Seems like a good day for a drive.

Especially to our soldiers!  Everybody blow something up!!!

The plural of vagina is vaginae. Other than Spell Checker who knew?

The gooseberry harvest is in. Hooray!  I ended up with a 48oz bucket full.  I started yesterday evening but I had to quit 'cause I got cold, and also 'cause my fingers were skewered by ten thousand thorns.  It's a dangerous game cultivating berries.  I got through three and a half bushes out of five last night, then the rest today. Well, five and a small shoot.  I originally started out with eleven, that is one big bush broken into smaller peices and re-planted.  A couple of the bushes are big enough to do that again but I dunno where I can put them.  Dad doesn't like where they currently live 'cause "we might want to play volleyball there one day" (actual quote) but more likely it's a case of he might want to haul in more junk and put there.  Mom had to fight tooth and nail just get a few little patches cleared out for a flower bed. They've since been consumed by the junk piles.

But yeah, it's been really chilly the past few days. I commented about it last night on Twitter and Facebook (two sentences, not worth the trouble to bother on here). One of my friends from high school replied and then my reply continues to amuse me so I decided to make you read it.

Me: Frakkin' frell! Why is it so dang chilly?

Her: I stay freezing, even in 80degree weather. I carry a blanket around my shoulders like a little ole lady. LOL

Me: I know lots of females with wonky bodily thermometers like that. Vaginas must be drafty.

Ha, that still cracks me up.  So, most juvenile thing you've seen today or BEST juvenile thing you've seen today?

Anyways, I had a really delicious lunch today - burnt balogna sammich. It's way better than it sounds.  And I don't mean slightly brown but actually charred and crispy.  Put some fresh tomato and mustard on that and YUM!  I tried to find the scene from Pink Flamingos where the Marbles hire Cookie as a spy and give her a balogna sandwich to embed here but no such luck. "Mmm, ballonie!"  She said it like that.

Oh, and I got new underwear today.  They say "SUPER POWERS" on the waist band and have pics of Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Flash and Green Lanter all over them in various poses in 80's era style, like comic book panels. The also have their various insignia except for Aquaman.  His is just a big, gold lamda so I can see why it was left out.  Still, he never gets the respect he's due.  Anyways, it's the same pattern as these boxers but in boxer biref form.

Now, what to have for dinner?

The current living situation has me sleeping in the recliner in the family room, as I've mentioned in previous posts.  The lack of privacy therefore necessitates that I sleep fully clothed. If it's chilly I even leave my shoes on.  My current list of duties has me playing chauffeur three times a day at 7:30 am, noon, and 4pm.  Usually I take a nap before the noon and 4pm runs.  For the afternoon nap I use mom and dad's bed which means I can get more comfortable with a closed door. That is, keep all my clothes on except the shoes and the cargo shorts I seem to have many pairs of.  I bought some new boxer briefs on Saturday and opened the pack Sunday night..  I was consciously aware of putting on a new pair after my shower that evening.  The next day when I had the afternoon nap I did the usual and took off the cargo shorts, got under the covers, and nodded off.   When I woke up to do the 4pm run I rolled over and grabbed my cargo shorts and was completely shocked by the sight of a pair of underwear on me that I didn't recognize. 

The briefs are relatively unremarkable - blue with a sort of diamond pattern where the corners of the diamonds are little black squares with red dots in the middle.  Yeah, I was groggy from just waking up but I still experienced .8 seconds of confusion and terror until I remembered my recent purchase. I literally had the heart-leaping-into-throat experience. My eyes were blurry so the red dots seemed like blood splatter but I disproved that with a quick feel.  Had I been stripped and redresses while I slept, and if so, who did it and why?  Had I somehow slipped into an alternate universe me who had  decent taste in undergarments?  Also, that was the nap that gave me the Corpsacabana dream so I was already starting out from a place of discombobulation.   Anyways, reading about it prolly took you twenty times longer than the confused terror actually lasted.  I only bring it to say it was kinda cool to go from zero to OMG to "oh yeah, those" in a split second.

Today held an adventure of a different kind, thankfully - my first trip to a Sonic for lunch.  After I picked my youngest niece up at noon I had to take her to get an allergy shot. I came home quick enough to pick up the other niece 'cause dad was taking mom to her doctor appointment, which means no adult supervision so both girls went with me.  On the way back I took us to Sonic.  For some reason Charleston never got a franchise, and we never went to the one in Pigeon Forge for some other reason.  Anyways, I had a grilled chicken sammich combo. I know, so exciting.  It was good but not anything I couldn't gotten from Wendy's or Burger King for a buck or two less.  I think the next time I'll try one of those grilled toast bacon chesse burgers.  If it had been hotter I would have tried one of their fruity drinks or a smoothie.  I guess it was worth the money after al 'cause it was very filling and I didn't hardly eat any dinner as a result.  I skipped the meat portion and went all veggie - corn on the cob, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes (red AND yellow) and strawberries.  I just got done actually so as soon as I burp I'm digging into the Amish chocolate covered pretzels. Yum.

After seeing this I feel better about myself in general, my mental health in particular, but also it makes me very jealous. Also, I think Paul McCartney and James Bond might have a lawsuit over the music.

• 18:22 This is why I'm cooler then you but sometimes wish I wasn't bigbenalpha.livejournal.com/ #

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You know how creative types are supposed to keep something by their bed so they can wake up from interesting dreams and then scribble it down in the dark, and then go back to sleep?  I actually tried that years ago and it didn't work for me.  I quickly discovered that if I woke up enough turn on the lamp and write legible, coherent sentences that I would end up being awake for a long time.  And the few things I did manage to put in my dream journal ended up being stupid. 

Not too long ago I made a quick blip.fm post about watching this clip from the movie Xanadu - the theme song - and then I had a dream about a zombie outbreak at a roller disco.

Upon further reflection I realized that the last thing I did before going to bed, and well after viewing the clip, was to play Neverwinter Nights. Specifically, I cleared out a massive infestation of undead.  Fortunately the dream didn't blend D&D with roller disco. It was completely set in 1979 or whenever.  The plot of the dream was fairly straight forward and followed the formulas of such screen gems as Skatetown USA and Roller Boogie, i.e. star-crossed lovers, dastardly plots, and a supposting cast of stereotypes to set up lame gags. I was the jackass who ran the concession stand and insulted everybody.  Anyways, at the point in the story when the Boy and the Girl realize they they can't be together for Jets/Sharks reasons is when, normally, they hatch a plan to win the big disco roller contests and prove that love conquers all. Instead, that's when the zombies showed up in an unexpected twist. I didn't see it coming at all.  Naturally I had a baseball bat and a shot gun at the concession stand 'cause you can't be too careful at a roller disco.  After some generic carnage the bad guy skate gang shows up all zombified and quickly ate all the supporting cast due to their dastardly tight skate moves.  That's when I quit that bitch and woke up.

When I was younger I was plagued by recurring nightmares of the undead. Usually it was zombies but sometimes it was vampires.  They weren't chase dreams or any sort of mounting tension scenario. I would just be going about regular dream stuff and then I'd turn around and they'd grab me.  As I got older I was able to notice the shift in atmosphere that preceded their surprise arrivals and was able to wake myself up before I got grabbed.  Then they evolved into chase dreams but that was short lived 'cause I was able to take control and run into a warehouse full of weapons and fight back.  The best one was when I got all A Team and outfitted a bull dozer with grenade launchers and those super rapid machine guns that are on army helicopters. What? Zombies walk slow so I had plenty of time to get set up. They don't make for good chase dream villans.  Oh, and I had light sabers to deal with anything that got past the guns.  Seriously.  Sometimes I didn't even use weapons. I would just turn around and vaporize them with power blasts from my hands - think Emperor Palpetine times 100.  Oddly, I didn't just blow up the zombies I literally blew the dream matrix apart.  It would shatter like a pane of glass and all the shards would tinkle away into a big black void. I would float there for a minute trying to bring the dream back and then I'd wake up. After that happened a few times I pretty much stopped having zombie dreams. Every once in a blue moon I'll dream that some undead thing will ambush me but it's not like it was.

So then last night/this morning I did it to myself again.  I played through a section of NWN that was infested with undead before I went to sleep.  I haven't watched any videos for a few days but I have had this song stuck in my head for some reason.

Yeah, you can see where this is going. On a side note, this is possibly my most favorite vid now.  So it was fairly normal with lavish costumes and sexy people doing amazing dances, but the after Rico kills Tony Lola resurrected him with dark magic and the zombie outbreak ensued.  And the lyrics changed to "At the Corpsa, Corpsacabana, the deadest spot north of Havana. At the Corpsa, Corpsacabana, Mucus and Gnashin' were always in fashion. At the Corpsa, don't fall while you're running away."  For reals, my brain did that to me.  Anyways, the carnage was very well choreographed and glamorous but I almost made myself wake up when the zombie show girls did a kick line and several of them lost legs and feet.  It's a good thing I toughed it out 'cause I found out where the roller disco zombies came from. It was that damn Rico. He'd gotten walled up in the basement and when the dastardly skate gang were hatching their dastardly plot they unearthed him and there you go.  Don't believe me if you want but that shit really did go down in my head while I was sleeping.

The Xombidu dream happend well before Michael Jackson died but the Corpsacabana is completely his fault 'casue all the news channels played the Thriller video a lot.  Now I'm worried I'm gonna dream some kind of rave inspried follow-up to finish out the trilogy.  Dee-Lite "Ghoul Is Eatin' Hearts" maybe?  Hopefully the conscious effort of typing that last sentence diffused it and it won't happen now. All my dreams are really involved like that, though not always with dance routines. It's no wonder I'm more tired when I wake up than when I go to sleep.

• 16:04 @ZeroMuch It was been stinky at some point later so this way you got it over with early. #

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• 09:16 New blog post in which I attempt to pay tribute to a fallen icon but make an ass of myself as per usual. bigbenalpha.livejournal.com/ #
• 16:35 listening to "It's the Music - Meat Beat Manifesto" ♫ blip.fm/~8xzzp #

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Okay, I loved the Jackson Five songs and cartoon. My sister got the Off the Wall LP (still has it). I got Thriller on vinyl AND 8-Track. I would have had the glove and a red pleather jacket had my parents been bigger pushovers/less wise.  I fondly recall the debut of the Black and White video (mainly 'cause I was hanging out with dear friends and were super high). And I've been both alarmed and fascinated by the weird private life and surgeries.

I don't claim to be a "fan" but I've always, at the very least, appreciated Michael Jackson's work.  Now having said all of that I can't help but wonder: in light of his Peter Pan syndrome did he shave his pubes? Is that what Smooth Criminal is about?  Thank you, I'll be here all weekend. Try the veal.

Oh, Horatio Caine, you always know just what to say.

• 07:56 Damn you, Awake! One day I will destroy you. #
• 12:18 @ZeroMuch And now so have I. I may try for three. #
• 15:16 @ZeroMuch And three it is. Was. #
• 17:33 Holy shit, Ed McMahon, Farrah AND Michael Jackson? #
• 20:26 @hijinksensue Maybe "generigret" #

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• 16:39 @ZeroMuch Yeah, but the eps I've seens are decent and anyways Tony Shaloomainguy said he was pretty much done with it. #
• 20:32 Fingernail moon, ripe gooseberries, lightning bugs, frogs, crickets, and bats. ♫ blip.fm/~8txek #

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Fingernail moon, ripe gooseberries, lightning bugs, frogs, crickets, and bats.

• 14:22 it ain't easy living ♫ blip.fm/~8r2yj #
• 15:30 @ZeroMuch Wow, air craft carrier? #
• 22:06 Write write read yippie yo yippie yea. Post bloggy blog! bigbenalpha.livejournal.com/ #

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Just had a Chicken and More dinner from Long John Silver's and it was a lie because it had less. Much less.  There were ZERO crunchies to be found.  On the plus side the fries were actually good which was also somewhat disconcerting.  It was all worth it for the pineapple cheese cake, though.

Earlier in the day I ran mom's car through the automatic car wash. It was fairly standard until the wash cycle started and the soon-to-be robot overlord squirted a dazzling array of colorful glop all over the car.  It was like magical unicorn poop in three rainbow colors - perky pink, baby blue, and .... I've alliterated myself into a corner... and yolk yellow. Ew, but lemons don't start with a Y.  Even better, the kindly robot made a zig-zaggy argyle sort of pattern on the hood and windshield but just plain stripes on the sides.  And it smelled like berries with a hint of freshly mopped mall food court and made me think of teenagers, like that's what the promise of a wide-open future smells like.  Then I realized I needed a shower and I guess all that together is what criminal charges smell like.  But the robot understood.

I think this weekend - weather permitting - will be the big gooseberry round up.  I might wait, though, until next Wednesday so that the stragglers have a chance to start turning.  Gotta be careful not to let the ones that are already ripe stay on the bush too long.  

Currently here's what CDs I'm re-enjoying.  Primal Scream XTRMNTR, Shudder To Think Pony Express Record, and Death to The Pixies disc 1.  The stereo in the white truck has a six CD changer so I have three slots and Lisa and the girls have three.  Unfortunately mom's car has a cassette deck so no fun there.  Remember when it was the shit to get a new car and it came with a cassette deck?  Never mind love, Captain Stuebing, cassette deck stereos in a car were what  was really exciting and new.  The future was then!

***
Okay, I started writing this about two hours ago but then one of my cousins called looking for dad and I was the one who answered the phone.  Dad's out of town but I ended up talking the whole time, catching up and whatnot.  That was nice.

You can stop reading now 'cause I'm about to talk a little bit more about Neverwinter Nights, so unless you're into D&D geekery you won't care.   I made my character Lawful Neutral because I didn't want him to be a goody-goody but not a barbarian either. I had read somewhere that the Nameless Drifter guy Clint Eastwood played in all those spaghetti westerns was a good example of a Lawful Neutral character. He did good deeds but was motivated by self interest.  When my character does good deeds and completes quests he gets so many points that shift his alignment towards Lawful Good - most people don't know what a paladin is so imagine Captain America as a good example of that.  Never mind the fact that I routinely break into the homes of innocent civilians and steal all their valuables right in front of them.  In Baldur's Gate if you did that the city guards came down on you and you had to fight them. That would get you a bad reputaion and your alignment would shift towards evil.  In NWN I had to randomly kill about ten civilians and a city guardsman to get my alignment back down to Lawful Neutral.  I didn't leave it that way, it was just an experiment.    The only reason I mind is because if your alignment is too far to one extreme or other it becomes very difficult to interact with certain NPCs (non-player characters). Those are the ones you give you quests, buy your loot, tell you vital secrets, etc.  I'm sure there's a cheat code that could re-align me without me having to resort to murder. Actually, I just used thte cheat that raised my Charisma points to a super human level so now no one can resist my charms.  Just like real life.  

it ain't easy living

• 15:35 listening to "Sabotage - Desmond Dekker" ♫ blip.fm/~8ozzi #
• 17:16 Okay, been out trimming back the wilderness. Now we'll see if that poison ivy vaccine works. #
• 18:14 @ZeroMuch I think it actually might but I'll know for certain this time tomorrow. I won't show up unless I'm covered head to toe in it. #

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Okay, been out trimming back the wilderness. Now we'll see if that poison ivy vaccine works.

• 10:20 New blog post - read it , breath it, rub it on your scalp. bigbenalpha.livejournal.com/ #
• 11:20 @ZeroMuch If I could I'd loop you 24/7 ; ) #
• 12:12 And Happy Father's Day to anybody who's a dad. #
• 13:04 Happiness is good for an hour. ♫ blip.fm/~8mp8z #
• 17:41 Ate. too much. lasagne... Send help... ♫ blip.fm/~8n50l #

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