Dyslexic Misanthrope

Dr. G is now on the Discovery Science Channel!  So there's a chance Oprah's destruction of Discovery Health next year won't mean the end of my favorite Medical Examiner (sorry, Dr. Quincy).  There's some solace in that.

Meanwhile, in other important television doings, Five-0's Steve McGarrett was on the witness stand on WFMZ 69 this afternoon.  Steve was testifying against some super villain loan shark and talking turkey about the exorbitant interest rates in the leg-breaking business, or "the juice, as it's called in the underworld parlance."  Classic McGarrett-speak.  Shuffling between that and a Twilight Zone marathon on the SciFi Channel brings to an end my last week on the dole, topped off with a rousing snow storm to boot.

And down the snow tumbles.  I can hear all the fuckers up and down my block cackling with glee at the chance to rock and roll tomorrow with their machines of destruction.  You know, I can't believe, we're on the eve of destruction.  They're probably already hunkered down in their garages, greasing up their Sno-Blower 10000s for the big day tomorrow, anxious to gun the engines and shoot that snow a mile high in the sky before crashing it back down to earth all over my freshly hand-shoveled walk, erasing the fruits of my manual labor.

The idiot across the street from me was revving up his monstrous contraption this afternoon before a flake had even hit the ground.  It was like qualifying day at the Indy 500.  Better find my headphones so I can drown out the screams of 20 Blowers doing their synchronized dance tomorrow while I'm breaking my back with the ol' faithful $5 plastic shovel.  I think a little Never Mind the Bollocks on the iPod will serve as a gentle alternative soundtrack to my back breaking efforts.  My body is already aching just thinking about it.  Of course I covered this neighbor problem in a December post, where I swore I'd break into my each of their garages at the dawn of the next big snowfall and fill the gas tanks of their blowers with nitroglycerin.  Better set my alarm early tomorrow. :-)

But who am I kidding?  I'm a dyslexic misanthrope: whenever I get especially angry at someone or something, I tend to take it out on myself, no matter how much I may want to lay into the true target of my fury.  It's perhaps just something ingrained into my DNA?  Nah.  Odds are, it was tattooed onto my psyche by off-brand byzantine parenting since recalled. 

I'm going to be signing off from this blog for the most part while I get back down to the business of business.  That means more postings on my technology blog at the expense of this one.  I'll still be checking in from time to time but probably not at the near daily clip I'd been posting to date, tossing globs of drivel-laden keystrokes at the web and watching precious little of it stick.  Which is not to say that the quality will improve just because I have a go at it less.  But I'll feel more guilty if it isn't.  So I'll try.

My Neighbors Blow

Now I admit I'm not the most neighborly guy.  I haven't taken the time to meet, greet and glad hand the denizens of my particular neck of the woods all that much, couldn't tell you their names or really much else about them.

When their kids were of stick ball and street hockey age I put up with their projectiles flying over the fence from the church parking lot into the side of my house, only occasionally chasing them away when they came within inches of my windows one too many times.  I never caught the fuckers in the act of breaking those windows since it always seemed to happen when I was away, but I knew well enough who they were.  Hell, I even retrieved the balls that landed up onto my second floor deck in the spirit of neighborly fun.  They've since grown up and graduated to drugs and petty crime, I'm guessing.

Still, I'll confess: I'm not a touchy-feely, chat-it-up stalwart member of the community.

Now I feel vindicated as to why: they're all vicious swine, the lot of them.

Each one apparently has a state of the art snow-blower, one fancier than the next. With all the bells and whistles. Vibrating, heated recliner seats, 20000 PSI, 12 cylinder gas-guzzling, power-mad electronic beauties that could clear a path up Everest while serving you breakfast and clipping your toenails.

I'll admit it was hard to see clearly all the way up to the end of the block this morning through the 50 foot high plumps of pressurized snow emanating from the parade of humongous blowers but I swear the particularly evil white-haired Nazi encamped at the corner had a machine that was simultaneously clearing his walk, shampooing his scalp, and giving him a reach around. I squinted a bit harder and am sure I saw Dustin Hoffman strapped to the back of the thing with some diabolical dental instrument cutting into a fresh nerve at the root of one of his teeth.  Is it Safe?

The noise was deafening this morning, sort of like pit row at the Indy 500.  My head is still exploding from the sounds and the fumes while the taste of gasoline-laced snow consumes my tongue and throat after getting sprayed in the face with it over a sustained period of time.

Yes indeed, every Who in Whoville was out with their shiny Snow Blow Job 3000s save for one poor muck - me - hunched over in pain with his $5.00 plastic shovel, friend to the environment and procrastinating masochist, making about a foot of progress for every hundred yards the spit shine push button industrial complex all around him cleared.

And not one of these shitheads offered to come to his aid.

No, quite the contrary.  They took particular delight in spraying huge mounds of icy white stuff all around this Who's property line, spilling deep into his hard-won hand-shoveled walk, erasing his back breaking handiwork and forcing him to endure the Bataan Death March Redux.  And all the while these beasts were cackling with glee high atop their gleaming weapons of snow-mass destruction, rubbing their hands together C. Montgomery Burns-style.

Motherfuckers.

I plan to break into each garage in the days ahead, filling the tanks of their Snow Suck-n-Spray 9000s with nitroglycerin. The next storm will be a real blast, my good neighbors.

A plague on all your houses!!

Oh, and Happy Holidays!

Black and Blue and White all Over

I'm snow blind and buried to my gonads in the putrid shit, shoveling my way into back spasms and strained muscles the likes of which I haven't felt in years. I doubt even Rush Limbaugh's medicine cabinet could spell relief for my aching bod tonight.  Anyone who said snow is beautiful lives in an apartment or condo.  Bah Humbug.

Come Christmas Eve I'll be winging my way to sunny climes (Phoenix to be specific) and away from Bing Crosby's dreaming.  Fuck him anyway. He was nothing but a mediocre singer, a lousy actor and a serial child abuser.  So, Christmas (and New Year) in Arizona away from where the huskies go with temptations to eat the yellow snow (I'm paraphrasing). Anyway, it's something I'm looking forward to.  Meanwhile I've got more of the same to look forward to in my more immediate future that is Sunday.  Glancing out the window, the shit just keeps on coming down.

Christ.  I think it's time for Tylenol and bed.

Or not.  I see on IFC we've got both Kill Bills playing and Pulp Fiction to boot.  I just might be up all night.  Ya see, I played my new Inglorious Basterds Blu Ray earlier and am still on a bit of a Tarantino high.  And I didn't even like Basterds all that much; in fact, I enjoyed more the first flick of today's little double feature, the latest Star Trek. (BTW, Give this a go even if you never liked the Trek TV shows. It's pretty good on its own merits and as a bonus, Shatner isn't anywhere to be found.)  But getting back to Tarantino, even if Basterds largely didn't work for me it was never boring.  That's Quinton.

Why is it that I can get all exited about movies on TV that I own and can throw into the DVD player any time I want?  Rhetorical question: it's because I'm Lazy with a capital L.

Perhaps I'll compromise and watch the rest of Kill Bill Vol 2 in bed.  If I can get out of this chair.  I should shovel one last time or tomorrow'll be that much worse.  But I can't seem to get out of this chair.

[Postscript: Out of the chair, into bed, and up early - okay, 10:00am - to shovel my way into traction.  Now at least it won't be so painful tomorrow morning digging my car the rest of the way out. At least I think that's my car under the especially large pile of snow in the driveway.  Rush, I need your Oxy!  Does your maid have relatives in Philly?] 

[Kellogsscript: Dug out my car.  Think I'm ready to surf to walmart.com and order up my casket now.  This one looks comfortable and should be gentle to my aching back!]