Telepath comic writer

It's been a decade and I'm still having this dream about high school. I swear Randall Munroe has been watching me, reading my mind, mining my subconscious for comic material. It's not the first time he's hit something in my head I've never said out loud.

Wax. Lots of wax.

Not long ago, I found myself at a wedding reception where guests received little votive candles as a gift. There was an abundance of extras, and I found myself (like many of the other guests) bringing home more than a few.

So these candles were sitting on top of the rather large (and completely useless) mantle in my living room. (The one over the gas fireplace that's been capped off, painted over, and had a wooden floor installed into it) Female companionship dictated that candles must be lit. So they were. After she'd removed herself from the candles, I found them to be more of a liability so long as they were lit. So I go down the line, puffing them out. One at a time. *POOF* out *POOF* out, etc, until the last one. *POOF*. Still lit. *POOF!* Still lit. So I go for the gusto with a blast of air that would make a compressor hide in shame. Just as quickly, I realized that it was a candle in a shot glass, not on a stick. Wax melts, but has nowhere to go. This runny liquid wax sat in a pool with a little flame atop the whole time. Such a blast of air at it felt dictated that not only must the flame depart, but so must the wax.

It didn't burn my face, no. I just had a hard time explaining the dry wax in my eyebrows a few minutes later.

Unbalanced comodities

Overheard in Target yesterday:

Him: "They have Wii Fit here. I've never actually seen it in a store"

Her: "That's rare"

Him: "This is why we need to buy it today. Here. Now"

Her: "...it's expensive"

Him: "It's worse online. People are jacking the prices pretty bad"

Her: Clearly understanding that he'll buy it one day.. "I suppose it'll happen eventually"

Him: "So you're saying we can buy it"

Her: "I have a condition"

Him: "?"

Her: "I get new nail clippers"

Him: "Deal"

The moral of the story kids: personal hygiene paraphernalia ranks very highly with some women.

My fingers froze as I typed this.

So... a while ago last fall I had this notion that I should get one of those kerosene heaters. My dad has one. This mostly ceramic oddjob in a circular cage burns at a rate enough to be almost too warm. So far, I used it once when the pilot light went out.

The pilot light on this furnace is retarded. The day it went out, I trucked it down to the basement of doom and was thoroughly befuddled. I saw nothing that looked like a pilot light, and the dead remains of a thousand old matches were scattered in no apparent pattern, suggesting that tennants past had the same problem. The landlord sent someone over, who knew it quite well. When you look into this thing, there's a thick wall of pipes blocking the top half, and a tangle of wires webbed across the bottom half. You really can't see the pilot light even when it's on short of mirrors or flexibility that would make a gymnast blush.

Mr Maintenance showed me where it was. It was deeply hidden.

This morning, I discovered that once again I needed to cook up some hydrocarbons. Pilot light is on. When it tried to kick in and warm the place up, the beast sounded sick. The sickest part, though, is that I could see my breath when I woke up. Let me reiterate that:

I could see my own breath before I got out of bed this morning.

It's that freakin cold in here. Mr Landlord is sending over Mr Maintenance, but they're taking their sweet time. On the bright side, I think my CPU is running at optimal efficiency.

My inner geek

...is really my outer geek. I came across some conversation hearts. (which anyone knows is made of bone meal and earwig honey)
The first thing I noticed was:
a) The color
b) The words
c) The font type the letters are printed in

If you guessed C, you know me better than I do sometimes.

(I think the font is Dox Matrix. Does anyone actually know?)

Computers computers compu......

So I got a netbook. An Asus EEE, specifically. I managed to snag it for free through... various fully legal means.

Blogging on this thing is hard. It's one of the first models, so it's sporting the diminutive six inch screen. The keyboard isn't much bigger. Taking notes in class is easy, though. A few sentences here and there (and being able to look something up when the professor can't quite remember something is nice). It's very light. My other laptop was (is, really) a beast. Break my back every time I had to carry it around.

Sure it's nice, but wake me up when Apple builds a Macbook Air Tablet.

My inner old man

So I have a bad knee. I don't really know what to blame it on. I was never in an accident. Never had a sports injury. First came up when I was (get this) 18 years old and just standing in place. Suddenly I couldn't stand anymore. It comes and goes. The more I walk, the more I notice it. Living in Buffalo, I walk to school, wheras in Syracuse I drove.

I feel like an invalid waiting for the elevator to take me down 1 floor. Going upstairs is fine, I don't feel it much. But going down is murder.

I pretty much spend the weekends sitting down now.