The Empirical Manifesto

Here's your standard 25-things-you-may-not-know-about-me meme with a twist; There are 26, and only one of them is completely and utterly false.

1. I carry everything in my left hand out of habit, leaving my right one free to salute.


2. I enjoy Psa-Goa Trance.


3. I carry my wallet in my right front pocket because it hung funny in my military fatigues which I wore everyday for many years.


4. I wear long-sleeve shirts with shorts - even in winter. As long as my arms are covered I'm fine.


5. I take Vitamin C on the hour, every hour, every day to stave off colds.


6. I call everyone Sir or Ma'am, even my children.


7. I enjoy cool, overcast, stormy days.


8. I enjoy foreplay more than most women.


9. I try not to blog more than once a day.


10. I was a photographer for my High School paper.


11. I can waltz & swing.


12. I've read most of the classics.


13. I struggle with simple mathematics.


14. My IQ is below "genius."


15. Another man once put me in his mouth.


16. I've never had a broken bone or stitches.


17. I have no tattoos or piercings.


18. I attended DeVry Institute of Technology for a year.


19. I still own my first car.


20. I prefer the Logitech Marble Mouse over any other.


21. I'll spend more on a good pillowcase than I will on the pillow.


22. I prefer chocolate to vanilla.


23. I am an introvert.


24. I am completely infatuated with my wife.


25. I never reminisce balefully.


26. I drink more water than anyone else I know.

Every couple of weeks or so, I'm required to make an actual physical paper deposit to the bank. The actual edifice. Online banking may be thriving, but you can't do everything just yet. Hence, these buildings. With people in them. I usually turn my stereo all the way down, as to not be rude. Its hard enough to carry on the limited conversation required to complete these drive-through transactions, and I've been on the other side of the window - those speakers pick up everything. All things being equal, however, I was particularly board and/or aggressive that I chose to simply turn my radio down. Very low. Where only I could hear it. Its my CD named, "Cartastic" which contains Firefly, Serenity, Stardust, half of Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Transformers. For reasons which sounded good at the time, I have exactly 4 (four) vocal tracks on there, all at the beginning. This are (in order) Pistolero by Juno Reactor (thanks drax0r), Starry Eyed Surprise the remix by Paul Oakenfold (thanks galinda822), Butterfly by Crazy Town (because of the movie Orange County), and Porcelain (because of the movie The Beach.) In case you don't see where this is going - I forgot about those first four songs, and inserted the disc. It was also louder than I expected it to be. And the first line from the first song, clear as a bell, states, I HATE ROBBING BANKS.

Thought I was going to die.

I Drank half a bottle of Pennslyvania Dutch style Brandied apple cider. That night I dreamed that Brinkmeyer's current wife and I were deeply in love (it was if he didn't even exist). And she was oh so frail. We had a house built out away from everyone, in the country. Her father was always around, keeping an eye on her and doing handyman stuff around the place. Lived with us, I think, but he didn't trust me. Always had that look in his eye. And it was difficult getting alone time with her. [dream change sequence] A very flamboyant photogoot and I are doing dancing stage shows wearing sequined black tie formal attire (one dressed all in sequined white, the other in sequined black) and living together again, this time behind the stage in a very small apartment with exposed wood walls (painted all in brick red). And that's when Niobe chose to come home. She was so skinny. I fed her and gave her love. This marks the third time I've dreamed she's come home since she went missing.

I still go out to call for her every evening, and modified my garage door to lock while leaving six inches open.

We truly stand on shoulders of giants, and have no reason to be arrogant in our knowledge. I was staring into the Texas night sky while smoking a cigar thinking to myself, "I can't prove that the earth is round, nor that the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around." Others can, and have. I am meek in my knowledge of worldly things, despite having traveled the globe.

They say man created God. Man also created science.

And now a word on satire:

• lehah posted a promo shot from the in-production movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and one of his readers was making fun of the scene which included Harrison Ford, Karen Allen (from the original Indy, and Shia LaBeouf ("Sam" in Transformers.), riding in an old truck. I replied to his humorous observation with, Indiana Jones? I thought that was Sam Witwickey and they were riding in Optimus Prime? This isn't a scene from Transformers 2?



• Within the comments of my post on the new camera there was an extremely funny play-on-words concerning a rooster which ended with me giggling like a retard. By Grapthar's Hammer... Anyway, as funny as that was, its wasn't nearly as humorous as the call I later received, asking if I really did own a rooster:
  

  
  "No, it was a play on words."
  "I get that."
  "No you don't, this question proves it."
  

  
  

And having been fed up beyond fed up, and now requiring a computer for each individual under my roof, and wanting to make someone DIE for writing, marketing, selling, and using Windows XP, I turned my work laptop and my primary x86 workstation at home into a dual-boot xubuntu box, and an now trying to fix my old mac so I can put xubuntu on it as well. Going to buy an OSX-compatible USB wireless card for my boy's PowerMac G4 today, and I need just one more computer (and/or a very small 12" LCD monitor so I can put teh other mini in the kitchen for the wizzle. Here's what I need to overcome:

• I found my Leopard install disc - its in the broken mac and no amount of on-boot key-sequences will eject it, and I can't force it out when its disassembled. Next plan of attack? swap the gorram drives within the two mini's!


• Pretend that I know something, anything, really, about Mac hardware and un-fux0r the broken mac
to the point I can install xubuntu PPC on it.

• Get wine to completely launch Lotus Notes (I'm almost there) because the only thing worse than Notes is the Notes Java Web Client.


• Get my Intel i810-driven framebuffer to properly dual-head (i.e. one large workspace across two monitors). Right now it simply displays the same workspace in two locations.


• Call AT&T and get my static IP. I know this sounds easy. I'm just not looking forward to making the call. Interacting with people takes so much out of me, and I already know it will be a fight.


• Call AT&T to get a phone jack installed in my home office. (See excuses above).


• Make sweet love down by the fire.

Less important, but still on my radar:



• Install Solaris 10 on my Netra t1125.


• Install ubuntu-server on my second Rave AXi.

*le sigh*