Welp

Writer's block is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

I suppose I could start with something about why I just use nested parentheses rather than brackets and the like, and I suppose that I will. It's because I don't plan to do the nested parens, and I don't like going back to edit (since the odds are that I'll screw things up even more by leaving one open or having a [ ) combination, which just leaves things ambiguous because, dude, open sets. They're abominations of math that I couldn't possibly understand.)

Anyhoo, onwards and upwards.

There's also been talk about using Microsoft Word or something along those lines as a word counter with the good ol' Ctrl+C Ctrl+V (but not Ctrl+X, because I'm not a 13 year old girl listening to Fallout Boy, or whoever their target demographic might be. Too much? Probably. We'll try to tone things down from here on out) combo. Unfortunately, I use my desktop for this, and I have yet to get around to throwing Office onto this computer, because that's the way Jerry wants it. Or is it Gary? And now there's esoteric references here. What a surprise. Who would have ever thought such a thing to be possible?

But now, maybe it's a good idea for me to stop being so self-referential, at which I'm already failing, because I mean, this sentence, guys. This sentence. Well, not really that sentence. That sentence. You know the one I'm talking about. That sentence. And now, we'll move from Beckettsian syntax and parsing to a nice scenario about that sentence. If we could mine self-referential sentences for fuel, that one would probably fuel China AND India for years. See? Wasn't that a nice little scenario?

Well, I can't give you gold every time, but I can keep on typing for a while before I go drink copious amounts of wine, since it's Friday, Friday, and I've got to get down, as it's Friday. Well, maybe that logic doesn't entirely follow, but tonight, I'm going to allow it, and maybe you should too. Maybe I should use fewer commas. Alas, I don't think a semicolon is entirely appropriate for that sentence. I could have used fewer conjunctions and gone for some dashes. A dash of dashes. A dash of dashes whilst in a haberdashery. Well, maybe not that last part. I'm not a haberdasher, nor have I been in a haberdashery since that fateful October day in aught ten. You know the one.

Well, maybe you don't. But you will now.

And that's half the battle.

Once I add the picture, at least, and since I don't much care for having to deal with the formatting wonkiness that arises with inserting a picture and THEN trying to type text, I will just add it presently. Won't that be nice?

Wasn't that nice? And isn't my formatting (or lack thereof) glorious for chronology? If only I had stayed convinced that it was only 10,000 words. But 50,000? That's a lot of words. That's as many as five thousand tens! And that's terrible. Suck it, Lex Luthor. One of my cakes is better than your forty.

Again with the esoteric nerd humor references that my parents may not understand. But maybe they do. They're hip to the Internet thing, after all. Heck, I remember the old DOS computer from when I was a wee lad. Playing the old school Duke Nukem, where he's just a dude in a pink tank top, shooting squigglies at Dr. Proton. Or was it Professor Proton? Let's find out.

It was Dr. Proton. Let's have a picture of old Duke, shall we?

Mmm. He was orange before Jersey Shore made it cool.

Invigorating.

Then there was old Wolfenstein, which I didn't really understand, because weren't there supposed to be zombies or something? I should try to find some copies of those again. Kill me a mecha-Hitler or something. I'm sure I'd be much better at the game now (i.e., I'd only die 20 times per level as opposed to the usual 40). Oh man. It's getting to be that time. I'd better vest up. Thank heavens I kept my slacks and shirt on from this morning. Otherwise, this could be disastrous.

Oh, this vest. This was the only non-perishable non-book impulse buy I made in France (and, come on- those books were mostly a euro apiece for things like La Moustache, which is hilarious until the last ten pages, when things get DARK. Oh man.). So I'm walking around Paris one April afternoon (or possibly early May- probably early May). I start walking over by where a friend of a friend (the inimitable Monica, who probably isn't reading this, but if she is, hey Monica! Hope you're doing great!) lives (the neighborhood, not to her place, because that would be a bit weird). I'm walking by all these clothing stores, and I see that Celio is having a sale on men's clothing. Wait. Seriously, Firefox? "Men's" isn't a word? That is a load of hooey. But I digress. Anyway, I walk in, and see like 5 different vest types (which is what I was looking for, having been in the market for a vest, or a waistcoat if you're British/Victorian/Ebenezer Scrooge, who carried the chill with him, or something (apologies Mister Dickens for misquoting you something fierce (and apologies to André for not using brackets, but at least my name is recognized by Firefox spellcheck. Nyah.))). After roughly an hour or so of trying on these things (most of which was spent trying to find them, because GOD FORBID I ASK FOR HELP IN A CLOTHING STORE. It's just weird, dude.), I finally find a vest that works. Mostly, it's because it's the only one that has a straight line from the center to the shoulder (the curved ones make you look like Aladdin, as we all learned from Superbad. Sorry. Superbad. What would my English teachers think of me now? Clearly not much, given my propensity for breaking the rules of grammar, punctuation, and general sense.). Anyway, I bought it, after having realized that it was pretty much the only thing in the store NOT on sale.

Good story, right? Hey, it's almost as good as the one from the haberdashery (which was basically me with friends in Annecy, and I tried on that hat. If only I had shelled out the currency for that business... A man can dream. A man can also go to the freaking hat store down the road and see if they have an orange fedora. A man can do these things.). And now you know the one about the haberdashery. You learn something new every day! Heck, I learned some things today, but they mostly were due to me getting pimped/raked over the coals about my poster. Alas and alack. This is what I get for playing in the big kids' sandbox.

Of course, I'm sure that haberdashery story was mentioned in the old Annecy post from a while ago, but you don't need to trouble yourself with those archives. Don't you worry your pretty little head, ducky. That was thought in a Cockney accent, à la Michael Caine (but not à la duck à la king, because that would be ridiculous), but maybe it didn't translate with my typistry. Of course, with the explanation, now it hopefully translates, making this sentence moot. Exactly as planned.

Bwaha. Or, alternatively, bangarang.

Again with the obscure references. Ah well. I'll look back on these one day and think, "Man, what the hell was I trying to say there? There's some anime guy on there. Why would I do such a thing? Who did I think I was, making these references all nimbly bimbly? I was meddling in forces I did not comprehend. There are rules, man. There are lines man was not meant to cross, things he was not meant to know." And with that, I'ma give you ANOTHER tangential reference via a picture of Laura Dern. Enjoy puzzling that one out.

She is just so confused right now. And now I've forgotten to add in that formatting. Dang.

Let's see if we can fix this by dragging the picture back up. Well, it clearly worked, but only with some additional text draggage.

And now Zack is here. Say hi, Zack. He says, "Hii. Wait. What's going on?"

I'm calling it, so as to be social. Hopefully there were enough words. I'll leave that to you to decide.