Betrayal is not something that I tolerate well. I realize that is probably the case with many people, but I find it to be exceptionally difficult to swallow. Maybe it is because of my own loyalty. When the battle rages I don't run, I stand.
Shoulder-to-shoulder, back-against-back, that is how you find me. Punch me in the mouth, kick me in the crotch or stab me, it just doesn't matter. If the devil himself suddenly appeared I'd smack him down, without a second thought.
Not everyone can handle those standards. Not everyone can give what I ask. I understand, but at the same time when we are so close it is not something that I can just ignore.
I suppose that I should provide more details so that you can better understand what is happening and why fire is emanating from my nostrils. It is a very simple reason.
My ^&#&#*$$*()&%*$# computer has declared war upon me. Not just that, but it somehow has eaten around 40% of the music I had on my iTunes. And the thing that really sticks in my craw is that I save my iTunes files to an external hard drive. So WTF happened to my music.
I have recovered some of it and will definitely be able to restore more via the old CD collection, but that doesn't help me all that much. Hours upon hours have been spent running diagnostic tests and trying to implement some simple solutions.
Ran my spyware software and haven't found anything. Ran the antivirus to see if somehow something got through and haven't found evidence of anything. It is like trying to find D.B. Cooper, or my own episode of the X-Files.
The answers are out there
But I haven't found them yet. Listen closely and you just might hear me scream in frustration.
Computer Woes
More hours than I care to consider have been spent trying to fix this. More hours than I care to consider spent trying to salvage something from the wreck.
Going to sleep. Perhaps the morning will shed new light on how to fix some of what was broken and recover pieces of what was lost.
Going to sleep. Perhaps the morning will shed new light on how to fix some of what was broken and recover pieces of what was lost.
All Of Your Work Crumbles Into Dust
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Death, be not proud
John Donne
Ozymandias
"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Death, be not proud
John Donne
"Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die."
Jerusalem Is Calling- Nefesh B'Nefesh Bloggers Conference
"Hello Jack," said the voice on the other side of the phone line. "It is almost time."
"I know, hard to believe that in a few short weeks we'll be leaving for the First International Jewish Bloggers Conference."
I try to mask my excitement about the coming trip by speaking about other things so we cover the usual pleasantries about life and our families. But invariably the conversation turns to the conference, who is going to be there, what surprises lie in wait for us.
It is kind of a funny conversation, talking about blogging with another blogger. You find yourself talking about mutual friends that you haven't really met, at least not in person. Yet, thanks to the wonderful world of blogging you know a lot more about them then you might know about real world friends.
I haven't had too many of these conversations. I have spent most of my time blogging guarding my anonymity, I have had relatively few conversations with other bloggers, unmasked. Part of the joy of blogging for me has been in the freedom that mask and cape provide.
You know Adam West made prancing around in tights look really easy, but I digress.
"No matter how many times you take that flight, it never gets any shorter. Those last few hours just kill me," I share with my fellow traveler.
"But this time around I have figured out a foolproof scheme for making the hours fly by," I add.
"Oh really, what is it" comes the reply.
"I have this great screenplay for you to read. And the travel agent has just confirmed that we can sit together for the whole flight. It will be great!"
And then suddenly I realize that the line is dead. My companion has hung up and run for the hills. Smart guy, he doesn't really want to spend the 15 hours discussing the finer points of my screenplay "Hair Today" now does he.
P.S. Just to hold off the hordes and the huge volume of email that I know I will receive, the conversation above never took place. It just made for decent blog fodder.
Speaking of Blog Fodder, here is an offer you can't refuse from your Blog Fodder. Go and register for the conference. You don't have to be there in person, it is going to be webcast.
"I know, hard to believe that in a few short weeks we'll be leaving for the First International Jewish Bloggers Conference."
I try to mask my excitement about the coming trip by speaking about other things so we cover the usual pleasantries about life and our families. But invariably the conversation turns to the conference, who is going to be there, what surprises lie in wait for us.
It is kind of a funny conversation, talking about blogging with another blogger. You find yourself talking about mutual friends that you haven't really met, at least not in person. Yet, thanks to the wonderful world of blogging you know a lot more about them then you might know about real world friends.
I haven't had too many of these conversations. I have spent most of my time blogging guarding my anonymity, I have had relatively few conversations with other bloggers, unmasked. Part of the joy of blogging for me has been in the freedom that mask and cape provide.
You know Adam West made prancing around in tights look really easy, but I digress.
"No matter how many times you take that flight, it never gets any shorter. Those last few hours just kill me," I share with my fellow traveler.
"But this time around I have figured out a foolproof scheme for making the hours fly by," I add.
"Oh really, what is it" comes the reply.
"I have this great screenplay for you to read. And the travel agent has just confirmed that we can sit together for the whole flight. It will be great!"
And then suddenly I realize that the line is dead. My companion has hung up and run for the hills. Smart guy, he doesn't really want to spend the 15 hours discussing the finer points of my screenplay "Hair Today" now does he.
P.S. Just to hold off the hordes and the huge volume of email that I know I will receive, the conversation above never took place. It just made for decent blog fodder.
Speaking of Blog Fodder, here is an offer you can't refuse from your Blog Fodder. Go and register for the conference. You don't have to be there in person, it is going to be webcast.
A 12 Round Fight
For those of you who are unable or unwilling to listen here is the story behind the audio post. I recently purchased and installed video editing software. The idea was that it might be nice to take all of the home movies off of tape and drop them onto a DVD where they would be better protected.
Not to mention that I thought that it might be fun to learn how to edit the movies so that I could dress them up and make them more fun to watch. So I spent a solid three hours working on my first project, or should I say attempting to work on it.
The blasted thing just didn't want to cooperate with me, which is why I referred to it as a 12 round fight. Basically the first six rounds consisted of it kicking my butt up, down and around the ring. But I finally got a handle on things and began to turn it around.
In fact I feel confident enough to say that this is really a draw. If it weren't after midnight I'd volunteer for the rematch right now. But I think that the better part of valor is to accept the draw, get some sleep and then come back tomorrow bright eyed and bushy tailed.
That is code for I am going to kick your electronic ass. Mock me, laugh at me all you want, computer, tomorrow your silicon butt is mine.
Haveil Havalim #176 - The Dirty Laundry Edition
Don't just stand there, go check it out. Haveil Havalim #176 - The Dirty Laundry Edition
Married To the Wrong Woman Part II
Part I can be found here.
For the second time in less than twenty minutes his concentration was broken by loud honking. A woman driving a red Toyota Rav-4 was gesturing angrily at him. Jimmy snorted and made a point of waiting for the light to turn red and then gunned it through the intersection, narrowly making it before the light turned red.
It wasn't the most mature way of handling things, but it was better than giving her the old middle fingered salute, or so he rationalized to himself. He was a bit of a superstitious man and was more than a little nervous about how the past few hours leading to the meeting had been going. It wasn't like he had walked under a ladder or had a black cat cross his path either.
It just a sick, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Fear and insecurity that he wasn't quite good enough, that this meeting wasn't a real meeting. They didn't agree to see him because his script was that good. No, they did so because he had called in a few favors from some friends and the string pulling had worked out.
At least that was what that little voice inside his head was muttering. His anxiety about the meeting was responsible for him waking up two solid hours before the alarm was supposed to go off. For a short while he lay in bed and tried to fall back asleep. "C'mon buddy, another 30 minutes of shut eye will help," went his silent plea.
It was more than frustrating. The night before he had anticipated having trouble finding his way to dreamland so he had made a point of running an extra five miles. The idea was to fill himself up with an exercise induced endorphin rush that would block out all negative thoughts and in turn allow his tired but happy body to shut down.
Smart move. Good try. But it didn't work. Instead of lying in bed dreaming about how successful he was going to be he was staring at the computer screen trying to tweak things one more time. Two hours later he forced himself to shut off the computer and made his way back to bed. Six hours o sleep was plenty. All he had to do sleep until the alarm went off. That shouldn't be so hard.
Except it was.
Alone in bed he rolled around and tried to convince his mind to turn off so that his body could get some more rest. "We're a team. You and me, body and brain. Brain shuts down so that body can sleep and then tomorrow we go kick some ass."
But it hadn't worked. In the morning he cursed and swore that if there was a way to punish his brain for keeping him up, he'd do it. For a moment he visualized pulling the whole thing out of his head so that he could punt it like a football. It was a ridiculous thought, but it was worth a stupid chuckle.
Since he was wide awake he figured that he might as well get up and try to be productive. That thought made him smile. An old girlfriend had told him that she was goal oriented and that she wanted every day to be a productive day.
He always responded by telling her that they were a good match because he wanted to be productive too, reproductive. It was a dumb joke, but for a long time it had worked out quite nicely. It was one of those silly jokes that couples laugh about until they reached the point at which they realized that they no longer liked each other.
No one ever really knew when that point was. They just knew that the things their partner did weren't cute or funny any longer. Now they were at best irritating and at worst infuriating.
For a moment he wondered what ever had happened to her. He supposed that he still had her phone number and wondered what would happen if he called up out of the blue and asked her if she felt like being reproductive. It was a crazy, kind of cockamamie idea. The kind of thing that would probably result in her hanging up or laughing at him.
But it also served as a good distraction. And maybe, just maybe she might say yes. The idea was worth mulling over for a while.
That was one of Jimmy's things. He liked to mull things over for a while. Used in conjunction with "I'll think about it" it was code for "I don't want to answer the question."
He never had made that call. Instead he had decided to fill the time before the meeting by working in the yard of his house. It was a valiant effort, even if it had fallen short. Too much nervous energy to focus had left him puttering around and forced him out of the house and into the car.
Which is how he had found himself at the beach. The rhythmic pounding of the surf had always helped him to unwind. Last night as he had fought to fall asleep he had seriously considered driving down the water's edge to sleep. Had it not been for his fear of being arrested he probably would have.
No matter. Now he was in the car and on his way. All he had to do was convince people who were told a thousand times a day that they were holding the script for the next Oscar winner that his really was.
He had been playing around with sort of a tagline for it. "What would you say if I told you that you were the source of my greatest joy and my greatest sorrow."
Not to play on stereotypes, but he hoped like hell that there were a couple of women in the meeting. The overall script was something that was designed to appeal to both men and women, but first he had to get it approved and in his mind women were an easier sell.
Just a block away from his destination he visualized the meeting. Maybe he'd get down on one knee, take her hand and say the tag line. If he delivered it well and made eye contact he just might make her feel something. That was the trick, if he could make them feel the passion then he could make this work.
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