Last time I emailed a reporter I actually got a response. They must have a lot of free time.

"Do you know how to install that thing," my mom asked as I carried it out of their garage. I told her it's just a pipe and two wires, it can't be too hard. And it isn't, but I need some kind of crazy wrench thing or something to get the old disposal off the mount. It apparently requires some kind of dedicated disposal wrench. I also may need something to protect myself from the drain. As I tinkered under the sink this evening I removed the drain pipe to the old disposal and unleashed an odor so foul it would part a maggot with his lunch. This caustic odor was the product of months of small decomposing bits of food becoming trapped in the inards of the broken device.

So there's another trip to home depot in my future.

I rolled out of bed and immediately onto the phone at about 9:00 AM.  I made and waited for phone calls for about 2 hours then left to find Mom’s car in Largo where it had been taken.

I produced the paper I needed to get access to the vehicle at the junk yard office and a big junk yard man walked me back to Mom’s Rav 4.  It was a morbid journey.  As we walked, the ghoulish junk yard man pointed to twisted lumps of metal on the left and right of the path, “That guy died…that girl lived somehow, but her spleen was ripped right out of gut…that girl died, that guy was paralyzed, that girl died….” 

Mom’s car was in the very back.  It looked like it had rolled over a few times, the roof was a little crushed, everything was a little crushed and scuffed up.  The back window was broken, the windshield was cracked.  The first thing I noticed though were some numbers written in white grease pencil on the windshield and under them “VERY BLOODY INSIDE” which was underlined and circled.  It was beeping.  The keys were still in the ignition.  The junk yard ghoul went back to his air conditioned lair, and I began exploring the interior.  The note on the windshield wasn’t kidding. 

My Mom’s blood was everywhere in the back seat.  It was soaked into the upholstery, it was all over her text books, her grey cardigan sweater was now mostly black with coagulated blood, and it covered about half the rear passenger side window.  I could visualize her head right there up against it, where it must have come to a rest after the vehicle stopped rolling.

Mom keeps more stuff in her car than I do in my house.  It took me about 2 hours to go through everything.  Only the driver’s door opened, so I had to contort myself and squirm around through the blood and glass.  I recovered almost everything that was important, the keys, which stopped the beeping, her cell phone and charger, which still worked and was oddly lodged in the mechanism under the passenger seat, portable cd player, lots of cds, assorted files, books that weren’t too soaked with blood from her head, her wallet with credit cards and checkbook, some weird piece of medical equipment that looked expensive, a luggage cart, one pair of earrings, three hats, and assorted other nick-knacks.  I also got her shoes.  They were in the front seat, it seems she was thrown right out of her shoes into the back seat.  I got some broken glass in my finger that I had to dig out of myself; I added some of my blood to Mom’s.

It was hot, very very hot, and there was a smell.  At first I couldn’t place it, but then I realized it was the smell of red meat, if you took 25 pounds of raw steak, and put it in a box in the 90 degree sun for 24 hours, then locked yourself in the box with it, that’s what it was like.

I ate a fast food lunch and cooled off for a little while and went back to the hospital.  Mom was off the morphine and much more alert.  She got a chance to wash the blood out of her hair and clean off a little.  The PA for the neurologist told us they would probably keep her another day, but then at about 6 PM, the neurologist and his little entourage made their rounds and gave us the O.K. to go.  We checked out and I got her home at about 8, she fell asleep, I stuck around and had dinner with my dad. 

On the way home I felt weird.  I feel like there is some sort of emotional something in me that needs to come out somehow but can’t, it’s like knowing you should throw up but you just can’t quite do it.  Over the last 48 hours everything was so urgent and important, and now that’s kind of over.  I experienced some things and saw some things that were really strange and new to me, a lot of them were pretty horrible things, and it just hasn’t been absorbed yet.  I have this intense feeling of some kind but I can’t describe it, I’m not sure what it is.  It’s not like happy, or sad, or panic, or fear, or relieved or something I have the vocabulary for.  

I've been through other crises (injuries, illnesses, and deaths) before, but I guess this one just hit much closer to me.  It doesn't get much closer than your mom, obviously.  I've never had to be so central to management of something like this, the cell phone made all the difference there.

It seemed like a dress rehearsal for something even worse though, that I don't want to think about... the mortality of my parents...   

Everything is going to be ok though.

I thought for sure I'd be struggling with this thing for hours and maybe even make a fool of myself, and I even thought that after I got there and started working on it, but then I had one of those revalations that makes you think of having a shirt made that says "Super Fucking Genius" because that's what you think you are at the time. Everything just worked. It was beautiful.

You can, infact, have a deep emotional and spiritual moment with a crappy access database.

To rectify this situation, I looked up the lyrics on the internet so that someday I can sing:

"Freude, schöner Götterfunken,
Tochter aus Elysium,
wir betreten feuertrunken,
Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!
Deine Zauber binden wieder,
was die Mode streng geteilt:
alle Menschen werden Brüder,
wo dein snafter Flügel weilt.

Out of key and probably with some horrible accent, but it's so much more fun than "da da da da, da da da da..."

When I tried to buy shorts, I forgot my waist size, (that's how often I buy clothing) so that didn't work out either. I was going to get a new dishrack since Target failed me on the other items and I didn't feel like I was buying enough stuff to justify waiting in line, but I got bored trying to find them. I bought tupperware instead. Maybe someday I'll make a salad to put in it.

The staff promises to get off it's ass and spend $40 on a UPS...eventually.

That's right kids it time for me to bitch about the grocery store again. 

The crappy Publix by my house had almost no food in it.  I had to get "butter crust" bread.  I didn't want butter crust bread, I wanted honey wheat, AND I forgot bagels, for which I blame Publix, not myself.  How is this possible?  Well they distracted me with their poor choice of breads.

The line was out of control as well. I was standing at the end of the queue well into the aisle.  There should be a law that if you have a grocery store of a certain size, you should be required to have the express lane open.  We bachelors have to get back to our computers and watching TV on our couches, we don't have time to wait while the cashier rings up the $300 worth of food that those obnoxious soccer moms are taking home to feed their litter of spoiled children.  Oh and of course two people in front of me paid with checks.  Now I will grudgingly accept that checks are still aloud in the regular check-out line.  My own parents still use checks, unable to trust the cashless society, but these people were under 50, they had no excuse.   Still that doesn't invoke my rancor like people who pay with checks in the express lane.  Anytime you pay with a check, you have to know that there are several people behind you thinking bad thoughts about you, but if you pay with a check in the express lane, you should be shot.  Actually the cashier should have a gun under the cash register specifically for that purpose.  It clearly says "10 items or less, no checks please,"  if you're illiterate, how can you write a check?

After 8 hours in the law office and 2 hours of database debugging with an hour of driving in there somewhere, I'm sitting in northernmost  Boston Market on Dale Mabry with my family. 

I talk briefly about what a bad week I had last week and how changing jobs looks more and more attractive.  My sister talks about how at the pharmacy today, a crazy woman who physically assaulted the workers at another pharmacy was denied her medication at the pharmacy where she works.  My Mom laments the logistics of getting to the support group she has to lead tomorrow night. 

Then Dad says how he changed the water in the Frog room at work today, and how happy the frogs were, and how they were all commended for raising such incredibly happy frogs. 

Mom says, "You know, C___ (my dad), here we are, and K___ (my sister) works in a place where crazy people want to jump over the counter and attack her, Dylan works with- well we don't even want to talk about that, it's so horrible, and I do the work that I do (she works with dying people), and here you are telling us about happy frogs."

Dad says, "Well I think you all are somehow drawn to misery; you all should think about a different line of work."  

Dad may  have something figured out that we don't.

It's a toshiba 355 pocket pc, pretty cheap, but these things do lots more stuff than they did when you first noticed them in the mind 1990s. Seeing as I have resisted the urge to buy everything from a flint-lock musket to a laptop in the past six months, I got away pretty cheap.

And, thanks to it's little Infra Red thingy, I got the picture I took with my cell phone off of the cell phone, finally. You can some of the images I encountered when cleaning out my mom's car after her accident here. It may seem morbid, or disgusting, but it's really something that...well a picture is worth 1000 words as they say.

I also attempted unsuccessfully to make a version of dylanbright.com for mobile devices. WML doesn't like what my database spits out, or something like that.

“1975,” the plumber said as he wrote my drivers license number on the invoice next to my check number, “I wish I was born in 1975, I’ve got about 25 years on you” Short, portly, and just a little uneasy, I didn’t think he was over 40. I should have been a plumber. $80 to tighten a bolt and it obviously keeps you looking young, ugly, perhaps, but young looking and ugly.

No that wasn't profound either.

If there were two Dylan Brights that were both marine biologists, I'd probably have to go back to school and become one as well, not because I want to be a marine biologist, but there would be so much evidence that Dylan Brights are supposed to be marine biologists.

Find out here.

The Cool Towel Hat.

Geek party later today. Images or timelapse photography or something coming soon.

DylanBright.com's new research on space travel.

I got a haircut today.

Oh and I shaved a few days ago. My head seems fat.

We will be starting Loaf Week with bannana bread, but the loaf possibilities are endless.

Co-Worker: Mindreaders?

Boss: No it starts with an "S."

Co-Worker: Psychic?

Oh well..

The First of Many Exciting Photo Filled Pages: Delivery of a Coffee Table

I dare you to try and shake a stick at all this new content. 

My Desk at the Office Explained

X-Mas

"Oh but my had grows weary and my stick doth break from all the shaking, and I'm barely halfway through all the new content on dylanbright.com" you say.  I told you so.

I took a day off to run errands, and this is pretty much the only thing I accomplished:

Yep, that's it for an ENTIRE DAY.  ONE NEW IRON, and that's all.  Sure there was some driving and I got dressed, and actually I did purchase a new tie (not shown), but the new iron was the most productive accomplishment.  The old iron leaked steam and burned my hand, but it did have personality.

This image appeared on the old iron sometime in 2001.  Some believe it to be an incarnation of Jon Rosa.  Maybe it looked more like him in 2001.

Today is my birthday.  I celebrated by purchasing a new air conditioning filter.

Well dylanbright.com has been in a long hiatus due to some VPN experiments and (of course) my laziness.

One of the many things that has been sapping my energy lately is Mr. Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.   Short Humanities credits on my 10+ year higher education adventure, I found myself taking American Lit II, since it was the only thing offered online this semester. 

Nothing ever ruined learning for me like getting an education.

At first it was only mildly annoying, and I was in fact quite glad when I got an A on the first exam and found I had not "lost it."  I can still interpret and write essays with the near skill and artistry I had at age 18, but as the weeks have gone by I have grown increasingly annoyed with what I'm reading.  Forced reading, graded reading, makes me read like a lawyer.  It becomes a job, a task, an occupation.  It's not "experiencing art."  Finding the meaning, the imagery, the symbolism, the metaphors, it's just more work.  Am I learning how to do that better?  Nope.  I already knew how to do that.  Plus these days with the Internet, it's nothing like it was way back in high school in those backward days of stone knives and bearskins known as 1993.  Now you have the answers a google search away.  If anything there is drastically less challenge, and the class has made me lazier.

I'm bored with the human condition. 

On the class discussion board which takes the place of classroom discussion in the 21st Century, my amazed classmates laud the authors' profound insights into life.  I'm left with a since of "so," or "of course," or  "I read 200 pages to find out this?"  I'm surrounded by dreary, tragic characters with complicated personal problems at work, and nearly every time I leave the house.  I'm aware of all of it, including my own dreary, sad, tragic life, and complicated personal problems.    I pay attention to all of that already.  I'm living the human condition, I don't need to read about it.

Faulkner

I think more students should be exposed to Faulkner as soon as possible. It would encourage more young people to get involved in math and sciences, and we'd have less unemployed English majors.  I'm sure he is the greatest American writer because he's not fun to read.  As I Lay Dying's poor people with poor grammar just aren't fun to read about.  I can write a nice essay on it, but I don't have to like it.

I love math.

I found the color scheme of this Wal-Mart in Virginia, which differs from the white on blue with which I am familiar disturbing.

I wondered if this was even real.  That red star creates this confusing logo dichotomy.  It's an icon of communism sitting in the middle of the logo of the most powerful force of capitalism on the planet.  Unstoppable capitalist success story that Wal-Mart may be, it does indeed invoke some of the worst aspects of the command economy, and the more Orwellian aspects of socialism, such as the fact that Wal-Mart can almost decide what lamps most Americans buy.  My Dad has remarked "the only two places I can go to buy anything are Wal-Mart and Home Depot."  

"This is a huge change in your life Dylan, how does it make you feel?"

"Um… it's weird." 

I can usually come up with a lot of entertaining observations and clever sentences about a trip to the grocery store or the confusing options we have when selecting luncheon meats, but major events and changes in my life always leave me at a loss for words. 

I'm done with Kunkel Miller & Hament and the job I had for over four years, as of two days ago.  I'm still in a state of disbelief.  I feel like I've just gotten out of prison, or just gotten home from some terrible place, everything is different now.  Hopefully it won't take to long to rehabilitate and reintegrate myself into society. 

I feel like I should be doing something to celebrate.  There should be a party or something, but instead I'm staring at a big empty week off before the new job with nothing to do.  It is somewhat sad.  I wouldn't rather be working at the old job though, short timer's disease was kicking in there.  Sure there is some school work to do, but that's not exactly "fun," it's just a chore, and not one that will take up much time either.  I don't have the liquidity right now to start some sort of complicated and messy home improvement project.  Maybe I'll alphabetize my bookshelves, or count my change jar.

That class became my albatross. I did take something away from it.

Modernism and existentialism, the great movements of post WWI litterature identify problems, and offer no solutions. My thinking now is probably more reactionary than before I began that class. I've ranted on it in detail below I guess.

I would like to say again that Faulkner sucks.

Still it’s a net positive. The adjustment time may be longer and more difficult than I first imagined.

Off I went to the one across the street from my house. I didn’t go their initially because the last time I went there, the lady who cut my hair barely spoke English, and that always unnerves me, even though I’m not particular at all about my hair (which is probably why it looks so stupid and doesn't attract women). As luck would have it, the woman working across the street was a born and bread English speaking American, and there was no line there at all.

So here I am debating taking a shower. I’m already more awake than I should be and I’m afraid it might wake me up further…. But then there’s that post haircut itchy thing.

The Wayback Machine is part of the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization founded by Brewster Kahle, who is a sort of Internet philanthropist. Maybe “knowledge philanthropist” would be a better term. The Internet Archive, with over 230 terabytes of data (in 2002) is the largest archive of human knowledge ever creates, and contains more than ten times the information contained in the library of congress.

Periodic snapshots of the Internet may seem like more of a novelty than some great accomplishment of mankind. The Wayback machine has forever immortalized my websites including pictures of me eating pancakes and wearing a hat I made out of a towel, but there is so much on the Internet that does have value as knowledge and as human culture, it is the most important advance in communication perhaps since the printing press, and if someone doesn’t record it, we and future generations won’t have the option of deciding what is relevant or important, because it won’t be there.

The Wayback Machine and the Internet Archive only scratch the surface of what is possible. As Brewster Kahle describes it in Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture, in the history of mankind, “it looks like there are about two or three million recordings of music. Ever. There are about a hundred thousand theatrical releases of movies. There are about one to two million movies [distributed] in the twentieth century. There are about twenty-six million different titles of books…Universal access is the goal. And the opportunity of leading a different life based on this is…thrilling. It could be one of the things humankind would be most proud of. Up there with the Library of Alexandria, putting a man on the moon, and the invention of the printing press.”

All of the knowledge of mankind, all creative output could be stored and made accessible to everyone in a relatively small facility. This is not possible though today because of the Copyright law in this country. Libraries across the United States have been archiving newspapers for years. You can find microfiche of just about any newspaper from the beginning of the 20th Century to the present, but television, radio, movies, books, and music, which have a very short life on the shelf, go unsaved, and disappear, or if they are in some vault somewhere, they are completely inaccessible by the public.

Copyright, has been extended 11 times in this century. The idea of “Copyright” was originally conceived of under English Law 1710, not to protect publishers, the producers of media, but to limit their monopoly on a given work to 14 years. In 1790, our countries founders specified a similar 14 year term. It is now 95 years from the year of first publication or 120 years from the year of creation, most of the extensions have been granted by Congress since 1970, which has been lobbied and bribed by large media corporations and increases the length of copyright every few years, ensuring that nothing created since about 1930 will ever make it into the public domain, and will never be freely available for the general benefit of mankind. Unchecked greed is robbing us of valuable knowledge resources and destroying our historical record.

"I was looking at your web site and got a real kick out of it. You're a funny guy Dylan!!"

There you have it. Scientific evidence of my entertainment value.

No longer do I have to buy the cheapest alarm clock at Wal-Mart.  I've finally reached the point in my life where I can splurge for the $14.98 model.  You get a lot for the extra six bocks too:

• Built in Lithium Battery.
• Automatically sets itself.
• Pretty Blue LCD numbers which are far more gentile than the red LCD readout that the working poor wake up to.
• Two alarms programmable for different days, so you can set it for 4 PM on your days off.

That's right, some day you too could be living like THIS:

It does seem to cut down on regression, which is reading the same line over again, or having your eye get "lost" on a page. I'm not sure if my speed is increasing at all though... Its supposed to take quite a while to see any improvement. I'm going to try and keep at it for another 13 days or so and see what happens.

It seems hard to believe that ANYTHING could be harder than learning 1 song on the banjo, and I have done that before.

EDITED: This was another test message, essentially.

There was also the risk to life, limb and car insurance premiums I took by driving to and from my dark electricity deprived condo to work for two days on pitch black 6 lane roads with no traffic lights and 60 mph winds.   

Now I can plug my keyboard and headphones into the front of my computer. Not impressed? Well it keeps the cords from getting stuck under the case, which was a constant source of annoyance, and it's kinda cool for the LAN party thing. Why did I get it in black when my case isn't black? Well the next computer case will be black, because black hides stains and dirt better. I know that is a concern most people reserve for something like a shirt, but for me it is actually an issue. My computer case, keyboard, and monitor are often the victums of nicotine stains, cigarette burns, spilled beers and sodas, and the sauces of countless frozen dinners and pizzas, so black makes sense.

Frozen Dinner Reviews

As this topic is a regular part of my life I will try to add to it more frequently than my previous projects for dylanbright.com.

Something else to file under "copyright terms are out of control."

Article 1 Section 8 of the US Constitution

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

There is nothing in there about the Author or Inventor's children profiting from the "exclusive right" to their creative works. How exactly are Authors and Inventors encouraged to create or profit from their exclusive rights after they are dead?

It wouldn't be funny if it wasn't true.

Administrative subpoenas are a bad idea in general basically they are like a regular subpoena only there is no juducial review, no judge has to approve them, they're just automatic. I think that's cheating. It allowed the RIAA to automatically get your identity from your ISP without filing a lawsuit first. The court's decision pretty much kills the administrative subpoena thing for DMCA stuff until the RIAA bribes our congressmen to make up more crappy laws.

You can read more about it in if you are so inclined.

Thank-you for your patience in this period of transition.

Sincerely,
The dylanbright.com Staff

I would also like to warn people against PortaTech.com from whom I bought a SATA hard drive which I am still waiting on. If they were like any other place I've ordered from on the Internet, I'd be getting my package from them today too, but it seems to take then FOUR FREAKIN' DAYS to process an order. I won't have my new hard drive in my hot little hands until sometime mid next week.

I voted today, somehow.

You would think with our long history of democracy here in America, we would at least have most of the simple stuff down pat.  Sure the actual counting of the votes might get out of hand, after all there are a lot of votes to count, but the voting itself seems like a simple enough process.  I hope things went a little better in Afghanistan than they did at St. Paul's Catholic Church, polling place for precincts 509 and 510. 

PANDEMONIUM

Yelling, shouting, threats of bodily harm, threats to call the police, and a two hour wait, these were the obstacles I faced in executing my civic duty.  Two precincts voting in one location at one building was far too much for the American electorate and election system to handle.  There were no signs, and no instructions anywhere for the citizens such as myself to enforce the collective will of precincts 509 and 510.   I arrived, early in the morning, expecting to beat the crowds but found a queue stretching 50 yards, and another mass of humanity that suspiciously looked like a separate line.  Well trained by numerous trips to the supermarket and the bank teller, I fell into place at the end of the nearest line.   The people in the line were talking.  There was dissension in the ranks.  Some people thought this was the line for 509, some people thought it was the line for 510.  No one knew for sure.  Some people claimed a woman "over there" had told them to come to this line after they waited in the other line for an hour.  From what I heard from the people in the middle of the line, some of them had been there for 2 hours already.  I listened and waited.

After 45 minutes I was wondering how much time I should devote to living up to the expectations of a United States citizen.  The portents were not favorable, the line was barely moving.  I thought, "well maybe after two hours I'll give up and go home."  Then I heard yelling.  A large group of people in both lines both of whom were in the wrong lines, apparently had made it to the doors to the church recreation center.  The 150 year old Methuselah who was in charge of the door was apparently trying to tell them they would have to go to the back of the correct lines, whatever those lines may be.  People who had been waiting for 2 hours would not hear it.  There was shouting, name calling...chatter spread through the line "I won't let them tell me I'm in the wrong line," and "this is ridiculous," grumbled the people in the line to each other.  Someone at the front of the line started screaming about calling the police.

Monarchy was looking like a far more civilized and preferable form of government.  I started singing "God Save the Queen," silently in my head.

After another hour I reached the gates of democracy, by this time order had been restored in the form of a completely unfair, "whoever asks the old man gets in to vote, no matter what line you were in" system.  I was first in my line.  The woman behind me in my same precinct and had a small child in a stroller and was very distressed by the ordeal.  For a moment I thought about letting her go ahead of me, but I glanced at her again, and she was one of those tan healthy looking young women who probably jogged every morning, ate healthy, and enjoyed outdoor activities, like volleyball.  So I told the old man, 510, and darted inside as soon as he cracked the door. 

After a another brief line indoors I was thoroughly enfranchised.  I collected my sticker and went on my way.

New content:  Frozen Dinners III

Frozen Dinners III is more straight to the point and boring than I and II, but the pictures had been sitting on the flash card for a while and my memory of eating them was fading. 

In other news:

Cold beer is nice, but you should be careful putting beers in the freezer. I say this from experience...

WoW is occupying most of my spare time currently.

A REWARD FOR YOUR PATIENCE

I spent my 30th birthday eating cold cereal alone.

I lost the picture of the kitchen which was filled with speakers on the floor and my dvd player on my stove.  For 24 hours I couldn't access the refrigerator, it the kitchen being so packed with stuff.  

The nasty stained, burned, and gray carpet of the 1980s was replaced with this:

The first comment I received on it was "so...did you choose the color?"  

Indeed it has a generic quality.  It is one of those boring colors of carpet you see in apartments.  And the flash on my little digital camera does not do it justice, neither does my crappy furniture. 

Of course this is but the earliest prototype, a primitive device tethered by a USB cable, but soon with the addition of this:

Cell phone and quarter shown for size comparison

The Mark II will focus on some basic mechanics and wiring, chiefly reducing the wheel base (14" is too unmanueverable), correcting alingment (being able to go straight would be nice), and upgrading the rear wheel (which has a tendency to get stuck and further complicate that whole going straight thing).

Also, new robot video, with wireless action.

Its so easy to spew fanciful nonsense. It boils down to, not being sure how much change this might actually mean, other than making it more difficult to go to the grocery store and run errands.

Why aren't chicks into fast typists like they are into muscisians? Both are mostly about performing a repetitive task over and over to build up muscle memory. They're equally tedious and boring skills to learn. Filing is like that too, or putting things in alphabetical order...stuffing envelopes... Oh but musicians are so creative, you say. There's nothing creative about building muscle memory, and few if any muscicians "create" anything truly new, they just amalgomate other people's creations, ususally into something worse than what with they started.

I don't type that fast, but if I did, girls should be all over me. "Did you see that guy who developed manual dexterity through thousands of hours of repetitive motion, he's soooo hot." If I punched holes in the wall when I was upset and was late on my rent (mortgages aren't cool even if you don't pay them on time) that would seal the deal.

More Information Here

There is also an incredibly large "making of" video on the photos and video page for the theory

As many people know I have always had a great interest in science.  

A few years back I saw a news story on a new product developed by Russian scientists during the Cold War which at the time was recently available to the American public.  The product was developed to give KGB Agents a crucial edge over their western counterparts.  When taken internally before imbibing, this "medication" was supposed to neutralize the effects of alcohol.  This would have allowed KGB agents to drink as much as they wanted without getting drunk.    

Well since you didn't have to install the Cyrillic font package to read this, and you are probably living in a country with some form of Democratic Capitalism, you may have already guessed that the pills the Russian scientists developed did not work. However, claim the marketers of this secret formula (not that secret as you'll soon find out) the substance did have an amazing side effect, it prevented hangovers.

Now this spoil of the Cold War is available to you, my fellow free Americans for $7 (plus shipping) over the Internet. The News story on TV had numerous models and professional musicians lauding the product which allowed them to show up for photo shoots at 7:00 AM and still maintain their alcohol based social life at night.  I was skeptical, but at the time I saw this, maybe 4 or 5 years ago, alcohol was an important part of my own social life, and a very important part of the lives of my many acquaintances. The Russians, after all did do the sputnik thing while our post war ex-Nazi scientist friends couldn't get anything off the ground without it blowing up. Surely there were a few competent scientists in the Soviet Union.  

So I told people about it and encouraged other people to try these things, my natural skepticism and my natural stinginess stopped me from purchasing it myself.  Years passed and I forgot all about KGB hangover pills.

Then one night...

I was trying to think of stupid stuff I could buy on the Internet that I didn't need, and out of the blue I remembered the KGB hangover pills.  A quick search on google, a few mouse clicks and they were on their way.  And here they are:

Deciding it was safe, I decided to try it out.  I took the pills as prescribed, drank beer, and woke up feeling great.  "Wow it really works," I thought.  Then I went to get my morning soda from the fridge and saw that I only drank six beers.  I know some 90 pound women who would be destroyed by 6 beers, but that's not even a pin prick on my Welsh-Irish liver especially given my girth and inherent manliness.  I also had slept an unusual for me, but nonetheless very nice 8 hours, under those circumstances it was impossible to tell if they did anything. 

This weekend I thought I'd have a chance to give these things a real try.  There was a party at Jeff's house, Jeff being the hub around which my more responsibility-free friends and acquaintances revolve, I expected protracted  early to mid-twenties style drunken debauchery until sunrise.  He lives close by so I could get a ride home and walk back for my car, or sleep in his extra bedroom, it seemed perfect.  I expected to consume 10-12 beers and sleep 7 hours.  With my new second shift lifestyle I regularly stay up until 4 or 5 AM anyway, so there'd be no wanting to fall asleep at 1:00 AM as with my 9-5 years.  I had the next day off, so if, as I sort of suspected, the pills didn't do squat and I ended up with a terrible hangover, I could just stay on the couch all day and night watching TV. 

I get to Jeff's house, 12 pack in hand, and there are 5 people there, 2 of which were leaving in 15 minutes because they were tired.  I tried to think "well its still early for people in their early 20s maybe things will pick up.  Things didn't.  All the girls left (both of them) and then our friend Buff (a nickname) came over with some Russian college student that he met in his neighborhood, or at a party or something like that, an actual guy from Russia.  The guy from Russia did what almost every foreign man I've ever met does in a group of young American men who've been drinking, he launched into a dissertation on how to seduce women in his native country.  In Russia it seems to require wearing dark clothing and throwing around five dollar bills as if they were five dollar bills and not a weeks wages (which is what it is for some Russians).   However, if the Russian men find out you are casually carrying around $30, they might just beat the tar out of you and take it from you, especially if you are flashing it around to take their women.  What was also amusing and predictable in this conversation was that my American comrades were immediately all for going to Russia for the opportunity of getting syphilis from some Russian girl and probably, MORE likely being beaten to death over $30. They were ready to buy plane tickets. 

The Russian kid was actually cool to listen to for the most part, even if he seemed to have a prepared routine, but there was no reason to get drunk.  So I went home very sober with the balance of my beers.  I forgot I even brought my Russian Hangover pills with me, despite the presence of an actual Russian, who was really keen on drinking everyone's beer. 

You, the American consumer will have to wait for a thorough analysis of the KGB hangover cure. 

I've pretty much forgotten how to cook.  It happened over the course of several years of living alone.  When I tell that to people they probably assume that its   because its no fun to cook for one person.  This however is not the reason.  When I had roommates I mostly cooked out of spite.  I was poor then, the roommates were even more poor than I was.  They couldn't afford things like chicken and steak.  I made it a point to periodically cook and eat chicken and steak in front of them, to demonstrate that I was a better person than they were.  

When I began living alone I cooked for a while, but it wasn't the same with out the element of creative spite.  Meals became increasingly more simple.  These days I avoid just about anything that takes longer than 10 minutes to prepare.  I tried making chicken a few months back, but I overcooked it and under seasoned it.  I tossed most of it out.  I had lost the ability to determine if something was "done," and wishing to ere on the side of caution and against salmonella, I over did it.  Determining the internal temperature of a piece of meat by visual inspection is quite a trick.  Its amazing that anyone can do it.

I can still bake, but baking is applied science, and much more simple as long as you know how to use a measuring cup and follow instructions.  Baking is not that useful to me of course, since I seldom can wait 40 to 90 minutes for preparation and oven time.  Its difficult to plan hunger that far in advance.

My kitchen in this crummy condo is small too, and no fun to be in.  So to summarize, no one to spite, no skills, and poor facilities will keep frozen food my staple for some time to come.

I was driving home from work inching my way towards home at 5:15 on a Friday afternoon windows rolled down, cigarette in hand.  I was waiting at the light ready to make a left on Dale Mabry Highway I was half paying attention to NPR talk about the President's judicial appointments or something like that, but mostly thinking about eating, taking a nap, and all the cars that were in the way.  Some people were walking up and down the aisles of stationary cars collecting money and waving signs with pictures of children.  I concentrated on not making eye contact with them. 

"HEY, I LOVE YOU," a coarse and common female voice screamed.  Oddly enough it seemed to be directed at my open window.  I looked before I processed the words.  A very large white trash woman in a beat up white car to the left and slightly behind my vehicle was looking right at me.  I immediately looked away and stared at the traffic light trying to pretend it didn't happen.  Then the cars crawled forward.   I prayed for more distance from this person, but the lane to the left moved a little more than mine, and now this woman's vehicle was right next to mine.  "ARE YOU MARRIED?" the woman yelled.  I looked over again.  She had what appeared to be 3 migrant workers in the car with her.

"No, I'm not married," I said.  I didn't want to responded, or tell the truth.  I've never been a natural liar though, and all those years of telephone customer service in my youth programmed me to be somewhat polite to strangers.  Damn them. 

"WELL THEN WHAT'S WRONG?" she said.  I was still shocked by this entire situation.  I wasn't sure if this behemoth from the working poor was making fun of me, or honestly trying to make some sort of sexual advance. 

In the heat and in my state of hunger and exhaustion I couldn't think of a way to let this ogre down easy.  I was thinking "I can tell by your inflections that you are not a particularly intelligent or interesting person, and seeing as you are devoid of outer beauty as well, I'm afraid I must reject your advances.  " but what I said was, "I'm on my way home from work."

"SO AM I," she said, "I'M ON MY WAY HOME FROM WORK TOO."  I was slowly coming to my senses about how to handle the situation.  Since God had abandoned me previously and allowed her car to get closer to mine, I began praying to the traffic light to deliver me from my tormentor.  Finally that paid off.  I drove deliberately slowly allowing cars to weave ahead of me to until I got to a safe distance.

No colored beverage stains yet though.

Why The French and Indian War is Interesting

• First “World War”:  The French and Indian War is the part of the Seven Years War that was fought in America.  Smack dab in the middle of the Anglo-French “wars for Empire, the Seven Years War (1755-1763) is fought all over the world, from America to India.
• Clash of cultures and technologies:  You have the Brittish and French, with their differently modeled colonies, and you have the American Woodlands Indians tossed in there with their Neolithic culture and technology. 
• The Age of Reason:  Beginnings of lots of “modern” ideas happen in the 18^th Century. 
• Tricorn hats are cool. Fun Fact:  Tri-corn hats weren’t called Tri-Corn hats back when people wore Tri-corn hats.  They called them “cocked hats,” because the sides of the hat were “cocked” up to expose the sides of the wig.
• Muskets and cannons:  They’re just cool.  Big bangs, lots of smoke. Huge sub-sonic projectiles

I recently purchased an Itallian made replica of a Brown Bess.  The Brown Bess went through several incarnations from the early 18^th century until about 1830, but changes were minor, and it was pretty much THE Flint lock musket of the Brittish army for 100 years.  I’ve always wanted one since I saw a real one hanging on the wall of the hobby shop I frequented in my youth. 

There is a lot more to say about the Brown Bess, the details of which I have recently discovered to be hotly debated on “muzzle loading” Internet message boards.  I was as surprised as you are to find that not only are there message boards devoted to “muzzle loading” message boards on the Internet, but that things are hotly debated on them.  I’m not going to go into that now.  I’m going to tell you about the last book I read, A Few Acres of Snow

One of the hazards of the day job is never being home to receive all that cool stuff you can buy on the Internet.  This evening a pair of hard drives from some scary west coast place I ordered from thanks to pricewatch was being held by FedEx after I missed their delivery.  I tried to call fed ex in advance to see when the driver would arrive at the depot, but the phone menu seemed more trouble than it was worth.  I waited until 7:00 PM and drove to the FedEx location on Waters.  "Can I help you," the old woman at the counter asked.

"I hope so," I said, but then she saw my green Fed Ex ticket which had been left on my door.

"Ooooh, you have GROUND," she said, "you have to go to the Ground Pickup."  The ground pickup was the next industrial complex over seemingly only a few blocks away, but in fact it was a different world altogether.  I should have suspected this as the old woman behind the counter at "regular" FedEx called out "just tell the guards you're there to pick up a package."

Guards?

I pulled into what was a large secure compound, and thinking I was following her advice, I pulled up to the guard house.  The guard, in a dark blue FedEx uniform of some kind peeked out of the door and motioned at me to park in large lot full of what could have been 100 cars adjacent to the guard house.  It seemed like the sort of place that customers shouldn't be parking in.  I wondered if the guard realized I wasn't here to sort packages on third shift. 

I stood in the parking befuddled for 3 or 4 minutes.  I was looking for some sort of entrance to the enormous industrial building that looked like it lead to a room with a counter and an old lady who handed out packages.  Eventually I realized it was not something I could figure out myself, so I headed to the guard house.  I opened the door and stuck my head in.  "I'm trying to pick up a package," I said, trying to sound extra confused in an effort to solicit sympathy and co-operation.

"He'll help you," the guard said, pointing at another guard who was talking on the phone (in what I think was Creole) at the other side of the guard house.  Minutes passed while Guard #1 sat on a stool doing nothing and Guard #2 continued his conversion.  A cheap clock radio on the window sill read "P0:11," obviously broken.  Then it got weird.

FedEx employees, who seemed to be leaving the building and going to the parking lot walked into the guard house, and Guard #1 went over them with a hand held metal detector.  Eventually Guard #2 finished up on the phone and Guard #1 orded him to call someone about me.  He dialed a number and handed me the phone.  "Um...I'd like to pick up a package..."

"I'll check and see if the driver is back yet and I'll call you back," a voice said and hung up.

So I waited.  Guard #2 made some more calls and Guard #1 searched more employees both those entering and leaving the compound.  I read some signs on the door that listed restricted items.  It had the usual guns, knives, explosives etc., but it also included Axes, Numchucks (next to which was written Nunchauku in parenthesis) Swords and Sabers.  I was especially fascinated that FedEx seemed to think it needed to specify "sabers" as a contraband item and wasn't happy with them as a being included by swords.

The other line rang, and Guard #2 looked confused, then terminated his call and answered, then handed the phone for me.  "Yeah the driver isn't back yet, give me you're number and I'll give you a ring when he gets here."  I did and I left.  As soon as I had made a complicated lane change and a U-Turn, my cell phone rang.  "He got here just as you were pulling out," said the voice.  I made another U-Turn.

"Did they call you?" Guard #1 said when I entered the guard house again. 

"No, I just wanted to hang out with you guys some more..." I thought, but I said, "Yes, they called."

"Are they bringing it out?" he said.

"I don't know, maybe we should call him," I said.  Guard #2 dialed a number and mumbled something.

"They're coming now," said Guard #1, "you can wait outside.  You'll see them on the cart."

Wait outside?  Was my company that awful?  I went outside.  A man in a FedEx uniform on a adult size tricycle towing a little trailer rode up to the guard house.  This must be it, I thought.  I waved the green note that was left on my door at him.  "Did you talk to those guys in there?" said the tri-cyclist. 

"Yea," I said, "They said someone is coming."  I could tell by his expression it wasn't him.

"They'll be out soon," said the tri-cyclist, "you'll see two guys on a golf cart coming around that corner over there."  He went into the guard house to be searched.  I waited.  People with golf carts drove back and forth inside the compound, mocking me.

Another five minutes, and a golf cart with a short skinny guy and a big fat man pulled up to the guard house.  "Are you Dylan Bright," the little man asked.

"That's me," I said waving my green slip of paper. 

"Sign here please." 

New Features In the Works:

• Turret.  A turret on which to mount sensors, projectile weapons, tazers, etc.
• Startup script to solve networking issues and provide basic diagnostics.  It also emails me a report when the robot boots.
• Sealed Lead Acid battery to power the wheel motors.  The 8 D-Cell batteries are a pain.
• Chassis adjustments.  Lowering the Robot's center of gravity and bolting things together to make it more likely to survive collisions with the wall, coffee table, etc.

I feel light headed.  I think it was from the sudden loss of pressure in my bank account.  I had been thinking about buying a new vehicle for a while, and that was one of the topics of conversation at the Thanksgiving table and Dad and I planned an afternoon of preliminary car shopping, car browsing.  On my way home from my parents' house the brakes on the aged Toyota RAV were a little weird.  They definitely weren't stopping the car the way they should, in fact my life seemed somewhat in danger. 

I have had a lot of experience driving dangerous vehicles.  For the last 2 or 3 years of its life, the 1988 Cadillac, my first car, which I drove for 10 years had no power steering, a damaged driver's side door that wouldn't open, a driver's side window that rolled down about 2 inches, no speedometer, no gas gauge (no gauges at all), and you had to apply the weight of a concrete rhinoceros to the brakes to make it stop.  It also rarely started if the temperature was under 50 degrees Fahrenheit.  Towards the end, you didn't so much drive the caddy as you guided it, you sailed over a ton of steel at 5-50 miles per hour using tremendous personal muscle power, constantly at the whim of physical and supernatural forces.  You compensated for where the Cadillac wanted to go and when it wanted to go there.  I carried a full socket set, a 600 page shop manual, a couple quarts of oil and various other fluids, a battery charger, a talking stuffed chicken, and of course duct tape, as well as pieces of the car that fell off over the years at all times in the back seat.  You had to have a few thousand hours in the Caddy to drive it safely. 

Eventually it was too unreliable.  I couldn't wait until the sun was at its zenith on February days to go to work.  I thought maybe someone desperate could get some use from it, so I offered it for $100, under the caveat "incredibly dangerous car."  A friend of mine brought over some desperately poor little goth girl he was trying to seduce with the promise of a cheap car.  She couldn't even turn the steering wheel.  I sold it for $35 to a junk yard. 

The 1996 RAV 4 was my mom's car.  She drove it from Tampa to Tallahassee on weekends when getting her masters degree.  Then she drove it all over the state doing what she does now, about 167,000 miles by 2001, when I could no longer take care of the caddy, she happened to be buying a new car and it was simple and easy just to buy the RAV from her.  Until Saturday, November 26th, that was my car.  It was a weird little bubble thing from the future, a tiny but tall car with a tiny engine, and definitely in the kind of condition my Mom would keep a car rather than the way my Dad keeps a car.  It was weird, but very utilitarian.  It was never a car I thought was "cool" or "fun."   It did give you amazing visibility, and being about 3 feet long, it could turn on a dime at low speed, and park anywhere.   It was slow and weird, but it went for another 23,000 miles, bringing the total up to about 190K when I was driving home from my parents' house Thanksgiving night on the incredibly unsafe brakes.

The next day I carefully idled down back streets to the nearest auto repair place.  Dad met me there and we went car shopping.  The RAV and its amazing longevity (in spite of my mom not changing the oil the first 3 years she owned it) appealed to my utilitarian nature, and I decided on Toyota.  I had also been longing for a truck on many a building material, TV buying, moving, and appliance disposal occasion.  That lead me to the Toyota Tacoma, the smaller Toyota truck, however I planned this to be the beginning of a careful month long process.  I am a careful person after all, and would weigh a financial decision of this magnitude heavily.  My father egged me on.  "You work a lot of hours, you should have something nice," "you can afford that," and "you deserve to have something at least like this…"   I began to get a little bit excited, which is not like me.  This was all easy for Dad, sitting in his layered late middle aged-to-borderline-senior citizen lakefront house stable financial security, but my impoverished early to mid 20s are a little fresher in my memory.  I remember weeks when I didn't have money for food.  I remember those weeks eating nothing but rice and beans.  

I had called for frequent updates on the RAV, and by 7:00 PM that night was getting very impatient.  Finally I spoke to the mechanic.  "Mr. Bright, do you have a chair handy?  You might want to sit down for this," this is never a good conversation opening with a mechanic.  He went on to list every brake part I have ever heard of from the master cylinder to the rotors, giving graphic detail of how they were broken.  The total estimate came to over $900.00.  Though the engine was still sound, the car was probably worth $500 due to the age and mileage, maybe $1000 at the very most.  A dilemma. 

I decided kick my research into high gear, although I told myself I would still rent a car for a few days.  I studied the Toyota website that night, options features, etc.  I got quotes from my insurance company to see how things might impact that expense.   The next morning, I woke up early and started calling dealerships.  I procured the driving services of my old friend Aaron with the promise of a free meal, and went off to continue shopping.  The first dealer I went to had less in stock than the computers thought.  The second was a dealer I had been to with Dad the day before, and they had a truck that came close to my requirements.  There was one more dealer on the list (internet and phone research) that had a discount deal with the company I worked for, but it was in another county.  After the test drive, I decided to try to negotiate.  I told the salesman about the discount, and said if you meet or beat $XX.XXX I will buy this vehicle today.   He started to ramble on about "Toyota-guard."  "Whatever the hell that is, I'm sure it is wonderful, and I don't know if the price the other place quoted me included that or not, but again meet $XX.XXX and I will buy the vehicle."  We went inside so he could talk to the manager.  I wandered off and perused these weird boxy Scion things with my friend who drove me.  The salesman came back out looking for me.  We went back to his cubicle.  He wrote down a number about 200 over $XX.XXX.  I contorted my face.  "Well we checked the inventory at that other dealer and blah blah, Toyota-guard…"  Toyota-guard is normally $600 for whatever the hell it is.  I asked him "is this the actual price of the car including everything except for tax and tag?"  He said yes.  "Ok," I said.  I'll buy it.  A cold unpleasant chill went down my spine, my wallet moaned in agony.  He went back to get some paperwork.  He came back with a worksheet.  I initialed somewhere.  On to the finance guy.    

You will notice I'm omitting most of the numbers on this transaction a secret.  That is because I have been in and around enough "so you bought a new car" conversation to know that even if I said I paid $100, for a brand new car someone would have useless retroactive advice meant to demonstrate how clever or connected they are. They would tell me how I could have paid $75 for the car and only a fool pays $100.  "My uncle could have gotten you that car for $35."  Whatever.  I don't need the guilt and remorse so that you can feel better about how savvy you are, or pretend to be.

The finance guy was scary, even more so than the salesman.  He was a grey haired white man in a white shirt and tie with a friendly manor, firm handshake, and a wink that made you know something was up.  Those instantly likable people with firm handshakes always end up in sales of some kind.  Sales is about making people like and trust you.  You wouldn't need to MAKE people like and trust you if you weren't telling lies.  However, I may not know new cars, but I can do math, and I had researched the finance angle too.  I knew what I could expect.  I had some marks against me because I have never financed a car before, and because my credit, although no longer miserable, is still recovering from those irresponsible (but fun) days of my early 20s.  I had checked my credit and average loan rates for my situation and I got what I expected. In a year I'll probably refinance through any number of means.

"Aren't you excited about your new truck?" they ask me now.  Its hard to answer being a pragmatic man.  Going into debt for anything offends me, much more something that rapidly depreciates in value.  Sure it's nice, but it is too clean and too perfect.  It is a source of constant worry.  I live in fear of the day the "new car" smell goes away, the day I spill a soda in it, the day the guy next to me in the parking garage at work makes an ALMOST imperceivable scratch on the door of my truck when he opens his car door.  Eventually, it won't be perfect, and I'll still be driving thousands of dollars of debt around.  My Dad said "you just don't see whatever everyone else sees when they look at cars," that is not true.  I would indulge all manner of exotic and expensive automotive and other transportation fantasies, given unlimited finances.  Buying a nice car or a nice truck in this case has purchased me 5 years of worry and concern.  Sure I can afford the payments.  I lived 50% below my means before, maybe 25% now.  Anything could happen though.

The rice and beans teaches you that money is infinitely more valuable than anything you could possibly buy with it.     

3 pairs of socks

1 $10 gift card to Walgreens

2 pairs of pants that do not fit me (not pictured)

I have the entire week off for the holidays. So here is what I've been doing…

(right click and "save as" or whatever you want to see actual video of my week off)

Fortunately I buy myself better presents than socks.  Some people may recall that about 3 or 4 years ago, I tried to play the banjo.  I borrowed a banjo and a book from from Justin, bought some finger picks and in about 6 months of grueling daily practice, I could play a couple songs. Ok only one of them sounded like a song, one sounded like "first song in a beginning banjo book, one, cripple creek, didn't sound like cripple creek when I played it, but it sounded like some sort of song, then there was a third (and maybe a fourth) that sounded like nothing in particular. I learned that learning instruments, especially the banjo, is hard.  Justin eventually repossessed his banjo, even though he couldn't play it either, and that was the end of my banjo career.

I'm not sure what came over me this December, but I decided to try again, and this time around playing clawhammer style instead of bluegrass.  I won't get into too much of what that means.  Clawhammer is a down picking method the original way the banjo was played, bluegrass, or 3 finger style is something invented in the 20th century, mostly associated with Earl Scruggs.  I'm not knocking Earl Scruggs by any means, I just don't know if my fingers could ever do that, and I'm curious about pre-20th century music.  Anyway, if you want to know more about all this stuff, you shouldn't ask me, you should ask Google.

The video is me after about four days of banjo experience. Sure it's awful, but could be worse for four days of practice.

I have been very ill of late.  I missed two days of work, struck down with sever cold/flu/etc symptoms.  On the second day I decided to see a doctor because it seemed like the responsible thing for someone with health insurance to do.  I hadn't been to a doctor in three or four years, and the one I used to go to was on the other side of town, so I fired up Aetna.com and picked the first one in a five mile radius that answered the phone promptly.  The one I ended up picking by that method graduated from what sounded like a German or Slavic school of medicine and spoke French, German and Russian.  I wasn't too worried because I figured cold/flu can't be that hard.

Off I got a 10:30 AM appointment and off I went.  When I walked into the small office in a small office plaza on North Dale Mabry, I detected the smell of the elderly.  The woman at the front desk started explaining the paperwork and asked me if I was familiar with a particular HIPPA compliance form.  I said I wasn't and she said it was about my privacy concerning computers and fax machines.  "but you don't really have to worry," she said, "because we don't have a computer."  I was a little taken aback.  I looked around inside the office area behind the reception counter, sure enough, there was no computer.  I was shocked and disturbed.  This was an actual place of business here in the 21st Century.  I began to wonder what barbarous and ancient form of medicine could be practiced in an office without a computer.  Surely the Doctor would attribute my illness to evil dwarves or witchcraft.  He'd prescribe bleeding to release the bad humors from my blood, followed by a course of leeches. 

I filled out the paperwork and put it in the used manila file I had been given and returned it to the receptionist.  There was a old man, probably an octogenarian in the waiting room, and myself and that was it in the waiting room.  The old man told me that starlings have become a nuisance in Alaska.  "That's too bad," I said and nodded in disapproval, always unsure how to make small talk, and even less so small talk about Alaskan wild foul.

Soon I was weighed and measured.  My temperature was taken, and I was relieved to find it at 100 degrees.  Calling in sick always makes me feel guilty, and nothing says "you're really sick" like a fever.  My blood pressure was taken as well.  I assume it was normal enough because it didn't warrant comment.  The elderly nurse was pleased that I was able to follow instructions while holding the thermometer, lifting my arm, etc.

I waited in the examining room for a while. The doctor entered.  He was a medium man of medium height, medium build, middle aged with normal gray hair.  He spoke at low volume, sometimes almost a mumble in a European accent that came from somewhere definitely east of France and north of Italy.  He went through the usual routine, listening to my lungs asking me about pressure in my sinuses, looking in my ears and nose.  He asked me if I used nasal spray, I said I didn't because I know it is bad for you.  He gave a little lecture on why it is bad for you anyway.  Then he talked about antibiotics, and how sinusitis (bacterial sinus infections) are often over diagnosed and over treated with antibiotics. I started to think he wouldn't give me an antibiotic, and I would incubate a bacterial sinus infection for another week, and be miserable for at least another month.  He said "if it had presented with more of a temperature..." 

"Hey I scored 100 just a minute ago," I thought.

And if there was more mucus, and if it was a little more green, and if there was more pressure in the ears, etc. etc....  I started to think I had wasted my time.  But then he wrote me a script for an antibiotic anyway, and not just any antibiotic, the one that cures anthrax.  "Woohoo," I said silently to myself.  And he wrote one for a prescription nasal spray which was supposedly good for you unlike the over the counter nasal spray. 

Then he asked "what do you do for a living, Mr. Bright?"

"I'm a systems administrator," I said, "I work with computers."

"I thought you'd say you worked with computers," he said.

"Why is that," I asked.

"Well I could guess by your un-athletic physique that you worked in a sedentary occupation," he said.

"I am sedentary," I said.  "I sit in a cubicle or otherwise in front of a computer 40-80 hours a week, but I like what I do."  I am always prepared for the "quit smoking" lecture when I go to the doctor, but this was the first "you're a fatty" comment I had gotten at a doctor's office. 

"Have you eaten today," he asked as if he had just thought of something.  I told him I had a bowl of cereal.

"Have you had your blood taken recently, for tests," he asked.  "Cholesterol, all those things."  I had never had any of that tested, and insured man that I am, I decided to go ahead and let them have some blood, if only to release the bad humors which could be afflicting it.  The doctor handed me back to the nurse who took me to the room with the scale again and instructed me to sit on a stool next to a counter.  She told me to be careful.  The stool had wheels on it and had a tendency to slip out from under people.  I imagined the needle ripping through my vein as I fell, and resolved to be careful.  The nurse took two vials of blood.  The results would be back on Monday.  I assume this will be bad news, and I will have to eat salad for the rest of my life, or maybe my liver is failing.

I picked up the prescriptions.  The pharmacy tech was impressed with the fact that my social security number was only two digits different from hers.  The doctor neglected to tell me that the supposedly excellent prescription nasal spray smells like burning human hair, and when you spray it in your nose you will smell burning human hair for two hours afterwards.  It also seems to do absolutely nothing, other than make you wish you didn't have a nose.

I miss working on ASP.NET projects. I should be focusing on my vbscript skills for work, but vbscript just doesn't turn me on the way .NET did. Vbscript feels so clunky and 1999.

I had some people over last Friday, some of my oldest friends, all of which go back to middle school.  Now I have 40 beers. 

I sent out the email "I'll get some beer on the way home from work, just bring a couple bucks for a pizza collection.  Still almost all of them showed up with beer in hand, lots of beer.  Saturday morning, as I stared at all the beer still in the fridge, and the unopened beer boxes on the floor, it struck me that there is a difference between these early 30s people and the younger crowd I used to hang out with back when I used to leave the house.  At the early to mid 20s party or gathering, the most of the kids bring 6 beers or no beers, and fully expect, and do to drink 12.  They might even take a few for the road on the way out the door at 4 in the morning, if there is any beer.  This leaves the beer purchasing minority in quite a conundrum.  I recall occasions when I had to buy 2 or more beers for every one I drank back in those wild and exciting times.  Particularly in those financially tight early to mid twenties, I was pretty pissed off about it too.  The late-twenties to early 30s gathering is almost the opposite.  No one wants to show up empty handed, and they don't drink nearly as much.  The $10-$20 beer investment is also pretty inconsequential these days.     

Currently working on "Oh Susanna."

Yes, I got distracted making this thing while I was re-writing the db.com code. It also took waaaaaaay longer than I thought. "I can whip that up in 2 hours," I thought last night. Then when I hit some snags, it got personal, and I had to finish it. The re-write of the main site is still underway, and it is coming along. Here are some of the planned new features:

So call and write your congressmen. That actually seemed to work with the Induce Act in 2004.

I’m mostly paraphrasing a CNET Article and some podcasts, so do your own research. Or just do what I tell you.

I grabbed the toothpaste, and took the top off. I picked up my razor with the other hand and almost applied the toothpaste to it. I put the toothpaste down and picked up the shaving cream. "Wait, it's Saturday." I thought. I paused, "But I have to be at the datacenter for patching, no not patching for..." I paused again for about ten seconds with the shaving cream in hand staring at the sink. "No, It's just Saturday, and I don't have to do anything."

I put everything down and went back to sleep for 2 more hours.

I hate it when this happens.

It’s sad to think that once upon a time people put actual time and feeling into stuff like this, and it is no longer necessary. There was a time when you would have to go to the library and skim the pages or Bartlett’s Famous Quotations or various poetry anthologies or come up with something on your own. Now all things, including sentiment can be easily and instantly recycled. It must have been so difficult back before the Internet when you had to be an actual individual person who came up with your own thoughts, ideas and solutions. Now you can just parse search engine results. You are just an algorithm that parses the output of another algorithm without the trouble and effort of having an original thought.

How Not to Make Ribs

Don't believe everything that you read. I used a rub on last weekend's ribs based on a recipe I got from the trusty Internet and it was pretty bad. It contained brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, cayanne pepper and garlic powder. It sounds reasonable, but the ratios of those ingridients was not quite right.

Kosher salt is serious salt. Somehow pure sodium chloride is less salty than Kosher salt. It's salty freakin salt. So don't use much. Use less than you're told to use. You need to respect it.

To cook last week's failed ribs, I used the indirect heating method on a propane grill. I turned the heat down low on one burner of my four burner grill and placed the ribs at the opposite side with a drip/water pan under them. I let them cook for the prescribed (by my friend Internet) 3 hours. At the end of 3 hours during which I misted them and what not per the instructions, I checked their temperature with my meat thermometer. It said "eating this will kill you." I gave it another hour. It said "it's 10 degrees hotter but still will kill you." Guests arrived and the grill was needed for food we had a solid chance of actually (safely) eating, so we turned up the heat on one side and left the ribs on the other side.

Eventually the ribs got up to the magic 170 degree internal temperature mark and were cleared for human consumption. They looked pretty, but they were extremely tough and the rub had become a crust which tasted like salt and cayanne pepper. My guests claimed they "weren't that bad" and "a good first effort" but I don't think any of us had more than one individule rib.

Immediate plans include:

This past weekend marked yet another trip around the Sun for me. I celebrated in my traditional manner.

Today while unpacking one of the boxes still stacked in my garage from the last move, I came upon a terrible artifact, Jon Rosa's Pornagraphic Toaster. Jon Rosa was a friend of mine who when down on his luck (about every two years) would rent my couch for a nominal fee. Nomadic and needing to keep few posessions, he would sometimes leave some items behind. One of them was this horrible toaster with a crude poragraphic sticker on the side of it. Although hideous in appearance, it was functional and the only toaster I had for quite a while. I would have to turn the pornagraphic side of it to the wall when I expected company. Now that I am a man of means I have two other toasters and so I was finally free to do what should have been done a long time ago.

It occurred to me that my practical approach to leadership in adult life is similar to a dog’s concept of leadership. A dog needs someone to be the leader. It doesn’t really matter who. It could be himself, it could be someone else. The dog has anxiety and behavior problems when it is confused as to who is the leader, or when it thinks it is the leader and it's percieved subordinates do not act like followers. It is more complex for us humans we have complicated criteria for determining leader is, other than who growls the scariest, or who tries to mount whom. Well maybe not.

You see them here.

Here is a sample:

That didn't stop me from nearly starting my own keyboard museum. I had a stack of about seven or eight keyboards. I am pretty hard on keyboards, or at least I used to be. In my mid-twenties, I was poor and lived in a series of one bedroom appartments with nothing no cable TV and sometimes not furniture. The computer was my primary entertainment source. I lived at the keyboard, and ate over them, drank and spilled beer and other beverages on them. I wiped down the keyboard periodically, but things do get under the keys. Eventually some of the keys would get sticky, or mushy, or make a crunching sound when I pressed them, and it was time to get a new keyboard. Sure I could have popped the keys off and tried to clean under them or something like that, but since a new keyboard can be had for $10 or less, it was usually easier to go buy a new one every six months. They were disposable, even though most of the time I never actually disposed of them. Someday I will need an extra keyboard, I thought.

I have two computers in my office room in my house, one being my primary use Windows desktop and the other my Linux/server/whatever machine. I noticed the "extra" keyboard I had hooked up to server machine was getting on in years.

It had been dropped a few times. Many of the keys had popped off and the dog ran off with them, or I was just too lazy to put them back on.

I decided to mend my ways. I went to Walmart and bought a new keyboard for $9.00 to replace it and then tossed my entire stack of old keyboards in the trash. Maybe someday I will think about my stack of hard drives.

My Gift To the World of Music

Now I sort of did this before with the banjo videos, but I figured YouTube has an actual audience, unlike DylanBright.com, and sure enough 30 people apparently looked at the video and one person left a comment. I felt very web 2.0, however, I have never particularly cared for the way YouTube likes to point out the inadequacies in my social life when I am looking at my profile or "channel" or whatever it is they call it…

This is the first update in many months to old dylanbright.com. It really is a mess. It started out pretty sloppy because it was one of the first asp.net things I ever did, and then as it was tweaked here and there over the years mostly increasing the slop. Style sheets are sort of half implemented, and all the html is basically slop. The asp.net bits were absolutely ridiculous a couple years ago, but they’ve been cleaned up a little. There has been many a weekend that I started out replacing the hole thing, but I could never settle on how to do it and eventually I would lose interest. I’d like to write something that just generates it as static html, kind of like the way blogger works. That really makes a lot more sense; since there really isn’t anything here that requires server side code. I often thought about changing the visual design of the thing too, but every time I tried to make it look more modern, it just started to look like everyone else’s website. I’m also not good at making things pretty.

Actually apologizing for the website is a bit of a theme on the website now that I think about it.

Oh well. I also fixed the dylancam.