A Fetish for 80's Synth

Days Walking - 37

Been getting a bunch of responses for postcards!
Cool, cool. It's kinda funky to learn people's real names. But I still think of Kato as Kato, even though his real name is Boy Georgette.

Who knew that he was actually a cross-dressing lounge singer with a fetish for 80's Synth?

No, no I'm joking.
Kato is All Man, and Ladies Love Cool Kato.

Still, it's interesting to get email from people using their indoor voice, as it were. Compared to comments, that is. I'm a strange person, and I collect friends and store them in my subconscious as avatars. Sometimes Gabe or Jake or someone will quip a wisecrack, and I think "If Robin were here, she'd say blank," or "Kthrne would have a good laugh at that."

My avatar pals. Someday I will be in a jam and I will summon my Commenting Homies like undead spectral warriors. Like, let's say I'm getting mugged. I'll utter the chant and the weird green smoke rolls into the room from nowhere, and the ghostly forms will materialize. My ghostly crew efficiently kills the mugger, and then we all chill on the couch and have some Sour Cream Doritos and Code Red Mt. Dew.

Holy Cow, someone not only clicked on an ad (at the bottom of the blog) the other day, but bought something from the resulting consumer site. I have hereby earned sixty three cents, how cool is that?

(When it reaches $100, they send a check. More likely, my account will be canceled from non-use long before that.)

I put the ads on the blog just as a lark.
I was like, "Text ads based on post contents?"
"Whoo Haa sign me up!"

I was expecting all sorts of amazingly funny ads appearing, since I am wont to talk about anything and everything. But alas no. Usually it's something like "firewood at low prices" or "scuba gear extravaganza", and I read through my post to see where I mentioned scuba. Nope, no mention of scuba...

I guess the ads you see are based on your region - which means that Heather is seeing different ads than Robin, who is seeing different ads than Celia.

Hmn, let's shake up the content-scanning ad computer.
Ahem: Alfalfa. Vibrator. Sex Toy. Rockets. Cabbage. Hookers. Ummm. Lisp. Body art. Tongue Stud. Henna Hermaphrodite. Vigilante. Gigolo. Porn. Sex. Loch Ness Monster. Flaccid. Termites. Tattoo. Crabs. Shrimp. Don't Want No Scrubs. Don't Want No Short Short Man. You're Not Ready For This Jelly.

Anything good? What do you guys see for ads?
Sadly, this kind of thing entertains me.

Janine! I'm glad to see I did not offend you for all time. My folks are not divorced. They're ah separated. I don't really want to go into it right now. And have been for a long time. Dad won't take his ring off, but he will go on dates from time to time. He's silly and I love him. Don't feel too bad for him, it was a long time ago and he has lots of companionship and doesn't even have to do his own laundry.

Kevin, wow it's been like a week, I thought you'd found something better to do with your time. :o) After you described your work and responsibilities (The Munchkin!!! Do not let her out of your sight for a split second. The world is an evil place for a young girl, how well I know) I was like, Wow, this professional writing guy tolerates my ramblings? How you must cringe at my grammar!

(How you ALL must cringe, daily - you needn't be a professional to appreciate correct usage).

Clean city clothes? Ha ha ha ha ha. Nothing is clean except the one outfit of Sunday Clothes I mentioned yesterday, and that's simply because those clothes are too thin to provide insulation and are therefore useless. I started out with the intent of saving some garb for polite company, but that plan was very quickly discarded. Every other bit of clothing (sans Sunday) I'm carrying is stinky.

Financing - (insert FAQ answer data here) Each of us scraped together the initial fundage for our gear by ourselves. A couple of the guys took out loans from friends and family. Plus, you'd be surprised how little you can live on when you're not paying rent, car payments, insurance, gas money, and lunch at PF Chang's.

To date, I alone have spent about $11,000. $7,082 was from my savings. I made $1200 selling my car, and $563.22 selling the majority of my worldly possessions. Then I cashed out a chunk of my college fund.

Spending Money? A tiny bit. Gotta be careful.

It would be impossible for any group without a crazy amount of corporate funding to pay for a trip like this all at once, out of pocket. We're being as thrifty as possible, cutting every corner that does not impinge on safety.

We're gonna have to put down roots - er - tent pegs - from time to time, get temporary jobs, and refill our (imaginary) teflon-infused inflatable plastic coffers. Ugh. Not looking forward to that, really. Working some random job in some random place. I am looking forward to it, and I'm not. It will be a really good way to get to know the people in a town, and become imbued with the spirit of a place.

But what if I decide to stay in that place? Not finish the walk?
Would that be a good thing, bad thing, etc.

Making money - I hope to publish a short story or two some day, but that's just a pipe dream, and none of us are looking at my typing fingers and actually expecting them to conjure our breakfast. There was a relic in D&D, this magic bowl that you would put water into and stir, and it would make a thin gruel. Yeah. My typing fingers can't even do that.

Robin - thanks for asking, but my current short story in development is floundering. I try to work on it every day, and I write part of one line and then cross it off with scribbles so that no one can ever read the crappiness of it. Maybe it's just the scene I'm trying to write. I'll try skipping ahead and coming back later.

Oh - another money maker - Gabe, being an equipment designer, garnered a deal to test out several pieces of prototype camping equipment. He has to write thorough reviews (the scary kind that only an engineer can write) for the product research studies / real world evaluations, and he's gonna get a bit of cash for that, but only after the three-month test period.

He doesn't know it yet,
But he's gonna share that meager cash with us.
Bwa ha ha

Litany Webb, signing off

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