First, I thought to myself “I’m never going to go three days without blogging again; so, let’s only show three days worth of entries…”.
Then, I changed the setting.
THEN, I LET THREE DAYS GO BY WITHOUT POSTING. Hello, blank page.
I’m such a git. But I’m a cute git. A lovable git. A git with talent. A git, nonetheless. 
I’m sitting here in the dark. I’m too lazy to go buy lightbulbs. That’s just fine — I get to light candles and stare into the soft glow of the monitor. There’s a beer, and a cat eyeing the beer…
The Stargate DVD is playing in a window; I’m surfing through Blog Explosion in another. Life is good.
I’m a Stargate fanatic. Do I know why?
Col. Jack O’Neill. Mrowr.
And, although James Spader has been known to elicit mrowrdom, Michael Shanks is more of the same Mrowr calibre as The Collective Cols Jack O’Neill of Kurt Russell and Richard Dean Anderson.
While I’m lusting after science fiction characters, is it wrong to find animated characters attractive hawt? Titan A.E.’s Capt. Joseph Korso is, shall we say, nicely drawn.
This is NOT a knitting blog. Not. No way, no how…
So here’s a blurb about knitting:
We lived with my grandmother for a number of years. Then when I started school, every day I went to my grandmother’s house.
To make a long story short, she introduced me to my one major failing. Yes, I, friendly public, cannot knit.
I can crochet, thanks to her, quilt, thanks to her, sew, thanks to her, darn socks and sweaters, thanks to her, embroider (shut up), thanks to her, but I can NOT knit.
I *know* how to knit, sure. Purl, too. Cast on, cast off… it’s all there. When I start off, everything’s fine…
Three rows INTO the project, however, it’s a different story. By that ill-fated third row, it’s all tighter than… well… there’s no need to finish that. I can barely get the needles back into the stitches, and I’m usually tied up in the yarn.
I can’t say that I’ve even TRIED in the past 15 years.
It’s traumatic.
Sniff.
So there I was, zoned into the dream, standing on a stage in Boston, in a kilt waiting for the accordionist to get through the slowest remaining eight bars of the intro for Kilkenny Races. It’s been about 7 years since I had a dream about Irish dancing, but here one was…
I’ll save the discussions about competitive Irish dancing, kilts, and what the hell Kilkenny Races is for another day… today, what’s of the most paramount importance today is…
…the accordion.
Now, because of a lifetime of listening to accordions, and this is a common affliction, I can almost hear them playing in my head. It’s like looking at the sun, and then having a ghost spot for a few minutes. It can almost be as painful.
It’s been in my damned head all day. First, it was four hours of Kilkenny Races. Since then, it’s been other Irish dance music — set dances, treble jigs, slip jigs, reels, hornpipes… still Irish music, an interest, so aight.
About 5 minutes ago, it all turned Very Bad.
What popped into my head? The Chicken Dance.
Make it go away. I’m begging.
I’m trying to muster the interest in Beer and The Other Addiction in order to drive out the accordions. It’s difficult… Beer goes rather well with accordions. And, if I turn up the soundtrack of TOA to drown out the accordions, the neighbours will look at me funny.
It really depends on what happens.
I’ve installed MT-Blacklist, and removed manual comment moderation.
Right now, I’m looking for my rosary. I’m sure I’ll need it later. I think it’s upstairs on the beer fridge next to the porn. (It never hurts to tempt fate into kicking you in the blog if you’ve updated some component somewhere somehow.)
I need to find a better way to manage comments. Right now the blog software is set to wait for comments to be approved before they show up.
I wish I could just set it to “approve everyone but the dweebs who dick around with comment spam”. There’s gotta be a checkbox. I might just take the training wheels off of Movable Type’s back tire and see what it’s like.
Apart from that there’s the issue of replying to comments — when it comes to blogging, and this is where the difference of a consonant makes OH so much difference, I’m a noobie. The Movable Type interface needs a “Reply to this comment” button. I’m sure it exists. It has to. I can’t be the first “oh, I’m so smart” technogumby to think this up. I think it’s about time to go spelunking in the innards of Movable Type plugins.
First, a disclaimer of mine own: only rarely will I post geek humor; and, even more rarely will I point it at someone’s opinions. It’s lower than sarcasm. Wait… I LIKE sarcasm. Nevermind.
This disclaimer, pulled from a source I won’t mention, makes me giggle, titter, snort, laugh and, well, guffaw:
Firefox 1.0 Users:
[snip] …please use a proper browser like MS Internet Explorer… [snip]
We now return you to your regularly scheduled 30 second blog hopping.
Just the first in a list of pipe-dream careers that would get me away from technology…
I want to be a massage therapist. I think I’d be good at it. Thanks to the genes, I have strong hands, they’re more like bear paws… they’re rarely cold… they don’t get tired or cramp up.
Now, I’m going to say this… don’t get excited…
I like muscles. Mrowr.
Stay down. Good dawg. Not in a full-fledged mrowr manner… I like watching people… the way they move… the grace and strength that people take for granted… I find the process, how it all fits together and just seems to work, mesmerizing. One of these days I’m going to get pummelled for gawking at someone I shouldn’t. 
Putting aside all the introspective crap about how I like helping people, the benefits of massage on physiological and emotional levels, the relaxation and healing that comes just from being touched, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda… which all floats close to the surface of the discussion, of course… I just wanna touch every last one of ‘em.
I see people (who I may not necessary include in that blanket statement I just made) all day, every day, slouched over desks and in pain they may not even realize they’re feeling. Spend a minute dealing with their shoulders and they drool on the keyboards.
(An interjection from the IT side of the brain: drooling on keyboards is NOT a good way to promote the long life of your peripheral.)
ANYWAY, today’s “run away screaming from IT” wannabe career path is probably just a reflection of the fact that my upper back is telling me it’s time to get up and not look at a computer screen for a few hours.
Where’s my beer.
I’m an IT manager. Regardless of what you see of the glamourous life put forward in IBM commercials and post-post-secondary career school advertisements, it sucks.
Sure, you get to wear your own spandex suit; and, you have your own theme music. I *know* you’re thinking, “How cool is that?!?” It’s not. Even though Edna says that capes are a bad idea, I’m stuck with mine. My theme music, catchy though it may be, comes from a deck that I have to cart around on, well, a cart.
I’m always carrying around a cellphone; reading e-mail and pouring through log files in a manner I’m sure is well documented in the Christmas catalog for Shrinks. I can tell you EXACTLY how those becited little electrons cart your electronic mail around the world; which vowels to leave out of most UNIX commands; and, even better, why the 3D rendering engine in your favourite online fantasy roleplaying game isn’t as good as it could be.
As you can imagine, I’m a hoot at parties.
I’ve been hooring myself out doing IT work since I was 14 in some form or other. I’m good at it but I’m tired. But… there’s always a but… it’s good money.
So instead of quitting my job, moving to someplace warm like Upper New York State, and becoming a bum, I’m creating this new category. As waking life gives itself over to zoning out while Microsoft Minutes count down to and away from zero, any time a new career path I’d like to follow pops into my head, here it comes… if for the sole reason that when I forget everything I know about computers, I’ll have a list of things to try out.
Who knows… maybe one day I’ll actually hop tracks. Until then, I’ll just flex my addictions and hope time passes more quickly… and that nothing crashes.
Thanks to y’all that dropped me a note about the page load time (and thanks to BlogExplosion – Thomas who gave me a suggestion on fixing it).
I’ve updated the background image to a 150px x 150px image (vs the 2px x 1px image). Instead of waiting for your computer to draw little 2 pixel squares all over your screen, it’ll tack it up 22500 floozengrats at a time.
PLEASE drop me a note or a comment if you have issues with the page load.
I’m still pre-coffee. I’m definitely pre-beer. It’s too early for really spicey Thai food. I’m not in the mood for donuts. And, I don’t smoke. Any users coming near my desk for technical assistance, or Zucchini help them, emotional support, are in for a bumpy ride.
*cues spooky shark movie music*