The Big Sneeze

It’s that time of year again. The weather is nice and warm. The flowers are up and in full bloom. The trees are budding and leafing out.

And the interior of my skull is on fire.

It started this weekend. Very subtle. Hardly even noticed the occasionally sniff. Spent lots of time outside, planting 106 purple, blue and lavender pansies in the front yard. Got to spend some time on the deck, too.

Then Monday I can barely keep my head up and straight because of the weight. It felt like a bowling ball on a pipe cleaner. I think every ounce of blood was in my forehead. My vision blurred a little as each heartbeat thundered thru my skull. A healthy dose of Exedrin® Migraine killed that bad boy eventually, but that’s when the sneezing started.

Normally I don’t mind sneezing. Sometimes it’s kinda fun. But not when I’m at work. I’m have a horrible fear of sneezing at work. Because you never know when a sneeze could result in a fart. Gawd, that’s embarrassing. Your whole body decides that expelling offending matter thru the nose is not sufficient and chooses to utilize every orifice instead.

So I sit there constantly stifling off a potential sneeze. And making frequent trips to the bathroom to ease off any tension.

The other dilemma is, as mentioned, the burning. As soon as the seasonal allergies kick in my nasal passages close up completely. Breathe Right® strips don’t work. Vicks® vapor stuff only works a little. Unfortunately my only option is nasal spray.

Nasal spray is horrid. Yeah, it opens you up and you can breathe but it leaves a nasty, chemical taste in your mouth and your nasal passages feel like they’re housing an entire colony of fire ants.

And it’s worse when the pain goes to your ears. And your mouth. Right now my ears feel like I’m at 30,000 feet and the inside of my mouth is acid sore.

But I can breathe, if I don’t mind that each inhalation is stirring up the fire ants, causing them to break out the flamethrowers in celebration.

I was hoping to kill this year’s hay fever off quickly. I’ve been free-basing the vitamin C, drinking gallons of orange juice and herbal tea with locally-produced honey (supposed to help with allergies) and chomping Cold-Eeze® when I remember. But last night I was miserable. The spouse made sure I was aware that.

His quote today: “Man, when I came to bed last night and saw you sitting up reading your book, you looked like hell.”

It’s nice to be loved. Oh well, I’m saving a special sneeze for him later this evening.

Random thoughts and links, part 103

Time has been passing but I haven't been writing. Looks like that snipe of a Muse has abondoned me again.

In the meantime I've been keeping very busy... read several books, done some socializing with pals, getting feedback and ideas for this year's haunted house from some really great people... and suriving at work.

There's been good times and not so good times. For a brief period there it got real ugly. But after a meeting was called, opinions and disagreements aired, the dust seems to have settled and things are kinda getting back to normal.

Kinda... but not really. We've experienced a mass exodus recently at the workplace: one retirement, one marriage and move and two quitters... one of whom was Barb. THAT was a relief to many. The stress level has dropped dramatically in our little department.

But the other quitter was a shocker; a sales guy who had been with us for 20 years just upped and bolted. Apparently, he had been selling for ANOTHER company for a couple of weeks before it was DISCOVERED he was planning on quitting.

How was it discovered, you ask? When one of his customers calls and says, "Well, since Bob Jones isn't with your company any more, who's gonna be my new sales rep?"

Yeah, that went over nice. Next day he's just gone. No explanation, no farewell. Just a lot of unanswered questions.

In the meantime we've had this flurry of new people bouncing all over the office, filling the vacancies; three new sales slugs and one pre-press guy to fill Barb's old spot.

What's making it very strange is that 3 of these 4 new guys are young, like early 20s young. I used to be the 'baby' (at a spring-chicken age of 36) at work but now I'm one of the 'old people.'

Gawd, did I just type that? Fuck, I'm old.

It's been really strange talking with and training these 'kids.' All of our conversations, our music choices, our jokes and pop culture references are alien to them. Our new pre-press guy graduated high school in 2002. Good gravy, I graduated high school in 88. Last fucking century!

Oh shit, I need a drink...

Oh, well... links!

As weird as this sounds, I betchya it's damn good... it's BACON!

The best in lolcats... don't panic, they'll be back soon.

Damn, dat cat can play... and the kid's head has good accoustics.

Fun with ascii... and you just know I like the 'sblood.'

Now that tax season is over, I'm sure you have a lot of paper to get rid of... and this uses no electricity.

Hey der Jim Bob, I knows wut to git da kids fer Critmus dis year... an it's good job trainin'.

Run Dos, run

So I just finished The Cult of Mac by Leander Kahney. Incredible book. I felt so at home. Well, most of the time. I knew I was a Mac Geek from way back but there are people out there that make me look like a normal human being.

The first computer my dad ever bought for the family was a Franklin Ace 1000, an Apple IIe clone. I don’t remember the specific numbers and such, but at the time it was cutting edge. GE had a bunch they used in their design CAD department.

The old Franklin consisted of this big-ass hard drive, about 18 inches wide, maybe 2 feet deep and 5 or 6 inches high. We had a green screen monitor (about a 10 or 12 inch screen) and a 5” floppy drive.

Dad also got a shitload of shareware. There was one program (I guess it was an early version of Word Perfect) that I used for every paper I ever had to write in middle school and even into high school. At first we had a dot matrix printer that I kept buzzing. With teachers complaining about hard-to-read dot matrix printouts, Dad eventually rigged up a nice electric Smith Corona typewriter that printed out my homework.

And the games. Oh, the games Dad found. We had Swashbuckler, Way Out, Bolo, Sheila and... Aztec! My gawd I loved me some Aztec! You could play difficulty levels from 1 to 9. During those years I made it up to I think 7.

I played the game so much the floppy disc wore out. It would grind and grind in that damn drive, sounding like a sick lawn mower. Each time I won at a level of difficulty, the grinding got longer... and longer. Finally my dad got another copy of the game. It made it a couple of weeks before that one started to die, too.

So I had to give up on my favorite game, never winning at level 9. Damn.

Fast forward to my first years in college. My lifelong friend WasabiJohn got me involved with the student-run college radio station. One day while hanging around the offices I noticed someone playing on an old Apple IIe. Next to the glorious machine was a metric fuck ton of 5 inch floppies, all with games.

And guess which one they had? And guess which one I finally beat at level 9? Do you have any idea how many classes I cut just so I could hang out in the old radio station office and bang on that there Apple? Ah, those were the days.

We eventually had to vacate the offices and move to much smaller quarters. And with smaller facilities we had to chuck a lot of stuff. I have no idea what happened to the old Apple IIe.

But fear not. I have an Apple IIe emulator at home on the iMac. And yes, I have Aztec. My fervor for playing has diminished, but I do occasionally whoop up on it. Haven’t invested the time to get all the way to level 9 yet.

But getting back to the book I just finished. I was talking to my dad yesterday, telling him about these crazy people who are hanging onto, even paying huge amounts of money for, these old, obsolete Apples.

“Dad, you don’t happen to still have that old Franklin, would ya?”

“Oh, damn. No, that thing went straight to the dumpster.”

*wince*

“Yeah, the microchips started going out on it. I kept replacing them but eventual they quit making the replacements. I had some salesgirl tell me I could try computer junk shops. Well, I tried that but could find what I needed. That’s when we bought that new Compac back in the mid-80s.”

“Yeah I remember. But didn’t you save that old Franklin in a closet somewhere?”

“No. We took that thing and dropped it in a dumpster at GE.”

*cringe*

“Dad, do you have any idea how much money you coulda made by selling that thing on eBay?”

“Yeah, I know. Sucks, don’t it? It was a good machine”

Random thoughts and links, part 102

Slowed down this week at work. Kinda drove me crazy, sitting there all day with nothing to do. But that's ok...

Barb is leaving.

I knew it was coming when, two weeks ago, I found where someone had been checking on a resume posting thru the web on one of our communal computers. It didn't take any major CSI work to figure out who it was. But I kept my mouth shut and said nothing until she told me yesterday.

In all honesty, I do NOT wish her any ill will. But I know a lot of us will be glad to have some peace again. I knew she wasn't really happy at our place. A few times her lack of knowledge caused some riffs with some other people.

What's really amusing is the little, insignifcant things that actually drove her to look for another job. She didn't like the fact that our Gestapo-like dress code wouldn't allow her to wear open-toed shoes without hose. She complained a lot about not having enough vacation (you get one week after you've been there 3 months, 2 weeks after you've been there a year, 3 weeks after 5 years and so on...). There were time she seemed very much like a 'princess.'

So anyway, we have only a few days left with her. Which is good in a way. Like I said, hot having to hear her beat the death out of stories over and over will be nice. But who knows what kind of life form will walk in the door to replace here....

Links!

A lot of work for a very cool item... me want!

I can... can you?

Damn cool. And I'm not even a motorcycle fan (thanx Csam for the link)... vrooom!

Ok, here's the situation. You're stuck next to an obnoxious/hateful/nosey/smelly/rude or otherwise unpleasant person on a bus, train or plane. Very casually open up your laptop or other web browsing device and launch your web browser or email app. Close your eyes and raise your head. After a quiet moment of reflection... go here.

Yes, I know how politically incorrect it is, but if you were stuck next to Barb on your next 13 hour flight (and you didn't mind the jail time afterwar) it would be so worth it.

What an excellent day for an exorcism

Yesterday Argon-Man and I were talking in the kitchen when I heard my phone ring in the other room. The ringtone alerted me that it was ‘family.’ The very second I pick up the phone it stops ringing. The caller ID on the outside LCD screens says:

“Argon-Man’s Cell”

*blink blink*

I walk back into the kitchen. “Argon, where’s your phone?”

“It’s in the office. Why?”

*run back to office*

Argon-Man’s cell phone is laying on a shelf. In the office...

SATAN!!!!

Dial W for Weird

It was a dark and windy day when the call came in... nine times... from Tonasket... but first, a little background info.

My old cell phone croaked right after Christmas so I got a new Samsung. It's nice, it has a camera, color LCD screen inside, monochrome LCD screen outside, has mp3 ringtone capability, and you can actually call people on it, too.

I spent a lot of time updating my contacts, putting everyone into groups. So now when I get a call the outside LCD screen will show an icon for whatever group they are (Family, Friends, Work, Haunted House) and will display the person's name. If it's a call from someone that I don't have programmed into my phone, it will simply display the number with no icon.

Like I said, it was a dark and windy day when the first call came. Friday at around 4pm I get a call from an un-programmed number. But this one is different. This one is showing a computer with a phone icon. Weird.

I open the phone to answer but I can't even do that. Normally, the screen has the options of "Accept" or "Reject." This time, I can only "Reject." "Accept" isn't even on the screen. Try as I might, I can't answer this call. Coming from a computer. With a phone.

Thinking it's just a glitch in the system, I reject it. Only to have it call me back 5 minutes later. Same deal all over again.

I'm on my way out to my car to go home and it rings a 3rd time. Now I'm getting pissed. I decied to call the number back and find out what the hell this bonehead with the computer and the phone is trying to do. Maybe it's a telemarketer using a computer-dialing machine. Maybe it's a fax machine. Maybe it's an automated dialing service. Maybe the fucking federal government is tapping my damn line again.

Anyway, I call it back and am told via a cell-phone-company recording that I "can't do that on this line. Please dial 611 for customer service."

Fuck'em. Forget that.

On my drive home the phone rings 4 more times... from the same number:

509.486.XXXX

Once I get home it happens twice. For those of you bad at math, that's a grand total of 9.

Now I'm curious. Where the hell is area code 509? So once I get settled in the house I do a little Googling. 509 is in the state of Washington. The prefix 486 comes from a four-street burb called Tonasket.

The mystery deepens. I know only one person in Washington (an old Spymac buddy) but he doesn't live in Tonasket. But I email him anyway, hoping maybe he might know something about the town. Maybe they have a telemarketing firm there. Maybe they have a cell phone relay center there. Maybe THAT'S where the REAL Area 51 is and the Mothership is trying to contact me.

Good ol' Ric jumped right on it and came up with two names of people I don't know, nor have I ever heard of. I thanked him for his diligent research but I'm still stumped.

That night after Argon-Man comes home I tell him my tale. He then tells me about something he saw on CNN last week about new technology being used in vending machines. These machine can now automatically dial their home office or service center whenever they experience an error or malfunction. So perhaps there's a Coke machine somewhere in Tonasket, Washington, that's desperately trying to tell its service center that it's out of Sprite. And it's dialing my number by mistake.

Which COULD make sense. I got the nine phone calls from 4-5pm Eastern Time... which is 1-2pm Pacific Time... right after lunch. Perhaps the workers in Tonasket really like Sprite.

Since this episode I've asked several people if they'd had any weird phone incidents like this. So far, I'm the only one.

It could have been just some freak thing with my cellular company. Maybe a malfunctioning tower. Maybe a satelite freaking out. The weather WAS awfully windy that day. Could be the weird weather. Sunspots. Alien interference. The fuckking federal government. Who knows.

I only know this; I hope it doesn't happen again. And that Coke machine still needs a refill on Sprite pronto.

Stranger in a Stranger Land

Remember the hex from a few weeks ago? Well, it’s gone, but it’s been replaced by something worse. I think I’m on the wrong planet.

I think it happened the morning of the Chicago Halloween Trade Show trip. The trip itself wasn’t too shabby. We bought some extremely cool and spooky things. And altho the weather was dreadful and did a great job of killing any kind of adventurous mood our group had, we came home safe and sound. And I didn’t have the urge to kill anybody this time.

But something strange happened while we were in the car. I had whipped up a pretty nifty playlist to keep the mood upbeat. Now I have some strange things on ye olde iPod but I kept this particular playlist pretty mainstream out of consideration of the other passengers. By mainstream I mean groups like Smash Mouth, Duran Duran, Kool & the Gang and Prince were included. Familiar favorites, ya know.

All went fine on the way up, but on the way back home I was informed my music was “weird.” Not in a hateful way, but still. I had purposely kept out the Tom Waits, Soul Coughing, cartoon music, Was (Not Was) and the like. But my personal musical taste has been labeled “weird.”

This was one of a few moments during the weekend when I felt like an Earthling visiting Mars.

Back to the strangeness, tho. Two days ago I discovered that very few of my emails had ever made it to their destination. I called my broadband provider and, after talking to a techy for 20 minutes, found out that the Broadband Company and Apple don’t like each other. According to the techy, Apple’s most recently security updates have been so strict with email that this particular company’s software/hardware/hamster running on a wheel wasn’t compatible or something like that. The point is, nobody has been getting my emails for about 3 months. Nice of someone (especially the broadband provider) to tell me this.

The good news is my email is working properly again. The bad news is I was feeling pretty damn lonely, unloved and unwanted for about 3 months... wondering why no one ever responded to me.

But today really is hinting that I’m from another world. One of my co-workers was asking for a good suggestion for the iTunes radio station and I recommended “Fistful of Soundtracks.” When the station came on I recognized the first song and said:

“Oh. Little Green Bag. Reservoir Dogs.”

Two of my co-workers looked at me like I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.

*blink* “What did you say?”

“The song is called ‘Little Green Bag.’ It’s from the movie ‘Reservoir Dogs.’ It’s played during the opening credits.”

*blink blink* *look at each other, look at me*

“Oh, come on. Yall’ve never seen Reservoir Dogs?”

The lobsters must be getting bigger. They’re not even blinking any more.

“Reservoir Dogs. Quinten Tarrentino’s movie before Pulp Fiction.”

“Nope. Never seen it.”

Ok. That’s it. Somebody switched planets on me. What the hell? Please tell me that’s there’s somebody in Loserville or Southern Indiana-Hell that knows what the fuck Reservoir Dogs is. And knows the song Little Green Bag. And won’t get weirded out by John Lee Hooker.

If not, I need to scrounge up some cheap airfare to get the fuck off this imposter planet.