THANKS AND...STUFF: I Will Not Be Held Down by The Man or His Canned Meat God...

Okay, so I'm now officially sick of my long-winded blog posts.

But thanks everybody for bearing with me. I've been wanting to get that off my chest for some time. And, well, almost means almost. Still here. Not going anywhere.

And thanks so much for the emails and IMs, too. I must say that I now have to eat a bit of crow. I guess my assumptions about who reads this thing, but chooses not to comment, have now been proven 98.9 percent WRONG, and, yeah, I guess I tend to get a bit Old Fart ish when I discuss the plights of those on the receiving end of the sociocultural batshit that is Higher Education.

I received enough communiques this weekend to keep me chained to a laptop for seven hours, reponding to each one.

Thanks to the folks who read from the likes of local U., UC, O. State, OU, Bowling Green, Case Western, UK, Northern Kent., Ball St., UCLA, USC, San. Fran. St., IU, Ill., Mich. St., U. of Mont., UNLV, Tulane, Ga. Tech, and other places of learning who took time out of their summer to drop me a line. I figured ya'll needed some acknowledgement.

And, well, thanks Joanna and other lurkers for the comments. They were all amazing and, well, it's nice to get at least some affirmation every once and a while.

Blog-wise, thanks so much to Pia Savage for, well, simply being herself (her post reaffirming herself as the mistress of her Cyberspace Queendom and other recent posts finally gave me the courage needed to clear the air a bit.) And, well, Sar may be totally unaware of this, but offering me the chance to Brawl with the my favorite home state Belle actually helped remind me of why I blog in the first place - I don't list people in my Blogroll because they have neat web sites, but because they're all good people behind the banners, Technorati rankings, and code.

And Shayna? Join up to support the My Music Highway Project. Not only is she a sweetheart, she's also a reminder that the World Wide Web belongs to humanity and that, sometimes, those hot-moms-who-blog-from-small-towns can make the Intimate Web a much better place.

Yeah, I've over-analyzed this to death. But thanks for being an understanding bunch.

Lord, this is starting to sound like some self-absorbed Oscar speech...

* * * *

For those worried about my personal safety or other stuff because, yeah, somebody found out where I lived, no worries.

I have since relocated to a new, much more "me" place - a neat lil Bohemian loft that would make another Bohemian homesick for good ol' San Francisco. I finally accepted that I don't need to be wasting $200-300 a month during the winter heating a place I barely occupied. My new loft is in one of the oldest, most historic buildings in Oxford - and I have hardwood floors.

I'll post more later, but trust me, I now live in the LAST place most folks would expect to find a working professional. Sometimes, the safest place is in plain sight.

* * * *

And, finally... Wombat tagged me last week. Since this blog has been way to introspective and, well, serious lately, I decided to show a brother some love (and who doesn't love an insomniac wombat?) :

Rapper Name:
Um...still DJ BallKap, Cold Archives Experiment. (I swear I used to be a decent emcee before Library School made me as hip as Betamax.)

Alternative Rock Band Name:
A Gringo Ate My Baby

Name your pain:
Whatever it's been in my life, traditionally pain has involved the "she" pronoun used frequently and some type of controlled substance.

1 true word that symbolizes God:
Spam.

1 True Love or 1 million dollars?:
True love. Money is easer to steal than another person's heart.

Live Free or Die Stupid?:
I'll plead the Fifth. My attorneys have advised me that anything I say may be held against me in a court of public opinion.

Purest, Happiest Moment Ever (8 words or less):
Watching the Ramones rock out my hometown.

Most Influential Life Lesson:
Never, ever, consider marrying a stripper with a coke habit and a serious mental illness. Bad idea, homes.

Most Successful Person You Least Admire:
Joseph Stalin

Where do we go when we die? (one word):
Wal-Mart (Yeah, they own that, too.)

Worst TV show of the past decade:
Anything with American or Idol in the title.

Best TV show of the past decade:
Probably a tie between Battlestar Galactica and Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Still with me, yes or no?:
Nah. You lost me, smartass.

Burning Building- baby or dog:
Baby

Who runs the world? (two words or less):
The Man, an individual reported to live in some Northern Virginia suburb, who watches his investment portfolio grow fatter and fatter on Saudi blood money, inner-city drug trafficking and arms sales to Least Developed Nations, who does it all so his children can have TiVo and Bluetooth-enabled devices, his wife can live like a desperate, collagen-filled housewife, and his girlfriend can afford a flat in Manhattan.

Fuck that two words or less shit. The Man invented that bag to suppress free speech.

Worst Idea You Ever Had:
A mixed drink called The Bitch: equal parts MD 20/20, Thunderbird, Boone's Farm, cheap gin, and Mountain Dew. I think there may have been some vodka in there as well.

God, that was awful.

Shittiest Job You Ever Had:
Cleaning up construction sites as a kid.

Best Job You Ever Had:
Information Analyst wasn't a bad gig. Don't ask, because I can't really explain any farther without the risk of being sued into three generations of poverty. That's the best part, actually.

NOTE - Consider this an "Open-Source" tag.