

Shelly is a very, very bad girl. She has a number of twisted, kinky fetishes–one of which is seeing me in a collar.

Or better still, on a leash.

Or better still, on a leash in a public place. Like, for example, a Goth club.

Still, I can hardly fault her–after all, I’ve been known to leash her… So in the spirit of turnabout and fair play and all that silly stuff, we headed out with me appropriately leashed and collared.

It was good–we were Dobermans in a crowd of other Dobermans, rather than Dobermans in a cage of rabbits.

Which is not to say we didn’t get attention anyway…

Of Audiences and Hot Threesome Action

One of the nicest features about the Castle is the group of couches along the far edge of the dance floor, where one can sit and chill and watch what’s going on when one gets tired of dancing.

Or, where three–say, Shelly, M, and I–can cuddle up together and be a bit naughty. Which we did.

Didn’t take long to attract an audience. Some of the people in that audience didn’t even put up a pretence of subtlety, either–just sat and stared.

Kind of cool, really. Even if I didn’t get to spend enough time with sunyata__

Early Morning Flogging and Grapes

kellyv woke me up much too early Sunday morning, by taking advantage of me while I was sound asleep.

And as if that wasn’t enough, she then invited Shelly and M to do likewise, while she sat on the futon at the foot of the bed and watched.

And provided floggers.

And ice.

Shelly is bigger than I am, and can physically restrain me without too much effort. It wasn’t too difficult for her and M to put on a show for kellyv, rather like a live internet sex show only free and with your spouse.

Afterward, M fed all three of us grapes and apple slices dipped in caramel.

This “kinky things in front of an audience” bit is becoming a recurring theme in my life. Probably Shelly’s fault.

Falling into a black hole? Better stop for lunch!

smoocherie and fritzcat66 spent the night on Saturday, and headed out Sunday afternoon. M left shortly thereafter. Shelly got trapped in a time warp of some sort and stayed, theory being I’d take her home Monday morning.

I think kellyv knew better. At about lunchtime, she called us from her office and invited us to have lunch with her, as if she knew all along that we wouldn’t make it out before then.

It wasn’t until early evening that Shelly finally made it home. Time has a way of doing funny things like that sometimes.

I really do have other things going on in my life right now; it just doesn’t seem like it. But there’s a knack to dealing with chaos, and that is to recognize that haos is not, by itself, either a good or a bad thing. Chaos is the clay from which all things are molded and formed. Once you understand that, the rest becomes easy.