Bogeyman's blues

If things don't start working out for me soon, I think I'll just go live in the smoking section at IHOP.

They're open 24-7.

I'll just order a cup of coffee and keep getting the free refills.

Oh sure, you scoff, they'll kick you out for loitering eventually.

Not if I flirt with the waitress enough.

And if I run out of smokes, I'll just say, "Hey, I gotta step out for a bit, if anyone calls for me, I'm across the street at CITGO."

Was just reading an article on how to beat job burnout. Here's a tip:

Consider putting up a bulletin board in a break room or employee lounge. Ask everyone from entry-level employees up to administrators and supervisors to bring in baby pictures. Post the pictures on the board. Everyone will enjoy looking at the photos and laughing at each other. It's fun to guess who's who. It also shows that no matter where anyone is in the hierarchy of the facility, everyone started out as someone's baby.

Golly, it's so simple. If only I had a visual depiction of my fatfuck editor as a li'l tyke at the time, I'd still be writing the police blotter on a broken laptop and putting in unpaid overtime hours today.

Thank you, monster.com, for teaching me to laugh again.

My life got turned around
Since then I'm feeling down
Now the time is 11:45.

It's just a little while
before it's high noon on that dial
I have to hold on to stay alive

Then shortly after that
That'll be right where it's at
I'll have my shit together then, I know.

Twelve-fifteen will be my time
I'll find reason; I got rhyme
I only got another one-eighty to go.

My friend Josh Holden just gave me a great piece of love advice.

"Be as foolish as you have to be to win her confidence, then club her with your love hammer like a horny Thor. Or something."

Today I checked on a dying Sigmoneo and said, "Oh, what the fuck. It's Christmas."

I then proceeded to feed him a worm nugget as a holiday feast.

He said, "Uuuuuggggggghhhhh!" But he ate it anyway. You can't be picky when you're dying of starvation, even though he tried.

For all the hardcore Lord of the Rings fans out there: Do dragons shit?

I like to think they're more like owls and they cough up pellets.

And if you dissolve the pellets, instead of finding tiny little mouse skeletons as you would with an owl, you would find whole suits of armor.

I just fed the second half of a dung jelly to the dying-but-extremely-happy Sigmoneo.

That's right, dung jelly. A jelly made of poo.

And on eating it, Sigmoneo said, "Yum! That was my favorite food!"

I suppose starvation changes your idea of what tastes good.

I think I'd like to move to the Island of Gib.

Gib is a remote island nation in the South Pacific. Its natives are called Gibbers.

And their language: Gibberish, of course.

Gibberish is a most beautiful language.

For example, when a Gibber man wants to profess his love for a lady, he would say, "Flanga-flanga-flanga kooplety-flootle wog."

Isn't that far more romantic than "I love you"?

And think of the fun you'd have at the deli. In Gibberish, the stale, "I would like a pound of provolone," becomes, "Ploopy bop hamenah blop blop zing."

Just make sure you say, "hamenah," and not, "himenah" or else the counter man might give you a pound of walrus testicles instead of cheese. And walrus testicles are way more expensive.

This concludes are introductory course in Gibberish. Just repeat the first two phrases you've learned over and over again to yourself, to friends and loved ones, neighbors, and people you pass in the street. And soon you will be a master of Gibberish.

Farewell, or, as they say on Gib, "Florg stry, stry, flobble whandy sklorch zooby zooby."

OK, I have confirmation now. I'm not crazy. I wasn't seeing things.

That damn tray of macaroni and cheese was still sitting in the median at Loop 183 South and Duval Road yesterday afternoon.

And Kent was with me. He saw it.

He said, "Wait, maybe it's corn.... Nope. That's definitely macaroni."

Not that I doubted the macaroni's presence on the concrete median. But it is nice to know that someone else can confirm it.

Went downtown today to pay my court fee.

Funny. It's not a fine anymore, because I've agreed to take a driving course. But the court costs are $350.

That amazes me, as the shuffling of paperwork involved in the case and discussion with a prosecutor all adds up to maybe 20 minutes, tops.

How much can it cost to print a damn receipt?

Anyway, I got to muni court, took a number, waited my turn, got called to window 3.

There sat a woman I had no problem with until I observed her collection of Beanie Babies and other small teddy bears sitting on the counter.

And the sign.

It read: "READ: Please do not touch my babies. They do not like to be touched."

I'm paying $350 to get this kind of attitude?

And it's pre-emptive attitude. I didn't even want to touch her stupid bear collection 'til I was confronted with that goddamn sign.

The rules are easy.

Number One: Don't bring toys to work if you don't want other people to enjoy them.

Number Two: If you're gonna be stingy about your toys, at least take some damn responsibility for your stinginess. Let's not assign likes and dislikes that imply personality to a bunch of pieces of cloth.

Even the asshole kid who wouldn't let anyone play with his remote control trucks would do that. He stated it quite clearly. The reason no one else could touch his trucks: "You'll waste the batteries."

Just like he was doing, but at least he's let it be known that he's a stingy little prick who thinks anyone else's enjoyment of his possessions is a waste of valuable electrical resources.

Remember kids, if you don't want to share your toys, leave them at home.

Or, more simply, fucking grow up.

Is it better to be cheerful or extremely happy?

After allowing NeoPet Sigmoneo to continue starving for a few days, I checked in on his mood. It says now he's extremely happy.

Last time I checked on him, he was cheerful. I'm not wure which is a better mood to be in. Either way, it's not yet desperate, so I have more work to do.

I fed him half a dung jelly, just to keep him alive long enough to continue crushing his spirit.

He must suffer.

Damn Sigmoneo.

There is just no breaking his spirit.

He's attitude is still listed as cheerful, though he is dying of hunger.

I waved the plushie at him again today, and he told me I'm "the best owner ever."

Where's the fun in cruelty and neglect if you can't break the spirit?

Just for that, I'm waiting another day before I feed him.

Some guy just tried to sell me a tongue piercing...

In the street.

There I was, trying to guage how much of my last 78 cents I needed to put into the parking meter and this scraggly man approached me.

"How many times have you ever really wanted to please your woman?" he asked.

I'm no poker face. He could immediately read my expression that said, "What the fuck?"

I thought he was gonna try to sell me some big dick cream out of the satchel he was carrying.

He tried another approach.

"I know. Sorry. Personal question. But look. I have this."

And he showed me a tongue bar. He only wanted $10 for it. Today was my lucky day.

I shook my head.

"Have you ever thought of having your ear peirced?"

Finally, I had to speak.

"Dude, I don't have a girlfriend, and no, I'm not interested in piercings."

Not ones performed on the corner of 5th Street and Red River Avenue, anyway.

"OK. I know you're not interested in this. I'm willing to let it go for $5. I'm just trying to get some gas money together."

Sure, I had sympathy. I had just put my last $5 in the tank.

But that meant I really had no money to give him.

Still, I watched him walk up the street.

Just because I wouldn't let him pull a needle out of his bag and lance my tongue doesn't mean I wasn't curious to see someone else do it.

I was sitting at a traffic light, waiting to turn onto a major highway, and I looked over to my left and said to myself, "What the fuck is that big tray of macaroni and cheese doing there on the median?"

And then i thought, "Or is that creamed corn?

"It's yellow.... No. That's definitely macaroni and cheese."

The tray was enormous. Made out of sturdy aluminum foil. Looked like someone ripped it off from the Blue Boar or the soup kitchen for the homeless.

And it was just sitting on the median.

I kept trying to rationalize it.

Best I could come up with: Someone decided to bring food to one of those guys with the cardboard signs that say, "Hungry. Please help." But the guy wasn't there when they came to give it to him, so they left it there for him to pick up when he comes back.

"Hmmm....," I thought. "I haven't had anything to eat yet today... Maybe, I'll just... No. No. That shit is bait."

I wasn't falling for it.

"I'm not gonna get out of the car right now and grab that....

"But maybe if it's still here when I come back... No! Definitely a trap!"

It has to be a trap. It's not the first time I've seen food sitting at an intersection in Austin.

A couple months ago I was at a different intersection, and again, waiting at the light, I looked around...

"What the fuck is that watermelon doing there?"

A whole watermelon. Not a half-eaten rind. Not a slice.

And it wasn't smashed, like someone just threw it out the window.

Someone or something carefully placed a whole goddamn watermelon alongside the intersection.

Someone or something is fishing for people in Austin.

This is some serious X-Files shit, man.

When I checked on Sigmoneo today he was dying again.

I tested him by letting him play with the same toy we've had since I created him 289 hours ago.

He said, "This is such the coolest toy!"

So I fed him the other half of the glowing jelly from the other day, so he's no longer dying. Just starving.

Again, he was appreciative of the glowing, possibly toxic morsel.

"That should keep me going for a while," he said.

Two-hundred forty-five hours since his birth, Sigmoneo the Gelert is dying of hunger.

And still, he unrepentantly asks for more toys.

Again, he points out that all the other pets have more toys than he.

Let's satisfy his hunger, shall we?

I fed him a mysterious item called a glowing jelly. It came with the hint, "Maybe you shouldn't eat it."

He ate half the glowing jelly and belched. He was dying. Now he's starving.

Still, he remains cheerful and has all nine of his health points.

Let's see how he feels in another 10 days.

I inadvertently found this piece of info, attributed to Matthew Barrows at the Sacramento Bee, a while ago.

To ensure that jet engines can withstand collisions with birds, the Federal Aviation Administration asks engine manufacturers to turn poultry into guided missiles.

In the FAA's "large bird ingestion test," recently euthanized chickens are stuffed into air cannons and fired at 175 mph into a working jet engine.

Santa, if you're reading this, I want an air-powered, chicken cannon for Christmas.

What do you suppose that thing sounds like?

My guess is, "FOOMP!"