Bonny has made peace with the eye doctor, who apparently got his crap together. She's now scheduled for eye surgery on March 13 and 27 (one eye each day). Which is only 2 weeks of stumbling around, compared to the month I endured in 1998. But with all good news comes the bad: Bonny got a ding letter from Yankee Magazine today. Their loss. Idiots. I think I'll drop my subscription.

Kylie (or, as I've nicknamed her, the Care Bear), is doing well, adjusting for the most part, though we find more and more she's a mix of all the worst things about Siren and Caper: she's got Caper's ability to come completely unhinged at the site of another dog or human, and Siren's annoying "play Play PLAY!" all the time attitude. Plus she has twice the energy of both dogs combined. She is, quite simply, a dog that thinks she needs constant attention. She'd be perfect in a house where she's the only dog.

Me, well, I'm working on several different Internet.com projects (one that should be interesting), wishing I knew a perfect way to test home routers that didn't cost $16,000, and as I watch snow fall for the first time in a month after 55 degree days, thinking Joe's got the right idea about moving to Florida.

I was told today that one of my readers (Hi, Penny!) found my last post "boring." (Next time, tell me in the comments. I respond better to public ridicule.)

Therefore, I'm going to spice up the old blog tonight with a tale of my wicked past.

Since I mentioned it in passing just a few days ago, everyone has been clamoring for more information on how and why I lost my virginity in a car, instead of say, on a kitchen table or in a bathtub filled with Jell-O™.

Okay, I'll be honest with you, absolutely no one has even bothered to ask how or why, and because of that, I'm going to tell you this story. It's punishment.

Okay, I'll be honest with you again – this story is less about the sex of horny teens than it is about embarrassment. (No, not that kind of embarrassment.)

My high school "sweetheart" and I dated for a long number of months before we got to the point of no return. Things escalated from one weekend to the next. Hey, I was 17. She was a total knockout. You do the math. She kept me at bay for a long time, but eventually things took their course.

So it was, on a winter night in 1987, during a break in a evening rehearsal for something at school, she and I piled into her father's station wagon and drove the six blocks or so that put us in the fields down past the old bottling plant. There, a few hundreds yards in to a field on a dirt road secluded by trees, we parked the vehicle and climbed into the back seat.

Amorousness ensued. Clothing was doffed. Heat was generated. Windows began to steam up... but not quite enough.

In a state of partial disrobement, she saw over my shoulder the most dreaded of sites: headlights. Someone was heading our way. She scrambled to bra, I to shirt, she to skirt. My underwear seemed to be on backwards, but I was too busy trying to zip my fly to care.

That's when the police officer knocked on the window, glancing in. I'll never forget the view of my girlfriend's thigh in the beam of his flashlight. And the panic on her face.

I'll give that cop this much credit: as soon as he saw what was happening, he walked away to give us time to finish dressing. For that, I'll always be grateful.

We both clamored into the front seat and I rolled down the window. The officer was there as if handing out a ticket, smiles repressed, all kidding aside. He warned us that we shouldn't be there, that vandals had been reported here in the past, it wasn't a good idea, etc. We both agreed wholeheartedly, and assured him it wouldn't happen again. He said to have a good night and let us go.

As we pulled away, I was already trying to tick off in my brains other places we could go to park the car in complete seclusion for an hour or two in the future. (I was 17, dammit).

We weren't even out of the field before horror struck anew: the cop had turned on his lights to pull us over again! Did lack short term memory enough to remember us? Was he really a serial killer who stole the car, just toying with us? What gives?

He back to my window. He'd run the plate on the car, and found it belonged to a local business man who'd been a victim of crime before. Yes, that was my girlfriend's father --that's what happens when you own the local cable company in the 1980's but won't include MTV in the package because you're a born again Christian. Imagine the horror for my girlfriend: as she walked to get her diploma at graduation, the class chanted "I Want my MTV."

She assured him that the car was okay with her, she proved her identity to his satisfaction, and we were on our way again. She was worried almost to tears that they'd report this to her father and she'd get in trouble. To our knowledge, it never happened.

Thus ended my days as a boy. Though some would argue that point.

I'll be honest a third time: the night I've described may not have been the actual evening I lost my virginity. I really don't remember. Which goes to show you how "magical" the moment was, huh? I know it certainly did happen in a car, but it might not have been this night.

However, having a cop involved makes everything so much more memorable. I think everyone should get a cop for their first time.

I've been reading a lot of articles about blogs lately because, well, lets face it, we bloggers are pretty full of ourselves and love it when people notice our hip cool tools, so all the big name blogs are linking to these articles.

Weblog tools these days are starting to be like Macintoshes or sports car or wearing a thong in public if you've got the body to pull it off – it's a status thing. There are better computers/cars/ways-to-get-a-wedgie (respectively), after all. But when you use/own/wear a status symbol, you've not only elevated yourself above the commoners, you've also got a new community of like-minded friends. Goodie for us! Lets all be hip together, in this funky groove.

The talk in these articles usually points out the universal truth of Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud (he said crud, not crap). It's never truer than in Weblogs. The rule should probably be revisited to say "99% of everything that doesn't go through some checks and balances for quality is sheer, unadulterated cat piss."

The other topic of these articles is how Weblogging has or will change the face of journalism. Again, this is hogwash. Journalism without the checks (from a copy editor... lordy, how I miss having a copy editor) and balances (of a good editor) is nothing more than ranting with some interviews to back it up (assuming it even goes that far).

I started out this evening depressed about my own blog, feeling like I haven't done enough to make it a truly worthwhile destination for thousands by not, say, reporting on great events, or writing pithy reviews of products or movies. But the more I think about it, the more I like my little slice of the Web for what it is – a rambling tirade that's all about me. I don't have a staff, I'm not a genius, I don't have any thing exciting happening in my life except for having a new dog that thinks I'm the greatest thing ever (at least since the last ass she smelled). There's no higher meaning. There's no major take away. If you don't know me, this site probably makes very little sense.

Yet, somehow my blog manages to entertain a couple hundred people a day (if I can believe my traffic stats). Some of you know me. Some of you don't. Maybe someday you will, and that would be cool.

And that's enough for me.

I found out today that Kylie isn't one year old as I put in my previous post. She's almost three. That makes it much more reasonable that she'd have had a puppy. Anyone who lets a dog have puppies before it's one-year-old should be taken out in the street and caned. (I'm not kidding.) Kylie won't have any more chance for pups when I'm done: she's going for a pre-spay checkup on Wednesday. The only womb allowed in this house is my wife's, even if she isn't planning to use it anytime.

Kylie's sweet as ever, but we discovered she's not as laid back as we were lead to believe. She pants constantly when excited. I thought at first she was so out of shape and overweight that she was just getting winded, but she was panting just jumping on the couch. I expect that from me, but not my dogs. I think it's just an excited stress thing; she'll probably get over it.

We took her on her first walk with us at the local park where all the dogs run off lease. We kept her tethered at first, just in case, and found out she can't walk on a lease well at all. She's a complete spaz. Sigh. Well, she's not far different from Siren, who's going to turn six in April. It was disappointing though. Siren I trust off leash completely, but Kylie's not quite there yet. She does come when called, but only if called repeatedly, even though I had a pocket full of dog cookies. She's happy to forage ahead out of site, which the other dogs never do, and if she sees another dog, forget it, she's gone. Again, this is something we can work on.

As I told Bon, while there were some disappointments today, it hardly seems like a deal breaker. If she was incontinent, maybe. So far, no real problems.

Foods that wish to be eaten, or worse, that promote cannabilism of their own kind. This is exemplified by the current M&M commercials that try to get humans to eat the other kinds of M&Ms, or worse, the Prego Pasta Bake Sauces that make creepy spaghetti and ziti noodles coo with delete at the thought of entering the human mouth even though they haven't been precooked in scalding water.

Not be outdone by my sister-in-law having delivered a new baby, Bonny and I have adopted a one two-and-a-half-year-old girl.

Her name is Kylie. She's a blond little cutie who is smart as a whip -- she can already walk and is fully potty trained! What more could parents ask?

Kylie is, if you're not really hip to my nonsense, a yellow Labrador Retriever, just like her half-brother who already lives here, the inimitable Caper. Kylie was living with a family in Georgia for a long while, and then as part of the deal with the breeder, came back north to introduced to boys, have a tryst, and have a litter out of wedlock. Such is the soap opera life of a brood bitch. Kylie's beau apparently didn't have the high count afforded most young studs, because the litter turned out (as Lauren put it) to be just a "lit" -- just one lone pup. If that weren’t insulting enough, when it came time for Kylie to go south, her human's where suddenly incommunicado. After months of trying to reach them, it was discovered the family didn't want her back, due to losing a job, moving, whatever lame-ass excuse losers have for giving up their pet.

So, Kylie needed a new home. Bonny spent about two months asking me over and over again, "What do you think?" I'd say, lets take her for a while as a foster, see how it goes. A week later, Bon would ask, "What do you think?" and I'd say, "Stop asking me that. You heard me the first time." A couple days later, she's ask again, and I'd say "Either get the damn dog or don't!" She asked again before we went on vacation, wanting to be sure I'm okay with it. "Yes, I am," I told her. "That's what I said in the first place!" No one can second guess herself like my wife.

When we got back from vacation, Bon had all but talked herself into saying we wouldn't take the pup—two dogs is plenty for anyone. But she couldn't. She's drawn to the pup for some reason (even though in the hours she's been here, Kylie's been hanging out with me the most).

It's still a foster situation though. We need to be sure she'll live happily with Siren (who already seems put out, but not enough to be snippy about it) and her Uncle Caper.

For those paying close attention, I've indeed called Caper both Kylie's brother and her uncle. That's because he is. They share a father, but her mother (Tori, on the left in the picture; Kylie's in a down) is Caper's half-sister. I'm convinced that daytime soap opera's base their plotlines of who should shack up with whom on the lineage found in dog breeding programs.

I got Laser in-situ Keratomileusis (LASIK) corrective eye surgery in 1998 (visit the link for details on the surgery. Don't be a wuss. Go look.).

I had one eye done in September, stumbled around for a month trying to wear my glasses with one lens popped out, then an eye patch, then just squinting one eye all the time, before my second eye had its cornea blasted by the laser.

It was worth it. I was finally free of my Coke-bottle glasses for the first time since the first grade. (I don't count my failed attempt to embrace contact lenses in high school. I had "hard gas-permable" lenses because my eyes were so bad. I vividly remember being backstage in one of the plays, a lens popped out, and I had to scoop it off the dirt covered wood floor, spit into my hand to clean it, and get it back into my eye so I could go on stage in time.

Saline is for pansies. )

LASIK surgery was, indeed, the best $5000 I ever spent. Well, that I and my wife and my parents ever spent.

Ever since, I've been a staunch advocate of the LASIK surgery. It's perfected, it's quick, it's practically painless, and recovery time is measured in hours. I've tried to live my life as if in a commercial for laser eye surgery. I smile and a gleam of sunlight shines from the whites of my eyes, dazzling whoever I'm chatting up about ditching their heinous spectacles.

Of course, no one has been subject more to my vociferous pro-LASIK babbling as my long suffering wife. She too has had glasses for years and years, and tried contacts with limited success, but either way it's a hassle. She actually tries to lead an active lifestyle what with the dog agility training, the dog agility competition, the dog walks, etc., so she benefit greatly from LASIK. I got 20/20 uncorrected vision and I plan to destroy it by staring at dual monitors for nine hours a day.

In 2000, I convinced her that not only could she handle the surgery (her biggest fear was freaking out since they have to cut your cornea; plus she's got an annoying distrust of all things medical), we could also afford it. Prices have dropped by as much as 50% since I had the surgery. We did some research, but concluded the Boston area eye doctors weren't cheap. We found the name of a highly respected eye surgeon in Albany that did LASIK for only $2500 for both eyes. A bargain and a big name, to boot. We drove the 1.4 hours to Albany for an initial exam, figuring it wasn't very far out of our way to save money and get good service. We were upbeat the whole time. We had a little assistant doing topography of her cornea, telling us how great it would be.

The doctor breezes in at the end and says to Bon: "I see cataracts."

Que spiral into tears of fear and frustration. Segue into gnashing of teeth and worry of going prematurely blind.

As Bon left, trying not to cry, the little assistant guy came out smiling and said, "So when's the surgery?"

Bon visited a local eye doctor immediately and was told that the "cataracts" were a pin-prick sized "cataract" in one eye that she'd likely had all her life. A congenital thing that would likely never change. By way of analogy, this cataract is to an eye as a zit is to entire surface of the skin. Annoying and not nice to look at, but not a deal breaker. Still, the doc said to wait a year and see if it changed, and if not, go get the laser beam to the ocular area.

Of course, it didn't change a bit. Not wanting to deal with Dr. Bed-Side-Manner in Albany again, we went with a recommended ophthalmologist in Worcester ($3000 for both eyes, still a bargain). He seemed nice enough, the exam went well, so we tried to get her scheduled for surgery in December.

No, we had to wait for January.

No, wait, February, because they need to book a certain number of patients to reserve the laser (which the doctor doesn't own). Sorry, Bon and I will be in Florida that week, how about later in February? Okay, February 27. Good.

We went to Florida, and I spent the entire time counting down the days, saying to Bon: "You know, in 15 days, your glasses won't steam up like that so you look like a bug. Bug-lady! Ha!" or "Hey, only 13 more days until you're no longer a four-eyes! Hee hee—Four-eyes! I've only got two, you've got four!"

Bon called to confirm the appointment today. It's not happening.

The doctor apparently lost contract rights to use the local LASIK laser. This happened a while ago, but they didn't bother to contact Bonny. Turns out, they forgot to put her on the list. I got to listen while she carefully hacked the doctor's surgery-scheduler a whole new anal orifice, one she can share with the entire office.

Now we don't know what to do. I'd like to start from scratch with a new doctor. I'd go back to the one I had, but I kind of lost respect for her when during my first surgery I thought I'd gone completely blind because she didn't tell me what to expect when she cut the flap in my cornea with the microkeratome. Plus, she still charges too much at $2k per eye. Actually, I'd like to take her out to Rochester NY, where I know of a doctor that not only does it cheap, he'll do both eyes at the same time. And he's good. He did my mom's eyes – yeah, that's right, my mom was so impressed with my LASIK results, she got it done herself at age 55. Now she only has to wear glasses when reading. This, oddly enough, seems to be 95% of the time.

Ultimately, I don't know if Bon will even bother now. Her confidence in doctors has taken another hit, and the usual nervousness combined with disgust with the way they do business is not a recipe for a good visit.

I guess it could be worse. We could be dealing with an HMO.

Probably my last Blogsticker too, as I don't really see the point.

This is a great piece of freeware: Nutshell Toolbar v1.0 sits on your IE 5.5 or up toolbar and lets you search either Google, IMDB, Amazon, or Dictionary.com fromthe same field. Those are probably the four sites I hit most often for info, so this is indispensible. It'll even search Daypop, but I never have.

I've used the Google bar for a long time, but I know it tracks my movements, which I accepted due to the convenience. But now I get the convenience without the potential privacy problems, and search more sites. Nice.

This will horrify many. But admit it, you can't look away....

Dude...You're Getting A Web Site; Dell Launches Official `Steven' Web Site in Response to Customer Requests

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers --- AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 11, 2002--Dell (Nasdaq:DELL) today announced the official online fan site for "Steven," the "dude" who appears in Dell's consumer television advertisements in the United States.

The site, available today at www.dell4me.com/dude, coincides with the airing this past weekend of the newest television advertisement in the "Steven" campaign called "Plain English."

Customers visiting www.dell4me.com/dude can watch the latest advertisement, view photos and read more about the actor Benjamin Curtis, who plays "Steven." They also can learn about the Dell system that Curtis uses, an Inspiron(tm) 4100 notebook.

"The Steven character has been a terrific messenger for Dell and -- through customer response to the advertisements -- a great advocate for what a consumer is looking for in a computer company, namely affordable technology built just for their needs with great prices and service," said David Marmonti, vice president of marketing for Dell's Consumer Group.

The Hood Answer Mom. I can't stand this woman, and I can't fathom why.

Leaving the cotton in a bottle of over-the-counter medication after it's opened. That cotton is only there to prevent the bottle from rattling. Once the ibuprofen is home, the cotton wad is useless flotsam!

(I saw someone do this on a blog somewhere. They did a 100 things, but I'm only doing 45, because that’s all I could come up. If you want more detail on any of them, comment and I'll post a big ol' write up later.)

1. I lost my virginity in a car.


2. I prefer mayonnaise over salad dressing.


3. My first childhood dog that I remember was killed by a car.


4. I built my latest computer.


5. My big toe on my left foot has some kind of... fungus.


6. I learned to drive in a Jeep with a standard transmission, and complained the whole time, but I'm glad they made me.


7. I was a straight A student in high school until Chemistry broke me. After that I did okay, but I never cared as much as I did before that.


8. I have a, uh, thing for Sela Ward.


9. I don't digest cheese very well. I think I might be allergic.


10. I attribute my moral code to comic books and the 60's Batman TV show.


11. I swear a lot more in real life than I do on my blog.


12. I don't like guns. Hate guns. I think the Second Amendment is an archaic piece of nonsense.


13. But, if I had one and someone was threatening a loved one, I know with out doubt I could kill that person with ease. (Perhaps that's why I don't like guns.)


14. I don't like grapes, but I love to eat grape flavored candy. Especially Bubble Yum.


15. When I was a kid, I cried when Lois Lane died in Superman the Movie.


16. I thought I'd make a movie when I was a kid, a remake of The Empire Strikes Back using my album of the movie for the sound. I got as far as casting it by asking people at school to be in it. Then I didn't do it. Sounds like my fiction writing "career"...


17. When I first saw the Web, I thought it was stupid, and that AOL was the way to go.


18. When I first heard of blogging, I thought it was stupid, and too complicated for the layman, and I even tried to stop us from doing a story about them in Access magazine.


19. My 7th grade health teacher told me more about sex and baby making than any other source ever.


20. I once dressed as Uncle Sam and road a fire truck in a parade in Hornell. I think it was 1976, natch.


21. Until this year, I never paid for a piece of commercial software.


22. I saw Captain EO (staring Michael Jackson) at Disney's Epcot over 30 times in 1987. In my defense, he was still black then.


23. On one of my first dates, I made popcorn for the girl and we watched the original silent Nosferatu while my dad sat in the kitchen reading a newspaper.


24. I've seen just about every episode of ER made since 1994. In the first year, however, it wasn't as good at Chicago Hope was. Hope got worse, though.


25. I used to draw life-size pictures of superheroes and sell them to my friends in grade school. At my high school 10 year reunion a guy named Carl told me he still had a life size Superman I drew for him. I think I charged him 8 bucks. I used a lot of Marks-A-Lot markers up doing those pictures.


26. I've had fewer sex partners than my wife has had but I try not to let it bother me.


27. I've only ever broken one bone in my life, and even then, I only got an ace bandage and not a cast.


28. I think Julia Roberts is ugly.


29. I used to really sweat when I thought the CDA would pass in 1996. Little did I know it was a golden age for Liberals.


30. If I could vote for Bill Clinton again, I would. In a heartbeat.


31. The last time I went trick or treating, I went as an Andorian from Star Trek (they've recently seen new popularity on the show Enterprise).


32. I used to play Dungeons & Dragons. I missed it for a while. Then I met my (then future) brother-in-law, who was and is still playing it actively, and I think he's 40. Suddenly, I didn't miss it.


33. I really like making out with my wife.


34. Since I entered the "real world' in 1992, I've had I've had eight different job titles (editorial assistant, assistant editor, associate editor, senior associate editor, Web producer, Webmaster, Senior editor, managing editor) and sometimes they overlapped.


35. I first flew a jet in February 1981, going to visit my grandparents while they were in Florida. My parents didn't go; it was just my brother and me, alone, being cared for by flight attendants. I got a killer ear ache.


36. I have right now on my desk 14 pens. But I only ever use two of them.


37. I credit my learning to read to the Electric Company.


38. The one movie I saw in the theater more than any other: Terminator 2: Judgement Day.


39. I hate my hair and really, really, really want to shave my head completely bald. But I don't because my wife says she wouldn't like it. Women are always saying how bald men are attractive, but my wife is, of course, the exception.


40. The walls in my basement office are a bright canary yellow.


41. I used to make myself mix tapes of songs off the radio.


42. My first paying job was cleaning up the grounds at the Hornel Firemen's Carnival each summer. $25 bucks a day to get up a 5am and pickup cigarette butts off the ground for three hours.


43. The best television show ever, at least in its heyday (don't count the last season), was David E. Kelley's Picket Fences.


44. In the winter, because it's so dry, I get chronic nose bleeds.


45. As a toddler, I apparently used to throw full soup cans at my brother when he was in the play pen.

From Yahoo! News - Holiday Muppets movie sealed with kiss at NBC:

"Muppet Christmas Movie" will mark the first significant smooch between Kermit and his longtime love, Miss Piggy, Blake said.
"Their kisses have always been instigated by Piggy before, but this time Kermit comes to his senses, and it will be a very romantic kiss," she said.

(Personally, I don't know how Kermet held out this long. It's not like there's a lot of other female Muppets lined up at his door. At least that we know of. I suppose there could be a very sordid side to a group that all have human hands shoved up their collective asses.)

Born on Tuesday February 12: my first (and probably only) nephew, Christopher Michael Bullard, via c-section. He weighed 7 lbs, 12 ounces, and was covered with blood and slime (I'm only guessing on the last part).

It's incredibly likely I will never get a chance to be close to the kid, and that depresses me no end. I hope I'll get a chance to be the cool uncle. I almost bought a copy of Lyle The Crocodile yesterday at the Mote Aquarium in Sarasota while thinking of the kid, but figured I'd wait until I get to see him.

A week in London, a week in San Fran, a week in the Adirondack Mountains – I’ve done them all, and they were relaxing in their way, but none felt like I’d actually been on vacation...because they didn’t involve waiting in line to go on an over-priced ride.

Yes, it is a serious personality failing, especially for a 32-year-old man, but I don’t really feel like I’m a vacation until I’ve gone to a theme park.

I was seriously considering not going to a park down here in Florida this week when I discovered the prices to go to Universal Orlando -- $50 a day to visit one park! $80 would get me two days in two parks! Outrageous! – but I relented to my own inner child (albeit an inner child with a weekly paycheck). I told Joe and Bonny, we’re going, and we’re splurging for the $80 bucks. And we did (no Disney this trip, I have a strict policy that Disney should only be visited every 7 years so it’s changed enough to be worth it. I broke that policy in 1996, and I won’t do it again).

So, today was our first day at Universal Orlando.

Best ride : Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at the Marvel Super Heroes Island. Best mix of a moving car ride and 3-D movie I’ve ever seen down here. My favorite moment of the day though was at the Terminator 2: 3D ride: during the big explosion at the end, a full cloud of steam/mist is sent flying into the audience. We were in the third row. Bonny didn’t know the steam was coming, she thought it was actually on screen, and when it engulfed her, she lifted right out of her seat. Now them’s is good special effections.

Lamest ride: Doctor Doom’s Freefall. Super-lame. Awful. Not even fun. Just boring.

Nicest surprise: An actual comic shop in the park. Of course, it sold nothing but Marvel comics, but that's better than no comics at all. Consider how many opportunites big entertainment venues have to spred the word on comics, it was nice to see Universal actually trying (though maybe that was forced upon them by Marvel for the license, which is fine, too).

Best running gag: After I talked Joe into going on the Jurassic Park flume ride when he didn’t want to get wet, it turned out almost every ride after that featured getting wet in some way. Especially at the Sinbad stage show. It was like watching them film an episode of Xena (which would have been much more fun) that had gratuitous water explosions very close to us. I picked the seat, so my fault.

All in all, it’s a nice park, more fun than I’d expected. Goin in February when it’s not crowded makes it all the sweeter. I’m looking forward to day two so we can catch all the stuff at the Universal Studios and re-ride all the stuff we liked. Bon wants to ride Men In Black again: it features a video game function, where you shoot creatures as you ride. I kicked ass score wise. It’s nice to play games against the only two people I know that I can beat.

I knew we were in for a great trip when, on the night before our flight, we got to the exit for our motel and the stench hit us. We were obviously near a sewage treatment plant or something. My wife, however, turned to me and asked, “Was that you?”

Off to a flying start.

We were at the Motel 6 near TF Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island. Because of our early flight, and the “show up 2-hours before departure” rules now in effect at all airports (Thanks, Osama, you big dick), we needed to be at the airport by 4:30. (When Lauren found out our flights for Florida left at 6:30am, she asked me in an instant message, “Does your travel agent hate you?” Of course, there was no travel agent: Bonny booked out flights based on one objective: save cash. So for $300, we got two round trip flights to Tampa. That’s pretty good.) TF Green is only an hour from our house, but that would mean getting up at 3am, latest. Instead we opted to stay the night in a hotel close to the airport. I booked us a room at a Motel 6 two exits away.

The stench in that area was almost edible, but we soldiered on. I wanted to write quite a bit about the empty Bickford’s restaurant at the motel that is obviously being put out of business by the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse only 20 yards away (yeah, we ate at Bugaboo), and the bad donuts and muffins from the Dunkin across the street, and the bad night’s sleep knowing we had to be up by 4am. Turns out that was all nothing. The fun started at the airport.

We’d flown out of TF Green once before in 2000 for a vacation to San Francisco. It’s a small airport, not a hub for any airline that I know of, but it’s convenient and clean and they do a good job keeping it well run – it makes Logan look pathetic.

First mistake of the day: I headed right for the parking garage we’d used before. I could have sworn it had a weekly rate 2 years ago, but not any more. It was $17 a day minimum, versus the $48 a week if I parked a mile away. So, I had to back out and head to the other lot. Luckily, we caught a shuttle bus almost instantly and we were at the check-in area in minutes. Plenty of time.

That’s when Bonny found out she didn’t have her wallet. All airlines require ID to get on, but we had e-Tickets waiting – we couldn’t even get them without identification. I was immediately panicked and pissed: I’ve never missed a flight to anywhere in my life, and to do so because Bon lost the one thing I’m always telling her to make smaller and put in her pocket so she’d know she has it at all times, well, that would have made me nuts.

She hopped a shuttle bus back to the lot while I went to get in line. Turns out, I was able to get both our boarding passes using the e-Ticket machine at the Continental check in, and I checked both bags in my name. Bon was there only minutes later, wallet in hand. It had fallen out of her jacket pocket in the car – she’d put it there to make it more convenient to reach.

We got in the long line for the x-ray/metal detector, and listened to the recording say that all laptops needed to be out of bags to put on the conveyor. I dutifully put my bag, laptop, jacket, keys, wallet, and even my lip balm on the conveyer. I was assuming I’d get called over to the desk to turn the PC on, so I’d already booted up Windows while I was waiting.

Second mistake of the day: The guy did ask me to step to the table, but not for the laptop. He didn’t even look at it. He started going through my bag systematically. I reflexively reached forward to help him take stuff out.

“Don’t put your hands near the bag, sir,” said the hulking giant in the blue blazer.

“Okay,” I said. Hands at sides. Then behind back. Then at sides again, because I didn’t want to look to formal. Or nervous.

He pulled out the headphones, the mouse, the power cords, and finally said to me: “Do you a Letterman in here?”

“A what?” I said. A tape of David Letterman?

“One of those tools, a Letterman.”

“A Leatherman?” I subtly corrected. “I, jeez, I don’t know. If I do, it’s yours.”

As if I had to say that. He finally found it – a mid-sized Leatherman convertible pliers tool complete with pocket knife and other sharp protrusions, probably given to me at a tradeshow – in the front pocket. The truly stupid thing was, I’d reminded Bonny at least twice to make sure her keys were free of anything threatening looking -- I’d taken my pocket knife off my keys the day before. Now because I wasn’t very thorough, I’d put myself in the TF Green Most Wanted List.

“It’s all yours,” I said again, smiling stupidly. He’d already taken the Letterman away.

“Give my your shoes, please.”

My first thought was to say, “What the--? Are you kidding me?” That didn’t seem smart, so I looked at Bonny to give myself a moment to think of a better answer. She looked like she was about ready to burst out laughing.

Finally, I settled on saying: “You want them off?” Maybe I could ride through with them on the conveyor…

“Yes, sir,” said the Hulk. I undid the laces of both sneakers and handed them over. He took them up to the front of the conveyer and I had to stand there in my wool socks. Meanwhile, he put all the stuff back in my bag. I opened the laptop and shut down Windows, and stowed that away. Finally, he came back over with my sneakers and said “You’re clear to go. Have a good flight.”

I said thanks, tucked them back on my feet without tying them, and hustled toward our gate.

“That was a touch unnerving,” I told Bon.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you look at all suspicious,” she said, loving the whole thing.

“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Oh, it wasn’t over. As we sat, I noted that a big burly bald-headed security guy was hanging out at the desk, chatting up the attendants, and occasionally looking my way. I tried to not to be paranoid about it.

As we got up to board, they made an announcement how some people would be checked at random as they boarded, as per FAA regulations.

Guess who got pulled aside?

The burly bald guy went through whole bag again, then went over me with the metal detecting wand. It went off at my keys, so I removed them. Then it went off on just my lip balm (which was in a plastic squeeze thing), so I removed that. It went off at my belt buckler, but at least he didn’t make me take off my pants. It beeped on my shoelace eyelets, but he let that go. He turned me around and said “I’m going to check your back and ankles,” and he proceed to frisk me. I was almost expecting to feel his hand on my crotch. If I was lucky, I’d get a full body-cavity search by John Ashcroft when I got to Cleveland for my layover.

Finally, the guy said “You’re all set. Have a good flight.” While this had been happening, everyone in line behind us had stopped and been piling up, not sure if they should go on. Thus I had a nice audience who now thought I was a Leatherman wielding shoe-bombing mad-man.

I spent the entire flight to Cleveland paranoid that they were calling ahead to warn security about me. I checked my boarding pass for the next flight and noticed they’d circled my name, making me even more paranoid. I was convinced I’d be pulled aside for another check – but it didn’t happen. I made it to Tampa without anyone looking at me like I was dangerous.

I’m probably on a few cameras at TF Green, and will be for life, but I still like that airport over Logan so I’m sure I’ll be back to fly out of there. And if they want to frisk me again, fine. I can take it. I’d just like to keep me shoes on next time.

So hey, it's the last day before I and the Wife wing on down to Tampa, Florida. So, I've had a turkey sammich, got my sunglasses fixed, and I'll spend the next couple hours sending e-mail to people hoping they'll attend and speak on panels I'm organizing. Before I dive in, some random stuff.

I had a nice little mini-flame war with a guy who got the CBLDFNews letter early this week. I got his reply since I'm setup as the mailing list admin. The guy, apparently a comic book retailer, said he'd reconsider his support of the Fund if they spam him. Spam? Wha?

I wrote back to him and tried to explain that he'd been signed up in a bulk add of names, and he should have had a chance to opt out. He wrote back again, still POed claiming he didn't see CBLDFNews listed in his Yahoo!Groups account and said "I didn't see an apology in there."

I wrote him again, explained a little more of where I was coming from, and apologized my ass off. I took all the blame. Completely. I was like a villain at the end of Scooby Doo, admitting to everything, even things I didn't think I'd done wrong. "Like me Mr. Retailer person, please, like me!"

And what does he do? He wrote back calling me and the Fund "unethical" because I mistakenly signed him up without letting him opt-in instead of opt-out and that I should read up on spam. But, he did sarcastically accept my apology.

So now I was pissed. I composed a message filled with (controlled) vitriol explaining that (1) I know plenty about spam considering what I do for a living and that (2) I was sure I wouldn't get an apology from him for calling me unethical.

But I deleted it. I've got myself in trouble before by sending e-mail in the capacity of my job to people when I was incensed, and while I'm not a paid employee of the Fund by any stretch, I'm still it's spokesperson on this end. This is the first time anyone's complained of this, so I'm going to chalk it up to a guy who's either really an anti-spam zealot or just having a bad day, maybe both. He accepted my apology, so I'll leave it be.

Thus I'm feeling all grown up and mature. I'm sure it won't last.

When my parents came out a couple weeks ago, they brought boxes and boxes of stuff. They brought old computer printers, a Betamax VCR and camcorder, and other relatively worthless crap. My job is to put it on eBay and see if I can find people who covet this stuff. People always do. It's amazing.

Luckily, they didn't just bring junk, they brought Memories (with a cap M). Specifically, a bunch of papers of mine, including stories I wrote in probably the third grade. I mentioned them before and there was a bally-hoo and cry to see my earliest work...

Okay, Heather mentioned in a comment (which was lost in the transition to using Movable Type) that she wanted to hear my mud monster story. And she said I was a writer, which was sweet of her.

So I guess this is for Heather. Enjoy. The rest of you, go to hell! (Just kidding. Only a few of you should go to hell. You know who you are.)

Note: All punctuation and capitalization is as it was on the original notebook paper. I wrote these out in long hand with a pencil.

The title page of this opus said:

(I apparently had a big ego in the third grade. This coming from a kid who can still remember having a crying jag one afternoon in Mrs. Feeley's class because she asked him to stop drawing Spider-Man pictures. )

Second page:

The mudmonster Returns

On day I was walking home from school and saw my friend Bruce running down the street I asked him what and he said The Mudmonster was back!

I started to run to my House all of the sudden some mud hit my foot and I was stuck!

Then the monster came out of no where and looked me strate in the face and started to cry.

I said "Whats wrong?" and he said "Nobody love's me!" I said "Why?" He said "Well everybody hates me just because I was born in a swamp and I Look Like a dirty washcloth!"

I didn't know what to say except that I would try to help! And I did!

I told all of Shakeycreek that The mud monster is nice and that the whole town now loves him.

There were other stories in this collection, but that one stands out. Look at how I sympathized with the creature's plight early on. Notice the careful placement of actual people (Bruce, who I wasn't really friends with) and the incredible detail of fictionalizing the town name. The washcloth metaphor makes me want to weep. My god, such promise, squandered.

8wire, the site I've long considered the top competition for PracticallyNetworked (my day job) has just gone under. I'd heard they'd tried to get bought out by Internet.com (PracNet's parent), which would have been interesting if not downright scary for my job, but ultimately Internet.com didn't bite. 8Wire sent their last newsletter out today, despite having over 45,000 members. I assume they were paying members. I was. Then again, I paid them $14.95 for the year to get their premium newsletter... if they went under with $670,000+ from subscribers, then they were doomed anyway. My own salary, freelance budget, hell, if I were hosting PracticallyNetworked myself, it wouldn't cost more than $75k a year...

On the plus side: I can now plunder 8wire's writers. On the downside, it's not like I have enough of a budget to pay for much more to go on the site than I'm doing now.

I found out late last week that the executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund quit. I've known him for years now, having worked as the CBLDF.org volunteer webmaster since 1997. I liked him. He was a nice guy. Sounds like he got out at the right time for him.

Now the board has hired a new director, an experienced journalist having written for lots of magazines and Web sites about comics. Sounds, on paper, like a good choice. I hope he embraces the Web site as a top tool to get the word out about what the Fund is up to – something the last three executive directors always seemed to want, but could never quite divorce themselves from the paper side of things. Which I guess is appropriate when you're protecting the First Amendment rights of people who make words and pictures on paper, but I'm betting with the right push behind the site – like original content, regular updates, a buildup of community via message boards and newsletters, etc. – it would negate any need for the seldom published paper newsletter they give away at comic shops.

I downloaded RealOne today, the software that replaces the RealPlayer and RealJukebox. I don't play many videos or stream much since I'm still on pathetic dial-up, but I used Real Jukebox all the time to play my MP3 (both ripped and downloaded from the glory days of Napster). I tried MusicMatch Jukebox for a while, but I couldn't stand the program: getting it to create play list and not change everything when I just happened to click another file in the media library was a nightmare. Turns out RealOne takes the best parts of MMJB (docking and undocking parts of the program) and puts them with the functionality of the old RJB.

And no, I'm not paying $9.95 a month for a membership with RealOne, I got the free player. Even if I had broadband I wouldn't pay that. Maybe when I can get some of those Real streams on my TiVo, sure.

Oh, and today I got a "personal" letter in the mail from the CEO of TiVo, welcoming me to the fold. How sweet of him. Well, actually, I think he'd rather sell me a TiVo Series 2 unit. He also sent me a window decal of the TiVo symbol (which, to be honest, I think is creepy looking as hell). I put the decal in the window next to the front door. The wife didn't think it was appropriate.

The last time I went on vacation with anyone other than the wife was 1989. It was also the last time I went on a "family" vacation: it was my parents, me, my brother, and his then girlfriend in Myrtle Beach, the inexplicable traditional destination for all pasty white folks from western New York. I'd been there at least three times previous, both with my family and my friend Mark's family, who liked it so much they kept a camper in storage there year round. They'd break it out three weeks every summer, during which we would go to the beach in the day to ogle the girls that were too old for us (not to mention out of our league) and play pinochle at night. I was a very obnoxious pinochle player as I recall.

I bring this up because that 1989 trip was also the last time I vacationed with another guy around the whole time. That won't be the case as of this Saturday. The wife and I will be flying out of Rhode Island by way of Cleveland to Tampa, Florida. There, we'll be staying at a house owned by my buddy, Joseph – and he's not only letting us stay for free, he's decided to chaperone as well.

I'm interested to see what impact a forced seven days and nights hanging out together has on my friendship with Joey-Joe-Joe. Will it solidify us as brothers in arms, or drive us to machete laden homicide?

Joe and I have known each other for just under a decade, having started our computer publishing careers together. We've watched each other deal with career highs and lows, relationship ups and downs, house buying, and many, many, many computer failures. I've visited him, he's visited me, he was even my date once for a wedding (but he wouldn't wear a dress).

In all that time, I can't thing we've ever said a cross word to each other. I suppose if this were a movie, we'd start with this vacation. But I doubt we will. Joe's nothing if not polite, probably to a fault. More importantly, we've built a solid relationship based on my constant abuse of him, whether it's his sruffy looks or his questionable intellect.... wait, I mean, a relationship based on mutual respect.

Respect for me, mostly, but that's only because he drives such a candy-ass car.

However, the most important thing about going on a vacation with both my wife and my best friend? There's no way I'm the third wheel. Either way, it's one of them on the outside! I win!

(Unless they read this and team up against me. Thus the major pitfall of public blogging is revealed.)

Is there any radio station in the world as in love with itself as Mix 98.5 in Boston? No. There is not.

I was looking around my hard drive today inbetween watching stupid movies (I'm now on What Planet Are You From?) and I found the files from my first build of Squished Frog Productions. It was like this for more than a year. Pathetic huh? I rebuilt it --even before I found blogging -- to approximately the look it has now, and thank god.

Here's how stupid I am: at 2pm my hard drive started to go nuts. I was writing and writing and writing and I couldn't figure out why. I restarted my system twice, did a virus check, and was starting to think I was being hacked except for the minor detail that I was not signed on to the Internet.

Then I finally found I'd setup a disk defrag to happen at 2pm on the first Saturday of every month. Duh.

Explain to my why a substandard and boring ass film like Star Trek: the Motion Picture still has great looking visual effects when viewed on TV compared to great films of exactly the same era like Superman: The Movie and Superman II . (Mind you, this assessment on the latter is despite the fact that they gave Clark and the Krypton bad guys telekinesis). I just watched ST:TMP and Supes II and the effects in Supes looked like they'd been done with a 1950's chromakey system and some twine. Are the just bad prints? It makes me nervous about buying the DVD of Supes, because if it looks that bad, I don't want to own it.

Also, the closing theme music for ST:TMP is exactly the same as the theme music used on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I guess Jerry Goldsmith phoned that one in.

I think Groundhog Day is perhaps the best movie about a holiday ever made. The only way it would be improved is if Heat Miser and Cold Miser showed up to sing.

But since 1998, I have equated the actual Groundhog Day "holiday" to the feeling of a hot poker being jabbed into my gut.

On that fateful day I awoke about 5am with the worst gas I had ever had in my life. I'm used to gas because, lets face it, I don't eat like a bird, unless you count Big Bird, and that's assuming the Muppet is a voracious carnivore with a taste for grilled chicken flesh smothered in spices. And fries. But this gas was different. I made my way to the bath room across the hall to try and expel whatever my intestines were using against me – this is how I usually deal with bad gas and it's got a 95% success rate. Not this time. The agony in my stomach was getting worse.

I was starting to feel the knowledge in the back of my head... the nagging suspicion that I knew what I had. Could it be the same thing that had put my father in the hospital once on his own birthday, and sent him to the emergency room a couple times before that? Probably, yes... I was starting to think it was a kidney stone.

I was naïve enough back then to think that the real pain of passing a 2 millimeter piece of hardened calcium would take place when the rock went from the bladder and out through the urethra (aka in this case: the penis-- because that's what guys are always afraid of, is pain to the pecker).

It turns out, the urethra is approximate the size of the Lincoln Tunnel compared to that pathetic tiny tube that goes from the kidneys to the bladder. It is in that microscopic piss passage that the stone lodges for the night, sometimes the week, and causes pain that feels like I'd eaten nothing but burritos for a week without a trip to the rest room.

Not knowing this, and knowing it wasn't appendicitis (wrong side) I was still thinking to myself that I might just have really bad gas, and how embarrassing would it be to go to the ER and cut the cheese and suddenly feel fine?

I woke up Bonny and laid at the foot of the bed clutching my self in agony, telling her over and over, "it hurt, it hurt." I think she was starting to panic, since I'm not prone to saying "it hurt, it hurt" unless she's the one inflicting the pain.

"What do you want to do?" she asked, her voice getting a little higher. "Do you want to go to the hospital?"

"No," I gasped, pointing at the phone. "Call mom."

Yes, I called my mommy at 5am on 02/02/98 to ask her what to do. She's a registered nurse and has seen her husband go through kidney stones before... if anyone could diagnose me over the phone, she could. Besides, I didn't want to go to the hospital if one good expulsion of flatulence was going to make this feel better.

"Mom," I told her when she answered, "I'm in such pain, it's in my stomach, I think it might be a—"

"Hang up and go to the hospital." She said instantly.

"Oh. Okay," I said.

Bon got dressed, I somehow got some sneakers on my feet, and we went out into the cold February morning to the car and Bon drove toward the hospital in Northampton. I sat clutching the door handle in one hand and the dash in another. The pain came in waves like a hand gripping my insides and giving a good squeeze everyone once and a while. We were within a few blocks of the hospital when a wave hit so hard that I started to stomp my feet in misery.

And then... it stopped.

We got to the emergency room and checked in, getting a hassle from our HMO (I had to call the frickin' HMO from admissions to get "permission" to be seen, thus making me an instant enemy of HMOs) and then spent a half hour getting checked out. Of course, the pain was gone, without even letting loose one little fart, which actually made me feel even worse about wasting the ER personnel's time. They sent me home with a funnel with a sieve in the bottom, with instructions to use it every time I took a leak.

I did. And three days later, I caught the little bastard, which turned out to be a stone made of uric acid, the same stuff that causes gout in the elderly (something else passed down from my dad's side of the family... thanks Dad!).

I don't think I ever found out that year of Phil the Woodchuck in Pennsylvania ever saw his shadow or not that year, and besides, I can never remember which outcome means six more weeks of winter. All I know is that when I see Bill Murray live his day over and over, or a think of underground rodents being treated like royalty, it makes my stomach hurt.

I think I need to find a new video game to obsess over. Spending a boring Saturday in front of the PC thinking about work and not doing any, or watching shows on TechTV or crappy movies on SkineMax, or worse, doing some work, is just not doing it for me any more. I'm thinking Half-Life. It would also stop me from shopping on Amazon for used books (why spend $24 when I can get a hard cover Ed McBain novel for $5? Gotta love that.)

The game's gotta work on Windows XP though. None of that console crap for me.

What can you say about a day when the high point is going to the dentist?

We didn't get the forecast four inches of snow, but the half inch we did get was bad enough. I got up at 7:30am thinking I'd finally get to put that damn tractor with the plow to use after over a year of it not starting. The snow, however, was completely encrusted in about 1/8 inch of ice. Cutting through it was not easy. I did, however, get the tractor started and plowed what I could of my drive way, and my neighbor across the street (he's a 70-year-old retired cop who got a pinched disc and can't do much of that for himself, which just kills him).

I came in, had some breakfast, was ready to hit the office to do some work when I saw the puddle. My hot water heater was again deciding to shit the bed. I spent half an hour "troubleshooting" it when Bon reminded me that I had a dentist appointment at 10am. Crap. I had to get an insurance form off the Web and scrap the car in the next ten minutes to make it on time. Bon was kind enough to find me the form while I scraped. Marty, my neighbor across the street, came over while I was getting the snow off and asked if we liked German wine, said he was going to buy some for us. I didn't protest. I figured about then, I could use some wine.

Let me tell you right now: I love my dentist. In fact, despite apparently going through some rough spots as a kid when some dentist pulled a tooth of mine sans Novocain, I've always liked going to the dentist. I especially love getting my teeth cleaned. Nothing makes me feel like a new man than rubbing my tongue against the back of my plaque free incisors. Unfortunately, this wasn't a cleaning, this was filling. I didn't have a cavity for once, only a cracked molar. I must stop eating the Old Maids and Corn Nuts. But I love their crunchy goodness so.

I got home to finish taking a look at the water heater. The old girl is shot this time. I replaced a valve the last time it started leaking and got a few more months of life out of her, but now she's leaking where there are no valves. I tried to jam up the spot with plumber's putty that I had around from when my brother helped me put in a garbage disposer in the sink, but it didn't work: the water pushed the putty away so it could run in rivulets down the side of the tank. It's not a gigantic leak, but it's probably pushing out a cup of water ever couple of hours. To my non-plumber eyes, it might as well be that damn at the end of Superman: The Movie.

I was sitting at my desk wondering what to do next – the last time this happened I called about 12 plumbers and no one called back at all so plumbers are the enemy – when who's name popped up on my caller ID giving me a jingle? My widdle brudder, Paul, the home repair genius. He was calling to see if I'd also received a $711 check from Prudential like he had. (Which I did, but the difference being I'm paying for my policy – mom and dad are still paying for his. Must be they figure since he's a cop, he's going to go first and they could use the money. Good thinking, MaD!) I didn't even give him time to ask though, I started in on my diatribe about the wretched evil water heater and "oh, woe is me!" Must be he had enough, because by the time we got off the phone, he'd offered to come out to fix it next week on his days off.

That's right. Instead of paying $700-plus to some non-calling back, take-as-much-time-as-he-wants plumber, I'll pay $150 for a new tank and my brother and dad will drive 13 hours round trip to help me put the damn thing in. You just wish you had a family as nice and as cool as mine. All of you. Yeah, you're wishing it. But you don't, and you can't have mine. So there.

So, thanks to Paul, getting my tooth drilled and filled wasn't the high point of my day. But now I have to limp this tank through the weekend, which means changing the towel under it every few hours. It's much like changing a baby, only no green feces.

If this was a comic book, we'd call this "The 300th Anniversary" of the Squished Frog Blog. However, it's damn close to eight months since I started doing this regular mix of blurbs and memories and complaints and baring my soul. That's pretty amazing, and, hell, blogging has lasted longer than some of my jobs.

Blogging is a very important part of my life now, maybe too important. I not only read a log of blogs each day, I spend a fair amount of my off-time tweaking my blog (I used to tweak my site, now I just tweak the blog part, though maybe that'll ease up now that I've got Movable Type working well). I've helped friends setup blog and will be working on sites for a couple of friends this weekend to get them blogging anew.

I've even started thinking a lot about a content site all about blogging. Something that would be to weblogs what PracticallyNetworked is to home networkers: how-tos, reviews, interviews with the people behind the scenes, links and lists of things people want, basically an aggregation of all things Weblog with content to go with it. I know there are sites like that, but nothing of the scale I'd like to do.

Of course, the only way that's going to happen is if I get laid off. And thus I hope it remains just a thought for a long, long time. Meanwhile, I'll continue to blog and blog and blog, trying out new things (check out the "recent referrers for squishedfrog" to the right... it's highly embarrassing that there's actually no referrers under it, but here's hoping. It'll grow. Makes me wonder how much traffic Erin actually gets each day. Perhaps I should start a new blog and pretend to be a single woman to increase traffic...) and tell you far more about me than you need to know.