However, in writing up the sample plug-in code, I’ve come to realize that trying to read my syntax may cause anybody with any background in coding or scripting to bleed copiously from the ears.

See, I used to teach English, and I think in complete sentences, even when I code.  In my brain, things make more sense that way.  In fact, back in college I dropped out of logic class twice, not because I couldn’t manage it, but because it drove me completely apeshit to take a statement that made sense and quantify it until it didn’t make sense anymore:

All men are mortal.  Socrates is mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.

Well, now.  That’s just stupid, and anybody with half a brain can tell it’s stupid.  I don’t need a proof, or symbols, or math to tell me it’s completely ridiculous.

At least, that’s how I think.  Logic gets a lot more complex than that, of course, and there are circumstances in which the ability to outline the logic of a particular argument is not only useful, but necessary.  I get that; it was just too hard for me to get through the first couple of weeks without standing up, sticking a pencil in each ear, and shouting “I’m not Socrates!” as I ran out of the room hooting and stripping naked.

My scripting reflects the same desire to think in complete sentences.  I name variables, custom functions, etc. in a way that reads like I’m giving instructions to a very slow person:

if(its_raining) UseAnUmbrella();
else return;

Reading this would probably cause anybody with a proper background to think I’m borderline retarded.  Guess I’ll need to borrow somebody with a decent education in this stuff to help me format it properly so anybody modifying the code won’t think I got off the short bus.

I swear, I’m not nuts.  My brain just works differently; I kind of fell into SL by accident (before that I’d been a teacher, a photographer, a graphic designer, a cobbler…  I’m lying about the last one, but you get the idea), and I learned to script by finding problems and flipping through the wiki until I’d solved them.  I think that background makes me versatile, but quirky.

Mwi mwood mwnnk tnhh thanhk yrrrh frmhm th bnnntmmm mf mh hrrrt. Yrhhh dlly annnmmmnnts rrr extrmmmmlhhh yrrrsfhhhl.

Love,
Pip

Actually, I’m just going to war on the spam comments.  I left this site alone for too long and the spambots have taken over.  It used to be funny, but now over 3000 comments is not.  So I’m going to take a couple of days to clear this crap out of my site.

Not that anybody reading this gives a shit, but I’m pissed so I’m ranting.

Look, nutjobs. This isn’t a Christian country. This isn’t an English-speaking country. Yes, a majority of Americans dub themselves as Christians (many of those, by the way, seem to think it’s a race of some kind, as if having Methodist parents makes you a Methodist), and yes, the vast majority speaks English. Both of those things are true, and both are totally without relevance.

The entire point of this country is that it has none of those things. America has no language. It has no race. And it certainly, certainly has no religion.

For the love of [an ambiguous and politically non-existant] God… it’s the First Amendment! The very first line of our beloved Bill of Rights is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

You want to pray, fine; that’s what your closet is for (the Bible’s recommendation, not mine). But keep your damned religion out of debates about politics. The two have no business intersecting.

What the hell you think you doin’? You can’t just pick me up and start squeezin’ me all over your turkey sammich! Jeez. I’m mustard, not ketchup, ya dumb f*ck.

Oh, you think ’cause I’m not that fancy Deli shit you can treat me like a Jersey chick? C’mon. Have a little class.

You gotta pick me up nice, pick yer spot, y’know? Appreciate my mouth-waterin’ flavors ‘n stuff. I may be a condiment, but I got feelings, yeah? Gotta be careful with me, otherwise I’m gonna piss that watery shit all over your bread on the first squeeze.

Just kidding. I’m gonna do that anyway.

as starlight darkles and and night settles upon the land
like ichor stealing across the the eyes of the world
i dream.
as pillow’s down cradles my head in soft embrace
and guttering flames of candlelight extinguish at my breath
i dwindle.
i slip into the land of Nod
and he waits.
O Murray, why does your specter haunt me so?
In waverings of the subconscious mind
I see your shape in tones of olive
You march, you prance, you wield the wit of decades past.
O Ramis! E tu?
Must it be your fate ever
To cower thus beside the heels
As the capering jester flaunts his career -
Daunted by the ages past, and yet
Not dead as thine will be all too soon?
Your image is phantom – fleeting, and dragging my imagination
To time when Reitman’s works still pulled chortles from my chest.
O Murray! O Ramis!
Why must this mental play,
This subconscious merriment,
This nocturnal dumbshow against the backdrop of my mind
Always end with you showering together?

Now, since I switched blogs, nobody reads this one, but I’ll still shout out for commentary from the imaginary hordes of New York readers out there to send me some comments giving me advice (or, even better, telling me how to find a damned apartment).

Consider yourselves shouted out to.

It seems rather… I don’t know, cheap? to blog about the loss of my father. But this is my outlet, neglected though it may be, and I need outlets right now.

My father passed away on April 24, 2006 at 7:06 p.m.

He waited for me.

Normally I don’t go in for that sort of thing – all of the “so-and-so is watching you from Heaven”-type comfortbabble – but even my inner cynic is having trouble dismissing this. The Hospice nurse called me at around 5:30 p.m. to tell me he was slipping – he had been unresponsive for days, but now his breathing had shallowed as well – and I rushed to the Hospice facility at speeds which my father, who taught me to drive, would have cringed at. I got there, and began to talk.

I told him all the things I hope he already knew, but that father-son machismo had kept me from gushing forth in such a monologue. I told him about all the things I had been grateful for. There were many; my father was not a perfect man – none of us are – but he had always been a particularly selfless parent to me. I told him, of course, that I loved him. The details of all of this are private, but the gist is that I told him what his life had meant to me.

And when I’d run out of things to say – I can come up with more now, of course, but that’s the breaks – I said goodbye. And almost the moment I did so, a tear slipped from his eye (which was closed; he had been unconscious for days), he labored one breath, and then he died.

Oddly enough, I kinda hope he didn’t hear me. Because if he did, if he could hear the treble in my voice and the desperate grief in my words, and couldn’t say anything to comfort me – let’s just say he was the kind of man that would have been torturous for. And our relationship had always been pretty open, so he knew how I felt about him; the solliloquy had been more for my benefit than his.

There are a lot of things to do now; I’ll be putting off the luxury of mourning for another time, but I wanted anybody who reads this to know that the world lost something important yesterday.

I’ll be missing you, after September, I’ll be wanting you, so always remember how I loved you, girl, after the summer’s gone. Oooooooo ahhhhhhh! (Didn’t every song from the early ’90s end with ooooooo, ahhhhhh?)

I seem to be the only one who remembers these scrawny fuckers, which doesn’t do wonders for alpha-male status claim. In my defense, I only bought the albums because I wanted to plug the chick.

Album! I meant album. I didn’t buy more than one album, because that would be very unmanly. Which means I certainly don’t know the song “Can’t You See” by heart.

Nobody remembers this? PC Quest, with the… oh, screw you guys.


UPDATE: Just to prove to you bastards that I didn’t make this up, I tracked down the original song. Ha! I told you! After The Summer’s Gone (streaming) I really must get a life. There must be one laying around here somewhere…

I’ve written plays before, but these were absolute garbage, and this play has to be… well… not garbage. The problem? I don’t have a plot in mind. Back when I was writing garbage (in my early 20s), I had all kinds of fantanstical ideas for plots:

I know: I’ll write about a rodeo clown who’s a raging sex/heroin addict, and he meets this other sex/heroin addict, who’s also a midget, and they fall in love. And then they decide to go sober together. Only, once they’re no longer fellating goats and sticking syringes in their eyeballs, they find out that other than a certain satirical quality, they no longer have anything in common. Brilliant! It’ll be the next American Buffalo!

Now that I’ve decided not to write garbage anymore, I’m drawing a blank. There’s really nothing going on up there. Sometimes I think I have an idea, but then I realize it’s just the memory of an old Highway to Heaven episode popping up to mock me.

As it turns out, I’m not too proud to ask for help. If anybody out there has a great plot idea (think Pinter, not Hubbard) they’ve always wanted to see on the stage but have never had the talent to put on a page, let me know; I’ll put it on the page with even less talent than you would have. It’s really a golden opportunity for disappointment!