April 11, 2006

Post 200

This should probably be some really insightful and meaningful post, but you know what? I'm too damn wiped out after the last couple of weeks to be insightful or meaningful. In fact, I'm too wiped out to do much of anything.

You want insightful, go check out Seawave's Soliloquy or Living with Multiple Personalities.

Or, you want meaningful and insightful, check out Anna Nalick's "Breathe (2 A.M.)." You can listen to a snippet of the song there on her site. I picked the song up on iTunes this morning and haven't stopped listening to it yet ... I do that with songs sometimes. When they hit that perfect mood and message that I know I need to internalize ... and this one came about at exactly the right time for me.

Here's the lyrics:

"Breathe (2 AM)"
Anna Nalick

2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason

'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

May he turn 21 on the base at Fort Bliss
"Just a Day", he said down to the flask in his fist,
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.
No one can find the rewind button, boys,
So cradle your head in your hands,
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe

There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you only try turning around.

2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button now
Sing it if you understand.
and breathe, just breathe
woah breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe.

There are some weeks when all I can do is wish for that damn rewind button even though I know I really don't want it. I don't really want to rewind to back then ... and all I can do is cradle my head in my hands ...

and breathe.

There's simply too many things running around in my head, too many thoughts, emotions and so little to actually do.

So for now, I'll just breathe.

(And I think that me listening to this song on endless repeat must be what people feel like when they get stoned ... I'm sooooo mellow right now.)

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:31 PM | Comments (8) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

April 10, 2006

(de)Motivate Me

While surfing around and being a lazy scum this weekend, I discovered a site that has those beautiful motivational posters. I want this one desperately:

And then, of course, there's this one:

This one seemed highly appropriate last week at work:

And this one seemed appropriate this past weekend:

And then these two were just too good not to share as well:

Enjoy! These are all from www.despair.com ... and if anyone wants to get me the one on Sacrifice, I will GLADLY post pictures of it up in our cubicle area for your amusement.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:09 AM | Comments (5) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

March 18, 2006

Sky Surfer: the Update

< GeekFest>
Okay ... so I'm interrupting the seriousness and all to bring overjoyful happy happy news.

Back in mid-December, I talked about The Sky Surfer, a toy that I have been haunting eBay for ever since I first opened an account some 10 years ago. Well, I finally won an eBay auction for the Sky Surfer.

YEA!!!!! It should be here sometime this week ... yes ... I've only waited about 20 years to get this thing back.

< /GeekFestOver>

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:47 PM | Comments (0) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

March 6, 2006

NEWSFLASH

Whole internet outage scheduled for today at 1 p.m., eastern time. You have just minutes left to backup every internet file you have or risk losing it all. Most financial institutions in utter panic as they frantically attempt to re-learn the use of the abacus to prepare for the loss of the internet.

This is not a drill ... burn all data to CD or DVD and they might just survive this internet outage. Flash drives/Jump drives will be vulnerable to invasion by remote virus at this desperate time. Hard drives will be deleted. This is the worst internet disaster since Galileo claimed the Earth moved around the Sun.

Keep in mind that all satellite TV will go down, most traffic lights (unless you live in a small city) ... and most of all ... you're going to lose your blog.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled surfing. Enjoy your last few moments of free surf, tomorrow you'll have to go outside and surf waves instead.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:48 AM | Comments (6) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

February 27, 2006

What's in a name?

I first discovered this little acrophonology site through Ms. Cat Eyes' site, Living with Multiple Personalities. (And, let me say, she's got a WONDERFUL site here!)

The acrophonology site is something about letters and names actually shaping or reflecting who you are. While some of the stuff doesn't reflect me (in my opinion, anyway), it was kinda creepy how much of this felt true. Of course, all good oracular pronouncements are that way. :)
What's interesting is you can see how this is based on the letters in your name ... for example, my middle name has 2 Rs ... and you can see two sentences repeated in that section. You can see those same two sentences repeated in the last name ... where there are again 2 Rs in those spots. However, the first name doesn't have that sentence ... not because there's no R, but because the R is the first letter instead of in the middle of the word. Interesting.

firstname:
You make impersonal decisions quickly, but not so with personal concerns. You like to think things over carefully, but tend to be indecisive. You have a great deal of loyalty to those you love. You have much inner strength. You are a constructive thinker. You have a need for monetary security. You are relatively demonstrative in your affections. You enjoy being stroked verbally and physically. You can handle details well. You have a methodical mind.

middlename:
You are a quick study, and can be self-taught. Your curiosity can get the best of you, but you must learn to concentrate. You work hard to achieve material success through your own efforts. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion. You need to learn to give and receive love for love's sake. You have a need to be assured of affection. You try to be prudent. You have good business acumen. Your privacy is important to you. You have a rich inner life. You need to learn flexibility. You have a talent for working with people on a one to one basis. You need to learn the true value of material possessions. You have a natural protection in life. You are always saved - especially from yourself. You can be quite inventive and quite curious. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion.

lastname:
You want to be productive and feel useful, and enjoy helping solve problems. You like to be busy and not waste time. You have much enthusiasm with a driving attitude toward achievement in life. You need to learn concentration and not to scatter your mental energies. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion. You need to learn flexibility. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion. You need to learn to give and receive love for love's sake. You have a need to be assured of affection. You need to learn to be expressive. You are a person who cannot tolerate being misunderstood.

Heehee ... "you are a person who cannot tolerate being misunderstood." That is SUCH an understatement.

And, to round off this post, here's a related tidbit ... a meme from Lonnie over at OneManBandWidth involving looking up your name on Googlify. I was going to ignore the meme despite the fact that I love Lonnie dearly ... because I HATE MEMES. Ugh ... yuck. But, this seemed to fit into the whole name thing, so I'm gonna do it ... I'm just not going to tag anyone else :D

So ... there's this site called Googlism. Put your name in there and it Googles you and comes up with some really funky quotes ... "what Google thinks of you." Since Lonnie tagged me using my internet handle, and knowing that "Ender" will bring up some interesting quotes, that's what I used. (Besides, my full name didn't yield any hits, dammit.)

So, here are the hits for "Ender":
ender is female???
...heehee. I love the internet. There's a good chance that this particular tidbit is actually about me instead of the character ... since I don't talk about whether or not I'm male or female very often, there are still a lot of people who know me on the internet who don't know if I'm male or female and continually question this. If you look through the blog carefully, you'll find out. Of course, the faster way is to hit the Home button on the top of the page and look through my larger site. The SCG link in particular will put all doubts to rest.

ender is lying on the raft laconically looking at the overcast sky
... great line from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

ender is by far superior
ender is brave
ender is silly
ender is a special guy
...Well, all of these just go without saying ... of course I am.

ender is made of durable abs plastic that installs easily and quickly at both ends of the tub
... Damn! I'm plastic????

ender is a child genius with a probable iq of about 300
...Well, duh. Anyone who's seen the toy collection knows I'm a child. And, of course, if I'm a child AND I've taught college writing, then it logically follows that I must be a child genius.

ender is a turkish word meaning "rare or unusual" hmmm
... I did not add that "hmmm," that was part of the Googlify thing. I'll agree. I'm both rare and unusual. Most people are quite happy about that. More Enders might just make the world a VERY odd place!

ender is an ergonomically correct way to insure that your worst painting nightmare won't come true-the paint can falls off of the ladder
... I have no idea what to say to this one. I'm ergonomic AND a genius??? Cool!

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:12 AM | Comments (3) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble

February 19, 2006

Small Things

Just a quick entry to show what I've been up to lately ... I just got a Nikon Coolpix 8700 (tax return treat, don't ya know). I thought I'd take a few stills and get used to the camera ... it's far more advanced than anything that I've owned in quite a while.

This is simply a little "shrine" of special things that I have in my home office room. The bits of driftwood are from Lake Michigan and my time at the Wakonse teaching conference. The stones are various pieces that I've found or bought over the years. The little pitcher is from my time in New Mexico, the beaded bookmarker is from my sister's trip to Colombia and the medicine pouch was a gift from friends during my bout with cancer.

And, of course, Robin (as in Batman &) features off to the left, with my favourite Fisher Price Little People, Chris, in the back center.

Nothing fancy nor super-interesting ... just learning the new camera. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:48 PM | Comments (3) | People Say I Have ADHD, But I Think - Hey Look, A Chicken | TrackBack | Stumble