My computer's CPU cooling fan is rattling like a Mexican space shuttle, to paraphrase an old Letterman joke. Evidently paying $40 for a high-falutin', high performance, low noise fan only buys you 6 months of quiet. And nothing to do with anything, but WTF is up with my main profile photo suddenly disappearing from my MySpace account? I had to reupload it tonight. I sometimes think this site is shakier than a Mexican space shuttle, as well. Or perhaps a bit better than that, a French space shuttle. Oh, I'm sorry, a "freedom" space shuttle.

Sometimes my own will power amazes me (though other times it just plain lets me down!). Today I was dragging ass. I could not get to sleep last night for the life of me. I suppose I should preface this with some background about my unusual sleeping habits and arrangements...

My house has three bedrooms, one of which is my home office, the others my guest and master bedrooms. The last couple of years, I've taken to sleeping primarily in my guest bedroom. The bed is smaller than the queen in the master beedroom, but the mattress cradles my back like a fat guy would cradle the last Egg McMuffin on earth in the seconds before he wolfed it down with a glass of bacon grease. Plus the bedroom is darker and quieter, as it faces my back yard, as opposed to the street (ok, the cul-de-sac). I've also found that having left my alarm clock in the master bedroom, I'm forced to drag myself out of bed and walk across the hall to turn it off each morning. It's more than 95 percent more likely that I'll actually be awake for the day instead of just rolling over and hitting snooze 3 or 4 times (seriously, I did the calculations on my Speak n' Math!).

Ah, but the mix gets stranger. In the last 2 months since starting my new job, I've also found myself frequently sleeping through the entire night on my couch in the living room. Think about it. It's late. I'm tired and falling asleep on my big, wide, overstuffed, comfy couch. Why get up, stir up my juices the same way that getting up to turn off the alarm clock does, then lay restless in bed? Fuck that. If you're tired, sleep where you are, man!

Come to think of it, my pattern did change during the 7 months in there that I had a real, live girlfriend (everyone I know was as shocked as you are that any woman would put up with me for so long! ). When she stayed over, we would sleep in the master bedroom. Bigger bed=more room for 2 people. And of course, she only had the one bed when I stayed at her place.

Digression mode complete. Last night, I couldn't sleep. I tossed. I turned. I curled. I straightened. I dipped. I thrusted. Wait--what story was I telling again?? Ah, yes. I couldn't sleep. The bed wasn't doing it, so I went back to the couch. Hmm...no Egg McMuffin-level cradling, but perhaps the way the fat guy would cradle some grapes or an apple. Not an Egg McMuffin, but it's food, and it'll have to do. Oh, and personally, I like breakfast burritos and sausage biscuits, about the only McD's food I can tolerate anymore.

As the clock raced past 1 am, I finally slumbered. I have no clue how much time passed, but eventually, I awoke to whiz. I headed to the guest bed after that and slept until I was flipped over and anally raped by my alarm clock at 6:15 am. I had set it 15 minutes early to get a jump on traffic with the forecasted layer of snow and ice on the roads. My ass and ears still throbbing, I took my vitamin, brushed my teeth, and hopped in the shower. I was the walking dead.

I lollygagged and took 25 minutes to get ready. On a good day, I can be out the door in 20. On a highly motivated day, I can brush, shower, and dress in 15. I'm obviously not of primping stock. I checked the traffic map online, and it already was looking grim. A lot of telltale red. Shit.

It took me an hour and 10 minutes to get to work for fuck sake. Though that included the 10 minutes I took to stop and grab a mocha and muffin at Caribou in St Louis Park. I had brought my usual banana for breakfast, but I just needed a break from the road. I know, I know. It's not like a 6 hour drive to North Dakota, but all the stop, go, slow, go, stop, gas, brake, honk, skid, go, twirl, and parry for that long just got to me.

I did the best I could to get through the day. I downed Diet Dew left and right and even spent a ghastly $1.50 on a tiny-ass, fruity little energy drink out of the vending machine downstairs. By 2 pm, I'd realized I wasn't going to make it to 4:30 or even 4. I would hit the road at 3:30, avoid traffic, and come in early the rest of the week and leave late on Friday if I have to.

The commute home was a mercifully short 30 minutes. After skipping my workout last night, I was bound and determined that I would not skip tonight. I hit it with everything I had. Thirty minutes of weights and right to the tread. I managed to squeeze 6.3 miles out of myself in an hour and 2 minutes. Hell, there are days I can't squeeze 4 out of myself on a full night's sleep. The brain and body make for a mysterious partnership at times. How else can I explain the 11.5 miles I ran just a couple Fridays ago?

And now, it's approaching 9:30, I'm exhausted, and will no doubt crash early tonight. I'm thinking this is a couch night.

Ha haaa!! Either the the prof quoted at the end is the most naive person on earth, or has the wryest, driest sense of ironic humor ever. Read this article and tell me that you honestly believe it's first consumer-grade application of this technology will be for children to feel hugs. Replace "children" with "penises" and "hugs" with "blowjobs".

Vibrating chickens set stage for cyberhugs

Singapore scientists create wireless jacket to simulate sense of touch

SINGAPORE - Singapore scientists looking for ways to transmit the sense of touch over the Internet have devised a vibration jacket for chickens and are thinking about electronic children's pyjamas for cyberspace hugs.

A wireless jacket for chickens or other pets can be controlled with a computer and gives the animal the feeling of being touched by its owner, researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) told Monday's edition of The Straits Times.

The next step would be to use the same concept to transmit hugs over the Internet, it said.

"These days, parents go on a lot of business trips, but with children, hugging and touching are very important," the paper quoted NTU Associate Professor Adrian David Cheok as saying.

NTU is thinking of a pyjama suit for children, which would use the Internet to adjust changes in pressure and temperature to simulate the feeling of being hugged. Parents wearing a similar suit could be "hugged" back by their children, the paper said.

Still no sign of my drivers license over the weekend, so I stopped at the license bureau in St Louis Park on my lunch break today. Long story short, my license expires in May, 2006, so they gave me the option of just renewing it now for $21.50 or paying $11 for a duplicate card. Hmmm...how difficult was that decision? I renewed it. So I get one of the fancy schmancy new license and a new photo. I'm sure the photo will look even more like a felon's mug shot than the last 2 photos I've had.

I'm still hoping that some kind soul mails my old one back to me, wherever I may have left it, or that I'll find it under a pile of dirty laundry and horse manure in my bedroom 3 months from now. Much better than wondering if someone out there is using it to open a Swiss bank account to funnel funds from a multi-million dollar blackmail scheme.

Wow...amazing how we sometimes completely forget the traumas of our childhood. I was browsing through other profiles on here just now and someone commented in hers about how she's walked around on their toes since she was a little'un. Immediately memories flooded back of my preschool through first grade years.

When I was 4 or 5, I started walking around up on my toes. My parents and enough teachers and elders were concerned enough about this that they took me to doctors and specialists all over hell and back. One fucknut actually diagnosed me with cerebral palsey! My parents were devastated, but thankfully persisted in getting a second opinion. The problem was simple. The tendons in my calves were (and to a certain extend, probably still are) too short.

I now vividly remember the tests involving the doctor jamming needles in and out of my legs and running electricity through them. Painful. I probably spent the better part of a year going through daily physical therapy in the form of all sorts of cruel leg stretching exercises involving a big-ass rubber band and a 2x4. And I had to wear braces on my feet like a 1950's polio victim.

I still catch myself up on my toes ever so slightly from time to time.

Stopped at the liquor store over my lunch break to pick up a few things (no, not my lunch, smartass!!), and when they asked for my drivers license, I couldn't find it in my friggin' wallet. Checked every single pocket and crevice in my wallet without bearing fruit. Dammit!

If I end up not finding it, this will be the first time I've ever lost something major of this nature. I left a credit card at an electronics store once when I was in college in Grand Forks, but remembered specifically that I left it there the next day, and went back to get it. This drives me nuts because I don't have a firm idea of where I could have left it.

*sigh* I'll have to check all my pants pockets, jacket pockets, and inside my car when I get home. Fudgecicle!

Comment by Jeremy Friday, November 25, 2005 at 5:45 PM: Just an update on this, but I turned every jacket and pants pocket in my house inside out, searched the floor and under the seats of my car, and nada! I absolutely had to have left it at a store where they id'ed me when I used my credit card. Called a couple more stores and nada. And of course, the drivers license office was closed yesterday and today. Guess I'll order up a replacement on Monday.

I have pooped in the following states:

-Alaska
-Arizona
-California
-Colorado
-Florida
-Hawaii
-Massachusetts
-Maryland
-Missouri
-Minnesota
-Nebraska
-North Dakota
-Nevada
-South Dakota
-Wyoming

That is all.

Friday night was an odd one indeed. After work, I decided to take full advantage of what surely one will be the last relatively warm (55 degrees) evenings we will have this year by going out for a run. Right off the bat, I had a good feeling about it. I had energy, I felt loose and limber, and I was totally into it mentally. I ran 11.5 miles, blowing the hell out of several of my previous personal bests. And I know it was 11.5 miles because I mapped my route just now. *grin* I ran from my house in Eagan, up to Cliff Rd, down Slater Rd to where it turns into Burnsville Parkway in Burnsville, to County Rd 11 and back. Not bad, especially considering there are some long, steep-ass stretches on that route!

So I got home, completely jazzed about what I'd just done, bragged about it to a couple people online (what a dork I am!! *grin*) and hopped in the shower. I was fully expecting to just make some dinner, and settle in for an evening of watching tv and relaxing. It had been a long week.

As I finished getting dressed, the phone rang. It was my buddy Kelly calling me to let me know our mutual friend Loren came down from Duluth for the weekend, and they wanted me to join them for hitting a few bars in downtown Minneapolis. They even had a hotel room at the Doubletree to crash in afterward. Not an unusual thing to do for them when they are determined to tie one on.

Hmm...now I had been bemoaning how disconnected I'd become lately from some of my friends with focusing on my new job, trying to reenter the dating world, and dealing with projects/troubles/gremlins at my house. Damn straight I'm in! I needed to loosen up and get some quality drinkin' time in with some old pals I hadn't seen for a few months (Loren I hadn't seen since our big kayaking/poker/guys' weekend back in July and Kelly since September).

I figured I would just grab an appetizer or something at one of the bars, so I didn't bother to make dinner before heading out the door. Had I known what was to follow, I would have grabbed a banana (literally, not in a euphemistic sense) or stopped at Subway or something on the way. By the time I got to the Doubletree, Loren and Kelly were already fairly well-tuned on Captain and Coke and vanilla vodka. I joined in, had a few drinks, and we hit the town. Now that is precisely the point where my stupidity kicked in. Not two hours beforehand, I'd finished running 11.5 miles. I had nothing to eat since lunch except a bit of chocolate pudding. I had no food in my system, what-so-friggin-ever. Genius, Jeremy. Pure genius.

Let me also preface the rest of this story by telling you that I am not a hard-drinking party animal by any stretch of the imagination. I usually just have a couple beers if I go out. But it seems like about once a year, almost invariably with Kelly and/or Loren involved, I get completely trashed. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I go out and get completely shit-faced on a regular basis. It's just not one of my life's goals to walk around in a drunken stupor.

Immediately after stepping out of the room, I was very vocal in my need to get food before hitting the bars. Kelly and Loren refused to stop anywhere because they are both jerks when drinking. Kelly's always a jerk, but he's a funny jerk. The kind of jerk you like to have around. Not an asshole jerk. Just a jerk. Loren is...well, Loren is Loren (I could write a tome on the psychology of Loren with an appendix of his sober and drunken adventures that you could squash a chihuahua with). Get jerk-ass Kelly and silly-ass Loren together in a room with alcohol, and you've got an interesting evening ahead of you.

From there on out, it was all downhill. I was now too drunk to find my way around downtown on my own without Kelly or Loren in the lead, so I could not venture out on my own for food. All I could think about was the little pizza place along 5th Street where we drunkenly wolfed down slices a little over a year ago at my brother's bachelor party. God, I would have blown a hobo for one of those slices right about then. Or at the very least get him drunk and roll him for the vittles in that little handkerchief baggie on the end of his stick.

Eventally, I was so drunk that I probably couldn't have ordered the food of my own volition even if we did stop somewhere that served solid sustenance. Each time I persisted in expressing my need for food, Kelly would hand me a jager bomb and say something like, "Here's your supper, bitch!" And in my drunken desire to not look like a pussy, I would down it of course. However, as I began to feel the room spinning and the nausea setting in, I decided to just keep my mouth shut and try to sober up. But it was too late. The damage was done. I stepped outside to sit down and get some fresh air.

It didn't seem very long after I'd stepped outside for some fresh air that Loren came out. He had been kicked out of the bar. "I didn't do anything!" he proclaimed. Loren never does anything. But he sure seems to get kicked out of bars for doing nothing with suspicious frequency.

At this point, it was maybe 12 or 12:30, and despite being an ass along with Kelly about the eating thing, he kindly led me back to the hotel and patiently waited as I sat down on a railing, planter, or curb or somesuch, put my head between my knees and proceeded to let forth a voluminous stream of pure, liquid vomit. Yummy. To the unsuspecting passerby, that trickle running across the sidewalk likely appeared to be someone's spilled drink, or perhaps rusty condensation leaking from an air conditioner, as there was not a single solid chunk in it to be found. 10.5 miles. No food. Hard alcohol. Bad. Very bad.

We got back to the hotel where I collapsed onto the pull out bed in the suite and liqui-puked even more into the ice bucket. Loren took it to empty it. What a guy. But for reasons known only in Loren Land, he emptied it into the sink, splashing it all over the counter when there was a toilet not 2 steps away.

I was out of it, but I drank as much water as I could. I kept getting up throughout the night to chug water, despite it hitting my touched stomach like a kick to the nuts. I knew I had to, or I'd be sick as a dog the next day. What seemed like minutes after I'd laid down (I didn't even realize I'd fallen asleep), I rolled over to find Kelly standing over me, flicking water in my face with his fingers and laughing his ass off. This was a reference to something I'd done to Loren when we all went to Boston last year. Ha, ha. Very funny. Fucker. I would have probably less perturbed had it been Loren doing it instead. He deserved getting some payback on me.

As it turns out, that incident probably occurred around 4 or 4:30 when Kelly ended up getting back to the room. He's still trying to piece together just what the hell he was doing until that late since the bars close here at 2 am. Loren had also gone back out to the bars until 2 am. I was completely unaware of the passage of time until about 9:30 am. Thankfully, my hydration instincts paid off, and I awoke to find myself feeling somewhat worked over, but functional. No headache. No furry tongue. Just a little delicate in the stomach and thirsty. I drank some more water, and went back to bed until a little before 11.

I showered up, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and hung around to B.S. while the guys got ready to leave. We parted ways, and I stopped at Starbucks for a mocha and a blueberry scone, the first substantial food in my system in nearly 24 hours. It wasn't nearly enough. I had a strong hankerin' for a Taco John's burrito. Not a Taco Bell burrito. Not a Chipotle burrito. It had to be Taco John's. But I had also talked with my friend Becky about hanging out that afternoon, so I gave her a call. Made more sense to drive straight over to her place in Woodbury than go all the way home and then to Woodbury. I arrived at her place around 1 pm. She offered up anything I wanted from her fridge or freezer, but that Taco John's burrito was sitting on my brain. I looked online, and there was one just a couple miles away. She humored my craving and sat patiently as I downed the burrito and potato ole's (kick ass little tater tot-like fellas like Taco Bell's potato sides USED to be).

That wasn't the end of weekend festivities, but this all was the most stupid and interesting part of it. Next time I'll just have a beer and some hot wings when I go out.

Note from Jeremy: Prior to January 2, 2006, this blog was hosted at MySpace.

I seem to be compelled to change my profile headline relatively frequently, sometimes more than once a day. Courtesy of the form history in my browser, here's a sampling of my recent headlines. Some give credit to the source. Others are all Jeremy!

"...in the guise of Chad Sexington" (from The Simpsons)

"A predictable incongruity in moral substance"

"Can the internet give you chlamydia?"

"Fear of a known constant"

"Go brown yourself"

"Halloween candy hangover"

"Hooray for continence!"

"I have a passionate zest for apathy!"

"I saw a possum tonight. I think he ate my toast." (Inspired by the fact that I actually DID see a possum that night!)

"I suddenly have a refreshing minty flavor." (paraphrase of a line in Mystery Science Theater 3000 The Movie)

"I'm not even mad...that's amazing!" (Anchorman)

"I'm still convinceable" (Line from "Coin-Operated Boy" by Dresden Dolls)

"Like oatmeal in the pants"

"Nobody's gay for Moleman" (The Simpsons)

"Probably not your illegitimate brother...probably"

"Refusing to use my indoor voice"

"Smarter than a monkey, less drunk than your dad"

"Some sort of pudding or pudding-like substance"

"Tales from the mayonnaise jar"

"Taste the rainbow, and get a job, douchebag!"

"They were right for laughing at you"

"Where's Buckminister Fuller When You Need Him?"

"You say that so often, it's lost all meaning" (The Simpsons)

"Why does my conscience sound like a gay chipmunk?"