Tomorrow is another day

If Kristy can publish photos of Sock Monkeys gone bad, I can post a photo of me as Scarlett O'Hara. I realize they are both very wrong things, but I won't worry about that today. Everything is relative (especially in Arkansas).

It has been an odd week in the news. An astronaut was arrested for driving from Houston to Orlando wearing diapers to threaten a woman she was jealous of with a BB-gun, garbage bags and a steel mallet. Anna Nicole Smith died and Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband claimed he was the father of her baby. Her ex-interior decorator Bobby Trendy is being interviewed on the FOX network as a definitive expert in the case.

Locally, in Washington state an initiative is threatened to go before voters requiring married couples to procreate within three years of getting married.

I really hope tomorrow is another day.

Free at last

I vow to never join another group blog. And I vow never to attempt humor (outside of my own blog) with people who haven't a clue about my sense of humor.

But it has been a learning experience. I've learned not to engage pompeous or overly verbose people in a debate, especially about such burning topics as why the term "vanilla" when referring to someone who is not part of the BDSM community might be termed condescending (if you don't know what BDSM stands for than you are part of the group they are definitely referring to as "vanilla").

I suggested alternative terms like Cherry Garcia or Neopolitan, but that apparently fanned the flames of the controversy. It was too late, I crapped in the punch bowl of the community blog and the sheriff there called me out. After I suggested that people call me Cherry Garcia instead of Vanilla the self-appointed sheriff said (with quite a bit of righteous indignation), "Shame on you."

Apparently people in this blog community take there ice cream pretty seriously

Well it only escalated from there. I pointed out that I was joking but regardless there was such a thing as free speech. The sheriff of the community said that free speech didn't give me license to say anthing I wanted. I suggested he shouldn't take the sheriff thing too seriously. He told me that I was a real wit, and I quote, "A legend in my own mind."

Well that was it. Nobody hurls those kinds of insults at me. We did the virtual equivalent of guys belly bumping each other at a bar mouthing off at each and then walked away muttering.

As with a real dysfunctional community, people are still posturing as to what happened and what it all meant. I'm not fairing well in the translation. At last tally, vanilla was still the ice cream of choice for most people there and my little satirical tirade went over as well as the President's plan to send more troops to Iraq.

Bottomline, I've left the group blog and I'm really pretty relieved. I can look back at the whole ridiculous experience and laugh now, but at the time I was pretty pissed at the hypocrisy of it all. Freedom is freedom. Once you put subjective parameters on it (other than don't be hating) it ain't freedom.

So I'm home now. I don't have to apologize and I don't have to explain myself. And best of all I don't have to debate anyone about the merits or meaning of what I just wrote.

Finally, I feel free.

Moonmares

Tomorrow is another full moon. And you know how I get around a full moon. Well maybe you don't know how I get around a full moon, but trust me it isn't pretty. Or at least my blogging isn't pretty. I tend to get morbid and irritable. And there is a good chance that some squid beaks are on the horizon (see Ambergris by any other name is still whale puke).

I know many people pooh pooh the power of the moon, but I can't ignore it. And it does bring out the nutcases in Seattle...well more than usual. Yesterday a man was walking down the street in downtown Seattle, dowsed three people with lighter fluid and set two of them on fire (the third beat him off with an aluminum cane).

I don't venture uptown downtown much anymore. I stay in the fringe here in the International District where the crackheads are more predictable. Oh I have to deal with the kilt-wearing geeks that work at Amazon.com, but you tune them out like the camoflage wearing drug dealer who hangs around Tullys coffee shop in a beret eating raw onions.

Life truly is odder than fiction. Which is why I don't understand why people need to make up shit when they blog. All you need to do is write about what is going on around you and you are immersed in about as much fantasy as any one can deal with. Open up your eyes and look around you and you'll never say your life is mundane again. All life is drama.

But I digress.

The moon. It does something to my dreams. I don't get to have those nice bizarre dreams they have in the television commercial with the groundhog and Abe Lincoln playing chess. That would be kind of cool. My dreams during the full moon are filled with Lord of the Ring like quests through amusement parks and swamps. And no, I don't believe in analyzing dreams. Mine have nothing to do with not being breast fed or being frightened by a Zamboni at a hockey game when I was a toddler (don't ask). Mine are just odd and intricate and I'm sure woven by the full moon.

But nevermind. I need to go get a cup of coffee. I hope the camoflage-wearing drug dealer with the beret isn't there. I hate the smell of raw onions in the morning.

#550-Shadows

It's hard to top Sperm whale vomit as a post topic. I mean where do you go from there (hopefully up)? I suppose I could talk about my mixed feelings about being part of a team blog -- Freedom's Place.

First I am still a bit fuzzy as to the point of a team blog if you are all randomly posting about unrelated subjects. Isn't the point for everyone to write about the same topic, like needlepoint or yak butter recipes?

Second I was never really keen on the name "Freedom's Place." It sounds like a commune out of the 60s and conjures up images of hairy-legged woman wearing Birkenstocks with purple socks.

I would have opted for something a bit more esoteric without any political overtones. For example, maybe it should have been called "Ambergris" with the subtitle, "We write about whatever irritates us and comes up."

I've also never been much of a fan of committees, nor am I a joiner. I don't like being part of clubs, organizations, religions, mailing lists, or fraternal organizations that require you to wear a fez. I am an introvert and find groups of any kind rather distressing.

Okay, we all have our own blogs anyway. What is the point of posting on a team blog what we could have posted on our own blog? Wouldn't it be easier to just have a link to our blog than posting on another blog?

Don't get me wrong. I admire THE Michael's social experiment. I think Freedom's Place will be a great outlet for some people. But personally I think it does take a village to raise an idiot and something tells me that is the niche reserved for me in Freedom's Place.

So I may occasionally visit Freedom's Place, my real place is here at Dizgraceland. I feel more comfortable in the shadows than the light.

Ambergris by any other name is still whale puke

Well, actually ambergris is Sperm whale puke. It's this fatty substance that upchucked from a Sperm whale's intestine when they are trying to get rid of an irritant they've ingested. Squid beaks are apparently the most common irritant found in Sperm whale puke (I'd suggest going easy on the calimari at parties if you are a Sperm whale).

For some inexplicable reason, ambergris has been used as a fixative in expensive perfumes. It helps keep scents from fading quickly. And even more inexplicably was a fad during the Renaissance to craft jewellery out of ambergris.

Did I mention that this is Sperm whale puke we are talking about? Who was the first person to think up the possible uses for Sperm whale puke? More importantly, why?

The weird thing is that abergris is worth a small fortune. If you find a chunk of it while you are beachcombing you are talking major bucks if you recognize it as ambergris and not just a chunk of gunk with squid beaks sticking out. Depending on the quality of the ambergis you find, is worth about $20 a gram. That's premium puke.

This proves to me that people will buy anything (which is why eBay is so successful). I'm seriously thinking of going out an find me a Sperm whale and sticking my finger down its throat.

Makes me want to scream

Around Halloween a year ago, I wrote a post called "I ain't afraid of no ghost." It was my typical tongue in cheek post about ghostly orbs in a photograph I took in Salt Lake City. I Photoshopped Brigham Young's face into the photo. It was obviously a fake. Today I got this anonymous comment on that post from some twit who had stumbled in via a Google search:

"this shit is FAKE!!!i went to scool at marchman tech,for commercial art and we did that crap all the time!!u guys are NUTSACKS"

First I hate anonymous comments. Second I hate the fact that people aren't required to take an IQ test before they are allowed on the Internet. Here was my reply to the twit:

"Dear Anonymous,
Really? Fake? You think so? You got me there. Who said cousins mating can't produce a freakin genius? And Marchman Tech must be one hell of a "scool" to have have trained such a sharp tool such as you.

But do me a favor. Next time you call someone a nutsack, at least have the balls not to remain anonymous you dimwitted ass."

I just wish the mental midget actually could find their way back to read the reply. But something tells me this piece of crap isn't smart enough to find his ass in the dark with both hands.