my name is Guy Incognito
Current mood: mischievous

You know you've seen it. 

I was in the checkout at the Harris Teeter, having handed my ID and VIC card to the unusually cheerful cashier. 

"How do you pronounce your last name? In-cog-NEE-to?"

"Eh?"

"Your name.  'Guy Incognito.'"

"Ha!  Um, I mean, yeah, it's 'Guy Incognito.'  I'd forgotten about that.  Yeah.  'Guy Incognito.'  That's right."

Oh, Brave New World of mag-stripe info we forgot we added to the signup form!

Now, I wonder how I can use this to my advantage. 

More later.  It's cold and I have to go inside now.  As I do, I'm propped up on the recycle bin sitting behind the Fiol XJ.  Coltrane plays, an unusually seasonally appropriate wine chills in the brisk evening air and I've (finally) replaced the bricked Linksys WRT in the back of the XJ.  Debt be damned!  I've got the mobile interwebnet once again!   

You've been warned.

Oh, and dammit, remember the fifth of November.  I shouldn't have to remind you. 

7:59 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

apostrophatic
Current mood: amused

When I see a sign on a mailbox which reads

"The Green's" or "The Martin's"

I am forced to assume that someone named "The Green" or "The Martin" lives there.  I once knew a fellow named The Gus, so I guess this isn't out of the question.  I rather suspect, though, it's simply a case of mis-apostrophitis, which name I just coined.

I always wanted a big, tacky sign which proclaimed the name of my home to be "Timothy" or something.  Perhaps "The Gabe's" is better. 

11:42 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

viddy part 2
Current mood: excited

More later, I promise, as I assure you I am not dead.

So, I've adjuted the XJ cam a bit:

mms://fiolxj.boldlygoingnowhere.org:10180

You'll still want to ping that to see if it's up.  If you don't know how to do that, then never mind. 

Cheers.

Live shots of the cookout later if

1) that doesn't piss anyone off
and
2) I have enough signal strengh for the uplink out there...

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12:50 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

viddy the fiol xj

I've learned nothing about wasting money and continue to do so on what some might consider alarmingly foolish projects.  That said,

http://fiolxj.dyndns.org:10180

Copy that into your favorite media player (Windows Media Player, WinAmp, etc.)  You'll what something like "File -> Open URL" in the program. 

And if you know how, ping it first before you waste your time. 
I make no promises that you won't feel confused and/or bored when you're done, but there you go.

I'm working on making that a smoother process.

------

For my birthday, I got the word "senior" added to my title :)

------

7:26 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

some light reading
Current mood: Paranoid

http://influenzapandemic.blogspot.com/

It's a fun read.  Really.  Check out the bit about H5N1 in the UK.

12:38 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

I didn't MEAN to yell at the old man
Current mood: Other

Look, it's not that I feel bad for rejecting (with extreme prejudice - isn't that the manly action movie phrase?!) what I'm sure was a fantastic offer for good deals on popcorn for all the movies I don't see.  Not at all. He had it coming.

I watched this guy harrass an innocent family of four who, presumably, wanted some time together WITHOUT dad having to get awkwardly upset at the theatre staff.  Is that too much to ask?  One night out without dad having to try his uptight best to pretend the man who was clearly taking his money and handing him his popcorn wasn't really talking to him about the fabulous deals a Crown Card could provide?  It's one thing to ignore the guy on the sidewalk.  It's quite another to try to simultaneously conduct a (very expensive, especially for popcorn and soda) business transaction AND ignore the droid with which you are conducting said transaction.  Dad is to be admired.

I have no such patience and I let that older fellow have it...you know...in my own special way.  What I was attempting to do - and J will vouch that I failed in this - was make him feel as bad about himself for even offering the deal as that damn theatre made me feel for having to berate a nice old man when there was a perfectly annoying teenager right next to him.  Fuckers.

Look, I just wanted some popcorn and a Coke for dinner.  If you begrudge me that, then you, as the Pinto driving, Desperate Housewives DVR'ing Adelphi-droid, are a terrorist.  (That's much more fun to call someone than Communist, no?)  I don't *want* to upsize for only a quarter.  Is it so  unreasonable that I might not *want* 85% more buttered bacteria for only 4.3% more cost?  Is it so unreasonable for me to think that the Customer Frustration Professional behind the counter might have caught on had he not been wasting time ignoring my requests for him to put away the form and get me my damn popcorn?  (I assure you, Gentle Reader, I used no such language.  You know....dad and the kids and such....)

-----

Right, so despite that, you should go see V.  Despite what I'm sure even a real Brit would consider a very liberal use of the word "bullocks," it's good to know one of your own futures when you can.  People dismissively watch movies like this, brazen in their cultural commentary, and decide that either

1) that's just too "out there" and could "never happen here"
or
2) just catch the shiny things and not the warnings
(That one's usually me.)

The problem is that societies don't collapse to the beat of the music behind the video montage in 19 minutes or less. The don't really "collapse" at all, usually.  They sort of "wilt," if you will.
The light gets too bright.
The air gets too cold.
They bend.
It makes sense.  Turn inward and avoid that which stings from without. Sure, a wilted leaf can't make much in the way of progress for the flower, but the leaf does what it must.  (Botanists, forgive my abuse of and perversions/misapprehensions of the concepts in Nature.)  In the end, though, the flower dies anyway.  Of course it does.  Flowers can't stand up to Nature.  But we can stand up to anything we create, we fear, we no longer trust.
But we don't.

If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about.

I hear that way too much these days.  But what have I really done about it?  Less than I should.

And you?

-----

And don't buy into that notion that you have to wear big cardboard signs, honk horns (remember that one, D?) and never buy a nice shirt again to dissent.  Bullocks.  If the opposition, the Other, doesn't have room for diversity, then for what exactly are we fighting?  Someone has to be inside to open the gate; someone has to change sides; someone has to question even the "Good Guys;" someone has to at least try to understand the "Bad Guys," which action will inevitably lead to a certain amount of empathy.  All those people have a place.  At the same time, that person on the street, begging for a horn blown, screaming for a change is not an extremist, isn't a freak.  We needn't look alike to think alike or at least along like lines.

-----

Enough of this.

11:19 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

TV are making we dumber
Current mood: annoyed

I just heard two little things on teevee which kind of pissed me off.  This should come as no surprise.  I'm not even really sure I heard one of them correctly, though I'm perfectly happy to stay angry about it, which should also shock no one.


1.  A Progressive Insurance commercial:
"Sometimes Progressive IS the lowest.  Sometimes they ARE not." [My big, insane, red italics.] 
YOU MUST CHOOSE ONE, Progressive!!  You is having the bad grammars.

2.  I *think* it was a commercial for Adelphia DVR:
"His favorite show is MTV's 'Pimp my Ride.'  We drive a Pinto!"
If you drive a Pinto, you're a hazard to yourself and the rest of the driving/walking/breathing public.  Get a new car, not a DVR service.  You are wasting your money and that of the area fire departments.  You are destroying America.  Terrorist!


-----

(Full disclosure note: My parents had at least two seperate Pinto models when I was little.  I'm assuming this was BEFORE people knew they were essentially surprise fireballs at the bottom of the car lot cracker jack box...)

5:52 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

krogerific oderations
Current mood: content

I headed out to the nearest neighborhood super-grocer to nab some wine for me and Benadryl for the dog (I've decided it's the basement or something in it, if you're keeping score, that causes most of the itch) and score some frozen lunch products for the last workday of the week.  I always *hate* that K-Roger and I only go because it's unreasonably close to the Linda house.  Tonight the problem was scent.  As I power-walked back and forth across the whole store - inefficiency is just how I roll - various grocery-inappropriate smells moved me around in time and space.  In the rear of the store I re-visited a lifetime of filthy men's bathrooms.  There was stale mop water, that funny old urine smell and something which wasn't entirely unlike cigar.  I eventually found bread, which was no where near any of the stuff which I wished to put between it.

Rounding the corner and headed back to the oddly scentless vegetables, I escaped the restrooms and ended up in the various apartments of an ex, with each candle I touched placing me in one living room or another.  I gave up.  (Home now, I've started burning one of the incense sticks from London-at-the-Lake.  Much better.)

Fed up with smellovision, I headed for the empty checkout aisle, where the young (apparently bitter) checkout girl stared in the distance before beginning to chuck my bread, light bulbs and wine an insignificant distance across the belt, which CLEARLY didn't require that much force.  That's when I started to read the photo-copied warning taped to that and every register reminding checkers not to accept counterfeit coupons.  I was pretty pissed at the sign's writing and punctuation, but I've since mellowed and forgotten just what the problem was.  Now I'm just mad that I can't remember why I was mad.  I think there are pills for that. 

I hate Kroger. 

-----

Better news:  I rescued my precious from the death-grip of the useless VCR this week.  The VCR was lost in the surgery, but the sacrifice was worth it.  Some of you may even have been at the 2001 dinner party at which I first screened that gem.  (Well, "first" meaning the first time *I'd* seen it...)

-----

It's far too easy in this virtual world to put thoughts to text with - ironically enough - little thinking.  Take heed.  Your words (and mine) matter.  We may only get one or two views a week on a blog, but that's not to say someone won't find it later.

----

I'm going to try much harder to make it to brunch this week, double load of Sol in hand.  Hopefully, London-at-the-Lake will come with me.

----

J, if you haven't gone yet, I'm in for the Vendetta.  I realize I'm a bit late, though :(

-----

So far, Chris Elliot is not  Douglas Adams.
 
-

Currently listening : Bags Groove By Miles Davis Release date: 01 July, 1991

9:33 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

wanker cake in the land of freedom fries
Current mood: tired

Music:
P'Taah, "Compressed Light"
_______________________

This morning - very early this morning! - I went up to the Alexandria INS office with S, after which adventure we stopped at an Olive Garden for chicken, wine and bad chocolate cake.  Now, which staff do you think was more pleasant, more welcoming?  Eh?  Maybe if bitter-crats (like me) start working for tips, government customer service would improve. 

It's not that I've never had *good* service experiences at such offices, including the DMV.  It's just that such visits suck more than they don't.  Why is that? 

This guy knows how to serve the people.  How he keeps getting elected, I'll never know, but I'm glad he's around.  If my math is correct,  exactly ONE senator of ONE HUNDRED is willing to stand up for our rights so consistently.  Exactly ONE PERCENT of the US Senate speaks without fear of political doom.  Hyperbole?  Maybe.  Other Presidents have been impeached for far less than that for which Mr. Feingold was calling Mr. Bush to account.  I'm just saying....

-----

The future of teevee:  Get started on your web reading.  If you're a T-mo-man like me, you can read for free on weekends.  Hooray!

-


Love,
 Linky McLinkerman
 

10:11 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

bricks and magazine redux
Current mood: wry - is that a mood?

I'm dead tired, or at least I was.  I haven't slept a lot during the past few days.  Worse, one of the many A/C units at work was broken and it was 82 degrees in my office.  Sure there were plenty of other places in the building to go work, which I tried for a while.  (I shouldn't complain.  I got some very nice e-mails today.)  But really, what more excuse did I need?  Intending to nap, I instead did about two hours' yard work, including moving the bricks out of my driveway and into a more discrete spot.  My neighbor is going to be selling her house (anyone want to live next door to me?) and I suspect my unfinished (unstarted...really unidentified...) projects won't help the deal.  Plus, I like to wait so long to rake my leaves that I get to play around in that white, smelly, decomposing matter layer beneath them.  It's just more fun for me that way.  Keeps the knees cool while I bag...

Harris Teeter sushi and some Smashed Grapes later, I decided I wasn't ready to relax, so I did some quick Googling of door-to-door magazine sales.  Since you, my dear Reader(s), have come up with nothing in the way of research like I  asked you to, I just did it myself.  The FTC has this to say:

Currently listening : Best of Asha Bhosle: The Golden Voice of Bollywood By Asha Bhosle Release date: 03 April, 2001

8:19 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment