LifeBox

I really don’t know what I do with my time. A lot of nothing, it’s starting to look like.

So, the ghost tour was fun. We had us some cowboy goth kid named Maverick, friend of Lifto, as a guide, and he took us around, told us all about the history of the town, and showed us all the hotels and theaters and houses over by the gravel pits and stuff that are supposed to be haunted. The governor’s mansion and the capitol building, too. All spooooky and stuff. We got a good deal of walking in, and he was a great little story teller, and we had us a good old time. The thermoses full of coffee and whiskey and baileys and kahlua and amaretto and such didn’t hurt none, either.

Me, I’m not so big on the ghost thing. I suppose I used to be into all that occult and paranormal stuff when I was younger, but I’m pretty much resigned to the Region of Thud these days, and I reckon what you see is what you get. Fun stories, though, especially the scary serial killer type stuff. I mean, there’s no debating about the reality of that stuff, and there’s not a lot of getting around it. Here in Austin, we had the first string of murders that you could really say were the work of a “serial killer”.

This was around 1884, 1885, a good three years before Jack showed up in London to re-educate some of the girls on the street. Over the course of a bit over a year, the Servant Girl Annihilator (as the papers called him) did his business with a dozen or so young ladies here in River City. This business of his was pretty nasty. He caught the first one in bed with her husband – he usually struck while his victims were sleeping. The husband was a big guy, who could probably put up a good fight, so he took him right out of the picture by splitting his face open with an axe. Then he knocked the girl upside the head with the blunt end of the instrument, and dragged her outside, back behind the outhouse. Sometimes people will draw parallels between the Annihilator and Jack the Ripper, because they both apparently had some kind of medical knowledge. Our killer here would incapacitate the unconscious woman further by driving a metal rod into her temple, through the forebrain, and back out the other side. Even if the pain snapped her awake, his messy little proto-lobotomy would keep her warm, but unable to struggle too much, while he raped her, and then mutilated her by carving up her arms and torso. When he was done, the Annihilator would finish the job by slitting the girl’s throat ear to ear, leaving a pretty ugly sight to be found by whoever happened by the next morning.

They never caught him.

The other fun story was about Charles Whitman sniping from the UT clock tower in 1966. Maverick told us that his father was on campus when the shooting began. In true Texas fashion, he got the hell out of the way of danger, went home, got his deer rifle, and headed back to the tower to return fire. I don’t know if that’s really true or not, but if it’s not, it should be.

So, I called Jet about my lathe part. They told me that I had to talk to Amazon to get things done, because that’s who I ordered it through. I called up Amazon, and the guy I talked to didn’t seem to be too hip to the whole power tools thing, and told me that I had to send back the whole thing, and they’d send me a replacement. This lathe weight upwards of around 75 pounds, and last time, it took around two weeks to ship. That’s no good, and I let them know that. I got a call back from a manager a few hours later, who was more sympathetic to my needs as a consumer, so now they should be shipping off the replacement parts to me toot sweet. Let’s see if they get this right.

We, that is Bernie and I, went and has us some lunch at Gene’s with some of the crew, that is Dave, Mel, Strawberry, and Hissy Fit. They’ve got some tasty chicken special going on there, and good sweet tea. We got to hear all about the pre-championship rollergirl hijinx, with the tp’ing of houses and the pooping on porches and so on. Those crazy girls.

Also, I fixed a toilet today. Replaced the whole valvey floaty thinger and did the water stuff and put in this anti-leak jiggerbob and everything. I’m so handy.

We’re going on the Austin Ghost Tour tonight with Dave and Mel. Very scary, kids!

Oh, yeah, and I said I’d give a presentation on the Flash MX drawing API at the next meeting of our local Flash nerd group, so I guess I’ve got to get that together now. Neato.

My lathe showed up on friday! Unfortunately, the tailstock handle was broken off from the screw that screws the tailstock bit into the wood, so I can’t really turn anything yet. Bah! And it’s too late to call now, so I’ll have to wait until Monday to get my customer service on. But I got a lathe! And it’s freaking heavy. So, I need to unbolt and re-drill holes for the bandsaw so I can fit the new machine in, but things are looking pretty good as of right now.

We went and saw Bubba Ho-Tep with Dave and Mel at the Drafthouse up north. There was an opening band, some weird sort of Elvis impersonator band that didn’t look like Elvis, didn’t really sound all that much like Elvis, and only played songs that nobody’s ever heard before. The movie was pretty good – not the non-stop Bruce action that one might expect, but still funny, and kind of sad. Melancholy, even. But, Elvis-fu, zombie-fu, and some good flying giant bugs. Check it out. The writer and producer were also there, talking, answering questions, and selling their schwag. It turns out that Mel already knew the writer, and liked some of his other books, which sound interesting; I’ll have to take a look at them sometime.

We ate fried good stuff at the Drafthouse, too. They served grilled peanut butter and banana sandwiches with bacon. Dave had one. It was reported to be “good”. I waited till afterwards to get ugly, when we stopped at Mrs. Johnson’s donuts. We asked for half a dozen glazed, and would up with six glazed, six chocolate, and three fresh warm ones on top. Mel and I discovered the beauty of a glazed donut smooshed on top of a chocolate donut.

I’d been playing me some SSX3, which arrived a few days ago, and, really, I was kind of disappointed with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine game, but it’s just not grabbing me like Tricky did. There are a few neat new things in it – a seamless world, new freeride challenges, grind tricks – but it’s lacking a lot of personality that I’d become accustomed to. The characters are all essentially the same, and the voice acting is really weak, so there’s not much incentive to play every single one through. They took out some nice touches, like the different skill levels on the characters, and the different kinds of boards, and so on, and the new music sucks, and the new announcer is way way too relaxed. But still, kind of fun. Which is why I played it straight through from Friday night to 3pm Saturday afternoon. And then slept. A lot.

So, I woke up today, puttered and cleaned around the house some, went to Home Depot to get some wood and stuff, and built some shelves and rails for the closet off of the living room, which I guess is the new linen closet. After a minor mis-measuring tragedy, the project pulled through just fine, and we now have one hell of an organized closet.

Bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw Drill Press Drill Press!

Bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw Drill Press Drill Press!

Lathe! It’s a Laaathe! Laaaaaaathe!

Bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw Drill Press Drill Press!

Bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw bandsaw Drill Press Drill Press!

And so on.

Turns out, actually going stuff all day is kind of tiring. So, I got my band saw, I got my drill press, but I got nowhere to put ‘em. So, I got tools – let’s build stuff! I made a quick run to Home Depot to pick up lumber and a few other supplies, and measured and cut and nailed and drilled, and before you know it, I have a work bench – pretty sturdy, both Bernie and I can sit on it – built into the side of the shed, and the two machines are securely bolted down. Plugged ‘em in, took ‘em for a test run. The band saw bands, and the drill press presses. Goes through the wood like butter, all nice and stuff. So, time to make toys, I guess.

Bernie made a tasty beef stew for dinner. There was pecan pie for dessert. I made stuff. Did exactly jack on the computer. Good day.

Today’s lunch: Turkey plate at Meuller’s BBQ with Bernie, Cam, Dave, and Mel. Tasty stuff. I love their beans. And their sweet tea. And the pecans that dive bomb you.

So, I made the leap, and bought a whole ton of woodworking tools. Picked up a band saw, and a drill press, and ordered a mini-lathe, which should show up in a week or two. All sorts of other goodies, too – and there’s still more I need. I’m turning the shed out back into a little wood shop (well, except for the storage part up top) and I still need to get some sort of dust management solution set up, and I’m pretty weak in the sanding area. But hey, it was either this, or get a new laptop, so I think I’m still coming in way under budget. I’m still sort of in the “build tools to build stuff with” stage, which feels a lot like writing perl scripts to pre-process data files before working on the actual application. Which is pretty fun.

Bernie’s not slacking, either – she’s got it in her to re-paint the living room windows before hanging the new curtains. Those windows are in pretty bad shape – if we can, I reckon we’ll be replacing them come springtime.

Oh yeah, I’m trying out the new iTunes for Windows. It’s pretty nice.

I was driving up north to check out a lathe at this woodworking shop that uncle Bernard recommended to me, and I heard this great band doing a little live set on one of the local radio stations. Turns out, it’s the Mosquitos, and they’re playing tonight at Emo’s. So, hey, why don’t we check them out… holy crap, they’re opening for Shonen Knife! I totally forgot about that!

Well, we went, and it rocked. The Mosquitos sound sort of like a more mellow Pizzicato Five, only in Portugese, instead of Japanese. The music is great, and their singer is mesmerizing. Then Shonen Knife came out to play their first show in Austin ever, and completely rocked the house down. I’m not sure who’s who, to tell the truth – they’ve got a (really cute maniac alien) new drummer, and their old drummer is their new bass player, and I’m assuming that the other chick playing guitar and singing is the same as what I’m used to hearing, but then again, they may all just be robots. It was tons of fun, even with the creepy white guys up front desperately grasping for the little japanese chicks on stage. And the giant sweating freak trying to start a mosh pit of one. But I had a funnel cake, and that was tasty. Also, we ran into our pal Dan, and Beth, one of the derby girls.

Cousin Nick went to the show with us, which was cool. He came over early, and had some of Bernie’s tasty peanut noodle pork thingie, and brought some pie, which we didn’t get to eat yet, but which I will be having for breakfast tomorrow. Er, today. After I wake up.

Yesterday, I watched five movies. There was only a little bit of goodness in them, but I am now all caught up with Netflix and the stack of going-out-of-business-sale discount DVDs I bought a while back. So, I guess that means I either need to get back to playing some video games, or actually do some of that work I keep talking about.

You know, I’m not really down with the whole oppresive Communist regime thing, but I’ve gotta say: go, China! Maybe this will kick-start some more of the space-man action on our side, unless America has truly become too stupid and lazy to do anything unless there’s a Starbucks or an SUV involved.

A friend of mine just wrote me to ask about a drink I introduced him to a while ago, Liquid Bodacity. He couldn’t find a match for it on google, which is probably because my pals Geoff and Casey (I think) made it up sometime in college, so I figured that it was about time to expose the formula to the world. Anyway, the recipe for Liquid Bodacity is as follows:

• half-shot of Rumplemintz
• half-shot of Jack Daniels
• five dashes of tobasco sauce

Drink it all in one gulp, and then dance around like James Brown, while making the appropriate noises. It’s better for everyone concerned that way.

Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go make some chamomile tea.