Have you ever done something, sitting around on your own, that you found...unsettling?

I'm sitting here in my apartment, programming some sort of meaningless eye-candy for some customer I've never met. I gave up listening to music when I work, so I have to make my own noise. Being a self-employed, work-at-home, recluse-by-nature geek, I haven't brushed my teeth, showered, or even put on pants today. It's 5:30 in the P.M., and I need a shave.

So, I'm sitting there fondling the Powerbook, gazing longingly at it's sleek form, inspired design, and oh-so-curvy air vents, relishing the feel of the tactile-feedback mechanism under the warm, pliant keyboard that, though I'll never understand, I breathlessy appreciate. I'm a man, goddamnit. A man with needs, such as ergonomic design and thoughtful engineering.

There I am, trying to figure out how to make an image filter process a tiny 25,000-pixel image in under an hour, stroking my computer, sitting around in my underwear at dinnertime, filthy and unwashed, and I realize I'm singing that wading-pool song Gollum was singing when he brained that fish in Two Towers.

Fuck me, that's creepy.

Bowing to the meme carried by Tim Blair, I submit to you three things that just chap my ass:

• Feng Shui (or any mysticism, for that matter)
• Kung Fu in movies
• James fucking Joyce

Jesus, I hate James fucking Joyce. What a simpering, worthless little twat. I think I'm going to file suit in my home state of Georgia to have his name legally changed to James Fucking Joyce. I hate that son of a bitch. I hear from someone or 'nother that some little kiss-ass literary "New Yorker"-wannabe had a fucking "Ulysses Day" jack-fest this month, supposedly because it was the date that was portrayed in Ulysses, by James Fucking Joyce. One goddam day, 11,000 pages. If you need 11,000 pages to describe one fucking day, you need to find a job you're good at.

Whatever happened to appreciation for elegance? James Fucking Joyce needed 150,000 pages to describe one fucking day. ONE! I could describe today in one word: Shit. I could also describe it in 1,500,000,000 words, just like J.F. Joyce. But it would just be the word "Shit" copied and pasted 1,500,000,000 times. I'll spare you the suspense and the outrageous Amazon pre-order fees.

Fuck James Fucking Joyce, fuck the Wachowski Brothers for re-introducing Kung Fu in polite Gesellschaft, and fuck anybody who tells me I need to have a goddamn turtle in the northern corner of my yard if I want to be potent.

And, by the way, fuck the next person who tells me in a bar that belief in a supreme being betrays a diminutive intellect, grasping at the tiniest of hopes in order to bring meaning into an abjectly meaningless existence, and then flips out because I light my cigarette with a fucking candle, because, as we all know, lighting a cigarette with a candle is bad luck for sailors. Fuck sailors, and fuck you Paul, you pseudo-intellectual, self-aggrandizing sack of shit.

Did I leave anything out?

I got a frantic email from my mom a few days ago. Apparently, the cat had caught a chipmunk, and offered it to her as a small token of his gratitude for the 9 years of expensive food and even more expensive veterinarian visits.

What follows is the heart-rending photo-essay of this ill-starred relationship, that of cat and chipmunk.

Jones hunts his prey

Prey hides behind door

Prey sleeps with the dust-bunnies

Note to chipmunks who may be reading this: Cats can apparently see through doors. Anybody who has a cat experiences this phenomenon whenever they get a good book and go to the bathroom: as soon as your legs fall asleep, the cat will begin thrashing the door in order to join you.

Dramarama say:

Okay, what is it tonight? Please just tell me what the hell is wrong! Do you wanna eat? Do you wanna sleep? Do you wanna drown? Just settle down, settle down, settle down! I'll give you candy, give you diamonds, give you pills give you anything you want-- hundred-dollar bills I'll even let you watch the shows you wanna see just marry me marry me marry me! I'm so sick of you tonight You never stay awake when I get home Is something wrong with me? Is something wrong with you? I really wish I knew wish I knew wish I knew! I'll give you candy, give you diamonds, give you pills I'll give you anything you want-- hundred-dollar bills I'll even let you watch the shows you wanna see Because you marry me marry me marry me! Marry me marry me marry me! I was young, I learned a game And love and happiness were the same Now I'm older and I don't lpay-- I found out the hardest way. I got wasted she got mad Called me names and she called her dad He got crazy and I did too Wondered what I did to you. I gave you candy, gave you diamonds, gave you pills Gave you anything you want-- Hundred-dollar bills! I even let you hear the songs I want to sing I'll give you anything anything anything I'll give you anything anything anything I'll give you anything anything anything Anything Anything Anything

As I'm struggling through "Atlas Shrugged", I figured I'd Google Ms. Ayn Rand. I came across this letter from 1941:

You say, what can one man do? When the Communists came to power in Russia, they were a handful of eighteen men. Just eighteen. In a country of [170,000,000] population. They were laughed at and no one took them seriously. According to their own prophet, Karl Marx, Russia was the last country in which Communism could be historically possible, because of Russia's backwardness in industrial development. Yet they succeeded. Because they knew what they wanted and went after it historical destiny or no historical destiny. Adolf Hitler started the Nazi Party in Germany with seven men. He was laughed at and considered a harmless crank. People said that after the Versailles Treaty Germany could not possibly become a world power again, not for centuries. Yet Hitler succeeded. Because he knew what he wanted and went after it history or no history. Shall we believe in mystical fates or do something about the future?

Ayn Rand was an important person. You rarely see such conviction in conservative philosophers. What I hear in this paragraph is that, goodness gracious, if Hitler can do it, why can't I? I will take over the world, and I'll become one rich motherfucker doing it. And there's nothing anyone can do about it.