monkeyplus1

Fuck, I just paid off $20 in library overdues.I’m one of those motherfuckers you see walk out with an armful of books, and I read every one of them start to finish. If I was interested enough to walk out of the library or bookstore with it, I read it through.

No wonder I wear glasses. Worn them since I was 17. No, it wasn’t masturbation, I’m fairly sure it was computer monitors.

I BEGGED and BEGGED my parents to buy me a computer.

Growing up, one of my best friends was a Mexican kid named Jeff, who’s father Joel worked as a HVAC (heating, ventilation, air/conditioning) at the huge IBM plant in Austin. Through his work, Joel had gotten his kids an IBM PC computer, a big bulk of a thing that ran Microsoft Flight Simulator (yes, I’d already wanted to be a pilot that young). I was about 11 or 12. Jeff was kind of indifferent about his computer, but his older brother, several years my senior, had also been programming. He was an elitist fuck snob who I’d never ask for help, but I had the fucking manuals (and the world, in 4 colors) at my fingertips.

One side-note about Joel. I had, well - still have, nothing but respect for this guy. He is the textbook definition of a workaholic. Joel was a Vietnam veteran. Because it was our nation’s dirty secret, unspoken, while I was growing up, it naturally piqued my curiosity.

As a dumb kid would do, I once asked Joel if he ever shot anyone in Vietnam. My grandfather landed in Normandy, the day after D-Day in World War II, and I’d asked him the same question. Both of them gave the same curt answer and said nothing more. “You just shoot, everyone’s shooting, you don’t know whether or not you shot anyone”.

The one interesting thing he told me is that, like most draftees, he was in the infantry, a ground-pounding grunt. After he’d been in-country for a while, he had some kind of tooth infection, and had to go to the rear to see a dentist. He was only gone for a week, and when he returned to his unit, the platoon he’d been with had been decimated in an ambush while on patrol. Wiped the fuck out. His fucking tooth saved his life. Needless to say, Joel believed in a higher power looking out for him.

A lifetime away, working for IBM, he had employee-discounts, and had bought his kids that damn computer, whose influence shaped my life to this day.

Aside from the flight simulator, the thing that really interested me was the BASIC cartridge, that allowed one to write computer programs in the BASIC language. During the summers, my brother and Jeff might be in the backyard swimming, I’d be inside writing BASIC programs, saving them to 5 1/4″ floppies. Stupid games, mostly. 4-color graphics. For those that don’t know BASIC is the shittiest, ugliest, stupidest programming language ever invented. It was harder to “unlearn” BASIC than it was to learn it - it just teaches that, as a programmer, what you should NOT do.

My parents were working poor. My mother had gone to private schools, and insisted the same for my brother and I. Private school isn’t cheap, so money was tight, and my begs and pleads seemed to fall on deaf ears to a mother working full-time, and a step-father working two jobs.

My deadbeat biological father made a one-time payment of $40 in child-support for my brother and I, the whole time we were growing up. No help or support from that avenue.

Just as I was about to give up, my parents bought me a Texas Instruments computer. A “TI”, tee-eye. They’re still around, I believe doing artificial intelligence research for the military, but most people know the brand from the old “Speak ‘n Spell” toys. I still have one, though it is possessed, speaks in tongues. It says its name is “Angel”. Another story…

I don’t remember the model of my TI computer, only that I could program it, but not save anything. Once the power was turned off, it lost all memory. And for a monitor, it plugged into a TV, so I ruined my perfectly good eyesight straining to debug blurry code.

So much for my dreams of being a pilot.

well, before you know it, by the time I had a ‘286 computer (with 16-color EGA graphics), I got a 1200 baud modem (when 2400 baud was the latest), and my friend Stephen taught me the ropes about BBS systems, and generally, being a leet haxor. Stephen’s dad worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone, so Stephen knew a lot about the phone system and ways to set up free long-distance for big file transfers.

Keep in mind, this was over 20 years ago.

When I got to high-school, I might be called out of class at any time to the main office, not for disciplinary action, but to help them with their computers. They didn’t keep the student grades computerized back then, so … no haxoring my GPA. Actually, it was a little annoying.

Many years and adventures later, I actually worked for a while as a tech-support geek, though it didn’t take long before I absolutely hated the job and the people I worked for.

Now, I don’t want to rag too hard on tech-support geeks, since I once walked in their shoes and had to suffer the same fools they do, but one thing that set me apart was the ability to program. They specialize in configuration, setting up, and in the old-days, troubleshooting (they don’t troubleshoot now, they just re-install everything or replace the computer now). But they were terrified of anything resembling code.

There was a strange divide between programmers and tech-support. Programmers build shit, build tools and interfaces the business needs. Techies just keep the programs and “the iron” running. No shit, I’ve worked with many programmers who have no idea what to do when their computers get squuirrely. They call the help-desk, and babble the same nonsense as any user. Maybe worse, since they think they know something. So, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. Both hated and respected, for my leet skillz.

That was the Bureau of Information Technology and Computer Help, aka B.I.T.C.H.

That all said, I used my share of “professional development” funds to get all the training that’s got me doing the fun stuff I’m doing today. Did I say fun? yah, ok, maybe not so much

on the other hand…. MONEY FIGHT!!

speaking of exhaustion, I just read this article about a guy that stayed awake for 11 days!!

In my late teens, I managed to stay awake for only 2 days. That was long enough.

Bone tired, and delirious. There was a point where everything was hilarious, I wept tears laughing uncontrollably. Later, the fatigue would come and go, there were periods of floating sensations, walking without feeling the ground. And then came very dark thoughts. It was a hot, Texan summer, and I kept feeling dirty, and that there were ants everywhere.

needless to say, not a feat I’d consider repeating!

so much has happened so fast in the last month or two.

my kids are back to school, that’s been a big change in everyone’s routines. definitely good - but WHOOO! it’s a lot to take in.

I put in a lot of time on a new album, and preparations for a live show I performed a few weeks ago. Creatively-exhausting. Throughly satisfying, and GEEKED out, for sure. wired for that kind of fun.

and then there’s family stuff. my father, who’s popped up after 30 years. never paid child support, lost visitation rights, and terrorized everyone in my mom’s family after they divorced when I was 4. well, I haven’t been so warm-and-cuddly about his reappearance, in fact I’ve been openly critical as to why I should give a shit, or why this unrepentant deadbeat father deserves any more welcome than a stranger, and that’s triggered a shitstorm from Prado-related people I barely know.

I have been cussed out, belittled, and topping it off - threatened with physical violence. And I’m not talking about just a little bit.

so there’s all that stuff. I’d like to know how to deal with it, but oh my fawking lawd. It gets tiresome to be SSOOoooo hated.

I need a vacation! YEOW!!!

Taking things in stride, that’s really all you can do. In a windstorm (or shitstorm), the flexible bend, the stiff break. huzzah!

I used “jailbreak” to hack my iPod touch this weekend (and void the warranty), and let me just say:

happiness is hacked piece of tech.

i’d still be happy if I didn’t HAVE to do this, if Apple had already opened it up, but something about breaking the rules is extra fun, no? Especially when you feel entitled to! It’s MY iPod, not Apple’s, paid for it fair and square.

fuck yes. the installer is slick, now running all the apps the iPhone has, plus a bunch of 3rd party apps and some games. Being able to run mail and the iPhone google maps app is just sweeeet.

I used SSH to get into the filesystem and had a look around. My old iPod would mount as an external disk whenever connected to USB, and I used it to haul data around. I was initially disappointed the iPod touch wouldn’t do this, but I’m sure it’s a security precaution now that it has wireless, to keep wireless intruders out of your iPod.

I can just imagine my friend ShyDemon at a coffee shop, slyly substiting the music library in an unsuspecting person’s iPod with some Debbie Gibson or similar garbage.

I’m not exactly a day trader, but I do like to keep a daily watch on any stocks I own, that’s nice, so is checking the weather. iWoman is interesting, I’ll have advance notice before my wife goes PMS, plus I can make sure to forecast any vacations around the red tide and attendant mood swings! - she’s not that bad, really

that “Lights Out” game is going to either (a) make my brain explode, or (b) jack my IQ up a few points. Right now, I’m leaning towards (a)

with Halloween right around the corner, the kids picked out their costumes this weekend.

The girl picked a cute angel costume. The wife and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes, trying not to laugh at the irony.

The boy went with the grim reaper. The costume has a mask that “squirts fun blood!!” Nice.

I’m a little stumped, if I do get a costume. Some people LIVE for this. This is like their xmas, like the couple that invited us to their party last year. There were some crazy costumes at that party.

The wife went as “Coffy”. Among this crowd, though, almost everyone had seen Pam Grier in that movie. She had the fro, and was tough.

I went as an insurgent, complete with a suicide vest strapped with explosives, a jalaba (which US troops call a “man dress”) and a keffiyeh (the “rag” on the head). Oh yes, and the obligatory mustache that is ubiquitous in the Arab world. Ready for my 72 virgins, Allah Akbar motherfucker.

The biggest laughs went to a guy dressed up as a 7-foot penis. Some kind of fan blew air into the costume, keeping it inflated for most of the night.

I don’t quite remember if it was last year, or the year before that, but the most meticulous (and scary!) costume went to a couple who arrived impeccably dressed as Nazi SS officers. Down to the last fucking detail. Kind of makes you wonder, no?

But if Halloween costumes are supposed to rattle people’s cages a little bit, I think they took the cake!