We're going to get like 30 peo…
We’re going to get like 30 people and some dogs to go to Texas with. Maybe we can rent a VW Beetle. That would be awesome.
It's been implied that I'm not…
It’s been implied that I’m not worth knowing because I haven’t moved to 100% open source. I say there are lots of reasons I’m not worth it.
Sand Fleas in My Shorts
I just discovered my friend Wayne’s brother is still mobilized in Iraq. He’s got a job (or at least he did… shows how little concern I’ve expressed over the last two years to not even realize he had never come home like I thought) that brings him in close proximity to potential no-goods-its, and in my not-so-humble opinion, the man doesn’t get paid nearly enough. Better equipment and training are essential, of course, but when we ask men and women to endanger themselves again and again and to carry out unpleasant exercises against an enemy who doesn’t distinguish himself from noncombatants, it’s also important to pay like we appreciate the sacrifice. Of course, proposing to increase military spending would make me evil. And Islam is a religion of peace, Americans are the true bad guys and we don’t need a standing military anyway. Right? Plus, poverty is just so dadgum ennobling!
In related news (sorry), my father’s Drittefrau announced that he was going to go be a contractor in Iraq. She said the first $80k or whatever was tax-free, so I guess that makes it okay. I haven’t heard whether my father actually knew about it before she started telling the family of the career change, or even if it really ever was (or still is) a possibility. I guess it’s his business, but I hope it’s his decision if he winds up doing something so idiotic. I mean, taking insane risks for an unappreciative public is one thing, but doing it for money is something quite else. It makes the reasons for all the jeopardy two-dimensional and really subjective.
Hey, can’t we all just be rich without getting shot at?
They just started blocking Mee…
They just started blocking Meebo at work. 🙁 I didn’t sit around chit-chatting all the time, but I feel so cut off already…
I'm planning a roadtrip to Tex…
I’m planning a roadtrip to Texas with my friend Perry. Should be interesting…
One of the AC units in our ser…
One of the AC units in our server room at work is down, and all my department’s servers had to be taken down. Couple of slow hours ahead…
Imperfectionist
This is a post I began several months ago and never finished. I had already chosen to loosen up my blawgprose back then, but I lost interest when it came to finding a perfect ending, and never finished this particular entry. So, what with the advent of my new no-cares-it attitude, I’ll just post it unfinished and dangling. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I don’t notice anything wrong with the car now. 🙂
—
The wife’s car got suckerpunched right in the nose–or maybe it was the jaw–by a repair van back in January, and we just picked up the golden chariot from the body shop today. It only took a week in the shop but there was a two week waiting list before that, three weeks of waiting for the worthless appraisal company to send a fool out before that and two weeks of trying to get the insurance company to talk to us before that.
I make up false names for most of the people and institutions I write about (yes, I made a conscious decision not to say ‘about which I write.’ From here on out my blawgs will be completely informal rather than just mostly so), so I’ll call Federated Insurance Suckmaster Enterprises. That’s because they suck. And because they’re good at it.
Suckmaster approved 94% of the estimate provided by the body shop, but they picked all kinds of tiny nits about labor and paint details, etc., and one large one about the bumper. Simply put, since the golden chariot was more than a couple years old, they refused to buy a new bumper for us. It was only a $75 difference, and one we should have just paid out-of-pocket to avoid having a remanufactured bumper installed. But Suckmaster and I both balked about the various principles with which we independently identified, so the course was followed as originally set.
When we arrived at the body shop we saw the golden chariot peeking out from an adjacent parking, so the first thing we did was to inspect its new jaw. I’m sure that 90-95% of the rest of the world’s population (those who own vehicles and are concerned with the outward appearance of them anyway) would have been pleased as seven flavors of punch with the results. I, on the other hand… well, let’s just say that I found some flaws, and griped about each of them in turn.
Yes, I am a perfectionist, and work done by me must be absolutely perfect. 30 second emails take three minutes to compose. The first 20 pages of my novel took 32 years. The list could go on, but I’ve used up all the good examples. Point being, I’m totally and completely OCD about the appearance of certain things. Other things… well, I’m bothered by mess, but most of the time it’s not enough for me to want to do something about it. The inside of my car is a pig sty and the outside isn’t much better. My office is a mess. Everything around me is a mess. But ask for a report or a design from me and it’ll come back flawless.
What Man? And What Plan?
So it’s five months later and I’ve decided to give the blawgin’ thing another go.
Of course, nothing has changed as far as my having anything important to say or even having an audience to read said unimportant posts, and obviously I’m still the same old lazy me.
Writing is therapeutic, though, at least for me, and this is something to do when I’m too beat to work on Project One. Not that I’ve made much headway on my crappy Sci-Fi novel since the whole Writers’ Conference letdown, but it’s time to change that too. Looking back at the blogs I wrote earlier, I saw a small list of long and carefully worded entries (masterpieces all if not for their being drivelous who-cares-its) and grimaced at the amount of work that would lay ahead for me if I decided to keep up that kind of pace. I originally wanted to put out something meaty at least five times a week, and I got all nutty scampers when I missed a day or could only come up with a short entry. Being who I am, I realize now, it was inevitable that I would get frustrated and move on to something else. Well, something else has wound up being lots of sitting around on my butt being sick, and of course I used very little of that time creatively.
That’s all changing, just you wait and see. And don’t laugh if it doesn’t.
From now on, I’ll post when I can, and won’t worry about missing a day. Or two. Or a week.
From now on, I’ll stop worrying about writing perfect entries. Everything will be draft-quality, like this post. That long paragraph above is an absolute mess, but I don’t care. Or rather, I do care, a lot, but I’m going to start trying to ignore the screaming voices in my head that don’t want me to publish such poorly written stuff. Because really, the best I can do now will be poor in comparison to what I will be capable of if I keep practicing. Right? Maybe. Just you wait and see.
From now on, my posts will all be written in conversational English, meaning that I won’t worry too much about dangling participles or preposition-terminated sentences or any of that other muckety-muck. I’ll just write something and click “Publish” when I’m done.
From now on, MWP will be secondary to Project One. There will probably be lots of times when I can work on both, but if I’ve only got a few minutes to write, I’ll be choosing the book.
So that’s the loosely-formulated plan as I see it now. But I still don’t know where the man is. I’ll let you know when I find him.
Setting up Twittertools for Wo…
Setting up Twittertools for WordPress. Seems to work…