Just a note, a shout out and thanx for the coffee cash to Julie and George.... :-)

Much appreciated. :-)

Although Jules ... you could make it out to Nawleans and figger its gonna take a coupla years to make it to Gotham???

C'mon now.. you an' hubby get your asses out here this fall....

Th' best time.

I hear the hotels are having discount pimp rates then....




------

Here are some random half-assed pics..






















Been feeling kinda half-assed lately....

But. Ive been having a decent time of life these last coupla weeks.

In spite of the nagging pit of worry in my gut - its been a decent time. Kinda amazing.

Feelin' better...

More changes to come.
---------

When theyre angry or worked up, Ive found New Yorkers switch their speed pattern, and it often becomes faster, animated and more colorful as the spaces between their words disappear.

These arent facts, just empirical observations.

I was under the impression, that the tendency pretty much holds true for most of the folk on the other side of the river, in Jersey....

Not so much. No.

Sarcasm. A highly refined form of sarcasm. Where you'd expect a torrent of words and verbal responses, you get this sarcasm.

I mean, sure - you'll get a "Get out of the fuckin' road, you fuckin' retard" where its appropriate, naturally.

But no, in extremis - this.. almost subdued.. sarcasm pops up.

Turning back to our modern primer on all things New Jersey, The Sopranos, I now notice the character of Carmella Soprano.. where if she gets angry or expressing disgust.. she usually expresses it with a quiet sarcasm.

I swear, that is not far off from what I observe around me.

An example:

After diving past a line of cars trying to get off the route 3 exit, instead of waiting in line, cuts in front of this car. (Eh, they drive worse than that in New York.)

So she looks in the rear view mirror and goes..

That man looks angry. Gee. I would be too if I were him.

Ok, maybe thats not exactly what I was referring to, but I found that hilarious. :-)

Its just something Ive started noticing being here in Joisey.

Along with that jersey girl uniform of baby-t's and skin-tight pants ("Yeah, everybody wears that here").. there seems to be a definite pattern here.

I'll keep watching and listening.
----------------
Me: "Maybe that wise-guy kinda accent you have..."
Her: "Ive got an accent?"
Me: (pause)"Uhhh...yeah.."
Her boyfriend: (seemingly just as puzzled, in a different variation of the accent) "She's got an accent?"

At that point, Im wondering if theyre just being sarcastic, fuckin' with me .. or they really dont notice...
-----------------

To blow off steam, we headed over to the local pool hall last nite...

Heh. I cant play for shit, but she can.

LilBro and Bro-in-Law are cut-throat pool players.. mebbe I need lessons from them. :-)













Heh. Reminded me of the flick "Color of Money"....

Horrorscope

Certain situations must be allowed to work themselves out in their own time and their own way.
If you interfere, you will only make matters worse. That, in a nutshell, is the message of the stars today, so switch off from what is going on in the world around you and focus on what is going on closer to home.
Make love your ambition.

Yeah. And it feels right.
-----------

(Boring Tech talk... Im just venting..)

To Do List:

- Fix Server Security Problems
*groan*
The power went out during a thunderstorm, and since then - flaky crap has been happening ... machines had trouble logging in etc. And my server logs started filling up with error messages.

Fixed after I uninstalled Win2000 Service Pack 2.

Did I mention I hate Microsoft?

(Yes Clint, I know, i know...)

- Organize and reset print queues.

After above mentioned power outage, I lost access to the printers from ONLY Win2000 machinas. *groan*.

Status: Fixed.
Reason: I had set the firewall software to "paranoid", rendering the server invisible to 'untrusted' machines. *doh*

There were 8 other things on my To Do list for the day. Hopefully, I'll get to 'em.

If I feel like it.

Fredlet said the other day:

I chose not to go after the fulltime tech job again.
Frankly, I could get some heinous tech support or QA job again, but I'm so very over that phase of my life. Now I get discounts on stuff, free coffee, a part time schedule worked around my design so that instead of being paid a lot and work for another fat, mean, know-it-all asshole I can be paid less, do what I love... and be employed by me — a mean, know-it-all asshole =:)
Oh the irony.

Aint it ironic indeed.

Now, Im spending my days doing tech work in a coffeehouse. :-)

At least I get to meet all kinds of cool folk....

And the art and free caffiene feeds da soul. :-)

Her face became flushed as she declared "Not ALL women are goldiggers.. and youve got gay men who do that too.."

Hello. I didnt say that. Apparently I had struck a rich nerve (so to speak.. heheheh) when I mentioned I'd been reading up on hacking techniques, and said the techniques used to infiltrate firewalls, web sites and networks seemed AWFULLY similiar to techniques used by women (okay some women.. and some men too) to identify if someone had money, and ways to get at it.

Yeah, I keep finding its an AWFULLY touchy subject in general.

While reading, it had brought to mind the day when the dot-com wealthy founders of a former client came to New York for a meeting with us.

The place was abuzz as all the women were in a dither in anticipation of meeting real honest-to-goodness dot-com millionaires. Near billionaires, really. (This was before The Crash.. they are mere multi-millionaires now...).

I swear, you wouldve thought these were actually royalty by the way folk in the studio were dressed and primped for the day. Not obviously dressy, but definitely not casual.

To get it out of the way, the guys themselves turned out to look like ordinary schlubs, rumpled dress shirt and a hawaiian shirt, both wearing jeans, but The Beau way back when in Chicago had taught me a sure fire technique on how to sniff out quiet money.

As Spike Lee put it in those Nike commercials ...."Its the shoes, Its gotta be the shoes."

Their shoes were hand-made, well buffed and of soft leather. And because I was looking for it, knew they cost more than Ive blown on a wardrobe in the last 3, no FIVE years.

But Im an amateur. The PROFESSIONALS who swept in as the guys entourage, the PR flacks and sales were themselves royalty.

Manhattan Royalty.

Royalty of manhattan lunching legend, the NY Post gossip columns and Hamptons Polo get togethers.

I swear, my jaw was on the floor as these denizens of the Upper East Side, Connecticut and the Hamptons had descended from up on high, kissing ass. This meant these guys were IMPORTANT.

Wow.

You dont miss A Lunch, A Facial or A Society Do for just anybody.

These Manhattan femmes of cyn's NY wet dreams (JOKE JOKE, heheheh), had long identified the exact worth of these guys and were expertly buffing them, forming a phalanx and controlling everything happening.

These guys thought they were in charge.

They had been lunched, schmoozed and hacked so expertly, I doubt they even felt it.

I think I stared at these expensively dressed, expensively made up and expensively smelling creatures all during the meeting.

They hardly noticed me, black and sloppily dressed, even though I was the one who had to make everything hook together.

No, strike that - they turned their laser-like attention to me when the guys were talking to me during the meeting and joking with me afterward.

It sure felt like a firewall port scan.

Heh. as I was only wearing Shoes from Payless, they quickly ignored me when the spotlight fell away. :-)

The memory of that day was still sharp in my mind as she continued about a rich guy who had been wining and dining her ..."..and he said 'You were just leading me on'... Can you BELIEVE that??"

I kept my thoughts to myself, as Ive learned recently its a touchy subject that many dont want to admit to.

When my time comes, there shall be no convertibles and Im gonna have my shoes made at Payless.....

Ok, mebbe at the Prada outlet store in Milan.

Heat



And then it broke...





and has been 'breaking' these last coupla days....


------------

Der horrorscope:

VIRGO
Just over a week from now the sun will move into your birth sign and a new solar year will begin.
So no matter how bad things may look right now, they'll soon look a whole lot better. It doesn't matter if you feel down or depressed.

That's a natural part of the cycle. Keep smiling. You've been through tougher times than this.

Yep. And *that* sounds like a plan...

The Cappy and I went to the Fashion District today.

I thought I knew the place. MAN.. I thought Canal Street was the shopping capital of New York.

Uh-uh. It was eye-opening to see where the street hustlers and other merchants of NY shop for THEIR shytte wholesale..

Dont come through without a Tax ID and or 50 dollar minimum.. but hey - those 10 dollar watches on Canal Street.. how does 4 for 6.99 sound?

It started raining, out popped the action and the vendors started yelling "Umbrellas here!!"

Not yer usual 10 dollahs, or even the 8 dollar 'sale' that is normal everywhere else in NYC.

TWO DOLLAHS!!!

Gahhhhhhh..DAYUM!!

Shit. Im here for 4 years, and I didnt know this???

Da possibilities!

Hell, now I know how to hustle for a few dollars.

Heh.. I may just sell those socks on Wall Street.. :-)
----------

Ha!!

I like it. :-)

The visiting Duetsche chica I met at TimthePhotographers rooftop bbq, got back to germany and wrote a note.

It seems I have a new nickname:

Autobahn.

Hee.

You would get a kick out of it too if you knew how my license got to be very, very, very suspended. :-)

I heard the call several times..

"Should I answer it?", I asked my advisor - the one who protects me with analysis and reason.

Without emotion, he answered quietly; "It may not be for you."

"It seems like it is.. this time."

"It could be calling for any number of people. It could be calling out to you and many others at the same time."

"Yes."

I eyed his sword, now lightly sheathed, but used with surgical precision and ruthlessness to protect me many times from fools who had carelessly connected to my heart before. It didnt give them another chance to hurt me again.

Those were its orders, and for years it did its job.. often pre-emptively.

It knew what the costs were if it didnt.

But this time, I had asked it to hold on the downward stroke - until it was proven. And in this case, it acted with restraint.

I asked it to, even though I'd been furious and in pain at being a fool. At being called a fool. At being in a long line of fools.

I heard the call again, stronger - after a bit of silence...

"It sounds like its speaking to me..."

"It has spoken to you before.. but then has usually answered your queries with distance, obliqueness, silence and ... untruths. Often when youve answered, you were told the call was for someone else, or no one in particular."

"True."

My advisor wasnt without compassion. He didnt call me a fool. Not like my friends who said it behind my back and to my face when I had trusted the voice, nor when the voice called me one for not listening to unspoken truths.

I had gone on faith then, and this would require another leap of faith.

My advisor heard those thoughts and engaged me in a light game...

"When a cat purrs, is it purring just because it needs you?"

"No, a cat purrs for any number of reasons."

"When a cat meows, do you come running?"

"It may make me wonder, but it may just meow to get attention, or to express discomfort or hunger. Or it may be just meowing for other purposes and to other people.
But no, I try to find out if the meowing is to me, purring for me or trying to get my attention.
Otherwise, I pay it no heed.
As a cat often does things because it is simply being a cat."

My advisor just stared ahead out into the darkness, as I finished "But that does not mean a cat is just a cat."

He nodded, but didnt answer as he gazed out in the darkness. I got his point. He got mine.

We heard the call again.. and could hear its lilted tones against the dark..

"You may want to answer this voice, but the last time you spoke directly to it.. it simply answered 'yes' when you asked it if you were just deluding yourself as to its intentions."

"Yes. And that seemed to be that."

"You have work to do. You have other voices you need to listen out for. It loves many people at once - in the past, now and the future, and may even love you - but it didnt love you enough to talk to you honestly until you started ignoring it. Or even had the courage to tell you what you needed to hear... until you walked away."

"So, is the call for me?"

"It may be, it may not be, but it doesnt matter if the voice isnt talking to you directly."

"So what should I do?"

"Ask the voice if it is really talking to you. If it is true, it will find the time to come close to your ear and answer you honestly and directly.
You should ask for nothing less. You give nothing less, so you deserve nothing less."

"If it doesnt?"

The advisor reached down and touched the hilt of his scimitar lightly, but with purpose, answered simply.."Then I will do my job again."

And with that we both fell silent, as we heard the call again.. both wanting to respond in our own ways.