I'm Deraming of a White Tax Season

Ok, so I was wrong...
It snowed today. Quite a lot; and will in all likelihood continue to do so well into the afternoon tomorrow. To anyone who happens to be reading in whose face I laughed yesterday at the notion of frozen precipitation--not that I expect there are any of you--I would hereby like to express my deep and sincere desire that you sod off immediately. I mean seriously, the meteorologists get the forecast right once every two weeks and they feel generally good about themselves, so surely I, a relatively climatologically uninformed civilian can be excused of being on this one isolated occasion somewhat less than precognitive.
That being established, I come back to the point on which I entered. I awoke at approximately 0800 this morning and new instantly that something was amiss. Some intangible something nibbled inquisitively at the back of my mind like a small mouse on a bag of non-soy-based imitation cheese-flavored snack food product. Then it hit me. My alarm clock, that is. At some point during the night, I must have dislodged it from its resting place on the corner of my combination desk/worktable. The impact of cheap Taiwanese plastic on scalp was surprisingly loud in the tomb-like early morning stillness. I knew immediately the source of the nagging disquiet in my mind. It is NEVER quiet here, morning or otherwise. The best I can normally hope for is a sort of subdued cacophony. This inexplicable silence could only mean that some terrible, unthinkable catastrophe--something on a par with a major glacial impact at least--must be upon us, I thought. Being ever the impulsive one, I elected on the spur of the moment to turn over and go back to sleep. Unfortunately, now that I had been awake for some moments, it was no longer just my mind that was being nagged at. I stumbled blearily to the bathroom and made my daily obeisance to the porcelain god. A few moments of functional consciousness served to convince me that I was, for the time being, at least, not going to be able to go back to sleep. So I decided to go and investigate the overwhelming dearth of intolerable noise with which I found myself presented. I stuck my head out the front door to reconnoiter, and...
I should note at this point that, after having lived in this particular location for as long as I have, I was fully prepared to behold anything up to and including minor human sacrifice (campus life is indeed an interesting one). What I was not at all ready to cope with was snow. The reader must remember, before he scoffs at my naivete, that, in the region of the Southeastern U.S. in which I live generates a decent snowfall only slightly less frequently than it generates conjoined sets of tap-dancing transvestite leprechauns.
I suppose I don't need to tell you that the excitement of witnessing the first legitimate snow of a long winter was more than enough to convince me to return at once to bed, whereupon I slept until nearly midday (it had been a long night).
So it was that I came to exchange the rigors of academia for the only slightly more potentially life-threatening rigors of an early-afternoon snowball fight.
All, I thought, must assuredly be well on such a fine, crisp, snowy winter's morn. The giddy laughter, the ominous whisk-smunch of compacted snow colliding with ice-cold skin, the dismayed shriek of those who apparently occasionally forget that ice crystals provide little in the way of friction...
Add to that the simple joys of bonding with friends, a somewhat less than quiet late afternoon spirited away in the solitude of my room with my very significant other (ahem), and the--much appreciated--occasional attractive young coed braving winter's maelstrom in an extremely insubstantial bathing suit and I have myself a recipe for a fine day, right?
Snowballs to the head suck, most of my friends are bastards who are not at all above aiming snowballs at my head, said significant other couldn?t stay nearly long enough, and, pleasing as they are to watch, those uninhibited--or simply masochistic--young ladies are only just that: something pleasing to watch (and being that it was actually snowing, said eye-candy was understandably very fleeting indeed).
So now, as my wonderful snowbound Saturnalia comes to a graceful close, I find myself cold, wet, and still relatively...er...frustrated. I've spent the latter half of the evening flipping between The History Channel and the Democratic Debate on the television and trying to work some feeling back into my fingertips.
This is depressing; I used to love snow days...

UPDATE:
Apparently I can look forward to yet another weather-related sabbatical today, too.

One of Those Years...

You know the ones I'm talking about. First, everything seems to go wrong. So you change everything around, and for a few nanoseconds—much like the temporary vacuum in the immediate vicinity of an erupting volcano—you’re skippin’ down the cobblestones, just lookin’ for fun and feelin’ groovy, as the wise prophets once said. Then the universe looks you square in the eye and demands to know just why in Hell you aren’t miserable. So then that detestable Roman Status Quo leaps to his death from a thirty-story ledge and you’re left with nothing but a confounded look on your face and a pocket full of What the Hell do I do now?
Ok, so it was nothing as dramatic as all that. The truth is, as I’m sure most of you realize, in real life, few things ever are. On TV, maybe, where everyone demonstrates the adaptive capacity of a toothbrush, but not down here on the concrete-and-Velcro plane where you and I wrestle for the scraps of happiness at civilization’s heel.
My, aren’t we deep this evening? I don’t like the association that goes with that term…Deep… I’m deep, you’re deep, she’s deep. You know what else is deep? A hole. And do you, my friends, know what’s at the bottom of a hole? Well, that depends on how deep it is, I guess. But if it’s deep enough, it might just be eternity down there, and we, as humans, understandably have an aversion to eternity, as well as Olestra and anything involving Rosie O’Donnell.
Speaking of whom, I’m reminded of one of the things I intended to rant about this evening. Do any of you out there have an opinion on homosexual marriage? You do? Good. Keep it. That’s right, you heard me. Take your opinion and fold it up really, really small and tuck it safely down in the bottom of your left back pocket and do the world an enormous favor by sitting on it. Huh? What’s this? The Masked Logician stifling freedom of expression? Damned right. And you know why? Because this is—or damned well should be—a non-issue. I’m sick, physically ill to the point of projectile regurgitation of my fatty, thrice-processed American snack food substances, of one group of people bitching about the right of another group to take advantage of some social perk that they, the members of the first group, take as a gift straight from the callused hand of God. No, no that’s not fair. Bitching is not the appropriate term. But I’m not sure I know of a word that would encompass the depth and breadth of socio-emotional fuckery inherent in the rabid Right’s insistence that allowing a cheap copy-bond municipal courthouse printout of a marriage license to be signed by a homosexual couple would bring about the collapse of everything we hold dear, from the global economy to the very sun itself. Can anyone out there give me just one good—logical—reason why any one person should give a sweetly hemorrhaging fuck about who—or what, for that matter—another such person chooses to marry? No, I didn’t think so. That being the case, it becomes, as I said, a non-issue.
What the Hell brought that on? Well, for those of you fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with American politics never fear. If our beloved Caricature Executive has his way, you will be soon enough. But in the mean time, it seems the good ol’ Texan is trying his level best to add a convenient little amendment to the U.S. Constitution making it fundamentally unlawful for same-sex marriages to occur, and never mind the irony of installing into the constitution an amendment that is itself unconstitutional. Dubya can’t even spell unconstitutional. But then, Dubya can’t spell lots of words…
So then they say John Kerry to the rescue. But if it’s in oratorical superiority they intend to best the incumbent, hell, I’ve got navel lint that’ll do the job.
But enough politics. Surely, if there is anything good and pure within the depth of that force which I am constantly told lies at the heart of all existence, then there must, must be something else of at least passing relevance at large in the world. Frankly, I don’t know how professional political pundits refrain from inserting their genitalia into electrical outlets after a few days of that asininity.
But then, what else is really going on in the world right now?
Mel Gibson has made a movie about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ only to find himself—tee hee hee—crucified for his trouble. It’s a good thing irony isn’t toxic. Unfortunately, neither is stupidity…
On a much more immediately pressing personal note, I really, really abhor my newest roommate, who has obviously been visited upon me as retribution for all the unpleasant things I said about/wished upon/did to his predecessor.
And I suppose that I should note that the Mars Rover seems to be performing adequately, which is a marked improvement over past models. The Rover conducted tentative drilling on El Capitan yesterday, which sounds approximately as exciting as a re-broadcast cricket match to the MTV-viewing public, but apparently has the fine folks at NASA masturbating for sheer joy. I say good on them.

I only hope they don’t uncover any weapons of mass destruction…

Late-Breaking News

Today's Track: Cool Walter Kronkite-esque newsreel track

The long-awaited return of the Amazing Colossal Inconsistent Blogger?

Dare we believe?

Details at eleven...

Test Post

This has been a test. Thank you for remaining calm.

Random Rhetorical Question

Today's Track: Camptown Races

Well, apparently we can clone horses.
That being the case, why are we powerless to prevent tragedies such as this?

You Keep That Up, You'll Go Blind

OR

Potentially unhealthy musings on the Star Trek universe


As may be painfully obvious, I am a devoted Trekkie. Yes, I said Trekkie, not Trekker. And yes, there is a difference.
To continue:
Star Trek, as you may know if you've come into direct contact with hardcore fans--which, by the way, you should never do without mutual consent and adequate protection--is great food for thought. At least, that is, in the sense that it serves as the perfect catalyst for hours of pointless intellectual masturbation.

-Insert Lonely Trekkie/Lt. Uhura joke here--

Presented here in no particular order, and with no justification whatsoever, are a number of notions I have pondered through long summer afternoons.

***Warning: This Pondering Has Been Deemed Unsafe. Do Not Attempt Unless Supervised By A Trained Professional And An Alcoholic Beverage***

• Even taking for granted that Starfleet has universal translation technology to make communication with other races possible, why do the aliens' mouths always move as though they were speaking English?
  
• Warp propulsion, matter transference, nutrient synthesis, even devices whose function is to blantantly flout the laws of classical mechanics. All these things are accomplished with grace and style in the Trek universe. And yet fashion, at least on earth, has ground to a screeching halt...
  
• With everyone being thrown about so impressively during battles and the like, why were there no seatbelts on bridge station seating?
  
• You know what you never see on Star Trek? A square-dance.
  
• The pornography selection, I imagine, must be vastly superior to today's.
  
• In their continuing quest for total perfection, the Borg wish to assimilate humanity. This strikes me as a counterproductive thing to do...
  

...a so on.

Imagine that...

...I still have a blog. Will wonders never cease?