November 2004 Archives

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here, in my arms

who says there will be someone after you?
who says there will be "after you"?

now that likealot has turned to love (due to a crisis of terminology) i find myself in yet another crisis of terminology. fortunately, this one is merely amusing, not actually important.

a "girlfriend" is someone you have to stay with instead of going bowling with your buddies.

a "girlfriend" is someone who makes you run errands you don't want to do.

i haven't got a "girlfriend", it seems... what have i got?

a big one

hurry home, she says...

i shall.

haven't gotten your daily dose of lovey dovey poetry?

try this on for size

there's no muse upon the mountain
only god and ghosts
and i and you

it's not that depeche mode tune

it's not even that funky thing from iceland

daba da-ba
doo doo deee dooo
i know you love me
i wanna wad you up into my life
let's roll up to be
a single star in the sky
i hear you callin me
i wanna wad you up into my life
let's lump up to make
a single star in the sky
to youuuuu
to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

daba da-ba
doo dee dooo doooo dee doooo
i'm so in love with you
i wanna wad you up into my life
let's roll up to be
a single star in the sky
i need you to feel me
i wanna wad you up into my life
let's lump up to make
a single star in the sky
to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

i miss you, and this song isn't helping

thank you

plasma
whip

now that's what i'm talking about.

got myself a palm desert 30 dollar haircut to contrast it with a bay area 55 dollar haircut. here are the things you get with the extra 25 bucks:

- a mirror to look at the back of your head before you leave
- a robe so your shirt doesn't get hair all over it (shirt is taken off before robe is put on)
- a brush-off of all stray hair so i don't go walking around in public with hair all over my forehead like some kinda jackass
- a more creative styling
- better smelling hair gel
- a nice pat on the ass

okay, that last one is really a wish-list item. probably gotta get a 100 dollar haircut before i get that.

the mook shows his love as he stands in for W during a grope attack.

grope grope grope!

willy is a little lamb.

yes, that's a willy in my pocket, and i'm happy to see you!

i got willy from w saturday morn ere i set out for my parents' winter home in (snowy!!) palm springs.

willy is going to have a thanksgiving adventure.

the adventure will be documented.

check back often!

ugh

so here i was sleeping in my old bed at my parents house. went to bed with the intention of going for a morning run.

dreamt that i was visiting my parents and about to go for a run, but it started raining and i couldn't go (but went anyways).

woke up and it's raining outside, and it's 40 freaking degrees F out there!

what?!?!

this never happens here. ugh. and i left my running chaqueta at home because i never expected it to get cold here. ugh again.

it's official.

we've upgraded.

yesterday, that is.

heard depeche mode on the radio, "enjoy the silence":

all i ever wanted
all i ever needed
is here in my arms
words are very unnecessary
they can only do harm

immediately, we agreed that this was quite appropriate to us. the last couplet especially appropriate for me.

arrived at W's place, and while i was distracted by my own lovely image in her mirror, she downloaded the mp3. smooooooove!

after it looped a bit, it was apparent that the first three lines were true. the second two, though...

thoughts:
- rule 1 (fear is falure)
- rule -1 : do the opposite of what i'd normally do
- rule N : why wait?

so i said it. i ran out of reasons not to, and i realized (and said) that folks say it with much less reason. and i thought of how i act, how i feel when i'm with her, how i feel when i'm not, and i thought of how we needed a new word beyond "likealot". and i couldn't think of a better word to use than the one people have been using for thousands of years.

so i said it. and she said it too. i'm glad that i initiated something for a change.

now everything is changed, and everything is the same. but better. wonderful.

prose isn't good enough, and i'm road tired. i'm working on another mushy poem.

that's right:

"wheels" by Cake

man, what a beat.

the only expectation that i have when i'm with you is the one that's proven to be true every time we've met (okay, except for that one time):

we'll be more inseparable 10 minutes from now than we were 10 minutes ago.

what will it be like next month?

okay.

this deserves SEVERE warning.

you really don't want to read this (unless your name contains a "2-da", then you really do want to read it, maybe.)

i'm warning you.

it will expose you to a side of me that only one person knows, though others may suspect. some will be permanently scarred by reading it, so for pete's sake:

EXERCISE SOME FREAKING CAUTION.

okay, now that you really really want to read it, here it is:

a kiss, then and now

no, you can't have your life back. i told you not to read it, didn't i?

the latest piece of crap that i'm churning out, called "resurrection", consists of a present-tense narrative interspersed with a series of flashbacks. for the moment, the flashbacks dwarf the present-tense stuff, and it's hard for the author to follow the PT when editing or doing consistency checks or whatnot.

css to the rescue.

i sourrounded the flashbacks with div tags, and now i can hide/show the flashbacks by changing one line in a .css file. coooooooool.

turns out the PT narrative is as lame and clumsy as i thought it was. oh well, at least one or two of the FBs are interesting. maybe.

if yous knows me very well, yous knows how i get new music.

it's a bit luck-of-the-draw

i scored big time, it seems. ended up with "Pepe Deluxe - Super Sound" and it's funkadelic AND groovalicious. kickass!

ozreiuosn : so tell me something good
maury_cohen: hm
maury_cohen: well, i can't use my "thought of you while spanking it" story, now

httpd logs show hits from teoma.com, so i go there, and it's some kind of goofy search engine. wtf?

they're cataloging me! shit. i'm running this hos off a cable modem, i dont want traffic!

i show up on askjeeves.com also, but fortunately not on search sites that actual people use.

(written while stopped/slow in fackin horrible/typical bay area freeway traffic)

jfc, why does everyone keep asking me this?

"getting tired of the drive, yet?"

wtf?

why are you asking me this?

why do you keep asking me this?

do you want me to say "yes"?

do you want me to say "yeah, it totally blows. i managed to stumble into what may be the most miraculous thing to ever happen to me - a relationship with a wonderful woman who just may actually love me, a relationship where there's very little assymmetry and a whole lot of mutual feelings - but my life outside of that is so fucking busy, rewarding, and fulfilling that i can't be arsed to sacrafice a tiny bit of time and gas money to commute between san mateo and berkeley a couple of times a week" ?

is that what you want to hear?

fuck that.

yeah, i don't like the drive. no, i don't like bay area traffic, and i haven't much experience with it. why? because i have always purposely lived close to work because i don't want to commute.

so what?

my life has never been convenient or easy. if you think it has been or is - even if you think that because i told you so - you don't know me.

i don't get anything easily, at least not anything worth having. but i no longer shy away from a little hard work if it promises or proves to yield a desirable result - and believe me: there is very little work going on here, and very desirable results. i left my laziness stranded in my past, and i'm keeping myself well hidden from it.

are we clear?

now really, why do you all keep asking me this?

fell in the shower today.

i'd better have a doctor check my hip for fractures.

it could have been worse - fortunately, my fall was broken when my head hit the sink.

how long has it been now? four weeks? five?

we've been living a lie.

all this time, i thought you were telling me the truth, but you "played" me. i trusted you, and look what i got for it?

in front of your friends, your coworkers, even customers and your cat. i believed your phony stories, your misdirections. boy, do i feel like a jackass.

and for all of this, what did i get?

rachet and clank 3, 3 days earlier than i thought was possible.

bad : argh
good : at least my birthday present wasn't late

is 11/14.

i had a big old long ramble but deleted it. summary:

11/14s past : sucked. depressing. cried a lot just to prove i wasn't totally numb ("i only kill to know i'm alive. so what?")

tomorrow : i'll wake up to the best present i never dared to ask for. the gift that keeps on giving. every morning is a new birthday, and each day i'm a year younger. my smile will never vanish.

got you to keep my goat kinda neat and even

this morning we "neat and even"ed away 3 weeks of growth

fuck!

now you've got your very own special place in the back of the bottom drawer, and a $3 pair of moose-stachio scissors have taken your place.

bitch.

on the shelf at piazza's. musta passed it a million times, but didn't notice it until today. sweet.

why haven't i listened to this in its entirety in so long?

man, metallica used to really kick some arse.

metal!

got my craft-roasted espresso monkey blend.

took me three tries to get the grind right, i wonder if my grinder needs adjustment? slot 18 seems a bit high for espresso. anyhow. irrelevant (maybe).

the point: it is facking good. really really good. i bulloxed it a bit, clearly, because the attack was kind of bitter. but the aftertaste... oh my. yum.

the really good news: as good as it is, it's not miles beyond my own espresso monkey roasts. in other words, i rule, kinda.

yeah!

(13:54) <bigboote> W took bunches o pics of me last night
(13:54) <bigboote> playing with her pussy
(13:55) <bigboote> tickling it and stroking its fur
(13:55) <bigboote> i told her if dad ever saw those he'd disown me
[14:40] <_mook_> hairless?
(14:43) <bigboote> (13:55) <bigboote> tickling it and stroking its fur
[14:43] <_mook_> oops
[14:44] <_mook_> got a siamese twin for me to play with?
[14:45] <_mook_> is it known all around her neighborhood?
(14:45) <bigboote> eh?
(14:45) <bigboote> dont get it
[14:45] <_mook_> does it pee on the carpet?
(14:45) <bigboote> wait a second
(14:45) <bigboote> you quoting primus at me?
[14:45] <_mook_> no
[14:45] <_mook_> not that i know of
(14:46) <bigboote> oh wait
[14:46] <_mook_> am i?
(14:46) <bigboote> i just got that
(14:46) <bigboote> hahaha
[14:46] <_mook_> heh

so, now that my schedule is blessedly chaotic, i can no longer plan out a coherent workout schedule, which is fine by me, because i'm pretty sure that the days of rigid workout plans are behind me as i turn my primary focus elsewhere (while maintaining my commitment to physical health, of course).

what this means, of course, is that i take every opportunity to exercise.

what this means is that yesterday morning i ran for half an hour, and then in the evening, i squatted, SLDLed, and manly-curled for 45 minutes. then, i put off eating for another 3 hours, then got about 3-5 hours sleep last night.

the result?

ow ow ow ow ow.

and also:

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

the result?

don't think i'm going to the gym tonight. early bedtime. us old guys gotta get our rest.

ooooooh right!

the new me recently switched many things:

long hair => short hair
no beard => best goatee in foster city
baggy jeans => tight as i can stand 'em jeans
tighty whiteys => boxers
vans => jungle boots
biking => running
eating in => eating out
sleep => cuddling
watching star trek on dvd => having a girlfriend

is it time to make a really big switch?

these things are freakin sweet. i saw one sorta up close and personal this weekend.

if i can turn a windows machine into unix with cygwin, i should be able to make darwin into bsd enough for it to be usable.

company stock is finally creeping up to where espp might just pay for the whole thing. huzzah!

for me, making coffee is a creative process.

i start with green, unroasted beans and use my pal Smokey to turn them into the brown whole bean coffee that you've seen in the grocery store and at starbucks.

when i'm ready to brew, i grind them myself. whether I use Rocky or my Zass to grind them depends on whether I am making Espresso coffee or French Press coffee. If it's to be Espresso, Silvia does the job, otherwise my French Press (no name, yet, that's probably for the best) gets the work.

finally, it's in to the cup and drinky drinky.

I do have a point that i'm getting to.

i control nearly every single step in the process. the only way i could do more was if i grew my own coffee beans (not going to happen). i provide filtered water to make the coffee. i roast the beans. i store them. i grind them. i measure them. i dose them. i brew them.

don't be fooled by such words as "semi-auto" or "espresso machine". it's a machine, all right, and it's plugged in. but espresso brewing (and more obviously, French Press brewing) is more art than science. there are dozens of variables (ambient temp and humidity, machine temp (it fluctuates, even on really really expensive models (mine's only "expensive" not "really expensive" or "really really expensive")), grind setting, portafilter temp, portafilter shape, and on and on). not all of the variables can be precisely controlled. a scientist controls all the variables. an artist does not.

even lacking the artistic talent to make a good cup of espresso, there's a considerable amount of skill required to attain the level of decent. a cup of coffee is made in a mechanical device, but it is not a mechanical process.

if the end product sucks, i have only one person to blame. can't blame starbucks for the crappy roast. can't blame the peet's person for using the wrong grind setting. can't blame the teenaged "barista" for not knowing or caring wtf he's doing. it's all me.

so when, having gone through the long and torturous process to produce a cup of coffee, with so many opportunities for error along the way, i have a cup that is complex, delicious, with wonderful mouthfeel and aftertaste, it is a small miracle. a small miracle in a cup, every morning.

if you are involved in any creative process, perhaps you can understand. and perhaps you can understand this thought that comes to mind when i'm enjoying one of these small miracles:

imagine how much better this will be once i know what i'm doing.

so, i had this idea a while back and finally got around to doing it, now that me and the vitamin c are back together. it's not so easy to transport silvia, so i'll take the next best thing.

total cost: $20 for the case, about $8 for the foam (yeah, shoulda just stolen it from work but i didn't want to wait until tomorrow). about 1 hour of work.

the case, closed

the case, opened. 4 cup french press, stale beans for display purposes only, bodum ibis (water boiler), zassenhaus mill, 2 glass mugs, and coffee scoop. i can cram more beans in there as needed.

someday i'll take this through airport security. just not anytime soon.

thoughts that occurred, in no particular order :

---

you know me better than anyone else in the world. you know stuff i didn't tell you. you know stuff i don't know. and we haven't even bothered to do the "tell me your favorite crap" crap, yet. wow.

---

miracles
improbability
fate? i still don't believe in it. but it's tough not to when i wake up with you next to me.

---

i smile when i think: "what will it be like a month from now?"

sometimes a smile doesn't cut it, and i have to laugh. i'm smiling as i type type type this.

---

when you're not smiling, i want to fix it. if i don't know how, i want to find out.

---

i dont just want to do things with you
i want to do things for you

---

life isn't easy
i want to help you through it
and i want you to keep helping me
in other words: i want to wad you up into my life

----

you were going to ask me to if i hadn't taken the initiative and gone ahead. what a relief!

hah! there's a pun in there, too.

----

they're not hiring any more extras for zardoz?

why wasn't i told?

i was thinking that you've got beautiful eyes

that's true

but it wasn't what i was thinking

i was thinking:

how did i ever live without you?

Balkan, in the castle. Balkan, burning.

Archie, in the alley. Archie, opening the trunk. Archie, toasty.

that's what it's all about, right?

i was thinking of trimming the goat, because it's getting a bit long. of course, i actually prefer it long, because i want to grow it way out and braid it or something. but i suspected it was getting in the way or scratching or something, so i offered to trim it.

she declined, saying i should grow it out so she can braid it.

score!

it's a care bear sweater. specifically, "share bear", i have been informed.

i've still got it in my car, who knows where it will show up next?

well, at least katamari is out of my head, now.

seems like i should change the name around here to "saint toad's luuuurve blog" or something.

didn't i used to write about other stuff?

oh yeah, self absorbed whine rants about myself. hooray!

you say you're not creative

which one of us came up with the cheek thing, hm?

that's something to be proud of, believe me.

technically, i should change the "main" graphic

but i really really like the cookie monster up there, so he's staying.

a smile was not enough
tears were not enough
i had to laugh

i kept it in once
but it could not be contained forever
i never had such a wonderful reason to laugh

ozreiuosn : this election is making me very angry
maury_cohen: :(
ozreiuosn : how can i live in country where the majority of the population doesnt see things the way i do?
ozreiuosn : i cant change the way they think
ozreiuosn : they cant change the way i think
ozreiuosn : i hate republicans thats what im pretty much saying
ozreiuosn : and seeing as how nearly 84 percent of the country voted that way
maury_cohen: i have found that the solution to this problem
maury_cohen: is to rephrase the question
maury_cohen: here is one way that i reprhrase it
maury_cohen: how can i live in a country where 84% of the people are fucking idiots, but W likealots me and i likealot her and we'll be together tonight? very happily, that's how

i hear you calling me
i wanna wad you up into my life
let's lump up to make
a single star in the sky
to you
to youuuuuuuuuu

W had a bad day today.

W may have a bad day tomorrow, especially if her day depends on whether K or B wins (mine doesn't, see this).

i dunno what to say, except that i will do my very best to guarantee that W doesn't have a bad wednesday evening or a bad thursday morning. and i'll be spending all of my tomorrow thinking about how to accomplish this. i've already got some pretty good ideas...

my time will fly tomorrow.

hey! it is tomorrow already!

so. was gonna go home and maybe lift weights and write some schlock and talk to W and read this fantastic new book i got from borders last night and pay some bills and take care of business.

but instead, i went out with some work buddies to a local brewpub, had dinner, 3 pints, shot some pool, and ate a donut after the brewpub kicked us out. had my first ever tiny tiny tiny sip of whiskey. i'm quite the lightweight, those 3 pints + microsip put me right at the border between buzzed and drunk, which most likely means i was drunk. i didn't die.

that's not even remotely close to something i'd "normally" do. but it is close to something a "normal person" would do. hooray.

looks like i'm now a normal person and can look forward to much more drunken pool in the future. to heck with physical fitness and responsible living.

uh huh.

we'll see.

written loooong before the subsequent post, though posted in close temporal proxmity. i couldn't post this until i got home to upload the photo.

----

so this morning i laced up my jungle boots and set out to vote for a man who's actually worn jungle boots in combat. a guy i don't particularly like. a guy who can be described - at best - as the very slightly lesser of two evils. the way i voted today epitomized everything that i hate about the voting process in this country:

coworker (visiting from his out-of-state telecommuting home office) : hey, you're looking good, you been working out?
me : yep
coworker : and i guess the haircut wasn't for a new job, huh... <his eyes widen> girlfriend?
me : <grin>
coworker : hey, you're blushing!
me : <bigger grin>

"projection" is DOA.

long live "Resurrection"!

we're back together again.

it's been a long separation that i thought was leading to a divorce. but i can't stay away. i'm weak willed.

sweet maria's classic italian espresso blend. roasted last night. /me melts. we'll never be apart again.

it's either time to stop running in cotton shirts

or time to get a sports bra

ran 25 minutes nonstop. first nonstop run > 15 minutes. did it without the birk insoles.

birk insoles in jungle boots: a++++++ will do business with again!!!!!
birk insoles in running shoes: evidently not so great

10 pullups!

i wasn't even trying to do that many!

they were all pretty sucky except #10, but still. 10!

besides this, i've got other stuff to work on. ugh. so much to work on. i'm a work in progress, to be sure. i just finally admitted to myself that i may as well pull the veil off now, since i'll never be finished.

wow, heavy.

anyhow, depending on how it was received, i'm happy to continue my cookie monster impersonation while working on the other stuff. so much stuff to work on!

every time i plug a leak i find a new one. oh well, at least i'm not bored.

sitting here listening to the katamari soundtrack, an expressionless expression of concentration upon my face, bobbing my head... an image of what i looked like popped into my head. only it wasn't me, it was you. the same expression, the same response to the music, before your teevee or mine. i can see your face in my mind's eye. i can't do that with many faces. that's probably why i keep listening to this stuff.

wow. i dig it. i dig it because i'm living it. i'm living it because i'm loving it. no, i didn't paralyze my mother and then go on lithium for 9 years. i didn't need the lithium to get the job done. and now i'm off of it. comfortably numb, no longer.

we've already had our aiport scene.

"i was the one worth leaving"

there's only one word with a big L in the forseeable future, and it's got 4 letters, not 7 or 5. oh, and it doesn't rhyme with "cleft", because in that form it is a 4 letter word, but it's not the one i meant. capiche? forget it.

i was kidding about natalie. my screenplay stars just you and me.

did i find out yet what you were thinking about at the stoplight?

Yum, also!

my fears and hang-ups got the better of me this sat, but they're exposed and visible now. no place to hide. yous guys are going down.