Rygel is puking up a storm right now, so I'm operating off of Illian. It seems that spamassassin exhibits some very wierd behavior under certain conditions. If, for one reason or another, fetchmail doesn't run for a while, when I do get around to running it to retrive the few dozen messages that have queued up on the server (99% of which will be spam), instead of processing them sequetially in a reasonable manner, it forkbombs about a zillion spamassassin processes all at once, one to handle each message. Very annoying.

It's enough to bring poor little underpowered Rygel to his knees. Meanwhile, Rygel has finally gotten through all the spam, so I'm going to transition back over there...

...ok, we're back on Rygel. This poor little creature was never meant to try to shoulder such burdens. (Actually, I have a suspicion that procmail is the real culprit, since it is what launches the hords of greedy little spamassassins. Maybe one of these days, I'll bother to research to see if there is a way to make it run through one message at a time.

Today I made bean dip, which was yummy. bouncing also introduced us to a delicous sandwich formula he's been working on imitating. He learned about it in one of San Antonio's neighborhood delis that has since closed down, so he's been working on replicating one of their menu items. Indeed, the version he made was delicious. (Something involving mozzarella, pesto, and sundried tomato spread.)

This evening, scottgalvin.com invited bouncing and I to go with him to the Comedy Works. His girlfriend had obtained a bunch of free tickets and was apparently giving them away to all sorts of friends. I accepted on the basis of, "What the hell, it's free, I'm bored, so why not?"

bouncing and I arrived in downtown Denver a bit early, so we wandered around the 16th St mall for a little while. (My first time there since.... an event last year that has not been documented here, and may and may not be in the future. So nevermind.)

At approximately 17:55, scottgalvin.com, his girlfriend, and their entourage arrived on the scene, and tickets were distributed to those present. We wandered in, and scott informed us that if we filled out our name and address on the slips of paper that had been given to us, we too would find large batches of free tickets mailed to us at some point in the future which would roughly coincide with the date specified in the birthday field. This whole thing was beginning to seem very fishy.

But nevermind, play along.

A waitress wandered by to take our drink orders, and we ordered various concoctions, mostly the alcohol-based variety. In the meantime, scottgalvin.com entertained us with tales of... well, you know... the scottgalvin.com variety.

Eventually, we got around to taking a look at the menu that had been placed on our mini-table (this was after we had ordered), and I was thinking, "Damn, this shit is expensive". Food, drinks, and other random nonsense. We're talking the neighborhood of theatre prices here.

Worse, the text at the bottom. "Minimum order of 2 food or drink items per person."

Ok, I know the tickets were free, but that's downright fraudulent. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I decided I felt no compunction to comply with this silly, after-the-fact requirement. I was not hungry. I did not want to get drunk, even if the prices had been reasonable, and I certainly had no intention of paying several dollars for some stupid little soda.

I drank my beer, and did my best to enjoy myself. (With scott telling jokes, that wasn't hard.)

Before long, the show began.

Well, what can I say?

At times, it was mildly funny. At worst, downright annoying. Most of the time, just kind of boring. I can see why they have to give away gobs of free tickets to get people in there at all.

My philosophy in life is that it's worth trying just about anything once, provided it's not lethal, unreasonably dangerous, or known to be harmfully addictive. So in that sense, I'm glad I went. It gave me sufficient information to know I never want to go to that place again.

(And if scottgalvin.com and/or Jenny happen to read this, I am grateful that I was invited. It's just that it's not my cup of tea.)

Apparently, some people enjoy having some doofus get up on a stage, shout about a bunch of inane crap, holler obscenities, and then be expected to laugh. A few of the jokes they told were even funny. Most though, just dumb.

The "headliner", who is apparently going to appear in his own show on Comedy Central sometime soon, was more energetic than the rest, and some of his stuff was even funny. Unfortunately, he also talked longer. He even mananged to say a few interesting things about the state of the black community in America, but I wouldn't call it funny.

Maybe that's the real reason for the so-called minimum order. If you get really, really drunk, maybe it is funny. I obviously wasn't drunk enough.

After it was over, I rushed out to the car, since I knew my parking meter time had expired, and I was in no mood to field a ticket. I pulled out of the spot, drove around the block, and tried to get in touch with bouncing via cell phone.

Upon establishing a connection, bouncing informed me that they were thinking of meeting up at a restaurant several blocks away. I inquired as to where, and began navigating the streets of downtown Denver to go in that general direction.

When I got to the spot, I realized that the parking place I had before had probably been as good as any I would find. Oh well. I circled several times around surrounding blocks, and eventually located a spot.

I realized that I was neither in the mood to eat, nor to socialize. I tried to psyche myself into it, but it wasn't working. I didn't need this right now.

Just as I was parking, bouncing called and inquired as to my whereabouts. I told him roughly where I was, and informed him that I wasn't hungry, and so I would wander the mall for a while. We could perhaps meetup later.

He said scott could give him a ride if I didn't feel like hanging around for that long. I said thanks, but I felt like walking out on the mall. Perhaps we could meetup again after they were finished eating, if circumstances permitted.

I wandered up and down the mall. Made a couple stops in the closest thing that place has to record stores (Virgin Megastore and Media Play), and found them overpriced and unimaginative. I can see paying an higher price for cds if it's at a cool indie store with some personality, but at yet another carbon copy chain outlet, what's the point?

I did take a brief listen at one of the listening stations to Tori's latest re-released tracks plus some other stuff album, Tales of a Librarian. To her credit, all the songs I tried had different mixes and arrangements than the original versions. Most interesting were the ones where it mostly followed the familiar tunes, and might even be mistaken as identical by a casual listener, but differed in minor, subtle ways. Cornflake Girl was cool.

In more bountiful times, I probably would have picked it up on the spot at their "sale price" of $15, but I need to keep frivolous expenditures to a minimum until I get out of this crunch.

I wandered back to the car, attempted to call bouncing, got no answer, left a voicemail, and figured he could ride home with scott.

I made my way to the Laser Fortress, and here I am.

I think I'll try to get a little web surfing in before wandering back over to mom's.