Category: Uncategorized

This is kind of weird – this morning in my email I had 20 notifications of all these different sites linking to an old entry of mine from 2006 where my car stereo was stolen. It’s a story about car stereo thefts going down and they’re all using the picture of my broken car window and linking to my site for credit. Nice of them to give me credit for it. (To read the story, look at the comments on the original entry.) Wonder if actual newspapers will end up using my picture.

Saturday I was setting up 2 computers with some broadcasting software and Skype so I could take calls. (I’m doing a new show, more on that later.) So I was testing it all out and it seemed to be working perfectly and I could hear it on the internet stream several seconds later. To make sure I had the levels all set right, I decided to make some test calls. Whenever I make test calls for anything, I always default to calling Domino’s Pizza in East Alton, IL. It’s the one John and I pranked a lot as kids and their number is easy to remember. So I called them up and asked a bunch of nonsense questions, as usual, and we hung up.

Then I had more to test so I needed to call another number. I dialed a familiar exchange and then a random 4 digits afterwards and immediately realized that those 4 digits weren’t exactly random. They belonged to a childhood nemesis of mine named Darin Abernathy. This is a guy I haven’t thought of for about 20 years now, but somehow I’m suddenly calling him up and talking to his mom. I have no idea how his number suddenly popped into my head.

So I start in with lots of nonsense to Darin’s mom, asking her meaningless questions like, “So, how’s your dog?” “Uh, we don’t have a dog.” And I needed to test the music function of this software I’m using so I said to her, “Hey, listen to this really awesome song!” and I start playing Roses by Outkast. You know, the piano part. She tells me it’s very nice and I ask her if she was able to hear it okay. It wasn’t too loud or distorted was it? She says no, it sounded fine to her. Then she resumes asking me who I am. I’m Dave.

I don’t know why I didn’t like Darin Abernathy as a kid. He was about 2 years older than me. I know me and John Sever both had something against him. I’m not sure if I brought John into it or he brought me into it or if John was even that much a part of it. I’m not sure if Darin actually did something to warrant my dislike for him or if it was just completely random. I do remember that he seemed to really hate me, but it’s probably because of whatever irritating things I was doing to him. It’s just been so long that I don’t remember. Maybe John will know.

I do remember a few specific things that I did to Darin and his friend though. They would play tennis behind our garage and I would hang out in the garage making insane noises inside. Crashing into things, yelling, starting up the lawnmower, setting off fireworks, etc. Just whatever I could do to irritate them. And it worked too. They would bang on the garage wall at me and yell back. I wasn’t yelling at them though. I was just performing theatrics in the privacy of my own garage. How dare they listen in on me!

I had this plan to mount a big speaker at the peak of the roof inside the garage and run a wire for it underground so that I could annoy them even when it wasn’t possible to go outside and bother them in person. I was dedicated! I even went as far as running the wire along the fence and hiding it with leaves, but I think I ran short of wire or something because I never completely.

Something I did often in the 80’s was hang out on our patio’s swing. You know, a bench hanging from chains? And from this swing I had a perfect view of Darin’s front porch on the next block over, which him and his friends seemed to sit around on a lot. So when we got our first cordless phone I discovered the hilarity of outdoor prank calling by calling his phone number whenever they were outside, just to see them get up and go inside to answer it. I’d hang up before they got in the door, they’d come back out, sit down, then it repeats. At the time it seemed so innovative, having a remote means of dialing the phone from outdoors. Cordless phones were amazing!

Eventually they must have noticed me on the swing talking on the cordless phone in completely unrelated phone calls. And also noticed that I was always there when their phone was mysteriously ringing, because they started yelling at me (from a block away) whenever I called them. I forget exactly what they were yelling.

This tormenting of Darin continued until at least when I was 16 or 17 years old, because I remember using the phone line in my room (which I had installed when I was 16, after I had a job to pay for things like that) to call the Alton Telegraph and set up a fake newspaper ad, listing Darin’s home for rent. This is back in the day when newspapers would set up an ad before getting paid for it. I gave them my own telephone number so that people could call me about the house, I think with the intentions of recording the phone calls and saying funny things to the callers. But then I started telling people to come and look at the house and if we weren’t home to just walk around the house looking in the windows to see what it looks like inside. I made it a really awesome renting deal so there were lots of calls.

I guess when I left home and went to Texas I completely forgot about him. Weird that I dialed his number like that, after all these years. And even after I was so weird at his mom the other day, she still kept talking to me so I asked if Darin was around. I expected her to say, “Oh no, he hasn’t lived here for 15 years!” but instead she told me he was out for the day and then she gave me his cell phone number. I called it for another test of my system, but only got his voicemail. I babbled to his voicemail for awhile and played Roses in its entirety, then talked a little while longer, mostly about issues I was having with software. His voicemail seems to have unlimited recording capacity. I should give him a call later and apologize to him! I bet he’d love that.

Last week I was using streetview to cruise through Galveston, admiring all the weird houses that I’ve always loved about that place. And I decided to travel the entire length of Avenue M to find some old house that I really wanted to move into back when I first moved there. At the time I was living on the couch of some Mexican guy named Edwin, who spoke no English at all, that I’d met through my job as a painter. It wasn’t a bad place, but I really needed my own room so he’d stop waking me up each morning, singing along with Mexican MTV.

By this time I’ve met a few people who agree to be roommates with me, so I’m spending a lot of time looking at places to live since I seem to have the most free time. I find this one place on Avenue M which is 4 or 5 bedrooms for just $600/month. I go to the office that own it and they give me a key to it and tell me to go look at it by myself. How trusting! The first thing I noticed about it is that the window on the door is broken and the door is already unlocked. It’s an awesome place, though. Huge rooms, really old decor, the floors are all going up/downhill and creek a lot, some of the rooms have these giant wooden doors that slide into the walls instead of opening, there’s a balcony, lots of character and you get the feeling that a few people have been murdered there before. Later I take Tammy to see it and she agrees that it’s awful, but awesome. I take pictures and show the other guy who’d be living with us and his flamboyant response is, “You want to live on Avenue M? M stands for murder!”

For some reason, I decide that I really want to go see that house again in the middle of the night. The front door is broken so I know I can get in. And even though I own a flash light, I decide that the best way to explore this house once more is by candlelight. What better way to explore a creepy old house in the middle of the night, right? I park a few blocks away and walk up to the house, reach in the broken window and turn the doorknob. Once inside, I light my candle and start leisurely wandering around, exploring each room on the first floor and discovering a new door in the kitchen that leads to a cellar. I wasn’t brave enough to go down there. I eventually begin walking up the open staircase, long candlestick in hand, and as I get to the top steps I see some kind of movement down the hall.

I stop, trying to see what it is. I move my hand that’s cupped around the flame to the other side, trying to shine light in that direction and I see a face peering from the bedroom door at the end of the hall. Holy crap! Neither of us say a word to each other and I slowly back down the stairs and then quickly leave the house. I bet this squatter was a lot more freaked out than I was, hearing someone creaking around downstairs and then coming up the stairs with a candle. Who uses candles???

Here’s my old picture of the house and then the Streetview of it:

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I don’t know why, but I was using black and white film during my first few months living in Galveston. It was a brown and yellow house, but appears to be much more colorful today. We didn’t end up getting that house because we found a tiny one at 5517 Ave K instead, for just $300 per month. Finding that house on Streetview made me think it might be fun to find all the other places I’ve lived on Streetview. So I did. Well, most of them. I dumped out my box of old letters, postcards, Christmas cards, etc and noted the addresses that people wrote me at.

I found most of my old addresses this way. I have no idea what our address was on Avenue K, since I never got mail there. I also don’t know Edwin’s address or the addresses to the other houses in Galveston that I lived at. There was 3428 Cove View Blvd in Galveston, though.

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Brad Thompson lived there and I stayed with him for a night or two and he got me the painting job. I didn’t get any letters there, but I found a pawn slip from 8/3/92 and a seat belt warning from 4/12/92 with that address on it. I ended up using his address to get my Texas drivers license when I moved there, so that address ended up being on a lot of paperwork over the next year.

Another address I found on an old ticket from the cops (10-10-91) was 1108 Ave O, Galveston, TX. Streetview says that doesn’t exist, though, so I guess I lied to the officer. I couldn’t make out what the ticket was for, but I guess that would have been shortly after I’d just moved to Galveston. I mostly got all my mail at PO Box 821, which was the big post office in Galveston on 25th Street. (Gina wrote me a letter at that address.)

My next move was to Myrtle Beach, SC, but “Myrtle Beach” didn’t sound awesome enough for my new P.O. Box, so I got a box 10 miles away from where I lived and worked, which was PO Box 15993, Surfside Beach, SC 29587. Myrtle Beach is another place where I have no idea what my address was. It was a few blocks from the beach and I shared it with a varying number of other guys for the summer.

A library card from 1992 says I lived at 513 Van Buren in Normal, IL, but I guess that address isn’t exactly right since Streetview can’t find it. It was on the ISU campus in the Van Buren building, room #513 where me and Sylvia lived with Chris Tomkinson for a month or two. Soon after that, Sylvia and I moved to Los Angeles where we lived with Kristine on Romaine and Vine in Hollywood for awhile. I searched Romaine and couldn’t recognize our old place, but here’s a Streetview of the street.

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We were in there someplace. We also lived on Jumilla Ave in Canoga Park, CA, but that’s another one where I don’t have the exact address and I don’t remember what the house looked like. It’s only a block long, though.

A letter from Shonna shows that we lived at 1021 Broadway #4 in Highland, IL, but Highland hasn’t gotten a visit from the Streetview gods yet so there’s only an aerial view.

Next was Indianapolis, living alone in various places. A lot of the time I was homeless on the IUPUI campus, but there was a really cool giant house I lived in for awhile, though I have no idea what its address was. I lived on the 3rd floor with the mice and the roaches. I also spent a lot of time living at the Skyline Motel at 6617 E Washington Street:

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My permanent address here was PO Box 441403, Indianapolis, IN 46244, which I found on a letter to me from Kristine. The letter was addressed to Alex Carbon, the name I was living and working under during my entire time in Indianapolis. (On the lam from Madison County authorities.)

From Indiana, I retired to the small community of Celina, Ohio, where I lived at 129 1/2 W Fayette where I received a letter from Martini.

Ohio was next. I lived in an area of Cincinnati called St. Johns in a tiny apartment above some businesses. A collections letter from MCI Telecommunications tells me that the address was 6004 Vine Street, Apt. #3C, Cincinnati, Ohio, and that I owe them $216.75 OR ELSE!

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I used to walk down the street to use the pay phone that was several blocks away, in front of a church. There was a pay phone closer to me, but it wasn’t in front of a church with a giant rotary dial on the front of the building.

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I spent some time living with Colleen on 161st and SE Stark in Portland:

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I also lived at the Jack London Hotel which some website claims is at 415 SW Alder St in downtown Portland. Doesn’t look familiar to me, though. Probably cause they appear to have cleaned that area up.

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I lived in that house, which was at 5225 NE Wyngat in Portland, shown by a letter addressed to my new name Alex Kelley. It was a really nice house where I had 3 roommates. The lady who owned the place stupidly left all of her stuff there and the 19-year-old girl who rented one of the rooms stole a ton of it while she lived there. Her and her friends went through the garage and all the closets, taking everything that they wanted. Luckily she stayed out of my room when I was gone since there was no lock on my door.

I had post office boxes all over Portland too, for mine and Colleen’s various mail order scams and credit card fraud. There was the PO box at 950 Lloyd Center #62, but the one we used the most was 2000 N East 42nd, Suite 128, which was in the Hollywood area of Portland.

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I had at least 4 different post office boxes while in Portland for all our crazy scams. I had an apartment with a girl named Lisa too, but then she bailed out on it after we’d already paid the first month’s rent because she couldn’t handle a few roaches living with us.

I used the address 213 Congress #314 in Austin, TX 78701 with mail being addressed to me in the names Chris Tomkinson and Alex Kelly. I lived in a very strange place in Austin which was underneath a skating rink, but don’t remember the address or the area it was in.

Next is 810 Morgan #4 in Corpus Christi, Texas:

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This place featured the live entertainment of the guy next door screaming at and beating his wife often!

A letter from Kristine shows me next living at 825 Ermine Avenue SE in Albany, Oregon. I love how she always went with the flow of writing to whatever name I happened to be using at the time. It was Alex Carter at this address.

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Colleen and I next lived at 1013 Kingswood Court in Celina, Ohio, but there is no Streetview there.

1.5 years later we moved to Illinois, where we immediately set up P.O. Box 483 in East Alton, IL before moving to 3504 Meridocia Street in Alton, IL for the next 7 or 8 years. (Not much Streetview in Alton yet.)

Below is 805 Elm Street SW in Albany, Oregon:

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I recently spent a full 2 years living there, but moved just last year. It was cool having my front door open onto a city sidewalk, but not so cool having people walk by as they talked loudly at all hours of the night.

Only the back side of my newest domicile is on Streetview, but it’s probably best not to post it so all you weirdos don’t start sending me pizzas and taxis.

I woke up at 3:15am to my printer doing some kind of crazy-loud reset thing, a car alarm sounding outside for 5 minutes, and a clock blinking 12:00AM. I got up and noticed that all the clocks were blinking, so I had to reset mine and get up at 6am to get Emily up for school, since her alarm wouldn’t be going off. That’s early.

The cable guys sure like to eye all the weird stuff in my room when they come to repair things. My phone keeps going out so I’ve had two of them over in the past month. I’m surprised they never comment on the abundance of phone stuff everywhere.

Back in 2000, I was at my parents house to pick something up and my parents had a couple of cable guys in the house installing high-speed internet for them. I’d just had it put in my house the previous month. After I left, one of them asked my dad, “He lives over on Meridocia, doesn’t he? I remember he had a basement with all this STUFF in it.” Nice to know my weird decor is worth remembering. I think.

After reading the announcement on about a dozen blogs today that Google’s Picasa photo sharing thing released a Mac version today, I finally ended up watching a video of the things it could do and I was impressed enough with it to download the PC version to give it a try. I’ve been a Flickr user for the past couple of years, but this looks nice. Even if I don’t use Picasa’s online service, this is a nice way of organizing photos and videos.

While scrolling through old pictures, I found this one from 2004:

I’d forgotten about all the weird messages I left behind walls and under floors during all my renovating at the old house. I wonder if anyone will ever uncover this one. I remember another one that I did (but I couldn’t find the picture of) where I wrote on the subfloor something like, “Underneath you’ll find the 3rd $5,000 stash. Only 3 more clues until you find the $500,000 prize. Here is your next clue.” and then I wrote a bunch of gibberish underneath it. I know it’s unlikely that anyone will ever fall for it, but there’s always a chance that 20 years from now someone will find that and begin tearing up the house, looking for hidden treasure.

Today I was playing around with the themes and settings on notla.com and I noticed that I could insert code to give everyone an avatar next to their comment. To personalize your avatar, all you have to do is create an account on Gravatar.com or wordpress.com and then use that same email address when you post comments on my posts. This also works on any other blog that uses WordPress, which is most of them. I set it up so that anyone without a Gravatar or WordPress account automatically gets an avatar of a random cartoon monster. Pretty neat. I’m going to set this up on phonelosers.org and signhacker.com too.

For some reason, this past April, I decided to sign up for a Twitter account. Probably because I’m addicted to social networking sites since I spend more time on the internet than I do in real life. The idea of micro-blogging seems lame to me, but I still do it anyway. Enough to have made 91 Tweets in 2008.

I like following other people on Twitter too, even though I prefer actual blogging more. I’m currently following 35 people and I have 68 people following me. I tried getting my updates via cell phone, but that just annoyed me nonstop all day. So now I use a plugin for Outlook called OutTwit, which delivers all my Twitter messages to a folder in Outlook. I use Outlook all day, so it’s really convenient for me.

Also, Twitter was really cool for Defcon. During that weekend I had tweets delivered to my cell phone and it made keeping up with everyone else at the convention really easy. I’ll probably use it the same way during Shmoocon next month. Anyway, the point of all this is so I can post all my Twitter messages from 2008. Here they all are:

@Barely Do you really think people will still be dumb enough to own Zunes in 2012? about 1 hour ago from OutTwit in reply to Barely
@thelinear i’m too lazy to log in/out of twitter accounts about 17 hours ago from OutTwit in reply to thelinear
Some wireless phone guy wants to pay me to take down an old article I have about him on my website. How tempting 11:06 PM Dec 29th, 2008 from web
Cannot stop watching 9/11 footage on YouTube 10:35 AM Dec 29th, 2008 from OutTwit
@deltapark I lost over 100lbs while I was in prison, running from the other prisoners. You should definitely talk about that. 3:31 PM Dec 28th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to deltapark
@playingleader people say that to me ALL THE TIME! What does it mean?? 5:59 PM Dec 26th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to playingleader
@“>matthewnet N 44° 38.502 W 123° 05.338 8:59 PM Dec 20th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to matthewnet
@stromcarlson They call them “sandwich artists” at Subway, don’t they? 7:58 PM Dec 20th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to stromcarlson
Stupid gym was closed “due to weather.” It’s not even below freezing tonight and there is NO snow or ice on the roads. 8:57 PM Dec 19th, 2008 from web
@thelinear everything works perfectly for me, retard 6:02 PM Dec 19th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to thelinear
@matthewnet CACTUUUSSS. 8:13 PM Dec 17th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to matthewnet
I hate admitting that I’m excited for a TV show, but OMG JUST 10 MINUTES TIL SARAH CONNOR! 7:49 PM Dec 15th, 2008 from OutTwit
My server has survived an ebaumsworld.com linking for the past week. The busiest day was 45,000 hits. No crashes. My new server rules. 2:36 PM Dec 11th, 2008 from web
A girl gave Payton her online ID today – etched into an orange peel with a fork. Which he kept in his pocket. 3:42 PM Dec 9th, 2008 from web
@stromcarlson YAY I’M INTERESTING. 2:12 PM Dec 9th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to stromcarlson
@matthewnet boxes. They have a small trailer attached to their bike. 6:56 PM Dec 8th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to matthewnet
I keep seeing UPS drivers ON BIKES delivering things on my street. Weird, but cool. 6:35 PM Dec 8th, 2008 from OutTwit
@thelinear you’ll be hearing from my attorney again, linear! 9:29 PM Dec 4th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to thelinear
@playingleader agreed! 11:21 AM Dec 3rd, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to playingleader
Taking a break from making PLA Radio 21 to go eat and get a damn haircut. 3:53 PM Nov 30th, 2008 from web

I saw John Mark Karr at the mall today. He’s a janitor there. I should get a picture so you’ll all believe me. 8:33 PM Nov 29th, 2008 from web
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” -Oscar Wilde… 8:51 AM Nov 28th, 2008 from web
Just finished up some more bike geocaching. Found 4 out of 4. 3:26 PM Nov 27th, 2008 from web
@matthewnet Nah, haven’t started yet. Will in a few hours probably. 12:42 PM Nov 27th, 2008 from web in reply to matthewnet
Just finished Geocache biking all over town. Did 8 total – found 4 and failed at 4. I think this was my first time Geocaching alone. 5:51 PM Nov 26th, 2008 from web
@matthewnet Am I in any way responsible for that? 1:49 PM Nov 26th, 2008 from web in reply to matthewnet
@deltapark Always happy to help and/or frighten! 11:33 AM Nov 26th, 2008 from web in reply to deltapark
Why do podcasters think that doing shows in noisy restaurants is an awesome idea? There’s way too much of this lately. 11:57 AM Nov 24th, 2008 from web
@playingleader Happy birthday, Rogue! 10:23 PM Nov 18th, 2008 from web in reply to playingleader
What good is multitouch REALLY? Moving pictures around on a screen? BFD. 9:20 PM Nov 18th, 2008 from web
Bad timing belt in my car AND I locked my keys in the car. I win the prize! Total value: $ 382! 3:07 PM Nov 17th, 2008 from txt
On the train. Girl in front of me’s purfume is KILLING ME. 2:04 PM Nov 16th, 2008 from txt
@thelinear Remeber, you sound 20 lbs heavier on the radio! 3:32 PM Nov 10th, 2008 from OutTwit in reply to thelinear
I give a different name every day at the deli. Today the girl guessed my name (Mark) and was surprised when I told her she was right. 2:05 PM Oct 20th, 2008 from txt
Homeless guy: Hey bud, what are you doing? Me: Avoiding eye contact with YOU! 7:34 PM Oct 18th, 2008 from digsby
Homeless guy: Hey bud, what are you doing? 7:33 PM Oct 18th, 2008 from digsby
@joethepeacock sorry to hear about your truck, Joe. That’s gotta suck. 12:44 PM Oct 14th, 2008 from web in reply to joethepeacock
@matthewnet definitely get a remote control keychain from www.tvbgone.com 9:59 AM Oct 14th, 2008 from digsby in reply to matthewnet
@playingleader You got a crackberry now? Welcome to the club! I’ll teach you the secret handshake soon. 9:03 PM Oct 13th, 2008 from digsby in reply to playingleader
“What’s your favorite color?” “Blue.” “Okay, good, I’m not in another dimension.” My kids have weird conversations. 9:16 PM Oct 12th, 2008 from digsby

@hevnsnt Weird, I just listened to that episode of Security Justice about an hour ago. DC is awesome. 4:16 PM Oct 10th, 2008 from digsby in reply to hevnsnt
Can’t. Stop. Eating. Pez. Damn Halloween for making them so available. 5:24 PM Oct 7th, 2008 from digsby
@Barely I just use my Dremel to file mine down occasionally. Saves money. 12:37 PM Oct 7th, 2008 from digsby in reply to Barely
@hevnsnt That’s the best place to get them, SO much cheaper there! 11:34 AM Oct 6th, 2008 from digsby in reply to hevnsnt
@playingleader Nah, please don’t get that idea. It was only shots. 12:23 PM Oct 5th, 2008 from web in reply to playingleader
@playingleader One that I’m afraid I can’t share. :) 9:30 AM Oct 5th, 2008 from web in reply to playingleader
Apparently I did shots with a 14yearold girl tonight 11:11 PM Oct 4th, 2008 from txt
We’ve had 25 percent of the menu at the bar so far. 9:41 PM Oct 4th, 2008 from txt
@playingleader I gave you a new PLA Radio this week. What else do you want?? 10:32 AM Oct 3rd, 2008 from digsby in reply to playingleader
I ate 18 packs of Pez. I love Pez. Except for raspberry. But I still eat them anyway, because they’re PEZ. http://www.signhacker.com 8:33 PM Sep 25th, 2008 from web
My penis is so long that if you layed it out on the keyboard it would go from A to Z! 10:28 AM Sep 22nd, 2008 from web
I’ve been sitting on the couch for 14 hours now. I rock! 9:42 PM Sep 21st, 2008 from digsby
I was having an insult battle with my son and he retorted “Well, you’re a corporate terrorist!” TV is such a bad influence. 10:58 AM Sep 20th, 2008 from digsby
I hate when my mouth is so numb from drinking a 44oz Slurpee that it makes me sound retarded on the phone. 12:26 PM Sep 17th, 2008 from digsby
Important Tip: Even though Waynes World was hilarious in 1992, it’s incredibly lame by today’s standards. 10:01 AM Sep 17th, 2008 from digsby
I finally beat “The 100” on Desktop Tower Defense. Life is complete. Productivity is imminent. 11:39 AM Sep 14th, 2008 from web
@playingleader Did the cactus hatch? 7:33 AM Sep 10th, 2008 from digsby in reply to playingleader
Nobody told me there was a cover charge to 2600 tonight. I 0wned tr0n tonight. Had pizza and beer. On a train back now. 8:41 PM Sep 5th, 2008 from txt
About to throw 50 superballs off the 4th story balcony 3:38 PM Aug 31st, 2008 from txt
Just got my picture taken with mc frontalot. 2:39 PM Aug 30th, 2008 from txt

@notmurd0c I’m calling the movie theater to have you paged. 10:53 AM Aug 30th, 2008 from txt
At the penny arcade expo, waiting in line forever for a slice of pizza. 5:16 PM Aug 29th, 2008 from txt
@matthewnet Moths + Movie Theater = ?? I should have the answer by this evening. 10:00 AM Aug 25th, 2008 from web in reply to matthewnet
I’m in Idaho. I rode lots of roller coasters yesterday. Today, mischief. 9:30 AM Aug 24th, 2008 from web
@matthewnet Too late, I’m gone from there. I’ll bring it next time. 12:57 PM Aug 20th, 2008 from digsby in reply to matthewnet
I’ve been sitting in an automotive shop for an hour now, listening to Christian rock. HE REIGNS! HE REIGNS! Make it stop. 8:59 AM Aug 20th, 2008 from txt
Thunder and lightning tonight. This is rare here. I like it. 10:45 PM Aug 17th, 2008 from digsby
@playingleader HI RTF!!! 6:26 PM Aug 16th, 2008 from digsby in reply to playingleader
@matthewnet I JUST received all my twitter replies from Defcon. I had it set wrong. JUst wanted to let you know I wasn’t ignoring you. 5:49 PM Aug 16th, 2008 from web in reply to matthewnet
http://tinyurl.com/5nfujq I think I need to work on my sales pitch 11:19 AM Aug 15th, 2008 from web
@playingleader I’d like to bid $5 for your job 10:42 AM Aug 15th, 2008 from web in reply to playingleader
Waiting for jason scott’s talk to start. I’m doubting I can sit through 2 hours of it. 2:55 PM Aug 10th, 2008 from txt
Having quite possibly the best breakfast ever at dennys. 10:08 AM Aug 10th, 2008 from txt
So messed up 1:46 AM Aug 10th, 2008 from txt
Drifting between the 303 party and the i-hacked party. Holy shit, I met Grey Frequency. 10:52 PM Aug 9th, 2008 from txt
Watching a live podcast in skybox 208. 8:59 PM Aug 9th, 2008 from txt
At the star trek experience, experiencing the thrill of waiting in line for a really long time. 5:13 PM Aug 9th, 2008 from txt
Watching the urban exploration talk. Probably gonna do the star trek ride around 4 or 5. 3:05 PM Aug 9th, 2008 from txt
I’ve met two people now who like PLA but refuse to tell me who they are. I think they’re ashamed 12:37 PM Aug 9th, 2008 from txt
At peppermill with rijilv and co, waiting for food 8:16 PM Aug 8th, 2008 from txt

Only took me 5 minutes of defcon to bump into eljefe 5:47 PM Aug 8th, 2008 from txt
I got to vegas just in time for a traffic jam. 4:34 PM Aug 8th, 2008 from txt
On a shuttle, headed to the airport. Should be at defcon around 4pm if all goes well 10:33 AM Aug 8th, 2008 from txt
Slurpee. Cakewalk. That’s my evening. 5:24 PM Jul 31st, 2008 from web
It’s pretty bad when I exclaim “Holy crap, gas is cheap!” when I see it’s $3.99/gallon. 9:55 AM Jul 30th, 2008 from web
I just released a new PLA Radio and I can’t find my login to update the PLA/UPL twitter. Dammit. 9:41 AM Jul 24th, 2008 from web
Good morning, starshine! The Earth says hello! 8:37 PM Jun 15th, 2008 from web
DTD,anyone? http://tinyurl.com/5mszqh 9:10 AM Jun 12th, 2008 from web
OMG, I LOVE THESE NEW RED AND YELLOW SHOES THAT I BOUGHT ON SALE AT MACYS!!! 1:37 PM Jun 7th, 2008 from web
Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? Cactus? PLA Radio. 4:55 PM May 28th, 2008 from web
Setting up a new server for all my sites. Soon everything will be slightly faster 8:03 AM Apr 22nd, 2008 from web
I’m having a hard time understanding the appeal behind this Twitter thing 7:05 AM Apr 17th, 2008 from web
I’m twittering. That sounds gay, but I’m doing it anyway. 1:15 PM Apr 4th, 2008 from web

Back in grade school, John and I used to tie strings across the road to annoy motorists and pedestrians. Then that evolved into pretending to have a string across the road by each of us standing on opposite sides of the street and pretending to hold strings. I detail some of our string adventures on my pranks page. What prompted me to write about our string adventures tonight, though, is this YouTube video I watched this evening about two guys who do the invisible rope thing for the purpose of making funny YouTube videos. They’re pretty amusing to watch!

They’ve even got a domain at theinvisiblehope.com and a YouTube page made just for their invisible rope videos. As much as I love these videos, I still want to grab these guys by their big fat heads and scream at them, “I WAS PRETENDING TO HOLD ROPES ACROSS THE ROAD BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN BORN, KID!” I’m such a grouchy old man. It makes me wish even more that we could have had a video camera when we were kids. John and I would have taped so many awesome things.

Speaking of prank videos, I set up a YouTube page just for PLA videos. Now I won’t have my personal videos all mixed in with PLA stuff, even if those two categories are more or less the same. The YouTube is located at www.youtube.com/user/phonelosersofamerica.

Christmas has been a lot of fun! The kids got cool stuff and so did I.

A disturbing trend I’m noticing in my dreams lately – when something unusual happens to me, as often happens in dreams, one of my common thoughts during the dream is starting to be, “This is going to make a great blog entry!” Just like that old xkcd comic, only in dreams. I’ve had this thought at least twice this week now, that I can remember. I need to stop spending so much time on the internet.

The ice last week caused 3 snow days for the kids. So they got 3 days off in addition to Christmas break, which begins today. Oh, I mean “winter break” as the school calls it to avoid offending anyone who doesn’t celebrate Christmas. We had a couple days of good snow where the kids could actually go out and play in it. On Friday we bought some sleds and went sledding at Bryant Park for about an hour in a mixture of melting snow and mud. We were a mess by the time we left. It’s the first time we’ve been sledding since we moved to this state since the snow here sucks.

Really I need to just start driving to the nearby cities with higher elevations so we can go sledding in real snow, instead of complaining about Albany’s lame snow. There are plenty of places I could go for that. Maybe we’ll do that this week.

Friday night I tried going to the gym and they were closed “due to the weather” even though there was was absolutely no snow on the ground or ice on the roads. Lazy jerks. On Saturday we went to see Yes Man and The Day The Earth Stood Still. (Why didn’t the aliens just turn off our power to begin with instead of trying to exterminate us?) Sunday was swimming. Yesterday I downloaded Spore and put it on the kids computer and they played it nonstop. It looks really neat. They attempted to stay up all night playing it, but Payton told me this morning they only made it until 1:30am.