Local time where you're at. ("Where you're at"?)

This sucks.&#160 This @($&*!!#%^) fucking sucks.

Okay, so it’s my 30-year high-school reunion, alright?&#160 And we’ve just come off one hell&#160 of a dinner party that I set up, paid for (I may get that deposit back, who knows?) and hosted, which turned out to be a rousing success, far beyond my wildest dreams.&#160 Good times spent with some very good friends, some going back as far as four decades.

And Mrs. Venomous & I spent pretty much the entire afternoon & evening at the palatial home of one of those friends, and had a ball there, as well.

An uneventful trip home, clean up & wind down a bit, catch the last little bit of Men in Black II&#160 before going to bed around midnight.&#160 Things are getting back to normal, and I’m finally moving past the recent death of my friend, okay?&#160 Beginning to relax a bit, tonight will be a great night of sleep.

Or so I thought.

Two hours of sleep later, I’m tossing & turning, and sleep simply refuses to return, so out here I venture to catch up on some stuff.&#160 First stop after checking FB for new messages is the Rott.

And I find this.

LC Anniee451 aka Linda Haley, passed away July 5th, 2011. She was a frequent commenter here and elsewhere.

She posted here once or twice as “AnnieMcPhee” – the Gravatar&#153 on her profile confirms it.

Not again.&#160 Great Honkin’ Cthulu, dammit for fuck’s sake, not again.&#160 I just get over the death of one of my friends, and now I find out I’ve lost another (one I might not have known that&#160 well, but still) – and a Denizen to boot.

FYJFI.

Denizens, in the wake of the death of my friend, I’ve been giving some serious thought to things, and asking some serious questions.

It’s pretty much a given, when my medical condition is taken into account, that there are fewer days ahead than behind.&#160 I go on the page for my high school class, and I see how many of my friends – some I literally grew up with – have passed on (some many years ago, not to put too fine a point on it), and I begin to wonder how much time I have left.

And that&#160 question begs others.

Am I making the best use of my time presently?&#160 Are there more productive things I can be doing?

What about This Fine Blog&#153?&#160 What with my schedule being what it is, it’s difficult enough to crank out a post a night – and that’s when I know exactly what I wanna write about and&#160 exactly what I wanna say.

In fact, I was talking about this with the Vicar a little bit ago, and I made the observation that this is just like 1996, when I shut down the original BBS – not enough time to give this the effort it properly deserves.&#160 And if I do commit to continuing this, what does it say about me to be half-hearted (half-assed?) about it?

These are ongoing questions for which the answers aren’t immediately available.&#160 For now, I intend to keep doing this, but I’m not going to bust my ass trying to crank something out every day.&#160 I figure you guys might get a better quality of rant that way.

(Besides, that’s why I hired other writers – right, Vicar?&#160 Right, General???&#160 (grin))

So, you douchebags in the Church of the SubTarded&#153 can mourn a little bit longer.&#160 I’m not going away, and your pussified reverend Mykki Chickenshit has proven he’d rather play with his inflatable dolls for a sixth straight year.

(And you’d thought I’d forgotten about that, huh?)

Denizens, I may be somewhat on the quiet side for a few days.

I have a friend on Facebook – the other&#160 aspect thereof which the Vicar referenced the other day – whom, after the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, was ripping former owner Donald Carter for committing the allegedly cardinal sin of standing up there on the podium (at Mark Cuban’s invitation) and accepting the trophy from NBA commish David Stern.

(Apparently, my friend had it in for Mr. Carter all these years for the alleged reason he sold the Mavs to H. Ross Pee-rot, Junior.)

Now, my friend posted these thoughts on FB, in full view of God ‘n Ever’body&#153.&#160 I thought it a very classless thing to do (still do), and gave serious consideration to publicly challenging him on it, unfriending him and telling his ass off before the whole world – both on FB, and here.

As you probably know by now, I wound up doing none of those things.&#160 For once, I held my notoriously acidic tongue.&#160 About the only thing I did was withhold birthday wishes from him last week.

I just found out, a few minutes ago, that my friend died two hours ago of a heart attack.&#160 And it has hit me with all the force of a ten-ton wrecking ball at full speed.

Right now, I don’t have words.&#160 I am, for one of the few times in my life, utterly speechless.&#160 And in the silence, I’m thinking hard about a few things.

Including this blog.

It’s time for some re-evaluations around here.&#160 Vicar, General – you guys have the conn.

UPDATE:&#160 Obviously, I’d not read the General’s own pullback announcement (the gravity of this post will prevent me from making the obvious smartassed remark about it).

General, just do what you can.&#160 Vicar – a sermon outline or two would come in handy at the moment.

Denizens, your assignment for this weekend is to read this magnificent Constitutional treatise by Aaron Worthing.

Whom, in a Venomous administration, I would not hesitate to make one of my chief US prosecutors.

Now go.&#160 Shoo.

Denizens, once again the urge to write…

KORRIOTH:&#160 You mean your mu…(gakkk…urgh…gaaaa)

VENOMOUS(continuing to gesture towards Korrioth):&#160 My what, Captain?

KORRIOTH (chocking to get the words out):&#160 Your…urge…t’…wri…

[Venomous puts his hand back down.&#160 Korritoh gulps in the precious air, panting furiously.]

VENOMOUS:&#160 Much better.

…the urge to write has once again left, so despite the plethora ot topics on which I’d love to rant, I just don’t feel like it.

I have, however, been catching up on very-muchly-needed sleep, so I expect this condition to be very&#160 temporary.

Stay tuned.

Nine years ago today, Alan K. Henderson got into this thing we call blogging.

It’s important to this Sith Lord&#153, because he’s the one that got me&#160 into it.

MERLIN:&#160 That’s right – blame everyone else but yourself.

KORRIOTH:&#160 Typical li…

[Venomous gestures.&#160 Both Merlin & Korrioth go flying into the nearest bulkhead.]

VENOMOUS:&#160 Grrrr.

Anyway, happy blogiversary, Alan.

And it came from this Patterico thread:

The SEALs killed Bin Laden and we got the 72 versions.

Oh.&#160 Emm.&#160 Eff.&#160 Gee.&#160

In this Patterico thread today, this Rule 5 picture showed up.

The observation:&#160 More cleavage-y.&#160 Less Hagman-y.

One of my favorite things to say about fellow blogger & Denizen Alan K. Henderson is that he Does Not Have Enough To Do&#153.

And he proves it again here.

Hie thee hence to readeth.&#160 Spew warnings.&#160

Can any of you digital geniuses tell me how to post our calender to my church blog? We use WordPress, and the best I have been able to do is to link to a PDF copy. Help from the pros would be greatly appreciated.

And a warm Spatula City BBS! greeting to you guys coming over from the lovely & gracious Michelle’s site on the basis of this comment to read Death of the Pegasus, then came back to the main page here.

Let me encourage you to stick around.&#160 This is a Rant Blog&#153 that tries (occasionally) to have a little fun, and doesn’t always do “all politics, all the time”.

For example…those of you who are of the football persuasion, make sure you’re back here in August, when we’ll mix in a strong dose of “Football, You Bet” with our regular offerings.

Above all, I’d encourage you to make this a daily read…if you dare.&#160

Welcome!

UPDATE:&#160 If you’ve tried to register and found that I tend to emulate MM in that regard, it’s because the only registrations I’ve received lately are of the spambot variety.&#160 Hence, I’ve had to close registration, ’cause I don’t have time to go through my user rolls every day.

Leave me an email (the link’s down a bit, on the right) and let me know you’re here.&#160 I’ll get you set up soon as I get home.

Denizens, it’s pretty much been a whole week of One-Legged Manage-ery&#153, which is why you haven’t heard much from here.&#160 Hopefully, the workload will ease up some in a bit.

For now, just an advisory:&#160 This Fine Blog&#153 is not&#160 upgrading to WP 3.1.&#160 Some bugs have been found therein by the crack Realm&#153 beta-testing staff, which have the potential for causing massive warp-core breaches.

KORRIOTH:&#160 What is it with version 3.1s of software, anyway?&#160 First Microsoft, then this.

VENOMOUS:&#160 Yeah, tell me about it.

We will, therefore, wait patiently for…Wordpress 95.&#160

KORRIOTH:&#160 Oh, shit…

And no sooner&#160 do I get the site running on WP 3.0.5 than WordPress comes out with version 3.1.

General?&#160 This&#160 is why I don’t like updating.&#160

[SCENE:&#160 The Engineering section ot ISS Titanic.&#160 Bodies of Bynars & Jawas, along with an Andorian or two, plus a Tellarite here & there, are strewn across the deck.

In one corner, four Ferengi are doing their best to hide themselves & a group of Ewoks from what appears to be a hooded raging madman prowling the section, purple lightsaber in hand.

Engineer emeritus Merlin and current chief engineer Ozymandias McCool are lying motionless against one bulkhead.&#160 Captain Korrioth, having been knocked woozy by the angry hooded warrior, is now attempting to position himself between he with the lightsaber & the two objects of his extreme angst.

The lightsaber-wielding beast removes the hood, and we see (as expected) Lord Darth Venomous point his weapon at the captain.]

VENOMOUS:&#160 THEY HAVE FAILED ME FOR THE LAST TIME, CAPTAIN!!!&#160 They told me they were ready to go!&#160 GIVE ME ONE&#160 REASON WHY THEY SHOULD KEEP THEIR FUCKING HEADS!!!

[Captain Korrioth calmly pulls what appears to be an isolinear chip from his tunic, and holds it up before Lord Venomous.]

KORRIOTH:&#160 “Service Pack 1”.

[Venomous looks at it, a peculiar, puzzled expression on his face.&#160 He starts to say something, hesitates, then dons a twisted facial expression.]

VENOMOUS:&#160 Oh.&#160 Okay, then.&#160 Carry on, Captain.

[Venomous turns and calmly walks from the room.&#160 Korrioth breathes a sigh of relief, and goes to render assistance to his still-unconscious engineering staff.]

—

Looks like we’re good to go, guys.&#160 Will be testing stuff out over the next few days, as Version 3 was supposed to render some of my plugins inert.&#160 (Which is why I resisted upgrading for as long as I did.)

Keep your eyes peeled.

Denizens, your homework assignment is to go read this excellent treatise by Subotai Bahadur over at the Rott.

This one’s well worth your time & effort.&#160 Go.&#160 Shoo.