Years ago, like more than 10 years ago, a guy I worked with made me a mix tape (remember those?). It had a bunch of stuff on it, nothing I’d ever heard before in my small-town-to-married-to-mother-to-single-working-mother lifetime. One of those things was Marilyn Manson, and we all know how that turned out…

But another band on there, I went years with having a song or two of theirs stuck in my head but I was never able to figure out who they were (once the cover from that tape was lost, so was the band info). With the advent of the innernets in my life, I finally figured it out.

And I’m kind of feeling like a dork, because the name of the band is kind of dorky, and some of their music is a little dorky – and I wont even get into their costumery. But then again, there are a bunch of songs that are really damn good. Example:

Ocean of Hunger (no real video, sorry)
or
Ice Planet Hell (no real video, but star wars!)
or

(again, no real video, but images of the band)

Anyway. I’ve had Ocean of Hunger stuck in my head for the last two weeks, finally looked up the lyrics and it turns out that even the line that was stuck in my head was totally wrong. But that’s ok. Now I know, maybe I can purge it from my mind for a while?

Or not.

All of the comments in my spam file today are for Wholesale Polo Shirts.  I don’t understand…how will that make my penis larger?

Anyway, the real reason I write today:  I’m actually working on a project for reals, for a real business and stuff.  Ok, so it’s for my brother-in-law, but I figure that since he’s not blood related, it may actually work out.

Click it.

I didn’t design the logo, I just spiffed it a bit to make it match the rest of the site – which I mostly did.  Yes, I swiped some CSS this time around, mostly because it’s been so long since I’ve actually built a real page from scratch that I think I’ve forgotten more than I’ve learned.

I feel like a real shit over this, actually.  I’m taking way longer to do it than I really need, for no particular reason.  It is taking me days to get to something that really will only take me maybe an hour to do – and it’s not as if I don’t have plenty of time right now.

I’ve got things.  Things I could do.  Rather than playing games or sitting here thinking about the things I could be doing.  There’s my daughter’s fledgling food blog, my chicken blog, my yard can be worked on, my SL shop can be worked on…but no.  Mostly I sit here playing games.  Maybe I can sue Big Fish for not having a warning on their site?

I’m having trouble applying for jobs. I’ve gotten into a, “They won’t hire me anyway, so why bother?” state of mind.  I really have to force myself.  Which is stupid – unemployment doesn’t last forever, and I’d really like to steer clear of that Socialist recruitment tool, welfare*.

So, maybe today I’ll spend a couple hours filling out the “Supplemental Questionaire”, in order to not be hired at yet another job.  Wish me luck!

*Please note the sarcasm: I’ve been informed by a woman on welfare that she’s only on welfare because the system makes them reliant on it, completely disregarding the multiple personal decisions she has made that have served only to that same end.

I figure most of us wonder at some point or another what our purpose is, what our place is.  Where do we stand, in the grand scheme of things – as well as in the smaller picture.

I was thinking about this today, just idly considering other people’s reactions to me, and I think that my position is pretty firmly in “peripheral whackadoo”.

Now, let me explain what this means.

When I’m part of a group, be it a workplace team or family gathering, a message board, whatever…I’m not the glue.  I’m not the leader, not a person who would keep anyone coming back for more.  That’s just not me.

I don’t think I’d want it to be me – too much pressure.  I’m not an entertainer.  Ask anyone who comes to my house – I’m a crappy host.  If I remember to tell you which hall door leads to the bathroom, I’m doing good.

What I am, well, I’m the one off to the side with the one-liners or odd story.  If I leave the party, or the chat,  or whatever, everything will continue on.  At some point later, someone might say, Hey, remember whatsername?  She was a whackadoo.

It won’t be malicious or mean-spirited or condescending, just a fact.  I’m not “weird”, not shocking on purpose, but it seems like the things that I like and do aren’t usually in line with the people in my immediate vicinity.  What’s more, the people in the world who do like some of the same things I do…well, I usually don’t enjoy hanging around with them.  Maybe because I like unique stories?  I don’t need to hear your chicken stories, I have my own.  But you have cow stories, or husband stories or car stories, those will interest me.  Same thing with cats.  Don’t tell me about your cats, I have plenty and they are cuter.

But put me in a group of people in the usual course of things, and they don’t have chickens or 800 cats, so my stories are just…a little…off.

So I guess it’s true what they say, Location Location Location.  It’s all about where you are when you say it.  I say “G7″ in front of people who are thinking “coffee”, and it’s a little off.  I say “Lad Nah” in front of people who are thinking “pizza” and it’s a little off.  I say “Zojirushi” when they are thinking “Black & Decker”.

So I’m a little off – but only compared to the people around me.  And with any luck, someone might remember what I said, not just that it was “off”, and learn something they might not have otherwise.  That would be cool.

In our household, we have a tradition of the half-birthday.  Well, for the one kid in the house anyway.  It usually turns out more fun than the regular birthday, because we purposely set out to have it be half-assed.

This year, the theme was MeatCake.  We had been browsing the Cake Wrecks website, and found reference to both meat cakes and cannibal cakes.  Being us, we couldn’t leave well enough alone, and decided on a cannibal meat cake.

Below you will see the pictures of this spectacular cake. Some things to keep in mind while you look through them though: I am not a professional in any way.  In fact, I am much better known for things I cook being “interesting” than “beautiful” or something.  Usually they are tasty, or at least edible, but not always pretty.

That being said, here goes:

Stage 1: Brownie People Victims

Step 2: Preparing the Meat

Step 3: Preparing cooked Meat

Meat Cake.

Meat Cake.

The Half-Birthday girl, enjoying her MeatCake.

Fun was had by all, except maybe the meatcake and brownie people.