Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie

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This song is called Alice’s Restaurant, and it’s about Alice, and the restaurant, but Alice’s Restaurant is not the name of the restaurant, that’s just the name of the song, and that’s why I called the song Alice’s Restaurant.

You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant.

Now it all started two Thanksgivings ago, was on two years ago on Thanksgiving, when my friend and I went up to visit Alice at the restaurant, but Alice doesn’t live in the restaurant, she lives in the church nearby the restaurant in the bell-tower, with her husband Ray and Fasha the dog. And livin’ in the bell tower like that, they got a lot of room downstairs where the pews used to be in. Havin’ all that room, seein’ as how they took out all the pews, they decided that they didn’t have to take out their garbage for a long time.

We got up there, we found all the garbage in there, and we decided it’d be a friendly gesture for us to take the garbage down to the city dump. So we took the half a ton of garbage, put it in the back of a red VW microbus, took shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the city dump.

Well we got there and there was a big sign and a chain across across the dump saying, “Closed on Thanksgiving.” And we had never heard of a dump closed on Thanksgiving before, and with tears in our eyes we drove off into the sunset looking for another place to put the garbage.

We didn’t find one.

Until we came to a side road, and off the side of the side road there was another fifteen foot cliff and at the bottom of the cliff was another pile of garbage. And we decided that one big pile was better than two little piles, and rather than bring that one up we decided to throw ours down.

That’s what we did, and drove back to the church, had a Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, went to sleep and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we got a phone call from officer Obie.

He said, “Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.”

And I said, “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie — I put that envelope under that garbage.”

After speaking to Obie for about fourty-five minutes on the telephone we finally arrived at the truth of the matter and said that we had to go down and pick up the garbage, and also had to go down and speak to him at the police officer’s station. So we got in the red VW microbus with the shovels and rakes and implements of destruction and headed on toward the police officer’s station.

Now friends, there was only one or two things that Obie coulda done at the police station, and the first was he could have given us a medal for being so brave and honest on the telephone, which wasn’t very likely, and we didn’t expect it, and the other thing was, that he could have bawled us out and told us never to be see driving garbage around the vicinity again, which is what we expected. But when we got to the police officer’s station there was a third possibility that we hadn’t even counted upon, and we was both immediately arrested.

Handcuffed.

And I said “Obie, I don’t think I can pick up the garbage with these handcuffs on.”

He said, “Shut up, kid. Get in the back of the patrol car.” And that’s what we did, sat in the back of the patrol car and drove to the quote Scene Of The Crime unquote.

I want tell you about the town of Stockbridge, Massachusets, where this happened here, they got three stop signs, two police officers, and one police car, but when we got to the Scene Of The Crime there was five police officers and three police cars, being the biggest crime of the last fifty years, and everybody wanted to get in the newspaper story about it. And they was using up all kinds of cop equipment that they had hanging around the police officer’s station. They was taking plaster tire tracks, foot prints, dog smelling prints, and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. Took pictures of the approach, the getaway, the northwest corner, the southwest corner, and that’s not to mention the aerial photography.

After the ordeal, we went back to the jail. Obie said he was going to put us in the cell. Said, “Kid, I’m going to put you in the cell, I want your wallet and your belt.”

And I said, “Obie, I can understand you wanting my wallet so I don’t have any money to spend in the cell, but what do you want my belt for?”

And he said, “Kid, we don’t want any hangings.”

I said, “Obie, did you think I was going to hang myself for littering?”

Obie said he was making sure, and friends Obie was, cause he took out the toilet seat so I couldn’t hit myself over the head and drown, and he took out the toilet paper so I couldn’t bend the bars roll out — roll the toilet paper out the window, slide down the roll and have an escape. Obie was making sure, and it was about four or five hours later that Alice (remember Alice? It’s a song about Alice), Alice came by and with a few nasty words to Obie on the side, bailed us out of jail, and we went back to the church, had another Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat, and didn’t get up until the next morning, when we all had to go to court.

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and sat down. Man came in said, “All rise.” We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down.

Obie looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog.

And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, ’cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.

And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about.

Came to talk about the draft.

They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street, where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. ‘Cause I wanted to look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York, and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I walked in and sat down and they gave me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the psychiatrist, room 604.”

And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I wanna kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill! Kill! Kill! KILL!” And I started jumpin’ up and down yelling, “Kill! Kill!” and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL! KILL!” And the sergeant came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”

Didn’t feel too good about it.

Proceeded on down the hall gettin’ more injections, inspections, detections, neglections and all kinds of stuff that they was doin’ to me at the thing there, and I was there for two hours, three hours, four hours, I was there for a long time going through all kinds of mean nasty ugly things and I was just having a tough time there, and they was inspecting, injecting every single part of me, and they was leaving no part untouched. Proceeded through, and when I finally came to the see the last man, I walked in, walked in sat down after a whole big thing there, and I walked up and said, “What do you want?”

He said, “Kid, we only got one question. Have you ever been arrested?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice’s Restaurant Massacree, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome— and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, did you ever go to court?”

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, “Kid, I want you to go over and sit down on that bench that says Group W. Now, kid!!”

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W’s where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting there on the bench. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean ‘n’ ugly ‘n’ nasty ‘n’ horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, “Kid, whad’ya get?”

I said, “I didn’t get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage.”

He said, “What were you arrested for, kid?”

And I said, “Littering.”

And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, “And creating a nuisance,” and they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sergeant came over.

Had some paper in his hand, held it up and said, “Kids, this piece of paper’s got 47 words 37 sentences 58 words we wanna know details of the crime time of the crime and any other kind of thing you gotta say pertaining to and about the crime I want to know arresting officer’s name and any other kind of thing you gotta say,” and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there…

There on the other side…

In the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

(“KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?”)

I went over to the sargent, and said, “Sergeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin here on the Group W bench — ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.”

He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if your in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say, “Shrink, you can get anything you want, at Alice’s restaurant.” And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him.

And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them.

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in, singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it’s a movement!

And that’s what it is , the Alice’s Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar.

With feeling.

So we’ll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here, and sing it when it does.

Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.

That was horrible. If you want to end war and stuff you got to sing loud. I’ve been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I’m not proud…or tired…so we’ll wait till it comes around again, and this time with four part harmony and feeling.

We’re just waitin’ for it to come around is what we’re doing.

All right now.

You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant (excepting Alice),
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant,
Walk right in it’s around the back,
Just a half a mile from the railroad track,
You can get anything you want, at Alice’s Restaurant.

Da da da da da da da dum,
at Alice’s Restaurant!

Battlefield nuke ok'd by Bush

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If Bush has his way, in a few years our ground troops could be carrying ‘small scale’, ‘low-yield’ nuclear rockets.

President Bush signed a huge new defense bill that includes millions of dollars for a small nuclear bomb designed to destroy deep, hardened underground bunkers.

Among the many items tucked away in the \$401 billion defense authorization act was a \$15 million three-year research project by the Energy and Defense departments to create the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

The legislation repeals a decade-old ban on research into low-yield nuclear weapons.

The controversial new weapon would consist of a hard-nosed rocket able to penetrate 20 feet into the earth with a small-scale nuclear bomb, modified from an existing nuke, that would go off on a delay – so that it would explode at the deepest point.

Bush scares me more and more every day.

(via MetaFilter)

The trickiest zen on the menu

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I wanted to take a moment to point out Pops’ domain, 2 Hour Lunch. I discovered his site at some point during the TypePad beta testing process, and he’s become one of my favorite reads. He’s got a wonderful writing voice, and it’s not at all uncommon for his posts to elicit grins or laughter.

Here’s a wonderful bit from this past week, taken from \”Creepy? Check! Kooky? Check!:

Kids?

Kids are a dump truck full o’ work.

Mr. Man is lively, academically gifted, and a first class nerd. He is endlessly curious and self-motivated. He’s a remarkable conversationalist if you’re over 30. Under 30 – you suspect he’s a midget. Testing has shown that Mr. Man has the reasoning and logic skills of some one 10 years older.

His school has called several times to say, “He has no social skills.” and I respond, “Well, no need for a paternity test then, is there?!?”

Silence ensues.

Mr. Man needed surgery when he was 18 months old. He’s been so sick we never thought he would ever get better again. Just by the mere fact that he is a new human being in this world, he has found no end of ways to scare the living shit out of us.

We knew that would happen.

We just didn’t know when or how.

Parenting is amazing. Parenting is torture. Parenting is like like any intense relationship you’ve ever had in your life. It drives away your future expectations and makes you live very much in the moment.

It’s the trickiest zen on the menu.

The two of us see all of it as a grand adventure sorta like the Jungle Boat Ride. We take turns making bad jokes and Mr. Man is the foreign tourist who doesn’t understand a word of it.

And every day we get out of bed and go forward from there.

Stop by and say hi.

Bad Santa

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I first heard about Bad Santa thanks to Pops about a week ago, and it immediately sounded like something that would be right up my alley.

Roger Ebert’s review has just solidified that. This movie will be seen by me, quite possibly tomorrow. Here’s some random choice snippets from Ebert…

Santa is a depressed, alcoholic safecracker. The kid is not one of your cute movie kids, but an intense and needy stalker; think of Thomas the Tank Engine as a member of the Addams Family. … “Bad Santa” is a demented, twisted, unreasonably funny work of comic kamikaze style, starring Billy Bob Thornton as Santa in a performance that’s defiantly uncouth. … You expect a happy ending, but the ending is happy in the same sense that a man’s doctors tell him he lost his legs but they were able to save his shoes. … There are certain unwritten parameters governing mainstream American movies, and “Bad Santa” violates all of them. … I didn’t like this movie merely because it was weird and different; I liked it because it makes no compromises and takes no prisoners. And because it is funny. … When Billy Bob Thornton got the script, he must have read it and decided it would be career suicide. Then he put the script to his head and pulled the trigger. … What I can’t picture is, who will attend this movie? Anybody? Movies like this are a test of taste. If you understand why “Kill Bill” is a good movie and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” is not, and “Bad Santa” is a good movie and “The Cat in the Hat” is not, then you have freed yourself from the belief that a movie’s quality is determined by its subject matter. You instinctively understand that a movie is not about what it is about, but about how it is about it. You qualify for “Bad Santa.”

(via Nate)

Digital elocution

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So what do you do if you’re trying to put together campaign commercials for a President who can’t seem to string together more two multi-syllabic words without stumbling? Simple! With just a little “digital cut and paste”, even Dubya can sound coherent!

When President Bush laid out the potential threat that unconventional weapons posed in Saddam Hussein’s hands last year in his State of the Union address last year, he became tongue-tied at an inopportune moment.

[…]

Yet in a new Republican commercial that borrows excerpts from that speech, Mr. Bush delivers that line as smoothly as any other in the address, without a pause between “one” and “vial,” and the v in “vial” sounds strong and sure.

Republican officials acknowledged yesterday that the change was a product of technology. The line, they said, was digitally enhanced in editing “to ensure the best clarity.”

(via Dori)

Capt. Yee charged with…being a shmuck

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Back at the beginning of September, there was a bit of a fuss when Army Captain James Yee, who had been working with (ahem) “detainees” at Guantanamo Bay was suddenly held on suspicion of treason, espionage, and “aiding the enemy”. Well, charges against him have finally been filed. What has the military charged him with that caused all the ruckus?

Two counts of failing to obey a lawful general order, adultery, conduct unbecoming an officer, making a false official statement and failure to obey an order or regulation (the latter two charges stem from allegations that Yee viewed and stored pornography on a government computer).

Okay, so apparently the guy was a bit of a shmuck, not to mention a bit of an idiot if he was using government hardware for pornography, and was definitely breaking regulations (if all the allegations are true). But come on — treason and espionage are serious charges, and I would expect that the government wouldn’t be bandying them about unless they had some definite hard evidence of such behavior. Now, two and a half months later, these are the only official charges that they’ve been able to produce?

Chances are, the stories about Yee’s official charges won’t get nearly as much press, though. They’ll be buried four or five pages back in the newspapers, all most people will remember is how some Filthy Traitor was caught by Our Government, and they’ll never hear how inconsequential (at least in comparison to treason and espionage) the actual charges are. It’s a sadly typical situation these days, really.

Apparently Yee has been released pending trial, but some are wondering about the motives of the new charges:

Huda Sobuh, Captain Yee’s wife, told CAIR-Seattle: “I believe emphatically that my husband is innocent of all these charges. I stand by him. It is clear to me the U.S. government only wants to destroy his reputation and his family. They will not succeed.”

“These new allegations, including as they do serious violations of Islamic moral principles, have the odor of a smear campaign about them,” said Ibrahim Mohamed, CAIR-Seattle chairman. “A cynical person might question the government’s motivation for bringing these charges after having failed to back up earlier leaks pointing to espionage and support for terrorism.”

“To bring adultery into a case that began with public allegations of aiding the enemy is really outrageous, and the type of thing that can give military justice a bad name,” said Eugene Fidell, Yee’s civilian attorney.

Al-Muhajabah’s Islamic Blog provides some advice from the Quran, advice which I find to be applicable in many situations these days.

First, as a general rule, one should never blindly accept accusations from a source with questionable motives: O you, those who have faith! If a corrupt person brings you tidings, verify it, lest you attack some folk in ignorance and afterward repent of what you did. (Quran 49:6). Second, and specifically dealing with accusations of adultery, proper proof is required…: Why, when they heard this, did the faithful men and the faithful women not think better among themselves and say: This is a clear lie? Why do they not bring four witnesses? Whoever does not bring witnesses, such people are liars in Allah’s sight. (Quran 24:12-13)

Troy

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Troy

Another film I’m really looking forward to seeing — Troy.

Throughout time, men have waged war. Some for power, some for glory, some for honor — and some for love.

In ancient Greece, the passion of two of history’s most legendary lovers, Paris, Prince of Troy (ORLANDO BLOOM) and Helen (DIANE KRUGER), Queen of Sparta, ignites a war that will devastate a civilization. When Paris steals Helen away from her husband, King Menelaus (BRENDAN GLEESON), it is an insult that cannot be suffered. Familial pride dictates that an affront to Menelaus is an affront to his brother Agamemnon (BRIAN COX), powerful King of the Myceneans, who soon unites all the massive tribes of Greece to steal Helen back from Troy in defense of his brother’s honor.

In truth, Agamemnon’s pursuit of honor is corrupted by his overwhelming greed — he needs control of Troy to ensure the supremacy of his already vast empire. The walled city, under the leadership of King Prium (PETER O’TOOLE) and defended by mighty Prince Hector (ERIC BANA), is a citadel that no army has been able to breach. One man alone stands as the key to victory or defeat over Troy — Achilles (BRAD PITT), believed to be the greatest warrior alive.

Arrogant, rebellious and seemingly invincible, Achilles has no allegiance to anyone or anything, save his own glory. It is his insatiable hunger for eternal renown that leads him to attack the gates of Troy under Agamemnon’s banner — but it will be love that ultimately decides his fate.

Two worlds will go to war for honor and power. Thousands will fall in pursuit of glory. And for love, a nation will burn to the ground.

The trailer can be downloaded from Apple’s trailer site, and is worth watching just for the shot of thousands of triremes covering the ocean.

Just what I always wanted!

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This is so, so, so, so not on my Christmas Wish List:

Talking Ann Coulter Action Figure

Amuse your conservative friends and annoy your liberal neighbors with the brand new Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure. This incredibly lifelike action figure looks just like the beautiful Ann Coulter, and best of all . . . it sounds like Ann, too!

[…]

This highly collectible doll comes in a display box with information highlighting Ann’s unique contributions to America’s political discourse. If you can’t get enough Ann Coulter, you’ll want to order the Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure today!

At first I thought this was a joke or a prank or something, especially given the quotes that are apparently programmed into the doll (“Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like Liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now.”), but as far as I can tell, this is completely serious.

There is an entire series of “Talking Presidents” action figures available on this website that all have included quotes that seem to be meant to honor the person in question, including George W. Bush (“Freedom itself was attacked by faceless cowards, and freedom will be defended.”), George H. W. Bush (“I don’t see how you can be President if you didn’t believe in a being greater than yourself. I don’t see how you get the strength that you need at quiet moments, the tough moments.”), and Dennis Miller (“The only way we were going to get the French to go into Iraq was to tell them we thought there were truffles in there.”). There’s even one for Donald Rumsfeld (“The only choice one has is to proceed and use coercion.”), which I find at least as disturbing as the Ann Coulter action figure. The most obvious exception is the action figure for Bill Clinton (“I experimented with marijuana a time or two and didn’t like it, and didn’t inhale and never tried it again.”).

Truly bizarre. I guess you want to keep everyone happy over the Christmas season, right?

(via the usual suspects)

Three Years

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Today marks my three-year anniversary of weblogging. Technically, I’ve actually been at this for a bit longer than that — since sometime in 1998 or 1999 — but at that point I was just updating a static HTML page by hand, and much to my dismay, I lost my archives of those pages some time ago. So, for all practical purposes, I’m just dating back to my first archived post, from Nov. 25 2000.

I’ve been slowly working on moving all of my old archives over into my TypePad account for the past couple months, with a goal of having them all online by today. Thankfully, that happened, and I now have all three years of archives — 1,949 individual posts (an average of 1.78 posts per day) — online and available for perusing.

As I’ve worked my way through them all, I’ve highlighted a few at the top of my archives page as “Greatest Hits”. These aren’t necessarily the most-visited posts on the site. Rather, they’re posts that I find notable or especially worth visiting for one reason or another. Here’s a rundown of what I consider the highlights of the past three years:

1/9/2001: Words of Wisdom
One of the few pieces of forwarded e-mail that I’ve ever liked enough not just to keep, but to post. Just a good list of advice and observations worth keeping in mind.
1/17/2001: Things to remember while e-mailing
Another forward that I found worth saving. A good list of things that everyone should keep solidly in mind before passing on the latest virus warning, plea for help, or urban legend that lands in their e-mail inbox.
4/20/2001: About my tattoo
Some fairly bad pictures of me, but decent pictures of my tattoo. I’ve never been much of one for body modification — no piercings, and this is my only tattoo — but after finding the design years ago and giving it roughly five years of consideration, I decided that I’d found something worth permanently adding to my body.
5/24/2001: Mars needs a facelift!
Pure, unadulterated silliness. After finding some new pictures of the famous “face” on Mars, I decided to go all-out and see how well I could do at coming across as a flaming loony conspiracy theory nut. Apparently I did fairly well, as when I originally posted this on another discussion board, a few people commented that until the end of the post when I admitted that I was just fooling around, they actually believed that I was frightfully serious about what I was writing. There’s not much higher praise than that.
2/28/2002: Where were you?
A list of important historical dates, and my recollections of where I was when they happened and how they affected me. Some dates weren’t overly clearly remembered, most of the ones that really stuck with me range from the Challenger explosion to the Sept. 11 attacks.
3/2/2002: Hippies on Mars!
Another bout of Mars-inspired silliness. A false-color image of the Martian poles that reminded me of tye-dyed clothing patterns inspired this “press release” about Grateful Dead fans traveling across the plains of Mars. As far as I know it’s purely coincidental that I had two Mars-inspired bits of creative writing.
7/20/2002: Best of times, worst of times
Looking back at my experiences with people who went from being friends of mine to being roommates from hell. It’s always an odd time of my past to look back on, as it’s a strong combination of fond memories and things that at times I’d rather be able to forget.
10/28/2002: George
Much as I love cats, my brother’s cat George is the only cat I’ve ever met that I just couldn’t get along with. Completely and utterly psychotic. This is one of George’s more amusing moments in life.
3/2/2003: Sleep — from the painting by Salvadore Dali
A piece I wrote during my junior year of high school, inspired by a Salvadore Dali painting. As can be expected from something written around thirteen years ago, there are definitely things that I would do differently were I writing it now, but I’ve always liked what I came up with enough to leave it unaltered since its original inception.
3/3/2003: Just hang up
I’m not a fan of cell phones at all. I’ll only have one if required and paid for by my job, which has only happened once. One of the things that drives me up the wall is how incredibly rude many people can be when it comes to cell phones, and this rant was born from that frustration.
5/6/2003: Cynicism reigns supreme\
5/8/2003: Darwin has left the building
A pair of posts exploring one of my more cynical beliefs — that the human race is essentially throwing evolution out the window and breeding itself into oblivion. Some very interesting discussion arose out of these posts.
5/29/2003: Glitch
So far, my first foray into ‘fanfic’. Initially inspired by a dream I had after watching “Matrix: Reloaded”, it explores what might happen if someone accidentally tapped into a debugging routine in the Matrix without really realizing what was going on.
6/1/2003: Newly Digital (Back in the Day Redux)
My contribution to Adam Kalsey’s ‘Newly Digital’ project, looking back on my early experiences with computers, technology, and the internet, and some of the wierd and wonderful things I’ve seen over the years since these glowing screens first caught my attention.
7/9/2003: The Purity Test
I first discovered the Purity Tests on a BBS while I was in High School, and have always found them to be quite entertaining. Download the test (100, 500, 1000, and 2000 question versions) and find out just how morally, ethically, and sexually pure you are.
7/31/2003: Blogstop
Wordgame fun. Construct a post from the letters of the last word in the immediately preceeding post. It’s easier just to take a look and figure it out as you go.
10/29/2003: Fifteen Minutes of Fame
I look back on the first day or two of notoriety after news of my brush with Microsoft exploded across the ‘net.

I’m sure there are more goodies buried in my archives that are also worth dredging up from time to time. Some may be of more interest than these, most will be of less. These are just the ones that I find to be most worthy of calling attention to. If you’ve read any of them before, feel free to either just move along or take another look. If any of these are new to you, I just hope you like what you find.

Here’s hoping I’ve got another three years of this — or more — left in me.