Eight Feet Deep

My posts of the last couple of weeks have been short and/or somewhat goofier than usual. It being Friday, I thought I’d share what’s going on with EFD.

First and foremost affecting my output is money. I am currently without an aircard for my laptop and have no Internet access where I live, so I must use computers catch-as-catch-can at the library or at the Internet cafe until I can afford to get a new wireless plan.

My laptop itself is literally hanging on by a thread. A few pieces of structure came loose from where my monitor meets the rest of the machine. The computer still works but I am afraid to mess with it very much for fear of a catastrophic failure. And in order to attempt a way of shoring up the machine I will likely need money to give to my local computer mechanic.

The money situation is always precarious but more so these days. That is because I am in one of my most severe slow periods at work. This has to do with the workload and sometimes the workload is little to more little because of the nature of how my work is scheduled. My job, which is a part-time federal job, averages about 26 hours per week but seldom do I work the same number of hours per week so it can be quite challenging to survive financially. This is especially true in these times of economic insanity.

The computer situation — influenced greatly by the economic and fiscal situation — also impacts my other job as a freelance writer and thus means extra income is basically non-existent at the moment.

So that’s it in a nutshell. I’m just a po’ boy who is a couple of buns short of a sandwich. Things will not likely improve until I work more hours and get an infusion of cash, such as the economic stimulus the IRS said it will begin to send in May. In the meantime, you can still click the button above my blog roll if you see fit to contribute via Pay Pal. Have a great weekend, mine will be a very inexpensive one.

This could make you give up drinking vodka forever. Strange isn’t the word I would use to describe this story. It reminds me of the old W.C. Fields routine:

“In this pocket I have a bottle of snakebite medicine,” he says, pulling out some liquor. “In the other pocket I have a small snake.”

Hillary Clinton said she misspoke about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. What she meant to say was that she drove through an artillery barrage and a hail of small arms fire from local tribesemen in Somalia while attempting to rescue downed Army Rangers who were depicted in “Black Hawk Down.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot about my discovery of the integrated circuit,” Clinton added.

Many questions fill heads of wiser men than me, myself and/or I. But alas, I seek an answer to only one question albeit such an interrogatory which puzzles those with or without wisdom, men and women, rich and poor. That question is: What’s for dinner? Yes, our society stands at a great crossroads and the fate of the world as we know it may ultimately hang upon our thoughts and actions. But we still have to eat. Eat what? That is the question.

On the way to work this morning I toyed with the idea of calling the city and telling them the traffic light was out at North 11th Street and Interstate 10. My reluctance to do so is sort of like when the lights go out. You think about calling the power company but you figure someone else did so why waste your valuable time on the telephone?

Speaking of the lights going out, the reason was zapped bird, according to our local daily the Beaumont Enterprise.

And a great line appears in the end of that story, written by the Enterprise’s Dan Wallach:

“The bird was burned beyond recognition, (Entergy Texas spokeswoman Debi)Derrick said.”

Of course, unless the bird belonged to someone or a birder was inquiring, I don’t really know why the bird’s recognition would be all that pertinent. Nonetheless, it’s a wonderful line and the kind I would use in a news story if I could get away with it.