Oh cruel fate, how come you gotta be so cruel? I got an email a few minutes ago from the editor of RELEVANT magazine, letting me know that my kick-ass story about eccentric celebs is posted in his online magazine.

I get there and I’m like “hey, my article is right there, in a real online magazine.” I get ready to post the announcement to my loyal web-page readers, when my Internet connection goes down.

OH THE HUMANITY.

Of course, I suppose you’ve figured out that the connection is back up; otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this fresh post.

But right now, at eleven at night, my connection is still down. I’ll probably get more writing done tonight then ever before. The Internet is such a distraction. The cable modem is downstairs, and every five minutes, whether I want to or not, I go down there and see if the little green “online” light is still blinking.

I even walked next door to the neighbor’s. They said the Internet was up, which is even more frustrating, because now it’s just ME and not something going on at the other end of the line at Comcast. Dammit!

No time to blog . . . must . . . write . . . international best-selling novel . . . no time . . .

Today I installed 3 printers, 5 UPS, and a touch-screen. Thanks Don for the business. I organized the cabling in my techno-mobile. I mowed the lawn. Savannah’s school photos came in and she looks marvelous.

Writing a book is hard. There are so many words, and they have to be in the right order. There are characters, and they have to do and say interesting things. Things have to happen in a plausible way, but it can’t be just like real life, because real life is dull. It has to be entertaining and witty but not too witty.

Maybe I should just plagiarize something. But even that involves a lot of typing, and my fingers will get tired.

I might have to do research in order to make the book interesting enough for someone else to actually want to read it. All my science fiction is starting to sound like re-hashed Star Trek episodes.

My left elbow is all scraped up from me leaning on it, staring into my screen, trying to, by sheer force of will, to make shit happen in my story.

I don’t know my own mother’s address to send the school photos of Savannah to her. She moved.

Today the Internets tell me that a baby was killed in a Rottweiler attack. I don’t have the courage to click the link.

Today the Internets tell me that three children were drowned and stuffed in a washer and dryer. Their mother was killed, and the fetus inside of her was cut out.
The killer was her babysitter.

Today the News tells me as many soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

A government report is out that says the Iraq war has “fueled the terror threat” and has made America less safe. Duh. They could have called me and I would have told them that. I wonder how much that study cost. If it cost a million dollars to produce that government report, and that is probably a low estimate, I would have told them that for, oh, I don’t know $100,000. Just call me on the phone.

Today I put black and white cow-pattern contact paper over a box for Alex’s class at school. I understand it will hold books. I really enjoyed doing that.

Today I worked on my book, gave up on my book, and then started up on my book again. My book is a pain in the ass. I don’t know if I can write a book. I’m going to write one anyway.

Let all peoples of Earth know that my laptop files are now contiguous. Long live laptop.

It's official: this video is the weirdest thing I've seen on the Internets in a long time. Prepare to be amused and terrified.

If you Google the term "breathtaking breasts", my laptop story page comes up first.

Remember, the more you know, the more you grow.

Have a great weekend Internet junkies!

The following is an excerpt from a speech Gen. Smedley Butler delivered in 1933(…) It is one of over 1,200 speeches he delivered in over 700 US cities. In the first half of the 20th century, Gen. Butler was as well known as Colin Powell is today. He served 33 years in the US Marines and is one of only 19 people ever to receive TWO Congressional Medals of Honor - the highest decoration the US Military awards.

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

I just got my copy of Tales of the Talisman 2.2 in the mail today. My short story "Fuel" is on pg. 28, and I reread it after a long time, and the ending is great! Plus, there's a kick-ass illustration that goes with it by Liz Clarke. AND . . . there's a bio of me on page 81. I want each and every one of you to click the cover right now and order your copy today.

Some politics: Yesterday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez went on a rant, calling GWB “the devil” and said he smelled sulfur, blab la bla. At the beginning of his speech, he recommended a book by Noam Chomsky titled Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance (The American Empire Project). Out of curiosity, I looked it up on Amazon yesterday. It was number 14 on the top sellers list. This book was written in 2003.

Today, it’s at #5. Hmmmm.

Dear ____________________,

I want you to do everything you can to return paper ballots to all Michigan polling places. I don’t trust the voting machines. There is no physical way to verify votes; computerized voting machines could be tampered with or malfunction.

I am a computer technician, yet with something as important as voting, I want something more concrete than a touch screen when I enter the voting booth. Even if the only result would be more faith in our voting system, it would be worth it.

I know it is close to the elections and I’m sure all kinds of money went into installing these electronic voting machines, but I feel they are going to ruin voting rights in Michigan, and in America.

Sincerely,

Dan Manning

Well, yesterday I turned 40. Thanks to the thousands of folks who sent me five dollars. That’s going to go a long way toward paying some bills.

Today I got a five dollar per hour raise! That makes me a happy monkey.

It feels like fall finally. I thought I’d go out and enjoy the great outdoors, so I picked up dog poop in the back yard. The air was fresh and crisp, except when dog poop smell wafted off the shovel into my large, manly nostrils.

Speaking of nostrils, I’ve noticed some gray hair, but it’s all in my nose hair. Isn’t that weird?

Well, thanks for stopping by the ol’ homepage. Ya’ll come back and visit again!

So I get brave and turn on the local oldies station, thinking, “Oldies, how bad could they screw this up?” It started out okay, Janis Joplin’s 1971 hit “Me and Bobby McGee” from her album “Pearl.” Okay. That’s a pretty good song, it’s up there on my hypothetical list of really cool songs. So I’m thinking, “Maybe I can listen to local FM radio.” How do they screw up “oldies?” Simple. The next song was the 1982 suckfest that is “Ebony and Ivory.” After that, a barrage of the most banal, obnoxious commercials I’ve heard in a long time. I have two words for local FM radio commercial producers: “Stop yelling.”

And that’s why I don’t listen to local FM radio.

I’ve been tired and grumpy all day. I tried to watch the Lions, but it is painful to watch the same crappy team year after year, so we watched SpongeBob instead. Just looked it up, the Lions lost to the Bears 34-7. God they suck ass.

Deb was sleeping because she worked last night, and I was going crazy bored sitting around the house, so I took the girls to K-Mart so they could look at Halloween costumes. I sat in the lawn furniture section while they tried on masks and came over to “scare” me.

Later in the afternoon I learned how to juggle two softballs and a garden spade. I did pretty good.

I put the finishing touches on the new laptop installation. This thing is running so much better. I only loaded what I need, and I can’t believe the difference.

I did something I almost never do: I took a nap.

And now it’s nine PM, and I’m going to bed.

I also made my "writing brag sheet" page listing all the stuff I've had published. Hooray for me.

I spent today replacing my 40g hard drive with a 100g hard drive. I only put on the programs I need, and it’s going wicked fast now. I could have reformatted the old one, but having the old files on a backup HD makes me feel a little less nervous.

It went as smooth as expected, since I do this about five times a week anyway.

I had one appointment this morning, fixing wireless and removing Norton AV that was killing HP wireless printing service, when to bloated software programs fight, the only loser is the user.

I took Savannah to Circuit City and I bought what I have wanted for years: The first Star Wars movie on DVD. Now my life is complete.

Well, working on this laptop has eaten the entire day, so I have nothing more to write about.

And the hits keep on coming: Now my friggin’ garage door opener spring snapped. First the plumbing, then the stove, now the garage door opener. If any of you out there have put some sort of hex on me, please lift it, because my shit keeps breaking. I’m really sick of spending time and money on friggin’ repairs. I hate work.

And there's another sequel in the works: my hard drive is getting ready to crash, every other time I reboot i get "Operating System Not Found" dammit. That's more money on replacement parts.

My oldest daughter came in to borrow the stapler. For an "experiment" for school. She had ten pieces of tape, one labeled for each finger, on a piece of paper, one group of five for the left hand, one group of five for the right. She had printed the name of each finger neatly above each piece of tape.

Under the tape: her fingerprints.

I can understand they want the kids' fingerprints on file. I've given up any illusion of privacy or rights in this country a long time ago, and this is just one more minor chink in the illusion that you and I, as average taxpayer/consumer units, have any rights at all.

But come on already: if you want to fingerprint all the kids in school, just come right out and say what you're doing. Don't pretend it's some "experiment" for science class with some lame-ass fake school assignment. I mean Jesus Christ, just because we're wage-slave/serfs doesn't mean we're that stupid.

Let all people of Earth know that on this day I fixed the oven. I replaced the igniter. My wife made fun of the butt-crack that showed from under my shirt, and she said it proved that I was a handy-man. I told her to get in the kitchen and bake me a pie, but she didn't.

Today I went to the NFL season opener party at Brian’s, and had a great time even though the Lions lost. Brian had all the food and fixin’s you could want. I had a great time. We played Texas holdem’ (Jay brought the chips and cards) and I quickly lost five bucks, but what the hell, it was a great time.

Well, my News Media Blackout is going swimmingly, but I guess I should say SOMETHING about the anniversary of the attacks tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of the attacks. I don’t want to be polluted, postured to, or pandered by a bunch of nit-wits in suits telling me what to think and feel about what happened. I saw it on TV like millions of other people, and I know what I feel about it, and I don’t need to be reminded.

GWB has used 9/11 to ruin this country and take away our rights. He and his cabal of thieves have used it to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. He uses it to make us all afraid, and I hate it. I don’t hate the people in the administration, I just hate what they’ve done. It could have been done smarter, and it could have been done with one less war. Afghanistan, yes. Iraq, no.

Today I figured out what is wrong with the oven. I’m sick of stuff breaking. The plumbing, that’s two sinks, two showers, the fridge, one toilet and the washer. And now the oven.

But I used the Oracle of Google to discover the inner workings of the gas oven, and it turns out we have a glow-igniter, an igniter that glows red hot and then if it gets hot enough, it opens the gas valve. It has a little gap that burned through, and I took it out and walked to Lowes, but they didn’t have it, so I walked to the hardware store, and they didn’t have it, and I walked the APEX appliance parts store that Lowes and the hardware store told me about, but they were closed.

But knowing is half the battle, and during the walk I podcasted about everything I saw on Plainfield, and I stopped at Long John Silver’s and had the sampler platter.

Otherwise, I wrote, played video games and watched television. I’m still on my news blackout, and the world seems a safer, and happier place because of it.

News Media Blackout Week starts today through Sept. 15. I’m sick of memorials, footage, speeches, remembrances, candles, choirs, flowers, ground-zero, crying people, debates, smoking buildings, dust, New York, Manhattan, the World Trade Center, firemen, terrorists, newscasters, analysis, anchormen, widows, soldiers, Iraqis, somber cello music, presidents, congressmen, mayors, protesters, conspiracy theorists, backbiting, finger-pointing, blame-dodging, papers, falling bodies, fire, smoke, death, destruction, terrorism, and fear.

So I’m listening to Jazz, only watching comedies, and putting my head in the sand for the next seven days. I don’t have to be reminded by ratings-grabbing, patronizing, make-up wearing, script reading monitor scanning talking heads.

Today I helped someone set up a mailing list, I hooked up a dummy terminal in an auto-shop, ate a ruben sandwich, had some beers, podcasted at the scene of a trailer fire, put my podcasts together, worked on my story, and generally had a good day. I had water pressure in my shower because of my plumbing powers.

big dirt patch in yard
Originally uploaded by danmanning2001.

I’ve been flooded with emails of support following the horrific ordeal concerning the City digging up my yard for no reason. I’d like to send out a special thanks to all of the Taiwanese who sent their best wishes. You all certainly understand the hardship plumbing problems can cause. Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto!

Well, to follow up, today, two days after the violent upheaval that was my front yard, I was sitting here today, minding my own damn bidness, when ANOTHER truck with the evil word “UTILITY” on it pulls up, and a guy gets out with a bunch of red, blue, and yellow little flags in his hand. I went outside, and he wasn’t in the truck. Nope, he was standing next to my house getting ready to mark the underground utility lines – for the hole they had dug two days before. I told him that the hole was already dug and filled in and he went away. I love the Government in all its forms.

Today I set up some mailing software and did a spyware/windowsUpdate/virus check for one of my regular customers. I got some checks in the mail and I fixed my shower, which was clogged due to the sand in our plumbing. blab la bla. whatever.

biggest pixle art ever?

Today, I had to play plumber because of the sand in the plumbing, put there by Plainfield Charter Township and their digging for no reason.

I had one call today so far, an external hard drive that wasn't plugged in.

The President made a speech about the prisoners at Git-mo. They are going to be tried. But there are questions about how the evidence was collected.

The girls are back in school. It's nice to have them back in school.

I've been working on a new short story, another science fiction story that I hope will sell. I have a book to write.

link to photo

Tune in as Dan tells you titillating tales of wireless routers wrongly configured by overconfident yet inept owners, only to have handsome, daring computer technician Dan Manning ride in on his white Taurus to save the day.

Thrill to his exciting adventures, as he makes daring appointments, jotting down addresses, names and numbers whilst juggling boiling, scalding Starbucks Coffee, grasping a radioactive cell phone betwixt his manly, stumbled jowls and broad shoulders whilst battling the evil minions that are his fellow motorists careening down the Beltway at breakneck speeds.

Wince in terror as he connects routers to networks and wireless signals to connect frantic Internet users with technological hoobajoobas that might very well save their very souls!

Keen in orgasmic pleasure as he races home to repair not two, not three but four separate plumbing problems caused by the Evil City Workers who dug his yard up for absolutely NOTHING!

Pine with admiration as he types in his blog . . . no, wait, I’m doing that now. Please God~! someone help me! I wrote this crap and I’m stone cold sober. HA! I am the greatest problem solver named Dan who lives in my house!

Ever wonder why we’re REALLY in Iraq? You can find out. Rent, borrow or buy the movie WHY WE FIGHT (2005, Eugene Jarecki) and you might be surprised. I downloaded the movie from Cinemanow.com. Watched it cause the girls are asleep (they have school tomorrow) and Deb’s at work.

Otherwise, this long Labor Day weekend was a whole lotta nuthin. Got a lot of writing and reading done. I jumped on a pogo-stick yesterday for about three bounces, and my back feels like it’s been blasted by a shotgun. I swear to God I’m falling apart.

I’m reading Dune (1965, Frank Herbert), and I think I’m finally able to understand some of it. Maybe If I keep reading, I’ll be reading at a high-school level.

Well, it finally happened, Steve Irwin, known as the "Crocodile Hunter," is dead. He was killed by a stingray. When I read about it, I thought, "stingrays are dangerous? i was not aware of that." so I looked it up.

The reason stingrays are dangerous is because of the rather large poisonous spine located on their tail. This spine is hard and very sharp and is used to pierce the hard outer covering of shellfish which makes up a large portion of the stingray's diet. This sharp spine can grow to over 12 inches long in some species and because of these dangerous spines and the poison it injects, stingrays are often avoided by all but the hungriest fishermen. Several swimmers have been killed after being struck by the poisonous spines and neglecting to get immediate medical attention.

If wounded by a stingray, get out of the water immediately. Remove any part of the spine that may remain in the wound and apply hot water to the affected area as soon as possible. The temperature should be around 95-105 degrees fahrenheit which will be hot enough to detoxify the poison but not to cause burns. The wound should be treated with hot water for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. The wound should then be irrigated with an anesthetic such as lidocaine (lignocaine) or longer lasting bupivacaine. This will help deal with the pain until the wound starts to heal. It is a good idea to check the wound for fragments of spine which may still remain..remove all fragments,
apply an antibiotic cream, and bandage the wound. (link)

This morning I fixed a Mac G5 wireless. I also mapped a keyboard shortcut so it would eject the CD player. Otherwise, I watched Star-Trek, washed the car, read some short-stories, worked on my own short-story.

I took the kids to the school and they rode the wagon down the hill. There’s video of the wagoneers on my website.