Cleanout

I found a few items of interest while cleaning out a drawer a few weeks ago. As today marks the one year anniversary of my ex-wife moving out of my house, it seems a fitting time to post them.

The first one cracked me up:









The second made me feel much better about my attempts to keep my marriage happy, even if it did drive home how oblivious I was that the whole thing was falling down around my ears:



June 28th, while picking up supplies for a party, I also picked up some carnations for my now ex-wife.

July 3rd we had the discussion that probed our collective misery and effectively ended our marriage.

Five days.

Now, while I don't for one minute believe that flowers were all that were required to keep the marriage alive, at least I can take some small solace in my efforts at thoughtful gestures.


Maybe some things were just never meant to be, no matter how hard a person works at them.


About a week ago, a co-worker who has been monitoring my varying attitudes of the past year phrased it best:
"Thank God for second chances, huh?"


Damn straight.




Oh, and I'm pretty confident those weren't MY lucky numbers.

I Just Splurged All Over Myself

Damn you Craigslist. I only love you for your /msg section, because I find the rest of you seedy and strange (kinda like holding a garage sale with only one soiled and smelly item). But your musical instruments section is like a magical toy store to me. I've become pretty adept at sifting through your piles of musical crap, looking for peanuts and nuggets of corn amongst the turds.

Today you made me broke Craigslist. Flat ass buh-roke. My finances are red-lined, and I couldn't care less. I can and will endure the coming week until payday frugally, and I'll do it happily. I have no choice but to eat ramen and air until then, since I dropped five Franklins on my new (used) uber-toy. But I'll only be hungry for a week; I'll have my kick-ass gear for a LOT longer than that. And I doubt a unit like this will be for sale again in the next twenty years at so convenient a location and certainly not at so low a price.

I can't believe someone listed an X77 at about one-quarter of its value. Can't. Fucking. Believe. It. I could NEVER afford a properly priced unit. Never. And I can't believe no one else beat me to close the sale. I was well over a day late responding to the post due to illness (mostly mental), and was astonished that no one else got there first. Actually, one guy did beat me there, but he told the seller that he had to look into some repair questions (three of the keys don't work) and make some calls before he made his offer. I did all my homework on the x77 before I ever met the seller, brought a handful of cash and a friend with a truck, and I didn't aim to fuck around. Yeah, the cabinet has the tonewheel. Yeah, it has the Leslie. And yeah, it's mine for life (or until my house burns flat). I like to imagine that the guy who showed up first but waffled on the sale is tonight curled up in some dark room, drinking and crying at his inability to pull the trigger.

This whole affair also drove home one of the finer points of being single, as I could never have pulled some shit like this when I was married.

My music room is almost complete now. I only lack a drum kit...

Fuckin sweet.

Nothing better illustrates repeated twitish behavior I witness on a daily basis than the image below.


Figure 2.4 - Americans enjoying
one of their countless freedoms.


Self-destruction is just too damn easy these days...

The Mad Hatter

The trial upon which I served as a juror in April was concluded recently with sentencing. The local paper covered every "exciting" angle:

Accountant sentenced in tax fraud
By DAVID HARPER World Staff Writer
7/31/2008

The Tulsan, who made some unusual claims during his trial, says he was singled out for his political views.

A Tulsa accountant who was found guilty in April of nine felonies for reporting false information on his federal income taxes was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison.

Robert Steve Miles, 65, received the maximum possible punishment from U.S. District Judge James Payne, who issued a warrant for Miles' arrest earlier in the day after Miles failed to appear for his sentencing hearing.

Miles, who was in the tax-preparation business for about 30 years, was arrested by the IRS at his Tulsa office and was brought into court in handcuffs while wearing a T-shirt and shorts.

He tried to explain his failure to appear earlier in the day by saying that he was surprised that his case was not transferred to the "Cherokee-Wampanoag Supreme Court," as called for in pleadings he filed recently in federal court in Tulsa.

Miles, who represented himself at his April trial, claimed in his closing argument that he was being singled out for prosecution because of his political views. On Wednesday, he said, "I don't believe I have done anything wrong."

At his trial, he periodically managed to get some of his views about government, the courts and the tax system in front of the jury. At various points he seemed to be arguing that tax returns aren't "documents" and that "zero" isn't really a number.

In an April 3 filing, Miles claimed that "any correspondence sent to Robert S. Miles etc. or to a ZIP CODE AREA will be returned and will constitute a direct and deliberate attempt to infringe My religious beliefs and to Expatriate Me and Convert My Sovereign Status to a subject, serf, person and slave and to the secular humanism, commercial religion of government."

At an April 4 hearing, Payne ordered a psychiatric or psychological examination for Miles.

The results of that report were sealed, although Payne wrote in an order filed April 21 that the examining doctor thought Miles was competent to stand trial.

Miles told jurors that he had no intent to violate the law in January 2006 when he mailed his federal income tax returns for the years 1996 through 2004.

On those tax returns, Miles reported that he had "zero" total income or business income.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Snoke said Miles' income from 1996 to 2004 was not exactly clear, but he told the jury that "it certainly wasn't zero."

The judge used a tax loss of $256,316.93 to help arrive at the sentence.

...

I am glad to see that the judge ordered some type of mental evaluation for this guy. It was apparent that he wasn't living 100% of his life in reality.

The trial was a fu¢king travesty. Imagine someone with only a dim grasp of legal procedure and decorum attempting to represent himself. Imagine if every time this person opened his mouth, whether to make an opening statement, cross-examine a witness, or question the court, imagine that this person made the same mistakes and received the court's reprimand. For four days.

Ken Snoke and his staff did a fine job, especially his beautiful young assistant whose sole duty was to place documents entered into evidence upon an image viewer so that the jury could see them. After carefully deliberating and weighing all the evidence, I rendered a verdict of hot as hell and sentenced her to spend three to five days belly-dancing in my dreams.

Next time I get called for jury duty (which will be the third time), I'm showing up naked in the hopes they'll send me home for being crazy.