the GOD plane

I sat next to two ladies on the plane from Seattle to Cincinatti, Ohio.

Both of whom were very God-oriented. The older lady is your basic Catholic. A believer, nice, friendly. Nothing terribly wacky.

The young one is, wellll....

Talks about the plans God has for her. Wherever God puts her is God's will. She's traveled everywhere, Europe, Africa, sees God's hand in everything, including helping poor children find God in Africa, even though they're starving. That, of course, is not God's fault.

Meanwhile, I'm reading Chuck Palahniuk's Choke. A book about a sexual addict, who talking about how he's gotten or getting laid in pretty explicit detail. Also about working as a fake Irish indentured servant in Colonial Dunsboro (like Williamsburg, only the name has been changed to protect the innocent), where his friend spends much of his work week in the stocks for being modern in some way, and where pretty much everyone who works there is an addict of one kind or another. And also about his upbringing by a mother who keeps kidnapping him away from all his foster parents every time she gets out of jail (where she has to go for doing various odd little annoying misdemeanors).

Ultimately, it's all about not letting yourself get brainwashed by society, and here's two nice folks filling the hours of the plane ride talking about how they've let themselves be brainwashed. Hell, they've been active and happy participants in the cleansing experience.

I got to hear Chuck read once, from the very book I'm reading, at the University Bookstore in Seattle. People had brought their kids to this reading. Little kids. And he reads from the second chapter, which is essentially about how the main character, Victor, goes to a support group for recovering sexual addicts, where he hooks up with a woman who's been released from prison to go to this support group, and they have sex on the floor of the Ladies... Palahniuk is a great believer in being a bit confrontational. For his book tour for Haunted (yeeeeeeeeesh), he would read from the chapter entitled Guts, which is beyond disgusting. People would faint.

Not sure where I was going with all this, but I'm still jet-lagged after four days in Toronto.

Vietnamese food with a side of HOLY S**T

So, me and the RG are sitting in one of our favorite restaurants in Seattle, the Moonlight Cafe, and we hear something.

Something familiar.

Truth be told, RG and I have a particular language that borders on the infantile. We sing silly songs about the cats, we're affectionate towards one another in ways only a three-year-old could appreciate. One important word in the lexicon, however, is "beedoh". Or, in the long version, "beebeedoh." As in, don't be such a beedoh. Or, upon seeing a particularly cute cat moment, "BEEBEEDOH!"

Sickening, huh?

So, here we are in a fav Viet restaurant, and we hear the word "beedoh" in the next booth. Then, "bedoh bedoh."

Holy guacamole, batman! Someone has either gotten access to our brains, or we're sitting next to a major coincidence.

An out-of-body experience at the Moonlight Cafe.

This weekend, a trip, a prize, a moment of fun - a long weekend in Portland. One of my coworkers asked if he could come along, and I was thinking... ummm... I'm going to Portland for a couple of DAYS. With my WIFE. Why would I want to bring a coworker?

I'm getting concerned.

In more unfortunate news, RG got her eyelid scratched by one of the furry monsters this morning. We had to make a quick trip to the Emergency Room to have it checked out. As it turned out, it was nothing too bad, though it was bleeding pretty profusely at first. And her eyeball was untouched. We are now debating over the possibility of locking the cats outta the bedroom, or will we miss them, and they us, to the point of dischord. Robie, of course, will wear a hole in the bedroom door with his scratching.

More people better than me

I tell ya. Doesn't pay to chew through the straps, some days...

We got another memo. Basically saying look, look, other people are being promoted.

I really don't want to know, unless it affects me personally, like, this person now has the Power of Life and Death over you. Then I'm concerned.

I realize they send these emails to everyone in the whole division (and in some cases, the whole damn company), I guess I wish there was a better filter for the info. Do I really care that some guy I've never met is going to be promoted from Assistant Front-End Manager at one store to Assistant Manager of another store, both of which are over two thousand miles away. Congratulations! Who are you, again?

Yeah, other people making more money than I do.

In other news, the French film I'm working on is being potentially converted to a feature length film. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA It should be fun. Still trying to nail down the contact lens effect, while trying to clean up the sound.

Cats. I have three. They have me. Don't know why.

Screwed up royally

I am such a dimwit.

I really thought that one had to create different blogs using different sign-ons or different passwords.

Not reading the carefully written text of the dashboard on this website that allows one to create as many blogs under the same sign-on as you like.

DER! (or is it DOY!?)

Anyway, I created my political blog (P-blog?), and then promptly lost it. I used a misspelled version of my actual email address, and cannot figure out how I misspelled it. It exists, there is one posting, and unless the nice folks here at Blogger choose to, I will never be able to access it again.

I may just start a slightly different version of it under this login, and call it something slightly different. The other one was Ugly Bald Liberal. Maybe the new one will be Old Bald Liberal.

Anyway, in other news, we get these nifty promotional announcements via corporate e-mail, and I don't know why I should care, but it kinda bugs me: "Here's a bunch of people who are doing better than you are. Work harder!" or something.

Slowly

I have been told to start my own blog by the polite lefties here at work. I suppose I could tell them I already have my own blog, I just don't blog about politics.

Well... not much anyway.

It might upset them to discover that what I blog about is the job I don't like. And that they do.

Anyway, Rambunctious Girl and I are going to look at a BMW tonight. Apparently it's important that we raise our insurance costs. It IS cute, black-on-black, 2-door, hatchback. Then again, I guess I'll have to sell my truck. But then I can drive Cori's Honda. (but what if I need to haul something?)

Rent a truck from Home Despot, I guess...

Mouseketeers

I wear my Mickey Mouse ears with pride.

(I know - attention whore)

Looking to get that degree thing. I am actually seeking input from anyone with knowledge concerning on-line degrees, and whether it's worth pursuing. There was one institution I looked at that was actually offering a a Journalism degree, but I worked out that it would cost $51,000 for me to complete all the course credit requirements. At the end of which, I would have a Bachelor's degree (a B.S., I believe - a B.S. in Journalism?).

Anyone know anything about these sorta things? I haven't seen much research on-line, mostly it's all just propaganda, and people seeking advertising dollars for linking you to the on-line colleges' websites.

This isn't happening

And neither am I. So far, I have had two system crashes (on a fuckin' MAC, fer cornsakes).

I have discovered the pleasures of Shake, but unfortunately not the skills. Yet.

Shake, for the less initiated, is a fairly powerful compositing program that folks like Daubentonia use (or used - I realize that ILM has made significant changes to this software for their own purposes). I am simply trying to cause a pair of contact lenses to follow a person't moving face around a screen, and then disappear as that person closes their eyes. Not the easiest thing, admittedly, but it should be possible.

BAD, BAD COMPUTER. NO BISCUIT.