This Blog Is Full Of Crap

Normally, I post a Blogging Will Be Light first thing in a day, but today was an extra-special day because of METRO.

The 9 arrives at 0651. New driver. I swipe my card and sit down.

The driver gives me shit for not paying fare and smacks the farebox a few times.

"I used my Q-pass."
"What that?"
"I used my Q-pass. You know - Q-pass?"
"Oh, right."

The driver then goes along the route, hits the 527 Spur, and then heads into Chinatown.

I believe I learned the Spanish phrase for "What the fuck?" because it was said many a time and loudly.

She eventually got sorted out, headed for St. Joe's, and ran Downtown.

"I need to get off here to catch the 102."
"I can't drop you off."
"No, really. If I don't get off right now, I'm going to have to wait 30 minutes. This corner."
"I can't drop you off." (tape loop)

So she takes the turn around Milam, cuts back on Pierce, and dumps me there.

I sprint for the corner, but I'm too late. Bitch could have dropped me to catch the 102, but instead her loop fucked me over big time.

I waited the 30, texted and listened to tunes for a bit, and then the next 102 comes around.

I board, wave the Q-Pass and sit down.

Once again, driver gives me shit for not paying fare.

I show him the Q-Pass, the driver gets huffy about not needing to see it sit back down blah blah blah, and I text unsweet nothings to Mary Sit and Qpass@ridemetro.org.

METRO, you fucking sucked today.

Paris Hilton may be going to jail for violating her probation.

As if she can't just turn sideways and slip between the bars.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly where it is that the guy with the wok "satellite dish" is actually beaming signal to a satellite, but in all it's a very clever and cheap jury-rig of components.

If Jim Stanley had seen this article while still a chief engineer, he'd be buying up woks and making Rob weld them together into satellite dishes.

Apparently, there's some kind of issue with Crystal Clear the past day, but I went ahead and recorded a Crap in the Morning show for today.

I really don't want to go back to doing that SkypeCast on Sundays. I'm still irritated at Andrew for ordering a shit sandwich and expecting for me to bite off more than I can chew.

I've made shitade out of this shit, and it's fabulous.

Too bad that the shitade stand's falling apart.

Oh well. Shit happens.

To get to the other side, of course.

The other side... of the Life-Death Barrier, that is:

A pedestrian was hit while walking close to the North Freeway early this morning, the Harris County Sheriff's Department reported.

A woman was walking near the feeder road of North Freeway between Airtex and Dominion Park in north Harris County. She stepped into the roadway and was struck by a car.

The woman was taken to a hospital in serious condition.

Serious condition? Not dead?

FAIL!

Nardo decides that my chair needs a cat in it...

Mission accomplished.

I find it sad that this "SoHos of Tomorrow" article does not include SoHo Island in Second Life.

Art galleries... check.
Night clubs... check.
Music scene... check.
Events and happenings... check.

I mean, could SoHo Island be any more happening now that it's got a house made out of matzoh?

I've got to finish the tomatoes, hummus, and matzoh ball radio with carrot knobs tonight.

I should probably snap photos of the models I made at home, too. It's been an awfully silly week in the kitchen, folks.

February ratings book is over, and Radar the Weatherdog has been relieved of on-air duties...

As for station fortunes rising and falling because of Radar, evidence is inconclusive. KPRC has languished in third place in previous ratings periods. In February, it fell to No. 4 station in Houston as KRIV/Channel 26 moved up.

I love it when one of the traditional Big Three comes in fourth.

Based on this performance, Radar's on-air duties have distracted him from his more important role as General Manager.

An customer is threatening to cancel over and over because we won't manage his box for him.

We're low on inventory, so if this guy cancels, that box can be sold to someone that actually has some semblance of server management skills.

Our willingness to go that extra mile outside the scope of support for customers that have a long history of bumming free band-aids off of us drops considerably when Sales is sitting around with thumbs up their asses and nothing to sell.

The customer barks again... and tells his tech to cancel the account in an email that he cc's to us.

I close the ticket of his problem that he wants us to solve, assuming he's going to cancel.

I'll be amused tomorrow if there's a huge monkey shit-fit in the ticket tomorrow over "Why did you close this ticket on me? Why didn't you kiss my boo-boo and make it better?"

Well, when a moron stabs himself in the ass repeatedly with a butcher's knife, we're not about to kiss his ass. Yeah, we'd love to kick it, but that's just not Texan, pal.

TECH HAIKU:
Threaten to cancel?
Inventory's running low.
We need that box... bye!

I had this dream last night where I went to that Rainbow Bridge place where dead people meet up with their dead pets in the Herebeyond and they get to be with them forever and forever and forever and...

The bridge was a cheap cardboard bridge.
The trees were cardboard cutouts.
The river was just painted on the concrete gym floor.

Then I thought about a Second Life island where people could purchase permanent memorials to their beloved pets, posting photos and maybe even playing with ghost variants of their pets on the island, a huge transparent rainbow coming from the skies, catnip crass fields and... and.. and...

STOP! STOP!

THIS IS SO FUCKING GAY AND STUPID!

THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I'M BUILDING THIS SHIT!

Blogging will be light today because I'm having trouble keeping my ego in check.

It's about the size of a bison right now. Or possibly a yak. But I am certain it is the size of some wolly, cloven-hoofed creature in the half-ton size range. Something you don't want to hit while speeding down the Montana highways.

Or, as they say... Beef: It's In The Fucking Road!

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

Poofytail is a neighbor's cat that likes to go out, hunt various small things, and meow happily while proudly waving her massive fluffy tail around in the air.

Okay, so you never get to see her pretty kitty face... he was focused on the cricket and didn't look up when I clicked my tongue.

Here she is, hunting:

The Modulator hosts Friday Ark.
Carnival of the Cats is Sunday.

I think the new homestead in Second Life's SoHo is ready to eat...

Built by Crap Mariner, just in time for Pooh-rim.

Score it an E1, E2, E4, E6, E7, E9?

Okay, I'll admit it. I've been shirking my METRO Is Full Of Crap duties recently.

I hope this satisfies your desire for the twisted hyperlocal satire you've come to expect from there.

Although, I've got to admit, it is interesting getting an insider's perspective on functions within METRO many just take for granted.

I won't admit that it's worth the price.

Because it isn't. I'd rather that bus drivers not get lost and harass people nice enough to test their new fare card system for them... I'm sure that money would pay for three or four guys with whiffle bats to smack drivers who pull that sort of crap on customers.

I repeat: customers.

Hell, based on the taxes we pay and METRO being a public entity, screw customers. We're owners.

New Post Office Motto: Stare At Racks, Not Clocks

You know that whole Yucca Mountain thing?

I've decided that the answer to the problem of marking long-lasting nuclear waste with "This shit will kill your ass" messages that future generations will understand is: do nothing.

Just dump it in a pit, tell every where it is, post up signs in English and a few other common languages, and then guard it diligently until it's time for the next generation to stand at post.

Why should we worry about trying to figure out where things are headed in 100 generations linguistically and symbologically. Instead of our generation worrying about the 100th generation knowing what's under there, leave it to the 99th generation to tell their children about it.

Of course, the first 98 generations leading up to that generation will have had to maintain the massage with integrity and emphasis, but I figure once you have a generation that doesn't consider passing the "This shit will kill your ass" message along as a priority, fuck 'em. Let 'em die.

This plan will work - trust me. Over time, each generation will examine the culture, make any updates or changes to the text on the signs to ensure they don't get stuck with the equivalent of VCR instructions in Chaucerian English, and then tell everyone that in 40 years, it'll be time to review the warning signs.

As for any fears that civilization-ending disasters wipe all memory of the place might result in some Thundarr The Barbarian unearthing of Yucca Mountain, well, Ariel Ooklah - fuck you, too, too.

Thundarr sucked, man.

I'm a little confused by the headline "Twister victims were told to stay in school."

Well, duh. Every goddamned rock star, althete, actor and actress, politician, and Jewish mother tells their kids stay in school over and over.

What next? Bitching that they were told not to do drugs?

I went ahead and ordered Steve Graham's new book from Amazon.

Based on the shipping fees, I believe Amazon is the Ticketmaster of... well, stuff.

Ticketmaster fucks you on events.
Amazon fucks you on stuff.

I wonder if the H in his name stands for Hog.

I was so irritated over this one, it's taken me a day to compose my thoughts on it.

Yesterday, we get a notice that there's a huge pile of crap with the old company's logo on it.

Well, once it was promotional material.

Now, it's crap .

Why is it crap ? Because:

• It's all crap nobody needs.

• It's ugly.

• Some jerk decided to sit on all this stuff instead of giving it away to customers or potential customers. So instead of it being promotional material, it just gathered dust until it became worthless crap.

I remember having it out with other "promotions" people who sit on hoards of promotional material instead of giving it away to people who wanted it.

I don't own much promotional material from past jobs, because when people asked for it, I gave it away.

Happened a lot at Rodeo Cookoff. I'd help with getting a satellite truck back to the station (Okay, I was drunk off my ass and needed a ride back in a vehicle other than the shuttle bus), and folks would halt us with Stand And Deliver poses.

Being a Nice Guy At Heart, I'd laugh and hand the stuff out.

When I'd ask for more from the promotions material hoarder-in-chief, they'd ask what I did with the stuff they gave me before.

"I gave it away to people to build loyalty," I'd say. "You know... your job?"

Wine ages. Cheese ages.

Promotional material turns into crap.

Sure, I'm going to hold on to an inventory of the magnets for prizes for the Weekly Challenge. I've got envelopes pre-stuffed, Certificates of Dubious Authority printed up, and CD cases with blank CDs ready to burn the archives on to.

But aside from that, but I'm going to keep some with me at all times to give away to folks that want them.

Why?

Because it's promotions material.

And not crap.

So when they went around asking what stuff people wanted, I said "Tampons."

I'm sure somewhere in that pile of crap, they had 'em.

I got the contract renewal offer for IFOC. This was my response:

Unless 100 Word Stories is added to Pajamas Media as a featured podcast, my response is for you to print this out and shove it.

Awaiting your response.

-ls

A large portion of my final check will be to buy copies of Steve H. Graham's new book so I can give it out as a gift to friends and Weekly Challenge winners.

I'd write Steve to ask how I can get an autographed copy, but the man's a busy man.

Should I ask Aaron and Moxie to sign one instead?

I have a cut on my chin. It won't heal up properly.

So I shaved my face and put some gunk on it.

When you have a beard and mustache for a while, your mind forgets what your face looks like.

Or, more properly, your mind remembers your bearded face as your face, and you don't recognize the beardless one.

Walked to Best Buy to pick up "Borat" and the latest Christopehr Guest improv movie.

No "Borat," but "Stranger Than Fiction" was there.

Also picked up the 2005 Rich Springfield album as well as the Smithereens' covers of the Beatles.

When I get ten Wacky Adventures retracked, I'll reward myself with a movie and some music.

Blogging will be light today because there's an all-employee conference call in the middle of the day.

Nobody has any idea what it's about, or those who do know aren't telling.

Frankly, my dear, unless it's to announce employee discounts for servers or to give a timetable for moving the offices from BFE to Downtown, I couldn't give a rat's ass.

Besides, anything that's going to happen, it will happen.

And there's nothing I can do about it.

Who was the comedian who suggested that if you've fallen out of an airplane and you don't have a parachute, you should act like you're swimming? You know, just to screw with anybody who happens to see you?

Look at me, everyone! I'm doing the Australian Crawl!

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

Carnival of the Cats is coming up on its three-year anniversary, and we head over to Tacjammer to witness the awesome might of Mycah the Merciless.

So, with all that said, who is Catmodel of the Week?

It's the venerable and wise Keefe of Mind Of Mog.

Catmodel of the Week is determined by the number of clicks a cat receives in The Catmodel Gallery.

If you'd like to add your blogging kittycat to the Carnival of the Cats homepage banner, just send me the 4-by-3 photos in JPEG format and I'll get them added.C

It's time once again for Kitty Movie Monday...

Nardo's such a help with the laundry, he's got two movies up this week.

On top of that, he decided to bisect my half of the bed so I wouldn't have room to sleep.

Shove... shove... meow! Shove... meow!

John Belushi, still dead.

Okay, so Spring's not quite here yet, but that won't stop me from throwing some veggies on the grill and eating the hell out of them...

My mother-in-law sent us some seasoned salts and rubs, so I spiced up the asparagus with garlic-herb rub in addition to the usual olive oil.

Not bad at all.

The skewers are those seasoned skewers... I kinda forgot to get plain-old bamboo skewers, and I didn't feel like polishing the living daylights out of the metal ones I've got sitting around.

As for the all-veggie festival, I figure until I reach 200 pounds, there won't be any steaks grilling here. Sure, I might do some chicken or salmon now and then, but no beef.

Oh, and the planks from last season were still soaking in the plank-tub. Along with a bunch of white wriggly things.

They both got tossed.

Just like clockwork, METRO threw a new driver at the 9 route this morning.

They were late as all hell getting to the stop, and they got me Downtown just in time to watch the 102 burn rubber up Travis.

Lovely.

Instead of sitting out in the cold, I took the 56 through The Third World to Gunspoint.

I tried to write the story for Episode #1,000, but I still haven't quite hit the nail on the head.

First attempt was a retarded Jew nailing a fish to the door frame instead of a mezuzzah.

Next was a guy telling kids to stop using his pool.

After that, The Angel of Death jerking off on the back of his pale horse.

I tried to come up with something about the lovely bus system, but other 100 Word Stories writers have done a far better job of it than I can.

I try anyway, and the bus is on fire before I get to 20 words.

Nope. None of them are Thousand-Worthy.

Back to the drawing board.

In case you can't see Nardo in the dark movies I put up earlier, here he is in all his idiotic glory...

What does your cat do with freshly-washed laundry?

For those of you unfamiliar with Second Life wishing to attend tomorrow's grand semi-opening of my deranged Matzohenge (search for "SoHo Island" and wander around... you'll find it.) creation, I'd strongly suggest getting an account today, go through Disorientation Island to learn the interface, and find something a little less bland to wear.

I should have things as ready as they're going to be around 18:00 SLT tomorrow, which is Pacific Time.

No, I don't plan on playing hip-hop or mashups or mixes. No poseballs or danceballs laying around, unless someone decides to scatter them all over.

Klezmer. Wall-to-wall Klezmer.

Well, with occasional interruptions for 100 word stories. (I still need to pick out the ones I'm going to read, and it would make sense for me to Thincbook publish a volume of them)

It'll be the first time I've tried to Shoutcast from within world, so if it all blows up, feel free to laugh at my expense.

Oh, and I'll be giving away 100 Word Stories Fridge Magnet sets in a raffle. Just drop a notecard in the mailbox on the front of Matzohenge with your name, what you think of the place, and any suggestions you have.

The drawing will take place at some point in the evening.

The tech next to me is on the line with an ex-customer who only had dialup internet service, not webhosting.

Since they didn't bother reading the tons of warnings and alerts sent out to them before the cutoff date, now they're trying to weasel their way into having us support them, even though we don't have their account anymore.

They won't give their account ID or anything identifying them correctly.

"What's the address of your website?" the tech calmly asks.

The ex-customer doesn't know.

Finally, they give their name.

Tech looks it up, confirms that they're dialup, and the ex-customer still wants to wrestle.

Folks, if you don't know your own website address and you're looking for help, stop looking - you're just fucked.

Just in case you thought that METRO wasn't full of crap anymore, think again.

All this, and he still puts me to sleep after three minutes of listening to him.

Just in case you thought Bobby Brown could be more of a dick...

Almost as soon he was sprung from jail by a radio station's money, Bobby Brown and Hot 99.5 FM bailed on the deal.

The 38-year-old R&B singer spent three nights in a Massachusetts jail last week for failing to pay child support. He was released after the station paid the $19,150 he owed on the condition that Brown appear on The Kane Show for a week. He was to discuss the case and how he could turn his life around during studio appearances beginning Monday.

But Brown backed out of an on-air phone interview with the morning show Friday, saying he hadn't agreed to be an employee of the station.

"That wasn't our deal," said Brown, who hung up after Kane pressed him.

Oh well. It could have been worse.

Blogging will be light today because my alarm didn't go off.

Sure, I woke up at 06:20 on my own instead of 06:00 with mechanical assistance, but I still think I can use my alarm not going off for an excuse for everything today.

My spelling sucks today? Alarm didn't go off.
Pissed on the seat? Alarm didn't go off.
Punched out a punk-assed afternoon shift supervisor for not getting his lame-fuck techs on the phones by 15:00 like he's supposed to? Alarm didn't go off.

It's 08:00 now. Shift change is at 15:00.

I'm pretty sure I will wake up by 15:00 and shake free of this whole alarm-clock lag thing, but there's no telling.

That afternoon shift supervisor can be a real serious punk-assed lame fuck.

Probably takes correspondence courses in it in between ping-pong games.

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

The guy who drives the early 9 bus i nthe afternoons screwed me over yesterday. I was at the stop at 4:41 and the bus didn't show.

Jerk was early.

So, I took a later 9, and saw this as I walked along the sidewalk:

Big grey kitty.

Nice.

Deskmerc helped me out last night by performing the painfully simple task of making transparent alpha-layer backgrounds for my onions and carrots.

Matzohenge now has onions and carrots for tables instead of boring matzoh end-tables. (Still 3 prims!)

So, I used the last of my yeast to create...

That's right. Garlic Parmesanocchio.

Is it a feast or a friend? Only Deskmerc can decide.

Nardo can be such a little bastard sometimes.

Here's his tummy:

Now that Piper's not around to protect us, Nardo's a royal pain in the ass when he's bedcat, walking around and demanding to be pet, or biting the hands that refuse to pet him.

He's also gotten very skilled at tangling up our legs when we try to sleep. Divide And Conquer is a game for him, blocking off large portions of the bed and demanding attention.

It hasn't quite come to the point of Stomp The Nerdboy yet, but accidents can happen.

LisaViolet created Tummy Tuesday.

I suggest you find a cat tummy and join.

Or else.

The Houston Chronicle says that "Showers Return To Main Street Fountain" but they're more of a bath-urinal for the homeless in that area.

The Astros didn't just shitcan one pitching coach at the end of 2006, but two.

Russ Springer's has been a vital part of the bullpen, teaching the younger pitchers and sharing his experience.

Well, those days are over, but at least there's one good thing that remains...

He contemplated retirement after that season before signing a minor league deal with the Astros on June 19, 2004. After 26 outings with Class AAA New Orleans, he was called up Aug. 22.

Before throwing a pitch in the majors that year, Springer had delivered in the clubhouse. He arrived in New Orleans only a few days after Qualls was taken out of the starting rotation and told he would be groomed as a reliever with the Zephyrs.

Qualls was pitching out of the bullpen for the first time in his life, and he was admittedly clueless before Springer began working with him.

"He pretty much taught me everything I know up until this day," Qualls said. "So even last year throughout the year if I had any questions I'd go straight to Russ. He'd just tell me it straight. If I was doing something wrong, he'd tell me I was doing it wrong and tell me how to do it right."

Springer also didn't waste time proving he could still pitch in the majors, going 0-1 with a 2.63 ERA over 16 appearances in 2004. Qualls also made it up to the majors for the Astros' stretchrun, going 4-0 with a 3.55 ERA and one save over 25 games that season.

Qualls listened to what Springer said and finished that season as Astros Rookie of the Year in 2004.

By 2005, Qualls had become one of the Astros' most important relievers.

Okay, two: Qualls and friendships.

Chad didn't have such a great inning yesterday, facing 5 in an inning and depending heavily on a lucky double-play. But he'll get the flyball-grounder numbers back under control eventually as long as he's listening to Ru-

Oh crap.

I am always picking up new Pez dispensers.

But I can't eat the candy, since I am on a diet and my doctor said ZERO CANDY.

Oh, and I'm horribly cheap, so I hate to waste the candy.

So that's why I bring it in to work for my coworkers to devour.

The IRC channel is a white elephant at this point.

Not sure why they still host it.

None of the other departments pay attention to the customers in it.

I am not their receptionist, doormat, or doorbell.

But then I volunteer to catch their attention, I do not appreciate getting Why? in response from them when I tell them someone's asking for their department's help.

Maybe they should ask the person themselves?

You know... the customer? The person sending money in our direction, expecting something in return?

The Matzohenge "Unveiling" will be at 18:00 SLT, or 20:00 Texas Time.

Look for the house made of matzoh on the shore of SoHo Island.

Or, ask Crap Mariner for a tp, even though I may be horribly busy at the time.

I'll be tinkering with the Shoutcast server and client before then, so anyone wanting to help test it should toss me an IM (isfullofcrap) via the usual chat networks.

No, I won't have T-shirts or other items available that you'd just end up tossing into your Trash folder. And fake drinks and food (besides the house itself) won't be served.

If you want the textures, sure, I can hand 'em to you. No problem with that.

Just a bit of music, a bit of me blithering a bit here and there, and maybe the sight of me doing some last-minute builds or adjustments.

Blogging will be light today because I am now having delusions of grandeur.

The shoutcasting experiment last night gave me ideas.

Maybe instead of depending on some gang of knuckleheads to arrange a "radio station" for streaming, I should start my own?

Heck, the USB microphone works at my desk. I could run a station from here while still getting work done.

I listen to music while I work anyway. And I'm always muttering something or another that people ignore.

It wouldn't be much of a stretch, a sort of sun-lighting kind of moonlighting, right?

Of course, interviewing strippers in the "studio" might be difficult.

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

I'm working on the templates for all the IFOC sites to prepare for stripping out all the Pajamas Media code and ads come April 1st.

Somewhere, deep in The Temple Of Roger L. Simon (no relations), a laser printer is finishing up my contract so he can shove it up his ass sideways.

I wish he'd write more Moses Wine stories. I really like those.

Whatever.

So, now that I've burned that bridge, it's time to think of how I get across this river of hits. I think I'll go back to a single sidebar standard, which means the double-wide block at the top of the sites will need to fold into the single sidebar.

I'm also dumping the icon-block navigation in that double-wide and going with text links. That change should boost me back into the running for #1 "crap" on Google if I do it right.

Hopefully, Carnival of the Cats will have a quick turnaround for sponsorship once Pajamas Media is out of the way. Cats don't drive Volvos, you know.

Also waiting on Charley Warady of Israelisms to follow up with the necessary bumper and code to join 100 Word Stories to Trypod Network. Or, if he's changed his mind, to at least let me know that he's cut bait on the thing.

As much as I like the Fresh Media Works opener, haven't gotten squat in terms of traffic or ads through that one. Nor do I think hitting 1,000 episodes is going to bring in a slew of Podshow VIPs waving legal-sized sheets of paper with large numbers on them.

Oh well. Another story to write for the day, and then another recording session this evening.

As much as I despised Ernest Lender for making tasteless, crappy bread-pucks and passing them off as bagels, Ernest Gallo will join his brother Julio in whatever corner of Hell is reserved for peddlers of mass-produced garbage mass-marketed as quality food products.

I don't remember if I have him on my various Dead Pool rosters, but he's certainly starred in many of them over the years.

Katie Couric says she values quality over ratings.

I've spoken about Couric's falling upwards into the anchor chair before, so there's not much I can add to this besides:

1. She gets paid an eight-figure salary either way, folks.

2. There are others paid six- and seven-figure salaries to deal with the ratings, not her.

3. If she was the best CBS could scrape from the bottom of the barrel, then the barrel's empty.

At 17:30, I'm either still on my way home or I'm changing into t-shirt and shorts after taking a long, satisfying dump.

Which, I feel, is a lot more important than having the box in the corner of the living room polluting the air with Katie or any other News Product.

PETA tells The Goracle that he can't be a true environmentalist without going full-on vegan.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

Except when the vegetables are being grown in other countries and require large amounts of fuel to transport, of course. Can't forget that factor in the overall equation.

Maybe Al might want to sponsor an EATAPETA gathering at his electricity-hog of a mansion in response?

Now that Kadima is effectively as brain-dead as its founder, Likudniks who followed Arik into the Promised-But-Not-Delivered Land are realizing the folly of following the Olmert-Peres Party:

Several Kadima MKs have inquired into the possibility of returning to the Likud Party, Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday.

Netanyahu stressed that the Kadima MKs have not approached him directly on the matter, but rather have spoken to other Likud MKs.

The Likud chairman refused to name the Kadima MKs, who left Likud along with former prime minister Ariel Sharon, nor did he reveal how many have expressed an interest in returning to his party.

All it should take is another Olmert-Peretz fight to shatter the Kadima-Labor alliance, and thus weaken Kadima to the point of dissolution.

Who's that nutball billionaire trying to found his own party? Gaydamark?

What's his platform like? Is he some kind of Ross Perot nutball clone, or is he a completely different rich nutball?

Man couldn't make it to major after sixty years?

I say good riddance.

The final draft of my submission to the BBC Radio Screenplay contest... just needs those annoying stage direction tags.

It's the same old story.

My technician is on vacation...
My husband does this all for me and he's away for the weekend...
The guy who runs this server for me is sick...
I have an admin, but he's in India...

It doesn't matter what the reason is.

Someone way out of their league buys a server, hands it off to someone, a crisis hits, and they discover they're on their own.

Or, it's a skilled server owner, but they have to take a break, so they walk out for a while... and they hand the keys to their secretary or assistant or teenager...

BOOM!

Crisis hits.

Panic time.

Over and over, this person keeps asking the same question, the one question they've been told to ask over and over and over by the real owner of the system.

They don't get a straight and simple answer.

Because, in webhosting, there are no simple answers.

If there were, by Jove, you'd have them stapled to your shirt sleeve the moment you buy the damn things.

Maybe this is a Schlemazel of the Day situation, because it's not really the person's fault. They're just babysitting this server while the real owner's away...

But then, that makes the owner of the server the idiot, because he went off and handed the server to an utter incompetent.

A batch of the new George Washington Dollar Coins minted in Philadelphia lack "In God We Trust" on the edge, along with "E Pluribus Unum" and the year and mint marking.

Of course, we all know what this means...

Episode #999 of 100 Word Stories is up.

Nine hundred and ninety-nine freaking episodes of this crap.

One to go.

If you have any audio notes to tag on to Episode #1,000, tonight's your last opportunity to send them to me.

Blogging will be light today.

In mourning: Mr. Humphries is finally free of his mortal coil.

I guess Mr. Lucas finally gets that promotion.

Regular blogging will resume tomorrow.

Just in case you're wondering that that new countdown clock is in the corner of every television network's signal, it's the countdown to another irrelevant development in the case of a famous dead, drug-soaked slut:

The cause of Anna Nicole Smith's death has been determined, but it will not be announced for one to two weeks to give police time to finish their investigation, the medical examiner's officer said Wednesday.

Broward County Medical Examiner Joshua Perper wants to make sure none of the investigators' findings change any of his own findings, his office said.

You know, the media's going to be camped out there for one or two weeks to break into regular programming to bring you "no news yet" updates. More dishes and microwaves than Emeril Lagase's test kitchens, folks.

Target rich environment for testing Jewbot 3000?

Frisky hangs out in the kitchen and plays with the camera strap until Nardo shows up.

And that's your daily dose of orangeboys.

Lesson for death row inmates: when you fill your final statement with profanities and curses, you don't get your middle name in the paper.

And the family of the victim gets their punches in:

Claudette Shaffer, the victim's daughter, decried the fact that it took almost three decades for Nichols' execution.

"His last statement just reaffirmed the image I had of him," she said. "There was no feeling, no remorse, no concern, no emotion. I kept looking at his eyes. I thought he might actually be scared. But this was nothing."

Before the Chronicle works it's makeover magic:

Promising future

Nichols, who had been a football star during his high school years in Houston and League City, seemed destined for better things than death row.

"Joseph was a phenomenal young man," his mother, Lee Greenwood, said in an earlier interview. "He was wise beyond his years. He was popular in school. The girls loved him. He was an all-around athlete. He made good grades. At one point, he even played the violin."

I'm sure there's a lot of J-school professors looking at the Chronicle staff, thinking "You know, these reporters and editors were wise beyond their years. They were popular in school. And then... something went horribly wrong..."

Or not. Most J-school profs are liberal wackjobs, too.

As a test, I'm leaving work a little early Monday and heading down to the Houston Zoo to see if this offer works for Q-Boosters:

Take the bus or train to the zoo, present your METRO ticket fare to the zoo admissions office, and you'll get $1 off the price of admission. The discount starts Sunday, March 11, and runs through Friday, August 31.

Do you think they'll take one look at the Q-Card and give me a buck off, or will they tell me to (other word ending in -uck) off?

Has METRO provided them with the magic wands yet?

When I beta-test a product, I beta-test the hell out of it.

Besides, I haven't been to the zoo for a while. I'll just snap a few photos of monkeys and stuff.

A long time ago in an office far far away, I talked to an upper-level manager about the problem of his employees writing passwords on post-it notes on their monitors.

"Well, they keep their offices locked when they're not in there, so that's not a problem," he said.

The next day, his employees found blank post-it notes stuck on their monitors.

Why?

Well, the evening before, I went into each office as the janitors used their master keys to go in and empty the wastebins.

The janitors would open up all the offices on the floor, and then do them one by one.

Never mind that the janitors tended to fill up their cart's trash bag and they'd have to replace it mid-trash run. Have to haul that trash down to the docks.

Time enough to get into each office, sticking the post-it notes on the monitors, snapping a digital photo of each one, and leaving unseen.

While wearing latex gloves, of course. Just in case someone wanted to go all nutso paranoid.

When asked, I denied knowing anything about it. But I suggested that there might be a message drawn on each notepad in infra-red ink or lemon juice.

"Maybe if you hold it up to a cigarette lighter, the lemon juice will darken," I said. "I read that in a kid's magic tricks book when I was growing up."

Sure enough, everyone started burning the post-it notes.

One of Simon's Laws is: The least-paid, least-trustworthy people wandering through your building are often given the most powerful means of access and the least supervision.

This is just another example of it.

But unlike my innocent post-it test, this involved guns and drugs.

Have a good flight, folks.

Episode #1,000 of 100 Word Stories is up.

I recorded two versions... a greetings-filled episode and a plain episod