Things that make you go “Awww” and “Hmmm” and “Hmm?” and “Erk!”

Things that make you go “Awww…”

Got a package from ladytabitha last week, containing a CD by A Perfect Circle, the side project by the lead singer of Tool. Kinda industrial, kinda goth, really really good. ladytabitha is so sweet…

Things that make you go “Hmmm”

Bumper sticker seen by Shelly and I last week while driving:

This is an ordinary, average sign on an ordinary, average, soulless strip mall of the kind you see everywhere in Florida:

Problem is, the abbreviation “bi” does not, for many people, mean “buy.” I have this vision of a drug store where you can buy drugs for all your bisexual needs…

Things that make you go “Hmm?”

According to an online personality inventory, my Myers-Briggs personality type, which has been ENTJ for about the past zillion years or so, has recently and mysteriously changed to ENTP.

It was aliens. I seen ’em!

Things that make you go “Erk!”

Shelly and I saw Van Helsing last night, and Kill Bill Vol. 2 the night before.

Van Helsing…what a wretched, muddled, confused piece of garbage that was.

“I know! I know! Let’s make a move with Dracula and werewolves andFrankenstein’s monster and the brides of Dracula and Dr. Jeckyll and Mister Hyde and ghoulish undead in it! Hey, we can’t lose!”

The plot may have been profoundly stupid and riddled with flaws and holes, but at least the dialog sucked, the effects were lame, there were continuity problems, and the premise of the movie made absolutely, positively no fucking sense whatsoever.

Stink, stank, stunk.

It was particularly jarring after watching Kill Bill Vol. 2, which is one off the tightest pieces of filmmaking I’ve ever seen–brilliant scripting, brilliant pacing, brilliant direction… It’s clear that the first and second Kill Bill movies were intended to be viewed together; they’re one movie, to a greater extent even than the Lord of the Rings films, and they are timed and paced as one movie. And wow, does Quentin Tarintino know how to tell a story.

Shut up! Bloody vikings!

Record Broken: 82% of U.S. Email is Spam

Outdoing most analysts’ worst predictions, spam accounted for 82 percent of all U.S. email last month.

After a two-month drop in spam, the number of unsolicited bulk email skyrocketed in April, bringing the saturation number up to record levels here in the U.S. and across the world, according to MessageLabs, Inc., a security company based in New York. […]

Of that 82%, I think at least 75% of it landed in my email box. This shit is obnoxious.

For the record, I do not want a bigger penis, larger breasts, a new home mortgage, a copy of Windows XP for $49, or a vacation in Orlando. I will not give anyone my bank account number so they can transfer $28,000,000 from Nigeria, watch Michelle have wild sex with barnyard animals on her secret dorm-room Webcam, or invest in a fertilizer company’s stok at 16 cents a share. I do not have a timeshare for sale, I do not need any Vicodin, and I am not looking for a new partner at Matchup.com.

Last time I checked, “eifsTuFy7mUuWbDz” was not a word, and if you’re going to try to sell something to me with such enticing offers as “Friend, twisting from my embrace compressor up and doing!” you may want to rethink your approach.

Call me whacky, I do not see how giving six anonymous strangers $5 each today is going to get me $17,000 tomorrow. My employer is perfectly happy even though I have no college degree; I am, you see, the owner of the business. I do not want to “Submit to the Natural-Born Bitch, the Princess of Fetish,” but thanks for asking! I do not want to “spatterdrop rap” my “ema1l campa1gn.” I doubt an email entitled “acrylic mango open” is going to help me “cl1mb the ladder to s.u.c.c.e.s.s.”

I do not care what Paris Hilton’s boyfriend used, which herbs are more efficient than via-gra, or what the Survivor cast did when the cameras were off. I was not born yesterday, and I am not going to give you my credit card number, my eBay password, or my ATM PIN number, even if you insist that I will lose my banking privileges, my Internet access, or my firstborn son if I don’t, mkay?

I do not speak Russian, Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, so assume that I’m a lost sale if your message is not even English.

I do not need to spy on all my friends–I have, you see, chosen friends I can trust. I do not want a copy of your Banned CD filled with Amazing Hacker Secrets–I was a hacker before you were even born. I do not need your low-carb diet, your South Beach diet, your herbal diet supplements, your amazing Sudanese dieting secrets, your amazing Chinese dieting secrets, or your amazing body-wrap secrets–I’m skinny enough already, thanks.

I do not want in on the ground floor of your real-estate scheme, your online marketing scheme, or your PayPal pyramid scheme. I do not want high-quality Rolex watches at unbelievably low prices.

I do not need to “fermat haystack enthusiastic sixtieth grasp constraint calamitous garish schroedinger lesotho excess chaplin doubt” my “exact digit aptitude electro cinch bawdy gin hebephrenic pancake fulton myrrh firearm galloway beer blasphemy passenger defecate phantom choir girlish murky anorthosite”–there’s far too much fermat haystacking going on of exact digital aptitudes in this country as it is! (That’s what’s wrong with this world today–too many people don’t respect exact digit aptitudes as God made them.)

So enough already!

Memories of Boston, in no particular order

– People everywhere stopping on the street and saying “Can I help you find something?” every time we pulled out a map. Boston people are just so damn…nice.

– Running around abandoned industrial sites, then swinging on the swings with wispfox. She’s really, really cool.

– The B&D Ball at Manray’s–a guy tried to pick up all three of us! It pays to set your sights high, I suppose…

– Hey, ectropy, did you know the satellite TV thingies they have in the seats on Song flights all run Embedded Red Hat Enterprise Edition? We saw ’em boot! I wanted to get a pic, but my CF card was full…

– And speaking of which, I finally got to meet ectropy in person! She is smart, which I knew, and funny, which I knew, and very cool, which I knew, and techiegeeky, which I knew…I just didn’t expect her to be so charmingly goofy. *charmed*

– Grabbing ladytabitha by the hair on our walk down the street, pinning her against the wall, and kissing her.

ladytabitha doing the same thing to Shelly–prompting a woman to come out of a cafe and run screaming down the street after us shrieking “Disgusting! Disgusting!” at the top of her voice.

– Bonnie wants to help us find a place to live!!! Is that not the coolest thing ever?

– Curling up between Shelly and ladytabitha and falling asleep… *sigh*

– Running around near MIT at night, camera in hand, shooting black and white.

– Catching up with starkaudio–he still has the record of a very…err, interesting time in our lives. It’s going to be SO cool to live near him again! I’m really, really looking forward to it.

– Emack & Bolios.

There’s more, but it’s late, and I’m tired.

Peekchures!

Back from Boston, safe and sound, and with many, many pictures to share. These ones are just snapshots with the digital camera. I also did a real shoot with ladytabitha, which I have not had time to start processing and printing yet…I’ll post some of those when I do.

Lots more, cut for your sanity and for those of you on dial-up…some of these are NOT work-safe!