This time of year is sometimes a little tough for me. Finally, I decided to tell those insensitive bastards how I feel! This is an actual reply I sent to an ad I received tonight. Maybe now they'll be more aware of other people's emotions. Click the photo to enlarge.

I'm nursing a still-healing gouge from a tumble down a steep embankment while I was in California a few weeks ago (yes, the trip of which I promised to post a description and photos, but have yet to make good). The gouge was big, and it was deep. Today it itches like crazy. Either it's healing or is infested with chiggers.

That same tumble also embedded a half dozen or so slivers and thorns from the surrounding plant life into my fingers and palms. This is a fact I was reminded of today as my chair at work jammed a sliver of some sort of metal shaving into the middle finger on my right hand. Quelle fuck est il?

I've also decided I need to work a form of the word "fuck" into every single blog post from here to the end of eternity.

"July 19, 2009 - I proposed to my [future and theoretical] girlfriend today. She's such a fucking hobag."

"May 10, 2016 - I turned 40 today. I fucked 5 chicks at once (all friends invited over by my fucking hobag wife). It was as awesome as it sounds!"

"May 17, 2016 - Fuck! I think I have chlamydia!"

Ad nauseum

The day I started my new gig nearly a couple of weeks ago, my usual early afternoon rumbling set in. I knew it was time to drop a couple of long-stemmed jonny cakes onto the porcelain griddle. I did my sinful bid-nass, ran a few layers of 2-ply against the corn chute, and immediately realized I hadn't yet tested the flushing force of this particular toilet.

When using an unfamiliar commode, I often do a test flush before wiping to make sure it is capable of handling my prolific intestinal squeezings. If not, usually a couple of extra flushes will eventually knock things loose. But add paper to the mix, and the whole thing is a crap shoot. Pun intended, fuckers. Nothing is worse than plugging up a toilet in an office or public place (aside from having the liquishits in an office or public place). They almost NEVER leave a plunger out for the public for those embarrassing situations. But perhaps I'm the only person who has plugged a toilet in almost every state he's stepped foot in (I'm still banned from all Holiday Inn Express hotels in Florida and Georgia).

Knowing that my oversight could be a costly mistake, I pressed the handle with trepidation. My fears were soon realized with the sound of a pathetic gurgle. Perhaps a quarter of my leavings and wipings made it down before becoming solidly lodged in an immovable mass. My heart sank into my stomach, and an old familiar panic washed over me. I'd done it again. Or had I? I let the tank fill again and pressed the lever, this time with more force and for a longer duration. The toilet WHOOSHED to life, sucking down light, time, and space into it's unforgiving, swirling maw.

I would have instinctively stepped back in my startled state, but the force of the flush drew me forward and threw me off my feet. I frantically grabbed at whatever I could--the door handle, the toilet paper dispenser, the rim of the toilet itself. But gravity plays no favorites. Without a moment to spare, the last drop of water drained from the tank, and the air became still. My watch was gone, and I was missing a contact lense, but I was alive. Praise Jesus, I was alive. I lept to my feet, straightened my hair, smoothed my rumpled shirt, and returned to my desk. Yes, this toilet will do nicely. Quite nicely.

Another 90+ degree, muggy day out there today. Yesterday it hit 97 with a heat index of 99. Boo. We've certainly seen hotter days, but usually in July and August. Not May. The normal high for this time of year is the mid-70's. I didn't venture outside all day during the day yesterday. I hunkered down in my fortress of solitude cooled by central air. Finally at about 8:30 last night, when it had cooled down into the low 90's and when the sun was not beating down, I ventured out for Chinese food and groceries. I thought about stopping by Dairy Queen for a cool french silk pie Blizzard, but I didn't have enough patience for the full parking lot and long line of cars in the drive through. Stupid other people wanting to do the same thing that I want to do and getting there before me. Fuck society. It's my turn NOW!

This morning I braved muggy mid-80's (tolerable, but uncomfortably moist) to go pick up my friend at the airport after her trip to Denver. Sure I was in an air-conditioned car the whole time, but afterward I replaced the blade and some other parts on my mower. I sweated like your mom in church.

Tonight I'm heading to Uptown for some Thai food and drinks. Hope it's less hot than balls by then. Balls are hot. Sweaty and hot. 'Least mine are right now.

Watch this television commercial and keep in mind that this is a REAL FUCKING PRODUCT! Pedophiles everywhere must be jerking off to this ad like crazy. For God's sake, they could have at least added some mild green coloring to play up the alien slime factor instead of making it look like a stream of man chowder.

A lot of you probably don't regularly read the Diet Mountain Dew section of my blog, but in late February, PepsiCo changed the formula of my most beloved soft drink to use a blend of Splenda and other sweeteners to make it taste like Mountain Dew. No warning. No courtesy of a reach around. Nothing. Long story short, I, along with several thousand other people, were quite pissed. In any case, after nearly 4 months of an online petition, call-in and letter-writing campaigns, and other movements, the first sales figures came out, and it was a crushing blow. Sales of the new formula are up 17% compared to the old stuff. That combined with the fact that my time and interest for maintaining the fight had waned significantly led me to officially throw in the towel on Friday.

I am from China. I told a humorous anecdote. Oh, and I urinated in your soft drink.

God dammit...sorry for that last post. I promise my blog will not become the following:

-A forum for my feelings. Feelings are for codependent women and gay dudes. That's what Pat Robertson told me. Or maybe it was God.

-A place to piss blood about my trials and tribulations with women. It's every fucking day of my life, and that just gets depressing. I shall only talk about explosive diarrhea, horses ear-fucking corpses and jack-o-lanterns, and tell stories that constantly drag my sexuality into ambiguously dark corners.

-A "cheese sandwich" blog filled with mundane details of my life. Unless my life that day involves explosive diarrhea and the ear fucking thing. Which it often does.

Monday my head was in the clouds. I thought I had found a really incredible girl, then it all went to shit a heartbeat later. I mentioned here earlier my wonderful evening with Nikki. Cute, smart, funny, profane as all hell (the girl can drop some f-bombs in ways that would make Tony Soprano proud), and quite a catch, or so I thought. I'm not one to spill someone else's private beans publicly, so I'll leave out some of the personal things she shared with me. Suffice it to say, she has issues that she admits herself need to be worked out. I'm not sure if she was saying these things to scare me off, trying to save me more heartache down the road, or both, but in any case, it's a done deal. Kaput. In the crapper. In the end, she broke it off, but frankly the way things were going, I was on the verge of ending it myself. We were supposed to go out tonight, but I was wary about how it would go. I was going to see how things went, and then make a decision about whether I wanted to continue on or not. I guess she made the decision for me.

In the ongoing and entertaining vein of interesting searches directing people to my site, yesterday's winner was a google search for "pez boobie". Pez boobie??? So is this dude (assuming it's a dude) looking for bosom-shaped Pez dispensers? Or for women who've enhanced their breasts with implants equipped with Pez-firing machine guns? Delicious, but deadly!

And then there's poor Roomba. I'm a few days overdue for changing its filter. You're supposed to do it every couple months. I've failed you in this relationship, Roomba. I've taken you for granted, and I apologize. You will get your new filter tonight. I swear! I make no further promises about not pressuring you for anal sex, however.

Yesterday I was running on fumes, walking through the day in the midst of a thick fog. I had intended on depositing my first paycheck from my new job over lunch, but one of my coworkers had a birthday, so we went out to lunch in celebration. Yeah, I could have declined, but being the new guy, I don't want to pass up too many coworker socializing/bonding opportunities right off the bat.

After work, I stopped at the Super Target down the road for a few supplies and headed down to County Road 50 to see if I could find a Wells Fargo ATM to deposit my check. First, I stopped in a SuperAmerica. Every SuperAmerica I've been in around here has a Wells Fargo ATM. Not this one. Fuckers. So I decided since I had to stop at Burnsville Center anyway that I'd do the ATM there. As I pulled into the turn lane to get onto the freeway onramp for northbound I-35, I saw a cop with his lights flashing behind me. I pulled over, expecting him to pass, but quickly realized he was pulling ME over. Shit! Turns out in my admitted confusion in navigating the concentric clusterfuck of strip malls and back streets to get back to the freeway, I completely blew through a stop sign without realizing it. Despite my clean driving record, my hopes of getting a warning were dashed, and I was handed a ticket for $127. I know I say this so much it's lost all meaning, but that is a complete DRY ASS RAPING!!

Believe it or not, this did not sour my mood much. My inattention caused me to make a mistake, and I got nailed for it fair and square. But still...the ass raping.

I continued on my less than merry way to Burnsville Center, pulled into the parking lot at Wells Fargo, went to pull out my check from my money clip and...IT WAS FUCKING GONE. You've got to be kidding me. I searched my car. I searched my pockets. NOTHING. God dammit! Now I was livid, and a foul mood washed over me like warm horse piss. I had it in my money clip and know for certain it was with me when I paid for lunch. The only thing I can think of is that it fell out of the money clip when I went to the vending machine at work or paid for my purchase at Super Target.

My logical side realized everything would be ok. I was upset with myself for doing two stupid things but knew they'd replace my paycheck and that while $127 was indeed a dry ass raping and that I'd miss the money, that it wasn't the end of the world. Shit happens. What can you do.

In any case, while I'd planned on chilling out at home, I called Nikki to vent and hopefully get some words of encouragement. She invited me over (she lives about 15 minutes from me), and we spent yet another very nice evening together. We're getting together tonight, too. I would say on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being poopy head and 10 being uber awesome, that she is a 15. Maybe even a 20. So it wasn't such a bad day after all.

No, no. It's not what you think. Though I did have a fabulously gorgeous girl over for dinner last night (hi, Nikki!), it was a relatively innocent evening. I grilled up some chicken kabobs, and after we ate, I started up a fire in the pit out back. The beer and conversation flowed, and as darkness took hold and the air chilled, the warm glow of the fire became more and more inviting to both humans and furry creatures alike.

I was mid-sentence when I was startled by the sound of crunching of leaves and spotted a small, furry form dash through the outer reaches of my peripheral vision. At first, I thought it was one of the many rabbits I frequently see hopping about the neighborhood. But then the shadowy figure came into view. It was a small black cat. It had no collar, but its lack of fear in our presence and the fact its front claws had been trimmed suggested that this was a house cat. Or if you will, a house pussy. After some petting and lap time, the cat contentedly plopped down in the grass near the fire and sat quietly as we talked.

When the fire began to die, we decided to head inside to watch a movie. The cat sat outside my sliding door meowing and yowling, wanting to come in. It was at that point that I realized I had left the remnants of the fire burning, so I deftly snaked past him while blocking his entry into the dining room. I doused the fire, and tried to be equally agile in my reentry, but no dice. The cat shot past me and into the kitchen and darted down the basement stairs with Nikki and I giving chase.

The irony of the situation hit me immediately. Not an hour beforehand, I had recounted a delightful childhood memory of our cat disappearing for several days. She eventually returned with an injured paw, jumped up into the ceiling through an unfinished portion of our laundry room, and DIED! Our clue that she had died was the fact that she no longer meowed when called. Oh, and the pungent stench of dead, rotting cat was a pretty good indicator, too. The smell soon grew bad enough that we had to move out of the house entirely.

Dad, anxious to find the rotting cat corpse (and who wouldn't be?), decided to cut a square hole in the ceiling and begin the search for there. Smoking one of his trademark Winstons to cover up the smell, he looked left--no cat. Looked ahead--no cat. Looked right--no cat. He turned around--dead cat right in his face. Yummers. Sliding a stick through the its collar, he hauled it away from the house and buried it deep. Mothballs and several days of airing out allowed us to move back into the house a couple weeks later.

With all of this fresh in my head, I panicked as the cat barrelled down the stairs toward my basement, which contains (are you ready?) an unfinished laundry room with access into the ceiling. (in slow mo) NOOOOOoooooo Muhhhthaaa Fuhhhhck...

Thankfully Nikki grabbed a hold of him after he hit the bottom of the stairs. I opened the glass door, and the cat was unceremoniously dumped outside from wence he came. I like cats, but I don't need to deal with insolent cats who die in hard to reach places.

Oops...she did it yet again! And this time but good. Britney Spears has apparently slow cooked her baby to death. A frantic Spears called 911 after finding her baby floating in a large crock pot filled with garlic, onions, and carrots. Paramedics attempted to revive the child, but his succulent meat fell from the bone. Afterward, a raw pork roast was reportedly found in a kiddie pool in the back yard.

Much attention is given to the cock, and guys often complain that their balls are being ignored, but ladies, don't forget the taint. Poke at it, tickle it, lick it, pinch it, or whatever he prefers. Just don't ignore it. It's lonely.

Day three of the new gig, and I haven't really got my feet wet quite yet. I'm mostly reviewing documentation, looking at database schemas (basically diagrams of how a particular database is laid out), and looking through computer code. Basically I'm in "look but don't touch" mode right now. I was hoping today that I'd get assigned some tasks, but it sounds like that's not going to happen until Monday. So the best I can do is make good use of my time continuing to read and familiarize myself with their systems.

So last night I finally finished mowing my overgrown yard. This is the first I've cut it this spring. It was already in need before I left for California on the 4th, but a bad sequence of days filled with rain and/or laziness prevented me from mowing before I left, and the same held true until this week. By that time, it was out of control. It had long since headed out and gone to seed. Unfortunately, I have a cordless electric mower long overdue for a new battery pack, and could only get about 30 minutes of mowing in over the course of three nights. The heavy, somewhat damp grass sapped the weakened battery of its juice before I could finish. My yard looks like a freshly swathed field ready for harvest right now, so I'll probably go over it again this weekend after the clippings dry out to mulch it up better.

In other news, you may recall that earlier this year my neighbor that lives just behind me had his house burglarized. He had left a note for me warning me what had happened, and I finally got a chance to talk with him about it last night. He was gone for maybe 4 hours and came back to find they'd relieved him of his laptop, hunting equipment, $200 cash, dvd player, and other electronics. There were multiple people involved. They peeked in window in the garage to see if the car was gone, then one kicked in the basement window, slithered through an amazingly narrow opening, hopped down onto a washing machine, and went upstairs to let the other person in. Search dogs followed their trail to a spot on the street around the corner, which indicates that's probably where they parked their vehicle. This really freaked me out because they brazenly did it on a Thursday night before 9 pm and were wandering from yard to yard, including mine. Thankfully I was home that night, and the lights probably deterred them.

It turns out that the Eagan police caught them just 3 weeks later thanks to a tip (I wish I'd known this sooner since the whole thing made me paranoid for the rest of the winter). Turns out it was several teenagers who attended Burnsville High School and that they had burglarized a dozen or so houses. The dumbasses left fingerprints and DNA everywhere (they often ate and drank items from fridges at houses they burglarized). Once confronted with the irrefutable evidence, they confessed to everything. This was only the third burglary in our general area in 10 years.

I'm relieved they were caught and am now glad that I have a relatively constant level of moderate paranoia about these things. After I moved into my house, I immediately installed bright motion floods in the front and back yard and after the burglary, installed another small motion flood on a once dark side of my house by the bedroom windows. I also installed a shade on a window of the door into my garage so no one can peek in to check if my car is gone. My computer also monitors motion from video cameras in my front and back yard, as well as the webcam on my computer when I'm away from the house. If motion is detected in the frame, it captures multiple frames and emails them to me so the images are available even if my computer is stolen. And having heard how these burglars broke in, I'm also going to do what my neighbor did and reinforce my basement windows. The question is how to do this without creating a safety issue for those inside if a fire were to trap people in the basement. I also want to keep the cost down. Any ideas out there?

Yes, it's been almost a week since I've blogged. This was part laziness, part being busy. I was busy some nights, but so tired I crashed the others. My mind couldn't handle blogging. And yes, I'm still working on a post about my trip to California from which I returned last week. I had promised to have them up by this past weekend, but fuck personal goals and deadlines. I'll do it when I do it, and you can bloody well wait with bated breath to suckle at my vacation story/photo teat. Which really is about the shittiest kind of teat there is when you think about it. Musical teat, financial teat, culinary teat, vacation story/photo teat. That smacks of hind teat.

Yesterday was my last day at my old job with a software company in Golden Valley. And of course my last day would have to fall on the day that Diablo Cody had her first local book signing and discussion session. Under normal circumstances, I would have taken paid time off or worked late to take an extended lunch break (it was at 12:30) to drive downtown, park, walk to the book store, listen to her reading/discussion, and wait in what was surely a very long line for her to sign my book. But, I wanted to have one last lunch with my coworkers. And what a lunch it was!

We headed to Minneapolis to the Caspian Bistro and Marketplace on University and 24th. Their market place sells delicious sweets like Turkish Delight (a firm, yet oddly gelatinous candy filled with nuts and covered in powdered sugar) and Greek baklava amongst other packaged and fresh delicacies. The lunch was quite good, but unfortunately, I don't remember the names of the appetizer or lunch item I had for the life of me (a little help, Okan?). The appetizer was almost like a pizza or wrap with a meat topping with lettuce and what I believe was feta cheese. The meal was a very long, hollow sausage that looked like a misbehaved dog had been let loose in the kitchen and fired off a torpedo onto a plate of rice. Not pretty, but tasty.

And today was the first day of my new job, of course. It's hard to tell how the work or the dynamic with my coworkers will be at this point as I spent most of today reading documentation and digging through their code. But I hope to be up and running as a productive member of the team very soon.

The drive to work was a dream. I left my house at about 7:30 and was parked in the lot at the new gig at 7:45. I was early for my 8 am orientation so I listened to the rest of the sports update with Randy Shaver on the Half Ass Morning Show before heading in. On the way in, there was a moment of confusion, as the building is currently undergoing renovation, so the entrance was temporarily on the opposite side from the normal main entrance. I saw the other door, but there were piles of dirt and boards in front of it, so I didn't think that was the way to get in. I thought wrong. In any case, the renovation will be finished in 4 a few weeks, and we'll all move into more permanent digs.

The irony came at lunchtime, however. I ran to the SuperTarget just down I-35 for some eye drops and to grab a bite. What I saw after I turned onto the onramp nearly caused me to bite off my own tongue. Traffic was at a complete standstill. Isn't this what I was trying to get AWAY FROM for the fuck sake?!? Turns out they had temporarily closed one lane of the freeway to do some sort of digging around in the ditch. I was in agony as we inched our way toward the exit, which was maybe a mile or two away. The good news is they had opened the lane back up before rush hour, and I was home in less than 20 minutes.

Ok, bitches. I have to lift weights and mow my poor, neglected yard. Toodles.

OMG, ya'll! I just finished reading this book called The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. Have you heard of it? It is totally da bomb and shit! There's a secret about Jesus and the Mona Lisa and there's codes and letters and a fat dude in a mansion! It takes place in like Paris and London and...um...Sheboygan. There's a naked, bloody albino, and some references to ladies' hoo hoos!

I'm constantly amused by the searches that land people on my blog. Currently, the top google searches getting people here are related to Diet Mountain Dew and that weird old Subway commercial that's been airing lately here in Minnesota.

I'm not sure how to feel about this dandy I found in my logs today. Since my blog doesn't appear on the first page of results, I'm puzzled. And relieved.

Today I'm 30. I don't feel 30. I think this requires several beers later.

Well, tomorrow morning I'm off for a much needed vacation to Sonora, California to visit my cousin and her husband. I visited them last July and had a great time. They've been pinging me for a while about coming back out, so I finally got my shit wired and booked the flight last month. I won't have much (if any) internet access, and my web access on my phone won't work in the boondocks, so it's doubtful I'll be posting anything here while I'm gone. I promise to take plenty of photos and post a few when I get back.

Slashdot today had a discussion and link to a Wall Street Journal article about some of the silly-ass ideas of the dot com era (see my posting from last summer about one of the companies mentioned in the article).

Back in the dot com explosion of the late 90's, even the stupidest idea related to the internet scored shitloads of venture capital with few questions asked. Even well-established companies went apeshit and blindly pumped cash into their IT departments. If you had a computer-related background and a pulse, packs of technical recruiters would hunt you down like werewolves stalk hitchhikers through pastoral England.

It just so happened that I started my computer programming career about this time and that my specialty was writing web-based software. Dot ka-ching! I had the surreal experience of looking for a job in the Twin Cities in the summer of 1999, just months before the bubble burst. In order to keep my applications straight, I keep detailed contact notes when job hunting. Looking back at my records, I had over 80 contacts and more than 30 job interviews over the course of about 6 weeks. My phone rang night and day.

In one case, a headhunter actually flew in from Chicago so he and his Minneapolis-based colleague could "present" me in person before an interview with a utility company in downtown Minneapolis. I had no idea why I needed to be introduced by them, since I was perfectly capable of shaking hands and saying, "Hello. My name is Jeremy. Nice to meet you." without a backup crew. In any case, I was offered a position on the spot.

For reasons I can't recall, I knew immediately after the interview that I wasn't interested in working for them. I expressed my feelings in no uncertain terms to my headhunter posse. Just short of flying into an uncontrolled range, Chicago boy angrily reminded me that he had spent a lot of money and time flying to Minneapolis to present me for this interview. I snapped back, "Wait just one damn minute. I'm not making decisions about MY career based on how much money you spent. I'm not the one who told you to fly here." I also questioned him about what value he added to the process, particularly when his coworker was based just blocks from the interview site and could have handled the whole thing (whatever it was that needed to be handled).

In the end, I accepted an offer that was a full 25% lower in salary than the highest offer from the upstart dot coms. No stock options or crazy promises of riches beyond my wildest dreams, but it was with a large, established company with an excellent benefits package. Within a year, many of the companies I'd received offers from were struggling or out of business altogether. I have a low risk tolerance when it comes to things like my financial future and my career, so I don't profess myself to be some grand prognosticator for having seen it all. I just couldn't handle the uncertainty.

I just finished my last original formula Diet Mountain Dew. I captured the moment on my cell phone camera (seen to the right), and I'll post some more photos later if they turn out.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again

-The Doors, "The End"

*Jeremy collapses in tears, banging his head on the desk on the way down, and lies unconscious in a growing pool of blood gushing from his scalp*

I was just informed that today is Butt Sex Tuesday. Not just today, but EVERY Tuesday! Why was I not told earlier? So whether you are straight, gay, or not sure where you fall, today is the day to give up dat azz.

Now if you are like me and not a big fan of poop chute lovin' (no worries about being pressured into that sort of thing by me, ladies), you don't absolutely have to pound browneye. You don't even have to be a catcher. But put something up there just to be sure. Maybe a pen, a carrot, a mailing tube, some sort of soft-shelled crab, or a kitten. It is Butt Sex Tuesday after all.

Yes, it was a mere 8 months ago that I was posting about a new job, but I've done it again. I snagged a software development position with a company in Lakeville, a mere 15 minutes through open, uncongested roads, from my house. This is in stark contrast to my current commute. While I'm fully aware that others have it far worse, I found that I was not cut out for 20 miles each way of fighting downtown Minneapolis rush hour traffic. You need to remember that I grew up on a farm. A traffic jam was getting stuck behind a tractor on a narrow gravel road.

There were some other minor issues that in and of themselves didn't warrant looking for new employment, but overall I'm sad to go. I'm leaving a good company and people I genuinely like working with. I was also offered the opportunity to telecommute, but I decided I'm not cut out for the telecommuting lifestyle, either.

The new gig will be fairly similar work to what I'm doing now, basically web-based software development. I have a feeling there will be a lot more bleeding edge and security-related work to do due to the nature of their business and client base, so it should prove to be interesting.

But the most important task in this new job is out of the way. I visited a friend who happens to live close to where I'll be working and spied a Caribou Coffee that is just off the freeway and only 5 minutes from the office. Kick ass.

I was picking up some groceries and a bite to eat at Byerly's over lunch when I noticed that they were stocking Dummies books with the magazines and candy at the checkout lines. There were titles like Online Dating for Dummies and Pregnancy for Dummies, except these weren't regular paperback books. No semi-rigid heavy stock paper cover. It was almost exactly like a copy of Reader's Digest in terms of size and paper quality. More like a small magazine than a book. So if they're not paperback books, what are they? Shittyback? Crapback?

I guess it's another sign of the disposable products we Americans crave. Paper plates, plastic cups and cutlery, disposable disinfecting wipes, laundry detergent wipes, toilet brushes with disposable heads, and why not books.

Next: Disposable one-use vibrators and butt plugs!