Tap, Tap, Tap... Is This Thing On...

Been gone for a while. I offer no apologies. Just the way it is sometimes. I'm working on a larger writing project, I have a house I'm rebuilding, and a life that I'm trying to live better.

Since I really don't write much anymore, Ive decided that I'm going to post a bunch of the old photos that I found in my scavaging of relatives old abandoned belongings.

Some of these people I know who they are and I'm related to them.

Some of these people I know who they are and I'm not related to them.

Some of these people I don't know who they are and I'm related to them.

Some of these people I don't know who they are and I'm not related to them.

Most pictures will be posted without comment. Feel free to supply comment and or caption suggestions. If there is a name for the subject, I'll post it (sans last name... I don't know who may still be alive or have living relatives aside from me... Can of worms I don't wish to open.) If there is a description, I'll post it.

All Pictures are my property alone and should not be reposted or printed without my permission. Ask, and my permission will most likely be granted... I just prefer that you ask first.

Scattrered in with the old pics will be some new material from me on occasion... Including a few new Sunday Ink photos I found floating around in my files.

I hope you enjoy. If you have any questions, shoot me an e-mail, the link is just to the right.

Cheers,

-K

Please...

I found this picture whilst shopping for, oddly enough, a brass telescope. They offer free engraving on their products, and this is an example of their work.
When I buy, I am buying from them.
Period.

Empty House

This blog is my homepage. That means every time I log onto the internet, this is what I see first. Usually I click through as fast as I can, off to one of my links... Drudge Report, The Cheese Aisle or Boudicca's Voice. It makes me sad to see it sit, but it's been hard to restart and reset. The political climate in this country has me stressed to the point that my last post was a rant of such violent vitriol that someone who cares about me asked me to take it down. Sad part is, after I did, I realized she was right.

My 100 word muse seems to have stayed in Texas without me. My day to days seem to be unremarkable, even to me, I've been to four of five Pirate games, but can't even seem to bring myself to do game day reports... So, here it sits.

I think about some of the blogs that I loved so well that now sit idle.

For example: Bellerophon Chimera, who took a break and never returned, nothing to be done about it and Gut Rumbles, that went dark when Acidman was taken from us long before we were ready.

At least someone tried to keep Gut rumbles alive after Rob died, but it was an exercise in futility.

They sit like empty houses... structurally intact, but lifeless. I can go by, and look in the windows, but the words and thoughts are the same as the last time I looked, gathering dust and cobwebs in the form of spam in the comments... Even were I to open the door and walk through, the absence of the owners is palatable. My footsteps echoing through the old posts and any comments left are as useless as whispering to myself.

I don't want that to happen here, but I seem powerless to prevent it.

Several people have told me that when they see a girl with a tattoo they think of me. Some miss my stories. Some just wonder what happened to me.

When I click through, I hear this Tom Waits song in my head and it makes me sad.

There's a house on my block
That's abandoned and cold
Folks moved out of it a
Long time ago
And they took all their things
And they never came back
Looks like it's haunted
With the windows all cracked
And everyone call it
The house, the house where
Nobody lives

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone's heart break
Or did someone do somebody wrong?

Well the paint was all cracked
It was peeled off of the wood
Papers were stacked on the porch
Where I stood
And the weeds had grown up
Just as high as the door
There were birds in the chimney
And an old chest of drawers
Looks like no one will ever
Come back to the
House were nobody lives

Once it held laughter
Once it held dreams
Did they throw it away
Did they know what it means
Did someone's heart break
Or did someone do someone wrong?
So if you find someone
Someone to have, someone to hold
Don't trade it for silver
Don't trade it for gold
I have all of life's treasures
And they are fine and they are good
They remind me that houses
Are just made of wood
What makes a house grand
Ain't the roof or the doors
If there's love in a house
It's a palace for sure
Without love...
It ain't nothin but a house
A house where nobody lives
Without love it ain't nothin
But a house, a house where
Nobody lives.

EPT Phone Home

So... There I was at the Dollar Tree... You know, one of those "everything's a buck" stores... Standing in the checkout line... Perusing the impulse items... Batteries, gum, chapstick, pregnancy test...

Pregnancy test????

If you are hinging your entire foreseeable future on a one dollar pregnancy test from the Dollar Tree, I hope to God it's negative, because you really don't need to be breeding.

Tied To The (Whipping) Post

As I am out and about doing things (drinking, dog park), I keep my eye out for pretty girls with body art. Sometimes I use that approach just to meet pretty girls... Sometimes it's actually all about the ink. My Introduction usually starts the same way... "What's your ink?"

It's an innocent enough inquiry to put them off guard, and we can talk for a while before I try to get them to let me take a picture or two... Especially if said picture involves adjusting or removing clothing.

I've taken over 40 pictures so far, and only been turned down 2 maybe 3 times, so I feel like my approach is a good one.

I explain that I don't show faces. I don't use real names (Hell, I don't even use my real name, much less the name of an innocent). I'm pretty much ungooglable. Even if you happen to know my real full name, it's like I don't exist, so I try to keep my Sunday Ink Girls ungooglable as well.

Then I tell them "I have a web page, or a blog. I don't write on Sundays, so I use Tattoo pictures as filler."

It seems I don't write through the week anymore either. It's been a month and a half since I posted anything but pictures... and a short piece about the statistics of the pictures.

Some of you out there think the Ink pictures are creepy... Or that I'm creepy for approaching women that way.

Fine. I'm sorry you feel thus. I enjoy it, and I get to talk to a lot of pretty girls. I'm still gonna continue with it.

Some of you like them, even if it's a morbid type of curiosity (Bou) or a lusty man thing (walrilla).

A lot of the bloggers I know and read have taken a hiatus or sabbatical in the last year or two. Some never came back. Some actually announced their retirement.

I've been here for four years come July. Four long years. I may be just phoning it in right now, but damn it, I'm still here.

Lot of changes to my life in that time. I'm hardly the same human being anymore. I gained a lot of wonderful things... I had some of those things ripped away from me.

Just in the last year I lost 50lbs. That's half a human being. In that same year I very nearly lost my job. Not to mention bringing Jack (crazy blue dingo) into my home as a member of my family.

In the four years of writing I have been abandoned by my political party, and watched the country that I love dearly take the tenants that made it strong for 200 years and abandon them in less than 200 days.

You would think that all would be blog fodder, but I just feel overwhelmed and tired.

I have started a lot of posts only to delete them as inferior or rambling (like this one is).

My 100 word muse seems to be on vacation at the moment.

I set up the Sunday Ink pieces to autopost every Sunday, sometimes up to a month in advance. I told a few of my friends that if I die, most people won't realize for several weeks until the pictures stop coming.

So, to those people I say, "As of 12:30 June 13th, 2009... I'm not dead yet."

When the words come back to me, I'll forward them to you. Maybe this is the start of that.

If not, try to enjoy the pictures.

A Word About Sunday Ink

With today's ink post, I've noticed a trend. I'm going to watch this and see where it goes. I've been noting the initials of the girls I photograph. Barring women with sudonyms like Panic and Sacrilitious and counting women like Red where I know her real name, here's how it Stacks up out of 35 women...

Names starting with:

J - 7

A - 6

L - 4

C & M - 3 apiece

H, T & R - 2 each

D, E & B - only 1

The 5 most common female names in the US are:

Mary. Of the 3 m's I got I don't think a single one was a Mary.

Patricia. Not a p in the whole lot, not counting Panic.

Linda. OK, I got a decent showing of l's, but I don't think any were Lindas.

Barbara. I got one b. Her name was Birdy.

and Elizabeth. The one e I got wasn't.

Now to be fair, Jennifer is the next name on the list, and a lot of my j's were Jens... But the very first A on the list is Angela. That seems a little disproportionate... Until...

You look at a breakdown of the most used first letters of first names...

A is number 1. In fact all of my girls names start with a letter in the top 14 most used letters. Those are: A M C L D J s E k B T R g H... (bold indicates the ones on my list) That means that all but two of my girls are in the top half of the most commonly used letters of the alphabet.

I'm pretty sure this means absolutely nothing, but I thought it was interesting.

Postage Due

Your government at work.

Now, normally I'm not one to bitch about the US Postal Service. My father was a letter carrier. So what if stamps are 42c apiece? I dare you to hand a friend of yours an envelope and 42 cents and tell him to carry said envelope to the other end of the country... And try to have it there in 3-4 days. See how that works out for you.

That being said...

My eldest brother stopped at the post office on Broad River Rd in Columbia, SC to mail his taxes. The response? "We can't help you, we don't sell stamps."

Really?

Really?

They did try to help though. "If you go 2 miles down on the right, there's a dollar store. They sell stamps and you can mail it then."

So, big brother went to a post office in an adjoing town (He was going that way anyhow) Sure enough, they sold him stamps and mailed his letter.

So he called me. "I think someone's screwing with me."

Since I'm sitting in front of a computer I looked up the post office in question and called them (803) 798-3348...

"Do you mail letters there?"

"Absolutely"

"Do you sell stamps?"

"Oh... No. We can mail a letter if it has a stamp on it, but we don't sell stamps."

Really.

Small Change

I made a few small changes on my sidebar... I removed a few things. If you can't figure out what they were, then it's all for the best.

I changed/added a few things.

Recurring posts and serials such as Naked Lunch Specials, 100 Word Stories, Sunday Ink and Reel Lines are more easily accessed from the sidebar.

Clicking on the icon takes you to the first 20 of that genre. If there happen to be more than 20, links below allow you to access each in groupings of 20.

As for the Lunch Specials, that will be revived this summer, starting from the beginning, redoing each club and also adding new ones. It's the only way to be fair. The old reviews will remain for reference.

I'm soon to be adding new links to other bloggers and maybe moving/removing some defunct ones... (Relax Walrilla, you're safe) so if you want to suggest some for me to check out and link feel free.

I have a load of new material that I will be posting soon, so there'll be something between the Sunday Inks.

Let me know if there are any problems with viewing...

Thanks,

-K-Nine

VD... Again?

I know what you are all expecting... Well, if anyone still looks here anymore. (It's been a while, huh?)

You're all expecting me to go off on some wild rant about how love sucks and it's cruel world &tc.

It does, and it is. Satisfied?

So... To all you madly in love people out there: Enjoy it while it lasts.

Have Mercy

And while I'm feeling thankful today...

Everybody needs a little Mercy now and then.

Thank you for showing me some.

Impending Doom

Today is one of those days when I wouldn't mind so much if the Hadron Super-Collider did open up a black hole that destroyed the earth. Just sayin'.

Beannachtaí Na Féile Pádraig Oraibh

Happy St. Pat's to one and all on this fine March 17th. Today I will work like the Irish slave that I am, but tonight... Ah, tonight, I will walk down to BD Riley's Pub. (It's a two plus mile hike, but we're not going through that whole cab fiasco again.) I will raise a Pint or two of Guinness, speak to friends I havn't seen lately, listen to some Irish tunage and take a shot of Jameson's to steel myself for the walk home in the storms they're predicting for central Texas. After the homeward trek I see a hot shower and a soft bed, and perhaps another shot of whiskey.
The blessings of St. Patrick upon you.

Best Of The Best

I went back to the Best Buy near work yesterday. Whereas I will berate bad service, I also laud good service. I went to thank the manager from last night. Unfortunately he was at lunch. The manager on duty was equally friendly, and after hearing my story exchanged both DVD's for me, for the more expensive version, at an even trade. I offered to pay the difference, but they wouldn't let me. Best Buy in general is off my shit list, but it'll be a long time before I go back to the one by my house.

My hat is off to Lisa, Mike and Wes at the Best Buy in Georgetown, Texas. Good people, every one.

Worst Of The Best

Let me start by saying, I always used to like Best Buy. I have purchased thousands of dollars worth of electronics and appliances from them over the years. They managed to lose my business over $10. Ten bucks and they will be hard pressed to get my business back. Not that I think they care.

I recieved a couple of DVD's for christmas. The person who got them for me got full-screen editions. In case you don't know, full screen is square like a TV set, wide screen is like you see them at the movies. with a full screen version you lose the extra stuff in the bacground on the edges. If you're not a movie buff you'll never understand, if you are, then, well...

So I took these movies to the Best Buy near work. I have to say the associates there were friendly. They told me to find the movies and we'd exchange. They only had the more expensive 2 disk versions in stock. It would cost me $15 to exchange for those. Not wanting to pay the difference I thanked them and headed for the Best Buy near my house.

Knowing the routine now I went ahead and found the movies I needed in wide screen and went to the return counter. The guy there said, "No. We can't do a straight up exchange. I can only give you credit for the lowest price they've sold for over the entire holiday season"

Short story long, if I was to try to buy these movies today they would be $14.99 and $19.99 in full or wide screen. Because they had been on sale two months ago he offered me credit of $7.99 and $16.99 and I'd have to pay the difference.

"But they are the same price." I said.

"But they weren't before." he countered.

"Yes they were," I said, "When they were on sale, they were both on sale, when the price went up, the price on both went up"

"That's not the way it works, do you have a reciept?" he asked

"No, I told you earlier that it was a present bought at a location in another state."

"Then I can only give you the lowest amount of credit over the entire holiday season"

Frustrated I asked to speak to a manager. He backed away from the counter, stepped back up to the counter with his hands out and said, "I AM the manager" (He was not dressed like the manager at the other store)

I picked up my movies and left.

$10. A little common courtesy. Merry Freakin' Christmas.

Perthonal Obthervathon

It theemth to me, that if you work at Thubway Thandwitheth you may want to conthider taking thome vacathon time before getting your tongue pierthed... Or ith it jutht me?