Digital Cowboy

Coffee keeps me up and I can’t sleep.
And when I drink too much, I can’t eat.
Losing you has led me to believe
Everything I love is killing me.

Everything I love is killing me.
Cigarettes, Jack Daniels, and caffeine.
That’s the way you’re turnin’ out to be
Everything I love, I’m gonna have to give up
‘Cause everything I love is killin’ me.

I guess I made a big mistake,
Thinkin’ you’re a habit I can break.
I’m addicted to ya now, I see.
Everything I love is killin’ me.

What is it about this time of year?

I appreciate the advice, Bane, but this is real life. Killing and dragging sometimes seems attractive but it’s not really an option. Your alternative is. I already wrapped my head around that. But it’s not that simple. God, how I wish it was.

I’ve got lots of really, really important things to blog about but… I’m in a mood. I’m not a writer and I only “write” when inspiration hits me. It hasn’t quite yet. So…

I love old movies. I mean I really love them. Especially if they have Bogart in ‘em. Of course I love Casablanca. But I love To Have and Have Not even more. Rent it. You’ll be shocked at how many lines from the movie you already know. After you’ve seen that one and have acquired the taste, look for High Sierra. (I doubt that one’s available on DVD. But if you keep an eye on Turner Classic Movies, they play it at least a few times a year. It’s worth the wait just for Ida Lupino.)

Most modern movies really blow. In the old days they knew how to tell a story on screen and still let you use your imagination. Y’all can keep your explosions and fight scenes. Give me some good dialog. Writing is hard. I know because I’m not good at it. Special effects are easy.

You can also keep Pamela Anderson and Chloe Flavor of the Week and whomever is “hot” now. There’s never been, and will never be, anybody sexier than Myrna Loy or Lauren Bacall. I say that having never seen either of them naked. Take any naked star of today and put her up against Bacall in To Have and Have Not or Dark Passage or put her up against Myrna in the Thin Man movies. No contest for me. Bacall and Loy are far sexier with their clothes on than the sluts on the screen today could ever dream of being no matter what they do.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to finish watching the Coca-Cola 600 on the PVR and then watch Casablanca for the Xteenth time. (If you still love me, you could buy me To Have and Have Not. I saw it available on DVD at Best Buy.)

DOH! Some days it just doesn’t pay to chew through the chains. I just discovered about 45 comments over the last few weeks that were awaiting moderation. It seems my comment spam filter went a little over zealous right about the time I decided to stop having the server email me whenever there was a comment awaiting moderation.

Thanks to Flicka and Arielle for alerting me. To Rainman, Athor Pel, Elena, salt, Alli, Ted and everyone else that thought you were being censored, it was a stupid oversight. Please accept my apologies.

All of your “lost” comments are right where you left them now.

I’m going to turn the email notification back on until I figure out why my spam filter’s being so aggressive and naughty. So now if you get a message that your comment is awaiting moderation, be patient and it will be approved within a few hours.

I already discovered one of the problems. My blacklisted words include the names of most popular pharmaceuticals because I get so much comment spam from “online pharmacies.” One of those names is Cialis. Quite clever, really. I added it to the blacklist and suddenly every comment containing the words socialist or socialism got flagged as evil.

My wife once said to me, “I don’t love you anymore and I never can again.” She said this after she had left me and was already living with another man. That was a long time ago in the overall scheme of things.

But I still don’t understand it. My response to her was, “Either you never did or you still do. In either case, your statement is false.”

Never in my life have I ever asked someone, “Do you still love me?” It’s silly. Love is eternal. It doesn’t come and go and it cannot be turned on and off. Anyone who disagrees with me here does not understand love and what it means.

Herein lies my pain. I gave my life to her when I married her. I don’t know how to stop loving her. I’m not some silly, spineless man pining for her. I just don’t know how to take back a covenant commitment. They call it a “life commitment” for a reason. No matter how much she hurts me, it doesn’t change the promise I made.

Except… it’s only a life commitment for a man. A woman is free to play the field, marry, divorce and always walk away a winner. A woman has absolute freedom in America in 2005 because she will never be held responsible for anything. And there’s always a man she can force (or con) to carry her baggage.

Congratulations, Feminists. You won. Your prize is a nation of men that hate and distrust you. Stop whining to me about men that “use” you. You taught us that.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I rarely do these stupid blog quiz things because I find them silly. However, occasionally I find one that amuses me. Today I found two. I post the first because it backs up a recent post of mine. As with all of these goofy things, it had some flawed questions that I wasn’t sure how to answer. I think that explains the Socialist, Fascism and Democrat scores.

What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In?
created with QuizFarm.com

The second one I’m publicly challenging Elena to take and report back her results. I didn’t do as well as I thought I would, but I’m not ashamed of my results. I found it to be a fairly difficult test overall and, unlike the silly political and personality quizzes, this one should be reliable because it’s fairly absolute. You’re either right or wrong. Assuming the creator of the quiz knows what they’re doing, it’s going to be a mostly accurate representation.

Of course that’s putting aside that it’s a short quiz and thus a small sample. I’m sure I would score higher than 60% on Vocabulary and higher than 80% on Spelling with a larger sample. On the other hand, I would expect to score much lower than 100% on Punctuation with a larger sample. Maybe I’m wrong, though. I was a county spelling bee champ as a child, but having system-wide, real-time spell check has made me lazy in that regard.