Festering Carbuncle

Ignorance is spoken

I remember seeing this apple sitting next to the stove a few weeks after I bought it and thinking to myself, "Damn, I guess apples just don't go bad."  It was a Honeycrisp apple, and I paid so much for it that I was afraid to eat it.  I guess I was wrong.

I remember another time when I ate about a quarter-ounce of mushrooms and closed my eyes while listening to this song.  I saw dragons and kaleidoscope patterns.  When I opened my eyes I was in the back seat of a Honda and I told the driver that he had to stop.  "You gotta stop, man."  The passenger in the front seat, the death seat, saw the logic in what I was saying and also suggested that the driver stop.  We had all eaten quite a few mushrooms.  The driver stopped.  "What's wrong?" he asked.  The other passenger and I exchanged quizzical looks and informed the driver that he should tell us what was wrong, as he was, in fact, the one who stopped the car in the middle of the road.  The driver shrugged, started the car, and drove on.

Sometimes lots of things happen around at around the same time, and it can be hard to tell which things are causal and which are coincidental.  This might actually be true even when not very many things are happening at the same time, as well.  In any case, that was probably not the first time I heard Alice in Chains, but it might have been the first time I heard that particular album.  And I don't know if it is because the mushrooms reamed out the tunnel between my ears and my enjoyment bone, or if it was just one of those things, but I couldn't stop wanting to hear that album after that experience.

Until just before writing this sentence, I hadn't heard this song in quite a long time, probably years.  I'm still only halfway through the song, but I have to say that it still hits a spot that a lot of other things have difficulty locating.  Surely it was the drugs.

We had a close call. I didn't even see it.

I bought a used video game the other day, like you do, and the clerk tells me, "So hey, you know how to clean blu-ray discs, right?"  "Well," I reply, "I guess I do not."  "Ok, what you do is..." he says, "Well, blu-ray discs are irreparable."  "Damn," I exclaim, in what is, admittedly, not a very exclamatory manner, "that's a bummer."  The clerk assures me, "No, that means they can't be scratched."  "Oh, yeah.  Ok," I replied, "Tell me more."  He went on to explain that the best way to clean this particular media format was to hold it under a running tap flowing with warm, but not hot, water.  He indicated that after a short period of time the disc would "start to foam" and that I should let the foaming continue for several seconds before removing the disc from the stream of water and shaking it dry.  I thanked him for the information, completed my transaction and left.

When I got home and took the disc out of its case, I suddenly understood why the clerk felt it was so important that I know the proper steps for cleaning a blu-ray disc.  The previous owner had apparently lost their thumbs in some sort of tragic accident, presumably one related to an ill-timed "what's got two thumbs and..." joke, and, to compensate for their lack of an opposable digit, kept their hands constantly slathered in tacky, delicious honey.  So, I set my faucet for tepid, shoved my middle-finger knuckle-deep into the disc-hole, and pulled out all of the stops.

As you can see in the attached image, tiny bubbles formed on the surface of the disc, a serious let-down after the term "foam" had been bandied about.  Still, the bubbles did indicate that the clerk knew what he was talking about, which only intensified my disappointment when, after shaking the water off, I found the disc to still be covered in fingerprints.  So, it didn't clean the disc, but after letting it dry for a few hours, a quick buff with a t-shirt did the trick.  Crisis averted.

In any case, I didn't even want to tell that story, I just wanted to comment on the dude's completely incorrect use of "irreparable."  He was a young guy, possibly still in high school, and although he said nearly the exact opposite of what he meant, and in doing so could have sabotaged the entire transaction, I was not bothered at all by his mistake and I felt no contempt, whatsoever.  I liked the fact that he was looking for a better way to express something, even if he failed at doing so.  Eventually he will get a better handle on what the words mean and he will, because of his desire to communicate in a more precise manner, be able to incorporate the words in a natural, unforced way, at which point he will be one of the more delightful people to communicate with.  Of course, my opinion is likely colored by the fact that I watched this young man spend twenty minutes assisting an old man who was either somewhat senile, or otherwise completely mystified by computer magic, and never saw a hint of contempt or mockery cross his face.

"I once maimed, and killed eventually, a fighting fish I had named Sashimi. How did your fish story end?"

My Fish Story

He wound up out of his bowl, somehow, but I rescued him after I was done taking pictures, pointing, and laughing.

I showed the picture to a Good Samaritan I knew, and after she decoiled from the horror, she volunteered to adopt the poor nameless and neglected goldfish. This spared me the crisis of conscience that was sure to accompany being single-handedly responsible for the cutting short of the poor fellow's life, but left my water-filled bowl bereft of beating hearts, which was itself a griefful situation.  So, I got me one of them fighting fish you speak of and chucked him into the bowl.

I did nothing but love the little guy, but that didn't stop him from spending a few weeks slowly turning into a little fish-shaped block of wood, and I, reduced to a mass of curses and tears, flushed him down to a municipal-sewery grave.  I then took the bowl, the accursed reminder of both my guilt and the Betta sized hole in my heart, and kicked it right out the damned window.  No matter how bad things seem, there's noting like a little defenestration to put you right back on top.

Fortunately I never named him, for if I had I would had to come to terms with the abject failure of the moniker when juxtaposed with "Sashimi."  It is also fortunate, I suppose, that I wasn't clever enough to come up with that name myself, because if I had, I probably would have swallowed the little guy whole one night after drinking too many gin drinks.

The End

You may now resume your mission, with "some Rapeman-level loudness."

Dig those cra-azy shoes!

I know, man, they're totally off-the-wall!¹

(1) I actually find this billiards-based etymology to be the more plausible, but the ball one is probably the most widely disseminated.²

(2) One would be wise to exercise great care when disseminating.  After all, god killed Onan³ for just such behavior.

(3) I'm always talking about Onan, but I never mention Er.  It just doesn't seem right.  I mean, god killed Er, too.  Although, I'm not really sure why god killed Er,⁴ but I'm sure there was a good reason.⁵

(4) I just looked it up, turns out god killed Er for being 'wicked,' which makes sense, I guess.

(5) Here are some other, pretty fucking good reasons for killing someone.⁶

(6) 'Being wicked' would, presumably, fall under the heading of 'Other Motives'⁷ in the afore-linked chart.

(7) Other motives that might fall under the 'Other Motives' heading include, but are not limited to: eye-ballin' me; fuckin' with my shit; playin' with my money and/or emotions; indecorously glancing at m'lady's derriere.

Lonely computer is lonely

My computer caught something really nasty a couple months ago.  After three protracted battles, I finally gave up today and restored everything to factory defaults.  The nice thing about it taking so long was that it gave me both the motive and opportunity to get everything backed-up and whatnot, so there was very little agonizing when it was time to pull the plug.  So anyways, my computer is so desolate now, it's making me a little sad.  It's like when you move into a new apartment: at first the emptiness is comforting; a blank slate with which to make all of your dreams come true.  Before long, though, as you sit in the corner and stare at the blank, white walls, the room fills up with loneliness.  My computer is all filled up with loneliness.  My poor computer. 

Smokin' through my dreams

Mt. St. Helens, a Shaver tugboat, and one very happy Tidewater barge... What's behind that barge's happy, happy face? Could it be that there is something rather indecorous going on below the waterline? I shudder to think about it any further. And yes, that is an oil barge, but the river is the Columbia, not the Cuyahoga. Even so, I think Randy Newman could see the connection, however tenuous it may be...