So I'm sitting in my house last night, programming away to finish up one of my client's websites, lounging calmly in my boxers and a t-shirt (enjoying the cool weather before it gets too cold to enjoy), watching some TV nonsense -- news, videos, whatever. Didn't really matter. I'm too neck-deep in PHP code to really pay attention. But I did hear the doorbell, which may as well be located in someone else's house for all that I can normally hear it.

And most of my friends know this, too, so I'm fairly ready for it to be the police, or maybe a neighbor looking for something. And I guess I was sort of right -- can a homelss guy be a neighbor if he haunts your block?

Sure. Why not? At least for the sake of this conversation, we'll let him be a neighbor.

He asks if I'm McCracken, and I say that I am. He's not drunk or high (not to my eyes, at least, though I think I'm fairly good at spotting the signs), but not the cleanest guy. Or the brightest.

He proceeds to tell me that he knows who broke into my car a few weeks ago. He's broke and homeless, though, and is hoping to trade the name for a finder's fee. He doesn't want me to get the cops involved -- he says the guy is either just out of prison or fresh into a long probation sentence, and if the cops show up, the guy will know it was him. Or something. Looking back, it makes less sense than it did last night.

At any rate, he thinks the guy will roll over and give me the money for my stereo if I go down to his place (which, if I'm putting 2 and 7 together correctly, is a halfway house a few blocks from me) and demand money or place a call to the cops -- he doesn't want to go back to jail, see? He's not giving up the name until he gets the finder's fee (I think it's funny that he keeps calling it that) -- but poor homeless guy doesn't seem to believe me when I tell him that I don't have anything to give (and that's the truth -- I learned a long time ago not to carry cash, for a mulititude of reasons).

So apparently the thief gets paid on the first of the month, and homeless guy will come back on the 30th (tomorrow) to trade out a name for some extortion fee. And it's almost worth $10 bucks to get the name. But I think it will be more entertaining, maybe, to call some of my less peace-loving friends to wait for the guy with me. Or maybe to call the cops on him, too (it's extortion, after all). Or maybe get the name, call the cops on the old dude, then go visit the radio thief with some friends...

Of course, for all I know, the old guy is in on it. In fact, I'm sure of it, on some level. Who knows if this is some sort of set-up (weakly played, if so), or maybe just a grudge fuck between two homeless junkies. And I think I really don't care which it is, if either.

I'm really just so shocked by this turn of events (it's not hard to figure out which apartment is mine from the truck's parking -- but it didn't hurt that my registration papers were among the stolen items, and thus they have my address). Usually, a crime happens and is over. You're more careful, maybe even paranoid, but things settle back into the old pattern.

Not this time, though. This is the return to the scene sort of thing. And it's unsettling.

Not to mention irritating.

Sigh.

I only muster up that much energy because I know I've got a few days off coming up, thanks to the arrival of the Britain's criminal and uber-religious element in the land of the free and the home of the Braves. God bless 'em, those goofy talking islanders...

Days off, of course, is a relative concept. I've got a few websites to finish creating, another two to update, and a whole lot of movie business to take care of. It suddenly occurs to me that the shoot is about three weeks away, and while there's not THAT much left to do in the meantime, what's left is pretty important. And the websites have to get done so I can invoice people and afford to make a movie.

Sleep is for the weak.

Oh, gotta start thinking about Christmas here shortly, too, hunh? What does everyone want?

At least there's another week of good sweeps-worthy TV to keep me occupied in my spare time...

Okay. Maybe my thought for the day.

Whatever.

I love despair.com. Love it. I should be working for them.

http://media.putfile.com/gumino

I guarantee you've not even imagined this sort of thing. Not even on that not-easy-to-watch M&M; commercial.

I want her number for my next horror movie. People would cringe just watching her -- and that's before you put creepy makeup on.

Yes, way too busy to think about posting, much less to do it. So, sans clever wit and flowery speech, a quick update for those that care:

1.) Muckfuppet progresses. Well, in fact.

2.) Played a hell of a show Saturday, according to those in attendance (I even heard two people say that it was the best we've ever played. If only those two had been hot and single. And interested.) I barely remember it through a flu-medication induced haze.

3.) Sometime within twelve hours later, my car was broken into again. By again, I mean for the eighth time in ten years. No more replacing the car stereo for me. I'm getting a shitty FM receiver and a hearty fuck you to crackheads. (The saddest part is that the fuckers were so desperate for whatever that they literally cleaned out my truck -- tools, maglite, registration paper, insurance card, spare pennies, and even the owner's manual. And a binder full of irreplaceable mix CDs that have served as an audio journal for me over the past ten years.)

And for your deep thought of the day:

Fear is not at the heart of love, no matter what anyone tells you. In fact, the two shouldn't even be considered in the same breath.

(Erasing the whiteboard to make room for Muckfuppet planning)

"Real love is not ambivalent." -Angels in America
"Respect the delicate ecology of your illusions." - Angels in America
"In the new century, I think, we will all be insane." -Angels in America

I’d like to say to the good preacher from CBN: if there is a disaster in your area, don’t turn to your fellow human beings. You just rejected them from your area.

And don’t wonder why they haven’t helped you when problems begin, if they begin. I’m not saying they will, but if they do, just remember, you just irritated all the straight-thinking human beings out of your area. And if that’s the case, don’t ask for their help, because they might not be there.

Seriously, Pat: you think your God is really concerned about an election -- a school board election, of all things -- in Dover? Or that he was all fired up about rainbow flags in Orlando?

You're a self-righteous prick who seems to have forgotten the parts of the Bible that preach love and tolerance.

If you're ever on fire, and dehydrated to boot, I'm betting you'll have a hard time finding someone to piss in your mouth.

(video of this arrogant blowhard fuck here).

Yeah, I'm not religious -- especially not Jewish. But I found this passage from the Talmud, and I think it's really nice:

"Be very careful if you make a woman cry, because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a man’s rib: Not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be superior, but from the side to be equal. Under the arm to be protected, and next to the heart to be loved."

I've been preoccupied for the past few months wondering too many heavy things.

Okay, most of my life. Whatever. Potato, potahto.

At the dentist today, getting a tooth filled, I had to stop myself from asking how they know when they've got everything right, how this drill works, how the compounds set themselves. It's a lifelong thing with me: wondering how things work. Wanting to understand the way things connect and correlate. I'm possessed of a desire to take everything apart, to poke around, and hopefully be able to put it back together. And this goes for everything from the VCR to life itself.

I'm fascinated, as some people know, by fractals and the Golden Ratio and the implications that the entire universe is built on numbers. I took psychology courses in college not so much to make a better profiler (thank god -- that would have been a waste now, eh?), but to have a better understanding of what makes people tick.

Sadly, I also am possessed of the attention span of a 40-year-old computer programmer at the Playboy Mansion. I never had the ambition to take lots of science or math classes to more fully understand the things I'm curious about. In fact, my interests, while often cycling back to certain areas, tend to cover the range of the universe.

Maybe that's actually a better thing for me, though -- the more you learn about most subjects, the more you find yourself specializing. Were I a physicist, I'm sure that I would be balls-deep in quantum mechanics; a psychologist, exploring the connections between self-actualization and creativity. Instead, I wander to and fro, picking up crumbs here and there, and far more often than I should, I think, being able to make connections between this and that.

And I'm not sure, even after all this time, why I'm here (or that there's even an answer to that -- after all, any answer other than coincidence implies Intelligent Design and higher powers, and I'm not quite ready to accept those things as fact). I have no idea what I want out of life, what I want to be when I grow up, where I'm going.

But I'm getting closer. Maybe closer is the wrong word -- it implies that there is an end to my quest, and I'm fairly sure there's not. I'm feeling - what? Growth, definitely. Evolution. Progress. Like maybe I'm finally getting to the point where I'm almost done making stupid mistakes that create more little fires for me to have to put out, almost at the level where I can stop fixing my mistakes and start using and applying some of what I've learned throughout all my wanderings.

"The unexamined life is not worth living for man." Plato? Socrates? Plato's Socrates? No one knows. And maybe that's the sort of stuff -- trivial -- that's fun to pull out at parties, but ultimately unimportant.

Did Shakesspeare really write all those plays and poems? Does it matter? Those pieces are written and out there for us to enjoy. In the end, does it really matter, beyond an ultimately pointless sense of narcissism, who wrote them? There are no fees owed to the estates.... Of course, as someone partially consumed with the need to leave my mark on the world - possibly through an artistic creation - this is a funny thing to mention. Aware, that'd be me. But still, true -- ultimately, unimportant.

Oh, and apparently, I'm an introvert. Never realized it...

It's the every drug, Panexa. Who wouldn't want a year's prescription? Or more?

The worst thing about having as many great and wonderful friends as I do? Having to spend the first half of my birthday sleeping off one hell of a hangover, as birthdays start at midnight.

The best thing about today? I can now, officially and with authority, say that I'm older than Jesus.

Of course, at heart, I'm still not legally allowed into bars.

It's all a matter of perspective.

There are places that each of us are meant to be. We may never find those places; worse, we may never recognize them for what they are, for the unique and special connection that we could have with them.

In the meantime, we'll stumble and wander from place to place, perhaps lost, perhaps only restless and dissatisifed.

The only other option is to settle for less than what we really desire, to be content with what we are given, with what floats our way. There's a level of sloth in that way, though.

While there are no guarantees that we will ever find what we are looking for, or that we will recognize it when we do, or that what we seek will even be obtainable once we find it -- while all of this is true, does that really rationalize giving up and making do?

I don't get too comfortable here, because it's not where I'm supposed to be. Not in the end, at least. And I'm not anxious to leave, because there's no point in jumping from one place to another without taking a look first, feeling around and checking to see if it's where I want to be going.

Outside of that dream destination, it's all just different names for the same place.

It smells like a doctor's waiting room in here, and it doesn't help that the carpet is made to inspire vertigo.

Outside, it's gray and drizzling and cold. Perfect November weather. Exactly what I've been waiting for (sans the drizzle, I should say -- rainy days and Mondays always bring me down).

We (being the entire IT department of UAB, excepting a few server admins) just shifted all of our offices from across campus into a new building, and the new carpet and furniture and paint gives it that newly disinfected smell. And the pod set-up, while inspiring for a sense of community, makes me feel like I should be on the phone trying to close sales.

The community thing isn't even a point for me, since my department numbers one plus a part-time intern...

Interesting as time passes to watch the way the world is changing around us. New theories about workers and productivity and morale spring up, and you have a generational shift of new trends in the workplace. Christmas decorations spring up earlier and earlier every year, and the coll season starts later and later; the time change is just icing on the cake of temporal displacement. Trick or treating seems to be more and more a thing of the past; when I was a kid, not so terribly long ago, you went house to house, every house in the neighborhood, and loaded up. These days, you see fewer and fewer kids in costumes outside of school, and fewer and fewer houses with welcoming porch lights or decorations.

These are the things that old people notice. The changes, today versus the good old days. And I'm not old, unless you ask my baby sister or the twenty-somethings in my crowd; my 34th birthday is coming up this Friday, but I still feel (and act, and apparently look) 25.

But I can feel myself seeking those familiar patterns in life, from habitual behaviors to seasonal shifts. And I'm aware of how quickly they are changing, disappearing, moving on to become the memories of my baby sister and my niece.

It startled me a few days ago to realize that, with only 15 years between us, how many pieces of technology separate myself and my youngest sibling. And not just things like video game systems, or width of internet pipes. She's never known the world without remote control, the internet, cell phones, portable music players, video players, or microwave ovens. She wouldn't know what UHF is without a hint or two.


These are all things we all take for granted, whether we have them or not (I know plenty of people who do without cable TV, computers in the home, and cell phones -- but they're aware that they could grab them at any time if the need or desire arose).

And of course, the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots, the ever-marching progress of the capitalist world. The insane greed that drives millionaires to swindle blue-collar workers out of the life savings, that sends countries to war and creates insanely intricate webs of deception and lies and blind faith.

This world has lost it's focus, I often think. I'm no different, no better, except maybe in the sense that I'm aware of it.

It, and the cloyingly clean smell that I have to put up with 40 hours a week.

I guess it could be worse, though. I could be stuck making calls, trying to close sales, instead of just feeling like I should be.