Chuck Palahniuk - Rant
I'm not a fan, particularly, of his style of writing, and this took a bit of getting into, but there's some intriguing ideas in it well tied together. He's a feverish imagination, and he grooms you to accept his fantastical narrative by providing you numerous rabbit holes (conspiracies, forteana, etc) to research and verify first.
I can see why he has a cult following. Good.
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- Category: Books
The Dentist
I'd almost forgotten, missed it, but - an appointment with the dentist. A cleaning, long, long overdue.
How bad can it be, given everything else I've been through?
Pretty fucking bad. 2 Hours in the chair, alternately clutching my fists, the water jets, high pitched whine, vibration, not so much pain as immense discomfort. Little flashes of pain, where the water travels up a nerve or hits something just right. After an hour of this I'm done, but she isn't. Now for the manual tooth-scraping of plaque, build-up, tarter, and this for another hour, and I'm so done, past done, it's exhausting this, hours of edge-of-your seat discomfort, brightened only by the "I knew it" flashes of pain, fucking hell, she's battling every surviving tooth in my mouth. At the two-hour mark my time is up, she estimates another hour to go - fucking bloody hell, then brightly suggests an appointment the next day - and it's "NONONO", I need fucking time to recover, go home, watch "Marathon Man" and "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Brazil", realize how lucky I have it, only, only, I'm not feeling so lucky...
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Thanksgiving, The End of Sentence
Sunday, thumb out, get a ride from an American in a working vehicle who takes me right to works door.
Early. Not even 10:00. It says something about the area when hitchhiking is a more reliable form of transport than driving.
Well, maybe it says something about what I drive as well...
Anyways, homeless girl, still in her car on the ferry landing - what, 3 weeks now?
The day spent cleaning, organizing the cooler. The kitchen cooks up the last of the chicken wings and dry ribs, drop them off to homeless and she's grateful.
I'm surprised, I'd tried a few, they were - to put it generously, disgusting, but even disgusting tastes good if you're hungry enough.
Work wraps around 3:30, all cleaning is done. Or as much as is going to be done.
Now, thumb out to get back to Nelson, but, what's the rush? I've no dinner waiting for me and so I offer homeless, hungry, dinner, if she'll drive.
Unsurprisingly she's down. Only - only - her car won't start. Battery is dead. And so after another hour of fucking around and her apologizing for the state of her car/home (and - she doesn't understand - but she's apologizing to me - TO ME! which is hilarious, if she'd ever looked into my jeep....).
Eventually we make it. Dinner, glass of wine, light conversation as to her circumstances, books, films. Her taste in books, not so good, largely salvaged from the free piles, but she proves surprisingly film literate, and so we compare notes on a few favorites.
You can tell, she's glad to get out of her head. I know the feeling, it's not always a welcoming place.
She has advice about housing as well, to get into stepping-stones, they'll move me into the North-Shore Inn, cheap rent...
This is not an option, but it is good to know there are resources.
And my good deed done I buy her a mickey, me a mickey, pay for gas and that's the end of the restaurant, the end of our date, probably I should have invited her back to the jeep, only it's a mess, and, really, there's a special hell for those that prey on vulnerable women and so now it's back to the real world of 100 things too long postponed and overlooked. The winter should be busy.
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- Category: Blog
A Screen Protector for my Phone
Now, as you've probably noticed I've been taking a lot of pictures with my S22 Ultra. Not enough, really, I'll have to take more, but there are the issues of housing and vehicles to be dealt with first.
So, the screen protector I had on it finally cracked, then split, then got water underneath it and in the interest of protecting my investment I peeled it off and headed out to get another.
This screen protector, it was $20 at the local electronics place. Plastic. I thought it was sapphire glass, or something, but it wasn't, just plastic. Imagine my disdain then when it cracked and peeled off and I threw it away.
Anyways, got to have it, I've broken too many phones and there are too many payments left on this baby.
So back to the local electronics place, only they're out of them. Down to the mall. There's a guy, his own little shop, nothing but cell phone cases and screen protectors.
And so I get one there. He puts a generic piece of plastic in a template cutter, which sizes it, then cleans up my phone and puts it on, smoothing it with what appears to be a credit card. He then talks me into putting another piece of protective plastic on the back of the phone, same procedure, smooths it on with a credit card. He makes a great show of cleaning it and smoothing it on. Then he talks me into getting a lens protector as well. Why didn't I think of that?
If I was buying a car I'd be called a "rollover".
When he's done I get the bill. With discount, because I got the works, $117.00. WTF?
For what could be no more than 35 cents worth of plastic and half an hour smoothing it on to my phone with a credit card.
"Rest assured..." I'm told "It comes with a 1 week warranty...".
Bloody hell, when it's time to leave the service industry I know what I'm going to do...
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- Category: Rants
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