February has proven to be a slow month in Heyville. The reason I have not been updating very often, aside from not having any funny ideas or anything interesting to say, is that Blogger is behaving as if it were – and I shall phrase this as delicately as possible – a fart turd. Earlier today when I was at work it took this page like five minutes to load on an ethernet connection. Now, I’m no T1-routin’ cable-splicin’ switch-flippin’ system-configurin’ network jockey, but that seems a bit off.

I’ve mulled over changing the design of my site a bit. I think that perhaps, after over a year, the wooden frames and goofy blue backgrounds have been played out. The caveat is that I would need to come up with something better. I can come up with plenty of different designs, but there’s that qualitative judgement issue that trips me up. The problem is, they’re all equally brilliant. I still have that scissors-and-comb motif I’ve been wanting to implement, but now that I am no longer in barber college, it is perhaps no longer appropriate. The other problem is that solid, flat colors don’t naturally occur to me while I design. I see them all over the web, and they look great, but they never seem to come up on my own site. If it doesn’t go 3-D, it ain’t me. If it don’t got a BG IMG SRC, it ain’t me. If no contact paper patterns thar be, it ain’t me.

Had to go pirate for that last one. Anyway, leave some comments below and tell me if I’m wasting my time thinking about this garbage.

Speaking of New Orleans, Fat Tuesday (“Mardi Gras“) is now well underway. For this yearly festival, thousands upon zillions of wanna-be revellers trek down to the Big Easy and choke up the streets with cheer and drunkenness and immorality and litter. Some will have an experience they will never forget. Others will have an experience they will never remember. Others still will have had to work that night and will have missed it. And a few will have engaged in the two most intimate encounters one can have with a comely stranger: one, making love to her in a dark hotel room while the crowd pulses outside, sirens blaring as police track down ne’er-do-wells, bottles flying, hitting the window, almost breaking it, but you don’t even notice, no, because the Louisana heat has your lithe bodies dripping with sweat and sliding against each other and sticking to the light blue linen sheets, and soon, in rhythm with the wild dance music you can hear from outside the window as loudly as it would sound inside, the two of you writhe spastically and release your passion in short bursts of mutual sexual satisfaction leading to an explosion of full-fledged erotic nirvana; as you relax, bodies grow cooler, sweat drenched sheets become a cocoon in which you and this woman, whose name you have not even been pronouncing correctly, will slumber as though mated, comatose for life; and two – during or after the previous – projectile vomiting on her.

But no matter which category your experiences fall into, you can rest assured that one sure thing can be said about this year’s Mardi Gras: a new edition of Girls Gone Wild! will be out soon. Not to mention Girls Gone Crazy!, Girls Gone Insane!, Girls Gone Bananas!, and, my personal favorite, Girls Gone Nucking Futs!

Can I get a “hell yeah”?

I received a parking ticket this morning. I aim to contest it, as the block I was parked on had no signs anywhere indicating any sort of restrictions, at least on my side of the street. The man is trying to make a monkey out of me, but I won’t take the banana. Dig?

I saw a report on the news this morning about a woman filing a complaint against a police officer. It seems that the officer broke into her apartment during some sort of drug bust, and caught red-handed, she asked if there was anything she could do to save herself jail time. He told her she could do him a favor; she thought he meant rat on a supplier. Instead, he took her upstairs and requested she perform a sexual act on him. Afterward, she managed to save trace amounts of his bodily fluids, which she then brought forth as evidence in her complaint. Now, I don’t condone at all law enforcement abusing their power for sexual favors, and I would like to see this bastard prosecuted. But, of course, this serious and not at all funny story reminds me of a whimsical story handed down to me one drunken evening on the Rue de Faible, by an elderly gentleman who insisted he was my “Great-Aunt Gene”. Allow me to set the scene: a secluded country interstate. And the players: a hapless yet attractive reckless female driver, and a police officer, of the corrupt variety.

And so the story goes:

Cop: License and registration please, ma’am.

Woman: How fast was I going, officer?

Cop: You were going ninety miles per hour in the thirty mile an hour zone.

Woman: That’s very fast.

Cop: Isn’t it?

Woman: I didn’t see any signs posted.

Cop: You ran them all over.

Woman: No.

Cop: I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you a ticket.

Woman: Please, officer, it’s my first offense.

Cop: Says here it’s your thirtieth offense this year.

Woman: But it’s my first this month.

Cop: [writes out ticket]

Woman: How much is the ticket for?

Cop: Seven thousand dollars.

Woman: You’re kidding.

Cop: Wish I were. The Chicago Department of Revenue needs that money to build private orphanages for the children of deceased unwed teenaged mother millionaires.

Woman: Is there any way I can get out of the ticket?

Cop: Ordinarily, no. But since I am a police officer of the corrupt variety, that provides us several options. First, you can give the money directly to me.

Woman: I don’t have my checkbook.

Cop: Just as well, as I’d prefer cash. Second, I could make you strip down to your underwear and walk along the yellow line in the middle of the road, while I follow closely in my patrol car and yell humiliating things through the loudspeaker.

Woman: I saw that one on Dateline.

Cop: Me too. That’s where I got the idea.

Woman: What else?

Cop: Third, you could perform a sexual act on me.

Woman: Which sexual act?

Cop: Ladies’ choice.

Woman: How about a kiss?

Cop: No.

Woman: Anything else?

Cop: Fourth, you could just pay the ticket.

Woman: Seven thousand dollars… I don’t know…

Cop: Seven thousand dollars, thirty dollars, five hundred dollars, whatever.

Woman: I can’t afford it. I have children to feed. I’ll do option number three.

Cop: You did hear me rule out the kiss, right?

Woman: What about a French kiss?

Cop: Your two choices are this [makes obscene gesture with hands] or this [makes obscene gesture with hands and face].

Woman: What about this [makes obscene gesture with hands and nose]?

Cop: Honestly, lady! I do have some standards.

Woman: Fine then. I’ll do the second one.

Cop: Fine. Before we begin I would like to ask you to be courteous and please wait 24 hours after this incident before you report my criminal behavior to my superiors. Can you do that?

Woman: I suppose.

Cop: Also, I must ask that you refrain from collecting any bodily fluids as evidence, as that would void our agreement and the ticket would be issued. Do you agree to that?

Woman: Fine.

Cop: Can you sign this affadavit to that effect?

Woman: [signs affadavit]

Cop: Hooray! Evil wins the day!

Am I being insensitive?

Dale Earnhardt died in a crash today, during the Daytona 500. I am not a racing fan, but I will mourn. Largely because the only other racer whose name I know is Jeff Gordon, who, in the commercials, dips Fritos into chili and calls it dinner. So, the racing world has truly lost a class act. They say that most fatal accidents occur within five miles of the home. However, they do not say that about race car drivers. That would be stupid. Unless said driver raced exclusively within five miles of his home. There would be a certain bittersweet irony if Earnhardt had died in a run-of-the-mill traffic accident, but no — he died as he lived: going around in circles at heart-stopping speeds.*

I just thought of the Unser family. But weren’t they a singing group in the seventies? I think I have some of their stuff on vinyl. Scratched, but listenable. You buy?

* Edit: Technically, he died while being smashed between a wall and another car at 200 MPH. He probably did not live that way.

Technical crap
I’ve been experimenting lately. Such experiments have included changing the date banner, adding the feedback forms, and creating a “headline” class, which I have used above. It may be a silly thing. I do not know. Is it?

My archives seem to have disappeared. I am less than happy about this development. In other words, it is poopy. I am hoping to restore them toot-sweet.

The time just flies by, doesn’t it?

At this moment, this page looks great in Internet Explorer. It looks lousy in Netscape. Bear with me while I work this out.

Edit: Well, this page looks okay in Netscape 6. So, download that, ya piker. Also, Happy Valentine’s Day. Or some such shit.

Two links for your enjoyment while I avoid adding real content.

One:
There is yet another person in the world with whom I share faint traces of genetic material. Meet Tucker at chrisandjane.com.

Two:
This, whatever this is. Turn down the sound if your boss is in the next room. If you’re the boss, make all your employees listen. I also recommend making your browser window full-screen.

I feel dirty somehow.

While I was driving home tonight, I wrote three columns in my head. That was stupid. What a waste of time! My head does not have an internet connection. Those are a few years off, anyway. So anyway, parked car, patch of ice, yadda yadda yadda, three columns on the pavement. Hmm.

I did my laundry and took out the trash today. For me, this is newsworthy. I am somewhat slovenly. Not that it’s any of your business. Have you ever noticed that if you put your laundry in the trash, it becomes trash, but if you put your trash in the laundry, it does not become laundry?

Valuable life lessons, here at the Lucubus.

I updated the “Bitch” section of my Shannen Doherty pseudo-fan site. It will probably be the last update. I do not care one whit about Shannen Doherty – no offense if you’re reading, darling – any more than I do any celebrity on whom I formerly had a crush due to her strong resemblance to an ex-girlfriend and/or tendency to be naked. I want to ditch the page. I want to erase it. I want to eliminate it. It is a thorn in my side, a black mark on an otherwise sparkling career, and it really turns the chicks away in droves. It gets my site hits, I suppose, but do I really want hits from various Europeans too strung out on legalized marijuana and federal health coverage to notice that Shannen Doherty (hi, sweetheart) is not affiliated with the site? I don’t think so. Unless I can wring some money out of them.