Okay, I guess I spoke too soon. That was just a fluke before, apparently. It only seems to work sporadically. I doubt even this post will get through.
And yes, I already checked to see if the FTP server is blocking the Blogger.com publisher. ‘Tain’t doin’. I can only deduce that Blogger is to blame, but Zarquon only knows if that’s true.
I still hate computers.
‘Kay, so for the last couple weeks, Blogger has been giving me the connection timeout treatment whenever I tried to publish. The weird thing is, it only did that when I accessed the site from the Moorestown, NJ area. Anywhere else, it worked fine. What did I do to fix it? Simple: I mentioned the problem to someone in a conversation over e-mail, and it immediately started working again.
I hate computers. I’m a software engineer who hates computers. Nice.
I just watched The Oh, Goddammit, See? for the first time in my life, and it was truly a devastating ordeal. My agony could be perceived by beings residing within planes that are otherwise wholly uninterested in paying our Universe’s idea of what is any substantial heed. Yet it had to be done, because to wait an extra hour for the TV card owners of the world to upload their captures of the Revenge of the Sith trailer to the internets would be to violate the spiritual forces of my existence that my body’s chakras work so hard to keep in check. Indeed, I would drag my own grandmother through broken glass for a chronicling of those wars that once took place amongst stars. Well, no, maybe I wouldn’t use broken glass, I don’t think physical torture of elderly family members is entirely warranted. Perhaps cotton candy, or at the worst, egg yolk with a few bits of shell still in it. Point is, I would surely drag my grandmother through some things, and I am confident she would understand. Lord knows it beats joining Hyperspace.
The trailer held for me an intensity not quite unlike that of a small to medium sized quasar. Looking directly at it, while an immeasurably breathtaking experience by all accounts, causes not so much eye strain as complete retinal vaporization. The cardiac spasms that are resultant of hearing Obi-Wan, on the edge of tears, it seems, pleading with his friend as if begging for his very life, “You were the chosen one!” - it echoes in my soul. I felt such joy, such motherly warmth. Leaving the comforting womb of The Force and taking my first breath of bitter, cold reality left me aching to return to my amniotic fortress of science-fiction fantasy.
It is so close, so heartbreakingly close. It is resonating in our dimension at last. I can sense it around me. The water cooler, for example, sounds ever so slightly like an astromech droid, an R5-series, to be specific, when one depresses the hot water lever. Episode III has felt and still feels like some far-off, unachievable stratum, but one which we can now comfortably say will soon be within our clammy grasp.
I get the feeling, however, that reaching it will be unquestionably akin to the act of finally hooking up with that girl upon whom you fixated such a crush back in high school: it is going to be marvelous, we know this. The thrill itself will be so palpable, so singularly concentrated, it will materialize at the center of the room’s mass in the form of a small crystal vial of shimmering purple liquid. But when it is over, and it will be over much too soon, we will have to deal with the de facto truth that it will not, at least in the foreseeable future, ever happen again.
I am loathe to ponder how much of my money that beautiful, flanneled man probably has in his pockets at this very moment. Between the movie tickets, the VHS tapes, the DVD’s, the toys, the video games, the Legos for bacta’s sakes - how many of his progeny have I put through law school by now? But come May 19th, he will open my wallet yet again, oh yes. The backs of my virgin daughters shall serve as the trays upon which each of my eight individual dollars is separately presented in a grand ceremony. And he shall choose three among them to bring into his home, so that they may produce scores of little Jedi children together. And as the credits scroll up the screen, it shall be said that, yea, it is good, and God is pleased. Amen.
I knew I’d forget a few things when I was writing that Purge on the 23rd about all that stuff that annoys the monkey love out of me. Here are some more:
8) There’s a guy behind the cube wall to my left who is engaged. That’s just fine. Sure, he’s only 23, way too young to be stricken so, but hey, I’m not here to judge, only to complain. So, here’s my complaint: he mentions her constantly. No matter what the subject at hand may be, he will find a way to relate it to her. My fiance this, my fiance that, I swear this girl must be the only person in the world whom he knows outside of work. The upside is that this makes an excellent basis for a drinking game; each time he says the phrase “my fiance,” you take a shot. Last person alive wins. Estimated play time: 30 minutes.
9) There’s this other guy, he loves to drop by the cube of Mr. Fiance to shoot the proverbial doodoo with the two guys there (we live in double cubes). A normal, less sociopathic person would stop doing this upon running out of stuff worth talking about, but this dear fellow, no no no, he’d much rather reach down into the deep recesses of the none-of-my-business bucket than go sit down. Kidney stones? Let’s hear it! Gall bladder removal? More more more! Child support payments? Cool! You reproduced! Illegitimately! Oh, with a stripper, no less! Wowee good zowee! Thanks, man!
10) People use the word “basically” way too much. It’s turning into the 21st century’s “like”. Ask a question, any question, and at least eighty percent of the time, the answer will begin with, “Basically…” followed by the most decidedly unbasic answer by which you’ve ever had the pleasure of being bludgeoned. “Basically, by reversing the polarity on the EPS conduits, string theory suggests that [blah blah blah] which is why the eigenvalues are .23 eV.” Die.
11) Nobody bothered to tell me before I moved from North Jersey to South Jersey that I was going to have to learn a new language. I feel very cheated, but at least I can impart my gained wisdom to others. And so, for those considering a move to the area - What the Jesus is wrong with you? - here’s a Retard English primer.
First, it is impossible to be done with anything in South Jersey. You can only be done. So, for example, rather than saying, “I’m done with my paper on group sex,” South Jersey nine-year-olds say “I’m done my paper on group sex.”
Second, at some point in the incest-laden history of South Jersey, a massive amount of radiation emanated from, like, Atlantic City or something, causing many South Jersey denizens to suddenly begin horribly misusing the word “anymore”. One can expect to hear South Jersey folk utter such things as, “Anymore, I prefer to eat kittens,” and, “Daddy and Grandma like to kiss with tongues anymore.”
12) They totally screwed up my sandwich just now. It was a new guy.