As if I needed any proof to points 1,2 and 3 below, I came home from my little vacation to discover that my e-mail had been rendered null and void by the simple expedient of my brother (who has his undergraduate degree in computer science, by the way) sending me a 3mg file of photos...
My in-box being filled by that largesse, there was no room for any other communication. A fact I discovered upon my return, because, as I told everyone, I would not could not pick up my mail while I was on the other coast.

Thanks a lot. I was only expecting communications from a commission, an update from Blog Moxie on the new, secret redesign, my usual riff raff of friends, meeting agenda and papers for Tuesday's board meeting, and like that.

All bounced. All lost. All requiring re-registration to mail lists, no doubt.

The irony is that the same thing happened to me last year, when my friend known as the King Geek (because that is his actual job in life) sent me a 5mg photo of his son. Like I don't see the kid on a regular basis.

And both he and my brother did this on the first day of my vacation.

In any event, I am rested, tanned, well fed and even got in a baseball game. Florida Marlins lost to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. But it was another ball park in my life list, and a nice, albeit domed one, at that.

Since I live here on the East Coast of Florida, when I head due west, it only takes me a couple of hours to reach the other side. And friends, the other side is where I am going today.

I'm pretty sure that there's no DSL in the little beach hut I'll be inhabiting for the next week, so you'll have to entertain yourselves while I'm gone.

Here's a handy little guide to seeing the world through my eyes:
1. the world is made up of idiots
2. they are all on this earth to torment me, personally
3. stupidity is a gift others like to share
4. oooooh, stop and smell the roses, pet the doggies, pull off the road to stare at a double rainbow
5. my job sucks and the people I work with suck worse (not my immediate team, maybe ... except my boss)
6. go to the gym and work off the excess anxiety and stress
7. drink
8. appreciate the friends and family I love and who love me, especially the RLA
9. create art
10. watch Deadwood, the Sopranos, 6 Feet Under, CNN, America's Next Top Model, Dead Like Me
11. complain with scathing wit, sarcasm, a fine vocabulary, and liberal use of the word fuck

That's pretty much it. You can randomly rearrange the elements. And you'll have to get your own to fill in the blanks on number eight. Most of my tv addictions are in reruns.

I'm off to the other coast, taking with me mangos, beach reading, an assortment of sun screens, and my brand new, pink mini i-pod.

Have fun while I'm gone.

The mangos this year are fragrant and heavy and plentiful. It starts with one. Then you have three or four on your kitchen counter, and then, within a week, you are sneaking out in the dead of night to leave them on your neighbor's front steps. I have four trees, and they are of three varieties. The Smithfels are an Asian varietal, huge and paisley-shaped. Their flesh is so soft, you can eat them with a spoon. They are slightly redolent of pineapple, and the color of their pulp is paler than the deep orange of the Haydens. They are sort of rare, I'm told. I just know that they are delicious.
In this sub-tropical town, at this time of year, there is no better way to spread joy to strangers than to hand out mangos. Today I had a bag full of Haydens and Smithfields from my yard, and I was a veritable Johnny Mangoseed as I handed them out to random folks I passed on my way to work.

Three burly Hispanic Wackenhut guards at the train station. The old-school Black gentleman who wears a red silk rose in his uniform pocket every day and drives the Metrorail.

I debated about going up to the woman engaged in a loud diatribe at the other end of the train, but I couldn't determine if she was engaged in a dialogue or a monologue and decided that discretion would be the better part of Valerie, and so did not share with her.

The old blind beggar was not at his usual station, but he has received my fruity largesse on other occasions.

I still have three, but the day isn't over yet.

"In-duh-vidual's name removed: in order for me to be able to use this (thing that she sent me)in the site, and have it be a part of the site, not a static window opening in a separate program, I need the original art/format.

I cannot use a PDF. I cannot pull the art out of it, I cannot embed it in the HTML. When you have a graphic image that you want to use as an element on a page, I need it in jpg, or gif, or as an original Photoshop file, or Illustrator or Freehand, or even as a bmp or tiff.

Just to reiterate: I cannot use a PDF."
What I Wanted to Say:

You stupid fucking git, how many times must I tell you that a PDF is not an acceptable format for me to use on this site? Obviously, at least once a fucking week, since no matter how many times I tell you that a PDF is not a graphic format (OK, well, it is, but not one that can be used as part of HTML), you insist on sending me PDFs and telling me to add them to the hospital's site.

Just in case you were in a coma for the last couple of years, and haven't actually used the fucking internet for anything other than passing lame ass jokes around, the whole fucking point of this endeavor is to be interactive, not fucking brochure ware. Which means, to sum up: I cannot use a PDF, I cannot use a PDF, I cannot use a fucking PDF.

I need the graphics sent to me in a graphic format: Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, gif, jpg, bmp, or any other kind of image openable by the first three programs listed. I can use animations, Flash or Fireworks. The one thing that is absolutely pointless to send me is a three fucking megabyte PDF file and expect me to do anything with it.

Thanks for letting me vent.

I have this girlfriend, see. And normally, I wouldn't write this kind of dish about a friend, but she isn't normal. She's a luddite of the first water. She has an e-mail address, but no computer: she has someone pick up her mail, print it out, and fax it to her. I don't even want to contemplate how the reverse works. I know it involves a typewriter. A typewriter, which, in all due honesty, is, in fact, electric.
So this girlfriend has issues with men. Specifically, she is a man-hater. Except for their dicks. Those, she assures me, she likes. But I have to wonder, seeing as how she holds men in such low regard, why she just doesn't keep a vibrator around and save herself much aggravation.

Every time we talk about men, and let me assure you, I try not to, she ends up in this rant about "men retreat to caves when they are in relationships, because they can't handle intimacy."

She goes on and on and on and on and on, and did I say she goes on at great length? about how men can't communicate; how men are all dogs; how men can only exist in one of two planes: the vertical in which you can do business or converse, or the horizontal in which you can do the horizontal mambo. The two planes, she believes, are mutually exclusive.

She informed me during our last conversation, that every single man she has ever been involved with, has cheated on her. I should note that by single man we mean every individual, because she is not so refined in her sensibilities as to stick to the unmarried variety.

This led me to consider the possibility that A) she only chooses men who are emotionally unavailable because she herself is emotionally unavailable, or B) she is more of a psycho than she appears to me, and drives the men, screaming, into the arms of other women -- and let me say that she looks like a bona fide psycho to me, so being more of one is a frightening proposition, or C) she only thinks that they cheat on her (and where does the married guy doing his wife fall?) or D) all men are pigdogs and I should think about my own track record.

I did. And nobody (except the Antichrist, and of course he would) cheated on me in my grand single days. Or if they did, I didn't know or didn't care, seeing as how it was a matter of goose and gander.

In any event, she is currently embarking on a new, dysfunctional and long-distance romance with a man she can barely stand being with when they aren't between the sheets. At least, that was the gist that I gleaned from her last hour-long screed about what sacks of shit men are.

She allowed as how, despite his bad politics, his paternalistic pandering and his harping on her to quit (chain)smoking, she had no desire to change him, and that made him a first in her long line of rejects.

That was a telling sentence, huh? All these losers she's been keeping company with, all these dogs who had to go mark other territory, she's been trying to change them all. Into what? Sausages? Lawn jockeys?

The whole point of men, in my opinion, is that they are not women. They are different. They communicate differently, they hold their silverware differently, they channel surf differently. As the French would say "Vive la difference!" Sure, they're dogs. But hell, I love my dog, too.

But I digress. In fact, I've digressed so much I forgot what the point was that I was trying to make.

I guess it was that if you think the opposite sex is from another planet, maybe you should check your own home address first.

I worked out with Nic Cage last night. Not the real one, the ersatz one who is my trainer. I was so done in at the end of the hour that I almost couldn't get home.

The clutch on Zelda Bleu (a VW Cabrio) is like the clutch on any VW: made of cast iron and requiring a strong leg. I got in last night, and I couldn't press the clutch. My legs were like unset Jell-O. Wobbly. Weak. I couldn't hold the clutch long enough to shift. I thought I was going to need someone to come and rescue me.

I finally got it in gear, and managed to get home with only one episode of losing the gear at a light. Then I poured myself a drink, which was another challenge: getting the screw top off the whiskey, and floated around in the pool until I could feel my toes again.

I think this is going to be great. If I can live long enough to see the results.