From a blog around the middle of last year:

I did purchase a new computer this week, it should be delivered soon. It's an 866mhz 20 Gig, 128mb Jedi F*cking Knight John Holmes Pentium goddamned 3 (I didn't get a P4 only because I'm sick of those dancing adult-smurfs that Intel is using to sell it) tower. For a writer, that's pretty much all I need. Would you believe that I do all of my web stuff and band posters on a Compaq AMD 3 333mhz 32mb with a 3 Gig hard drive? It's true. I installed Photoshop and Illustrator and MS Office on that thing and it runs really slow now thanks to the 3mb of free space left on it.

But where are they now?

Compag Laptop has been retired from labor intensive duty and sits on my nightstand waiting to take entry of the nocturnal bursts of genius I often encounter. When I suffered some LAN problems a few weeks back, the laptop served as my only link to the Kazaa file sharing network.

Pentium 3 866: After a year long run as my sole workhorse, I've sold it to a good home. I learned a lot on that machine. I've done a lot of firsts with it. However, to compensate for my small penis, I've purchased a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz to sit alongside my server. Together, they will help me, um... fuck. Why'd I buy all this shit?

There was a joke in the movie "Kingpin" where everyone would use the term "Munsoned" referring to someone who was having a run of bad luck. The term came from the name of the main character Roy Munson (Woody Harrelson), a bowler who lost his hand in a fight when it was pushed into a ball return machine.

From now on, I'm going to use the term "Kenneddied" when talking about a run of bad luck. For example, when my truck broke down in the middle of nowhere and I lost my keys after falling down a hill, I could have said that I was Kenneddied. Between this Skakel fiasco, JFK getting his head blown off, JFK Jr. crashing a plane, Ted Kennedy... wait he's the lucky one in the family.

Well, I've got to go. I'm going to the bar to get Kennedied tonight.

Dude, your ass is gonna get Kenneddied in prison.

In other news...

J-LO Kennedies her marriage
One of the missionaries in the Phillipines gets Kenneddied during the rescue

I'm an asshole.

There appears to be a trend emerging among local business owners where there is an importance of not selling their products, but selling themselves as well.

People that wouldn't pass a screen test on the most obscure cable-access show are putting themselves, their kids, their friends, and their goddamned pets in commercials.

It all started here* when Scott Thomason, local (alleged) pedophile and builder of a car sales empire here in Portland, Oregon started putting himself and his family in commercials. To his credit, he certainly was the first to explore doing something creative with his television ads. Some were good, some weren't; but they were all entertaining in contrast to the typical car sales pitch involving a camera on a crane over a corner lot.

Now, everyone is putting themselves on TV. A mattress selling pencil neck with a whiny voice is calling himself "Carpet Carl" on television and print ads. I've never heard of the guy, but since he's calling himself "Carpet Carl" I'm supposed to think that he's qualified to sell me a mattress? What the fuck do I care about him or his self-imposed nickname? Is this a desperate attempt on his behalf to get laid? I so desperately want to steal this guy's lunch money.

Another mattress/bed store has the husband and wife reading off of their cue cards stating something to the effect of "We'll beat the price on any mattress in town or it's free." I can't really imagine that scenario taking place:

"I can get this mattress elsewhere for $400"

"Whoa... we can't meet that price... I guess we'll have to give it to you for free."

Stupid.

I guess what I want to say is that business owners/managers should really consider whether or not your blatant self promotion is an effective sales tactic. Look around you; acknowledge these ads, and make fun of the people that are stroking themselves by paying to get themselves on TV.

*Actually, Tom Peterson (appliance sales) was the king of all local ads starring himself. He is a star, actually, with cameo appearances in a couple Gus Van Sant films.

Holy shit... Arsenio Hall is doing correspondence on Jay Leno's show. I disfuckingstinctly remember Arsenio stating "I'm going to kick Leno's ass." Look where you are now, Arsenio.

I'm tired, and I'm drunk. If the above doesn't make any sense, have a drink and reread. repeat the drinking until you can make this out.

I think going on TV for shameless self promotion is corny

Oh, yeah... I hit 10,000 hits yesterday. One small step for most websites, a giant leap for mine. My site used to be found at www.teleport.com/~gooch on server space that my Dad had left over from one of his ISP accounts. I used to have people ftp my pages because I didn't know how. The writing and building the infrastructure from where this and other sites are hosted has (and still is) a lot of fun and learning. I started this website in 1999 when the Portland State University Vanguard wouldn't publish some of my material because it wasn't cerebral enough. The format of the site really hasn't changed since then. I had "logs" back then that looked almost identical to the solution that Blogger.com has provided. Now, after the demise of Jam Magazine, this is my only avenue of publication for now. Thanks to Greg Moore for helping me through the technology roadblocks I've faced in the hosting realm.

I dig doing this site. Thanks for visiting.

Here's the current home of goochonline.net, where this website is hosted:

Oh, wait a minute. So C3PO was owned by (future Uncle) Owen and his father in Episode II, then amazingly enough in Episode IV, C3PO winds up jettisoning onto a random planet that happens to be Tatooine and happens to get sold back to Owen and Luke. What are the odds of that? And why doesn't C3PO remember Uncle Owen in Episode IV? ANSWERS, goddammit.

The Force is... pathetic with this one.

I saw Star Wars Episode II (finally). Jhango Fett proved to be the Swiss Army knife of bounty hunters; R2-D2 proved (once again) to be the Swiss Army knife of droids; and Natalie Portman proved that there's a Swiss Army knife in my pants.

Intergalactic prosthetics came a long way from Anakin's C3PO looking hand to Luke Skywalker's natural looking, full functioning hand.

The Yoda scene was cool, as expected. Unfortunately, the Star Wars marketing department assumed that everyone had seen the film and started showing commercials featuring the famous fight scene between Yoda and Dooku.

I want to be a Star Wars character... perhaps I could be the fat Jedi: Mace Fondue?

I plan on writing more commentary on the new SW installment, these are just my opening thoughts.

10,000 hits tomorrow?

I've posted a new-to-you piece of fiction in the COLUMNS section. I did it for a class some four years-ago. Enjoy.

Finally... complex math I understand: