New Year's Resolutions

Meh. That's just a way for people to feel good about themselves and their new goals for a few weeks before they forget. How about actually living your life and improving it all year round? Too tough for you? Need a kick in the ass once a year to remind you that you have to live your life and nobody will make it better for you aside from yourself? Fine, have your silly resolutions. Weaklings.

The best use of time

It’s such a sinful pleasure, and I shouldn’t get as much enjoyment or satisfaction out of it as I do, but… I do. There’s just something so right about texting someone while on the hopper. It makes you feel very productive, and it’s a little bit humorous. I had a conversation about this a few days ago and some people were a little grossed out ,but then it kind of made sense to them. Other people completely agreed off the bat so I’m not the pioneer by a long shot, nor am I the only one.
Look, I’m not talking about after or god forbid, during, wiping. That would indeed be rather nasty. Just simply sitting there texting and “taking care of business”.

P.S. I sent NoOprah a text stating “read my blog in 30 minutes” because I know this will somehow skeeve him out. You know how dainty he is.

Grimace: A study in “What the fuck are you?”

At a holiday party with my cousins on Saturday the McDonald Land characters were brought up. You know, Ronald McDonald, Mayor McCheese, the Hamburglar, and of course; Grimace.
Okay I get what the “creators” were trying to convey with each character. Ronald is fun and playful. You can practically hear marketing saying “Come on down and chow with this fun bastard”. The Hamburglar speaks to a child’s mischievous side. Mayor McCheese appeals to a child’s good nature and need for structure, and/or an authority figure.
Now give all that just what was Grimace? A purple spice drop come to life when struck by lightning in the lab of a mad scientist? And what kind of name is “Grimace” for a children’s character? I mean Oscar the Grouch I get. He’s supposed to be a douche. But whey “Grimace”? It’s a sad and sour face a person makes when unhappy. Why would they want to use that name and slow thinking fool to appeal to kids? Was it to get the special need kids to feel welcome? “Hey there’s one of us there too. I think I’ll put peanut butter in the VCR”.
Whatever it was the world may never know. My cousins and I guessed as to what he may be and the best guess that we could agree on came from my cousin Kate; a gelatinous retard. There you have it folks. Grimace is simply a gelatinous retard. Case closed.

Shit is gonna go down!

Breaking blog news. An update to an earlier report.
http://baconygood.blogspot.com/2008/09/mr-rage.html
So it looks like Mr. Rage is being cut loose today. Shortly even. Yes, the irate ‘Nam vet is being let go from employment at my company sometime today. It’s like a ticking time bomb. This could end very badly. No, it will end very badly. Look, I’ve seen First Blood. I know how this shit is going to go down.

To all my readers, if I end up being taken out in a wild rage or M60 rounds and/or “canned heat” know you all that I love you.

Violet, what are you?

I don't know why but while sitting at work yesterday I was reminded of my first big boy crayon set as a kid. I had graduated from the fat Crayola pack with only 8 colors, to the more pencil shaped 64 color box. I spent a lot of time just pouring over the crayons themselves and reading the names. When I came to violet I was perplexed. Was this blue, or purple? The crayon itself looked blue, but then it also looked kind of purple.
I had to draw something with it. Anything , just to see what it looked like on paper. It looked more purple on paper, but also kind of blue (no, not the Miles Davis album). To this day violet still kind of confuses me. Even after physics class where I was given the definitive scientific answer as to what violet light is, its place in the spectrum, and the truth to whether it was purple or blue. It still messes with me though.

P.S. I hate teal and I'm glad the 90s are over.

Image is everything

Yesterday someone on my team wore a tie to work. Now when you do that everyone in an IT office will ask why you're wearing a tie because we simply don't do that at work. "Are you interviewing?" comes from just about every concerned co-worker, or the ones eager to see you leave as well.

So yesterday the guy that wore the tie was also wearing jeans and sneakers. After he threw down the gauntlet I decided to wear a tie today as well, with a dress shirt and dress pants. You know, really class the joint up. My team thought it was pretty funny, but the HR person I passed in the hall had a look of horror on her face. Because she works in HR I'm imagining that she can't ask if I'm interviewing even as a joke (you know how they can be about rules and such), but you could see that she really wanted to say something and didn't. It made me laugh.
The VP of Engineering stopped by my desk and asked what was with the tie. I told him today was my last day and his facial expression was priceless. A smile that slowly turned to stone face. He seemed very releaved that I was just kidding.

Halloween's here

The prep work is done. Asian Cowgirl and I carved up some pumpkins earlier this week as you can see:



I went and got candy last night so I didn't have to go during the day today to get the dregs of leftover candy. You know, Smarties and the like *blech*. This is my first year in the new apartment where I'll be home to hand out candy so I don't know what kind of traffic we get here. To hedge my bets I got over $30 worth of candy. I do NOT want to be that jerk that runs out early. To offset the cost Pinky was kind enough to slip me $20.



She just loves Halloween. She's a perfect Halloween cat being all black and kids often comment on her when they come to the door. Two years ago two sisters, about 5 and 7, saw her when they came to the door (because Pinky's like a dog and loves visitors so she has to greet all the trick or treaters). One of them said "Oooooh a Halloween kitty!" and I said "Yes I rented her just for tonight so tomorrow I'm going to bring her back to the shelter". The little girls looked like they were about to cry, but their father was cracking up.

Halloween's almost here

That could only mean one thing; an excuse for women to dress as slutty as they wanted to all year and now have an excuse. Have at it sluts!

Cut 'Em Up!

http://blog.peta2.com/2008/10/who_is_cutoutdissectioncom.html

But if they don't teach dissection in class how are the butchers of tomorrow supposed to get their start? The horror...the horror.

-or-

If they don't teach dissection in school kids will learn dissection on the streets.

Meat Case

I know it's not bacon, but DAMM!



http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2377&tag=nl.e539

Have a good weekend

Hey John Deere, Hold Your Horses.

Why is it that no matter where I live, no matter the time of year, if I'm home sick the neighbor is always mowing the damn lawn. Seriously man, it's October and 50 degrees in the afternoon meaning your lawn is already fucked for the year. Don't be a dick.

Public Service Announcement

The video below if from last summer. Short backstory; the toy geeks were nattering about toys that a friend of mine makes, Onell Designs (look at the links to the right). So I did what I did with one of his $8 toys and a Chogokin (vintage japanese diecast toys. Think Godaikin in America) because someone was arguing about the value of the 8$ figure. Seriously, if you're in a hobby where people don't bat an eye at buying $500-$1000 toys just shut the fuck up about the $8 action figure and buy it already.

Fun Fact

I'm currently living in a house with no bacon. The AC and I finished off the last of it Monday night and there simply isn't anymore. Not in the fridge. Not in the freezer. None. This fact isn't so fun after all.

Compensating?

I was at lunch when I saw the construction workers parked way out at the edge of the lot with their cranes parked in the "up" position. What's with that? Is that like showing off or puffing out their chests? Is this Wild Kingdom and it's their way of showing the lesser animals how tough they are so they can eat in peace without having to fend off scavengers? Perhaps they're filming another cell phone commercial showing how many bars they get?

It was probably a bitter David Hasselhoff

I don't understand, can't KITT just lock his own doors or ejector seat the perp?

Mr Rage

The guy in the cubicle next to me tends to swear at his PC a lot. I find it hysterical and sometimes need to leave for a few minutes or I'll crack up. Just now he hit the keys pretty hard and followed up with "you son of a fucking bitch" but delivered with such venom that you'd think it personally wounded him, or slapped his woman.

Update: as of this typing he's dropping more bombs!

I should also add that he's a 'Nam vet. I see a day very soon where he's belly crawling down the rows of cubicles looking for "Charlie".

Camping Out (In)

The Asian Cowgirl and I were supposed to go camping last weekend. Now she’s been and she loves it. I hadn’t been since I was 7, hated it, and decided never to go again. She convinced me to go, we got all the equipment, and finally our schedules allowed it. I was actually pretty jazzed to finally go camping and enjoy it, but due to injury she wasn’t able to go which was really bumming her out.
Being the amazing boyfriend that I am I wanted to do something camping like for her so we fake-camped Friday night. I called her and told her to tell me when she was almost home and not to come in the house. I met her outside and everything in the house and in my car was ready. We hopped in my car and went to Prospect Hill to grill dinner, make smores, and enjoy the view and awesome weather. After that we went home where she saw that I had moved stuff out of the dining room and set up the air mattress*, sleeping bag, and hung the lantern from the chandelier. Now we couldn’t tell ghost stories around the campfire (since the landlord would have been pissed about a fire in the hallway) s owe opted for the next best thing; watching Ghostbusters.
And what camping trip would be complete without a good old bacon and egg breakfast in the morning?

*Cats HATE the battery powered self inflator for the air mattress if you were wondering.

You have no one to blame but yourself.

What's with these people that watch awful movies and TV shows then take the time to write about how awful they were? Some movies are just terrible, and you only have yourself to blame for seeing them. This is why we have movie trailers; so you can get a glimpse of how rad/shitty a movie is before you go and see it. People often complain about the Fantastic Four movie or Daredevil*. You know what retard? They looked utterly horrible which is why I didn't see them. Alternatively I saw the trailers for The Dark Knight which looked great, and you know what? It was the bee’s knees. The system works!
I work in a comic book store and people are always complaining about those movies, well why did they see them? How could you not tell how shite they'd be? Hasn't Hollywood burned you enough that you now know what to stay away from? You only have yourself to blame for seeing them. "It was on cable", "I didn't pay for it", none of these are excuse for watching shitty movies, and certainly no license for you to complain to me about them. I didn’t make them, and I didn’t see them. I was smart enough to avoid them so don’t punish me by talking about them to me. Have you noticed it's always the same people complaining too? They just don’t learn.

*Working in a comic book shop I hear people tear on these often.

Been a long time since I blogged and rolled

Hey all,
I'm not dead I swear. See? I'm typing so I'm not dead. It's been a busy summer. I have a new job, well I have a job after being happily unemployed for 7 months. Things are good.
-Bacon Ace

I can't drive 55 140

My car's speedometer only goes to 140 MPH. WTF? The car can go much faster than that. The last time I got it up to speed I stopped at 138 MPH seeing as how it would be a waste since I wouldn't actually know how fast I was going. Is this the auto industry's way of passively keeping me from going to "ludicrous speed"?* Why stop there? It could go to 500 MPH. Though then I suppose someone (possibly me) would complain that the speedometer goes to 500 MPH and yet the car does not. There's no pleasing some people.

*My fellow geeks in the audience will get that one.

Go Taxman!

I just found out that I'm getting a tax rebate this year after having to pay over $5000 for each of the last 2 years. WHOO HOO! Oh, and the weather's great.

Hot damn!

Well "warm damn" at least. It looks like it'll be getting to 62 degrees in Boston Thursday. You know what that means? The first (and much needed) car wash of the season.

It's a good day.

The Red Sox home opener will be on soon with the ring ceremony preceding it. I'm home, and I'll be painting while watching the game. The Asian Cowgirl isn't working today so we'll be able to hang and enjoy this together. But best of all I can watch the beloved Red Sox without having to listen to Joe "Annoying Dickbag" Buck and Tim "Astounding Retard" McCarver. It's a good day.

They call me Martha "Fucking" Stewart

So the Asian Cowgirl and I are having a dinner party tonight. I'm making a slow cooked pork shoulder* in the trusty ol' crock pot**. We're having mashed potatoes, and mixed asparagus, pearl onions, and portabello mushrooms with it. And the best part? You're all invited! So what are you bringing to our dinner party?


*This is from my friend's pig that we had the bacon and sausage from. So far it's been the tastiest animal in creation.
**Which we bought earlier this week.

Edit: It's ready to go in.

Adventures in Babysitting

My poor sick little sister Mikayla needed somewhere to go while my parents went to work last week. Seeing as I wasn't working I thought it would be fun if she came over to my place for the day. The Asian Cowgirl also had the day off so we all hung out and had a good time.

Mikayla apparently likes to name things so my cat now has a middle name. Allow me to introduce Pinky "Chrysanthemum" Fitch who Mikayla spent the better part of the day playing with.


And her favorite toy Bob the Cat Whip.


She had a temporary tattoo on so we decided to stick more on her. The Asian Cowgirl also had fake tattoo sleeves from our Halloween costumes so they posed together.


And then there's the siblings.


We made french toast, watched Underdog (which was actually pretty good for a kid's movie), listened to Girls Rock, and got a preview of Mikayla's dance moves for her upcoming recital.

Ring a ding ding

Friday evening someone rang my doorbell. I have no idea who it was because I didn't go to the door. It's odd you see becaue the only people that would be ringing my doorbell unannounced would be:

1) My mother, but there were no cookies on the porch so it couldn't have been her.

2) The UPS guy, but there was no package and no delivery notice in the mailbox. Where's my package already?

3) The cops*, but they don't give up after one ring.

4) My upstairs neighbo(u)rs but I didn't hear anyone go up or down the stairs before or after the doorbell rang. That and they have my phone number.

Which brings me to another point; nobody just "stops by" anymore. Everyone I know has a cell phone and would call before coming by. I'm stumped but inrigued.

* I have no reason to think it was the cops but the fact remains; they don't give up after one ring. Though it is true that they don't call before stopping by.

GO GO GO ADVENTURE!

Have you ever woken up and the instant you're concious you already have a song stuck in your head? This morning that happened to me with the Hanna Barbera's World of Super Adventure theme. Two things about that:

1) Everything seemed very urgent the instant I woke up.

2) My life now seems very boring compared to that show.

Temporary retardation

Here's the e-mail I just received from Netflix. It pretty much sums it up:

"Dear [Bacon Ace],

It appears that you accidently returned one of your personal DVDs or CDs in a Netflix envelope. Rest assured, we will send your disc right back to you.

If you haven't already sent back the Netflix movie you intended to return, please include it with your next return along with a note including your name and email address so we can match the movie to your account.

-The Netflix Team"

My day thus far

Waking up on this beautiful New England winter day* and seeing snow helped me decide to not leave the house today, but rather to have an excellent day indoors. So I woke up and said goodbye to the lady as she left for work leaving me with the house all to myself for the morning and afternoon. I of course reached to the nightstand to ease into my day with some comic book reading, and the reading was good.
After about an hour or so I decided to shower and make breakfast, but by the time I was going to make food it was closer to the brunching hour than the breakfast hour. There was really only one choice here (given what's in the house and the fact that it rocks) so I just had to make myself a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich served with a side or Doritos. Ok good so far. I read all the dailies on the internet and blogged about. I came across Sparkle's 3 day old post about Creature Double Feature which immediately sparked (no pun intended) my very fond memories of this show** and watching them with a very special aunt every weekend. So now fueled with nostalgia I tried to acquire a Godzilla film to watch today without leaving the house. Sadly Comcast On Demand was offering none*** currently so I'll have to leave the house or go without, and I already stated that I'm not leaving the house so there you have it.
The rest of the day is wide open. I could paint, play Halo 3 online, finish displaying the toy collection and take pictures, read some more, or dare I say, some magical combination of some or all of the above? Today is a good day to be Bacon Ace.

*I'm not one of the retards that complain about the weather in NE but continue to stay. I love the snow.

**I have a wall shelf filled with different Godzilla monster vinyl toys. I'll have to post pictures of my toy collection sometime.

***However they are offering Dr Strangelove and Karate Kid for free so one of those is happening today at some point.

For Sparkle, Lois, and anyone that used to watch CDF:

To hell with popcorn brownies

Yeah, you heard me. I said it. That's because I convinced someone to bake me brownies with Cadbury Mini Eggs in them. I'll post the results after I get them on Saturday.

*Ding Dong* CANDY!

I was woken up at 8:00 by the doorbell. Who the hell would be ringing my doorbell at 8:00? I made it to the door in time to see my mother driving away and a bag tied to my door handle. Inside was a nice card and cards from my brother and sister* as well as a heart shaped box of Lindt chocolates. Now that's worth being woken up for. As a bonus my mother also learned how to use the front porch door to get to my doorbell this time. Go Mom!
Now if she'd only stop by sometime while I'm awake...

* They were the Valentine's cards that kids give out that come like 20 to a box. Hey, they're 8 years old.

Tattoo Time pt3

In my ongoing coverage of my ink I present to you the outline for the 3rd piece. It's got tiger lilies and Hibiscuses (the correct pluralization even though it sounds incorrect) with leaves as filler throughout. When completed it will be 100% filled so that there will be no spots of bare skin from the wrist to the elbow. There will also be a sun on the shoulder cap set behind and above the topmost lilies. It will have rays coming out of it that reach up to near the collarbone and back over the shoulder.
So the reason for this piece? It's a companion to the flames in a way. Knowing the reasons for that one I decided that I wanted this to be a celebration of life. It represents many things; creation, happiness, beauty, and love. All the good things that make life worth living. I decided that the timing for starting this one would be one of 3 things; A) When I was feeling happy again and wanted to signify that, B) if it took too long to become happy again I'd get it to maybe kick start that, or C) if I just couldn't wait that long and got the itch to get some more ink ;-). Luckily it was A.
This piece was started in August and should be done in the next 2 months or so. The outline in this picture was done in 7.5 hours in 2 sessions. The overall estimate is 30 hours. There's more progress that's been made in filling but I wanted you to see it in its skeletal form first to appreciate the process.

Tattoo Time pt2

Here's my 2nd tattoo the blue flames half sleeve. If you've heard that tattoos are addictive then you've heard correctly. I got this one month after the bacon on the same arm*.
I'm all for people getting whatever they want tattooed on them but for my own art it has to mean something to me so you'll never see me with a comic book character or any kind of brand icon no matter how much I like Subarus. Basically I was at a point in my life where I was really unhappy. I was unhappy at home and at work and this tattoo was a promise to myself to burn away the unhappiness by either fixing the situations or getting rid of them (as it turns out in both cases I opted for the "getting rid of" options as both situations turned out to be unworkable). It was to be a constant reminder to myself to not put up with anything less than what I'd want in the future and to never get myself into a similar situation, or at least if I did to do something about it right away.
I chose blue because as this was a cleansing fire natural gas burns cleanly as opposed to say an orange flame which leaves carbon residue (think campfire). So clean flame equals clean start. Oh, that and I really like the look of it which is, of course, important.

Here it is with just the blue done the day after the first session:


And here it is completed with the white accents and fully healed:


*I'll save you the time; the flames cooking the bacon joke has been made.

Tattoo Time

I've been meaning to post up pictures of my tattoos and the current one in progress. Having just gotten back from the tattoo shop with more progress on the latest one I figured now's as good a time as any to get this underway. So here we go...


The bacon tattoo was the first one I got and I think it's rather self explainatory.

Stating the wicked obvious

Because Cake threatened me here’s a new blog entry:

My grandmother passed away yesterday. Now I’m not telling you this to bring you down or fish for “I’m sorry to hear that”. I’m telling you because you need to know this fact for the setup of the retarded line someone delivered to me yesterday.
So we’re in the emergency room just after she was pronounced dead and there was a pastor there. I guess he felt the need to say something to break up our silent grieving (douche bag) and came up with “She looks very peaceful”. Yeah? NO SHIT SHERLOCK SHE’S FUCKING DEAD!!! Thanks for the update. What? He thought she’d be up and about doing a jig?