I am “sick” today, well I am sick, still, but I didn’t go into the office today so that I could get some homework and writing done.

I am currently sitting in a coffee place that features free interwebz access, and the portion of novel # 2 that I am working on has required that I make the following google searches as part of my research:

–virus and malware

–hacking laws and statues

–countries with no U.S. extradition treaty

–flights from Cayman Islands to Namibia

–accessing expunged criminal records

So, I’m on a public, freely accessible wifi connection, and I’m guessing it’ll be about 30 minutes or so until several black sedan’s pull into the parking lot, several men wearing dark suits and glasses jump out, grab me and this computer I’m typing on, and I disappear forever.

This might very well be my new favorite show!

Not only does it have Lewis Black, who is, I think we can all agree, the shiznat! But it also features Paul F Tompkins and Greg Giraldo…

If this first episode is any indication, then this could well be the best place to see some of the best comics in the country rip on everything I (and you?) hate! What more could you want in a TV show?

Not much…

This post doesn’t even really need text…but I am a habitual word user, so…

Well, I don’t hate my job. I suppose I’ve had worse. Certainly the driving range was bad…

Oh, I can hear the question now, the one that everyone asks….But didn’t you get to drive the little cart?!

Yep. 90% of the job was sitting in that damn thing. It’s fun for about 10 minutes, then it’s just boring. And by boring I mean, to the point of excruciating numbness. And I was doing this back in the mid-90’s, so, you know, no Ipod (not that I have one now!). I was still rollin’ with the cassette (kids, ask someone who is “old”) walkman. I sat in that thing for 8 hours a night, five days a week, for nearly two years. I am convinced that I am considerably more stupid because of it. The other 10% of the job consisted of emptying garbage cans filled with half-empty beer bottles that had been sitting out in the Southern California sun for days on end, shoveling manure, skulking through snake infested dried river beds for .50 cent balls, and having to listen to people talk about golf like it mattered, in any way shape or form, to anyone not rich and/or semi-racist.

One summer I worked at a franchised pizza place, which wasn’t bad, until the second week when the air conditioning broke. The town I grew up in gets to up over 100 nearly every day between the middle of June and the end of August. So I’d have to sit in this little box of a store with two huge pizza ovens hovering at 600 degrees, while trying to wrestle 40 gallons of pizza dough (I was one of the few 18+ employees, and so, one of the few allowed to operate the “machinery”). I swear to god I literally sweated olive oil that summer!

I could go on…I’m almost 30 and I’ve had 18 jobs since I was 16. That’s not to say I haven’t had some long term ones. I’m going on 7 years at the bookstore. Only once did I just stop going to job. It wasn’t that bad, actually, but I told the manager when they hired me that I had a trip planned and he said it would be no problem. Two weeks later, a few days before my trip, I get my schedule which had me working during my trip. I go to the assistant manager to tell him, hey I’m going to be 500 miles away on these days, to which he tells me I didn’t fill out a time off request….that was the last time I ever saw that guy.

But this current one…it’s not bad, per say. I don’t work 80 hours like at the video game company. There is a serious lack of manure related activity. I don’t even have to yell at people to pay 8 bucks for a frozen lemonade. But I think, more than any other job, this one is sucking my soul. It is one of the highest paying jobs I’ve ever had, though. Of course, the last time I had a job with a comparable wage I felt the same way. Maybe it’s something about offices and middle class salaries (although, I’d say I’m only middle class because the wife works as well, and makes more then me actually).

Or could just be that it’s late on Friday and I’m tired, and sick of being here…

Is an entire e-mail I just sent to exsulis which, I thought, sounded rather nice and I would share with all you Normalinauts out there…

Take, for instance, this incoming referrer link…

http://doctorwho.xooit.fr/t412-Dossier-Doctor-Who-et-les-USA.htm

from a French Doctor Who forum. I say thank you random French person, whoever you are, and I know that such a thing makes exsulis all warm and fuzzy inside!

In unrelated news, Terry Pratchett, as we all know, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But it recently came to light that he has donated a “princely sum” to Alzheimer’s research, and asked that his fans do the same…

You can, of course, donate directly, or if you’re like me, or you like T-shirts, you can do this…