Calm

I’m currently sitting with Mira on the couch. She’s watching Inspector Gadget and I’ve got the laptop. We are both under the blanket and it is quite cozy.
What a week. Birthdays, Halloween, and lots of news.
First of all, go visit my new friend, Metsfan, at his weblog. He needs the hits for incentive. A few comments would hurt either. Tell him you love Windows, he’s a big fan of Windows.
It also appears that Mrs. Diggs is posting a bit, and so is Martin. Alas, my wife appears to be taking month-long breaks between entries. My single brother has attracted women groupies to his site by talking about candy often.
This week Jam Master Jay was killed. For those that don’t know, Jay Master Jay was one of the founders of RUN-DMC, an early rap band that Matt and I used to listen to while growing up here in LA. I was reading a message board when I saw a post about him being killed. I checked several news sites and didn’t see any confirmation. Gabe, the poster, lives in Queens and insisted it was true. He runs weekly Shoutcast radio show and decided to rebroadcast the local radio program that was talking about the news. With a couple clicks, I could hear the local New York radio over the internet. I could hear the DJs talking about it and choking back tears. The people from the message board were also in an IRC channel discussing the news. We got tired of listening to the radio show and Gabe began playing various RUN-DMC songs. Since I am the old-school rap listener, I was able to call out the assorted old tunes that the young guys didn’t know about. It was interesting that this sort of instant community is possible due to the internet. The world just keeps getting smaller.
I laughed when I saw the site pickupyourowndamnsocks.com, I thought it was hilarious. It was only a matter of time before buyyourowndamntampons appeared in response. Reading these sites makes me wonder why people get married.
OK, time to go take a shower. Zoe’s soccer game is at 11 and I need to get the ball rolling. I need to invent a way to drink coffee while in the shower. I’d be rich. Better yet, a way to write your weblog while in the shower…
Lastly, Here’s an image of my home network that drew up. Why post this? Because I’m a geek and I think it’s cool.

Yes

Yes, I know I should have updated this tonight…
But I didn’t.
I fell asleep on the couch, woke up, played BF1942, and now I’m going to sleep.
Tomorrow. I’ll update tomorrow…

Head Explode

I am currently on a work conference call. It’s muted, so they can’t hear me type.
I have these kinds of calls all the time, and usually I’m OK with it.
Today, for some unknown reason, I want to reach through the phone and strangle them all and make them shut up. The urge is great…
I’m sure this is some sort of stress reaction to the current wife-out-of-town, mother-in-law-in-town situation.
And, I still don’t have any Diet Vanilla Coke. But this person is taunting me! Why am I being punished.

Real Blogging

Every now and then I realize that my little weblog of Mike’s wierd stuff could be so much more.
I mean, I post some personal stuff here, but I never forget there are people out there reading every word. The mental firewall of what to post remains in place to filter out things.
Thanks to Escribitionist, I read a post that Sour Bob wrote. Holy fuck, that’s some real stuff. If it’s not real and he’s faking it, then he’s a great damn writer.

Busy Saturday

Our group of friends got together yesterday for the annual pumpkin carving party. This year we also made ‘Spooky Houses’. The spooky houses are basically mini-gingerbread houses. It gives the kids an excuse to stick candy to edible houses with frosting. They loved it. Many thanks to the Diggs for hosting the shebang, to Colleen for all the prep work on the houses, and to Len & Monique for bringing the booze.

Earlier in the morning, I tried using the new skillet. It sure gets hot. Once it gets hot, it stays hot. IT will take some getting used to before I stop making so much smoke in the house. I made goetta and it turned out OK, but the smoke was much more than normal.
After the pumpkin party, I went to a bar meeting of people who visit the WWDN site. It’s not the first time I’ve meet people in RL that I had known first online, so I wasn’t too nervous. It was a little strange to walk into the part of the bar where everyone was and have people recognize me that I had never meet before.
I was a bit of a hit since I brought a laptop with internet access to the bar. I was able to upload a couple of pics from the bar and let everyone post to & read from the message board while sitting there drinking beer. After a bit of getting to know who’s who, I was soon involved in my normal conversations about linux, video games, geocaching, and other nerdly pursuits. I stayed out of the hardcore Star Trek & Ren Faire discussions. Since most of us knew a little about each other, it made the conversation a lot easier than if it was 20 strangers with nothing in common in the room. A little later, Martin showed up to have a few beers and he got sucked into the geocaching discussions as well.
Today, my mother-in-law arrives in town for a week. It should be a good time. She and I get along well, and Michele will be on yet another quilting trip this week. We kind of have a mutual agreement that she can spoil the children while she’s here, as long as they get to school and bed on time.
Lastly, I was reading MeFi and saw a Slate story about the stain-free pants from Lee. You know the commercail where the daughter-in-law spills red wine on her pants to shock her mother-in-law. It appears that the pants really do reply and prevent stains. The writer made a good attempt to stain the pants and simply could not do it. I think a pair are in my future. The strange thing about the MeFi thread was the large amount of cyncism over the positive report. Accusations of the story being paid for by Lee and being a puff piece struck me as a bit over the top. Are people really so cynical that good news must always be seen as a trick?
Lastly, the Angels won Game 6. On my way to the bar I stopped a supermarket to get some cash from the ATM. Inside the store was a TV set. Around the TV were 30+ people watching the game together. Complete strangers were chatting about the game and enjoying the group feeling. It was the biggest outpouring of spontaneous community I have seen in a while. Kinda neat. I guess you had to be there…
OK, I gotta hit the shower to get clean or Michele is going to get pissed.

Comments

In a moment of brilliance, I posted some comments on the Styrofoamkitty weblog.
The post was about men liking women being aloof. My thoughts in regards to male/female relationships were so good, I felt the need to share here.
Guys hate that aloof stuff. It’s way too complicated.
Guys like straight forward stuff without a lot of middle ground.
For example, all things in life can be categorized into one of two realms. Either something sucks, or it rules. There is no in between.
To put it in relationship terms, the guy wants to know if you want to date him or don’t. This aloof stuff is way too confusing for our tiny brains.