Allergies

I think I am allergic to Virginia. I have been twice dosed with poison ivy over much of my body. I am eating benadryl like Chocolate Skittles, and slathering my itchy patches with strange concoctions of ointments and unguents that "should work" and "might help." Should and might are not words that I want to hear from a pharmacist, I want to hear "THIS STUFF WORKS SO GREAT OMNOMNOM I USE IT WHEN I GO ROLLING IN THE IVY!!1!!"


The sad thing is that I made it through four years of Boy Scouts without much more than a square inch or two of poison ivy rash. I know what this stuff looks like, and I know how to avoid it. But someone has to pull it out of the flower beds, and it damn sure isn't going to be the pretty one in the relationship.

So.

These large patches of itchy skin are the reason why I am sleeping in the living room on an air mattress. The Latinos have a saying, that I can't remember en Espanol, but it means a sleeping body can't be blamed for the things it does while sleeping. Like farting under the covers. Or scratching like mad at my crotch which was the epicenter of this outbreak.

I only pulled up a sprig of ivy that was maybe six inches long, using my left hand, and then immediately washed both arms in special poison ivy oil destroying soap. This is really not fair. I am learning new definitions of the words suffering, agony, and pain. I try to endure without complaint, and without scratching. I don't always succeed.

Wallowing

Why is wallowing a negatively associated verb? Pigs are happy when they wallow. They roll around in mud and leaves and sticks and shit and it's all very good for the pig. They're happy. The bugs can't get at them and the mud keeps them cool in the summer. When they un-wallow, the mud dries and flakes off and is probably great for their skin.

So why do we call it wallowing when a person hides out in their apartment all day? I wish I was so lucky as to be rolling around in some healthy mud. Instead, I'm doing laundry and looking for work.

The Beast Within

My brother calls them the wolf hairs, the dark hairs that grow out of strange places or hairs of unusual length from otherwise normal patches. Eyebrows begin to lengthen as the old hairs fall out and are replaced by bizarre cilia that loom over and menace the remaining hairs, as if these mere hairs were but lonely, sarcastic, video store employees. I believe there may be frequent exchanges of milk money.

There are the other patches of wolf hairs. They creep and crawl and slither their way across my body. I recently conducted and extensive survey, utilizing all of my archaeological and primatological techniques, and was amazed and frightened by the results. While I am not Greek, I find myself contemplating forgoing sweaters in the next winter season.

There are odd patterns in the patches. If I stare at them too long, I begin to notice scripts and symbols. I can almost make them out. I think that one is a star and then that one might be a ... oh no.

Disposable Income Dreams, #XN-3892

I would totally build one of these. If I knew a damn thing about electronics and had a workshop. That table beats the hell out of my homemade bed platform/storage trunk/bookshelf. The table has probably also produced more happiness and euphoria than my bed, too.

WAIT

My Recent Absess

I've been getting minor bloody noses every night since Sunday. It's just like high school. That hotel's atmosphere was way too dry for my delicate mucus membrane. It was like the Gobi Desert. Isn't a gobi at species of fish, too? I think it is. Anyway, I am going back to the cave for today.

Musclehead: Still a Huge Dipshit.

He's still a cobag, but that is not new. Kevin McCullough makes it pretty clear in his oh-so-cleverly named post that he really just doesn't give a fuck about free expression or raising his own children:

"I hear the libertarian Ron Paul's answer already, "Government has no business censoring freedom of expression." Figures, he's a libertarian."

Don't want your kids playing Mass Effect? Don't buy them a $400 (or whatever an XBOX 360 costs these days) game system. I don't really find this to be a great argument against his pathetic whining that other people included an alien sex scenes in a video games (I wonder what he thought of Aliens VS Predator: Requiem?) but it ought to be said that no one is forcing him or his son to play this game. A point of information: according to our Constitution, Musclehead Moron, our government shall not abridge the freedom of speech. Figures, he's a radio host.

"With it's 'over the net' capabilities virtual orgasmic rape is just the push of a button away."

Dude, check out 4chan. Rape-porn is already a click away and free. I personally find it fucking horrible and vile and would like to beat the jerk who rickrolled me on that one, but I still acknowledge that I clicked a link I felt to be suspect and will never go back there again. That does not mean that I want to destroy that site, but it does definitely mean that I would have a long talk with my hypothetical spawn should I find her/him looking at porn of any kind.

Another point that hides below the surface of his post is Kevin's complete disinterest in his son's life until he notices something he doesn't like. I think you spend too much time talking and not enough time listening, Kev-bo. Parenting is not just signing checks and buying shit.

"Yes there will be many snickers that I decided to bring this issue up in the Presidential cycle of 2008 but how refreshing would it be for a President to prove to the nation that his own manhood was not in question and put his pen and signature to a bill that dealt with such simulated sex excess in a way that was punitive to its creators to such a degree that they would never recover from it?"

I think Kevin is demanding that the candidates run around chili-whipping and cock-slapping Bioware employees until they submit to some sort of morality review board. I guess someone had to pick up Jeff Goldstein's slack.

UPDATE 1/17/07: Penny Arcade does it again. Tycho and Gabe make excellent points. I probably should stick to a policy of ignoring hacks and shills like McCullough, but I'm not famous like they are, so I'll keep bashing these idiots when I feel like it. Or when I stumble upon a deliciously stupid piece like this one.

Up and Running

I finally got my computer up and running. I will continue with the high-functioning autisticness and jackassery later tonight.

Questionable Content Apparently Heard About the Cookie Contest

And my wang. I know consider all references to enormous schlongs to be homages to me.

Indeed

HAHA

RSS for the win!

Now with stupid internet meme jokes!

KTHANXBI

PUTIN SEZ: DO NOT WANT FREE PRESS.

OH NOEZ!

L_O_L

STEWPIT

WANT

Genius Day

It is my birthday. Yay me. I will be celebrating by watching The Thing From Another World at Screen on the Green. How appropriate.

Dick Cheney Provides More Reasons to Impeach Him, Too

He has no frigging clue about the structure of our government. Cheney's office has told the National Archives that it does not consider itself a part of the Executive Office. As one of the commenters pointed out, that means that the Office of the Vice President is no longer covered by Executive Priviledge. Subpeonas all round, boys! I'm buying!

Friday Afternoon Means Another Music Post

You can find those at every other blog in the 'sphere.

I am more concerned with this.

The Great Sausage Fest of 2002

Its May of 2002 and I had just recently moved to Portland, Oregon and my brother wanted to come visit me from Eugene. He said he had a friend in town that could show us around and we could go have some drinks. We met up with my bro's friend outside a restaraunt, Fellini, which is associated with it's neighoring club, Satyricon. Fellini is known for the strong drinks, but the ones we were given were quite weak.

The Shanghai Tunnel was our next stop and I thought was alright because it had a vodka I liked. The vodka was a Polish style potato vodka and it is smooth as sipping whiskey. We had a couple drinks there and then wandered over to some other bar, the name of which escapes me. The bar was a little lame for me, being a strange mix of hipster and the burgeoning metro style. We had a few more drinks there and I remember them being twice as expensive as the Tunnel's.

It was now somwhere between 9 and 11 and I can not remember where we were, but the friend was talking about a girl he had recently started dating/seeing/screwing. He was not sure what was going on between them, but he was sure that she was hanging out with her gay friend, Todd. They were at some club. A perhaps short while later, the friend suggests that if we want to meet some chicks that really want to meet guys, we should go to this place he knows. He says that it is a little out of the way and will take a bit to walk there. We're all pretty drunk by this time and my brother and I say yes. Which sounded a lot like fuck yeah, but let's not split hairs.

We wander around for probably 45 minutes, but I can't really be sure. The friend says we are getting close and wants to explain something. He says that it is not exactly your average club. We keep walking and ask what he means. He is evasive. We are drunk and not worried. We get to this place and the bouncer looks at us like what the fuck are you doing here and that is when I notice the sign, 'The Three Sisters', and the black plastic drapes hanging in the doorway. Irealize that we are about to enter a strip joint and that it is probably a gay strip joint. This takes about five minutes to percolate through my mind, meanwhile the friend is negotiating with the bouncer. The friend says the cover is ten dollars for us. I inquire into the amount of supposed girls inside. Bouncer says there are girls inside. I am drunk and this jives with everything heard so far tonight so I say sure, lets go in.

Well, there was a girl inside. It happened to be the girl the firend was sort of dating and her gay friend, Todd. He introduced himself to me as Todd, Todd the Rodd. I shit you not. This precipitated a protracted argument between Todd and my attraction to women and overall not-gayness. It was pretty funny the next morning, but I'll get to that later. My bro and I are a little annoyed because there are no other women beside the one the friend was seeing. It was all just naked dudes and dudes putting dollars bills into naked dudes pouches. At least there was Pabst on tap. For the most part I sat and watched TV at the bar. This was and is the only bar where I have been happy to see a TV. The movie playing was 'Valentine' and the channel was USA and the bartender wanted to know what the hell I was doing there. I told him we had been duped by our friend into coming here because of all the hot, horny, lonely girls who come to look at cock. He said that they usually come in right before closing. I didn't believe him and tried to avoid getting my butt pinched too much. Ladies, I feel your pain, some dudes are just way too aggressive.

So, after a while, some ladies did come in and I went after them like a cruise missile. I started talking to one blonde and she fit the bill. She wanted to know why I was there and I told her the story about the friend and the girl and the supposed hordes of women. She said that she was a regular because she just wasn't meeting the right kinds of guys. We danced and talked and were generally hitting it off until the lights came on after half an hour. Her friends were pretty drunk and she said that hse ahad to take them home and I was a dumbass and with the sheer volume of penises running through my short term memory I forgot about my own and didn't ask for a number. I never saw her again.

Todd the Rodd disappeared and I never saw him again either, thank you very much, and we all started walking home. Still being drunk, I daydreamed that I was Nemesis Enforcer from the G.I. Joe movie and walked ahead of everybody and fought imaginary beasts with my giant claws and Cobra-la strength.

It turned out that the girl lived in the same building as the friend, so he got some. My bro and I were given the keys to the friend's apartment and told we could eat whatever. I went right to the porch and sat down to clear my head and my bro started cooking something. He comes out onto the porch and says that he found some food and hands me a plate of two cooked sausages. I thought he was being funny and started laughing. He asks what is so funny and starts eating and I said that I had seen way to much sausage that evening. My bro nearly choked on his, ahem, sausage. We both cracked up and ate our sausages and fell asleep on the friends futon.

The next morning the friend admitted that he mostly wanted to see the girl and hadn't expected there to be girls at the club. The girl said that I had made an impression on Todd. I asked her to explain to the guy that it was never going to happen. My bro ad the friend then ripped on me for a while. It was funny.

Thus ends the story of the Great Sausage Fest of 2002.