The comic will not be updating here. Partly because it doesn't look like Livejournal gets fed the image, and partly because I'm trying to make that a separate thing. Blog posts will still be updated here, so no worries there.

Heads up.

the blog has been revamped, restyled and re-envisioned (ok, maybe just the first two). Send an email if you want the new link: thomas.caster@gmail.com

I feel like I'm in love.

Went to go see the Speed Racer movie tonight in the IMAX with The Blind Technician, The Mad Chemist and a couple of other people who I don't think have nicknames... Whatever.

The important thing here is: this movie was like being on drugs. Good drugs. Maybe my expectations were so low that just about anything would have let me walk out of the movie at least feeling like I wasn't ripped off, but I feel like I just had an almost spiritual experience.

I'm happy. I can't stop smiling. The movie has it's flaws. Some poor CG work, and the style takes some getting used to, but the movie is just fun.

I feel the need to evangelize and convert. Maybe I'll take tomorrow off and go door to door.

I'd been feeling a bit sickly ever since our camping trip. For the last few days I've been experiencing a somewhat sharp, upper abdominal pain shortly after waking up or ingesting anything. At first I chalked it up to the digestive issues I'd had during our trip, but after it didn't seem to be subsiding, I decided to go to the doctor on my lunch break.

I was spurred on by the memory that we had eaten bratwurst on our camping trip. Drunkenly cooked bratwurst. This could mean I was suffering from only one thing: Trichinosis. The internet confirmed all of my worst fears. I had every symptom of the early stages of an infestation. They were going to slowly eat away at my insides, get into my brain and delete what was left of my memories of early childhood.

The doctor, of course, being trained in such matters, had a different opinion. For one, there are apparently about 12 confirmed cases of Trichinosis in the US from processed meats a year (straight, raw pork and wild game are another story). It was much more likely, given my symptoms (especially the timing of the abdominal pain I was experiencing) that I was either suffering from an irritated gallbladder or a peptic ulcer.

The ulcer is the more likely culprit, as it's something that are a) caused by pylori bacteria and are fairly common, b) exacerbated by both alcohol (whoops) and anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or advil (I take high dose advil occasionally for a pinched nerve in my back). It can be treated rather easily using antacids, so I'm on a regimen of Prilosec and Mylanta. If those don't seem to be effective, then antibiotics will clear it right up.

If it's my gallbladder, then I'm fucked for a little while. I'll have to carefully monitor my food intake (which, hell, I should probably be doing already) and avoid fatty foods and cut out alcohol completely (NOOOO!).

Either way, alcohol is out for a while. It could irritate an ulcer and cause it to start bleeding.

Fun times are ahead!

**edit: I totally forgot to mention the part that makes the title of this make any sense. While doing my diagnostic, my doctor, my female doctor, demanded that I drop my pants. Awkwardly, I complied. She then went on to further instruct that I "drop my drawers" as well.

Good news: A woman touched my manly bits. Also, I don't have a hernia.**

I got a new toy this weekend, thanks to my crazy mom. Sometimes there are benefits to having a family member who spends their entire life buying crazy old crap from estate sales. Like getting a vintage $700 1930's art deco styled Smith Corona typewriter for $5

There are grand plans in the works.

If she knew what I was doing with it, or what it was worth, she would probably kill me.

I'm done with online dating for a while. That shit is getting to be fucking depressing.

I wrote that a few days back, then promptly closed my browser window because, as depressing as online dating is, announcing your intent to quit something on the internet is even more depressing.

You know what I'm talking about. We've all been there when 2Zool4Skule makes the announcement on the message board. That things around here have changed. That the people suck. The flame wars are getting too bad. That everyone here needs to take a long hard look at their life and finally understand that, man, you just aren't going to find it here.

Then, he sits back and waits. Waits for the flood of postings lamenting his departure, or begging him to stay. Together, they say, perhaps we can change things here. Mostly though, it's a large flame war, with a bunch of trolls calling him a douche bag.

He'll lurk for a while. Usually a few weeks. Sometimes, if he's paitent, a few months. Then one day he'll make his triumphant return, raining down fire and brimstone on to some poor fool who had the misfortune to be wrong on the internet.

That was kind of a tangent.

So, much like my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, while I may have given up on internet dating, it seems that it has not given up on me. So instead of an immediate evacuation, I'm currently in the process of engaging in what one might consider a phased withdrawal. Dinner tonight at La Chupacabra, dinner tomorrow at The Bleu Bistro, dinner on Friday at Red Robin, cupcakes and coffee on Monday. All with 4 different people. I know, I know. This doesn't sound like a phased withdrawal. It looks a lot more like escalation. Near as I can tell, in my attempt to escape, I've turned into something more akin to a snowball rolling down a hill.

The Stranger's Love Lab allows you to put a voice greeting on your page that you record over your phone.

I'm surprised it took me so long to abuse this feature...

Tom and Steve

Got a text message from The Mad Chemist tonight asking if I wished to join him and a few friends at The Six Arms, a decent little brew pub near downtown Seattle. It was on my way there that I realized that this would be my first outing involving him that didn't involve The Don.

This is significant because The Don has, up until this point, more or less acted as the conduit for our friendship, in as much as, either The Don was doing something with The Mad Chemist and invited me along, or The Don was doing something with me and invited The Mad Chemist along. I've had friends before who were really just friends because they were friends of someone that I was *actually* friends with, and this is typically something one doesn't discover until that person, that facilitator, isn't present. So these moments, for me anyway, tend to be a bit on the side of stressful.

Social anxiety disorder is a poncy bunch of bullshit designed by Pzier to sell more drugs. Just saying.

Anyway, that being said, it's not like the fears were founded.

It was also during the course of the evening that I finally met the girl that The Mad Chemist had said he would try to set me up with. He even tried, without success, to force her to sit across from me at the table. Somehow instead, she ended up about as far away from me as the table and chair arrangements would allow. So while she seemed like a very nice and interesting person, I can't say that any meaningful conversation occurred between us.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it was a fun evening and The Don is a tosser for not coming with us.

In an attempt to kill a flame war before it started, someone posted something on the internet.

Awesome.

Macs are overpriced underspec'd poncey toys for people with too much money. Macs are great value for money - you couldn't get the same spec for the same money elsewhere. OSX is great Windows is shit. Windows is great OSX is shit. 2GB is nowhere near enough memory these days. 2GB might not be enough for Vista but Macs run fine with it. OSX copied Vista. Vista copied OSX. Some boring shit about the finer points of Intel processor technology that's the equivalent of showing everyone how big your willy is except nobody is interested whatever. OSX is shit and Windows is shit; I run Ubuntu blah blah blah. I hate Steve Jobs he eats babies. Bill Gates eats the babies and their mothers. I run Cock-Rot Linux and it's the best in the world and I don't know why everyone uses Ubuntu when you can do everything using Vi and the terminal feature of my obscure mobile phone (which nobody ever rings 'cause I've got no friends). Some other boring comment about processors from someone who wants to show the world that his willy is bigger than the other processor posters (okay, one person read the whole post). Apple hardware is overpriced I hate anyone with an iPhone. Actually BSD is much better than Linux or Windows or OSX, that's why such a large percentage of people have it installed on their home machines. Doh, didn't you know that OSX is Unix and runs BSD. Actually it's not Unix 'cause Apple won't pay for the certification. Yes it is. No it's not. Fanboi something. Don't you know the whole fan-boy thing is old and so juvenille, just like your spelling. I still use a Lisa and it does everything I need it to. I use a Commodore 64 with a hard-drive and it's better than the Lisa. I don't know what I'm talking about and haven't read the article but I'm going to chip in with something irrelevant and wrong anyway. OSX sucks. OSX rocks. Bootcamp. DRM. iTunes. Steve Jobs is on first name terms with Satan. Bill Gates is Satan. I've got an iPhone and I love it. It really pisses me off that Apple has to put i in front of everything. Something about PPC versus Intel. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges (pun intentional) proving PPC is and always will be better than x86. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges proving x86 is and always will be better than PPC. GPL. Google. Linux. QNX. My Dad's harder than your Dad. My Nan's harder than your nan. Something anti-American. Angry riposte proving anti-American point. Thoughtful welll thought out riposte clearly disproving anti-American point that nobody will ever read because there's so much uninformed chaff above it.

The Don sent me an article on Absinthe at work today. Somehow this came out:

We should...buy...some? I guess? Drink it in the woods. Tear off all our clothing and dance around the fire. Chasing the green fairy. Wake up in the morning with our heads pounding and covered in grizzly bear blood. In the night, we had made spears. We were hunters! Screaming into the night, tearing through the woods, we found the cave. Perched at the mouth, you sniff the air. The bears' hot musky breath acrid in your nostrils, you spit on the ground and we all slowly make our way into the den, quietly clambering over rocks and the long forgotten skulls of those that failed before us. Suddenly, the bears' eyes open, glinting black in the moonlight like the flint of our spears. Our attack cry is lost to the night, drown into silence by the roar of the grizzly. The hiss of claws. A flash of obsidian. The smell of wet iron and the heat of death fill the small cave. We are victorious.

Sometimes I think I get paid too much.

Someone told me the other day that he didn't think that any of the jobs I've ever had defined me. The thing is... I think that... that thing up there defines me more than any job I've ever had. So what the fuck do I do with that?