Bum Love

Read this story: Homeless Couple Charged With Having Sex On Median During Rush Hour.

Now, is anyone else noticing an upswing in the homeless couple stories? I've read three in the last month. Is there some kind of hoboHarmony.com site out there or something? How are these people hooking up?

In my entire life, I've never seen bums on a date. In fact, I've rarely seen two homeless people in the same place¹. So when it happens... of COURSE they're going to have to just kind of go with it and take their time².

And really, what else are they supposed to do when they go out? 'Za and a movie is probably going to be out of the question, unless Dominoes is throwing something out and there's a drive-in within walking distance.

My point is this: hobos are dating more, and their options are limited. This instance is just another example of the Drifter Dating cliche "Your place or min... oh yeah. So then... screw in the street?"

We're all just going to have to adapt.


¹ Exception: under overpasses/soup kitchens. I go there for the soup, but I stay for the conversation. The bat-shit crazy, disjointed conversation.

² The stigma attached to homeless men getting 'there' too soon is intense. In street culture it is known as the "Bum's Rush" and hobos make fun of each other mercilessly over this.

A Fox News Exclusive

Recently it was discovered that the Fox News website left it's image directory open. I was wandering through, enjoying the blatant and ridiculous rabble-rousing when I came upon the mother-load. I believe they were saving this one sweeps, but I think that it's a story everyone needs to be aware of.



CALL YOUR SENATOR! The liberals must be stopped!

Harry Potter and the Slow News Cycle

Now that the book has been leaked to the internet there have been a number of sites posting spoilers to Harry Potter. I accidentally saw one that didn't ruin anything for me. But it might have. And you all might be spoiled as well. SO to protect my readers here's a long list of fake spoilers that I've created. Hopefully if you actually come across a real spoiler you'll forget it and/or get it confused with one of mine.

1.) Nymphadora Tonks is a man. As a metamorphmagus she can change her form. And if she can change her form HOW DO WE KNOW SHE'S NOT A MAN?! We don't. This is Rowling's bid for a homosexual relationship (between 'her' and Lupin)

2.) Hedwig is a Horcrux. That's right, Harry's bird was a plant from Voldemort. He has long had knowledge of Hagrid's penchant for Snowy Owls, and had his minions place the bird in Diagon Alley every time Hagrid was in the shop. Eventually it was purchased for Harry. It will be one of the most wrenching parts of the book when Ol' Potter has to destroy his beloved pet... and that's what Voldy wanted.

3.) The Sorting Hat is in a sexual relationship with Professor Trelawny. Nobody saw that one coming!

4.) House Elves are actually just wizarding children with Progeria.

5.) Harry becomes an Animagus. He changes quickly, and accidentally, while under extreme stress as he fights Death Eaters. Unfortunately, his form is a dolphin . The Death Eaters summon a tuna trawler and capture him, struggling, in a net.

6.) Snape is neither good or or evil. Just bored. In fact, he doesn't even appear in this volume having taken a position with the Peace Corps in South America to "find himself."

7.) Hermione overdoses on speed which she was taking to keep studying. Later it's revealed that the speed was actually caffeine pills, and her overdose consisted of sloppily singing "I'm so excited." Harry calls a "time out" and we all learn an important lesson about drugs.

8.) Voldemort is a Scientologist. Turns out his "horcruxes" were just body thetans he had to remove from himself to become pure again. He was just realizing the potential of a human mind free from psychology. A rumor in the Daily Prophet said he was a Hare Krishna, but Voldemort set them straight: "Oh sure, sure. Just because I'm bald and I wore an orange robe once that makes me a Hare Krishna. Listen, I wear robes. Sometimes I get tired of black. I know I'm the Dark Lord it's just... you know what, screw this. Avada Kedavra!"

9.) It's all been a dream. The last page is Harry waking up and finding himself 11 years old and living under the stairs at the Dursley's. He promptly hangs himself.

And that's what happens in the last book.

One last time.

The Wonder Blog is not Captain Kirk's personal log, is it? No. Am I the guy from Memento? Another no. Am I even Doogie Houser? A qualified no, since I'm perpetually ahead of expectations and ridiculously good looking, but no. The Wonder Blog is not a journal. Remembering that, I'm going to stop treating it as such and get back to making fun of pop culture.

...but. One last time, because I have 10 minutes to kill.

What I've been doing today:

Seriously, I do this all the time.

What the hell do I do?

Scott Adams recently asked his audience to describe their job in one self-deprecating sentence. Alan "the Great" recently asked me to describe my job in general. In the interest of answering all the idle inquiries of ignominious minds, I shall combine the above into one endeavor and I'll try not to use any semi-colons.

My job:

I install and maintain digital audio and visual recording systems for people that will use them at 1% of their potential, and whose words aren't worth recording in the first place.

I do this for the Courtrooms of Illinois and Missouri. Or at least I did... until today.

Returning from a week-long marathon install, I'm told by my boss that I need to talk with her in the conference room. Alone. In ten minutes. Meeting her in the room she asked how I was doing. Bad sign. Anytime someone wants to know your mental/emotional state before they get down to business it means that they're concerned about your reaction to the coming news.

She proceeded to tell me that they are looking for a replacement for my position.

...because they're promoting me. Because I "...kick far too much ass to continue working in [my] current position." Her words. Really.

The long and the short of it is that I'm now working in a different department within the company (the nice one, actually) as a result of my capacity to absorb large amounts of information quickly. Since I'm now on the medical side instead of legal my new job description (starting Monday) would be as follows.

My job:

I install and maintain business software allowing Luddites and bureaucrats to push more mind-numbing forms across larger distances, more quickly.

To be fair there's also some pretty sweet voice-recognition and OCR software at play. But that was too hard to work into my semi-pithy job description.

So that's what I do... now.

What the hell happened to me?

In short: a new job.

The long version: a shit-ton. I should explain myself. I posted the above and apparently it wasn't enough for the several of you that were on AIM at the time. So I'll elaborate.

A few weeks ago I interviewed at a company called BizNet.¹ My headhunter warned me that they were interested in two other people with 5+ years of experience in the field (as opposed to my relative none). But it went well. I mean, anytime you find yourself in a situation where your responses to interview questions leaves the panel in gales of laughter you have to figure you're coming out a little bit ahead.²

And of course, I got hired. If I sound cocky it's because I'm just so damned qualified. Clearly. That must be the reason. I was in the office my first day, and ever since I've been on the road. I apparently learned all I could in those sparse eight hours before they flung me into the field to live or die by the data pipes. So far I've been mostly living.³

I've come to think of myself as a kind of better looking, less serious James Bond. I get my assignments from an attractive female clerk, take a car from the stable, and head out. I'm not to return until the job is done, or I have died.

Which is a possibility on the next big job, which will be in Alaska. The kicker of which is that, since I'm one of the few non-marrieds (not to mention the FNG) it's perfectly acceptable for me to be Shanghai'd into going there for a few weeks. Should be an interesting gig though, they'll have to fly me into remote locations on sea planes (Bondesque), I'll have to dive on submerged data lines (Bondesque), and I'll have to find ways to entertain myself in places with names like Coldfoot (Fur Trapper-esque).

Clearly I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, but I'm trying to find time to blog. I'm hitting my stride out here, so hopefully I'll just be able to incorporate it into my normal "on the road" routine like JV seems to do.

Anyway, that's what the hell happened to me. Any questions?

¹ Not its real name. But a rough approximation of meaning and cadence.
² Provided you meant to make them laugh.
³ In fact, I'm writing this from an reasonably decent hotel with an unreasonably huge bed for me to sleep on. I've got three beers, cable, and the internet. Live it up.

Bringing balance to the Force world

I'm nothing if not a crusader against social injustices. Ask my friends. Every last one of them will tell you how I toil away every spare minute looking out for the less fortunate. Most of these things I've done subconsciously. So subconsciously in fact, that upon reflection I realize that if you asked those friends again they'd probably have no examples to give you. So in the interest of helping out a decent man (me) I'll give a few examples of the small ways I bring balance to the universe.

1. Ogling modestly dressed women. This includes Mennonites. I stare at every inch of hair escaping their bonnets, just so they know that it's working overall. I mean, 90% of their hair is still hidden, and therefore not lusted after.
   
   Ask yourself, if I didn't slow my car down as I pass them, obviously leering at every curve those potato sack dresses betray... how would they know they need to go out of their way to avoid inciting lustful thoughts? Really I'm doing them a favor.
   
   
2. Tipping the homely waitress better than average. This is a result of fighting my instinct to tip the pretty girl better. But why? It's not like she's going to have any more sex with me as a result. (Usually we've already hit our limit.)
   
   I have to speculate that the cumulative effect of this works out in favor of the pretty girl, so still I press on. As a side benefit, when you do tip a homely waitress better, you're more likely to get special attention next time.
   
   
3. Crossing the street to avoid well dressed, white businessmen. Anyone can feel leery of a dirty, panhandling bum as they pass him on an empty street at night. But it takes real Social Robin Hooding to religiously avoid the relatively clean, aloof banker. Deal with that, Person Not Asking Me for a Handout!
   
   Sadly, his method is ineffective against Jehovah's Witnesses on college campuses. You can cross the street away from them, but they've set up a staggered net pattern. And you are going to have a little green bible whether you want one or not.

I'm sure I'm not alone. I may be the Mother Teresa of the movement, but I'm sure there's a few priests in the closet out there. What I mean is...

Let's hear your examples.

I have a dream!

I have a dream, my brothers and sisters. In fact, I have a few per night*.

Recently I had a dream that I could fly. I also had a dream that I could use chopsticks. And let me tell you, that one was way more satisfying. It was also way more depressing to wake up from.

I can accept not being able to fly, but suddenly not being able to do something mundane like chopstikery... unacceptable.

What I'm saying is that there's a reason for the saying "if you're going to dream, dream big." Heed my warning.

- Scott

*Take that Junior.