BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Several weeks back I was doing some work around the house. It was a warm, sunny afternoon in early October as a matter of fact. I happened to be in the back yard when I heard someone at my gate calling out to me.

I turned to discover a video crew. At first I was a bit taken aback, but then I was also taken aback by a lady in the parking lot of the Home Depot awhile back when she jumped out of her vehicle, pointed at me, and started squealing “You’re… You’re HIM! You’re HIM!” So much so in her case that I dropped the lumber I was loading into the back of my truck and gave myself a nasty gash on my arm.

I still don’t know which “HIM” she was talking about, but since no police showed up to arrest me I have to assume she didn’t mistake me for someone who had snatched her purse or taken the last jelly donut at the local Krispy Kreme.

But that’s another story…

So, back to early October… As it turns out these folks with video equipment in tow had traveled to Saint Louis for the express purpose of interviewing me on their show. Why they hadn’t contacted my publicist first to schedule it remains a bit of a mystery. All I know is that what ensued was a bit weird, disconcerting, made me very uncomfortable, and might not have even been entirely legal. At any rate, after chasing them off my property while  I was wielding an axe handle and screaming obscenities, I thought I’d seen the last of them.

Apparently I was wrong…

Even under the threat of legal action, this production company elected to release the footage of that bizarro interview, and to add insult to injury they have done so in several places around the web – from PUF TV to Youtube and beyond. At first I was livid. Then I was pissed. Then I was livid pissed since dividing my energies between the two seemed a bit wasteful. I started making phone calls and planning my revenge, on many levels.

However… The Amazing Wendy, my publicist, tends to see silver linings where I do not. She has now urged me to give up on my quest to eviscerate these wingnuts, telling me that I should embrace this as a promotional opportunity instead. Wendy can be very convincing. So… Since not everyone is on Facebook, not to mention the state of obscure flux in which the FB news feed dwells, I am taking her advice and posting it here.

You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to wonder if  maybe she was in on this the whole time…

More to come…

Murv

Somewhere back in ancient history, that being 2009, I had myself a crisp stack of “Office Depot Rewards Dollars”… Okay, so it wasn’t really a stack. It was more like a gift card looking thing. However, the point is I had this handful of  their somewhat free money that I had received in exchange for spending a whole lot more of my not so free money in their stores.

But there was a problem… The “free money” had an expiration date  and it was rapidly approaching. Compounding that problem was the fact that I didn’t need any office supplies at the moment. I know, totally effed up, eh? I mean, I suppose I could have bought another case or two of paper, but my cabinets were pretty much stocked and I didn’t have anyplace to store it.

So instead, I went out and bought myself a webcam. Why? Because it was free money… Well, free in a Miracle Max sorta way. You know, mostly free, but I already explained that. And since I didn’t need any office supplies, and I didn’t have any room for storing extra supplies, I needed to get something small. And a webcam is pretty small. I should also note that I picked up a couple of flash drives and some stuff for the o-spring too. In order to offset the frivolousness of the webcam, of course…

But anyway…

After setting up the little plastic ball housing a CCD and a cheap lens, then farting about a bit, I used my new webcam to create my profile pic on Facebook. Soon afterward I ran off at the mouth about how I had done this really cool thing with my new bit of technology…  “Born Again Luddite” that I am, although I know about, understand, and in most cases can repair  all of this “new technology”, I’m way behind the curve in the ownership department where tech toys are concerned, and I know it…

At any rate, it wasn’t long before someone suggested I use this toy to do a daily picture, just for the sake of posterity. You know, one of those progressive “Murv Gets Older” sort of things. Well, since E K uses me as her “picture in the attic” so to speak, I already know I’m graying prematurely and don’t need any reminders. Still, the idea had some merit if one applied a bit of warpedness to it. And me being me… Well… I couldn’t leave it at something as mundane as posterity. I had to step across the line, stick my tongue out at everyone, then go all willy nilly with knees bent running about advancing maneuvers on the other side of said line.

By that I mean The Daily Swervin’ Project was born. An new profile pic each day on my Facebook Page – with a few exceptions when I was out of town and didn’t have access to a computer. When conceived, the plan, much like the mostly free money, was given an expiration date – that being 1 year from inception. And so, it began on November 14, 2009 and in keeping with the date stamped on side of my head, November 13, 2010 was the final Daily Swervin’.

What may come next in the realm of Facebook Profile Pics remains to be seen. However, for now, as promised, a flash presentation has been created. A retrospective of sorts. 365 profile pictures all in sequential order, complete with a bit of classical music from Handel.

“Why with classical music?” you ask.

“Simple,” I reply. This way the 6 minutes of your life that you’ll never be able to get back won’t be completely wasted…

The Daily Swervin’ Project