Davecat here, wishing everyone out there on the Information Superhighway a fine ‘oozabootye?’ as they say in fair Scotland.
My goodness, where to begin? It’s been quite a week! So many people have written in, saying ‘Your blog saved my son’s life!’ or ‘I read your blog, and thru a series of events too complicated to explain, I met my future wife!’ or ‘Thanks to your blog, I can see again!’ Well, if it weren’t for people such as you, the reader, I wouldn’t be able to provide such witty, original, insightful, and life-enriching content as I have been for the past *looks at calendar* seven days. I’d just like to raise my glass in a toast, and say, Here’s to another seven days!!
THANK YOU!! I LOVE YOU ALL!!1!1@@

(don’t worry; I won’t be doing this sort ov thing every week)

Anything by Oscar Wilde — maybe start with The Ballad of Reading Gaol and work backwards — and Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen, which I just read myself for the first time last night. Both are extraordinarily upbeat poems. You’ll love them, I promise

It’s come to my attention whilst driving round the streets ov Detroit; from looking at the vehicles, one would surmise that the ‘in’ thing is to have some sort ov body panel damage. Seriously, every fourth or fifth car has something wrong with it — a cracked fender, a dented quarter panel, a broken-and-shoddily-taped-over taillight.. If you ask me, this is just further proof that most ov the people out there need to not be driving, period..

Picked up the new Hives Cd on the way to work, and gave it a cursory listen on the way home. So far, not bad! It’s less the mix ov ‘Kraftwerk meets the Sex pistols’ that Howlin’ Pelle said it would be, but more like Devo meets the Jam, if you can dig that. It’s really Eightiesy. Gotta give it a good honest listening-to, but so far, I’d still say that ‘Veni vidi vicious’ is their best release

Just woke up after a delicious set ov micro-dreams; one wherein I was giving this lass that I know a foot massage. (One thing you, the readers, will get to learn about me, is that I have a serious fetish for female feet. I’ve tried shock therapy, but I believe that only exacerbated the problem. C’est la vie..)

Also, if you’re living in or near the tri-county area ov southeast Michigan, Patrick, my best friend from Cleveland, will be performing his synthy-dancy-crazy music stylee with his band Subliminal Self over at Paycheck’s Lounge in Hamtramck on Fri, 6 Aug. Go see him, shake his hand, and call him friend

Making up for a shitty day at work — I got written up for pulling a recent no-call, no-show — when I got home this eve, my package from Merlin Enterprises had finally arrived. w00t!

it’s Punitive Guillotinna, a character created by another one ov my favourite artists, Yasushi Nirasawa. The guillotine actually works, too!
And until I can suss how to add permanent outgoing links to this blog (I don’t think this template supports links, but it’s aesthetically the best one on offer, so I’m not changing it), here’s some links to sites by friends ov mine:

+ Five Dollar Beer – Patrick, synthesiser boffin from Cleveland
+ The Backroom – Monti, screenwriter extraordinaire
+ The House of Rotating Knives – Jeff, Wellesian archivist & Arsenal supporter
+ Kitten with a Whip! – my Synthetik Mistress & sex slave 😉

There’s gotta be a way to add external links. I’ll check the forums & see what I can scare up. Wish me luck

EDIT (1.22am): That was deceptively easy. Look to your left!

I mentioned in a previous post that I was slightly depressed. It’s an on-again, off-again kinda ov thing; nothing clinically serious, but it’s insidiously ever-present. I’ve pretty much been this way roughly since January ov this year, and it all started because ov a girl. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Currently, I’m thirty-one years ov age, and living back at my parents’ house, which is a quarter-ton barrel ov fun, believe me. I’m attending courses at a nearby community college so I can obtain a degree in court reporting/broadcast captioning, as my current job ov fundraiser *coughtelemarketercough* sucks an incredible amount ov cock & balls. I decided to go into the court reporting thang, as I did some looking into it, and it fits two essential criteria ov mine perfectly:
1) it’s a lucrative job
2) you don’t have to deal with a lot ov people if you don’t want to.
Round December 03, I enrolled in the Elsa Cooper school of Court Reporting, where I was told this story: One ov their graduates has a job where she works four hours a day — from noon to 2pm, and from 6 to 8pm — doing the onscreen captioning for a local television news programme from her home. This woman makes about $65,000 a year. Yeah, that cash register sound? That came from me. See the $$ signs in my eyes?

Ever since the Telecommunications Act in 1995 was passed, stating that all programmes shown on American television have to be close-captioned by 2005, there’s been a huge job field open, and the best people to do this would be those trained as court reporters, as they have crazy typing speed. But there’s currently a lack ov court reporters available. See where I’m going with this? So I signed up at Elsa Cooper, one ov the preeminent schools in the nation. Trouble was, they were undergoing some changes; they were being bought by another company, and changing their name to Key Institute, which would hopefully allow them to offer financial aid to students, as they weren’t an accredited school. So I signed up, paid my entrance fee ov $95, and took & passed the entrance exam in December, with classes beginning in January. January rolls around, and they delay the start ov classes for a fortnight. Two weeks later, the school closes its doors after 44 years. Apparently, the deal with the Other Company That Was Buying Them Out fell thru, and they had to close. I was advised to look into classes at Oakland Community College, as their classes are the most similar to Elsa Cooper’s. Needless to say, I was crestfallen.

So yep, I’m at my parents’, not paying rent so I can pay for school. I’m jumping thru some serious fucking hoops right now to try to get a grant, which I’m sure I’ll touch upon in a future entry. But I guess between my telemarketing job & the person I used to live with, my experiences with them were so hideously unpleasant, that it drove me to say ‘I need to do something to get out ov this situation before I kill her, and then kill myself’. And if I’m dead, how would I be able to move to Toronto? There’s no such thing as a ‘corpse visa’. So I suppose I should thank my ex-roommate for being such a despicable slag, otherwise I would be much more miserable, and probably in prison, or decomposing. Thanx, you ridiculous tart!

Oops! We’re out ov time! Heh heh. 🙂 I’ll get to the details ov the Slag later. TUNE IN NEXT TIME!

So I’ve finally succumbed to both me mates’ suggestions and my own driving urge to write something, so I’ve started this godforsaken exercise. My friend Patrick had a valid point, though; he began his Blog, as he was sick & tired ov writing the same thing over & over to different people. Fair enough..

Don’t expect frequent/regular updates. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if I manage to add something once a week. Hrm.