The Malicious Monocle

  Edublogs has been slow today for some reason. I’ve been trying to get on for a while but was only getting error messages. Oh well, I’m on now and have just enough time to ramble on before leaving to grab some dinner and get to class.

Breakfast at Frank’s was nice this morning. Lamb was a bit late as always, but not as late as she was last time. I tried the cinnamon swirl french toast this morning. It was really good. I may have to add that dish the rotation of stuff I order there.

I managed to get most of the reading done for tonight as well as getting a ton of work done on the lesson I’m teaching tomorrow. I’ll probably be up late after class tweaking and fine tuning things, but I think I have the major ground work done. Of course, now I have to hope my Power Point slides will work on the Macs at the school.

Today was new comic book day as well. Happened across a hard-bound copy of all of the comics that were online last season for Heroes. They’re all collected into a very pretty edition that is going to look nice on the bookshelf. I just wish I had the time to read it right now.

  I’ve been working on a lesson plan for later this week. I’ve decided what I’m going to do and how I want to do it. Now I just need to get the prep work done so I can actually do it. I also have a book on reading analysis to get through. It’s just before 11 and I’m feeling pretty wiped out and I want to go to sleep but I’m not going to. I can’t even sleep in tomorrow morning as I’m meeting a friend for breakfast at my favorite local diner.

The best diner in the world: Frank’s Diner

Oh well, I guess I’ve screwed around enough for a bit. Back to the grind.

Why?

Because I bloody well drank it, that’s why.

The rum isn’t all gone, but I have made some of it disappear. I made more of it disappear last night than I have tonight, but the rum I drank last night wasn’t my own. I’m not sure if that means it doesn’t count or it counts more.  I’ll leave the solution of that question to the quantum physicists.

A highlight of yesterday evening was fresh-baked apple pie.  My friend Hurler had brought some McDonald’s with him for dinner. Somehow, and I’m convinced drugs or post-hypnotic suggestion was involved, the smell of his food combined with the scent from the candles burning on the coffee table to make Bayeux and Lamb think he was eating an apple pie from McDonald’s. He wasn’t, but the scent seemed to get to them. The next thing any of us knew, the two of them were peeling and chopping apples for an apple pie.

Captain and Coke goes amazingly well with fresh apple pie and two scoops of vanilla ice cream. They go so well together that I had two slices. Of course both slices were accompanied with ice cream. Yummy.

The evening was fun. Bayeux is going to defend her dissertation in Madison on Monday. She’ll be Dr. Bayeux then. So last night was a sort of pre-defense celebration. We drank, talked sex, education, literature and even a bit of religious history. Yeah, we talk about some strange shit when the booze is flowing.

Well, my drink is empty so it must be time for sleep.

Sweet dreams everyone.

Rhesus would have run all the way to Patna if she could have. She fought with herself to walk slowly, normally. In her heart, she raced swung from branch to branch over the road. The letter had said not to arouse any suspicion as she kept the forced appointment it had made for her. How could she keep from going mad before she reached Patna?

Reaching Patna, reaching Rhesus pulled the crumpled letter from inside her sari and triple-checked the address. The address took her through some of the poorest and most dangerous sections of Patna. Her adrenalin-spiked journey ended at the stall owned by Hanuman Langur, the Scrivener. Hanuman made his living writing letters for the poor and unlettered in Patna.

  Mongoose peered through the barred window into Orangutan’s cell. After just one night in Hedgehog’s gaol Orangutan looked broken. His shoulders looked like they were at his waist, they were so slumped. The moldy straw Orangutan had slept fitfully on had turned his gleaming orange fur into dirty clumps.

Like so many people as they age I’ve fallen into a rut where 90% of the music I listen to was produced twenty or more years ago. Most of the music I buy now is from bands I was listening to back when I graduated from high school in 1989. The only ‘new’ bands I’ve bought in the last five or so years are:

Black Eyed Peas

The Donnas (because they sound like a perky all-girl version of the Ramones)

The Gorillaz

The White Stripes

and now:

Dresden Dolls

I’ve been hearing bits and pieces of various songs from the Dresden Dolls for a few months now but today was the fist time I’ve actually purchased something of theirs. Their music isn’t the most melodic and the lyrics are pretty depressing, but I like it.

The album I bought came with a video of one of the tracks, Girl Anachronism. It’s a fun, happy tune. Sort of.

Watching that video I almost wish I could look as good in a bowler as the drummer. My favorite lyrics from the song are:

“and you can tell from the full-body cast

that you’re sorry that you asked

though you did everything you could

like any decent person would

but I might be catching so don’t touch

you’ll start to believing you’re immune to gravity and stuff

don’t get me wet because the bandages will all come off

because the bandages will all come off”

I also really enjoy the song “Coin-Operated Boy”. I love the music. The lyrics are sad, but an all too common refrain I’ve heard over the years.

So I’m not just posting a bunch of videos here, I’ll also recommend checking out Youtube for their videos Backstabber and Sing Chapter II. Sing has a number of iconic images from history in it. Backstabber is just fun. I found myself giggling a bit during the video. It is hot, creepy and silly in turns. Just the way I like my music.

I bought another CD today as well.

It was Depeche Mode. Oh well, I guess 1 out of 2 will have to do.

Now off to drink.

Also, TONIGHT is when the clocks are set back. My friend Computer told me so.

Fans of the Malicious Monocle, don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten the story, I’m just playing with some stuff in my head before setting pen to paper. (Yes, I actually write most of it by hand rather than typing on a computer.)

In case my adoring fans care, I shall be heading up to Milwaukee to buy miniatures and meet up with my ex-wife to get some my stuff she found she still had. I may also meet her fiance. Although, I originally met him at the end of the last century. Please take special note, I am declaring that I am divorced here.

Where is that smiley that can roll its eyes. I know I left it around here someplace…

Oh well. *rolleyes*

I’m back from Milwaukee now, but I have managed to find a smiley that’s rolling its eyes. Here we go: