Ok, pervs, that’s not what I meant.

I would sit in my room and play with my LEGOs and read comics and stuff, or watch the stuff I had secretly recorded the night prior on Cinemax.  Don’t get me wrong here, I loved being social.  It just didn’t work out that way as much as I’d have wanted.

As a result, I grew to be a quiet kid outside of my particular social set.  A few people loved me, a few people hated me, and I knew who I could count on.  If I didn’t know you, I’d probably just keep my trap shut.  I hated this about myself.  I thought it was weird because you don’t see anyone like that on TV, and honestly, what was I supposed to compare myself to?

I started, and I don’t even know when, to force myself to be fun and outgoing.  It was awkward at first, but if I seemed confident, nobody questioned it.  Occasionally someone’s like “Hey, you never really talked before” but I’d explain that I had kept to myself because I could see the future then and I didn’t want to accidentally destroy space and time by giving away too much information, but that a subsequent bump on the head when I was playing [popular sport] outside of school left me powerless (in that way) so the world was safe.

Yeah, I’ve always been this weird.

I don’t really remember the process anymore, but I’m sure it was awkward for a while.  I’m sure it felt like a lie for a long time.   What I can tell you now, is that I will strike up a conversation with almost every stranger I meet and try to make them show their personality.

Some people don’t have personalities.  Particularly cashiers…  Sorry, maybe you are/were the only one…

The Mrs and I have a lot of shindigs when we can, and she and most people that know me well, label me a “social butterfly”.  Butterflies are dumb, so I’m going to go with Social Antelope.  It just feels right.  I managed to basically fix myself.  Now, why only basically?

Well, I still have ridiculous social anxiety.  I just keep it under the hood.  I think in most cases, like if I have to speak to a large group, or to a high-level manager or something, I’m running on adrenaline and slowing everything to the point that they can’t tell.  What do I mean?

I have pre-set things I will say when I see someone in passing.  I don’t have anything to say, but I say something like “Heyhowsitgoing” as one word, just so I said something and didn’t seem weird.  If a pretty girl talks to me, I’m still stunned and carefully measuring my every breath, movement and reaction like I’m going to break something.  “But, KYA, you’re happily married to the Mrs!  What’s this about?”  You’re right.  It’s not that I’m hoping I have a chance, I just can’t help it sometimes.  It’s stupid.

I look for ways out of a conversation that is going too well because I don’t want to exercise this in large doses, particularly if I haven’t been talking much that day.  Shit, if I’ve been indoors all day without interaction, God help the first person who talks to me.  I’ll jabber incessantly, over-aware of the stupid things I’m saying, then announce that I’m being weird and that I’m trying to fix it.

It’s like the unsuccessful speech I had in Speech class once, where everyone was laughing with good reason, things started going way off track and I stopped them by saying “Everyone stop looking at me!!!”.  yeah, the room fell silent and I pretty well had to pass that off as a moment of temporary insanity.

Overall, the system works.  Being a designer/developer, I’m allowed to be weird and social at the same time.  Except one time more recently at a previous job when I and a friend stood outside the office, shooting the breeze.  A girl we worked with came by and said “Ooh, top secret conversation” and we went on to joke about how we were secret agents.  She smiled and walked inside, but just before she cleared the door I managed to yell “I have a knife!”.

What. The. Fuck.

I’m amazed I wasn’t arrested.  I mean, I did have a pocket knife that I carried all the time, so under questioning it wouldn’t have sounded like a joke.  It would have been a violent threat and I’d have gone to jail.  It’s a good thing she was a complete dingbat.

…And that was the time my social anxiety almost put me in jail.

Do you have any stories like this, or am I just a big weirdo whom you’ll no longer be reading?

By the time I was done refueling, he was at least a block down the road if not more.  I called out to him and pointed at the dog, at which point he threw his hand out as if to say “I don’t care…”  We put her in the car.  I named her Bambi because she could not stay on her feet in the back of the car.  She smelled like wet garbage and there probably wasn’t a bone on her that I couldn’t see.  We gave her a bath at Mrs’ parent’s house because…  Well, wouldn’t you?  she vomited newspaper and leaves.  We had to keep her.

That sweet dog has somehow disappeared and been replaced with the Pit Bull from Hell.

She actually doesn't mind crap like this...

She’s an easy going dog, unless she’s hungry.  If she’s hungry, you need to give her something, anything, or she’ll find something to eat.  Oh, and she’s always hungry.

We took her to the vet straight away and found that she was about 3 years old by measuring the plaque on her teeth.  Gross, right?  She amazingly didn’t have worms or disease of any kind.  Pretty healthy for a very thin street dog.  Who knows what past she has…  I can tell you, however, that she hates strange dogs.  Taking her on a walk near other dogs means I get to hold her to my chest and have her bludgeon me with her head.  It’s awesome.

To the left, to the left. Her left...

Her?  No way dude.  I know that’s what you’re thinking.  But that’s the easiest part.  See, she doesn’t hate our other dogs.  She realizes they’re part of her pack (or some shit).  That’s not a big deal.  What is a big deal is that she can’t be trusted alone in the house.

She’s the most loyal dog in the world.  She’ll come when you call, even if she’s in a chase.  But don’t leave her alone in the house.  The first time it happened, I took pictures.  It was, by far, not the worst damage she’s done.

This is where she escaped her cage. She did it by somehow making the front collapse inward and then climbing over it. This is where she got into the main household trashcan that she spread around the house. Oh yeah, and she ate a whole pan of chocolate brownies. And some plaster decorations....

She hauled the kitchen trash can in its entirety into the living room for convenience. She also got into the bathroom and brought toilet paper through the house, as well as various other things she found. Oh yeah, and she ate several bars of Dove soap. She STILL loves that stuff.

I guess she got tired after a while, and started taking her treasures to the bedroom. She chewed on clothes and peed and pooped EVERYWHERE.

You might be saying “It can’t be true, you’re framing that poor dog”.  I mean look at that face:

All tuckered out... The shithead...

I had to zip-tie the cage together at all seams and close off the auxillary door.  Then she learned how the latches worked so I had to start putting luggage locks on the latches to keep them closed.  Then she started destroying the luggage locks by biting down on them and compressing the brass padlock until it wouldn’t re-lock properly.  Then I used larger locks.  That was working…

Then one day, when she was in the bathroom she somehow got out of her cage, chewed up the door handle trying to get out and tore off the door trim.  We couldn’t figure out how she escaped.  nothing was loose…  She made a hole.  In the steel cage…

The cage was in the basement so that if she did get out, she wouldn't do any damage... As you can see, she has strong jaws.

This is hole is what prompted me to put her in the basement. I fixed it with a license plate...

While she was doing this damage, she also tore out and chewed up all the sump pump line.  Not long after this, the front door was filled with 3 license plates, and then those came off. now we have her in a different cage with thicker bars.  So far, so good.  I’m thinking about customizing a Dogloo house as a cage so she can’t break out.

She's a sweet kid...

She’s a real handful, but she’s ours now so I can’t let anything bad happen to her.  I need to find her a good home where she is the only dog.  It would be great if she was out in the country, because she loves to go out with you, but she’s also a big fan of riding in cars.  I mean, a BIG fan.  She loves the car.  She’ll be good in the car too.

Unless someone pops up that we can trust, we’ll have this maniac for the rest of her life.  She cant’ be contained, she can’t be stopped and she’s put our mastiff in the clinic once for trying to eat his leg when he acted dominant.

Tell me your dog story, or let me know if you’re interested.  I couldn’t possibly divulge anything worse about her.

If you don’t remember the My Buddy & Kid Sister commercials from the 80s, you probably think I’m crazy.  If you do, you’re already aware that I’m crazy from previous exploits.  Either way, I’ve come here today to share with you my day with my new buddy, Larry Jacobs.  Larry is a zombie sock puppet, made by Chelle over at Coffee & Zombie Movies.

I won him for having the ugliest weird shit.  He’s mine now.  Stop winking at him, because it’s awkard for both of us.  Check out the pictures from our outing:

Larry likes riding in the truck. He was a little leery when I called shotgun, but he settled down after a bit.

I tried to snap a picture just as the plate was hot on the table, but Larry was *really* hungry. The waitress never did come back. It was weird.

After lunch, we visited the Flea Market to find Larry a friend. This is Dr. Bones. They're all BFF and shit.

Larry is one swingin' cat. He insisted on visiting the swings before us, and I had to use the restroom. He's awfully happy, considering it looks like all the kids must have left him. Oh well, keep your chin up larry. Hold it up high.

Larry took a moment on the slide to enjoy the sun. I sniffed all around, but couldn't figure out where someone was cooking bacon.

Larry's shirt suggests he wished these were brains. He found these at the Flea Market. I must admit, they are quite lovely and squishy.

Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, Larry's new favorite book.

Dreaming Zombie Dreams...

So there you have it.  Larry’s mostly hanging around the house nowadays.  He’s really taken a liking to Abraham (Lincoln), our cat.  He’s very helpful, often getting meat out of the deep freeze to thaw for dinner and has only tried to eat my brains once.  He’s such a gentleman.

As you can see, there was a full box of what I’ll call booby-balls, which were like those balls that you squeeze and there is a metallic fluid inside that swirls inside the plastic when you squeeze it.  They were $1, so I bought several.  Expect them as gifts at the next party.  We also bought some homemade treats made from wheat and potatoes, that tasted like pork rinds and looks like bacon.  Pretty fantastic.  Dr. Bones was picked up in a small manga shop where the proprietor sells these and a few other goodies for a friend who makes them.  He was only $20!!!

What would you do if you had Larry for a day?

Would zebra’s choose color?
Would giraffes wear a hat?
Would your dog eat chinese food, and tell you it’s cat?

This poem’s just filler.
This poem’s not great.
This poem’s not going to check your prostate.

Should I buy a car?
Should I buy a truck?
Should I say it’s not for you, would you give a fuck?

I’ve been busy of late.
I’ve been lazy as well.
I’ve been thinking of writing, but that went to hell.

My blog has been quiet…
My blog’s not retired…
My blog’s not entertaining, does that mean I’m fired?

I’ll swear to continue.
I’ll talk about lubes.
I swear if you come back, I’ll show you my boobs.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that you guys all know who Aunt Becky is, from reading Mommy Wants Vodka, or follow her on Twitter.  I’ll also assume that you’re a snappy dresser and a good kisser.  If any of those things are not true, now is the time to change them.  Visiting her new site and reading up will definitely improve the quality of your day by at least 23%.  It might even take away that terrible burning when you pee.  (Or maybe you should get that checked out…)

Can we be “real” for a minute?  It’s tough to get published nowadays.  Everyone’s afraid to put a lot of money into anything, and print is in tough times.  If you want to get published, you’d better be a sure thing.  That’s what we’re here to prove with this.  If Aunt Becky can get enough pre-pre-orders on her book, she’ll be green-lit (in addition to regular or drunken lit) and happy as a clam.

What do you have to do?  Give your name and email, then click the “Hell Yes” button, or just “yes” if you prefer.  You don’t have to buy anything and nobody gets hurt.  You’re just saying “Hey, this chica’s pretty funny.  I’d buy that, like, if it was, you know, like, cheap enough, or had a holographic cover.  Submit the form, and bingo bango, you’ve helped a young girl’s dream come true.

So without further Ado, and in celebration of yet another lazy Monday post on my part, go see Aunt Becky and help her get published.

With the new (97) Yukon in the garage a familiar sense of pride washed over me.  Before the Mrs brought it home, I fired up the tractor and re-graded the gravel in the garage.  I also re-plowed a bit of driveway in front of the garage door we don’t generally use and cleaned a big area out next to where I normally park.  Now I could park my tiny refrigerator of a car on the other side of the garage and leave a big open space for the mammoth Yukon to dominate.

It’s a 13 year old truck, but I’m so proud to have it that I’ll clean the garage and fight over who gets to drive it next. Standing back from the garage, I realized I should have taken a “before” picture.  In fact, I realized I should take lots of “before” pictures.

I’ve addressed before that I’m amazed by simple things.  I try so hard not to take things for granted, and I’m so fortunate to have so many positive changes in my life.  I always catch myself saying or thinking “Man, would you believe that we’d _______ last year at this time?”  Just one year can make so much difference.

So my idea is this, I’m going to take a shit-load of boring pictures. All the most sad and mundane things around the house.  It’s normal to take pictures of your new car, or the house once it’s been repainted.  What I want to do is take pictures of all the things that are “so-so” and compare them later on.  I can’t imagine I’ll have much bitching to do when the proof is right there.

This seems like a good thing for the kids too, to be able to say “yeah, this is how it used to be – but we worked hard and got this better thing”.  I grew up with very little money, but my parents always made sure I had what I wanted.  Miss E is already getting whatever she wants, so I hope the little things aren’t lost on her.

I don’t want to make a bragging list, but when I look at my house I think “Wow, that’s awesome.  I’m so lucky.”  When I use my neat smartphone I think “This is so cool, that I can have something like this.”

*mushy alert*

When I look at the Mrs, I think “She’s so awesome, more than I ever expected. I am so lucky to have her” and similar for my friends, including you guys, I’m lucky to have you all and when I compare memories, it’s always positive change.

This was a week late, and somber on top of that, so I want to spice up the deal by having you visit Fucking Windows. Go there and resize your window over and over.  Fucking awesome.

No, not the lottery…  Even better!  I won Chelle’s contest for a homemade Zombie doll over at Coffee & Zombie Movies !!!

Revel in the hand-made goodness

There were some really nice entries too, which is why I am lucky that it was a random selection.

Check out the announcement page, and if you missed it, my entries to the contest.

Short post?  Yes.  Use the time you saved here, checking out Chelle on Twitter and her website, Coffee & Zombie Movies.

It is because of that fact, that I am writing this post today.  You see, she’s got a contest going over at Coffee & Zombie Movies to post (on your own blog) the ugliest things you own.  There might have been rules to post only a few things, but I don’t like reading rules.  Rules are dead to me.  And nobody like dead rules, or rule zombies.  This has become a tangent.

A plaster cast of Falstaff from Shakespeare fame. Won this in a random auction box once. Everyone needs a fat guy getting drunk for their desk.

Phantom of the Opera brass lamp. This is a sad entry, as I've known this lamp all my life. It was my grandmothers, and last summer the lens was broken and the face dented... Still, pretty darn ugly.

UGLY crystal lamp that came, wrapped in an afghan, inside an antique dresser we bought.

Kitty Cat Creamer. He's here to pour your cream, then steal your soul.

The Haunted Vent Covers. We have 2. Both are broken and add a special ambience to any room.

This is the actual wallpaper from my laundry room, shot from maybe 5 feet away. BIG pattern... Notice the crazy floral wallpaper theme in the other pictures? We have A LOT of it.

The Wooden Boy. He holds his bowl laboriously, full of fake mustaches. Carved from a single piece of wood, and I am not positive he's not really alive.

Classic Car Dash for your wall. This is a GIANT art piece, made to look like the interior of a classic car. It has working dimmable dash lights, a working clock and (drumroll) a functional stereo and speaker.

The lady of the sea is a mural painted on the floor, just inside our front door. I wonder why the painter saw it fit to make her have some rolls and smallish boobies? Hmmm.. We may never know.

The Faceless Woman. This is the inside of our stained glass window, visible from the front of our 150+ year old country house. From the front she is gorgeous... From inside, the cold dark hallway, she has no face.

Anyway, we were given a task tonight that we had to leave the class, go somewhere else in a basically deserted building, and make a comic based on something we saw.  The first panel had to be something we saw, then we build the rest.  I picked up my things and set off to find someone to base my story on.  There was nothing interesting happening, so I based it on some guy in dress clothes, talking on his cellphone.

DISCLAIMER: I drew this crap in about 45 minutes, so it’s ugly.  It’s also not been cleaned up in photoshop, so these are just rough pencil sketches.  Oh yeah, and it’s a bit dark.

No, it's not. It's not the same thing AT ALL!

Angela!!! You're not listening to me! Something is wrong!!!

You've never been so cold. *sob*

FINE!

Oh, I almost forgot, don't use the bath... I left the toaster in there...

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HAHAHAHA…  Get it?  It’s because she’s dead.  Because he forgot to tell her he left the toaster in the bathtub.  Classic blunder.

Thoughts or interpretations?

One thing that turned up in my results was a link to some site called Amplicate.  It’s one of many websites that watches Twitter and shows up when you search your name because they replicate your content, which is fine because it’s all public and if you didn’t mean it to be, then surprise, you should have read the manual.  Word.

Amplicate.com

Amplicate seems to aggregate what you say and look for certain patterns to find what you like and don’t like.  Here’s what mine told me about me:

• Boobies Rock – Given.
• Charity Rocks
• Costco Rocks
• Cruelty Sucks
• Golf Sucks
• Grooveshark Rocks
• Movies Rock
• Nickelback Sucks
• Reason Sucks – This one referred to me hating being back on a college campus.
• Rod Sucks – Rod Stewart.  It’s true.  He does suck.
• Surprise Sucks – Actually, it said suprise, to which I add “Spelling Sucks”

It also suggested people I would like, based on our likes and dislikes:

• Good Morning America – Morning Show
• Tony Hawk – Pro Skater
• Joel McHale – Author
• BBC Click – BBC Tech TV Show
• Demi Moore – Ashton’s Sexy Cougar

I also found that I could enter some of your twitter usernames into the search box at the top, if I know you.  If I don’t know you, it’s nice to meet you.  Make me a sandwich.

You guys are opinionated as hell too.  Damn.  We’re some bitchy mofos.

This did make me think, though, that it’s interesting how some people hold back opinions to keep the peace, and others broadcast it in your ear with an oceanliner horn.  While I want people to like me, and you do too (If you say you don’t you’re lying to yourself), I want to be liked for the weirdo that I am.

I think my opinions above are too vanilla.  I’m going to be even more opinionated and really blow this shit off the charts.  What do you love and hate?