WontonBlog

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro

To start off, let me say Hunter S. Thompson, you will be missed. Yesterday, I read an interesting article recounting HST’s associations with none other than George Dubbya Bush.

“He knew who I was, at that time, because I had a reputation as a writer,” Thompson said. “I knew he was part of the Bush dynasty. But he was nothing, he offered nothing, and he promised nothing. He had no humor. He was insignificant in every way and consequently I didn’t pay much attention to him. But when he passed out in my bathtub, then I noticed him. I’d been in another room, talking to the bright people. I had to have him taken away.”

I love it. I wouldn’t quite go so far as to say that I model my life after a paranoid acid freak, but I still like it when we speak the same language. Talk about speaking the same language, today I read that he’s having his ashes shot out of a cannon over his estate. I totally have to do that now. Also, here’s another quote:

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

I went skiing on Friday after work, just a quick trip to a relatively close mountain for some night skiing. The conditions were abhorent, nothing but ice. There were some nice jumps though, which made for some spectacular crashes on very hard ground. I managed to fall hard enough to pop out one of my contacts, as well as lose my hat and goggles about 2 miles up the mountain. Thanks random snowboard kid for bringing those back. Amazingly, the contact stuck inside my face mask, and I got it back in before it froze solid. I did manage to hurt my neck and leg though, so all was not a waste.

Yesterday I finished the 5th Discworld novel (Sourcery). I started the first one right after I got to Massachusetts, and I haven’t really been able to stop. Thanks goes to Brandy for the recommendation.

U-M’s spring break starts this Friday. I talked to Derek yesterday, and he’s going to come by this Saturday, and we’re going to NYC for a few days. About damn time! I’ve been looking for a good excuse to go there for awhile, and this’ll do nicely. It ain’t gonna be cheap though… Goodbye relocation money. Derek did find a hostel for us that goes for about $30 a night, close to downtown, and a block from a subway station.

A group of co-ops from work (read: 6 guys and 1 girl) and I (make that 7 guys and 1 girl) went to TGI Friday’s then went to see Constantine. It is quite possibly the most fabulously good and bad movie I’ve seen in a long time. Keanu Reeves manages to deliver most of his lines like he’s hangin’ ten off the bleached coast of Cali, which doesn’t really fit the almost noir-esque environ of the movie. Regardless, if you don’t take it seriously, and there are plenty of parts to suggest that you shouldn’t (Keanu sitting in a chair with his feet in a bucket of water and a cat on his lap, or perhaps flicking off the devil as he ascends towards heaven), it at least manages to be fun to laugh at. Especially if you have Katrina around jumping 3 feet off her chair when a bus drives by. Yeah, sorry, still can’t get over that bus.

I finally came to turns with the fact that I’m never going to land a role as an extra in Saturday Night Fever and ditched the 70’s throwback sideburns. I’m not entirely sure where they came from in the first place. Besides, I could still be the next Tony Manero, he didn’t sport the ‘burns. “Would ya just watch the hair. Ya know, I spend a long time on my hair and he hit it! He hit my hair.” Yeah, I could do it.

Finally, to top off the random crap, if this stuff comes to market and is cheap, I’ll be stocking up! Talk about a good way to save money… Just start the night off right, pop a couple of the tablets, and enjoy. The MrWonton 3 step plan.

Over the weekend, I updated to WordPress 1.5, the software I use to manage this blog. I use Brian’s Nested Comments plugin for the cool javascript comments, and at the time I write this, it doesn’t support WordPress 1.5. I fixed that with some hacking. For anyone interested, I coalesced my changes here. Consequently, if anything isn’t working correctly or looks funny (besides weird disappearing crap and broken rounded corners in MSIE, I know about all that, but it’s Internet Explorer’s problem, and as long as my pages validate with the W3C, which they do, I’m going to leave it), let me know.