November 2003 Archives

Well soon I'll finally have something to write about. I bought my tickets to paris today, a great deal if anyone is looking for an excuse to go, the whole thing, ticket, insurance, hostel booking and museum pass cost me about $600 - tax included. I even got myself a mini tripod so I can stop carrying around my brother's old broken hulk. It'll be interesting, not speaking a word of french, but I figure I can get by for a week. I managed solo in korea for a little while and they didn't even have the same alphabet :) I have to wait until the end of january to go since holiday trips don't end until around then but at least I'll manage to squeeze it into the 100 day window.

Of course there's that little month of snowboarding between now and then, must be extra careful not to bruise or break anything (again) this time. One trip with a bruised sternum is enough for me, thanks.

Still no duffman gallery because, well, I'm incredibly lazy. It's hard to get up earlier than 8:30 now (that happened quicker than I thought) but it'll happen. Really.

Oh yes, and Bad Santa is a good movie to see with several friends. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie since the first american pie.

I learned a valuable lesson last night - never discuss politics with someone who tapes signs to their car windows.

We had a chimney sweep come by and he had a sign taped to the back of his van window "Don't trust the right wing media - www.democraticaction.org" or somethign to that effect. I made the offhand comment that I was reading the Al Frankin book "Lies and the Lying Liars that tell them", just making conversation. Things started innocently enough but rather rapidly went down hill.

Senior Chimney (not his real name) said a better book might be... I can't remember. But even that guy doesn't really get it all. There's a good talk show on (some tiny radio station) that he's trying to get a guest onto. The guest will tell them, tell them all, that we can't keep letting the right kill our leaders.

A little stunned silence out of me.

Kennedy you know.

Oh yeah, kennedy (this seems like a somewhat safe topic) - they've got some special on the history channel about the assasination I think.

Yeah, the guy on there has some pretty good ideas, but he's barking up the wrong tree. See he's trying to link it to the Mafia. Now Everyone knows the mafia does all of the domestic hits for the CIA - the green berets do the foreign ones - but this was something they had to keep close. I mean, Johnson was involved, this was the only way he was going to become president - the trilateral commission had hand selected him to be the next leader so they had to get kennedy and quick.

My mind races desperately to think of a topic other than politics to switch to... Well yeah, hey you know, if the next election sees Bush still in office I may just have to move to canada *nervous chuckle*.

Oh yeah, I know what you mean. Not yet though, still lots of work to be done here. I say we need to just start killing their leaders, starting at the top and working our way down, get as far as we can. That's what makes me a progressive rather than a liberal. Well, your chimney's all done, don't forget to listen to that talk show tonight.

Oh I won't. Bye.

Now granted this was a drastically distilled version of the two hour conversation, but all that means is that I've forgotten some of the less... "memorable" claims. If it hand't been for the fact that he had the bumper sticks and signs on his van I'd probably have chalked it all up to him being a compulsive liar. In addition to all of the above, he learned to box a little from his english professor (we managed to briefly seque into sports) who used to spar with some of the greats of the 30's and 40's before going on to become irelands poet lauriet. After he couldn't spar with his english professor he took up racing for a while and got to race against Mario Andrette before he was all big and famous.

You can see how I'd have some trouble believing everything he says, but there were those stickers...

I've been working on a site redesign lately (observe and comment please: here). I'm not certain if I like it enough to go with it or not - it's a little "pointy", we'll see.

As for the duffman gallery, so far 5 people have sent pictures (about what I had hoped for) but I'm in a bit of a chicken and egg situation with the site design. It's hard to put the effort into a gallery when you're likely to rewrite it soon. But for those of you who sent me pictures, no worries, they'll be shared.

Other than site redesign my time is spent mostly trying to figure out how to get to Paris on as little money as possible. Well that and futzing with my woodworking/robotics projects, remodeling the house, "searching for a job" while unemployment and taking my dogs to the park to play.

I do so love my 100 day breaks :)

Early lessons from unemployment:

1) Despite a year and a quarter of evidence to the contrary, my morning oatmeal does not, in fact, cook itself. I actually had to read the box/tube to remember how much water went with however many oats.

2) Frozen dirt is neither easy nor fun to dig in. Still the trench must be dug so the wall can be laid so the patio can be poured and the hottub reactivated.

3) I still wake up at 6:40 - even on the weekends.

And now for the ego boosting tale. I didn't make it to the huge goth halloween party on friday, but a couple of my friends did. One told me the next morning that there had been a duffman there. The conversation went something like this:

friend Nice costume; A friend of mine was duffman for halloween last year.

duffman really? well I bet my costume is better.

friend Well his website about the costume has been getting 300 hits a day.

duffman oh.. he's that guy.

Pointless, but I liked it :) In other duffman news, two people sent me pictures of their costume and/or party. It's kind of a small amount to make a gallery for, but I figure I will anyway - perhaps it will encourage others to send pictures or stories if they have them.

And now it's off to dig.