The Long Good*

Lately it seems like I'm writing a live journal again. And here 'lately' is defined as in the last thirty seconds.

I'm back to being constantly on-the-go and am (even as I write this) taking a shower, fixing my windshield wipers, cooking breakfast, and getting on the road to beat traffic.

None of this is actually happening at the moment, but it all should be. I'll start with the shower.

(*For those of you keeping track at home)

IRS: $14,000
AES: $4000
Brendan: 0

Thank you, US Army and your College Loan repayment plan. Not only did you not pay all my loans, but the ones you did pay were done in the same fiscal year. Typically, these are spread out over a three-year period.

If I'd mailed every single take-home dollar I made in 2004 to the IRS, it wouldn't have been enough to cover the taxes I need to pay on the loan repayment. This is why it's broken up into a three-year program.

Further, I'm grateful that the Army decided that $11,000 in taxes was something I shouldn't be troubled with. Any sort of W-2 or even an informal "Hey, we're going to pretend that you really made $79,000 this year tee-hee, giggle" would have only served to upset my delicate sensibilities.

This thing keeps getting slimier and made out of dead memories and post-tense.

I keep paying off college, about $60 at a time. What's college ever given to me? Debt and distraction.

Last week was another intervew with the state, this time for one of (another) two positions. Again, my fate is entirely out of my hands. This feeling actually makes me physically ill. It's like the first, awful parts of dating. Where minutia is magnified, and you're judging and judged on evidence which is arbitrairly assigned value.

But they have something I want and deserve, and now I just need to hope that last my interview went better than everyone else's.

I made this for my friend's birthday, because yesterday she was due for renewal.

It makes me mad and anxious that I now have to wait 5-7 weeks for the state to tell me what I'm doing with the rest of my life.

Hopefully, it will be science. Otherwise, I will quit my shitty retail job and ride the rails as a care-free hobo for the rest of my days.

God Jesus, I hope it doesn't come to that.

the fuck?
i am too confused and possibly angry to hyperlink through this shitnerface. http://disney.go.com/disneyrecords/Song-Albums/devo20/ cut and paste and

How am I sick? This sucks and I hate it.

Well, I took the big-ass test.

I did sort of ok. I got an 85, and did better than about 75% of the other applicants. Good, but not great. So I resigned myself to spend a semester crashing chemistry classes at the local university, and endure my retail hell - while secretly marshalling my smarts for another charge into a salaried position.

And then today I got a letter from the Civil Service Comission, confirming my insignificantly-above-mediocrity. After eight hours of hawking crap, being sentenced to repeat until smarter wasn't what I wanted to read. I glanced at it, but lo! What's this? They neglected to add ten veteran points to my score! Surely my new results are online!

I'm currently counted among four different counties' top ten scores. This makes me happy and full of optimism.

I'd also be full of beer, but I haven't quit my day job yet.

On the fourth, I'll be driving to Harrisburg to take the 3-hour chemistry / biology / comunication exam required before I can enter into the sciencehood.

If this fails, I'll study for another two weeks and take it again. I can repeat as necessary. Hopefully it won't take more than two times.

I think my stupid cat twisted his leg. He goes to the vet this afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to WalMart. While I was there, I noticed a horrible old woman. She had the plump hatchet-face characteristic of my region, made worse by an expression belying the most sour of dispositions. She was dressed like trash, scowled at everyone she could, and was a completely unsympathetic villian.

And on top of that, she had a tattoo. It was on the back of her hand. Subtle examination revealed that there was another, companion tattoo on the back of the other hand.

Slightly closer, I realized that the first tattoo I'd seen was a swastika. With "white" written above, and "pride" written below.

I didn't stick around to look at the other.

From her age, I'd guess that her father was WWII-aged. Maybe she was rebelling against him. Or maybe she was just a sad, spiteful woman.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Buckethead has finially joined Mike Patton in the annals of awesomeness, by appearing on a John Zorne produced CD. Kaleidoscalp just came out, and it features a traditional Jewish musician (Marc Bolan) playing along with Buckethead's onslaught of most-progressive rock.

Meanwhile work continues at a non-pace. It's the holidays, so everything's ramping down and I have time to reflect. Were this a lesser blog, it would be full of retrospective crap about employment and self-loathing.

And licence: RENEWED. I can drive (legally) again, and I'll have a new photo ID within ten days.

God damn, I'm 29 now. I should be locked into a rigid life that I don't enjoy, and have misconceptions that I've consigned myself to deal with. One of my friends insists that I should be a father by now; that I'm contributing nothing to the next generation. Meanwhile I'm ordering Robert Anton Wilson books from Amazon and trying to get my Level 22 Necromaster Buttbone to a point where he can kick ass in an online game that I should have outgrown years ago.

I'm also the best guy in the world to date, apparently. I don't know why this is, but I know it to be true. You have all been informed. Pass the word to your lady friends unless they're immature drama-monster women. Or shark-face ladies.

Like this:

If you aren't already on Librarything, you should go ahead and sign up now.

I'm BRM130 there, and no - you can't borrow anything.

I like the way you smile at me baby.

Thanks for your counter-intuative assery. I like not being able to edit my posts, or give URL addresses without learning a very special and unique brand of dumb. Or downloading a cliant to help me wade through your shit.
Fuck you very much,
Brendan.

Not a whole lot going on today. It's a day off, and I resume labor at the commerce factory tomorrow. At some point this afternoon, I will fill out one thousand state-job applications and get a haircut. There's some sinister-cool stuff going on in the Dark Corners of the Earth today, but it's rapidly turning into a first-person click and complain festival. Any game featuring the spoken phrase I can't use these two things together! is a guarenteed 32 hours of frustration.

It looks like they're going to introduce mushrooms into my working environment.  This means I'll no longer be able to eat anything prepared there.  To make things less survivable, the mushrooms will be cooked.  <i>Cooked</i>, releasing deadly mushroom-gas.

For those who don't know, I'm deadly-allergic to mushrooms.  A tiny, accidental nibble (smaller than a dime) sent me to the hospital for long vomity hours, while they put 6 bags of iv solution into my veins to replenish my prescious bodily fluids. 

I literally threw up my insides, and still haven't made a complete recovery.

I can't say I'm looking forward to going back to work tomorrow.  But it was a temporary gig anyway, and something to think about while I fill out one thousand applications for state jobs.

I've tried to like this before. It's that Buffy guy's sci-fi epic masterpiece, but it feels like I'm watching a video cut-scene from a PS1 game. Possibly Wing Commander, possibly C&C:Tiberian Sun.

Come to think of it, Sci-Fi Channel has been nothing but disappointment lately. Even that Bruce Campbel "Alien Apocalypse" a few months back felt like a chore to watch.

Comedy Central isn't much better. These used to be the only reasons to watch TV.

Oh, Incredible Hulk - where are you now?

Maybe this show gets better later on.

I went to the attic today to find something today! When I was little, I had this teddy bear. Everybody had a teddy bear when they were little. Mine was a panda, imported right after Nixon re-opened trade with China.

I slept with it constantly, and it wasn't manufactured very well. Soon the fur wore thin, holes opened up, and the neck wore thin. I slept with it anyway.

The gigantic black panda-circles around the eyes began to take on an eerie cast, and the head hung limply on its broken neck. The small holes in the fabric opened into great gashes, revealing sickeningly yellow stuffing. Still, I slept with it every night.

I realized it was a zombie, but I still loved it.

No bear in the attic today, though. I'm sure he's haunting some other child's nightmares. I still wish I could have found him, though.

His name was Teddy Red Tongue.

I couldn't find the ladder to change a lightbulb. It's raining, so I didn't need to water the plants. But I did talk a girl out of getting horrible tattoos, and the world can thank me for that.

I'm watching "Blackula" right now. My God, what a bizarre movie. It's about an African tribal prince who just happened to visit Count Dracula. There was some kind of argument, and Dracula decides to curse him. "What's Dracula's curse?" you ask. Undeath and a semi-racist nickname. Also, when he activates his vampire powers, he grows really weird eyebrows and muttonchops.

No wonder they call themselves the living damned; If I had facial hair like Blackula's, I'd drive a stake through my own heart.