April 17th thru the 23rd, 2005Previous Week | Archive Index | Current Blog | Next Week More Horror  Woke up and such, then watched the original Amityville Horror. It was also horrible. I gave it the
benefit of the doubt, and allowed for the changes in cinema that have occured since 1979. But it was still
pretty bad. And cheesy. And the "horror" elements were not what I hoped for- just cheesy effects, like the
toilet overflowing with black goo and the walls bleeding... when you think about it, what's the point of
walls bleeding? Out of all the scary things, there was nothing that seemed menacing or dangerous. Just
sort of inconvenient. Oh well.I did read the book by Jay Anson, a loooong time ago, and remember there being way more cool stuff in it. So I went to the web for more input- and its amazing how quickly and easily all of the scary stuff falls away when someone offers up "the truth." I'll leave it to you: check out both amityvillemurders.com and amityvillehorrortruth.com. Note, that last one is really slow, probably due to increased web traffic thanks to the new movie.
The Ballard Farmer's Market There's Tears in My Ears 'Cause I've been lying on my back and crying over you! Okay not really. Not crying. I had weird dreams last night. In one of them I fought with a friend. Waking and realizing it was not so was a bit of a relief. IN another dream my car got stolen. Waking from that one was a bigger relief. It wasn't the car I really own, though, but some sort of slick 50's style all-black caddy-like car. But without fins.
Water Flowing Underground
It's Official
Bowling God, at Your Service After that I went to the store for NyQuil. I put a 2-hour firelog on, watched the netflixed first disc of Six Feet Under. Thank god, I found it only mildly interesting. No need to run out and buy the damn thing or netflix all of it. I guess the reason I didn't find it overpowerfully brilliant is that it was a little too slick, a little too "HBO" for my tastes. I mean, if anyone asks me to watch it with them sometime, i shant refuse. But at least I don't have to add to it my already overflowing plate. Nearly a Picnic  Ahh, being sick sucks. So I thought maybe some fresh air,
yeah? So food in a bag and down to Greenlake. I sat on a bench next to the water, read a book and wrote a
few things and ate sandwiches. Woulda been great but for the windyness. But at least I tried, yes?Back at home, well, work, you know. And eventually it was coffee time. So I went to coffee. A few new faces, which was pretty cool. Yes, the subject of nun porn came up again. Sorry. Then I went home and had fish sticks and watche a few DVD episodes of Angel. Another Short Entry The blog is getting BORING. I worked all day, and then went to Trivia at the EMP. Our second showing there. We did pretty darn good, if you ask me, but not good enough to win. There were not nearly as many people there this time. I got very inebriated, however, and so some of us stayed for karaoke after, and yes, they got me to sing. Gasp. I did Weird Al's "Smells Like Nirvana." Thankfully, there were lights in my face, so I couldn't see the audience. I was horrible. Please shoot me. Thursday April 21st, 2005, Howyalikeme's Birhtday Happy Birthday, Hotstuff!Due to a sense of propriety, and to people's not knowing better than to take unfair advantage of information imparted on this here blog, I never use real names or faces (other than my own) on Ye olde blog. So I can't say the actual name of the birthday person, but she knows who she is. Happy Birthday, hotstuff, you sexy-but-now-too-old-thing, you.
Hey Everybody It's Valence Time
Super Size Me
Goodbye, Dear Friends Friday April 22nd, 2005, Earth Day I Just Woke UpIt's this thing I do. Serotonin or Melatonin or something like that starts to drop off in my brain, until the crude light of morning's dawning through my bedroom window pierces the hoary shades of my eyelids, rousing me from a fitful slumber in my sweaty jeans and twisted sheets. I arise, wearing last night's clothes, and stumble towards an awkward micturation and the contemplation of a new day's potential. Then I play a video game. I put the "ooze" in "Looozer," yo.
To The Airport—and Beyond
My First Visit to Las Vegas
Money Does Not Exist in Vegas By this point we were hungry, so we "dined" in the Pink Pony, a restaurant within Circus Circus itself. That was adequate. Some people went off to explore the strip, and some of us went to bed. I snored. LOUD. And A LOT. The Sun Shines Bright, Even at Night, Right O'er the Top of Vegas  I woke at about 7:30 and since everyone else was sleeping, off I went to walk the strip. Of course I
left my sunglasses behind, and of course I didn't want to wake anyone up to go back into the room, so I
bought a cheap pair in Slots of Fun and
walked. I made it aaaall the way to New York New York
before anyone called me. That's a distance of about two and a half miles, more when you add in the
wanderings into other hotels, such as The Mirage, Paris Las Vegas, the Aladdin, Bally's, and so forth. Then
I got a call the folks were awake and wanted to have the brunch buffet at the Rio, so I hopped on the monorail.
"Hop" Is a Bit of a Misnomer
I Ate, I Stank, I Walked S'more
It's Always Night-Time in Vegas
Saying Everything's Special is Another Way of Saying Nothing Is
Las Vegas, Home of Free-Range Breasts
We left and went over to the Bellagio, where some folks played craps, while some of us got tired. Myself and one other decided to take a cab back to Circus Circus, while the others walked. But just before that, the one bad experience of the trip—the poor girl slipped and fell in someone else's vomit. We cleaned her up as best we could, and back at the room she was forced to shower with her clothes on. Truthfully, just the idea of it is was worse than the experience itself, I have to say; she handled it very very well. Finally everyone made it back to the rooms, and we slept. Previous Week | Archive Index | Current Blog | Next Week |
Went with a friend over to Bellevue, in the hills above
Issequah, to help install a valence. This house. was, in a word, friggin' humungous. The bathroom, where
we were working, was literally bigger than my living room. I shoulda taken a picture. We installed the
valence above the window where the raised/sunken bathtub was located. How big was the tub? Big enough for
two people to let one thing lead to another in it with splooshing all the water. Also in the bathroom was
a ginormous shower and a commode in it's own little room with a timed fan so you could whisk away aromas
without leaving the fan on all day. The bedroom connected to it was also huge, and had spiral staircase in
one corner going up to an observation tower. No foolin'. And you know what? The whole thing just had no
soul. It didn't feel like a home. Even the little lab puppy running around seemed like more
accoutrement than living being. What the place needed was some serious rubber duck action, yo.
So there I was. My confusion as to where I should go in
the airport was to be a theme for the rest of the trip, really. Las Vegas casinos, and the airport,
apparently, are designed to make escape difficult. But I found the shuttle to 
That sounds like such a moronic statement that surely you
think me a cretin and a fool. But here's the thing. At one point in the evening, a few of us where sitting
in front of the nickel slots. Then one friend went off with some others, and not knowing what to do with
her cup-full of nickels, handed them to another, who conjoined them all and gambled them away. Sure, it's
just nickels, so whatever. And the only way to enjoy gambling is to expect to lose and not care. But
that's when I realized that this substance, this resource which is used to buy food and shelter, used to
invest in the future and to obtain the things and experiences that enrich our lives, in Vegas it was just
a substanceless morass. It wasn't even a toy, just this stuff that sort of floats around, like ether.
So we talked about that, and it seemed to me that,
ultimately, we don't really have a lot of respect for entertainment. I mean, we DO have a lot respect,
when we think about it, for talent, for hard work, for the spark of genius that separate a man like him
from someone like me who can play, maybe, chopsticks. But entertainment itself is just that, frivolous,
inconsequential, meaningless. And that's Vegas in a nutshell—EVERYTHING there is entertainment—money,
food, sex. And since it's inconsequential, people really do enjoy it, having been freed from the onus of
taking any of it seriously.