Yearly Archives: 2002

Home for the Holidays

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  • Post category:Holidays

p class=”author”>Author Unknown

A man in Florida, in his 80s, calls his son in New York. The father says to the son, "I hate to tell you, but we’ve got some troubles here in the house. Your mother and I can’t stand each other anymore, and we’re getting a divorce. I’ve had it! I want to live out the rest of my years in peace. I’m telling you now, so you and your sister shouldn’t go into shock later when I move out."

He hangs up, and the son immediately calls his sister in the Hamptons and tells her the news. The sister says, "I’ll handle this!"

She calls Florida and says to her father, "Don’t do ANYTHING until we get there! We’ll be there Wednesday night."

The father agrees, "All right." He hangs up the phone and hollers to his wife, "Okay, they’re coming for Thanksgiving. Now, what are we going to tell them for Christmas?"

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government “Big Brother” database

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  • Post category:Politics

Great — our government is using the new Homeland Security measures to build a “Big Brother” database to track what you purchase.

Geek News: Pentagon confirms development of “Big Brother” test database

The Pentagon confirmed the development of a prototype database to track consumer and business transactions under an initiative called the Total Information Awareness Program (see our previous coverage). Edward Aldridge, Undersecretary of Acquisitions and Technology, met with reporters and provided more details concerning the project. The goal of the project is to develop a database that will track every consumer purchase and financial transaction to look for suspicious patterns. Red flags would be large cash withdrawals, purchases of firearms (from agents like Elevated Gunworks and so on) and biological agents, and one-way plane tickets. The goal for the project, whose technical arm is headed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is to combine consumer transactions with immigration, law enforcement, and intelligence records to quickly identify terrorist patterns.

Funding for the project was included in the Homeland Security Act recently passed by the U.S. Senate and previously passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. The project was first brought to light by its director and advocate Admiral John Poindexter. Poindexter served as National Security Adviser during the Reagan Administration. After his service he was convicted of lying to Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings. The conviction was later overturned since Poindexter had been granted immunity for his testimony.

How many times do I have to say the emperor has no clothes before someone wakes up and listens?

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Frustration Recovery

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I’ve recovered from the crappy weekend, somewhat. In the evenings, I’ve been doing a bunch of small, “finish-it-in-one-shot” projects that have gotten small, niggling problems out of the way. And I’ve still had plenty of time to play with Spike, so he seems happy. I think if I keep working this way, I’ll get through it. It would be really nice to win the lottery, though. At the very least, there’s no way I could put the house on the market until I accomplish all of these projects anyway, and I wouldn’t be able to do it until spring. So I’m stuck here one way or another; may as well make the best of it!

I had some good things happen this weekend, actually… I had a great lunch with Lori B. while planning a scavenger hunt — details to be announced later. And I went with Dan and Doug to see the Harry Potter movie, which I loved, by the way.

I also worked out some additional organizational things to do last night, which I’ll be putting into action, tonight. They should help me get on the right track for getting stuff done around the house. I also got more work done on the inventory I’ve been doing of all my stuff. I have all of my DVDs and Videos cataloged, as well as all my electronics and a good chunk of my book library. Once I get my CDs cataloged, I can turn all of it over to my insurance company, which will lower my rates. Pretty cool.

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Crappy Weekend

I had a really crappy weekend. I worked all day Saturday on the house, especially the living room, and I got nothing at all done. I managed to get the old nails pulled out of the ceiling joists for only 1/3rd of the ceiling. I got the blocks of wood nailed up that will support the new drywall for only 1/2 of one wall.

For the backdoor, I put the second handle on the trap door, so it’s easier to open. And I ran the extension cord up from the basement. I shoved some foam around the top opening of the door, and tried to use the spray foam to fill in around the cracks on the sides of the door. That crap is really messy and hard to control and I got it on my hands and still can’t get it off. I got some of the leaves raked, but I still have to bag them, and I need to clean the gutters out again. And the rest of the leaves are falling, so I still have to do that. I need to cut back some tree limbs, and caulk the one gutter. And when am I going to find time to do that? I have to spend the evenings with the dog, to make up for the fact that he’s alone all day. The poor little guy; it’s not his fault the house is in such shitty shape.

I’m really pissed and frustrated with the house. It’s ugly as hell, and I’m not making even the slightest dent in getting it in shape. There’s only one room that’s even close to looking nice, and I’ve been in the house 10 months. At this rate, it will be 15 years before the house is in order. I hate this fucking house and want to move. There’s way too much shit to do, and there’s no way I can accomplish all this by myself. For some of these jobs I need another person, and I’m going to have to hire someone to help me. That just makes me more pissed off.

I have to do something totally different than the direction I’ve been going with the house. I need to clean out and rearrange something, or move something around. I’m thinking of just closing the living room off altogether. Maybe moving all of building supplies and materials out of the back room into the living room, putting up a door, and closing it off altogether until spring and not thinking about it. I may do that this week during the week.

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Vincent the Haunted Mirror

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When I was in college I had friends who lived in this house in Muncie. The friends were these three women (who we called ‘the gorgon sisters’ behind their backs, but that’s another story) and we used to go to their house and play cards all the time, because it was one of those houses with plently of room to play cards around the kitchen table. It was kind of an old house, and it had a really wierd basement. In one corner of the basement, there was a staircase that went to nowhere. The opening at the top of the stairs was blocked off. It was really creepy.
Also, there was a mirror in the basement, that everyone said was haunted. By a ghost named Vincent. Apparently Vincent would come out an night and cause trouble and make noise in the house. I have no idea how they knew the name of the ghost. But it is a cool old mirror; square, with a beveled edge, in a wooden frame. Somehow or other, I ended up with the mirror. I don’t know exactly why they gave it to me. I think there was probably alcohol involved. Like I was probably drunk and they said, “Hey, take this haunted mirror home to your house, cause we’re afraid of the ghost here.” And I probably said, “Sure, why not?”
So anyway, I’ve had this mirror ever since. Sort of. I took it with me when I moved back home to my mom’s house, and left it in the basement when I moved to an apartment. My sister adopted it somewhere along the line, and decorated it and had it in her apartment when she was in college. Then she went to England, and Vincent came back to my house. Then she came back, and he went back to her. Then she moved back to England, and he’s been in my house for the last few months. I haven’t settled on the right place to hang it, so it’s propped up against the wall on the floor in the foyer.
The reason I’m explaining all this is because Spike discovered the mirror the other day. At first he was afraid of the little doggie on the other side, and he kept running away and hiding. But then he realized the doggie on the other side was cute, and he’s been trying to play with him. He keeps trying to get the doggie to come out of the mirror into the room… he’ll run away from the mirror, with his head turned around looking at it, like he’s saying, “come on, come into the kitchen with me.” And Spike will toss his head in the direction of the kitchen, to indicate where he wants the doggie on the other side to go. And when the doggie won’t do what he wants, he’ll run up to the mirror and try to lick the doggie. This morning he was trying to walk around the side of the mirror to get the doggie from behind.
I think Vincent’s going to get hung at doggie-eye level, so he can have a friend.

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Which Firearm are you?

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  • Post category:What Am I?

Okay, I got a bunch of e-mail about the below test I took. Hostile e-mail from people who don’t believe in guns. Fortunately for me, they don’t believe in guns. Here’s the thing, we were on a site at work for one of the authors of one of our books. And he had the test linked from his site. So we all took it. And this was the gun I turned out to be. And hell, I post everything here. So I posted it. End of story. No, I’m not an advocate of submachine guns. I just happened to take the friggin’ test. So there. Take it yourself. Maybe you’ll turn out to be a peashooter or something. Sheesh.


Which Firearm are you?
brought to you byStan Ryker

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