A Bit Bumpy

but otherwise fine although I’m still not capable of sleeping through a nasty storm without the watchful eye of a companion. Thus, I’m up up up and insomniac at 4 AM.

It looks like I’m on the other side of the storm now. Power went out four or five times but only for a couple minutes each time. Here’s a pic from NOAA hopefully it still works by the time you read this.

NOAA Radar Tropical Storm Hanna

NOAA Radar Tropical Storm Hann

I’m off to watch bad internet TV now till the winds abate and it’s less noisy for sleeping.

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Almost No Reason To Leave

Dancing fools

I have a friend who’s a former DJ. A nice bloke from the UK. He invited the gang over to a club in downtown to spin up some classic house music, a sort of “20 years of house music celebration”. I was skeptical, if you knew Disco you would be too. He’s been talking about putting this little evening together for over a year so I was expecting some dramatic cancellation at the last minute.

Well, all his talk finally came to fruition last night and it was quite fun. Although, poor old sot, the turntables were placed at an awkward angle and were hooked into through a laptop. Disco is old school, so he wasn’t quite sure what to bloody do with the odd arrangement or how to use a laptop in mixing. Nonetheless, he did a lovely 30 minute set before chucking it in and joining us 5 dancers on the floor. You didn’t really think there would be more than 5 people in Wilmywood that would enjoy dancing to house music did you? Well, there aren’t.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself immensely and even imbibed a few foreign beers to blow off some steam. Still more good news–it’s house music night each Thursday at this den of quasi ill-repute. Wow! House music comes to Wilmywood! Now there is almost no reason for me to leave. If I could just get some trance and cybergoth going I would be perfectly pleased.

Also, I had a nice chit chat with the Emperor, an acquaintance of Disco’s and Bathrobe, my former roomie. I even gave the Emperor a ride home. Nice man, nice chat and who knows? Maybe a guy-pal in the future. I definitely need an action movie partner since none of my curent gal pals dig that sort of thing.

Unfortunately, I woke up today with the smartings of a minor hangover. Surprising since I had only 4 beers. I believe the distress was caused more by dancing my arse off in a sweltering club, where the only relief was the patio (80 degrees at midnight with 100% humidity), than the beer. But nevertheless, it was dehydration. Sure, I could have drank more water less beer, but really, what fun is that? So a few aspirins and a large yellow Gatorade later, the physical ailments are all but solved.

But the lingering metaphysical affects are more difficult to deal with. Frankly, I’ve not wanted to do a bloody thing but lay on the couch and smoke cigarettes while Chopin’s Nocturnes play continiously on the iPod. Funny I would want to do that since I don’t smoke anymore. But I do miss the ritual of it. I used to roll my own. You see? It’s just that sort of a mood.

What’s this funk all about? I had to consult someone more skilled in this department. I’ve seemed to forgotten all my boozehound lore on how to deal with the after-effects of a evening of intemperance. Of course, I turn to Kingsley Amis. The one of the world’s foremost drinking experts, a man of letters when it comes to spirits, so to speak. And a darn funny writer too.

When that ineffable compound of depression, sadness (these two are not the same), anxiety, self-hatred, sense of failure and fear for the future begins to steal over you, start telling yourself that what you have is a hangover. You are not sickening for anything, you have not suffered a minor brain lesion, you are not all that bad at your job, your family and friends are not leagued in a conspiracy of barely maintained silence about what a shit you are, you have not come at last to see life as it really is, and there is no use crying over spilt milk.

Thank heavens that explains it. I was beginning to worry. ;)

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Le Swamp Update

It’s usually pretty dull over here at Le Swamp. But not anymore, I’ve got roomies now!

Holy quagmire, gentle reader!

Actually, I have one roomie, she’s called A. But her SO needed a place to crash while his new pad is being readied. So I have R for a couple of weeks as well. He’s a nice chap from over the pond, you know. Pip pip and all that.

They’ve only been with me for a couple of days but already R has proven himself to be a fine source of humour. He’s already a witty sort of chap but yesterday he takes the hilarity cake.
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I Be a Crim’nal

Do ya remember the post about me getting a speeding ticket? The day after I opened the mailbox and was all pleased at the volume of mail. Clearly I was Ms. Popular. Au contraire mon frere. I received 10 (yes 10!) letters from various and sundry lawyers all using the fear factor to get me to hire them. And they all arrived the same day. I declined to hire any of those shysters preferring to handle my alleged infraction solo.

Pic of Lawyer Letters

I had my court date today. I have never been to court as a crim’nal before. It was the silliest and best experience ever. Silly because of how the court employees and sheriff types herded all us crim’nals around plus the condescending way they spoke to the group. The best because the people watching was FABU!

Best of people watching was Mr. DA. He came in and spoke to the entire courtroom full of peeps - about 200. He explained how the whole deal worked, for which I was happy since I was a newbie. Why so interesting? The guy standing behind Mr. DA was his frickin’ twin! It was like some bizarre scene in Twin Peaks. Mr. DA was dressed all in light khaki and his brother, who is assistant DA handling VIOLENT crime, is dressed head to toe in black…like a bloody gangster! Good cop, bad cop routine seems to be at play in that family. It was really weird to watch the one while the other was two feet behind him.

The bulk of the excellent people watching were my co-crim’nals. Some folk clearly had been there before. Like a lot…to the point they knew some of the bailiffs and assistant DAs. Yikes!

Since I was chillin’ with a group of folk who, for the most part, were partially unsavory I didn’t expect to see too much nice-nice or second-chance giving. I naturally assumed that all the assistant DAs were bitter cynical lawyer types. But lo and behold! Not so! There was one assistant DA who was working with a Latino guy using an interpreter. The DA listened to the story (as did I) and it seems the guy and some chick he was with were pulled over. He told the DA that the girl was driving because he had been drinking. But the girl ended up not having a license. The guy had a license and it was his car. So he was the one who got the ticket. They got pulled over for something really trivial like ‘not signling’ or ‘improper equipment’. The DA told the Latino guy to never let the chick drive again and dismissed the case. Wasn’t that nice?! I thought so. :)

I wish he had dismissed mine. But no! I had to stand up and speak to a different DA fellow who was very nice but only gave me the option of paying and admitting guilt on the spot. Or , paying about the same amount later to the traffic school folks. So by February I will be point free and my insurance won’t increase!

Yay! Do the happy dance.

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Signing Off

Test Pattern

I was over at Pfitz’s blog reading about the bygone era of UHF shows. For those whippersnippers in the audience, that’s a kind of TV station we had before cable. Back in the day when TV had a dial instead of a remote and the channels only went up to 13. It’s when TV programming actually ended, signed off. They would literally turn off the station. Usually, they would announce all sorts of boring stuff like the transmitter tower location, wattage and broadcasting tech stuff. Then a lovely picture of the American flag waving would come on while the national anthem played, then a funky test pattern with all sorts of shapes that looked like a geometry test, and then the color bars like you see above. Then static. Wierd, huh?
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