Well, it’s official. I did a quick inventory of all the food in our kitchen, and 58.5% of all of our foodstuffs has a picture of Rachael Ray on it.

It was 78 degrees Fahrenheit today, in Michigan, on November 29. Oh, no, there’s no global warming. Please go about your business as usual. Nothing to worry about.

Today I put the kibosh on another installation of Norton $ystemWork$. What a piece of s**T program. I swear as soon as that parasitic, bloated program attaches itself to the nerve center of any unsuspecting operating system, the PC becomes sluggish, lethargic, and falls into low-grade narcolepsy when a human being clicks more than two mouse clicks in thirty seconds. I swear to God I hate Norton and all its work. I reject thee Norton, and all of the Evil in which you stand.

Okay . . . tell us how you really feel Dan.

In other news, the “Prime Minister” of Iraq is too embarrassed to meet with President Bush. How ironic. One country invades and destroys another country, sets up a puppet government, and then blames the “Prime Minister” when the country turns into a hell-hole. I can imagine the conversation:

“Why is your country in shambles?”

“Because you invaded it.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry about that.”

I have the solution to the Iraq problem, and it is a simple 3 step plan.

Step #1. Build a time machine.
Step #2. Go back in time.
Step #3. Don’t invade Iraq.

It’s simple, it’s easy. Except for the first step. But otherwise, it’s almost foolproof.

The 1963 film, “From Russia with Love” is great for the following reason: In the span of 5 minutes, there’s a belly dancer, a gypsy girl-fight, a gun-shootout, a riot, and then an implied menage-a-tois between the two gypsy girls and Bond. All in about five minutes. Thanks Tivo!

I rented another movie, suggested by my friend Barry. “The Yes Men” These guys are trying to shock people by impersonating WTO representatives in front of corporate fat-cats saying this outragous, greedy stuff to point out how outragous and greedy corporations are, and how the WTO is exploiting 3rd world countries. The problem for the Yes Men was that the corporate drones took what they had to say seriously. They did this one bit where they compared offshoring for cheap labor to slavery (like it was a good thing), and the corporate guys ate it up like it was a great idea. All in all, it was a pretty good movie.

Yesterday I got a call from a woman who said her PC wouldn’t start. I tried the power supply, the switch, nothing. Then I figured out she had the switch off at her multi-power-switch doohickey. Oh, it was plugged in, but the friggin’ switch was off. Imagine my chagrin . . .

Today I took a machine home to reformat it. When I put it on the bench, the keyboard wouldn’t work. After that, it stopped posting. The motherboard crapped out right before my eyes. Luckily it was an ancient PC and I just replaced it with one I had on the shelf. They don’t use it for much, and I’ll give them a good deal. Dammit.

Okay, I stole/found this youtube video of Bill Hicks going OFF on a heckler from Justin's site, so proper credit or "props" as they say, to Justin! Hicks verbally beheads some drunk lady in the audience. For matures audiences only.

Savannah and I went downtown to go ice skating. The website www.downtowngr.org had yesterday listed as the day the ice rink opened at Rosa Park Circle. Of course, it was like, 60 degrees today (no, there’s no such thing as global warming. everything is fine) so they couldn’t freeze the water to make the ice. So we went to “Big O’s” restaurant and had fabulous spaghetti.

I packaged up some more presents.

Let me tell you about my new earphones. I have an Ipod, but the Ipod earphones suck. So I ordered some Koss “spark plug” stereophones. They are like those foam earplugs you can get from the hardware store combined with kick-ass speakers. They are amazing. I put in the comfortable plugs and tested the speakers with Billy Thorpe’s 1979 smash hit Children of The Sun. The crystal clear sound and magnificent bass transported me. And when I say transported, I’m not kidding. I ended up on a spaceship. Unfortunately, I was anally probed for more than 14 hours with something that looked like a complicated stainless steel mole trap. You’d think an advanced civilization capable of space travel would know about lube. Needless to say, I’m glad I didn’t have anything from Black Sabbath or White Zombie, or I might be dead right now. But the speakers sound great. And they were cheap as hell from Amazon.com. I had free shipping coming, so they were like a whopping 8 bucks total.

Nowaterball.com is getting lots of orders from Utah. I want each and every one of you to order at least one sleeve this holiday season. They make great gifts, and the price is right.

The blogger community is all abuzz in anticipation of my next blog post. So here it is:

Chives: Is there anything that doesn’t taste better with chives? I don’t think so. It’s certainly great with sour-cream dip, but there are other things: Oreos and Chives. Chive Beer. Chive flavored edible underwear. Vanilla ice cream topped with delicious, fresh chives. God had his thinking cap on when he invented chives. Oh yes. I am thankful for chives! Say it with me now . . . . “CHIVES!”

Yesterday we ate turkey. I’m a fan of tryptophan, that’s for sure. Wikipedia takes all they mystery and fun out of the Tryptophan myth:

According to popular belief, tryptophan in turkey meat causes drowsiness[9]. Turkey does contain tryptophan, which does have a documented sleep-inducing effect as it is readily converted into serotonin by the body. However, tryptophan is effective only when taken on its own as a free amino acid. Tryptophan in turkey is found as part of a protein, and, in small enough amounts, this mechanism seems unlikely.[10]

A more-likely hypothesis is that the ingestion of large quantities of food, such as at a Thanksgiving feast, means that large quantities of both carbohydrates and branched-chain amino acids are consumed. Like carbohydrates, branched-chain amino acids require insulin to be transduced through the myocyte membranes, which, after a large meal, creates a competition among the amino acids and glucose for insulin, while simultaneously creating tryptophan's reduced competition with other amino acids for the Large Neutral Amino Acid Transporter protein for transduction across the blood-brain barrier. Alcoholic beverage consumption at holiday feasts is likely to compound the effect.

They got the booze part right! Just kidding kids. Drink responsibly! I took it easy on the booze yesterday.

The Lions did their usual screwed up job. Not only did they get beat, but they got beat by Joey Harrington, in his first appearance back in Detroit since moving to the Miami Dolphins. Way to go Lions, can’t even blame him this time. Jesus! What’s it take to bring these Lions around?

Today I am wrapping presents. I’m in the Holiday spirit, probably more than at any time in the last twenty years. I don’t know. I’m actually enjoying getting things ready for Christmas this year.

So. There’s this game called Second Life, which is basically this waste of time chat room in 3d, but it’s kind of cool because you walk around and people make all kinds of things and anyway . . . last night I bought a Led Zeppelin tee-shirt in the game. Today I was looking at books on Amazon.com, and guess what; they “suggested” that I might be interested in Led Zeppelin albums. Coincidence? I think not!

My bestselling novel is going gangbusters. There has never been a more unreadable heap of crap produced in a long time. Hopefully it will be made into a movie.

I really hate the day before Thanksgiving. It isn’t really a work day, and it isn’t really a holiday. Usually I don’t get any calls, (this is my 4th year working for myself) and the kids are home and the day drags and drags and drags. I got some writing done. I’m still going through World of Warcraft withdrawals. I’m having a hard time filling those hours I wasted on gaming. I have managed to read another book cover to cover. That’s helping. The pages in my upcoming International Best Seller (IBS doesn’t’ just stand for “irritable bowel syndrome”) and I’m seriously thinking about combining two of my false-starts into one really big false-start.

I picked up dog poop. We’re giving that dog too many snacks. There was crap everywhere and it seems like I picked up poop just the other day.

Deb and the girls are preparing the turkey for turkey-day.

I have all four of my book manuscripts on the desk and I realize I’ve typed a pant-load of pages. That and a bunch of short-stories. All of them unmitigated craptastic hoo-haw.

I ate two cans of spaghetti and now I’m really sleepy. I have to pick up a computer at five because the husband downloaded “something he shouldn’t have.” That always makes for a comfortable scene. The husband guilty of downloading porn, and the irate wife hiring me to clean up the hard-drive. uuuuuuhhhhhh.

I can't believe this isn't on Utube.

Oh Kramer! Why? Why? I’m a huge Seinfeld fan, but Kramer (Michael Richards) goes on this rant calling this dude the “N” word, and the whole audience walks out on him. It’s bad enough to say something like that, but he wasn’t even funny when he did it. Sad, sorry-ass state of affairs. Of course, I have a link to it here.

In other news, I’ve been working ever so slowly on my newest multi-national bestselling blockbuster Science Fiction novel. It’s going pretty good, but I’ve been reading more than writing, since I’ve wasted the last couple of months playing that f**king video game.

Got a call from Jim in Oklahoma, he’s doing well. Barry is out on the road, talked to him. He’s driving through Tennessee. NoWaterBall.com is seeing a boom in sales. The holiday season seems to be the big season for novelty golf-balls.

It’s getting cold out, and that’s about it.

I went to Meijer to buy some supplies for Thanksgiving. Who the heck is “Rachael Ray”, and why is she on every third item in the grocery store?

We Tivoed (is that a verb yet?) “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" and there’s a scene where Charlie’s sister complains that she went to the store for a “turkey tree” and all they had was Christmas stuff in the store. Charlie Brown says “Christmas already?” and I thought, damn, how long have they been advertising Christmas stuff too early. So I looked at the date on the recording. “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” came out in 1966. The year I was born. I’m 40. Jesus Christ!

I printed out my newest bestselling novel. 40 pages of crap. Turns out, I can use my last bestselling novel and combine the two to make a twice as long, twice as awesome bestselling novel. I am a genius.

check out this internet music site: www.pandora.com. Punch in a song title, and they make as "station" with music you'd probably want to hear. It works. Pretty cool.

Slow day. Didn’t have any work until 4PM, when I flew to Rockford to tighten the hinges on a Dell Dimension 1100 laptop screen. Leaping into action, I mounted my trusty Ford Taurus of Technology and raced to a secluded bungalow off of Spring Lake, where I cannibalized an old laptop for hinge screws and restored the machine to near pristine quality.

I sent some NoWaterBall golf balls out unto the world. I visited one company, but could do nothing for the proprietary software. But I met some folks and I’m sure they’ll be calling me for all technological thingies.

I haven’t watched any football this year because the Lions suck ass. But Saturday I’ll be watching Michigan(2) and Ohio State(1) in the big game. Both teams are 11-0. Should be pretty friggin’ exciting.

Watched Thank You for Smoking the other night, and wrote a review on my movie review page.

I want each and every one of you using the Internets to go to nowaterball.com and order the greatest novelty golf balls in the world for presents this Holiday season.

Today I got a call from a frantic client who didn’t back up his files. All of his files are gone. I want each and every one of you to think about what would happen if your computer crashed in the next five minutes, and the files on the HD were gone forever. Think about it. I’ll give you a minute. . . . . . . . okay. Now. Go and back up your files. When I say “back up” I mean “Copy them somewhere other than your one computer.” You could burn then to CD, buy one of those cute little flash disks and copy them there, or buy an external hard drive. These gadgets plug directly into your USB port and they are worth the piece of mind you will have knowing that your entire digital life: bookkeeping files, pictures, music, that crap poetry you write, porn, CAD drawings, whatever. . . . knowing that if your machine crashes, you’ll be able to carry on without therapy, or explaining to YOUR clients why you don’t have your stuff together.

And don’t download crap from the Internets. (You know who you are) you’ll get a virus and that will ruin your day.

Well, that’s the PSA for today. I’m going for beer.

Then I’m going to write my crap Science fiction.

Until next time, do your best, drive carefully, and keep reaching for the stars . . . (after you back up your friggin' files)

the show with zefrank < the girls open the show on this popular video show on the Internets. This show is on Itunes and gets a lot of hits.

Yesterday I made Level 60 in World of Warcraft. Last night I played for almost an hour, and then realized I’d done what I intended to do, which was to make level 60. So I cancelled my account, uninstalled the software, and BURNED the installation CDs with the trash so I wouldn’t be tempted to re-install it. That game is too addictive for me. It’s kind of sad, a forty-year-old man playing a game that much.

This morning I hooked up DSL connectivity smoothness to a family from India. How odd. I went to the home of an Indian family, and when I called tech support to make sure they had DSL signal, I got an guy in America. Weird.

New Talent on 60 Minutes funny stuff.

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Today I raked leaves so we could see dog poop. I actually used these two sentences: “Savannah, where’d you bury the fish? You didn’t put the shovel back.”

Yesterday I went to the Hideout to get a jug of beer. One of the guys in there asked me if anything was new since the last time he’d seen me, two weeks before. I couldn’t think of a thing. Because nothing is new with me. I’ve been working on my book (sort of) playing World of Warcraft (too much) and fixing computers left and right.

In world news, the Republicans are out and the Democrats are in. Hope they can get this bus out of the ditch now that we’ve changed drivers.

Don Rumsfeld is out, and in his parting remarks he basically said the American people (you and I) are too stupid to understand that his handling of the Iraq war didn't suck.

The process of judicial hanging <--in case you were wondering.

Yesterday I replaced the kitchen sink soap dispenser, replaced the drain thingy, you know where the plug goes? And re-caulked around the sink. I hate plumbing in all of its forms.

Today we raked leaves. We watched some movies; you can read three new reviews on my Movie Reviews Page at the greatest website in the world, www.danmanning.com.

Don't forget to vote Tuesday. Throw the Bums out!

Today I got personal emails from such well known personalities as Laura Bush, whose subject line, "Final Push for Victory" fills me with trepidation. John Kerry sent me a quick email with the subject line: "Call for Change: It's too close not to call" That John Kerry, he's a blowhard even in his subject lines. Dick DeVos took the time to send me an email titled: "Today's Action Item: GOTV" Ya know, I'm not really into "Action Items." Needless to say, I deleted them all.

Funny, they don't usually email. I wonder what's up.

In other news, I backed up files, shared printers, reduced CPU overhead, and battled sticky wireless router settings, with an all-new 26 digit hex numbers.

danmanning.com ~ Procrastinator's Homepage I'm such a procratinator, I had to make this page and make it my browswer homepage. Gee hope it works.

doh!
Originally uploaded by sheeshoo.

Holy crap! Look at this fantastic pumpkin!

Later that day . . .

Finally, some checks came in the mail. Plus, when I went to the post office to buy stamps they were playing Madonna’s 1986 megahit “Papa Don’t Preach” on the loudspeakers. While I waited in line I got to contemplate Madonna’s reasons for why she wanted to keep her baby.

Yes! Rob Corddry (from the daily show, duh) has a blog/column thingy. He writes as funny as he acts.

Went to two Halloween get-togethers last night. At one place, I saw this amazing thing: Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighting. It was friggin’ great, these two dudes came out and kicked the shit out of each other. I had to ask if this was allowed in the US, and apparently, it is. So I’m going over there later this month, cause the guy gets pay-per-view to watch these fights. This one dude was bleeding all over the place, and they let them keep fighting. It was sick.

Otherwise, I’m invoice rich and cash poor. I did a bunch of work for this one place in early October, and I’m waiting for the checks to come in. Meanwhile, we’re flat-ass broke.

So I haven’t been in the mood to blog at ya lately. I’m so sick of going to the mailbox and seeing no checks in there. Self employment is fun, but it has its drawbacks.