So ... apparently even though Show-Biz Pizza Place [old school holla!] went out of business, the company that made their robot animal band stuck around. They have at least one complete Rock-Afire Explosion in stock that they've dusted off so that the founder and a new choreographer can take requests - HELL YES.

The documentary is coming out this fall. See you at the theater.

- Z

- tinfoilraccoon @ flickr

Just for the record, I worked 64hr in five days last week. Those of you who are not suitably impressed should keep in mind that I am a total slacker and one of the reasons I work from home is so that I can generally get away with working about half that. I don't live to work, I work to live.

The office manager [who can never seem to remember to pay me] asked why I don't work full-time at the office instead. Among other things, I said, when you work 'part-time' you get paid hourly. [It seemed unprofessional to say that I do better work with a kitty on my lap and bangin' tunes on the stereo.]

So when I totalled up my invoice [and it was a lot of money - it would have taken me a month to make that much at my old job] I looked at it and e:dragonlady7 looked at it and she said Hm! and I said yeah, that's nice but I think I would rather have eaten and slept instead.

The good news is I think I'm done.

--

The problem with working for such a large client is their ubiquity. I went with e:dragonlady7 to the Century to forget about life for an hour or two. But while we're eating our wings a baseball game comes on and my client had bought all of the advertising space in both dugouts. Another guy on the project went to Las Vegas last week and one of the first things he saw was an enormous billboard advertising their products.

But my boss has the worst story: so he's on vacation in the country - no cell phone reception, no internet access, no buildings even. He's walking through the woods and he sees one of their products on the ground. He's like no, you're kidding me. Picks it up and sees the logo. KHAAANNN!!!

- Z

- pictures for sad children

- Z

Before I'd even woken up this morning the most adorable cat in the world had killed her first sparrow and was tossing it around the backyard like a feathery beachball. We shut her out of the house so she wouldn't bring it in. After about fifteen minutes of this we started wondering how to explain 'you break it you bought it' to a kitten. After she'd pulled all the feathers off she discovered out on her own that they were full of meat and devoured everything except the head, which she left rolling around on the driveway. Circle of life and all that crap.

Spent three days on retreat with e:dragonlady7's parents in Darkest Schaghticoke. It was very restorative. As always, I had some surreal conversations with her dad, who is cool, but a different kind of cool: 'So your car has a continuously-variable transmission.' 'Yup.' 'I don't know how that works.' 'Neither do I.' Then, an hour of talking in circles, including visual aids from a Vietnam-era military manual which, oddly enough, doesn't make anything clearer. Then: cheesecake!

- Z

So suddenly I'm a poster-boy for size acceptance, go figure! A reporter from the Buffalo News discovered e:dragonlady7,43746 where she goes on about size acceptance, which he is writing about but couldn't find any local experts. He came over to do an interview with B while I was working in the next room over. The topic of me came up, and he was kind of like har har he's so skinny. And I was like, dude: it would be extremely rude if somebody came up to you and said 'you're so fat, here have some carrot sticks.' But when somebody comes up to me and says 'you're so skinny, here have a milkshake,' it's totally acceptable! [For the record: it's not original and you're not clever.]

'Size acceptance' is not the same thing as saying 'So what if I'm fat?' Size acceptance is recognizing that it is possible to be healthy even if your weight is not within one standard deviation of the statistical mean. If your body is healthy and your mind is sane, is not worth risking your physical health with an asinine diet; your mental health by obsessing about every calorie; or your happiness with awful food. Not all fat people are overeaters, and not all skinny people are bulimic.

I'm sure he thinks I'm just playing the devil's advocate [and to some extent perhaps I am] but it doesn't make it any less true. Regardless, they're doing up some portraits of the two of us to put in the paper.

Edited to add:

- Z

I admit it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I've just always thought bacon looked like Norway.

- Z

So I guess there was like this huge hype about a new search engine named Cuil? except the comment threads of the news sites are telling me it's pretty awful.

When I Google myself it's mostly me, and stupid questions I've posted on [usually technical] mailing lists about compiling shit, or whatever. A few years ago there was another David Kleinschmidt who - well, I can't imagine him not being extremely gay in a very stereotypical manner [seriously: a singer with Oberlin's Gilbert & Sullivan society?]

But when I Cuiled myself -holy shit! What the Hell does this even mean? It's like they took Safe Search, and made the opposite of that.



Who's Grandma Flyer? Why are there goofballs in my home and garden? What is a Flyer Monkey?? Whose ass crack is that?! What does "FIST CITY BLUE & FISH" even mean?!?

Jeesh. First Google lists me as a GNUstep user, and now this. How embarrassing.

- Z

_______________
btw: RIP Ted Stevens' career. The man authored the Alaska Statehood Act, for Chrissakes. I guess he'll have plenty of time on his hands to figure out Outlook Express.

I have a lovely sunporch off the back of my house, with big screened windows all around and an aluminum roof that goes pok pok pok in the rain. We have a table and a couple relatively comfortable chairs out here, a minifridge stocked with beer and lemonade, and we'll usually move the couch out here for the summer. Now that I work from home, this is my office too. This right here is what summer is about.

I live in a section of town where the houses and yards are very small. I do not see this as a problem. I have neighbors who I think secretly or publicly hate me, but oddly enough I don't see this as a problem either. One of my passive aggressive neighbors has a stinky orange cat who likes to kill rabbits and pick fights, and while I do see this as a problem with teeth and claws, it is also a problem small enough that it is easily tossed over the nearest fence.

Here is my problem: Central air conditioning. Both of my next door neighbors and my back yard neighbor have central air conditioning for their homes, which are just as tiny as mine. It is 75 degrees outside and all three air conditioners are running. [Energy crisis what?] It's the kind of loud where you don't really realize how loud it is until that rare thirty seconds where all three thermostats are synced up and all three homes are exactly the right temperature AND WHEN THE LAST ONE SHUTS OFF YOU CAN FINALLY HEAR THE CRICKETS OH SORRY I DIDN'T... I didn't realize I was yelling. That's what it feels like, anyway.

- Z