wholly unremarkable day

Today is shaping up to be an unremarkable day. Nothing out of the ordinary. Everything's in place. Quiet. Boring.

But secretly, deep inside, I am having a party. Because its my birthday.

I am convinced that this is how people slowly drift towards insanity.

señor pirate

As I was driving to work today my mind wandered, as it is apt to do when bored. Usually my thoughts follow a loose thread of association as they jump from one mental image to another. Today it ended with me bursting out into laughter to my surprise. (Yes I was surprised because apparantly one part of my brain thought of the joke, and the rest of my brain just "got it").

I will recreate the train of thought here and it might seem a bit disjointed, but such is thinking (mine anyway)

It started with the Geoffrey Rush's memorable blurb, "I am disinclined to aquiest to your request".

What a sweet lass Kiera Knightley was. What was it she said? "Forthwith you shall cease hostilities against Port Royale"? Hmm maybe that was the gist of it but I am sure the words are not all correct.

Boy, Orlando Bloom was in this movie wasn't he? Man all the movies he's been in has been miserable, except the ones he co-starred in. It would suck to be known as the world's most bankable co-star -- never doing well in his own movies but the moment he is attached to someone else's, the ratings skyrocket.

Mmmmm Jack Sparrow. (Yes this thought was fairly brief)

Mmmmm Jack Sparrow's Undead Monkey. (Never said free associative thinking was smart)

Mmmmm Barbarosa..

Mmmmm Parrots.

Why do Pirates have Parrots anyway?

You know what's cool? Talk like a Pirate Day. I wonder why there isn't a Talk like a Parrot Day . (Yes my mind drew this association).

It would be funny to talk like a Parrot. Squawk!

If you had a Talk like Pirate Day and a Talk like a Parrot Day, they could be held back to back. One day you're a Pirate, the next you're a Parrot.

How do you introduce yourself to a Pirate with a Parrot in the Carribean?
"Please meet Señor Pirate and Señor Parrot" (spoken with a Spanish accent)

Yeap. I am a genius.

secret confessions of a strawberry killer

Two weekends ago I gave up on coercing my friends to go to the Renn Faire and decided to go alone before they packed up.

A few days later I found myself talking to Lily about my experiences and what a great time I had at the Faire, hoping that she might feel guilty about not going and trying to convince her that there IS a great time to be had.

What I wanted her to think was something along the lines of, "Hey! It sounds like fun. He must be right. Gosh darn, why is he always right. I would have enjoyed myself. Perhaps I should go next year. Man, I regret not going this year. I am going to kick myself".

What I did not want her to do was ask, "So what did you do after the Faire?".

Because that would have led to a very tense moment.

Let me explain. The food at the Faire was poor and despite my attempts to eat the steak and mushroom pie, I was constantly reminded how much it smelt like dog food and had to throw it away. So, while I left the Faire happy, I left the Faire hungry.

Which leads me to the next point.

A place like Casa de Fruta is bound to have a great deal of fresh fruits, perhaps even out of season fruits, perhaps, Strawberries.

So I bought a teeny tiny basket of innocent sweet looking Strawberries. A tiny basket of temptation and sin for which I must now confess.

Dear Strawberry,

I am sorry Strawberry. I said I'd only eat you and spare your brothers and sisters, but I did not. After I ate you, I reneged on my promise. I am sure you know by now as you and your other lush brethens line up at Heaven's Gate -- for surely strawberries as luscious as you must go to heaven.

I must also confess, I did not take pride in what I did. I am ashamed, deeply ashamed. It was not an act of a sane person. I shed a tear with every bite. I swore each bite would be my last but alas, I broke my word with each juicy bite.

I don't know what happened. When I came to my senses, the deed was done. I glanced around hoping against hope that one of you might have been spared my savage lust but not one of you survived. I found myself looking into the rear view mirror and I noticed the tinge of red around my lips. My badge of shame. I glanced down and saw my fingers and shirt covered with a red goeey mess. What have I done? What have I done?

Sorry Strawberry, you were too delicious to resist.

Tierrie

But, its a good thing Lily did not ask.

green day

Whatever happened to Green Day?

papa bell

It appears that my iPod has whimsically selected Pachebel's Canon in D minor for my listening pleasure this afternoon. I haven't heard this one in months.

How do you do it iPod? Why do you play the violin[1] with my soul?

[1] technically, the violin, violin, violin and bass [2].
[2] i knew this before i confirmed it on wikipedia. jerks.

futility, watch

My USB Flash Drive died yesterday.

Actually, its probably died a few days ago as I was tossing it around and dropped it repeatedly on the floor. But I had only just discovered its rotten putrid plastic corpse was dead yesterday. Yes, when it comes to technology care, I am El Supremo Destructor.

So its dead. I know this because when I plug its USB interface into my laptop the OS no longer recognizes it. Then, I remove it and plug it in again. And again, and again. Despite higher logic knowing that it is dead and no longer functioning, some primal aspect of my engineering mind is thinking that repetitive coitus between the flash drive and the laptop would somehow cure the flash drive of its impotence.

Though in retrospect, that's a bit like flash drive necrophilia.

But I am unbowed. After repeatedly inserting and removing the flash drive from my laptop, I move on to violating my desktop with the same urgent fervor that is typically reserved for moments when a man decides that chastity, in fact, is not for him.

Unsatisfied with the (non) results, I take my flash drive home and proceed to violate my USB hub with the flash drive's cold plastic corpse. Occasionally the flash drive's light would turn on but the computer would still not detect it.

Finally, after a day and night of techno plastic orgy, I have conceeded that in fact, my flash drive is no longer capable of "it".

So I am going to send it to some data recovery people. They can't save it, but maybe, just maybe, some of my data will make it out of that corpse.

Meanwhile, I am going to plug this flash drive into my desktop again, against reason, to see if it will work.

recantations

Kai asked that I recant the statement "So what we have here, folks, is a person who sold his moral principles for a buck fifty" which I did.

I am sure there is something to say here about the importance of freedom of speech vs respect for a friend vs personal integrity. But I cannot think of what it might be.

So I take it back.

Also, I bought myself a French Press from Peets. And two bags of coffee -- Sumatran and Aged Sumatran. I believe that I am at my 4th cup so far.

Incidently, if you should find yourself so inclined to drink coffee, do visit Peets instead of Starbucks. Starbucks' coffee is frippery while Peets' barristers actually know their coffee.

I love Peets.

tense, tenser and tensererawr

For all intent and purposes, this story began yesterday when my stupid friend and her boyfriend come by my house to pick up the two Sony 19 inch LCD monitors that has been my pride and joy for the past 2 years. I did so because I had bought myself two bigger pride and joys, Acer's 24 inch LCD and thought it would bring me happiness.

It did not.

I thought that a bigger monitor would pretty much mean a nicer brighter screen and more visibility and all that jazz. But as much as I try to be philosophical about it, a 24 inch is very much like a 19 inch if you move the monitor 1 feet backwards.

So I part with my monitors with such sorrow.

But I digress.

So this story began when they showed up. As they are apt to do, they hung around a bit chit chatting which is fine -- until He revealed himself to be a Republican. Stunned, I asked why and his response was that because Republicans give people like him a tax cut. I rebut by saying that as a middle class person he barely reaps the benefit of the tax cuts but he said that it is better than nothing.

I was totally agast that I had heard this from my friend. So after some thought I decided that I will stand for my principles and do what is right. I will ask him to hang out with me on voting day all day, and we will stay away from voting ballots.

Go me!