Staring · at · the · Sun

I have walking food poisoning. Its rather like walking pneumonia, except you throw up occasionally. But its not severe enough to make you bedridden crying for someone to put you out of your misery (had that kind of food poisoning too).

It got me thinking--I've started Weight Watchers again, and not that it matters to me, but on principle, I would think that if you throw up within a certain period of time after eating, you really should get a points discount. Like I figure I should have gotten at least 1/4-1/2 points off what I most recently ate. Not that the Saltines I ate last night after a cooling off period are points-loaded. It is the principle I'm concerned about here.

I must have been a Luddite in a former life. That is the only thing that could possibly explain the ease (and frequency) with which I send electronics to their grave. In the past five years I have managed to kill one bookshelf stereo system, a computer, 3 Dell DJs, 1 flash drive MP3 player, a PalmPilot, at least one Discman (possibly more), and now a cell phone. And after I stayed in my friend's guest bedroom, her computer that hadn't worked for months all of a sudden booted up (told you, AntiChrist. All the way).

Anyway, the cell phone was the most recent. Normally my preferred method of killing electronics is to drop them (see 3 mp3 players and a discman, probably the Palm as well). I'm clumsy, so I've finally given up the dream of owning a decent MP3 player, since they all are quickly assisted by me in giving up the ghost. But the cell phone met its demise not by being dropped--rather it was the result of a level of brilliance that even I don't often achieve.

I have a penchant for water bottles. I carry water with me everywhere, especially in the summer here when Hades temporarily makes Gainesville his home. And sometimes, when handling said water bottle, I don't pay as much attention as perhaps I should. I'm focused on getting in to take care of the dogs and make sure I grab everything. And I typically put my water bottle in my purse. Well today I was in a hurry and didn't check to make sure it was capped tightly. I opened the back door, and leaned down to grab a back from the backseat and low and behold! Out of my purse a waterfall poured forth, drenching me. I get inside the house, dump my purse on the counter, and stare at the soggy mess that is now my wallet, two magazines, random scraps of paper with Very Important Information, powder compacts, etc. And my cellphone. Sitting in a nice little puddle of water. Well, big puddle. Since my water bottle had at least 12 ounces of water when it poured forth into my purse.

I was quite hopeful about the cell phone--it looked like it had survived relatively unscathed. Perhaps it was a bit cleaner, but everything seemed to be in order. So I dried it off and set it aside and proceeded to sop up the puddle on my counter and arrange everything that had been in my purse into an optimal drying position. I came back to my phone 20 minutes later to discover instead of the reassuring trifecta of time/signal/battery power, my screen was now a bright, shimmery, blank blue. With some water sloshing around in the display for good measure. There is also have a disheartening lack of button-action as well.

So now I'm cellphone-less, which is a problem since I don't have a functioning watch and the cellphone acted as my primary timekeeper. Clearly, just like nice MP3 players are not a part of my future, fancy schmancy cellphones aren't either.

Its been fascinating to watch the evolution of the comment spam. Only one entry thus far has caught the attention of spammers. I wonder what it is about grout that makes spammers go wild. It'd gone from "software games etc" to the aforementioned body parts of one not very impressive tennis player (does she still even play?) before I finally deleted the comments. Of course the ones that include the words "Dick" or 'satan' don't merit a spam, oddly enough. Maybe an entry with 'Dick' is rather like preaching to the converted when it comes to p*rn spam (see! I can come up with my own very clever filter evading spam words too!).

So until I write again, this is me, Rodolfo Walter (or is that Petra Dejesus?), signing off.

When one's lane of traffic ends and you have to merge into another lane, that does not mean you continue driving in what was once your lane. Particularly if that means you almost hit me. Suck it up, and take it like someone who does not suffer from testosterone poisoning. You aren't going to get in front of me. So hit your brake, and merge behind me. Next time, it won't be me in my little Honda Civic--it may be Bubba in his Confederate-flag decorated POS pick-up truck. And not only won't you not cut in, you'll end up with a car full of buckshot for your trouble. One can only hope it'll be sooner rather than later.

Haha! The grout is done! Sort of! Its setting right now, and I'll start cleaning it off pretty soon--scrubbing away at the places where I grouted outside the lines. After learning at SnB last week that not one but two of my friends had home fix-up projects coming to some point of completion I was inspired to do the same. So I'll clean it tonight (maybe) or tomorrow, and apply the sealer, let it get good and hard and then caulk it. Hopefully, by the time Dima gets back from his conferences (8 days) the shower will be ready to go, and I will be free of this miserable project.

As I was trolling the interweb, looking for Christmas gifts for the gift exchange for my Stitch n Bitch, I experienced it. That pull that all knitters feel as they look at yarn, the lust over the luscious colorways the yarn comes in. How easy (too easy!) it is to click on that magical mystical button that makes all our dreams come true, empties our wallets, and turns us into the fiber equivalents of crack whores, willing to do anything to get our next fix...Add to cart. Okay! One for you, one for me, one for you two for me, and before you know it, somehow, the shopping for your friends for Christmas turns into an incredible SEX-ual experience (thats Stash Enhancement eXpedition to all you non-knitters).

When it comes to grout removal bits, size most definitely matters. When the joint is bigger than 1/16 inch, then it goes much faster to have a bit larger than that. This is, of course, the part where I must confess that I don't know if the joint was naturally that big or if in the process of grout removal I got a little Dremel-happy and removed some tile as well. Regardless (and I'm hoping that it is a "regardless" sort of thing, in that it won't come back to bite me on the ass and destroy my shower and subflooring) the gaps will all be filled in with grout and then caulked, and everything will be fine. Its hard to tell grout and tile apart when its white-on-white and you have my less than ideal vision. I decided not to do the side joints, I'll just recaulk the parts that I removed, and fill in any small grout gaps as needed on the sides. I'm tired of grout. It really is too bad it isn't one of those projects that can be done over time without removing the shower from commission. I miss my shower. My nice, big, not-in-the-kitty-bathroom shower.

Oh, and in addition to finishing grout removal, I voted today. I went for the partial symbolic none-of-the-above vote in one race and pragmatic hold-my-nose-and-vote in a couple of other races where I didn't really like the candidates. And so, just like me, remember!

Vote early and vote often!

from using a Dremel to try and de-grout the joints in my shower so I can regrout and recaulk, and hopefully discover there is no leak in my closet and put the carpet back down in my closet. I began this nearly a month ago, but the tools and such needed to age properly before I could start. Its just like yarn. Trust me. I have this very irritated feeling that when this whole project is said and done I'm going to have spent more money on Dremel grout removal bits than it would have cost to have the entire shower de- and regrouted and caulked. At $10 apiece I've broken three of them and not quite halfway around the bottom joint, and have all of the side joints to do as well.

I tend toward the impulsive, so instead of considering that it might be wisest to hire a handyman to do this, I decided to do it myself. Why? Because home repair holds a special fascination for me. I like home repair stores in that "who the hell ever imagined this could exist" sort of way. Its sort of mind boggling, the number of different saws that the human mind has dreamed up and now sells at Home Depot. So now I'm beginning to regret the decision to DIMyself, since I'm pretty sure that there are more Dremel Grout Removal bits in my future than are dreamt of in my philosophy.

I'm being a good citizen and researching candidates for the upcoming elections. Some of them are easy, but a couple of them have me in that quasi-irritated-heading-toward-apathy state of mind. For example, in the State Senate race, we've got one candidate who sends some interesting mailers teasing me with the promise of green tax incentives, but who really doesn't provide any concrete ideas about his "issues" on his website. I don't think he'd be effective in politics--he was pretty ineffective as sheriff and didn't play well with others. He's challenging the incumbent, whose positions I like on a lot of issues, but has this tendency to pay things like his developers association dues from inappropriate places (either campaign coffers or state funds; can't remember which). Given that this guy is very well off (a developer) there is absolutely no reason to do this. Its not a lot of money, somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000-1500. But it is the principle. When you have to file reports on these sorts of things, you don't accidentally pull it out of the wrong account. And if he has the inability to tell if its either appropriate or which account is which, then he doesn't belong there, in my ever-so-humble opinion. I'm not sure I want to vote for the challenger, since the governor is almost surely going to be Republican, and I do believe in the wisdom of divided government for reaching more moderate legislation than you get with just one party (caveat: I do recognize that I might not feel this way if I thought it was going to be a unified Democratic government, since I'm much more liberal than conservative. Though with what I've read about the fiasco that is Florida government, maybe not). So do I vote on principle, vote pragmatically, or not vote at all (why oh why can't we have a "none of the above option on the ballot?)?

The same is true with the governor's race. The Democratic candidate I'm inclined to agree with him on issues, but he's had a slight problem actually doing his day job in Washington DC as a member of the House. In addition to a poor attendance record he's one of the least powerful members of Congress. Even with the Democrats in the minority, Being one of the bottom five in terms of power is simply pathetic. But the Republican in the primary ran hard to the right with the I'm-more-conservative-than-you-are crap, and then turns around and runs much more moderately in the general election. And thats just hypocritical. Its just like McCain--he seemed moderate, and seemed to be a Republican that I could deal with, then he turned around and whored himself to Bush and the religious right.

And finally, the constitutional amendments. I find myself in the position where I agree with the spirit and the content of three amendments, but I'm going to probably end up voting against them, since I don't think a state constitution exists to specify that we increase the homestead exemption for low income seniors. Its a good idea, but to me it just doesn't belong. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and bullet trains? I understand the impetus behind the amendments, since sometimes the legislature won't deal with things important to the public. When that happens though, what we need to do through the bastards out of office. In my mind, amending the consitution for things like bullet trains and increasing homestead exemptions decreases the accountability of the state legislature to be responsive to the needs of the public. I'm not against amending the constitution, I'm against amending it when legislative action is the more appropriate tool and it doesn't deal with core governance issues.

Thoughts?

I was outside this evening finishing pruning away some suckers from the trees in the backyard, picked up all of the suckers that I pruned yesterday and replaced the dryer vent cover, and in 15 minutes, I averaged one mosquito bite per minute on my legs. And it was a tiny bit chilly, the temperature differential between the house and outside was larger than normal. My legs felt like they were on fire, between the change of temperature and the bug bites. I put cortisone cream on them and it made it even worse. The itching was so bad, I had to wrap my legs in a quilt to keep from scratching, and even then, I would twitch spasmodically, like I was mildly epileptic. I was twisting the quilt in my hands, desparate not to give in to temptation and scratch the skin off my legs. Even an oatmeal bath didn't help. My darling husband, always ready to help, suggested sex to take my mind off the itching/twitching, which made me itch and twitch even more (alas not in a good way). The very thought of skin on skin made me want to shred my skin off my legs. Its like thinking about the screeching sound that nails on a blackboard make--just thinking about it makes me cringe.

Bastard mosquitos. Its October. Why won't they just give up and die already?

Over the past three weeks or so I have received numerous fliers from Steve Oelrich, the Republican who is running for State Senate in our area. Most of the fliers have been about tax credits for things like tax credits for ecofriendly housing materials, xeriscaping, things like that. First off, this is clearly an impressive example of the Republican campaign machine, since they clearly know, whether through massive data collection or just through historical election results in this precinct, how best to target me to vote for him. That, on top of the fact that the Jennings campaign (the Democratic incumbent) hasn't been bothered to even try and inform me about the fact that he's running and that he has stances on positions, has me very impressed.

But wait...something just didn't add up. And I realized it as I looked at the last mailer from Oelrich--he's running for state senate. In a state that doesn't have an income tax. And I've never heard of tax credits on property tax....So I go to his website, and low and behold, the issues that the Republican Party of Florida has chosen to notify me about on behalf of Mr. Oelrich don't merit so much as a word on the website. Environment? Whats that?

It was a very nice try. Too bad it didn't work.

Damn, you mentioned the Allison Crowe version of Hallelujah, which is even more incredibly wonderful than Jeff Buckley's cover, the rest of her music is damn good too. I've been downloading Allison Crowe music all afternoon.

And because we all know that using Limewire and Kazaa are gateways to things like arson and murder, I couldn't resist the Weird Al Yankovich song, "Don"t Download this song". Since its you know, about that gateway drug, downloading pirated music.

I heard Hallelujah tonight on a TV show, and was reminded how much I liked it. so I hopped onto itunes to get it. I like this version, which was the same one from Shrek. Or so I thought. It was the one from Shrek, but they pulled a bait and switch on the soundtrack, with Rufus Wainwright singing it instead of the version I remembered from the movie. So in consolation I downloaded the Jeff Buckley version which is beautiful (I think I'm going to have to buy Grace, not only so I can hear more of his incredible voice, but also so I can actually play his version of Hallelujah on my mp3 player. But anyway, back to the search for the elusive Hallelujah I wanted. Thank the gods for Wikipedia, where I learned that I'm searching for the version by John Cale, which appears only to be on the I'm Your Fan tribute CD. So now I MUST GET THIS CD. NOW. I also discovered that there are over eighty covers of this song, which is just incredible. Now I want to hear them all.

This is one of those songs that has totally infected my brain. I could put my mp3 player on repeat on this song and live happily for the rest of my life, thats how much I like this song, how much I seem to respond to it on a gut level. I seem to have a thing for sad songs. Truthfully, I'd probably have to put this song on repeat with Warren Zevon's Keep Me In Your Heart. Then I could live happily for the rest of my life. I love that one so much as well. I think its my natural tendency toward depression, the pain and aching in the songs, their haunted qualities seems to affect something right in the core of me.

I'm sick. Coming down with an unpleasant cold. And there are certain things I want when I'm sick. Right now I want the music of my youth. Not just the music that I liked, but the music that reminds me of family. And that means in the same music purchase session, I've bought Andy Williams (Moon River), Alabama and Sawyer Brown (my older brother's influence), Nirvana, Neil Diamond (eek! I'm turning into my parents!) and Black Sabbath (Iron Man--so maybe I'm not turning into my parents). And naturally, the one I've been craving the most, Iron Man, is only available live, not in its original heavy metal goodness, by the song. So I've got to settle for some overwrought live version of Iron Man since I'm not sure I want the Lords of Dogtown Soundtrack. Grr. One fucking song, so close, yet so far away. Oh well. I can comfort myself with Don't Cry by GNR I suppose. But I want my Iron Man. Dammit.