Mad man howler monkeys and Tom Waits

I find lots of things to ponder when it comes to human behaviour. My own as well as other peoples. On a scale from one to ten, most people manage pretty well when it comes to interactions with other human beings, given variables like time, place and situation.

That being said…

I generally like to listen to music when I go out and about. There is a reason for that. I actually don’t want to hear the drivel spoken around me. I have problems maintaining my faith in mankind as we stand and I don’t need to make that harder than it already is.

Picture if you will, me ambling along – or, actually I keep a pretty spanking pace… well, anyway, I walking, okay? The weather today has been one of those hazy, humid and hot kind of days when you don’t know if it’s fog or heat haze or smog making you squint. I got Heartattack and Vine going on my MP3, my sweat tacky shirt is sticking to the small of my back, the lazy wind tries to dispel some of the city funk and Tom Waits is singing “don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just god when he’s drunk” when a car passes me by.

It’s got three guys in tank tops in it. They look like rejects from some cheap New Jack City -wannabe gangster movie, complete with bad tattoos and even worse music belting out of the surprisingly crappy car stereo.
The guy in the back seat leans out and screams at me.
No – seriously.
He literally leans out of the window and lets loose the yowling holler of a howler monkey trapped on an electrical fence.

My only response to that kind of thing is … ? …

See this is what I don’t understand about human behaviour.

I have the kind of mind that immediately sets to work on that kind of thing. It runs lightning quick through scenarios that would merit that kind of action. The why? The what? The many variables including heat and light and timing involved in such behaviour.

Unfortunately I think it’s actually quite possible that the only explanation is that the guy was an idiot. Eh, what are you gonna do?

Meanwhile Tom says:

Doctor, lawyer, beggar man, thief, Philly Joe remarkable looks on in disbelief,
if you want a taste of madness, you’ll have to wait in line, you’ll probably
see someone you know on Heartattack and Vine.

Damned straight.

ROL

The thing that goes ping goes ***

It’s been a while, but there’s that music of chance thing that happens, though in my case it’s actually more of a clang and boom and steam kind of thing.

The morning, man, it is a bitch. I get to work and hook myself up to all the machines to start the process of starting the day and all computers available are doing that pouty, “not gonna/don’t wanna” thing they sometimes do.

It’s been a while since they were that bitchy towards me so I stroke their little consoles and try sweet-talking them for a while. Nothing doing.

Eventually I give it up and hit the attic space. That’s where Mother lives.

Now, Mother usually has all kinds of fans whirring and lights blinking and bleeps bleeping and that kind of stuff. Today she is cold, dark and silent. Uh-oh. Huston, we have a problem.

It wouldn’t bother me so bad if it wasn’t for the fact that I know the support guy is out of town – I talked to him last night and by then he was drunk on Champagne, which is not a bad way to get drunk if you ask me.

I try calling him anyway.

No answer. Not really a big surprise there. This is so obviously a hardware problem of some kind, but … well … Mother is being a bit of a Mother, you know? Imagine half a maching park with cables and cords running like many tentactes in a teleological growth kind of way and stacked in a haphazzard pattern the likes of a mangrove forrest and that’s not a bad image. For something so technological it’s awful … organic is the word I’m looking for I guess.

Anyway.

Now it’s all dark. I manage to get a hold of the slightly hung over tech eventually. That leads to me on my knees crawling around the attic looking for the thing that connects to the do-hickey that attaches to the thinga-ma-bob. I do that for a while. What it all finally boils down to is that the actual outlet has no power. And everything is connected to the same socket.

We’re talking all of the assembly of machinery here. Including the back-up power source for the server. All into one socket.

I might not be a computer genius, but I do pride myself in some kind of common sense. Even I know you don’t do that. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Or, well, you can but then you might be faced with the slight problem I had this morning.

It’s not glamourous, starting the day in the attic on your knees with a flashlight stuck in your mouth because you need both hands to try and follow the right cable to the right piece of machinery.  Not how I figured I was going to start my day, you know?

I finally find another socket to stick the plug in and everything lights up and bleeps and blinks and whirrs and pings. It’s an oddly soothing sound. I’ve turned the cooling units back on. We’re back online.

All this seems like a rather good metaphor of something or other. Especially considering I had the tech in my ear the whole time saying things like “huh, that’s never happened before” and “there’s supposed to be a button there” and “I know what I’m doing” and “well, i can find my way around it” all of which is spectacularily not helpful as things stand. I think I was surprisingly calm and together with the guy. He was hung over after all – me screaming “so-of-a-bitch” in his ear might not have been helpful.

I did drawl a bit of sarcasm at him when I found out the back-up was connected to the same socket as the main powersource – but he just went “uh, yeah, it’s like, uh, you know” so I’m guessing he was probably thinking that wasn’t the smartest thing he’d ever done.

Surprisingly – I didn’t get angry though. Hmm. Weird.

ROL

I’m kicking my evil twin’s ass

Waking up in the morning to mystery bruises and blood on the sheets is actually not that uncommon for me.

Huh.

Well, it isn’t.

So my theory is that my evil twin watches me work all day, gets bored and takes over when I pass out, or fall asleep, whichever comes first. Then Evil Twin heads down the boozer. And gets in fights.

I get to wake up in the mornings with the mystery bruises and the weird sprains.

A couple of days ago, though, we obviously got into more than we could handle. I woke up with a split lip and blood on the pillow. Complimentary mystery bruises on my arms (defensive) and that’s just it. If my Evil Twin is getting me into fights it should at least know to pick on people we can beat. Sheesh.

And while I’m right about there in my thought process – you know, evil twin, fighting, split lip and mystery bruises I start to realize that I’ve joked around a lot about Tyler Durden and Fight Club, but sometimes, just sometimes life does a fairly decent job of imitating art, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t mean I am not going to kick my evil twins ass, though. Bastard totally has it coming.

ROL

Thunderbolts and lightning

It’s been kind of hot and clammy down by my way for a couple of days.

That kind of completely ridiculous weather that makes all your clothes stick and makes everything seem lazy and syrupy and just plain uncomfortable.

So last night when I went to bed around one in the morning, as habit dictates, I lay there pondering the inscrutable fact that the pillow wasn’t even cooler on the adverse side and figured it was all a toss up as to whether or not I would ever get to sleep when an flash illumined my humble abode in a way that can best be said to be slightly disturbing – if it hadn’t been for the severe rumble of thunder that followed.

There was thunder.
There was lightning.
There was rain – and a lot of it.

So, there I am at one thirty in the morning, toes wet from the rain, wondering if my neighbours would find it very disturbing if I climbed down off my balcony to the tiny strip of green grass outside and stood there naked for a while as the show played out.

They probably would have.

Anyway – it was the kind of thunderstorm that comes as a sigh of relief and the kind of thunder that rattles the windows.

And for a few moments there life didn’t suck at all.

ROL