Hearts of the Sons the the Fathers

The place in my heart where my origins lie increases in size with my age. Despite the endless stream of jokes I make to the contrary I hold in high esteem my "people". I won't bother defining who they are, but suffice to say this article gave me warm fuzzies. My family is from Rio Grande City, and I was born there. It's gotten a lot better, but the area is still remarkably impoverished.

Gender Genie

...is not just an oddly specialized magical creature. It's a site that can, given some text, determine the gender of the author.

On a whim I gave it the contents of my book. Turns out I am male. I was very pleased with the result.

On another whim I gave it the text to all my spam mails, most of which involve Penis' in some way. Be they entering a permissive young lady or confused young man, or typically flaccid or unrelentingly large, Penis' serve as protagonists in most of my spam.

However, according to the Gender Genie the 1200 words I gave it from my spam are, in no uncertain terms, Feminine!

I'm not sure what that means....

Title.

I hate cable. I hate cable much in the way one hates the beautiful, emotionally abusive freak-in-the-sack you can't bring yourself to detach from because with her you experience the most intense physical pleasure* of your life.

Last night our power went out. Actually the power in the entire international district chose to provide evidence to Fate's racism.

Mere minutes. Mere minutes without our televisions and the building in it's entirety was walking around and chatting with previously unknown neighbors. It was a most pleasant black out. Out in the courtyard gazebo several of us gathered in the dim sphere of my lantern. When the cold proved too much we wound up under an emergency light in the stairwell with several other neighbors. I even found time to meet, fall in love with, and subsequently grow to loathe an entirely new woman. In the televisioned world that took me nearly 2 years!

The mind boggles at the immediacy of the effect. It's as if the power was a rope from which we hung, nothing but open air between us and the snapping maw of sociability below. When the power went out that rope snapped. And let there be no shred of doubt; television was a major fiber in that rope.


*I feel it is important to underscore the rhetoric nature of the 'pleasure' I draw from watching tv. Merely in the world of poorly constructed metaphors is there any sort of 'intense physical pleasure' to be had.

Next Weekend?

In the past I have taken great pains and incurred considerable cost to enjoy the privilege of strapping planks to and hurling my body towards the nearest jut of rock that lies downhill. Whether I was originally drawn toward the sport as a means of maximizing the odds I achieve the 'splits' in an unsolicited manner or some other facet was more appealing I do not know. What I do know is that maintaining my balance on those damn skis proved more difficult than nailing jello to a wall.

It would seem that immediately after developing a comfort on skis that deeply held part of my psyche that screams for death arrested control of my consciousness just long enough to strap both my feet into a single plank.

It would be dishonest to complain. I can't help but love any activity that punishes failure with a thorough and unrelenting pain. The aches and bruises and chipped teeth function as badges of honor, as penance happily paid for the thrill of achievement.

But I am dishonest: Snowboarding did things to my body. Horrible things. Things I wouldn't enjoy even in a sexual context. In this sport's creator you'll find a viscous dark so pure it would sear your retinas blind.

This morning I could have liked nothing more than to stand neck-deep in a tub of Bengay.

So now I am hopped up on Aleve and smothered in a 2 inch layer of icy hot. And coding =-D.

Close To Home

xkcd cuts a little close to the bone sometimes.... example

Ok..all the time.