To The Metal

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So the new camera arrived today and I’ve been fiddling with it for awhile… Plenty of crap to learn. The photo above the menu to the right is a composite of a burning church graphic that’s always intrigued me and a modified photograph of yours truly.

Out of all the recent images I’ve put together for my face online, by far this is my favorite.

Wasn’t entirely suprised by the outcome of Idol tonight. Still would have rather lost Ace than the girl. That kid just annoys me. Where’s Tyler Durden when you need him?

Looking at the hood of my car today I noticed what appeared like a minor defect in the new paintjob. I’ll bug Gran Prix about it. Hood switch was replaced, back-seat was fixed, so the car’s pretty much back to normal…yay!

American Idol sucked tonight.

Absolutely.

Unequivocally.

Sucked.

Maybe its because they were tasked to sing songs from the 21st century and pop music thus far… sucks?

Today I decided to make an investment in something I truly enjoy, photography. For the past few years since I picked up my first digital camera I have spent quite a bit of my spare-time behind the viewfinder. Nothing makes a good hike through the woods, or just discovering something new about the world I live in better than clicking a hi-resolution memory to share with those I care about, and the other 19,999 losers who visit this blog a year…

Just kidding about that last part 🙂

So I’m talking about my new acquisition and the peanut gallery chimes in…

“What’d you get?”
“Brand Y Camera”
“Oh, that’s decent…” (can sense the pissing match beginning)
“I would hope so for what I paid for it.”
“Brand X is better. The quality is just better than Brand Y. Brand X is better.”
“Well, everyone has an opinion.” (muffled laughter from the surrounding audience)
“My Brand X 2 megapixel with no interchangeable lenses performs better than most 4 or 5 megapixel cameras.”
“Well mine is 8.2 megapixels and has interchangeable lenses.” As I exit the room to answer a question from someone…

Seriously, what is with people who have to start pissing matches all the time?

Some day I’m just going to break out my wang, sure it’s not the biggest but it’ll end the argument. Side note, the guy’s Camera is actually 1.2 megapixels and no longer made…

So you fell in a vat of acid, got your skin bleached, and decided to become a super-villain. What, you couldn’t get work as a rodeo clown?

If you haven’t seen Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker, I highly recommend it. Make sure you watch the uncut release. They keep showing the cut version on HBO, it’ll do.

So I’m trying to play Warcraft this morning, and I’m lagged beyond belief.

I’m trying to check out some records on iTunes… Lagged beyond belief. I haven’t see a re-buffer on this system in YEARS.

This morning around 7:30 I was jarred awake by the alarm on my UPS unit, power was out. Great way to start a Saturday. Last time I woke this early on a Saturday some nitwit was calling to accuse me of being a fscking child…lol. What can I say, I’ve outgrown the phase where I ride a mechanical bull topless in room of drunken rednecks. Maybe I’m just losing my looks.

So I shut everything down, and go back to bed. Find out from the neighbor that a tractor trailer caught a telephone pole up the road. Few hours later, I’m on the phone with my office, Cable Internet is down…

All this shit because some communications firm was too fucking cheap to simply BURY THE GODDAMNED WIRES.

Go to wash the bathroom floor this morning and find the neighbor somehow managed to get blood in the bucket. I think his ideal decor would be shit brown and blood red. Toss in an Ionic Breeze and the guy’s place would look flawless.

Checked the tire pressure on the VW this morning… Front left, 25. Front right, 42. Rear left, 30. Rear right, 25. Car’s supposed to be 33 front, 42 rear. You’d think that a dealership would properly adjust the tire pressure after a $130 service.

So they killed Chef off of South Park. Apparently busting on Christians, Jews, and Muslims is perfectly fine, ragging on Scientology is a crime worthy of suspending the 1st Amendment. So South Park takes a jab at Tom Cruise and Scientology, he in turn gets the network to not air that specific episode anymore, and then Isaac Hayes quits in protest. I wouldn’t mind having enough money to be a Scientologist some day, that being said if I actually had that money I sure as hell wouldn’t invest it in a “religion” born of Man.

Debating a plan for the evening, its either American Bar Fight at the Tuscan or another trip to Q’s… Decisions, decisions…

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.”

Last night I had a little confrontation and needless to say I was more than aggravated in the aftermath. Didn’t quite want to lay it on my friends, so I did what I normally do, I drove. As long as I have been driving, a good long drive always tends to set my mind straight. Maybe its because it allows me to think, or that is allows me to stop thinking for a bit and simply run on instinct.

I ended up tromping around the Rockaway Town Square for a new pair of Levi’s and saw a painting of Einstein with that specific quote. Got me thinking… How many people really do that, in a literal sense… They get an idea, a theory, and change the facts instead of correcting the theory?

I get plenty of ideas, every day. I tend to pride myself that most of my ideas are based in fact, in reality. I find it weak to dedicate a single brain cell on convincing others of something which is inherently flawed.

People are like a complex game of Sudoku, myself included. Sudoku is a puzzle where you have a 9×9 box where no single row can have the same number twice, and no 3×3 square in the matrix can have the same number twice. Many times I’ve spent some time on one of these puzzles only to realize that early on I got it wrong. One number was out of place, and although I have seemingly completed the puzzle, I really haven’t. I’ve misunderstood the entire thing and my theory, my solution, is wrong.

Now could I change the facts? Sure, I could just rub out the ink in the puzzle and alter the original to fit my view of how I want it to be. In reality, the best path to take is to use a pencil and be prepared to use the eraser repeatedly. Some people learn from mistakes, others are schooled by them.

Most people fail to understand me. I don’t mind, it makes those who do stand out that much more. Maybe it’s my fate to be misunderstood by the masses, it doesn’ t bother me in the least. That being said, I will never change the facts when there is more to be gained by correcting the theory.

Maybe some folks would have better luck if they made the attempt to correct their theories about me.

Feel like I’m camping out at the crossroads lately… Every choice I face is either A or B with a response required YESTERDAY. Some folks might appreciate less choice, thinking it makes things easier. I prefer having at least one or two more roads to take.

To say I’ve been stressed out lately would be an understatement… Seems that all the folks around me have their own problems and I’m left with a small cross to bear for each of them. Tack on my own issues and I’m left with a handful of hair and a bloody scalp.

I think it all started a good 6-8 months ago, when everything in my life seemed to be going fairly well. Then I hurt myself at the gym which including corrective surgery laid me up for about 3 months… Then I broke my hand which laid me up for another month… Then I had a tumor in my back removed which laid me up for another 2 months… Lastly I wreck my car which leaves me in the lurch for yet another month. Finally I’ve got the car back, I’m all healed up, and then a damned case of Bronchitis returns.

Tack on the drama at the office, drama at home, drama with peers… I need a damned vacation. Can’t say there was another time in my life where I’ve been perfectly prepared to just throw my hands in the air and run/drive away screaming.

Still, from unexpected sources I find a little peace and comfort. Guess I’ll just count my blessings and try to move past the curses.

So the weekend from hell seems to have calmed down, and I’m getting back to my standard everyday grind at the office… One of the exec’s had their laptop damaged at the airport by an esteemed federal employee who dropped the thing and cracked the case. The result being that the power plug was slowly moving towards an eventual snap which would force removal of the motherboard. Long story short, I planned on replacing the motherboard (never fun) and ended up pulling a MacGyver.

I removed a plastic nameplate from one of the storage closets, cut off a small piece of it, then drilled a hole roughly the same circumference as the power adapter. I then took that, added another small bit of plastic so it looked like a big T and Krazy-Glue’d it to the case of the laptop. Now the power adapter slides in easy, the jack doesn’t move, problem averted.

Still, most things this week aren’t without their fair share of drama. Before I discovered that I could cut the plastic with a box-cutter, I ran home for my Dremel. While there, I decided to mail out a bill I had been sitting on for longer than necessary.

I get to the post office, there’s a fair line of people, the 2nd in line being one of those oblivions which I would LOVE to shoot in the back of the head with a tranquilizer dart. Apparently the guy had a post in front of his home where he mounted his mailbox. It was a pair of posts actually, with a horizontal board along the top. Well the folks who lived next door decided to mount their mailbox on his post and oh boy that incurred the wrath of Billy-Bob like I’d never seen.

Now you or I might have just asked the neighbor to install their mailbox on their property. Nigh! This moron waited until the neighbor left, talked to some poor bastard at the Town Hall in Warwick about it, and eventually decided to unload his frustration at the local post office while all I needed was one…single…STAMP.

What this guy wanted to hear, I do not know. However, his repeated explanations and redundant questions made it abundantly clear that he had no desire to drop the subject until the woman behind the counter OK’ed his plan to pull the box out and install it on the neighbors yard.

I’m thinking he was half-trying to find out who the actual owner of the property was, I was tempted to say “Did you try the county-records office? The county clerk? The town clerk?” One thing I’ve learned living in the sticks is that common sense just don’t become some folks.

I ended up leaving the post office after 10 minutes of listening to this cos well, I don’t give a shit about the mailbox, all I want is a stamp, and I have something to do today other than cross-breed with my siblings.

Dirty cop, murderer, but damn, do they make ’em any better? The guy is dirty as sin, and Cavanaugh may have had a chance to nail him, but once Mackey found his weakness and he lost control at the expense of Lemansky, I knew it was over.

I jumped the damned coffee table when Vic recounted his experience with Cavanaugh’s wife… Oh damn, if there was ever a line worth an Oscar, the one Vic used was it. Watching Cavanaugh disintegrate afterwards was just poetic.

Still, gotta wonder how he’s gonna resolve the Antoine issue. It won’t be a good guy that takes Vic down.

Remember, Evil will always triumph because Good is dumb.

So today I finally picked up my car. It’s been nearly a month now, what took so long??? The parts distributor. The bodyshop relied on a local VW dealer (not Middletown or Nyack) for the parts… First it was the bumper… then the battery tray. Each day I was forced to wait – as was the body shop – due to the inept parts department at this dealership. Today when I called and was told to call back at 4:30 to see if the parts came in (this time it was a drivers side turn signal and the hood cowl) I lost it. I just wanted my car back. So I called my VW dealership and checked to see if the parts were in stock, they were. Long story short, I bought the parts, brought them to the bodyshop, and I now have my car back. Only problem right now is a loose horn. If I honk the whole front of the car shakes. It’s not a big deal, something I can fix easily enough or just have the dealer do it on my next service date.

I’ve nothing but praise for Gran Prix Auto Body in Westtown, NY for their work. This wasn’t my first accident, but it was my first experience with Gran Prix and their quality of work is second to none. The fit and finish on the body panels is better than factory, the car looks like new.

Still have Court and the inevitable rate hike on the way, but now I can at least get around without imposing on friends. I’m absolutely grateful to everyone who gave me a hand in my month of need…lol.