Seriously, sorry for the down time, folks. I've moved servers twice, but I'm finally back.  Thanks to <a href="http://www.avehosting.com">avehosting.com</a>, my awesome new hosting provider. If you need web hosting (unlimited disk space and bandwidth, even), check 'em out.  They've also got amazing offers for dedicated servers and reseller accounts. Plus, I used to work with the owner, so I know he - and his team - are knowledgeable.

I'll post within the next few days with a nice long post detailing the past few months so we all get caught up, and then I hope to get to a regular routine of posting.  Until then, however, I'll leave you wondering just what a yowling cat, a small black dog, and a poorly installed ceiling fan have in common.

Image via Wikipedia

Erasure has released a remix of "A Little Respect" called the HMI Redux. "In the wake of all the gay bullying and related suicides that have been reported in the US over the past several months, Erasure wanted to do something special to spread a message of tolerance and to raise money for an organisation that engages in the fight on a daily basis and, because it has become something of a gay rights anthem over the years, it seemed only fitting to release a brand new version of A Little Respect." (erasureinfo.com)

Personally, I think the new version of the song/video is awesome.  The video features individuals and students from around the area surrounding the Hetrick-Martin Institute (hence "HMI" Redux), the home of the Harvey Milk High School, and focuses on the respect and love of the LGBT community.  Personally, as a strong proponent of LGBTQ rights, I love this video, both for the message that the song brings with its anthem of respect, tolerance, and love, and for its videography... particularly the blacklight-driven scenes.

So, check it out, and enjoy "A Little Respect (HMI Redux)".

Click here to view video.

Be sure to check out some of Erasure's best work... The compilation albums (Total POP!, both the two and four disc sets), and the studio albums (I Say, I Say, I Say is my favorite of all time so far, but "Wonderland" is their first ever, and is truly excellent) that I list below are something everyone should have.  At the very least, anyone that so much as somewhat enjoys Erasure should have Total POP! in their repetoire.  I recommend the four disc set, which includes live performances, and a ton of rarities.  All below link to Amazon.com.

Total Pop! The First 40 Hits (2 CD Set)

Wonderland

Total Pop! Deluxe Box (3CD/1 DVD)

I Say I Say

Well, it's been a while since I've posted with any regularity, so I figured it was time for a bit of a catch-up.  This will likely be a bit of a long post.  As I sit down to write, I've just taken my nighttime medications, so I may get a little bit... wishy... towards the end, depending on when everything starts to hit... and if it all hits at once, it'll be much like a Mack truck plowing into the SLEEP center of my brain at high speed.

First and foremost, let me get this bit out of the way... OMG! FAMILY HAS FOUND ME! EEK!

Yes, that's right, my little Cousin has found me.  I say little only insomuch as she is a couple of years younger, and a good foot shorter than me *snerk*.  In all seriousness, this is the first time I've actually been concerned over what Family will think of me and my chosen paths in life.  I mean... I can pretty much handle anything my father will have to say about things.  The only thing he would ever be non-understanding about would be my sexuality choices, and seeing as how I'm married to a female, and celibate in all other ways (and intending on remaining that way), I don't see an issue. Everything else, IF anything else were to have existed, should be water under a very tall bridge.

...interesting side note, I use a plugin that allows me to choose media related to my posts, like th related articles links, and the in-text links you see (I don't hunt down all those links in most posts, they're auto-suggested for me).  One of the possibilites is images.  When I typed "sexuality", the image possibilities changed to show a ton of different images of brains and brain scans.  wtf...

I have an older Cousin who is much like a aunt (augh, I need to stop capitalizing cousin*, and much like a sister. It's, weird to describe my relationship with Wanda. I guess on that side of the family she's the relative I'm closest to. Anyway, she also probably has my websites, etc.... since most of them, or at least the main ericscalf.com/stream - which links to everything else, are listed in my signatures in email, so she has potentially seen all the crap links I've posted to delicious (in and amongst all of the legitimate stuff there's the occasional piece of "adult oriented entertainment"), and the random bits of cursing I've done on Twitter, or the bits of fluff, crap, and other detritus that make up my mind at any random moment.

With LeAnn, however, it's a bit different.  First and foremost, she's the first family member from that side of the family to find me online.  Secondly, that side of the family has always been much more... upright, straight-laced, and - to me - "pure" (*gags on own words*) than the other.  I'm sure of any various bits of either side could read this entry they would be shaking their heads and mentally threatening to smack me the next time they saw me. Either that, or I'm so dead on the money I'm starting to royally piss people off, and they haven't even heard that I've written a thing, yet (it's that whole family conciousness thing. How you just know that your Aunt is going to call you about two minutes before she does, and it's always right when you're sitting down to a nice pot roast and potatoes w/ green beans and iced tea, and yet you NEVER think to take the stupid phone off the hook, anyway.

So now I have to wonder, how is a) this one person going to deal with this particular cousin of hers being so completely different from the way we were brought up?  I mean, I can still remember one night where I went home with her and her sisters, crashed out in her big sister's room, and went to church with them the next day.  ...and we're not talking CHURCH, as in big, huge, hundreds of people, multiple services to get them all in, has a show on TV, the pastor has written a few books, etc...  No, we're talking church where if a hundred people could get into the building I'd have been surprised. There darn sure wasn't enough seating for them.  We're talking, old timey, down home, back in the hills, everyone knows everyone (and I mean, most of em knew me before I was ever introduced, dangit, even at ten years old, that was disconcerting), no choir just a couple of folks playing mandolin and banjo (okay, I exaggerate, mandolin and guitar, I think there may have been a dulcimer or two too, but hey, Bluegrass came from down that way, and the staple was mandolin and banjo), and some good old fashioned fire and brimstonesque preaching.

Yup.  That's right, folks.  Witchy Boy was raised Christian.  Not just Christian, but by the Bible, knew his commandments, knew his Stories, was even called to preach**, Christian.  For those that still doubt, check the right-hand column over there on the side of the page...  See the "Currently Reading?"  Right there below the Nocturnicon?  Yeah, that's the Bible.  Yes, I'm reading The Bible.  It's not exactly an easy task, but it's something I've been trying to do and have been doing off and on for a couple of years, and that's reading the darned thing through from Genesis to Revelation.  I figure if I'm going to have read the Koran, Aradia, various Books of Shadows, various "Witches Bibles", and other various holy books, I sure as heck better pay some attention to the one where it all began for me, cause my entire moral foundation and essence of being is based on the upbringing I received as a Christian child.  I may no longer consider myself a Christian, as wrote, but that doesn't mean that the Bible is not still as valid today as it was back then.

See, for me it's like this...  I consider pretty much every major religion too hypocritical for my taste. That goes for Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc... The ONLY reason I call myself a Pagan is because of the way I live my life, and the way I look at things, and interact with the world, and because of the things I know, inherently to being. In short, it's the only flipping term that fits.  If there was a term of, say, slapdashiman, that defined my beliefs better, than I would be a salpdashiman.  To be honest, I shouldn't have capitalized pagan, earlier.  Look, what I'm trying to say is that I picked a term for best fit, and it's like using a blanket because all of your other coats are either too small, or are missing too many buttons, or a sleeve, or something.  I can't easily explain it here, and before anyone *coughs pointedly in the direction of family and friends* asks me in email, I can't explain it there, either.  It's a thing that's best done during an active conversation, and it's one of those types of conversations that could take a while, so block out an afternoon or an evening, and make sure your phone is charged (and yeah, I'm willing *shrug* just saying, it's a convo).

I guess talking about it here has made me dread it slightly less.  Especially since I have been missing contact with family, and LeAnn did open with a very pleasent memory.  See, when we were all young... Well, okay, here's the tick.  There's three of them. Lisa, Cindy, and LeAnn... Sisters***.  And then there's me.  ...you can see, of course, that I was doomed pretty much right off, can't you?  Anyway, Lisa is at least a good three or four years older than me, I believe.  Cindy was anywhere from naught to two years older, and LeAnn was naught to two years younger. Stupid facebook isn't showing me her actual age .  When we all happened to be at my grandfather's (aka Papaw's (I've only ever had the one, my maternal grandfather passed long before I was ever even thought of)) at the same time, we often wound up in the living room floor, or the - *tries to think what you'd call the room that was just sort of there in the hallway to the kitchen* - hall room, playing Uno.  Our games tended to go on for hours.  I think one of them manages to still hold my personal record at around five hours.  I'm not sure how many times we reshuffled the deck, but it was a good many times.  It even got to the point that we had exhausted topics of conversation, and for nearly an hour we played in silence before someone came up with something else to talk about. Good times.

Okay, so I started this post as a bit of a catch-up and wound up kvetching about how family had found me and I was all ascared about what they were going to think about me.  Ultimately I guess it's come down to the fact that I know I'm living a good life. I've married a wonderful woman. I'm an intelligent chap. I'm confident in my spirit. I'm absolutely not without my faults, and I know I can do so much better at so many things (like making my wife cry less)... but all in all, it comes down to am I happy with who I am?  Yeah... I reckon I turned out ok.

*Why am I capitalizing Cousin? It comes from having been reading Widdershins by Charles De Lint. In the book, the term Cousin refers to the creatures that are similar to fairy.  However, fairys were brought to America from Europe and other countries when the settlers first came. Cousins were the ones who were here to begin with.  The book is absolutely awesome, and definitely worth the read.  It's sort of a continuation of the Newford series of books, so I suggest you start with The Onion Girl. Same Author, Same Characters, Earlier book.

**Yes, I was called to preach.  It's something very few people know.  My mother knew. I'm not sure if she ever even told my father, although she probably did.  I never acted on the call, though, as I did not have a church home at the time, and most churches are not going to let some random new guy get up to preach just because he says he's been called, and the world has enough crazy street-corner preachers.  Do I still feel the Call?  On a rare occasion.  The world is no longer ready for the message I was supposed to preach. ...but it will be again... Perhaps the next time around, I'll be in a better position to actually pass the Word along; however I can.

***EDIT: So I took the plunge, as it were, and - via LeAnn - tracked down the other two members of the Trio, and sent the requisite requests via Facebook.  I was amused to see one of my cousins listing power and symphonic metal as her music interests.  Seemed so out of sorts, but then again, it's been what, decades since I've spent any real time with her? At least we've got an instant something in common.

(6:20 AM) co-worker: the most amusing part is that it's all in parantheses
(6:21 AM) myself: (I love parentheses (in fact, I've been told that I use too many of them (actually, an old English teacher accused me of writing in LISP (he was a bit of a geek))))
(6:22 AM) co-worker: at least you close all of them
(6:22 AM) myself: I wouldn't want it to fail at compile.

I had to go into the emergeny room on Tuesday the 19th of January.  The next day, I had surgery to open up, clean up, and debride the wound area.  This left an open wound area that is 5.5cm wide, by 5.8cm long, by 0.5 - 1.0cm deep. (If you really want to see, pictures can be seen here.) I was discharged from the hospital on the 26th of January.  I have not been released to go back to work until today.

Because of the amount of time I have missed, Joni and I have fallen dramatically behind in our finances.  We have no money in savings - having used it all the previous summer when I was in the hospital for three months, and therefore we are flat broke.  I quite literally do not know how I'm going to pay my rent.  Unfortunately, this means that we may very well face eviction.  Some people you can explain the situation to, and get extra time... and some people, you can't.  Therefore, I am forced to do something I don't want to do.  Beg.

If you can possibly find a few dollars to send to us, "donate" to our rent fund, please donate to us via PayPal. If 100 people donate $10, our rent will be paid (yes, we know it's expensive. We used to have roommates, and yes we're in the process of finding someplace cheaper, and when I actually am able to work normally, it's not that bad).  We're not asking for any specific amount... Just what you feel you can spare, and that you link to, re-post, or re-tweet this posting.  Thanks so much for understanding, folks. We know that the economy sucks right now, so we appreciate even more that extra little bit. So many thanks to everyone that can help, and so much understanding to those that wish they could!

(2:49 AM) Me: we broke a record.
(2:50 AM) Me: record was 28 back in 1997.
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: I'm pretty tired of "breaking records" in houston
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: Ike worst storm in x years
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: coldest shit
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: just
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: Houston
(2:50 AM) Co Worker: figure it the fuck out.
(2:50 AM) Me: lol
(2:50 AM) Me: at least you're not in kansas
(2:51 AM) Me: then you'd have to worry about
(2:51 AM) Me: biggest tornado outbreak in x years
(2:51 AM) Me: biggest motherfuckin nasty-ass tornado ever
(2:51 AM) Me: most pieces of straw driven through your little homie while you tried to hold on to a pipe, screaming while the wind tried to drag you away, ever
(2:51 AM) Me: you know.
(2:51 AM) Me: just kansas.
(2:51 AM) Me: normal shit.
(2:51 AM) Me: cows.
(2:52 AM) Me: chickens through telephone poles.
(2:52 AM) Me: day to day crap.
(2:52 AM) Co Worker: hahah
(2:52 AM) Co Worker: in Los Angeles, they'd say the same about Texas.
(2:52 AM) Co Worker: nuh uh, it's too hot over there.
(2:52 AM) Co Worker: Hurricanes!
(2:52 AM) Me: Yeah well..
(2:52 AM) Me: at least I went my whole life without having to learn how to dive underneath my desk every time the ground moved!
(2:53 AM) Me: I may have a lot of things to be afraid of, but _everything that I stand, walk, move, operate, or live on, around, in or near_ is not one of them.

The day started off even better than that....  we have a very few employees that work in our remote offices.  The joke started a long time ago when the company moved from their old location to their current one. Apparently when we upgraded offices, the remote employees, be they in any of the company's remote locations, keep getting downgraded to smaller and smaller offices.  (All joking aside, the remote offices are pretty much like the local ones. Just on a smaller scale.)  Regardless, apparently their are a lot of towers in India, where companies rent tower-top offices for their employees... or at least in my imagination...

(2:26 AM) Me: and they work like 7 days a week or something.
(2:26 AM) Me: eesh
(2:26 AM) Co Worker: Think so.  In a small office.
(2:26 AM) Co Worker: together
(2:26 AM) Co Worker: It's 145pm MOnday, in India.
(2:26 AM) Me: They work with [a remote admin, my superior]?
(2:27 AM) Co Worker: yeah
(2:27 AM) Me: ah
(2:27 AM) Me: let me guess. Small, triangular shaped office.  One on each wall?
(2:27 AM) Me: heh
(2:27 AM) Co Worker: hahaha
(2:27 AM) Me: trap door in the middle...
(2:27 AM) Me: office is at the top of a tower.
(2:27 AM) Co Worker: HAHAHAH
(2:27 AM) Me: rent's cheap
(2:28 AM) Me: but the owl's and bats roosting overhead get annoying.
(2:28 AM) Co Worker: HAHAHAHA
(2:28 AM) Me: have to keep replacing monitors when they fizzle and die from bird crap
(2:28 AM) Me: and don't even get _statrted_ about the white stuff on the keyboard...

...You don't even want to see the living conditions I came up with for the folks in the Florida offices.  Let's just say that beach access is easy to come by when you only have to open the flap.  It's the rogue waves you have to watch out for, though. They really screw with equipment. And rfc1149 networking is a bitch during hurricanes.

...yeah, I amuse way too easily... see this for proof.

Click here to view video.

Click here to view video.

So we've started our vacation. Four wonderful days in Galveston, TX.  ...yeah, I know, it ain't fabulous Hawaii, or Awesome Ireland, or anything, but Galveston is close, and can kick just as much ass as those other places.  It's all in what you do, and who you're with.  In my case, my wonderful wife. (Although if she turns into a nine year old Indian boy (thanks Tom Waits), I'm running for it.)

Okay, so we arrived at our motel (yes, there's a "mo," not a "ho." People do still stay in motels), a couple of hours ago.  It's not too bad.  You can tell they haven't finished post Hurricane Ike rennovations, but the room has fresh paint, fresh carpet, doesn't smell, and has what we need.  The guy working the front desk says that they're still re-doing the rooms, cause of FEMA.  Basically, they re-did the rooms, and re-opened, just in time for FEMA to commandeer them as a shelter/voucher hotel.  Apparently the people who stayed at this location were form what passes for the 'hood' in Galveston... or at least what passes for "the place where assholes live."  Apparently they had a lot of holes kicked in walls, furniture thrown over the second-floor railing, and so on.  Personally? I think they've done a great job cleaning it up.  Looks fine to me.

Okay, so we're in Galveston (woo).  Today's orders of business?

• get dinner
• drive down the SeaWall a bit
• decide which beach we're going to, tomorrow.

I forsee a lot of hanging out on the beach.  I don't know if my wife wanted to go to Moody Gardens, or not.  I'm not a big one for walking around - me being so fat and all - but I figure I can handle a Rain Forest Pyramid, or two.

Pictures, video, and a ton of other stuff will be posted, as we get it.  Whoooooaaaaaa BUNDY GALVESTON!!!

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So the State of Texas just raised cigarette taxes.  I'm paying around $5.99 a pack for the Camel Menthol Lights I smoke, and other standard brands (Camel, Marlboro, etc).  Okay, I can deal with that.  I opposed it.  I'm still opposed to it.  The Federal Government, however, is intending to raise cigarette taxes, on the federa level, up to $1.01 per pack (from $0.32)!  Why is this insane?  Let's look at who it hurts..

Smokers?  Yes, smokers feel the pinch in their wallets.  Fine. Cigarettes are a "luxury item," persay.  As a smoker, I'm not upset about the price hike because of the price being so high...

The government? Yes, the government is raising taxes to fund other things. However, the more taxes increase, the fewer people smoke. The fewer people smoke, the less tax collected.  In all honesty, they're hurting themselves. A tax hike this high could actually cause a significant decrease in the amount of cig tax collected.

The farmers?  Ah yes.  Here is where we get to the meat of the issue.  People like my aunt and uncle, for whom tobacco farming is their livelyhood, will pay the highest price.  The higher the taxes, the fewer people smoke.  The fewer smokers, the lower the buy price of tobacco.  The lower the buy price of tobacco, the harder hit are the farmers. If we keep taxing cigarettes and other tobacco products, there are going to be some farmers who are suddenly out of work.  I know everyone will say "just switch to corn, or other products..."  I wish it was that simple.  Unfortunately, you're talking about having to purchase new equipment, learn different growing techniques, different planting schedules, and so on and so forth.  It gets tough.  Very tough.

Look, cigarette taxes are understandable.. but when they're doing more ultimate harm than good, maybe it's time we re-considered?  Take some time to notify your congressperson and senate leaders on this issue, huh?  If not for smokers, then do it for the farmers.

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