Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

Never before have I been so grateful to have been watching the 11 o'clock nightly news. The very first thing they stated was, "The rumours are true: sometime tonight gas prices are going to be jumping from just under a dollar per litre, to anywhere between $1.60 to $2 per litre."

Needless to say, Mel and I didn't watch any more of the news. Bad enough it starts on such a macabre and depressing note, but with our tank nearly empty, the last thing either of us wanted was to hand off more than $60 just to fill up for gas. Especially since we'll be making a trip up to a friend's cottage this weekend.

Happily, when we arrived at a nearby gas station about 10 minutes after hearing the unsettling news, the price had barely risen above a dollar. So now we have a full gas tank at nowhere near the cost it would be today...or tomorrow.

On a related note, Mel spent most of the rest of last night looking like she was ready to kill somebody. So if you're reading this and related to the petrol industry...now is definitely not a time to take a door-to-door customer satisfaction survey from us.

In other news, Chance has apparently been doing more than I thought with my sandals. Bad enough he spends most of his evenings cuddling, nuzzling and wrestling with my sandals. Last night I also discovered he's been eating the velcro. There's an enormous bald spot on my sandals where a strip of velcro should otherwise have been! Now I know Shady doesn't play with my shoes, and I know Mel doesn't even touch my shoes, and I'm pretty damned sure that I haven't been grazing on my own footwear in my sleep. So by default, that leaves....

Thanks, kitten. Every day I think Chance couldn't be any weirder, and every day he keeps surprising me.


Today's Lesson: build your petroleum refineries further inland, you morons!
posted by Phillip at 9:24 AM

 


Power-dressing man leaves trail of destruction

SYDNEY (Reuters) - An Australian man built up a 40,000-volt charge of static electricity in his clothes as he walked, leaving a trail of scorched carpet and molten plastic and forcing firefighters to evacuate a building. Frank Clewer, who was wearing a woolen shirt and a synthetic nylon jacket, was oblivious to the growing electrical current that was building up as his clothes rubbed together. When he walked into a building in the country town of Warrnambool in the southern state of Victoria Thursday, the electrical charge ignited the carpet.

"It sounded almost like a firecracker," Clewer told Australian radio Friday. "Within about five minutes, the carpet started to erupt." Employees, unsure of the cause of the mysterious burning smell, telephoned firefighters who evacuated the building. "There were several scorch marks in the carpet, and we could hear a cracking noise -- a bit like a whip -- both inside and outside the building," said fire official Henry Barton.

Firefighters cut electricity to the building thinking the burns might have been caused by a power surge. Clewer, who after leaving the building discovered he had scorched a piece of plastic on the floor of his car, returned to seek help from the firefighters. "We tested his clothes with a static electricity field meter and measured a current of 40,000 volts, which is one step shy of spontaneous combustion, where his clothes would have self-ignited," Barton said. "I've been firefighting for over 35 years and I've never come across anything like this," he said.

Firefighters took possession of Clewer's jacket and stored it in the courtyard of the fire station, where it continued to give off a strong electrical current.

<>David Gosden, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Sydney University, told Reuters that for a static electricity charge to ignite a carpet, conditions had to be perfect "Static electricity is a similar mechanism to lightning, where you have clouds rubbing together and then a spark generated by very dry air above them," said Gosden.

The link's here: news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050916/od_nm/
australia_electricity_dc;_ylt=AlhBD1O5jHL2l2mx5rZtTO6s0NUE
;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ


In other news, I've been rereading Clamp's XXXholic and have realized that the black Mokona would fit in well with a fraternity, given all the beer he keeps drinking.

Oh, and for some reason, the second-floor landing in our far stairwell has gone rancid. Usually it smells like some kind of soup (my bets are on generic vegetable or beef), but as of late it has that funkified odour of someone who hasn't changed the diaper pail in about 2 weeks.

And most peculiarly of all, a lot of random strangers have been Emailing me and telling me that it takes too long for me to attain an erection. I find this amusing and disturbing, since it implies that Internet spyware has evolved to the point where it has an artificial intelligence...of a hormonal teenager. And it's somehow found a way to peep into the bedroom. Does this mean the next natural step will be for an Internet AI to create its own triple-X websites, then pay for an account with its father's credit card and digitally wank off to said sites?

Today's Lesson: cats cannot simply leap off the back of the couch and fly. (Contrary to what Chance would otherwise believe.)
posted by Phillip at 6:27 PM

 

Which, scientifically speaking, means that if you were to take a fairly inactive blog (such as this one), abandon it to its dust-ridden URL, and never upload the webpage...it's equally possible that the blog is (at the same time) both 100% dead and 100% updated & active.

For the past two weeks, this little bit of nowhere has been rather inactive to the point of bordering on a flatline. I can't say I'm too surprised, in all honesty. My excuses and reasons for there being an inherent lack of whimsical silliness will range from the usual "exhaustion from work" to "doing a lot of running around", to the not-so-usual "I'm still trying to purge the image of that man peeing into traffic."

Yeah, I did a double-take too.

It all began last night as Mel & I were gunning for some gas, which hit the depressingly low total of 97 cents yesterday. But hey, that's the best & lowest it's been here all week, and we were running on fumes. As we're driving down one of the main suburban roads towards the gas station, I noticed a rather peculiar sight. A van was parked along the side of the road, and a man had unzipped his pants and was openly displaying its contents.

Now I'm always one to try and give benefit of a doubt, but I had...shall we say "issues" with his peeing technique. Mostly the part where he was standing on the driver's side, on the road, and facing out to incoming traffic. I may not be an expert on the matter, per say. I don't have a Masters or PhD in Peeology (because let's face it: Tinkleology sound ridiculous). But isn't the whole concept of urinating in public based on stealth and discretion?

If so, flagging drivers down with your not-exactly-the-most-flattering-sized wang seems just plain contradictory. Which brings us to the closing remarks of the conversation that ensued after glimsping more than our fair share of Mr. Marking The Road. I must say it's the first time I've ever been forced to remark: "You know, I never thought I'd be calling a mini-van 'over-compensation' for having a small penis."

(Frankly, I'm amazed no one crashed their cars once they realized what they were seeing as they passed him by and reeled in shock.)

Many of you are probably making faces now over the excessive mention of male genitalia. But hey, it could have been worse: I could have been talking about mine. And here's where I hastily duck the incoming pitchforks, flying vegetables and large inanimate objects once fastened securely to the floor or walls.

But what about the rest of the world as I know it, you ask? What other contributions do I have to offer this little bit of nowhere? (Which would still have been simultaneously 100% dead and 100% active, if you hadn't clicked on the webpage to see if it's been updated.)

Well, for starters I haven't been doing a lot of writing. In fact, if everything I've written in the last couple of weeks totals more than 5 pages, I'll be downright surprised & impressed. And to be honest, I'm of two opinions on the whole matter. On the one hand, I loathe the feeling of atrophy (and/or apathy) I have towards writing. The spirit is still half-willing at this point. And yet, I think I've almost managed to burn myself out. Again.

The other half of me is enjoying the break and still more than content to leave any and all writing alone. For months upon months, I've fought what has felt like an uphill battle with my "Angel Electric" fic. More than anything because those months upon months have been spent attempting to get from Point A (which I finished a while back) to Point C (the last major arc in the story).

In the middle has stood the treacherous Point B, which I've long suspected has stood for "Bitch of an effort." The short of it is: Point B was meant to bridge the two major arcs, and especially help set up a lot of things that would occur around Point C. I expected Point B to last only 2 chapters at most, with maybe 30 pages each.

For the last half a year, if not moreso, I have fought, begged, bit and sacrificed to dark gods in an attempt to finish Point B. In the end, Point B earned itself the following numbers:

6: months it took to finally end the Point B arc, and reach the last hurdle
5: chapters the allegedly "short" arc wound up having
43: average length of each chapter in this arc
8: total revisions on the entire arc
47: pages of scenes that were either shortened or deleted from the fic
1.5: years I've spent working on this entire fic (either wholly or off-and-on)
0: desire I have to see the end completed as soon as possible

As you've probably guessed with that last figure, despite the end being so near, I'm trying to recouperate and regain some of my writing drive. I think that after having fought for so long just to reach Point C, my brain is interpreting this as "the end" as opposed to "the end of the second act". I'm being told to take a vacation and relax, which is more or less what I've been doing.

But I've ranted enough about that. I'm impressed I've written as much as I have for today's little bit of nowhere. Which is perhaps just as well: who knows how long it'll be before I have the energy and desire to post on a daily basis again. But before I leave you to contemplate more of Schroedinger's Blog, here is...

Today's Lesson: if you're going to pee outside your vehicle, for the love of God, turn towards the door and put your back to traffic!
posted by Phillip at 8:35 AM