Ramblings of a mental patient

Abstract:
The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence.

Click the pic for more visuals.

I drank a bottle of wine and went to bed buzzing pretty good. At about 12:30AM the cats flipped out. At first we thought it was just a rainstorm. There was a loud crash of thunder and the wind went nuts. I ran to the balcony and pulled in some stuff that was threatening to get swept off. Small branches were falling off trees. Kat & I parked under trees so I grabbed our keys and ran out in my bare feet to avoid having the cars damaged.

When I got to the ground floor, I paused at the door. It was as if a wall of white cotton candy was 2ft from the glass. There were fairly large branches on the ground. I took a breath and ran out into the rain. I was pelted by freezing cold rain and hail. It totally was exhilarating. I was stepping on sharp sticks and rocks. I didn’t feel it. I was dodging shit falling out of trees. It was like dancing. The sound was deafening.

I saw the jeep was already destroyed. I didn’t slow down, I jumped over the tree trunk, hopped in the mini and moved it to a more open area. I made my way back inside, the wind was fierce. I almost got knocked over once.

About 3 minutes later, I came back upstairs soaked to the bone and shivering. Kat looked at me, I looked at her.

“There’s a tree on my jeep”, I said.

Kat looked at me and sort of smiled, waiting for the punch line. It didn’t come.

She kind of got quiet, then poured me a scotch. I laughed, toasted her and fell in love again.

We both realized that the storm had quieted, so we went out to look. The damage was amazing. I crawled into the jeep. Broken glass everywhere. Flooded speakers, ruined amps. The roll cage was crushed on the drivers side. The place where the driver would sit was actually safe. Had someone been in the car, they would probably have a broken arm, be badly shaken, covered in glass, but alive. Jeep roll bars are stronger than I thought.

At the time, I didn’t even think of tornados in PA. Its just not something that happens. I just thought it was really windy. And I was kind of drunk. Looking back at what I did… I feel alive. I feel very dumb and alive.

I’m not even that upset about the car. Sure, I loved it. But its just a car. This was one of the more intense experiences I’ve had in life. The raw power of the storm was all round me. I was part of it. It was amazing. I keep thinking about it. You really had to be there.

So now, the claims adjuster’s been here. We’re still dickering over details. The jeep is teetering on the brink of being declared totaled. If its totaled, I get 16k. Not bad for a 6 year old car. If not, I get 10k. Either way, I’m buying something else. I’ll deal with it monday when places are open.

I may no longer refer to absinthe as “Dirty Faerie Pee”. I’ve actually developed a taste for absinthe & sugar water on ice. Not in mass quantities, but as a kind of cordial.. of sorts.

Absinthe, I’ve discovered, is like coffee or beer. It takes a while to develop a taste for it.

We’re talking about writing a new service that wraps one of our core (read legacy) furrball systems in order to manage the chaos it wreaks on things. The proposed project name is Nirvana. Talk about writing checks your ass can’t cash….

We have one project called ‘the wolf’. I said we should call this project ‘Cujo’.

I’m fed up with my ink jet. Its always clogged, prints funny or needs aligned. I’m considering buying a half decent (sub $300) laser jet. Anyone have any recommendations/warnings?

Kat & I don’t have high volume printer use. In fact, part of the problem is that we print so infrequently that the inkjet heads get funny and I need to spend forever cleaning/aligning and testing them. Not to mention its irritating to waste 10 pages doing tests to print 1 page of directions. Something that prints reliably with minimal fuss is a must. Half decent color printing is a bonus.

I’m really glad I re-discovered the accused. Their new album takes me right back to 1986 when I first discovered the meaning of noize core.

I think this weekend I’ll pick up Venom’s newest album too.

Kat’s going to hate me.

If you care, my IM name when I’m at home is jstelzer@mac.com

My other account is the one I use at work and to be honest, I don’t feel like having it on all the time.

Just an FYI for anyone who cares. And to be clear, this is for AIM not email.

Is the terror threat overstated? Absolutely. I have a greater chance of being mugged than I do of being blowed up by a terrorist. Hell, I have a better chance of being killed in a car wreck going home from work. The real solution is to grow some saq and collectively deal with things. We are not stuck in the world with religious extremists, they are stuck with us.

Still, I liked this dude’s discussion on the viability of actually mixing a bomb in flight.

The take away from this is of course when you pull a fargo, what you really want (in addition to some lye and bleach) is piranha bath.

I have a sleep related injury. The pain in my shoulder actually woke me up at 4AM. I slept fitfully after that til about 7.

On an unrelated note, I watched Saw 2 while Kat was in NY on saturday. I actually liked it, it was more than a slasher flick. I loved the hero, my god she’s heartless.

I’m not sure what he was thinking, but this is probably a good example of how not to release a leopard.