Grr!

Awakened this morning while in the middle of a dream. A dream where I was yelling & throwing things in anger. I might have beat up some people, too.

My alarm went off. The dream dissipated but the emotions remained. Not a good way to start a day. Hit snooze in hopes that a few minutes would calm me down. Only led to more irritation because 5 minutes was not long enough. Hit snooze again but remained awake to try to get into a more positive frame of mind. Got out of bed at 5:40 am. Still angry.

I hate to think what these interrupted dreams are doing to my health.

Breakfast & a walk with Loki helped but still mostly irritated.

I don't get Labor Day off. Part of the building is a sauna (fortunately not my part). Got to listen to a reading of an e-mail about how Barack Obama is taking money from productive people and giving it to the poor and illegal aliens.* Pandora One refuses to work but I got around that. It's Monday. I ate over 800 calories for breakfast and was hungry again at 9:00 am. Getting these whines off my mind is helping.

*I don't mind populist anger. Populist anger led to some very good things - 40 hour work week, voting rights, workplace safety rules, minimum wage to name a few examples. Anger is the only thing that gets people in power off their butt. Fear of the people is good for those in power. Helps keep them in line and realize that their power does not give them the right to abuse people.

This current wave of anger worries me. Seems undirected. No goals or ideas other than Obama sucks, taxes suck, bailouts suck, government sucks, tan foreign people suck, liberal media sucks, I've got mine - fuck you. The tax system needs reform. The debt being left to later generations is alarming. Corporate welfare is more damaging than personal welfare. I've come to terms with the fact that my Social Security payments are for the benefit of others, some of whom I care about, and that I won't see any benefits. Well directed anger can change these things but all I see on television and on the Internet is a bunch of white people throwing temper tantrums. Anger changes the world - temper tantrums just destroy whatever is nearby. I worry because I'm nearby.

We are not bonding

I've been on the receiving end of these kinds of conversations way too often. Mostly with women to whom I cannot tell to shut up without dealing with a lot of drama. If one utters out loud the words, "blah blah blah" several times in the course of a conversation that should indicate that one really has nothing to say. Conversation is the wrong word because that implies the involvement of at least two people. What is the word for one person talking and another person sitting there suffering through the sounds being jammed into their ears and their brain cells killing themselves to escape the pain?

I'm not sure if it's worth suffering just for some bit of kindness.
The species is cockatiel self-image. The bird's actual size is about 10 inches but in its mind its size is 10 feet. Rare for it to appear outdoors.
We have background continuity but not foreground continuity. It should take Terry Bryson another week to help Toby make the connection. Try percussive stimulation, Terry.
I love Earl the vacuum cleaner boy.
Why does Sally feel compelled to force Ted to try to make friends at the office? He should be on good terms, cooperative and helpful but friendship is not necessary especially if he has nothing in common with his co-workers. I wonder if Sally would push this if Ted worked in an office mostly populated by women?

I like my co-workers but I would not spend my own time with them. Forced socialization would make a bad work environment for me.

Says and goes are not synonyms. Lately, that mistake has really bothered me. I try to ignore it and I do not say anything to those who make it. In the larger scheme of things this should hardly rate a flicker of a thought. I considerate it an indication of current state of my life. I have time for this kind of thing to bother me therefore life is good.

What's more fun?

Two slide presentation themed comics. These appeared back to back on my Chron.com comics page.


Granny gets all Zen on Billy's ass.
What's more fun than watching a bunch of little kids stuttering off-key through the holiday classics? Wrist slashing, fingernail removal, water boarding, watching a PowerPoint presentation presented by someone who just reads the damn slides, bikini waxing, listening to Mannheim Steamroller's non-Christmas music,

reading Mary Worth comics, writing little critiques of Mary Worth comics on an obscure blog, reading other blogs that skewer Mary Worth, making YouTube videos of Mary Worth, watching live action productions of Mary Worth comics, trying to figure out the floor plan of spaces in Mary Worth comics, and this list could go on.

One of several Christmas annoyances: Sleigh only has one syllable. Remember that when singing, Jingle Bells. It is even more annoying when children sing sleigh as a two syllable word.

Back to Mary Worth - only one fish on the wall but bigger. Are the fish eating each other? Maybe the fish triggers a secret door in the wall. The couple from yesterday knew about it and now the waiter heads for the wall.

Tuna Casserole is an Ambigous Concept

Especially the way Mary Worth makes it.

Figuring out the seating arrangement in this restaurant makes for quite an intellectually challenging puzzle.

Now to make another phone call to Ipower to find out why my site is down. Grr.

Wednesday's Cartoon

Another non-gag. Not really a cartoon. The season was affecting me along with some news. Sort of looks like Martian Manhunter but he does not have a nose.

I'm on hold with Ipower technical support in an attempt to resolve my inability to access my files. My files are on an old platform that very few customers still use. So far the results of attempts to solve the problem lead me to a page with the message that says:

"Your Account Is Not Yet on the New Platform

You are trying to access something that is only available on the new hosting platform. For more information, or to manage your account on the original platform, visit the Transition Kiosk."

I'm told that things will be much easier once my site is on the new platform. I would have more patience with this transition if I were informed of when my site will transfer.

Monday's Cartoon

I decided to post new cartoons on the blog until the mess with my web host reaches a resolution. It seems that Ipower has more business than it can handle. I don't care about the transition process I just want to update my website.

I will take that approach with my next call to technical support. Help me find a way to update my website while you take care of this transition business. I guess I will need to become more assertive by refusing to hang up until I can access my files on their servers. Perhaps at least find out the transition status and see if I can wait it out.

If I receive no resolution or updated information by the end of the month then I will find a new host. Irritating customers is one method of bringing business down to a more manageable level but probably not one recommended by the experts.

Ipower annoyances

Wow, it looks like my comment about Suddenlink got noticed. Thanks for paying attention and attempting to address the problem.

For the record, my comment about Suddenlink was more of a vent about my neglecting to tie up every single loose end and failure to contact every single entity that had my e-mail address when my e-mail was changed.

Now maybe a little bitching about Ipower might get the attention of someone from Ipower who can help me.

I went to the Ipower website and found that the address for abuse is different from the address given to me by technical support. So, I will, for a third time, send an e-mail to the abuse department, except I will use the address on the website.

Would an auto reply kill anyone? I've sent two e-mails (one on Tuesday, one on Wednesday). Is a quick auto reply saying that my messages were received and my problem will get addressed in a certain amount of time too much to ask? I did not receive any bounce back messages so who knows where my pleas are going?

It took three calls to technical support to find out that my account was suspended in the first place. 3 calls. The first two techs could not understand why I could not log in my control panel. The third tech made the discovery.

I was probably contacted via the e-mail address on file (which for technical reasons was changed) and no response was received. I have updated my files with Ipower.

I want to resolve whatever problem that caused my account suspension as soon as possible.

Until all this, Ipower's customer support has been quite good and service very reliable. I would like to stay with Ipower but as this drags on, I'm reconsidering.

I hope I find a message from abuse@ipowerweb.com (the address given to me by technical support) when I get home. It would make me feel better and get the ball rolling on getting aperfectworld.org back up. This whole thing has become quite frustrating.

Stop Centering Paragraph Text

Poor Popeye got the shaft in the food conferring super strength department.

Damn, Dr. Cory talking to his adult, doctor son like a child. Drew is getting double teamed here. Maybe he can call in his sister for help.

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This morning I was assaulted by a bit of design ignorance. I was reading a website (linked from Snopes.com) that a woman set up to document some chemical burns from some Chinese made flip flops that she bought at Wal-Mart. The woman is a photographer and judging by the photos pretty good at it but damn, the writing was awful and she centered everything. Every picture, line of text, links, everything was centered. It became quite unbearable to read.

So here is a bit of layout advice from a professional: Do not center everything! Confine the centering to titles and appropriate graphic elements. Do not center paragraph text, lists, and other types of text.

Look above for example. I chose to center the comics to get around Blogger's weird word wrapping but note that the accompanying text is left justified and the reader's eye can easily find the beginning of the next line.

Think about the reader once in a while when laying out a website.

Preview Gag

This a preview of a gag that I will draw tomorrow. The sketchcast moves a bit slow because I'm still getting the hang of the tools.

Disclaimer: I'm not some anti-smoking fanatic. As long as you don't blow in my face or force me to breathe your second hand smoke and expect me to pay for your medical bills then you can do what you want. This cartoon was inspired by the smoker who sat on a bench outside to smoke and then put out his/her butts on the ground and left them there. 10 steps away from a trash can. A trash can with a nice ledge that would have allowed the smoker to put out his/her butts. 10 steps and I would not have been forced to think less of you or been inspired to draw a cartoon. If you are the smoker in question and you see this rough drawing and the finished product in a couple of weeks, yes, this cartoon is about you.

How not to do tech support

Wow, poor Les is having some serious sleep deprivation hallucinations. The really weird part is that they don't own a cat.

Uh-oh! Indeed. Wonder why Dr. Drew thinks he could have just do his passive dump of Dawn Weston when she lives in the same building as Vera Shields and Mary Worth? This situation is too complicated for a simple intervention. [cue voice of Waylon Jennings] How is Mary Worth gonna meddle her way out of this one?

Jeremy is really pushing the parental limits regarding their tolerance of his snarkiness toward them.

Last night, Walter had the twice yearly conversation with our Internet provider (was Myriad, became TCA, became Cox and is now SuddenLink) regarding our IPs. We pay for two IPs but twice a year we get cut down to one. One computer can get on while the other cannot. Restart everything. The computer that turns on first acquires the IP. Make phone call. Tech support looks at account, sees two IPs and makes the corrections and all is right for the next 6 months.

This is the first time this conversation has occurred under SuddenLink ownership. They replaced the relatively efficient Cox techs with retards (I don't mean this in the short bus/ Special Olympic sense but rather in the sense that this tech refused to think - a voluntary form of retardation). Walter carefully explained the problem to the tech and mentioned that this is a twice a year problem. Since the speaker was turned on the phone I heard both sides of the conversation. While Walter attempted to explain the problem, the tech tried to talk over him and Walter had to raise his voice to get him to stop and listen. The tech believed the problem was with a net card and refused to listen, think, look up our account or do anything to shake his belief in the net card problem. (Insert religion metaphor here)

A side note: during the semi yearly conversation the subject of a router comes up. A bit of advice in serving customers - it's none of your business why we don't use a router. We pay for two IPs and would like to have what we pay for. Your business is to make sure we have the service we pay for so shut up about the damn router.

Walter gave up on the call to the tech because he could not convince the tech that the problem had nothing to do with the net card and the tech gave up because of his belief in the mythological net card problem that was beyond his scope. Walter had to call again and got another tech because the retarded tech had really screwed up our connection. Connection restored with a single IP. The new tech couldn't help Walter with restoring the second IP so Walter worked on the problem on his own and got both of our computers connected to the Internet.

We will purchase a router this weekend but I wonder how many phone calls and e-mails it will take to get them to stop charging us for two IPs. I don't look forward to making the "We got the fucking router that your techs keeping asking about every time we call to demand service that we pay for so we no longer need the two IPs so stop charging us for them!" phone call. I don't like raising my voice at service people because nobody needs that kind of abuse but sometimes it is the only way to get some people to focus their thoughts on solving a particular problem.

Everybody's Gonna Dance Tonight

This commercial annoys me every time it airs. Thankfully, it has not aired for a while.

Paul McCartney is just phoning it in. He knows, everyone knows it, but no one will call him on it.

It probably took all of five minutes to write this song and it's a hit. Only Paul McCartney, excuse me, SIR Paul McCartney can get away with this. If I performed a song like this people would think I'm some kind of idiot and boo my ass off the stage but Paul McCartney, he does not have to try anymore. Granted, he's 60 years old and has had a long, productive career and maybe does not feel the need to put forth that much effort. McCartney is probably thinking, hell if this stupid little song is a hit, let's figure out how much less effort I can put into the next hit. I'm afraid by the time Paul McCartney makes it to 70 that his latest hit song will nothing but the sound of his farts. Maybe throw in a few silent ones to give it some edginess.

Paul McCartney farts and sells millions of downloads on iTunes.

Jim Varney is dead

All that set up for a lame pun. Grandpa needs to get out more.

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I listened to a bit of the John Boy and Billy Big Show on 99.5 - the Fox while traveling between garage sales on Saturday. They did this bit titled, "Married Man". The theme song parodies the Spiderman cartoon theme song. Married Man and his friend, College Buddy, compare the party preceding the renewal of marriage vows with the bachelor party of some years before. Instead of 21 year old strippers the pre-vow renewal party consisted of going to a live performance of "Man of La Mancha" starring Jim Varney. Important detail: I heard this on the radio, Saturday, April 7, 2007. College Buddy comments sarcastically that the theater performance was way better than the 21 year old strippers from the bachelor party. Actually, College Buddy was wrong because any performance by Jim Varney would be much more impressive than a performance by a 21 year old stripper because Jim Varney died February 10, 2000. Please refer back to the important detail.

I hoped I conveyed the full magnitude of suckness that is 99.5 - the Fox, the classic rock station for the Brazos Valley. Instead of music in the morning, this station plays the comedy stylings of idiots, non-local idiots (Thus depriving me of the opportunity of giving the idiots the finger if I encountered them at a live remote). This radio station plays the comedy stylings of non-local idiots who failed to update their damn material!

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In a perfect world, only one person per gathering would be allowed to spew inane chatter.

Last night was semi-literate, equipment hog night at the gym.

How hard is it to match the numbers on the dumbbells to the numbers on the rack?

In an environment in which equipment is shared you cannot do immediate transitions to different exercises. Sorry. Yeah, I'm talking about you Ms. hoard the 12.5 pound dumbbells while doing your step ups! I could have done my 12 reps and two other people could have done 12 reps each by the time you switched to the exercise that required the 12.5 pound dumbbells. The most time that you would have to wait between exercises is 30 seconds except when there are dumbbell hogging idiots around. Get a home gym if you want to immediately switch exercises or do body weight calisthenics instead.

Today's comics:

Comics page editors have so much great material to choose from but yet Cathy and Drabble are still in the papers. I want blinky lights on my shoes.

Another cartoonist breaks the fourth wall. The girl's brother is grappling with the implications of what his sister just did.

Get out of my head! Who has been sending this cartoonist my fantasies?

Vera run! A nicer apartment is not worth your soul! You can hang pictures, paint or even wall paper a bit. A few plants can help make your present dwelling habitable. My god, Mary Worth already has her soul sucking face on. Vera, that finger of death can poke straight through your sternum.

If I don't write new posts the Robin and accent thing will never make it off the main page.

I drew two cartoons this week. Busy with other things. I can take a short break because I'm 3 weeks ahead.

Right now, I'm waiting for a video to compile and save. Then I have to recompile another video because Windows Movie Maker ate 24 minutes in the middle of the video. Sort of like Nixon's gap.

Lately, I've been hearing that one of the keys to material success is to get up early in the morning. The Mad Money guy claims that the body can be trained to function on 4 hours of sleep a night. The Mad Money guy is rich but he screams a lot on television. I'll take the extra 3-4 hours and pay the price with less wealth and not screaming, on television or elsewhere.

My problem with early risers is that they won't shut up about it. They act as if it is some special virtue and that no one can achieve success unless they are out of bed at 2 hours before the butt crack of dawn. It just take discipline and training, something that, I as a late sleeper does not possess.

I've tried. My dreams are often interrupted in these attempts at early rising. I hit the snooze button on the alarm to finish the dream. I find it difficult to get out of bed after an interrupted dream. I always dream in color and I can read words. I'm told that both of these things are impossible.

I don't stay in bed until noon. I wake up on my own between 7:00 and 8:00 am. I have to be at work at 8:00 am. I have jumped out of bed to make it to 7:00 am training runs but the prospect of a nap later that morning motivated me. Most days I subvert my own natural sleep cycle.

My point is that being an early riser does not make you a better person. No, seriously, shut the fuck up right now. I don't need training, I have plenty of discipline. Stop. Please tattoo the following into your brain:

YOU ARE NOT A SUPERIOR BEING JUST BECAUSE YOU WAKE UP EARLY!

Annoying, yes; superior, no.

Somebody had to tend the fires overnight. While your early rising ass is stuggling to stay awake at 3:00 pm, I'm revved up and getting things done. No Robert Goulet gremlin in my office.

So I won't learn a new language, gain great wealth nor become a leader of extraordinary magnitude with the extra two hours that I give up for sleep. At least I'll be well rested and less annoying.

Sweet technicolor dreams.

Walked 9,120 steps/ 4.03 miles. A new record for me.

Got home early and let the dogs play in the backyard. They ran and tired themselves out very quickly.

I wish Blogger would stop completing my words when I add labels to my posts. On the plus side, I am forced to expand my vocabulary.

I like eBay. One of the greatest things ever invented. eBay is responsible for a substational portion of family income. eBay is also responsible for a minor annoyance.

Walter and I go to garage sales to find bargains, interesting things and to make fun of people's stuff. Some of the stuff does end up on eBay.

Lately, this conversation has occurred often:

Me: Will you take $X for this?
Seller: No, I can get more than that on eBay!
Me (thinking): Well, then fucking put it on eBay!

If I wanted to pay eBay prices then I would have gone on eBay. It would have saved me the bother of talking to you. Granted, I'm probably going to turn around and sell it on eBay but if you want eBay prices then put it on eBay yourself. Of course, eBay is a gamble whereas I have the cash right now and will haul off the item. No dealing with feedback, shipping, packing and checks clearing. Cash in exchange for item going away. But no, you just have to have eBay value. Well, then get off your lazy ass and fucking put it on eBay yourself. You don't know how? For a percentage of the final sale I'll put it on eBay for you. What? You want all the money? I guess you're screwed. Not only are you not getting my money but you won't get the eBay money because you are too lazy and/or stupid to post a damn auction. The burden of being you must be unbearable.

I visited register.com and found thenfuckingputitonebay.com is available. I think I will purchase the domain, build a site that links to eBay and print business cards with "Well, then fucking put it on eBay" and the url on them.

Would it be overkill to label this post eBay?

I tried to update my website last night but I cannot get my host to accept my new files. I'm not sure if the problem is with Ipower or FTP Commander.

I've sent a request to Ipower to have my account moved to one of their other servers with an up to date control panel. This will require uploading my entire website. This could take hours or days depending on how much this new thing allows me to upload at one time.

I like to use the control panel as a back up in case FTP fails. Maybe I can FTP everything to the new server. That would be nice and a bit faster since my website is rather large.

Our sewer backed up and Walter is trying to clear it up. Isaac is still jumping the fence. I hate to keep him in the kennel for 12 hours a day.

Life just keeps getting better.