Rock Band 2 vs. the Wisdom of Kidzookie

I sold all my Rock Band stuff on Sunday. Listed it on Craigslist, which is always just a pain in the ass. Spent all day getting dicked around by people who wanted to haggle the price down at the last minute. Sorry, there, chief... I've taken really good care of the stuff, and the price is very fair. No love.

Finally heard from a really nice family that wanted to pick the game up for their son. The kid was really excited about it when they came over to get it. He wanted to run off home and play it, but I made him play it here to make sure it worked before they left ("That's what I'd do if I were buying it"). He played drums a little, declared the game to be in proper working order, declined to play the guitar, and looked positively aghast at the prospect of singing in front of strangers.

Good times :)

Picked up Rock Band 2 yesterday after lunch. Primarily, I wanted the new drum set, which plays a little nicer than the old one. Well, and the new songs. The new guitar and drums turn out to be wireless, too, which is pretty nice.

The big improvement, though -- which I didn't know about ahead of time -- is that you can turn off failing songs, so that you can complete them no matter how you play. That's a fantastic feature. As soon as I discovered that feature, Kidzookie, Girlzookie, and I started a virtual band together and played all afternoon. My son did a passable job on drums. My daughter sang Christmas songs to every tune we played.

I manned the guitar, and it was this that led to my moment of zen for the day. I'd just fucked up the ending solo to Shooting Star (again), and muttered, "shit," under my breath, as is my wont. My son looked over and said, "You put it on hard, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"Well, then, it's supposed to be hard to play, isn't it?"

Maybe it's karmic retribution for constantly giving my wife shit.

Wifezilla: Hang on, let me let the dog in.

Taco: Noooo!

Wifezilla: What's your problem?

Taco: Now I'll have to share you with him!

Wifezilla: But it's cold outside!

Taco: So? I don't see you letting my cat in!

Wifezilla: She's inside.

Taco: Yeah? Where?

Wifezilla: I'm looking!

Taco: Pffft!

Wifezilla: I'm sure she's inside!

Taco: It's cold outside and all you care about is your dog!

Wifezilla: I found her!

Taco: Yeah? Where?

Wifezilla: She's sleeping in [Kidzookie]'s bed!

Taco: What the hell's she doing there?

Wifezilla: What do you mean?

Taco: That's where Twinkie sleeps!

Wifezilla: ...

Taco: ...and now I'm sad.

Rotten days suck...

... and somehow, they seem to suck worse when your friends are having them.

Wish I could make it better for you guys. :/

Kitty Go Boom

Every morning, I get up, lumber downstairs, and fix a pot of coffee to get my heart started. The cat waits by the back door every day, and when I make my way past the door I stop and let her in. It's a good routine.

The first time I speak to the cat each day, she automatically arches her back and staggers to the right as if to rub against my leg in that catly way they do, even if I'm nowhere near her at the time.

Yesterday I realized that if I time it right, I can make her walk into things.

My powers are amazing. And stupid.

Those Wacky Trash Collectors

I really love those guys. Really.

I have problems with them all the damn time. If I screw up the tiniest little thing, they won't collect my garbage. They seem to particularly love the old "bin was within five feet of another bin" routine. I live at the end of a cul de sac. Our options are put it within five feet of another bin or put it in the middle of the driveway. We space the damn things out as far as we can. Give us a damn break.

Today is my favorite, though. Today, they collected the whole bin. The guy operating the big claw on the side of the truck that grabs the trash can and upends it into the top of the garbage truck must have been excited today, because he dumped my whole bin into the thing. One of the guys in the truck had to come up to the house to say, "Uh, sorry."

This shit only ever happens to me.

Compromise

TACO: You really ought to read the book I'm reading now.

WIFEZILLA: The nymphos one?

TACO: Yeah. I'd offer to read it aloud but, you know, the kids.

WIFEZILLA: Well, if you ever went to bed at the same time as me.

TACO: I'd go to bed at the same time for a blow job. Every time. I went to bed with you.

WIFEZILLA: Every time?

TACO: Yeah.

WIFEZILLA: I'll meet you half way.

TACO: Deal.

WIFEZILLA: Okay.

TACO: I'd like the second half, please.

WIFEZILLA: ...

TACO: *laughs*

WIFEZILLA: This is going on your blog, isn't it?

Fact is, I'm wonderful. Except for that one thing.

KIDZOOKIE: What are you doing?

TACO: Annoying your mom.

KIDZOOKIE: How?

TACO: Breathing.

KIDZOOKIE: Why does that annoy her?

TACO: She wants me dead.

KIDZOOKIE: No she doesn't!

TACO: Sure, she does.

KIDZOOKIE: Nuh uh! Why did she marry you, then?

TACO: Well, son, your mom makes bad decisions.

KIDZOOKIE: You're teasing me!

TACO: Yeah, I am. Fact of the matter is, I'm wonderful.

KIDZOOKIE: You're not wonderful. You talk about dookie!

Dear North Carolina...

Thank you for getting rid of Elizabeth Dole. I feel bad, though. I didn't get you anything.

Love,
-Taco

They're all about love.

WIFEZILLA: All right, we're gonna get out of your hair.

GIRLZOOKIE: He doesn't have hair!

The Zombie Apocalypse is Now

You heard me right. It's all over. We're fucked. I was there.

The dead walk the earth.

Fortunately, I had my camera on me and managed to snap off a few photos as I was fleeing for my very life. I have attempted to document the beginning of the end for any who find this. Perhaps the warning herein will allow you to survive. A little longer, anyway.



Observe this poor fellow, who rode his bike right into the midst of a huge mob of the undead before he realized his mistake. Note how he's strategically placed his bike between him and the ravening hordes. A good thought, but ultimately, fruitless. They tore the poor bastard limb from limb. The screaming was ghastly.





Note the empty bicycle in this photo. The rider is nowhere to be seen. Also note the woman in the foreground, snapping off pictures rather than fleeing for her life, even though she's just witnessed the horrific birth of yet another zombie. This kind of cavalier attitude toward the thronging mob of bloodthirsty zombies will get you killed! You must take this threat seriously! (Yes, I realize I was also taking pictures, but you'll note that I had placed myself behind the other photographer, giving me additional time to make my escape. One of us lived to write about the experience.)



Here we see the zombie mass breaking past the photographer, who is by now probably being devoured in the huddle in the background. The bicycle is still in place, untouched. Zombies do not ride bicycles! Remember that! It could save your life.

The zombie in the foreground almost looks sad. You can nearly hear it thinking, "Being a zombie sucks. I'm really sorry about that whole destroying humanity thing." Do not be fooled! They will kill you and everything you love, and then snack on the brains!



The image of this little old zombified lady, dragging her poor dead dog behind her on a leash, nearly broke my heart.










A close call! This enterprising zombie nearly got me as I bemoaned the little old lady's fate. I might not be here now to break the most important news story of our species' history if not for that lucky trash can. Thank God zombies lack the reasoning capacity to step around things!

Observe the woman behind him. Note her euphoric grin. The poor thing has been broken psychologically by this disaster, and now believes herself to be a zombie, too. Tragic. She'll be right, soon.




So many things worth noting in this one. The zombie unhindered by the broken foot (zombies can't feel pain!)... the zombie still trying to operate the cell phone as he once did in life... but of all the things I witnessed tonight, the zombie pimp with the teddy bear may have been the most pants-shitteningly frightening thing I've ever seen.





Several of these zombies appear to be fresh. The outbreak is in full swing now. The one in the foreground is carrying a shopping bag. One could almost weep for the sad commentary on thoughtless American consumerism if he weren't fighting survival in a hellish undead apocalypse.

I'd also like to thank the zombies for only tearing the outer shirt of the undead lady behind him. We're trying to run a family-friendly armageddon here.



This zombie attempted to mimic my photography of the event. Do not be fooled by such displays! They cannot think. Within hours of death, their brains deteriorate beyond even such simple human capacities, leaving them only with an unquenchable lust to munch upon your brainmeats.





These zombies appear to be hulking out. I cannot even begin to describe how much this concept terrifies me.









Another near miss! I must apologize for the quality of this photo, but it's hard to snap pictures while ducking and weaving. Fortunately, I was saved...







...by this valiant man. Although I certainly do appreciate his rescuing me, I must advise against this sort of up-close-and-personal vigilantism. Ultimately, one cannot survive long in the midst of a full-on zombie uprising. Now there's a zombie out there with a fucking chainsaw. God damn it, anyway.








Here, in one of the more disturbing scenes I encountered during my ordeal, we see a young zombie family. Their undead child struggles to free itself. Thank God they're born without teeth. So many questions arise. Is today the child's deathday? How do zombies celebrate a child's deathday? Do they stick candles in a human's head? Are you still pro-choice?




Raptor Jesus walks among them. We are well and truly fucked.












There you have it, folks. By now, Raleigh is fallen. Other cities are sure to follow. It's the end of days. Loot some canned goods, destroy your staircase, hole up in the attic, and hope for the best.

I guess my misanthropy shows.

Enzo: I think I'm becoming like you, my friends lately have been getting on my nerves, I'm becoming antisocial haha. Their jokes are no longer funny, I'm getting tired of hearing the same old jokes over and over and over, it's always the same thing.

Taco: Welcome to our club.
Taco: We don't meet on Tuesdays.
Taco: Because we hate each other.

Doctor Doctor, give me the news...

How exactly does one wind up being a pharmacist when you've got this last name?

Ten years at it.

I just noticed that a week ago marks ten years of me writing software for money. Wild. Like I needed something else to make me feel old.

A Little Friendly Advice

If you're feeling... (let's see... what's the polite term here?)... gastrically explosive... during your mad rush to the bathroom, please remove your company access badge from your belt and tuck it in your pocket. When you drop trou, the badge attached to your belt has a fair shot at landing outside the stall and displaying your picture and name to the rest of the bathroom during your... err... exertions.

And I really don't want to know who you are right then.

Time is a Harsh Mistress

I was just thinking about my first job programming, so I googled for them. Nothing. Not even when I told Google to include their omitted results.

The guy that ran the place was pretty ancient, and that was ten years ago. I guess this means he's probably passed on. I got the feeling the software thing was a personal project of his to keep busy in his retirement, so his wife probably let it die with him.

Why's this depress me so much? I only ever collected one check from him. (I was too slack to bill him for the other work I did.)

The animation I did for his software was kinda badass.

Oh well.

I can't remember the guy's name now. Does that make me a bad person?

The Good, The Bad, and the Owie

Yay: I hit an SCA event this weekend and got to see people joust.

Boo: I got sunburnt as a motherfucker. Bald Irish people do not want sun.

Why does tequila smell better at night?

Running into you like this without warning
Is like catching a sniff of tequila in the morning
But I'll try, try to keep my food down.
It's quite an aftertaste that you've left
Now that you're not around.

-Crash Test Dummies, "I Think I'll Disappear Now"

Yeah, so I'll admit it... this post is really just an excuse for me to start one with a quote. Fett does it all the time, and it's a conceit I've admired for years. My head doesn't work that way, though, and I know I couldn't maintain it over time. But I'm treating myself to this one.

My college girlfriend tried to contact me the other day. I'm not sure what possessed her to do that... there's some seriously bad blood between us. I'd love to pretend it's one sided, but I probably treated her nearly as bad as she treated me. Not as bad, mind... she one-upped me big time and I'll never top it, and a few of you know what I mean... but it's not like I'm innocent in that whole deal.

But I'm still a bit amazed by the nerve of her trying to contact me considering some of the shit between us.

Anyway, shortly after she tried to strike up a conversation and I ignored it, that song came up in my playlist, and gave me an excuse to start a post with a quote. So now I'm nearly 2% as awesome as fett.

I'll call that a win any day of the week.

Twice on Tuesday.

How they find me

Coyote and I talked about posting this info a long time ago, and then I forgot. But now he's called me out, and I must return fire in kind.

Google Analytics is an awesome tool that can tell you a hell of a lot about your website, your traffic, and your users. If you're running a real website that you intend to make money from, it (or something similar) is an absolute must... such tools are invaluable in helping you tailor your site to keep visitors interested, returning, viewing your ads... whatever.

Of course, it's completely useless to me and my blog, since I have no ads and about five friends reading it... but it does have one little feature I can't do without: it'll tell you how people found you.

I've been watching the search strings people find my site with for years, and it never disappoints. Prior to converting to blogspot, someone constantly found my old blog by searching for "groin mustard." Figure that one out. And I doubt anyone will ever top "naked Hitler groin massage" (which became something of a motto on my forums for a while... at one point, we were the #1 google hit for that search string, we said it so much).

So... how does Google Analytics say people are finding my blog? Survey says:

1. "noggin vomit." Far and away the #1. Makes sense. It's the name of my blog. Not sure who the fuck is searching for it, though... "Let's see... where was his blog again? It's called Noggin Vomit, why don't we google for that?"
2. "kidzookie." Again, makes sense. I always refer to my children as kidzookie on my blog (I try damn hard not to use anybody's real names). This one's probably some of my relatives who can't remember the blog's name or address.
3. "logitech replacement dongle." I'm kinda glad I got lots of hits on that one. Fuck Logitech and their lousy fucking customer service.
4. "lump on my tricep." That's... that's not a kind of porn, right?
5. "strippers vs zombies." You see? YOU SEE?! I told you it was high cinema!
6. "zombies zombies zombies." Again. I told you. Mock me for my studies, but you'll be glad I saw this documentary when the Zombie Apocalypse arrives.
7. "brazilian shaved taco." Coyote? I thought you liked my landing strip.
8. "condom noggin show." Is that on Spike TV?
9. "dear life fuck you." My people! Let me show you the way!
10. "deer vomit." Ew.
11. "does styrofoam turn to glass in your stomach." Dude. See a doctor. Seriously.
12. "dr factoid." That's what they call me.
13. "dr. factoid." Grammar Nazis got you, huh? It's okay. No points off for it here. Taco's all about love, baby.
14. "father shaved my head." I'm... sorry?
15. "fucking logitech." Right the fuck on, brother! Fuckin' Logitech.
16. "grimm noggin." I think you're looking for Grimm. His blog doesn't have noggins and is much funnier than mine. He should update more. Punkass.
17. "jerry lewis mc donalds." Uh... what?
18. "let me destroy noggins." I have a list of noggins you can start on if you're interested.
19. "lump tricep." Whew. At least this one's not on my tricep.
20. "mc donalds+vomit." I'm pretty good at algebra. Let's see... if I apply the quadratic equation here... take the square root of Grade D beef... times minimum wage to the fake cheese power... got it. Forty seven? No? Crap.
21. "noggin mcdonald's." Okay.
22. "nogginvomit." Weird that it's so far down the list. Huh.
23. "pocky lips." Indeed. Also, deer.
24. "shit neck." Noplz. Do not want.
25. "smoke and vomit." The fuck?
26. "vomit from deer." That's... specific.
27. "vomitfuck." I almost wish I could see the reaction of the person who googled for that and found my site. Almost. Except that would mean having to meet them.
28. "weirdest urinal." I wouldn't consider myself an authority, but it was pretty weird.
29. "why is my logitech mouse a piece of shit." I think you answered your own question, there, Sparky.

Sadly, most of my strings aren't all that funny for this blog so far. I was really happy to see that I seem to be some kind of swirling vortex of Logitech-hate, though. Perhaps I should start a support group. Who's bringing the beer?

Closing the chapter

I've just returned from picking up Twinkie's remains.

I'm sad to say I haven't been doing all that great with this whole thing. I really appreciate my friends that have been so good to me. I know a few of you who view pets differently from me and are probably somewhat disapproving of my reaction, and your patience with me is a kindness I really appreciate.

We're not entirely sure what all happened to poor Twinkie. What we do know is that it was a heart condition that brought him down. It may have been a condition brought about by his diabetes, or it may have been a pre-existing condition that was mild enough to escape detection for years, and which was aggravated by his diabetes until it took his life. The heart condition caused his lungs to fill with fluid, and he was in pretty bad shape. We dropped him off at the vet on Thursday for them to observe him overnight and try to stabilize his condition.

On Friday morning the vet called us to tell us that Twinkie's condition had worsened to the point that he nearly died when they shifted him to take blood for some tests. The only way they had to save his life was to transfer him to a specialist animal hospital, and even that gave us long odds. We went to visit with him immediately, and the poor guy was clearly suffering badly. He wasn't himself at all, and was audibly drowning within his own body.

So we said our good-byes and did the compassionate thing.

I know we did the right thing for him. It's never easy, but it's been especially hard this time. Every so often, a pet comes around that's just special. Twinkie definitely was.

My wife always joked that he was a dog trapped in a cat's body. That certainly seemed to be the case. He was the friendliest, most un-catlike cat I've ever met. He liked people so much that the vet had to hold him over running water to make him stop purring when checking his heart and lungs.

He was my cat. He was as attached to me as I was to him. We had our routines, especially first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Every morning, he waited between my side of the bed and my chest of drawers for me to wake up. I'd pet him for a while and then go shower. He waited outside the shower, and when I got out, licked my right calf every morning.

He was weird.

Every night he went upstairs to bed with my son. When I'd go up to check on the kids, I'd tease my son about how Twinkie was my damn cat and he'd better leave him alone. Kidzookie ate that up. When I finally came up to turn in myself, Twink would come up and lie on my chest and I'd pet him until I fell asleep. He liked being pet so much that he would drool, and I mean drool. Slobber flowed freely from his mouth. Every night I'd scratch his ears to make him shake his head and he'd spray wifezilla with spit.

Good times.

Every time I sat down at my desk to work on my computer, he jumped in my lap. I don't think there's been 15 total minutes in the past eight years that I've sat at that desk without a cat. I'm really going to miss that.

You always feel like you didn't appreciate someone enough once they're gone. I guess it's human instinct. It rose up and kicked me in the stomach with Twink, but in this case, I think it really isn't true. I loved that cat to pieces and said so often while he was still with us. I played with him and pet him every day, and had commented to my wife just a few days prior to his sudden passing how special a pet he was, and how lucky I was to have him. Obviously, I wish I'd had more time with him, but the time we had was well spent. He was well-fed, well-cared for, well-loved, and, well, happy.

Not really sure how to end this. My normal bile and sarcasm are too disrespectful for this post. I guess I'll let it go with a simple God speed, Twink. I miss you.

Diabetic cat is no more.

God speed, gentle soul.

I'm gonna go listen to Bright Eyes a few thousand times and maybe throw up a little.

I have the best friends ever.

You might try to argue that your friends are as good as mine. And you'd almost have a case, because if you're reading this, you mostly have the same friends as me. But if you're reading this, you're also friends with me, and I'm bringing down your average.

So I win.

Bitch. :)

The Further Adventures of Diabetic Cat

So Diabetic Cat has stopped eating, stopped drinking, stopped using the litterbox, shows signs of heavily labored breathing, and can't be bothered to get out from underfoot, and can't be bothered to avoid the dog.

Good signs, huh?

We took him to the vet, and those things are all signs of his diabetes not going so great. They're keeping him overnight and doing some x-rays and shit.

That sounds cheap.

I can't go through this shit again. This is the most awesome pet I've had since my dog I had in high school. God damn it all. Someone please tell the universe to stop kicking me in the balls.

Taco has a flashback

Back when I first graduated from college and got my first grown up job, I got incredibly fucking depressed.

In my case, it had a lot to do with the fact that I am not, by nature, a goal-oriented person. Up to that point in my life, I got handed a set of goals every school year. Pass these classes, get these grades, avoid getting picked on by those fuckers over there.

Two of of three ain't bad.

Those kind of built-in mile markers are awesome. You don't have to think about them, and it's easy to see them passing by. Once I graduated, I switched gears from all that to "go to work, do whatever, go home." Not so easy to see it going by. Spun my wheels a while, sank into a deep and miserable funk I didn't really know how to get out of.

I finally got sick of it all and hit the shrink. I wasn't sure my benefits covered it (the company was tiny and not doing so hot), and wasn't sure if the boss would find out if I filed claims and fire my ass (I was young, naive, and depressed... so irrational besides). So I paid the bills out of my pocket.

Best money I ever spent.

The turnaround for me was pretty much immediate, since I didn't have a general problem with depression, but more of a temporary situation I wasn't familiar with and didn't have coping strategies for. Hell, just taking an active role and doing something about it rather than being passive (and let's face it, I'm great at passive... nearly as good as I am at passive-aggressive) made a huge difference.

Doc sorted me out, and we came up with a few hobbies and such to provide me with the missing goalposts whizzing by. And now I'm the beautifully adjusted fucker you see before you today.

I'm just sayin' is all.

There are zombies headed straight for my house

O NOES!

Wait, the zombies are bringing strippers.

YAY!

I wondered aloud yesterday whether they'd ship my Zombies Zombies Zombies DVD on the Sept. 9th release date, or ahead of time so I'd have it in my hot little hands on the street date. I woke up this morning to my answer. They shipped my order last night.

Hooray!

This is so much better than how I imagined the first time zombies came to my house would be.

He's insulting people at an eighth grade level.

KIDZOOKIE: Dad?

TACO: Hmm?

KIDZOOKIE: What's a douchebag?

Zen and the Art of the Burn

WIFEZILLA: Why are you always so down on yourself?

TACO: Low self esteem.

WIFEZILLA: Come on.

TACO: [trying somewhat artlessly to dodge the question] I don't make enough money, I'm terrible in bed...

WIFEZILLA: Ohhhhh... you make plenty of money.

[10 second pause]

TACO: Nice one.

WIFEZILLA: Thanks!

It's gonna be one of those lives.

So, my car is dead. That's basically... carry the one... zero surprise to anyone who's ever seen my car.

I wound up with this gorgeous piece of machinery through a series of missteps that began with my layoff in 2001, while my wife was 7 months pregnant with our first child. That was a fun experience that left me with a bunch of credit card debt related to medical exams and procedures that were rather necessary and subsequent baby food and such that were rather unavoidable.

My wife and I had never actually had any debt before, so we got pretty upset about carrying any. We entered a cycle of paying all our bills each month, then spending every penny on our debt. Turns out that's a losing strategy. A good friend of ours is a debt counsellor, and helped educate us a bit. (He offers this service for free, by the way -- their money comes from other services they offer if they're able to help you, which they're quite open about -- and he's fucking awesome. If you find yourself in a similar sad situation to mine, let me know, and I'll gladly give you his info.)

So we got our finances sorted out. Yay! We started the process of buying a house. Yay! We started thinking about what to replace my aging car with. Yay!

A deer does a half-gainer into my wife's car. Shit.

Totals her car. We didn't want to replace her car while our home loan stuff was in process. I gave her my car, and carpooled with a friend. We purchased our home. We purchased a new car for her. Wife and kids have a car that's safe. Yay!

My car dies. Shit.

My dad, who is fucking awesome, gives me a beater that he was going to donate to charity. Yay!

I drive this until it dies. My finances are still not such that I can really afford another car payment, even a modest one.

My dad, who is fucking awesome, gives me another beater that had been rusting in his driveway. Yay!

I drive the wheels off this one, too. It doesn't take long. My wife drives me to work for a few months.

My father-in-law donates his old beater to us. I'm really starting to feel like a fucking loser mooch. God damn it.

The car's on its last leg, but our finances are in pretty good shape now. We've paid off my wife's car, our credit cards are in a good place, we're saving some money... life is looking up. We start doing our research to figure out what kind of car we want to replace my bucket with.

The IRS sends me a letter. I fucked up my taxes a few years ago. We redo our taxes with help from our lawyer: it's not as bad as the IRS thinks, but it's more than we can put our hands on at the moment. We set up a payment plan. I start crossing my fingers that my car will hold together... not for the duration of our payment plan (I'm under no illusions there), but every month helps.

This car has run on sheer fucking bloodymindedness for a long time now, but today it gave up the ghost.

Two steps forward, eight steps back. I realize that kicking me in the spiritual nuts is pretty funny, but I'm pretty sure Bob Saget gave you the $10,000 prize a long time ago, God. Please stop. I'm sore.

Diabetic cat is diabetic.

Wheee.

So now we have to feed him prescription cat food. After a month on the (quite expensive) food, they'll test him again, and if it's doing the trick, we're set. If not, we have to go to supplementing the food with shots.

Wheee.

The vet told me on the phone that, on the bright side, "You can tell people you put your pet on the Catkins Diet." I responded automatically with an, "I hate you, Larry." This left the vet confused. :)

It takes three moneys.

DAUGHTER: [hands me fifty cents] Here. Use this to buy my lunch.

TACO: Do you think this will be enough?

DAUGHTER: No, that's only two moneys. My lunch costs three moneys.

Another weird day in Tacoslavia

I'm cornering the market on weird. I know that sounds great now, but once I've done it and you guys are clamoring for a little oddity to spice up your mundane days, I'm going to charge ten times as much. You've been warned.

We took the cats to the vet for their usual checkups this week. I got a call from the vet today with the results. Said results? One cat's in perfect health... and the vet thinks the other one may have diabetes. They're doing a test to verify that now. We're supposed to know by Monday.

In retrospect, naming the cat Twinkie seems kinda mean now.

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! Release Date! Release Date! Release Date!

Got an email yesterday from the fine folks who are bringing us Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! They finally announced a release date for the DVD. I preordered my copy yesterday. In less than a month, I'll be watching glorious strippers vs. zombies action.

Why aren't you ordering? This is high cinema, people.

Another whoseywhatsit post

Once again I find myself in a position of having nothing particularly interesting to say, but wanting to maintain the dubious discipline of periodically posting.

1. We got a call from my son's school last week warning us that he may come home with some bruises. Seems that one of the kids in his class decided to take up bullying. So I guess we get to start dealing with that kind of bullshit now. We talked about it with my son at length, and all seems to be well on that front. The school seems to have handled it adequately, which is good, but also robs me of anyone to yell at for now.
2. I've tricked a few of my friends into running a game of Serenity on my website. I've never run a real game before, much less in this format, so it may be a spectacular failure. I'm really excited though. And that reminds me, I need to get off my ass and update them with the latest info. Slack, Taco, slack.
3. My friend Bill came up from my old home town to visit us this weekend, which was awesome. We got him to bring up some peaches from the orchard back home. They're fantastic, but I misjudged how much I'd ordered. I've been giving them away to everyone who gets within arm's reach for a few days. Still... these peaches are dangerously fucking delicious. NOM NOM NOM.
4. I got Bill hooked on WoW battlegrounds while he was visiting. He's already better at it than I am, which I suppose is no great accomplishment considering that my own talent for it seems to run mostly in the vein of being patient enough to grind endlessly until I can have the gear. It's fun having more friends to rip it up with though.
   
5. The dog seems to be settling in somewhat. My daughter annoys him frequently... she loves animals and no amount of scolding will keep her from getting right in his face, pulling his hair, etc. Even so, when Bill was saying his good-byes this weekend and placed a hand on my daughter's head, the dog flipped the fuck out. Had to put the dog out into the back yard while we finished our farewells.
6. Friend of mine got a new job that sounds fucking awesome. No intention of stealing his thunder or any of that, so I'll leave it that vague, but yay!

Guess that's about all I've got. Carry on, citizen.

Bag of what now?

Noq: This AV is a fucking joke. WoW is minimized right now. That's how little i care about it.

Taco: Wow. That bad?

Noq: Yes.

Taco: I was in one of those last night. Pissed me off.

Noq: Imagine two bags full of retarded children being swung against one another.

Taco: *choke*

Noq: That's this AV.

Caught in between

Ever notice that we always seem to be caught in between? It's never as easy as it used to be, and it's never as awesome as it'll be in a while. Conventional wisdom seems to be "appreciate the moment" but I'm not entirely convinced it isn't "stop taking on so much fucking complication."

Minty Fresh

I told this story to fett the other day. Hadn't thought of it in years, and now I can't resist sharing it with the rest of you [poor sumbitches].

I'd guess this all took place around the time I was sixteen. I was seeing this girl Courtney, and for the first time, "seeing this girl" actually meant going out on dates instead of that lame "going together" thing kids do at lunch before they can drive.

It was not going well, due largely to my being painfully fucking shy (not to mention a complete dork).

(And I am so fucking not Sheldon, no matter what Blue and my wife say.)

One of my best friends decided to have a little fun with me, so for my birthday, he got me a box of mint-scented condoms. Partly, I guess at that age, it's just exciting to buy condoms. You're barely past the stage where you giggle every time they're mentioned. Mostly, I think, it was to make fun of me, since, being the giant lump of low self esteem you see before you e'en unto this day... they couldn't have been more useless to me.

Now, far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth. I decided to get some mileage out of the present anyway. We had another friend, Amy. Amy was smart and funny and crass and vulgar... and basically awesome. I decided it was time to get her involved in the caper.

The three of us were all marching band nerds, so I snuck into the instrument room and opened Amy's trumpet case looking for her flip book... basically, a little flip folder that could be attached to a musical instrument, and which contained all the music we played in the stands during the football games, plus the national anthem and the school's alma mater, which we had to play at the beginning of every home football game.

I popped the flip folder out, flipped through until I found what I was looking for, and booyah... opened up one of the condoms and stretched it across the Star Spangled Banner. Then I packed the folder back up nice and neat to hide my handiwork and went about my business.

That Friday was a home game, so we had to go do all the pregame stuff. We all played trumpet, so it was gong to be easy to see the results. And of course I'd told all my friends what I'd done, so there was a nice big crowd of trumpet players gathered around Amy, jockeying for prime hilarity-viewing real estate, snickering, and generally failing to hide the fact that something was up.

I... haven't really matured much over the years.

We played the school's alma mater.

Then we all flipped to the Star Spangled Banner... and SPLUT. There's the condom across Amy's.

Right there in the end zone, she fishes the condom out of her folder, inflates it, and goes, "Mmm... mint flavored, too!"

The entire trumpet line pretty much dissolved into laughter at that point. Hell, we all damn near fell down right there on the field. So there was no melody at all for the national anthem.

Now, I grew up in a football town. The whole town shuts down at 4pm on football Fridays. So everyone was there.

The band director was livid.

I don't remember what the punishment was, but it was totally worth it.

Wakin' up is hard to do.

I fucked my wrist up big time this weekend. No clue what I did. I just woke up Saturday morning with a stiff, painful wrist, and by Sunday, the damn thing was too painful to use at all. Yeah, yeah. Guess my wrists just aren't as supple as they used to be since I got married.

Anyway, I wrapped the damn thing up with an ace bandage, and that seemed to help. I tied some frozen peas to it at night, and that seemed to help, too. The pain's tolerable today.

I worry a lot about carpal tunnel. I type for a living, and play guitar to punish people within earshot. I have a set of Baoding Balls that I use regularly to try to keep my wrists in decent shape. They are disappointingly less prurient in nature than they sound at first. Sorry, Coyote.

So fearing that the rest of my career would involve searing agony, I made an appointment with the doctor. He checked me out, asked me a few questions, and declared that it was a bad sprain. In his opinion, I probably managed to sprain my wrist in my sleep. I'm such a deep sleeper it never woke me up.

Lucky me. I can kill myself in my sleep and never know it.

Bonus points: the lump on my tricep that's been causing my wife no end of worry is just "fibrous tissue" and nothing to worry about. If it gets larger, they may take it out to preserve my vanity, but there's no reason it would ever be threatening to my health.

While I was in there, they praised me for losing some weight, then admonished me that they wanted me to lose ten more pounds. The doctor yelled at me to lose weight. There's another milestone passed. Getting older every year.

I'd flip the world off except, you know, gimp hand.

Highly Inappropriate

So when you're sharing a grown up hug, and you reach The Moment, never, never, NEVER yell out, "WHEEEEEEEEE!"

They don't think it's funny.

At all.

Learn from my mistakes, children. It's too late for me, but there's still hope for you.

They call me Dr. Factoid

KIDZOOKIE: (referring to a Happy Meal toy) He's an insect, right?

TACO: Yep. You know what an insect is, right?

KIDZOOKIE: Yeah, like a bug.

TACO: Well, yeah, some bugs are insects, but not all of them. See, to be an insect...

KIDZOOKIE: Like ants?

TACO: Yeah, like ants. There's a few rules about insects.

KIDZOOKIE: Bugs have rules?

TACO: No, not that kind of rule. Criteria. How you know it's an insect. Insects have six legs...

KIDZOOKIE: Nuh-uh. Spiders don't have six legs.

TACO: Well, spiders aren't insects. They're arachnids. So are ticks and scorpions.

KIDZOOKIE: They're not insects?

TACO: No. Like I was saying, insects have six legs, and a body made of three sections...

KIDZOOKIE: Oh, the head, thorax and... uh... oh, abdomen!

TACO: ... how the crap did you know that?

KIDZOOKIE: I just did.

TACO: Okay, well, anyway, so you see how spiders aren't insects then.

KIDZOOKIE: How about worms?

TACO: What about worms?

KIDZOOKIE: They don't have any legs.

TACO: Well yeah. They're not insects.

KIDZOOKIE: My teacher says they're insects.

TACO: I think you must have misunderstood her.

KIDZOOKIE: No, she says they're insects.

TACO: She probably meant bugs. Some people call them bugs. 'Bug' is an imprecise term that encompasses...

KIDZOOKIE: Okay, Dr. Factoid.

Taco's other tree is... rabid?

It would seem that I collect odd trees.

This weekend I noticed that the oak tree in my front yard seemed off somehow. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I thought it might have something to do with the fact that the bottom of the tree was actively fizzing. So I went and googled the symptoms.

It turns out that my oak tree has slime flux. End result? The sap inside the tree is fermenting. This builds up pressure inside the tree, and it fizzes out, looking for all the world like my tree is foaming at the mouth. And the yard smells like cheap ass beer. Or maybe sour wine going to vinegar.

If we have to cut it down, I think I'm going to pay the tree guy extra to act out the ending of Old Yeller.

Best. Shopping. Trip. Ever.

My wife was out of town all last week, so our normal routine's way off. We wound up having to do the week's grocery run last night instead of our usual Saturday. Burn Notice hit the shelves this week, so I went over to electronics to pick up a copy while we were in the store.

There was a retarded guy over in electronics. Poor dude looked pretty sick. He was hooked up to an oxygen tank. But they were playing Stevie Ray on the demo stereos and dude was seriously into it. He was dancing around behind the cart, completely unself-conscious. I shot him a grin, because fuck, we should all enjoy music that much.

Dude danced over and gave me a high five.

In typical Taco fashion, I had no idea how to respond on the spot, and blurted out the first thing that popped into my head: "Rock the fuck on, man."

I panicked for a moment and wondered, irrationally, how much trouble you got for dropping the F-bomb on a retarded kid. But he just threw me a thumbs up and danced back over to his cart.

Best. Shopping. Trip. Ever.

Where There's Smoke...

My wife and kids are out of town right now, visiting with my father-in-law. I've been living the bachelor life for the past week (translation: too much beer, too many video games, too little sex).

My wife called this evening so that I could talk to the kids. My three year old daughter had a lot of questions about the new dog, and I was so caught up in how adorable her excitement over the new pet is that I failed to notice I'd tapped an extra zero in on the microwave.

So I told the microwave to cook my dinner for 30 minutes instead of 3.

I didn't notice this until there was thick, black smoke fucking POURING out of the microwave.

I slapped the microwave off, opened every window in the house, and turned on every fan in the house. I finally pulled the charcoal briquette that remained of my dinner from the microwave and hucked it still smoking into the trash. Amazingly, the fire alarm hasn't gone off. Yet. Perhaps that should concern me.

The smoke outside was already dense enough to make my eyes burn because of a wildfire in the eastern part of the state. At this point, I'll have to go outside into that poison to get some fresh air.

It stinks like death in here. And now it's hotter than hell because I'm not running the AC and cooling the outdoors. Damn it, I turned into my dad.

I find that I'm not a fan of Logitech

I bought a new mouse back in January... needed one to go with the new laptop. The most comfortable mouse I could find at the time was the Logitech MX Revolution.

What a piece of shit.

I dropped a hundred bucks on this damn thing because it was comfortable, ergonomic, and actually large enough for my damn hand.

Plus, it was a Logitech, and they make good stuff, right?

Right?

Bleh.

They used cheap ass rubber on the scroll wheel. Within a month, the stupid thing wasn't scrolling properly because the rubber had stretched out and was interfering with its operation. I contacted tech support, and they gave me the runaround for a few weeks. I finally gave up and just tore the damn rubber off.

This week, while I was setting the computer down, I caught it on the end table and snapped the RF receiver clean off. Totally my fault. I'm a dumbass.

So I hit Logitech's site to order a replacement. The replacement dongle is $10. Sweet.

Shipping for the damn thing?

$7.

For a receiver dongle about 2 inches long.

Last fucking Logitech product I ever buy.

Dear Logitech:

Fuck you.

Hate,
-Taco

Overheard at McDonald's

I forgot to bring my lunch yesterday, so I had to go out to get lunch. I didn't feel like going far, so I hit the McDonald's they have right here in the same shopping center where they (bizarrely) decided to plunk the office park where we work.

I generally eat my lunch at 11am because I hate people, and don't have to see many at that hour. Yesterday, though, I got involved in the work I was doing, and my usual lunch hour slipped away from me. I found myself at McDonald's around 12:15. The drive-through line wrapped around the building alarmingly, so I decided to go inside.

Inside was even worse, so my not-so-clever ploy was even less clever than I'd believed. Defeated, I consoled myself that at least I got to wait in the air-conditioned indoors. And didn't have to try to operate the trick window of my beat up car.

I passed the time by eavesdropping on the two ladies in front of me in line. One of them was clearly not from this country, but I couldn't begin to guess where she was from: she spoke British english, but not with a British accent. I couldn't place her accent, but that's not surprising, given that I am a provincial and ignorant American. The accent was lovely, and rather charming, so I continued to listen to the two friends chatting. Wherever she was from, 1) McDonald's (or perhaps American McDonald's) was a novel experience, and 2) they seem to have a problem with the French.

AMERICAN LADY: Okay, we'll get you a medium drink. You don't have to pay for refills here.

FOREIGN LADY WITH THE CHARMING ACCENT: Okay.

AL: Do you want french fries with your lunch?

FLWTCA: I don't want any French rubbish.

AL: No... they're not... we usually just call them 'fries.'

FLWTCA: I don't want any French rubbish.

AL: Do you like chips?

FLWTCA: [lights up] Oh, I love chips.

AL: Well, they're chips. Sorta.

FLWTCA: Oh. Okay, then.

Fuck you, Eclipse

So I'm running unit tests today, and the stack view in Eclipse is completely crapping out. It's horking error dialogs left and right:




Being a curious sort of guy, I click the details button to find out what the problem is:



Fuck you, Eclipse. Fuck you right in the fucking face.

Taco Spends a Day Off From Work

They turned us loose for Memorial Day. Amazing, really... the rule of thumb where I work is "If you have to ask, you don't get the holiday." Oh well.

What a fucking holiday weekend. Good weekend, just... Taco is le tired.

A buddy of mine got a ridiculously nice television a while back and was looking to unload his old only really awesome television for very little money, so we took him up on it. He had the weekend off so he drove it up here on Friday. I've never been a big TV watcher, but the price was too good to pass up, so we upgraded from our 25" college TV to a 46" high definition monstrosity. I could learn to be a TV guy on a television like this. Well... probably not... but my video games look damn good.

Speaking of which, I've put some miles on Dead Rising now that I have a high def TV (the font doesn't render properly on a regular television, so I've been unable to play it until this weekend). You get to run a bunch of zombies down with a lawn mower in the first 20 minutes or so of the game. I'm not sure there's ever been anything better.

We spent the day shopping. Wifezilla usually meets me for lunch on Mondays, and decided she'd still like to do so... by which she tricked me into hitting the sales. I agreed, somewhat reluctantly. She further bribed me by offering to go to a mediterranean place for lunch, so nom nom nom. Double word score: the store she took me to was having a memorial day sale, and I nabbed a Hurricanes jersey for $20. Not one of the super nice ones, but even so, fuck yeah.

We also hit the thrift store, which is usually just painful, but the book section today contained The Picture of Dorian Gray, Robinson Crusoe, and The Catcher in the Rye. Plus I picked up the latest Weird Tales at Barnes & Noble while we were out that way.

We didn't cook out. Wifezilla is trying to lose some weight, and I could stand to lose a bit myself. We ate turkey and salad instead. The Gods of Summer Holidays will undoubtedly enact punitive measures. I did have beer though, so they might let me by on a technicality. We'll see.

Kidzookie found my copy of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on the virtual console today and insisted upon playing it. I told him he was too little to play it, and we had an argument over it that ebbed and flowed for a few hours until I finally broke down and let him play under the condition that he not ask me how to do anything. He's gotten farther than I have in the game now. Go figure.

For about 10 years now I've had the Video Game Chair, a blue canvas camping chair that I use whenever I play games. It's lightweight and folds up to a tiny size, so it's easy to place wherever it's most comfortable to play, and easy to get the hell out of the way when I'm not playing so Wifezilla doesn't kill me. It finally died today while Kidzookie was playing Zelda. Truth told, I probably could have fixed the damn thing, but it's on its last leg anyway, and probably would have broken again within a few weeks. So instead, I insisted upon a quest for a new video game chair.

Wifezilla made the mistake of sending us on our own to replace old reliable. I found a kickass canvas chair complete with footrest and cupholder at the store. This chair is a serious contender for most comfortable seating in the house. Kidzookie mentioned that his own usual gaming chair wasn't comfortable any more (and probably isn't very comfortable, given the amount he's grown in the past year), so I bought him one, too. At this very moment, I'm sitting in mine with a beer in the cupholder, and kidzookie is sitting next to me playing
Zelda, a spill-proof cup of chocolate milk in his. Life is good.

And the dirty looks I expected from Wifezilla? Conspicuously absent: while I was taking the garbage out earlier, she snuck a seating on my chair, and upon my return insisted that I buy her one on my way home from work tomorrow :)

Damn it, Larry

WIFEZILLA: Look at these Mother's Day cards I got for our moms.

TACO: 'kay.

WIFEZILLA: Get it? Get it? "An 'extra mice' Mother's Day?" The cat has two mice.

TACO: Have you been hanging out with Larry?

WIFEZILLA: Fuck you, these cards are funny.

Checked by my mate

It's not great secret that wifezilla and I don't see eye to eye on design. We've "aggressively negotiated" on the subject many times over the years. Sadly, she lacks my refined sense of style. She has an unfortunate love affair with animal prints, you see.

I've waged a war against animal print in the house since the moment she moved in with me. Actually, the war probably dates back before then, back to when she started spending a significant amount of time at my place.

She frequently declares that when the children move out and she has a room just for her stuff, it will look (and I quote) "like a leopard fucking exploded." Although I haven't managed to keep the place jungle print free, I've done pretty damned well. No inside-out leopards anywhere.

So today, I had an eye exam. I'm generally a cash & carry kind of guy, but for once, I prepared ahead of time. Wifezilla takes care of paying all the bills, being the more fiscally responsible of us, so I hit her up for a blank check to take to the eye doc.

After my exam, I went up to the counter to settle up, unfolded the check to write it out, and got my first look at our joint checks... in all their giraffe-print glory.

I'm pretty sure the receptionist I had to hand that piece of art to thinks I'm gay now.

Richard Lewis is ancient.

Why does that make me feel so old?

Various and Sundry

1. Kidzookie has his first loose tooth. He's excited. I feel old.
2. I've made absolutely zero progress on the second draft of my story. Do I have to kill myself if I fail to deliver on a suicide pact?
3. Now that I'm computing in the mobile world again, I don't use my office much. Kidzookie's almost of an age to use the computer anyway, and once that starts, I want it in a public part of the house. So I've relinquished my office. Wifezilla and I are going through the bonus room, clearing out all the shit I still haven't unpacked since we moved in, and getting ready to redecorate it as a rec room of sorts. That's hard fucking work, but it's been fun. I've found some shit I haven't seen in years. She's letting me have a beer fridge up there, so yay.
4. I got a call the other day from the gummint about an old friend of mine I'd lost touch with. He got laid off from BEA the same time I did, and disappeared off the face of the earth. Evidently, he took a new career path and is getting signed on as a federal agent of some sort now. Guess I can stop worrying about him. Same day I found out my friend suyapi passed the bar and is all but officially a Law Talkin' Guy. So apparently if you know me, good shit's coming your way. Make sure you guys save a little of that good karma for me.
   
5. Mario Kart Wii dropped today. The kidzookies and I have racked up some miles. Between Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and WoW, my marriage may be in danger.
   

God bless alcohol.

I tricked wifezilla into shacking up with me seven years ago today. Somehow, I've survived irritating the shit out of her for 2557 days. Those of you who know me understand what an accomplishment that is :)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand we're back.

Quicker than I expected, too. I'm sure there will be some hitches here and there, but it looks like I've restored the forums, everyone's accounts, everyone's posts, everyone's avatars, our smileys... the whole 9. Let me know as you find bugs, of course, but in the mean time... tear it up!

Do you want the bad news or the bad news?

The ongoing saga of Taco's fucked up webhost and subsequent migration: the backups I've made of the forums database are all corrupt. I can't restore the forums to include the accounts & posts. I'm going to have to do a clean install.

Fuck. I really really fucking hate my old webhost.

Folks who use my website, please read this

I can't post it there because in a nutshell, my webhost sucks ass. And a good chunk of the guys I need to notify read this filth too :)

My site is down for the bazillionth time, and I've had it with them. I'm getting a new webhost tonight. I've already picked them out, and will be signing up as soon as I get home. I've backed up all my data, and will start getting it migrated to the new service tonight. Once I have everything migrated to the new site, I'll formalize the migration and cut the old guys loose.

There'll probably be a few days where you can't use my site. I'm really sorry for the inconvenience, but once it's done, things should hopefully be a lot more reliable.

On the bright side, the bulk of this should fall across the weekend, when the site's mostly dead anyway.

Sorry for the trouble. Please bear with me.

Taco's tree is emo.

A few weeks ago, as I left the house, I heard a steady drip-drip-drip of water into the mulch by my driveway. I've been through the water leak thing before, and it sucks, so I heaved a great big sigh, dropped my shit off in the car, and went back to try to find the leak.

There was a spot of damp mulch about 2.5 or 3 feet in diameter where water was still dripping at a steady pace. The limbs of the tree were soaked where it was dripping.

Shit. Nightmare visions of my house spraying water out onto the tree. It would be just my luck.

Except... the dripping was on the side of the tree that faces away from my house. And once I started thinking about it, there isn't any plumbing anywhere near the tree. wtf?

I set a trash can under the drip (waste not, want not... we're in a nasty drought), went to work, and promptly forgot about it. Until I got home and found a surprising amount of water collected in the trash can, and a continuing steady drip.

So I googled, and it turns out that river birches do this. Evidently, they can get all worked up in the spring, overdo it, and drip water all over the damn place.

Seriously. My damn tree is emo. On the plus side, I probably won't have to trim it any more if it starts cutting itself.

If it starts writing bad poetry, I'm cutting it down.

A happy today, indeed.

Taco: Take my hand. We'll make it. I swear.

Wifezilla: You're weird.

Taco: Well, yeah.

Wifezilla: Got you a happy today present. And no, I can't tell you.

Taco: Cool, what is it?

Wifezilla: Shut up. And there's two of them.

Taco: Omg is it boobs? I hope it's boobs.

Wifezilla: No. But maybe I can put them on top of my boobs.

Taco: Best. Wife. Evar.

Suicide Pact #3

I have entered in a third suicide pact with Coyote. Sadly, suicide pacts are the only things that seem to motivate me past my inherent laziness and lack of confidence.

It's a deadly combination.

I must produce a second draft of one of my short stories by May 1. Unfortunately, I have only one first draft, so that's all I can work with. I've been hiding from finishing this thing for nearly a year now. Shit.

I also must produce a new first draft by June 1. That'll be slightly easier, considering it doesn't have to be any good.

Damn it all. Why do I do this to myself?

On the plus side, I get to read some new stuff by Coyote.

When I Think About Me...

Taco: You are so hot.

Wifezilla: You are lying!

Taco: Nuh uh!

Wifezilla: Well, you are hot, too.

Taco: I know. Even I can't keep my hands off me.

Smack Talk

Sunday morning, Super Smash Bros. Brawl dropped. We loved Melee on das Gamencuben, so getting the new title for the Wii was a no brainer.

The kids and I dragged our asses out of bed and hauled on down to Target to pick up a copy. Target opens at 8, and I figured we'd be able to get a head start on the Christians going to church. They still had a huge stack of the game when we got there, and I was very proud of my cleverness... until I realized that I'd forgotten the time change, and Target had already been open for an hour when we arrived. I guess I needn't have worried so much.

We've put some miles on the game this week. Wifezilla even plays with us. They've kept the automatic handicap feature from Melee, so within a few fights, even my three year old daughter has a fair shot at winning a fight.

We've had a blast.

My son is six, and he's started to get the hang of the game. The handicap the computer assigns to me dwindles daily, and it's started to get really fun playing against him.

Unfortunately, I talk a lot of trash while I play without even realizing it. Last night, kidzookie was playing against his mom (and winning big time). He'd staked out a position on a ledge, and every time my wife would try to jump onto it, he'd send her flying, point at her, and yell, "Not in my house, little man!"

I couldn't stop laughing. Wifezilla was considerably less impressed.

Let it go, dude, just... let it go.

I got screwed over a while back (a few years ago?). Screwed over? Hell, not just screwed over... after I got served the whole shit sandwich, they came over, showed off how they screwed me over, and I had to make nice noises about how awesome they were for treating me like shit. Fun.

So I started off the morning retelling the story to a friend of mine. I can't remember how the subject came up, but there I went. It started off as just "let me illustrate your point about this person." By the end of it, I felt like shit and was shaking. I really underestimated how upset I still am by the whole thing. Fuck.

There's absolutely nothing I can do about it, for several reasons. Best I can do is learn from it and move on, and I've done my best to do that... but I guess I haven't moved on all that well, judging by my reaction when I made myself relive the whole thing this morning.

I can't remember where I encountered it, but I once heard or read something along the lines of this:

There's two kinds of things I don't worry about: things I can do something about, and things I can't.

This definitely falls into the second category. So just let it go, Taco. Srsly.

Stuff, Things, and Shit (Sorry, no Junk)

1. I got hung out to dry. I've gotten screwed at work before, but never this overtly. Angry Taco is Angry.
2. Piece of shit I used to be good friends with hurt awesome person I really fucking love's feelings. Angry Taco is Seeing Red.
   
3. I had to work late today because of the fuck up that I wasn't responsible for, and that the one responsible won't acknowledge. Angry Taco is Pissed.
4. This jackass in California decided to dick me over and make all kinds of noise about how important it was for him to get my fix as soon as humanly possible without actually answering my question about whether he had to have it tonight (accepting the fact that I'd be harder to reach outside business hours) or if he could wait until tomorrow. I didn't let him have it, but once I asked him point blank and couldn't get a straight fucking answer, I went home and let him stew for the hour and a half it takes for me to drive home, have dinner, etc. He's much more cooperative now. But he's still a fucknut. Angry Taco is Ready to Snap.
5. Wifezilla takes kidzookie out to the mall for Mommy & Son's Night Out (TM). I asked her to pick me up a technical book I really need, since there's a Barnes & Noble in the mall. She comes home and hands me the bag, which contains the book I needed... plus the only Christopher Moore book I don't yet own. I look up and she smiles and says I seemed to be having a bad day, so she and my son got me a present. Angry Taco is... Less Angry.
   

Hello... we're Taco and Coyote.

Coyote: What does it say about today that it’s only 9:20 and I’m already halfway through my third Johnny Cash CD of the day?

Taco: Have you tried taking them to Reno and shooting them just to watch them die?

Coyote: I was gonna save that for the weekend. I don’t wanna go to Folsom in the middle of the week.

Taco: Yeah, Folsom's pretty rough. When you're there, time just keeps draggin' on.

Coyote: Luckily I’m not named Sue. God knows what they’d do to me.

Taco: Can you cry? I heard that there once was a man and he couldn't cry. Hadn't cried for years and for years. In the end... well... it didn't end well for him.

Coyote: Not just cry, I can cry cry cry but I do that alone.

Taco: Sounds like the blues. Have you tried getting rhythm? I find that a jumpy rhythm makes you feel so fine it'll drive all your troubles from your worried mind.

Coyote: I tried that but it turns out that I walk the line. You can imagine my disappointment.

Taco: Better keep a close watch on that heart of yours. Last thing you want to do is fall into another ring of fire.

Coyote: I never should have given my love to Rose…

Taco: Shoulda just told her to give your other suit to the Salvation Army. And everything else you left behind.

Coyote: Yep, when the man came around he could have just taken it all.

Taco: Which man? The one on the left?

Coyote: Him there, next to Delia. Hey, I thought she was gone!

Taco: Yeah, they told she was going to Jackson.

Coyote: She’s been everywhere, y’know.

Taco: I'll bet she's in the jailhouse, now.

Coyote: And we’ve come full circle back to Folsom. Yay! Time to leave the glass cage. This was the funningest game ever.

Undone by my own jackassery

Taco: Now I'm giggling at the ongoing gag of the heroine's impotent petulance. I'm totally using that bit in one of the things I make up but don't write one day.

Coyote: Dude, you need to, if you haven't already, start a doc for all your ideas and notes so that when you open googledocs it's always right there, staring at you. Stop having awesome ideas and not doing stuff with them! I command it! Write more, damn it!!

Taco: Dude, you rock. I forgot that I had one of those, so I went off to add that nugget to it and found this one, which I'd forgotten: [removed because of that fucker who keeps stealing my half-finished stuff]

Coyote: Clearly I'm not doing enough begging on the make Taco write more battle front. I'll have to increase my efforts.

Taco: Taco is full of what we in scientific circles call "The Suck."

Coyote: The findings of the council are quite different. You wouldn't want to anger the council would you? They control all the mansex. And cheese. Truly they are powerful and wise.

Taco: *hypothesizes that Taco is full of The Suck*
Taco: *develops an experiment to test this hypothesis*
Taco: *performs said experiment*
Taco: *records findings*
Taco: *checks findings against his hypothesis*
Taco: *finds that, indeed, Taco is Sucktastic*
Taco: Yay for science!

Coyote: I can't help but notice that your findings and the details by which you came to those findings have not been put up for peer review. Also yay for science!

Taco: If I had any peers, I would put it up for their review ^_^

Coyote: Thank you for making my point for me. BOOYA!

Taco: Curse you, Richards!

I renounce my humanity.

I don't want to be associated with you fuckers any more.

I'm flipping through the channels tonight, and I see some lady missing and presumed dead, body parts found on the side of some highway, and a 3 month old infant found dead and probably tossed out of a car.

What the fuck, people?

I'm one of the most disagreeable sons of bitches you're likely to find anywhere. I don't like people at all. And I still can't imagine doing any of this shit.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

I don't want you fuckers messing up my rep anymore. I quit.

Mental Masturbation

That's my favorite thing to call it.

I write software. No big surprise there. Both of you that actually read this know that.

I really just want to be left alone to write good software. Again, no big surprise.

Management isn't so into that, because management isn't really into good software. They're more into preening for the guys above them in the pecking order.

Anyone surprised yet? I didn't think so.

So we have this system set up where people testing and using our software can report bugs in it. It goes through this whole process and eventually get assigned to the programmer best suited to fixing the problem. In theory, anyway.

Frequently, as we're working, we'll find bugs in our own code... and if we're busy with something else and don't have time to work on it right then (which is, of course, usually the case), we'll log a bug against it just to make sure it doesn't get lost. Sue us. We actually like developing software and give a flying fuck. Call us young and idealistic. I'm pretty sure the correct term is "dumbass." So I'll take it as flattery.

Corporate mandate says that the person who files the bug has to fix it... but what do you do when you file a bug that you have to fix? We have a whole QA group for this shit, right?

Wrong. The filer verifies it.

To hell with the fact that the person who fixes the bug is inherently unqualified to verify that the functionality is correct. I mean, I wrote the fix, so obviously, I'm going to bitchslap the fix and say it's insufficient, right? And forget the fact that I'm not really capable of getting outside my own head and using it in ways I didn't anticipate.

That's not important, right?

Nah.

So today I spent the whole fucking day... the whole fucking day... verifying several dozen... DOZEN... bugs I had filed against myself and fixed.

And I actually went through them and tested them, because despite the fact that it's stupid, I give a greasy rat's ass. And I even reopened two of them because of that whole rat's ass thing.

But come on... I'm an aberration. Is it really smart to count on all your devs being as fucking stupid as me?

Dear managementards: Laziness rules. I hate to inform you.

God.

The Wisdom of Kidzookie

On the drive back home tonight, kidzookie pipes up and asks his mom:

"Hey mom... why don't you have a brother? Is it because grandma and grandpa don't have sex any more?"

The Wang Whisperer

I recently switched over to a Mac laptop as my main computer at home, and I'm still experimenting with all the software options available to me on the new platform. I found a pretty serviceable chat program in Adium almost immediately and have been most pleased with it.

Last night, while digging through the applications folder for Shit I Haven't Tried Out Yet (TM), I found that the computer came with chat software already installed. Huh. Reasoning that anything so blessed by Apple must be very nicely integrated with the system, I decided to try it out.

It works well, but I wasn't able to get it to connect to everything I wanted all at the same time. I generally stay logged into AIM, ICQ, and GoogleTalk because there's people I chat with frequently on all three. It looks like I can do that with iChat, but I haven't figured out how yet. Still getting used to the way Mac does things.

Like most of the software I've fiddled with on OSX, it's very pretty, and adds nice little touches that make using it more intuitive and pleasant.

It decorates the chats so that what you and your chat partner type come up in word balloons (a la comic strips) in the chat window, making it look for all the world like your icons are talking to each other. You can turn this off, but I got a kick out of it and left it on.

Then Coyote logged on and I pounced on the not-nearly-often-enough opportunity to talk to him. And all hell broke loose.

You see, Coyote's icon is always a golden wang.

And last night, the golden wang talked to me, man.

It was... surreal.

Conversations From the Back Seat

Excerpts from conversations between my son and daughter, overheard tonight:

Conversation the first:

SON: Don't marry me when you get older. The baby would be really sickly.

Conversation the second:

SON: If you are gay when you grow up, you can marry a woman.

DAUGHTER: I don't wanna be gay.

SON: But if you're gay, you can marry a woman.

DAUGHTER: I don't wanna be gay. I wanna be a princess.

Party at Taco's House

So my father in law came up for his every-third-week chemo last night. Today was the appointment. They checked him out and declared that he no longer requires the chemo treatments. No word yet on whether he'll have to undergo the radiation treatment at the end. I think we find that out tomorrow.

Pants off dance off at Taco's house. Yay!

Karma karma karma karma karma...

...chameleon...

You come and go...

You come and gooo-oooo-ooo-ooo...





Yeah, I don't know, either.

Also...

...blah, blah, fucking blah. You know who you are. Shut up.

Breakdown (Let Me Hear It, Now)

Rock Band hit back in November. I resisted. Lord, how I resisted. I have Guitar Hero 3. I am immune.

One of my coworkers picked it up this week. We discussed the game at great length yesterday. The more he talked about it, the more awesome it sounded.

I needed this fucking game.

Fortunately for my immortal soul and for my marriage, John described in great detail just how hard it is to get Rock Band in San Francisco. He had to comb the city for it. When he finally found it online, he ordered it and arranged for an in-store pickup. It sells out there the second it hits the shelves, even after a couple of months. Think Wii, only not a childhood euphemism for micturation.

Hooray, thinks I, I'm still immune... for, though I have caved after lo, these many months of wanting an X-box 360, and lo, these two months of wanting Rock Band, the game is in scarce supply. I can't have it.

I hit Best Buy on my way home from work yesterday. It would seem that we on the east coast do not suffer from the San Franciscan hard rock drought. You know how sometimes gas stations will build elaborate structures out of soda can cases? Best Buy had built what approximated a 17th century well out of Rock Band cases. The display came up to my chest.

Of course, they were out of 360s.

As was everyone else in Wake County. Evidently, Raleigh is anti-San Francisco. If there was ever an earthquake that rocked the San Andreas hard enough to cause the two to touch, I'm quite certain the earth would be destroyed in the resultant explosion and outpouring of energy. God help us all.

Three hours of store-hopping later, I found one at Target. Score! I paged the guys covering the section, and one of them showed up, unlocked the console, and carried it over to the register...

...where he discovered it had already been opened. Target's policy is apparently to return opened consoles as defective and recover the cost, so they don't sell them once they've been opened and returned. And I didn't really want to pay retail for a used system. They checked the online inventory, but no Target within reasonable driving distance had one.

Fortunately, I had kidzookie with me, and kiddo was looking extremely sad over the prospect of not getting the only fucking 360 to be found within 50 miles. No sooner had I explained to the Target guy that I understood, he'd been more helpful than anyone I'd talked to so far that night (especially the gotard at GameSpot who couldn't even fucking tell me whether they had any 360s in stock), and thanks for your time, than he asked me to hang on and paged his manager.

Manager lady showed up, and electronics kid told her my sob story. She got a load of my sad, sad little boy who was bravely accepting the loss of the 360, and offered to sell it to me against store policy at a 20% discount.

I love Target.

So I got the mid-range X-box 360 pro with Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Forza for the price of the crummy Arcade Edition.

The reviews for Ultimate Alliance paint it as a mediocre game. That's about right. It's fun, but not great... but fucking sweet for a free game

Forza is awesome... think Gran Turismo, except they actually model damage and actually let you paint your fucking car.

And then I stopped for Rock Band on my way home.

God Damn.

Rock Band may very well own my immortal soul. It was developed by the original Guitar Hero guys. It's fan-fucking-tastic.

1. The guitar. It feels cheap compared to the Guitar Hero controller. It's flimsier, made of thinner plastic. It's got more controls, but it feels cheaper. I'm not in love, but it's serviceable... it works well, it just feels cheap. Mad Catz is supposed to release a controller for it eventually, so I'll look into that when it comes out.
2. The microphone. It's well-made. It's heavy. I don't know if they weighted it to make it feel more substantial or what, but it feels like a solid piece of equipment. I sang (badly) into it for a while last night. It works well. On easy mode, the vocal tracks are very forgiving and easy to pass. I hear they're pretty fucking tough at high levels. We'll see as we get there... maybe I can lure wifezilla into the game with the mike. You can use more or less any headset/mike combo with the game as well, so I'll try to sell it as a song & choreography combo a la her favorite performers.
3. The drums. Jeebus. These things are the shit. They're really solid. Good aluminum struts, solid drum pads... the thing feels really solid. I played the drums for hours last night. I'm not good at drums, but fuck they're fun. Plus I get to hit shit.

I'm on my second evening with the 360 and Rock Band now. Well into the point where buyer's remorse usually sets in... except instead of the usual taste of stale beer and sadness, it's OMGWHYAMINOTPLAYINGROCKBANDRIGHTFUCKINGNOW?

OMG.

SRSLY.