well….

so, yesterday was one of those anti-motivation days. this, of course, is not to be confused with a “non-motivational” day, where you you just AREN’T motivated to do anything; this was ANTI-motivational; where the longer your day drags on, the less you feel like accomplishing. you know the kind i’m talking a bout? what disturbs me most is, i’ve been having those a LOT.

after having to hang at the office an extra half an hour since some people apparently can’t tell time or commit to the days they say they’ll work or an unhappy combination of the two, i was off to san marcos to get what i determined to be the remaining 3% of the cross on my stomach done. but once i got there, and we started trying to work in the two minor tribal chunks of the puzzle, we realized they didn’t really work and in fact kinda brought the design DOWN. both of us tried to make it work, and it just didn’t happen. i even “pulled a harold” and tried, got everything lined up just the way i wanted, and it was no go.

by “pulled a harold” i’m referring to the rather sizeable tattoo on harold’s chest and shoulders. harold is, of course, the tattoo artist who does my work (i liked his stuff so much i even had him RE-do the few i had that he had never touched; and trust him enough to let him work on the one body on this planet i value more than my own) and is also the owner of Sharp Things in san marcos. that’s Sharp Things, the only tattoo / piercings studio good enough to be on the square in san marcos. where’s the square, you ask? here’s a better way of finding it: Sharp Things, 109 E. Hopkins, San Marcos, TX, 78666 (i am NOT making that zip code up, and legend has it there’s a reason for it) 512.353.1170.

can you tell we spent the bulk of tuesday night coming up with marketing/advertising ideas and i am still in FULL blown “plug it till it hurts” mode. and speaking of “plug it till it hurts”, don’t forget my birthday approacheth in june…do i actually get to plug anyone till it hurts this year? but i digress…where was i? oh yeah..harold’s chest piece….

i don’t know what the actual pagan/wiccan term is for the guy, but it’s the leaf guy. the tree “god” that has a face made of leaves…kinda the king of the forest. you know the one i’m talking about? anyway, he’s done in black, and appropriately green, on the center of harold’s chest, with twisty, medieval looking tree branches coming off of him going around harold’s nipples and up onto his shoulder blades. but what makes the piece TRULY unique is the fact that harold did all this HIMSELF, for the most part looking in a mirror as he went. that is fucking AMAZING…and yesterday, i tried it (all be it with a fine point sharpie, but i tried it none the less) on my tribal cross, and it was to absolutely no avail. just so the trip wouldn’t be wasted, we talked marketing strategies all night, and came up with some good ideas and good ad campaigns…

for where, you might ask? for Sharp Things….109 E. Hopkins…San Marcos, Texas…78666…512.353.1170

okay, i’ll stop…for now.

Replies: 1 Comment

He’s called the “green man” – the old man of the forest, occurs quite a bit in northern european mythology…

astrofishy said @ 05/29/2002 01:40 PM GMT

torn

see, here’s my problem. well, one of them; since you readers who know me personally can probably come up with quite a list (don’t feel inclined to share, okay?) when it comes to weekends, i’ve always been somewhat torn. on the EXTREMELY rare occasion i actually HAVE a full weekend; i.e. 48 hours with no work, no shows, no games no NOTHING that i’m getting paid for, i always felt the time needs to be divided. half TOTAL relaxation, half productive.

part of the problem is my personal definition of “productive”. to my sometimes feeble little mind, it means just doing “something”; anything with a positive outcome. paint the bathroom = productive. get the laundry done = productive. mow the yard = productive. most of you are saying to yourself (though hopefully not out loud, lest people around you think you’re odd), “well, DUH” (newsflash…most of the people around already think you’re odd since you have a page you religiously read that contains the word “whore” in the url…but for that, i thank you) see, i also consider it productive if i go out and get a tattoo finished, as i did on saturday (okay, so to MY satisfaction, it’s only 97% complete…but twenty more minutes manana and we’re all good). so, since i did that saturday (in addition to going to a rr express game with jim, kathi, and the family and going to a roller derby girl party (i’m NOT making that up..they offered me an audition as the league’s announcer) with kramer) so, i considered saturday the “productive” day; and sunday i just sat around, watched the depeche mode live dvd, and went into austin for some weekend wrap-up boozing with josh. keep in mind i crashed so hard on saturday night that i didn’t get up till after the ass-crack of noon, so the day just FLEW by…

then came monday. for once, i had THREE days with NO work….so, time to be productive again, right? paint. clean. launder. that was the plan. well, i didn’t do a lot of that. or, to be more accurate, i didn’t do hardly any of that. or to be dead-on balls accurate (name the movie THAT term is from) i didn’t do ANY of that. i DID have a good work-out, set the tattoo appointment for tomorrow, saw spiderman (excellent..and now i want to try kissing a girl while i’m upside down), and ate ribs (leaving enough leftovers so tomorrow’s lunch is covered) but as far as “productive” is concerned, in the textbook definition, i didn’t accomplish much.

that’s a shame, since next weekend i have NO time. saturday i drive up to dallas, hang out with some friends, and then go see the pet shop boys, after which i get to drive BACK from dallas and crash. but not for TOO long, since i then have to drive to SA in the morning to work a sunken gardens show in the afternoon. then on monday, i get to work a full eight hour day, go out to the backyard (STILL my favorite austin venue, i’ll grant you..and apparently where i’ll be working a LOT, including the fourth of july) and work the nickleback/jerry cantrell show until late that night. tuesday, i get to work an eight hour day again, then after 5:00 move tons of stuff out of our old office and into storage so the space can be sub-let. then wednesday, hop in the car and drive to fort hood to install a ticket system on the largest army base in the free world (thanks, josh). thursday, you can view my body in state at mccurdy’s funeral home.

actually, that was a bit tacky, since what i REALLY get to do is go work, then sit down and start writing (presuming i try and plan ahead for this one) for the eulogy i have to give at my grandmother’s memorial service which will FINALLY happen that saturday (there was no rush since she donated her body to science and they were booked solid since we are kinda in the middle of “wedding season” here) and the whole family is expecting me to be witty, funny, and (motherfucking) charming from the same pulpit where i stood and delivered my own mother’s eulogy six years ago even though i haven’t stood in that spot (or for that matter, in ANY church) since.

anyone wanna spot a brother some REALLY good weed? about a weeks worth? feel free to mail me with the details…

Replies: 1 Comment

technically ft hood is the largest base in the free world. what show is at sunken gardens?

josh said @ 05/28/2002 03:24 AM GMT

they make a sunday MORNING now?

i love my body. i don’t mean that in the pompous, arrogant, “yo, check me out” kinda way (although my new upper body stuff i’ve been doing in the gym HAS been getting some pretty good results); i mean that on the occasion that it just NEEDS something, and this little overactive mind of mine doesn’t provide for said need, it will simply take it; occasionally by sneaking it out of it. allow me to explain….

i had it explained to me long ago (by my mom) that my body chemistry was such that it was highly sleep-dep reactive. now, that’s not to say i can’t burn the candle at both ends, or go out and party all night, or something to that effect; far from. but occasionally, my body needs to make up for the sleep loss, and will trick my mind into allowing it to do so when it WANTS to do other things.

i had SEVERAL options planned out for today; the most practical, but least fun (odd how that always seems to work out, huh?) was to stay home and get some cleaning and painting done. since i was away for all of yesterday, this is what i SHOULD be doing, but when other opportunities present themselves (i.e. booze and women) i tend to lean the other way. but since last night, AFTER my five-and-a-half hour stay at sharp things (tattoo studio – i’ll explain that in a bit), and after watching the sa missions get their asses handed to them by the round rock express, i kept the sports theme of the night alive by going to a party thrown by some of the girls in the austin roller derby league, and ended up with a pseudo-job offer to come audition to be there announcer. we’ll see about that.

but i get home, check mail, and instantly pass out without setting my alarm; i wake up once in the middle of the night, REALIZE i have no alarm, and go to set it so i’ll get up early, and maybe get some work done before i go out to play, and all of a sudden my body says, “no…you have to pee.” which i NEVER have to do in the middle of the night. so, when i crawl back into bed, without setting the alarm yet, i can’t remember what i was gonna do before i got up, roll over, and pass out till the ass crack of NOON.

when i get up i’ve missed six calls, have three messages, and all of a sudden, NO plans except to stay home. and i felt GREAT (except for missing one of the calls, but we won’t go in to that now). so now, i’m gonna go wash my stomach, grab some lunch, and send the next TWO days working on the house. might even purposely duck calls that DON’T originate from the 210 area code.

oh yeah, and to explain the “wash my stomach” comment, it goes with the “five-and-a-half hours at the studio” comment; i FINALLY got the cross tattoo finished. and i listened to a suggestion i got from one of the first people to really study it after i got part two of it done last november and left the original piece in it’s original, slightly lighter black so that way you can kind of see it floating in the middle of what ended up being the final product. but because i drew it all from the original drawings, which had to be altered here and there to either fit me or each other at various points and places, what i went in there with yesterday fit what was on paper just fine, but didn’t fit on me worth a damn. we spent almost as much time lining up stencils as we did with the machine going. and when you’ve got dry skin like me, having a stencil put on, wiped off with rubbing alcohol, then RE-applied, wiped off again with MORE alcohol, etc, etc, THEN the needle gets to hit your skin; well, let’s just say it makes the experience a bit MORE discomforting.

but it’s done.
for now.
and now i’m gonna go wash it…and the rest of me, of course…

swimming with the fishes

okay, so i’ve been driving around lately. a LOT. i’ve been to sa so many times in the last couple of months, i’ve lost count. i’ve had to drive around the valley. and corpus. and i never even bring up the 84 mile commute i deal with on a day-to-day basis (that IS round trip, not just one way). but in all my travels, i’ve noticed something. a theologically-based phenomenon….
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a good bitch slapping

in life, we must all have a hobby…and for us hyper-minded gemini folk, we must have several…especially with mercury in retrograde and all; that means others aren’t communicating as well (or as often) with us as we’re used to, and our minds tend to get bored and wander. so a hobby, or mental diversion of some sort, is a VERY good thing. we’ve got play hobbies, domestic hobbies, and even little things we do to make the work day just that much more bearable on the occasions it’s going a little TOO dull. one of MY main hobbies, on that latter one, is bitch-slapping ma bell around and making her look REALLY bad.

i’ll warn you, this next paragraph might seem a bit slanderous, and if you DO work for the phone company, understand that i’m only reporting what i had to deal with and how it went down. no personal opinions shall enter into this….

so, a new albertson’s was scheduled to open in south austin, and since all of them (those left still standing, that is) are our ticket outlets, we had to get a phone line installed so our system could dial out. we call sbc and order the line. about four days later, i get a call at the office…

“sean? this is travis from southwestern bell…i’m installing your line in that new grocery store on william cannon…”

“uh-huh…”

“well, anyway, sir, we’ve hit a bit of a snag here. i’ve got the line coming into the d-mark room (the big patch panel of phone lines in any major structure where they all come in from the outside), but i can’t run it up to the courtesy booth like you asked….”

“..and why NOT?”

“well…see….(his voice trailing as he desperately tries to come up with something)..there aren’t any wires running up to the front of the store from here. the cabling just isn’t there. so, rather than do this for the $100 fee we said we would, i’d have to charge you for a ‘time-sensitive’ call, which will run you about $85 an hour with a two hour minimum so i can run fresh cabling through the ceiling, and it should take about six hours”

(do the math – that’s $510 to do what they said they’d do for $100)

“so, you’re telling me that they built a store, brand new, and forgot to put phone lines to their courtesy booth? then why is it that when i CALL the store, they answer the fucking PHONE up there?!?!?”

“well, sir, and i need you to watch your language, these are a different type of line…”

interesting thing is, the phone guy that went out for texas lottery, and the phone guy that went out for moneygram money orders, all said the same thing. that the cabling wasn’t there. that it would have to be a “time sensitive” big money visit. i never use this word, especially after listening to the crack-pots that used to call the hightower show, but i smells me a conspiracy. so, my response….

“fine….just charge me the $74 for your five minutes worth of work, leave it at the d-mark, and i’ll come in tomorrow, do YOUR job, make MY line work, and send MA BELL an invoice, since your ‘trained professional’ self can’t do a simple line hook up…puta BITCH!!!” (okay..got a bit personal there towards the end, didn’t i?)

“sir, you do what you feel you can do, i’m just telling you how it is…”

the next day i went out, and made our line work…and never ran one INCH of cabling. i then did up an invoice, sent it to sbc, and NEVER got paid.

it should be noted, that the day i showed up, i was told an sbc tech was in the back to fix the lotto line; but he wasn’t. he parked his van up front, made this big show of going back there, must have seen some secret coded message on the wall, and snuck out the back door, which is conveniently right by the d-mark. ’cause he, his van, et al, were gone…and the line was still dead up front. an hour later, mine was the only one that worked…

if you go to a restaurant, and order a $12.99 rib eye, they don’t get to come out and say, “well…you know…that steak took a bit longer to grill then we expected, so we’re gonna have to charge you $19.99 instead”…so why on earth does sbc think they can do it?

they’re pulling the same crap with one of my new outlets in san antonio, and me and randy are sick of it; so today, it’s off to sa…we’ll see how that goes. they’ve been making me wait three weeks for this one, so if i make this work, they will SO hear about it…

Replies: 2 Comments

“we don’t care, we don’t have to, we’re the phone company.”

astrofishy said @ 05/23/2002 02:20 PM GMT

they do it because for years they were the only game in town. you had to use them. it’s not the case anymore, but they still have the same attitude because most of the “higher ups” there have worked there since the dark ages before bell was split up. they just don’t care.

josh said @ 05/23/2002 01:37 PM GMT

booze

so, it’s quite rare these days that a tv commercial makes me laugh out loud. and while i don’t endorse this product (captain morgan’s rum) my tattoo genius (harold – doing the final phase of the cross on my stomach this weekend) does. now that liquor is welcome again in tv land, they get to grab my attention just like everybody else…and captain’s did it well.

trying to play off that whole, “our shit is the manliest shit you can get” scenario, they paint out aerobics as a sport – a SPECTATOR’S sport, and a bon fire only being a bon fire if it can be seen from space; but it’s the middle one in the ad that made me laugh DAMN hard. it’s a guy, he’s holding open the door to a bar with a shit-eating grin on his face (like the captain morgan’s “mascot” on the bottle label) as a gorgeous woman walks by him, and the announcer says,

“if you’re the kinda guy who knows how to treat a lady…”
(another gorgeous woman walks by him and into the bar)
“…and her neighbor…”
(another gorgeous woman walks by him and into the bar)
“…and her cousin…”
(ANOTHER gorgeous woman walks by him and into the bar)
“…and some girl she kinda knows from the gym…”

i lost it. couldn’t stop laughing, “hell, yeah!”, i thought. of course, it’s a real man who’ll date a woman who would be all over that sort of thing on her own, and would be your partner in crime in getting the other girls drunk and back to y’all’s place, because they’d never suspect HER, even though she was wanting it almost as much, if not more, than you. but, once again, i digress…

this brings to mind an email i got the other day; after i put up the piece about the end to my weekend, and having to be at the carwash five hours before i had to be up and in the shower (for reasons i WON’T go back into for the sake of kimberly, busty lil’ porn star in training) that read, “you know…i see booze mentioned a lot in here; and you always DRIVE home to write this page. you DO know that’s illegal, right?”

well, to be honest, it is. and it isn’t. i’ve spoken to police officers about this (never on the record and never in an unfriendly situation, i.e. when they’ve pulled me over or something) and they admit, as i’ve suspected, that there are really TWO kinds of drunk drivers on the road. those over the LEGAL limit, and those over their PERSONAL limit.

now, i know a few people who’s personal limit seems to be below the legal limit. total light weights. i’m not criticizing, i’m just saying (FAR from criticizing; actually, a couple of you get REALLY fun after very little alcohol; and for that, me, and my wallet, thank you). but the point is, if they blew into a breathalyzer, they would be legal; but driving in such a state probably wouldn’t be the best thing in the world to do.

then there’s he rest of us. the ones that can jet ski past the legal limit around round numero quatro, make it a six pack of rounds, and STILL make it home without anyone being the wiser. this comes from a happy combo of size, skill, and practice. i have a friend who, FAR before i started drinking at all (i never touched the stuff till i was 27 and have witnesses to prove it) was telling me about this; how much like any other skill in the world, practice makes perfect when it comes to driving with some booze in you. in fact, at the time, this guy was actually a BETTER driver when he was boozed than when he was sober. of course, that was because he would follow the one cardinal rule you HAVE to follow if you decide to cross that line like a teamster scab…

“don’t fuck around”

don’t speed. don’t have your seat belt off. don’t pull a u-turn across six lanes of traffic to change from going the wrong way down a one-way street while your girlfriend’s blowing you and you’re on the phone. all just hypothetical examples, of course; but the basic theme is, don’t do anything that will draw unnecessary attention to yourself. or you’ll end up like my buddy who has to BLOW HIS CAR in order to drive it.

sad state of affairs when your friend’s pontiac sunfire gets more hummers in a day then you do in a month, huh?

of course, he’s made it such a lifestyle, it’s scary. don’t get me wrong, he still drinks. a lot. he just doesn’t get caught anymore; and gets someone ELSE to blow his car when need be. but what’s scary was the other day when i got some ink done in san marcos and he and i were supposed to work that night. he came up to the studio to retrieve his car (which had been there over night since he KNEW he couldn’t blow to start it the night before) and even though it was now FIFTEEN hours later, he STILL registered as too intoxicated to drive, without having a DROP the whole time…meanwhile, later that night, when i dropped him off at a bar after i drove us home from work, i was able to start his car less than two minutes after putting away a double crown and coke.

see, there is such a thing as being TOO professional at this; and if you’re at issue fifteen HOURS after you put the bottle down, maybe it just needs to stay down for a while, you know? there – off my soap box.

be safe this memorial day.

that counts as community service, right? tell that to my P.O. to get him off my ass, okay?
(i am SO kidding about that)

the weekend, part iii “painting day”

okay, so “painting day” didn’t quite live up to it’s name. YES, painting got done. it did. really. but let’s look at how, or more accurately WHEN painting day ended. let’s put it this way; it’s 2:30 am (on monday; only five and a half hours before i have to leave for work, and i haven’t slept yet) , and i JUST emptied the ashtray with the butts of benita’s visit earlier, which ended at 7:00 (right after the season finale for the simpsons, which we were both a bit disappointed with) and right before my somewhat ill-fated trip to the alamo city.
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the weekend, part ii

okay, so i FINALLY had a decent girl show experience last night; don’t get me wrong, the others haven’t been BAD, per say; just not as good as last night; first off, un-like no doubt, the crowd did not make me feel prematurely geriatric; which is always a good thing with the ol’ 3-1 approaching in exactly one month (that’s right, kids – only 30 more shopping days till my birthday).
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balance

life is all about balance. light and dark. yin and yang. happiness and sadness. and my life lately is NO exception. in fact, it’s more the textbook definition there of. this week, for example…monday, wednesday, friday is all about working out with weights and cardio. tuesday-thursday is all about eating crap, smoking cigars, and drinking heavily (probably do a bit of that last one on friday, since i DID skip thursday as far as that was concerned, unfortunately). and through it all, thank the fates, i’m STILL losing weight. without sunlight, there is no shadow, i suppose….
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