Too Much Time On My Hands

Tales of the Occult - My Encounter with Teenage Witchcraft

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 23:22:55 -0500

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story – MORE Witchcraft!

I managed a video store when the movie The Craft came out. For those of you who have not seen the film, it was made by and for pierce-me-up teenage goth girls who wear black lipstick and leather and practice witchcraft.

Frankly, these people baffle me because I get them mixed up with all the different fashionable special interest groups. For some reason, I link teenage witches with groups like PETA, which believes that no animal should be harmed ever under any circumstances. This would seem contradictory to someone who worships pagan gods – gods that regularly demanded the blood sacrifice of animals. But I am not one to judge.

I also associate teenage goths with people who regularly glorify the so-spiritual-and-tuned-to-the-land-that-they-were-contacted-by-aliens Native American cultures - cultures that routinely kept women away from such “male-only” activities like reading. The fact that black-lipsticked suburban girls worshipped a culture that would have made them do nothing but plow a field and bear children may seem strange and ridiculous, but it takes all types.

Anyway, back to the video store. When the movie The Craft came out, flocks of teenage girls would come to the video store, pick the tape of the shelf, and gently caress it, cooing words like, “It is so real. So true.”

So I decided to watch the movie. Big mistake on my part.

For those of you who haven’t seen The Craft, it is about teenage witches who prance around and do spells and stuff together. They worship a being called Mamon who they describe as “the football field that God and the Devil play on.” This means they worship Astroturf. They have parties where instead of doing their hair and nails together, they practice magic that does their hair and nails for them. One of them turns her hair blonde with the power of magic, which led me to hope that the next one would accidentally turn her hair pink and then summon the Teen Angel from Grease. The Teen Angel would sing a song and they would go back to high school after dropping out of the Hogwarts School of Beauty. Sadly this does not happen.

What does happen is that the most obviously insane person in the group asks their St. Mamon of Astroturf for all the powers of the universe. And Mamon gives her all of this power.

This is the point where the movie completely loses me, because I do not believe anyone should worship any being that is dumber than a box of rocks. Mamon may be all powerful as Astroturf and yadda yadda, but he is an exceedingly poor judge of character. In fact, I am quite sure all of the other pagan gods actively mock Mamon for being so stupid.

“You would probably give all of your power to Eddie Murphy so he can make more movies where he plays all of the characters, you are that dumb!” they would say. And all Mamon could do is put on heavy mascara and weep a little, so that the mascara would run all over his pale goth-like cheek.

Seriously, if there is a guy on the side of the road wearing a tinfoil hat and babbling on and on about “gamma rays from Venus,” would you give him first strike nuclear capabilities? Of course not, but this is exactly what Mamon does.

And the rest of the movie consists of the obviously crazy insane, but now all-powerful witch wreaking havoc while the other witches try to stop her. Or something like that. Maybe there is a prom and some sisterhood of magic traveling pants in there somewhere, I don’t know.

Anyway, after actually watching the movie I began to try to talk to these teenage goths in the store about what a waste of time the whole thing was. Their response was to hate me for it. They would cradle the little video tapes in their arms, protecting these tapes from the horrible horrible video store manager who watched the movie and thought it was stupid.

Maybe they cursed me. Maybe they cursed my video store. Maybe they even CURSED THIS BLOG! I will never know because I never saw them again.

Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! Join us next time for the final Tales of the Occult!

Tales of the Occult - My Encounter with a Wiccan

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:26:51 -0500

Tales of the Occult - My Obsession with Tarot Cards and Psychology!

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:07:02 -0500

To break from the happy happy joyful funtime that is this blog, I have decided to spend a week telling stories of the deranged and disturbed. That’s right, this week is Tales of the Occult here on this blog. Each story of the occult will SHOCK and TERRORIZE if it doesn’t totally BLOW YOUR MIND!

Today’s story – Adventures with Carl Jung and Tarot cards!

Long before I found the current state of wedded bliss which I live in now, I was a mess. I was in a relationship I considered a loving one, and opened my heart to another person. The downside about opening your heart completely to love is that you also open your heart completely to pain.

And much like a high-pressure hose forcefully disconnected from a socket, a completely flowing love tends to twist and wither the moment it separates, gushing gush gush as it does so. It is difficult to shut off this flow, so what most people do is just reconnect it somewhere else as quickly as possible. Hence, the rebound relationship or, in my case, the compulsive hobby.

During a breakup, you reach out and cling to anything that seems stable and supportive. In my case, I reached out to Carl Jung. Jung is great for break-ups, and I heartily recommend reading his work discussing way people relate to each other. You know that line from Jerry McGuire, that “You complete me” line? Totally stolen from Jung.

If you allow me to digress for a second, both Freud and Jung developed theories that were in no way scientific. They may be interesting hypotheses, but they cannot be tested in laboratory conditions to prove their validity. I assume someone could do a focus group or a mall survey to see if people do really want to kill their fathers and marry their mothers, but surveys and statistics have dubious scientific merit, too.

Most serious psychologists and psychiatrists who like to think the study of the mind should be a scientific study treat Freud and Jung as a pair of wacky old uncles who lived in an apartment filled with newspapers and cat pee. Yes, they did great things but they essentially they were kooks with no real bearing on the serious world of science.

Professors in English departments, however, are not put off by this lack of scientific integrity and dance around both Freud and Jung and consider what they have to say very insightful, even if it can never be scientifically proven.

But that is totally beside the point. The point is that Jung was into some really wacked-out stuff. He believed in UFOs and the occult. He followed astrology and talked at length about the dawning of the Age of Aquarius (that song also totally ripped off Jung). And, after reading his essays about archetypal images and dream interpretation, I decided to invest in about three different sets of Tarot cards. You know, to help me understand archetypal images and interpret my dreams.

Tarot cards do not predict the future. They present a set of archetypal images to the person who then adds meaning to the mix. Much like the Rorschach inkblot test, it can be a diverting parlor game, but the scientific methods behind it are just as dubious as those of Jungian psychology proper. But this does not change the fact that they are pretty neat and some of the artwork on them is really compelling.

So for a few months I would read the works of Carl Jung and then play with Tarot cards. I would ask the cards such deep and ponderous questions like, “Should I order my pizza with sausage and pepperoni?” and the cards would give me images like The Fool and Death – images I interpreted as “No. You should stick with the Veggie Lover’s. It will be kinder to your digestive tract.”

This fooling around with the occult all came to a head one evening when I was playing a little game of Spider Solitaire with my Tarot cards. I shuffled the deck, cut it and then played the first card. The first card is supposed to represent you and how you see yourself. In this case the card that came up first was The Hanged Man.

Anyone who knows me very well knows that if I don’t like how things are going in a game, I will try to do whatever possible to start over. My favorite word when losing in poker is “misdeal.” And I felt the same thing here with the Tarot cards.

“I am not the Hanged Man,” I said, “Misdeal!” And then I promptly reshuffled, recut, and redealt the cards. I flipped up the first card.

It was The Hanged Man.

I scooped it up, reshuffled, recut, and redealt the cards one more time.

It was The Hanged Man again!

Frustrated, I scooped up the cards and reshuffled them once more. I looked at the deck from the side and noticed that one of the cards was bent and that whenever I cut the cards, this card in particular would always come out on top.

To my horror...

I discovered...

The bent card was...

The Hanged Man!

Duh dah DAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

Your mind is blown. Your nerves are shocked and all of your senses are now terrorized! Join us next time for more Tales of the Occult!

Countdown!

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:41:42 -0500

12

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Begin

Happy Birthday to the Silliepie Williepie!

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:49:07 -0500

On July 17th, my little brother will have a birthday.

To celebrate, I am presenting Five Fun Facts about Wubbahed.

1. Growing up, an unnamed older sibling often told the young Wubbahed, “Mom and Dad had me and said, ‘We must have another!’ Then they had you and said, ‘We need to stop.’”

2. He has been known to abandon jigsaw puzzles with only one piece remaining. He will lose interest, slump his shoulders, and say, “Where is that !@#$%@!in’ puzzle piece?” After abandoning the puzzle, his elder, puzzle-finishing brother has been known to go, “Look at this abandoned puzzle! I wonder if this piece I magically found in my pocket will fit into it? Oh, look! I finished the puzzle.”

3. Sometimes in his Executive Suite at his big time New York ad agency, he receives letters and packages addressed to “Wubba ‘Please Call Me Silliepie’ Turnage”. His personal assistant, Waylon Smithers, hands him this mail with a quiet little, “Does this mean I can now call you ‘Silliepie,’ sir?”

4. He has very delicate skin. Sometimes even the gentle wafting of a summer breeze can cause his tender skin to bruise.

5. All of his trials and tribulations have given him character.

Happy birthday, Silliepie Williepie!

P.S. Alex, hang in there. I will respond to your blog entry next.

Adventures in New Mexico

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:16:09 -0500

It says something about the vacation place when you spend four days there and don't have many pictures of the trip. Many times it means that things are so tedious and frustrating that you don't want the moment ever recorded. However, in this case it meant that I was so caught up in the excitement of the moment that I forgot to whip out the camera and take a picture. Large chunks of this trip are undocumented, but I hope everyone likes the pictures I do have.

On Friday we flew into Albuquerque and immediately drove to the village of Corrales, where we stayed at the Casa de Koshare Bed & Breakfast. This is a great little place.

After checking into our room - The Storyteller Suite - I stretched out on the overly-cushioned bed and listened to the rain pitter on the roof. It was the most relaxed I've been in weeks.

We could have stayed in the Casa de Koshare the whole time I would not have minded at all. Not only did they have a little courtyard where they have concerts and weddings...

...they also have a labyrinth (which I solved on my first attempt).

Saturday we spent in Rio Rancho with The Mrs. old college roommate and her family. We went to a few Indian ruins and had some delicious New Mexican food.

There is a rule in New Mexico. When you order anything, the waitperson asks you "Red or green?" This means do you want it covered in red chili sauce or green chili sauce. Practically everything edible is doused in one or the other, and sometimes both depending on whether you order the combo platter or not.

I did not get any pictures of the college roommate's family or the Indian ruins, but I did get about 4,691 pictures of Lilly, the family dog.

Lilly is a great dog, and even posed with the Mrs. feet.

In Santa Fe, we visited several museums and galleries including, much to my surprise, the Chuck Jones Studio Gallery. I had no idea it was there, so this was a most pleasant surprise. I have been a fan of Chuck Jones since forever and loved browsing a gallery filled with original works of not only his, but Dr. Seuss's and Charles Schultz's as well. Bliss!

And wouldn't you know it, to get to the gallery you have to turn left at Albuquerque.

Of course, after making the Chuck Jones connection it seemed painfully obvious that he would have a gallery in Santa Fe. After all, the landscape through New Mexico is filled with coyotes and road runners. And it is easy to imagine a giant Acme anvil falling off of a cliff like this.

There is a lot of art in New Mexico. I told the Mrs. that there was probably a disproportionate number of sculptors from this part of the country because so much of of the New Mexico topography is about spacial relationships.

For one, the sky there is huge.

Plus the land makes such interesting shapes all by itself, so creating art seems like the natural response to things.

Plus there seems to be an odd sense of humor about the place - a sense of humor that gets reflected in the local art - even the graffiti.

From the outside, a lot of the houses look exactly alike. If you are someone like me who navigates by landmarks ("turn left at the Walgreens and go until you reach the bank that was once a Pizza Hut") this is a real problem ("turn left at the adobe house until you get to the adobe house - if you reach the adobe house you've gone too far"). We did regularly get lost and every time I muttered, "I should have taken that left turn in Albuquerque..."

We had many great adventures getting lost in the middle of the desert, surrounded on all sides by local color. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like getting lost and then being confronted with the local wildlife population. Fortunately, the Mrs. has the ability to tame the savage beast.

New Mexico is in an area known as the "high desert." It is very dry but also cooler than one would expect from a desert. The landscape might seem arid, but there is a prickly kind of beauty right where you least expect it.

All in all, I consider it time well spent. I might even consider buying property there someday.

Happy Fifth Anniversary!

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:10:39 -0500

On July 12th, we will have been married five years. So we're going to Santa Fe, New Mexico for a long weekend.

Maybe I'll have pictures when I get back.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

That Book Meme Thing

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 21:30:07 -0500

This will be short and sweet.

Blogger.com does not really allow you to create blog posts as drafts and then rearrange them when they are ready to be published. So when you pre-draft your next week's worth of blog entries, inevitably something comes up and you have to delete them, add the new blog entry in the right spot, and recreate them later. Ach, Blogger, thank goodness you are free, otherwise I might complain.

So I got tagged with this book meme thing. Here are the instructions:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the next three sentences
~~5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.~~ Sorry. I don't tag other people. There is an established precedent.

There are two non-technical books by my computer at home. Because Oscar Wilde was featured in a previous entry, I'm using the other book.

"I've often dreamt about falling off a tower and never reaching the ground, and when I've woken up I've felt as weak and exhausted as if I really had fallen off it."

"That's the funny thing about it, lady," said Sancho Panza. "I wasn't dreaming at all, I was wider awake than I am now, yet I'm almost as badly bruised as my master Don Quixote."

From Don Quixote by Cervantes

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Another Music Video

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 22:58:43 -0500

This one comes from Bully the Little Stuffed Bull. Check out Gail Ann Dorsey singing with David Bowie.

Wow.

It makes me wonder if Gail Ann Dorsey inspired Mim Bracca in the novel A Fistful of Rain. Good book, but better video.

That "Handlebars" Song

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 22:51:44 -0500

That "Handlebars" song has been stuck in my head ever since I first heard it on Randy's blog.

As much as I love the song and the general art design of the video (included at the bottom of this entry), I think the ideas behind the video are pretty wrong-headed.

Two points.

One - There is not usually a point in your life where you make a choice and then stay on that path forever. Even seemingly permanent decisions (like marriage and kids) can be temporary (like divorce and child abandonment). And you aren't ever given choices to make like "Corporation" or "Peace." People can and do choose both, and they can switch paths whenever they want. People drop out of Corporate America all the time just like people are constantly entering Corporate America from other avenues of life.

Two - Dividing the world into two groups of people and presenting one as ALL GOOD and the other as ALL EVIL is the sort of fanatic behavior that starts conflict. I know the makers of the video are trying to make a point, but they are feeding the beast.

Having said that, I really like the look and feel of the video, and the song is a real knockout. PLUS, it is really easy to write your own lyrics to the tune.

I can clean my teeth with no dental floss... no dental floss... no dental floss...

Anyone Know a Good Web Hosting Service?

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:46:26 -0500

Ok, here's a secret. One reason I didn't post the script excerpt was that my web hosting service seems to have imploded.

Yes, I am having some problems with my current web hosting company. They registered my website in my name (a whois search turns up me), but put up a link farm on the URL. The back end still shows all of my files and my web pages and scripts and podcast files and whachehoochee, but those files do not seem accessible from the world wide web.

When I click around and doodeelee doodeeleee, my web hosting account now tells me I haven't registered this website and I need to "click here" to do so. "Clicking here" leads me to a blank page.

I've opened three separate trouble tickets on it. In the past, they have been very good with the trouble tickets, responding withing 48 hours. So I'm giving them 48 hours before I actively start looking for other domain registrars and web hosts. Any suggestions?

This Month's Shameless Self Promotion

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:14:01 -0500

On Tuesday, July 8th, there is another Dallas Screenwriters Association Scene Reading at the Half Price Books on Northwest Highway here in Dallas.

Part of the agenda should include pages 11 through 21 of my work-in-progress, Not Again.

Last month's reading was incredible - I was really inspired by the actors and actresses, and they said nice things about my ten-page sample.

I also was told I shouldn't be putting all sorts of my writing on the internet for free for anyone to read and plagiarize. I don't totally agree with this attitude, for reasons I might get into in a later blog post, but I've decided to comply and stop posting this particular work-in-progress script on the blog.

So.

To hear the rest of the screenplay, you will have to attend the DSA Scene readings over the next eight or nine months.

Blogging will be light this week - the non-internet portion of my life is going to be really, really busy.

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Happy Independence Day!

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:59:28 -0500

Hope everyone is having a happy and fun Independence Day!

I thought about writing something patriotic, about how I love America and how, despite my firm dedication to complaining about everything, I am really grateful to be born here and to live here.

But then I decided to put on my best Eugene Peterson* hat and re-present the Declaration of Independence in contemporary language.

*Eugene Peterson, for those of you who don't know, wrote a translation of the Bible that is actually readable. It is actually pretty fun to read no matter what your religious (or non-religious) views are.

So here we go.

The Declaration of Independence - 2008 Interpretation

We are Americans. We want you to know that we tried to work it out with you but enough is enough. You have pushed us too far. We are letting you know it isn't going to work out for us in the long run because there are some fundamental concepts you are ignoring.

We are human beings. We are not your playthings. We believe that we need to be treated with respect. We believe we have the right to live. We have the right to be free. We have the right to strive to be the best we can be.

Your job as a leader is to respect us and acknowledge first that we are people. When a government treats us like dirt or cattle or anything that is not a person, that government has failed. We give you the right to govern us, but if you take advantage of us, we are forced to take that right away from you.

We're not doing this lightly. We know life is hard and life without you might seem harder at first, but the way you have treated us is beyond reason. You need to learn that people are not supposed to be treated that way, and the only way that it seems that you will get the message is if we just end it now and walk away. To not end it now, to just endure in silence, would be wrong.

So, listen up everyone, here is what the King of England has done:

-He behaves like he is above the law.
-He prevents the local government officials from doing what needs to be done.
-He doesn't listen.
-He doesn't have public hearings - all of his dealings are in some undisclosed back room.
-He fires or hampers people who he perceives to be political opponents.
-He appoints weak political cronies. They don't do their jobs right and actually cause harm.
-He prevents hardworking people from other lands from obtaining citizenship or getting a leg up.
-He doesn't believe in fair trials.
-He only pays court judges who are loyal to him and not to the law.
-He has created an insane bureaucracy that bleeds all of our money and food away from us.
-He has created a police state when there is no need for one.
-He has taken the military away from us.
-He makes us obey his political allies, even of they have no legal authority over us.
-He places large amounts of armed men among our unarmed citizenry.
-He covers up for these armed men when they commit violent crimes or murder us.
-He keeps us from trading with anyone but him.
-He taxes us without cause.
-He doesn't let us be tried by a jury.
-He packs us up, takes us to faraway places, and tries us in secret there.
-He doesn't honor the laws on the books; he just makes it up as he goes.
-He rewrites the laws on the books when they don't suit his agenda.
-He ignores our attempts to write laws and to maintain the peace.
-He has abandoned his job, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
-He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

At this moment, there are ships of mercenaries headed towards us. When they arrive, they will kill us. We tried to be reasonable and this is how we are treated.

He has taken Americans away from us and asked them to fight America.

He has caused civil unrest.

Throughout all of this, we have calmly asked for him to reconsider. When we ask for some reasonableness, he responds by treating us even worse. He is a bad leader and is unfit to govern us.

The British people who are loyal to him have not been much better. We tried to be reasonable with them. We filed the right papers and played their little government game. And even after all that, they still ignore us and treat us as something less than human.

Enough is enough. If they want to fight us, then we shall fight. If they want to help us, then we shall be friends.

We are Americans. We are men. We are women. We are human beings. We should be an Independent Nation. We should no longer support the British Crown. We should no longer have to report to a tyrant. As Americans we can make war, negotiate peace, write treaties, buy and sell things, and do anything else Independent States can do.

We believe this is what God intended us to be when He made us humans. We will give our lives to these believes. We will give our money for these believes. With every bit of our personal integrity, we will dedicate ourselves to these beliefs.

***

And for those of you who like the ol' reliable standby, here it is:

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Dell Unboxing #2

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:18:48 -0500

So I have been reinstalling software on my new computer for the past three days.

As you can see, I have a lot of software.

And when I staged this photo, I accidentally forgot to include the Mrs.'s copy of Visio and MS Project - software packages I really need on my home PC for certain projects when I work from home.

And the Oscar Wilde book gives me something to read while the software loads.

Here are some interesting things I learned from this experience.

1) Microsoft deserves its reputation for being evil. To install the latest Service Packs for MS Office, the website would not give me the software until I let the "Windows Genuine Advantage" application scan my computer to determine if my software is legitimate or pirated. It determined that my software is legitimate, but STILL wouldn't install the updates until I put the original CDs in the drive and let the installer verify the legitimacy of the software again.

2) iTunes lets you use one account on up to five computers at a time. Because I did not plan on my computer crashing, I did not get a chance to deactivate my old computer. So I am now up to my limit of five (the desktop, the laptop, the work laptop, the dead desktop, and one mystery machine (it is either my wife's laptop or my computer at my previous employer). In case you wind up in a situation where you have a dead computer still listed as an active iTunes account, you can deactivate all five computers and start over. You get to do this once a year.

3) Sony Media Software is AWESOME! I log into my account and can download and reinstall my registered software directly from the website. So I don't need my CDs (even thought I have them), I just need my account and my registration numbers.

4) Final Draft and Final Draft AV are also pretty good software packages as far as re-installation goes. The website lets you download the latest version of the software from the website if you are a registered user (which is awesome!). You are only supposed to have this software on two machines (a desktop and a laptop) so you need to activate the software. Of course, my activation did not work because I am at the 2 machine limit. The software gave me a 1-800 number that I had to call to deactivate my software to reactivate my software. Call wait time was less than 90 seconds and the phone rep was awesome. Everything is working fine now.

5) Starcraft apparently doesn't care if you register the software or not. When you click "Register Starcraft" after installation, you get a nice juicy 404 error on the Blizzard site. Same goes for the PC version of Halo. Not that I use the computer to play games. No. It is to be productive and nothing else.

Still working on the data recovery. I will try to write about that. Haven't configured Outlook yet. Probably won't write about that.

The Most Horrifying Thing Known to Man

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:15:24 -0500

The other day, the Mrs. and I went to see WALL-E (which we loved).

However, there was one terrible thing we endured at the theater - awful awful trailers.

One of them (which I now present with warnings) was for "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." The Disney advertising machine went into overdrive on this one and resorted to some good ol' fashioned Cold War Brainwashing techniques for this trailer.

Basically, they give you a rhythmic beat and the words "chihuahua, chihuahua" repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until there is nothing left in your mind.

When the trailer ended there were children in the theater still chanting "chihuahua, chihuahua, chihuahua, chihuahua."

It freaked me out.

To illustrate, here is the trailer:

And this is how I felt when watching it:

This whole thing reminds me of my rant about The Matrix (although, to be honest, it doesn't take much to get me to rant about The Matrix) and my rant about the Disney Chip.

My rant about the Matrix is this - the entire premise of the film is flawed.

The story goes like this - the robots decided to enslave humanity so they attacked and put humanity in the Matrix. This is preposterous. All they had to do is say, "Hey! We created this totally awesome place called The Matrix! Just sign in and you get to wear leather, do kung fu, and make time with hot women in red dresses" and people would line up in droves faster than you can say "Whoa." There is no need to "forcibly enslave" anyone. Heck, I'd sign up if they thew in an unlimited supply of bacon.

Which leads me to my rant about the Disney chip. One day, in the near future, the Disney company will come up with a chip to implant in your brain. It will be terrible and awful and it will eventually enslave humanity, but every child on the planet will want one and will whine and whine and whine and whine until he or she gets one.

And there is nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Just like Beverly Hills Chihuahua.

Chihuahua...

Chihuahua...

Dell Unboxing #1

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:32:14 -0500

So my replacement Dall arrived last week.

There are three general phases to getting a new computer.

1) Unboxing it and doing the manual setup.

2) Installing all of the software and configuring the machine.

3) Restoring the data from the old computer system.

As of this writing, I'm finished with 1 and am in the middle of 2. It looks like 3 is going to take about six hours to do. The good news is that there is SOMEthing on the backup hard drive that I thought was wiped. The bad news is that I am not quite sure what it is. Sunday night, I started the scan and recovery process and went to bed, only to check the machine on Monday morning to find that the whole process "hung up" (the technical term) at 1:10 am. I do not know if this is a Windows issue, a Dell issue, or the data recovery software's issue. All I know is that the entire operating system froze and neither the keyboard or the mouse worked. (My guess it has something to do with the default settings on the powersave/hibernate option.)

But that is neither here nor there. The purpose of this entry is to describe the unboxing of the replacement Dell.

As some of you know, I through a fit here on the blog after the incredibly shoddy technical support I received from Dell and its third party vendor. Brad at Dell responded in my comments and we worked out a deal for me to exchange my old broken Dell for a new working one.

It came in a box.

Covered in Dell logos.

And an image instructing you to lift it out of the box with a buddy.

The box contained instructions.

And even instructions that depict users reading the instructions.

All of the pre-installed software came on CDs (which was very nice).

And I even found some religious pamphlets included in the box. I guess this means the system was blessed.

I cracked open the case to make sure everything was in order.

I set the new next to the old for some side-by-side comparison action.

Wired up all of my 5,099,234,155 peripherals to the machine.

And cranked her up.

Then I set the old machine in the box, preparing it for the inevitable Viking funeral.

To Be Continued....

My Lunch with Cyber

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:44:11 -0500

One of the advantages of living in the Dallas area is that I am in close proximity to Cyber D. As many of you know, Cyber D, Gyuss Baltaar, and I all went to college together until one fateful night when I left that institute of higher learning, slunk off into the shadows, and began to pursue my sacred destiny of heavy drinking.

Thanks to the power of the internet (specifically Facebook), Cyber D found me and wrote a really nice blog entry about me. A blog entry to which I responded in kind.

Every since these fateful blog entries, we have been talking on and off about meeting for lunch, and after a series of almost-connects, we finally met last week. I showed up early because I told Cyber "look for the man dressed up as a Viking" and I wanted to make sure no other Vikings showed up and forced me to wait outside. (For those of you unaware of this, Dallas has a very strict "one guy dressed up as a Viking per restaurant" city ordinance after it was determined that two or more Vikings eventually led to berserker rages, pillaging, and streets that run red with blood and grog. While cities like Seattle were having a grand ol' time in the 90s with their grunge movement and their flannel, Dallas lived in fear of wild packs of Nordic invaders wielding battle axes. Anyway, I love to dress up as a Viking and listen to Pearl Jam sometimes, just for nostalgia's sake.)

We picked a nice little Mexican restaurant known for its great food and family of vampire-slaying waitresses - a nice quiet place for two guys to reminisce and talk. I looked around, wondering what Cyber now looked like. Maybe he had turned evil and grown a goatee? Maybe he joined the hair club for men and now wore a patch of carpet on the top of his head. Or worse! A patch of carpet with the price tag still attached! The mind reeled.

But then I saw the shiny silver dome of his space helmet and knew within seconds that it was the same ol' Cyber. We embraced in that manly way only a Viking and a man in a silver space outfit can and then sat down to our hearty meal of jalapenos and dipping sauce.

"So, how have you been these past... eight, nine, ten... DARN! I will have to take off my shoes to go any higher, so let's just say TEN years."

"I've been great. I started blogging with a group called 'The Quad'. There are four of us." (At this point, Cyber D did a great thing and held up the appropriate number of fingers so I wouldn't get confused. What a helpful guy, that Cyber D.)

"Wow. Four whole people. That must have been your secret to getting smokin' hot women to read and comment on your blogs all the time. I only started blogging with one person." (I held up a single finger so he would know the number.)

"Was that one person you?"

"You are smart as well as good looking! That is why I've always liked you, Cyber D! Yes it was just me, and now I see how I went wrong. I should have started writing the blog with FOUR people at the beginning, and then the smokin' hot women would have started reading. As it stands now, I have had to graciously accept all of the smokin' hot women from your blog traffic."

"I am sure smokin' hot women read your blog before I linked to you and send over some of my spare Quadness."

"Yes, there were a few, but I am related to all of them. I am automatically disqualified from calling women relatives smokin' hot. If I do that too much, I'll get deported to one of those unmentionable states like Alabama, West Virginia, or Louisiana."

"Yes. I suppose that might cause problems."

"But now that we've reconnected, it is all better." I reached across the table and clasped his hand in a rough, manly, Viking way. Maybe I held it a little too long, because he eventually wrested it away, explaining that he needed it for the dipping sauce.

We talked for a long time, sharing stories that were both epic and exciting. He focused on his space and time adventures while I talked mostly about how the people of Dallas kept mistaking me for a mere barbarian when I was obviously a Viking.

We talked about our blogs and who our secret blog crushes are, but the whole purpose of writing blog entries is to keep things short, so I shall end it here. I am sure Cyber D has his own version of our lunch that he might be willing to share on his blog sometime soon.

Amazon.com Widgets

How to Pretend You Care about the Election

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:25:15 -0500

Today Now!: How To Pretend You Give A Shit About The Election

My Favorite Muppet Show Sketch

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:31:39 -0500

Dysfunctional Family

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:04:46 -0500

Cruel New Jersey Stereotypes Perpetuated in This Horrible Horrible Video

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:57:11 -0500

For those of you don't follow the blog-a-drama, a Woman with No Regrets took umbrage with some of my more disparaging remarks about the nigh-perfect state of New Jersey.

In this blog post, NoR (as she is wont to be called) took 150 precious words and crafted a near-impenetrable argument about the greatness of the state.

So now that I'm a fan of NJ (or "Jersey" as the locals call it), I feel compelled to bring to light the horrible horrible New Jersey stereotypes perpetuated by our media.

And by "our media," I mean Triumph the Insult Dog.

Watch this film, and FEEL THE PAIN!

Dysfunctional Family

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:14:47 -0500

Click the image to make it larger.

PGS

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:01:55 -0500

"Can you believe a grown woman can't make iced tea?"
"Excuse me?"
"Betty just asked me how to make a cup of iced tea. She didn't know how to do it."
"Oh dear."
"I know! I just put the hot water in the cup, let it steep, then added ice. I can't believe some people have gotten this point in their lives without knowing how to make iced tea."
"No, I mean 'oh dear' for you."
"What do you mean?"
"You have PGS."
"What's PGS?"
"Pretty Girl Syndrome."
"But I'm not a pretty girl."
"No, but pretty girls can get you to do something for them by pretending to be stupid."
"I don't follow you."
"Say I'm a pretty girl and I want a cup of iced tea. I can either go do it for myself or go to YOU and ask you how to make a cup of iced tea because I'm just so pretty and stupid and helpless that I can't do it for myself."
"Get outta here!"
"PGS afflicts about 98% of the male population. It is a very serious condition."
"How are you so sure I'm the one with PGS? Maybe Betty is just stupid."
"Ok, Mr. Hotshot, answer this question - Who made the cup of iced tea? You or her?"
"Crap."

Missed it by this much...

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:25:13 -0500

Somehow thanks to the magic of the internet, I was able to read Frank Darabont's initial draft for the fourth Indiana Jones move - something he called Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods. And you know what? It is really good. Basically the same story as the final film, but it addresses my complaints about the film - there is no bad dialogue and the movie doesn't lose focus of that fact that Indiana Jones is the main character.

Plus (and this is a big plus for me) it gets the Indiana Jones character right (which the final film only sort of does). Because despite the fact that he gets to make out with beautiful women and crack a whip, deep down, Indiana Jones is a nerd. Seriously, can you imagine Bruce Willis or Arnold Schwarzenegger growling at a bad guy, "It belongs in a museum!" No. Because only nerdy nerd nerds say stuff like that. Only nerdy nerd nerds care this much. Just like only nerdy nerd nerds download early rejected drafts of a film screenplay and blog about it.

Yes, I am aware that George Lucas and Stephen Spielberg don't want this available to the public. No, I am not quite sure how I got it and, no, it is not on my computer anymore so I can't email you a copy, so all of you lawyers just put down your cease and desist letters and go back to suing each other. I justified this to myself because I already paid my $10 to Spielberg and Lucas and did not think I got anywhere near $10 worth of entertainment. Let me read this script and we'll call it even.

I did not like Indiana Jones 4 for a number of reasons, but mainly because it epitomizes the type of movie I hate more than anything else - the half-assed movie.

I love a lot of movies, including some really bad ones. Much to my wife's chagrin, I own (and occasionally sing along with) Xanadu. One of my favorite movies of all time is Little Shop of Horrors (the musical version). I am also a big big fan/champion of Freaked, the movie once described my dad as, "What's the point of that?"

In case you haven't guessed, none of these are what you would call Academy Award winning material.

One thing about all of those films is that, while some people may call them bad, no one can say they are inconsistent. I will take consistently bad over good in places, sort of good in places, and bad in places.

One of the films I dislike the most for this very reason is Cradle Will Rock. The film suddenly become so busy saying BIG IMPORTANT THINGS about THE POWER OF ART that is shirks the subplot of Bill Murray and Joan Cusak - two frightened and damaged people who find a moment of connection. That is the real story of the film - not the main story about the big musical for the masses and yadda yadda. The fact that the filmmakers could get the moments between these two people so subtle and right and then surround it with bombastic theater people waving their arms and clamoring for attention is unforgivable. I would rather the movie be out-and-out bad than something like that.

If you are going to make a movie - make a consistant movie. Don't give me something namby pamby, make it all good or, if you can't do that, make it all bad and then some. I am sure some day some guy will write a blog entry about it and you can die satisfied.

Ok, enough of the ranty post. Tomorrow, I'll try for the funny again.

Follow up on the Dell Thing

dayjobsandnightmares@gmail.com (M. Robert Turange) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:01:14 -0500

Some of you may have read about my situation with Dell tech support.

Brad at Dell posted in my comments, we had a discussion, and arranged an exchange of my old broken Dell for a new one. The new one was from the was same line (XPS) and was an upgrade in terms of processor power and hard drive space (which is very nice and is something Dell didn't have to do). It was supposed to ship on or around June 6th. It hasn't yet. (For those of you counting the days - the computer originally crashed on April 7th.)

Because this is a special deal and because this is circumventing the normal lines of Dell support, I do not think it is appropriate to complain. (And, in case Brad or anyone else at Dell is reading, this post is not a complaint - just a status report for my dozen or so regular blog readers.)

Brad sent me this email yesterday, which was pleasant and proactive.

***

Robert,

I have found out the part that is delaying the system is the 8800GTX, and the only card for this system that is currently an option on Dell.com are 2 8800GT’s. If the 2 8800GT’s are agreeable with you I can get the new order setup tomorrow. As of right now I do not have an accurate time frame of when or if we will offer the 8800GTX again. I apologize for the inconvenience on this but I did not want to keep you waiting much longer. Please let me know if you have any questions.

***

Here is my response:

Hi Brad -

This is good to know. My main concern about the graphic card is the dual-monitor support. I assume the 2 8800GTs will support dual monitors.

I do not need the HDTV out functionality the 8800GTX offers. That seems like the biggest difference between the two options and it is a non-issue. Simple dual monitor support is all I need.

So, yes. Please change the part and continue with the order. I appreciate your efforts.

-Robert

***

See? I can be a grown up about these things.