New Tires

I GOT some new tires for my ride today. Not only will I not slip in the rain now, but it also eliminated a shimmy in my car that I was worried was a broken strut or tiebar. WHen the metal shows through, you gotta do what you gotta do.

2 new tires for a 1996 Mercury Tracer: 83.52
4 new tires for my 1996 Saturn SC2: 408.57 (included major suspension work. NOT pictured.)
1 new tire for my 1987 IROC Z28: 110.00 each (wasn't a convertable)
1 new rear tire for my 2000 Yamaha R6: 175.28 ( God Damn I miss that machine!)

A Gonzo tale of Un-Biblical Proportions

HOW did I get here? What could have brought me to this place? Stoned out of my mind, Half-drunk sitting in a 1997 Pontiac Gran Prix GTX with 6 minors? Scratch that, Must have been full-drunk. sitting 7 deep in a car outside of a house full of illegal Russian immigrants. Drunk, swaggering down the hill outside. Smoking another joint with 2 13 year old skaters because I respected what they did. NO man, I really did. It's a form of expression that I just couldn't grasp *puff Puff* because we're all together in this art thing. That's what artists do. They express themselves non-verbally. Unless they are an actor or a poet or a singer. No, not singers *puff* because they just sing other people's art. Okay, I need another beer, I'll see you guys on the street. Two shots of vodka later I find myself trying to take a piss while the birthday boy and a nerd are telling me I need to dance. All the ladies want to see me dance. I walk out to the dance floor, chest all full of gusto, and head for the back door, nerd in tow. All but whipping it out and pissing on the nerd, andwering why I'm not messed up. Did I really take those shots? was it water? How many beers had I had? Six, I guess, give or take five, I reply as I zip up. Was I just peeing? IN THE BACK YARD? Shaddup dorkus, this is a neighborhood. You wanna wake up the neighbors? I sit and smoke with three Russians at a table about five feet away. The nerd returns inside, drunk and abashed. One of the russians mutters something in disgust. She's an artist I think, and vocally agree with whatever she just said about my ex-companion. This elicits a round of laughter, followed by silence. What do you do? she asks. I live. Nothing. I'm a delivery driver. Still not impressed. I'm an artist of sorts. Really? Me too! I draw, what do you do? I get up, spin around and drunkenly knock over a plant. My first fau paux of the evening. Destruction is my game, I announce, and the world is my playground. Pretentious fucks, and another shot with Petko, the only other man in the house. Sitting on the only chair in the house, amongst a huddle of co-workers, I spy the nerd, drunk enough to ask on of the hot Russian Jailbaits to dance. I see her start, and then stop. As he flails wildly in the air like some sort of monkey-like mating ritual, she looks for help. Most of the other women [read:teenie boppers] have since retreated to a safe distance of about 3m. She starts again, and then physically stopping him announces he cannot dance, and then moves for the bathroom. Insulted, the nerd slaps the too-hot-for-him-Russian-girl in the back of the head, much like a mother to her inept son. Not to be outdone, as the nerd turns around, vindicated, she pushes him to the ground. A full house of Guffaws, and then the party returns to it's previous state. My beer spent, my heart unbroken, I exit stage drunk.

I miss being 22, but not very much.

Oh captain my captain...

Today I spent a morning in the belly of the beast. I went to church with my family. It's Easter after all, whatever that means. Later I went to Kilgor's house and played a little GT4 and drank a few. On the way home I stopped by my old stomping grounds and went to B.J.'s, one of the best beer stores in the state. The owner is a real afficianado, He's got a collection of beer mugs from all over the world. Among the world class collection is the " mix-a-six " in whivh you can pick any 6 beers for 7.99. I got a beer from a Chicago local brewery, Two Brothers (the site is messed up), an organic Samuel Smith ale, and an authentic greek beer. I went there for the Singha, a malt beer from Thailand that's 13.9 percent alcohol by volume. It'll knock you on your ass. They didn't have it last time I was there, about half a year ago. Unfortunately that's because it was in the middle of exchanging breweries, and now it's only a damn 6.0. Still pretty good, but If I had known that I would have gotten another 6 of Sierra Nevada's Bigfoot or some Celebration. Anyway, I consider it all a huge success.

Anyone reading this should know that I will be going to golf [White Birch] early tomorrow, around 1pm if you'd like to play with me. Here's a picture of me in a big hole at golf a couple weeks ago.



I'd enhance the image, but this is how it was took [Christ]. I like all the blue, even though as you can see, it was nice day and I was wearing a t-shirt. Totally bigass hole made by the bank of a creek eroding and the roots of a tree ripping out of the ground. I was totally standing up.

I am officially sick of the Adidas or Nike commercial with the song "Whenever I Wake Up." It's on about EVERY DAMN COMMERCIAL BREAK. I'm all about the smart shoe, but it's done by a stupid ad agency that is overplaying it's base technical functions. It's a cool idea, but think back to the future 2. It ain't half that cool. Where's my hoverboard?

AMF

I wonder if Kimba will announce the wonderful news?

New Media

I changed the pirate song last night. Did you notice? Ya, I'm all sneaky like that. It's by Ray Stevens, A really funny singer/sondwriter. When I was a little kid my sister and I used to listen to an old record that my grandma had. I can remember it was one of the funniest things I had ever heard. A song about a dog that drove to the store, "Fred" was one of my favorites. If you have never heard "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" before, then you have to live in a cave. When I was in high school, I had a friend named Chad and we amassed quite a pile of Ray Stevens Tapes. Yep, tapes. It was that long ago. Could have been yesterday. Oh yea, and he's the guy that wrote "Everything Is Beauitiful.

Picture!



Double Picture!




Here is my Apple iBook running windows 98. I had to delete it and the emulator to store more space for my CD collection that I'm encoding into MP3 format. Never used it anyway, I just like to show it off.



I wonder if Kimba will grace us with a "history of..." for easter. Did you know they aren't going to call it the easter bunny anymore? Now it's the mall bunny. I don't care either way, but isn't that DIRECTLY destroying our "cultural heritage"? I mean, I know we're living in the now and all, and I'm all about it. It is not, however, Pompeii. It is not the Civil War or The Crusades or anything like that. What is it? I don't have a clue. Marketing scheme? Some political thing? No idea. All I know is that someone told me and now I'm telling you and it may all be a hoax or next year Monster will have his picture taken with the Friggin' Mall Bunny and it won't mean shit. He'll look cute and Kimba will blog about it but it won't mean a Goddamned thing. Just a time of year where everything is pastel and there are bunnies and friggin' chocolate and the kids wonder if they will get any gifts and what they'll be.
Maybe that's how Santa got his gig going. He got a few odd jobs, told some people that "Santa Clause is bringing gifts on December 25th" and they told some people. Then, when the kids found out and there were no presents, the parents had to scramble. Boom, instant history. It's not like "Santa" wasn't coming back next year. Kids would have none of that. Seriously, what day does it matter if you are going to celebrate the birth/rise of christ or if you are going to have a big dinner and buy some crap and chocolate?*
The whole thing kinda gets to me. Tomorrow I plan to go play golf and drink beer and maybe barbeque or race Gran Turismo IIII. That's what it means to me. Oh, and My neice is getting baptised, and that's a family thing. I'm bound by honor to care. (I might be, prove I'm not.)Enjoy the music. "I don't like it."

AMFing Easter Bunny

*Yes, ladies, I realize that there IS NO DAY NOT RIGHT FOR BUYING CHOCOLATE.

Guess What's back?

You got it.



There's tons more pics, but I'm in a BAD mood over the Google thing, I just got word from my attorney, and I found out today that I'm open to close at work EVERY DAY next week. Plus Monday, instead of golf, I need to take my car in for new tires and to figure out what the hell some weird vibration is. I also need an oil change and I need to plug a hole in my radiator. Right now I'm working on Christ's blog, she wanted me to upload some pictures for her. {Putting others before oneself}

AMF

Annoyed

From The Google Team

Re:Your adsens account:

Hello [edited],As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity veryseriously. Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowedany further participation in Google AdSense. As such, we are unable to reinstate your account.Sincerely, The Google Team

Get a load of their grammar. I wonder if they'll pay me the $110 they owe me. They should, at least for the web space their retarded ads took up.

Oh Crap... It's all my fault...

From: Google Adsense

Re: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello [edited],It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated onthe ads on your web pages. We have therefore disabled your GoogleAdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in aneffort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), includingbut not limited to clicks generated by a publisher on his own webpages, clicks generated through the use of robots, automated clickingtools, or any other deceptive software.Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Termsand Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_UShttps://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Sincerely,The Google Team

........................................Smeg. ...........................................

To: Google Adsense


Re: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Dear Google, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies about clicking on my own ads. I was searching for some watches and I foolishly used my own Web page's Google search to do so. It was not my intent to deceive or cheat Google or any of your sponsors! I fully apologize, and if there is anything I can do to remedy the situation besides apologizing and guaranteeing it WILL NOT happen again, I would be more than happy to do so. The google ads look so good on my website, it would be a shame to lose them. Please re-consider.
Sincerely,

[edited]
Toad at 704d.com

................................................

Well that was a lot more excitement than I was expecting tonite. I guess we'll have to wait and see how this works out...

Overheard today (Keeping the ball rolling, in spite of minor setbacks)

"It's going to be a boy then? At least it probably won't grow up to be a stripper..."

This month is national noodle month. WHY DIDN"T ANYONE TELL ME?

AMF, AGoogle?

The best compliment I've recieved...

IN the last few months that wasn't web-related:
"Can I check your I.D. real quick?"
"Sure, better safe than sorry."
"I remember your face, I just don't remember if you bought beer."

Apple and I won at spades Monday night, even thouhg we were on oppisite teams. Gnu and Kimba gave up.

How it all went down...

I siad I'd do it. I don't wnat to now, even, because writing isn't my forte', so let's just get through this.

It all started with a link from fussy about some creepy churcher Lego projects. I had been wanting to change the look of my blog for a while, and I remembered that I had some Pirate Legos as a kid. Most of my toys an dstuff were lost in the move two years ago, damn, it's been three. Time really flies. Anyway, I went down to the basement and dug through some stuff, and I found a box of Legos. There were about half of my whole collection, a shoebox full. All the good ones were in there, though. The red and white motorcycles, The pirate captain, The bigass tires from the moon lander thing. Needless to say, I was fully reminescing digging through the box. Good times.

Next, I took some photos of the various scenes and stuff, you know, just playing with the Legos and my camera. All in all, I took about 100 shots in about 5 different "scenes." After a couple of hours playing around with the images, I had finally created a masthead I was happy with. (The Image of B.O.B. is actually just a head that I turned around, and then I used Photoplus to paint the hair and face. Looks pretty good, huh?) The background is actually a Lego pirate flag that I superimposed. Man, l I wonder if Legos are still as coolas they used to be.(?) After the image was done, I uploaded it onto the server and downloaded it to Kimba's Photoshop equipped computer to add the text. I had thought about adding the text outside the picture, but I still wanted to try. Kimba and Gnu helped me and my alcohol-laden ass get all the different glow and shadow settings [Blending Options] of the text to look all vivid and readable.

As far as the background of the page is concerned, we used a pirated clipart.com account to download the picture of the scroll. I had also invisioned using a treasure map, but abandoned it because of all the distracting text and pictures. I deleted the text and enlarged it to a width of about 600px. [pixels.] Then took the picture of the guy in the skull and cross-bones t-shirt and layered it in the background. Hold on, Sealab is on... wait...OK, that was a good one. where was I? oh yea. That's pretty much it for the graphics. I went througha a lot of different images and ideas, that's why I took so long.

The rest is complicated CSS coding secrets and that damn horrible Pirates of the Carribean song from KaZaa and there you have it. I'm glad I had the practice of redo-ing (sp?) Kimba's blog before I finished mine, I did a lot with borders. I wish I could do it more. How bout it? Anyone want to join the 704d crew? Drop me a line and we can discuss it. (yea, right)

Next: 704d.camera!

AMF

Um.... Woa. Too much to say

And there is. I promised a new post on the design, but I just got my internet back. I uploaded the new shite at Kimba's last night, and when I got home to write the story, BAM! (no internet.) Her a few bits of info while I gather myself for the story.

Kimba's old man knows about our site now. Ha! It's cool, and so is he. The first time I met him I was going to halloween in 2003 and I was a pirate Captain. (remember the old blog pic? It's in the graveyard.) He probably thought I was only 17 and what the hell was I doing with his daughter and her boyfriend? Cool guy, though, in my opinion. Knows tools, raised a family, Gave all of us Kimba, and um... I just got a good vibe from him, Yo? Anyway, aparrently Kimba's sister was surfing the site and he happened to look in in her. It would seem that she erased the history and all, so he spent 3 days looking fo rit. I wonder what the final google search term was?

I just got the official 704d.com Digicamera. It's pretty crappy. I'm going to lend it out to everyone that reads the site, and, you know, see what I come up with. (Sorry, B.B., but I'm not doing any out-of-state orders!) So if you want to borrow it, lemme know.

I left my camera at Christ's house the other night, so no pics for a while. (the 704d.com camera is too crappy for me to put my very professional and well-educated hands on.) But there were some VERY good ones, so expect a good pic-post or mebbe some postcards from the edge.

I guess that's it for now, but how do you like the new look? Is it easy enough to read? Do you have any problems with it? I think it's badass, but you know. I'm a pirate. Oh yea, and click the pirate media text. I'm oging to try to have a new song every week. You know me though. Besides, how many pirate songs can there be? Maybe I'll have some video or pics, too. I guess you'll have to check it to know.

Arg, MF

B.S.

That whole conversation didn't really happen. I mean, some of it did, some of it didn't. But it definitely didn't happen the way I wrote it.

An update!

"Dude, You had better post something funny today, or they're gonna hang you."
"I know. But nothing funny has happened."
"So? Just make something up."
"Yeeaaaahhh Riiggght. The last time I did that caused me all kindsa trouble."
"Like how?"
"Remember the Talayna post? Stuck right in the middle of all the popularity I got from the Cockeyed.com review?"
"Oh Yeah. Right."
"Yep. That's the last time I spout off some smack-talking for all the world to read. *snicker* Did you know that [edited]'s gonna be closing now?"
"Really?"
"I think so. I'm not really sure. All I know is that it's not me."
"Yea, but don't you want to move on?"
"Oh yea, totally. But, I dunno. Better money in the meantime. Anyway, It's just how it's happening. I'm just riding the wave. Like Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, you just have to let go. You can't control everything."
From across the store," That was a stupid movie!" *Ignored*
"So what are you going to write about? You don't want to abandon your public."
"*snicker* Riiigggghhhtttt. I'm an internet celebrity. I'll never meet my fans, and they're probably all creeps anyway."
Still across the store, now recognized as the Waitress. "I went to your web-site yesterday, you are SO weird."
"I got it. Farts."
................................................................
I am a gassy man. I drink a lot of beer, eat chili and hot wings, and F A R T. I feel bad for the next girl that spends the night with me. Seriously. I'll fart so loud at night, that I'll wake myself up. Usually then I laugh and go back to sleep. And the smell. I have heard that Johan farts a lot but there's no smell. Why the gas if there's no methane? Well buddy, I got enough for both of us. AND Christ. Probably Patrick too, but I don't know about him. The other day I was delivering a pizza, and I farted.

I thought I was going to have to pull the car over. Thank Alvis that I had already made the drop. That could have been a potentially dangerous situation.
.................................................................
What's new?
T.V. NCIS, one of my very favorite shows is no longer going to be aired in st. Louis and surrounding counties. I don't know if it's not popular, or if it's because they talk about Al Kaida and terrorism and stuff and it freaks people out. It's not going to be on anymore though. I should have known last week when they pre-empted it with a Billy Grahm special about the end of the world. It's still on channel 4, just not around here. they just fill the hour with crap. 7pm on a tuesday, filled with non-terrorist related CRAP. I'd go on, but you already know how mad I am.

I'm equally as NOT mad about the re-airing of the whole Trigun series. One of my favorite anime shows, and since they traded Wolf's Rain with the Big O (ugh) it's the only one worth watching.

Digital Errata:
I'm still working on my blog page, I want it to be uber pirate cool, so just chill. I personally am freaking out waiting for Fantastic Four, and it's in JULY. So chill.

I've got a few pics, but they aren't speaking to me righ now.

My Mp3 player kicks ass, and I love it. I'm using my defunct ibook as a stand-alone storage device for all possible pirated Mp3's. Actually that was the plan, but for some reason it says I only have one gig of hard drive space. I'm working on that one.

Art:
I found an old 20" rim that I'm planning on converting to a table of some sort. More on that later.

I have abandoned thecompressor silencer until I can figure out what the hell is wrong with my airbrush/compressor.

Work:
I just finished ne of what seems to be a long line of open-close shifts. 10:30-9:30 or so. expect sparratic but totally cool updates. (Totally cool? Am I twelve again? Turtle Power!)

.......................AMF.......................

704d.style.com

I just got off the fone with the lawyer's office. I got my tax return, blew a llittle of it, paid most back, and now I'm ready to deal with the man. Unfortunately, the ultra-nice lady on the phone told me that I had to come in and speak to an attorney. Huh? NO, You're supposed to tell me I need to bring $540 in cash or money order, and everything will be fine. But she didn't. NOw, I have an appointment to speak with a lawyer right in the middle of my first day shift at the old pizza hole. Why can't we do it like before, the easy way? Is it because of prior infractions? Am I going to have to pay twice as much this time? Maybe it has something to do with the quantity of the tickets that I recieved. Maybe they just changed their policy. Maybe this totally sucks, and if I did freak out, I'd fully be doing it right now.


But I dont't. So fuggit, I'm going to golf.


Friggin' lawyers.


Friggin cops, too.

Other Shite... or, Blow me, freeipods!

I just got back from Kimba's house, where I was working on revamping my Blog and...Are you ready for this?I was downloading music onto my new MP3 player.Trust me, it's a big deal. I got the Sandisk 1.0GB MP3. I cannot hyperlink you to it, because BLOGGER IS JACKED UP RIGHT NOW! So here, if you really want it... http://www.esend.com/sandisk/product.asp?sku=SDMX1%2D1024%2DA18&mscssid=2JS9URFLL0CS8NBR5SH1TVJW1K7WC1BE Okay? I went with this particular model for a variety of reasons:

1: While I liked the other model for it's color screen and .jpg-viewing options, that stuff doesn't really matter. It's a friggin MP3 player, not a camera/PDA/picturephone. That right there saved me $30.

2: The color screened model had an internal battery that only lasted 10 hours. The Sandisk can run 15+ hours off of one AAA battery (included.) If you don't know what a huge fan I am of rechargeable batteries, then let me enlighten you. My universal remote ( www.oneforall.com ) runs off of 4 AAA batteries. It is motion sensitive, so when anyone in the house moves, it lights up and burns battery juice. That means I go through about 4 AAA batteries a week. (But is that remote not the shiznite? I dare you to find a cooler one.) AAA batteries cost about a buck each, so do the math. Ok, I will. It's like 208$ a year. I could save money and buy in bulk, or I could spend $26 on rechargeable batteries last christmas. (That part was bold, but BLOGGER can't do it.) The other two reasons are my digital camera and my now-in-little-pieces-at-the-city-dump CD player. Have you noticed the pics around here? My camera runs off of 2 AA batteries, as did my CD player that I used every day all day back at the sign shop. So not only is it environmentally S T U P I D to buy non-rechargeable batteries, but from my own lips YOU CAN SAVE OVER $175 A YEAR! just on your remote. Mothers of the world, take back your credit cards and teach your kids what to do with their dead batteries. Recharge them or throw them at cars on the highway. Your choice.
Whew. Big breath.

3:The third reason I got the 1 gig model is just a matter of chance. I could only afford the 512MB model, but as I followed another fat guy around the "opened items" table, there it was. A 1 'gigger for only ten bucks more. TEN BUCKS! After I added the 2 year product replacement plan*, I still saved $20 over the new 1 gig model.

*I wasn't all about the product replacement plan, but when the guy who checked me out** said in a year and eleven months I could smash it with a hammer*** and have it replaced, I was all "HELL YEAH I WANT THE REPLACEMENT PLAN!" and I freaked out a lot of people. Which probably was worth $20 anyway.
**Dude had the same birthdate as me. That has happened one other time, like 2 months ago when I was carded for beer. Weird, I guess. Cheers, Motomart chick and Best Buy Guy!
***Yeah, he actually used those words, out loud, in a store full of people. Then he looked around, like he hadn't said it to the lady whom**** just cashed out in front of me. No the first time for me, either.
****Yea, so I typed whom, and then put four *'s behind it. So friggin what?

The new MP3 player is more than a new toy, though. It is a big deal. Like I said above, I destroyed my portable CD player, and I don't have one in my car. I have been cursed to drive all night delivering pizzas either in silece (preferred, but boring) or listening to the radio. How many times can you wake up with friggin Mr. Brightside, Linkin Park, or Breaking Benjamin going through your head FIRST THING IN THE MORNING before you go mad? I have no idea. We all know I went mad long ago. So a new MP3 player coupled with a new car adapter (it went the way of the Portable CD player, but it was broke anyway) will make my nights not only tolerable, but pleasant. Now if I can only get rid of that smell...

AMF (bolded and centered, BLOGGER!) Man that pisses me off.

Do you even bother reading the title?

That last post was a joke. I put it up so that a guy from work would be able to google B.T. Sanchez and the Cleaveland Steamers. If google has crawled the site yet, It should show up. I swear, it's not realy a band.
.......................................
Want some pictures?
.......................................


.......................................
Highway 40 from Gnu's car, on the way to spades night.
.......................................

.........................
Spades night Scorecard. Here's what you might miss. Kimba and I are the "Fox force II" Gnu and Apple are "The Flying J's" the last two scratch-outs are Kimba's deals and they lead to Apple dealing, us going ten-for-two, and WE WON!
..........................


........................
Munch-ems are good, but I get the feeling that Kimba doesn't like the bread sticks.
........................
That's it for now, but if I can get straight home after work, I'll have some more.

AMF

B.T. Sanchez and the Cleaveland Steamers

I don't know who these guys are, but they totally rock! I can't find anything on the web about them, but holy cow! What a band! I cannot remember anyone this good since Hot Carl and the Eight Second Players!

New masthead

I know I said I was going to re-layout (that's a technical term, if you don't recognize it) my blog, but my desires have FAR exceeded my ability. So it's going to be at least a few more days.

>;-)

Bastard...

Yea, you know it. 240x222. They got one of Kimba's as well. Damn picky admin.

Bug Juice

Bug Juice
Originally uploaded by Master Toad.

This was banned from squared circle on flickr (even though it is a much loved pic) so I'm posting it here to see how I cropped it. I deleted the origional off my desktop.

Double You Tee Eff ?

I don't know If I'm sick or what. Sunday night I went from feeling perfectly normal and fine to a sneeezing, runny-nosed sicky head. Yesterday, I woke up [just had to stop typing so I could sneeze 7 times and fill 2 kleenex with snot.] I woke up feeling fine. I was fine all day, except for sneezing a few times at spades night. Last night I woke up 2 times with a sneezing fit followed by a runny nose. Now, I feel like crap. It doesn't make any sense. I've never had allergies before, but that is exactly what it seems like. Maybe I'm allergic to something in my house. I was wearing my robe when it first happened, and I am now as well. But not when I was asleep. I'm going to see what happens in the next half an hour, and maybe take some medicine. Benadryl I believe.

I need a haircut, but all I need is to sneeze and have somebody cut my ear off.

It takes a lot of work

TO RUN a website. Even one as trite as this. The little buttons on the start page? About an hour each. A masthead? Sheesh, 2-4, easy. Even writing a post can take an hour or two, depending on content. Don't forget that almost every picture is hand cropped and usually color-corrected. that's at least 10 min each. Kimba found a small shortcut by posting from flickr, but that only saves maybe like 2 mins because she has to load them into flickr instead of our website server. Where am I going with all this? ... I dunno, I just wanted to say it I guess.

I had an interesting conversation tonight with the site's newest fan, the OWNER OF TALAYNA'S.

pause for effect.

Yea, that's right. No, I didn't get fired. We discussed a few of the finer points of website publishing (Might be getting some side work, I hope,) The HST tribute pic I did, and AdSense. He did not mention the management position that is open, nor did he mention How bodacious my watch is. I guess I'm still reaping the rewards of the now infamous Talayna's post.

I'm not going to discuss the conflictions I feel about being a manager again. I'm conflicted. That's enough for me. I'm also not going to discuss how crappy it is to have 75 bucks to show for this work week. I talked to the manager, and he said that I can become the day driver week after next if I want to. Maybe if I show some initiative and willingness to help out around the store they might reconsider me being a manager. If they already decided or whatever. I really have no idea about that, except that I'm not currently a manager.
I do as much as I can around the store, don't get me wrong. If I try to do more without actually being told to I find that I'm pretty much in the way. I'll just keep sweeping under the tables and emptying the mop bucket. I haven't been complaining about anything. That's good for me.

Tonight I was bored because it was slow, so I dumped a cup of sugar into the other driver's soda. At least I thought it was sugar. Turns out it was salt. At least Jon said he wasn't mad at me after he finished puking. I really am sorry dude. (That's right I actually apologized for something. Hopefully this post will vanish into obscurity.) Had I known it was salt I wouldn't have put half as much in it. I'm serious.

It was a lot of salt.

He drank that shit.

Ugh.

I LOVE COMMENTS

oooh you'll have to tell me the real story next time i see you. yes, you did keep chasing us with stickers. i don't think you remember the last two hours or so. you fell down a few times.

--
Posted by Kimba to Toad's Pirate Log at 3/6/2005 01:53:59 AM

Every time I think I'm out...

THEY suck me right back in. One of the managers at Talayna's got fired. One of two. I won't go into detail, because I don't want to embarass (sp?) him. Seriously though dude, WTF? You're lucky you didn't get reported and put on the dangerous sex offenders list. (man, doesn't that sound juicy. Way better than what really happened. Don't you wish you knew me in person? then you could ask for the real story.)

So there is an opening for a manager. Like most fortune 500 pizzarias Talayna's only hires from within it's existing staff. Are the pieces falling together yet? I don't wnat to end up managing a pizza place again, not really. Plus, I know how much it'll piss everyone off, me wasting my talent like that. But I will have ample time to work on the site, and it'd be a good excuse to go back to school. It would be cool to have my life sorted out and my own place before summer, so I could go to school and finally get a degree or two. Major in graphic design/graphic art and minor in web design/production? Sounds like what I'm doing now. Only I pay them to learn. Then they give me a little piece of paper and say, "Good luck in the real world, hoser!" Sweet. But I am about ready to do all that. In fact, I am. At least I think so. All my own decisions, and whatnot.


Now, a confession: I found all of those pictures in my camera like three days after spades night. I DIDN"T REMEMBER ANY OF THEM. I didn't remember this photo, or putting a sticker on poor scout, or anyone else for that matter. I didn't remember the pyramid, either.

Sheesh.

Slacker (for ma peoples)

I took off work today so that I could spend some time during human hours to post these photos before they got stale. Plus, Fridays pretty much suck tip-wise. $2? Thanks, lady.

As it turns out, the secret to a good 'fro is really cheap shampoo.

Looks like B.O.B. is getting into the creative commons mood on T.H.U.G. 2. But who is that pirate behind him?

The following photos are from spades night.

One Monkey short.

Scouty Scout Scout (doesn't have fingers.)

I can't tell, but I think Apple likes what I'm doing with the 704d.com sticker.

Gnu was not amused.

But I think Kimba could see my vision.

Sticker sniper strikes again!

But some times enough is enough.

Or is it...

Tribute to HST (closure)

I made this picture the other day. It was originally supposed to be for the main page, but I kinda got out of hand. A little to big for a masthead, and too complicated for a background. Here's a snippet:

Click for [full] size

Yes, that's your's truly standing in the background of a young HST. I particularly dig the wristband. Classy.

I know that Dooce would tell you exactly how she did it and how you could do it as well, but I ain't her. I'll tell you a few tips, though, and maybe you could figure out the rest. I like to think my readers are half-way intelligent, but who am I kidding? lol. [Please note, this is not a how-to guide. It is simply a story on how I made this particular image. I've got to keep some secrets for myself>;-)]

The first tricky part of this "image hack" was the fact that whoever's site I [stole] it from had it in some retarded macromedia viewer, and I couldn't right click and save as. No problem there, as a master of mixed-media I simply took out my sony DSC and took a picture of Kimba's high resolution screen. (I believe I will continue to use this technique, as the image comes out all nice and clean and big. You can always shrink an image, but it will distort if you enlarge it, even in Photoshop.)

So I have this bigass image of a computer screen and as you can see in the final piece that I left part of the screen on, as sort of a happy accident thing. It saves me the trouble of trying to add text, and it is really in the picture. The next thing to do was possibly the hardest part, but luckily the lighting in Kimba's house is "interesting." I needed a believable image of myself to insert into the background. If you saw this post, you'll see the final image I used. I set my camera on the windowsill, and took about a hundred different shots facing different ways with the light off, on, and all points in between. (Remember, digital film is free, and you can always delete the crappy images or the ones that make you look stupid.

I had just started drawing a red outline around myself. After that I blocked out all of the background and selected it with the magic wand. Then I selected the inverse (all that was not red) and cut it out. (actually, I copied it. Never use "cut" unless you are purposefully destroying that part of an image.)

Next, I went back to the original image (hold on, I'm looking) here:

and duplicated the layer, so now there's one picture ontop of the other. Then, I cut out from the top copy the area behind the bar where I was going to go. If you can see it in your head, there's now two pictures, one missing a section, but you can still see it because the bottom copy is still whole.

The next step is to paste the image of myself over the bottom copy, but under the top copy. imagine picking up a piece of paper and sliding another photo between the two. Then I resized the layer with my image so I would look natural in the background. I made sure that my head was smaller than hunter's by a bit, and my hands appeared to be a bit larger than the keys on the register.

The rest is just a matter of asthetics. First I made all the layers B&W so I lost the blue from the original and color from me. Then, I changed the threshold on my layer (different than bright/contrast.) Next, Kimba helped me get the brightness and contrast correct (thanks, BTW.) Lastly, I Despeckled (sp?) the layer to give me a grainy, old-picture look. I honestly cannot remember exactly how I did this, but that's just going to be one of my secrets.
That's it. I guess if I recieve a hundred or so emails from you guys I can try to make a little more sense out of it. No one asked Ray Charles how he did what he did.

AMF

Annoyed

THE stupidest thing I may have ever heard...

"I know good things are going to start happening for me because...LOOK AT MY CAR! THANKS MTV for pimping my ride!"

Bug Juice

Bug Juice
Originally uploaded by Master Toad.

Ewwwwwwww

Initial Shock

The initial shock of any event is always the most entertaining part. The resulting story or stories never have the same impact or value. The perpetrator called and appologized. They said it was ont their intention to decieve me. Indeed, they thought I was aware of the salted cigarette, and just wanted to make sure I wasn't interested. Apparently NO doesn't mean fucking NO anymore. I have accepted perpatrator's apology, to a degree. I'm still pretty pissed that someone didn't listen to me, however the matter is pretty much settled. Here is some official Pirate advise: Don't hang around coke-heads when they are using. They act like normal people pretty well about two days later, but a drug user is just a drug when they are using.

"You can turn your back on a person, but never turn your back on a drug. Especially when that drug is waving a huge goddammned hunting knife in your face." -Hunter S. Thompson.

At one point during the evening, peer-pressure came into play. Well, the phrase was brought up, antway. I have never understood peer pressure. I make my decision about something, and that's it. I guess it's just because I'm weird, but I dunno. NO amount of cojoling will get me to change my mind when It's made up. Except in the face of logic, truth, where the truth always prevails. I guess that's why stuff was so weird in high school. I had already made my mind up about what I was and wasn't going to do, and it seemed stupid to hang around the kind of people that did those things. I just didn't want to deal with peer pressure. Have to tell each and every person to screw off.
But then again, that was when I was going to church, and they pretty much told me what I was and wasn't going to do. But I was under the impression that that was what I thougt myself (Brainwashing is a bitch) so I guess it didn't/doesn't matter.

Interesting sidebar, at the bottom: I've never done coke before, I have screwed up sinuses. My nose will just start bleeding every once in a while. No reason. Doing coke seems about as good an idea for me as scrubbing the inside of my nose with a brillo pad. Or steel wool, whichever image is more unpleasent for you. Once, while sitting around a few people doing it, I actually got a bloody nose. (Psychosomatic?) SOmeone offered me some blow, said it might "clot my shit up." I never said drug people were smart. Well, I didn't. I mean why would I? All kinds of people do all kinds of things. I know that. Hopefully you do too. Hopefully.

Awaiting Title

After 7 years of participating in the drug counter-culture, meeting countless losers, soon-to-be losers and everywhere in between, one of my own so-called friends tries to spike my cigarette with cocaine. Man, Bitches are stupid. If you want the whole story, give this author a call, after 2pm. I just got home, and I need some rest.