I like spiders.

I always have. I know, I know, its only because for a many, many years as a child... and in the spring of 2002 for that matter... I was obsessed with the adventures of Amazing Spider-Man. I admit that. But I learned a lot about spiders back in my childhood of the 70s.

(Whenever I was obsessed with a new super-hero, usually for a short period of time of a week or maybe a month, I would learn what I could about the physics of that character. For example, I read about archery and made myself a crude bow and arrow when I read my first Green Arrow tale. Not to mention he had that cool Robin Hood hat. If the physics and "science" of the hero was to far fetched to research, I'd create something in their image. I still, somewhere, have the doll I made out of the Silver Surfer using scraps of wood, hook-and-eye screws, and silver spray paint. I lost his cosmic surfboard though, years ago.)

I knew the poisonous spiders (Black Widow, Brown Recluse) and the desert spiders that can jump several feet and why spiders have all the eyes and what spiders do to their prey.

That's what I always remember most fondly however: the prey. Spiders are likable because they kill bugs far more annoying than any arachnid.

But I'm afraid I'm turning into a spider collector. Like one of those ladies with a house filled with cats.

In the window of my basement office yesterday, a fly got caught in a Web. He was buzzing randomly and eventually I got up to see if I could put the bastard out of my misery, but I found him trapped, and the spider who laid the trap seemed to be tormenting him. The web slinger would come down and seemingly bat the fly about the face and neck, then run away... then come back down and do it so more. I watched this enrapt for several minutes. I realized eventually that the spider was wrapping all but invisible threads around the former maggot. All the better to suck him dry.

The rural-type mail box we have down by the road is getting a little out of hand as well. Over the summer, a couple of spiders took up residence inside, living in little web sacks, laying eggs, enjoying the dark. Occasionally one would cling to the mail as I took it out, and I'd try to get him back into the box before shutting it. Now, there's about nine or ten web sacks in there. The mail delivery woman probably thinks we're like the Addams Family up here and would not blink to find a severed hand inside. Waving at her.

Tomorrow or the next day, I plan to clean the Webs. No more webs in the windows of the basement and garage. Time for the denizens of the mail box to vacate for winter. Bad enough I'm always using the Dustbuster on dead bug carcasses anyway.

However, as of July 2 2004, I will welcome all spider's back. That's a promise.

It's been bugging me ever since I heard Ella Fitzgerald singing it on the speakers outside the Bellagio hotel (just after we watched the fountains dance to that Celine Dion song from Titanic):

Fascinating Rhythm,
You've got me on the go!
Fascinating Rhythm,
I'm all a-quiver.

When a mess you're making!
The neighbours want to know
Why I'm always shaking
Just like a flivver.

I finally just looked up "flivver" and it's slang for an old, noisy, rickety car. Am I the only person alive who didn't know that? I thought it was just a nonsense word.

I was a member of the military at age 8.

It's unfortunate that the local VFW doesn’t recognize action in the Hornell suburbs when you're in the KISS Army.

Ah, KISS. I was there with them in the hey-day -- I even watched the KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park TV movie in prime-time. My brother Paul and I owned all the albums (or "borrowed" them from my older cousin who worshiped them) and played them incessantly, especially the greatest hits album, Double Platinum. Paul and I and our friends Tommy and David from down the street would constantly "rehearse" along with KISS tunes. We had started out with the Monkee's Greatest Hits, but there's something about the make up, the out fits, the over the top antics of Gene Simmons that sucked us all in.

We were masters of air guitar, had real kiddie drum sets we beat into submission, and eventually graduated to "real" guitars with fish-line for strings. When that broke, we used the toy guitar as a form to cut out and make new fake guitars out of wood. Why we never made one shaped like a battle axe I do not know.

By the time the eighty's hair band days for KISS came around, I had moved on. Billy Joel became my artist of choice, and the metal bands of the day never seemed to have the -- yes, I'll say it! -- talent early KISS had in spades. My brother, ever the connoisseur of music, has always tried to get me to "come back" to KISS, but that alone was the kiss of death. Paul pushes his musical tastes with so much zeal that I'm usually turned off of his choices for life. He's like a born again when it comes to that stuff. To this day I own nothing by Van Halen because he annoys me with them and has ever since I had to listen to his first band play "Panama" about 80 times in one evening. Occasionally on key.

Last week in Vegas, I was only vaguely aware of the fact that KISS was in town. I certainly knew Aerosmith was in town -- Steven Tyler was seated behind us at the Cirque du Soleil show we were at and the wife couldn't stop talking about it. So when we showed up on Friday around 3pm at the half-price ticket counter outside MGM Grand and saw tickets available that night for a concert featuring both bands, we 1) peed our pants with joy 2) bought tickets and 3) immediately tried to call Paul at work to rub his face in it.

The concert started a bit after 7:30...so we thought. After suffering through the 40 minute repetitive "performance" of opening band the Porch Ghouls, we waited about 40 minutes for the stage to be reset --- this was about the time we started to panic. Our flight left at 1am, meaning we had to have the rental car returned by midnight or so to catch the tram over to the Vegas airport. We figured we'd leave the MGM Grand theater around 11 to be safe. Yes, we're not really big on the gambling with being late. We hate late. It's probably the primary reason we've stayed together 14 frickin' years.

KISS hit the stage at 8:45 or so and it was...magical. Paul Stanley at 54 years strutted across the stage for 70 minutes completely shirtless. He didn't look a day over 52. At least there was no excessive gray chest hair or something. And he works out more than me, obviously. The only thing that gave Gene Simmons away as a rocker with 30 years experience was the slight double chin under his makeup line. Even drummer Peter Criss was there, which was interesting considering his not so happy history with the band. He's looking every bit his age, even through the makeup, and thank god he got to hid his paunch behind the drums all night. The years and the drugs have not been kind.

The musical selections with only about two exceptions were from the 70's, as it should be, and I even recognized a the two 80's tunes they did. But knowing almost all the songs they did by heart and not having listened to them in a decade or so made for highly enjoyable experience. I loved every minute of it.

Aerosmith, also a fav of mine since college (I consider their post-drug days the best, with some of the early drug days thrown in. The mid-90's on have left me cold), hit the stage very late since they had to take down all of the KISS pyrotechnics. Again, great show, excellent time (we especially loved when Tyler took a proffered cell phone from an audience member and sang an entire verse into it) -- and too long. We sat there and waited and waited for them to leave, hoping that they'd finish soon, even though it ran contrary to our desire to get our money's worth out of the overpriced (even at half price) tickets. In the end, we managed to stay long enough to hear Walk This Way, but I I'm sure they left my favorite (Dude Looks Like a Lady) for the finale which we missed.

A great night (made even greater by Bon's desire to look like a concert goer by donning a too-tight black tank top). As of today, KISS Double Platinum is on my Wish List.

I've traveled to the city of Las Vegas perhaps more than another city in the United States, probably ten trips there over the last eight years. Usually, I hate the place. Loud (visually and aurally). Smokey. Dry air that makes skin turn to sand. And the reason I usually go -- tradeshows -- means feet so sore you'd think Torquemada invented Comdex. But no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

I've had a couple of good trips to the modern city of lights, however (now complete with it's own Eiffel Tower). In 1998, I and four of my co-workers already had our plane tickets bought and hotel rooms booked for Comdex -- then still the largest in the world, drawing in something like one kagillion attendees, PER HOUR -- when we were told that our magazine, FamilyPC was moving from our beloved home of Northampton, Mass. to that retched hive of scum and villainy, NYC. And those how didn't go to NYC got the boot.

We all got the boot. But, we went to Vegas and had a good time-- trips to Red Rock Canyon, trip out to Hoover Dam -- etc. Very little work was done. Feet weren't as sore. Much more moisturizer was applied. It was good.

During almost all my business trips I've had the good fortune of being a journalist courted by the public relations flacks (I use the term with love, people) of various companies. Over the years, I've been able to attend some very cool shows on someone else's dime, including the two permanent Cirque du Soleil shows, Mystere at Treasure Island and O at Belagio. The former was a perk of working for a company growing fast, the latter a bribe from a company I can't even remember now (I had the temerity to fall asleep during O even though it was cool as hell).

So, that's why this past week Vegas took on a whole new meaning when I was able to treat it as an actual vacation destination. I discovered new things to like -- shopping, shows, buffets -- and got to avoid most of the things I didn't. I hadn't shared a hotel room in Vegas since my first trip there, when my boss, Bob, and I got stuck in a room and serenaded each other with snores until the wee hours.

Worst part of Vegas: Once you see Red Rock and Hoover, the only thing left to do is drive around, or do something that requires big money. So, being that it was also my ninth wedding anniversary, money had to be spent. Credit cards were whipped out. Tickets were purchased. Tips were left. I'm now in the hole for a goodly amount after my expense report is processed. And the vacation is over. Now we're back in grey, grey Ithaca and I barely remember the Blue Men, the acrobats, or the loud concert. But we've got the stubs for souvenirs.

My new favorite word is "inscrutable" (Difficult to fathom or understand; impenetrable. -- Dictionary.com). I think it describes some thing's perfectly. Like, for example, what I do for a living.

On the phone the other night with my mom, my dad in the background starts to say something about a company called "D-Link." Had I ever heard of them? "Uh, yep, I work with them all the time," I say. The catalog dad has includes a page about a 2.4-gigahertz wireless network from D-Link. Dad seems to think this is new and cool. Mom repeats what Dad is saying about wireles.... To which I say, trying not to be exasperated, "Yes... that's what I do for a living! That's my life Dad!" (Mom, being Mom, yelled at him to pick up the phone extension which was probably a few feet from his head.)

He read it to me again and I told him, yes, not only have I heard of this, I write about it every single day. That I'd setup my own home wireless network, that even my brother has a wireless router. I told him how I can get my Xbox on my network, I can watch videos from my PC on my TV over the wireless, and that if they ever get a laptop at home I can set them up to have Internet access in the garage if they want. I still don't know if Dad gets it. But why should he?

It makes me wonder what, when I'm age 65, I won't understand that'll seem perfectly natural to the kids born in 2004. Holograms phones? Flying cars powered by cow manure? Asimovian robot maids? Cloning of house-hold pets in a unit that takes less power than an Easy-Bake Oven?

Considering that there's so damn many things I can't fathom now -- the internal combustion engine, the inner workings of the US Postal System, how "Small Wonder " ever made it on the air at all (even in the 80s) -- my mind boggles at the possibilities that will confound me in the next 62 years.

So I've had a recurring phenomenon plaguing me for the last couple of years. I can't say for sure when it started, but I think it was sometime in the summer of 2001, after Access Magazine imploded, when I began this blog, and when I started the current stretch of my life that entails seldom leaving the basement except to feed and (occasionally) bathe.

It goes like this: when I'm at the computer, typing usually -- mindlessly transcribing as I do the blahblahblah with vendors that I have to get briefings from all day long -- or doing something that requires little or no conscious thought, I start to see... locations. Very detailed, full 360 degree camera pans in Technicolor of places from my childhood around "the Maple City" itself, Hornell, NY.

(FYI, Hornell has cut down most of the maple trees that were there when i was a kid. My parents once had about five on their property. Now they have none.)

I never see people in these locales, I perceive actual memories of events taking place there. It's just brain-based travel to the past places I held dear, and some places I don't remember much of at all, and some that I was thrilled to get away from.

One that comes back a lot is the center courtyard of the Hornell Middle School. It was there that every day before the bell rang (at least in good weather) seemingly hundreds of kids from the fourth to seventh grade would gather to play "wall-to-wall." I have no idea what the rules of this game were, or if there were any at all. I think it had to do with running back and forth from the wall of the pool building to the wall of the main school and back. I'm not sure how one got taken out of the game. Maybe no one did. That would have been nice.

My friend Mark once told me how when he was on the swim team in High School -- which had to use the pool at the Middle School, it was the only indoor pool in town -- he was leaving practice once and saw a car that seemed to be bouncing up and down. On closer examination, he saw an upperclass-girl he knew from the team in the backseat having sex with someone. She was yelling (not in a bad way). The windows just beginning to steam up.

I've always pictured that car as being in the Middle School courtyard, even though I don't think you were allowed to have cars there. And in my vision, that car is always in the courtyard.

But the girl and her boyfriend and the steamed up windows are not.

I've envisioned my grandparent's backyard in Canisteo. I remember the backyard of many kids who I barely knew, and that of houses where I used to cut through on my way to school each day. I've seen the concrete walls of Crosby Creek spill way that feeds into the Canisteo River (where I went on my first "off-site" from my parents car, when a neighborhood boy told me there were turtles to see there). I've seen so many places in my head this way that I have forgotten most. Once my brain kicks in it's sometimes hard to remember my brain going there at all.

I don't know why the visions come. I don't know why they're always of Hornell and from my past. It worries me sometimes if I think about it... that maybe my ties to the town go beyond simply having family there, that maybe I was and am meant to actually be there. Like some dramady TV-show gone awry (Am I Ed? Is Hornell my Stuckyville?), will I someday go back? Is my future predestined? Is my subconscious telling me to accept that my past is actually also my future?

I don't have an answer. I wanted to end this post saying "LIKE HELL" or "DON"T BET ON IT." But I can't. I don't believe in fate, but I also can't say "never."

I'll fight it to the last though. On that you can count. The past is the past. The future's got to stand on its own.

I have nothing to say about the California recall election. It was either a "no" or Ahnuld all the way, and obviously they hate Gray Davis out there as much as Rush Limbaugh likes pain killers.

I have nothing to say about work. People apparently get fired for blogging about work (I read it somewhere but can't find the link now). I've already had one scare in the last week that made me think I was heading for a breadline (albeit irrationally -- but only in retrospect), so the less said about that the better.

I have nothing to say about my house. With heat now installed in my basement, thanks to a hard day's labor by my brother, who knows his way around a sweaty pipe (ew), I can spend the winter somewhat comfortable.

I have nothing to say about the new fall TV season. As usual, I welcome it back with open arms and yet dread its ennui-inducing influence on me. It won't feel real until The Simpson's start anyway. Which at this rate might be in December.

I have nothing to say about my dogs. The girls are annoying. The boy only loves me when I bribe him (momma's boy). I wish I could spend the day playing with them and then again I wish they'd leave me alone. I was overcome with a fit of moronic jealousy today when I realized that Siren, who as a seven-year-old bitch is physically supposed to be older than me, is a natural athlete with whom I will never even compare.

I have nothing to say about Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. It's made me laugh out loud. But at the same time he decries the lies of the conservative pundits, I feel like he might be using the same tactics. But I haven't seen him called out in Spinsanity.com like Michael Moore always is, so maybe not. I want to believe.

I have nothing to say about the media either, whether liberal or conservative. I live in a town where the NPR radio stations have shows that are unabashedly liberal. I'm as leftist as they come, but those tree-hugging nuts make me sick. I hope there are conservatives who feel the same about Fox News and Ann Coulter. I guess I just like my media to at least pretend to be objective. I like pretending.

I have nothing to say about Xmas shopping for family. No one makes it easy though. Except me. I make it so so so damn easy for everyone. Would that my family were more like me.

I have nothing to say about the play I saw last night at Ithaca College ("The Waiting Room"). It neither thrilled nor bored me. Because the subject matter was so serious (female self mutilation to look better -- foot binding in old China, corsets of the 1800s, and boob jobs of today) I found it hard to laugh at the right spots. I liked the performance of the bit characters, though. And the lighting was good. Damning with faint praise.

I have nothing to say about the empty lots next to my house that are for sale. They were for sale last year too and never sold. We called to find out how much the one right next two us was, and the guy wanted something like $35,000 for two acres.

I have nothing to say about buying comic books in a comic shop. I prefer the mail order. I missed a month though and feel like I'll be catching up by going to this comic shop downtown every Wednesday (the day the new funny books come in) until at least 2004, because if I don't all miss all the books I didn't order that are shipping late. Pain in the ass, it is.

And that's all I don't have to say.

Nothing quite spells out your loser-dom than reading advice meant for people younger than you that you didn't follow.

I refer to an article at BankRate.com (and why on earth a site with a name like that is handing out advice on how to live your 20s is beyond me) of the "Top 10 Things to do before you turn 30."

I only did one of them. Maybe three. Kinda.

Yet, I agree with all of them. Which makes me an old fart at 33 filled with regret. I suppose some of them I could still try to tackle, but I'm betting that one or two would upset the apple cart of my precise and carefully managed existence. Here's a quick run down of where I went wrong:

1. Drive a wickedly cool car, even if you only rent it. I did once rent a very large Lincoln, I believe it was. Though that was not even in my 20s. I was bitter toward the rental car industry for a long time when an local Hertz wouldn't give me a car before I was 25 years old. Bastards. So, no porche or hummer rentals for me.
2. Date against type. They mean I should have dated a "bad girl" type. Since I only dated (and wed) one girl through my entire twenties, that would have meant either breaking up with her, or getting her to wear more leather. Believe me, I've tried.
3. See the world. I agree completely that it's better to do this when young. But I wasn't interested then and I'm barely interested now. Let alone afford it (and when I say "afford it" I mean, stay someplace other than flea-ridden youth hostels). I used to think it might be fun to drive across the US, but even that makes me envision only fights and sore asses and gross rest areas.
4. Live in a cool place. I have failed at this miserably... even when I worked in NYC I couldn't be bothered to actually live in the city. My practicality continues to sap my coolness.
5. If you drink a lot, do it young. I didn't really take to the bottle until after college. I suppose most of my heavy drinking was during my 20s, so I'll give myself a gold star for this one.
6. Take risks with your job. Take a chance with my career? I guess I did if you count getting laid off about six times. If it means follow your dream career, well, so much for that. I'm still of the mind that a paycheck is better than my dreams, and that makes me just... sad. But I can't bring myself to do much anymore unless I know its filling the coffers that pays for the heating oil that keeps me warm at night.
7. Do Physical Adventure. Yeah. Right.
8. Take your parents to dinner. This one I've mastered! No one beats me to the credit card. No one!
9. Do Volunteer work. Well, okay, this one I did okay with -- I've been the volunteer webmaster for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for about 6 or 7 years. It’s something I believe in and wish I could do more for. My more recent volunteer experiences have been a complete washout.
10. Go to Extremes. Well... uh... does owning two houses before your 30th birthday count? If so, I'm a frickin' wild man.

I would like to do more with my 30s, and make up for this. But practicality -- paying a mortgage, feeding my dogs, keeping cars running, etc. -- always seems to take precedence. Throw caution to the wind and ignore these things and I become a broke, divorced, guy who can't even afford to take Courtney Love on a date, let alone rent a car (not even a Ford Escort).