probably go to sleep sometime soon.

I was at the university book store over the weekend, and they had a huge banner put up. It said, “A gift card, the perfect gift for all occasions”.

No, it’s not. Giving a person a gift card is like telling them, “I don’t care enough about you to make the effort to get you a gift and so here is some money.”

Yes, that’s it. Giving someone a gift card is like giving them money. Except that it is worse. Not only are you giving them money, you are giving them money that you cannot use everywhere. Money, but without the freedom to spend it anywhere you may please.

“Here’s some money. But it is not really money. Because money you could use anywhere, but this you can’t. It is like made-up pretend money. You can spend it only at this one place. And you need to use it soon, because this money, unlike real money, has an expiry date. So…um enjoy! Happy Some Occasion to You! “

The supermarket I go to has gift cards. For the fucking supermarket. I wonder who at the supermarket came up with that idea and if anybody, anywhere, has ever bought one of those gift cards.

“Happy Some Event. Here’s a gift card from Super Fresh. You know… the supermarket. Enjoy!”

This fills me with sadness and disgust. But mostly disgust. Lots of disgust.

How the fuck can that be the most read story? A person whose initial claim to fame was the fact that she got caught fucking on tape is now no longer going to . And people were interested enough in it to make it the most fucking popular story? That is fucking insane.

Yes, a short and sweet….Scratch that…A short and bitter post.

The irony in Microsoft (We make butt ugly interfaces and we like it) giving design tips to PC makers makes my cup run over. Add to it the creepiness in calling a PC an object of pure desire. (Visions of people the world over humping their keyboards…with the Windows shutdown music playing in the background. Geekporn!

Um…those PC’s are probably objects of impure desire.)

I now know why I have cable. The SciFi Channel is playing a really bad movie. It involves, in no particular order:

• An isolated underwater sea laboratory. (All important experiments happen underwater in the sea. One of the laws of Physics. Right up there with the Law of Gravity and the Law of Being Too Tired To Sleep)
• An eleventh century sword
• A cute puppy
• A helicopter
• An unsanctioned cloning experiment involving large and quite possibly carnivorous beasties.
• An immoral scientist…with a badly put on German accent. (He has an accent, naturally he is bad. It is logical. If he were a good scientist, he would belong to a minority or would have a deep voice and no accent. The accent damned him.).
• Shotguns (Phallic symbols)
• Hot semi-naked women (Necessary accessories for phallic symbols)
• A rampaging dragon. With flame generating organs/apparatus.
• Nice guy with hidden past in the wrong place at the wrong time.
• Disposable lab technicians.
  

(The pilot for The Amazing Screw-On Head comes on right after this movie and is fucking amazing. Watch it! )

What I’d like to see is a movie that dares to challenge the stereotypes.

• A bustling underwater sea laboratory, one where proper safety procedures are followed and Caution is a buzzword.
• An eleventh century spoon.
• An insane, blood crazed puppy. One who lurks beneath the desks and savagely mauls the hands of those who try to pet him.
• A helicopter. The minimum requirements for flying which are more than looking good in a tight t-shirt or short skirt.
• A sanctioned cloning experiment that goes completely right. Nothing goes wrong. The cells of the extinct beast that have been cloned do not rise up and resemble the creature from the Deepest Recesses of Hell. Or if they do rise up, they politely ask for a cup of tea and then politely discuss international politics.
• A moral scientist with a German accent. One who wrestles daily with the moral ramifications of his work and does not look upon other humans as expendable research material.
• No guns. Or bombs. Or stuff that goes boom. No sharp objects. No pistols with unlimited ammunition. No ostentatious reloading and flexing while firing.
• More hot semi-naked women. (Just to annoy certain people)
• A somewhat embarrassed dragon. Who wears glasses, says “Eh?” a lot and can’t hold his drink.
• Nice guy. No hidden past. No secret time in the Army as a commando. No freakish proficiency with weapons. No disconcerting familiarity with explosives. No ability to hack into computer networks using Notepad’s secret “Hack into super-secure network” menu option (Shortcut key: ctrl-alt-shift-num lock-0-delete)
• Lab technicians, appreciated for who they are. Ones that matter as individuals and who have families that love them and care for them.
  

So, yeah, PCs are going to be butt-uglier.

I’d like it if some company somewhere would invent a laptop that does not moonlight as an oven.

(I’m writing this in the customer lounge as I wait for my car’s serving to finish. Not a very private place, but I’d managed to snag an entire seat for myself and did not have to worry about anyone peeking at my machine. Until this lady sat down next to me and started peeking at my screen. She apparently is very interested in what I’m writing.

Well, she just read that last paragraph, and now for some reason she is staring glassily at the opposite wall. I suppose that there was a more diplomatic way of handling that, but I had to wake up at a half past six to get here on time and right now I’m not very well disposed towards the world. Also the laptop is reaching the temperature of a furnace, an enthusiastic furnace at the center of the sun.)

So yeah, hot laptops. Bad for the whole lap part of the body.

(And before I get yelled at, I give complete credit to someone else for first mentioning the hot laptop issue.)

Today, in the gym I was forced to watch a ten minute interview with Miss Universe, Miss Puerto Rico. She had a freakish broad grin/smile/grimace on her face and she held it through the entire interview. It was frightening to behold. She was grinning and speaking simultaneously. On occasions she’d relax the grimace into some kind of a half smile before turning it right back on and giving the interviewers and the helpless audience (me) an unimpeded view of those choppers.

The title, Miss Universe is a bit strange don’t you think? I’m reasonably sure that there are billions of planets in the universe other than planet Earth. It is more than likely that a few of them harbour intelligent life. It is quite possible that the intelligent life may have two or more sexes. One of which could be given the title “Miss”.

But were any of these alien misses at the pageant?
No.

Were they afforded a chance to parade out in ball gowns or in swim suits and make up stories about how they’d like to help the orphans, eradicate poverty, eliminate hunger and do the rest of that good stuff?
No.

The really cannot call it Miss Universe if the rest of the Universe isn’t taking part? (That would be as silly as claiming to be world champions if you win a tournament in which the rest of the world does not take participate.) Heck, I’d be willing to allow it to stand if a couple more planets were involved. They needn’t be from this Solar System. (We all know that the Martians are a nasty bunch.). Send out a multi-directional radio signal letting the universe know about the idiocy…pageant. I’m certain that somewhere out there, there is a species, one that contains members who would enjoy being anorexic and half naked in front of an audience of…Two Hundred Thousand Million Billion Trillion semi-sentient beings (Too lazy to look up actual viewership numbers for the pageant.)

They could share with us touching stories about their childhood, which depending on the species might involve them exploding from the gestatory (not a real word) pod on the mother ship, or chasing down wild Helium Creatures on the sixth moon of their home planet. It will bring the species together. And maybe it will be interesting. Maybe one species is the other’s natural prey. Or maybe a couple of species may chemically interact with each other to create a large oddly coloured pile of goo.

I don’t know. The possibilities are fucking endless. Think of the ratings. A multi-species audience. Advertising revenues. Sure, it’s hard to sell dehydrated rocks to human, but on BetaBlugeNnosMosPoobah V they are a delicacy. Much like heroin right here on earth. Human censors would no longer be an issue. Wardrobe malfunctions do not matter if the part of the anatomy that was covered by that part of the wardrobe looks like a washing machine or a small tree. Or a small tree with Washing Machine Fruit…That last one could be freaky I suppose.

This is a sound business proposal. I hope that someone is reading and taking these ideas to heart.

And this is not an option. It needs to happen now. Because, I’m pretty sure that the television signals from the pageant have reached our alien neighbours. (Yes, they may be a billion light years away, but the laws of physics were torn asunder by the laws of people blogging at one in the night after three days of very, very little sleep. The signals used a convenient worm hole and hitched a ride on a passing space battle cruiser/GalactEX package delivery ship to get to the alien neighbours. Let’s call them the Shampoo. Because calling them the Butterscotch would be so inappropriate.)

The Shampoo are probably a proud, martial people. With vast fleets of faster than light battle ships capable of destroying the earth, in much the same way that I demolish a tub of ice cream. (Missiles, spoons. Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to).

They’d capture the signals, watch the pageant, figure out that Ms (Really M!szr#@*3) Shampoo ‘3790 wasn’t asked to participate and be fucking pissed off. Earth would be doomed. This cannot be allowed to happen. So invite Ms (Really M!szr#@*3) Shampoo ‘3790 to the pageant. It is a win-win situation for everyone. Hell, we might as well objectify alien females along with our own.

Yeah, so apparently she fainted. I’m not surprised. Maintaining that grimace probably burns a great deal of energy. Probably enough to fuel a fleet of faster than light battleships.

Working late at the office isn’t all that bad. Until you actually need to leave. Now, before you start thinking that I have an unnatural and quite possibly twisted affinity for work allow me a moment to clarify. (Like you had a choice. It isn’t like you would have a chance to interrupt this post with your own typing. I do not expect the words, “You fucking workaholic” to rudely interject themselves between that last sentence and the one following it…Except that they did. Albeit in a twisty round about manner.)

Well, the problem is that the building has a very large parking lot. And late at night that very large parking lot, by day a large friendly parking lot (Like a friendly Golden Retriever, but with a lot more tar and more parking-lot-ier), by night is a large, lonely and very, very dark parking lot.

Very, very, very dark.

And lonely. There are maybe three cars parked in it. One of which is mine. Which one is mine, you may ask. Well the one that is fucking furthest away, at the far end of the lot. Even if I had parked in the first available spot when I came in, in the morning, by the time I leave at night, my car has telekinetically transported itself to the far end of the lot. And there it waits for me, softly sniggering and chortling, like a schoolboy who has pulled a particularly wicked prank. If my car had elbows, and if there was someone next to it to nudge, I’m sure that my car would be nudging it.

Did I mention that the lot is dark? Very, very dark? That’s because the powers that be have turned off the lights. The normal light producing lights, that is. And they’ve turned on the negative lights, the ones that suck in any ambient light that there may be. “No moonlight for you” is their motto. “Wade through the coagulating darkness” is their alternate motto. Neither of the two would make very good battle cries. (Unless the opposing host consisted solely of a poor, tired Rajneesh trying to make his way back to his car. In which case they would be moderately effective battle cries.)

The parking lot seems to stretch away to infinity…and beyond. My car is definitely in the beyond part of the Infinity. And as I make my way to it, all I can think of are Axe murderers that go “bump” in the night. I start whistling and then I stop. I do not want to annoy the axe murders. After what seems like an eternity I reach the car and then my nerve finally breaks. I dive in and screech out of the parking lot almost before my seat belt is on.

And then at the first stop sign, I remember that I haven’t checked my back seat for the psychopath who might be lurking there.

Gulp…

(Nothing in the back seat except for a T-shirt, a computer keyboard, a carton from Amazon.com and a spiked collar. That last would be worth remarking about, except that it belongs to me. If it wasn’t in the car I would be worried, because a spiked collar is a must for every well dressed Axe Murderer. Sadly, and I’m not kidding over here, I did check the back seat when I had stopped at that first stop sign.)

The objective of “the Game” is to completely forget its existence. If you read this post, and then forget that “the Game” even exists, you’re off to a good start.

1) Knowledge that “the Game” exists is the only thing required to play.

2) Once you know “the Game” exists, you are automatically playing for the rest of your days. There’s no option, because you know it exists.

8) Anything can trigger memory of the game, but any recollection of this specific “Game” is all that’s needed to lose. If another player tells you “I lost the Game”, you lost as well, because that player just reminded you of its existence.

That was from a forum in which I lurk (That was from a forum I lurk in?).

The Game.

…is so fried right now.

Which of the ellipses should I get rid off? The ones in the title or the ones here? These are important questions. Questions that need to be asked. And I am fearlessly asking them.

I need to do some of that sleep junk. I’ve heard that it’s good stuff.

I keep having this recurring dream that I’m asleep. It is surreal because I know that it is a dream and that I am dreaming of being asleep. It would be nice if that counted as me being twice as asleep.

I am sound sound asleep asleep.

Do you realize that price and value are synonyms, but priceless and valueless are antonyms (Addendum: less and less are synonyms too!)?

My Hotmail inbox continues to be ravaged by spammers. Apparently they now believe that using the From and the Subject fields to form a complete sentence makes their case more persuasive.

From………………………………..Subject

Friendly HouseWife………………Looking to get laid

HubbyCan’t………………………..SatisfyMeAnymore

Or maybe I judge too harshly. Maybe Mrs. Friendly HouseWife is just being um friendly. But now I need to pity the guy married to Mrs. Friendly HouseWife, not because of her friendliness but because his last name is HouseWife. I bet he got beat up a lot at school.

The other person does not have a last name, but I’m sure her husband is either very trusting or very, very, very stupid. He married a person called HubbyCan’t for pity’s sake (And I do believe that that is the first time I have seen an apostrophe in anybody’s name).

Or maybe, just maybe, it’s spam sent out by spoofers and crooks and other all around bad people. Do people still open those emails? Somewhere is there some dumbass who sees “Friendly HouseWife looking to get laid“ and goes, “Holy fuck, I do believe there is a hidden message here. I have to open this email. The fate of humanity depends on it!” And then he jumps into a telephone booth and switches into his superhero costume. However since the phone booth has glass walls, he scandalizes the nice old lady behind him who was waiting to make a phone call and so he is promptly arrested for indecent exposure.

Is the opposite of “Indecent Exposure”, “Decent Exposure”? That was another question that needed to be asked. And I asked it. And now I shall jump into a telephone booth to change into my superhero cos…Never mind.

So, yeah, my brain is so fried right now.

Some people can travel light. They may be leaving for a six month trip to the wilds of the Amazon rain forest, or to the outer reaches of Mars and all they need to pack are a change of underwear and an English to Martian Dictionary. (The dictionary comes in handy in the rain forest if you feel the urge to bean a wandering toaster. And on Mars the rocks speak nothing but Martian. Very provincial and very, very uncultured.

But, it’s Mars. You really can’t expect the local geo-fauna to be very communicative. It’s the red planet for a reason. The reason being that red is the least talkative of the colors…

…yeah, I’m so fucking out of ideas.)

I am not one of them. I travel heavy. Really, really heavy. I over pack so badly that some people may get the impression that I believe that my sole hope of salvation depends on me stuffing as many things as I can into my backpack. For instance, this last weekend, for an overnight trip to State College, I had packed two pairs of jeans, three T-shirts and for some strange reason four pairs of socks. One of those four pairs was a pair of formal dress socks (No fucking clue why I packed that particular pair).

I hadn’t packed any shoes, but I had the sock front fully covered. If there came a time for me to do my duty, and if that duty involved me having four pairs of socks, perhaps using those socks to fight off rampaging hordes of sock-less monstrosities, I would not be found wanting.

While packing my bag all this seemed perfectly reasonable. I needed backups in case I dropped water or coffee or alcohol over any of my clothes. And then those backups needed backups which needed backups that needed backups…unto infinty.

Eventually I only ended up needing one T-shirt.

…And I forgot my tooth brush.

…And especially for one person, loud explosions and lots of semi-naked women have now made an appearance in this post.