Adventures in trying to find my own blog...

...while on a public computer.

I can never remember the url to this place, so I usually just google words that I think will bring up the site.

Tonite, while taking the scenic route here, I stumbled across these gems:

• Oliver babbles
• something on technorati that looks mildly familiar.
• This blog which, last spring, offered "a kind 'thank you' to Oliver Babbles for his gentle reminder to me to do the right thing." Yes, they're talking about me.

And oh, just in case this post was too boring for you, how about some fish shoes?


Not into seafood? Perhaps rat shoes are more your style?

So you think you can date?

It's November; you're lonely, single, and desperate. You know that when you go back home for Christmas you're going to run into some of your old friends. You know the ones; the ones you can't stand to be around anymore. And you know they're going to ask you...

"How ya' been, what are ya' up to these days?"

But your job sucks. Your apartment sucks. Your friends suck. Your lovelife is non-existent. And know that after so-and-so asks you about your pathetic life, she's going to show you her big stupid diamond engagement ring.

This cannot happen. Again. We all remember your crying session from last year after you ran into that pimply girl who sat behind you in English class at the grocery store, the one who's pretty, rich, and happy now. How could that have happened? She was soooo pimply.

You must have a relationship by Christmas; or at least something that you can fake as a relationship.

So, in a moment of wine-induced strength you take that first step. Like Indiana Jones when he had to step onto the invisible bridge at the end of Last Crusade (spoiler alert: there's an invisible bridge).

You set up an online dating profile.

And before you know it, you've got five suitors filling up your inbox.

But there's only enough time in your schedule to go on two dates before the holidays; so pick two fellers to accompany you on a wild nite on the town...


Below, I've placed five personal ad profiles; some taken from a popular dating website, and some from the FBI's most wanted list. All the information is straight from the respective web site (I changed the wording only, never the content).

Step 1. pretend you're a pathetic girl (if you aren't one already)
Step 2. for each suitor, pretend you're the age that would date him
Step 3. pick two hunky beaus to buy you dinner
Step 4. try not to pick an axe murderer

Contestant No. 1
HistoryBuff_in_the_buff_420_69

Contestant number 1 is in his later years, seeking an older female to share his interests with. He is an avid reader who prefers historical nonfiction. He can often be found in the local library, or traveling to famous American historic sites. He enjoys walking, either in the park or at one of the nearby beaches. Extensively traveled throughout North America and Europe.

Contestant No. 2
NiceGuy_LastPlace_420_69

Contestant number 2 loves going out to dinner and catching a movie, going to book stores, coffee shops, garage sales, taking short road trips, and traveling. Also enjoys playing new golf courses around the country.

Contestant No. 3
Self/motivated_self/starter_420_69

Contestant number three is an eager self starter that has had to work for everything he has. He enjoys spending time on the lake, or just a night in with close friends.

Contestant No. 4
Bi_Party_Guy_420_69

This fine gentlemen is fluent in French has a Master's Degree in International Finance. He spends his time golfing, snowboarding, and clubbing. He's into fast cars, fast women, and curious boys. Serious inquiries only, please.

Contestant No. 5
Rowdyboy_420_69

Our final contestant is a good ole' boy who is a former fireman and current respiratory therapist. He likes to spend his time outdoors, whether it be hunting, fishing, or horseback riding with a special someone.



Answer key

"Hit a Worker, $10,000" *

*actual sign I saw on the Interstate in Oklahoma.

Yes, normally the word "fine" is up there somewhere, but apparently in the land of red dirt brevity is king. My first thought after seeing it, other than "damn, I wish I could get a picture of that, was "But what if I don't wanna hit a worker? Is there any other way I can get the money?" And my second thought was "Miles Roby would give me ten points for this."

On a related note, I saw these two seemingly unrelated news items (see photo below) in two separate papers today. Intentional? perhaps. Hilarious? definitely.

Buy me this

James Bond villain watch collection

I'm no James Bond junkie, so I'm torn on what I think of these. On the one hand, I really like the idea, on the other, I feel like sort of a poser- almost everything I know about James Bond I learned from Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64.

But anyway, here are my favorites (I don't have pictures, you'll have to check the site):

Thunderball
A View to a Kill
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The Spy Who Loved Me (jaws's watch)
Licensed to Kill

We be clubbin' Halloween nite: Idaho Style

Meet Lori Brutsche-Ely (via mug shot).




On October 31st, fearing that her Halloween nite was ending without the proper amount of excitement, she went around The Mint Club (Twin Falls, ID) "stealing beer from other patrons, exposing herself to the band, trying to start fights and refusing to leave the establishment."

And oh yeah, she kicked the bouncer in the groin on her way out of the club (she was going outside to piss; don't worry, she was coming back in).

Later, after being arrested, she bit the officer putting her into the holding cell, requiring him to get a tetanus shot.

She's like the Hannibal Lector of the Gem State.

Doesn't this make you feel pathetic about what you did with your devil's nite?

For one moment, I was afraid we had a rival blog...

Two Guys, Two Girls, Two Bottles, Two Bouncers


Luckily, before I dispatched Dan Dorrity to discuss the matter with them, I realized that it's just the title of a news story from Budapest.

Crisis averted.

Don't know where it comes from...

...but it's the greatest thing in the world.


PUPPYCAM

Michael Crichton: author, scientist, dead person

A short summary of his achievements as told by wikipedia...

-harvard undergrad (prick)

-harvard med school (that goes double)

-apparently TIME thought Jurassic Park II was going to be a good movie

-once, as an experiment to test the objectivity of an asshole english professor, turned in a George Orwell essay as his own; the teacher gave him a B-

-married five times, divorced four

-published one story under 6 different titles (Jurassic Park I & II, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Sphere, WestWorld)

-created TV's hit show ER (but only wrote 3 episodes)

-cowrote the best movie to have a flying cow sequence and use the word "rue" with his wife (Twister)

--he was once named to People's 50 most beautiful people (1992)

-in 'Next' he named a character named "Mick Crowley." The character is a Yale graduate and a D.C. based political columnist. "Crowley" was portrayed as a child molester with a small penis. This is a not-so-subtle slight of Michael Crowley, who is also a Yale graduate, and a senior editor of The New Republic, a left-leaning Washington D.C.-based political magazine. In March 2006, the real Crowley had written an article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in State of Fear. The small penis thing is interesting; it has to do with libel protection.

-in December of 1994 'ER' was the number one TV show, 'Disclosure' was the number one paperback and the number one movie (by box office gross)

-a dinosaur has been named after him

-wikipedia page had some errors and I had to edit part of it

- I feel like a mega-nerd

my presidential elction post

Normally when a black guy looks at me and says something about "change" I step over him and pretend he doesn't exist.

But last week when this happened, instead of ignoring the bum, I went downtown to my local polling place and helped the guy get employment.

Now let's see if he can hold a job for more than four years.

Inconceivable.

This week I learned two things, both of minor interest to me, let alone you, but my will to procrastinate has reached new heights.

1) In reference to International Trade -
T & A does not mean what you think it means.
This class would be far more exciting if it did.

2) I would never have survived the Tang Dynasty.
(think China, not astronauts)
I draw your attention to Article 462: All cases of those who drift aimlessly to other places are punished by ten blows with the light stick (think bamboo, not some Star Wars predecessor) for the first ten days . . . with a maximum punishment of one hundred blows with the heavy stick.

that is all.

Mine is blogs!!!!

And people telling me what theirs are.

If we don't learn from our past, then what?

I think all of us of a certain age should browse through this list of movie posters from 1985 and, well, ...I don't know. I had a storm of emotions.

http://www.impawards.com/1985/standard.html

Mad Men boring spoiler alert

I was trying to catch up on Mad Men and only made it to episode 10 because I couldn't get over how much this guy kept reminding me of a certain presidential candidate.


He plays Betty's father Greg, who's just recently had a stroke and keeps mistaking her for his dead wife. He even sort of fondles her once at the dinner table. I'm not sure if he really bears a striking resemblance to John McCain or if it's just that he's old, white and senile.

I was hoping I could petition for a last minute ballot change. Truthfully, I'm not sure anyone would even notice:

The boring, boring VP debate

McCain/Palin as mavericks?

fuck that.

sounds pussy to me.

I'm voting for the same candidates I have in every election since 1876

It's half of a love/hate relationship

Guess which half.

I made a terrible mistake in 2001. Well, I made many terrible mistakes in 2001, but I'm only going to talk about one right now.

I subscribed to Spin magazine. I fell for some sort of "two years for $10" type of deal. Ugh. And, because I'm a moron, I resubscribed a few years later under the same deal. But soon after I learned my lesson, and never gave them another cent. Which is why it's so surprising that now, 3 years after my subscription ended, they still send me magazines (often along with those annoying "hurry! this may be your last issue!" letters).

It's like Spin is an alley cat that I fed once and now won't leave me alone.

I'll spare you (and myself) an in-depth discussion of why it's a terrible magazine, and instead just give one example.

In the latest issue they reviewed 57 new albums using a star rating system:

1 star: poor
2 stars: fair
3 stars: good
4 stars: excellent
5 stars: classic

And of those 57 reviews, 46 are rated between 2.5 and 3.5 stars. That's 80%. One page from the review section has 11 ratings on it, and every single one is either 3 stars or 3.5 stars.

What's the point of reviewing music if almost every album gets the same score?

Anyway, I'm bored with this already.

go away

Case File 227: Porn, misery

I thought passiveaggressivenotes.com was pretty good


But this is pretty fucking fantastic.

Bonding through Fraud and Hate Crime

It's widely known that I dislike the other clowns at my clown college, which is why what I'm about to say is so surprising: I made two new best friends yesterday.

Yes, two new and amazing friends. In one day. Two friends, one day, just like that website with the girls and the cup.

Here's the thing: They don't know that we're best friends yet. And they probably never will, because I'm not entirely sure who my new best friends are, but I'll tell you what I do know.

Friend 1:
Yesterday I was at the library in my study carol when I noticed that I didn't have as much leg room as I'd like (I really need to stretch out if I"m going to be expected to learn), and I wanted to move the study carol behind mine back so I could steal some space. But before I did, I went to the list to see whose it was (we had to sign up for them last week and the sheet is still there).

I didn't recognize the names, but before I could go back to adversely possessing their leg room, I scanned the list. Each study carol is supposed to have 3 people in it, even though most only have two (which means any random serial killer can sign up for the 3rd spot and ruin your semester).

In an effort to keep the goofballs away, the students at one carol filled in a fake name on their carol's 3rd line: Art Vandelay!

Friend 2:
After this amazing experience I decided I was too amped up to continue studying, so I was going to go home and watch Full House on dvd. While walking up to my car in the lot I noticed that the car next to mine was covered with stupid stickers. And hidden amongst the "Republicans for Voldemort" and the "Wal-Mart: Low wages/low morals" was a stick-on emblem of a dinosaur eating a jesus fish. The same one I have on my car, but that isn't why we're friends.

A piece of it was broken off by some hoodlum in the same spot that mine's broken!!! i was like omg and could have died right there

September is the new February

I won't lie.
My life is pretty much mundane nothingness filled with intervals where I have to attend an institution of higher learning. And when I say "have to", I mean that I chose to do so rather than enter the working force otherwise known as the "Real World."

and so with the advent of classes, I find I have something to complain about again.

into evidence, I offer the following notes from class today:

India will export one unit of steel and get 1/3 a pair of mens pants.
and from this India gets an extra 2/15 of a pair of pants (instead of 1/5 a
pair of pants they got under Autarky). = India is better off because they
have more of a pair of pants.

and that, kids. . . is the fun and fantastic world of international trade and finance. Trying to make sure all the countries of the world have as close to a full pair of pants as they can. I never knew.
Adam Smith? Who needs him! (unless he can explain better the term "autarky", which until I have a better understanding of, will continue to insert into random conversations as often as I can.)

so until next time: autarky, autarky, autarky.

Four Second Movie Review: IRON MAN

+

=

And the verdict...

The Summer Semi-Hiatus is almost over

just a little FYI from your friendly neighborhood blarging squad.

Hey, Avenue...

Did you forget to mention you got a new job shilling Yahoo! mail?

17 second video of a giant dead anaconda found...

...outside some building in south america.

Movie Review Triple Feature: Early Nineties Edition

Singles (1992)
synopsis:
A group of twenty-somethings search for love in the big city in this cameron crowe written and directed romantic comedy (spoiler alert: it's neither romantic nor comedic).

review in a nutshell:
Awful. Truly awful. Its irritability factor is off the chart; they should have called it Shingles- at least that way viewers would know what they were in for.

Watching this movie is like taking a telephone call from a.v.e. (which is basically him reading a blog post to you while you try to think of an excuse to hang up); it's listening to a bunch of people you don't really care for tell you about things you don't really care about, while all the while they're convinced they're telling you the most interesting/important thing ever.

brief commentary on the "twenty-somethings":
While there aren't quite twenty of them, the main characters certainly are something (major prickfaces). Think back to a pretentious coworker (but just your run-of-the-mill boring pretentious, not the oddly fascinating pretentious where the person isn't aware of it). Watching this movie is like being trapped with that person in the break room for 95 minutes.



Barton Fink (1991)
synopsis:
Barton Fink is a semi-successful serious New York playwright hired to write a B movie script for 1940s Hollywood. I guess I should say that the film takes place in 1941; this isn't a time-traveling movie (although adding a flux capacitor and hoverboards wouldn't have hurt).

Fink is supposed to be writing the story while he's staying in a shady hotel, but instead develops a serious case of shingles. Sorry, I meant writer's block. He's torn because he wants to write "art for the common man", yet he's supposed to be writing a schlock wrestling movie.

review in a nutshell:
Watching a movie about writer's block is just as boring as it sounds. There's some stupid symbolism (which is both a cheap substitute for actual plot and a poor trade for the entertainment no longer in the picture) that I choose not to go into because it's too boring, and some strange, but ultimately disappointing, plot devices (yawn).

even writing about this movie is uninteresting:
It's long, it's bland, it's a letdown (insert your own joke here). Anyone who says they like this movie is only saying that because they think they're supposed to. Or they're stupid.




Jungle Fever (1991)
synopsis:
Professional black guy (black guy who's an architect, not a guy who's job is being black) and his Itialian secretary have an affair (re: he bones her on his silly architect desk in what has to be the most awkward at-work porking session I've seen since Moronica sent me a link to "Trainyard Skanks 4" (trains don't need to be steered; you won't believe how the engineers occupy their time on the rails).

The story follows what happens with each of their lives once their tryst becomes public knowledge.

Other issues this movie attempts (but laughably fails) to tackle:

-The architect's wife's issues with being a light-skinned black woman
-The architect's relationship with his religious and racist father
-The architect's relationship with his crackhead Brother
-The Brother's relationship with their father
-The architect's relationship with his best friend (who leaked the affair)
-The architect's workplace relationship with his white bosses
-The Italian girl's relationship with her racist father and brothers
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with his own father
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with her brothers who hate him
-The Italian girl's relationship with her best friends (who also leaked the affair)
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship a black girl he wants to date
-The Italian girl's boyfriend's relationship with his racist friends
-The architect's relationship with his daughter


review in a nutshell:
A real snoozer filled with unlikable characters being assholes to each other.

one more thing:
So bad it doesn't even deserve me writing a third section about it.

In sum: based on these films, the early 90s sucked. And if people actually acted like the characters in these movies... Thank god I was too busy playing Super Mario 3 to notice.

here goes nothing . . .

I don't have much, but what I've got you can have:

I've been banished to a small South Dakotan town for most of July. . . this sort of setting does not generate the kind of material I'd prefer to blog about. But, honestly, who am I kidding. . . nobody reads this anyway.

When you cross the border into Eastern South Dakota (and eeeeeeverybody knows that East River drulz and West River rulz) you get greeted by two billboards that pretty much sum up time spent crossing the state. 1) the billboard that tells you to eat meat. Seriously, that's all it says. "Eat Meat" in big Red Letters. and 2) the how far away you are from Wall Drug sign. Wall Drug is the waste-of-space town that SD likes to pretend it a holdover from the good ol' days of cowboys and ten foot tall kelly green brontosaurus statues with blinking red eyes. Wha? I don't get it either, but if you want to see both, apparently this is where you come. And there are signs as far away as Greenland and Africa to entice tourists to visit. Ugh.

And when I arrived safe on the Eastern border, I was greeted by the "WELCOME VETTERS" sign gracing the highway exit. Glory, Glory . . . I didn't miss the wonder that is the Corvette Rally. If you can call a group of James Spader (circa Pretty in Pink) wannabe, Creed blaring, personalized license plate sporting ego-maniacs a "Rally".

Perhaps not enough to keep anyone reading this -- but what if I could promise a follow up of girl-on-girl streetfighting and a trip to Deadwood? eh? eh?

If you've got a better idea I'd loooove to hear it.

In a measure of desperation, I'm about to do something really horrifying and give one of our sometimes-commentors a temporary submit button. Except I don't think it really counts as giving if you have to beg them to take it. Maybe I could ring the bell and leave it on A.V.E.'s doorstep. Or bribe Slogan Echoes to take it. I should start making a list of obscene sexual favors now.

Do any of you readers masochistic shut-ins have any suggestions? For guest bloggers I mean, not sexual favors.

An open letter to my fellow bloggers

Where the fuck are you.
I'd have better luck getting this broad to blog:




Babbles? I know you're bored out of your skull hanging out with Cruella's dogs all day and trying to devise new ways of killing yourself. Do you think, maybe, you could post once or twice while you're gone? No?

Moronica Bars. I know where you are. I know what you're doing riiiiiiight now. And it's more fun than blogging, but that doesn't let you off the hook. You are in fact still on the hook. The blogging hook. And if you refuse to blog, could you at least come help me dig this pond? Babbles started it and then fell into a black hole somewhere.

Gal. I feel like you're my best hope. I'm pretty sure you're on the edge of a serious comeback. And you were at least partially responsible for starting this whole thing, so dust your keyboard off and let's see some fucking BLOGGING ACTION!

OK, everybody, on three!


One...

Two...

...

(guys?)

Better him than me...

Babbles is in Colorado visiting Cruella DeBoner for... like... the next year or something. I'd say that means we'll be Babbleless, but I'm guessing he's bored already so we'll probably be hearing from him with stunning frequency. (Do they have the interwebs in hell?)

I think he thinks there will be a lot of this:






When really I'm pretty sure it's going to look a lot more like this:


And this:



And this:


Too harsh? She once choked me in her living room. Until I turned blue. In front of about 6 people (none of whom stopped her--thanks, mom and dad.)

Here's a hint, Babbles: If she goes for the throat, put your finger in your nose and pretend to try to wipe it on her. She'll be too busy barfing to maim you.

It's like a Rorschach test.

Williams Sonoma's online catalog says it's a meat tenderizer.

Where's Nitro?

My family is watching American Gladiators, which somehow, the powers that be have made even more ridiculous by making the challengers in this episode win their spot by some feat of amazing weight loss.
It's Oprah-tastic. At any moment I'm convinced the guy who builds houses is gonna show up with his whole crew and tell the audience what a hard life this particular challenger has had, but its okay because they've got a new three story lake-front villa now. And then I'm gonna have to watch the Gladiators cry.

You haven't watched television until you've seen a muscle bound Aryan-Nation posterchild named "Titan" cry.


Please, someone, tell me I'm adopted.

And why doesn't the coffee shop deliver?

It's 71 and sunny and I have a whole list of fun things I can do today (really--a list) and I can't get this fucking permafrown off my face long enough to go do any of it. Last night I worked late tattooing the twitchiest man alive with the dumbest tattoo I've done since I did that Taz holding a shotgun in one hand and a confederate flag in the other.

Then, when I went to the awesome dump of a bar with Kara I couldn't even play darts because somehow I lost my driver's license. A week ago. And just now realized it. And you know the probability of finding it is inversely proportionate to the length of time it's been missing so that thing is fucked.

Oh, but I almost forgot the good news. My MasterCard should be up for a promotion soon following its unusually hard work over the last couple of days buying all that internet crap for the guy in Oslo who stole my credit card number. Way to go, you silver piece of shit.

Beware teh Blogaissance

It's finals week again (yes, already), and you know what that means: I'm avoiding all responsibility and making blargs.

Check back this weekend for massive updates... if someone will open the gate for our four posters (or slide a laptop through).




Also,
this post is just to let our reader(s) know that at least one of the blahhgers still knows the url to this place.

In the meantime, try out a movie quiz.

WTF!EVIL!!!!1!

Today was a really long day at work--I did a portrait of a big, black, begrilled lesbian on her girlfriend while the two of them bickered in front of me and my client kept saying how nervous she was that it wasn't going to look good enough. So you know, no pressure there. It took me forever, so by the time I started on the EvilFlameyFaceThing I was running way behind and thought I'd take the cheater's route of looking up some easy internet reference for the facial expression.

When I unwittingly stumbled upon this:




...



I found it on some dude's family reunion website! They're PROUD of this little monster! Seriously, I'm going to have to call a priest to perform an exorcism on my fucking computer screen. I CAN'T STOP LOOKING AT IT!

Kids are sort of creepy anyway. They have imaginary friends and have evil ceremonies in cornfields and see dead people and stuff. I don't want anything to do with them. Oh what, those are movies? Whatever. I hung out with a REAL one the other day and it kept slobbering and laughing and trying to break my stuff. So, you know... evil.

So what if it's plagiarized, it's a post goddamnit

Collection of stuff I saw on the interwebz tonite...

Famed DJ and convicted child molester Jonathan King singing a catchy (get it?) tune:



Website full of pictures of famous british women with gags photoshopped over their mouths (seriously):
http://www.dansdidnts.com/brit.html


Interesting anecdote about what a man would like to save from his house in the case of a housefire:

"I lived for years out of a single
backpack and I believe there's nothing I could
lose that would kill me. Losing journals and
diaries would be a bit of a drag, but I'm a
believer in stoicism and accepting that
whatever gives you pleasure could be taken away
at any time. Pleasure must be something inside.
That said, who doesn't like shiny trinkets? Ten
years ago I bought a Rolex. Now, everyone knows
that this - along with a Porsche - is a prime
symbol of the tosser. But wait a minute. It
cost me around £2000, which was exactly the
amount in my bank account. I emptied the
account on a whim, and at the time I didn't own
a house or a car or anything more than I could
fit in a 75 litre backpack. I did it because
James Bond wore one in the early films. Still
got it, though none of my colleagues knows and
I don't advertise the fact. I'm pretty much a
failure in life - I'm 36 and have never earned
more than 20 grand. I still owe my entire
student loan from 13 years ago. But I wear a
Rolex. The contradiction amuses me greatly. One
day it'll be stolen and I won't be able to
afford a new one. C'est la vie." (frankspencer)

Site that has a few examples of hidden pictures in music. Yes, that says what I want it to.
http://www.bastwood.com/aphex.php



I'm not sure if this game is fun or not, but I want to play with it later so I'm putting it up here.
Dinorun



Awesome bedroom paintjob (but stupid because it was a rented apartment)

Book review: The Brethren by John Grisham

Don't bother reading though the 1025 reader submitted reviews, I'll tell you what you need to know.

This book fucking rules. It's the greatest thing I've ever read. Shakespeare can go to hell. This book is the reason why English was created. This is the new Good Book. If Jesus were alive today, this is what he would be preaching. Letters were invented so they could align to form the words to form the sentences that appear in this book. Buy it. Rent it. Steal it. Whatever.

You must read it. The enjoyment you'll get out of this book can only be matched by... It can't be matched. Nothing will compare to the feeling you get from finishing this book. Nothing. Winning the lottery? No way. Ridding the world of AIDS? Fuck that.

This book is so good finishing it made me sad because then there's no more. It's like the greatest thing ever, in all of ever. Five stars, no doubt. Quit reading this silly blog and go buy it already. John Grisham is the new god.

I'm not going to tell you what it's about or the plot(spoiler alert), but I'll simply leave you with this: The Brethren by John Grisham is the greatest thing ever created by mortal man.

The REAL story.

Can we post "adult content" on this blog? Because there's no sense leaving out all the interesting parts. Like when Moronica found those lost hikers and agreed to take them back to town but only after Bars and Babbles took turns defiling them on the picnic table while the rest of us watched.

What? That doesn't sound likely? Well fuck you and your skepticism! Sure, what really went down was a lot of drinking and reading (including a fair amount of Nancy Friday, it would seem) and sitting around being assholes. But fortunately for us that's exactly the kind of shit we're into.

Activity Review: Cabin camping with the sometimes-commentors

I don't know why anyone would care, but since it's been requested I'll oblige with a silly post about a silly trip.

So, the whole gang (for the most part) was there. This made the trip just as awful as you'd think it would.

My ideal vacation crew would look like this:



Notice the lack of commenters. Doesn't it seem glorious?

But as far as the trip itself was concerned, my review is short and painful (unlike the trip which was long and painful).

The low point was when Moronica arrived. The high point was leaving, obviously.



Whatever. I've lost interest.

Fine. Fuck it. I'll do it.

Shelley Pomeroy's End of the Year Party is actually happening. I'm not sure what's more impressive: That we did something we said we were going to, or that we all think we can be in a small mountain cabin for three days and not hate each other by the end of it. Excuse me, I mean hate each other more.

If I were betting, I'd say the odds are good that someone is trapped in a refrigerator that's on fire before Memorial Day. And if pressed, I'd name Moronica as the favorite to be enjoying an up-close view of the crisper drawer.

In real life, the blog's writers and posters act just like they do online. So you can imagine the potential for anti-awesomeness this trip possesses. It's not a vacation, it's a prison sentence.

On the other hand, Moronica is threatening to bring ungodly amounts of alcohol, and my favorite friend Doogie will be there.

More to come, I'm sure, after I serve my time. I'd write more, but the labels say it all...

I'd rather be babysitting a six-pack

I have a baseless and longstanding prejudice against Arizona. Actually going there has done nothing to mitigate that. It's not a bad place. I'm just not into it.

So far on this little adventure, I've trained Donkey to come when I whistle. But this baby won't do anything I tell her to no matter how long and loud I blow my whistle

Monday morning Deadwood discussion (blurry NSFW photo included)

I've been watching a lot of Deadwood lately. We've been Netflix-ing it though, and we only get one disc at a time, and each one only has two episodes, so we're not really getting it much faster than it was broadcast originally. (I've only seen 4 episodes.) But I guess I'll be patient because it's really fucking good.

So, when does Veronica Mars show up? Because I hear she's in an episode. Does she catch the rapist? Does Logan show up and beat up E.B. Farnum just for being a slimy fuck?

I tried to find photos on the interwebs and all i came up with is this:


And this:


Has nothing to do with Deadwood and almost certainly isn't Kristen Bell. But it is totally "seksi!"

I'm back.

(pop: 1758)

I took a week off of work and the blahg and anything else that involves the use of a cellular phone or the internet in order to spend time with my grandma. She's old but spry and I figured if I'm going to spend time with her it would be really stupid not to do it now. Plus, I've been meaning to visit her for years (years!) and have never gotten around to it. So although the avoidance of guilt probably shouldn't be a good enough reason to take a one week trip to a one-horse town I went ahead and did it anyway.

There were some highlights (Kansas wheat in the spring is so lush you want to get out of the car and roll around in it. It's like a huge green lawn as far as you can see. And a cup of coffee is $.29!) and some really fucking awful moments (visiting my "uncle" Nick at the nursing home during entertainment hour and listening to the organist play hymns. Because I know it's different for people who grew up in a church, but to an atheist "Amazing Grace" and "How Great Thou Art" are funeral dirges and it's fucking depressing to watch a room full of people at the end of their lives humming along to them.)

Here was the part I really enjoyed, considering I grew up in a series of small towns beginning with this one and have spent almost a decade trying to distance myself, literally and figuratively, from them: Within 20 minutes of arriving, a kid comes up to me and says,

"You're not from around here, are you."

A phone call with my mother

So I talked to my mother on the phone last nite. She tried to convince me that I'm a grown man. I disagreed.

Obviously I won the argument.

In other news, I completed all my homeworks, and on time even. It's sort of a christmas miracle.

And I'm finally getting some use out of my old law school textbooks.




In other news, it's been a slow week (year?) for the blog; I'd complain, but you know, sounds like too much work to even do that.

Almost as smart as some douchebag Wal-Mart employee circa 1996.

So I'm a clean freak about bathrooms. I mean I let the bathroom get pretty filthy, but when I clean it I clean the holy shit out of it, and I clean the tub last because then I can just do it while I'm in the shower and when I finish bathing the whole bathroom's clean.

I'm pretty sure this makes me a cleaning freak rather than a clean freak but whatever.

So the shower curtain has gotten so gross that although I'm pretty sure it used to be clear I couldn't swear to it, so I put vinegar in a spray bottle and took it in the shower with me. It didn't work, of course, so I added dish soap to the mix. (And at this point I wondered if maybe it wasn't too smart. Like the kid that Babbles worked with who mixed bleach and ammonia to clean the floor and inadvertently made mustard gas.)

But it fucking worked like a charm. Cleaned that scum right up. And I had the entire thing sparkling clean before I realized that the floor of the tub had gotten really slick. Like, REALLY slick. And so had all the other surfaces I guess, because shampoo bottles started falling off of the ledge and onto my toes. Turns out the vinegarsoap had turned the scum into a sort of slick chemical sludge that sticks to any surface it splashes onto.

So I'm naked, feet sliding around in gray goo, creeped out because the shower curtain is so clean that I can now see my neighbor's house through the open bathroom door and dining room window, cursing my battered toes, reeking of vinegar, and I realize that maybe I'm not the total badass I sort of suspected I was.

(sigh.)

Anyway, it's clean now. Whatever.

I'd rather be doing anything than my paper(s)

hence the influx of (bad) posts by moi.


GET THAT MOTHERFUCKING SNAKE OFF THIS MOTHERFUCKING BABY!!

seriously, though, cheapest nanny ever.




my favorite part is that the parents (or best older siblings ever, seriously don't tell mom and dad what they did) who filmed it can afford a video camera, but can't afford baby pants.

Spring Homework Death Camp

I'm chained to my desk until I can fill up 35-40 pages of drivel for my classes next week. But no worries, for those of you who'd like to know what it's like, now you can play along at home!

Just hit play on my youtube playlist, which is what I'm listening to, and imagine yourself in great misery. Now we're twinsies!!

Cleaning out my spam email...

... means deleting such gems as

Dunkelburg (swear to god)---------gun her good gun her well

Coy Osborn -------------Ice cheep replica watches

Solomon Rich -------------Enlarge your machine size

Estela Bruno --------------Enlarge your instrument length

Mabel Poe --------------Enlarge your arm length

Brock Mayfield ------------ No test, No class, buy yourself bacheelor degree

Komi Sarkenko -------------The giant rose from my boxers

Cristal --------------- Blow her away with this (I opened it hoping to see
a gun, no dice)

wsmmrii ----------------why won't you answer my calls?



I'm impressed with the names; they're fantastic. Now if only my inbox were as interesting.

Shikari

so there's a road I am forced to take every morning when I drop my daughter off at preschool - everyone driving in has to share the same piece of road with the folks leaving. And normally I don't care . . . whatever, we're all jockeying for the same space, so we're all gonna have to wait at some point in time.
Today, however, there was some big fucking hold up, a hitch in the get-a-long (as they say in SD).
Some big white semi-looking truck is backing up, by which I mean remaining stationary in the middle of the road, holding up traffic going in and going out. At first I was upset. (I'm not above a little road rage in the morning)
But then I see the guy in the front, directing the truck backing up. He's got jeans and desert boots on, like your average construction "dude", but he's got some suspenders holding up his Lee jeans, and as he only weighs a buck ten, they look a little silly.
But not as silly as the pith helmet he's got on his head. That's right, a khaki, canvas-covered pith helmet. This guy doesn't give a shit if he's holding up a couple of station wagons and SUV's - he's on fucking Safari.

Curious to see if this was the fashion come-back of the year (urban sombrero anyone?) I did a little googling, and came across this guy. Creepy looking AND willing, wanting, waiting to tell you all about something you couldn't care less about. He even has business cards.

All I know is that traffic never does what I tell it to, and I have no business cards.
Perhaps my lack of pith helmet is to blame.

The way things were

I've never been one to seek out an episode of South Park, but if one's on I don't run the other way either. Because, let's face it, the show is funny and has been for a long time--a rare accomplishment.

I'm certainly not in love with the show. Mr. Hankey was stupid. Towelie is boring. And if I hear another fucking musical number . . . Hackneyed much?

But I have liked this season's treatment of two of the most painful cinematic experiences of my young life.

I was a little heartened when a friend of mine said he didn't recognize Cartman's turn as Jaime Escalante/Edward James Olmos in a recent episode. I was just happy that my friend had been spared, unlike the schoolchildren of USD 489, repeated viewings of that Stand and Deliver movie.

Our teachers and administrators probably thought that because we had a diverse school population and were pretty crappy students districtwide, that this movie would really inspire us. The thing is, I've known many teachers--worked closely with them, lived with them, spoken to them outside of the classroom--and they actually believe stuff like that works. The punchline of course, is that from 3rd grade on, if a movie was playing in school it was Stand and Deliver, Johnny.

In another episode Cartman and Kyle contract HIV and Cartman gets all Ryan White on us.

I only watched the made for tv Ryan White Story once. When I was in fourth grade. And it terrified me.

I wasn't scared of AIDS or anything. This movie kind of with my head because it opened up a whole new world of ways adults could to be unrelentingly stupid, mean, and annoying. To a child who already believed the world was a dark, forbidding, and irritating place to begin with, a movie about a kid who gets AIDS from his medicine and then gets treated like garbage until he dies was just too beyond the pale.

Around this time I also became obsessed with Mississippi Burning. I think I just had a real hard kink for people causing other people unspeakable misery.

And speaking of misery. Here's a clip.

Coming Soon: Movie Review

Caddyshack

fucking sucks.

I'll edit this post into a longer review if I can get through an entire screening without falling asleep (hopefully third time's the charm).

SoDak Rulz

I don't know how ya'll do it 'round these parts, but here's a little story of some legislation done in the LoDak style:

A House Concurrent Resolution was submitted in February 2008 to give one Martha Smith, an 80 year old woman, the hide of a mountain lion she recently killed from her back porch. You see, she came outside to find her dog in a standoff with the catamount, called 911 to deal with the problem, but upon being told that a "conservation officer" was not available currently, she grabbed her .22 caliber rifle and "taking steady aim" killed the cat.
When asked why she kept a loaded gun in the house she responded, "What good's a gun if it's not loaded?"

The legislature wants to give her the hide "to enjoy for a while" before donating it to a local museum, because she has "the spirit of the pioneers who tamed this prairie wilderness" and is someone who "will rise up and do what needs to be done."

to which locals have responded with mixed results:

-- "Good on you South Dakota!"

-- " May I remind you that Bill Janklow (ex-governor) has killed more people (drunk driving) than Mountain Lions."

--"The legislature must have decided that the Mountain Lion was Pro-Choice, somehow."

I take issue that I had to learn about this on my own time, and was never introduced to this kind of lawmaking in Lawst School.

Now all we need is a name.

I'm joining a band. A REAL band. At least, I think that's what will happen if I call this bradsterd.

But seriously, who has some drums they want to get rid of? I have an attic that's either going to be Moronica's future bedroom or my drum rock-the-fuck-out room so I'm going to need some drums ASAP. And when I get good we can all start a band. I mean if time and motivation and proximity to one another aren't issues.

Those bastards at the cable company...

...took away my cable this afternoon. Apparently they did an audit of what customers where paying, and compared it with what services customers were receiving. Fucking assholes.

Life no longer has meaning.

"life drawing" party. my house. this weekend.

I always find the best stuff in the "Artists" community on Craigslist. This gentleman is offering up his services, and although he's not as eloquent (or as saucy) as this guy, he IS willing to get naked and that is something:

Model for Hire * Modeling (Kansas City)

To be fair, the other guy might have gotten naked too, probably without approval, but I imagine it being more of the scrawny, furiously-masturbating kind of naked rather than the dopey furry half-blind naked that this guy is proposing. And does he kind of look familiar to anyone else?

A few things

Last weekend I reformatted my computer back to factory settings; while I was deleting all the stupid programs Dell pre-installs, I accidentally removed Wordperfect, my word processing program.

So now I have to type up my research papers using Final Draft Pro. Which is fine, except now my thesis reads like a Quentin Tarintino knock-off.

And, at school (where I'm currently at), it's tour week for next year's class.

I'm not sure what's worse, hearing my stupid classmates trying to explain how the school works, or hearing the stupid questions the new fuckfaces ask. I'd type out some examples, but then I'd get all riled up and ruin my day.

Also, if I hear one more person tell me how much better a.v.e.'s blog is than this I'm gonna... I don't know, probably just call moronica and bitch about it.

whatever.

Plus it's always easy to find hookers and drugs.

Today I found myself standing in a parking lot with a half dozen half-tards and miscreants, freezing, wet, hands numb, ass numb, halfheartedly making small talk when one of them says,

"Why the hell do you work in that dump?" When I just stare at him he says, "I mean in that fucking shithole slum. Oh, you live there too? What for?! Just a bunch of thugs."

OK, I'm not sure if it's agoraphobia or racism or the fact that that local news reports almost exclusively on the crime that occurs in poor/black/inner-city neighborhoods, but I get a lot of this and it really pisses me off. I love my neighborhood. It's diverse, it's close to a lot of really great restaurants and museums and cool eclectic houses and businesses and everything's open late. The people here look out for each other in a way unlike any other place I've ever lived, and they're fiercely proud of their neighborhoods. And it's NOT a slum, goddamnit.

Although, I just remembered that when Bars and Babbles stayed here one time we all woke up in the middle of the night because there were like 15 or 16 gunshots REALLY close. So maybe my point is invalid. Speaking of invalid - Babbles and Gal, have you guys seen the new courtroom-format Lewis Black show on Comedy Central? It has sort-of-funny assholes pretending to be lollers. Much like this blog.

Anyway, I was tired and cranky and I had cold wet feet inside my boots, but I swallowed my pride and told the guy that I didn't blame him for feeling that way because old white guys from the suburbs always get a little antsy in the city.

He was unimpressed with my magnanimity.

A special post for a special commenter!

So I lifted LOLLost from Jezebel's website. Blarging is hard, and much like Myrtle's vagina I can't always find fresh new filler. (Yeah!) Here's the fruit of a couple minutes of my hard labor in lieu of an apology.

Things I don't like (that aren't commenters)

I don't know if you people have much to do with libraries but I, in a shamefully cliched way, spend a lot of time in them. I go there for fun. I go there to work. I sulk there and socialize there and I occasionally drink there.

I mean. I drink there often. But sometimes I go there for that purpose--to sip away my drinking hours that would otherwise be sipped away at a bar or with friends.

Guess what I don't do? Sleep there.

I can't fucking stand people who sleep in the library. I'm not talking about the crashed-out, head on book, drool on page, hand still on crappy cup of coffee 'cause I've been working on this fucking paper for three days straight instead of all semester like I was supposed to kind of library sleeper. I'm talking about the people who just flop out for a good nap in the middle of library primetime.

Is there anything more inelegant? More uncouth? Just plain grosser than these hideous hideous people.

Now look. I'm the last person who would ever accuse me of couthness or elegance. This afternoon I was trying to remember if it was early January or late January the last time I washed my one pair of jeans that I wear everyday (and after a while, I kind of felt like it didn't matter because fuck if I'm going to wash them today, ya know?)

But something about these library sleepers gets on my fightin side. I'm not sure what it is and I don't care. I just don't like it.

Actually. I might be projecting some of my feelings about sleep onto them. Don't get me wrong. I still totally hate these people. But it would be dishonest not to admit that I have some hangups about sleep. But hangups--somnial and otherwise--are for another post.

You asked for it, Anonymous.

Motherfucking LOLLost! I mean you didn't ask for THIS because no one would ask for this, but this is what you get. Read (can you even call it reading?) 'em and weep.






...

Oh, there's more.























And now I'm going to resume drinking/procrastinating.