6/29/2003 Sunday 8:07 PM
So, I saw Nate and his friends last night. I didn't get there until about 10:45pm or so. His friend's band is called the Cocktail Honeys. So Nate introduced me all around, and we stood and sat and chatted for a few minutes. Nate was the only one there that I knew, so I mostly stood and tried to look cool. After a little while we adjourned to the next room, with the stage, and again stood and sat and chatted, waiting for the band to set up their equipment. One of us, actually, had by then realized that he didn't give a bleep if he looked cool or not. So then the band started playing.

I swear, the first band who hires a sound-tech who can get the vocals mixed well enough to be audible against the drums and guitars is going to be big, really big. I could discern a lot of them, but not all of them, and not enough of any one song to really know what the heck the song was about. They played their set, chatting good-naturedly with the audience and each other between songs. They dedicated one to Nate, but again, once they started playing it, I had no idea what the song was about or what any of the lyrics were or what it had to do with Nate or birthdays. But it was for Nate, so that's pretty cool. Another song, they said, had something to do with a girl with a penis who drove them to Orlando one time. I could just make out some words in the song; it referenced Orlando by name, and the name of the joint they were playing at last night (Back Booth). I guess it's entirely possible they were making it up on the spot, who knows. They said something about Matchbox 20 at one point during the show, too, something about how MB20 was responsible for their band not being big in Orlando, or how they were supposed to open up for MB20 at one point. But the three band members were talking and interrupting each other, and they didn't elaborate, so I couldn't tell what the story was. But of course, on behalf of Babeness, I wanted to smash a bottle over the guy's head for daring to sound bitter towards MB20. He did say he liked Rob Thomas, and thought he was cute, but he also sounded a little sarcastic. I almost left at that point, but didn't want to walk out on Nate.
But it was a fun show, in the way that shows can be fun even if you've never heard of the band, never heard any of the songs, can't hear or understand half the words to the songs, you're not drinking or drunk, and can barely keep your eyes open because of all the cigarette smoke swirling in the place. Yeah. But I had a good time.
After the band's set was over, we again adjourned to the front room, resuming our place at the corner table. Nate and I spent the next half hour, hour or so chatting and waxing philosophical. I miss that about Nate, he's a good guy to TALK with. Various of his friends drifted in and out of the conversation as well, adding their two cents' or just stopping to rub Nate's head-stubble, which he apparently had just recently shaved. So we chatted and chatted. We talked about the internet, communication, song lyrics, whether or not Americans are becoming obsolete faster and faster, old memories and anecdotes, Stephen King, John Grisham, some old pals, the laziness and ignorance of Americans, and various other related and unrelated topics.
At approximately 12:56am, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs got mentioned.

So finally I started edging towards the door and laying the groundwork for my departure. Nate repeatedly insisted that Mariana and I come to visit him in St. Pete soon, and I told him I'd see what I could do. We got nostalgic and sentimental some more, and finally, I peeled myself off and scooted home. I do miss Nate a great deal. He's one of my oldest and dearest friends, since high school. He's a smart fellow, and doesn't mind being a smart fellow. And he's genuine. I'm not sure what that means, but I know it's applicable to him. I like him, and I'm sad that we're in contact so rarely these days.
So I got home around 1:45 or so. I crept around the house for a little while, finally fired off an e-mail to Mariana, and went to bed, still smelling of cigarettes.

6/29/2003 Sunday 9:24 AM
Something drastic and wrong has happened.
I'm going back to bed, during the daytime, while Mariana is already awake. This reverses the natural order of things.

It's official. The White Stripes are my new favourite (active/current) band. I'm so distraught that I missed their concert last week. (Nate and several of his friends whom I met last night went to the show.) I should have taken the day off work, which probably was feasible. I should have run down to Venice, grabbed my girl by the hand, and raced back to Orlando for the show.

Yes, that's what I should have done.

6/28/2003 Saturday 9:21 PM
I'm off to see my buddy Nate for his birthday celebration, at some joint downtown, where some friend of his (who I don't know) is playing in a band or something. I feel kinda awkward and guilty and uncomfortable hitting the town without Mariana - I tell ya, it must be love! - but it's Nate, and I promised him I'd show. He was getting nostalgic on me on the phone last night, and I'd feel awful if I just blew it off. So I'll go make an appearance, at least. I've never been to the place I'm meeting him at, but hopefully it's the kinda place where we can sit and throw out some remember-whens (even if we have to yell) while the band plays off in the corner, and not the usual nightclub/bar scene with crowded, writhing bodies, which tends to panic me these days. I wish Mariana was going with me. At any rate, I don't plan to be out all night.

6/27/2003 Friday 12:20 AM
Some FridayFive:

1. How are you planning to spend the summer [winter]?
Well, which do you want?
I plan to spend the rest of my summer working and Wonderful Wednesdaying.
I plan to spend the winter working and otherwise living my life.
Not sure I understand the brackets.
2. What was your first summer job?
My first job - delivering pizza for Domino's Pizza. I was 17.
3. If you could go anywhere this summer [winter], where would you go?
This summer? Venice.
This winter? Washington, DC.
4. What was your worst vacation ever?
The summer after either my 7th or 8th grade year, my bio-dad made a spontaneous decision to accompany my brother and I to Maryland, where we were to spend the summer with my grandparents. The day after we arrived, he suffered a heart attack in my grandparents' house. He was revived, but was in a vegetative state for 5 weeks until he finally passed away.
That summer pretty much sucked.
5. What was your best vacation ever?
Not a big vacationer, as a kid or as an adult.
This question sounds vaguely familiar from a previous FF, so if you're really curious, browse the Archives. I probably named some weekend at a beach or something lame like that.

Overheard from Mariana last night: "Shut up and let me blow!"

6/26/2003 Thursday 11:40 AM
Home from Wonderful Wednesday. (Well, I've been home for about 8 hours now, but no matter.) It was a wonderful day, even though neither Babeness nor I were feeling particularly great the whole day, physically or psychologically. It's been a difficult few days, and neither of us had slept well Tuesday night. But we made the best of it, and anyway, it's better to spend a difficult day when I'm not feeling well, with her, than not with her.
We started out by running some minor errands, then did some shopping. I reaped two shirts for about $21, a good take. Mariana, again, wasn't feeling well, so we went in the grocery store next door to try to find something to drink. Their selection of refrigerated drinks wasn't too good, and this store was one of those with a separate liquor store, so we went there, hoping they would have more refrigerated (non-alcoholic) drinks. They didn't, but we got something, at least. From there we went to a mall and did some more around-walking. We wanted to go see The Hulk but at a different (nicer and larger) theatre than the one at this mall, so we left. When we got to the next theatre, we found that the next showing wasn't for another two hours or so, so we went to the local library there in Sarasota to kill some time. (Confidential to Mariana: they are "fluted." That's the word I was trying to think of.) Did some walking around and reading and browsing. This time, I was the one to practically doze off in the library, and at times had to keep walking around just to keep from falling down. I also spent a few moments looking at a large aquarium in the library, and the refraction-effect of looking at the tank and the water in it renewed the uncomfortable headache I had had Tuesday. So after a few more minutes, we left to go back to the theatre.
The Hulk was an interesting movie, I guess. Not spectacular, but not really a disappointment. As usual for Hollywood blockbusters these days, it takes the existing mythos that it's based on and ratchets it up about a billion times. (In another forum I read somebody asking why they didn't just get a body-builder type, paint him green, and let him run around destroying stuff. Although I had not yet seen the movie, I responded that that's been done, in the old Bixby/Ferrigno series; that doing the movie with a live actor would put too much emphasis on the actor and not the character; and it wouldn't be spectacular enough to excite today's audiences. After watching the movie, though, it's clear that all three of my reasons were valid.) Anyway, some of the tweaks they made to the standard Hulk mythos were reasonable, but mostly they just added unnecessary layers of intrigue and background to the story. A more significant change was made in the character of Bruce Banner himself. In the standard Hulk storyline, a key appeal of it lies in the audience's perception that Bruce Banner isn't much different than themselves, and therefore, the idea of some 'inner rage' is something that we can all relate to. We all have those moments where we want to put our fist through a computer screen, toss it out of the window, and jump up and down screaming "Raaahhhwwwrrrr!" Unlike such superheroes as, for instance, Batman, whose 'normal' life as Bruce Wayne while not in superhero mode was virtually perfect, Bruce Banner had always been perceived by audiences as venting the same occasional inner rage that we all have. We know how he feels.
In this movie, however, it takes pains to demonstrate that Bruce Banner is not like the audience. His inner rage has a very definite, very specific cause, rooted in his childhood, and mostly has a very definite, very specific trigger. Unlike the comics or the Bixby/Ferrigno TV show, he doesn't 'Hulk out' in response to any random trauma or pain; it only happens in response to certain specific stresses. (Or, at least, the plot only confronts him with those certain stresses.) Thus, it lowers or removes the audience's empathy with Bruce Banner; no longer can we really relate to this idea of an inner rage. We don't know how Bruce Banner feels anymore. Rather than showing that Bruce Banner has tapped into the inner strength "that all men possess" (as I think the opening voice-over of the old TV show mentioned), it shows that Banner has tapped into something that only he possesses. This is confirmed when it's shown that the key to this metamorphosis is written into his DNA even before he's exposed to the gamma radiation as an adult, and the gamma overdose only kickstarts it. To my knowledge, in the comics and old TV show, David/Bruce Banner had no such genetic predisposition to the Hulk metamorphosis; it was due solely to the gamma overdose as an adult. All of it works to isolate the character as someone who is no longer like the audience, as someone that the audience can't relate to nearly as much.
The movie did a good job of making the Hulk a sympathetic creature, of course, which is crucial. (And really, it would have to be simply horrible film-making to make the Hulk the 'bad guy' or to shut down the audience's natural tendency to cheer for him.) And the computer animation was quite good as far as animation goes; although the Hulk's motions looked a bit choppy to me at some points, it was about as good as you can expect from animation which, despite all the technology, always looks simply like animation superimposed on live-action. As usual, the use of computer-animation, for me, prevents any real suspension-of-disbelief.
The ending was bad, though. For some reason, the film-makers chose to set a final, climactic battle out in the desert, at night, obscuring the frenetic action in darkness so that it was really difficult to tell what was happening. Couple that with the fact that one of the combatants was using some camouflage techniques, blending in with and becoming a part of the background, and you had a key sequence that was almost an unwatchable blank spot for me. I couldn't really follow the second-by-second action, and was almost reduced to just waiting for it to be over so I could see what happened next so I could piece together what had just happened. As far as I could tell, two characters were fighting, one character did...something, another character did something else, and something happened to the first two characters. I'm not sure what any of this was, though. And then came the "one year later" post-script scene, including a bizarre conversation that sounded as though it should have taken place hours or days after those climactic events, and not a full year later.
So it was a fun movie, and it had me laughing out loud the first few times watching Banner Hulk out. Unfortunately, though, Babeness was really suffering during most of it. I was feeling okay mostly by this time, but Mariana was tired and really feeling awful, and the sound and visuals of the movie weren't helping. So after the movie we spent some time just sitting quietly and resting and chatting. Then we started back home, with another pit-stop to sit quietly and rest for awhile. Dropped her home around 1am and made the long, lonely drive back to Orlando.
Now I'm off to run some errands and then straight to work at 3pm, a little earlier than usual.

6/25/2003 Wednesday 7:50 AM
Wonderful Wednesday.
Don't wait up.

6/24/2003 Tuesday 1:51 PM
KeyWord Rankings update.

6/23/2003 Monday 8:13 AM
OK, my Site of the Day is here, but you have to use Internet Explorer....with your volume turned up.
And when you do, look at the last part of the URL. I'd say what it is, but I don't want to give it away.

6/22/2003 Sunday 6:42 PM
Guess where I'm not right now!
If you answered "at work," you'd be right!
(I sound happy about this, but then, if you answered "sitting in a nice house," or "curled up with your Beloved," or "standing at the doorway to a fabulous career," you'd also be right. I'm not at at any of those places, either.)
But mostly, I'm not at work tonight, a rainy Sunday night, and that's alright with me. Of the above places I'm not at, only one of them is a place I'd rather be right now.

So yes, I'm all worried about my Beloved. I don't need to be, obviously; she's a winner, obviously. She's just hitting a rough patch, like we all do. And I appreciate the kind words directed to her, or at least said about her. Makes me feel a little better about the fact that I myself can't do much more right now, from here, than offer my own kind words to her.
But anyway, it's not about me.

So, they finally caught the gator that killed that 12-year-old boy last week. I think we all pretty much understood how they could be sure of it, but the newspaper articles explained anyway, how they could match bite patterns with the gator's teeth, etc. And then they hinted ominously that "more extensive" tests would be done to make sure. But all I could think about was Jaws, and what the bad mayor said in response to Hooper's request to cut open a shark, about "that little kid spilling out all over the dock" or whatever he said. It was a valid point, and I'm not sure the gruesome details needed to be even alluded to in the articles.
They got the gator that killed the 120-lb. Doberman ("Spock," apparently) last week, too. Both were in the 8-12 foot range, certainly large. They caught a fifteen-footer a few years ago, one of the largest ever caught in the state...oh, right down there at the end of my street, almost, not far from the area described in the 06/09/03 blog entry. Bastard weighed close to 800 pounds, if I remember correctly.
For the record, that blog entry, and the dream about alligators which it mentioned, did come before the two gators got the boy and the dog. And just a couple of nights ago, I had yet another dream about alligators, but once again, not a frightening dream. (They weren't even "real" alligators in this particular dream.) So I'm starting to wonder if somehow alligators are starting to replace Jason as the resident boogeyman in my subconscious, despite the fact that none of these recent gator dreams have been anywhere near as terrifying as the average Jason dream was/is. I just find it odd that I've had three or four gator dreams in recent weeks.

Isn't this always the way? I haven't really posted anything since Thursday night. And since then, I keep making mental notes to post about this or that. But now I can't think of a damned thing. I thought of a song I want to include in the next Soundtrack to My Life, but that's not particularly blogworthy.

Well, I did install the new dryer today in the storage-room. An uneventful procedure; the electrical component went much smoother than I thought it would. And I was able to align the ventilation tube with the remaining tube on the wall, so the warm, moist air is correctly funneled out onto the back yard, where it can combine with cool, dry air coming off the patio to create tiny tornadoes in the yard.
So maybe I should do some laundry...including the three socks that I recovered from behind, under, or beside the old dryer.

I also heard something last night that just about made me wet my pants laughing. I was watching the World Poker Tour (to soothe my terrible poker itch), and one of the announcers was describing a player as a relative unknown. He said, "He looks like the sucker at the neighborhood Friday night poker game, the guy who taps out at 10:00, writes somebody a check, and wakes up with a hangover." I just about spit out the milk I was drinking. I know that guy. Hell, on more than once occasion, I was that guy. (But not for a long time now...) And as long as you're not him, that guy makes every poker game a lot more fun. I still remember Rob Ward, who was that guy practically every time he played. No matter how many hands he won early in the evening, no matter how much he was up, you could count on Rob to go home empty-handed (but grinning). He also had an all-time classic line one night. While we were good-naturedly teasing him about his poor luck (or skill), he equally good-naturedly described himself as "a good come-from-behind loser." Oh, the laughter. That line gets resurrected just about every time we play, though none of us have seen or spoken to Rob Ward in several years now.

6/21/2003 Saturday 11:30 PM
Overheard from Mariana:
"I'm getting my butt kicked by a blue-haired girl right now."

6/19/2003 Thursday 10:00 PM
These are a little early, but I'm not sure I'll still be awake in two hours.

1. Is your hair naturally curly, wavy, or straight? Long or short?
Straight. And very thin and very fine. Sucks. Currently it's just a tad longer than short....if that makes any sense.
2. How has your hair changed over your lifetime?
Ehh. As a kid my dad always made me get an ol' fashioned crew-cut - almost shaved, sticking up in front. As I got older he gradually relented and I had more normal, contemporary hairstyles. Throughout high school I had it long in the back, below my shoulders, and kept my front and sides at a length where I could arrange and style it in a different, exotic look every day. It was my "thing," one of my punk-rock things. After I graduated, I cut all the length in back and have mostly kept it fairly standard since then.
3. How do your normally wear your hair?
...fairly standard.
4. If you could change your hair this minute, what would it look like?
Dark, inky blue-black. The style wouldn't need to change that much; I'd just change the colour. And just for the helluvit.
5. Ever had a hair disaster? What happened?
Ever seen my high school senior-year pictures? No, that's right. You haven't. What the hell was I thinking?!

And I still suck, I'm still an ass.

Some odd KeyWords Search results. I have to mention them here, since when I clicked on them the way I normally do, the Hellmouth didn't show up in ANY of the search results, not on Google, not on Yahoo. No idea why. Anyway, I got hits - or didn't, I'm not sure what's going on - for "dead or alive sexy movied" on Yahoo, and "carburetor trouble sexy girl" and "whistling tailpipe news" on Google. (Again, someone looking for the odd cross between carburetors and sexy girls, and someone searching for whistling tailpipes. Don't you just wonder, with something as obscure as the carburetor searches, if it's actually the same person somewhere over and over again? And I'm still not sure if the 'whistling tailpipe' is actually a search for some really weird porn..)

6/19/2003 Thursday 1:47 PM
Yesterday, Babeness and I had a variety of plans for the day: some shopping, maybe a visit to the Ringling Museum, maybe a movie, some other things. Well, since it POURED raining the entire 15+ hours I was down there, we accomplished exactly none of those things. We almost got the shopping done, but things came up and we didn't.
Three things did happen, though:
1) I was hapless and completely ineffectual;
2) Mariana experienced some rules of physics; and
3) I almost killed her (by accident, of course).
And by the time I left, you could have fit my self-esteem and self-respect in a matchbox and still had room for the matches.

It was still raining a little bit when I left. She knew that ideally, I should have gotten home around 4:15 or 4:30am. (And I did.) But I neglected to e-mail her to tell her I got home safely. And yet, that girl stayed up until almost 7am waiting for me to contact her because she was concerned about me driving over two hours in the rain.
Now that is the very definition of 'TBGITW.'
And my self-respect shrank just a little bit further when I woke up around 7:30 and read the e-mails she had sent, wondering if I had gotten home at all. I called her and apologized profusely. I feel like an ass.

Also overheard from Mariana yesterday:
"You should tie yourself up."
"It's only six o'clock and my hair's a mess!"
"Oh, great, another Hemingway who's not dead yet."

She's fine, of course. She hasn't been blogging because (in her words) not much has been happening. Maybe she'll get back into it soon. I hope so.

6/18/2003 Wednesday 6:56 AM
Off to see my Babeness. Don't wait up.

6/17/2003 Tuesday 9:48 PM
So I stopped by K-Mart tonight to pick up a battery pack for my camera (tomorrow being Wonderful Wednesday and all). A year or so ago, this K-Mart ripped out a section of the traditional registers and installed some new, automated, self-service registers, where the customer scans the merchandise himself, inserts the money into the machine, takes his change and receipt, and goes about his way without the hassle of dealing with a human cashier. Whether it was K-Mart trying to save labour costs by trying to get away with staffing fewer cashiers, or whether they were legitimately trying to provide faster or better service, doesn't matter much to me. I remember they posted signs, telling the customers what was coming, during the change-over period as they redesigned the area to fit in the automated registers. I don't recall specifically, but I imagine the little signs said something like "To provide you with faster service, we are replacing some traditional registers with automated, self-service registers. We apologize for the temporary inconvenience." I didn't mind; I actually preferred the automated registers, since so many people were afraid of them, they usually did get me out of the store faster, even though there were occasional glitches where somebody would have to come over and wave me through manually.
So tonight I go in and get my battery. As I go up to the automated registers, I see that there's some minor construction going on; all the automated registers were covered up with plastic sheeting, with signs posted on them. At this point, I'm just going to sit here while you guess what the signs said. If you really think about it, it's really not that difficult.
Give up? C'mon, try harder.
OK. The signs said something like, "To provide you with faster service, we are replacing our self-service registers with traditional registers. We apologize for the temporary inconvenience."
I was laughing as I dropped the battery on the conveyor belt and dug some cash out of my pocket. The cashier seemed genuinely offended that I thought the scenario was so funny.6/16/2003 Monday 10:14 AM
KeyWord Rankings update.

6/15/2003 Sunday 11:28 AM
I've just finally uploaded some pics from last week's visit with Babeness. See them here.

6/14/2003 Saturday 9:23 PM
And because my life is just that surreal, I hit an owl tonight while driving around. It lived. And it's still out there.
And I bet it's pissed.

There were some severe storms around here the past couple of days. There's a dumpy little trailer park not far from here that sustained some significant damage to one or two of the little quadraplexes in the front portion. (These are buildings that contain four separate rental units, none of which are much bigger than the living room of my house. They're for folks who can't afford a trailer in the more opulent rear section of the place.) Early reports were that some tornadic action was seen in the area and may have been responsible for the damage. But officials from the meteorological department visited the place and after surveying the damage pattern, said that most likely the place had been hit not by a tornado but by a microburst. Apparently, though, that wasn't good enough for some people. I was watching a local news broadcast from the scene (which very generously referred to the place as an "apartment complex"), and they were interviewing a woman who had lived in one of the units that had been damaged. She was scoffing at the official designation of microburst and not tornado. "Yeah," she said, "yeah, right. This was just another thunderstorm..." It was clear that she thought the meteorologists had been wrong and that this was a tornado and not a microburst. It was also clear that she wanted the place to have been hit by a tornado and not a microburst. She was obviously upset at her loss of status; she apparently wanted the glory of being able to claim that she had survived a direct tornado hit on her house. I guess there's less romance and bragging potential in saying that you were only hit by a microburst.

6/12/2003 Friday 12: AM
Time for this, too:

1. What's one thing you've always wanted to do, but never have?
Just one? Bollocks.
I have plenty.
2.When someone asks your opinion about a new haircut/outfit/etc, are you always honest?
Mostly - but frequently with tact, and frequently without.
3.Have you ever found out something about a friend and then wished you hadn't? What happened?
Yes. He told me he had done something which secretly I had no problem with, but which publicly I couldn't acknlowedge I knew about and which to his face I couldn't whole-heartedly approve of.
4.If you could live in any fictional world (from a book/movie/game/etc.) which would it be and why?
Sunnydale, from 'Buffy'?
5.What's one talent/skill you don't have but always wanted?
Once again, Babeness has it right. I'd like to be able to dance without looking like a dork - or at the very, very least, without feeling like one.
And yes, either these questions are boring, or my answers are.

KeyWord Rankings update.
I got a hit for "tailpipe woo! woo! video." (I can't rank it, though, for reasons too obscure to explain.) But some weeks ago, I got a hit for "whistling tailpipe woo woo." After a little bit of research, I've found that there's some gimmicky, faddish little device out there that you can put into somebody's car exhaust pipe that makes a loud, annoying whistling. Find it (among other places) here. So what's going on? Is somebody out there searching for this little device, and trying to use his/her impression of the sound ("woo woo") as a search term?? Do they imagine that search engines work like 411 phone centers? Do they think that you type your search term in, somebody at a bank of computers reads it and says, "oh, they want that exhaust whistle gag that makes the woo-woo sound, so I'll give them this list of links.."?
Am I missing something here? Is there some cultural relevance to various combinations of "tailpipe woo woo" that I don't know about? Is there some significance to the term that I don't know about?
On second thought, maybe "tailpipe woo! woo! video" is just another search for porn. I'll have to think about this.

6/11/2003 Thursday 10:08 PM
So I'm home from work now, and the bad storms have mostly dissipated or moved away. When I got home, the cable modem was scrambled, so I got no internet service. The cable TV service (which is provided by the same company) was still fine, though. Turns out all I had to do was unplug the freakin' modem and router, plug them back in, and let them reset themselves, and now things are fine. I never remember to do that myself, though, and it took a phone call to the provider for them to tell me to do it.

Yesterday was of, course, another installment of Wonderful Wednesday, courtesy of TBGITW. When I got there, she surprised me with the new DVD set of 'Buffy,' Season 4; Monster Island, a Buffy novel, in hardcover; the new new live-in-concert Led Zeppelin DVD set that was released this year as a companion to the CD set that my brother gave me Monday night; some Buffy postcards; and a beautiful card. After much hugging and thanking, we left.
Our first stop was for a sushi lunch. Actually, our first two stops were for sushi; the first place was closed, so we continued up to Sarasota to another place. It was very good, but a bit sloppily made. Mariana somehow got a piece that seemed to have a very nearly fatal concentration of either a hot sauce, or some very hot fish.
From there we went up to the Mote Marine (link might not be functional), a combination marina, research center, tourist attraction, and aquarium. We didn't spend much time there, though; we walked through some of the smaller exhibits, and then left. (I hope to return sometime soon to see the rest of it.) When we got there, there didn't seem to be anybody selling tickets to get in, and the guy who apparently was supposed to take our tickets was basically just waving people in without paying, and said that he was too lazy to sell tickets and didn't know how to work the machine anyway. I don't know if that was true, or if it was just part of his schtick. So we wandered in a bit, saw some sea turtles, manatees, etc. We didn't go to the actual aquarium part of the complex, or any of the other facilities and exhibits. Next time, I guess, we'll pay the $12 each and see all that. We won't see the bird exhibit, though, since Mariana has Bird Issues. As is, we didn't pay a dime, spent only an hour or so, and left.
On our way back through Sarasota, we stumbled across New College, and drove in and parked to walk around a bit. It's not an especially large campus anyway, and was mostly deserted. I was very disappointed that we didn't see a single shoeless, Bohemian free-thinker, nor a single professor holding a class meeting next to the beach, nor any professors engaged in lively intellectual debate with students and passers-by between classes. I felt very cheated, those being the stereotypical selling points of New College. But it's a gorgeous campus, overlooking the gulf (albeit with some stinking, fetid water close to the shore), and plenty of green, and some magnificent buildings that are designed like mansions. We didn't go into the Ringling Museum of Art, which is on the campus; that too awaits a later day.
Then we went on to a particular beach that we hadn't been to. We got out and walked a little bit on the beach. The sand was very fine, and fairly clean, but mostly devoid of shells. We ran across a blowfish, about six inches across, that had only recently beached and died. Poor guy. Mariana didn't really get my sorrow that the fish was dead. She suggested that I write a children's story about it, something like Billy the Blowfish, Poisonous Murderer of the Sea. I told her I'd consider it.
Then we got lost.
I drove off in one direction, thinking I was heading out the same way I came in. Of course I wasn't. Mariana didn't say anything, assuming either that I knew where I was going, or that I was deliberately just driving around seeing the sights and that I would eventually get back out the right way. And since she didn't say anything, I assumed that either I was taking the correct route, or that she knew I wasn't but knew where we were and how to get back to where we wanted to be. Well, that nice little mutual illusion only lasted a few minutes, until she murmured, "I have NO idea where we are." We looked at each other, laughed, and I kept driving. I went through some exquisite developments, some country-club housing, with some houses right on the Intercoastal Waterway and some other canals and sections of the Gulf. The houses weren't especially large, but hey, location, location, location. I whimpered a lot. So many of the yards had lush mango trees, weighed down with fruit. I thought of my late mango tree that will never again be weighed down with fruit. I sighed a lot. So we kept driving, over some bridges, and eventually would up going through several other cities before finally finding our way (mostly by accident) to the particular interstate we wanted.
By the time we got back into town, it was late afternoon, so we shopped a bit in a couple of stores. Mariana insisted that I buy the new Maxim and Blender magazines. (Isn't she the coolest?? What other girlfriends would do such a thing??) So we read those a bit and then drove back up to Sarasota to a restaurant we were in the mood for.
After gorging ourselves on the appetizer we ordered, we only picked at our actual meals, and spent the rest of the time flipping through the magazines and wondering about our waitress. She had an eyebrow-piercing, and on some visits to our table, it was covered with a small bandage, and on others, it was uncovered. On those times when it was uncovered, we were careful to pick through whatever she had just brought, not especially eager to find it. We didn't. (You would have heard the screaming if we had.) Finally, bloated and tiring, we left. We were the last customers in the place.
The night ending, we drove back to her part of town, and after a couple of hours of other stuff, including about 15 more minutes of getting lostness, actually managed to get her home.
I drove home not believing how lucky I am. I went to sleep around 4 thinking the same thing, and woke up around 11 thinking the same thing. I'm still thinking it.

6/11/2003 Wednesday 7:26 AM
Off to see my darling today.
I also did that Test the Nation IQ thingie. Heck, I hadn't even heard about the show, that's how busy my weekends are. (I almost typed "That's how out of touch I am," but thought better of it.) Anyway, I scored 124 (53 questions right). And I'm protesting that; there was one question where for some reason, it wouldn't register my answer no matter how much I clicked on it. So I guess I'm okay with that. There's nothing more deflating than clicking on an answer and realizing halfway through the next question that you were wrong on the previous one...unless it's wondering if you were wrong.
That might be worse.

A couple of days ago I had a search-term hit for 'disassembling "computer desk".' (Yes, the words "computer desk" were in quotation marks, within the overall search term.) Two things: I wouldn't think that disassembling a computer desk would be that difficult, where one would have to go online looking for help and pictures and how-to. And second...why put 'computer desk' in quotation marks when searching?
I don't know why I react to quotation marks that way. Maybe it's the teacher in me; I always hear quotation marks whenever I see them used that way. I hear the nuance they give those particular words; I hear a certain, vocal stress on them. But for using it as a search term, that peculiar stress isn't what you want. (And this is not even considering the way that search engines might treat words within quotation marks differently than words outside of them.) And I've seen students try to use quotation marks for emphasis of certain words, rather than using italics, or capital letters, or punctuation, or underlining, or using words which are themselves emphatic. Consider:
The lottery is 70 million dollars this week.
The lottery is 70 million dollars this week!
The lottery is 70 million dollars this week.
The lottery is 70 million dollars this week.
The lottery is 70 MILLION dollars this week.
The lottery is 70 "million" dollars this week.
See the differences? The quotation marks just don't work that way; they don't give the same sort of emphasis that the other devices might. But I'd see that occasionally from students. And it's good to see them experimenting, good to see them attempting to use the language to capture what they want to say, the way they know they want to say it. And that's 75% of the battle, getting them to try. I always say that a student's willingness to use the language is much more important than his/her ability to use it. A lot of ability is just learned mechanics, that can be looked up in a handbook. Do I use quotation marks, or italics? But willingness is much harder to teach, and can't be looked up in a book. If you can get a student willing, it's much, much easier to get them able.
This impromptu teaching manifesto has made me late getting out of here. I told Mariana last night that it's always the little things, the unscheduled things, that make me late(r than I plan). This is one of those things. I just hope she understands!
I just "hope" she understands.
I just hope she understands.

6/10/2003 Tuesday 3:49 AM
Home from socializing and stuff.
After work, the guys and I went up to Gator's for some food and fellowship. They chipped in and bought my dinner (yer basic mushroom/swiss burder 'n fries; spinach/artichoke dip and nachos). As we (or, rather, they) were divvying up the cash to pay, my brother disappeared and returned with a huge birthday cake. He/they also gave me the new, live Led Zeppelin three-CD set ('How the West Was Won') and the DVD of 'High Plains Drifter' (Clint Eastwood). I'm pretty sure I already have that DVD, but in a rare fit of class and courtesy, I didn't say so. There was also a card in the bag, but nobody had had the chance to sign the card, so it was blank, and it wasn't even in the envelope. Still, though, it's the thought that counts. (Front of card: "You're getting older." Inside: "Get over it." Thanks, guys.) From there we went to Ty's for some poker. Emerged some four hours later. And if we had been playing for actual money (gambling being strictly against the law!), I would have won $5.70. You know, IF we had been playing for money. If. Of course. And when some co-workers arrived to join the game, they brought a nice card, and made sure that folks actually signed it before turning it over to me.

And speaking of money, my brother received some extraordinarily good news, just about the best financial news (short of winning the Lotto) that he could have hoped to receive. So I'm thrilled for him, and for myself, since our joint ownership of our home means his finances are at least that much tied in to mine. It was such good news that I almost wanted to buy his dinner. So this made it a good day.

So, in all, it was a good day.
I wish Mariana was here, though. I'll see her in about 53.5 hours or so. That day will be even better.

Thanks to all for their birthday wishes, too. I read *everything.* He's right, though, nobody ever signs that damn guestbook. All these visitors, and no signers. Heck, the GuestMap is completely empty now, too, although I don't necessarily blame the non-signers; even those few folks who did sign it were wiped clean by some terrible cyber-calamity. I might as well remove the GuestMap; if it can't, or won't, save the rare folks who do sign it, there's not much point in keeping it over there.

Anyway, I missed Mariana by less than half an hour tonight when I got home. So I'm off to bed. Tomorrow awaits.

6/09/2003 Monday 9:15 AM
OMG, aren't I the luckiest guy in the world???
Sorry, guys, eat yer heart out, she's taken.

A dream about alligators last night. That's several times I've dreamt about alligators attacking. That's unusual; I don't have any particular alligator phobia or fear or anything. I guess it's just an inevitable facet of living in Florida. I'm trying to remember if I was thinking about alligators in any context in the past couple of days, and I can't think of any instances. (Although, there have been some radio commercials recently advertising one of those 'Crocodile Hunter' specials on Animal Planet or something, where he's relocating some saltwater crocodiles or something. And those SOBs can get pretty damn big, so maybe that's what prompted this dream.)
The lake near my house is ugly with alligators. And it's getting to be their time of year, also, when you can hear them bellowing and grunting. When I went down there as a kid, it was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying to hear them, and know that there was a darn good chance that one or more was under the dock, just under my feet. (And this dock was pretty darn rickety at the time, also, years before the city started sprucing up that particular area.) I've got pics of this whole area that I put together as part of my ongoing photo-essay "World Tour of West Orange County;" I should get it all together and upload it. Somebody remind me, okay?
(Well, here's the dock I'm talking about; if you want to see more of the area, go to the city's home page; click through Recreation, Parks and Parkways/Parks/Newton Park.) That's the area where I spent most of my childhood running around. Babeness had the beaches of Guam; I had the foul filth of Lake Apopka. And that Parks and Recreation graphic at the top of these pages? with the yellow building and the rainbow and the cabana? You can probably tell, but it's at least two different photographs cropped and blended together. It took me a few seconds to realize it, and hell, I've been here my whole life.
How did I get here from a dream about alligators? Yes, indeed, never underestimate the value of a good ramble (one of those random Buffy quotations). Babeness and I spent a lovely few hours walking around the park down there (and a long while NOT walking around.....) on one of our first nights together. Ahh, sweet memories. And things come full circle. Have I mentioned how lucky I am? See above. (Alright, see way above.)

I'm off to work in a little while. No idea what happens later after work. I just wish Mariana was here.

6/08/2003 Sunday 11:42 AM
(after a quick walk outside)
Hell with that "more predicted for today" bit. We're gonna get wet in the next 20 minutes or so. And it's gonna be a big one.

And now, at 11:43, it's raining. Well, I was right about the 20 minutes, after all.
My bio-dad used to call the daily summer rains "Five O'Clock Charlie." He'd look up at the storm clouds and say that Five O'Clock Charlie was coming, or that we'd have to hurry up with such-and-such, because Five O'Clock Charlie would be here soon. I knew he meant the rains, but I never understood the reference as a kid until years later when I saw the episode of 'MASH' where there was a lone sniper who would fly by everday in a rickety, antiquated bi-plane to strafe the camp. And our heroes called him Five O'Clock Charlie, after the time of day when he would fly by. I'm not entirely positive that's where my dad got the term, but at least it's a point of reference. But even now, so many years after my bio-dad's death, I still find myself calling the summer afternoon rains Five O'Clock Charlie. Nobody ever really dies, you know.
Once again, the breeze brings the delightful aroma of rosemary through the house from the bush outside. It's Sunday, there's a cool breeze wafting through the house, it's raining, and life is good. If only Mariana was here, life would be grand.

6/08/2003 Sunday 10:22 AM
A complete revamp of the KeyWord Rankings. Said goodbye to some old friends, said hello to some new ones.

Last night my darling gave me a gorgeous JPEG she had made, a collage of various pictures of herself. (Nothing naughty, get your mind outta the gutter.) I begged her to do it, you know, after she had shown me a similar collage she had made of something else. But it's simply breathtaking. I'd show it to you, but you know, it's kinda personal. And it's yet another reason why she is TBGITW.

We're finally getting into The Rainy Season around here - lots of rain the past coupla days, and more predicted for today. This is, in other words, the very best time of year, in the very best place in the world.

6/06/2003 Saturday 9:51 AM
They are still fretting about the FCAT here. For those who don't know, the FCAT is a comprehensive exam that certain school grades take each year, the final installment of which students must pass before they may graduate. I think "FCAT" stands for Florida Scholastic Aptitude Achievement Skills Assessment Comprehensive Exam Test. Or something like that, pick three words that sound likely. Anyway, they started it a few years ago with much ado, with the ultimate goal of raising academic standards, raising acacemic achievements, and generally raising the bar for our pathetic public schools, who traditionally rank in the extreme lower end of the nation in terms of overall quality (as defined by GPA, graduation rate, dropout rate, pregnancy rate, pimpliness, unlikeability, whatever). The assumption was, if we give this rigourous exam to students periodically (like, 3rd, 8th, and 12th grade or something like that), they'll have a better understanding of what they must do in order to graduate, and they'll work harder. Tied in to all of this is a system of evaluating not just the students, but the schools themselves, who are graded according to how well the students do. From this, the counties and state can apportion funding, allow families to move their kids from underperforming schools to better ones, etc. But unfortunately, what actually happened was, a bunch of kids who otherwise would have graduated from high school, who had the sufficient number of credits and a sufficient GPA, failed the FCAT and therefore couldn't graduate. Certainly the politicos never anticipated this, and they've spent months and months wringing their hands trying to figure out how to...well, obviously they're mostly trying to figure out how to survive the political devastation of having irritated and alienated thousands of voting parents and soon-to-be voting teenagers. (Yeah, I know, the percentage of them who will actually vote is probably negligible, but these are politicians we're talking about, who must assume for their own sakes that every adult person is a knowledgeable, informed, enthusiastic voter.) But anyway, now the politicos are trying to figure out what to do about these kids. Suggestions have included allowing the students to take the FCAT over and over again until they pass (which I think they can do currently); grandfathering in the current students so they must take the exam but not actually pass it; instituting a sliding scale so that current students can pass with a lower score than next year's students, and so on and so on until students must pass what was planned to be the FCAT's minimum score; allowing students who failed the FCAT to participate in graduation ceremonies but not giving them their diplomas until they actually pass the FCAT; and the reverse, of quietly giving them their diplomas but not letting them participate in graduation festivities. (Both of these last two bank heavily on the allure of the graduation ceremony as a motivating factor. I question that.) All of these scenarios make so little sense to me, and seem to contradict the whole foundation of the FCAT, which is that you must pass this exam in order to graduate. It seems they've neutered their big plan, undermined it so thoroughly with so many caveats and alternatives that I don't see what they point is of even maintaining the FCAT anymore if it doesn't have any teeth. And all of this is to avoid the painful reality of admitting that the failure/dropout rate will be much higher than it has been, and much higher than anybody wants it to be. I hate to sound arrogant and snotty, but I'm a pretty intelligent guy, and I really can't even relate to the concept of not passing this exam. I have no idea how somebody can not pass it. (Of course, the politically correct crowd and those who create, maintain, and provoke racial hostilities are crying that the FCAT itself is "culturally biased" and "racially insensitive." You knew that was coming, of course.) And I have so very little sympathy for people who don't pass it. I mean, we're talking about public schools here; they're not asking that you master differential equations and understand quantum physics here. It's just not that difficult. But the whole FCAT fiasco dramatically illustrates what's going wrong in public schools: they're churning out semi-literate dolts by the thousands, and nobody knows why, and nobody has any idea what to do about it.

6/07/2003 Friday 12 AM
1. How many times have you truly been in love?
In between relationships, I had the tendency to count much higher than I did/do when I'm in a relationship. And when I was in one, I'd always say, well, I thought that this or that previous one(s) was real love, but obviously it wasn't.
Are there degrees of love? There have only been three relationships I'd say were worthy of even considering the question. I think I should disqualify one of them, for reasons I won't get into. And I could disqualify another one for fairly similar reasons. (How much more can I tap-dance around this question?) So I'll say one, at least, definitely, and that's right now. Maybe twice, if I include that other time. Possibly three times. But right now, the once is all that matters.
2. What was/is so great about the person you love(d) the most?
She makes me want to be better than I was, and better than I am, and she makes me want to deserve her.
3. What qualities should a significant other have?
I don't feel qualified to answer that on behalf of anyone other than myself. I don't think anybody is ever qualified to answer that for anybody else. I know what I think other people should always demand, but that's idealism. The sad fact is, far too many people can't handle a partner of the quality that I wish everybody could be and should have.
As for my SO, I want humour, light-heartedness, loyalty, a profound respect for family, a real commitment, the knowledge that there will be ups and downs, and the willingess to survive them all, and believe me, there's no way I can answer this question fully or even sufficiently. Move on.
4. Have you ever broken someone's heart?
I think I'm gonna echo my darling's answer. I know I've disappointed a couple of people, but I don't think I truly broke their hearts.
Or maybe that's just what I tell myself.
5. If there was one thing you could teach people about love, what would it be?
Be realistic.
I know that's cryptic. I meant it to be.

And re-reading last week's, I almost want to change my answer to #5, the advice I would give to people. I would tell them that love exists in this world, but then, so does evil, and so do truly evil people. And not just supernatural, horror-movie monsters, either, but real, malevolent, destructive evil. For evidence and examples, I would point at the war protestors, the anti-war crowd who popped up the past few months and who are still out there, mutating their complaints as circumstances and opportunities dictate. I would tell them to be careful, but that such creeping evil and evil people can be overcome.

6/05/2003 Thursday 11:28 AM
Back from Venice.
Got home around 4am. When I got home, my hevelment was pretty dis, and I wasn't even wearing the same shoes as when I left. But it was a lovely day, as usual.

And while Babeness and I were idly surfing some local school board websites, checking for openings, we saw they needed this:

I think I'm qualified, don't you?

A KeyWord Rankings Update.

6/04/2003 Wednesday 6:34 AM
Happy 6, my Babeness.

6/03/2003 Tuesday 11:07 AM
Geez, what a weird dream.

6/03/2003 Tuesday 10:12 AM
The thirty-third day.

Mariana and I were talking about the 'Soundtracks to Our Lives' Sunday while driving down to Venice. She has hers posted, but I never got 'round to posting mine, even though I finished it months ago and even though I think I even mentioned here that I had begun some project that I would soon announce and post. Well, I never did announce it and I never did post it; I wasn't really sure I liked the final version of it, and I kept telling myself that I should re-do it or something. But Sunday, Mariana said something rather telling (as she has a tendency to do), that her Soundtracks aren't meant to be permanent and fixed, but rather, they show what's going through her mind and in her life at that moment. In other words, not all of the songs, or the glosses about the songs, will always be significant or significant for the same reasons, but what's important is that they're somehow significant at the time you're thinking about them. That makes sense (as she also has a tendency to do). So with that in mind, I now finally unveil The Soundtrack to My Life, Volume One. (Insert golf clap here.) There's a link to it over there on the right, too. (Yeah, I know it's all cluttered like over there, so maybe Babeness and I will brainstorm a new layout or something.) I'm still not completely satisfied with the Soundtrack, but you know, that's probably a good thing, because as I said about one of the songs on it, stagnation sucks.

I've been ignoring my Dream Journal for weeks now. And I'm kinda pissed at myself, too, but then I've been ignoring this a lot lately, too. So today I'm writing up a bizarre 'Buffy' dream that I had last night - bizarre, and cluttered, and yet coherent.

6/02/2003 Monday 10:54 PM
A KeyWord Rankings Update:
"pictures of women wearing stormtroopers costumes"
I couldn't make that up if I tried.
Oh yeah, I'm #4 on Google and Yahoo.

Then there's this, that I picked up from my good friend. We have more in common, apparently:

You are 32% geek

You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator. Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. You [to Geek]: We need more than that, Scotty. You'll have to stay until you can squeeze more outta them engines! Geek [to You]: I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain, but we need more dilithium crystals! You [to Normal]: He wants to know if he gets overtime.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

6/02/2003 Monday 10:11 AM
Well, she's home now, home in Florida, home in Venice.
When we talked Saturday, it was determined that I would be able to meet Mariana at the airport in the afternoon, to keep her company until her father could get up here to Orlando to ferry her home. But he wouldn't be able to get here until a couple of hours, at least, after she arrived, so I was going to meet her, keep her company, get some lunch, etc., and then I would release her to her father's custody (or if he wasn't there yet, leave her at the airport for the last few minutes until he arrived) and then go on to work, arriving a little late. That was the plan. However, after we spoke, it occurred to me that I could drive her home after work. I hadn't thought about that possibility when we were negotiating the whole airport meet-and-greet! (She later said she had thought about it, but didn't want to impose on me by suggesting it.) It made perfect sense: I wouldn't miss any work at all, she wouldn't have to spend any time alone at the airport in case her father was running late, her father wouldn't have to work all day and then make the five-hour round trip to Orlando and back to Venice.
So when she called yesterday morning, I made the sales pitch, and after a couple of calls to me and to her father, it was arranged that this is what would happen. I was all bouncy, of course; obviously, it meant that I could spend that many more hours with her.
So I met her at the airport. Her flight landed a couple of minutes early, and I had timed it (or more accurately, was late...) so that I arrived almost exactly when she should have been hustling down the hallway off the plane. But by that time, she was already one floor below me in the baggage claim. So after a couple of minutes of waiting (with my hand-made sign with her name on it), she called my cell, and I went down and met her. Got the baggage, lumbered off to the car, left.
We were both half-starved, so I stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. She'd never been to one, so we got some S'uthern food. Eventually, I mean, we got it, after seemingly 18 different waiters and waitresses stopped by to greet us, take our orders, ask if anybody had taken our orders yet, take our drink orders, bring us our iced tea, ask if anybody had brought any iced tea yet, ask if anybody had taken our orders yet, ask if anybody had taken our orders yet, take our orders, ask if anybody had taken our orders yet, ask if anybody had brought our iced tea yet, take our drink orders, and ask if anybody had taken our drink orders yet. Oh yeah, it took them three waiters and 15 minutes to bring us some ketchup for Mariana's steak fries, too. Odd.
Anyway, we made it home, and the schedule permitted me to be only a few minutes late to work. Well, that few minutes turned into an hour, of course. So as I was driving to work, they called and offered me the night off completely. Of course I was thrilled, so I screeched a U-turn and went back home. Napped for a couple of hours, etc. Finally, reluctantly, sadly, we started off for Venice.
Mariana, bless her heart, dropped off the planet about halfway down there, lasting much longer than I thought she would. So when we got there, she surprised me with a CD I've been pining for (Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation), one I had years ago but which got ruint at some point. What a gal. (Earlier, she had surprised me with a green foam Statue-of-Liberty hat thing, a round mask-like thing you put around your face and which crowns you. No, no pictures, please.) So we stood outside her door, hugging and snuggling our good-byes.
Okay, picture this. It's about 1am, maybe a few minutes after. We're standing there outside her door, she with her back to the door, me facing it, snuggling. At, umm, a particularly tender moment, as we're standing there, I see.....the door opening. My mouth worked wordlessly, as I stood there expecting the hammer to fall (literally). Mariana, of course, with her back to the door, heard and saw nothing, and didn't sense me panicking and screaming silently. Fortunately, though, it was just her younger sister. I stood silently, trying and failing to babble something like "It's alright! It's just me! You, uh, don't know me, but it's alright!" She stood silently, staring, surprised, and after a moment or two closed the door. Only then did Mariana sense that something had happened behind her in the doorway. I'm still recovering from the shock.
Actually, her father had left a note on the door for Mariana, telling her that if I wanted to spend the night (on the sofa, natch) instead of drive back to Orlando in the middle of the night, that would be okay, and if not, she should at least let me come in and rest for a while before driving back. I was shocked at his generousity, really, and I begged Babeness to thank him for it. But I couldn't take him up on it, and didn't need it anyway. His note referred to her "friend;" she said that was for the benefit of her sister, in case she found the note; she isn't to know that I'm anything more than a simple friend. Well, I'm not too sure about that secrecy anymore!
So, finally, I pulled myself away from her and began the long drive back. Fortunately, I had the Sonic Youth to keep me company (even though this CD is my favourite "sleeping music" of all time). I made it home, got my four or five hours of sleep, and now I'm off to work all day.
No, I told you, there will be no pictures of me in the green foam Statue of Liberty thing. That's for the private enjoyment of Babeness and I. Stop asking.