Mystery solved! The suprise gift was, in fact, from my Australian lovely HP. She gets more awesome with each passing minute. I'm gonna move down under and marry that gal.
| Suzy Is A Headbanger! -- Posted by BalconyDive on Friday, May 20 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||||
Hmmm, I was all set to spit some venom at the general populace. It had been welling up for a few days, I was getting my thoughts together to try to make them somewhat coherant. It was going to be a pretty good little rant too. Then something weird happened. The doorbell rang, the dogs went nuts, and I clip clopped my way to the front door. Opening it I found an Amazon.com box laying between the screen door and the door door. It wasn't fastened very well, but nothing was missing, and that's not the odd part. Ya see, I haven't ordered anything from Amazon except for Seinfeld: Season 4, which I got on...Tuesday? However, this box was addressed to me. So I carried it off into my bedroom and opened it to find:  Stuff from my Amazon wish list. Sweet! Gifts for me! Awesome! But...from who? I...have no idea. The billing address is a Carolyn in Virginia. I only know one Carolyn, and she lives in Australia. Thus, I am confused. It's pretty damn sweet that someone would actually spend money on me to buy me Douglas Adams and Denis Leary, plus I've wanted that Tim Burton book forever but couldn't justify the expense. Now I just need this Carolyn to fess up so I can thank her!
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| Dinah Moe Humm -- Posted by BalconyDive on Monday, May 16 2005 | ||||||||||||||||||
 Since my birthday is this Saturday, I've decided to go ahead and lay out some guidelines on how you too can celebrate it. Because, let's face it, I deserve a national holiday. And when it finally does become a national holiday, you can be all cool and scener than everyone else when you tell them that you were celebrating bd-day before it was mandatory. Now, the first thing you're going to have to remember is this; no matter what you're doing on bd-day you have to do it in the laziest way possible. This is the true essence of bd. If you're watching a movie, but decide you'd rather play some video game (more on these later) it would be a plus to turn off the DVD player with some long stick (or, in the case of a real bd, a crutch) and turn the game on in the same manner. On to bd approved activities: 1.) Video games. True bd can't get enough video games. Mostly because it almost feels like doing something, without actually having to do anything. You can't beat that. Some recommended games for this years festivities are Narc, Grand Theft Auto, or Tony Hawk Underground. If you're in the mood for (and have the ability to handle) some pseudo contact with other human beings, as the true bd is Now remember, these are but a few ways to celebrate bdday. The most important part is to simply keep the spirit of bd alive in your heart for the whole day. And, of course, to send bd things!
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| What the flying fuck? -- Posted by OtterVomit on Sunday, May 15 2005 | ||||||||||||||||
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: MY FAMILY! John Riggs says: Did you talk to Paul and hear the gruesome story of Linda OtterVomit says: Nah I got home too late to call him John Riggs says: Man, it was bad. The apartments called and said he had to come get her, that she was laying on Imogene's couch making messes. He went over, and she had shit all over the place. John Riggs says: So he said she had to leave, and she says he had his whores out working the streets running up her phone bill, which was why she couldn't pay it OtterVomit says: ....... OtterVomit says: Damn. John Riggs says: He said she knew better than that, and Linda yelled that she had that fax he sent her. He said, "You have a fax machine?" And she wens ape shit at his his words, Attacked him with a big machette Klingon knife looking thing OtterVomit says: What the flying fuck? John Riggs says: He told Imogene to call the police, she wouldn't do it so he did. They took Linda to the hospital, both for her knee and for Psychiatric evaluation. John Riggs says: The police took the knife and her gun away. OtterVomit says: Shit. John Riggs says: In the interim, Linda escaped from the Psych ward and no one knows where the hell she is now. OtterVomit says: FUCK. OtterVomit says: How the hell could they let her escape?? John Riggs says: She escaped from a locked ward and is at large. Paul is scared and she thinks he robbed her money and is running a white slavery ring on her telephone.
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| -- Posted by OtterVomit on Tuesday, May 10 2005 | ||||||||||||||
 Hi. Fuck you.Now that that's out of the way, I can tell you about my new hero! Alzheimer's desease. This shit is better than the guy to the left of these words. It stalks you slowly and eats away at your mind and body. Slowly, patiently. It laughs at all attempts to stop it. While our best minds may come up with methods to slow its march towards mental anialation, they are in the end futile. And not only does it destroy the person affected, but the loved ones of said person. A fate seemingly worse than death, to have them taken from you...but not really. An open wound that won't heal. A constant reminder of what once was and will never be again. And I have seen its work first hand. Just days ago I saw it. I saw it reduce two members of the greatest generation to helpless states. Only one of them actually HAS the desease but they both suffer from it. Lifelong partners torn apart in their final years. I saw a woman who's mind is nearly void, a lifetime of experiences slipping away more and more each day. And, perhaps the most traumatic, I saw a man who has always conquered whatever adversity has faced him, a fucking hero, reduced to helpless tears. It was then I decided that alzheimer's was my newfound hero. It surely is fate's cruelest prank to play on the human race. The raw power of it! Its traumatizing everyone involved. Destroying my family. I am seeing and experiencing things I will take to my grave. I fucking love it.
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| Pluto, is a, planet. -- Posted by BalconyDive on Monday, May 9 2005 | ||||||||||||
So, I'm sitting here in class waiting for...anybody to show up, and since I am in fact bored, stuff! Things I spent money on today. Money I don't actually have. 1.) 2 month pre-paid subscription to gamefly.com Who knows how it'll work out, I mainly joined because their price for pre-played games is way cheaper than Electronics Boutique, and with a much better selection at that. 2.) Tony Hawk UnderGround 1 & 2, both preplayed from Gamefly. That's the sweetest plum! 3.) Seinfeld, Season 4, DVDs. It's a mothers day gift for mi madre. And now people, and teachers, are showing up so I'll have to finish this later.
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| Till My Head Falls Off -- Posted by BalconyDive on Sunday, May 8 2005 | ||||||||||
This is why I wish I could find a comments section that could easily be integrated. Now, if you've been following along, and I sure hope you have, we moved just a few months ago. We being the whole family, the move being from Park Forest to Sauk Village. The new house is located on 223rd Place. Now, let me tell you a little bit about Sauk Village and their street numbering system. In certain sections of the city there are cross streets, and 'behind' those cross streets are roads that don't go all the way as far as the cross streets. The cross streets tend to be named (whatevernumber) street. The non cross road streets are then labeled (thesamenumber) place. I'm sure the smarter of you can see where this is going. When we moved it was just around Christmas Time. Me being me, I tend to order most of my gifts on the internets and have them shipped to my home, where I can then repackage them. No need to interact with the filthy masses, whom I hate. So, upon first moving we started to notice...our mail was pretty light when compared to the amounts we used to get in Park Forest. It was...odd...but nothing to be alarmed about just yet, it was probably just people still sending to Park Forest, the missing mail would turn up, right? Wrong baby! Wrong! Ya see, Amazon.com tends to give up a tracking number when you buy from them, I tend to check the status of all my packages 40 times a day. Imagine my suprise when multiple packages were delivered, but I hadn't gotten them! Some deductive reasoning leads to...holy crap there's two 223rds! That's probably the problem! Ah, nothing to worry about, we can just pop on over there, see if they have any of our mail, pick it up, then tell the post office we're having this problem. Attempt number uno to stop by the new neighbors house was a Tuesday at around 7:00pm. No answer. No problem! We left a note in their mailbox asking them to get back to us so we could straighten all this crap out, only in nicer words. Nada...nothing... Next week, another try. This time on a Saturday in the mid afternoon. Still no one there. The hell? Another note, another failure to get a response. Then, the funny part happened. Mi madre, who rocks, ordered a bunch of crafty crap that she likes. The mailman didn't give it to us, but them. Then, lo and behold, one morning it appeared on the doorstep. Certainly, it had been opened. It became readily apparent they weren't going to be bothered getting back to us. Probably because some of those first packages they intercepted were full of DVDs, some video games, assorted crap that added up, hell even a brand new multidisc regionfree DVD player. Coming clean now would mean coming clean about that stuff. So, we complained to the post office and they pretty much got everything straightened out. Most of the misplaced deliveries were replaced by the stores (except for that damn DVD player, which I still haven't gotten myself a new one), and things had been running smoothly since. Now comes the reason I should be allowed to set their house on fire and piss on the ashes. Just this past week I checked the mail one day and was shocked by just how much was in there. The box was full, When I started to cull through it I saw just a ton of envelopes with our address and names (some correctly addressed, some in our name but to street) with huge markings such as "NOT AT THIS ADDRESS" and "PLEASE STOP SENDING!" Alright, that shit just ain't right. They know damn well what's happening, and they chose to a) ignore it and b) profit from it. But when it stops becoming boxes of expensive electronic equipment (did I mention the lost OEM dual layer 8x DVD-Rom?) it becomes a nuisance and they have the damn gall to send the envelops back to the post office instead of driving the block to drop them off. Man, that's cold and evil. And thusly, this is why I should be allowed to burn their house down, piss on the ashes, then laugh in the faces of the owners when they arrive home from work. Thank you, you've been a great audience.
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| -- Posted by OtterVomit on Friday, May 6 2005 | ||||||||
 HO-HUMWith the lack of news or any relevant epiphanies in my own life, I'll just return to oldschool updating style after a quick run through DrudgeReport. DUBYA VISITING THE EURO-WEENIES President Bush is all set to take off for Europe on a four-country, five-day trip. The theme for the trip is democracy's onward march. That's a curious theme....Europe doesn't seem to like democracy that much these days. So what's in store for George Bush? Expect lots and lots of protesters. You see, a lot of Euro-weenies hate the United States. They hate the freedom and the success that we enjoy. They're envious Socialists that despise American capitalism. While abroad, Bush can expect to be: --Called a dictator --Compared with Adolf Hitler, complete with the obligatory mustache --Called an Imperialist --Burned in effigy --Protested by large crowds holding signs that say "No more blood for oil" Call it the Euro-weenie template. Anyone who would dare free people from bondage is then worse than the deposed dictator. The European logic also states, and has for centuries, that the best way to deal with dictators is to appease them. It doesn't matter how many innocents suffer, as long as military conflicts are avoided. TONY BLAIR GETS THIRD TERM Bad news for Islamic terrorists in Europe yesterday....British Prime Minister Tony Blair was re-elected to a third term. He withstood an onslaught from the left, the right (the Labour Party in Britain is more moderate than the Democrats here) and the most vicious media establishment in the world. This completes the worldwide trifecta of leaders who supported the war in Iraq, then cruised to victory at the polls. The first was John Howard in Australia, then George Bush and now Tony Blair. Perhaps there is hope for the world and the fight against Islamic terror. So how is the good news being greeted in this country? All of the headlines are seeking to minimize Blair's success. We're being reminded over and over again that the Labour party was re-elected with a reduced majority. They're making it sound like he just squeaked into office, but nothing could be further from the truth. The House of Commons has 646 seats. 620 seats are reporting this morning, and Labour has won 353, Conservatives 195, Liberal Democrats 60 and other parties 12. Depending what the final tallies are, Blair will have around a 60-seat margin in the House of Commons. In the United States, we call that a landslide. Congratulations this morning to the Right Honorable Prime Minister Blair.
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| I'll Sink Manhatten -- Posted by BalconyDive on Friday, May 6 2005 | ||||||
Some stuff: I have a real post planned for...some time later...about how much my neighbors suck and why I should be allowed to burn their house down. I simply don't have the time to write it right now, so check back early and often! The uComics Calvin And Hobbes reruns are right now beginning the best arc in the history of C&H, the introduction of Calvinball, everyone should read it. Uhh... My Webcam today won't be gotten by a good half of you, and that makes it cool. Hmmm... Yeah, that's it. Neghbors suck and why violence is the answer later. Promise.
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| Broke in Two -- Posted by BalconyDive on Wednesday, May 4 2005 | ||||
Ya know, this shit is harder than you may think. I really have nothing to talk about, ya know? I think I just wanted to turn this into a blog to a) be one of those internet cool people and b) see if the idea would make the Otters head explode. Weird how neither of those happened. I wrote a whole thing yesterday in class about how much I hated my life at this point and consider myself to have pretty much failed at it unless I can pull some sort of Herculean/Peyton Manningish comeback. But since that would require effort, we all know that's not going to happen. God I can't wait for Fooseball season. Then I'll have stuff to talk about! Plus, this is so obviously the Colts year. Where was I? Oh, yeah, yesterday. So I had this whole thing about how I was sent to a (bad) shrink who gave me anti-depressents and upped the doseage every time I went to him and how funny the whole thing would be if it wasn't happening to me. I may be able to salvage that and make a soul bearing post about it, because it really is funny. Not now though. Now it's almost eleven o'clock and I'm sitting here listening to They Might Be Giants searching Google for tips on how to write a first resume when you've held no jobs in the past and don't consider anything you know or do to be all that great. It's not going well as you can imagine. I really do need to find someone who has some stroke at some business who can get me hired on as a low level IT guy and allow me to work my way up, all the while putting up money to get me the hell out of this house. Ah, there I go again, wanting everything handed to me. The one thing I didn't want to be when I was a kid was one of those guys who works at the Bowling Alley on the overnight shift at 26, but it so looks like that's where I'm headed. On the plus side though, I can feel my triplethedosageonthebottle sleeping pills kicking in, so I should be sleep soonish! There ya go, whole post about me having nothing to post about. I'm going to drag XJ kicking and screaming onto this damn thing to get more content than mine on this page. Freaking Otter is too much like me to ever post anything. XJ is too, but with the three of us putting up nothing that's almost look like something to the untrained eye!
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| -- Posted by OtterVomit on Monday, May 2 2005 | ||
Note to dive: CBR files are actually just rar files renamed. If you were to open a CBR file with say, winRAR, you would be able to extract numerous JPG files which would be easily viewed on anything that displays graphics.
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| Make Money Off Your Friends...Yeah! -- Posted by BalconyDive on Sunday, May 1 2005 |
I've been trying to...let's call it a post...for days now. I've been stopped by the fact that even I don't care about the things I have to say. But, hey, if I let that stop me I'd never say anything to anyone. I was going to review the Hitchhiker's movie (two towels up!), but it became so longwinded that I just stopped and went outside. But anyway, let's kick this pig. You know what's evil? CDisplay and the CBR format. Combined with bittorrent it's just way to easy to go on a binge and download 50 comics. I didn't read this many comics when I was a kid! Mostly because then I had to, ya know, pay for them and stuff. It's so easy to catch up on stuff I haven't thought about in years, and at the same time pick up new stuff I never even dreamed of. (Downloading right now: "The Punisher Meets Archie" and...I think the entire "Hellraiser" series) You know what I need? A portable CBR reader. Something I can load massive amounts of comics on to, then shove in my pocket next to my mp3 player and the PSP I don't own yet, but you can totally buy me for my birthday! $10 says the iPod Photo can be tricked into doing it, but my mp3 player is a cheap (HA!) Dell knockoff without the nifty colour screen and thus ability to display images of any kind. Whatever, guess I'll have to just sit in front of my desktop for hours.
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