Month: August 2004

I actually have no idea what number VCR I’m on, but it’s up there. Thankfully they are under $40 now and it isn’t too big a hit to the wallet. My VCR died about four months ago and then I pulled my spare out that I put away for some reason I didn’t remember. Well, when I threw the old one away and brought out the spare I remembered. I put the new tape in and it played just fine, so I was all happy about that. Then I stopped the tape and turned the machine off. Here’s the part my memory was having a hard time remembering. I turned the machine back on later and apparently the machine was hungry after resting and it decided to eat my tape. For whatever reason, it likes to eat the tapes if there was one in there, although if you put one in it works just fine. Well, sounds like some fucked up problem to me and since it would cost roughly $30 an hour for someone to try and fix it, I figured for $40 I would just buy a new one and say forget it. So here I am with my newest VCR hoping it lasts a little longer than four months. I hardly ever use a VCR anymore except to tape South Park when the new episodes are on.

I am currently working on the new design for my site and also trying to work on the new content for the site. I have three things done now, and the graphic changes are roughly 80% done now.

But hey, I’ve been slightly busy. I’m still working on the new content for the site, I’ve got 16 things started, 13 of which I think will actually make it to the site and only 1 that is completed. I am also working on the new design for the site. This is what the new design is probably going to look like. I’ve already tweaked it from that design so it already looks different from the trial4 site.
I also had to go back to work. Yes, that sucked major ass but unfortunately it’s the only legal way I’ve found to make money at the moment. Sure there are illegal ways to make money but nothing I’ve ever been too succesful at.

Of course in case no one knew, Cartman won the E-Lections over at Comedy Central. There was never any doubt in my mind that he would win so it didn’t really come as a shock I’m sure; although it did piss off the anti-Cartman folks, but fuck them. Speaking of Cartman, check this out. I didn’t make it, but I thought it was pretty kick ass.

Yes, it’s day six already. No headache today, but unfortunately just thinking about tomorrow being my last day of freedom before heading back to the hellhole is enough to make anyone sick. Today was my day off plain and simple. What did I do today? Not a damn thing. Sure, I did a little painting, nailed a few boards in place and what not, but for the most part is was a lazy Saturday afternoon like the way God intended. Speaking of God, here’s something that caught my attention:

BRIELLE, N.J. — An 8-year-old girl who suffers from a rare digestive disorder and cannot eat wheat has had her first Holy Communion declared invalid because the wafer contained no wheat, violating Roman Catholic doctrine.

Haley was diagnosed with celiac sprue disease when she was 5. The disorder occurs in people with a genetic intolerance of gluten, a food protein contained in wheat and other grains.
When consumed by celiac sufferers, gluten (pronounced GLOO’-ten) damages the lining of the small intestine, blocking nutrient absorption and leading to vitamin deficiencies, bone-thinning and sometimes gastrointestinal cancer.

Now, Haley Waldman’s mother is pushing the Diocese of Trenton and the Vatican to make an exception, saying the girl’s condition should not exclude her from the sacrament, which commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ before his crucifixion. The mother believes a rice Communion wafer would suffice.

“It’s just not a viable option. How does it corrupt the tradition of the Last Supper? It’s just rice versus wheat,” said Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman.

Church doctrine holds that Communion wafers, like the bread served at the Last Supper, must have at least some unleavened wheat. Church leaders are reluctant to change anything about the sacrament.

“This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level, but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority,” Trenton Bishop John M. Smith said in a statement last week.

The diocese has told Haley’s mother that the girl can receive a low-gluten wafer, or just drink wine at Communion, but that anything without gluten does not qualify. Pelly-Waldman rejected the offer, saying her child could be harmed by even a small amount of the substance.

Some Catholic churches allow no-gluten hosts, while others do not, said Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a California-based support group for sufferers.

“It is an undue hardship on a person who wants to practice their religion and needs to compromise their health to do so,” Monarch said.

The church has similar rules for Communion wine. For alcoholics, the church allows a substitute for wine under some circumstances, however the drink must still be fermented from grapes and contain some alcohol. Grape juice is not a valid substitute.

Haley, a shy, brown-haired tomboy who loves surfing and hates wearing dresses, realizes the consequences of taking a wheat wafer.

“I’m on a gluten-free diet because I can’t have wheat. I could die,” she said last week.

Last year, as the third grader approached Holy Communion age in this Jersey Shore town, her mother told officials at St. Denis Catholic Church in Manasquan that the girl could not have the standard host.

After the church’s pastor refused to allow a substitute, a priest at a nearby parish volunteered to offer one, and in May, Haley wore a white Communion dress, and received the sacrament alongside her mother, who had not taken Communion since she herself was diagnosed with the disease.

Last month, the diocese told the priest that the church would not validate Haley’s sacrament because of the substitute wafer.

Yes… in the grand scheme of things in the Catholic Church, it doesn’t matter if the wafer will kill you, because if you don’t eat it you are going to hell. Arrogance and stupidity such as this is why I don’t go to church. That and the fact that I don’t have the need to play dress up on Sundays and compare with the other losers.

Today was pretty much a bust. I ended up getting more material for finishing up my door but never got to do anything with it. I wound up fixing a computer today and that took a major chunk out of my day. When I finally got home after 4pm my head hurt so damn bad I ended up doing much of nothing because it pretty much hurt to keep my eyes open. Somewhere around 7pm I finally caved in and took some Excedrin and then went to bed. I just woke up and decided to throw a blog together quickly.

Why would I have a headache? Maybe it’s because this is my third to last day of vacation and I know I have to get my ass back to work on Monday. That’s enough to make anyone sick. I guess I’m happy now that I took this weekend off as well, because otherwise I would be at work in less than 7 hours and that would suck major ass. Another reason I may be sick is the weather. Since we are in mid August here, you would think it would be hot and humid and I would be bitching about that; but no. Instead the weather has decided to swing the other way and we are actually under a frost advisory. Do you realize that if we were to get any precipitation we could actually have a chance tonight to have snow? That is fucked up when in August your temperatures dip down to the 30’s. You weather assholes owe me some 80’s come winter. Fair is fair.

Today was the day. Today is when the new door went up. I think I made reference yesterday to wondering if Bob Vila was going to show up or not. Well, after I wrote that I realized that if Bob did show up, he wouldn’t do a fucking thing. I’ve never really seen him do much on that show. He usually walks around with the camera following him and tries some things, but never sticks around and finishes them. If Bob had been here it would have went something like this.

“We’re here at the front of the house and we have Dave here installing a new front door. Those are pretty heavy, how’d you get that in by yourself? I see you’re at the hammering stage now, mind if I take a crack at it? Yes, you have to be very careful when you are hammering. Sometimes it helps to be mad at the nails. I like to pretend they are those cocksuckers from PBS that fired me from This Old House many years ago. Well, I’ll let you get back to work now while I stroll down to the mill shop and we’ll see just how they make these doors.”

So yeah, it would have gone something like that. I guess if I’m going to be hoping someone would have shown up I should have been looking for the people from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition or any one of those handfuls of new fangled home improvement shows. Well, in any event the door is up and it opens and closed much easier than the old door. I’d have to say mission accomplished.

You know what kind of exciting shit happened to me today? Not a damn thing. When I got up and turned on the weather they were talking about severe storms blowing through the area during the day. Well, if there’s one thing you don’t want to do it’s to have the front door of your dwelling off when the monsoon rains hit. Of course, just like always, the weatherman was wrong. We did get some monsoon rain, but it only lasted two minutes. No lightning, no thunder, just some hard rain. Of course I think it would have been fine but of course, the project is delayed until tomorrow now. The storm door got pulled off though, and all of the trim is off now as well. That way tomorrow will only need the removing of the door and hopefully installing of the new door; which tops should only take two or three days. Ok, not that I doubt my skills, but I’ve never done this before and no matter how many episodes of This Old House and Hometime I’ve viewed in my lifetime, there’s nothing like doing it yourself. Hmm, maybe I should break out the camcorder and videotape it, I could start my own show. That or end up on America’s Funniest Home Videos.

I took my Kill Bills back to the video store today and dropped them off. I rented Secret Window to watch now, although it’s not due back until Monday. Uggh, Monday when I’ll be back at my stupid job. Well, enough about that, because I still have four full days to enjoy before my return to hell.

Would you look at that, an entire blog without using the word fuck. Oh, nevermind.

Well, day two of my vacation I woke up earlier than I would have liked to. I ended up going out of town for the day. There was quite a bit of fog out there this morning. I noticed that even though I am going 5 miles over the speed limit when it’s so foggy out that you can see probably two semi lengths in front of you, that other idiots seem to think they still need to pass me. What the fuck is that about? It really sucks because even if they lose their way and fly off the road I’m probably not going to get to see it because it’s so damn foggy out. Driving in the fog really doesn’t bother me much because I don’t worry much about my own driving. I worry about the other dumb motherfuckers that are out there attempting to drive. I don’t need some 16 year old bitch that is talking on the cell with her right hand and smoking a cigarette with her left running into me because “oh my god, did Tina really say that? Oh my god!!”. Don’t need it. I also don’t need some 90 year old cocksucker hitting me because he miscalculated a foot for two car lengths. Yes, I love sharing the road with all of these dumb bastards; can’t you tell?

Last night I watched Kill Bill Volume 1, and now Volume 2 is sitting on the entertainment cabinet just begging to be watched. Therefore I am going to abandon my computer early tonight and see how much blood can be spilled on my second day of vacation. Tomorrow’s project: install a door. Where the fuck is Bob Vila when you need him?

Today was my official first day of vacation. Of course I haven’t been to work since Friday, but since it was my weekend off anyway, I don’t really count that. Nope, vacation started today. I got the chore shit out of the way immediately. Basement cleaned up – Check. Haircut – Check, rented a couple movies – Check. So, I got all that important shit out of the way and decided to check out daytime television and see what I’m missing everyday while I’m slaving away at work. First channel I hit had a soap opera on. There was some guy talking to some girl and telling her some shit. Now I’ve never seen the show before and have no clue who these people are supposed to be, but I knew he was fucking lying, and my claims were backed up a few seconds later when she called him a liar. Well, I don’t need to watch anything so predictable, so I flip through a few more channels. Well, if it isn’t the Maury Povich show. Well, as long as he isn’t doing more of the stupid “I know it’s not my baby bitch, let’s do a DNA test” shows. Well, I guess I should have expected nothing less. Maury (Talk / Tabloid) Paternity tests. TV14 CC. Ok, so the chick is on TV talking about she fucked a few different guys and her man may not be the father of their child. So when the test is revealed and it turns out he is the father, why does he do that little happy dance. I’d say fuck you ya goddamn slut and walk off the stage. Maybe one of your “on the side” dicks will take care of you. Since that never happens it’s time to flip to another channel. Ahh, the X Games. Nothing makes me feel better about my lazy ass sitting on the couch watching television that watching young men jumping bikes and motorbikes and doing flips and turns that you couldn’t even imagine. I have a hard enough time just trying to make a sharp turn on my bike, let alone ever going airborne. That takes a lot of things that I certainly don’t have in me.

Of course had my cable box been working properly, I wouldn’t have to be channel surfing, I would have just been able to run the on screen programming and see what was on without actually watching the shit. Last week for whatever reason my cable box stopped having the on screen programming on it. I went into Charter on my day off last week and told them about it. I was told that they had quite a few people that this had happened to and they were working on the problem and everyone would be up and working by Friday. Well, it seems to be Monday and my box is still not working properly. So, thinking they were a bunch of stupid assholes who just tell people bullshit to get them out of their office, I went back in today and was told that everyone will be up and running by tomorrow (Tuesday). Well, that’s much different than Friday isn’t it? So now tomorrow when I get home from my travels and my cable box still doesn’t work I am going to have to call the company and tell them to send a signal out to my cable box because the dumb asses in my town only think the problem is being fixed.

I just got home from the store where I picked up my “Best of Triumph” DVD. That’s right, no more watching shitty 1/8 screen shots of Triumph on my computer, now I can see him on my television like was intended. It’s about time they put this out there, we’ve been waiting for a hell of a long time. I think the TV on DVD craze has finally hit, and hit big. I’ve seen DVD’s out there of shows I forgot existed. Honestly though, aside from South Park and Family Guy, I can’t really think of any show I liked that much that I would just have to own. I mean, I liked Knight Rider when I was younger, but I don’t feel the need to own the show on DVD. Obviously, this shit is selling rather well, or studios wouldn’t be putting that much money into bringing these to retail. I think it is the final nail in the coffin of VHS.

Oh well, look at the bright side. I’m off work for nine days now. I have no real plans and I doubt if I am going anywhere, just going to lounge around home and maybe do some shit that I’ve been neglecting lately. You know, play with the kids, pay some attention to the wife. Oh wait, that’s right, I’m not married, and I don’t have any kids. Well, I guess I’ll be watching porn and getting drunk. There’s a postcard for you.

Ok, by now everyone’s probably seen it on the news. Some kids steal this little punk bastard’s X-Box, he gets pissed off and then he convinces three others to help him kill the ones who stole it. It’s a horrible crime and hopefully the dumb asshole that did this will serve some serious time. My problem with this is that everyone is throwing this news story around with so much emphasis on the X-Box. The game console is nothing in this story. This guy was obviously pretty fucked up in the head already and therefore no matter what they took, or he thinks they took is no matter at this point. The fact is that he killed or had someone kill six people. The six people apparently took some of his clothes, but you don’t see the headlines “Fruit of the Loom murders”. Nope, that’s because the X-Box is a bigger deal and this will stir some more video game debates up. I’m sure the fuckers at FOX and CNN are already assembling their crack team of video game experts to discuss this situation in detail. What a bunch of shit.

Do you know what our high temperature was today? 52; it’s fucking August according to my cheap ass Wal Mart desk calendar with the stains all over it. If it’s really August then why the fuck does it feel like early March or late October? You know what it is? It’s a conspiracy to make us buy sweaters. Those bastards at the GAP are overstocked on product from last year and now they are making it cold out; knowing we are too lazy to dig our own stuff out and we will come down like robots and buy their shit. Ok, I’ve been watching too many detective shows while drinking heavily and I’m a little numb to reality.

Speaking of being numb, I got a new product in; new Trojan Extended Pleasure condoms. They have 4% benzocane in them. In case you think you have heard of benzocane but aren’t sure where, just pick up your bottle of Ambesol or Orajel. That has 10%, but it’s the same ingredient. Apparently the theory here is that if your dick gets numb then you will go longer. This was obviously invented by a woman because no man has that kind of time on his hands. If a man is that sensitive this probably won’t help him anyway because he’ll probably blow it while he’s putting the condom on and then he won’t even feel it. On the plus side you could go around selling yourself as a remedy for toothaches.

So I’m sitting here last night watching TV because there were nasty ass thunderstorms moving through and I decided that I didn’t want to be on the computer when it was storming. How the fuck I figure that I’m so much more protected watching TV instead of being on the computer I don’t know. Let’s see, a 17″ monitor blowing up in my face vs. a 36″ TV blowing up in my face. Hmmm, which one would be safer for me? Actually if it starts lightning extremely bad I usually turn the TV off. I do have a pretty good Belkin surge protector on my TV as well as my computer, so I don’t worry too much about it.

As I was sitting there watching the storms blow around us, I decided to eat a few raisins. That got me thinking. Who the fuck invented this shit? I know that raisins are dehydrated grapes, but how did they figure this out? Did some lazy bastard living in Arizona accidentally leave his grapes out in the sun one day and then when he went to check on them they had all shriveled up on him? Well once that happened he was screwed because you know his wife was going to kick his ass for that. So what else is he going to do but try and pass this shriveled grape off as food? That’s how we got prunes too. I guess you can just let your food rot and then pass it off as a new food. Too bad it doesn’t work too well with a pork chop.

Well, I’ve got 2/3’s of my painting done now. Of course since I have to go to work and stupid shit like that, I haven’t been able to finish yet. Tomorrow however is when I will end up disconnecting the computer and disassembling the computer desk and I will paint the 3rd wall. Then it will be fun time. Luckily the paint doesn’t really have much of a smell to it, so although I’m probably still inhaling harmful fumes, I don’t seem to notice. As if anyone really gives a shit, maybe I’ll post a before/after picture when it’s all done.

Hey, Cartman is winning in the polls, much like I had predicted. My site is losing a lot of hits since the link on the front of Southparkstudios is now in the archives. I will have to go there and re-iterate my site once again. Oh well, in any fashion, Cartman is kicking some major ass, and that end result is what I wanted in the first place.

My bandwidth almost hit 4GB last month when I was worried about breaking my limits. Well, I don’t have to worry any more. I just received an email yesterday from my service provider that they are upgrading all of their service packages and they are including their current customers. They are doubling my storage space and my bandwidth. That means I now have 400MB of space (of which I’m using right around 40MB) and I get 8GB of bandwidth. What does this mean? It means it’s a fucking kick ass upgrade for free. Another cool thing I found out from my service provider is I can block people from stealing my images and putting them on their sites with a link. So called leeching of images is common practice, especially on news boards across the web. This item I found on my control panel for my site lets me block any file type I want to stop people from linking to. This way if someone puts a link up to connect straight to a picture off my site, all they get is the little empty box with the red X in it. Ha ha, take that fuckers.