Here I was yesterday:

Holstered to my hip was a .22 caliber Ruger autoloading pistol.

It was all quite legal and safe. We were on private property with properly permitted under state law handguns. The owner of the property, both the land and the weaponry, is fanatic about proper use and safety, for which I was happy. He’s also a trainer and member of Front Sight, an organization that, I guess, if you are going to have such places approaches it OK, with emphasis on proper and safe use and an acknowledgment of deadly force ethics. (Although a gated community with schools, homes and a gun range is well outside of my comprehension for lifestyle choices.)

Still and all with a day of reflection, while glad for the experience, I have not been converted. Interpretations of the 2nd Amendment aside (and I do believe that all 2nd Amendment arguments are a deep shade of gray), I’m still for gun control. Handguns and automatic weapons are designed with one purpose in mind, regardless of individual desire to talk about “sport.” They are for people killing.

Accidents and whackjobs and passionately angry in the moment folks with gun access account for deaths. Deaths by guns. You can’t really get around that reality, regardless of how much you talk about responsible gun ownership. For every upright citizen there’s an asshole or a teenager or a psychotic or someone else who thinks they know better, and my reality wishes that risk eliminated.

I don’t want to treat killing machines as toys or sports equipment. Golf clubs can kill, but that is not their design. Any comparison is so wrought with fallacy, my head explodes to listen.

Maybe for me, it becomes the same dilemma as with hardcore drugs. In an impossible, hypothetical, theoretical construct I believe no drugs should be outlawed. If people want to do heroin or crack, it is their lives and who am I to deem my heroin- and crack-free life as better? If drugs is your thing, rock on baby.

But, come on, it don’t work that way. Other shit comes along with the addict package, and the simplicity of legalizing drugs becomes muddied by a parallel group of assholes, teenagers, crazies and whatnot failing to make responsible choices. As a society, then, we all get hit by their stupidity, and we legislate against it.

Having said all that, I do know I’m talking from my ass, in that I directly benefitted from someone opposed to gun control. I had the opportunity for gun use to be demystified and removed from theory, precisely because complete bans to not exist.

And, I’ll tell you this much after firing a Glock, those motherfuckers really work. I only shot the Glock about five times, but with each shot I was pretty damn close to hitting exactly where I planned on the target. It was eerie.

Country, libertarianism, stars and trees, I am far, far from my beloved Cambridge.

Right now, I am sitting in a house on a ranch in a town not marked by the maps on my GPS connecting through the miracle of satellite dishes on the roof.

These are not terrorists:
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This is what they purchased:
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Full Metal Jacket, baby.

This is country:
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Even an open mike can’t dim the sunshine, puppy dogs, flowers and good living, smiley mood. What the fuck? I’m seriously not suicidal at all. I can’t handle this…

In reality, nothing is quite like cruising down a highway (but not like a Boston highway, a California one, which is like a regular road but a lot more lanes, and lights, if any, that favor a peppy speed) at 10 p.m. roof down, stereo blasting and the air redolent with honeysuckle or lilac or whatever the fuck smelly stuff they got growing here. Sweet.

The mood has been so upbeat that I actually went long on stage, because I was having fun. Anyone who knows me from Boston knows how fucked up that is. (Not only that, but it was kind of a diva move of which I am not proud and of the sort I would “tsk” back home. To whit, the woman booking the show was nice enough to offer me a couple of extra minutes once I introduced myself and let her know I wasn’t new. So I take those two and a couple more. D’oh. I truly couldn’t figure out the light, though.)

I might post the set, depending on whether reviewing it proves the “fun” as “delusion.”

Big for me, I also socialized a bit with the other kids on the show.

At this rate, I’ll be all up in the charity soup kitchen pouring out good will and good food and saving humanity and tell people to turn their fucking frowns upside down.

Not content to inflict my masturbatory musings on the two people who peruse this drek, check out Live Digitally.

Even though, “I have a bad feeling about this,” Revenge of the Sith wasn’t half bad. It reminded me a bit of seeing the first one (which is now considered the 4th one, I guess, stupid episodes). When I heard that quoted line above near the beginning, I figured it was alright.

Though Mark Hamill was never what you’d call a powerful actor, you at least didn’t want to punch him in the face every scene. Not so Hayden Christensen. Punched, repeatedly, and not allowed to act ever again. Not to mention the pussified path to the darkside, which involved a lot of crying. Obiwan didn’t cry, Padme didn’t cry, Leia didn’t cry, but the future Darth Vader? Boooo whooo whooo whooo.

Unrelatedly, one of the things that had me thinking about stopping comedy was stumbling into a bookstore in Menlo Park with M. Thursday night and hearing a good chunk of a lecture/reading by Chuck Palahniuk. He was funny, interesting, engaging and the audience was rapt with his storytelling. I found it much more interesting than some assclown jumping around on stage at a comedy club making funny, funny, dancing monkey efforts to entertain.

Finally, thanks to M.’s Fortune subscription, I have a new hero.

Man, I can’t even slack off right.

Spent the weekend doing some fun stuff with M., like going to the Berkeley Flea Market, and trying so very, very hard not to obsess on the job offer that still may or may not materialize.

Instead of my usual fear and loathing on the HR trail, I’ll strive tomorrow to send the HR chick good vibes of positive energy. Then, maybe she’ll call the people I gave as references during EAST COAST business hours, instead of when she apparently has been. (I’ll try anyway to be positive with the old vibe-sending chi, but the years of HR contempt may block the feel good vibrations.)

(As of late Friday, the recruiter was pushing for an offer contingent on acceptable references, since she had trouble reaching them. One reference emailed no message yet from her, and another that she called around 5:30-6 p.m. EST. Worry, worry, worry.)

Meanwhile, it fucking dawned on me, that I may be getting a half-way decent job very much in spite of my best intentions. I had to think about this little bit of reality and find some humor. The humor to me is I want to be a slacker; I want nothing better than to have some shitty, poor paying gig, that leaves me plenty of free brain time to do some of my own stuff.

But I couldn’t get that kind of job. The mall wouldn’t have me. I tried. Various promo jobs, like giving out water samples, they didn’t want me either. Telemarketing down the street from the mall to which I can easily bike returned silence. Part-time office work? I tried. Seriously, no one would have the faith that I truly and in all sincerity am A-OK with being downwardly mobile from my resume. I sent out a pretty honkingly large pile of emails for part-time and lower paying jobs. A lot, actually.

But, this possible position at a major reputable place could end up being mine, just because a somewhat shitty, part-time job was listed by a recruiter advertising on Craig’s List, and to that shitty, part-time job I applied. The recruiter didn’t even consider me for that job.

While all the job worries are going on, I’ve also been taking a hard, rock hard look at comedy and whether I want to continue pursuing it. Some of the crap I have participated in and my own ambivalent performing has made that look necessary. Ultimately, sitting in some shitty bar waiting for a few minutes of me time to jump on stage ain’t really me.

So, as I think about only doing select shows, avoiding crappy half-assed bad comedy fiascos and creating a marketing kit to be able to sell myself to the shows I choose, I come home to an email for a Saturday night spot at a place to which I’ve been and been impressed.

The joke is, I am inert, virtually embodying a body at rest, slacking extraordinaire. And yet with inaction, I might get a job and a good comedy show.

Jesus, with the sunlight and the fortune, I might not see New England again. No wonder Marcia Brady was so goddamn perky.

Alrighty then, this should be the last test of my email posting capabilities. I think I have the script settings, cron job and accounts all sorted out. Yay, me!

The desire to make this all work is kind of fucktarded in the grand scheme or fabulously astute.

I figure that this time around, ain’t no one gonna fuck me up work wise by checking me on the web. So, I’ve blocked the IP of the potential workplace. Then, I’ll forward all of my email to a gmail account, so that I am not tempted to do any pop-mailing directly from my website to their network (leaving behind a little dee-rob.com trail).

Finally, I’ll weblog (if I must) during the day from a gmail account and/or my cell phone. That way, all they know is that I checked a gmail account, which seems pretty normal these days.

It’s all a bit crazy, and I can’t assume that that particular ball of lightning will strike twice. (Not to mention my disinclination to make any violent-seeming, work-related jests. Although, I still stand by my various descriptions of meetings in which beating yourself to death was preferable to the meeting continuing.)

All of this is also assuming that I get the job. (But, the recruiter keeps assuring me that all they want is to talk to someone under whom I reported. As agonized over in previous posts, easier said then done given the circumstances, including time passed, and policy restraints.

I did find another friendly doc who is out on maternity leave (thus far from bureaucratic big brother (is that redundant?)).

Dork that I am I will also be able to post using my Palm pilot.

Also, dork that I am, I will be seeing the Star Wars flick tonight. At least I can say I am not geek enough to have been in line yesterday. And, assuredly, I will not be wearing any masks, carrying any sorts or otherwise cloaking myself Jedi-fashion. Dignity, that’s what I’m fucking about.

Although, at Costco the other day, buying my boyo a rotisserie chicken, I did see a Darth Vader voice changer and light saber, which I wanted to purchase for said boyo but didn’t. I figure if he’s geek enough to buy these tickets in advance, enlist not one but two programming buddies (who truly are nerds nonpareil), he should look the part. But, frugality and the certainty he would refuse to play dress up won.

Speaking of Costco, somewhere or another I saw this guy dissing the Costco experience and meant to post a counterpoint or write something here, but I never got around to it. Here’s the abbreviated version.

The single best part of going to Costco (or I suppose any big warehouse purchasing club) is people watching. Sure it’s twistedly voyeuristic, but fun for the whole family (or at least for me). I love, love, love looking in other baskets and trying hard to imagine what the plan is.

So far, my two favorite sightings were an old, Indian woman with three giant, gallon bottles of catsup and a cart full of Bounty paper towels. (I like to imagine she was making a home video of a slasher film, like kids did in high school with catsup as blood (only then it wasn’t video, because I’m old and only film existed).)

The other one from this week is the guy with a case of vodka (six, large, maybe 2-liter bottles) and a package of six pairs men’s dress socks. Party, Party, Party.

Also, if you are living with a guy who’s essentially addicted to meat, you really need to shop there or go broke trying to keep him fed. And for the liberal-types who give a shit, I think Costco has a relatively good track record on not offering bargains on the backs of the working poor throughout the world.

I seemed to have fixed my email function, so here’s a bunch of stuff that had been on my phone.

(1) Might be David Walsh (2) Yeah, right New England (3,4) Cambridge parking sticker I don’t need anymore (5,6) Third rail? (7,8) Mmm. Steak & wine at Tad’s Steakhouse ($11 steak dinner in the Tenderloin) (9,10) The last two are very important! Why Cali is different and possibly better than Mass — Roving beer carts at the flea market. All such activities are improved by roving beer carts.