F Luck in the A

UPDATE: Now I remember where I got this line from. I read it in the book The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker. Aristotle came up with this one: luck is when the guy next to you gets hit with the arrow. I would guess he said it in Greek or Latin so the translation could be either that way, or my way.

Jesus Tap Dancing Christ I’m nuts…

I have a shit load of tattoos on my body. I’ve been through more than 50 hours of painful inking.

So why the fuck am I so nervous about getting tattooed this afternoon?

My body doesn’t like it when I break from routine. It revolts physically when my brain tells it something different is going to happen. Its first impulse is to vomit. I thought I was over that, but this morning I yakked before showering. Maybe the Jambalaya I made last night didn’t sit well with me, but I doubt it. It’s just my mind playing sick jokes on me.

To top it off I forgot the gift certificate at home. Now my wife has to bring it to me at work. (She was going to stop by anyway and say goodbye. She and Carter are going to her Mom’s to visit, go to Summerfest, and go to a wedding on Sunday. I have to work tomorrow and tomorrow and Monday, so I’m not going with.) Anyway, this makes me even more nervous and edgy because there’s all this other potential for things to go awry. Shit I’m batty. I need this tattoo to even me out and release the necessary endorphins.

I do feel a bit better after getting some lunch in me. Also, we go 20” LCD monitors at work. They’re tits. Now I can angle my monitor so people in the next row can’t just glance over and see what I’m doing. Makes for easier time theft.

Twas the week after Father’s Day

Since I don’t really lust after material goods for the most part, my wife and son had somewhat of a dilemma as to what to get me for Father’s Day.

They ended up getting me a $100 gift certificate for American Inkwell. Now I had a bit of a dilemma, what do get inked on me for the rest of my life. Well, I guess it’s not that big of a decision, but a dilemma nonetheless.

I wanted to continue my “old school” sleeve on my left arm. The only problem is that the subject matter for old school Sailor Jerry style tattoos is limited. I’ve already got the swallow, spider web, and eagle piece. I scratched my head for a few days and looked at some old school shit in the tattoo books I have and online. Nothing really spoke to me. I’ve said before that I’m beyond the deeply significant requirement for tattoos, but I still need to think “Fuck that’s cool” before I want it on me till my skin rots off.

Finally it hit me, at work of all places. I had been toying with the idea of a horseshoe, but really didn’t have anything more than that. Horseshoes are supposed to be lucky, and so are four leaf clovers. The whole good luck charm thing is kind of stupid though. The only words that popped into my mind were “Luck is when the arrow hits the guy next to you”. Perfect. Put an arrow piercing the horseshoe and four-leaf clover with that phrase above and below. Fantastic concept, really fucking cool.

I headed over to American Inkwell yesterday and talked to Kalib about the design. He roughly sketched something up and we figured out where it would be on my arm. I’m going to head back on Tuesday to take a look at his finished drawing, and then we’ll set something up to get it put on.

O Canada…

So I said goodbye to my therapist on Friday. I just said that if I felt I needed someone to talk to in the future I would give him a call. I’m not going to call him again though. If I need more psychotherapy I’ll be calling someone else. It’s tough to find someone as good as I had at UW-Madison. David knew his shit.

I’m sure it’s news to many of you that the Stanly Cup Finals are going on right now. The Edmonton Oilers have managed to bring the 7 game series to a tie with the Carolina Hurricanes after Saturdays 4-0 win.

It was a good game, but I noticed something else. Before the game, the Star Spangled Banner was sung, and then O Canada was sung. The dude singing sang the entire Star Spangled Banner with maybe 10% of the crowd singing along.

OK, they’re in Edmonton this isn’t a big surprise to me. The guy starts singing O Canada, and after a few lines he stops singing and just holds the mic up and the entire arena proceeds to belt out the rest of O Canada. These people weren’t just mumbling the words. They were heartily singing out like they actually loved their country. As the camera panned around the crowd, you could see that everyone was singing, word for word.

I haven’t been to all that many sporting events in the United States, but the few that I’ve been to, I’ve never seen that kind of nationalistic pride that those Canadians had. Most American’s don’t sing, or they just mumble the words to the Star Spangled Banner. I would guess that most people don’t even know the words.

Just another example of how we American’s are pseudo patriots at best. We want to kill terrorists, but don’t want to actually go fight. We want good paying jobs, but we shop at Wal-Mart. We love our country, but we really don’t like singing in public.

Let's all talk about me again.

Alright, now that everyone has shouted at each other and we all feel better lets get back to what the blog is all about: Me.

It’s 1:30, and I have an appointment with my shrink at 3:30. I want to compose my thoughts here because I think I’m going to dump him today, mostly because he’s not really helping that much.

I need to start by talking about how I’m not taking the Bupropion he prescribed anymore. Why?

I like how I am when I’m off it better than how I am when I’m taking it. I’m me. My natural brain chemistry is more to my liking.

My sex drive is how it should be. I actually want to fuck on a regular basis.

My creativity is significantly higher. I just recently figured out how I need to redesign my tattoo machine to make it better, sans Bupropion. I’ve begun the redesign and I’m actually excited about it again. It’s giving me hope that I won’t have to be someone’s moneymaking bitch for the rest of my life.

My dreams are more vivid and I can remember them. I like that better than not remembering my dreams. I feel more productive in those 8-10 hours than if I just wake up with nothing.

My fear of death isn’t any better or worse. I still don’t have line of sight to getting over it, but my best hope lies in Carter’s existence, and my fathering of him.

The immediate management changes at work have made my life there easier, and thus I’m generally happier and no longer need the meds to regulate that.

Let’s stay friends, and I’ll call you if I ever fall off the crazy wagon again.

Another Political Post (Audience Cringes)

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, on the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

So for me it is clear the reason for this debate is to divide our society, to pit one against another. This is another one of the President's efforts to frighten, to distort, to distract, and to confuse America. It is this Administration's way of avoiding the tough, real problems that American citizens are confronted with each and every day:

High Gas Prices.

The War in Iraq.

The National Debt.

Health Care.

Senior Citizens.

Education.

Crime.

Trade Policy.

Stem Cell Research.

Each issue begging the President's attention, each issue being ignored -- valuable time in the Senate spent on an issue that today is without hope of passing.

Thank you Harry. Who really gives a fuck if two dudes or ladies want to commit themselves to a monogamous relationship and share the same benefits that heterosexual couples have. Seriously.

Sanctity of marriage is a bullshit argument. BAN DIVORCE if you’re so fucking concerned about the sanctity of marriage.

The slippery slope argument is fucked too. It’s called creative writing. When you write the law; you say you can’t marry your sister, a cow, a statue, your five wives, etc. You say marriage is between two consenting human adults. Period.

That's Lawryde, He's a Dick.

I just had a midsummer’s afternoon review. Everything is cool, cooler than last year with my new boss.

The one thing that’s holding me back is that other managers think I’m a dick (I can’t recall exactly what he said, but that was what he meant.)

I honestly don’t understand this. I’ve mellowed my outward comments to almost nothing since the man kicked me in the nuts last time and almost didn’t give me my guarantied promotion. I turn it down from 11 to 1 every day before I go to work. I smile about getting my benefits cut and the managers taking our money to line their own pockets. I gladly take on work and constantly deliver it on time and under cost.

They say jump, and I ask how high, with a fucking smile.

He brought up two situations, one from a few hours earlier actually. I sent out a defensive email to my previous boss about a hose that was failing when I was sick a couple months ago at home to ease everyone’s mind about it. It apparently made me sound like a dick.

Today I was explaining why I thought how a checker who checked my technical prints wasn’t justified in marking something wrong he did. It apparently made me sound like a dick.

Fuck it… I can’t do anything to please these people. I apparently need to lay on the ground and let them walk on me to make them happy. They don’t want human beings to be doing their designs, they want robots that don’t ask questions and don’t have a soul.

Am I that much of an un-engineer with my tattoos and opinions about not liking getting shafted that I’m no longer even able to mask my contempt for these assholes?

I’ll try for 6 more months. I’ll turn it down from 1 to 0.1.

I need to get out of the corporate world. It’s slowly killing me.

Thank you Big Green Phone

As I sauntered in this morning after my Satan’s day merriment (more on that in a sec), in the center of the aisle of my cubicle was a circle of my fellow employees participating in the optional (mandatory) stretching which is blared over the loud speakers of our building between 7:30 and 7:45 am. As you can guess, I think this is the dumbest think in the world.

WE WORK IN CUBICLES ALL DAY SITTING ON OUR ASSES!

We don’t need a morning stretch. I’m not going to pull anything typing on a keyboard and running a mouse.

I stretch before I play an hour and a half of hockey to make sure everything is nice and loose, not before I start to design a muffler bracket.

The gentlemen in my section have taken it to the next homoerotic level and decided to get in a circle while stretching. Imagine, if you will, 7 grown, overweight, men in a circle putting their left arm out moving their wrist around, putting their hands together pushing them down and looking up at the sky, etc, etc. It’s fucked up.

The overweight part of it gets to me too. It’s like ordering a diet soda with your double Whopper. This stretching is obviously the only physical activity these guys see all day long, but come on. Hop on a bicycle, go for a hike, take a swim, do fucking anything, and then you won’t have to stand in my cube each morning and stretch because you’ll already be loose enough to do office work. Then they wouldn’t even have to give me disapproving stares as I sit eating granola bars and drinking a soda.

The Satan’s day outing to the local strip club was a success; much fun was had by all. We met this dude from Chicago there who was down on business. His name was Sean and he was a doctor who does work on tissue and stem cells.

He was cool shit. He bought us beer, and also sported for a $15 shot of Irish whiskey. It was good stuff. He had also gone to Wisconsin for his undergrad so we shot the shit about good old Madison. He was a hockey player too so we chatted about that. He says he played for the UW men’s hockey team in ’84 and ’85. I was trying to find a roster online, but I couldn’t. If anyone can toss me a link, cause I want to see if he was bullshitting me or not.

I had to takeoff at 7:30, but one of the guys I was with stayed. Apparently Sean kept dropping cash on drinks and ladies all night long.
It was a fun time though. He had a bunch of funny stories to tell. All in all it was a successful 666 day.

It’s the day of the Beast… How are you celebrating?

Today is 6/6/6 or 6/6/06 whatever your flavor is.

"Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred and sixty-six" (The Bible... somewhere in the back were nothing makes any sense. )

Since everything else in the book of Revelations appears rational and level headed, the number 666 must have some sort of significance.

It’s what I owed on my 2005 income taxes this year.

Could that be an “Omen” that Carter is the Anti-Christ?



If he is, his plan must be to take over the world by being irresistibly adorable.

Anyway, Today, the evilest day, which happens every 365,250 days on the Gregorian calendar, I plan on heading to the World Famous Big Al’s Strip Club and enjoying $2 you call it alcoholic beverages for a few hours after work.

I think I just heard my Baptist Aunt shudder

Do you know how I know you suck at “C” league hockey?

1: All your gear looks like it just came out of the box. There are no cuts scratches or scrapes on your skates, your helmet, your socks, your pants, or your gloves. (Although not always a giveaway, you have to buy new shit some times)

2: You can’t get your ass over the boards on the bench. It’s really not that hard, at least give it a fucking try rather than skating right to the door and waiting for it to be opened for you. I realize I have a slight advantage when trying to climb over the boards because I’m about 6’8” on skates so the boards on the bench are only a bit above my Johnson.

3: You’re constantly being called off-sides. How hard is this? The puck goes over the blue line first not you!

4: You just wack at the puck when it comes near you. I wish that newbie’s would just handle the puck a little before they decide to blindly slap at it. Get it on your stick, feel it a bit, look up, and try to make a pass. I’d rather see you get it stolen from you trying to make a pass than have to chase after it post a wild hit.

5: You can’t skate, and you never get any better. When I couldn’t skate, I was out at open skates or open ice whenever I could until I got better.

Summer league started up this Sunday, and our team doesn’t have a goalie. C League only has three goalies and four teams. Hmmm, seems like a problem. Hopefully the league will find us a goalie by next game.

The above stuff may have sounded mean spirited seeing as how this is a beginner’s league. I don’t have a problem with beginners, since I’m no superstar, but when you don’t see any amount of learning from these people it’s frustrating.

Without a goalie we lost like 20-4 or something like that.