Screams and Giggles: The Official Soundtrack

So I was reading Boing Boing earlier today, and clicked through the Web Zen section. For those of you unfamiliar with Web Zen, it's a feature posted each Friday with links to half a dozen or so time wasters, the better to usher in the weekend. Anyhow, one of these was to the Says-It Cassette Generator, a wonderment that kept me giggling for a good twenty minutes as I generated design after design. And here's the least impolitic example of my efforts:



I don't know why, but there is a certain undeniable thrill I get out of things like this. I guess it's seeing my creation as a commercial product, even an ersatz one. May this bring you folks some joy, too.

A Rustling in the Underbrush

The past several nights, I occasionally hear a great commotion in the brush next to the house. The first few times, I thought it might be an inebriated neighbor having difficulty navigating the narrow strip between the houses, but I gave up that explanation rather quickly: it lasted too long, and I couldn't hear any breathing. A couple of weeks ago, I found my answer.

Raccoons.

Three of 'em. Big, chubby constructs.

Now, I don't know how many of you have had close encounters with these beasts, but they are oddities. Generally, when you see them in pictures--usually young raccoons--their bodies are pleasingly quadrapedal, and posessing a fairly cylindrical thoracic shape.

Not so, Dear Reader. Not so.

When viewed in the wild, scuttling about in their disturbingly intelligent way, raccoons flatten considerably. The ones I saw recently had about a 1:4 height-to-width ratio. I suppose what makes this seem so odd to me is the fact that the proportions of their heads suggest a more... standard configuration.

I dunno. Maybe I don't see enough raccoons. Maybe I should just get more sleep.

Yeah, probably that one. G'night.

The Tears Have Been Dried

A quick follow-up to that last post. The Garfield-is-dead notion has been debunked by Jim Davis himself. Link to article on BoingBoing.

I stand by my original statement on the matter, though: that was one of the most heartrending mental images I have ever had.

The Fat Orange Cat Made Me Cry

BoingBoing has long been one of my favorite daily reads--between the diversity of the posts and their sheer volume, I generally find myself sacrificing an hour or more per day catching up on the latest. Heaven forbid there be a couple of really interesting new (to me) topics posted; I could be staying up way too late. Every now and again, one of the stories will take me right between the eyes, stunning my mind for several moments and entirely changing my day.

I read one ten minutes ago, titled "Is Garfield Dead?". In short, a series of strips ran in 1986 wherein the cat found himself alone in an abandoned house. He saw images of his old life, but they faded away and left him in solitude--you can find the strips, some commentary, and music here. The strips are dark, moody, and patently not funny. A huge departure from the tame slapstick and misanthropy we generally expect from Jim Davis.

This discontinuity alone is not enough to elicit comment from me. However, this section of the Garield Wikipedia entry dropped a bomb on my skull:

Alternatively, some theorize that the end of this storyline actually implies that the rest of the series, the more conventional strips, are all fantasies Garfield is playing out in his head to delude himself from realizing the dark turn his life has taken, as he slowly starves to death in an abandoned house.

Now, I used to be a big fan of the Garfield strips--when I was six. Being such a fan, I'm sure I read those at some point or another, and simply glossed over them with the innocent reality-filter of my tender years. But now, tonight, as a 29 year old man, I sit in front of my computer, and think...

About an old orange cat in a house, all alone. It's getting harder now for him to catch food, so he spends more and more of his time curled up in a dusty corner, asleep. As he sleeps, he remembers an earlier time, a happier time. He was loved--and even if he was a little prickly with the others, he was still a fundamentally decent guy, wasn't he? Pretty soon, he doesn't even bother trying to find food: it's much easier to calm the hunger pangs by falling back into a brighter dream...

Those strips were originally penned in 1986. Now just pause for a moment and imagine the above, strung out beyond bearing, for twenty years. Depressed, hell--I'm almost in tears this moment.

Them Low-Down Unemployment Blues

Something's gotta give. I'm ready to work again. Now, I've really enjoyed having some time off the ol' grind, but I need something to do. Unfortunately--or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it--I'm not one of those people who can lounge around indefinitely and feel fulfilled. I need a place to be, a thing to do.

And some money wouldn't hurt, either.

Don't get me wrong: I don't like working. I think that the saddest thing I can say about my life is that not since my first job in high-school have I ever felt consistently fulfilled doing what I'm paid to do. No doubt this is due in large part to the pairing of my employment in the customer service sector and my steadfast misanthropy.

I'm trying to shift genres, jump industries, shift my paradigm, etc., etc. Turns out, there aren't a whole lot of positions open for an entry-level copy editor in the Portland area. Fewer still are the number that would like to hire my favorite white guy. Namely, zero.

So once again, I swallow what little pride remains, and go hat-in-hand to an employment agency. They listen to what I want, make polite noises about how they don't have anything like that right now, and then trot out umpteen gazillion "opportunities" for me to further deaden my soul for $10/hr alongside a host of whiny GED students.

Bitter? Me?