SemiConscious Dot Org

Once upon a time, there was a girl who owned an HP TC1100 tablet computer. She loved the little tablet most righteously.

Then she met a boy who spilled a beer all over the keyboard of her nifty little tablet pc, rendering it all but useless. She was most vexed. (She subsequently dropped the tablet down the stairs and fried the hard drive, but the damage had already been done.)

The boy, being most abashed at what he had done, endeavored to fix the situation and give the girl her beloved tablet back. Surreptitiously, he purchased and installed a new, larger hard drive, installed Ubuntu to replace the wretched Windows operating system that had previously hung around the little tablet like an albatross, and scoured the Interweb Tubes for a replacement keyboard, which he finally purchased for the hefty price of 100 American dollars. Then, amidst much pomp and circumstance, he presented the reborn tablet pc to the girl, who decided on the basis of this present that she maybe loved him again.

And all was well forever and ever.

Except that he just spilled beer on the keyboard. Again.

It’s been 24 hours since I frantically attempted to wipe the spilled Magic Hat Hi.P.A. from betwixt the keys, and I fear the rescue operation has been a total failure. The keys stick like 57 bastards. Hell, it took me two infuriating hours to type the post you’re reading right now.

I don’t have a hundred clams lying around to buy another keyboard. Anybody know of a way to clean the beer from this one? And don’t say “run it through the dishwasher.” That doesn’t work, and I don’t have a dishwasher anyway. I’m looking for constructive suggestions, people. Let’s hear ‘em.

As of tomorrow, it will be one year to the day since the Special Lady Friend and I arrived in Maine, fresh off our 4,300 mile odyssey, moving back from Seattle. (Although, if you want to be pedantic about it, this is a leap year, so technically today is exactly 365 days. Luckily, I am not pedantic.)

It’s been an eventful year. Since setting up shop back on the East Siiiide, I’ve

• Gotten married
• Changed careers
• Reached the statistical halfway point of my expected lifespan
• Cheered for not one, but two championships by professional franchises from my general geographic area, which of course covers me in vicarious, unearned glory
• Been bitterly disappointed by a third. (Yes, I realize I’m ridiculously spoiled. It’s not as if anyone from, say, Seattle would have any pity for me at all)
• Posted treasonous, objectively pro-Elitislamohomoliberofascist insults of Dear Leader on no fewer than 19 occasions (ok, so maybe that’s not a big change)

After being away from my home state for the better part of a decade, I can say it’s changed quite a bit. I used to curse the place for being too conservative and claustrophobic, but an interesting thing happened while I was gone: Mainers have loosened up quite a bit. There’s state-run health insurance for the poor, every 8th grader gets a laptop, the Green Party has official standing, marijuana laws are fairly lax, and George W. Bush is staggeringly unpopular, even in Kennebunkport.

In fact, given its large size, low population density, large swathes of pristine wilderness, and odd mix of rednecks and hippies, Maine less resembles its urbanized, overpopulated Northeast neighbors than a large, Western state.

Except, of course, that here, the sun rises out of the ocean, instead of setting in it. As it should be.

For my birthday last month, the Special Lady Friend and her mother cordoned off a 4X6 plot of yard in back of the house and planted me a garden. Today, I harvested the very first leaves of romaine lettuce and made a salad. Alas, said salad was just lettuce, but a couple of tomatoes have formed, and it won’t be long before they’re ripe. The squash, zucchini, and pumpkin plants are also growing like crazy. (The carrots and broccoli? Not so much, but maybe next year.)

In other words,

BWAAAA HA HA HA HA HAAAA! STEP ONE IN MY FIENDISH WORLD DOMINATION PLAN IS UNDERWAY!!!

For those of you not familiar with my Fiendish World Domination Plan™, it is as follows:

1) Grow massive food supply in back yard, becoming entirely self-sufficient
2) Set up turbines and solar panels on property, thus allowing removal of house from power grid
3) Build bio-diesel distillery in shed
4) Mount cistern, water purification equipment, hydroponic grow lab, and brewery in attic
5) Stockpile weaponry to protect all this booty
6) Take over the tattered, post-apocalyptic remnants of what was once America

And just in case George W. Bush’s destruction of our entire economy isn’t as complete as it now appears to be and America doesn’t disintegrate into series of warring city-states dominated by bloodthirsty warlords like myself, there’s a Plan B:

Steps 1-5: See above.
Step 6: Transport previously noted equipment and supplies out to Boon Island, secede from America, form own micronation with myself and the Special Lady Friend as King and Queen, respectively

So who wants citizenship in my future dystopia? I’m open to bribes, but it’ll cost ya. Don’t wait too long!

...for some happy news. On Saturday, the Special Lady Friend and I traveled up to Boothbay Harbor to attend the wedding of one of her childhood friends. It was foggy, but luckily not rainy, and the outdoor wedding went off without a hitch. Not surprisingly, the fogbound tip of a rocky Maine peninsula is quite conducive to picture-taking:

More pictures nyah.

Okay, so Mark at A Bunch Of Us may have posted this clip first, but that’s only because he turned 37 before I did. However, I swear on the Little Baby Jesus that I didn’t get the idea from him, and had independently thought of this weeks ago. Weeks, I tell you!

So yeah, it’s my birfday. There’s a thunderstorm going on outside, and I’m watching The Holy Grail while sipping slowly and respectfully on a Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA. Yes, at 10 o’clock in the morning. Your point?

And now, onto the presents:

• The Special Lady Friend got me this and this. My father bought me this. Quite the haul.
• The Celtics made the NBA Finals for the first time in 21 years! I’m not sure if this qualifies as cooler than the Red Sox throwing a no-hitter on my wedding day, but it’s damn close. Hopefully they’ll kick the living crap out of the LA Lakers, a franchise that ranks behind only the Yankees on the Loathesome Scale.
• A new, high-end Belgian beer cafe just opened here in Portland. Just check out this draft list! Yeah, we’ll be heading there tonight.

And there was much rejoicing.

Oh, lovely. It looks like my former profession in my former state of residence is in big trouble:

As has happened in other states, cash-strapped schools in Washington state are dropping librarians to save money: This year, Federal Way cut 20 librarian positions. Spokane reduced 10 librarians to half-time. Darrington cut two librarians. A school in Marysville eliminated its half-time librarian.

Libraries are open fewer hours, programs minimized, jobs combined. In many cases, part-timers with little formal library training are replacing skilled veterans. In rural Pomeroy, a school now employs a combination custodian-librarian — she opens the library after cleaning the locker rooms.

I managed to secure full-time employment as a school librarian for three years in Seattle, but I was also the network administrator for the school in which I worked. And sure enough, when I left the position, the school changed it to part-time.

In a related note, this is as good a time as any to reveal that I’m no longer a public librarian either. Two weeks ago, I resigned from the position I started in August. I already have a new job lined up, as a systems admin for an IT firm. I plan on volunteering at the local public library after I get settled into the new job, but after ten years in the profession, I’ve discovered that I like libraries a hell of a lot more when I’m not in one 40 hours per week. (Plus, the IT job pays better, and with a 100+ year old house in desperate need of repairs, I need the extra money.)

The question is: can I still consider myself a librarian, even if I’m no longer a library employee?

A friend of mine who lives in Southern California has recently begun to talk about moving to Maine. She’s been here many times before on vacation, and asked yours truly, the recently repatriated native, to give her the 411 on the Pine Tree State. I felt it was only fair to show her what this place looks like after the tourists leave.

Above: “Hey, you rotten whippersnappers! Git offa my snowbank-covered lawn!”

Ah, there’s nothing like the Maine in December: the snow is deep, the natives, ornery. Back in 1947, Christian missionaries first ventured into Maine in an attempt to win us all over to The Lord. Unfortunately, they made the mistake of starting their mission in the middle of January. We sure were awful hungry that winter. (But, on the bright side, you can substitute missionary for ham in your baked bean suppah, and no one will be able to tell the difference.)

And to think, winter doesn’t even officially start for another two days.

As I sit here on my couch, sipping an Old Thumper Ale and watching a bunch of football teams jockeying furiously for the right to get beaten stupid by the New England Patriots next February, I am thankful for many things. (Yes, many things besides the fact that I have the consummate good taste to drink Old Thumper and root for the Patriots.)

For instance, I am supremely grateful for the existence of this person. She makes the world far less boring than it would be otherwise.

I am also grateful for this. Just one more year, people.

But if you ask me to name the one single thing in the entire world for which I am the most grateful at this exact moment in space-time, I would have to say that I am very, very grateful I arrived on this planet 390 million years after the eight foot long, carnivorous, aquatic scorpions went extinct:

“This is an amazing discovery. We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, super-sized scorpions, colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies, but we never realized, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were,” said co-author Dr. Simon Braddy from the University of Bristol.

Personally, I prefer the human-lobster relationship in its current “We eat Them” configuration.

Greeeeeat. Less than a third of the way through this month, and I’m already running out of ideas. Oh well, the excruciating pressure of having to come up with a new post every single day does at least provide a handy excuse to clean up and post some old travel pictures. This batch is from a trip to Illinois, way back in the halcyon days of 2002, when I was still working for The Man…

I’m sure everyone was expecting to hit this site yesterday and find a long, foul-mouthed tirade on The Meaning of 9/11. However, the server was having massive technical difficulties yesterday, and the site was down for half the day. Frankly, I was glad, because the thought of banging out a comprehensive list of all the horrible changes that have come over our country since that horrific day filled me with a deep sense of depression and existential dread. I just didn’t have it in me. But here’s an extremely condensed version of what I would have written:

For six long years, conservatives have used the deaths of 3,000 American civilians as a club to bludegon anyone who didn’t agree with their wacko theories that We Must Bomb Iraq And Spy On Each Other Or The Islamofascists Will Blow Us All Up. Now, finally, the majority of people seem to be fed up with having their patriotism questioned anytime they suggest that maybe, just maybe, George W. Bush isn’t receiving his marching orders directly from God Allmighty. We’re still a long way from a full return to sanity, but at least things appear to be moving in the right direction.

Anyway, to hell with all that. How about some wedding pictures instead? Courtesy of my peeps Libraryman, Toft, and KJT.