what am I listening to..?
nada...

---

now, come on...

you've got to admit, this guy is tres scary... maybe it's the black tights... or the spats... or that monocle, after all, the only people who wear monocles are those scary, nasty nazi fellows in those old movies... whatever it is, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. i think i'll have some fun with photoshop and mr. peanut later tonight... feel free to join in...
later

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what am I listening to..?
oddly muted crunching sounds...

---

after two cups of coffee...
and a couple of cigarettes, you know what tastes really, really good??
organic tortilla chips dipped in natural peanut butter...
sorry, i just had to share.

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what am I listening to..?
the Smiths... "how soon is now?"

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i think...
i've finally grown tired of the winter. i'm listening to music that i usually reserve for the bouts of depression that hit in the summer...
sometimes i feel like my life is nothing more than clawing my way out of one emotional wolf pit only to tumble into another... only in the next one there are wolves and bears... and snakes. and no coffee. and no cigarettes. only the gods know what's in the next pit... probably rabid clowns. hmmm, coffee. that sounds like a good idea, considering that there are no distilled or fermented spirits in the manor for some strange reason... i'll be right back.
there, that didn't take long, did it? now i have some nice hot and black, in my favorite, comfy old maroon mug.
the manor is empty, except for Tiger the cat, Sheba the Hound from Heck and me... and those unnervingly quiet flying squirrells in the attic. the candles are lit and here i sit in the lair, writing and basking in the glow of the candles and a Sony Trinitron monitor... excuse me whilst i take a sip. ahh, fresh ground Columbian Roast, with a few espresso beans thrown in for the psychotropic effects... who needs absinthe, i've got caffine...
so, where was i? oh, yeah. you know, sometimes i feel like a brittle old reed that is going to shatter in the wind and then sometimes i feel like i just want to go walk in the woods and keep walking until, years hence, some hiker finds my bleached bones resting comfortably under a nice old tree. and then, there's times like now when i feel like banging my head into the wall for a while until i either pass out or at least get numb. or wake up the squirrells. maybe i just expect too much of others, at least on the emotional level... damn being a Libra!
there are a few things that offer some excitement, though; i got my new bagpipes yesterday. i'm looking forward to playing them. and, there's something in the offing that i can only tease you with now, but will soon announce, if not this weekend, shortly after.
well, i'm going to watch a basketball game. that's always good for taking the mind off things.
i bid you good night and Blessed be.

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what am I listening to..?
a strange clicking sound inside my office wall...

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well, Aimee...

against my better judgement, here ya go. I have to say that, seeing this, I look about a hundred years younger without the big gray beard...
yes, it's goth-geek night out at the Tony Levin Band show!
well, now that I'm thoroughly embarrassed, I guess I'll get back to work.
*blushing...*
later

what am I listening to..?
Bill Bruford's Earthworks.

---

no time...
no time, no time, no time...
for anything... however, stand by for an interesting announcement this weekend...
later

---

---

it is a strange, strange world...
...Howard Dean emits a strange, ripple like aura during a speech...

...meanwhile, at Club Vatican, 'da Pope-master JP gets his freak on, digging on a Polish break dancer! waddup wit dat?!?!?

and last, but definitely not least, former Libyan despot, recently turned good guy Gaddafi, tries to crash the Golden Globe Awards in a stunning Bett Midler castoff...

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what am I listening to..?
the demons in my sick little mind...

---

uhh... comments, anyone?

found this little gem on Amazon.com...
ya never know what you'll find when you're looking for classic erotica...
i need to go take a cold shower.
later

what am I listening to..?
rutgers at miami on the wireless...

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i really really...
hate computers... i had to uninstall the latest version of aol and reinstall an earlier version, as the new one kept locking everything up. i still can't get my sound card to work and i keep getting script errors on any web pages i try to open... grrrrrrrrrrrr.
most annoying, at the very least. i guess i'll have to spend some more time this weekend trying to get it back up to snuff... or snuff it, one or the other. that iMac is starting to look real, real good.
later...

what am I listening to..?
my heart pounding in my stuffed up ears...

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it must be a sign...
the stupid pagan pentangle thingy is back... i guess blogger didn't like me modifying my post template and rejected the html surgery.... so, here it is again... for now.
my computer is giving me fits... it either runs like it's brand new or it acts like i do when i'm not getting my way.. i think i will have to threaten it with extinction and replacement by a nice 20" display iMac... now, where can i get two grand...???
later and Blessed be...

what am I listening to..?
football and snowflakes the size of '48 buicks hitting the roof...

---

holy crap...
here's what's been going on:
friday, woke up at 2:30 in the morning to a house filled with smoke and oil fumes. called the service company and started up the stove to help keep the house warm.
the service guy shows up and the oil line is frozen due to the amount of sludge in the tank which contains enough condensed water to freeze. so... i helped him drill a hole in the back of the pantry, run two new lines into the house and after about three hours of fiddling around, it fired up. that was annoying and expensive...
the mrs. blew out a tire on the way home from work, and guess what, it was in my car...
so, saturday morning i dropped the rim off at the service station, ran some other errands, washed the car and then picked up the tire and put it on. watched rutger's get their head handed to them by pittsburgh on the tube... ouch.
drank some beers and started fighting a running nose and headache... took some powders and went to bed.
woke up this morning with a killer cold, sneezing, wheezing and hacking. while i was sitting around with tissues stuck up my nose, i hosed my hard drive and reinstalled all my software. seems to be working ok, it is definitely faster.
and now, it's snowing again like crazy. it sure is pretty, though.
added a link to a new friend in the "special souls" section, Poison. very interesting page, nice graphics. check her out.
well, Sheba, the Hound from Heck wants to go out and run around in the snow, so maybe i'll see you later.
blessed be, friends.

what am I listening to..?
a basketball game, what else...

---

it just started to snow...
it's a very cold, dry snow, more like little flakes of mica wafting down from the sky. it looks like little diamonds when it falls through the light by the back walk. it is very, very cold, but at least there's no wind. that's going to come later. wind chills are supposed to be in the minus twenty range early tomorrow morning... and, go figure, no matter how much snow we get, there's no way i can take the day off, i have some important things to do tomorrow in the office. nothing i like more than slogging through the snow in the dark and the cold for sixty or so miles so i can get abused by my client...
i've been slowly descending into a minor state of depression, i really don't know why, but it seems to be worse at home that at work... i'm sure that's not a good sign. i could really use a long weekend of nothing to do. monday my company is open, but my client is closed, maybe i'll burn a vacation day and just hang around the manor, drink coffee and read.
notice that the pagan pentagram breaker thingy is gone... that got boring in a hurry.
i think i'm going to get bundled up, light a lantern, grab a pipe full of smokeweed and take a walk through the woods in the snow.
have a good night.
Blessed be.

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what am I listening to..?
my silent office

---

it never ends...
i'm bewildered...
once again, thanks to Boing Boing...

what am I listening to..?
my hard drive making a sound like a crowing rooster... yikes!

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i spent my lunch hour...
adding a bunch of new links in the sidebar...
all this whilst eating some fat free yogurt and a bowl of diced up citrus fruit... what a mess!
i need a washing up...
later

what am I listening to..?
if I told you, you wouldn't understand...

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ya know...
every once in a while, I stumble across something that warms the cockles of my black little heart...
Girls with Hearses...
I have to thank fellow Jersey blogger James for this one... have a look-see... that's the way I want to go out!!!

what am I listening to..?
football

---

it's sunday...
so that means i'm cooking... but before i get into that, let me tell you something;
it doesn't matter if something is one hundred percent real, or if it's almost one hundred percent fantasy, when things happen, the emotions are still the same. i know that probably doesn't mean much to you, but take it for what it's worth...
so, here's sad old goth's recipes of the day!
#1. cabbage soup.
start by coarsely chopping two golden onions. throw about three or four tablespoons of butter in a deep pot and throw in the onions, along with a few finely chopped cloves of garlic. add a couple teaspoons of salt and caraway seeds, and a lot of freshly ground pepper (a lot means a lot...).
cover and cook until the onions are cooked down a bit. in the mean time, finely shred a head of green cabbage. when the onions are cooked down a bit, throw in the cabbage and about six cups of either chicken or vegetable stock. cover, bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer for about forty or fifty minutes. damn good.
#2. sad old goth's "gee, remember when we were so poor we could only afford to make potato soup" potato soup.
start by coarsely chopping a nice big white onion. throw about three or four tablespoons of butter in a deep pot and a clove or two of finely chopped garlic. (there's no vampires wandering around the halls of the manor, as you can imagine, we love garlic)...
let the onions cook down while you peel and chop up about four or five pounds of white potatoes. when the onions are ready, throw in the spuds along with enough chicken or vegetable broth to cover and set it to boiling. when it starts boiling, cover it and reduce to a simmer. then...
while it's cooking down, pour yourself a Guinness and: cook up a pound of bacon until it's very crisp. drain and hold until later. hard boil half a dozen eggs, cool, peel and throw in the fridge until later.
when the potatoes are nice and soft, mash them up a bit (not too much, you want some small hunks) and toss in about six or seven finely chopped scallions. cover and let it cook down for about an hour, stirring every once in a while so you can sneak a taste.
when you're ready to eat; mince up the hard boiled eggs. ladle out a bowl full of soup, garnish with a little prepared horseradish, the hard boiled eggs, some crumbled up bacon, a nice sprinkle of crumbled bleu cheese or some crumbled Stilton and a dash of red wine vinegar. get yourself some nice crusty bread and a glass of wine and go at it.
you can mix in some of the cabbage soup, if you like, it goes well with the potato soup.
well, that's it for now. let me know if you try either of these out. i can't take credit for the cabbage soup recipe, i got it our of a vegetarian cookbook called "The Incredible Broccoli Forest", it was published in the seventies, but the potato one is mine.
i'll be back later, perhaps to expand on that rather obstuse observations i made.
later.

what am I listening to..?
This Ascension - "Ill met by Moonlight".

---

greetings...
I've been busy lately and this is the first time I've had to sit and spill the usual useless, droll drivel...
blah, blah, blah, snort, fizzle, goop...
it's almost amazing that I have nothing interesting to say...
have you visited Darchangels new site yet? If not, do so, 'tis very cool.
I've not yet hosed my hard drive, but spent most of my free time backing up everything so I can do so soon, perhaps this weekend. Once that is completed, I will be reworking the blog. Or perhaps I'll hire someone do it for me, as I find wrestling about with html a less than fulfilling endeavor... Anyone out there interested in taking on the task? If so, drop me a line and we can discuss the particulars...
I think I need a haircut. I shut my ponytail in the car door the other night and almost ripped the back of my head off. It does, however, make a rather nice impromptu scarf, which comes in handy these days, it's been quite cold with no real relief in sight.
yes, it's another boring chapter of life at stately sad old goth manor... Sorry, the muse seem to have taken a holiday, perhaps to warmer climes... I have, however, been doing some off-line writing lately, after I do some serious editing I shall foist it upon you for your amazement and amusement. Stand by for that, bet you can't wait, can you?
let's see, what else... Oh, the flying squirrels in the attic have been suspiciously quiet lately, maybe they've decided to settle in for the winter and take a snooze, or perhaps they've noticed the gargoyles on the roof and have fled in sheer terror. Last Christmas, Christmas night to be specific, one decided to venture down into the manor and caused quite a stir. We had just come home from visiting family, and our cat, Tiger the Cat and my daughter's cat, Miss Orange, were going at it hammer and tongs in the parlor, which may have had something to do with the Christmas tree taking a tumble into the middle of the room. While we were straightening that mess out, Rocky the Flying Squirrel decided to pay us a visit... Apparently he was hiding on one of the ancient beams that span the ceiling of the parlor and jumped down onto the head of our "adopted" son (he's from Ivory Coast, Africa... More about that later at some point in time), then sprinted across the top of the sofa, out the parlor door, through the foyer and into the dining room, where I played "catch Rocky" for a half hour till I cornered it on the top of the china closet. All this whilst Tiger the Cat and Sheba, the Hound from Heck are running around after me and the squirrel, my daughters and Herve (the kid from Africa) have barricaded themselves in the parlor with my daughter's cat, Miss Orange, deciding that watching me diving under the table and jumping around the room was ever so much more fun than trying to help, I guess it was quite a show seen from behind the safety of the French doors of the parlor... Anyway, I had on a pair of thick leather work gloves and managed to grab the thing, then realized I didn't know what to do with it... I yelled for one of the girls to get me the cat carrier and I put it in there and placed it on the dining room table. I decided that I would take him for a ride to the state park a few miles away and let him go, so I turned around to get my coat from the closet from under the stairs and when I turned back, there he was, sitting on top of the carrier, staring at me. I swear he was smiling. Of course, this led to another half hour romp around the dining room, during which he decided that he'd take a run up the stairs. Luckily, the only door that was open was to the bathroom, so I spent another twenty minutes on the hunt in there. I finally cornered him in the room where the toilet is (the manor has a huge bathroom, it's three separate rooms, actually), and grabbed him again. This time I just held on to him and my daughter drove us to the park, where I let him go. I'm sure he made it back to the manor before we did. We haven't seen any in the manor proper since, I suppose it's not worth the trauma of being chased around the darkened halls of the lair by some crazed old goth wearing heavy leather gloves, although if any of you young ladies are up for the experience... sorry, I couldn't resist... now, where was I..?
well, I guess I did have something to say tonight after all. Nothing like a good flying squirrel story, huh?
I think I need a glass of merlot and a bite to eat. I think I'll be back, that story reminded me of another one that shall share with you, about another chase through the manor, this time in pursuit of a cute little bat...
later.

what am I listening to..?
quiet... everyone else went out for lunch...

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yet another...
new link in the "rainy day distractions" list at the left. StealItBack.com. This place has an on-going auction of items confiscated by the police, or abandoned stuff found by them. Sort of like Ebay meets Cops... just another excuse to stay up all night on the web. Have fun.
later.

what am I listening to..?
mira - "cayman"

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a new link...
in the "Special Souls" section; Foxfire Diaries - quite a visual and aural treat. Please check it out.
later.

what am I listening to..?
the Packers and the Seahawks...

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there's a huge...
pot of stew simmering on the stove; giant chunks of beef, carrots, turnips, potatoes, onions, garlic and scallions, simmering in a hearty beef broth, seasoned with fresh rosemary and sage... the scent is wafting throughout the manor, into the lair. It should be ready to eat around six or so... hmmm, a big bowl of home made stew, with hard, crusty home made bread, slathered with butter and some 2001 French Merlot...
It's a rainy, dreary day outside, much suited to cooking, baking and sitting around, drinking cocktails, watching football and waiting for dinner... sure is quiet and peaceful in the manor today. At least it's somewhat warm out and I haven't had to fire up the coal stoves. Tiger the cat and Sheba, the Hound from Heck are crashed out on the parlor floor, the Mrs. is doing some mending and daughter #2 is getting ready to go out with some friends. It's a wonderful day.
So far, the year is off to a good start; I can only hope that this continues.
The Yule tree and decorations are still up, we're not quite ready to let go of them yet. I love sitting around at night by the glow of the fairy lights and the window candles, taking in the sweet pine scent of the greens. All very cozy and such.
The blog might be down for a day or so soon, I'm going to be reworking the hard drive, this beast of a pc has been acting up recently and it needs a serious hosing.
Gotta go stir the stew, see you later.

what am I listening to..?
the rain on the roof and the flying squirrels in the attic...

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it was one year ago...
this very day, that I posted my first entry in this sad old blog... so I guess this is a special occasion, of sorts. I really didn't think I could stretch it out this long, but it just gets more and more interesting as it goes on. I've been working on some things that will be incorporated soon, like an overall visual change and a secondary page for showcasing some different things, like more stories, poetry and photographs and keep this page to the general day to day ramblings that it seems to have evolved into of late. Well, I'm off the the scullery now to make a week's worth of beef stew and potato soup. I'll be back later, I'm sure.
Thanks for hanging out with me for a year.
later.

what am I listening to..?
the echo of my typing in the now silent lair...

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it's three thirty am...
the last of the guests have left, all the dishes and glasses have been washed and put away; the old year was ushered out and the new year greeted with the usual toasts and noise and fireworks, handshakes and kisses all around...
it is now 2004... and so it begins...