Ive got Buck Fever so bad I could scream

I was watching this reality show on the outdoor network with Ted Nugent and he was gutting a whitetail he shot. Oh Lord, I want to go deer hunting so bad I can taste it. I feel like Ive been gypped out of my chance to kill a deer--every year, theyre out of range, or my rifle is underpowered, or someone (AAAAAAAAAAAAARG) shoots before I get the chance to get into position...and now Im in Texas, I have nowhere to go. Its shameful. It makes me feel worthless. I suppose I put too much emphasis on hunting (wait, no I dont! screw you PETA nuts! Arise, kill and eat!) but there really is nothing more I enjoy in life than tracking an animal, the growing anticipation, then only time with a rifle, the primal urge to eat your prey's heart (just kidding...sort of).

Sigh...Ill just...keep on...working.

More to come, Ive just been swamped lately.

A Temporal Oddity

Starting tomorrow, Im back in college. Hooray for me! After a nice little three semester soul search, Im hitting the books once more soundly with my head. The fellers at work say that I wont be able to juggle school and work at the same time, but then again, they said I couldnt cut 14 hours of work down to six. And I did. So smooch my overachieving kiester. My ACT scores should ensure my free passage--if not, UPS will kindly pick up the tab. Nice gig, eh? I think Ill take Biology for starters along with a little algebra. I feel the need for mathematics. My brain is starved for information.

Also wik (get it?) I have this old flute that I pulled out of the trash in high school (it was an old teachers flute and my band director chucked it since its not worth much....) and I brought it back to Dallas to pawn, but I realized its not worth that much so I think Ill learn to play. I can figger it out. I already play horn, so why not a step down (hyuk hyuk) to woodwinds?

In other news, my cube mate is most likely going to move down to Austin. This is quite depressing--if he does, Ill get another promotion, but its a really sorry consolation. The crew of three in my department (all three of us are 20) will be down to two.

More to come, I swear

Work is slow, my brain is slower. Ill post some...stuff...later on.

Ive got Buell fever

BEHOLD! The Buell Lightning XB12Ss! Buell is the brainchild of a former Harley-Davidson designer gone rogue; he later returned to HD and is now working as a subsidiary. What you get from the whole deal is an American streetbike made by Harley with a 1200cc V-twin on a 400 pound frame. Hooray! To add to the deal, Buell has sleek design and mucho amounts of technical innovation--putting the oil reservoir in the swingarm, the gas in the frame to increase center of balance--and thats such a kick butt color! I had my doubts before, but this new model has an extra-long frame to accomodate taller riders (like me), so its now feasible to ride one without my ankles dragging.

I know half the technobabble makes no sense if youre unfamiliar with motorcycles, but just know that it is a beautiful bike that you hardly ever see on the roads. The Japanese still reign supreme in the sportbike market (excluding Ducati and some choice others). You just wait, Japan!

Find Your Way Back*

From the immortal Jefferson Starship. Its two days till we pack and leave for Artesia, and the apprehension in my heart grows with each passing minute. I dont know what it is. I cant remember why, either. I just really can't stand going to that town. I enjoy the time with my mom and dad immensely, but I cant stand that town. I have heart palpitations when we hit the Texas border and when I enter the town I feel like crying because I feel like...
well, I cant remember.

Let me start over. I went to school there--7th grade to senior in high school, met my good friend Brandon, and some more good friends--but I suppose that the experience was so traumatic that I forced most of the memory from my skull and I cant remember any of it. Any time Brandon says something like "you remember that time we...(fill in the blank)" its like I remember something like that happening to a character in a book, and me standing outside of it shaking my head in abject pity. I figure that living there and experiencing the disorienting mix of constant depression and a feeling of utmost rejection didnt help any. Loooong story short, I hate that town. I wish my parents would move. I feel like everyone there looks down on me and I feel the need to stand up and point my figure in anger and prove to them that I am, indeed, a superior human--but thats not happening.
While Im on the subject of abandonment and depression (at least Im connecting thoughts here) I really think Im manic depressive. I cant remember a time in the last 4 years when I wasnt depressed and feeling the creeping temptation of suicide in the bank of my deluded brain. I was on Zoloft for a while, but it made it worse (by the way, I wouldnt recommend that drug to anyone, ever) so I quit taking it. Im just at my wits end here. I dont know what to do with myself. School will just make it worse. I think to myself constantly that I need to make a positive impact on society, and that Ill never have the clout to do so--I have the smell that drives people away or something like that. So, I could pull a Jim Jones and shock people out of their stupidity, but that wouldnt get me anywhere. Except on a 15 second blurb on CNN.

In trutina*

In Valley Ranch. Apparently, the 24 hour gym that my apartment complex provides isnt open 24 hours. Also apparently, Im the only sole awake at these hours. Also also apparently--and quite disturbing--people from Artesia, that insipid whole in the earth where death resides--have chosen to take up residence in the very apartments where I live.

Oh, cruel fate. FIND SOME OTHER PLACE TO LIVE!!!!!

I mean, come ON, I left there to avoid them, and yet, here they are, stalking about at my door, waiting to ambush me and drag me back into the infernal backwood abyss of New Mexico (not really, but its late and Im feeling corny. So corny, in fact, Im downloading Slim Whitman.)

*Carl Orff. Look up the words for a rough translation. Hands down, my favorite musical overture ever. Who can beat O Fortuna, Imperatrix Mundi?

Advertising for Absurdity

Im going to try a new idea on my site--once in a while, Ill analyze a particularly insipid commercial and give a little review. Here goes the first:

I keep seeing this Nissan Maxima commercial where its an immaculately maintained couple cruising down an obnoxiously clean city street and the woman is rouging her lips--or at least preparing to. She pauses, waiting for the car to shift up a gear so she wont smudge her makeup from the "shift shock". She waits, and waits, and the guy looks smug, then starts making "vrrooom" noises like a racecar shifting. It then ends and says that there is no shift shock in the new Maxima, a good thing for all its rouging inhabitants. Two main complaints:

1. The engine sound belongs to a monstrously well-tuned high end V6 and not a stock Maxima. Typical car commercial.
2. The car never actually shifts in the commercial! You can hear the engine distinctly--it just keeps increasing in RPMs, like the dope has it stuck in first gear. He just makes the noise and its inferred that its shifting and you just cant see it...but the engine noise is still there, loud as can be, in the background.

I wonder if the creators of this ad know about this. Maybe its a joke.

Counting down the days

(Im warning you, Im going to drift)

This weekend my sister, brother-in-law and I will head on down to my parents house to visit for the weekend. I try not to think about it; the guys at work (the ones my age, anyway) all live in the same towns as their parents which just solidifies my own depression over having such a huge gap in my family. We've always been that way, I guess--we meet and talk like mad once, maybe twice a year, and thats about it. Maybe its because Im the youngest and thereby sort of pushed aside--my sister usually has alot more going on, and my brother attracts alot more attention--but I always feel like Im getting the short end of the straw when it comes to family matters.

The guys at work (see a pattern? curse peer pressure...I hate even being considered susceptible to it, but it eats away at me regardless) all talk about how they see their parents and it was so much fun, they did this and that and had a blast. I cant remember a time when I visited my parents and we just sat down and did something as a family. Maybe the road less traveled requires sacrifice at all levels, but for the love of Pete, none of us are do long in our mortal coil and I can feel the days of my youth ticking away. I sound like a geezer.

This brings up my next point...I didnt ever do anything crazy in high school (I lie--we made explosives, tracked ammonia triodide all over the halls of school, lit a park on fire with napalm...just nothing crazy with girls, or booze, or...anything interesting). Its eating at me now. Badly. These old guys keep telling me that I need to loosen up, Im young, Im missing all the good stuff. I want to pull my hair out and tell them a thing or two about missing out, like missing....well, I cant think of any defense. Im just tired of being such a cynic and so aggressive and offensive about everything. I cant bring myself to not despise the human race. Ive got so much bottled up frustration that I cant figure out how to get rid of. I try my best at being less antsy--I really do--they say "mind over matter" and my mind is sharp and observant and at its neural prime, but trying to whip my own psyche is a bit tougher than I thought.

For example--last week at work--just a heads up, its been End of Quarter so things have been crazy, and Im trying to get a raise sorted out, and one of my co-workers grandfather had a heartattack leaving me as the export honcho, so Ive been kinda stressed--it was about midnight and we had finally wrapped up work and were waiting on one of the temps to be finished scanning documents into the database. The two other temps, both women, came over to my desk to talk to my cubemate and I about some nonsensical drivel and they started talking about something really disgusting. Ive asked them time and again to not talk about it around my desk, and I guess this time it just rubbed me the wrong way. I got mad and told them to talk about that crap at their own desks and a bunch of other things (it wasnt that nice when I said it, believe me) and one of the temps said that I was only mad because I "wasnt getting any". That made it alot worse, and I then proceeded to point and yell and intimidate the living daylights out of both of them. So sue me; I apologized the next day after my boss pulled me into the office to make sure I wasnt mad and to reassure everyone that I wasnt going to drag my sociopathic butt in the next day and shoot the place to kingdom come. I didnt realize that my abstinence was such a sore spot with me, but I guess it is. All anyone ever talks about is sex, sex, sex, and when you are the only one in the room--in the building--trying to be a decent, God-fearing person, the feeling of loneliness and me-against-them gets worse and worse. It reminds me of when Elisha hides on the mountain because he slew the prophets of Baal and thought that he was going to be killed. Im the only one left, he tells God. Just me. And Them. Thats how I feel. God reminds Elisha that there are 5000 (I think) people just like him in another place, just waiting. Soo...

Where, exactly, are my 5000?

Comcast is no longer sweet

I learned last week that Comcast Cable is making a deal with Time Warner to transfer control of the cable in this area. This means that I will now have to put up with the crappy service of a company that actually thought it was a good idea to purchase AOL when they lost 976,000 customers last quarter (thats the actual number). Goodie. The whole point of me getting cable internet was to get away from the parasitic software AOL provides and get faster internet. I can guarantee that it will slow down after the transfer.

Gar! Hippies!

For the first time in two years, I am on the brink of entering college (....again). Brando and I went to the local college here to apply for fall classes and I realized that I needed to check with Oklahoma Christian to see if my transcript request went through. Ive sent three. I call up the registrar, ask about my transcript, and get the response:

"We have no record of a transcript request."

IM GOING TO DRIVE UP TO OKLAHOMA AND GO BALLISTIC! Ive sent THREE! Thats more braincells than the entire state of Oklahoma combined can come up with to get me my FREAKIN TRANSCRIPT!

So I decided Ill forget I ever went there (a wise choice) and start over as a basic freshman. I was little worried--namely, I havent been in school in two years and yada yada--and Brando pointed out that we were by far the biggest guys we saw on the campus, three years older than the freshmen, have more experience, more facial hair, more brains, and more guns. Nothing to worry about. hyuk hyuk.