What has been happening in my dreary and mundane existence…
My big Friday night was staying home curled up on the couch and reading a book, one of half a dozen I picked up at the used book store the other day. While I was leafing through the pages a photo fell out. I picked it up and gazed at it in interest. It was an image of a little chubby faced blonde girl that had been cut in half. The back of the photo had written on it '1992, 12 years old'. So the girl would be around 27 now. Perhaps married with kids. Or maybe when she was around 18 she fell into a bad crowd and started doing drugs and heroin and then a few years later ended up dead in an alley.
I wonder why someone had cut the photo. Maybe she did it, did not like the photo and cut it herself. 12 year old girls do things like that. Or perhaps the photo belonged to a boy who secretly admired her. Perhaps she broke his heart and he cut the photo up in a fit of dispair. Or maybe someone had bought a new pair of scissors and simply wanted to try them out. I will never know. I idly flicked it behind the couch for future generations to ponder on. Perhaps next week ill get struck by lightning and when the city clears the furniture out of my house they will find it and wonder why a single 33 year old man and a photo of a 12 year old behind his couch.
An hour or two later while I was still loafing on my couch, a mole came wiggling across my room. By now I should be used to the critters the cats drag in, but no one expects to see a mole in their living room. They are odd critters, you cannot tell which part of them is the head or tail; they just look like a big fuzzy turd wiggling across the room. I hastily found a box and caught it. Moles are much easier to catch than mice. As I took it outside I could feel it's powerful claws and teeth scratching on the cardboard box. I would not want to hold one in my hand.
Saturday night I had plans, then I did not have plans, then I had plans again but could not find anyone, so gave up on the plans. Then Alan showed up and I dragged him out. The bar 'The Haven' was having a heavy-metal-a-thon and I thought it would be a hoot to go have a gander. The paper said it was five dollars to get in, but when I showed up, much to my annoyance, the price was ten dollars. There was a sparse crowd in there seemingly to be composed mostly of full sail dropouts. There also seemed to be an unproportional amount of short guys. There were way too many sweaty shirtless guys and not enough cute girls. I laughed for a while at the feeble mosh pit that was mainly composed of one extremely drunk guy running into people and I actually enjoyed one song a band played, but the novelty soon wore off. I drove home in the rain annoyed that my Saturday night had sucked so much. Alan was peeved that I had dragged him to such a waste of ten dollars.
Sunday I installed a light in my bathroom. Now when I take a shit at 3 in the morning I do not have to sit in the dark and wonder if the dead wraith of some previous owner is waiting to slither out from the dark and grab my ankle with its cold dead slimy hand and moan in my ear. Nothing like a fluorescent corkscrew bulb to scare away spooks.
I visited a local thrift shop and was thrilled to find a flat screen monitor for twenty dollars. I have been using the same monitor for almost ten years now, a monster 21 inch nec Multisync 5d monitor. It has served me faithfully for a long time and always had a good sharp picture, but lately I have been suspicious of its energy consumption. The thing is huge and when I first turn it on it gives a quick hum and the television sitting next to it momentarily distorts. It certainly warms up the room a bit and I have a feeling my meter outside is spinning madly as I sit around poking on myspace. I it probably distorting my DNA so if I ever have kids they will look like the lizard people from 'Land of the Lost'.
So I'll try the flat screen for a while. I still need to find a power supply for it, however. I have a couple around the house that I tried out on it, but they only cause it to light up for a moment before it sucks up all the energy. The required supply is 12 volts with a whopping 2.5 amps, which is a bit more than the average power adapter. I'll have to swing by radio shack tomorrow and see if they have any replacements.
I made my mecca over to big lots to use my twenty percent off coupon. I ended up buying a memory foam pillow. My pillows have slowly been disappearing. I do not know if they are being consumed by the pillow beast under my bed or what. They are just vanishing. Anyways when I was in big lots I starting poking thoughtfully at a memory foam pillow. Finally I pulled one out and shoved my face in it and pulled back, pleased to see a slight impression of my face momentarily stare back at me before it hissed back into shape. Hopefully the pillow monster will not like memory foam.
Thus concludes my overly exciting weekend. On a final note, I snapped a pitcure of this bus that was sitting in front of me the other day. All I can imagine is getting on that bus and seeing 67 black folks stareing back at me. There appears to be a MIB driving the bus.
2026 Update
Dialing to September 2007, where Ed's weekend involves a cut photo, a mole, and a ten-dollar cover.
Ah, 2007. A used bookstore, a mystery photo cut in half, a mole in the living room, a ten-dollar cover charge, and a bathroom light that may or may not scare off wraiths. Reading this is like finding a fossil. Books now arrive by delivery drone or not at all; photographs don't fall out of them because they're pixels on a phone that we've already forgotten. A 21-inch CRT monitor that warps the TV and presumably your DNA—now we carry sharper screens in our pockets and complain if they're not 120Hz. Radio Shack, where you could buy a 12-volt 2.5-amp adapter, is a punchline; adapters now multiply like gremlins in a drawer and none of them fit. Even the fluorescent corkscrew bulb is retro; everything is LED now and the wraiths have had to adapt. The ten-dollar cover at The Haven feels almost quaint—until you recall we now pay service fees just to be disappointed online. And the photo behind the couch? In 2026 it would have been posted to the internet, and someone would have solved it in an hour. Ed, you let future generations down.
“2007 Ed, did you really stare at that bus and think that was a good joke, or were you just trying to end an already odd weekend update with something you now hope no one digs up?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that's a fair question, and I have to admit the answer ain't pretty. Honestly, by the time Sunday night rolled around I was tired, I was sore from wrestling a mole, and I'd just spent money on a pillow instead of doing anything useful, so my brain was running on fumes. I snapped that picture because the bus made me laugh, and then I typed the first dumb thing that popped into my head, because that's what I do when I'm trying to close out a post. Do I hope nobody digs it up? Sure, now I do, but that's the thing about writing this stuff down—it sits there waiting for you to remember how stupid you were. So yeah, it was a crummy joke, and I'll own that. I guess I was just trying to wrap up an odd weekend with a bang, and I ended up with a dud.
