6/16

Bumper sticker sighted: "Have You Thanked GOD Today?"
Of course I have. It's Friday.

An elderly gent comes in the store every week to buy his jug wine (side note for investors: Do not put your money into jug wine. It's not bought by anyone who doesn't have vivid personal memories of the Depression. These people are a bad long-term investment, due to the "Death Factor." And I'm not being a wiseass here; when I started we'd sell 40 or 50 jugs of the wine he buys every month, now it's 8 or 10). The wine's too heavy for him, as he's rather enfeebled physically. So we bring it up to the register for him, then put it in his car trunk. What he does with it next I have no idea--maybe he opens the jug in the trunk & sticks a straw into it.
Today he caught Shelley standing outside, & gave her his money from his car. She rang up the jugs, put them in the trunk, & then he gave her a tip!
An opened package of stale, squishy graham crackers.
What's he leave in a restaurant? "I didn't finish my salad. Help yourself! There's croutons!!"
"Of course, back in the Depression, stale graham crackers were TWO WEEKS SALARY!"

6/19

No Weekend Report, as I did little besides sleep both days. But, thanks to a package JayPFrancis mailed me, there is an update to the most important story of our lifetime, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls.

6/20

Actually, the line "I did little besides sleep both days" is accurate, but it was also an important part of the weekend celebrations. All Together Now:
"Happy Birthday to You
"Happy Birthday to You
"Happy Birthday to You, small white cat Kill Kill
"Happy Birthday to You!"
I spent the weekend being cat-like for the lil' rampager's 1st birthday. We played much fetch, we had turkey, & she had a whole can of Little Friskies Tuna & Egg, which is her favorite as it is by far the stinkiest of stinky cat food. We looked out the window a lot, too, as that's next on her list of Fun after Fetch. We even got to see the Trashmobile go up the hill. This is a neighbor's car that I've repeatedly tried to use as an InExOb. It's filled with trash. To the roof. There's no way the guy can look out his own rear view for the garbage. The piles of fast food bags, well, I can't say that I can understand why you would leave them in your car for years--for YEARS, folks!!--but at least I can understand why they might be in a car. But the Cap'n Crunch box, or the Banquet microwave meal boxes?? The neatly-folded newspapers which are, no shit, piled head-high behind the driver's seat? I once saw him ADDING to that pile, as if he thought a yard-high was too low. The car has a ground clearance of about 4 inches. As KK & I watched it slowly climb the hill, we could hear it scraping bottom as it went.
The only thing that's kept it from Web Immortality is the fact that I can't get a decent pic of the interior, either cuz of my cheapo digital camera, or the glare that his always-rolled-up windows throw off. It must stink like hell inside the Trashmobile, but I'd leave the windows shut, too. Opening the windows wouldn't attract flies. It'd attract raccoons. Or beavers looking for wood pulp.

Well, that's all I have. The 5-day-a-week updating is over, it seems. You may want to do what I do with "updates less than daily, but more than weekly" sites: Pick a regular day to check, then just go to the date after you last looked. In the meantime, here's something from pigdog.org (which has an army of posters, but updates no more often than I do): Anti-Porn. I think it's a joke I don't quite get (there HAVE to be better pictures of him than that). Check out the link to the Unofficial Benito Mussolini Fan Club Page, though. It's full of mispelings, even though the words tend to be very very small, like it's "My First Golden Book of Fascism." My biggest reasons for being anti-fascist: the Fascist Fashion Statement is "Mama Mia! We ran out of pants-a!" & "Mama Mia! Why is-a the property values, she go down? Just-a check out the beuno view from our living room-a!"

6/23

I just got back from seeing "High Fidelity," a movie that gets the Top 5 Movies Choice from me (you'll have to see the movie to get that. Funniest bit: Dick & the air conditioner). It's very near my bedtime, so that's all you're getting, except for a couple of photos Jessica took of me & KK. This 1 is a nice shot of her (note the 2 '70s Pong games, still in the boxes). It was taken about 30 seconds after This 1. Jess wanted a pic of her in my lap, & I said "Take it quick, she doesn't like being restrained." She took it in mid-bolt.

7/4

I expect that by now, everyone has stuck their fork in the SHAWT & realized that it's done. The story behind the End? None, really. I've just utterly lost all desire to do it. The only reason I did it for so long was that it was fun. Writing can be pure joy at times. But never always, which is why I'd never attempt to do it as a living.
By utter coincidence, there was a cruel.com pick called The Fuck of the Week the same day that I ceased SHAWTing. And it's much better than this. JetWolf is an operator at an after-hours answering service for cable companies, PBS pledge drives, towing companies, etc. She gets more SHAWTs in an hour than I get in a month. I waited a week for her cruel.com fanmail to die down so that I could compliment her, as well as humbly suggest she check out the SHAWT. I gave her the url for its start. I was surprised that she wrote back very quickly:

> I had a year-long thing on my site called the SHAWT
> (the Stupid Human At Work Today; it started here:

Follow along, if possible, with my thought process here.  As is
typical
for me, I read your E-mail and completely ignored who it was
from (no, I
don't know why I do that either). I followed your link, always
interested to read about other's misery, and skimmed the rest of
the
page while I was at it.  "Hm. Groovygirl. That name rings a
bell. Sailor
Kitty too. These sound like the names that are always popping up
on
InExOb ... (toggling back to E-Mail) Hey!" and here we are.

Yes, I'm a huge fan of your own examination into the depths of
human
depravity.

Depressing entry, eh? Well, this part of the page is going back to the old "when I feel like it, which can be months" updating. Don't worry about the Ob until you see the whites of Ernie Slack's eyes. I know you don't know what that means, but the following week will be a picture of a fork.

So go read all of JetWolf's page (there's a LOT more than SHAWTing going down there), & also feast your brain on next week's InExLink, Hard Drinkin' Lincoln. (Note: gets repetitious after the 1st 4)
And enjoy your 4th of July. Unless you're 1 of the Canadian readers. In that case, I hope your Canada Day hangover has subsided.

9/19

Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated.
Well...not greatly exaggerated.

It's not that the New was something I hated doing. It's just that I like NOT doing it so much more.
But I am bored, so I write a New. Ergo, the New will prly be boring. Which rather defeats the purpose of updating, but there ya go.

This entry may look bloggy.

Local InExOb updates! Android Motors replaced their faceless mascot with the exact same artwork, but with a smiley face drawn on it. Of course, it still menacingly lugs a Stilson wrench. And it still is colored all pink & round, so it's like someone took a marker & had fun playing dress-up with some dude's foreskin. Update rating: FAILURE!

The furniture store removed the "Free Pickle" sign. They replaced it with a "Pickles & Jams & Jellies for Sale" sign. I always thought that, hey, maybe they moved into an old deli or something, but no--the furniture store really does have pickles. Which only makes them more inexplicable. Update rating: COOL!

The Steal Billboard. What can I say? It was spotted all over CT by a number of people, including my parents. Dad was convinced that the mispeling was intentional, in order to draw attention to the sign. As if a billboard hoping to get Joe Average to think, "Yeah, 1 million pounds of steel. Sure could use that round the house" wasn't going to get enough attention. My theory was that they ran off a big bunch of the billboard posters, & were too cheap (or dumb) to fix them. This summer they sprouted up again, minus the "steal" error. I wish I'd taken a pic of 1. They placed a big banner across it screaming that you get 3.87 muggaworts of pootaninum-induced forgweights at 1.133 ratios! Or something else that was so technical no one outside the steel business would allow it to implant in their brain. Update Rating: BIZARRE!

Did you know that you can actually buy InExObs online? Well, you can, in a very limited fashion.
Want that Jonny Katz Squirt Gun? Or the Bird Clock? Go right here & search for items 27448 & 30925! That's where I bought them!
You can also get both issues of Tod Holton, Super Green Beret...but for Gourd's sake, WHY WOULD YOU?

At work we have a shelf talker from 1 of the vendors. Finlandia vodka is rated NUMBER ONE! By the readers of "Russian Life" magazine. Yeah, right, I laughed. The list rated 10 vodkas. And what's Number 11? Windshield washer fluid?? And then this turns up.

See? I told you that it would look like a blog! (And there it is, the only blog-like entity I actually look at...it's OK since it's done by noted psychoceramicist Andrew C. Bul?=hack. Sign up for the mailing list, & get to see InExLinks before I steel them!
Next week's InEx may or may not be literally psychoceramic (i.e., wacky pottery. I have more than you might think).

Speaking of blogs, I did my periodic egomaniacal searching for the phrase "inexplicable object of the week" (NOTE: only leads to 1 guy's page, but it's the best darn page listed there. Searching for "inexplicable object" alone leads to Jules Verne. Yeah, like anyone looks at HIS page). I found months-old refs. And for the 1st time, of course--that's how web searches work. "Search Result: Match:100%. My name is Dawn Wells, & I want to have sex with the guy that does the InExOb!" Then I look, but the hit's been 404 since 1966. Which is even WORSE, as that's the Dawn Wells that I want to have sex with!! ANYway, it was on the Minneapolis Star Tribune's weblog! Yeah, good luck finding my ref; their search agent doesn't work very well. I only mention it cuz it was James Lileks' Bleat that made me start the SHAWT in the 1st place, & he's also a columnist at the Strib! So, I'm, how many degrees removed from him?
An infinite amount. A gradual, inner acknowledgement of my writing's inadequacy was also a factor in the end of the SHAWT.

Speaking of writing inadequacy, George "Worth Shit" Bush had this to say on "Oprah" today:
"Eventually, I realized smarts are not only whether or not you can write well or whether or not you can do calculus, but smarts also is instinct and judgment and competence."
Most people who've been to both Yale AND Harvard know that "smarts" am a plural noun.
Of course, most people who go to Yale or Harvard actually have to be smart to get there. He also added this:
Asked what things he knows for sure, Bush said: "That there is a God. That I'm sitting here talking to you." Did he think where he was sitting was in debate? That is sooo Reaganesque. I remember the time that Ronnie forgot where he was in a speech:
"For the 1st time in man's history...Ummm...I'm President!"
Well...THAT'S undeniably true! I thought that was really funny, until it hit me that this was how he thought on his feet. And he could start a nuclear war on a whim...
Stupid Idjits should not be world leaders. Yet so many are.

I spotted a hit from the city of Denton, TX, on the Ob (wasn't that from the crappy sequel to "Rocky Horror," "Shock Treatment"? "Denton, Denton, You've got no pretensions"--WAIT! I've never even SEEN that movie!! Where'd this song in my head come from then?). At any rate...Their city manager, who makes me look positively macho, says:
"Whether you are interested in learning more about city government, considering economic opportunities in Denton or planning to visit, you will find a great deal of information here. Denton has a Council-Manager form of government with an elected city council. I invite the citizens of Denton to participate and help keep Denton a very special place to live."
Is that...very special, or short-bus special? It seems all...North Malden-y, for you Python Icelandic Saga lovers out there. And thanks for oddly interjecting that description of your government. I once went to this town where they had a Council-Vile Thing From the Darkest Pits of Hades form of government with an Cthulhu-anointed city council created from the rotting corpses of the newly raised dead. Didn't like it.
Ya know, if I was going to build tourism, 1 of the main links on my page would not be how restaurants rate on the health scores. Making this so prominent kinda seems apologetic. "DENTON: Food Contamination Now Largely A Thing Of the Recent Past! Chow Down With Minimal Worry About Fecal Coliform Bacteria Infestation! 75% Less Squirmy Things Per Pound! No, no, that's a grain of rice. You only thought you saw it squirming. No, no, that rice doesn't have eyes! That's...paprika."
Low score on the ratings: A place named "Gooey Louie's." Well, duh. Try using the ingredient "goo" less, Lou.

End of the New update. Don't get your hopes up for more.
Update rating: CHEEZY!

9/20

The Newest tag should take you here, but it doesn't. Yeah, 2 updates in a row, but who's gonna look? I got everyone out of the habit. But suddenly, I'm working 40 hour weeks again, so...who knows? Maybe I'll have both the time & positive attitude required to update regularly again.

On this, the last day of a 4 day weekend, I went to the Big E, the Northeast's biggest aggie fair.
By "went to," I mean "got close to." How close? Dunno. I figged that no one but me would be heading there on both a school day and a work day, but the exit was backed up half a mile. Knowing I could just follow the signs to get there, I never looked at any directions before I left. Maybe I was another mile from the fair, maybe I was 10 miles. Just to park & get in would cost me $17, & I had no idea whether I'd like it or instantly hate it. Since waiting in traffic never makes me open to frolic & jollity, I bailed. If I'd been going to the thing with someone else, I would've pressed on. Even a sucky thing can be fun with a compadre. But such is the lot of the loner. You never have a friend around when you need 1, cuz...uhh, you don't have any.

I stupidly went south (coulda gone north to nutty Northampton MA, I thought too late). Hit a Salvation Army, where an elderly couple were buying their 1st computer. At the Salv Army, folks. "Normally, it's $129, but I'll let it go for $100" said Mr SA Man, of the 133MZ the SA got for *free.* "Can you make programs on it?" asked Gramps (NOTE: I don't think that he was thinking C++ scripting when he said this). "Oh yeah," said SA Man, "and it has these games...[pause, as he decides to use a word smaller than 'installed']...here on it." He shows them the desktop. 1 of the windows is that latest rage among the young'ns, Minesweeper. They buy it.
And I laughed the day before when I saw the local community college course listing. "Introduction to Windows 95." What, no intro to...Microsoft BOB? Bahahaha! Of course, this couple may actually sign up for that (another course listing was "Intro to Keyboards." It was about...you know. Typing).

Went to this mall-like place. At 1 point, it was a mall, but then this Real Mall opened up & it withered & died. A Real Mall has exactly the same stores that evey other freakin mall in this freakin country has. Does 1 go into McDonalds, & wish to see an item on the menu that is NOT in every other McDonalds? NO! This is the same theory behind The Real Malls. Gap! CVS! Kay Bee Toys (*not* K-B Toys)! This ex-mall is all 2nd-string chains that couldn't afford the rent at the Real Mall. It even had a Dollar Store! Which had signs hanging from the ceiling that said "YES! EVERY ITEM IS A DOLLAR!" If you've shopped in enough dollar stores, you know that "How much is this?" is their version on the SHAWT. I bought a pack of "Catnip Sausage," not realizing until I got home that the package had a pic that could be the love-child of Kill Kill & Bill the Cat. ACK! Pfft! Also bought some Messiah-scented incense. Well, it has a pic of Jesus on it & lists it's ingredients as "Spiritually inspiring fragrance." I'm calling the FDA if my spirits aren't inspired by these "oil-based incense sticks!" Hey, wait...They smell like ...oil. Or something. I need the opinion of someone with a better sense of smell than me. It's--catnip, maybe?
The back has a prayer, in both English & Spanish. "I BEG THAT BY THE ARDENT FLAMES OF LOVE THAT KINDLES YOUR HEART that are vaguely sandal-woody (I added that part myself!!), YOU HEAR MY PRAYER."
Beneath this are the words "Made in China." Hear my prayer, Oh Gang Of Four.

14 E-Z STEPS TO USING THE VCR OF WHICH YOUR BOSS SAID "IT MAY OR MAY NOT WORK; I DUNNO":
1 Plug in, connect to TV, put very nonessential tape in.
2 Realize that there's something wrong here, but not quick enough that you can out-race the VCR before it shuts itself down.
3 Make several attempts to retrieve tape by plugging & replugging VCR. VCR will make it clear that it never, ever plans on powering up again. Ever.
4 Curse, find screwdriver, remove screws.
5 Wait, those screws opened up the bottom. Remove screws from side.
6 Lift VCR cover. Note that tape cannot be reached. Search for more screws.
7 When all screws are removed, but tape is still trapped in machine, try cursing! It can't hurt!
8 Try moving every gear-looking thing inside VCR to get tape to eject. Wipe the oil this secretes on a Stop&Shop grocery receipt (assuming one is handy).
9 Press on thingies holding tape in (note: they're on the sides of the tape, & look like thingies). Once they are forced back, physically yank entire tape from VCR.
10 Discover that there is this thing holding onto this tape like the face-huggers from Alien. Curse.
11 Remember the Central Rule of Home Repair of Things You Can't Understand:
When all else fails--Use excessive force.
12 Take grainy pic of your victory! Huzzah! I have freed the JVC tape that contains Black & White At Night taped off of Cartoon Network last Sunday! And that cost me $1.79!
13 Throw VCR in dumpster. Laugh maniacally as you do. But upload a picture 1st.
14 Then go look at the awesome place Govynnda gets to use as her college dorm.

9/21

Must...not...start updating daily again! Must...resist...monkey's return to back!
Hey, wait, did I say MONKEYS?!!!
If the Net ever replaces traditional media, this will be the reason why. 24/7 access to monkey stories!

Why the Net prly won't replace trad-media:Ananova. She's M-M-Max Headroom in Dot Matrix's body, with neither of the former's subtext. The stories will prly have changed since I saw it, but in 1 of them she speaks of the BBC being accused of "dumbing down the news." Look Look Look in the m-m-mirror, Annnnnanova, baby!

A place I went to when I didn't go to the Big E was Railroad Salvage. This place is a trip. They used to buy--well, railroad cars worth of salvage, then sell it cheap. I go there maybe once every 3 to 5 years, even though it's about 15 minutes from here. There's no need to, as their product line never changes. They used to buy all sorts of wacky remaindered stuff, but gradually became just a place to buy crappy particle-board furniture.
I 1st was taken there by my mother in the early 70s. I marvelled at this huge, dirty warehouse of a place. I laughed when I saw rows of plastic cups for 99 cents. They were all misprints from some high school soccer team's banquet. Why would you buy THOSE, when you could get unmisprinted cups for less?
It was another 5 years before I set foot in the place again.
The soccer cups were waiting for me there. 99 cents each.
They were adjacent to rows & rows of "Match Point!" tennis coffee mugs, all done in ugly 1970 earth-tones. 100s of this 1 awful, ugly mug.
It was maybe 2 years more before I went back. My friends, Mug & Cup, were there waiting for me, still at the same prices.
That's the weird thing about this place. They never mark anything down. Sometimes something might vanish from the floor, but it's just been put into storage. In a few years, it'll be back (The only known exception to this was Space Fighter, which was recalled due to choking hazard). I go now just to see what's still there. It's been a great disappointment that the soccer cups disappeared a few years ago (into storage, no doubt). The tennis mugs are still there. So are the Annie party napkins I bought as a joke for an Xmas Survival Party for my Kay Bee Toys workers in 1987, & those are still right next to the paper plates from the Olympics. The 1980 Olympics...
A pile of LPs! A pile of Burt Reynolds LPs! I bought KMDS' wife Mel 1 of these as a joke back in...'94? Still there, still the same price. Need a 1977 CB radio, good buddy? They're here, rubber duck, for $110! That's a big 10-4! Want instruction manuals for your computer? Well, we have a whole spinner rack of them taking up floor space! You...do want books for the Commodore 64 & the TI99, right? Here's a stack of books that tell you how to make music on your Atari Home Computer! A 1983 book on understanding computers, hosted by 3-CPO & R2-D2! Hey, plastic fondue serving platters from 1973! Oh, look! Back in '88, when I worked at JCPenney, I laughed about how this place had a register counter impulse-buying display that consisted of jars of paint with 1968 copyrights, & the jars are STILL HERE! At the SAME PRICE!
I must admit--they finally have marked those 30-year-old 99 cents tennis mugs down.
Now they're 79 cents.
By the year 2060, they should be quite affordable!

9/25

Now Playing: "I Eat Cannibals" by Total Coelo. "That Chinese food is too risque," WTF? Whoops, not anymore, it just segued into "PEEK-A-BOO!" by Devo.

Yeah, that Public Radio record is over. Highlights of the 125 I bought for 50 cents each:

3 Petula Clark LPs. I love Pet! Dump this loser that sleeps on the subway, Pet! What is he, retarded? Do you also have to remind him to not dry his hair by sticking his head in the oven?

Parakeet Training: "Any NORMAL, SMART bird can be taught to speak using this record," sez the announcer. Any ABNORMAL, STUPID bird that cannot learn should be flushed down the toilet.

LP in a blue plastic bag that seals with a zipper. When was THAT the industry standard?

Brylcream presents SING ALONG WITH CONNIE FRANCIS. Brylcream midget says "The gals'll all pursue you, they'll love to get their fingers in your hair!" EWWWW! Yeah, sign me up for dipping my mitts in some vaseline head!

An Evening with JAYNE--Mansfield, that is, with her...abundant charms spilling out of her dress. And her head still attached.

Heart Recordings, which is...heartbeat recordings. Hey, it was 50 cents, & it's not like I'm gonna run across another 1 anytime soon.

The soundtrack to TRON, featuring JOURNEY! Big surprise, it sucks.

A Jackie Gleason LP with faux Dali cover art--hey, wait, it IS Dali! There he is, shaking hands with Jackie!

Some Italian LP, with primitivist art of Al Capone gunning some guys down, while a Rod Steigeresque dude name Gasparone is about to stab a girl in the head. Joe Lieberman! Go back in time to 1950s Italy to save America's youth from this violent entertainment! (Hey, is it just me, or would Joe find it impossible to order McNuggets at the drive-thru without invoking the name of GOD 22 times? "Would you like to super-size that, sir?" "YES, make it as big as GOD!" "That'll be 39 cents extra, sir.")

A Twist LP that's "a product of Precision Radiation Instruments, Inc."

The California Poppy-Pickers Play and Sing Hair-Aquarius. "'YOUNG' HITS of TODAY. The 'Pickers' out perform themselves on these great songs." From the 101 Strings people, so I kinda think that it's not really done by hippies.

In a similar vein, "MOD" Concert, featuring a cover with a 60s Go-Go Girl in silver lame miniskirt. But it's all--classical music? How do you frug to that? "Hugo Altven's HERDMAIDEN'S DANCE brings it all home--reflecting the composer's deep love for his homeland with haunting yet gay string and oboe passages."

OK, what was with that dude shooting up a gay bar, just because his last name was Gay? CLUE: Put down the 9MM & CHANGE YOUR FUCKING NAME. What, where you going to kill every gay on the planet? And now yer gonna end up in prison, where your last name will take on a WHOLE NEW MEANING. Why don't you try to head it off by changing it to "Assrape?" Moron.

Stars on Long Play II! 14 seconds of the Stars War theme, 15 of Kung-Fu Fighting, 11 of YMCA, 15 of the Good The Bad & The Ugly, 4 seconds of Theme From M*A*S*H--ahh, you poor kids too young to live in 1980. You missed the whole Stars on 45 oeuvre.

Speaking of forgotten oeuvres--"OOGA CHUCKA, OOGA OOGA OOGA CHUCKA!" Yes, it's the ALBUM by BLUE SWEDE! he also covers "Working in a Coal Mine" (which reminds me, I also got the Heavy Metal soundtrack, where Devo covered the same) & "Always Something There To Remind Me." Haven't played it yet, but I'll bet he doesn't top the Naked Eyes version--OH MY GOURD! I'll bet that there was once a NAKED EYES ALBUM, too!

In the Highly Specialized category, we have Music For Baton Twirlers, including the "Muskrat Ramble."

Since it was the last record sale, I guess I'll only have 3 of the 5 Ballads for the Age of Science series. The What? you ask? You may have heard a tune from these:
"The Sun is a mass of incandescant gas,
A gigantic nuclear fur-nace..."
Yep, The Johns.

Oops, no room left. Check new24 tmw for some scans...

Yuck. My hands smell like LP mildew now.