They’re pretty rare at work. Occasionally one comes by, and I like to give my own version of a kudos – when an operator does an exceptional job on a very difficult part, I’ll send an email to their supervisor and their boss’s boss about the worker’s excellent work.

But to get one myself from not just my boss. Or my boss’s boss. Or my boss’s boss’s boss? Yeah, from the VP of Operations. Of course it came at 4pm so the day was pretty much over so I couldn’t ride it all day, but it still was nice. . .though my “blowing smoke up ya arse” sense was going off. . .maybe ’cause I’m not used to getting compliments?

The compliment itself?

I don’t bring him problems, I bring him solutions.

I liked it. But at the same time I felt myself being played. Gah! Why can’t I just take a compliment?

Nothing beats warm cookies and cold milk. Well, at least right now. I love those little instant cookie squares you can get – the ones you just heat up the oven, break off the squares, put them on a cookie sheet, warm them up for 10 minutes and presto! Instant cookies. No more messing with mixing ingredients, cleaning up after you make them, just freshly baked warm cookies. Plus they make the entire apartment smell yummy.

***

This morning I replaced the plastic orange cover to the left rear turn signal that broke over the weekend.

I went to the Honda dealership yesterday after work. When I asked the guy at the counter for the part, he said that the Honda bikes sometimes have issues with that part. The plastic cover has a lip all the way around, and sticking off of the lip is a tab. This tab sits on the inside of the housing and is where the part is screwed into the housing. My cover broke along that tab – so the tab and the screw were still in housing. Heck, even the thin gasket that sits inside the housing was still there. . .which surprised me.

So I don’t know if the cover came off during my near miss of the car on Sunday or some other time. . .I know I only noticed it after I finished shopping with my friend. Thing is, I filled up the bike with gas on Sunday morning before taking off: and I would’ve seen if the cover was missing then. I didn’t notice gone at that point, so it happened sometime on my trip.

The guy at the Honda dealership said to wrap a piece or two of electrical tape over the lip of the cover, ensuring that I cut away the little bit at the bottom where the water and whatnot drains from the housing, and then put that in the housing. As the tape will act as a gasket around the lip preventing the plastic from bouncing around in the housing. I did that, and put it in this morning. Only took me about 5 minutes to do.

***

The comic geek speak guys have posted the podcast I did with them and Dave this past Saturday:

http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodedetail.asp?episodeid=416

We are back to continue our in-depth coverage of the Cerebus saga. Joining us again is Cerebus creator Dave Sim. Also with us this episode is keeper of the website Cerebus Fan Girl, Margaret

I can tell ya, I was a bit nervous for the opening, but gradually unwound as the interview with Dave progressed. Dave’s sense of humor, as always, is fun to listen too – he did a retelling of the Oscar and “Aunt Victoria” meeting in Jaka’s Story, delightful! And as I said in an earlier podcast I got to ask Dave about some of the stuff in the notebooks that has gone unseen by comics fandom on the whole.

And it touched upon one of the things that Jaka’s Story gets across to some, but others don’t see it: Jaka herself as just a person with flaws. As I said in the podcast, I don’t think I could live with Jaka – I couldn’t live with anyone who would lie to me as Jaka does to Rick and Cerebus about cause and reason behind the “miscarriage” of her unborn child. I can understand her frustration at Rick’s lazyness, but at the same time – Jaka risks everyone’s life just so she can dance. She realizes this, and continues to dance (or strip without the stripping as I like to say), without care.

While all of the characters in the comic have their faults, this is the first time we see Jaka overall, and not just glimpses of her. As more and more of her is revealed, she becomes a less liked character. One of the questions recently on the Cerebus Yahoo!Group was which female in the story is “the most appealing.” A discussion ensues about what “most appealing” means to everyone. . .but someone mentions that the character we see the least of, the Countess Michelle, seem like the most appealing character and quips that this is possibly because we haven’t gotten to know her as well as the other characters.

Cross posted to the Cerebus Yahoo!Group:

In the phonebook Oscar never meets Cerebus. Cerebus goes off to get paint, and when Oscar returns to Pud’s Tavern with Jaka’s Story. . .well, we all know what happened then. One of the things I asked Dave about during the podcast was the never told meeting between Cerebus and Oscar from the notebooks, see below:

Click pictures to enlarge (each about 300 – 500 kb and can be printed out for easy reading)
Notebook #11 page 58:

Notebook #11 page 59:

One of the things that I didn’t get to ask about was how Rick views Cerebus. . .I don’t recall this being in the phonebook but I could be wrong:
Notebook #11 page 64:

So I went for a motorcycle ride today. I knew the day was going to be perfect for riding so I went down to RI to see a friend and go out for a movie (Stardust, very good movie, surpassed my expectations) and have some sushi. So I figure I’d take the back roads down there since I hadn’t really ridden on the major interstates on the bike.

I traveled though Massachusetts no problemo and got into RI. Gah! RI’s lack of street signs is enough to make me grumble. But being RI, just keep heading in the direction you want and eventually you’ll come to a numbered route sooner or later. So I’m going down what I think is route 1a and turn right to get to route 1. About 50 meters down this new road, a car pulls right out in front of me.

Right out in front of me. Like about 10 feet in front of me. He is trying to make a left hand turn into the backed up traffic waiting at the stop light from the corner I just took. It was all I could do to stomp on the brakes (front and rear) and at the same time try to serve the bike out of the way. I could hear my tires squeal or was it his? Hard to remember, it all seems a blur now.

He was right in front of me, I was amazed I didn’t hit him. When I served and hit the brakes, I almost lost control of the bike – she waggled from side to side and I was going into the grass on the side of the road – I thought I was going to dump it. I dragged my right toe down as she waggled far down to the right. . .it was probably a combination of that and having slowed down from the 30 – 35 mph I had been going to about the 5 mph I slowed down to after I stomped on the brakes. . .

I managed to right the bike and get back into the lane of traffic and I just kept going. I figured I didn’t fall down, just got a very good scare (re: near death experience) and as far as I could tell the bike and myself was in one piece. Sure my right toe hurt like the dickens, but meh, I could still ride with a hurt toesie.

After cussing for the next 2 miles at the stupid old guy and his huge clunker that nearly killed me, I finally calmed down a bit. When I got to my destination, I was relieved that I didn’t get killed by hitting the driver’s side of his car and flipping over it thereby fucking me up and my bike as well.

Well, I parked the bike and met my friend at the bookstore. After some shopping, we made our way out to the parking lot to head off to the movie. I wanted to put my helmet in his car, so we went over to the bike. I was showing it to him when I looked at the back of the bike: my left rear turn signal light lens was missing. Totally gone except a small piece where it was screwed into the housing. So I put the key in the bike and turned it on to see if it would light up. It did. And it still blinked when I hit the turn signal button.

And my toe? It still smarts a bit, but it isn’t broken, it isn’t bloody and the nail looks okay . . .my right lower leg is now a bit sore and so is my left arm, but I don’t know if that was from that whole ruckus or something else.

So I came so very close to a very nasty spill and all I have to do is pay about $10 for a new plastic cover for my left rear turn signal? Thank goodness.

But I’m still pissed off at the asshole who didn’t even look to see if anyone was coming. Imagine if I had been in my car, or if I had been driving an 18 wheeler – his ass would be dead right now. Instead he scared the shit out of me and almost killed me. Hopefully this scared some sense into him.

I still don’t know how I managed to survive that.

***

Then on the way home today I was taking route 1 for a bit and then all of sudden route 1 disappeared on me. I don’t know where the hell it went – as there were no signs pointing me in any direction, but then I saw a sign for interstate 95. What the hell I figured. I’d prolly be safer on I95 as there would be no assholes making left hand turns in front of me.

So I got up on 95 and stayed in the right hand lane just cruising along at 65 mph. Then we came up to “Thurber’s Ave Corner” where I95 makes a 90 degree turn towards Providence. I love taking this corner in my car going south bound as it is a downgrade and lots of fun to go whipping along in the high speed lane passing everyone else who is dogging it along at 50 mph ’cause they’re going down a hill and around a corner at the same time. . .the corner is perfectly graded and a masterpiece of civil engineering and is made for taking at 65 mph (at least it feels like it to me). . .but I digress.

Going northbound on I-95 up Thurber’s Ave Corner at 60 mph on the bike in the far right lane was amazing. It felt like one long continuous. . .well, you know, big O. Just amazing. And it got better from there: the I-195 “race track” as I like to call it? That was fun! Usually with the car, taking the I-195 exit and around the “S” turns for the first few miles of I-195 make me feel like I’m in a car racing video game. Not because I’m speeding around everyone, but just the turns and the excitement of getting to the outside of the “track” and passing people.

With the bike, I kept in the slow lane as I didn’t want to go faster then 65 mph. The “S” curves going on to I-195 and on I-195 itself were a lot of fun. I was grinning like a madwoman the whole way though. . .then the highway got straight and boring. Too bad the entire highway wasn’t one big set of Thurber’s Ave Corners and “S” curves.

Funny how I felt safer on the highway going 65 mph in three to four lanes of traffic then on the back roads going 40 mph. . .

Today was podcast day with Dave Sim, the Comic Geek Speak guys: Peter, Bryan and Jamie and myself. They have been doing podcasts with Dave on the Cerebus phonebooks and today was Jaka’s Story. So I reread again (for the umpteenth time, as I didn’t know what happens in the book).  I looked though all the stuff I have on Jaka’s Story. . .To include Dave’s notebooks.

I had a week to pick through the four notebooks that Dave used for Jaka’s Story. . .which turned into a couple of evenings after work. I found some goodies. Jeff T also found some goodies. So I had a few good questions to ask him and a quote that I didn’t get to used. . .

 ”Most stories are terrible when described as one would give complicated directions to a distant destination.”

It is . . .or would have been an Oscar line. The never happened meeting between Jaka, Oscar and Cerebus, wherein Oscar talks about Jaka’s Story. I was thinking of using it to conclude my “summary” of Jaka’s Story. . .but my “summary” was long and winding and very long. . .and seemed so incomplete.  So by the time I got to the end of it, I was surprised that I was at the end. And I forgot to use my quote.

There were insights on the podcast, from Dave and interesting viewings of Jaka’s Story from the CGS guys that I never noticed. Kinda makes me want to reread it again. The podcast looks like it is going to be aired Sept 5th.