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December 29, 2000

The Aftermath

I wrote this to give you some insight and inspire you to go on, to make you see life has purpose, meaning, joy...and because of the f--cking Arkansas weather. I have a tree in my house (well, almost, it's not nearly as funny to say "I have a tree in my shed"...for most Arkansans their house is a shed anyway so it doesn't really matter.

The Aftermath

Here I am, depressed and alone;
No one to love me, a tree through my home.
I look up and I scream "Why me, why?"
I put my face in my pillow and break down and cry.
My strength is gone, my breathing is shallow
Yet somehow I find the strength & see the path I must travel.
The meaning of life is simple you see,
To find it, I jump over the imposing tree.
Every question and lie and mystery surrounds
With a sigh, I take a final glance around.
And there I see it, a bright shiny light!
The source of all happiness, love and delight.
The answer is found, and this is no lie,
In a great big piece of chocolate pie.

Posted by vixen at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2000

'Twas the Week After Christmas

Oh yes, another parody from me...you'd almost expect better wouldn't you? You obviously don't know me very well. Having just setup a Christmas computer for an annoying newbie-to-be, I was inspired :-p

'Twas the Week After Christmas

'Twas the week of Christmas

and all through the web
newbies were logging on
bringing nothing but dread.

The new computers were set up by the family geeks
and the newbies they puzzled about the Internet for weeks.
To AOL they fled faster than lemmings in spring
and their modems were plagued by that familiar busy ring.

But finally, yes finally, their modems connect
and they see the AOL welcome page which they think is high tech.
Surrounded by newness and eye candy that is swell
they hear a friendly voice say "You've Got Mail".

Happiness fills them as they check to see
a pornographic message from somebody named "LickMyWinkie".
Raising an eyebrow (and checking the site)
they soon learn about the Internet frights & delights.

The balloon sized breasts of Pandora Peeks
gives the newbies a blindness that will last them for weeks.
However, they move on, porn is only so thrilling
and soon they enter the chat room and are ripe for the killing.

With a "Y R U MEEN" and "HAV A G8 KNIGHT"
the newbies are slaughtered without a chance to fight.
Faster than a dot.com the newbies disappear
but yet they come again, they know no fear:

"Get out, It's YOU not U
Say LadyX and Vixen.
Stop annoying, stop breathing
cry the operators in unison.
We don't like you.
We don't like you at all!
Get away, GET AWAY!
Get away ALL.

As little kids with a bright shiny new toy,
the newbies they keep coming back to annoy.
Even when faced with endless torment and pleas
they just keep on surfing and chatting for days.

It happens every year come Christmas time.
New computers mean more annoying AOLers to whine,
more annoying forwards with promises of riches
and more people who act like spoiled little bitches.

Oh yes, web hits will rise which is good it seems,
but is it really worth it with the morons it brings?
I wish you needed a license to buy a computer
or at the very least, a licensed netetiquette tutor.

But their eyes how they glow in the monitor light
and how they wish they could surf the web at home in the night.
They don't know the difference from ROM and from RAM.
Is it Pentium or Celeron . . . "Who gives a damn?"

"Does it get on the Internet?" they ask with a gleam,
and they ask in the chatroom, "Where is this Internet thing?"
When told they are to stupid to live,
the newbies they giggle and ask us to forgive.

Come July they will have websites of their own design
with animated backgrounds and text effects that shine.
They live to torment those of us with sense.
Turning off their computer (or ours) is the only defense.

I hear you speak the words "We were all newbies once".
However, this is not true: I was new, not a dunce.
I guess they're not all bad, there are a few winners.
However, "newbie" is an attitude, not just a beginner.

Today's newbies are of a less informed, dumber kind.
I blame Windows, AOL and frankly, their minds.
For all of you with new computers in your grasps,
just be a smart newbie and I won't kick your ass.

"Happy Computing to all, and to all a good night!"

Posted by vixen at 06:30 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2000

Friggin' Farmer -- take that hoe and shove it.

I guess I should start off by saying I live behind a farm. Now the farmer of said farm is pissing me off. Since he wants to build a new barn, down go two 100+ ft trees. I like these trees. I used to climb on parts of them. They provide shade. But hey, it's in the name of progress, right?


To the average person, it would seem as though the trees were on my property. This is because the fence around the farm isn't at the edge of the property lines; rather, it is retracted in by a good 5-10 ft. What person builds a fence that doesn't meet at the edge of the boundary?

So, now I've got at least 20 chickens running wild through my yard. Eating the bird seed that was not intended for them. Yeah, I know, they're birds -- what's the big deal? Well, damn it -- they aren't supposed to be on my land; I'd rather feed the squirrels (everybody knows that actual birds rarely get to eat the bird seed.)

Finally, the rest of the farmers' property is run down. All the buildings seem to need major restoration. But instead of fixing those, he decides to build a new stable.

Bah, humbug. Merry christmas, I'm destroying trees and you can't do anything to stop me.

Posted by bard at 09:29 PM | Comments (0)

Just a quick thought...

Ok, I just felt this had to be said: When attending a family gathering, esp. at holidays, DO NOT BRING A FRIEND. This should be obvious. If they are not family, they should not be brought. Bottom line.

Posted by bard at 09:28 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2000

A Nugget of Wisdom from the Wise One.

*Belch*

That's all I have to say...

Posted by ladyx at 02:18 AM | Comments (2)

December 07, 2000

Sleep.

The greatest thing in the world is sleep. Or at least, lying there half-asleep, under a comforter. Warm and toasty. Nothing can bother me. I think. I contemplate. I solve all the world's problems. And then I don't bother to tell anybody. (Ok, fine. I stole that concept from "The Grinch" -- sue me. No, go ahead. Sue me. I'm feeling litigous today.)

Moving on.
Without actually going anywhere.
I'll let you contemplate that paradox.

Posted by bard at 02:30 AM | Comments (0)

Exams Suck Part II.

Ok, so I got a B on my exam...hoorah.

Posted by ladyx at 02:19 AM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2000

Our Digital Demons

I'm sitting here waiting for Norton Antivirus to download (this morning I found out that MacAfee antivirus sucks! I just updated the piece of . . . now where was I?) because someone I know sent me a virus unintentionally. Why did I open it? Temporary lapse of sanity I suppose. Maybe I just wanted something to be pissed off about. After all, I had today off and nothing to do! Might as well create a problem for myself to solve. Kind of makes me think though, isn't it sad that we care more if our computer's are infected with a virus than if our friends are?

I think I do care more about computer viruses than real ones. I didn't fret the other day when my friend told me he had a cold. I just said "you should get some rest." However, when my computer gets a virus, I search everywhere for a cure. Shows how cold and heartless I am. I coddle a machine while my friend coughs up a lung.

So, in order to cure my precious machine I had to search the net for hours trying to find a clean up solution (I didn't even ask my friend what he had). I finally found one which says, basically, that I can clean up the virus but all of my windows system files will be destroyed in the process. I have Linux installed on this machine and, quite frankly, I could care less and less about my windows system files everyday. Perhaps I should just say screw it and reboot into Linux! Sounds like a plan.

In reality, I could never do that. For some odd reason, Windows is important to me. Just saying that outloud "Windows is important" makes me nauseas but it also makes me think we all put to much of our lives into our technology. My morning routine consists of getting up, turning the computer on, showering, getting dressed and checking my email & reading the news on-line. Since when did "email" replace morning coffee? Am I obsessed (shut up you guys, I am not! {g})?

The computer has become so ingrained in all of our lives that we cannot live without it. If, for example, this virus were to destroy all 3 of my computers I wouldn't be able to finish the semester of school with ease. I need to type my final papers up. My teachers actually email me grades. I would worry myself sick if I couldn't access those grades! I wouldn't be able to my "job" and make money. I need a computer to do web design. You can't do that with a pencil and paper. On a personal level, I wouldn't be able to check on my friends around the world via email or email my niece and ask her when she's coming home for Christmas (you know, I don't even know her phone number at college, just her email). Without the computer, I'd probably go nuts!

I admit, this is psychotic. However, I think the world is becoming more and more dependant on these little boxes. Some people even have sex on-line instead of in real life. Some people marry people they meet on-line. Some people don't even leave the house because of their computer and their "friends". Who needs a real life? I, for one, do! Even though I might be a little obsessed, I think real life can be nice.

So, I'm going to take this advantage of this "infection" and go outside, feel the sun shine down on my face and experience the joy of the real world! I want to smell the fresh air, see the sun, and feel the gentle breeze blowing through my hair. I want to experience the joy of nature and life! . . . What's that you say? It's what? Sleeting and snowing outside? Umm, ok then, perhaps I'll just finish downloading Norton and feel the joy of life or something some other day. It's really not that important to me.

Posted by vixen at 05:20 AM | Comments (0)

Exams Suck.

This damn world is filled with too many exams. I'd say, the second most sinister form of exam (preceeded only by pap smears and breast exams) are the crappy exams that you take at the end of your college semesters which test every single inane and boring detail of a class which, chances are, you slept through anyway.
Ok, so maybe you didn't just slack off in your class. Instead, you spent the entire semester working your arse off in an attempt to grasp every single little specific concept covered. No matter how ridiculous it seemed, no matter how insignificant a vocabulary word or phrase was, you still sat there, staring at it, trying in vain to somehow pull the words off of the page and let it soak into your already-fried brain cells so you could finally move on to the next detail. Sure, you may actually enjoy the class and studying for it, but there's still something that always makes it difficult to remember any and all things covered by the professor. You're getting a good grade in the class. Almost perfect. All you need is to make a good grade on the final, and you grabbed the ever-elusive college A for the semester...then you think about that statement again...the final...the *final exam*...where all you learned throughout the semester is crammed within a single two-hour period, and you're expected to know anything and everything that the department yarfs on the pages which haunt your dreams while you sleep at night. In a desperate attempt to retain any and all knowledge, you review, and review, and review until your eyes sink into the back of your head, you chant spanish proverbs, and you start forming words such as "ducharse," "el novio," and "me gusta la clase de espanol" in your cold bowl of alphabet soup which you so lovingly refer to as "dinner". The night before the exam, you feel pretty good...you feel *damn* good...you know you're ready for anything they could possibly throw on that test. "Ha!" you chuckle, "this is going to be a piece of cake," and you sleep well that night, for you are now the sultan of spanish...or so you thought.

The day of the exam is now upon you. You wake up early in the morning; not because you feel refreshed, but because you have a headache and want to vomit. No matter, you know you can get over it, and still get some rest in time for your date with destiny. You pop a couple of Exedrine Migraine, and hop back into your soft, warm bed; knowing full well your exam starts in a mere five hours. You lie there; trying to go back to sleep as the pain in your forehead stabs your brain, and throbs like nothing you've ever felt before...concentrating on getting more rest. Since you're up anyway, you toy with the notion of opening your spanish book, and looking over a few things during the few hours you have left. "Naw," you say to yourself, "I'm ready. I'll just review quickly for a little bit before I leave for class. That'll be enough. I've got it down." So you lie there...and lie there...and lie there. You still can't sleep, but you lie there anyway because, hey, it's cold outside of these blankets. Finally, it's 9 am...just an hour and fifteen minutes left until you're flipping through pages, and conjugating -ar, -er, and -ir verbs; your last day stepping into that dull, dreary classroom. You get up, tell your boyfriend you love him, and will be right back; you're still not feeling too hot, so you decide to go to the cafeteria and get a glass of orange juice. You quickly put on the first clothes you find on your floor, your sandals (with no socks in the middle of a cold snowy spell), and run out the door. Racing to beat the cold which nips at your exposed tootsies, you dart into the building, grab your orange juice, and dart out once again since you want to not only beat the cold, but you want to talk to your boyfriend for a bit before he heads off to work, and review some of your vocabs before the final judgement. While drinking your orange juice, you notice nausea set deep in your gut. Figures. You took the asprin, and didn't even think about the acidic orange juice going in with it. Moron. Now you feel worse than before. Your head still hurts a little, but now you're dizzy, you're panting, and you feel like you're going to barf up your intestines...the worst part about it is that it's time for you to run to class. You grab your boots, tell your boyfriend you love him again, and take off for class. As you make your fifteen minute hike, your head freezes, and your jaw just absolutely kills from the cold. You normally wouldn't feel it, but since you already feel like complete crap (and are now shaking in anticipating your exam), you do this time. After almost passing out in the stairwell (oh why does your class *have* to be on the fourth floor of the damn building?), you half walk, half run, and completely cry down the hall to your classroom. You get in, and your teacher hands out the exam, explains it, and proceeds to give you a few minutes to prepare before he begins the oral comprehension sections. You go through, trying to concentrate completely on what your professor is saying, circling "cierto" or "falso" where applicable. Finally, you're on your own. First answer "yeah, that's easy!" you think to yourself...second "hey, still easy!"...third, "umm...uh oh. No matter, I'll just flag this, and come back to it later"...which is all well and good, except that this is a matching section, and you don't know the answer to another question. Now you're stuck with two choices...you know one means either one thing or the other, but you can't remember which means which. You take your best guess, and move on. Occasionally, throughout the exam, you have to flag questions which consist of vocabulary that you don't remember. When you reach the end of the exam before your final composition, you go back and hunt out the flags. "Hmm...more flags than I thought," so you give your best answers, and guess on the rest. A few bells ring and you know the answers...very few, but you give it your best shot anyway. You occasionally check the clock, and see more and more people handing in their papers, bidding the brown-eyed teacher a good vacation, and walking out with big smiles crossing their lips. Next thing you know, it's down to just you and one other person, and fifteen minutes. "Oh bloody hell" you conciously whisper out loud, causing the other girl to laugh, and the teacher to wonder what's going on to which you have to say "just talking to myself" to reassure him that you're not cheating (even though he *knows* you'd never do that anyway). Finally, the other chick hands in her exam, and you sit there frantically scribbling anything and everything down in your composition. "God damn, this sucks ass," you realize. You flip through the pages to see how many other flags you left in hopes of a sudden burst of energy from your brain, and then hand it in with no time left on the clock, thinking to yourself "well, that's as good as it's going to get"; wanting to say it to your teacher, but refraining as he talks about Aerosmith and how cool that tape you let him borrow was, how much he loves that era of Aerosmith (the hard-rocking '70's era), how awesome Joe Perry's guitar work during "Train Kept A-Rollin'" (coincidentally, his favorite song) was, and how he forgot to bring the tape back and didn't know how he'd get it to you. You tell him you'd like it back, but it didn't matter when since it was just some cheap compilation that you made a few years ago. You both walk out of the classroom where he follows you for a second, and says "there's somebody I have to talk to, I'll see you, ok?" You reply with "alright" and go off on your merry way; which is not so merry since all you do is think about how shitty you did on your exam.

You make it back to your dorm after the long trek, open your spanish book, and pick out some of the mistakes you made that you remember offhand (funny, you remember the mistakes you made after seeing them within a span of two hours, yet you can't remember vocabulary that you've been studying for damn near four months). Counting some of them up, you notice that you made *at least* about 20 mistakes...20 friggin' mistakes, and that's not even counting those questions which were worth more than one point...GOD DAMNIT! You worked so hard throughout the semester only to probably fuck up your grade completely because the universities in this world have a hard on for kicking your ass with a final exam. Now you're going to spend the rest of the day pissed off, but not able to do anything about it since the love of your life isn't going to be home from work until about five. You rant about how stupid you are, and about how pissed off you are; your roommate tries to calm you down, but you say "if the wrong person says hi to me today, they're getting punched in the mouth" to which she quickly backs away. Thus, here you are. Miserable, and ready to slap the living crap out of yourself for making such stupid mistakes. Why do colleges do this to you? It seems like it doesn't matter how much you learn; just how much you can cram into that little cranium of your's for those two hours of pure living hell at the end of the semester. Oh well, so you're not any good at your subject no matter how well you did during the year because that little exam at the end proves that you're a moron. So you're doomed to fail for the rest of your life even if you strive to do your best for the long term instead of just for the moment. Congratulations, you're a dumbass, and you wasted both time and money in this class. I hope you have a lovely winter vacation. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stick my head in the toilet where it belongs.

Posted by ladyx at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)

December 05, 2000

The rant that never was.

Well, this morning, inspiration hit. I got on my computer and set about posting a rant. But for some odd reason, the server decided to crash instead. Which is why you're reading this instead of that. I must say, you are missing out. My rant was sheer brilliance. I have, however, forgotten it. Oh well. I doubt anybody reads my drivel anyway.

Posted by bard at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2000

The Election by Edgar Allen Vixen

Once upon an election crazy, the public saw two candidates: stupid and lazyThe disappointed public voted in numbers rarely seen before.
Then that day there came confusion, all reporters proclaimed in unison:
"The Votes are in" as Rather muttered, "The enchilada belongs to Gore."
"Wait! A taco to Bush?" And this went on forever more.

Gore did not trust Dan Rather so he himself sought to gather
Enough votes and had vivid visions of the scattered chads across his floor.
Eagerly he wished the night - - oh how hoped he'd win the fight
To be inaugurated on that day - - the day when he became President Gore
For the ballots held the name of the man who would attain the noble office, that's for sure
He thought the people judged Al Gore
Eagerly he saw each dent and in him welled the feeling that he was meant
To be the man the people loved and no longer be a bore.
So he kept on, without retreating, constantly repeating
"Bush is evil. I'm not retreating! I will fight as never before --
Bush will never win entrance into the White house door.
I have won! I'll hear no more."

Florida ruled, the Bush case grew stronger; but thoughts of concession possessed Gore no longer
He would not give up his fight. He would whine forevermore!
To the Supreme Court the ruling went. Who would be the president?
And while he whined, Bush would ready his presidential core
A cabinet he did design and all the while Al Gore did cry:
"I am president!!!! This is truth. I'll hear no more!"

The public they did grow weary; Fed up with the "fairness" theory
Wishing he would just concede so that they would hear of chads no more
However, he would not give up his fight and he made speeches every night
and in each and every speech he told the public to rest assure
However they did not want to listen to the man they knew as Gore
For they wanted the election to end today and be heard of never more.

Yet there he stood, ballots in hand, caroling throughout the land
The Florida votes are tainted and of that I am sure.
Bush's lawyers said together that law was followed to the letter.
The public prayed for a concession or some kind of fraud confession
Anything to stop the whining and the relentless pining by the man they knew as Gore.
He would claim victory forevermore.

Oh, how will this story end? Please don't say it all depends
On the man who has made a nuisance of himself as never before.
Someone, someone give it up! The public, we have had enough
Even in the December snow, the man that we have come to know
Harolds his rentless cry, "I have won"...forevermore!

Copyright: Edgar Allen Vixen; InsideDelirium.com

Posted by vixen at 11:56 PM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2000

Pointless, but then again, what isn't?

You know what is *really* disgusting? When you're sitting there talking to one of your female friends who is wearing a tank top, she stretches her arms over her head, and you can see little deodorant crumblies in her armpits. That is really gross. I just feel like tossing a stick of invisible solid at them, and telling them to clean that up. Damn, I'd rather see a pile of hair there or something. That makes me want to vomit something fierce...

Posted by ladyx at 02:21 AM | Comments (0)