Happy sweet sixteenth to Beastiegrrl! You rock, kid.

Good luck to Nick, who seems to be enjoying Exam Hell. This might help you keep those philosophers straight come Monday.

And if any of you are curious as to what Camille is up to, here's a clue.

May 28, 2001

Public service announcement: Mendi has moved her journal to http://www.oocities.org/m_antisdel/mendijournal.htm. Also, would the owner of the red Tercel please move your car? You're blocking my view of Nick in his hot pants and sandals.

It was Gaydays in LA? Damn, we missed that. No sign of any gaiety, actually. It would have been cool if Disneyland had suspended the usual electric parade in favor of a Gay Pride marchpast. Some hairy majorettes and Marilyn Munroe lookalikes would have been a welcome diversion from the rather creepy, antiseptic perfection of the place.

Carol, it's funny that we've never met, yet so often you have the same thoughts that I do. Your comment about having a story in response to everybody else's posts is me all over. If I wasn't so leery of coming across like one of those annoying party bores ("Oh yes, I've ridden horses too! And I saw that movie, and visited that country, and formed an opinion about Proust, and boffed that artist, and..."), well, it wouldn't be pretty. Good thing we both have restraint.

Nice clock, Stuart. And it's amazing how well you anticipated my every reaction to your post. I'm sure you and your left hand will have a long and happy life together. *tosses confetti*

Kara and Simon, I enjoyed your dual post. It was fun to try to guess which words were written by who. It also prompted me to try the same stunt. So here's a paragraph written alternately by my right and left brain:

OK, the method still has some bugs in it. I'll get back to you.

In the meantime...Claire, I don't know if you can read these journals, since you're on the road and all. But please be okay. Take care of that thing, and be strong and healthy. We're all on the Root for G-Girl squad. I even bought pom-poms. *hugs*

May 25, 2001

I've been reading everyone's journals today, trying to catch up. The last several days have been hellishly busy, dealing with a client crisis and struggling with a crashing computer, meanwhile letting everything else slide. It's okay now.

LA was fun, but not because I particularly like the city. Overall, it's something of a big sprawling armpit, with too much traffic and bad air, too obvious a disparity between haves and have-nots. On the plus side, we're learning Spanish, so the city's large Latino presence was welcome. Some of the TV shows were hilarious, especially one that was a Hispanic version of Jerry Springer.

We did spend part of one day in Disneyland, and that was a gas. I talked Ruth into going on the Thunder Mountain Railroad, which I have always considered a rather mild rollercoaster -- nothing nearly as frightening as that giant wooden deathtrap at the PNE here. She was reluctant, but went just because I went. And she did NOT enjoy it. Oh dear. Good thing I had already built up a good number of Boyfriend Points for, um, other, more mutually enjoyable activities. And I won't go into details because certain people will give me a hard time.

Which reminds me -- happy belated birthday to Camille, you crazy kid. I hope your big day was fun. I figure you've begun to slip into lazy, barefoot, trashy-book-reading summer mode, because ever since school ended your posts have become much shorter and simpler. By the end of August you'll be posting things like, "Ook ook. Me like BBQ. More beer now. Yum!"

Welcome back Kim and Paul. We missed you.

Stuart, I guess it's too late to give any useful advice re. the suspicious sunburn. But I hope you thought to blame it on a malfunctioning microwave oven, or hatched a story about rescuing children and pets from a burning building down the road. As for Canada's strange reverence for Queen Victoria, go figure. She seems to have been extremely popular early in our history, maybe because she was in charge when Canada gained its (sort of) independence. There are towns and parks and buildings all over the country named after her, such as Regina (formerly named Pile of Bones, I kid you not). But few Canadians today give her a second thought. When I was a kid in Winnipeg, we called May 25th "Firecracker Day," because that was when we had our annual orgy of fireworks. ("Hey guys, watch how long I can hold on to --" BANG!! "Ow!")

Argh. I have a lot more to say, but it will have to wait til tomorrow. Ruth is making me dinner and I gotta run. No time to put the links in now. L8er.

May 16, 2001

Argh! Leaving in less than two hours on a trip to Los Angeles, back on Sunday, and I'm rushing around like a lunatic trying to get 48 things done before I leave. Some of the other recent journal posts have piqued my interest, but I'll have to wait til I get back. Unless...hmmmmm...web cafes? Maybe.

In the meantime, a few quick comments I've been meaning to make...

*sniffs self*
Nope. I don't smell like dog food. Must be the rest of you.

Hugs and chicken soup to Lisa, poor miserable pantsless thing. Also a bracing, manly punch in the shoulder to Paul, who I'm sure will be okay. And while I'm at it, I'll send healing thoughts for kara's sister. I agree with you, k, that knowing the enemy makes a huge difference.

Joel, I'm sorry to read your news about splitting with your wife. I can't say I'm surprised, as things did seem to be headed that way. But even if it was inevitable, and all for the best, blah blah blah, it's still a sad time. I've been in the same place you are.

Brian, I am eagerly awaiting details on your embedded sound wankery contest. Don't leave us hanging!

And Mendi -- way to push that clock ahead! Finding a way to work oral sex into a conversation with a guy is a guaranteed winner. I bet you'll have Mr. Fixit sipping champagne from your navel in no time!

Kerry, your list of 10 worst ways to die is, um, interesting. I hesitate to speculate what brought this on. But it made me start thinking of the best ways to go out. Yours is good, but here are a couple of my faves:
- Having a massive brain implosion at the height of having unbelievably hot sex with three skilled women (one of them my love, of course);
- Riding a rocket directly into the sun, with the resulting explosion causing a huge sunspot that is not only visible from the earth, it also majorly screws up telecommunications across the planet.

Crap, gotta go. No time to tease Camille or comment on Terra's wonderful evocation of the seashore or even ask Marek how he gets his posts to go backwards in time like that. See ya later, all you alligators.

May 10, 2001

All work and not enough play threatens to make Fred a dull boy. Gak. The worst part of my recent overload is that I spent almost all of last weekend working on a funny animation for the SF boards in honor of Cinqo de Mayo (a surprise for Punketa), but after all that, I still can't get the frigging thing to work. Anyway, I'm going to copy Carol and just respond to what others have written lately.

Mendi, I love your new web page. The voice tracks are really cool -- when I opened the page for the first time, there was a babble of female voices because all three tracks played at once. I liked the effect. Plus, now I know what you sound like; you're right, you have a very nice voice. And your Iowa countryside pictures remind me of places I knew in Manitoba as a boy.

The Badaboomsday Clock project (props to Kara for that brilliant title) seems to be moving ahead. I am throwing my full support behind your suggestion that Malice take part in it too. We could all count down the time together: "Only six months to go before Malice has to sleep with Foamie! Woo hoo!" I'm starting a collection to pay for the airfare; I think you should go to his place, since rural Iowa would be too much of a shock to his fey Camden Town sensibilities. Seriously, it's a match made in heaven. You like mullets, right? (Hey, Nick, would this constitute a love dutt?)

I have no idea why you're having trouble in that department, but it makes me suspicious of the quality of Iowa men. Personally, I find women who are funny and smart like you to be totally attractive. Even with tot bite marks.

One more thing. I have a spare computer gathering dust. It's only a Pentium 75, but it might do the trick. When is the next Greyhound leaving for Iowa?

Welcome home, Camille, belatedly. I hope you're already getting into Summer Goof=Off Mode. It almost makes me wish I was a student again.

On the food thing, I can't presume to offer advice, except to listen to your own body. If you feel good at a certain weight -- good physically, not good as in "people like me better" -- then that's what you should be. I've learned to trust my inner voice on most things. The problem is letting myself hear it, over the noise of other people telling me what to do, or worse, my conscious mind telling me what other people expect of me.

I sympathize with Nessa on the absolute necessity of a daily newspaper. I am addicted to newspapers; I read two or more every day. When I travel, I can only hold out for a few days before starting a continuous hunt for English-language news. It makes me a pain in the butt for my traveling companion ("Um, sweety, do you mind if we drive 10 miles out of our way again so I can go to that one newstand that carries the International Herald Tribune?"), but she's getting used to my foibles by now.

Carol reminded me that I have two old journals from my last year of high school, buried in my Important Papers box. I can't bear to read them now -- way too embarrassing. But I keep them because they are artifacts of the person I was then, and reminders of why I'm so glad I'm not a teenager any more.

Joel, your harrowing near-death experience is an object lesson on why weightlifting is an unnatural activity. If you want to turn yourself into Popeye the Sailor, why not do it the natural way? Rent yourself out to farmers who need stumps pulled or tractors carried. The fresh air will do you good too. Apparently Mendi has a few odd jobs you could do around the farm.

Last word: I'm sad to see Simon leave our little group. But now that he's not reading these posts any more, I can finally tell everyone that I have always been attracted to his arms. Just don't tell him I said that, if you happen to run into him in one of those Mad Scientist chat rooms. Also, don't tell kara; she's a blabbermouth.

May 2, 2001

This is an excerpt from the technical report I am editing right this moment:

Cations except ammonium were measured on the ARL 3560 ICP using off-peak background correction and subsequent subtraction of a Milli-Q (18 megohm) water blank to compensate for any plasma on-peak interference. The ICP was calibrated using NIST traceable ICP calibration standards.

Major cations and anions were analyzed by ion chromatography using a Waters 'Action Analyzer' HPLC system. The anions were separated on a Waters IC-Pak Anion HR column and detected by conductivity, except for nitrate which was detected by a UV/visible detector for better detection limits. Calibration was done using NIST traceable ion chromatography standards.

Here is how it reads after I edited it:

As they both leaned over the ARL 3560 ICP to get a better look at the numbers, their hips and shoulders touched. He was uncomfortably aware of her body so close to his. The smell of her hair made him faintly dizzy, and even through her starched white lab coat he could sense her heat, and imagine the yielding softness of her feminine contours. He stole a sideways glance. She was reading the instrument, but her lips were slightly parted and her breathing seemed shallow and rapid. An image flooded his head: she was perched naked over him, her breasts nestled in his hands, her honey hair, at last unbound, dragged silkily across his chest...

Much better, don't you think?

Help, I'm being bored to death!

May 1, 2001

Happy May Day, everyone! I hope everyone is either dancing around the maypole or marching under the red banner in solidarity with the oppressed masses of the proletariat. Hugs to Carol, and a woo hoo to Cindi, the Illustrated Woman.

Listen, kara and camille you smartasses, I am NOT to be compared with a horny teenager, thank you very much. Teenagers are horny all the time because their lust is out of proportion to their opportunities for gettin some. I, on the other hand, am nicely balanced. So go play in the traffic, the both of you.

Delphia and Brian, thanks for the laughs. Lisa's decidedly non-macho military pose made me choke on my Cheezies, and Brian, your last two posts had me rolling off my chair. Ooo, which reminds me, Mr. Limburg, I came across something on the old RQ board that might make you smile. Or blush. Hee hee!

I had started to write a big rant about democracy, in response to a comment by kara plus a recent newspaper article by an anti-globalization writer in praise of Cuba. But arguing about this stuff gets us nowhere, hardly anyone is interested, so I'll let it lie. There are lots more fun things to talk about.

Like our second Spanish lesson tonight. I'm starting to get excited about the possibility of actually being able to speak the language; the instructor seems like a good one, and so far it looks promising. Ruth sent him an e-mail the day after our first class, saying how much she enjoyed it etc. -- she is SUCH a suckup. I tease her about it, and she laughs and admits it's true, but she can't help it. I think she still holds the record for the most scholarships won at the communications college program she went to. Of course, she never went as far to please the teacher as Joel's students seem willing to do. Eep!