I had a scare tonight.

For the last three weeks or so, I've been eating whole grains, making (or rather, failing at making) my own granola bars, scarfing sunflower seeds and fruits and nuts in an effort to change my eating habits.

I started taking 2 ounces of Raisin Bran and half a cup of 1% milk to work for breakfast. Lunch was, for the first few days of this, fresh local tomatoes, 4 mozzarella Ciliegine balls, a few leaves of basil and some olive oil. The afternoon snack became two 95-calorie granola bars and a cuppa joe. Dinner was whatever Miss Significantly Other shot and killed in the forest that day (usually Mediterranean Musk Squirrel).

So that morphed into the two 95-calorie granola bars and coffee for breakfast, a lunch of tomatoes and basil, yadda, yadda.

That became 2-ounces of failed homemade granola bars (read: tasty oat crumbs) for breakfast (because I didn't want 11 grams of sugar exploding in my colon all at once), a lunch of last night's nutritionally balanced MedMusk Squirrel and two many-grained tortillas (the small ones), a snack of sunflower seeds and a dinner of more goddamn squirrel.

But none of that was the scare I had tonight.

I've also taken to taking a walk after dinner. Now, I have chronic bursitis in both of my heels - right where the Achilles tendon joins to the heel bone. I have it because I never learned to walk right and because my widdle feets ain't built for carrying 205 pounds.

I am in pain most of the day at work because I have to be on my feet all of the time. But I've forced myself to go out for a walk after dinner in an effort to add a little bit more to the old metabolism while I'm gearing down on calories and other nasties.

But that isn't the scare I had tonight, either.

Constant readers (yes, both of you) will recall that I like knives and flashlights. I don't collect them as much as I buy them for specific uses. Miss S.O. might differ with me on that definition but, really, I don't have any of either just sitting around and not being useful.

So I bought this used Rayovac 3-C battery Cree LED light from a fellow on a message board I frequent and I haven't tried it outdoors yet.

As I had to go down the block to the bank and as it was after dinner and as I was in need of keeping up my after dinner routine of taking a walk, I decided to walk down to the bank. I also decided to take the new light with me to try out.

After doing my banking at the smiling automated teller machine, I decided to go east a block or two and walk through our unlit park.

This was 7PM. Hardly the dead of darkest night but still dark around these parts.

So I'm walking along the sidewalk in the dark park, shining my new/used light at stuff to see how far it throws and how brightly. I flash it on the only completely solid structure in the park - the single-user bathroom hut and what happens? Some dude sticks his head around the corner of the building, right into the beam!

Three things hit me all at the same time:

1) I'm a fat 44-year old guy with a noticeable limp and sore feet

2) I have $50 cash in my pocket

3) I may have just pissed off an ice-hearted ravening robber/vivisectionist

Now, one of the great things about liking knives and flashlights is that I tend to carry them on my person all of the time. I was, in fact, carrying a pretty intimidating Kershaw Black Blur. The Blur is an "assisted opening" knife that is as close to being an automatic knife (and thus, illegal for me to carry) as you can get. The problem with using a knife in self-defense is that the thing being self-defended against has to be within arm's reach for the knife to work on it.

On the four block walk back home, I kept one eye over my shoulder, one eye off to the side (in case of cut-across), and one eye on the street ahead. I also kept one hand on the Blur, one hand on the flashlight (which would have to have served as a bludgeon) and one hand on my penis to keep from wetting myself.

So I just bought pepper spray off of eBay. If nothing else I should be able to throw the canister on the ground near an attacker to distract them while I'm peeing myself.

Don't fall for Seattle panhandlers' slick parking hustle

"I wasn't real comfortable with him touching my bank card," said Ryan.

"Not in the mood to get in an argument over a couple of bucks or whatever," he explained.

Hello, Ryan? Hi! This is Reality? Remember me? I just called to let you know that you're a complete idiot? Yeah. Thanks, bye!

Let's take this in order:

1) Following the directions of a bum = stupid.

2) Allowing the bum to invade your personal space = wussy.

3) Allowing a bum to actually take your credit card from you = SuperWuss.

I realize that Seattle is famous for its passivity (which usually disguises actual aggression) but you are Capital F-ing crazy to let a bum get that close to you. Taking the parking sticker back to your car and putting it on the window? Taking the credit card out of your hand?

I'm from a small town in New Jersey and I have more street smarts than that!

I really have to wonder how far we'll go here in Seattle with this passivity thing.

"So, Ryan, why did you put his penis in your mouth?"

"Not in the mood for an argument over a blowjob or whatever."

Outrage, inquiries, panic over teen idol's concerts

"People who have been in this business for a long time are watching what's happening, and they say there hasn't been a demand of this level or intensity since the Beatles or Elvis."

Those reasons include parents who are out of practice when it comes to buying concert tickets and their children who, apparently, are unaccustomed to disappointment.

This makes me happy. I'm glad that thousands of spoiled kids won't get something that they want. I hope they all develop an emotional condition that requires the AMA to think up a special name. MIley-Disney Syndrome (MDS)? Acute Frustration Disorder (AFD)? Scream And Kick Syndrome (SAKS)? Marred Expectation Whiny Adolescent Need Tizzy (MEWANT)?

Sure, Miley is a beautiful kid who can almost act but the fact is she is being whored for profit by Disney. She is, alas, every bit as fake a "star" as Britney Spears or any of the other dozens of Disney-bots elevated by The Mouse for the jingle they put in the executives' pockets.

Of course, there's no chance that Mom and Dad would ever patiently explain to Buffy that Miley is a tiny-talent sham who has her voice electronically enhanced and her persona written out for her by 30-year old scriptwriters. There's no chance Mom and Dad would ever explain that missing a concert isn't very important on the survivability scale when children in Africa are forced to eat their own feet.

Reality mustn't touch American children.

That's why lick-spittle politicians are drawing up laws to counter the fake demand for tickets rather than shrugging and saying, "Missing a concert is hardship? You want hardship? You should look at the slums of Rio! That's hardship!"

Reality is bad for re-election.

This country is so sad sometimes.

Columbus Day is one of my favorite holidays just because it's so obscure and rarely celebrated.

I chose to celebrate Columbus Day the old-fashioned way. I celebrated in the way that explorers of old did: I had a nice lunch of cedar plank salmon with leaders of the local Duwamish tribe after which I traded several strings of beads and a raccoon pelt for the chief's youngest daughter and the rights to 700 acres of forest on the river, and before I left I gave them all small pox.

I've had a shitty week. That's why there haven't been any posts and for those of you who visit the message boards. that's why I've been mostly persona-au-gratin there as well. Or not there as well.

Whatever.

The cause of the shitty has been mostly stupid, petty crappy, work-related stuff.

Monday before I got everything done at one property, news came that a drain was puking for the 974 1/2 time, in spite of several hundred dollars worth of Rotten Rooter charges. So I high-tailed it over there and then spent most of the day there primping the place for a visit by "The Bosses". Of course, I had this visit communicated to me at 2:45 on Friday afternoon and I never checked my mail after about 1PM so I'm going crazy...

Tuesday started off with over an hour's worth of farting with the garbage area at my morning property. There are two regular dumpsters and two composting dumpsters there and they serve two restaurants and a prep kitchen for a tour boat.

On Monday, you will recall, I was called away before I got to everything. Well, this was part of that everything.

I had to clean up literal piles of food waste that had either been spilled out of the bins by the garbage collectors or simply dropped and left by the various kitchens' staffers. Then I had to hose the whole area down.

Wednesday started out with a call from one of the tenants at the morning property who gave me the good news that someone had galumped up the stairs of their main entry with dog shit on their shoes. Since they have no day porter service, guess who had to clean that up?

Wednesday afternoon met me with a denial for a cordless drill/driver of my own. For some reason, that's too great an expense and I have to "make do" with an older model that has a chuck that won't grip right.

Today it took me two hours to drill two holes in a concrete garage wall and install a key box. Most of that time was due to the aforementioned drill/driver. It seems that anything you stick in the chuck slides back into the chuck head when pressure is applied (like, oh, when you're drilling a hole in concrete).

I invented several new combinations of swear words today.

Tomorrow is Friday and I'm seriously considering taking half a mental health day.

Mental health? What's that?!

My Way News - 9 Children Killed in US Raid in Iraq

The American account said U.S. surveillance confirmed "activity consistent with the reports and supporting aircraft engaged the time-sensitive target." The first air attack killed "four terrorists," said the statement.

The fact is that no one knows for sure whether those killed in American strikes are "terrorists" or civilians.

It's a measure of just how kow-towed American corporate media is that such "kills" are never reported as "suspected insurgents". Every news story that I've read form the major media has crowed "x number of insurgents killed in 'Operation Blah Blah Blah'!

The truth - which is what the press is allegedly charged with reporting - is that no one really knows the difference between one robed figure and another.

Try this on for size, America: the bad guys kill innocent people every day.

So do we.

How alike has the adminsitration made us to the enemy we hate so desperately? The enemy that kills innocents?

Wave the flag over that one.

Thank you to those police officers who work so very hard to do the right thing simply because it needs to be done.

'We didn't throw her away'

The girl was small, about 5-foot-3 and weighing just about 100 pounds. Her hair was long and lustrous. Her eyes were dark and almond-shaped.

But aside from these things, there was little to identify the girl on the steel examining table of the Harris County morgue.

I haven't had a vacation in two years.

Except for when I'm at work, I haven't had any "cave time" away from Miss Significantly Other since she's been out of work for nearly the same amount of time.

Sure, she was on Maui for two weeks but that was so long ago that I can't remember when it was.

And I think I cleaned while she was away so that doesn't hardly count.

A cave in the mountains is looking pretty damned inviting right now. If it weren't for the fact that bear are holing up around this time in just such caves, I'm ight be tempted to stike out for one. If I knew whewre one was. Cave, I mean. Not bear. Who wants to knwo where the bears are? I mean for caving purposes. I mean for resdieing in one.

Ah, shit. Forget it.

I can see the end of the rope.

And it ain't pretty.

Alarming spread of superbug "a very big dea"

"This is the first study that's been able to capture the data in a comprehensive fashion," said Scott Fridkin, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC. "This is a significant public-health problem. We should be very worried."

We're very sorry but the research dollars required to develop a containment plan for this superbug have been shoveled into Saddam's "spider hole" in Iraq.

I peed in a coffee cup today.

The Ballard bridge got stuck on the upswing at around 1PM today and it hadn't been repaired by 3:10 when I approached it.

Let me break right here and complain about KOMO1000's lack of telling me that the bridge was stuck open. I heard the bit about the co-host's dog unplugging all of the lamps from the outlets when she hears thunder but I never heard about the bridge until after I was trapped in the traffic jam leading to it. BOO! HISS! BOO!

So I drank a tall drip coffee from Starbucks just before I left for what I thought was going to be my usual 15-minute drive home.

At about 30 minutes, I had to go.

At 45 minutes, I really had to go.

At 60 minutes, I unbuckled my belt and undid the button on my pants.

Finally, at 75 minutes and 50 blocks from home I did it.

I grabbed an empty Tall cup (I save them because coffee refills are only 55-cents), unzipped and sighed into the cup.

I'm sure that the guy on the bicycle who flashed by me got an eyeful (not of pee, silly) if he bothered looking over into my car.

I slipped the cup into a cup holder, re-zipped, capped the cup and reminded myself that, for the love of God, there wasn't any coffee in that cup.

By the time I made it home fifteen minutes later, I had to go really bad again. But not as bad as when I was in the car.

Thank goodness I'm not a girl. I'd have had to squat on the street and relieved the pressure.

In other things...

I didn't commemorate Joey Bishop's passing and I'm sorry about that. It's just so damn sad to me that the cool people are dying off and no one can take their place because of the fucked up way things are these days.

We replace Sinatra with Michael Buble. Christ. How sad is that?

Godspeed, Joey. You mensch.

I also didn't commemorate the passing of Deborah Kerr. She was a beautiful woman - another woman that haunted men's dreams.

The end of the best era in American entertainment is approaching like a fast freight train, folks. Most of The Great Ones are gone and as the Lesser Greats pass, it makes us realize how much support The Great Ones had from their less-popular but no less talented contemporaries.

Another broad could have rolled on the beach with Burt Lancaster but no other broad could have been Deborah Kerr.

Sinatra said of Joey Bishop that he was "the hub of the Great Wheel" of the Rat Pack. Sinatra was as famous for his gracious compliments as for his generous tips and great singing but I believe what he said about Bishop. He always struck me as being a guy who knew his place - on the stage or in real life - and, brother, if you don't have a hub the wheel don't go 'round and 'round.

The FCC just issued a nationwide OMVE (Oh My Virgin Ears) Warning for several publicly-owned television and radio stations.

It seems that the spoken word terrorist group, Watchet-or al-Sayet, has threatened to strike the nation's airwaves with F-Bombs.

Way different for me as it's a cute design suitable for kids or girls or women or even alien beings from Dimension 12.

And Republicans.

So buy something, will ya? I need a steady income to stay drunk.

In a shameless attempt to drive traffic to Panzo.org, we now present 16 seconds of bouncing breasts.

The great Panzo 8000 has fallen...has fallen.

See, what happened is that I cleaned it. I think I damaged the CPU while removing the heatsink so that I could scrub it with a mixture of bleach, water and Carzanian chipmunk saliva (bought from a peddler in Zantoka and known for its disinfectant properties - the saliva, not the peddler)

The thermal paste that is slathered betwixt the CPU and the heatsink had baked to a fine, crackly grey.

But what poreceeded this whole cleaning was that the box shut itself off twice so it may just be that I didn't do any real damage on my own. Perhaps it was going to die soon anyway and just decided that it wanted to go while its heatsink was covered with Carzanian chipmunk saliva.

At any rate, there won't be any pretty pictures or othe rstuffs happening here or on the boards until I get the Panzo 8000 back up and running. Currently I'm down at the library surrounded by several urine-soaked bums. Yes, the City Council is here...

Okay. My thinking concerning last night's computer crash turned out to to be as accurate as Bush's grasp of war.

I cleaned off the CPU and the heatsink and added a bit of Arctic Silver thermal stuff to the CPU and clamped 'er all back together. I'm coming to you live and in color from the Panzo 8000!

I learned a valuable lesson, though: spend a steady amount of money on upgrades to your computer because dumping it all out at once is frigging painful.

Had I not been able to pull the Panzo 8000 from the fiery clutches of the Computer Devil, I was looking at spending at least $350 on new parts. In the last three years since I assembled the Panzo 8000, the technology ocean has sea-changed.

While memory is cheap and storage is cheap, CPUs and motherboards are more expensive. I've seen a Gig of 800 MHz PC6400 RAM selling for $30. A new board, though, would have been $180.

SATA 3.0 is now the flavor of the moment for storage transfer protocals - my three IDE drives would have required adapters to run on any of the new boards I was looking at. Even my newish SATA drive is only SATA1.5 and while it would have been backward-compatible with the SATA3.0 headers on the new boards, it would have run slower.

So now I have to buy at least a 250GB SATA3.0 drive and an enclosure with a USB interface so that I can transfer my three hard drives' content to a drive that I'll be able to use when the next crash comes. 'Cause if the Panzo 8000 goes belly-up again, I'm not reviving it...

So after saving the Panzo 8000 with deft thought and alacrity, I got a virus.

The damn thing shut down my anti-virus and deleted my damn firewall. It also deleted Spybot Search and Destroy. It then changed a bunch of system files and Windoze had to load the originals which, I shall soon find, means that lots of stuff wont work because those files contained the up-to-date info needed to run them.

Thank God for this old Dell lappy. It's my only connection to online pr0n.

So this is a tough one. Not only did it delete the executable files for Avast anti virus, Zone Alarm Pro and Spybot, but it is somehow deleting them at each reboot after I re-install the programs!

I'm at Kapersky.com right now, using the online virus scan. I downloaded and ran the Microsnot Malicious Software tool thingie and it found a proxy program that was feeding me spyware. It killed that so the scan is going rather quicker than when the malware lived.

It just returned no viruses but a lot of locked files that it skipped but that don't sound nice to me. Hmmmm. Shoulda stayed in school...

Well, after nearly four hours of searching, reading and running strange programs, I think I've rid myself of that nasty virus. I was able to install Spybot, Avast and ZoneAlarm again and have all three running.

My registry is newly cleaned and everything is reporting no problems.

Thanks, Aunt Edna, for all of the good juju.

Now if I could just reach the necks of those asshole virus writers...