Letter to the asshole on Dartmouth Street, Watertown

Dear Jackass:

Please do not leave any more nasty notes on my windshield. My truck is always LEGALLY PARKED, and is never blocking anyone's driveway or fire hydrant.

You may own the house it's parked in front of, but you DO NOT own the street. In fact, MY TAX DOLLARS HELPED PAY FOR THE CITY TO PLOW the street. No, I do not believe that you shoveled for my convenience...I don't believe you SHOVELED THE STREET... AT ALL. I don't park here every day, and even if I did - I ask you - WHAT FUCKING HARM? You have a driveway, this street is WIDE OPEN with plenty of parking spots, and I have not infringed upon your parking space in any way. Again, I was parked in front of your house for ONE DAY. Not a week, not a month, ONE FUCKING DAY. I merely exercised my right as a taxpayer in this community, and I will continue ON OCCASION to use my truck as one commuting option until the MBTA stops sucking.

Now FUCK OFF.

He went to Jared? Tell him I'd rather have a power saw.

For the life of me, I do not think I will ever understand some women's obsession with bling. Who's got what, how big it is, whose is bigger than whose. It's all so stupid. Ladies, do you really think the size of your rock shows that he loves you more? More than the guy who could only afford one of half the size loves his girl? Don't be fucking daft.

The whole thing is really quite distasteful. And it gives me a sharp pain at my temples.

The only reason diamonds are expensive is because the DeBeers family say they have to be, and suckers support their corrupt industry by shelling out their hard-earned buckage for something that doesn't serve any practical purpose. They're just very, very old chunks of coal, really. I mean, sure...they're pretty, but they don't actually fucking DO anything, now do they? You can't refinish a piece of furniture with them, they won't curl up and purr, and you sure can't drive one to work. And, believe me, they DO NOT keep you warm on a cold winter night.

Sure, they're pretty, but so are puppies.

Before anyone who knows me in real life calls me a hypocrite, I'll say this: I'm currently sporting a nice rock - my engagement ring. Of course it's pretty. Am I attached to it? Maybe, for what it represents, though, not what it is. Might as well be cubic zirconia, or a cracker jack prize, for all I care. I'm quite serious. You see, I didn't pick it out; it was a surprise. If he'd proposed without one, would I have said yes? Hell, yeah. Would I hock it in a split second if we had a big enough money emergency or someone I loved needed medical treatments that insurance wouldn't cover? You bet your arse I would. And I wouldn't lose a minute's sleep over it, or have any regrets. It's a rock. It glitters. So do ice cubes. So there.

Ladies: The idea of wanting more, simply for the sake of having more...kind of turns the stomach a little bit. No, not a little bit... a LOT. Tell him to spend his money on something useful. Like therapy...or something.

I have a scanner, and I'm not afraid to use it.

I always thought this photo was pretty damn cool. It's my dad, in Germany, at the end of WWII. He'd been with the U.S. 746th Field Artillery Battalion. Here's some perspective. I was born TWENTY-ONE years later.

Here I am after a day of paintball, sometime in the late 1990's. (Face blacked out to preserve blogger anonymity.) No, I'm not a paramilitary weirdo. Some guys on my old softball team talked me into playing once or twice. It was a hell of a lot of fun, I must admit, but I don't make a habit of it. Too expensive, and let's face it, you meet a lot of freaks and illiterate right-wing dickheads doing it. So...really...meh.

I don't know why I put this picture up, except that maybe my dad's pose in the first photo kind of brought this picture to mind. The apple don't fall too far from the tree, wha?

Snow?

"In New England? In FEBRUARY? Oh, no WAY!!"

That was the reaction of the MBTA yesterday, evidently.

If anyone tells you that the higher ups at the MBTA know what they're doing? Tell them to immediately take something hard and pointed, and jam it up their corn-holes.

Last night, frozen wires meant that the trolleys on the 71 and 73 lines were completely useless, as the buses ground to a stop all in a neat little row, while a couple hundred tired, wet, cold riders sat and waited for help. And waited, and waited. The T's reaction to send diesel buses to pick up stranded commuters was a decent idea, BUT poorly and slowly executed. Here's an idea: If there's freezing rain in the forecast, use the diesels. Or at least have a bunch of them standing by for service.

And while we're on the subject of the 71 and 73 bus lines, here's an idea: How about sending them in a 1:1 ratio? I waited, stranded in one of those stranded 71 buses last night, in front of Shaw's on Mt. Auburn street (getting unpleasantly chatted up by some fucking mouseketeer who didn't seem to take the hint that my one syllable answers meant he was closer to dying with my fist in his pulverized skull than making friends with me) while the T sent SIX 73 diesel buses to rescue stranded commuters before they sent ONE FUCKING 71.

(Though, to be honest, the bus driver chatted me up a bit too, and he was kind of cute. But STILL.)

My commutes to and from work for the past two days have amounted to almost five hours.

My commute is SEVEN FUCKING MILES.

Next time the weather turns foul, I will be using a sick day. The T can fuck right off.

PROOF!

See folks? Personality IS formed early, and DOES remain constant.

God's sure baked a lot of fruitcake...

Lost my bus pass, people keep asking me stupid questions, some unnatural horror out of the dreaded Necronomicon has taken up residence in my stomach and wishes to devour me whole.

Is it me? Or are the ancient gods of chaos trying to tell me to go home and start drinking early?

Went to a fight once...

And a hockey game broke out.

harrrr...harrr...harrr....

In honor of the Bruins winning a couple recently. Also in the hopes that they'll rediscover some of the fire and brilliance that they appear to be missing of late. Like...in the last 30 years or so.

Night terrors, courtesy of Newcastle Brown Ale.

I've noticed that when my body is detoxing from a lot of weekend boozing, or from a long period of eating crappily, drinking too much, and not exercising, I have a night or two of very nasty nightmares.

Yesterday was my first really good, clean living day in almost a month, because of the move, and not having my exercise equipment sorted, and the Superbowl, etc. However, last night was absolutely awful. I think I woke the spouse up at least twice, maybe more than that, with some violent tossing, shouting, whatever else people do when they're trying to wake themselves up from the terrors that their own subconscious minds let loose upon them.

Does anyone else experience this? No? Just me, huh?

The subconscious is a terrifying place. I don't like to visit too often. It does no one any good at all. The less said about that the better, I should think. Too much soul-searching on a blog is...inelegant.

Here's a nice photo.



................Archway, Fort Popham, Maine

Rapid. I love photos like this. I think I want a print of this for my new library/office/sitting room. I shall contact the photographer di-rectly.

Used to go to Popham Beach as a child. The family would prop a camper up for a few weeks each summer, and we'd travel back and forth, as parental work schedules allowed. Don't recall ever liking the beach much, but I loved wandering around Fort Popham, pretending to be an archaeologist, exploring some medieval castle or the remnants of some ancient Greek city.

There was, of course, no way the park rangers would let me dig for artifacts there, and most areas were off limits to the public. Also, it smelled like piss. But it was a damn sight better than getting sunburned, and cleaning sand out of every orifice at the end of the day.

Beaches. No sir. I still don't like them.

Serenity NOW!

My lunch of vanilla frozen yogurt has turned the volume of my earlier tantrum down to a minor grumble.

Annie is right. Happy Hour approaches. I shall calm my last, frazzled nerves by getting on my couch, imbibing some lovely Rioja, and playing the new Lloyd Cole disc. He ALWAYS helps.

It is, perhaps, because I lack subtlety, that I admire it so much in others. Lloyd, now there's a subtle bastard.



...........................Yum.

I grow weary of the incompetence of others.

COMCAST! Give me back my e-mail, you fucking bunch of humps!

Honestly, I don't know why it's so hard. We've moved, changed the address on our account, had a Comcast technician in to set up cable, phone, internet service in the new house. Phone and cable work just peachy. But our e-mail accounts keep fucking DYING. We've called them, were told they just needed to purge our old accounts, reset our accounts with the new address and account number, that it would be seamless, nothing would be lost, and we wouldn't even notice any interruption. We've given them the okay to do this, this was supposedly done Tuesday night, but today, I'm at work with my comcast account open, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere...zzzzzzz.

What the everloving FUCK is wrong with them? Why is it so hard to just change our shit to our new address and account number? And WHY, after working fine for a few days, does it suddenly fucking DIE again?

Comcast, you blow.

Snark, hipster doofus advertising, paranoia, and Lite Brite terror alerts.

This has been blogged about ad nauseum already, but I just want to say one thing about how the city of Boston was terrorized yesterday by a bunch of Lite Brites.

...erm...no, on second thought. I don't have anything to say about that.

Let's look at some art.

..................Jean-Honore Fragonard: The Swing, 1766



A lovely scene of frivolity and fun, non? A little too fanciful for me, definitely not something I would put up in my house...how would that look next to my Bauhaus couch? Stupid, that's how. But full of fun nonetheless. I like how the young gentleman is getting a nice view up the lady's skirts - I bet this caused a ruckus when it was first unveiled. By today's standards, it's very tame, and yet...there is something very erotic about it.

Them Rococo fellas, they knew how to rock.