brykmantra.com

Yes, I haven’t posted in a while – I’ve been working on lyrics for my music, taking piano lessons, giving computer lessons in return for piano lessions, working part-time, trimming tree branches away from the house, helping my wife cope with her evil step-siblings who are bullying her mom, DJing on Second Life, DJing on Blip.fm, posting things on Twitter and Facebook, and last Friday I cooked a huge pot of my signature beef vegetable soup, as is traditional on the first cold weekend that I have time.

Eh, who am I kidding — I could have posted but I was just dragging butt.

And besides: Look over to the left of the page: my Twitter & Blip.fm posts show up in the sidebar, as well as on Facebook, so it’s just as good as blogging, except you don’t get to listen to me blather on at length about things of no importance.

Like for instance.

Come to think of it, that makes it BETTER than blogging.

ANYWAY:

I have emerged from semi-exile to wish Happy Birthday to two of my readers (which means, to about half of the reading audience that I have left): Former co-worker Todn8r, and longtime blogging friend in Norway, RennyBA

Hope you two make the best of your respective days!

Okay, okay, I haven’t posted a real post since July 4th, but it’s one of my favorite days of the year – the day that the hellish Texas summer is given its eviction notice – so I’m going to try to get a wrap-up posted without murdering 30 minutes to do it:

I actually have been posting on my blog — if you’ll look in my sidebar you’ll see my Twitter feed, which also includes my Blip.fm posts, which are also routed through Facebook. Those things are mostly how I blog these days, so if you want to follow me on those, click each of the links in this paragraph.

But keep coming back here too, of course. Not all of my thoughts fit into 140 characters.

All summer they’ve been tearing up the street in front of our house, but it hasn’t been as bad as I’ve feared (like it was on another street 3 years ago) and the end may finally be in sight. Still, it’s been awfully blasted inconvenient.

I made Employee of the Month for August at my job! Not bad, considering I’m just part-time and I’ve only been there 8 months.

The astounding thing is that this is the first job I’ve had where at least some level of management doesn’t have their head up it. Seriously: first job EVER. I was at the point where I didn’t realize it was possible for management NOT to have their head up it.

At this one place I worked once upon a time, the person who kept getting Employee of the Month was the one who was occasionally known to sit on the assistant manager’s lap. I’m not saying there was any connection between those two facts — hey, maybe it was statistical clustering — but I do know that she was lazy, incompetent and tended to spend all day playing on the computer, so …

But I digress: My point is that I’m amazed and thrilled that my skills and my diligent efforts were actually noticed – and shocked that they were rewarded! Wow. A small sliver of Life actually makes sense.

And for the record, I didn’t have to sit on anybody’s lap.

Another reason I haven’t posted much is because I’ve tried to dedicate September to try to get to the next plateau in my music projects. I haven’t been totally successful so far, but I’ve brainstormed more lyrics in the past 30 days than in all the years since I was in a garage band in Lubbock.

And by “brainstormed”, I mean “come up with a lot of stupid crap that I would never want anybody to see or hear”, but if you don’t do that when you’re brainstorming, then you’re not doing it right.

But there is one musical advance I hope to get out of this month: Tomorrow I start my piano lessons! Yes, yes, old dog, new tricks, shut up. I’ve been piddling around on keyboards for some time now, but this will be my first exposure to actual educated training. I’ve found a music teacher that’s looking for some very basic computer lessons, so we’re doing a swap.

I’m still occasionally Djing in Second Life, including tomorrow night at Belar Inshan Social Club. Drop in at 8 Central if you’re in the Metaverse at the time!

Our big screen TV went out in early August, so we were without it for like 3 weeks, but fortunately it was still under extended warranty, and of course we DO have other TVs in the house.

But that was the BIG one.

Anyway it’s back now and we can breathe again.

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OK, that’s all for now, and I ended up slaughtering MORE than 30 minutes.

But now you’re fed. So follow me on the other things, and keep coming back here.

Um … that’s all I’ve got, really … It’s been a sad week, I lost a very good friend from Second Life, and that’s why I haven’t posted. I’m working on a long, thoughtful post about her, and in the meantime, nothing else seems worth posting except for the colors of the holiday.

But I’ll leave you for now with something from Presurfer: The Fourth of July Celebrations Database.

It was about four years ago that I started becoming fascinated with Iceland in general, and that bizarre crazycakes entity known as Bjork in particular.

Today I remembered that SNL recently did a news segment with Her Wackness (played by Kristen Wiig) explaining Iceland’s economic crisis, and I realized I haven’t checked out Hulu in a long time, so hey: Two birds, one stone, no waiting:

The absolute bestest part: “Right now, Iceland gets all of its revenue from three sources: Fishing, dragons, and screaming.”

Ha ha ha haaaa! That’s pure comedy genius!

Because it’s Bjork all over.

Don’t believe me? here’s her “Bachelorette” video; discruminating film enthusiasts will detect Michel Gondry’s fingerprints all over it:

No one thing worth posting, so here’s a bunch:

Thanks everybody who welcomed me back in my comments! I’ll really try to post more.

It’s June in Dallas, so of course it’s HOT AS HELL, plus it’s miserably humid.

Just worked six days in a row, finally get one day off tomorrow.

Last night I rented “He’s Just Not That Into You” for The Wife to watch while I was at work today, but I didn’t watch it.

I repeat, I DID NOT WATCH IT.

If you want to see more of my posts, friend me on Facebook, because I got my screen name now: facebook.com/brykmantra , of course.

And the only reason I’m active at all on Facebook and Twitter is because I got a widget to make my Twitter posts show up on Facebook. Two birds, one stone, no waiting.

But as it turns out, thanks to Facebook I’m in touch with old high school friends and acquaintances, most of them for the first time in MANY MANY years.

But not many relatives, for some reason, just my cousin’s daughter Sherilynn.

That reminds me, my wife said that my cousin (Sherilynn’s aunt) left me a message today, something about a bunch of other cousins getting together in the Dallas area. I guess I need to listen to the message …

Speaking of cousins, our old blogging pal Gigglechick has been having some intense cousin problems …

Anyway, here’s a cool video I discovered during the winter when my blog was busted. Put on your headphones, turn off the lights, and enjoy!

Okay, I finally got my WordPress upgraded to version 2.7.1, which means my blog FINALLY shows up again! As you’ll recall, I couldn’t even edit anything on my blog for 6 months, and for much of that time, the thing wasn’t even readable. The folks at Lunarpages helped me fix it, but just over 6 weeks later, all that was showing up was my shamrock background and the photo of my cool metal logo at the top of the page.

This time they told me that it was because I was using a really, really old version of WordPress … and, well, BUSTED! Yeah, I haven’t upgraded my WordPress since my first installation, which was, oh, about 4 years ago. So I guess I was due for a change. But backups and file replacing makes me nervous, so I’ve been putting it off.

So I finally did it. So shut up. And so maybe it’ll be a while before my blog fails to show up again.

Or not: As soon as I got 2.7.1 installed and I logged in, the admin page says, “WordPress 2.8 is available! Please update now.”

Sheesh. There’s no stopping this damnable treadmill of blog “progress”.

I just found this out last week: You might catch a glimpse of me in a new movie that’s coming out soon.

Maybe.

You may remember that almost a year ago, I wrote about being in the audience for what was supposedly the pilot episode of a talk show — but it was obvious to me and others there that it was all a big setup for some kind of joke.

At the time I wrote that I suspected that the actor playing the gay Austrian model (who was trying to adopt a black American baby) might have been Jamie Kennedy or Mike McDonald (from MadTV).

It turns out I was aiming too low.

I’m learning now that I was actually seeing Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for his characters of Borat and Ali G.

The sad part is that I had known since the Borat movie came out that Cohen’s next movie project was going to be about a gay Austrian model named Bruno.

But during the taping I just failed to put make the connection — I think that I blocked out the possibility that such a big movie project would actually travel to Dallas and intersect with my life.

But it did, and now there’s a small chance that my image (along with the images of 40 other people) might flicker across a movie screen near you.

I say a small chance because, as I mentioned last year, they weren’t happy with that taping session and did the whole thing again that night. And, judging by previews and advance screening reviews, the audience was “predominantly black”, and the audience I was in was only about 25% African American. (The producers were probably trying to evoke a stronger reaction, so in the second taping they most likely focused on the fact that the baby was black.)

Anyway, I actually hope I’m on the cutting room floor on this one, since I have the feeling that anyone in the audience at the time will be edited to look like a Maury Povich reject.

But I’m getting a kick out of the fact that I got to see Borat, almost up close, even if I didn’t find out for a full year.

Three of my friends (1 former co-worker, 2 Internet friends, all female) are having birthdays these next three days:

First of all, today is the birthday of Kim Novak of Yay! Kim Blog. Kim was one of my first blogging friends when I first started over 6 years ago, and about the only one from that era that I still keep up with. Bonus points: She’s a fellow Texan! Go wish Kim a great birthday, and listen to some of her great music while you’re there!

Tomorrow (the 29th) is the birthday of one of my newest friends, Debra from Atlanta. I met her in Second Life last summer (where she goes by the name of Stephi), and she’s one of my best friends in that virtual world. Bonus points: We were born just 3 weeks apart!

And finally, on Thursday it’s the birthday of Vickie, a longtime reader and commenter on this here blog, and former co-worker at Chucky’s Madhouse, where she still endures to this day. Bonus points: She’s a fellow Texan too!

Happy Birthday to all my friends!

Wow, after more than six months, I FINALLY got my blog editing interface fixed!

I’ve got a lot of things to catch y’all up on …

Well, no, just 3 or 4, actually … I lead a dull life …

But those things will wait for another post; in the meantime, Texas is on fire and we’re breathing smoke.

It’s the first week of summer, and the brutal Texas heat is upon us. It is time, therefore, to blow the dust of the old Blazing Sun mini-icon and give it its inaugural showing for the year.

And now, some miscellaneous stuff, and let’s try to make this fast:

Thanks to our blogging friend Renny (whose weather is not near as hot as ours, being in Oslo) for being the only one to comment while I didn’t post for a bit. I appreciate it, Renny!

Renny recently posted photos of a Seafood Fair in his city, so go check it out!

Speaking of my blogging friends, Kim likes to take tours of state capitals and collect souvenirs, and thus one day last week or so we got a postcard from her from Little Rock. Thanks Kim! I’ll scan it in and post it when I get a chance.

She’s got one picture from her trip posted on her site now, but we’re looking forward to seeing more. (Hint, hint!)

Speaking of collectible snail-mail, my mom sent me a letter for the sole purpose of getting it postmarked with our town’s 100th Anniversary postmark, which I think was a one-day thing, and because which the town leaders the town’s leaders and movers-and-shakers (not necessarily the same thing) were tring to get eerybody to mail a letter to family out of town that day.

That too will be scanned in when time is found …

Speaking of noteworthy goings-on back home, I’ve mentioned in times past that ol’ college buddy The Spook was instrumental in helping make the first CD for country singer Jake Kellen a reality. This year, Jake (whose mom and aunt and uncles I went to went to school with, BTW) wrote and recorded a song for Spook for his birthday, and I was lucky enough to get an advance demo copy of the song, which is pretty funny, especially if you know the Spook.

Spook was going to call me to detail exactly how I would be allowed to distribute the song, but I haven’t gotten that call as of yet, so you Dear Reader are out of luck for now, but keep checking back.

Speaking of friends, another friend (and former co-worker) Todn8r has taken me to task for not commenting on the passing of comedian George Carlin.

Yes, yes, in due time; it’s just that Carlin fits nicely into a theme post I’m doing, so that is yet to come as well.

Speaking of former co-workers, my good friend Misty called on Friday to say that she had bid a fond adieu to Chucky’s Madhouse (my term of affection for what our old company has become), and she even found a job first so that she could leave on her own terms.

I’m so proud!

Speaking of jobs: I had a job interview last week! Woo-hoo! And this was for a job as the tech support guy for a mortgage insurance office. I don’t know if I’ll get it, since I didn’t immediately know some of the more esoteric network admin terms on the skills assessment test, but I have to say that the person who interviewed me was the most un-Catbert-like HR person I”ve ever met — and that’s a GOOD thing.

And now for something completely different: Waterloo TV.