1.1.99
Haouli Makahiki Hou !
Fasten yer seat belts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. For those of you who did not read the entry that sat here for a week, my computer had a very tragic death scene, in that way that only "state of the art" electrical equipment can. Consequently, there was a HAND CODED entry posted (oh, did I mention that I never took the time to learn HTML?) that explained the reason for my hiatus. It was sooo ugly, I've decided not to retain it.
I also promised a move to a new site by this date. Sorry dears. Put up with the pop-ups for a couple more days. I estimate that it has taken greater than 20 hours to put this computer back together. Why? My backup was corrupt, and therefore couldn't be used. I'll have to scrounge about to find all of my software, and that has been a looong, tedious process, usually occurring at about 3 am. That's ok. I really can function on 3 hours of sleep. Sort of.
Well, let's see. What happened? Oh, yeah. Christmas. MondoDesiCheer that it is pau. (Woopers!) Had 8 to dinner on xmas eve. That's a first, and it stretched our china (the good Mikasa, natch) to capacity. We also realized some limitations in the silverware department, which will need to be repaired in the near future (possibly by my ebay-addicted hubby) Made our standard 80 proof egg nog (urp) and generally sat around plastered for the rest of the evening. Didn't actually get around to eating until about midnight.... Like Joey Bishop always said "We feel sorry for those who don't drink, cuz that's the best they're gonna feel for the rest of the day." Amen, brother, amen.
We had crackers from Nieman-Marcus (aka Needless Markup) That, a story in itself. Usually, in a cracker, you get a silly hat of tissue paper, a riddle, and a stupid prize, akin to something you might dig out of a box of Cracker Jack or cereal. Nieman-Marcus Marcus crackers? Golf balls, which damn near took out a whole row of stemware, corkscrews, and (I'm still trying to figure this one out) post-it notes. Hmmm. Next year, we go back to the el-cheapo standard Tom Smith crackers a'la Angloterre.
Christmas day was fairly uneventful. I had told RR that I was not interested, for various reasons, in participating in the raucous of gift-buying this year. Apparently, I didn't say it loudly enuf, cuz we had words. Like I said, it is tough living with St. Nicholas' younger sibling. He gets sooo exited about christmas; I could care less at this juncture. One day, when we were bombing around town having "quality time," he asked me if I would do anything for christmas if I were living by myself. I answered "probably not." That's true. The whole damn thing is such a waste, and it just doesn't thrill me the way it used to. Don't get me wrong, I've had a blast this season. I've done a lot of stoopid things which bring me joy and smiles to those around me, and that I like. Altruism is one of my greater virtues, I think. It's just the thing on the whole that bothers me. Mebbe I'll get over it. There are a lot of things that used to just slay me in the past that now I shrug off. Time is a wonderful thing in that respect, and there is no substitute for experience.
Moving on, with the 27th. December, 30 people graced our home with their presence. Every year, we do entertain on a fairly grand scale, but from necessity, we have had to cut back drastically. Let this be a lesson to you. People who moved from the "A list" to the "B list" and finally, "Off the list" were those who made no effort to acknowledge that they had been over. No thank you note, no "let's have cocktails," nothing. The only time we saw these people was when they were at my house, eating my food, and drinking my champagne. That, dear ones, it tedious and disheartening. Lesson for the day? If someone takes the effort to clean the bloody toilets, make you a meal, and entertain you, the least you can do is sit down the next day with a scrap of paper and say "Hey, I had a real blast last night. Let's do it again, soon." That's all it takes, folks. It's called courtesy, and it's not that hard. We had a new couple of gayboiz over, and they managed to fire off a beautiful note, which they must have posted on the drive home. That's nice to see. Very nice. They'll be invited back, for the cost of a 32 cent stamp and a little love.
Which brings me to the end of 1998, and a period of transition to 1999. What can I say? Welcome to Beirut? That's what it is like. If you haven't experienced it, a local style New Year celebration involves an inordinate amount of firecrackers and a handful of the illegal aerial kind as well. In an effort to curb the number of illegal fireworks, the City and County of Honolulu lifted a requirement to have a license to blow off fireworks, and banned anything that went higher than 5' off the ground at all. Well, I would have to estimate that each household detonated approx. 1.5 MILLION firecrackers last night. (uhh, no I am not exaggerating) Visibility at midnight was about 5 feet because of the smoke, and the explosions were amazing. The dog started to freak out, but that was no surprise. Last year, we had him in the living room and sat on him. This year, we decided to sedate him. Unfortunately, we both had forgotten to call the veterinarian, so we used a little egg nog instead. He was so cute and druuuunk. Of course, with the liberal amount of Piper Heidseick that was coursing thru my veins, who cared?
I took a couple of moments to check out my email and threw a couple of ICQ messages at Robb Go and take a look at his new page, it really kicks MondoDesiAss! To rub my nose in it even more, he did the whole goddamn thing by hand! I have decided that he is a truly remarkable young man, who has got his shit sooo together in little balls, (as the old rhyme goes) he has no alternative but to go up, up, up. Go and look at his werdz, and learn something. Unlike many who write these online journals (and I include myself in this generalization) he's actually got something to say. I don't agree with it all, but that makes for some interesting ICQ chats.
I'm pau for now. I want to go download a demo Adobe PageMill to see if it is all that people say it is. If so, I'll scrape together a couple of $$$ and buy it to repost this thing. When will that happen?
Eh. when it happens. No promises. I got a life, I got a love, and I really got no time.
I would like to leave you with a thought from Alfred Lord Tennyson, which I think is appropriate at this juncture
Fasten yer seat belts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. For those of you who did not read the entry that sat here for a week, my computer had a very tragic death scene, in that way that only "state of the art" electrical equipment can. Consequently, there was a HAND CODED entry posted (oh, did I mention that I never took the time to learn HTML?) that explained the reason for my hiatus. It was sooo ugly, I've decided not to retain it.
I also promised a move to a new site by this date. Sorry dears. Put up with the pop-ups for a couple more days. I estimate that it has taken greater than 20 hours to put this computer back together. Why? My backup was corrupt, and therefore couldn't be used. I'll have to scrounge about to find all of my software, and that has been a looong, tedious process, usually occurring at about 3 am. That's ok. I really can function on 3 hours of sleep. Sort of.
Well, let's see. What happened? Oh, yeah. Christmas. MondoDesiCheer that it is pau. (Woopers!) Had 8 to dinner on xmas eve. That's a first, and it stretched our china (the good Mikasa, natch) to capacity. We also realized some limitations in the silverware department, which will need to be repaired in the near future (possibly by my ebay-addicted hubby) Made our standard 80 proof egg nog (urp) and generally sat around plastered for the rest of the evening. Didn't actually get around to eating until about midnight.... Like Joey Bishop always said "We feel sorry for those who don't drink, cuz that's the best they're gonna feel for the rest of the day." Amen, brother, amen.
We had crackers from Nieman-Marcus (aka Needless Markup) That, a story in itself. Usually, in a cracker, you get a silly hat of tissue paper, a riddle, and a stupid prize, akin to something you might dig out of a box of Cracker Jack or cereal. Nieman-Marcus Marcus crackers? Golf balls, which damn near took out a whole row of stemware, corkscrews, and (I'm still trying to figure this one out) post-it notes. Hmmm. Next year, we go back to the el-cheapo standard Tom Smith crackers a'la Angloterre.
Christmas day was fairly uneventful. I had told RR that I was not interested, for various reasons, in participating in the raucous of gift-buying this year. Apparently, I didn't say it loudly enuf, cuz we had words. Like I said, it is tough living with St. Nicholas' younger sibling. He gets sooo exited about christmas; I could care less at this juncture. One day, when we were bombing around town having "quality time," he asked me if I would do anything for christmas if I were living by myself. I answered "probably not." That's true. The whole damn thing is such a waste, and it just doesn't thrill me the way it used to. Don't get me wrong, I've had a blast this season. I've done a lot of stoopid things which bring me joy and smiles to those around me, and that I like. Altruism is one of my greater virtues, I think. It's just the thing on the whole that bothers me. Mebbe I'll get over it. There are a lot of things that used to just slay me in the past that now I shrug off. Time is a wonderful thing in that respect, and there is no substitute for experience.
Moving on, with the 27th. December, 30 people graced our home with their presence. Every year, we do entertain on a fairly grand scale, but from necessity, we have had to cut back drastically. Let this be a lesson to you. People who moved from the "A list" to the "B list" and finally, "Off the list" were those who made no effort to acknowledge that they had been over. No thank you note, no "let's have cocktails," nothing. The only time we saw these people was when they were at my house, eating my food, and drinking my champagne. That, dear ones, it tedious and disheartening. Lesson for the day? If someone takes the effort to clean the bloody toilets, make you a meal, and entertain you, the least you can do is sit down the next day with a scrap of paper and say "Hey, I had a real blast last night. Let's do it again, soon." That's all it takes, folks. It's called courtesy, and it's not that hard. We had a new couple of gayboiz over, and they managed to fire off a beautiful note, which they must have posted on the drive home. That's nice to see. Very nice. They'll be invited back, for the cost of a 32 cent stamp and a little love.
Which brings me to the end of 1998, and a period of transition to 1999. What can I say? Welcome to Beirut? That's what it is like. If you haven't experienced it, a local style New Year celebration involves an inordinate amount of firecrackers and a handful of the illegal aerial kind as well. In an effort to curb the number of illegal fireworks, the City and County of Honolulu lifted a requirement to have a license to blow off fireworks, and banned anything that went higher than 5' off the ground at all. Well, I would have to estimate that each household detonated approx. 1.5 MILLION firecrackers last night. (uhh, no I am not exaggerating) Visibility at midnight was about 5 feet because of the smoke, and the explosions were amazing. The dog started to freak out, but that was no surprise. Last year, we had him in the living room and sat on him. This year, we decided to sedate him. Unfortunately, we both had forgotten to call the veterinarian, so we used a little egg nog instead. He was so cute and druuuunk. Of course, with the liberal amount of Piper Heidseick that was coursing thru my veins, who cared?
I took a couple of moments to check out my email and threw a couple of ICQ messages at Robb Go and take a look at his new page, it really kicks MondoDesiAss! To rub my nose in it even more, he did the whole goddamn thing by hand! I have decided that he is a truly remarkable young man, who has got his shit sooo together in little balls, (as the old rhyme goes) he has no alternative but to go up, up, up. Go and look at his werdz, and learn something. Unlike many who write these online journals (and I include myself in this generalization) he's actually got something to say. I don't agree with it all, but that makes for some interesting ICQ chats.
I'm pau for now. I want to go download a demo Adobe PageMill to see if it is all that people say it is. If so, I'll scrape together a couple of $$$ and buy it to repost this thing. When will that happen?
Eh. when it happens. No promises. I got a life, I got a love, and I really got no time.
I would like to leave you with a thought from Alfred Lord Tennyson, which I think is appropriate at this juncture
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true,
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
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