You needn't have bothered. It was only pretending to work earlier; it's now back to letting me wait for a couple minutes, then telling me the page can't be displayed. So, yeah, if you want to hear Re Your Brains, and can't, and your inbox has at least 5.17 mb of free space, I can e-mail it.

[juvenile humor] Baby, I can e-mail it all night long.
[/juvenile humor]

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--

Email! She was going to send me email! Geez.

I shudder to think how you're going to twist what I just posted on sluggy's thread. Where is that guy, anyway? He's missing all the fun.

What's wrong with the tracker?

If your inbox is large enough, I suppose I could e-mail it to you....

Twas too tempting.

Besides, if we say the right words, Google ads will eventually lead to... wait, the FBI? Bah, this isn't working!

More serious then? Fine, fine: How can we reduce the US' drug problem? Legalize everything? Summary executions? I'm kinda running out of neutral discussion topics to spring on the random people I find in my driveway some mornings.

Mike, you don't by any chance live in a frat house, do you?

Because that would go a long way toward explaining the random people in your driveway in the morning.

Other than that, I got nuthin'.

High on the bizarre list, though, has to be the knock I got on my second-floor window from a detective at 10:00 on a Thursday morning.

You don't wanna know.

we do wanna know. heh.

the google ads are occasionally funny, at least. "bush is listening. use big words." and the best one so far, "go to woot-dot-com. our tiny profits are lost. haiku ads don't work."

a fart house would explain random people in his drive after dark - i'm not so sure it's a good explanation for morning-random-people.

a fart house would explain

Man, don't light a match near that place! FOOM!

*********
"Life is too short for grief. Or regret. Or bullshit." -- Edward Abbey, Vox Clamantis in Deserto

I second the motion for hearing the full "Adventure of the Floating Detective" tale. Sheesh, it's like story teaser week around here.

As for my house, it's a simple one-story brick edifice that just happens to be a loony magnet. Sometimes people will come to the door and make strange requests (The opening phrase "Is 'Indian Chief' here?" made me wonder briefly if the guy was confusing my house for the Hall of Justice), or I'll be getting into the shower and notice someone standing in my back yard or stealing my water or something (having a functioning external hose spigot = FREE WATER sign apparently), and one time a guy in a wheelchair rolled up to my door for temporary shelter from the rain and decided to take a smoke break. ("No, Good Sir Crackington, I shall not partaketh with thee this fine morn. It was nice of you to offer, though: it shows you're thinking of me. Me and DRUGS.")

The simple fact is that a sizable percentage of the people I meet seem to be, well, pretty far gone one way or another. Nothing to be done but remind myself not to try to make sense of what's going on: just look agreeable and edge the hell away.

It's not that interesting, really, which is why I let it hang out there. I was sitting in my room on the second floor, and like a lot of the houses in the area, has a big sturdy fire escape structure around the outside. The front door is a combination lock, and rarely do people just hang out downstairs, where someone might hear a door knock.

A few weeks before, a couple brothers went out swimming at the local mandmade lake (I know; sad) and, not seeing any authority figures in sight, swam under the No Swimming Beyond This Point buoys to the other side of the lake (from one side to the other, it's probably 50 yards, tops) to jump off the big rock. Long story short, he was cited by some sort of law-enforcement type, gave a false name and address, and was somehow tracked down.

The detective asked me to open the front door and point me to the room of this guy, who's real name had been discovered, somehow.

End of story. Sorry to disappoint.

Matt, do we need to have the Semicolon Talk again? With possibly a sidebar on who's/whose?

/MG support group

What's wrong with the tracker?

We don't need the talk. I was just kinda tired and being lazy. The whose/who's is by far the bigger faux pas, though, since the colon/semicolon thing is just forgetting to hold the Shift key.

I appreciate the sharp eye.

Last week, a skinny young man came to my door and asked for a potato. I didn't have one.

What's wrong with the tracker?

hey. i like that.

i went to war for my country and all i got was this lousy stump.

All we want to do is eat your grains

triticale, long time no see!

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--

You can see him? Man, I've gotta get this Web 2.0!

Online zombie novel for your undead reading pleasure.

[edit: heh, I didn't notice at first, but triticale's post fits right in after jcharles' in the "flat list expanded" view.]

A friend recommended this handy reference to me

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1582345929/sr=8-1/103-1716011-1463039

and Amazon thoughtfully added

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400049628/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/103-1716011-1463039?%5Fencoding=UTF8

What is wrong with the tracker?

You can make bread from them... close enough! Stop confusing me!!!

All you need now is Real Ultimate Power for the crazy scenario book bundle trifecta.

I couldn't get it to play. It makes me sad. I'm sure it's the lack of zombie songs doing that, and not the CONSTANT RAIN FOR WEEKS AT A TIME. The sun has come out exactly twice, just long enough to get our hopes up that maybe the long night is over, only to follow up with even more ferocious rainstorms.

What's wrong with the tracker?

That's too bad. I'd load it up to CITYBagel, but I haven't been able to upload anything there for months, I think a year or even more.

[edit] I did try, and for a few minutes there, I thought it was actually going to let me, but the file's just a little too big for the remaining space. If your inbox is large enough, I suppose I could e-mail it to you....

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--

It is sunlight I can't stand. Naturally, I live in the high desert country. We could really use any rain you care to send. I hope you are at least off the flood plains. This has been a bad year in terms of weather.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

So far, it seems to be working! Two days of sunshine and counting. I hope you received the rain I sent you.

What's wrong with the tracker?

Maybe they need the stimulants to counteract the heroin. I imagine it would be pretty hard to focus on legalese and fine details on a nod.

Nothing to do with much of anything, except that drugs might explain them, here are two of the greatest Archie comics covers of all time: One and two.

--I am powerless over my addiction to parenthesis.--

Wow, Saint. I don't think there are any words for that. Those, really. Those are very likely the two greatest comic book covers of all time, regardless of title.

And on a related note, I'd love to give my girlfriend a pearl necklace for her birthday, but she's never expressed any interest in one. I think it'd be a great way to show her just how much I really love her.

Sigh.

um.

heh. wow. um...

yeah. what a great way to show someone how much you REALLY love them. "you know what i've always wanted for my birthday? a pearl necklace. honest."

someone to ask "What's a pearl necklace?" And for Monk to answer :)

I'll play. Hey, Monk, what's a pearl necklace?

(cue circus music)

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

It takes patience, great skill and a masculinity few possess. But the women love them!

So.....it goes under the bay???

That could have been much worse. Ah, well.

Reality is the leading cause of stress in the world today.

Trust me; diplomats aren't the one's patronizing a Starbucks in UN Plaza in the wee hours. I can personally attest to the... demographic, I suppose, that frequents UN Plaza in the daytime, which at night is probably exponentially less "mainstream."

And while I'm on the subject, where do these people get their shopping carts? There's not a grocery store large enough to warrant shopping carts for blocks around that place! Unless I missed something, which I frequently do. Downtown SF is not the place to be obviously gawking, as though one is seeing a 3-story building for the first time in one's life.

have 24 drug stores or grocery markets?

Or like the previous post a super walmart? You can live in them!

In my town - sorry, "city" - the only thing that's open 24h is Tim Horton's, which is a donut place. No 24h pharmacies, although one pharmacy lists the pharmacist/owner's home number in the phone book.
As for Walmart, I am informed that our location may be the only one in North America that's closed on Sundays.
Grocery stores close at nine, the gas stations close at 10, and there are no bars within city limits.

First off, are you doing okay, daenikins? I know steff was going to visit you, and had some vague idea why, but then I never heard how things went. Email or citybagel is cool, but let me know how all that went, eh?

Next up: I promised Mike some China stories, and this seems a good place to put one. Last week (last week? it feels thousands of miles away already) I went back to visit my \\\"hometown\\\" in China.
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maoming

I wasn`t sure which of my friends would still be in town after 2 years, but it turned out to be a perfectly delightful week. Long experience allows me to say with confidence that the discotheque closes down around 2 or 3, and there`s a small restaurant near my first apartment that never closes where you can get rice porridge or fresh hot greasy noodles at any hour. If you`re in good with the restaurant owner, you can stay at any of the cheaper outdoor or semi-outdoor restaurants pretty much indefinitely. They may pack up the other tables and turn out the lights, but if you buy enough beer ahead of time, they`ll park a guy at the entrance to lock up when you leave, and you`re golden.

They had better clubs then I remember, and had actually put a proper roof(!) on my favorite seedy restaurant outside the college gates. Thankfully, they hadn`t attempted to improve on their steamed fish or Japanese tofu. God in Heaven, but I swear Guangdong food is the best stuff on earth. Steamed crad and badger something-or-others aside, hypoxic will back me up on this, I`m sure. Unless his family is originally from Beijing or something. Then we may have to fight to the death. Remember, \\\"Eat in Guangzhou, marry a woman in Japan, marry a man in Shanghai, buy clothes in Hangzhou.\\\" Or something like that. I always get lost after the first part.

I was never very clear on how long the clubs stay open, as we usually went there about mid-evening and left for someplace quieter after that. Even when I was the only sober one, it gets tricky to remember what time you stumbled home from which place that one time 3 years ago. In case anyone was still unclear on this, I miss China all the damn time. Their social networks are much stronger and more central to the way they live, with the result that one can have, on shockingly short notice, a smashing good time with good friends one hasn`t seen in two years. Thursday night, my last night in Maoming, was probably the best birthday I`ve ever had. Man, that was a nice club.

Update posted at CITYbagel.
Thanks for showing an interest.

I'm sorry daen. That's an awful situation in which to be. I wish I could give you a hug and make it all better, but the only thing that's going to keep gas stations open later and bring a pub in (pubs and bars are different beasts; just ask me and I'll rant a little) is public demand. Demanding the right to put back a few pints until one or two o'clock and then look down and realize a) the gas tank is nearly empty and b) you could really use a sports drink and some jerky about now. It must be brought to fruition!

In the meantime, I'm going to watch my 3 DVD set of Strong Bad's First 100 Emails and laugh some more. Two thumbs up on *that* purchase.

I love Strongbad. Really. I can't imagine how he's still single.

Down with the soulless minions of orthodoxy!

Quick! If we all work together, we can avoid the beer rant!

From the quote, it sounds as though there are a few Starbucks open 24 hours near UN Plaza. Now, I'm not a coffee drinker, and the smallish town I live in just got their Starbucks last month, but I'm pretty sure it's not open 24 hours. I guess it's possible that they meant convenience stores or groceries that serve Starbucks, but I didn't think they did that. The pub I went to last night, though, appears to be open until 3 am. Indiana does have blue laws that prohibit the sale of alcohol on Sunday, but apparently they're not as crazy as Georgians.

What's wrong with the tracker?

...we have a few 24 hour pharmacies, and during the Christmas season Wal Mart is open 24 hours, and there are a few 7-11s I've noted that were open in the wee hours back when I worked nights, but that's about it. The bars all close by 1 am here with last call being at midnight. I'm used to last call being at 2 am and the places close by 3 am. But that's New York, not Virginia.

1 a.m. isn't so bad. For the South. I spent a week in Atlanta doing a trade show one night my coworker and I went to a restaurant with a bar in it. Got on with the bartender (I tip very well for good service/conversation), and found out later we not only closed the bar at 11:00 (on a Friday!), he stayed open an hour later than he was supposed to, for us. I was filled with shock and awe.

Now, I didn't go poring over the liquor laws in the state of Georgia and Atlanta in particular, but I'm pretty sure 10:00 is the law. I don't remember much stumbling home that night, but I remember Hooters was closed.

Apalled, I tell you.

I've stumbled out of pubs (illegally, naturally) as late as 5:30 in the morning, but to basically be given the strong hint to leave quickly and quietly at 11:00 has got to be some kind of crime against nature. An even bigger crime, in fact, than me only being able to find 2 (two!) local craft brews at any bar, and only one of them was really a step up from the macrobrewed horse urine that passes for a malty beverage in most of this country.


Wait... what were we discussing?