Oh how I love thee

Gas Station restroom off the Lindero Cyn exit on the 101.

I love you.

You were clean and met my needs fully in a difficult time. You cared not that I had no sweet words to lessen your normal inhibitions, nor that I had no flowers to sway you with. In my haste I could only enter and do my business as quickly as possible, and I confess, I gave little thought to your needs. Yet you remained fresh smelling and joyful in your receptacle duties. You are a shining example to all restrooms everywhere.

Other inanimate objects I'd like to thank:

You've remained loyal and steadfast, old friend. You don't judge me when I play Mraz songs over and over again, though you really should. I mean.. he's so gay. Also, your size prohibits very large people from entering you, which has led to very funny moments as those large people realize they must seek transportation elsewhere.

Of course it was only funny to me afterwards, at the time it was mortifyingly ackward. (Sorry former supervisor who couldn't fit in my car.. good luck on Biggest Loser 4!)

Finally, my heart bleeds for the Most Depressing Carnival™ on earth.

Oh carnival.. give up. Really. There's no point in exposing your shame to the world like this.

I wondered about the parents bringing their children here. What lessons were they imparting?

"Timmy, this is what human wreckage looks like."

"Allison, remember when we were talking about economic depression? LOOK!"

"Leroy, don't stare, it's perfectly normal for the cook to have a dangling cigarette as he prepares your fine meal of curdled fries."

"Ok kids, Daddy is going around back with this toothless woman for a little while. Go play with the broken glass or something, k?"

Reading is Fundamental. Dumbass.

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life is strange

I had a strange moment this morning. I have a feeling I have a lot of strange moments and allow them to pass unremarked. I'm going to start jotting down notes when they happen.

I was turning left on Magnolia in the valley, to get to work the back-way (avoiding Ventura blvd). I had one car coming from the opposite direction, so was just waiting for it to pass by so I could make my turn. He/she/it went by.. and I hesitated. I had the strangest feeling there was a car coming and that if I turned then, it would crash right into me. I looked.. harder? I don't know. I gave it my full attention and there was absolutely NO car coming for as far as I could see. Yet the feeling remained.

I finally made my turn.. and felt every second of it. I could literally feel the invisible car coming right at me and as I turned I sort of expected to hear/feel the crash of it slamming into my passenger side.

The hell was that? Was there a car in an alternate reality and it somehow bled through to my consciousness? Was I feeling an echo from someone else who previously crashed in that intersection? Am I having a reaction to not being on cold medicine this morning?

The answer to all of these questions and more can be found by visiting a Scientology Center and signing up for a free personality exam.

sicky sick sick

Scene: Dog PoodleGayDog* standing with front legs on balcony and back legs inside the house.

Me: PGD, you cannot straddle both worlds. You must choose. Inside or out. CHOOSE.

PoodleGayDog: ...

Me: Damn you PDG, you are not Schrödinger's Cat. CHOOSE! You cannot be both! Collapse the waveform!

PoodleGayDog: woof?

Another physics joke wasted on the damn dog. I'm going back to bed.

*Name changed to protect is privacy. His real name is GayPoodleDog.

A new look

She's got eyes like Zapruder and a mouth like heroin
She wants me to be perfect like Kennedy
This isn't god
This isn't god

God is just a statistic.
-MM, PostHuman

I am in love with my new mask. I feel naked without it. I got it while visiting my girlfriends family in Florida.

Her mother was thrilled with it. I could tell by the way she kept saying "please don't walk near me with that. Go away. Seriously. Get away from me".

This mask says "Yes, I am a rapist. But goddammit, I love America."

I am in therapy, why do you ask?

Oh and for a couple of people that have asked, no, my opening quotes never have anything to do with the content of any given post. They are just things I've heard or read within the last week that are stuck in my head until I can plop them onto the top of my blog.

Mental flotsam.

And on and on and on..

Show me how to lie
You're getting better all the time
And turning all against the one
is an art that's hard to teach

Another clever word
sets off an unsuspecting herd
And as you step back into line
a mob jumps to their feet
-Dexter Holland


I am writing this from my new bed, in my new house, by the old ocean. I'm still having moments like this, where it hits me that this is now my home. I can sit on the roof on a freaking picnic table watching the waves and enjoying my morning coffee. I can start a bonfire in the front yard fire pit. Course I also have an hour commute each way and sometimes I'm summoned to the data center more than once a day (making for 4 hours of driving today, not that I'm complaining, but I really am.) So it's not idyllic. But still, I think I'm experiencing the sensation of being 'house proud'.

Which is weird as hell for me, I'm usually house-apathetic at best. Pride at where I sleep? Strange.

Still, it's been an bit rough. I have another few weeks on my lease at the old place so I've been moving in piecemeal. Better for aching muscles than moving all at once but also takes ages and I keep missing stuff. My old roomie hasn't found a replacement so she might be moving out too.. which would mean I have to not transfer all the stuff to her (utilities) but cancel them. I'd have to help her clean the place a final time. So much effort.

I feel like I've told everyone I'm moving or moved 299 times in the last 2 weeks and then when I say I'm still moving now, they need to hear the whole story. They probably do, it's riveting stuff.

MEH

If you want in on the Discordian Society
then declare yourself what you wish
do what you like
and tell us about it
or
if you prefer
don't.

There are no rules anywhere.
The Goddess Prevails.
—Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00032

I'm in a dark place and I'm not sure why. The last month has been stressful but it's leading to a good thing. I'll soon be settled in my new home. Money is tight but it always is.

Blah. Nothing to see here, go away.

Recovery

"The psychotic does not merely think he sees four blue bivalves with floppy wings wandering up the wall; he does see them. An hallucination is not, strictly speaking, manufactured in the brain; it is received by the brain, like any 'real' sense datum, and the patient act in response to this to-him-very-real perception of reality in as logical a way as we do to our sense data. In any way to suppose he only 'thinks he sees it' is to misunderstand totally the experience of psychosis."

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-Phillip K. Dick


I finally got some good sleep last night. Not enough, but more than 6 hours, so I'll have to make do. We got a LOT done over the weekend.. but still have a ways to go. I haven't spoken to the others but I am prepared to call our first night in the new house a success. No fires, no more broken bones, no 911 calls. So far so good!

Back to work and enjoying the strange sensations of my muscles sorely settling into their cube dweller mode. Today should be chill, just have a ton of backup jobs to schedule for our server farm and then can finally tackle some data center stuff I've been putting off since November.

Nothing funny or interesting to write about so closing this page really fast before anyone notices I just posted a blog with zero content.

New roomies, new life, new horizons.

I have it on good authority that quoting other people is a fun and easy way of establishing instant credibility. Or it be gibberish, that's cool too. I'll give it a shot:

"Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."
-HP Lovecraft

Oh. That's sorta silly. Still, it was in the quote rotation and union rules are union rules buddy.

I'm writing this from the first time I've been able to relax. As some or none of you may know, I've just done the first half of life altering move. I'm moving from 3 miles and 5 minutes from the office to.. 45 mins with no traffic (middle of day) up to 1.5 hours each way. My lease isn't up til March 1st but the ladies, dear friends of my acquaintance with some passing familiarity, needed to be out by the last week of January. The man before you, who once was known only as the ButchDance Kid for the way he ran from any and all fights by pretending to dance in an overtly masculine style until escaping from the exit, stepped up to the plate.

He *editor's note, Bob is talking in the third person for no reason at all, please change to first person future perfect in your head to retain the original content* looked those beautiful ladies right in their eyes, after being asked to stop staring at their breasts, and told them we could make this work. As a team. Please don't get the restraining orders again, it makes things so awkward. A team that rubs moisturizing cream on each other. Also suntan lotion, since we live FEET from the beach. Oh crap, I'm gonna need to buy a shovel. There's a lot of sand piled up on the side of the house. I wonder where that crap goes?? Back to the beach across the street? Seems kind of pointless in a way. Oh well, the exercise will be awesome. Wait, where was I? Right, there is no me in team. But there totally is. That sentence will have to be cut.

Anywhoo it's getting late. I'm sorry, you loyal friends who still check back from time to time because you liked something I said or something shared or were paid to hang out with me, I'm looking at you Catherine. I know I've done nothing online in a long time. Going from being a loner, online alllllllll the times to now having a pseudo socially aware lifestyle, out doing actual things, has been very strange. I like it, but I sometimes miss being online by myself sometimes, the silly games and passing the time with very good friends.. but don't get me wrong. I wouldn't go back to that life under any circumstances, having tasted Fun, I shan't recant.

So this change is huge for me and today we had the movers do all the beds/insanely heavy stuff while we did the 'not crushing so I can probably get it to the truck' game. How well did we do? One roomie down w/ broken toe, the other one with a cameltoe, and me sitting on the old house's balcony, enjoying a final night/morning here. We will probably walk to breakfast.. right next door. I'll miss that place but will be back even if we have to drive. Or a boat, that would be swell.

See what I did there? Swell is a nautical term. Damn, I'm sweet.

Oh right, I was going to go now because it's freaking 5am and the only reason I'm awake is because I drank so much coffee this morning to get me through the day. Still have to put beds together tomorrow, so we have places to sleep before work.. which will be a vacation away from moving.

I'll try and post more, I miss reading blogs a lot, and feel like I don't have the right to read really until I post something. So this scratching on paper will get me some good reading privileges. Needless to say this is all in my head and probably irrational.

Oh! I know how I will leave you. With a KLASSY pic.. and since I already show my face in the title (mental note, get something cool), I figured I should post this. Be careful.. if you are not prepared for it, the sheer power of the pimpnosity might damage your vocal cords, as you scream out how god damned awesomely pimp I am.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm so sorry. ps, sorry I keep updating, I'm really going to bed now, promise.

Off the face of the planet, I dropped

Don't open your eyes
you won't like what you see
The devils of truth
steal the souls of the free

Well that was a hell of a post to leave up for way too long.

Things have been good since last I typed here. The week following I went on an AWESOME rafting trip with friends and family. We ended up a bar the 2nd night where I had much fun watching the drunken antics instead of performing them. I even danced for 4 hours! Not competently, but still. It was fun and I got to see my mom hit on by a 20-something who reeled her in on the dance floor. Hellz yeah bitches.

Anyway, I don't have anything really funny to report, I really just wanted that damn alky post off the front page. Thanks to all for the groovy comments and luuurve, it was appreciated. I have tons of blogs to burn through, now just need the time to do it. See ya in the comment sections kids!

I'm not an alcoholic.

I am, however, a really bad drunk.

This won't be a very funny post, or very interesting for that matter, sorry. Still, writing crap does have a way of ordering thoughts and setting things in place. Plus, as I mentioned in my last non-funny post (point it out for a prize!) doing it in public is a nice way of challenging myself to make some sort of change.

Last weekend, as I have for the last 4 weekends, I got very drunk. Not "haha I said something risque" drunk or "oh ho, I sure got sick and felt horrible the next day" drunk. More like "Out of control, gulping Whiskey straight from the bottle, embarrassing people close to me, angering everyone, running around like a monkey on speed, blacking out and having to have things explained to me the next day" drunk.

I had 2 separate people say the same, slightly strangely worded phrase to me the next day, which really brought home how bad it was: "Bob Dobalina, I was scared that you were trying to murder yourself". What caught me at first was the odd choice of word, murder. Then the more I thought about it, the more I realized they were both using that word for a specific reason. This isn't killing, which can be accidental. My drinking to blackout/oblivion was deliberate. That scared the shit out of me.

I used to drink, a lot. I'm a chronic insomniac, it's a family thing, and passing out is one way to deal with it. I did that for several years. Then I stopped. I was given mild tranq's to prevent DT's for the first few weeks, tossed my liquor collection and from then on used reading to deal with the late nights. I didn't drink for years.

Then I felt ok and started again. Sometimes just a beer. Sometimes a drunk as described above.

Here's the thing: I don't drink every day. I don't drink every weekend (though you wouldn't know it by looking at July) or even every other week. Sometimes months go by between drunks. But when I do drink, I can't seem to stop. I feel good. I drink some more. I feel happy and silly and fun. And then I drink some more. And then I get offended. And then I drink some more. And then I get angry. And then I drink some more. And then I get confused. And then I drink some more. And then I don't know what is happening.. so I drink some more until I'm gone.

I've been forced by my last episode to take a hard look at myself and admit that even though I don't drink every day, I still have a drinking problem. It's not fucking normal to drink like that. And ignoring it, or blaming it on drinking "hard alcohol", or blaming it on drug interactions, is not going to help. And yes I used each of those excuses when friends or family asked why I got so crazy.

Anyway, that was the weekend. Yesterday I asked a few of my good friends what they thought about my drinking. Without hesitation, all of them said some variation of the following: "You can get.. mean. It's scary. I've wanted to say something but you seem to only do it every once in a while so I didn't think it was that bad but I know when you do drink, to watch out. I look in your eyes and you aren't there any more". These are my FRIENDS. I don't blame them for not saying anything, I have no idea at all what I'd do in that situation, but I can still feel mortified that I let it get this far before doing something about it.

So I am. I'm going to talk to someone who deals with this stuff professionally and do a lot of talking. Or a lot of listening, I hear that can be good too.

I doubt I'll be blogging about what comes next, only because I don't think it will be very interesting. In the unlikely event that anyone who has ever had to deal with my drunk ass reads this, please know I'm embarrassed and sorry. Thanks to everyone who didn't take a swing at me. I always told my friends that I'd hate to be "that guy" at the party that's sloppy and out of control.

I'm that guy. Dammit.

Access.. Granted.

Tomorrow at 2pm I have an appointment to meet the owner of the Data Center my company uses for our offsite hosting. I will be given 2 keys, a rfid badge, and have my palm print scanned so I enter the building w/o the former head tech with me.

YES.

On the downside things aren't looking up with Dell. The last email, from the supposed server specialist, said "wow, that sounds really frustrating.. maybe we should get tech support involved in this". Umm.. guy:

YOU FORGOT TO INCLUDE A PART I NEED. A PART OF A PACKAGE WE PAID OVER $10,000 FOR.

What the hell? Is tech support going to teach me how to create my own SD card using common office supplies then code the proprietary 'embedded server' software in Notepad? Or are they going to walk me through sitting around, waiting for the Fedex guy to deliver that part?

For those playing at home, the correct answer should have been "damn, I'm so sorry, I'll fedex out the card overnight, Saturday delivery, and you'll be up and running tomorrow. Also you are very strong and admired by your peers."

Dell you effing douche

This is a bitch post.

I've been waiting all week for this new server to arrive at work. It's going to be the first of many (hopefully) uber machines that we will have multiple virtual servers on. This one in particular is set to have 6 Win Server 2k3 and 1 2k8 running simultaneously, reducing the rackspace used at our datacenter and allowing us to expand much quicker and easier. I've been running 3 virtual servers on an older web server I use to test new stuff on and so far it's been running great.

So I go into the office tonight at 9pm to get it setup. I'm just going to be installing the embedded VMware OS (32 Mb! Almost no overhead!), then installing 3 instances of the Win2k3 server. We even bought the licenses through Dell so everything should be good to go.

Dell, you effing douche.

Open it up, throw it on the temp rack, plugs it all in.. and those dumbasses forgot to include the SD card with the VMware server operating system. Which turned out to be ok, because they also forgot to include the licenses for the Win Servers, so even if they had included the embedded server, I still wouldn't have been able to go any further. So I guess I should be thankful they made their fuckuperry so obvious from the beginning so I only wasted an hour.

This feels like when I was a kid and I ran into the living room to open my presents on Christmas day only to be told that we had just converted to Judaism.

voicemail

I have 12 voicemails. Haven't checked in a week. I hope none of them are urgent. They should text if it's urgent. I kinda wish I hadn't set up the voicemail last month. Such is life.

Awesome moments #001

I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly
Finding lyrics that aren't written by Mr. Reznor is hard. Stealing is much easier.

Standing in front of my mirror, getting ready to leave. Fresh out of the shower, hair is ok, deodorized, teeth brushed. Grab my RightGuard Manly-Good Spray™ and spray my chest. Hussy comes up behind me just as I've pulled my pants open and sprayed inside at my crotch.

Hussy: "Uh.. did you just spray your cock?"
Me: "Well yeah, I'm going to see my mom."
Hussy: "..."
Me: "I don't know why I just said that."

Why my friends dog is smarter than I am

Look through these blackened eyes
you'll see ten thousand lies
my lips may promise but my heart is a whore

All the cool kids are starting their posts with quotes and I'm all about that bandwagon. Sadly it in no way relates to this post at all. I fails at the internets.

Anyway, let's compare me to my friend Hussy's dog Bryson:

Bryson is a girl. A fixed girl. Nonetheless she gets immense satisfaction out of turning my stuffed dog animal on it's stomach, climbing on top, and HUMPING THE LIVING HELL OUT OF IT. She does this often. Last night, to our amazement, she began biting the back of the stuffed animals head, to get better traction, and GROWLED at it.

(above: Bryson looks similar to this, only cuter)

It would not have shocked me if she had then spontaneously developed human speech and told the bitch to take it. Her performance was so great that I had to give her treats to reward her for it.

And for the record, my girl won the stuffed animal for me on a date, so it's totally not gay at all for me to have it. Or snuggle with it late at night. Not gay at all. Just so we are all clear on that. nogay. Good.

Bob is a boy. A dumb boy who is moving out of 3rd person now: I borrowed my sister's truck, who lives an hour away, and returned it today. All is well. Except I forgot to take my housekey back when we did the switch. I've been driving on errands for 3 hours after a full day of work so.. I'm not going back.

I do what I have to: I nonchalantly set my stuff by my door, run around to the 'back' of the building where our balconies are.. hop up on my downstairs neighbors balcony railing, steady myself for a moment, then jump up and catch the bottom railing of my balcony. I was then able to reach up and pull myself up onto the wood balcony. Almost. Along the way I tore two small gashes on my inner arms by my elbows, because when I felt my grip slipping, I grabbed out to the rough stucco and surprisingly non-skin-friendly wood. Did I mention it's approximately 100 degrees while I'm doing this?

So to sum up: Bryson finds bliss easily, entertains others while doing so, and manages to be rewarded for it. I can't even remember the KEY TO THE PLACE WHERE I LIVE and end up bleeding on the floor of my balcony, trying to catch my breath and hoping none of the neighbors called the cops. To top it all off, when I do get up, I immediately go online and tell the entire world how to break in. Genius!

Bryson, I will never play chess with you. Ever. I'm quite sure you will somehow beat me so badly that you end up butt-humping me. And as I made quite clear in the text above, not gay. Really. My gay friends gave me a breeder certificate and everything, right before taking me shopping in West Hollywood.

I should probably stop babbling and go put some Neosporin on now.

self analysis blows: aka what is wrong with me

Yes, I included both anal and blows in my title but I'm far too mature to call attention to it.

I've decided, of all my flaws, the one holding me back right now is a fundamental lack of ambition. Somewhere along the line I took one of my virtues, mellow, and allowed it to go to far. All of my goals: having kids, a house, punching Cheney in the face, writing that intense novel, becoming a world famous flamenco dancer, being that 'amazing friend' to people I care about, having a threesome with conjoined twins.. all of them require one thing: money.

I currently make enough money to support myself, have a fun little convertible, and occasionally splurge on silly games/trips/whateva. But kids? No freaking way. House? Hahaha.. maybe with the imploding housing market but seriously, no. I'll continue to be renting the condo for the foreseeable future. Why don't I have the money that the world owes me for being such a wonderful human being? Because I lack ambition. I'm too content to let things ride.

I watched a documentary last night, the %1, about the wealthiest families in america. And in every single one of the rich bastards I saw the same gleam in their eyes: HUNGER. They NEED to acquire more wealth. I don't have that. If I'm happy.. ish, and my friends are doing ok, and I can pass on something good to the world before I go, I'll be good.

But I think I need some of that hunger first. I need to get my ass back to school. I need to start fighting for the raises I've been promised. I need to stop being content.

I love kids. I want a couple. I don't understand how people who make less than I do manage but they look miserable and I don't want any until I know I can give them everything I had growing up, at the very least. I NEVER heard my parents talk/worry/fight about money and I think that was awesome. We had a modest house but we were never hungry, I was promised a college education (which I squandered) and while I wasn't wearing 'cool' expensive clothes they were at least new and fit.

So what will I do besides whine about it? I guess we'll see over the new few weeks. I got my boss to sign me up for a $1500 a year online training course, offering certification in Project Management and every IT course known to man. I got it setup a month ago and have done exactly one 2-hour course. Weak sauce, indeed.

If I have any balls at all I will begin using it. So I guess this blog is a public challenge to myself to actually DO SOMETHING. Start learning, sign up for the fall semester at a comm college to get the preq's done, work harder at the job until I get back to the 'indispensable' status I used to feel I had and then see what happens.

Cuz kids sure would rock.. someday.

Weather right NOW aka 'god hates me lots and lots'

AccuWeather:
Currently At 6:42PM
Sunny
106°F
RealFeel®
107°F
Winds: CLM
at 0mph

106°F at 7pm, when it's officially EVENING. Seriously god, that's fucked up. Seriously. And what the hell is "RealFeel" and why is it trying to make me feel even worse about it? It should be "FakeFeel" and tell me how nice and cool it would be if I were in a movie theater or in a swimming pool with the Camping Divas.

Sorry, no content here, I'm too busy trying to figure out why I'm in this godforsaken heathole of suck.™

That's right, I just trademarked 'heathole of suck'. When I'm rich from it I will laugh the loudest. THE LOUDEST.

Huh, so this is what heatstroke delirium is like.

Worst blogger ever.

I've not written anything in ages. I'm still very much a neophyte to this realm but I suspect my experience is common: If a week goes by without writing anything I find each day it becomes progressively harder to post because the accumulation of non-posts makes it more intimidating to actually write something to justify the wait.

I know, I'm overthinking it, and the 3 readers I have could not care less, but that's the way my brain works.

So why haven't I been posting? Well, a few reasons. My girl has been sick the last few weeks. Not flu, meh sucks to be you sick, but 'everything hurts and the doctors are douches' sick. So I'm worried about that. Having someone you care about be in that much pain and be absolutely helpless to help (other than leg and foot massages, I'm becoming a pro) is horrid.

Then I decided to change some of my own chronic meds, only to find that due to my own lazy lack of education, one has severe withdrawal effects. Oops. Even better, when I went back to the doc about it, he professed ignorance as well. Well I guess the thousands of people and medical reports I found online were wrong. Dumbass (me and him). Oh well, he gave me some Xanax to ride out the rough spots.

Went to a Dodger game Saturday with some friends. It was 'all you can eat, you fat bastard' and we took full advantage. Unfortunately, it was 110 (seriously, I looked it up) and umbrellas were forbidden. Because the Stadium people are sadists. So I'm burned to hell and Hussy looks like Pocohontas. You best believe I wanted to take advantage of that.. unfortunately her shrieks of pain when I touch her were sufficiently different from her usual shrieks of disgust that I was unable to go through with it. Such is life.

So that is all. I've taken a few days off from work to deal with this withdrawal thingee so now I can catch up on the really interesting blogs I've bookmarked and can go back to writing book length comments on each one.

You're welcome, really.

Dining in Peace

Went to lunch with BossGuy after our weekly "Talk about projects that may happen in the future but probably won't" meeting. We decided to head to our usual, the ever-delightful Uncle Chen's. We do this often and it's nearly always deserted.

I didn't realize how much I enjoyed this fact until we ran into a mild lunch rush.

Our first lunatic eating companion was someone 2 booths over who decided, in his loudly hungover state, that we should help him judge if his food 'looks right'. He held up a.. thing.. with red stuff on it and asked if it looked ok.

I'm accommodating.

I offer "It looks sort of like a piece of ear, you might want to check the cook and see if he's ok". My boss said it looked like pork. I thought that was needlessly rude to the cook but I'm not going to argue it.

So HangoverGuy (HG) continues moaning about his hangover and we continue ignoring him. BG and I begin eating and chatting about recent movies we've seen. 15 minutes pass. I'm telling him about In Bruges and why I will let him borrow the dvd when I get it when I hear "excuse me please!" whispered RIGHT IN BACK OF MY HEAD. I jump and turn to find myself staring into the eyes of an older European man. We were just talking about thoe kind of guys!

"Yes?"

OldGuy: "Can you please stop talking about movies, I've already heard about the movies you've both seen and what would happen if everyone talked so loudly? Nobody would be able to understand anyone! It's really inconsiderate and I'd like you to stop."

*blink*

I turn back to BG and ask, sotto voce, "Were we really talking loudly?" He shakes his head no, trying not to crack up, as I turn back to the older guy and reply "I'm sorry sir, I don't believe we were talking especially loudly." I can say this with a straight face because we haven't been drinking. The fact that this guys head is approximately 6 inches from mine may account for why he's heard so much of our chat. That he could, I don't know, MOVE a foot away in the huge empty circular booth he's occupied has apparently not occurred to him.

He disagrees about the volume. At length. I finally have to tell him to be quiet, he's now disturbing our meal with his inconsiderate talking.

Where the hell was this guy when HangoverBoy was shouting across the booths for us to check his food? Then I notice something. OldGuy is alone. So what conversation of his was I preventing? Oh dear, I was preventing him from communing with his special voices! Now I feel bad.

Then I realize, he and HangoverBoy are perfect complements! If I could only merge them into one composite being I will have created a normal diner, one who I'd be happy to share a lunchroom with. I close my eyes and concentrate for a solid minute but when I open my eyes and look around, both are still there in separate bodies. God damn you Muppet Babies, imagination is WORTHLESS.

On a plus note, BossGuy saw me trying to merge them with the powers of my mind and mistakenly concluded I had a bad headache. He told me I should work from home for the rest of the day so I would feel good enough to make his bbq tomorrow night.

Score! I take it back Baby Kermie, you rule.