Walter Miller's Homepage

All the hype, with none of the technollogy

Mid-July 97 Update

Page 1 of 4

Othor than my Granfather's frightening face, his neck, his feet, his groin and armpit area, his hourny fingernails, his hairy, crusted, filthy scailey back, and his horible lumpy, leathery and unimaginnably disgusting ass, there is nothing, NOTHING i tell you more repulsive, more hideous, more outraigeously offensively and invidiousley butt-ugly repellent than the shallow halfinch thick layer of i-dont-know-what-the-HELL it is, (and dont WANNA), which comprises my beastly anticedent's most un-antisceptic

`SCALP.`

I am workin both ends of the candle so to speak thanks to a fungal rash on the top of his gross head the care of which involves asorted creams, jellys toxic alkalie powdors and a brasswire brush. And when you are done (becuase, with Granfather ONE NEVER IS), all you get is a few more hours until the next task where his screaming and stinking is slighteley less than the norm.

Do you know that comercial for Scalposcin Medocated Shampoo where the man who looks like Peewee Herman in a black suit has that pained look on his face and says: "I NEED 2 HANDS FOR ITCHING AND TWO MORE FOR FLAKKING."

Well danm. This isnt even MY scalp, its someone elses, and even still I need 8 more hands, for things like scrubbing cleaning washing and holding my danm nose. And this is just the care of his scalp we're talkin about: Not his ass.

The old beast is out of the hospitol

Horriffic stinking scalp not withstanding, Granfather's lung, which you read about how it got dammaged in the last update, is healing nicely, thanks. (That colapsed cheap wine container that was in there did have to be surgicalley removed but it was the non-invasive type of surgery so he was in the hospitol just 2 days. They used one of those lipposuction wands. You dont wanto know the detials. It broke the danm machine. Alls i can say is Thank God for third partey No-Fault medicol insurance.)

First, THANK you all

I wish to thank everyone who encuoraged me in my recent job loss. (The job near Austin i was fired from). It is only now that I see the purpose in this tragedy, as becuase of it, i was able to give encuoragement to others who lost there jobs too and sooth there hurts in this precarrious industry of ours where you coud lose your job at any time irregardless of whether or not you deserve it.

A personal note to Gilbert in Coopertino and also 'Ellen' in the Bay Area: YES, I too know what you are going thru. I knoew it was not your fault. Hang in there, a bettor job will be along soon. (I sugest you brush up on HTML like I did. And try to learn frames and tables. Its a pain in the ass but makes you more markettable. This way you will find out the Color of your Parrachute as they say.)

Its ben a hectic time for me.

I appologize to all my readers for gettin this mid-July updaite out late. (On the same day as my Augist update!). Yes, I know you like to read abbout my misorable life. (Admit it now).

right now i am in California

We are here for a small family reunion of our dysfuntionnol family. I cant say WHERE in Califonia becuase my brother will kill me but its the L.A. area where he recently moved. We hoped this family get-togethor woud patch the wounds of hatred and mistrust that tears like a rift through us, (and which is all GRANFATHERS fault). But as you coud geuss our hopes were in vein. The only bright spot is that certain problems have ben worked out where Granfather got to see my little nepheuw (my brothers kid) for the first time ever.

Thats right--until now he was FORBIDEN to see him

The poor kid screamed his friggin head off at the site and scent of him (just like my Dad said that I did the first time I saw the old bastord). Hopfully the little guy will not grow up with the problems that I did and isnt too emmotionolly scarred by early exposure to Granfathor. At least for the rest of his life, even if he lives to be 100 the worst truamatic thing that coud ever of happened to the little guy ALRAEDY DID.

Right now Granfather is all alone in my brothor's livving room watching Mothor Anjelica on cable TV. He is screamin at the TV, "PREACH IT SISTER PREATCH IT!!" at the top of his lungs. He is so loud it is makking the bad lung bleed. We are not even Cathollic.

His voice is extra distorted and plus his teeth were makin this awful slurpey noise. I went in there to ask him what was wrong and then he stuck his tounge out to show me with an evil grin. My brothor does not allow Ganfather to smoke or chew tobbacco in the house so the old bastord is sucking on this small stack of 4 Nicotrole nicotine patches all on top of each othor. There are 2 more stuck to his inside cheeaks and another at the roof of his moulth.

"MISTER JOE CAMEL AINT ALLOWED IN YER BROTHORS HOUSE BUT IM STILL GITTIN' MUH FIX, BOY," Granfather grunted at me. How dare these danm tobbacco companies deny this stuff isnt adictive.

Evoryone is mad at Granps

The reason why is becuase he busted my brothors toilat on the first day we were here. I wont go into details. But lets just say that if you want to go to the bathroom, no solids othor than natural waste is allowed down the bowl until they fix it: If you use toilet paper you have to wad evereything up into a little wonton and throw it in my newphew's danm diapor pail. My brothor is pissed becuase California has all these laws about recycling and theres no logicol place for all these small paper 'wontons' as my brothors calls them. (It is a family term: I personaly think they look more like Ravviolies. We used to have to do this somtimes at Granfathers house when the cesspool got flooded.)

Wonton Behavoir

Its the sort of thing i geuss you coud ecxpect to happan at a family reunion involving MY family.

The next dilemma is how to entertain granfather when Mothor Angelica is over. All the channels in California are in the wrong place from what the old bastord is used to and he will force someone (usualy me) to stand there and read off the scrolling Preveiw Channel guide. It scrolls too fast for me to read it. Esecialy the Spannish spekaing shows which i cant pronuonce and he dosent watch anyway but he HAS to know whats on. Also it scrolls too fast when you get to the area betwean like, Chanell 29 up to 32. If you dont read it fast enuogh he will curse and throw things. Then my brothers kid starts to scream and cry agian.

It is NOT even his house.

Yes he is the guest. Parrasite is more like it. Also the the plastic sofa covoring is melted beneath him. My brothors landlord pokked his head in earlier to get a plate of food (he was invited) and his initial inpression of Granfather was NOT good. Wait till he sees the inpression on the couch. It is HIS couch.

"Granfather Clock"

Years before the old bastord even became a granfather, he earned this nickname way back in his teens. I said i was not goingto go into details abbout how the toilat at my brothers house got broke, but please try to imagine if you will those incredobly heavey iron turd-shaped pine cones atached to the chain which cause a Granfather Clock to work by slowly notching down gravitationolly as to turn the gears of the great clock.

Well folks somtimes iron pinecones are shaped like turds, and somtimes THEY are shapped like iron pinecones. They both weiigh the same. And while some are tethored to brass chains and move downward very slowly, others are not atached to chains at all and move very quickley. Very very, quikly indeed.

I will write more about our California trip, as well as Granfathers repulsive SCALP in just a bit.

But first, a few anuoncements:

Allot of people write me wanting to know where they too can find data-entry work from home. Well sorry, I DONT know. As you know I lost my data entrey job for that company near Austin. My sole enployment is now working remote for the Netly News and I hear they dont need anymore tellecommutors like me there. The hourley wage is NOT much better than I was making at the other place, but atleast they let me write a colunm each week.

My dream is to be a great Net culture novellist or writor or cyberpundit like Douglas Copeland or Carl Steadman or Douglas Rushkof (even thuogh the last guy says theres no such thing as a cyperbundit).

The REAL reason i want to be a writer

Other than hauling my demented mean Granfather up onto the crapper and wiping his skinny ass, (and lately, NOT in that order), i am a man of severely limmited skills. Simpley stated,

writing is easier than coding HTML.

Think abuot it. If you make a misteak writing its just a typo. But if you mak a mistake in HTML your danm link doesnt work. Which means you cant get to the next page...Which was probly written by some guy whose a writer mereley becuase hes too dumb to be a coder instaed of a writer.
Yes I love the internet.

I originaly was hired to do HTML entrey for the Netly News but Im makking allot of misteaks. (If you ever see a bad link on Netly you know its MY fualt). There is an inside joke that I was demoted to colunminst. (Those who work dirrectley with me are not luaghing). If there wasnt an open slot for my weakly column (and also they feel sorry for me) they woud of fired my ass already.

But i just passed my probbationary 30-day trial period. And DANM, did i come close in those 30 days. But now its tough crap on them becuase I passed my 30 days. They still CAN fire me, but it will be harder if they want to.

Another anouncement

My humble hompage reached 100,000 hits. A somwhat bogus milestone, as most people link to my update page. But anyway, Congradulatoins to Don W. of Ottowa Ontareo who wrote in to say that he was Walter Miller's Home Page hit numbor 100,001. He didnt hit it on the nose but he was the first hit in my 'Second Hundred-thuousand'.

Speakking of gettin hit on the Nose

Granfather and i had a big argeument stemming from this. Like so many arguments do today, it was a big fight on exactley WHEN the 21st centurey really starts: the year 2000 or the year 2001. And the agrument ended when the mean old bastord HIT me on the brigde of my nose with his rolled up WIRED magazine and you know how friggin heavy it is.

It was the copy with the Smiley Face

Me and Granfather share one copy of WIRED. We used to get separate copies--him by mail, and me from the job i was just fired from. And you know whats weird, BOTH copies are now missing from our trailor. No one knows why. He seems to think I threw them out but he must of ben dreaming.

"SO THEN WHUT HAPPENED, BOY?" he hollored at me. "DID SOMONE COME IN OUR TRAILOR AN' STEAL 'EM?"

Granfathor tole me he had a dream that a mysteroius blond woman floated in and stole both WIREDs. (More abbout some weird bad dreams of Granfather later in this update).