First Post at a New and Improved This Space for Rent!

It's not every day that you get a second chance at a first time for something.

I really like my web log This Space for Rent. I've had thoughts of abandoning it since the comment system I picked for it crashed. There is no telling when it will be back up and running. I have, therefore, decided to pick a new template. (Aaahhh. Minima Black. I like the name Minima -- simplicity implied! Wonderful!) I'm only doing it so people can post comments again. I'm also running with a part of Mad Maddox's web page layout theory (or law! I just re-read it and it makes a lot of sense):

I've chosen a black background for most of my text because it's easier on the eyes than staring at a white screen. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision.

So, I look forward to having your input back again, everyone! This is also the change to which I alluded a few posts back.

By the way; "Blog the Magnificent Ferret" is from a sign in the background of a New Scooby Movies episode which had Dick Van Dyke as the guest star (and the only time you will see a particular word on this journal ever again. I intend to eliminate the techie word for this type of internet publishing. I now have a new four-letter b-word.) This is the episode where Velma first caught my attention as an ideal soulmate. (Note: I'm not attracted to the cartoon character, but I am attracted to women who have qualities in common with that cartoon character.)

Voice Menu

I have just spent the past half-hour on my cell phone to customer service. This, by the way, is the first cell phone thrust upon me that I have noticed interfering with speaker systems either in my car or attached to computers. That means this little hellphone I've been holding next to my head for the past 30 minutes is putting out a lot more microwave radiation than all the other ones I've ever owned combined. (I've only owned three, but that count would have been two had I not misplaced the ancient, large thing I first owned. That one was a lot easier to use, but it was out before all the 'improvements.')

So, now that the technical problem has been resolved (I was somehow connected straight to the voice-mail retrieval system of the phone I was trying to call), I wonder how much shorter my life is going to be.

It doesn't matter, I suppose. I probably would have wasted that extra time watching television.

Humpday Quote of the Week

If I'd wasted my time creating characters, I would never have gotten around to calling attention to things that really matter: irresistable forces in nature, and cruel inventions, and cockamamie ideals and governments and economies that make heroes and heroines alike feel like somthing the cat drug in.

-----Kilgore Trout (from the Kurt Vonnegut book Timequake.)

...And I Thought April Fools Was at the Beginning of the Month...

You've already noticed the dateline at the top of this post. If you live anywhere near Lexington, Kentucky, you already know that it was in the upper 70s or low 80s Thursday. It was a real nice day. I went out and cleaned my car. I took a jaunt down to a cafe I'd never heard of before I went down to the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning and saw a flyer. I saw a great folk music trio, and their special guest guitarist (as soon as I go back there and ask permission to write about them, I'll reveal their names and everything I thought about the show.) I came home Thursday night and it was still warm.

Friday was a little more interesting. Storms swept through just before sundown. The really interesting kind. You know ... The kind that come through with really dazzling lightening displays, tree bending (but not breaking) winds. (Yeah, I realize that I put the word "breaking" in front of the word "winds." If it had been on purpose, I'd be a lot more proud of myself. But, no trees fell over that I know of. So no tree broke in the wind.)

I even got pictures of the storms blowing into town. Fascinating cloud formations were captured yesterday, I tells ya. Once I get home to my Picasa 2 program, they're getting posted here. (If anyone still visits. I know D does, since she called the other day. I haven't seen many comments here lately, and I'm wondering if it's because I don't comment on many of the blogs which I have listed on my sidebar. Another thing I might need to consider is the dwindling frequency of my posts. That might be a factor!)

Tonight, though ... Saturday, April 23^rd, 2005 ... after I got out of my dad's band's practice session, it was ... get this! ... Snowing.

Snowing!

It's the first day of the final week of April, and it's ........ Snowing. I'm not complaining. I just think it's quite remarkable. We're eight days away from May, and we have one last shot of winter. It's actually cold enough that anything that falls on metal or glass will stick. I've never seen it like it is now this late into the year. If this means that Summer is going to be mild, I'm ecstatic. I'm more of a Spring/Fall kind of guy. I like it to be warm enough to be comfortable, but cool enough for cuddling....

Speaking of Cuddling...

...If that opportunity returns to my life. After a little over two and a half years,
and I just had to count that out on my fingers, I'm still not ready to date again. But, I still have romantic notions like Cuddling Weather running through my head.

These days, it's not my shyness that keeps me from dating--I've seen, talked to, and befriended several marvelous young ladies (some of them over 25! In my age range...I get queasy thinking about going younger than 27, but there have been a couple of 25 year-olds that made me review my standards). It's now no longer even fear of rejection that keeps me in check. It's fear of acceptance. More to the point--fear of acceptance by someone who will slowly suck my soul dry. If you're going to do that, please make it quick. Get it over.

Another thing I have about dating; what if I'm the one doing the soul draining? Jeez. I appreciate a woman the way she is, not tapped dry of inspiration and all the things that completed her beauty in the first place. I don't want to be the kind of man that people ask, while he's out of earshot, "What is a wonderful, funny, warm, gentle, intelligent woman like her doing dating that ogre?" I know I'm not that bad, but to hear all the old cliches that people pass around as conventional wisdom, all males have that streak. I don't want it, and I don't want to find out that I've got it. Best way to do that--Don't Date. I know I've wanted marriage and family, but I wanted all that before I knew better. Maybe it's too late now, but then again I could eventually run into a woman so beautiful that it brings out the Man in me (read--Stupidity), I'll forget that I know better, and I'll be dating again.

Could happen. But, would I want a woman that wanted me? I like to think most women have higher standards, but I see who some of those women date...And, I'm not getting into that old, whiney, "It's not fair" business either. It's perfectly fair. We're primates; we need stupid, brutal people to carry on in some pre-historic traditions. I'm not fit for that because I'm one of those guys who fooled himself into thinking we could eventually be something ... more. Or, at the very least, different. "More" and "different" are advertising words anyway. They have no place in reality.

And, don't give me the "It's not all that bad, David" stuff. Watch Lifetime. And, come back to This Space for Rent--see if I've been sued for using a real network's name.

Footnote

I know the transitions tonight have been rough. This is one of those rare nights where I've found a muse, she's brought a couple of friends, and they're all inspiring me to write. I just tried to copy and paste half of this entry into a blank word processor document so I can break this post down into more sensible entries. Entries that I can flesh out and are more appealing to the reader. As I have it posted right now, I consider it too jarring and difficult. I'll go home (I'm at an internet cafe right now with Dance Dance Revolution throbbing in the background) and split this thing up in a manner I like better--unless someone sees this post and likes it as it is. If that happens, I'll leave it up; footnote, randomness, rambling and all.

A Chance Encounter

As perhaps everyone knows by now, I've been suspended from work once again. This time, I was told to sit out for five days instead of three. (No more details will be forthcoming. Suffice it to say that I'm going to work toward justice--this can't be allowed to stand. Other folks have done the same sort of thing I've done, but they haven't been suspended for it. It was nothing I did on purpose, and it was something/s that happened two and three months ago that I only found out about this past week. Something's wrong when I've done something, but they wait up to three months to even bring it to my attention. It was something I used to be told about the day after this particular class of occurrences did, or did not, happen.)

I've been using the past week since I've been (unjustly) sent home to my great advantage. I've taken the opportunity to do all the things I haven't been able to do because of the weird hours I work. I'm now only a smattering of pen strokes away from returning to college--all my financial aid paperwork is done, and I'm half-way done with my admissions application. It's going to happen this year.

On that note, I saw one of my dad's former professors at a cafe this afternoon. Once I said his first name, then his full name, he remembered me. I never took a class with this guy--he taught honors level English--but he remembered that I worked on a video presentation my dad submitted to his class. And, about that he asked;

"Would you like a copy of that for your resumè?"

"Absolutely!" I said. There's nothing more I'd like than to be able to pop that in for someone (perhaps a potential employer--in the proper field, of course) and say, "I added voice affects here, here, and here. There, I operated the camera, and there I helped with the editing." Knowing my dad's professor, I might be able to meet the right people to be able to work in a field like that. There's no telling who this fellow knows--he was a professor for a good bit o'time, and always seems to be around people I got along with very well.

Humpday Quote of the Week!

If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.

---A talking galaxy from Futurama.

In a New York Limerick

Odd little bits and pieces of poetry have been returning to me lately. Last week, it was a handful of haiku (which I haven't posted here) and this limerick. It's been only a few months (whenever Saddam Hussein was captured) since I wrote my last limerick. It's been nearly twenty years since my last haiku. They'll be coming over to This Space next. But, in the meantime, enjoy!

In the City of York which is New
Where the skyline's a thing to view
But they say there are rats
Big enough to eat cats
And chase the cops enforcing curfew!