The Measure of a Geek Should be his Potential for Disassembly.....

Or, to put it another way, my old man's a T.V. repairman. He's got the Ultimate set of tools.

Is it a guy thing? Maybe.

Is it a geek thing? Definitely

I'm not sure why, but for just about as long as I can remember, I've been in the business of taking things apart. Big things, little things...

Anythings, really.....

From the first time I found a rare-earth magnet in an old school (pre break up) Phone Company phone, I was hooked. I must have been 9 or so. Somehow, I'd come into possession of one that looked something like this:



I'll have to admit, I was pretty new to the game, and I had trouble with the dial (never did get it off), but when I found 3/4th's of an inch of a cylinder magnet that I could barely pull off the screwdriver?

Yeah, I was fucking hooked.

See, I think magnets are pretty cool.

So, in a search for them, and perhaps answers too, I began a long series of, well, lets call them 'component part reductions.' I've taken apart engines, waterbeds...computers.

Well, pretty much anything.

I've even put some of those things (back) together. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, but I know I've fixed not a few things just by taking them apart and putting them back together.

And that's the crux of it. See, in order to take things apart well, you need a certain set of hardware. I mean, everybody has a set of wrenches (dont they), and prolly 2 or 3 (each) Phillips/flat head screwdrivers, but we geeks need something more.

This is just part of my current bit set:



Oh, and in case you were wondering, all those fasteners? Yeah, you have to save them. Here's a glimpse my current 'screw jar.' (note the bag of torx in the background):




In addition, my bit driver (not pictured) has a neodymium magnet on an 'antenna' reacher that's like 2 feet long.




I've picked up batteries with it...

Now, with all the diversity of fastening options out there, one of the most ubiquitous, and various, must be the common screw.

I've seen screws 3 inches long, and I've seen them half an inch long. Only two choices, other than size. Phillip's, or flat.

Because I'm a geek, I'm happy to say I had the right driver (phillips) to remove this screw:



Say what you will, but that fucker's small...

Buenos con queso,

T.

Son number 1?.... Yeah?.... 'S tall drinka cocksucker's not dead

So, lots of things.....

I haven't been whining (or tweeting) about it, but I've been in absolute Hell since Saturday morning, when I woke up with a slighly sore throat.

Which was worse on Sunday, and accompanied by copius phlegm, both running out my nose, and clogging my lungs. It was so bad, in fact, that I went home early on Sunday.

And called in sick on Monday.

Due to the new (bullshit) scheduling and assorted other crap at work, I had the next 3 days (tue wed thu) off, and here it is, Thursday, and I'm feeling somewhat better.

I mean, I still feel like shit, but at least not loose, runny shit.

Sorry, but I've told you before, I don't pull punches.

What makes it even better, is that for the last 3 days, I've been (slowly) working through the mountain of shit in my room that needs to be discarded/organized/packed for the upcoming move. Add to that the dust (do you know any guys that dust) was beating the shit out of my allergies the last few days, and you can, perhaps, get a small glimpse of the Hell I've been in.

Or not.

I will say, packing my movies was like a trip down nostalgia lane. I saw/found titles I didn't know (or couldnt remember) I had, such as:

Nate and Hayes

Pump up the Volume

And of course, my old friend:

Schoolhouse Rock

Now, in all honesty, I knew I had that last one, I just wasn't sure exactly where it was. There were others, of course, I just posted a couple of the more obscure ones to see if you were paying attention.

I'm still working on the 'taking things apart' post, and hopefully, I'll have it cobbled together soon.

Ok, gonna go grab a beer, and jettison about 10 lbs of snot outta my noggin...

Buenos con queso,

T.

So, I guess I can share the big news...

I didn't want to jinx it by saying anything about it, but Pops and I are moving.

It's not far, and it's just another apartment, but still....

It's smaller, of course, but the owner pays the utilities....and the rent's 50 bux cheaper....

That's kind of hard to beat right there.

Of course, that means I/we have to pack/sort/sell 9 years worth of accumulated crap...

I am not amused.

Hell, I packed a box tonight with somewhere in the neighborhood of 172 DVD's, and I think that's like half of the movies in here.

That doesn't count video games (playstation playstation 2 playstation 3 xbox) or the maybe 60 CD's I still have....lost my music in the war.....

I have so much shit to do.

Oh, if any of you care, it looks like my schedule at work may be changing. We've gotten a new Store Director, and he's got very specific goals and plans, so he's kinda shaking things up.

In any event, I may soon be leading a 'swinger's' life. I mentioned it when I first got hired, and some of you may call it second shift, but for me, it's always been swing shift.

I'd be working 4pm to 1 am. It's kinda harsh, but when you consider that you can do just about anything 24 hours here, it's not so bad. You just adjust your routine.

In case you're wondering, shopping at 1am is peaceful.....

However it all shakes down, I have at least 2 more weeks of dayshift, and then...well, who knows?

My days off may even change.

Eh.

Anyhoo, just thought I'd pop in and share.

Buenos con queso,

T.

Eviill. Eviill like the frooits of the Deviill.....

What, you really didn't expect me to post yesterday, did you?

Silly rabbits.

Ok, so the other day (or a month ago) I was watching So I Married an Axe Murderer, which if you haven't seen it, is worth a look, if for no other reason, to see the origins of Dr. Evil, and prolly Fat Bastard as well.

In any event, there's a scene with Mike Meyers and Nancy Travis, and he says to her:

Ha! Name one evil thing you've done. And it has to be really evil. So evil, in fact, that you would say it was eviill. Eviill, like the frooits of the Deviill.

Just because of that, I started thinking about my own actions, and if any of them could be classified as evil. It was a tough lot of soul-searching, not just because nobody wants to believe they're evil, but because I've been a pretty nice guy for much of my career.....

I did come up with one thing tho, that while not 'like the frooits of the Deviill' was at least mostly evil.

This goes back to my Freshman year in High School, so like a billion years ago.... It's a long story (and i may have told parts of it before) but I spent the second semester of my Freshman year at the school in California that I would most likely have graduated from if we hadn't moved to Nevada.

Due to differences in class availability and such, one of the 'classes' I had was Library Science. This was basically 50 minutes of re-shelving books in the stacks, emptying trash cans, and when there was nothing else to do, reading.

It was a pretty sweet gig, actually.

Now, seeing as how this was like 1980, this next bit is/was all futuretechy.... They had what is now mandatory in all stores: Those little plastic towers that read the 'you're a thief' tags. In our case, it was a magnetic strip that had been installed in the spine of the book, and it actually locked the turnstile so you couldn't leave.....

Well, one day, as I was shelving the books, I found one that had the metal strip hanging out....almost all the way. Now, I'm not sure why, but rather than take the book up and report it, I simply removed the strip. I'm also not sure why I put it in the librarian's sweater pocket, but that's what I did.

Now, I was long gone before she would have tried to leave, but I often speculate on what might have happened. I can see her, alarm going off, unable to turn the stile, trying like Hell to figure out what was wrong. Maybe searching her purse for a book she'd forgotten to demagnetize....finally finding the little strip in her pocket....

Now, you may be wondering if I ever felt any repercussions from this little stunt, and I can happily say no, as she hung her sweater on a rack in a highly public area of the library.

Well, at least she used to.

Buenos con queso,

T.

They say that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.....

I certainly hope that's not true.

If it is, I know right where I'm headed.

See, I've had the best of intentions to blog lately. I have some good stuff to share, including, but not limited to the following:

1. A photo blog entitled 'Found Faces.'
2. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.
3. A really funny bit about my mother and some frogs....
4. Several work posts.
5. The Great Chicken Purchase of 2010.

That's just a few of the things I've had on my mind lately. I really, really meant to blog about at least one of those in the last...well, however long it's been since I've had a real post, and not a wimpy little 'I'm tired' one.

I do have some fun stuff to tell you, and a good number of pictures to go along with them, so bear with me, and I'll get you some good stuff soon.

And so, to the title.

Even if that's not true, I'm still pretty sure I'm heading somewhere warm when I die. I don't really think it's my fault tho. See, I'm the guy that sees a guy with one arm/half an arm, and I think to myself 'Need a hand?'

I've also been known to tell jokes about lawyers that are less than savory. I mean, lawyers are almost people, and I've made pretty bad fun of them on a regular basis.

I once even referred to a 'mentally ill small person' as being 'a little nuts.'

Nothing evil, you understand. Well, not really evil.

Not evil like the frooits of the Devill.*

But you know, not what the 'nice people' think.

Buenos con queso,

T.

*More on that tomorrow.