Bad haircuts should be illegal

I got a haircut on Friday (and I'm so upset about it that I used the word "got" back there. sheesh).  Anyway, it's the kind of haircut that reminds me why I didn't have my haircut from 1992 to 2000- buzzed on the sides and the top sticks up- it looks like freaking baby duck down or some shit.  I've had a few 'it's not so bad' comments but one of them was followed up with "but yeah, it's kinda preppy"   Fuuuuuuuuhhhh.   So I'm wearing a hat as much as I'm able and I'm thinking about taking a picture.  Then I can bring it in with me the next time I get a cut and say "if it looks anything like this when we're done, I'm not paying."  I hope it grows out pretty damned quick...

Seattle roads construction

Open letter to the genius who decided that tunneling under the Pike Street HOV exit while Stewart street (the only other reasonable option if you work in central or northern downtown) construction continues:  I would love to give you a boot to the nuts/ovaries.  It's apparent that drug testing is NOT mandatory to work for a municipality (or if it is the union shields offenders sufficiently that this sort of shit continues to happen).  I get that this stuff needs doing and there are only so many good-weather days in our fair city.  But seriously, does it all have to happen at the same damned time? I guess the consolation is that we can actually see construction happening on Stewart street.  I just hope they're working 24-7 to get it done.

Thank God...

For old Faith No More (with Chuck) and that Pandora routinely throws it my way.

Goddamnit Seattle Journalists- learn to spell

I've read two articles in the last ten minutes with outrageous spelling errors. The first used the word "envolved" and the second has a sentence that reads "FEMA has the authority to cancel roughly 1,900 policy's countywide." "Policy's" needs to be, "policies." Sure, I make mistakes and I've published them as part of class message boards- but those postings can't be edited and I'm not PAID to write. It realy pisses me off to see "professionals" rush this kind of shit out and it further reinforces that there are NO editors overseeing this stuff. They're bloggers with press passes. God damnit.

thermal lunchbag? Not in my fridge

WTF people? You haul your big ass padded thermal lunchbox/bag/thing to work and then stuff it in the fridge where it takes up one of the 19.7 cubic feet that fucker has. Why? So you can keep your fucking salad dressing cold? Are you kidding me? No, of course you're not kidding because you're completely thoughtless. The saddest part is that you tote that thing back and forth every day because you're afraid someone might use some of the dressing if you left it in the fridge overnight... holy. fucking. shit. As if a zipper is going to stop a desperate salad eater from using your dressing. I don't suppose it ever occurred to you to pay 99cents for a cold pack to put inside your collegiate sports team branded mini cooler. Compared to a "plain" tote, how much extra did you pay for logos from a school you couldn't possibly get into? I don't think an extra buck would have made that much difference. Plus you could have kept it under your watchful eye at your desk all day. FAWK!

Perez Hilton- STFU

Ranting about Hey Perez, calling someone "faggot" is not "free speech," it's hate speech. It's apparent that you're unable to draw those sorts of distinctions based on the shtick (juvenile name calling) upon which you've based your "celebrity." However, hate speech is rarely supported by the courts and in fact can be considered assault. I don't support the Peas' manager beating your ass, it should have been Will.i.am. I sincerely hope you'll stop running your yap after this- if you should lose this pathetic attempt at further time in the spotlight, I would anticipate continued beatings should you not change your ways.

Kid gets lost in woods, then pisses me off

Here's the story: Now, I'm glad the kid's alright but I'm seriously irritated that his source of survival information is, of all people, Grilled Bear. It's a long time hate that I have for Grilled, I think he's cocky and I'm surprised no one has reported injuries or death doing some of the stupid shit he pulls on the show, like jumping 40 feet into a rocky river, not knowing how deep the water is, how fast the current is or what the temperature of the river is- and he didn't even HAVE to do it. Why does BG take those chances (when legit solo-survivalist Les Stroud doesn't)? The camrea crew. Les goes truly solo. Grilled has several other people with him and knows he has a reservation at the local Holiday Inn waiting when the director yells "cut." He's even said as much in one episode I watched part of. It was getting dark, BG was in Scotland and found an elk carcass. He said something like "This would be great to sleep under if you had to, but I have a warm bed waiting for me so we'll pick up here in the morning." WTF? Want proof this guy's a fake (or at least that he takes unnecessary risks)? There are a few YouTube videos out there of Grilled cautiously crossing a "lava bridge," talking about how dangerous they are and how there's no other way around... unless you walk 20 feet to the left where the crack closes. I wish I were kidding. I'll find the video. So, please, don't emulate this guy. If you're going to be in the wilderness and you're not interested in reading a book (and I understand, sometimes it's hard to describe with words what you're trying to do) at least watch Survivorman. He may not be perfect but he's on his own, he doesn't take chances and he shows different methods of handling similar situations (fire making and water gathering, for example). Stay safe out there

Eee PC

Goddamnit... I bought this freakin Eee PC last year because I frequently need an unfettered internet connection while I'm away from home in order to do homework,or at least need to be able to type things up while I'm at lunch, on the bus (ok, rare but it's happened) or wherever. It's handy as hell, being just slightly larger that the paper notebook I carry to take notes in. It was fine (not great but for $300 it did everything I needed it to). Then WSU changed the program that they use to deliver course content and it won't show up on this thing. Fuuuuudge (only I didn't say fudge).
I could try upgrading firefox but my Eee runs on Linux and it's a huge pain to even install programs. I can't imagine how hard it would be to do an upgrade...

So now I'm in a quandary. My home laptop is kinda heavy, a little big for my backpack, and the 12 cell battery is nearing the end of its life (was over 6 hours (true!) and now I'm lucky to get 90 minutes). Plus it was nearly $2k when it was new and has all of my normal-use programs and such... I really can't afford to lose that. I take the SD card out of this and move everything I do here over to the main machine and the backup drive. If I should lose this I'd be sad, but it wouldn't se as devastating. The lady next to me in the lobby here just asked about this machine and she's in the same boat- needs something portable but usable. She said a big-box had 8.9" screens for under $300... that may be worth investigating.

EDIT to add: Then again, I may just be looking at new toys because the "old" one doesn't quite live up. I'll see if I run into more instances where this little guy doesn't do what I need before I seriously consider an upgrade.

I hate meeses to pieces!

I was heading off to autocross yesterday morning and discovered that my cell phone was running low on juice.  I thought it woudl be simple enough to plug in the power inverter and use it to charge the phone.  Except that the lighter socket wasn't working.  So I checked the fuse, it was blown and I proceeded to make the simple swap (though I did have to go out to the shed and dig out my toolbox with my electrical components in it).  With the fuse replaced my dash lights finally started working correctly again- which is dumb, the lighter should be the only thing on that circuit since that's how it's indicated.  Anyway, the lighter still wasn't working. I went to autocross and had a good time.  I even got a little ribbing about the lighter issue since I think the dead lighter circuit may have been interfering with my e-manage.   On the way home I decided that I -must- figure out the problem.  I took the console apart and the first thing I noticed was the sound batting was all loose- a circumstance I didn't remember from the times I'd been in there to swap out my shifter base and whatnot.  Then I found the wires.  Four chewed completely through, three missing 4" sections.  I called my neighbor over to take a look.  He moved a could things around and found a couple of mouse poops.   Stupid mice.   The fix was easy- throw away the batting and jump new wires where the old ones were.  Kind of funny, kind of a pain.  I'm not sure how I'll keep mice out this year, maybe traps.  I can't afford for the next one to chew on a wire that powers the ignition or something important.

Starbucks' oatmeal

Sucks ass.  It pretends to be steel cut oats but the preparation is such that it's oat-flour glue.  Then they provide "brown sugar" that's about as brown as I am and doesn't even have as much flava as I do.  The also include packets of dried fruit and walnuts. I'm not sure whether the pitifully small serving size is something to be irritated about (I'd guess it's 1/2 cup of prepared oatmeal sold for around $2) or be thankful for so I can stop eating it (I am hungry, this is a recession and I don't generally waste food unless it's completely inedible).  My usual dealer, Organic to Go is out of oatmeal (they either don't get a shipment or they run out early) as often as they have it.  Their portions are generous and the price is about the same as *bux so it's definitely my preference, but whatreyagonnado?

Movin it here...

Hey faithful followers. I decided that constantly bitching at alchemy forge is probably bad form since that's not why I started that blog. I was talking with the wife tonight and I said "well, you know I'm the constant contrarian" and voila (yeah, I know there's an accent there, blogger won't let me do it).

So here I go! Instead of pissing and moaning over there and feeling like I have to watch my p's and q's I can do it over here and cut loose.

Peace out.