Whenever I tell someone I’m too busy for something, their immediate response is to explain to me how busy they are. Rarely am I actually convinced that they are somehow too busy, but they like to compete on hecticness of lives. One mile in my shoes…just one. I have a fair amount of empathic sense for other people and how they tread, and I often catch myself simply being cynical, but please believe me when I say: I’m busier than you are.

I’m not making an excuse, or polite conversation. Nor am I bitching, in reality. If I say to you I am too busy, it means I have no more than fifteen minutes of free time that day that is not dedicated to sleep. If I go into detail, it is ENTIRELY because no one believes someone who simply says, “I’m too busy that week.”

So if you have to go to the bank AND the grocery store in the same day, don’t tell me. Just say, “Shit, man, maybe next time.” And I won’t eviscerate you in my imagination and intentionally ignore you the next time I am free. Fair warning to those who call themselves my friend.

p.s. Those of you who know me: if you think I’ve given up on people, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The ntoskrnl of my games PC has gone tits up, so to speak. I spent most of my weekend trying to correct it without losing gads of data, all the while attempting to deal with power supply and XP issues on the Frankenstein machine I created for my aunt.

All indication is that I was hit with a virus, though how I am not sure. I use my PC for games exclusively. No email, no internet but the occasional firefox troll for patches to games. I am careful to get only authorized things. And now, my games PC is on the fritz. I am going to recover my Neverwinter Nights games and not worry too much if I’ve lost anything else, but still I am so tired of Windows I could puke. I have a desperate plea to developers everywhere: develop your games and software for multiple platforms. With Mac OS now using a Unix environment, it should be getting easier and easier. Stop with this sort of lazy, backwards M$-subservient garbage and start taking pride in your work being stable and secure.

I know PC aficianados everywhere will tell me that it’s my own fault that Windows broke down. I must have done something to make it happen. There is some truth there, I’m sure, but it is Windows fault that it is so difficult to repair the problem. I have gone above and beyond the call of duty on maintenance and repair.

I guess I’m done bitching. I have another 8 hours of my free time to devote to clearing windows troubles.

Here’s a synopsis of how this works.

1. MHG has best intentions. She wants to send Valentines to vets. Very nice.
2. At the last moment, she gets an idea to give our gaming group the opportunity to help out..
3. She is unavailable to make this happen and asks me politely to make a handoff to Loricious after work.
4. Technically, I’m unavailable, but since I don’t like MHG to be disappointed, I make arrangements to go home at lunch to get the Valentines.
5. It takes my entire lunch hour due to Milwaukee morons and my sudden need for gas to make this happen. MHG is unavailable to ask which Valentines to handout, so I take all of them, hoping to contact her later.
6. I came in too late to take a long lunch and so must now decide whether I risk further sullying my work reputation in order to eat.
7. I get the Valentines to Loricious provided all goes well.
8. Loricious takes the Valentines to game. They are ignored by everyone other than Loricious, in all likelihood.
9. Loricious now has a bunch of Valentines, several of them unsigned, but we need to make arrangements to pick them up so we can get them to the vets by Monday.
10. Loricious is possibly difficult to meet up with, as she is a very busy person. If she can meet up, MHG and I feel guilty for making her life even more hectic over this drop-off.
11. Vets get Valentines signed hastily by MHG and me, toss said Shrek schlock into garbage summarily.

The sentiment of this Valentine’s Day: I am a bitter, jaded man.

A tale of an Evil Strawberry. Thanks to Bill Wilson for the link.

Thanks to birthday girl, Keiko, who invited MHG and me to a hafla (that’s belly dancer talk for “gig”) benefit. Barika danced to Blondie’s Rapture. That’s pretty sweet.

The highlight of my evening, though, came the next day. Keiko had invited us afterward to eat korean food at Han Kuk Kwan, a nice little place where Izumi’s used to be. Jazzed after good conversations and gyrating hips, I was pretty hyper and I had to apologize to the waitress for acting up. She seemed unphased, as a good waitress will be.

Later, our American round-eyed devil faces were turned to her as she explained some of the dishes and how to turn lettuce into your feeding tool, when unluckily Keiko’s hot miso* sloshed over the bowl’s side and onto her arm and sweater. Her friends all offered napkins and condolences, hoping that she wasn’t scalded. As the commotion dissolved, the five of us noticed that the waitress had never discontinued her monologue.

After dinner, it was determined in each of our heads that her earlier smoke break involved limited amounts of tobacco.

The day after, MHG and I conversed as we drove. She relived the scenario in story form, and when she reached the part about the waitress, her exact words sounded like she might be channelling a David Cross or Denis Leary.

“I was thinking, ‘Can you slow down on the soliloquy for a sec, Hamlet, and get us a few napkins?'”

Is it any wonder that I love her?

* – not an innuendo, though Keiko was looking pretty scorching.

I think a better slogan for memorializing the 9/11 disaster would be “Always Remember” rather than “Never Forget.” I think this is proof that priorities in this country are in the wrong place.

Remember: the lives lost, the pain and the emptiness of hope at watching American symbols destroyed and the shining example of America’s greatest principles in the men and women who united in New York and D.C. to get America back on her feet.

Remember: the world coming together to show support for the United States, even after mocking our election.

Remember: an America before 9/11, unafraid and willing to stand for freedom instead of vengeance.

Remember: how terrorism can tear apart a country long after the attack, and how it makes fear into a political weapon.

Always Remember.

Ze Frank lets us all in on stress management techniques for a modern world. The dripping disdain he evidences while reading the first email left a puddle on my desk. And I lapped at it joyfully, knowing there are kindred spirits out there.

Thanks CG and wherever you may have found it.

a warm toilet seat… for about three seconds*.

* – the approximate length of time before your brain starts wondernig “Why is this toilet seat warm?”

I’m not so certain that the cross should be the symbol for good any more. It certainly wouldn’t be Christ’s choice. In that way, I sort of hope that Christian mythos is true. Christ would come back and see all these people trying their best to love and serve one aonther, be humble, and unite the world in peace, but they’d be home playing video games on Sunday morning. Then, he would see churches dedicated to him with rich, ornamental crosses and say “WTF?* Do you guys realize how much that hurt? You assholes. I’m moving to Canada.”

Rate some sites here. Note that “The Holy Bible” is still 1% evil. Probably mostly in Leviticus, but my doesn’t that stuff get brought up a lot.

Thanks to BB for the link.

* – He’s ominpotent, dude. The Son of God. That’s the 1337est of 1337. He’d be up on the lingo.

My problems are three:

1. I have what the polite refer to as a “friendly face,” and what the impolite refer to as “the visage of a warped Cabbage Patch Kid who’s grown up in the slums of Beirut and pulled out all of its yarn hair.” Somehow, despite this somewhat intimidating description, my recent Maori facial tattoos, the even more recent lacerations by broken bottles graciously bestowed upon me by an offended Tribesman, and the intense facial reconstructive surgery that resulted, I get approached by strangers approximately 1372% more than anyone I know.

2. I desire, nay *require*, a fair amount of alone time. Time when the world around me no longer exists and I am a contemplative, perhaps even hallucinogenic mushroom feeding porously on the wastes of man and cowkind. Often, this is called “lunchtime,” as it is a welcome reprieve from maintaining my professionalism and kind demeanor in the face of unhalting ignorance.

3. I do not have, as many people do, a map of my fair city laid out in my head. When I moved to Milwaukee, I needed only to know where three places were, and the rest was Mapquest. After living here for five years, I am on the precipice of a breakdown dealing with highways that do not always travel the direction they are designated. 94W goes North into Milwaukee and West out of it, 43S comes into Milwaukee from the North and leaves to West as well. 894S? I haven’t the slightest idea. When I drive somewhere in Milwaukee, I need specific directions, or I end up in Beloit. It’s as simple as that.

These three problems lead to this all too common occurence:

11:30 a.m.

With half my day behind me, I mindlessly slump my jacket onto my shoulders, zip up, and move down the back stairs into the street. The honking and screaming of the drivers maneuvering around me now go unnoticed. I am alone. In a world of noise, I am silent, recessed entirely into self and daydreaming little daydreams of video game dominance. My subconscious shifts me effortlessly out of the path of oncoming pedestrians, my feet tread determinedly toward destiny: Cousins.

The Red Hand, my id murmurs. We always must stop for The Red Hand. Roving, my eyes return to me only the data needed to keep from stumbling. I am immersed now in conversations that have not yet happened but in the babbling time-stream of my mind. Chilled from river winds, my thighs burn with anticipation of motion. We always must stop for The Red Hand.

And another warning, this one from the rotund scouts in the front of my face. A car, red if that matters. A passenger, an older woman if that matters. Her window is going down. Brain, I hate to call when you’re on vacation, but…

“Excuse me young man, where is the train station?”

“…midgets…”

“Young man?”

“Uh. Wow.”

“Yes?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Thank you.” Window rolls up. “I’m not certain about this policy of letting the mentally disabled out on their own…”

Dammit Brain! demand the eyes, Where were you on that one? Where it always is when I get asked directions while walking downtown: elsewhere.

This scenario, without exaggeration, replays on every lunch journey I make alone. I have observed in despair as vehicles brimming with the lost troll past cafe employee after police officer after land surveyor only to home in on me as their beacon in the bewildering sea of street signs. And more often than not, I send them away disappointed and perhaps more confused. On the rare instance that I have known where to send the person, my brain only fessed up to the interrogation long after I had shrugged ashamedly and forced away the inquisitor with their loathing of me.

Please, if you see a bald, jolly-looking fellow plodding the street, reciting Family Guy scenes in a mumble and snickering lowly to himself, leave him be.

Related note: Czeltic Girl (who, if driven around Milwaukee in the trunk of a car, blindfolded and asked how to get there from here, would laugh in your face at the simplicity of your request) lunches with me frequently. Naturally, no one asks when she’s around. The closest we get is an impromptu wedding officiated by a friendly, drunken panhandler.