Unpleasant Ways to Die

I am dead

2009-03-16T02:23:00.001-04:00

2008-11-12T21:39:00.000-05:00

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Not quite a victory

2008-07-22T04:08:00.005-04:00

I has a rat.

Now, this isn't an extraordinary thing for me. I buy rats on a regular basis to feed my boa constrictor. This isn't about those rats.

This is about a fucking feral goddamned rat in my motherfucking kitchen.

Living in Soviet Georgian Hills, you learn to accept a certain degree of vermin. There are roaches, yes, but judicious use of poison can keep those in check well enough, and you cannot be rid of all of them in an apartment where you can see daylight around all four sides of the door (it is not exactly a draft-free, energy efficient home).

....speaking of doors, the only door in the entire apartment that hasn't been obviously kicked in at some point in its life is the one to my roommate's bedroom. My bedroom, the front and back doors, and the bathroom have all been kicked in, judging by the conditions of the jambs, but I digress.

The Fucking Rat.

I became aware of him the other day when I found some scat. Owning a rat-eating snake, I am well familiar with what rat scat looks like, and I was able to immediately identify the rat scat that I found on the doormat.

Mousetraps of the standard "small" size were immediately deployed, baited with organic creamy peanut butter. Nothing but the best for my rat!

Just a few minutes ago I heard a tell-tale SNAP! and went to investigate. A GIANT GODDAMNED RAT (estimated retail value: about seven bucks) of the color grey (very fat and healthy looking, and at the upper end of what I'm comfortable feeding my snake, though I'm sure he could eat much bigger prey than this) was laying next to the upside-down trap. I have no pictures of the rat or the slapstick process that followed, but I assure you that the following is the unadulterated truth.

I poke Rat with a broom.
Rat spasms into a new position.
Steps 1 and 2 were repeated a couple of times before I decided that it was merely stunned and not in the process of dying of a broken neck.
Being barefoot and wearing shorts, I immediately ran for protective clothes.
Clad now in leather work gloves, boots (unlaced, no socks), and long pants, and with the grabber stick I use on the snake when (s)he's in a bad mood, I attempt to pick up Rat.
Rat escapes to underneath the washing machine: a dead end.
I laboriously move the heavy-ass washer, trying my best not to wake roommate and/or neighbors (keep in mind this is at 4 in the morning). Rat is found to be lying next to a cluster of roach baits.
Using grabber stick, I attempt to pick up rat.
Failure. Rat runs straight at me, causing me to jump backwards. I felt like "Mammy" from Tom and Jerry. If I had been wearing a skirt, I'd have grabbed it up in my hands and stood on a chair. It was fucking pathetic.
I chase Rat around the kitchen for a while, cornering it briefly underneath the workbench (you have workbenches in your kitchen too, right?). It bolts into the living room with a peculiar hopping motion. I think perhaps one of its rear legs was injured.
Rat runs into some PVC pipes I have lying against the wall. There are 3 pipes of differing diameter nested inside one another.
I acquire a flashlight. Sure enough, Rat is inside the smallest tube.
I quickly seal both ends of the pipe with duct tape.
I begin banging on the tube and shaking it, etc., to attempt to determine if mouse still lives.
It does. I debate my options: dump it outside, find a more permanent way to seal the tube and let it starve to death, or feed the probably-diseased wild animal to Crom.
Rat-in-tube then is transferred out the back door. Standing on my second-floor "balcony," I remove the tape from one end of the pipe and begin to shake.
Rat falls from the tube, hits the ground, and starts running in circles. After a moment of this it picks a direction and run/hops away as fast as it can. With its wounds I suspect that it will be easy pickings for the numerous feral cats around the complex.

I believe I shall be purchasing some larger traps. Also some poison, and perhaps a fucking GUN.

God Damn It

2008-07-17T17:10:00.002-04:00

I'm gonna have to read Lord of the Fairy Rings again.

Also, I've always been disappointed that one of the big sacred cows of fantasy has not been more controversial; to my mind, because of its widespread success, it should be: Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, a book I find not only utterly boring in terms of story but also deeply offensive in terms of theme. No novel so clearly, and unwittingly, highlights that history is written by the victorious. Sauron is so obviously the good guy here, and all the protagonists are total slime, liars, royalists of the worst stripe.

I've always found it interesting, and disquieting, that a nation like the USA, which claims to have rejected royalty, should enjoy Tolkien-style epic fantasy so wholeheartedly, with its embracement of the divine right of kings, of the birthright of royal lineage, etc.

Sauron is so clearly a democrat (perhaps even a socialist) vilified by the victorious, villainous royalists, those from whose POV we are told this story. I believe in the POV of The Lord of the Rings as much as I believe that Bush Jr. invaded Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people.

Sometimes I think The Lord of the Rings might be an unconscious aristocratic revenge fantasy in reaction to the success of the French Revolution, an English royalist gut-reaction of fear that something like it might ever happen in England, in which anyone who threatens the sanctity of royalty is transformed into something monstrous, both physically and behaviourally. And I've always been disturbed by the humongous success not only of The Lord of the Rings but of the whole subgenre it spawned. I find this romanticization and fetishization of the royalist worldview alarming -- and even more alarming is that so few people seem disturbed by this at all.

-Claude Lalumière

It's been so long since I read those books that I can't remember how correct he is. I've always held to the theory that nobody over the age of 15 has any business reading Lord of the Sausage Fest, but I'm gonna have to make an exception for this.

In space no one can hear you curse the name of god

2008-06-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Compiz Fusion

2008-06-11T18:16:00.004-04:00

Gnome (too bloated for my taste, only using it for the compiz integration) running compiz fusion on ubuntu 8.04.

At Soviet Georgian HIlls, the apartment complexes YOU!

2008-05-14T13:49:00.005-04:00

You're damned straight the subject line is a bit of a reach. Fuck you.

So here at (Soviet) Georgian Hills, living is an adventure.

First there's the two separate car fires, which probably is what led to the notice found in our mailbox concerning new rules and policies. Draconian closing times on the previously 24 hour laundry facility (which doesn't affect me), pool passes will be issued for residents (none required before) (also doesn't affect me, as another of the new rules bans non-standard bathing clothing: "NO PAMPERS"), things of that nature. Then there's the meaty clause:

We are receiving assistance from both the Atlanta Police Department and the GANG squad to control any illegal activity on the property. Parents, you are encouraged to communicate this information to your children. Loitering in hallways and on stairwells is not allowed. Any suspicious activity on property should be reported to the Police Department.

That'd be the Atlanta P.D. that shoots 90-year-old women and plants drugs on them.

On top of this, we have the Bible study meetings being pimped at us every Tuesday night in the "Community Room." I'm sorely tempted to go, but I have a feeling it would all end in blood and sirens.

Does the man going from apartment building to apartment building putting animal traps on the roofs count as suspicious activity? I don't know why he's bothering, the local cats oppress the local rodents with iron fists. Just a few weeks ago I heard a cat kill an entire nest of something in the ceiling above my room. A cat hunting (what I assume were) rats in a pitch black attic that is presumably full of fiberglass insulation (probably none of that, really) is an awesome thing to listen to.

The silence of the afternoon is shattered by the first staccato thumpings of cat feet, claws extended, and the sudden crashing boom as kitty takes down the first rat. You expect the ceiling to cave in, but it does not. The rat does not die quickly, nor quietly, but it is over soon enough, and after that it's a waiting game. Predator and prey sit in the darkness, stretching their senses outwards and waiting for something to happen. The cat's attention span wins out, and a rat decides it is safe to move, resulting in another tremendous crash and more squealing. The cat, sadistic in his mastery, takes his time on the last rat: a series of playful thumps and scurries. The condemned is allowed the glimmer of hope as he slips away time and again in just the nick of time.

It ends as it always does, with kitty licking the dust out of his toes in a sunny spot on the hood of a car with two flat tires.

...and Dad calls this place a cesspool.

2008-04-24T03:57:00.000-04:00

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2008-04-14T02:23:00.001-04:00

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2008-04-14T02:15:00.000-04:00

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NIN

2008-03-27T19:02:00.001-04:00

August 13 Duluth GA Gwinnett Arena

lolcow

2008-03-25T03:04:00.002-04:00

lolcow, originally uploaded by Reverend Andy.

Cattle we sent to market, and the ultimate fates thereof.

Sunset

2008-03-19T08:19:00.001-04:00

100_0789.jpg, originally uploaded by Reverend Andy.

Sunset over our neighbor's barn.

Flickring

2008-03-18T19:20:00.002-04:00

Photos from Fall Creek Falls and Andrew's Bald now up on Flickr. I still have to go through describing and tagging, but at least they're there to be looked at.

Linux users of Flickr should consider the Kflickr uploader application, which is a useful piece of software that allows easier batch uploading and metadata editing from your home machine.

Atlanta Storm Damage: The Cotton Mill Lofts

2008-03-16T20:11:00.002-04:00

Building D is basically wrecked. Jon used to live there, and I would hang out on that very roof. You can, in fact, still see the railings of the deck that we'd sit around drinking and watching trains in the switchyard below.

Jon lived on the other side of the building, directly under that water tower (the conical top of the tower is now missing).

Awesome.

China Radio International

2008-03-15T20:21:00.002-04:00

Radio Beijing, as broadcast on shortwave at 6020 kilocycles, has yet to mention the violence in Tibet. No surprise there, I guess. It probably takes a couple days to hand-craft propaganda like they do.

Seriously, of the government propaganda stations I've listened to, China puts out the finest, best-written propaganda copy there is. Tonight's been all fluff stories about special education for the disabled and suchlike, and you have to take a minute to consider every statement made to locate the possible spins.

The special-ed plan being called for would separate disabled people from normal schooling and put them into specialized schooling. This sounds like a fine idea, if they go through with it properly, but who's to say they're not doing this just to shove all the speds into a virtual jailhouse away from society? I hope that's not what they're doing, but with their history you never know.

(Not that America's government doesn't put out propaganda. We put out mighty fine propaganda, but it's not quite as slick these days. It's awe-inspiring to be alive during the time of the slow collapse of the last superpower, like watching as the last mammoth, having struggled itself to exhaustion over several days, slowly succumbs to gravity and sinks into the tar.)

Crom been playin' with his food

2008-03-15T19:55:00.003-04:00

Crom been playin' with his food, originally uploaded by Reverend Andy.

Yes that's blood on his face. No, it is not his.

Good snake.

Recession Special

2008-03-15T19:54:00.001-04:00

Recession Special, originally uploaded by Reverend Andy.

Flickr

2008-03-13T16:35:00.003-04:00

Birthday present from Mom was a subscription to Flickr Pro, so I will be gradually uploading my photo archive to the account. I get 2 gigs/month upload bandwidth, so it'll take a couple months to get 'em all up, which is about how long it'll take to organize and tag them all anyway. So my photostream will be updating a lot more frequently now. Also, I will be able to stop using Picasa since I can now access the original full-res pics in Flickr.

Flickr is pretty awesome. Picasa, I'm sad to say, is mostly crap. I'm a Google fanboy, but in this case Yahoo owns the better product.

Emo Horse

2008-03-06T20:41:00.001-05:00

Dad's neighbor has horses. This is one of them.

Another burnt car

2008-03-02T03:25:00.002-05:00

Taken a couple days ago. I'm sitting there reading a book and I hear from outside a loud popping noise. It sounded like a compressed air explosion of some kind, but very small. I live in the city, so I shrugged and forgot about it. A few minutes later, I hear a very large diesel engine running at decently high speed coming through the parking lot. I look outside, and there's a firetruck.

OMG STUFFS TO BLOG GET CAMERA GO OUTSIDE ON PRETENSE OF CHECKING THE MAIL

TAKE SURREPTITIOUS PHOTOS OF FIREMEN

STOP WHEN COP SHOWS UP

Pretty expensive looking 2 door hoopty with a bright yellow paint job, DARK tinted windows, low profile tires and expensive chrome rims, completely burnt out. The popping noise I heard was a tire exploding. This happened directly across the street from the last one.

Awesome. My new downstairs neighbor is not afraid to play his hippie drum at 3 AM. I think it's time for some car-burnin!

Kucinich's Wife 2008

2008-02-13T23:04:00.002-05:00

90% Mike Gravel
84% Dennis Kucinich
76% Chris Dodd
75% John Edwards
73% Barack Obama
71% Bill Richardson
70% Joe Biden
70% Hillary Clinton
41% Ron Paul
39% Rudy Giuliani
30% John McCain
29% Tom Tancredo
28% Mike Huckabee
23% Mitt Romney
18% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

2008-02-05T16:13:00.000-05:00

Today i voted for a negro and a tax increase. i feel so liberal.

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Astigmatism

2008-01-22T12:03:00.000-05:00

So for years I have kinda lorded my superior vision over my friends. I knew a reckoning would someday come.

So as fair warning to the three of you who read this: I am soon to have glasses. I don't have to wear them all the time, and my vision is still 20-20, just with a slight astigmatism.

...and the first one of you fucks to crack wise about them is gonna help me test if these shatterproof polycarbonate lenses can stand up to repeated headbuttings. I will also be determining how well blood cleans off of them.

Fair warning.

A series of tubes

2008-01-06T18:50:00.000-05:00

The Hammarlund HQ-170A I got from my grandfather finally blew a tube:

Which means I finally had an excuse to pull the case off of it and take a look at the undercarriage, which is fucking PRETTY:

Much nicer than the undercarriage of the Hallicrafter S-38D that Dad and I found next to a dumpster in Tennessee. Note the new orange capacitor in the lower left-hand corner. That's the only cap that was blown in there. Someday, I want to sit down with the circuit diagram on that thing and build a proper PCB for it, and replace all those paper caps with nice modern mylar film caps instead, but that's not anything I'm gonna even consider until I've gone through and replaced all my tubes in the Hammarlund (which is gonna be moderately expensive to do).