Twenty-One Days

It's been 21 days since the last post...and nothing new to report.

Anywhere.

Ever.

Sooo....more to come at a later date...when I don't have a stool sample from my dog sitting on my desk.

The Weekly

Sometimes, you spend so much money in a week that it hurts you to your teeth. Might be worth it, and in this case it is worth it...but that doesn't mean that your toenails don't jiggle everytime I think about it.

New bed: $800.00
Dog vet visit: $360.00
Paid off truck: $950.00

Peace of mind at not having to worry about this stuff any more? Priceless.

It's a nice bed, big rice bed...no lice bed? I made a rhyme. I could be a rapper. Either way, it really is a nice big rice bed that I think the wife and I will appreciate for a long time to come. Might as well spend the money for something you're going to like and is going to last you for a long, long time, than spend less money, be unhappy with what you got, and end up getting another one later.

The dog, of course, is fine. She sheds like it's her job, but she's made of tough stuff, and isn't dying. We spent the money to get her on heartworm medicine and flea/tick treatment, so that'll be an expense we don't have to deal with later.

Finally, I paid off my truck. Words don't express the joy that comes with this...it's mine. Not the banks. Hooray abounds.

Individual results may vary.

Once more into the relatively unknown.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much transitioning to the beginning of two rounds of night shift from the customary two rounds of day shift blows...and rest assured, it blows like the mighty winds. I've mentioned before that BlogSpot is blocked on the computers here at work...can't have those social networking websites bringing down productivity.

Antiproductive behaviors will find a way, and as such I'm bringing you this post in all-new, all-mediocre e-mail styles. It's pushing 6:00am right now (about ten minutes away from, actually), and I'm faced with the realization that I don't have anything Earth-shattering to share with you, my loyal reader(s?), but I can't see a reason in the world why I can't help you with your own antiproductive behaviors by subjecting you to my fatigue-induced ramblings. If I can help one person waste at least five minutes of their day on pointless drivel on the masses of the internet, I feel as though I've done my part to help society. It's what I do, I'm a helpful sort of fellow.

If you're reading this, your probably already know that I'm in the security industry. The nuclear security industry, to be exact. For the sake of this little bit of anonymity that I have under the pseudonym of John Q. Public, I can't tell those of you who don't know me WHAT nuke plant I work at, or what company I work for...but it's a big one. My job is anywhere between one hour of work and eleven hours of boredom, or four hours of work and eight hours of boredom. I get paid for what I know in this industry. I know SWAT tactics, I know the ins-and-outs of this plant, I know the defensive strategy for the plant I work at, and I know it's weak spots. I don't get paid to DO, I get paid to KNOW what to do in the unlikely event of attack. For what I do, I get paid better than I've ever been paid before (however in all fairness, the plant I work for is the lowest paid plant in the area...our highest pay grade is where most plants START their pay grades), but I've decided it's not what I want.

I want a 9-5 job. Something behind a desk in an air conditioned office would be nice. I've grown accustomed to such fineries as air conditioning, and I'm not entirely certain I'm willing to give them up. I want something where I can feel like I'm contributing to my family (small though it is right now, consisting of a wife, two cats, and a dog...though in a few years we're wanting to upgrade to having a kid) without having to be absent all the time. I don't see my wife enough. Half of the month I don't sleep in the same bed with her. We share a bed, but at different times. The other half of the month, I mostly only see her in bed while I'm closing my eyes to get my few hours of sleep that night. Weekends off are a special treat to me, because I get to see the woman I love.

I'm always scared my boss is going to call me up and slap me with a mandatory day of overtime. I don't take overtime in general, I see little enough of my wife and family (not just the pets, but brothers and parents) as it is, I don't want to miss out on a potential time to see them. Somebody else wants the OT, let them have mine...but sometimes there aren't enough bodies to cover the requirements for our needs, so mandatory overtime gets handed out. I'm almost certain I'm next on the list.

Each time I think about these things I'm reminded of the opportunities I've missed out on due to my lack of education. I've got a semester of tech school under my belt, but it seems as though that's not enough to cut it when the requirements for any type of good job dictate that you have to have at least a Bachelor's Degree.

Not going to school for so long has let me build up debt that I could have done without had I not had the time or means to build it. The longer I've stayed out of college, the more my debt has amassed, and as such makes me doubt that I can afford to go back and learn. My wife is convinced that we can make it work, but I worry about it. If I go back to school as I plan to do in January, my responsibilities don't disappear, and they don't wait. I barely scrape by with the amount of money I make now. If I go back to school I'll have to take another job, and a pay cut.

There's a way out. I know there is, I just have to find it and make it work...and I have until January to do it. If I don't I'll be stuck here. Then who will be the father to my children while I'm at work all night so they have food to eat? Who will snuggle with my wife when I'm working all night long so we don't scrape by?

I don't have to do this for me...I can live with the job, miserable though it is. I have to do this for my family now and the family that will be...because they deserve better than what I can give them right now.

My parents were right, education opens doors. In January, I'm finding a way to get that key.

See my lonely life explode...

You can't tell a hero by his size...

Just as it's said in the title of this post, you really and truly can't tell a hero by his size, but to the true muppet aficionado, you have to acknowledge that existence of the Teeny Little Super Guy. Leaping from the cupboard on his clear soloesque cup that was almost certainly a substantial part of his anatomy into the hearts of Sesame Street viewers everywhere, Teeny Little Super Guy sat dormant in my memory until I came across a video of him on YouTube.



Reminiscing about my old days watching just that "episode" of TLSG, I recall how much I enjoyed it. These days, now that I'm older I see it and appreciate more how much time and effort had to go into one of those shorts. This was pre-CGI on everything, so stop-motion was the way to go.

In other not-news, I have a sunburn on my legs from the knees down. As a friendly reminder, when applying sunscreen while on vacation, don't forget to go below the shorts. It's not a splendid feeling.

He's just a teeny little super guy...oooh yeah.

Meh.

They blocked Blogger and other "social networking" sites at work, so my time is limited with you good people to only the time I have at home now. Being that I'm going out of town this weekend with the express purpose of doing as much nothing as I can possibly cram into two and a half days. The plan is very specifically consistent of reading, eating, sleeping, and floating like a hippo in the lake.

Occasionally, if somebody would be so kind as to throw a cabbage into my mouth, I'd be greatly appreciative.

My mom sent me an e-mail the other day that bear sharing, as it breaks down the exact reasons that I want boys when my wife and I decide to infect the world so with our spawn. Well, mostly my part of the spawn will be infectious...hers will be dainty and lovable. I guess that really means when I infect the world with my part of the spawn. Either way, this is used without permission...though I'm sure it doesn't matter. It's also been edited to protect innocent family members.

This was interesting to me – our children didn’t have a lot of excitement provided for them, but they were pretty happy entertaining themselves. Course, half the time it was exciting, dangerous entertainment, but at least it wasn’t provided by external sources. Boys just sort of naturally seek excitement for themselves.

I remember (One of John's aunts) telling me she didn’t like to tell her daughter not to do something because it would stifle her “natural curiosity”. With a passel of boys on the loose “natural curiosity” is the mortal enemy – and it can’t be stifled, no matter how hard you try!! (Another of John's aunts) and I spent all our days trying to do just that.

Boys are fascinated with jumping off tall things, knives, stray dogs, water in any form or location – the dirtier the better, fire, blood, digging for treasure, digging to dig, sticks as sticks, sticks as weapons, bad words, playing war, anything with wheels, putting wheels on things that shouldn’t have them, building forts, explosions, wrecks and a million other things that threaten their limbs and lives and their parent’s nerves.

Boys are wonderful! – Girls have a list all their own – just as long, but not as deadly.

This was one of mom's e-mails (slightly edited) to all of her sons and daughter-in-laws, which I found to be particularly insightful. I can remember pretty specific occasions for each of those examples Mom gave in her e-mail. Jumping from tree-houses because pride was at stake, filling pockets with whatever knives and/or sharp sticks we could find because you never know when the dinosaurs will attack, dogs are never strays...once you find it, it's yours until somebody comes to claim it, hanging out in the creek catching crawdads that would invariably die after three days, setting fire to whatever we thought might burn (there are still burn marks on the side of Mom and Dad's house under their bedroom windows from where I made a flamethrower from a can of WD-40 and the straw that comes with it).

Blood could be taken care of by rubbing dirt in it. Digging holes was fun, because you never knew what sort of treasures you might find...though we never found anything more than a coke can or two. Sticks though, were never just sticks. My Batman-obsessed cousin once found a stick that he called his "Arang." He wasn't Batman, so he couldn't have a Batarang...but dammit, just having a stick to call an "arang" was enough for him. There's a video of that somewhere that needs to resurface.

Bad words were great. My first experience was when a guy in elementary school told me to hold the letter "f" and then say "udge" after it. It came out "ffffffffffudge." Odds are good he heard it in the movie "A Christmas Story" when the lugnuts go flying...the end-all, be-all of curse words. How distasteful and scandalous can you get?

Playing war was an all-day, all-night event. During the day, our bicycles became fighter jets that would zoom up and down the street until somebody would shoot somebody down from the sky. That always sparked a rather good debate on the ins and outs of aircraft gunfire accuracy. Nighttime would find us in handed down BDU camouflage and flashlights with fresh batteries. God bless our neighbors for not coming out and handing down the wrath, what with as often as flashlights got shined in their windows inadvertently.

We had several forts made of tires, discarded plywood with nails all over it (that of course would point outward from the fort to keep the invading Huns from attacking), downed trees, broken bikes, one one occasion we had half an animal carcass, and sheet metal we found in the woods. We never had an attack through the woods, but we DID have a bridge across the creek.

Soda cans were a favorite for blowing up. The proper method is to make a barrel fire in the driveway, and drop a can or two of grape soda on in there, after starting the fire with a baby food jar of gasoline.

Padless tackle football in the street was a favorite that Mom left out, but it's alright. None of my friends (as I can recall) ever broke a bone before we got our driver's licenses...and unless something's gone down in the last few minutes, we're not dead.

When my wife and I have babies, I want boys. I know what they'll get into, how deep they'll get into it, and whether or not it will kill them, because I did it myself...and with a minimum of personal maiming.

There were imaginary snakes, rivers of deadly lava or poison that would kill you without even trying, spikes, drawn mazes full of deathtraps that we swore was how we'd build our houses when we did so, and boobies in movies over at friends houses.

Yeah. Boys are the way to go.

This post was not tested on animals...just electrons.

Kevin Smith is your better.

Returning from taking my Biscuit out to handle her now solid business out on the pseudo-lawn, I decided not to go back directly to my phone in the bedroom and have to see whether or not I missed a call from my wife, but rather sat down in my chair at my desk and perused the creamy top film that forms overnight on the internet. This layer (much akin to that film that forms on the top of soups and broths when left unattended) is without a doubt the best part of the internet, a meager taste of what you've ignored for the past eight hours before you dive heartily into the various and sundry digital meat and potatoes of "teh intarwebs."

I saw on G4 yesterday that Kevin Smith (of View Askew and Daredevil fame) was offered his regular sacrifice of a punk kid trying to match wits with a comedic legend of proportions so grand they can hardly be contained by the mans' considerable girth. The sound left something to be desired, but fortunately I stumbled across it on Break.com while skimming my internet soup.


Kevin Smith Owns Jerk At Comic Con - Watch more free videos

There's something seemingly poetic about watching somebody in front of thousands of adoring fans make an ass of himself, followed quickly up by the very person who you went to see making an ass of you. Almost a magical moment lacking only unicorns and violet clouds.

Say it, don't spray it.

I don't want to work, I want to bang on the drums all day.

Considering my last post, I feel the need to follow up with my lists of top ten drummers and guitarists of all time.

It's in no way scientific, and based solely on who I like at this particular moment. So...let's do it.

John Q. Public's Top Ten Guitarists of ALL TIME.

10) Duane Allman
9) Stevie Ray Vaughan
8) Randy Rhoads
7) Eddie Van Halen
6) John Fogerty
5) Mark Knopfler
4) Lindsey Buckingham
3) Eric Clapton
2) BB King
1) Jimmy Page

John Q. Public's Top Ten Drummers of ALL TIME.

10) Buddy Rich
9) Max Weinberg
8) Clive Bunker
7) Ron Bushy
6) Alex Van Halen
5) Alan White
4) Phil Collins
3) Keith Moon
2) John Bonham
1) Neil Peart

If you disagree, feel free to post in the comments section...I might even be convinced to change my lists and vote somebody off the island.

Wringing the neck of a guitar

Sometimes, all you can do when you see a particular video is just drop your jaw and wish you were half as good (or in my case, good at all) as the person you're watching. Probably just as under appreciated as a guitarist as Neal Peart is as a drummer, the Lead Guitarist for Fleetwood Mac has solidified his place in my top ten guitarists of all time. I'm not entirely certain of his position on the list, but he's there, especially after this.

His vocals aren't the best I've ever heard, but that's the kind of guitar playing that induces traction in most people that even attempt it. It's the sort of thing that makes for a right fine welcome home after a long (though satisfying) day.

Sometimes, the Japanese amuse me to no end. Watching Ninja Warrior is my little guilty pleasure (that, and Muppets) and puts a nice cap on watching several episodes of Cops. What goes together better than watching retarded people get beat down involuntarily, than watching attention-whore Japanese people (and some Americans) beat themselves down voluntarily?

Special thanks go out to my own personal attention-whore friend Sam for helping me out with a bit of javascript on here. Check out my random image on the left side of the screen each time you come back, or refresh the page. It mesmerizes you with it's greatness. Where else on the internet can you find Snake Eyes, Animal, Starfleet, and Autobots?

"How could this happen?"

Furthermore...

It would seem as though I missed the very item in the news that inspired me to post on my little slice of internet this morning.

Barron Hilton (patriarch of that Hilton family...you know, the one with the media slut) has had it up to here with his granddaughter's shenanigans. The 79 year old family member who holds the most sizable sum of the family's holdings has cut Paris out of his will, leaving her short $60 million. Mr. Hilton is reportedly all sorts of embarrassed of his party girl granddaughter, and how she's sullied the once respectable family name. Allegedly, the leaking of her sex tape started everything, and her recent stint in jail really sent him over the edge, deciding that he no longer wanted to leave any of his money to his family...and who can really blame him?

$2.4 billion (That's with a "b") gained from the sale of the hotel chain to Blackstone will be donated to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, a charitable fund set up in honor of the hotel's founder.

To Paris: You can't have it. Not yours. That's hot.

My mom says I'm cool...

It's Monday, it would seem.

Taking a few moments (about four hours worth of moments, really) to troll the internet at my favorite sites (which you can for the most part find linked right over there to the left), I came across some stuff from the San Diego Comic-Con that I'd unfortunately missed. I can't manage to watch it here at work, but I'll see to it that when I get home tonight I'll ingest it wholly, and undoubtedly be left wanting more.

In an unfortunate turn of events for misogynists everywhere, St. Lous mayor Francis Slay has turned down requests for September 2nd to officially be known as "Ike Turner Day." Ike Turner, 75 years old and best known for being the abusive husband of Tina Turner is erroneously quoted as saying "I'll punch that bitch in the back of the neck." Actually he said he didn't really care, he was already famous enough to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and that all he was worried about was making the audience happy.

Ike, of course with his advanced age, is unlikely to smack around anything other than oatmeal mush and Geritol. Plans are currently underway to make September 2nd some kind of day, and other ideas have been pitched such as "Roid Rage Day" (in honor of Chris Benoit), "Lisa Marie Nowak Day" to bring awareness to mentally unstable astronauts everywhere, and "Jimmy Hoffa Day" where citizens from all over try to find Jimmy Hoffa's body.

In further "news," it seems that after 195 some odd million years, Sturgeons are still jumping out of the water. Not entirely understanding why reporting on the doings of a critter that's been doing the same thing for the better part of 2 million years is newsworthy, I suspect it's because in following the natural course of things the fish are hitting boaters all over a 40-mile stretch from the Suwannee to Manatee Springs near Orlando, Florida. In a reported 24 month period, there have been 12 cases of the fish that can grow up to eight feet long leaping from the waters of Florida's lakes and rivers and maliciously attacking boaters. For a fish that boasts a lifespan reaching nearly 200 years, one can only assume that the crotchety old fishes are simply tired of those punk kids being on their lawn.

In a bit of personal news, the job search continues. Sooner or later, somebody's almost certain to be desperate enough to hire me.

I relieve my disappointment at not having found a new job yet by reminding myself that "Happy peanuts soar over chocolate covered mountaintops and waterfalls of caramel. Prancing nougat in the meadow sings a song of satisfacion to the world."

Visualize Whirled Peas

Not to be outdone...

Never one to be outdone when I can easily make an ass of myself by trying to keep up, I'm not entirely willing to let my wife's blog get completely out of the reach of my own.

My own personal blogging experience once led to a bevy of faithful followers (at least ten that I know of off-hand), a published book (which only has one copy in all of existence), and two years of writer's block, verbose dissertations on nothing in particular, and lots of time wasted wondering what I was going to write about next. Many times I found myself wandering aimlessly through the wilds of Drew Curtis' FARK.com, MSNBC, or local news websites, ever searching for that one sure nugget of idiocy that would provoke my ire, leading invariably to at least a paragraph of madness.

Deviating from my year-long plan to consistently update and improve my previous endeavor to see my own greatness recognized by others, my blog fell to the wayside (and can now only be seen through use of The WayBack Machine, though I'm not sure Mr. Peabody has anything or even ever had anything to do with my rantings), and I undoubtedly let several people down...including yours truly.

Penance for my sins has been nothing short of painful, though not excruciating. Ideas would occasionally assail my mind, only to find no creative outlet with which to make good their mass exodus and infect the world. For somebody who enjoys writing like I do, the fact that you have nobody to read what you put down on paper (or in this case, inconvenience several billion electrons into displaying the ramblings of your drippy mind) and incite conversation, praise, or even criticism is nigh torturous. Never one to see the glass as half empty, I find myself facing the realization that while I may not have the following that I once had, the readers that do find their way to my little corner of "teh intarwebs" are of a more intimate type for the time being.

Admittedly, I relished in my former glory. Whether or not this is a bad thing, I may never know until I stand tall before the man. Nevertheless, I'm willing to (for now) settle for a more intimate reader-base. Maybe then if I bail out of this ship though it's not sinking, at least I know that my readers will still have to love me.

Who knows? Maybe this time I'll go somewhere with my writing.

But probably not.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Hi Ate Us?

Generally, when you're gone from something for the better part of four months and you've got nothing to show for it and less excuse for it, they call it going on hiatus. I've seen it called that, or sabbatical if you're a college professor, vacation if you work for a living, or just plain old-fashioned "I got nothing" laziness if you're me.

However, with the wife of your very own personal friend known only as John Q. Public's wife growing her wings and deciding to try her hand at this mostly useless and requisite to nothing pastime that we call "blogging," I've decided to come out of my self-imposed retirement and find things on the internet that are worth nothing less than a verbiage-laced waste of time to post here.
That said, I'll direct you right on over to what's known as "The Apprentice Wife," composed entirely by Mrs. Q. Public, if you will.

Beyond that, I've got little or nothing to offer for the remainder of this post, so once again I'll bid you adieu with the promise of things to come right here at Greater Failure.

Stay tuned.

Pure genius

I've seen what I believe to be the essence of pure comedy genius.

Strolling through the dense wilderness of webs that we affectionately refer to as "teh intarwebs," I stumbled across a beast of such galactic proportions that I couldn't believe it was actually there. I've seen and borne witness to strangeness before, but nothing I've imagined adds up to a shrimp running on an underwater treadmill, set to Yakkety Sax.

I've seen the softer side of heaven, and it's inhabited by a crustacean that's tasty with butter and lemon.

Furthermore, Elton John is a genius of a more decidedly musical sort.

You knew it had to happen...

You would think that I'd learn my lesson. You'd think that after one blog failed (a blog that could have BEEN something, dammit...coulda been a contender, even...) I'd hang up my literary hat and don one that looked something more suitable for daily life that didn't involve spending time in front of a computer typing endlessly about things that some people cared enough about to pay for, while others only took an interest when forced to.

Despite my lack of success with my previous attempt at making my status known as nothing less than a revered god among scribes, I've decided to come back with some new revelations on life, a little more grown-up look at things, and some more deviousness that could only come from the mind of yours truly.

That said, I'd like to welcome you all (and some of you back) to my second attempt at failure.

One can only hope that the second attempt will be at least more glorious than the first, but we'll see. After the release (and eventual fail) of my book, I hung up my typin' fingers for a while, let the book fester and linger, and eventually brought it out, blew the dust away from it, and cracked it open for a new group of readers to do what they do best: read.

Despite my catastrophic faceplant that we called "The Awesome Report," I received compliments on the book. People asked me why I stopped, and I told them the truth: "I burned out." I've had some old staff members from the report (Namely my graphics guy "livewyre") and some new people who are interested in making it again. An interest has been expressed at going live with Awesome Report in something that was tentatively called "Awesome Report v2.0" but I've decided against that route. I'm taking it back to basics.

The Awesome Report (now lost in the internet forever except for the one copy of the book that I alone have) was great. But, it's also past. I'm going to start over. The Awesome Report started right here on Blogger, and that's where this is starting. Where this goes will be nothing less than a grand online adventure, and we'll see who joins in to be my new Short-Round, and what other sidekicks I find along the way.

Without further ado, to my fans old and new, I present to you, that which you could call Awesome Report 2:

A Second Attempt At Greater Failure
If at first you don't suck-ceed, try, try again.