I'll get it done when the time is right and I have sufficiently prepared for the task at hand

Apparently Daniel Whitney, gratingly better known as 'Larry the
Cable Guy' to those unfortunate enough to hear his cackling
celebrations of the unwashed; has given permission to the United
States Air Force to use his "Git R Done" slogan. This came as news to
me, by way of someone who had never heard of Richard Pryor, so go
figure which one of us is caught in a culture warp. I won't do the
'which sign of the Apocalypse is this' joke, but only because I am
still reeling from the ridiculousity of it all. Truly, it is probably
a pretty good move, what better to appeal to someone still willing to
join the service under the current administration than this
slack-jawed yokel catchphrase? I do think it would serve better as a
slogan for Army, as Buster would say, because I don't think a person
with the cognitive skills required to operate sophisticated aircraft
and weaponry should be the same type of person that would say "git r
done". Ever. This reads like I think you have to be a moron to enjoy
Larry tCG, I don't think it's necessary, but it certainly doesn't
hurt. It also reads like I think anyone joining the service under Big
Dub is somehow damaged or less intelligent than the average person,
and that is certainly not true. Some people spend their whole lives
wanting to join the service, turn 18, and join. I admire the
dedication of people that are more interested in their own ambitions
than to turn their back on their dreams just because the sociopath
dreamweaver has written them a nightmare. Then again, there are other
things in life to become rather than a statistic.

Buzzcut Alabamians spewing colored smoke in their whiz jets to the
strains of 'Rock You Like a Hurricane.'

copy

Don't look in there!

I have a MySp.ace. It doesn't have anything on it, doesn't even have
my real name. I made it to help a friend spy on her kid and the nutjob
teenagers he hangs out with. Along the way, I've found that Isabel's
young 17 y.o. cousin was not shy about posting pics of herself with a
vodka bottle and bragging about how often she gets drunk, and the
neighbor kid making up pretty much everything on his profile, but I
think that is expected. As you look around, from one profile to
another, the other thing that becomes apparent is a lot of white
suburban teenaged girls think they are Jay-Z. They be thuggin' "4
realzz"! It would be a lot more comical if it weren't so
tragic/pathetic. Consider, if a few of them were doing it; ha ha, very
funny. Since pretty much all of them have a gangsta rap song playing,
(thank you dial-up, I shut them down before they get started), a few
slutty mirror pix, and the requisite "Where my niggaz at? Hollla!!" in
the comments header, there is a lack of irony that is awe-inspiring at
this "place for friends to meet and greet" - or whatever the slogan
is. There is no interaction other than tagbacks for each others
photos, and half conversations through the log, interspersed with a
few sad "add me" type comments. Oh, there are features available to
make it much better like the blog and photojournal and .... well, I
never looked into it too much, like most MySp.acers.

If you saw the piece on "The Daily Show", then you know what I'm
getting at. You have 9000 friends, now what? I'm not here to review
MySp.ace dot com, but I will offer some tips for the 2.6 teenagers
that might read this: Stop talking about things that you do (or don't
do but are lying about to look cool) that you don't want your parents
to know about. Your parents know your name, they gave it to you.
Create a different profile under a fake name and do all that crap,
just tell your 'friends' to only visit with their fake profiles,
because these things are all interconnected and as much of a Net savvy
edge as you think you have over your parents, they know people like me and likely much better to help them figure these things out. Also, don't add everyone that asks, ask them why first.

I was here in the box the other night, (here's where the title comes
in), and thought of someone I hadn't thought of in many years. Not
sure what made me think of her, but I thought of the way I found
someone that was hiding in MySp.ace for my friend a few weeks ago.
(Teenager was smart enough to use fake name and 'where from' and all
that; but put her actual high school, which just so happens is not in
fake city OK, but right here in NC where we left it.) Anyway, I
trundled over to MySp.ace and tapped in the info: high school, name,
years attended, alumni >>> there she wasn't. Huh. Imagine that, a 36
y. o. woman that doesn't have a MySp.ace. Here is where it gets odd.
As I am there looking at all the Melissas that aren't her, it occurs
to me to try and find a girlfriend from long ago. I couldn't remember
if I ever knew what high school she went to as she was about 7 years
older than I when I was 19 and we started dating; so I went with her
slightly uncommon first name just to start with. Not good, a lot more
than I would have thunk. I flip through the pages and it is obvious
that none of these are she. It then broken bulbs on me to look for her
daughter, who was 4 the last time I saw her. She would be 17/18 now,
very likely to have a MySp.ace. I guess I thought that her Mom would
probably have one too, as some of the parents I know do, for keeping
tabs as I mentioned earlier. What I didn't think about was what it
would feel like if I were to find her. What it would feel like to find
the little girl that used to light up my face, but that I had no
contact with after her Mother and I broke up. What it would feel like,
to find that little face-lighter-upper that barely acknowledged me the
last time I saw her, about a year later. Well, I didn't find that
little girl, I found an 18 y. o. girl with favorite songs, favorite
movies, a boyfriend, and a rather impressively IRL-based friend list.
If I had human emotions I would have cried. Instead, I stared into her
eyes for a bit, trying to think it wasn't her, perhaps thinking that
would be better than having found her. Of course, I would have
continued looking, compulsively. But it was her, no doubt. [We both
like that band, tee hee.] Do I think she (and her Mother) were much
better off with whatever life has brought them in the last 14 years
without yours truly? Indubitably. Is it still horribly sad to think
that maybe you missed out on what your life was supposed to be? Yep.

I need to talk to someone about my neighbor

Just a quick note, they were showing one of those cute li'l stories
at the end of my FBC local news, you know the type, not news in any
real sense; feel-goodery stories, or just plain strange stories.
Tonight's puf'n'fluf story was inappropriate use of the 911 service
for non-emergency calls. They didn't have the kid wanting help with
his homework from the last time I saw one of these stories, that one
was very cute, they played the tape and I got a toothache from the
cute; pure glucose straight through the enamel. This time around they
had the woman complaining that the local fast foodery that she had
just drive-thru-purchased from had gotten her order wrong, and she
wanted the police to come and sort this out. That wasn't what I wanted to tell you about. What I wanted you to know about, I barely caught because after hearing the drive-thru story I had shifted my focus back to the Box where I was researching how many people were wrong about Ame.rican Id.ol last night. Anyway, I did manage to hear a woman telling the 911 operator that in the newspaper there was an ad for an
eagle talon, and the 911 operator was perplexed so the caller asked
couldn't the police do anything about this, seeing as how eagles are
an endangered, protected species. The 911 operator was not nearly as
mockulatory as I would have been unable to control myself from being
when she explained that the Eagle Talon is a motor vehicle.

  BTW, one of my best friends from high school once informed me that the Dodge Shadow, the Mitsubishi Eclipse, and the Eagle Talon were all
the same car. Not sure if that's still the case, but thanks to Scot for all the info.

Adobe is a great car made out of clay, but a crap pile of an application

I don't even know how this thing got to be used everywhere. It drags the resources of any computing device naive enough to open it and there is rarely any reason to use the frig anyway. I happened to stumble across Davidology.com where David was kind enough to say everything I have to say about Adobe Acrobat, maybe better than I would have put it.

Dear Adobe Acrobat,

I hate you.

No, really. I hate you, and I never want to see you again. We're in a fight.

You see, it's bad enough that your software is woefully bloated and takes 5 hours to load the gajillion extensions you have it set to do. It's bad enough that just to view a 1-page document, my browser has to hang while your shitty software starts up. But on top of that, every time I go to view a PDF, I get some upgrade notice. Now, it would be one thing if this were actually an update.... but it isn't! It's a complete reinstall of your effing software! Have you ever heard of a patch, you sadistic f*ckheads?!

To add insult to injury, every time I install—sorry, I mean "update"—my software you install 53 icons all over my hard drive and desktop, embed yourself in every @!#(*&%* application I have, and install 12 programs to load every time I start my computer! And.... And.... as if that weren't enough, just for sh*ts and giggles I guess, you, for some unholy reason, find it necessary to reset my Internet Explorer toolbar to the default settings. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I spent 10 minutes deleting buttons and moving things so that I had everything on one row because I liked it that way?!?

ARRRRRRRRRR!

Now, after finally giving in last week and installing your crappy bloatware "update," I went around and cleaned up your mess. I deleted your stupid shortcut icons, disabled your umpteen toolbars, edited my registry to stop your poorly written crapware from starting all your unnecessary TSRs. I played along. I installed your 7.0.4.12.41.342.121.4.123.54 update that you insisted was so effing important. I spent the 10 minutes getting my toolbar back the way I like it. I thought for once maybe that would be it. Maybe in version 7 you'd learned something. I think it's over.

But is it over?

Oh no! It's ONE week later. ONE F*CKING WEEK LATER. ONE WEEK! I innocently choose to view a PDF, and you pop up that I need to install version 7.07.12.234.12.323.5321.3. ANOTHER GOLDDURN UPDATE NOTICE?!??!??!11?! ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME, YOU F*CKING LYING PIECE OF SH*T! All I wanted to do was read one lousy page. How did your crappy PDF format become the defacto internet standard, and why hasn't anyone dismantled your offices and sold the pieces for kindling?!??

ihopeuchokeanddie.

Love,

Me

P.S. Don't bother coming back to pick up your stuff. I'm burning it all.

Hershey's Web of Lies!

  I recently purchased a six-pack of Take5 candy bars. I had heard of them, seen commercials for them, even noticed how hideous the packaging was, and had little interest. Since you are here because you really want to get to know me; you may as well know I am a cheapskate. I might spend liberally if you somehow convince me to take you out, and when it comes to gift-giving circumstances; but as far as things for myself I am a tightwad. As you've gathered by now, the candy in question was on sale. In fact, it was 'close-out' priced, as in; this grocery store can't move them so here they are at a greatly reduced clearance price - please take them off our hands. Chocolate + reduced price = me with chocolate.

  The first reason I didn't run right out and get one after seeing the commercial is the pretzel. I'm not a big fan of the "pretzel as candy" idea in general, and not at all intrigued by the inclusion of other ingredients. [I know there is a fierce ongoing battle over the validity of peanuts and/or peanut butter as candy ingredients, but pretzels are definitely not candy. Chocolate covered or yogurt-like-sludge-paste-coated pretzels are still not candy.] I know, Twix made believers out of many detractors by adding a welcome new texture to the impulse purchase rack. Still...

  Since I had paid for them, I tried one, but not until after taking a look at the thing. The package is bright red, which hasn't really worked out as well for candy bars as the psychiatrists suggest it should. Bright red is a power color, add in a gold foil color for the TAKE and a white 5. It attracts the eye, but would-be buyers are controlling their urges. While looking around online for a picture of the thing, I stumbled across a few reviews. I have to agree with whichever one said it that this thing looks like an energy bar or maybe a low carb bar. That is not a good thing, have you eaten either of those? Anyway, the second thing to notice before opening is the web of lies part I mentioned. Notice the name is "TAKE5", and the whole advertising spiel is about 5 great ingredients in one candy bar, blah, blah. Notice this list: Pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, milk chocolate. Clever listing, but peanuts and peanut butter are one item; it's called chunky peanut butter. However, they do separate the two, the caramel divides them, but still, whooya tryin' ta kid?

  At their website, I found that they have introduced two other versions "based on the success" of the original. ?? I don't know anyone that is eating these things, but somebody must be, they now have a white chocolate (white chocolate really should be outlawed, btw) version and, more from the web of lies, a peanut butter version. Huh? Two of the original's ingredients are chunky peanut butter, what could this one possibly have in it? It is pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, and peanut butter candy. Apparently Hershey's is so enthused about the rather lame moniker of "TAKE5" that they are willing to use it on an item with only three ingredients. Hollywood isn't the only industry hooked on sequels. The "peanut butter candy" part is a peanut-flavored-sludge-paste-coating in the place of the original's chocolate. I haven't seen this one offline, I won't be eating one if I do see it. And yes, Take5 is also the name of a boy band, that came up in my search as well. Lol.

  Back to the original, it isn't so bad. Twin packed like 100 Grand and those coconut things, (also not candy, but I can't drift off again right now), the pretzel is okay, but the caramel is a little weak, more of a taste than a caramel chewiness that I would prefer. Perhaps it clashed with the pretzel crunch, which, let's face facts, is only there because they wanted to use a cookie but had to distance this thing from the superior Twix Peanut Butter. The thing actually seems to be an attempt to join both Twix varieties into one bar, without coming out and saying that (or giving Mars Inc. a free idea). They would have come closer to succeeding if they had used chewy caramel, but since I barely noticed the caramel it was like eating a knock-off Twix Peanut Butter. Similar, but not as good. Like the Hilton sisters compared to the Gabor sisters. Sorry I lost you little ones, Google it.

  Hey, it could be worse, I almost blogged about the weather.

Simpsons Live Action intro

http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw

These things have a way of getting around, excuse it if you've been
there, done that.

Fine. Be that way.

Sew few que?

Apparently I am the last to hear of the wonderment that is Sudoku. Not since finally figuring out that the guy on "My Name is Earl" doesn't just look like the Rubber Band Man have I felt so out of the loop. If you don't know, or want to try a few online, go here. It is a logic puzzle with a nine by nine grid of squares, with the digits 1 through 9 appearing only once each in each row, column, and each of the nine 3 by 3 squares that make up the larger grid. That is a lot easier to understand with a simple photo ... doot doot doot --- Okay, there should be one pictured above now. There are a few filled in for you to get you started, actually it's necessary for the thing to work at all as a puzzle. Anyone with an eraser could fill in a completely blank grid correctly. In time. And they couldn't very well sell them in book form; graph paper already exists. The fewer digits there are provided, the more difficult. It is a little like the Cryptoquote thing from way back when, do they still put that in the newspapers everyday? The main difference being that with words you have context and your vocabulary to draw from, plus three letter words are easy tip-offs and it was always a fairly well-known quotation. This thing is just numbers, straight logic; if you use it once in a row, column, or (small) square you can eliminate it (in your mind's eye) from that row, column, and square. Simple enough, but I have only managed to solve a couple, in a ridiculously extended length of time for both. Even then, I got earwig-tunneling-through-the-earl-canal headaches that lasted for a good half an hour after putting the thing down. It's embarrassing, but hey, humility is its own reward. Almost as great a reward as nearly getting your ass handed to you in a game of chess with your 11-year-old nephew1.

The great thing about that website, (now the only way I will ever do Sudoku, although I probably won't); is that you can guess, hit the 'how am I doing?' button, and change your wrong answer until you solve it. Like playing Scrabble online2, but something has to fill the hours when Fark is dull.

1But not nearly as bad as taking the game so seriously that you don't cut the kid a break and let him take back the shitty move that allowed you to turn the tide. That would have been humble and gracious. But that ain't how it went down.

2I refuse to play Scrabble or Literati online anymore, everyone has a friggin' cheat page open, the only unknown factor is how long are they going to take pretending to be thinking before they put their tiles down.

Stoopy Joins a Club

Long time acquaintance Stoopy has joined one of the easiest clubs to get into. She has become a member of Knocked Up Teenaged Sluts of America. I say acquaintance because if I had been a friend I guess would have been force-feeding her birth control pills. Part-time Thinker is not the Father, (I haven't engaged in relations with a teenager since I was one), but the Father is someone quite a bit older than her. Not only is this guy 30 years old, he already has four children with some configuration of 'Baby Mommas'. Ahh, what a beautiful story to tell a child of its conception. "I was humping this old dude that had already littered the countryside with his bastard progeny without using birth control of any kind and the next thing I knew I was pregnant. Who'd a thunk it?"

To be fair, she is 18, and she did go to the trouble of graduating high school first, which is more than can be said for most KUTSA members; but really. She had higher education and a life beyond the trailer parks and tobacco fields ahead of her, but now will likely attach herself to the welfare teat and never look back.

Stoopy's Mother, Spline, also an acquaintance, was quite upset at first, but has quickly become glazed over with Grandmotherly fantasies. I can't blame her for that, what else can she do?