Or, in other words, I stick my foot in my mouth. Rather quickly, this time. Not too long ago, I posted here a rather semi-critical, self-critical rant about how the web wasn't like it 'used to be.' And then, I went and had another look around. And rediscovered some stuff that makes me happy. For example, afterdinner. And EOD. And Maxine's site.

It's hard to have an opinion these days.

In other news, it was a phenomenally gorgeous day here in the Twin Cities. Temperatures hovering around 42, not a cloud in the sky, barely a trace of snow left on the ground, and most of the early afternoon tooling around Lake Calhoun and Uptown on the bikes. Like it was June or something. Note today's date.

Of course, every Minnesotan I know claims that ol' man winter's got at least one blizzard left in his phlegmatic lungs, but what do I care? It's beautiful out.

If I sound bitter, I am. But to be perfectly honest, I'm not *that* bitter. In fact, I'm somewhat amused. Why? Well, honestly, I think it all comes down to the weather.

What I mean to say is, the weather here downright sucks. I mean, it's total shite. The temperatures have been below freezing since mid-November, and will stay that way clear through May. There's snow and ice on the ground, it's windy and gray and the humidity is like -99%. Your lips bleed if you even try to smile. Your face burns the minute you step out the door. You walk around looking like the Michelin man, falling on your ass every five steps because everything's covered in ice.

And let's not even talk about the landscape. Flat as a pancake. Barren. Sure, there are a coupla lakes, and some trees, but aside from that, it's like living on a frozen moon. Like it even makes a difference, cause even if you do care to brave the outdoors, you rarely see any of it since it's light out for only a couple of hours a day. In fact, the only real reason to go outside is because they haven't built any underground tunnels to the Mall of America.

And the people? Well, not only do they talk funny, using phrases like "don'tyaknow" and "you wanna slab of lutefisk with that at all?" (just like Marge in Fargo), but they're hopelessly backward too. Everybody dresses like a buncha dorks in their Minnesota Vikings sweat outfits or blue-black anoraks with the fur-lined hoods, and all the guys have "hockey-haircuts" and are missing at least a couple of teeth in embarrasingly obviously places. The women wear too much hairspray on their frosted ends, and the little ones are always wiping frozen snot off their noses with crusty little hand-knit mittens. I think the only normal people in this god-forsaken land are the grandmothers, who all look like they stepped right out of the "Prairie Home Companion."

Man, that's depressing. It makes me wonder why the hell I ever decided to move out here, considering how good I had it in San Francisco. I mean, it's probably like 80 degrees there right now. And everybody out *there* is spending their weekends on the sidewalks of neighborhood coffee houses, sipping double-tall nonfat cappucinos and talking about how much money their pre-IPO internet company's paying them. Or taking off to Marin for a quick hike up Mt. Tam, or cruising the bay in their friends' sailboats, or spending all night down in SOMA dancing at a private Rave while high on ecstasy.

Or else they're off to the SF Symphony, watching Michael Tilsen Thomas conduct his incomparable world-class orchestra accompanied by the ironically juxtaposed harmonic nuances of Metallica or Spinal Tap--or perhaps by the breathtaking visuals of the mystical and high-flying Cirque du Soleil (for a change). Or else they're in Chinatown buying a priceless jarful of ginko bilboa lovingly masticated by a recently immigrated lotus-flower virgin from Manchuria. Or maybe they're in North Beach, tasting exquisite handmade tagliatelle with a creamy white-wine sauce laced with imported white truffle shavings FedExed straight from Tuscany. And if all that's gotten too boring, they're hopping into the Land Rover for a quick jaunt to Tahoe in the glorious Sierra Nevada Mountains, for a weekend of skiing and fireside romancing, complete with 40-year cognac and hand-rolled Cuban cigars smuggled straight from Havana. Or if they don't like snow, they can just zip up to Napa for a laconic afternoon spent on a wisteria-covered deck outside Robert Mondavi's hillside estate, sipping Vintner's Reserve Carneros Cabernet made from grapes crushed by the nubile toes of Sicilian peasants, just like in the old country.

Christ, with so much to do, no wonder why none of my friends have been able to stay in touch. In fact, maybe they're doing me a favor--it's probably more than a little embarassing for them to have to talk to me, knowing what all I've been missing out on now that I've been dismissed from the garden of Eden. It's probably better that they leave well enough alone.

I dunno, I guess it's my own damn fault for leaving that pleasure paradise for this hell-on-earth. I can't believe I was so stupid.

But I guess the *really* funny thing is, there's a whole buncha freaks out there who I know on a first name basis who have no earthly clue who I am. Like Lance, who inspired me to create my very first frames-based site. and Maggy, who just poured her her heart out on the web. and Philip (anybody else remember Travels with Samantha?. and Karawynn, who gave me my very first (and only) web award. and, well, a whole helluva lot of others.

Basically, a bunch of folks who've decided to publish way too much information about themselves on the web, back when it was cool and interesting and fun and challenging and experimental and hard and exciting and novel geeky and unusual and generally gave you a sense of "goddammit this is what I've wanted to do all along and I LIKE IT" .

Only now, all that's changed. It seems to be a trend. Now, you don't read interesting stuff so much anymore. Mostly, it's a bunch of proselythizing and whining and gloating and criticizing and, well, just generally not being so much fun. Or else it's playing with the latest web toy, or opining about the latest web phenomenon, or sentimentalizing about the ol' skool, creating user interfaces that drive you absolutely mad. or whatever. I dunno what it is. I don't go to all those pages as much as I used to.

Sometimes, I'll wander into the some of those sites' "archives" sections, just to look around at the oddities. Warms the cockles of my little heart. But the new shit? hrmf.

Seems to me like there's a little too much self-concious wanking off going on these days.

But of course, that's exactly what I'm doing. Right here. Right now. God bless the web. What an idiot. Yep, that's me. The supreme(ly idiotic) self(concious)wanker.

But that's going to have to wait a while. I'm tired. I don't want to do anything that requires the least amount of effort, because, frankly, I've had a long day. It started last night, at 00:00 central standard time, like most days do. Thankfully, they usually pause between 04:00cst and 09:00cst, but today, I kickstarted things at around 8:00 cause I had some 'errands' to run.

So after four hours of sleep, I jumped into the trusty Escort and zipped down to St. Louis Park to the AAA office, clutching a pink slip in my hand which had been lovingly signed by my parents-in-law last weekend thereby relinquishing title to the vehicle. (an aside. I love my in-laws. they gave us a car. but I love them for other reasons too. and I'm not just saying that because I know that my mother-in-law reads this site...) But since they gave us the care officially and all, it means I now have to insure it under my own name. Hence, the errand. But, before I can insure, I must have a Minnesota driver's license. Alas, my treasured California license just ain't no good no more.

So I'm at the AAA, where they handle license renewals in this state (so I'm told by the voice-mail system for the Department of Public Safety which I had called yesterday just so's I'd be prepared), and they tell me, sorry charlie, we only handle renewals. You gotta go way the hell out to friggin' Plymouth (lovely suburb that it is) to take a Minnesota State Driver's License Exam. Obviously, being a licensed driver in California for 11 years just don't qualify you for the peerless Minnesota Driver's License.

Fine, sez I, I'll do that, but since I'm here, why don't I go ahead and transfer the Escort's title over to me so's I can register it. No problem there, except that since my name's the only one on the title as 'buyer', I'll have to pay sales tax. Sales tax on WHAT? My in-laws GAVE the car to us. Well, turns out the stupid law states that parent's can give their *own* children their cars, but can't give them to childrens-in-law. So I gotta get Solveig to sign.

Fine. again. Fine. No problem. I whip over to Turtle Bread Company, where Solveig's in the middle of shaping one of many batches of high-quality $5 loaves of bread, and I get her to sign the pink slip (which is actually green, by the way), and while I'm there, I go ahead and fill out the rest of the form with address information and odo readings and whatnot. No problem there.

Then I scoot out to Plymouth and find the Driver's License Testing center, get into line with a dozen other guys who look like rejects from 'the-loser-in-the-corner-of-the-dive-bar-in-a-scene-from-Fargo' tryouts, and eventually find myself in front of a touchscreen computer terminal, taking the license exam. Again, no big deal. Passed with flying colors and all that. Most of the would-be movie stars, I notice, are failing left and right. On accounta they're taking a much more difficult DWI license test. Because they all got their licenses suspended for drunk driving. And they're too stupid to actually study for the friggin' test. I overhear one say that this is the SIXTH time he's failed. He expects to be back Monday. Jesus.

But no big deal. I now posess a temporary Minnesota State Driver's License, (and a defunct CDL, which they unceremoniously cut the corner off of--why, I ask?) and can now register and insure a vehicle in the State of Minnesota. So it's back to the AAA with signed pink/green slip in hand. After waiting about 45 minutes, I find myself back at the same counter with the same clerk as before, and he starts processing my paperwork. After scanning the pink/green slip for a few moments, he asks for the Lienholder's papers. Huh? Now I know Lein's not a common word in the english language, but I vaguely recall that it means that you owe somebody for something and that until you pay them off, you don't actually own whatever it is that you owe them money for. Since the car was Given to us, I don't see how this applies.

Well, it turns out that yours truly, however smart he thinks he is, really never learned to read instructions on legal document too good. I'm always screwing them up. And, true to form, I screwed up on this one too. I checked the wrong damned box on the slip. Where it asks whether there's a lien on the car, I checked "Yes". Jesus. So the clerk pulls out form PS2025-72 Application for Corrected Title/Odometer, which must be filled out and signed by both buying and selling parties. Which means I have to get mom and dad-in-laws' signature. Jesus.

So I ask, just to be on the safe side, whether there's anything else, and absolutely *anything* else I need to do. He asks for my insurance papers. What the f***? The whole reason I'm going through this torment is because my insurance broker told me I need the car to be titled and registered in MY NAME before he can sell me insurance. The clerk laughs and says that they all say that (How the hell can they ALL say that, when the law in this case seems pretty freaking clear?) and says I better get that taken care of. After I get my in-law's signature, of course.

Fine. No problem. I'm now several hours late for work, but I figure, what the hell. Might as well get this over with. So I drive across town to my father-in-law's office at Gopher State Litho, drop into the lobby and ask their lovely secretary if I might see Orton. She says I could, if wanted to drive two hours to Duluth, because he took the day off to go up there for the weekend with his wife. AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHH.

Okay, end of story. That was enough for today. End of game. Time's up. Enough. That was all I could take. So I went to work, three hours late, and fumed. But only for a bit. Because, really, isn't this why we live life the way we do? I mean, things get so boring when everything goes according to plan. I'm sure the entire escapade could have been entirely avoided if the DPS's voicemail had been accurate. Or if I'd filled out the pink/green slip in the comfort of my own home rather than in the middle of a bakery during peak production hours. Or if my insurance broker had been right. Or any of a number of other things. Ah, life.