Underwear Perverts are on the loose

Terrifica is not alone, anymore. Maybe she can now find true love. (But she'll probably mace him.)

There's been a rash lately of people dressed as Super Heroes acting retarded. Well, more retarded.

First, (Well, in this latest string. Terrifica was way ahead of these "Johnny Storm come latelys.") there's the Grope-tastic Captain America. The guys at The Smoking Gun have all the details.

"Authorities said Adamcik was in possession of a large burrito and drugs."

That's probably my favorite News Story quote ever.

Next, Sergeant Superman. Since when do soldiers go to their Drill Sergeants about depression? This is a good reason not to do so.

And the latest, and well, not so perverted ... yet: Citizen Prime might be the best candidate yet for Our Girl Terrifica. I'm still sad that that Blind date with The Ultimate Warrior never panned out.

(Terrifica has been a favorite of the Gang over at Dead Pan Fury for many years now. In fact, she was the subject of one of our all-time favorite threads. Also the term "Underwear Perverts" is attributable to Warren Ellis. I don't know that Warren had the type of activity listed above in mind when he coined the term. Then again, he's been to enough Comic Book conventions; this may well be exactly what he meant. )

On we go...

I can't help but get a slight feeling of malaise as the week doesn't end, it just keeps on going.

I really have nothing to bitch about. Lots of people have lots harder shit to do, more often. Whatever.

Placeholder. I'll post more after work.

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

Nice. Smart ass mother fucking friend of mine posts his comment to the place holder. Jackass.

Scroll down, you stupid son of a bitch, you might gain a clue as to what's actually going on.

I actually got out of work early, which ruled, as I got a chance to really play some Warcraft for the first time in, it seems like, forever. My friends have level 70s, they just made alts, and at this rate their alts will pass me up in level.

Class tomorrow, which rocks, and probably will launch intense rehearsal time. It better, anyway, or I might well be fucked.

Sunday Clash

Happy Fucking Sunday. Here's some fucking Clash.

Hit Play, Dickhead.





The Only Band that Matters.

Scatterday.

I slept today. I slept a lot. I think I needed it.

It's good to be busy, but sometimes, even the anticipation of how busy I am, and am going to be, lends itself to an anxiousness that in and of itself is tiring.

So, what the fuck, slept in today. Have chairman commitment manana. Scene partner A will be working, I might see if Elwood is gonna be around; he and I can work on some stuff.

Meanwhile, the good and decent routine I had a year ago, I want... hell, I need to plug that back in, piece by piece. Get back to having a clean house for the sake of having a clean house, cooking food in my own kitchen, taking care of all of those things. My daily readings and meditation.

One thing at a time. Plug that shit back in.

Last night I told a guest off. He was a complete dick. Telling him off cheered me up for the entire rest of the night. I could have handled it better, but fuck that guy. He has to live with the fact that he's a big, fat slob and an asshole. I get to live life. I win.

This is scattered, I know, but I really don't care right now, I'm just sorting. And it feels kind of good. We'll bring it up short of an actual "To Do" list published on the web for all to see, right now. (No promises for later.)

I'm gonna leave you with a quote I got from Artist Coop!'s blog "Positive Ape Index:" I guess Coop had a stressful day yesterday. (Edit: Thursday, I guess, actually.)

"So why do I feel compelled to share all this? Well. I AM a blogger, after all. Vomiting up horribly intimate moments for the amusement of idle cubicle jockeys is what the internets are all about, right?"

Heh. Right on.

I do highly recommend his blog, which reminds me, I need to post a blog roll on this bitch. I need a new camera, too, get some photos up in here. Oh, and apparently, someone is working on an animated "H.R. Pufnstuf." Awesome.

Ninja Noir Pirate

Just got back from hanging out in the Comic Book Shop with The Mighty Archer. Well, that and some errands. Though she is a Ninja and I am a Pirate, we are working toward a common cause. A Film Noir via Comic Book cause. I'll have to watch her, though, she is ninja. Sneaky bitches, those Ninja.

I got in and out of the place without buying anything at all. That may be a first.

This might be a place holder. I haven't decided.

To Post, Perchance to Dream...

Placeholder, kids. Just got back from My Thursday thang and about to go hit class. Well, about to shower so I'm not hated in class. I think I may just have some stuff to postify later tonight.

No, really.
----------------------

Ugh. I just spent an hour on hold, literally. About an hour and ten minutes, really, at One O'Clock in the fucking morning. Well, after Two, when I finally hung up.

When I got home from class both my cable and my internet were out.

I called the Cable company, and here's the real bitch, they never even answered. After an hour the cable came back on and I rebooted the modem and here I am back on the interwebs.

Fucking pisses me off.

I'm tired and pissed. See you tomorrow. (One would hope.)

Technical Difficulties.

Ugh, every thing Tech on the interwebs is pissing me off, but I think it might be getting better.

First the obvious: I wanted to post that video of Mike Daisey and how he handled the assholes who fucked up his work, but it just would not work until now, and yes, I figured out why. It's too tedious to detail right now, frankly.

What pisses me off is that I had just been thinking that, y'know, all this speculation about eventually moving this blog to my own site, hey, why go through all that, Blogger's working out pretty cool, they store all the stuff, I don't have to mess with it, and what the hell, it's good enough for Post Secret right?

Fuckers.

My next bitch is Imgred.com. I shouldn't be pissed at this guy, 'cause he's trying to do a cool thing but it was kind of unclear and now I need to swap a bunch of things out.

The idea behind imgred (Image redirection) is to make it really easy to avoid Hotlinking. Hotlinking (which I am guilty of innumerable times) is when you see a cool picture on the internet, and you link it somewhere else, say a Blog or a forum, and you do so directly from the place you found it. The problem with this is the site that the picture was originally on gets dinged for bandwidth from both sites now, and sometimes that costs the person who originally put the thing on the web money. Not cool. What's considered polite is to save the picture, host it on your own site or at a picture hosting site, and link it from there. This is a pain in the ass, and frankly "Politeness" isn't in terrible abundance here on the interwebs.

So this guy, this imgred guy, he creates a code. You simply put "http://imgred.com/" before the url of the picture, link it normally, like you're Hotlinking it, the code hosts it at the imgred site, and after that, that''s the new url for the picture. He even set it up so it'd automatically create a thumbnail.

Cool, I thought, no more hotlinks or fucking around with Imageshack.

Nope, turns out, "This site was meant as a demonstration, not as a self-sufficient service. If someone on Website A wants to show an image from Website B, the image should be locally cached on Website A. It is up to the Website A programmer to develop such functionality."

So, it's a code I could use if I had a site to host stuff at, and the brain power to implement the code. That is, I could come up with my own, private, "imgred.com" for my pics I wanna "Borrow" off of the net. Well, that's cool, I guess, and while I'm sure I could figure all that out, I'm probably gonna go try and figure out "Flickr" again instead.

Mike Daisey Audience Protest, Walkout and Attack

Holy Shit, this was a pain in the ass.

YouTube and Blogger won't play nice.

I've been trying to post that fucking video for three days now. Pissing me off.

Hmmmm....

This is an unusual place holder.

I had posted a YouTube thing, I thought. With text and commentary. Maybe it just hasn't shown up yet. When I hit publish, it did say that it would show up later. The Kermit the Frog "Hurt" thing worked. I dunno.

I'mo wait, rather than double post. Read yesterday's entry, it kicks ass anyway. If my video shows up, I'll delete this post or something, if not, I'll put something here. Maybe I'll put something here anyway, and you'll get a double entry for once. We'll see, but for now I hafta jet.

Laterz.
-RRR

We're getting the Band back together.

So, today, my scene partner and I for The Blues Brothers put on our costumes and went walking around outside.

It was a very interesting day.

First of all, the casting is spot on. Everywhere we went people smiled. There were all kinds of hilarious exchanges with folks, I don't think I could even remember all of them. People literally pulled over in their cars to say, "Hi." It was more than a little surreal.

At one point we went into Virgin Records, where we pointed out to the Emo "My Chemical Death Cab" kid behind the counter that they only have eight foot of Blues Music for sale, and "What, a mile?" of this, "Rock/Pop Pop-rock stuff," which wouldn't exist without that eight foot of Blues. "How is eight foot supposed to support a mile? It's wobbley, that's what it is." The kid could not stop laughing while we talked to him. With us, at us, I give a fuck. It was hilarious.

Then we went down to Hollywood and Highland, in front of the Chinese Theater. People in various Character Costumes gather here every day of the week and try to make money off of the Tourists who snap pictures and take video and whatever. There are Street Performers, as well. These folks are not hired, they just show up. Everything from Hellraiser's Pinhead to Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, and pretty much everything in between.

We figured, what the fuck, we'd take Jake and Elwood down there and see what happened.

I was kind of expecting some slight hostility from these guys having some new guys show up, but this was not the case. "One of Us, One of Us, We Accept you, One of Us." We were strolling around, just getting our bearings a little bit, when this Homeless Guy came up to us. "Lemme show you something, lemme show you something," and the fucker whips out a harmonica and starts playing. And here's the thing; the fucker was good. I shit you not, he could play the harp. Turns out he had two, an A and a C.

So, what could we do? He played and Elwood and I fuckin' danced. Danced our asses off. Badly.

People took pictures and Video, I told 'em to give the Homeless guy, Enrice, the money. Enrice actually looks, talks and acts like Tony Montana. Anyway, we hung out with him and his friend for a while and actually bought him a bottle. Well, we needed an empty Night Train bottle for the scene anyway, and I'd have hated to waste the booze. So, what the fuck?

Crazy fuckin' day.

Elwood wants to go back, maybe get a boom box, put a little thing together. Why the fuck not, I say.

Why the fuck not?

Crime rates

It is said, apparently, in Crime Watch studies and Police Data Reports, that if a broken window is left unrepaired in a neighborhood for an extended period of time, the crime rate goes up. It would seem, if no one cares enough to fix a broken window, the general attitude of people in and around the area figure no one really cares what goes on, and slowly people just stop giving a shit, and the kind of folks who do things they don't want others to see start to do that sort of shit there. In the neighborhood with the broken window.

I missed two Blog posts this week. Well, almost. We'll say two. Sunday was a conscious decision. I took that day off, I wasn't going to count that. Thursday I flat forgot/didn't get it done. Right now it's Sunday Morning, 2:22 AM, and I just got off of work. This could, and should be considered Saturday's entry, but I didn't even get a place holder up.

We're gonna score that at two missed.

Two posts, that's a busted window. One, what the hell, shit can happen. Two in a week, I gotta take care of that shit. Same shit has happened in my house. I start saying, "Fuck it," about one little thing, next it's uninhabitable for anyone but me and the cat again.

The place holder thing, it's good for me, I think. I'm not sure how it comes off on your end, for the reader, (If anyone is even reading the damn thing. Hi Mom! Sup, Brad?) but it tends to make me feel obligated to finish up with something, which keeps me thinking during my work day (night) what I might post. So, even if it seems cheesy, you may have to put up with it. Comments are, of course, appreciated.

Part of the point of doing it at all is that it seems, for me, writing begets writing. If I write in this damn thing, I tend to write other stuff, and I really need to be writing stuff.

Just now, as I left work, I was telling a friend of mine about back when I used to work at the Flower shop, when I was "The Punk Rock Florist." Just briefly, couple a minutes, telling him some of the circumstances around me getting the job, and the irony of me working there at all. "You gotta write a book," he says. It was nice, with the thought of this Personal Monologue/One Man Show thing on my mind, to be able to say, "I'm working on it," and mean it. I don't know that my working in a Flower shop is fodder for a whole Monologue segment.

But it might be Stand Up material.

Comic Books are Evil

Found this on Boing Boing. They got it Here.

"Webcomic artist Neal von Flue has scanned a page from an old encyclopedia which basically says that comic books are the root of all evil. He found it while helping his daughter do a school paper on "comets," and just, you know, skipped over a couple of pages."

Silverlake Meadow

So, this looks really cool to me:

From Metroblogging L.A.

I'd like to see this open permanently. Probably too damn early for me to make this event, though.

Under the wire

Anyone notice how close I cut it yesterday on the time? Seven minutes to midnight, still got a Monday blog.

The 'Net is back on at my abode; loose connection just when I had no time to track it down. All fixed now.

I need to jump in the shower and run to Acting class just now, so we're gonna call this a place holder. Tuesday blog will be posted after class and before bed, but likely after the Witching Hour. So, watch this space.
------------------

Back from Class. I have a ton of work coming up, and thus, a ton of work to do.

This class has what they call "Booking Week" where you sign up to schedule scenes for the following month. I have four different things that were posted tonight. That's four things, with four different people that I haven't even started yet, or really even picked scenes for. Hell, some of the stuff I've never even seen.

That's a lot.

Plus the scene I'm working on already, and like two or three other things that I'm supposed to start and work in, as well.

The good news about this is, well, apparently people want to work with me. That's pretty awesome. Let's just hope I don't stretch myself too thin, start to suck, and then people stop wanting to work with me.

How about I keep on top of that and not have it happen, eh?

I'm putting up Blues Brothers on Tuesday. We want to do several more scenes from it, plus a song. That's already a go. That's from last Booking Period. Coming up is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Cinderella Man, Mystic River and, apparently, Sin City. We haven't picked specific scenes from any of them, and, in fact, in the case of Sin City, we don't even know if we're doing the Movie, or something from a Graphic Novel. (But I've learned not to say, "No," when a pretty girl wants to do a scene with you where she's likely to be scantily clad.) I haven't even seen Cinderella Man or Mystic River yet.

Also in the works are Of Mice and Men and either True Romance or The Shining, quite possibly both.

I'mo be busy.

Meanwhile, ideas for comedy sketches are floating through my mind again, now. Been jotting those down. Gotta see if the name "A Street Car named Bob," is taken already. Also, need to figure out a follow up for my Monologue. I think that's the thing that got me into this mess.

I'm pretty happy with the mess, at the moment, I have to admit.

Work and Blog

Fuckin internet was out this afternoon before I split for work. Pisses me off more than words can say.

So, I'm actually blogging this from work. On the fly, as they say.

In so doing, I note that that fucking sidebar still gets pushed to the bottom; that REALLY pisses me off.

I better be able to get the net back on here in a few minutes when I get home, or there will be hell to pay.

Sunday, I just took off. Bite me.

Hurt

Build a better....

Okay, this is fucking Rad:



Maker Faire: The Life-Sized Mousetrap

I go to work now.

Holding...holding...

All right, everybody be cool, this is a Bloggery!

Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll line execute every motherfucking last one of ya!

Just got out of a meeting, on my way to Class, this is a place holder; there'll be more tonight. I have some stuff I wanna post but time is short. Hopefully, I'll remember what I wanted to write here in a few hours. I'll throw on a little edit up in here.

See yeh then. (I know you just can't wait.

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

I was in such a hurry, I couldn't close a parenthesis, apparently. Put the placeholder up 'cause I knew I wouldn't sit down 'til after midnight, but this is well before I retire for the night, so as far as I'm concerned this is still Thursday's Blog.

So much shit running through my brain lately, but in a good way. (Mostly)

New Stand up shit, which can probably be directly attributed to my giving more thought to the personal monologue/one man show assignment, though that's in a completely different vein, ideas for other shit, just...almost too much. Shit. Where's that Dung Beetle?

Simultaneously, I'm starting to hate going into work, seriously. I'm broke as shit, I need to work as much as possible right now, but I feel like the place is sucking the soul out of my chest. The truth is probably more that being so constantly on the go, that is the least satisfying, and the one thing I'd really like to skip.

The only way out is really to work even harder for awhile. That really sucks, actually. There's some shit really pissing me off about the job site lately, but I don't wanna go into it now. Could easily get a whole post out of it, but...nah, not right now, at least. Whatever.

I felt the need to pick up a new copy of The Tao of Pooh today. Not sure why now, but that's kind of how that is. Mary took her copy back, but that was, I dunno, a year ago or more. Guess it's just time.

This is Wednesday's Blog....

The "No Word a Lie" post (which is kinda the working title of my show) was actually an entry for Tuesday, so, screw you, that's one a day since Friday.

Had an idea just now, listening to "Barb Wire Love" by Stiff Little Fingers for a light comedy movie set in the late 70's in Belfast with a Pop Punk soundtrack. Kind of "Romeo and Juliette" with Protestants and Catholics and Punk Rock.

Just a thought. I could probably get the guys from STL to help.

No Word a Lie.

So, in my Acting Class tonight, I put up a personal monologue. This was an assignment. It was a story written by me from my personal life. For the purposes of the assignment it did not need to be true, but in this case it was.

Doing this made me more nervous than I thought it would, or should.

I've been told now to do more. In fact, I am being encouraged, or more accurately, out right told, to expand this into a one man show, by not only my teacher, but many of my classmates.

One of the most vocal proponents of my doing this is a man not known for giving much feedback in class. He can be a bit critical. His comment: "Just fucking do it; you are a One Man Show."

So, basically I'm being told to come and stand around talking about myself, for fun and profit.

You're all in trouble now.

[Grin]

Games.

Not much today, but maybe this'll keep you busy:

Rock, Paper Scissors goes to the next level.

Where's "Skull?"

Happy...

These shoes will one day need Bronzing

I'm very tired right now.

One of the things I learned in my absence from this Blog is that not everything is meant to be posted in it; this is both profound and mundane. I didn't post anything, ultimately, that I fell was inappropriate, but there's some shit I can't post in here, and when I'm distracted by that I can't post anything else, and days get skipped. (They get skipped for other reasons, too, but this is a problem.)

I have a very specific, and seemingly harmless example: Last May I was honored to preside over the occasion of my Mother and Step Dad renewing their wedding vows. This was on their anniversary last year. My participation was a surprise for my Mom. About the time my posting fell off I was planning this trip, and was, in fact, very excited about it. I couldn't post about it, obviously, 'cause, well, Mom occasionally peruses my Blog. (Though, if you look carefully, I made a small vague reference to it at one point.)

Is this the sole reason my blogging ground to a halt? Hell no, but it did, indeed, contribute.

The solution, I would think, is in a private journal. Part of the impetus for this endeavor is to write every day, or at least, on a regular schedule. When I come to an impasse, something bouncing around that I can't write about here, for whatever reason, I need to write it down elsewhere.

Writing needs to be part of who I am. Now.

It's vital for many things I do, I intend to do, and for my growth and progress in many areas, not the least of which my recovery.

There are a lot of changes happening in my life. These need to happen, they are necessary. They are also terrifying and painful. Sometimes very, very painful. I need to incorporate this process, this Bloggery, into the transformation. This is where the accountability is. So, baby step number two.

A small start.

So, it's been nearly a year. (Pirate Movie Trailers Notwithstanding) Many things have fallen by the wayside, many things aren't so great. Other things are back on track and better than they've been in years.

One of the things that has, obviously, fallen by the wayside is this Blog. While it would be ridiculous to try and infer that letting my blogging schedule derail led to the decline in these other areas, I think the daily practice, or at least the regular practice of it, was one of the things that helped me keep things on track.

There's a lot to sort through. It could be a bit overwhelming, but I've learned the only way to get through an overwhelming thing is to start small and let go of the results, especially the immediate ones.

So, here yeh go. Baby step number one.

A Welcome Return to The Ordinary

After the deluge of Marriage, Death and Life-Changing surgery, I think it's time to just check in with a nice, relatively mundane post.

Some general updateage:

I will hit on the surgery for a moment: Fan-fucking-tastic. Healing up nice, vision is improving all of the time. Last time I saw the Doc, he said I could go swimming by now, should I wish to... just...incredible. I can actually give you an example of how my eyesight's improving: Two days after the surgery I was at a friend of mine's house, and of course, it was the subject of discussion. One of my friends asked if I could read the titles on some of the books on my friend's shelf. (These were GURPs "splat" books actually, if you happen to be enough of a geek to know what those are.) I could make out a couple, those where the font color was sufficiently contrasted to the color of the cover, and everyone was dutifully impressed when I rattled these off. Two weeks later, I'm at the same house, sitting in the same chair, and I glance over at the bookshelf. I could make out every title except one. The one in question had a font color almost the same color as the jacket, and my friend sitting right next to it said he could barely make it out. I could actually catch a word or two, which pretty much blew him away.

It's pretty fucking cool.

In other news: I temporarily chopped my sideburns off. Some people (believe it or not) will be distressed to hear this. Every once in awhile you just gotta take 'em off, air it out, and grow 'em back from the start, y'know? I just got a haircut, just got the eyes fixed, it was time. Might keep it that way for a minute, but the chops'll be back soon, I'm sure.

Got a new MP3 player: 20 gig iRiver. Just got the damn thing, haven't even really set it up yet. It is charging as I type. The plan is to get an FM modulator and hook it up in the car, get that 6 speaker system working for me. The thing'll hold three days of music, or some shit. I have two cigarette lighter outlets in my center console, I'm hoping if I get the right components, and configure it properly, I can charge it while I drive and have the FM modulator both. Then the car will just be dialed in; I'll only have to take it out to put more of The Punk Rock on it. (or whatever. I bought a Marvin Gaye CD today. Fuck Off.)

Went and saw "V for Vendetta" tonight, finally. I'm sure I'm going to have to go over this several times, in several places, with several people, but my short take on it is this: The Movie is the Pussy version of the story. And they did warp the story. Gutsy, compared to typical Hollywood crap, but Pussy Bullshit compared to the source. If you like the movie, and have not read the original, do not hesitate, go get it right now and read it. I still managed to enjoy myself, and I'll be wearing my Guy Fawlkes mask on November 5th, just for the fuck of it.

Just sorted through a mountain of laundry. I know you'd all love to hear about that. Think I'll start another Blog specifically on the subject. (Hey....)

Let's see, what else? Started another 12 Step Program. Yay for me! I'm Fucked up! Social Hollywood, the GIANT new restaurant the company I work for is opening is letting me have a free dinner as a test run before opening, which is cool. Seriously, this place is Ginormous. They've taken over the old Hollywood Athletic Club, and frankly, I'm curious as to even how they are going to fill the space. Gonna check it out Monday with some friends of mine.

Finally, some technical goals that I want to achieve for this Blog. Nothing fancy, just want to get it out there so I don't fuck it off. A "Blogroll," for one. I've been reading a lot of Blogs lately, and I just need to get one of these up. Share some love, maybe get a link or two back, if I can. Tags. I found a utility that will allow me to tag the entries, I need to get it set up. Blogger doesn't handle this natively, so it will take some doing, but I think it will be helpful. I'm probably going to do a custom header, as well. Something that doesn't just scream, "Hey, Look, it's another Blogger account!" Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I gotta do my own thing. Anyone know how to rig a Flavicon on one of these accounts? Or is that just asking too much? Whatever. I should move it to my own site anyway. I do own "BigSkull.com." Might as well do something with it. Might be a good place to put the Laundry Blog.

Anyway--
Later kids,
-Rob

R.I.P. Mike Roberto.

So, I found out Sunday that Mike shot himself.

I guess it's obvious that there is nothing about this that doesn't suck. The Memorial is tomorrow. Mike was my Bro, and I miss him.

Of the myriad things I hate about this kind of shit is just the inherent drama about the whole thing. Either one keeps completely tight lipped about it, or you end up dropping unsuspecting bombshells on innocent people asking shit like, "What are you doing Thursday?"

And, of course, throwing dirt on someone you used to hang out with sucks balls, as well.

Sunday after I found out I ended up kind of volatile. I walked down to the mall to get something to eat, and just...I almost started a fight. Hell, I almost started a fight with someone who was carrying their daughter around. He was, in fact, being a dick, but my reaction was a bit lopsided, even after I walked away. I kept having to resist the urge to double back and tell him to put his fucking daughter down and blast him in his fucking face in front of his family. Though this may have prompted him to reconsider his unjust sense of entitlement in future, it would have been a big clusterfuck of wreckage otherwise.

Shortly there-after I wandered into Hot Topic, where the sales girls were jumping around to whatever corporate sanctioned alterna-crap they had playing, and I just wanted to grab them, shake them hard and yell, "My friend just shot himself, how the fuck is your Easter??!!??" I could have Out Gloomed the Gothiest Goth anywhere at that moment.

So, of course, now just mentioning it as a filled slot on my clalendar seems unnecessary drama. And hey, there's this whole fucking Blog entry on it.

Whatever. Obviously, I didn't blast that guy in the face, and I didn't slap the happy out of the sales girls. I'm not trying to over drama it, but I'm trying to cop to my feelings about it none the less, and well, whatever.

Mike Roberto was a good dude. He was my friend, and I miss him, and I'm gonna miss him. I wish there was someway I could have gone back and told him so, or demonstrated such sufficiently to keep him from taking his own life, but I couldn't and didn't and who or what I say to whom and when is largely beyond my ken.

I hope the Pain's gone, Mike, I really hope it is. Whatever it was that drove you to it, I hope it's fucking gone. And where ever you are, I hope you can look down and smile sardonically and laugh at the idiocy of the rest of us doing our thing as best we can, with an Atomic-strength cup of coffee in your hand.

Fucking Knucklehead.

Rest in Fucking Peace, Mike Roberto. You're fucking missed.

Eye for Detail

So, there have been a lot of questions and speculation about my eye surgery. I think I addressed most of 'em in a Message board conversation I had shortly afterwards. Basically there's a play by play. Though there was more to the thread, this is all intact, nothing's been edited. Not that it's terribly controversial subject matter anyway, but just so you know. There was stuff before and after this part, but nothing during. The stuff before was mainly, "Hey, I'm going to have/I just had surgery..." and the stuff after was largely jokes about the Super Powers I gained during the operation. Nothing's out of context. Whatever. Just read it.
(Sheesh. You'd think it was transcripts from the Watergate Tapes.)
______________________

Seppuku Squirrels:
You've got guts Vrocky one. I've considered laser scalpels on the eyes and it just freaks me out. I couldn't make it if they "slip" and one or both of my eyes got worse. How long do you have to be away from the PC? I work online all day and also can't afford to miss time from work. No PC usage would mean having to stay home. :
Good mojo in your direction! You never know, lasers in, maybe you'll get lasers out.

______________________

Rob Noxious:
It's only the morning after and I already see better than I did with my glasses. And it's only suppossed to get better from here.

I am, thus far, unable to shoot lazer beams back out of my eye, however. Also, there seemed to be few, if any, radioactive spiders in the room.

Maybe next time.

Squirrely, with the technology at the point it is now, it would probably take an earthquake to make the lazers "slip," and even then, I'm sure they have an auto-shut off. Do your research, find a Doctor with experience who upgrades his equipment regularly. The super cheap places you see in the paper all have used equipment. The technology is advancing rapidly, and is being fine-tuned all of the time. I think there's very little left to chance when you finally get down to the procedure, most of the human element is in the measuring and setting, which my Doctor did several times over.

And you'll miss one day of work. That's it.

Go find a good Doctor, take one of the free qualification exams and talk to them about it.

The "Clockwork Orange" part is over fairly quickly.
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Seppuku Squirrels:
So how did they do it? Do they put a suction cup over your eyeball and yank it out and shave off the end or what? You mentioned "eye" not "eyes". Are you doing one at a time or are they both done?

So asks the inquiring.

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Rob Noxious:
Quote:You mentioned "eye" not "eyes". Are you doing one at a time or are they both done?

Typo. They did both.

You go in, they test you and measure you, repeatedly, (Measure twice, cut once) on a couple of different machines. Some are the familair "Worse or better" eye tests, some are this weird thing where you stare at a red dot and it takes a picture of the shape of your eye.

The main laser machine uses this to track the shape and geometry of your eye while it does its thing.

Then they put in drops that dialate your eye and do it all over again. (The dialated eye thing is really annoying, but it wears off after a couple of hours.)

This is all preliminary, and must happen with in seven days of the actual surgery.

Surgery day, you go in, they give you a Valium so you don't get all jumpy, he explains what's going to happen, "You'll feel pressure, then I'll do this, then there'll be that..." The explanation takes as long as the surgery.

Then they strap your eyelid open, (ala Clockwork Orange, I actually started singing "Singing in the Rain," but, then again, I'm a huge smartass.) you hear a clicking, then they do the other eye.

I guess everyone is different, but when I got up from the chair my vision was still extremely blurry, but better than without my glasses before, but still not, say, good enough to drive. The Doc told me there would be a sharp increase in vision the following morning. That day/night my vision steadily improved, I went to bed late last night, woke up this morning and Boo-yah! I can see just freeakin' fine!

I had a follow up this morning at 9AM. (I showed up in Pajamas and a robe. The Doctor laughed his ass off.)

There may be a jump tomorrow, as well, I'm told. And it should increase some over the next few weeks/months as the eyes fully heal.

I have drops I put in for the next four days, and I wear these goggles at night to keep me from inadvertantly rubbing my eyes or anything. (Which is strictly verboten in any event.) I've also been strictly told not to get in any Mosh Pits for ten days. (And even then, protect the eyes.)

Anyway, almost everyone can return to work the next day.

I've had corrective eye wear for 29 years, since second grade. I keep reaching for my glasses, it's weird. But it's sooooo freaking cool.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go find out what it's like to shave with out having to worry about my glasses fogging up. I'm actually really excited about this.

Later,
-Rob
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Seppuku Squirrels:
Thanks for the play by play. Sounds like I could probably do it. I have a really hard time letting anything near my eyes and is one reason I gave up on contacts after a few weeks. I just couldn't spend an extra 1/2 hour each day to deal with putting them in. Sounds like I wouldn't have to worry about the panic issues of jerking my eyeballs around if the is no close machinery contact

Lazer Beams

So, though my Blog posting schedule has gone to shit lately, (And it's strange, I miss it. I feel like I've left something unattended. Which, I guess, I have.) I figured I'd post here tonight, as I won't have an option to do so tomorrow, at the least.

I'm getting the eye surgery tomorrow. I'm beyond stoked. I just...I can't fucking wait. See those glasses I'm wearing in my picture? Buh-bye.

However, I'm told that while watching some TV is okay, Reading and computer work is out. This sucks as I'd rather read and or fuck around on the computer. In fact, if I'm denied the computer, reading is usually my first choice for alternate activity.

But, whatever. Doc say do it or don't do it, I comply. Fuckin' A, he's fixing my eyeballs.

I also will be given a Valium during the procedure to relax me so I don't freak out while he's zapping me in the eye. I checked with my Sponser and all that, he said it's probably a good idea. Not only am I directly under a Doctor's supervision, but I only get the one, anyway. It's not like he's giving me any to take home.

Though when I had the emergency molar yanked a few months ago, I was given a script for Vicaden. I never had it filled, Cowboyed it Up with nothing but Tylanol and Advil, went back to his office and handed the script back to him. The look on his face was priceless. heh.

But I get to take the Valium tomorrow. Weeee!

In other News: I performed my First Wedding Sunday. (Been a hell of a couple of weeks) It went beautifully, actually. The weather was absolutely perfect, and well, it was all very cool. I kept the ceremony short, by request, but it was written especially for the couple, and, yeah, it was all very cool. It was a very nice thing. I've been ordained since 2000, but this was the first time I've used "The Power Vested in Me." Kinda Rocked.


Alright, I'm going to try and get some sleep before I end up just staying awake 'til I'm due in Surgery. Wish me Luck! Fuckin' A, wish me something, anyway.

Dead Eye

So, my self-imposed Blogging Schedule disappeared last week, but considering the circumstances, for all of us, I guess it's understandable.

I made my eye appointment Monday, and everything is cool with that, but then, of course, that same day the dead returned to devour the flesh of the living. I didn't find out about what had happened until I left the Doctor's office, when some woman in a skirt suit tried to take a bite out of my bicep. Fucking Corporate Zombies. The lobby Security Guard saved my fucking ass.

As an aside, I had no idea Lobby Security backed their shit up with shot guns. Good to know.

Fortunately the Doctor's office is not far from here and, it being on the ninth floor, they seem to be using it as a home base, for now. I called them and they said to go ahead and keep my Monday preliminary appointment, and then this coming Friday, provided none of us are shambling corpses hunting for Brains, they'll go ahead and do the surgery as scheduled.

Even in the last few days, I have really realized what a handicap it is having to worry about breaking your glasses while fighting off the Undead. I'm convinced this surgery will really increase my over all survival chances.