Gosh

This is one of those days where the world doesn't seem to be functioning at full capacity or efficiency. The daycare is closed for Good Friday. Spring break is finishing up. The sun is out. People are working, but the kind of work done on Saturdays so as not interefere with "normal" business hours. All this leaves me feeling hungry. Not really a straight line between cause and effect... but I am hungry and the world is slightly off-kilter today. Emails go out, but no reply. It's just mighty quiet. Time to join the ranks and call it? Perhaps. Office is slightly messy but chock full of important niblets. Each of the many scattered pages about my desk highlights numerous projects in various states of calloused development.

The Liberty Tax Service mascot replacements have improved their game, but still not up to the level that the original displayed. He was the Babe Ruth of his craft - his appearance, showmanship and results all speak for themselves. And I speak for them or to them as well.

Started White Tiger and think it will be a good book. It won the Man Booker prize which is indirectly how I found my buddy David Mitchell and Haruki Murakami. It's also how I found some other authors whose work didn't quite reach me, but I've found some good ones through this twisted writing-prize non-family tree. What? Exactly. You, and you know who You are, will be happy to know that I got The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and it is next up for this reader.

The buzz from the fluorescent lights owns this room now. Owns the building. Owns my thoughts. hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Is this one man's descent into madness? No, just minor annoyance. No, just loss of focus. No, just incessant white noise. Normally I'm a big fan of the white noise. I'm especially a big fan of white noise generated from big fans.

Light should be seen, not heard.

10 minute blog

Experimental posting here... I'll attempt to do no major editing and just throw out 10 minutes of blog. Also, no inspiration for the post is present at the time of conception here, so that will be interesting as well.

Electric Car - Tesla Motors has unveiled its new sedan which can go 300 miles on a charge, a 45 minute charge. Pretty cool. Phenomenal battery technology exists to make electric cars viable, even for distance. But, I'm concerned with the resources that go into creating these energy storage systems, the life of these batteries and their afterlife/disposal. I know that the energy required to charge a car is less than the energy consumed by a gasoline engine... but there are other costs/benefits to analyze more closely. And cap and trade is a nice idea, but unless the whole developed and developing world is on board, the pollution just shifts to other places around the globe. If it spurs on technology that makes "old power" obsolete, that's fine, but I think we should be realistic about the global impact that cap and trade in the US can have on global pollution. I'm sure there are some easy answers, and I am certainly looking for some. To be truly successful the "green" movement has to be a complete cultural shift where we create less waste, not just recycle more plastic bottles. But what of the bottle manufacturers? There has to be a greater vision, a great vision and I haven't heard one yet that satisfies my cautiously cynomistic skeptimological side. If you formulate a grand green scheme, send it and $1 to Happy Dude, 114 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield USA.

10 minutes are up. Time for b-ball. Go Basketball.

Pre Draft

25 minutes before a fantasy baseball draft and time to blog. I could research players and consider some strategery, but I tend to do so poorly in this format that any effort on my part can only do harm. I'm regularly in the bottom three no matter what I think I do.

I pass kudos to NBC news tonight for their coverage of the Obama's in London... it seemed like they spent more time on Michelle's visit to a school for girls than they did on Barack at the G20. I really found it more relevant, touching and worthwhile.

Rescue Me is back on soon... good news for watchers of quality television.

Liberty Tax Service mascot update: My favorite dude is missing. He's been replaced by a couple other guys with nowhere near the same drive or passion for streetside advertising. I miss him.

I also miss live baseball. I will see some this year, by god. Maybe even once in Lynchburg, VA. Then again, maybe not.

Rain driving safety tip... don't use cruise control - if you hydroplane it confuses your car and bad things can happen.

Now I draft for the baseball.

Blame it on REO

Singing in the car near Asheville, North Carolina. POintless, extremely pointless video... you're warned. One has to sing quite quietly so as not to overpower the wee lil' camera. Luckily this song is wimpy enough to make girlish falsetto and strained "malesetto" very very appropriate.

I could write "enjoy" but I don't think that's the right word... perhaps...

Experience.

Oh Blarney

Oh Blarney Stone
Sitting on high

Blarney Stoned
By angry mobs

Blarney Groaned
Under the strain

Blarney Phoned
Just to say hi

Blarney Cloned
Just to say hi
again

This poetry break was brought to you by Blarney, the Blarneyest stone in all of Ireland. Blarney - giver of the gift of sweet tongue, not the gift of sweet poet's pen. Clearly.

You see what watching Syracuse play so badly does to me? You see?

yikes.

As the sheets dried

I wait with great anticipation. The sheets toss and turn as heat rushes in, warming and drying to a predetermined moisture content. The bed has no sheets. It has two wadded up blankets and one wadded up cat. Of the three wads, two are silent and one gently snores. Moe. Chairman Moe. Do not cross the Chairman.

---

Knoxville's northwest side fades into mountains as you go north up I-75. But that's not important to the story. What's important to the story is that Wayne Gibbous was being stalked by a sausage man. When the driver of the sausage van saw that Wayne had seen him, he pulled around to the opposite side of the McDonald's parking lot and continued his spying.

Back in his hotel room, still with an eye on the sausage surveillance, Wayne called a cab. He had to follow this van and try to figure out how deep all this went and who was taking the lead in doing whatever it was that was being done to him. The cab showed up in about 15 minutes. Wayne went outside and gave the driver his credit card.

"Wait here, I'm not sure when I'll be going, but please wait."
"Alright, meter's running. It's your dime, brother."
"Fine."

Back inside behind the curtain he kept watch on the sausage.

"Keep your eye on the sausage."

After a few hours, at about 4:30, the van started to pull out. Wayne rushed outside and jumped in the cab.

"Follow that white truck, or van, or whatever. The one with sausage on the side."
"10-4."

They wound through some intricate streets near the University of Tennessee. The sunsphere occasionally popped into view, but only briefly. They soon were heading west to a small industrial park. Some buildings looked pretty bombed out, others were new. New like they'd never been used. The old ones looked like they'd never be used again. Each vacant in their own way. Vacant stairs. Shadows of their former selves and shadows of their future selves. For some reason there was a good bit of traffic back in this otherwise strange and empty scene. Sausage was a few hundred feet ahead. Its brake lights blinked a couple times as it turned into a fenced area.

"Stop here and wait, I'll be back in a minute."
"10-4."

Walking along, the sun was quietly dipping in the sky and a light breeze blew into his face. Wayne became more timid the closer he got to the gate. He wanted to know more, but at the same time he wanted to turn around and try to escape whatever he had gotten himself into. Jump on a Greyhound bus and go to Reno. Why Reno? Why not.

In his last few steps he saw a sign at the gate. It was old and rusty and surely wasn't the current business. Surely not. Plus, the name was too ridiculous to be real. But too fantastic not to be. After being suckered by a quarter and a milkman, nothing would really surprise him. But this... this?

"O'Ryan's Belt and Conveyor."

"O'Ryan's Belt and Conveyor?"
"What about it?"
"That truck pulled in there. What was that place?"
"Not sure, I don't get too many fares out this way. Where to now?"
"Back to the hotel."
"10-4."

mas video

Please humor me as I do another video experiment.

Have not yet found the sweet spot, either in sound or song quality, but it's here and you can watch it. C# and G# are especially flarpy - quite obviously video operator error.

There are great possibilities with this new camera, all thanks to the fine folks at Verona Trail and Verizon DSL.

Disjointed

I'm working on a new song, the main theme is that everyone in airports is ugly. It's based on my somewhat limited air travel experiences. I'm a savvy traveler mind you, but the frequency of said travels can best be described as, well, infrequent. I expect this to be my breakthrough single. Or another breakthrough single. Wait, I'm not famous. Breakthrough single will do just fine.

All this talk of airports makes me think of train stations. It also makes me wish that more people could interchange names comfortably depending on mood. Maybe I want to go to the plane station to catch my flight. I should be allowed to do so. And if I choose to go the railport, no one should judge me harshly for that.

I watched another installment of "Weeds." That show is crazy. Crazy good!

I haven't been reading as much recently due to fatigue and television watching and possibly poor book choice. I'm not engaged. However, I don't want to give up on my current book by your friend and mine, Tom DeLillo (not sure if that's spelled right, pretty sure it doesn't matter). It's not doing much for me, which is a shame, because if it could do a lot for me, I'd have less to do and could pen multitudes of rambling inanities for preselected groups of devout bloglas mcblogland readers.

But, Alice, it's not to be.

I'm once again sporting some dope Fox gear - the red hoodie with extreme graphic makes me look 15 rather than my usual 17.

Wrote the blogger: I considered writing something that would make you sad, but decided against it. You're welcome. I'll save it for my novel.

Getting disjointed and losing focus. Time to pack it in.

Sausage

Wayne Gibbous makes it to Knoxville by dawn. A Red Roof Inn will be home for a couple days. He reeks of sour milk. Soaking in white dampness for most of the night will lead to such a stench. A quick shower and a change of clothes will erase the physical marks of the previous night, but emotionally, he's a mess. It's one thing to get taken by a scam or bested by an equal competitor, but last night, Gibbous took it on the chin from loose change. Wayne finds himself in a bizarre, cosmic game of heads or tails. This quarter has him over a barrel - a barrel lacking any monkeys, or perhaps chock full o' monkeys - angry monkeys. Heads or Tails. Heads or Tails. Call it in the air. Wayne just needs to regroup. Tails or Heads. Tails or Heads. It's all up in the air and the outcome's not certain, but if he doesn't get on some firmer ground, and soon, El Cuarto will surely some out on top. Heads or Tails. Tails or Heads or Tails.

But the Quarter is not the only issue... there's a whole cast of characters in on the plot, and Wayne has yet to get any backup. But first, a shower. The water drowns out the world beyond the shower walls. A half hour later, pruny and clean, he steps out.

Outside, he hears the dogs. Too tired to towel, he falls onto the bed and falls fast asleep and falls out of favor with the waking world that is stirring to life. (A portion of this short paragraph is credited to American of great repute, John Clemens)

He wakes up a little after noon. The sun is streaming through the window like a window stream of sunlight. He turns on the TV and sees "Rudy" on some movie channel. Watching the last fifteen minutes makes him glad he slept through the rest of the movie. Unmoved by the inspirational Notre Dame football story, he heads to the vending machine to get a drink and a snack. Right, right right right... he's only got enough change for either/or. Mountain Dew it is. On his way back he pauses in the sunshine and takes in the hotel view. Parking lot with of a few parked cars. Trash can full of trash. Ash tray on top full of ash. Sky with no clouds. Then he sees it.

Across the street in the McDonald's parking lot a pair of binoculars are pointed right at him from the driver's seat of a big refrigerated delivery van. It has a big blue outline on the side that once must have had a logo in it, but now is empty. The word "Sausage" is in small blue letters below the big blue box. Why is someone in the sausage van spying on him? Why is there a sausage van? What is a sausage van? Who is the sausage man? What is sausage? There's so much Wayne Gibbous doesn't quite get and, being a vegetarian from birth, sausage is one of them.

Gravy, too.

Some days

New strings for my guitar. It had been at least a year. Sad, I know. There were spots on the wound strings warn down flat, the top of the strings had a bump at each fret. I've never had this before, never let strings stay on this long. But these Elixir strings still sounded pretty good. Anyhow, it seemed like it was time to spend the 15 bucks and slap a new set on there. That's the backdrop. Out of love for playing and guitar, I treated it and myself to an upgrade. Mistake.

Some days I pick up my guitar and it sounds good. Some days I pick up my guitar and it sounds bad. Some days I can sit and strum and sing, merrily. Some days I can play a bunch of fingerstyle instrumentals and it sounds pretty good. Tonight was a bad night. Ready to play... plug it in and flaaaarp. Nothing sounded good. Too shrill and tinny, adjust tone... too dark and muted. Unplug it. Still ---- bad. In tune? No. Impossible. There's always some give and take on tuning where if you get 75% of your chords to sound perfect you take your lumps on the other 25%. Tonight was more like a 25-75 split. I've had this Guild Acoustic for about 14 years... it has served me well. It's not the most playable, never has been, but it has songs in it. Good ones. I like to believe it has already pushed out the bad ones and only the most choice selections of musical genius, man/instrument synergy remain. But nights like tonight make me want to put it out to pasture in the gently falling spring rain. Make it a big dog chew toy.

I'll let it sit for 24 hours and see what tomorrow brings.

I think it may be me more than the guitar. I'm unsatisfied by a pretty good Seinfeld episode right now. I should be laughing, but I'm not. Just checked out Andy Griffith, a color episode. Pretty much pissed me off... way too much Howard. The guitar can sense my negative vibrations and is reverberating back that same energy, and same goes for the TV.

Jackpot... Walker Texas Ranger with the little dude who played Spiderman as a young loner. They're eating chicken in a cave. My luck is changing. Urge to kill fading. fading. fading. gone. Walker just said, "so you see kid, you're not alone." now he's kicking ass. now he just got shot. now I'm changing the channel.

I hope Walker will be ok.