4/4

I got your Weekend Report right hear, pally, all 3 words of it:
Sick, sick, sick.
So sick I didn't go to work today. Me calling out sick is like a normal person calling out dead. I only do it if I have no confidence in operating a motor vehicle; otherwise I drag my sorry ass in & see if I can survive the shift. Started feeling crappy Sun evening. Woke up with a ruthless sore throat 4AM Mon, so I wearily slimped into a chair & tossed a conjoined pair of ibuprofen down my throat. While reaching for a glass of liquid to wash it down, the pills hit my sandpapered esophagus & auto-ejected themselves from my throat & into my lap. This was a bad sign.
I had to go get a money order for an LP I bought on eBay (1969's The Moog Strikes Bach by Hans Wurman, the LP--actually,the 8 track--that directly led to my Ambient fixation in later years), so I dragged my carcass from bed around 2PM. The Dairy Mart clerk was a very old man who rang the money order...very...slowly...& I could feel the marrow sucking itself from legs, & being replaced with Sick Juice (you know, the stuff that gives your limbs the rubbery can't-stand-up feeling). Since the SalvArmy is by the post office, I stopped in & got stuck in a long line at the register. Well, 4 people isn't very long, but SA clerks ring...very...slowly...I could feel the weight of my Shaft 8 track dragging me to the Earth's core. Oh, & did I mention I did this as the elementary school across the street let out, so the traffic was also moving...very...you know how. I stumbled home with all the dynamic energy of an overcooked carrot.
I posted to Yahoo Ghost Planet, & I would like to claim that I thought it made sense at the time but it didn't even then.
I was now starting to fret: This was either the Worst Cold Ever, or a goddamn respiratory infection like the 1 that made my old girlfriend break up with me (that's what she said, folks, that's what she said). I decided that, dammit, I'm going to work tomorrow! & cut out coupons for the Tues night grocery shopping trip like this was actually going to happen. Then I woke up in the easy chair, coupons in lap, 4 hours later. Then I laid in bed for another 8 hours just sweating & feeling miserable & waiting for 8AM so I could call in sick.
Well, I sure as hell didn't feel GOOD when I finally awoke around 2, but if it'd been a respiratory infection, I wouldv'e been in agony. Of course, an infection is quickly dealt with by some antibiotics & a $90 clinic bill, while the Worst Cold Ever will go away in about 2 weeks. Yay freakin yay. I finally found the strength to drive to CVS 2 miles up the road to buy faux Robitussin & Kleenex. Oh, & some dollies. They had some Beanie-like Bullwinkle characters. FEARLESS LEADER! How cool is that, I coughed phlegmilly. Also got the nicely-detailed Boris & Natasha (Boris holds a gun with a BANG! flag hanging off; Natasha holds a pleather cartoon bomb with "Hush-A-Bomb" on it [I'm pretty sure that the noiseless explosive was called "Hush-A-Boom," but I may be wrong]). The guy at the counter asked "And how are you today?" which is a question no one wants answered truthfully, but I did anyway. "Terrible. That's why I'm at CVS."
I give you 1 guess at how quickly he rang the sale.
You know how the biggest insult you can hurl at a liquid is "It tastes like cough syrup"? That applies even when it is cough syrup. It's going to be a long 2 weeks.

4/5

Of course, I meant "slumped into a chair," but as I was limping as I slumped, I think it makes nice portmanteau word.
About an hour after posting yesterday's, I felt...pretty OK. My server disconnected, & I took that as a sign to call work & let them know that I'd be in the next day. Here's the boiled-down essence of the conversation:

ME: I'll be at work tomorrow!
THE OWNERS: No you won't.

There's the difference between working for a Corp & human beings. How many corporate jobs have told you to NOT come to work when sick? This is the 3rd time they've done it to me (I ignored them once). Of course, I've gone home sick 4 times in 2.5 years, & yesterday was the 1st time I ever called out, so I'm not really abusing the sick time privilege. I hung up the phone thinking, I'm sure I'm fine! then 40 minutes later felt like death again & spent until 3AM trying to go to sleep. Maybe they were right.

I noticed that my Mom had read yesterday's New, so I immediately checked my mail: Yep, there was an email from her warning me that I could have bronchitis or pneumonia. Hey, what are Moms for, if not to worry over their progeny? (Also thanks to not-Spotts & Allen-Elizabeth for their concern over my health, & to Punkie for her kind offer of "fuck me!" [I may be misinterpreting the offer, but that's how it was phrased])

Woke up around 1, still wobbly & hacking up rich, creamy chunks of my inner lung. I decided to catch up on what hadn't been done since the onset of The Sick of Moltar, such as the laundry & the groceries. I was out of instant chicken soup, the mortal enemy of a cold, which of course I forgot to buy. I stumbled through the store as quickly as anyone can stumble, then skipped the Express Lane & picked a register with a couple that only had to present their coupons & pay & they'd be done. It follows the Slow Moving Line theme of the last few days that 1) they had 2 dozen coupons; 2) bickered constantly to make things slower; 3) had a coupon that wouldn't go through. Why? Cuz it was for $7.50, & the item cost--wait for it--$7.49!! I was getting buy-1-get-1-free ground turkey! They were GIVING food away, but the PENNY meant Cold Shutdown for Register 2. OK, I'm sure the Grocery-Pookie don't know the diff between a penny & a million bucks, but it took 3 cashiers AND a manager to tell it to take the coupon as 7.49. Ms Manager had to make *50* freakin' keystrokes to make it work, too!

I left the groceries in the car to move the laundry into the condo's communal dryer. What is it about Doing the Laundry that upsets the Karmic balance of the cleanliness yin & yang? Everytime I do it, within 48 hours something that's just been cleaned *has* to be doused in spaghetti sauce or splattered with bleach. But this was the 1st time it happened while the laundry was drying. After filing the groceries (with the help of a small white critter crawling into all the bags), my nose starting pumping snotty fluid again. Wait, that's not sn--
Blood! Squirting blood! Too much Kleenexing over the last few days must've scraped the nasal capillaries raw. All over my black shirt. Well, hopefully blood won't show as much on black. I blew my nose (sounds wrong, but it works--the capillaries ain't gonna clot while covered in flowing blood), waited sans shirt for it to stop. When the all-clear sounded, I stood up. And knocked half a beer allll over my right leg. Damn Laundry Karma! I was drenched enough that I had to change pants & underwear. I went to clean the spill up, & was relieved to see that the bulk of the beer had fallen onto 1 of the plastic bags KK plays with. Man, half a beer, I would've thought that there'd be more than that. As I threw the bag into the trash, I stepped into the part that didn't fall on the bag. Changed my socks. I went & got the laundry, hung it up, then sat in the computer chair. And found out where MOST of that half a beer went...Changed my pants AGAIN. At least I didn't have to stand in a line to do it.

The New Mystery: Why & HOW are people still voting in the Veep Primary?! There was a total of 321 votes when I put up the new Ob Sun afternoon; now there are 382! There's no HTML on my pages that will let you vote. Did someone go through the trouble of mirroring the Ob? Why?? The voting is following the same trend (spots 1-5 are no different than they were last Tues, except KK's lead is getting bigger, & Putz still has no votes), & you'd have to mirror the complete Ob for it to make sense anyway. Is the reason so few votes were cast is cuz Pollit.com spreads them out over days? That makes no sense either! Wahh! I hate it when things make no sense!

It's almost sunset. There's a giant silo miles from here that pokes over the horizon, & twice a year, the sun sets right behind it. 1 of those 2 days is close to or on April 6, which is my birthday. It's my personal Stonehenge. The only remotely good thing that's come out of The Sick is that I'll be home tonight to see it.
Hopefully I won't spill anything on me as I watch it.

4/6

Happy Birthday to Me!
And thanks to those who emailed me bday wishes--Mike Snard, Govynda, Lala, my sister Pat (with her 3 kids yelling "Happy Birthday Uncle Bill!" via Real Audio), & not-Spotti. At least, I think he was wishing me a happy birthday...

Happy Parole Hearing Day!

Congratulations, It's a Baby!

It's Our Semi Annual Leather Furniture Sale!

It's Time For Another Injection!(Hello From The Friends At Dr. Screech's
Office)

Latin Pop's Number One Sensation This Last 90min!

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicelaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!

Speaking of Obs, I hope Andrea "Fly Girl" Schulz reads this. She sent me an Ob today, & I've LOST her email address! I have no way of ever contacting her again! It's just impossible! All I have is this envelope with some zip code & crap on it!!
(pause)
Oh. Yeah. Those things. I guess I could send a postcard or something.

And, since you're wondering anyway--
FORTY FUCKIN ONE!!
HAPPY?? ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?!
I'm not.

4/7

OK, whoever hijacked the Inex Veep Vote is using it to rack up points for Kill Kill. HelLO, she WON, please release my poll & elect yourself a LIFE.

CT Liquor Law Factoid: We can sell cigarettes, but it's illegal for us to sell cigars, chewing tobacco, or even cigarette lighters.
SHAWT: Do you sell Skoal chewing tobacco?
ME: No, we don't.
HIM: Do you know what flavors they make?
How the hell should I kn--I mean, umm--Yes. Why yes I do know. Minty Fresh, Apple Cinnamon, Coriander, Tuna Salad, Monkey Brain, & the original classic flavor, Bleeding Gums.

OK, you'll have to wait to see what the InExOb Jessie gave me will be, but here's the InEx Link for the week. Crimeny, it's funny. And, with the Hello to you, my name, it is Zelko Karlovic. I retires now in the shame of Yamsylvania non-goodness than that of this her, with her page of the Happy Fun, which is also the Super. For so do I wish to be upon her list of the crush, but my yam is not of the worthy. The good night to you, & may Gourd bless.

4/8

Nothing much SHAWTy...A guy screaming (literally) that if something "rings up the wrong price, I get it FREE!"
1) That's the law, but only in grocery stores;
2) It didn't "ring up wrong" anyway, the screen the customers see only shows 1 of the 3 prices on the menu the cashier sees. I really had the feeling that this old fart just lives for grocery store crap to ring up wrong. So, here's the email exchange last night twixt me & Super Happy Fun. Dotted lines indicate a switch in who's writing.

Little birdie is telling me that is your birthday!  Tweet tweet tweet!  I
will make you Orange Julius at the food court!

www.mindspring.com/~superhappyfun

To be updated by next Friday 7/14.

Happy Birthday!

Your site is bringing me the many smiles.
.................................................................

>I will make you Orange Julius at the food court!

Will you know! I look with forwardness. For I work at Nathan's Famous "Hot Dogs" also in Mall. It is lie of there's, they are having no dogs in food. Many rat hairs, which manager of me tells is OK, for is to be Hot Dog. No one has with the complain of me swatting the insects into the foods. I am to think it cancel out rats. Such are the ways of my country. OK, that was lie. We eat only the yams. What for I no of your Hot Dog?

>www.mindspring.com/~superhappyfun

ha ahah ahaah! LOLO as they with the say on AOL! I am with the friend who make InExLink of week! He make you same next week!! You will eat many small birds next week, such will be the fame of you, for they of Web enjoyment will send you small birds as tributary of your famous!

>To be updated by next Friday 7/14.

Did I miss July the Forth Barbie cues? I am confused! It is time of Yamster in my home countryside. It is like the America Easter, but...well...there are more Yams. OK, only the Yams. Chocolate bunnies, but made of yams. Goddamn yams. Roll THOSE on your White House lawn, see how soon that American government fall!!

UH oh! Their is boss, approaching! Hope to sea you in AOL chatroom! He is with the shoving from keyboard me!~~~~~~

BACK TO WORK, Zingo or whatever your damn name is! Hey! Little Miss Happy Fun!

My workers have better things to do than to "relate" to foreigners!! At least foreigners who aren't working in a Kathie Lee Approved sweatshop like mine! Shouldn't you be lacing sneakers somewhere? HAH?!

Bill-lee Gifford

.................................................................
>> To be updated by next Friday 7/14.
Oh no!  I am meaning to say 9/14!  I enjoying to be the use of the alchemy
calendar in Chinese!!  I enjoying the many Chinese mysticisms!  My cookies
of fortune are always be coming true!  Amazing mystery!  Also the nose of
Tradamus is telling the end of the world when a giant bear act strange
somewhere which I know is must be happening right now!  I am to be saving my
tips as a built of a shelter under the ground.  And I am the teaching myself
of Chinese also!  Knee eye whoa ma!  It is my asking of do you love me?  Ha
ha!  I also LOLA-just like cherry the cola!  But I is believe of all most
this is true!  Fortissimo!
.................................................................

And they ALL used my computer! Good thing I caught them in time!!

Wm. T. Splut, CEO

Nathans Famous "Hot Dogs"

.................................................................
Oh I am being sorry now!  I am not to be speaking the Japanese!  Many are
people thinking Japanese I am but I am Sweden!  As if like the ABBA!  Can
you be to saying the ABBA?  Fernando!  Back to being in the Future!  Michael
the Jay Fox!  Haha!

I to be also enjoying the American "Hot Dogs."  When Orange Julius opens in
the Nipon (Japan) and has the name translate into the Japanese and also
reading it by the real Japanese, they say it is saying instead of "Orange
Julius" it is also to be saying, "Boil Your Children in Piss!"  Of course it
is explaining why all three are burnt down now!

It is having "Sunday Savings Time" here and so now is Tuesday every other
day so working at the Orange Julius is many more hour but Saturday is longer
on the sunshine!  I can only serve the smoothies after lid that Shelley is
put on top now my manager seen me having dipped the finger for licking it.
Now I am spilling every other one and licking on the mop instead, huh!  I do
not need manager instead anyway since he is listening to the heavy metal and
wear the "Die Yuppie Scum" shirt under the uniform.  What a hippo-crate! He
band members think he is on welfare too and once time he was had to hide
when two of "Devil's Bitch Mettle" ordering strawberry Julius.

Don't go to the Sbarro's in the mall now because I am hearing that the
employees getting all the time the Legionnaires disease from the ventilation
system and they just laugh at people all the time and throw sauce at the
customer and scream and one person I am seeing yesterday comes from the
dishes area and had carved the word "noodle" into her forehead but was
backward since using a mirror!  And they rumors about "fecal matter."  My
manager is saying it is not longer illegal to beat employees but I am not
believing him.  If he is trying on to beat me I told him I would giving
notice and would be scream everyday!  The heavy metal music is to be making
me feeling crabby.

4/12

Sorry, folks, but there's just nothing going on down at this end. The most interesting thing to happen in the last 4 days was the weather (Saturday: 75 degrees. Sunday: snowed all day). It happens. But 1 of the Flounders who sent me my very 1st SHAWT fanmail last year sent me an url that may prove amusing (uhh, I say may cuz I haven't looked at it yet; I'm just desperate to put something here). So, thank Damon Hyde that you didn't come here for nothing.
Damon Hyde...with a name like that, he's either a secret agent or a vampire. It's better than "Bill Young," or as I like to say "Noun/Verb Noun/Adjective." No wonder I became an English major.

4/13

We still languish in a very long drought of SHAWTery, but maybe tmw I will go into detail on what Kitsplut gave me for my birthday. Once I've picked up the pieces of my jaw from the floor. For now, here's the clock she & her psychotic roomie Punkie made me (Kitty's in black at the 6 o'clock position). Outside of being a pink-feathered aberration that shall ever be the Best of Bill's Many Clocks, it has the advantage of me Forever Being Able to Torment Kitty with phrases like "The time is Kitty's Ass before Punkie's Crotch!"
Call me sentimental, but Kitty's Ass will ever be before Punkie's Crotch to me.

4/14

Belated birthday gifts continue to snake through the mail to me...He Who Is Not Seedy Tek Nor Spottiswoode Now sent me a couple of CDs: "Parallel Processes" by Jake Mandell & "Spiritual Unity" by Albert Ayler Trio. Purty dang cool. Not cool: the mail order place sent me not only the total of his order with my gift, but his CREDIT CARD NUMBER. Twice! Forced Exposure is the name of the company...before you send gifts via them, think twice. Once for each time they give your CC number out.

As to the rest of the contents of the Kitsgifts from yesterday:

From Punkie:
Strange plaster Easter duck
Picture of Britney Spears with "I'm a Ho Bag Mofo!" & "CUNT" written in glitter over her...area
Squirt crab (YES! Punkie gave me crabs!)

From Kitty:

Plastic army man painted pastel colors
Plastic bubble with a tiny mug featuring a green-haired, banana-skinned psychopath shooting arrows
Plastic trout in a dress
Plastic army man wearing a purple jacket with "Lila" on it
Plastic snow globe with snakes & fish flying up the sides & 2 bloodied Plastic army men being attacked by a giant crab ("I have decided it's a comment on the futility of existence and violence in the classroom"--yeah, hokay there, Kits)
Completing the "Plastic" theme, a poster of John Tesh

Only in Ameriduh: 13 year old boy gets to repeatedly bang his teacher like every 13 year old boy wants to do, now wants a million dollars for doing it.

4/15

The SHAWT today was a fellow employee, who sent a list of items that needed to be sent to our other store. It's always fun to try & read his 1/4-inch-high scrawly handwriting after it's been faxed, especially with his penchant for Creative Spelling. Today's most interesting word he misspelled:
"Nun." Better stick to the 2 letter words, dude.

4/18

HEY!
Know what anniversary today is? The anniversary of the Very First SHAWT!
So, how can it be any more perfect a time than now to say
GOODBYE!
SHAWT has ended. Looking at the New will be an exercise in the purest futility from here on in. It will not update.
Good night, & Gourd Bless.
smooches to you all,
Bill the Splut

4/18b

That's the problem with an online journal..Write something stupid & you can't just rip the page out & pretend that it was never there.

But this thing never was supposed to BE an online journal. It was supposed to be the SHAWT, which after a year is becoming repetitious. It was also not supposed to be for anyone, really; it was meant to get me in the habit of writing again. But I'm writing about having colds & what I eat fer chrissakes. Am I coming across as this self-obsessed old man who has to chronicle his every damn bowel movement? It seems that way to me. I feel boring & the comedy seems forced, even the last few InExObs. And this time of year has other anniversaries, too, like the 2 year anniversary of the last time I worked under 48 hours a week (believe me, an extra day's worth of work a week eats into the free time), & the 1 year anniversary of the End of the Internet Romance (she dumped me on my birthday!). There may seem no connection between that & me wanting to end this (and there is, I'm not specifying what), but even I reach the point of thinking The Web Sucks, & wanting to have a more passive role in it.
I dunno. Just too much shit came together at once over the last month & I took it out on the SHAWT. So, no, it's not really the End. I guess if no one wanted to read this, they just wouldn't, & about 30 people do read it. Some enough to send me email expressing sorrow over the thing's demise (thanks, Lala, Susan & Karl!) But as I've warned before, don't expect as many updates. It eats into valuable Fetch-playing time.
KK's learned a new trick, too. Kitty's roomie Punkie claimed to have left a screamed Happy Birthday! on my answering machine. KK always runs up to the machine when a message comes in; that 1 must've sent her running under the bed. There was a message that night, but it was silence. Huh, that's weird. A few days later, there was another--all silence until the very end, when an unfamiliar female voice whispered "See you soon." Then while playing Fetch, I discovered the new trick--KK stepping on the Record Memo button. She'd recorded over the 2 messages. Too bad, as I have no clue whose female voice that was--bored telemarketer, perhaps? Then a couple days later, a message made it through: About 2 minutes of some goofy electronic music loop. I thanked the logical perp Not-Spotti for it, & he professed innocence. Uh, what's going on here? If no one I know is leaving these things, who is? Somebody from the Net? That'd be unpleasantly weird, & that was the final reason why I decided to end this yesterday. But if they know my number, they already know where I live, so why bother.
And there is something SHAWTy here tonight! Even the unwitting contributors to this decided to do their best to encourage its continuance. I prly shouldn't have taken this home; obviously the person who turned in the money left her name because she wants it if no one claims it.

4/19

SEE?! That last 1 turned into a damn online journally thing too! Crimeny. Somebody needs to slap me down.

A guy was in the store today with big tattoos on his neck. I can understand getting them where they can't be seen by wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but not the neck. 1 was a Chinese character for something ("I expect to be working in self-serv gas stations as long as this is on my neck," perhaps?). It reminded me of a guy the owner saw once. He had a huge Chinese character on his neck, & the owner asked him what it meant. The guy fumed that he'd gone to the tatto parlor asking for 1 that said "Thug" or "Gangsta" or "Retarded Suburban White Boy Who Thinks He's Hot Shit" or such. Then he went to NYC's Chinatown & noticed that all the Chinese were pointing & laughing at him. Finally, 1 local came up giggling & asked "Why does it say 'Milk' on your neck?"

4/20

Hey, I should threaten retirement more often! It increases the fan mail! Susan (who got me a copy of the LA Times article mentioning the InExOb) sez: "Your mind is a treasure trove of silly, golden nuggets." Oh, so my heads full of rocks, huh?! (Isn't Silly Golden Nuggets made by Kellogg's?) And Govynda writes a touching tribute to the SHAWT ("slightly middle-aged man"? Dang these kids today, with their short hair & quiet music! Drinking their microbrews--WHAT'S WRONG WITH ACID?! It was good enough for my generation, dagnabbit!).
And Lala, who can Relate:

You want SHAWT?   Come work at Your University Bookstore... 

"Um, do you, like, have my book? For this class? That I'm taking?" 

(Be sure to use the universal sentence-end inclination?  So as to avoid giving the impression of
any confidence?  Whatsoever?  A'iight?) 

"What's the class?" 
"I forgot...But I think it's a red book." 

(Wow! you've made it through 2/3 of the semester without knowing what class you're taking OR
what book you're using!  You must being genius!) 

"Okay, do you know your teacher's name?" 
"I think it's Jill." 
"Last name?" 
"Uhh...I dunno." 

This can go on for a rather long time.  I guess they come right to you after they leave me,
booze being a better investment than books and all.

4/24

Man, I hope that work forces me to cut my ponytail. I could use the time off.

Also, Super Happy Fun! has updated. Readers of this site may be interested to see who is the new Crush.

4/25

Yesterday I bought 14 wacky LPs at the SalvArmy, fought to fix the stereo, went to Old Navy, & was filled with opinions on the Elian the Alien thing. as well as on everything else. A month ago that would've been 10K of text, but I didn't have the remotest desire to write about any of it. Maybe it's not the SHAWT that's ending, but the journal.

Shelley was running register at our main store with a coworker (the same 1 who couldn't spell nun). "This nickel looks funny," she said. He said "It may be COUNTERFEIT!" And yes, he was serious.