Happy Freakin' New Year!

Well yet another year come and gone. This one certainly had its ups and downs but on the whole not too friggin terrible. So here's to you my bloggy peeps, for auld lang syne. Cheers!
(slugs down his 15th cranberry juice)

I try, so help me I do

I try to stay away from politics, I really do. I also try not to wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty but the pig enjoys it. However, I really must protest. They hung Saddam Hussein? Really? I'm amazed. Was the guy a fucker? No doubt. Then again what country's leader can be said to be "a nice guy"? What's that you say? He brutally supressed rebellion? Used poison gas on his own people? Wanted to acquire weapons of mass destruction? Folks, what exactly do you think would happen to you if you tried to start a rebellion in this country? How far do you think you'd get? As far as the Kurds? Anyone remember the civil war? How far do you think your elected leaders would go to keep the North from seceding? You can bet that any leaders coming even close to pulling that off would be immediately imprisoned if not executed. If it did get that far you can bet no military solution for the Federal government to reassert control would be off the table. In short WTF? We can now depose any leader and execute him because he's a dick? Did you know that if you even suggest we start with our own that it's a crime? When they can imprison you for what you say how free are you exactly? How far does one have to go before the men in black show up at the door? We are on a slippery slope my friends. May god help us all.

A-lister Redux

HHNT Y'all! Having been linked by A-lister Hugh @ Gaping Void I wanted a suitable cartoon for my previous post. When I saw this one I thought "Hmm, that's exactly the opposite of what I'm experiencing right now." To wit:

So, a little MS Paint later I had this:

There's a much better description of my Half Nekkid state of mind! However, being a mildly scrupulous thief I felt I should ask his permission before posting my hack of his image. To my surprise he answered promptly and nicely, to wit: "Heh. Thanks for asking. I prefer it if people don't change my work, but I never kick up a fuss if they do....Godspeed! -Hugh" WOW! The guy's not only a genius, he's a decent sort as well! Why don't you buy a case of Stormhoek wine and make his day? There's a good lot of bloggy peeps! Your palate will thank you.

Holy Crap! Linked by an A-Lister!

Holy Crap! I knew that Hugh McLeod of Gaping Void had linked to me in one of his posts about The Global Microbrand (one of which I hope to become) but it's a completely different thing to see myself on his blog roll! Click HERE to see! Fortunately it's alphabetical so I'm pretty high up (early on) in the list. Wow! I'm so proud! I often link to Hugh's fanstastic (and often painful) cartoons but I see I need to get my own blogroll in order starting with myself. The point of this blog was to help sell the art and music at WWW.ANDYT13.com and there isn't even a link there from here! Sheesh! Must git...git...shicka shicka git busy y'all busy y'all busy y'all
73 days baby!

Dec 26th - RIP Reverend James

The Right Reverend James Brown; The Man, The King, The Legend - Rest in Peace. I sure am sorry to see you go. There weren't many true American originals left and losing you is a drag. Godspeed.

Merry Christmas

Well, I don't have a Christmas tree this year so this one will have to serve. Have a very merry Christmas y'all!

Anchor HNT

Here I am with my anchor. Lord knows I need a big one.

Here's my "Word Cloud". This little proggie analyzes your blog and displays the most common words by size. You can tweak it some though I didn't.

Click here to Git yer own Thanks to Spinning girl! for love, support and the linky! I wish her many more happy sober years. Happy/Merry to Lori at This Just In. I wish her sone to come back from Iraq safe and sound. Finally, cheers to Madam X for shouting me out. I was her first commenter as she's been a good friend. She's gotten me in trouble more times than not just by being herself and associating with me. I forgive her and wish her all the dirty s e x she wants.
HNT y'all!

Grand Re-Opening

Hello Dear Readers! Please excuse my sudden departure! Between the endless harangue of jealous and or nosy people and the most unwelcome notice of a fellow employee it became necessary to make a new blog to link to my main site for nice tame "Please buy my music and artwork and otherwise don't look behind the curtain" type blog. I don't THINK that any of the people that I really don't want to deal with have this address bookmarked. Most people come via www.AndyT13.com which my comments and such all link back to. Cain't a-git here from thar nummo. Thus this is now my official "unofficial NSFW ranting" blog. Welcome back! Also, please excuse my poor assed photoshopped gif up there. It was Q&D/F&E (quick and dirty;fast and easy) just like...eh, you get the idea.

Racism and Me

When I was growing up I was taught and had the firm conviction that all people were created equal regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation and whatever else may seperate us from one another. As an adult, even though I know it to be true that some people are assholes and some aren't, I have found that certain types of people tend to have more jerks per capita. Since 9/11, like many people around the world, I've been especially distrustful of Arabs and Muslims in general. I'm not proud of this but it's a fact. Being a free thinker I find any authoritarian culture repulsive. The problem here is not Arabs or Jews of Blacks or Whites. The problem is Orthodoxy. You can be a devout person of faith and I will respect you and try not to get in the way of your religion. However; if your religion a) requires me to die or be taxed or enslaved if I don't believe as you do, b) requires your women or mine to be raped, murdered or enslaved in any way for any reason, c) requires us or our children to behave as you imagine your God would have us behave then I submit that you are a danger to human society as a whole and that you and your religion need to be exterminated as completely and totally as possible by the rest of us. I believe this to be true no matter what you call yourself or your imaginary friend. I call you a dangerous psychopath. And now, some meaningful Arabic:


Transliteration
Yūladu jamī'u n-nāsi ahrāran mutasāwīna fī l-karāmati wa-l-huqūq. Wa-qad wuhibū 'aqlan wa-damīran wa-'alayhim an yu'āmila ba'huhum ba'han bi-rūhi l-ikhā'.

Listen to recording of this text by زين العابدين أيوبي (Zein Al-A'bideen Ayyoubi)

Translation
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)

Hasta La Vista!

Sorry. Closed. No more. Cerrado. Adios. Vamos.
Visit WWW.ANDYT13.COM

GuiTarzan HNT

Wish I was ocean size
They cannot move you man, no one tries
No one pulls you out from your hole
Like a tooth aching a jawbone...

I was made with a heart of stone
To be broken with one hard blow
I've seen the ocean break on the shore
Come together with no harm done...

It ain't easy living... I want to be as deep as the ocean mother ocean, yeah

Some people tell me home is up in the sky
In the sky lives a spy
I want to be more like the ocean
No talking All action...
No talking All action…

Ocean Size - Jane's Addiction

Yeah, so...all this talk of being "Right Sized"...it doesn't really work with my image of me as So Much Larger Than Life. Whatever. Day 59. I'm the right size Just For Today. This blog in its current form is going to shut down soon. I know I've been threatening it for a while but it's just not doing what I want it to do, which is sell my work. As it is I just reveal my greatest fears and sentence me to be exposed before my peers for the feckless fuck I really am. Plus I'm taking shit from all corners of my so-called "real life" for having the nerve to be here in the first place. I'm here to tell you that the view of my life from the cheap seats sucks. I'ma move up the front row.

Postin' Fool

I've been saving this up (pardon the pun) for a later post and later is here. Today is our lame assed office party. Normally it's pretty cool with the house band and all 1200 people hanging and partying all day. There's no alcohol but many of us industrious types handle that on our own. Well, we did last year. This year I'm out of that running. That came as a bit of a shock to me and everyone else. Anyway, this year there's too many of us so we're having TWO parties. One for us in engineering and one for the production people. Here's a hint: engineers are ugly, male and boring. The production people at least have a few hot females. So we're having a dry, stag Christmas party full of speeches by the president and a DJ to which absolutely no one will dance. The worst part of this is that the owner is spending many thousands of dollars for a party when what everyone really wants is the half a day off. And I can't even get drunk nor can I go to the meeting I really NEED to go to in order to deal with all this. Meh. 58 days.

Guitar Coffin

Oh bury me now on the lone prairie... Yes, this is a coffin. What a way to go, no? I love it.
Weird stuff in the news today. Another hooker killed in the UK by "The Ipswitch Ripper". Apparently every time someone starts killing whores he becomes "The ....Ripper." That's kind of weird. Sort of dishonors Jack's memory really. I mean, here he went to all the trouble to surgically eviscerate his victims and never be caught and nowadays anyone with a hunk of rope who feels like strangling a whore gets the title 'ripper". Not terribly fair to Jolly Old Jack is it?
In other news yet another passel of jerk-off gay pedophiles (read: US Senators) want to make it a law that every server everywhere (everywhere being defined as "In the US") be searched for illegal photos under the guise of "protecting our children from pedophiles" when what they really mean is "protecting our corporate masters' copyrights while getting some jiggy kiddie pron for ourselves". Mark Twain was right. If you hung every politician in the country that'd be a fucking great start. Clearly anyone with the desire to govern others is patently unqualified to do so.

FUKITOL

Day 57. Actually, it's truly not as bad as all that. I just felt like posting this pic because it amuses me. I'm in a bit of a strange place mentally and emotionally which I suppose is nothing new to my regular readers, especially lately. After 20+ years of being asleep it's a bit odd waking up. Also wondering how to stay awake and what put me to sleep in the first place. Nothing comfortable there. Many thanks to those who've been there with an encouraging word and such. There are far too many of you to list and that is indeed quite a blessing. Things being what they are I probably shouldn't find this picture funny at all but hey, if you can't laugh at yourself who CAN you laugh at? Oh. Everyone else. OK.

WTF?

This picture and post are apropos of nothing. That is to say there is no relevance to either the picture or the post. None. That is because I got nothin'. The pic came up on a google search of the term WTF which is about how I feel. I am Le Tired. I've been fighting off a cold since late Thursday night. As of right now it's a holding action. I've spent most of the last 60 hours asleep. During my few waking hours I feel OK-ish except for A Bit Achy and Le Tired. Evenings and Mornings bring sore throat, stuffy head, slight fever and a general feeling of shoot me now. It is ironic (to me) that in the past I would have treated these symptoms with copious quantities of alcohol which would have either killed the germ (usually) or brought the cold on full blast and forced me to deal with it. This limbo of "kinda sick" kinda sucks. Today is day 55. I realized I can't even have Nyquil (my symptom reliever of choice) because, yes you guessed it, it has alcohol in it. Merde! I crawled to El Supermercado hoy por comprar los groceries. That was all the energy I had. I might go look at a house with the notion of buying it later today if I can roust my bollocks from the bed. I will now go back to bed. Thank you for playing. Please come again. Wipe your feet on the way out.

Big Loser HNT

Susie and Tommy and I are celebrating the fact that we're big losers. That is to say between us we've lost over a hundred pounds this year. I'm the worst loser at a mere 26 lbs. Susie lost 35 lbs and Tommy's the biggest loser having shed a whopping 50 lbs! You Go Boy! Pictures to prove it:

Before: drunk, fat and happy in sunny Aruba, April 2006. 200 lbs 37 inch waist:



















After: Sober, skinny, miserable in frigid NY December 2006. 174 lbs 33 inch waist.













Any questions? HHNT!

The Bent Philosopher

...on a philosophical bent. Most everyone who knows me knows I majored in music theory and composition in college. Most people don't know that I minored in...philosophy!
Would you like fries with that? I digress. The best part about taking philosophy classes is it's very hard to fail if you do the reading and write the papers. Philosophy is a slippery thing at best. I regarded it as a study of history. What sort of bubble headed things have people been spouting about life, the universe and everything? (42) In all my papers on the teachings of various philosophers I resolved early on to steadfastly stick to the position that no matter who they were or what they had to say they were completely full of shit. I never failed to recieve an A for my critical thinking. I have found that this strategy works well in many other areas of life as well.

Today's cartoon (stolen) references the concept of solipsism, defined here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/solipsism
and described in detail here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

While in many ways it is difficult to KNOW anything outside the self but it's reasonable to SUPPOSE that the vast variety of things in the world make it unlikely that one is "alone" and that all is a fabrication of the self. I find it unlikely that I am that good at everything. Then again we come into the world alone (mostly) and we leave it alone (mostly) and unless we're very careful to cultivate loving and caring relationships with ourselves, friends, family, lovers and a higher power we are likely to spend a great deal of this life alone as well.

Last night I went to a great restaurant and was accosted by an old, lonely and clearly drunk patron who wanted to talk philosophy, science and religion. Good gracious! Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig enjoys it! Nevertheless, rather than have him continue to shout questions at me across the room I went and sat with him and indulged his high opinion of himself, his thoughts and his views on life. He said he was writing a book about religion dedicated to the proposition that religion was a farce and science was all. Now I'm the first one to say that organized religion is evil on the order of a criminal enterprise but I recently have a newfound respect for what you might term "spirituality". Respect for one's self, one's fellows and the beauty of existence is underrated today. The notion that "the desire to be a better man, father, friend, lover, son and neighbor is it's own reward" must be recognized to have intrinsic value irrespective of it's "scientific value". I felt sorry for that lonely old man. His world seemed a very dark and lonely place. I was relieved when he paid up and left. It was an unwelcome visit with a future me that I hope shall never come to be.

STFU NOOB!

Shameless gank from a photoshop contest at the fabulous FARK. At least I have the decency to credit Farker 'The Voice Of Doom" as the creator. Usually I just steal stuff with wild abandon 'cause that's what us artist types do. The context here (if you care) is that there are people at work who constantly run their mouths and aggravate the living shit out of me either with stupid questions or questions so detailed that I can't begin to even grasp nevermind care about. STFU and GBTW you Newbie MFer! That is all. Today is day 50. I promised I wouldn't count anymore. I lied.

The Work Manifesto

Again, more brilliance by way of www.gapingvoid.com - Thanks Hugh!

The Work Manifesto by Pamela Slim, Escape from Cubicle Nation
1. Work is your real life. It is the way you translate your feelings, your thoughts, your hopes and your desires into something valuable, tangible and useful every day. You can choose to make work into a dreaded, necessary evil that you can't wait to finish so that you can get busy with your "real life." Why not just do work you love?
2. Good work will improve your sex life. Frustrated employees desperately long for excitement and release in the form of fantasy football, internet surfing, porn, and the affections of their stressed and overworked spouses. No superhero could fill the gigantic void of a passionless man or woman in a 15-minute tryst in bed. Express your passion through your work every day, all day, and find that you will be less needy, more attentive, open, giving and loving to your partner. Which makes for better sex.
3. Your secret desire holds the clue to your best work. You say that you would love to do meaningful work, but don't know how to find it. What is your secret desire? What idea are you a little embarrassed to share with someone because it is so delicate or bold or crazy or exciting? You often claim to not know what you want to do, but in fact censor yourself from what you know you want for fear of appearing ridiculous.
4. You can't fool your kids. Many of you claim passionless, dull and frustrating careers with the excuse that you must provide for your family. Providing for your family is noble; using it as an excuse to hide from your own greatness is a bad example for your kids. If you want them to grow up motivated, creative, free and enterprising, be that yourself. They are watching and emulating your every move.
5. Fear is the great inhibitor. All of the excuses that you find for not doing work you love have solutions. You do not enact them because you are afraid: of showing up too big in the world; of failing; of appearing as an imposter; of living in poverty. There is nothing wrong with fear. Feel it, talk to it, examine it and walk with it. Then step out and let yourself show up, warts and all. It will liberate you.
6. Owning is better than renting. While you may feel "safer" renting out your skills for a paycheck and benefits, you often sell all your energy this way and have nothing left at the end of the day. If you don't get what you need in this employment arrangement in terms of money, recognition, power or responsibility, you feel angry and frustrated. Own the means of production and the factory, and at least your glorious disasters will be your disasters. Accountability breeds passion and desire.

Go Pamela!

Horny, Corny, Thorny Crown

Well, going to the dentist today to have a filling removed and get prepped for a crown. My first one! This may be more info than you want or need but let's face it if you're here you know what to expect by now. My dentist is a hot Chinese woman. I prefer doctors, dentists and tattoo artists to be beautiful women. You may laugh and says it's irrelevant but my view is if you're going to be tortured and made to suffer terrible agony it might as well be at the hands a a hot babe. Each to his own boys. I likes mine raw.

Oops...

Being in a bad mood this morning I posted a picture of a guy who blew his brains out. Then I went to the gym. Apparently a number of people took this badly. My apologies! I didn't mean to alarm anyone. I was just in a bad mood.

World AIDS and HIV day

Yahoo and Google are both running stories about today being World AIDS and HIV day.
"What can you do?" they say. Wear a red ribbon. Talk to people about it. They post horrific stats about how many people it kills. OK, there's my ribbon and my link to their stories.

One thing neither one of them even mentions pisses me off because it reeks of the fact that repressed Americans can't talk about sex. What can you do to prevent the spread of AIDS? Don't have unprotected sex with someone whose HIV status you don't know. Talk to your kids and tell them that. Teach sex education in school starting at about 8 years old. Give them access to information about sex. Give them condoms. Refuse to support religions, politicians and organizations that don't support these policies. If you're gay and/or an intraveneous drug user DON'T HAVE UNPROTECTED SEX WITH SOMEONE WHOSE STATUS YOU DON'T KNOW and use clean needles and works. Oh and people? Let's give them free condoms and clean needles, OK?

What's that you say? That makes FAR too much sense? Oh well. I had to put it out there. All things being equal there are far too many humans on the planet anyway. Anything that significantly reduces our numbers is better for the survival of the species and the planet.
I just had to put on my Captain Obvious routine for a minute there. Sorry, sorry.