Umbral Echoes Blog

• 10:47 Lawyer finally got back to me. About frackin’ time. #

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• 14:03 @slashclee So I wasn’t the only person that stayed up until the sun came up? 🙂 #

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• 21:16 Can’t go to the lakehouse this weekend after all. No one to watch the dog. Curse you, Cary. #

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• 12:40 @clee Dude, you are a god. I bow before your l33t skills. #
• 13:09 @etherlad I like the way you think. #

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I know I could have treated you better, and that sometimes I complained about you.  I didn’t mean to be neglectful or abusive.  I missed you so much when we were apart.  I couldn’t do without what you gave to my life, so I ran around town with a hot newer model for a while.  But it just wasn’t the same, and I was thinking of you the whole time.  I love you.  Let’s never be apart again, okay?

Seriously, I’m really glad to have my car back, and was pleasantly surprised to find that they gave it a minor detailing when they did the repairs.  Which I will have done on a semi-regular basis now (detailing, not repairs).  The Charger wasn’t nearly as fun as I’d hoped, though of course it wasn’t the model with the HEMI or anything remotely sporty.  It did have satellite radio, which was cool because they had a techno station… but it also cut out all the time.  Major no-no — rule #1 of music listening is Thou Shalt Not Interrupt The Groove.

In other news, my aunt seems to have found me on Facebook.  After seeing my profile picture…

…she sent this message:  “This is your Aunt Lynn let me know if you will add me to your facebook? P.S. What are you doing in that picture??? Uncle Bruce wants to know.”  I’m not quite sure how I should answer this question.  Though I will toss into consideration any hilarious suggestions that I receive.

• 10:48 God, it feels good to be driving my own car again. tinyurl.com/6oza28 #

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• 16:26 Shop is done with car 3 days earlier than expected. Woot! #

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• 18:09 Three days stuck at home and I’m already going nuts with the stir-craziness. #
• 20:03 Testing a post from Ping.fm. Move along, citizen. Nothing to see here. #
• 20:34 This is the shiznit. Beta code "pingsauce" for Ping.fm if you want to check it out. It updates multiple services at once. #
• 20:53 Playing the Penny Arcade Adventures game. It is the hilarious. ping.fm/mkXKM #

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One of the gutter spouts was clogged with some plant matter, so today I decided to go ahead and take care of that.  It was so impacted with plant matter that I had to reach my hand up there and pull it out — tried a stick, but it didn’t cut it.  After a minute of this, I felt something slick and slippery and squishy.  I paused, blinked, and thought, “That isn’t a plant.  …  Oh, crap.”  Pulled my hand out, and I saw the tail drop down.  Taking a deep breath to prepare for the noxious death-cloud that was sure to follow, I clenched my jaw and manned up, yanking on the tail like it was the cord for a nightlight, and I a child about to see the horrors that await in the darkness.  With a slimy “schlick” and wet thud, it came out rather easily.

Beneath the cut, I present you with Corroded Zombie Squirrel (or perhaps rat)^TM. Continue reading

In celebration of The Age of the Geek, I give you I Will Derive.  Not nearly as awesome as Stuck in the Windshield With You, but it will probably invade your brain just as thoroughly.

I’m not sure if I really agree with the article as a whole.  Geek culture is definitely leading the Internet at large, with sensations such as lolcats, Chocolate Rain, Numa Numa, and all the others that were made fun of in that episode of South Park (starts at 11:45).  But that’s like saying that America rules at Basketball.  Of course we do — we created it, and we’re the people ones that put the most time into it on a large scale.  To say that, “[Geeks have] created a new definition of what it means to be cool, a definition that leaves out the talents of the jocks, the M.B.A.-types and the less educated,” though, I think is a bit much.  What’s happened is that geekdom has become a more recognized and accepted subculture — and a pretty large one, at that.

One excellent point the article made is that, “Nerds began making large amounts of money [in the 1980s] and acquired economic credibility, the seedbed of social prestige.”  Geek culture has worked its way into the mainstream, and continues to do so more and more.  I think one important thing that pushes this is gaming culture.  We of the NES generation are inherently enthralled with video games; we seem to have it in our blood.  An avid gamer is just as (or more) likely to be a former jock who is crazy about Madden or Grand Theft Auto, as they are to be the stereotypical geek.  Things like World of Warcraft are gaining much more widespread acceptance.  It does seem to me that in society at large, being a geek is no longer any more of a stigma than being a jock (though admittedly, I tend to hang out in crowds where “geek” is worn as a badge of pride, so my opinion is probably biased by that).

And I suppose that’s what it’s really about.  Society is learning that geeks are useful, and not the awkward, antisocial stereotype that they’re often played to be.  To quote Tyler Durden, “We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. We program the software that controls your money and guides your missiles. Do not… fuck with us.”  Okay, so I added a bit to that.