I Want To Get In With All the Poop Shooting!

Or shooting the shit, as it were. So here are my randoms in no particular order:

1. The Power Station - Some Like It Hot. I guess that is true. There are some that indeed like it hot. This song is their anthem. The exact nature of the it in question eludes me. That may the point.

2. Mick Jagger - Just Another Night. Well, sure, if your night consist of cross dressing and running around licking every person in sight. Sounds like most of the raves I haven't attended. I guess Mick is truly avant garde. He was into X before anybody.

3. B-52s - Love Shack. I love the faux sixties! When is VH-1 running that series?

4. Rod Stewart - The Motown Song. I think my music generator is broken. This is clearly not music. Am I tuned in to FM Abu Ghraib?

5. REM - Radio Song. Could a group suck it any harder? There is no defending this band, if that is even an accurate assessment of this grouping of people. I bet you could use REM to get every last drop out of an oil field, because they suck. Wait, wait, wait. REM is the Dyson vacuum of the music world because they never lose suction.

It's Official

1. Drunk blogging is worse than drunk dialing. Next time, I think I will just leave the computer off when I get home plowed.

2. Nuclear weapons are a bad idea. For anyone and everyone. We can kill each other in so many and creative ways already, do we really need to be able to destroy all life on the planet? Nope. Let's just stick to bombs, guns, planes, tank, knives, sharp sticks, rocks, hands.

3. Taking public transportation to work because you are still too drunk to bike sucks.

4. Going out during the week to party like a rock star rawks.

5. Checking your balance the next morning aggravates hangovers.

6. People who ask things like, 'how was it last night?' make me think I look hungover. These are the perceptive ones. I must watch out for them and deal with them quickly and quietly in the initial phases of my hostile takeover.

Anticipatory

I wonder if Kender Musing and SeanS will rouse themselves from their colonoscopic blogs to either re-ban me or come back here and scream incoherently again. SeanS remains a giant douche and his writing continues to suffer as he has descended into complete and total control c and control v blogging, while Kender Musing continues to post gigantic forty feet long ravings punctuated mostly by slamming the return button twice or three times for emphasis. KM is also a fan of control c, but he then screams invective and brimstone for 3 or 4 thousand words, so it is hard to call him a paster. KM's comment moderation is suspicious. It usually takes me an hour or so to get my comment posted and KM is a fan of altering things slightly. I did not swear in the two comments I just left, although I did call him a Tory. I did, however, refer to him as having his head up his ass by using asking how well he could see from his colon, sorry, mangina. I sincerely hope they post some comments. I could use a good laugh today. Especially since Kender is calling for armed revolt now that he has been betrayed by his elected leaders. This is what happens when you vote conservative.

UPDATE: Eight hours after I posted the original comments, Kender Musings has finally uploaded them.
ACLU, blah blah.
Traitors, blah blah.
Monkeys, blah blah.
Immigrants, blah blah.
Democrats, blah blah.
American Worker, blah blah.
Terrorists Win, blah blah.

What Can I Say?

So I was checking out an apartment last night and stopped at the neighborhood giant bookstore to buy a cookie. I was one of the last two customer at the cafe in the store and the woman ahead of me was trying to decide her choice. She settled on a pretzel and was bantering back and forth with the clerks. She clearly worked there. She had given me the once over, but I was sure that she hadn't gotten a good look, so I made a comment about carbs and pretzels. She said that she hadn't eaten in a month and had dropped 20 pounds so what did she care about carbs? I responded with jeez, I just thought that's what people said these days. This resulted in more banter and then the introductions and wild sex.* She told about how her ex had cheated on her and I kept things moving with comments and then she went her way and I went mine. As I was leaving, she was giving directions as to the proper care and feeding of child. She looked like she maybe 23. Am I the one with the skewed perceptions here?

Anyway, apparently, I have developed some sort of pull. This is more than a little odd, but it probably has a lot to do with the fact that as talkative as I am, I really am not a people person. I like persons, though. I guess I am a person person.**

*One part of that sentence is false.
**As persons as persons?

Yet More Tarantula Tuesday

I paid for 10 crickets tonight and the lady gave me 15 or 18, it is a little hard to count them all. The little food items are scurrying willy nilly(~2-3 feet per minute). Helob was a little perturbed by the dropping of the food items and it took him approximately 3 seconds to grab the first meal. And then about 60 seconds to grab the second. 3 minutes later he was dining on the third food item. He had not quite finished the other two and had deposited them on a web circle. As he was munching on the third cricket, he picked up a second from the web and is now two-fisting crickets. I have not previously observed this and I submit it as further proof that tarantulas make awesome pets, as do most any carnivorous creatures. Either that, or I am not right in the head.

I think the cricket lady is hitting on me. Or Helob.

UPDATE: There were definitely 18 crickets upon food item insertion. Three are now confirmed to be currently undergoing digestion. If only Helob could grow to be as large as a small dog and be trained as well. I could have someone to watch TV with and blame the farts on my pet barking spider.

UPDATE: Part Deux As of 7:30 AM EST, there are only 13 crickets left unmunched in the terrarium. Seven of these are the smart variety and are hiding on top of the plastic hidey hole. The chopsticks will likely be needed in the next few days. Probably Saturday, when other scientists are expected to arrive from places west.

UPDATE: Part Tres At 9:38 PM 3/29/06, there are now only 11 crickets living with the devourer. All seven of the smart variety remain.

UPDATE: Part Quatre At 6:38 AM 3/30/06, there were only 9 crickets visible. Four were still on top of the half pipe and five were huddled in the corner furthest from Helob. Helob was crouching by the half pipe. I confess that this count may be inaccurate as I was extremely bleary eyed and exhausted.

UPDATE: Part Cinque There are only 8 observed living crickets as of 12:56 AM 03/31/06. That means Helob ate one today. I think he is truly the last remaining spawn of Ungoliant. Props to the person who can describe how that beast died!1!!! The person that isn't dandrobium, that is. Although, given the fact that one year ago, I out-Tolkienned dandrobium, he may not be able to answer that challenge.

Tarantula Tuesday: Evolution 1 - Creationism 0

As some of you are no doubt aware, I have been training my tarantula to devour intruders for some time. This has been hard due to the dearth of despicable disruptors of my quiet hobbit hole. I have since undertaken a new task with Helob the Curlyhair Tarantula. I am trying to teach him to speak Swahili. Which is hard because I don't speak Swahili and mostly I just stare and him and repeat the same gibberish over and over again. This sounds rather similar to a certain blog...hmmm.

Tonight, I shall purchase more food for Helob. Hopefully, this new crop of crickets won't last long enough to feel confident chirping. I still have my secret weapons (chop sticks) and now that I have seen natural selection in action in a controlled environment, I can actively work to prevent it from happening in a favorable formula for cricket survival.

I suppose I should explain how I have seen natural selection in action. This is fairly simple. When I tossed in the crickets for the last feeding, one ran straight toward the nearest dark space. This space happened to be underneath Helob's ravenous fangs. This is not behavior that is conducive to cricket survival as this subject discovered immediately. The next morning I found two crickets hiding under the dish of mandarin orange slices I had placed in the terrarium to enrich the food for Helob. I also could not locate one cricket, thus one must have been eaten during the night. The smallest cricket spent the first two days trying to bury/dig itself into the dirt in the left, front corner. That evening and the following morning, I could only find one less cricket. Since I have observed no crickets escaping the terrarium or at large in my apartment, I must surmise that the missing crickets were consumed by the insectivorous inhabitant of the terrarium. For the next three days, the tiniest cricket continued to live in the enclosure. I had removed the dish of oranges as it had grown nasty about the time the tiniest cricket was the only surviving subject. This cricket had already unsuccessfully tried to bury itself and had now determined a technique that was optimal for surviving the tarantula's lethal ministrations.

It was hiding out on top of the half pipe hidey hole. As curlyhair tarantulas are strictly terrestrial, the cricket had found the one place in the environment where it was safe. After two more days, I pronounced evolution proven and all the cobagz can go back to school. I then used my chop sticks to prod the smart little cricket into the waiting jaws of Helob. It took less that 90 seconds to perform this task. I guess the cricket wasn't that smart after all.

More on the traitors and monkeys that plague our lives

My friend, Alex, makes a nice speech but it provides no solace. I am not sure that is desirable anyway. Solace is similar to comfort and comfort is destroying our society. Comfortable people have no drive or ambition and desire nothing. If one has everything, from where can inspiration spring?

A Question I Have Often Asked Myself

Why do all my parties turn into Oktoberfest? Probably because I haven't met any girls who wanted be my friend since college. Too bad, so sad. I am also curious as the Groucho Marx nature of my relationships with women. It is highly amusing for my friends, but less so for me.

As a further delve into the oddness that tends to surround my life, while not necessarily having anything to do with me or by me, this is just a little too close to the bone. The date is oddly close to the perennial celebration of the glorious day of my birth.

Yes, Please!

Thank you, that was excellent. Every burdensome task should be so easy. The hurt isn't in the knowing. The hurt lies in the uncertainty and the questions.

Questions can drive you mad, you know. Sometimes I sit and ask myself questions that I am certain would short out any computer's circuits, even were that computer capable of designing other computers that could answer questions that the first computer couldn't fathom. These computers would need to design generations unto the end of time and still they would have no answer for the questions I ask. I may know the answer, but in order for you to understand it, you must first find the question.

Zaphod might know, but then he is insane and can not be trusted. Of course, I am also not entirely sane myself as evidenced by that rambling and entirely silly analysis of Red Dawn below.

Red Dawn Strikes Back

Red Dawn is a movie of real courage, grit and endurance in the face of the teen’s worst nightmare: the monolithic force of government (parental control) dominating their lives. The movie is a perfect metaphor for every teen’s desire to remain a teen and fight against the perceived unethical superiority of authoritarian figures. It is Peter Pan with actual rebellion instead of delayed maturity. The Lost Boys, and girls, fight to maintain the foundations of their young lives, as they see them, and ultimately lose while fighting the good fight against the sell-out death of the adult, corporate and government regimented life. These brave teens reject all aspects of the soul crushing world of responsibility and strike out at those who would harm their friends, families and idols.

The brothers Eckert bring the few friends and classmates they can rescue into their old hunting grounds to wait out the siege. This is textbook teen isolation. These kids are portraying classic feelings of depression. They retreat into tight groups and identify with the group because they are having trouble, as so many do, with the transition from a child, who receives her/his identity from his/her parents, to an adult who has created their own identity.

The quest for identity leads many of us down strange paths. All of us have periods in our lives that we hope remain buried from public scrutiny because of our embarrassingly slavish devotion to fringe, or not so fringy, groups. Conformity provides comfort by providing us with something we long for so desperately as teens; a sense of perfect identity. The characters in Red Dawn are linked by their struggle, their suffering and their group. The Wolverines or Zezeldany as the god damned commies call our courageous heroes.

Another focus of the movie that may have been obscured for those who chose to laugh at this great, cinematic psychological examination is the actions taken buy the teens. They rebel by escaping the oppressing rule of the oncoming adult life, represented by the Cuban and Russian militaries, but they also aggressively attempt to change the world by fighting back.

In the same as recent political taggers in the District’s metropolitan area, the Wolverines see that something is wrong with the world and are striving to create change. Our heroes are not fatally misguided, as many teens sadly are, because they see that their struggle against the invading militaries is justified because of its unprovoked nature. Most teens can only see problems but can find no solution because they lack experience and perspective. The problems of the world have no easy solution, but teens insist that there must be because they are speaking with voices that have only recently begun to move from a child’s view.



Children have simple problems with wonderfully simple solutions. Teens are fraught with fear and insecurity precisely because they long to be adult, but wish to remain childishly without responsibility. The group in Red Dawn could have hidden away in the mountains for the duration of the war, but they chose to act. Thus, the dilemma of a teen’s struggle for identity is solved through action as well as through group membership.

As the film ends, we see that the two surviving members of the Wolverines have moved fully into adulthood by recognizing that their actions have limited success due to their poor perspective and lack of experience, while the Eckert brothers assault the enemy military stronghold simultaneously convinced of their own mortality and invulnerability. The teen believes that s/he is invulnerable because s/he has no reason to suspect otherwise, but also longs for a release of the few responsibilities already earned. In this final act, we see the self destruction inherent in all those who resist the move into adulthood and the ultimate identity of the self.

How can anyone deny that Red Dawn is a brilliantly subtle teenage identity crisis hidden in a jingoistic guerrilla war movie? For those of you who fail to recognize the brilliance of Red Dawn, I pity you children.

Full Red Dawn Response Later

But for all you indie/pop rock fans, some news that should make you all weep. War is clearly required buy this assault on our rock nation.

Which I am sure everyone knew about long before I did.

Would you like a spoon with that?

Waah waah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

How DARE you?

Some poor bastard thinks s/he can defame the greatness that is Red Dawn. To say that Red Dawn is a bad movie is like saying The Wrath of Khan is not the best Star Trek movie ever. I deny this position to my last breath, from hell's heart, I stab at thee.

And now...a little DeNiro

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.(Say it to yourself in your worst DeNiro impression.)

Have I got pull or what? Damn, I'm good. I mean, really. Sometimes, I am so good it hurts to be me.

Conference Post for Friday

Breakfast was the same as Thursday, but with more water and fruit. I also structured my second plate so that the bread products, bacon and sausage formed a wall for the potatoes and eggs to rest against. The waiter was nice so: $22.35 on the boss' tab.

Lunch was pretty rad. Because I was actually free to eat it instead of cramming in a sandwich. 2 burgers, salmon paillard, 2 iced teas and a coke. There were three of us, this wasn't just me. $65 on the company tab. Plus lunch for our booth assistants, all the four nieces or nieces in law of our receptionist: $110.

My friend AmazingDave(who has an amazingly lame imagination when it comes to handles) is totally rad. Girls, take note: he is a totally rad guy, who is totally helpful without even being asked. That should be liquid gold for women, but, like me, he has a little trouble with the ladies. Which is complete bullshit. They should be all over him. But I digress. He showed up for dinner on Friday and I still had three hours of book selling to finish, since Joshua Wolf Shenk, the author of Lincoln's Melancholy and a totally cool guy, was giving a lecture with a question/answer and book signing session. AmazingDave helped me drag the books to the hall and then run the sale.

We had an awesome dinner. We both had a watercress salad and drinks. I had another Maker's Mark and ginger ale and he had something else. I lost the receipt. I had a rare(of course) NY strip steak and my buddy had a vegetabel fettucini. I had a lemon merengue pyramid desert that was sublime. SUBLIME! We both had a Fonseca Port after dinner glass of wine. Total bill: $125? you can bet that was on the boss' tab.

UPDATE: I forgot the $50 worth of drinks in the hotel bar after dinner. My friend had a Tia Maria and soda and a B-52 while I had another White Russian and a B-52. Then we went out to a club that was totally ricockulous about prices, but the music was great. I feel apart after two more drinks and slithered into a cab to go be hungover for the next day's work. The hotel air was so dry that one could be hungover without drining booze.

drUNK bLOOGGING

ok, SO i left thecaps on. I am hva e just been odwn ast the hotel bar for a while. I ahvent wuote figuerd ofut thes stupid wkeyobard on the the paptop aI aM USING TO OTYP W THIS SUTUF AOUT. Goodaam caps. In anyt event. I ahve met some booth babes which is wierd because I am and working at the hall de exhibtll la exhibits and most of the attendees are like fortiy sevfen years odl. except for the gay guy fo wo was totally hitting on me at teh bar tonight,. We discussedd moeivee and aI amentionsf o fuck it.

UPDATE: It is really dry in the hotel. I think the staff are actually the mosquito people. They are sucking my juices out of holes in my back send help and plasma cannons!

Conference Post for Thursday

The drayage company was mostly done setting up the exhibit hall(hotel’s spare garage). I was asked to report to the hall at 7 am. My boss is the kind of man that redefines punctuality. By being at least half an hour late to everything. I woke up at 630 and couldn’t figure out what to do for breakfast. I ended up choosing the restaurant again and found, to my extreme delight, that they had a fantastic breakfast buffet. I could have stayed there all morning. I was a little hung over from the drinks last night that I neglected to mention. I started out with a plate full of chopped melons and fresh strawberries. I then scouted out and stalked my next victims.

I started at the wrong end of the bar, but things worked out. Mostly. I served myself two spoons of scrambled eggs, two spoons of potatoes blended with onions and spiced quite well, two strips of bacon, two sausages, two mini-waffels and two sections of French toast. I ate this mound of food in less than 7 minutes and made it to the exhibit hall at ten minutes after seven. $20.35 including tip, paid by the office.

I then spent the rest of the day setting up two booths and being asked to print out forty hours worth of crap in three. As I was trying to finish all this crap that my boss invented at the last minute. The ideas he had weren't bad, just too late for me to finish or even start. Like 'Hey, Genius Boy! Create and print 500 copies of some shit that I haven't even decided how to use! And you have 3 minutes! GO!' My response took the form of a question like, 'how the fuck do you expect me to handle this crap and setup the booths at the same time?' and 'Why the fuck didn't you bring this up when I asked you for it two weeks ago?'. I ended all of these insane conversations with the statement, 'I must finish my previously assigned task of assempbling the booths. When I spoke to you two days ago, you said my sole responsibility would be handling book sales. So, tata!'

My boss became totally stressed but my ass is whisper clean. I did exactly like he requested in several public meetings. If he brings this shit up, I will be completely blameless.

Lunch was a pretty awful boxed lunch. Only awful in comparison to the fabulous beef tenderloin with creamed spinach, cherry tomatoes and mini squash. I also had an herb and seasonal vegetable salad. To wash it all down, I had a Maker's Mark and ginger ale because I like it that way. $65.17 on the boss' tab.

I took a shower and schlepped down to the hotel bar to meet the returning staff from last year. NY Cheesecake, a triple shot of Myer's dark rum, a Belvedere martini and a lemon drop martini came to $45.20 on the boss' tab.

Conference Posts

I failed in my attempts to convince my bosses that their idea for a bulletin board full of paper was a bad idea and too late to be implemented. They insisted I sit at my desk all day and work on that crap while my original task of checking in the book orders and getting all our crap in order went bye-bye. As did all hope of an organized booth. I finally finished and made it to the hotel around 630. I dropped all of the office equipment my boss had decided to bring to the hotel and went to my room in frustration. I showered and ate Robert’s Mixed Grill for dinner in the hotel restaurant. The mixed grill consisted of a crab cake, two shrimp and a filet on top of some other delicious stuff. How can I describe the food besides scrumptious? I had a few drinks at dinner. Like two. The hotel was the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Woodley Park. Yeah, we do it up right in my office.

Have I Told You Lately?

Just how freaking lethal my intellect can be? I am demonically insane with the technology. I am aphrodisiacally smooth with the lines. Just accept it and all will be well.

I am the Freelance Genius, baby. I got what you need.

A Question For You

Is there any way to quantify the awesomeness that is Red Dawn? Red Dawn is so awesome ... the Army pays the movie channels to play it. (Which actually sounds true.)

I love this movie. I have 700 some channels and around 40 of them are movie channels. Red Dawn plays at least once a week when I am home. Mmmmm, that's good television.

Another Stolen Post

Chuckles' tentative concert schedule:*
All of these events are at The Black Cat.

SUN MAR 19- *sold out* THE GO! TEAM, MEDICATIONS**, TALKDEMONIC $12 8:30
TUES MAR 21- ANIMAL COLLECTIVE, STORSVEIT NIX NOLTES $13 8:30
THUR MAR 30- HARD-FI $12 8:30
SAT APR 15- EXIT CLOV, SOFT COMPLEX $10 9:30
WED APR 26- FRUIT BATS, AMANDINE, SAM JAYNE $10 9:00

It is extremely unlikely that I will be able to go to the first one as it is both sold out and on the last day of my office's annual conference. If anyone has any suggestions or comments about these shows/groups or my extreme levels of poser-dom, please feel free to either blow me or leave constructively critical comments. Your choice.

*Am I a total dork for using the word concert instead of show?
**Fulsome claims these people have "crazy mass guitars" that he is "really intrigued by". Maybe if I go, I'll get him some swag. I am contemplating trying to pass myself off as press.***
***No, I'm not. That only works for movies. My job r0xx0rz!

Weekends

Weekends are really only cool if you have a job. There is no sense of freedom and 60 pass on Friday afternoon. There was a time* I don't work for the money or the sheer joy of earning other people money that they won't share with me. I work to enjoy the weekend.** Some people say that a person wastes a lot of time watching TV, if they don't utilize their weekdays.

Well, on Thursday I went out and utilized my time. I went out to enjoy myself and the weather and me in the weather and music and run on sentences. Apparently, this is the worst idea ever and people should never go out on a weekday alone.*** I got sick from the appetizer I ate. How sick? So sick. I took a sick day on Friday because of the, well, you know. I ate something and then it decided to eat me from the inside out.

Pop Ren knows how much damage a man can inflict on plumbing.# Around 2 pm on Friday, I was feeling well enough to think about cleaning my bathroom. At that point, the only substance known to man## that would have helped me in this endeavor is White Phosphorous. I actually looked into acquiring some of this and the agents said they would be over to talk to me later.### In my defense, I had a fever until Saturday afternoon in addition to a near total lack of sleep until Saturday evening. I wasn't rational. I wouldn't normally advocate firebombing a bathroom in an attempt to clean it, but it was pretty bad and I was rather delirious.

On Saturday, the weather was awesome. It was 60 or 70 some degrees out and a little bit sunny and I had planned on going rollerblading or biking up and down some trails near my apartment. That didn't happen. Now it is Sunday and I feel almost completely better, except when I eat, and I am at work because our conference starts on Wednesday and I have to photocopy about 4000 flyers for thirty different sessions because my boss decided, last week, that he wanted more advertisements for our booths.

So, my entire weekend, the sole reason I work, has been shot out of a fiery ass cannon by an attempt to expand my horizons.*# I am sticking to television during the week from now on.

*Ok, so there have been more than a few stretches of unemployment in my life.
**Wasn't there a song about this?
***Either that, or God and the kitchen staff of Los Arrieros hate me. And they've never even met me. They must be psychic. I should destroy them all!
#Not really, I didn't even lay a huge hurting on his toilet. Just a mild hurting.
##Or woman, The Genius is an equal opportunity kind of guy.
###Haha! Just kidding! Don't sodomize me with my own whale, DHS!
*#Yes, the weekend was shot to shit.

The Weather Underground, Parte the Seconde

The night is exceedingly above seasonal norms in DC. It is in the mid sixties and breezy. This is the kind of night that in college I thought was full of potential, passion, ambition and hope. In the years since, I have come to look upon these nights as bitter reminders that life is indeed passing by me. This is a night like an inbox full of old, read and reread emails.

I got home from work, decompressed and took a shower. I dressed and hopped the bus headed into downtown Silver Spring, such as it is, and then schlepped over to Los Arrieros. I had seen a flyer on Sunday for a group called Chopteeth. They seemed interesting so I told myself I would go. So I did.

Chopteeth sounds a lot like Buena Vista Social Club with a bit more jazz. My ears are largely untrained and are seriously poor judges of character when it comes to defining a sound, but regardless of this fact, I enjoyed them quite a bit. I enjoyed them so much, I almost asked a girl to dance. Instead, I got some information on the band and went home. I am in a mood only suitable for friends and enemies anyway. I was poor company.

The walk home was pleasant, in a soul draining sort of way. I was numbed by the aggressively laconic atmosphere which had the effect of a stiff Arctic wind. It absorbed everything I could hurl into the night and then consumed me. I am not even writing this.

UPDATE: Music Good, Food Bad! So, so, bad.

An Oscar Post

These people are actors. They spend all their professional lives being other people. It is no wonder that so many of them seem dead and lifeless when playing real life. We only see most of them running around in Wagnerian plots revolving around ridiculous plot items, like a pistol that should have been disposed of immediately into a river. If I spent all my workday running around being a histrionic nutcase, rather like Aggro Girlfriend of the Republic of Dogs, I would probably want a quiet life. Hell, it may not seem like it from here, but I am actually a rather reserved and humble in real life. Several of you may have experienced the quietude that is the genius in the walking world. Those of you would know the inherent levels of truthiness in which that sentence resides. Those levels are rather like the many splendored layers of Hell and, perhaps even, Heck.

While we are on that subject, I would like to say that I have yet to see an example of hell in cinema that was even remotely spooky or even close to what I imagine Hell would be. As far as I can tell, Hell is my boss' computer. Allow me to rephrase, Hell for my boss' computer begins when he logs on and upon logging off the computer is allowed to think that it has finally attained the sweet release of death. Every morning, however, it is 'haha, fooled you!' time.

I don't really know what hell for me would be. I can remember some moments that stretched into nigh infinite levels of time through embarassment, but that isn't so bad later. Those moments aren't even so bad then. There was a pretty bad day in Denmark, but that was only bad because of the road rash. It was fun in some ways, because people left me an entire train car to myself and the conductors wouldn't punch my ticket. It isn't often that you get to walk into an embassy looking like you were just dragged behind a car for a mile or so. What was I writing about? Oh yeah, hell.

Hell is other people.

The Untitled Onion Movie

Holy Crap. The next Michael Ironsides, Nick Chinlund, is due to star in The Untitled Onion Movie allegedly due out this year. Two things are important in that sentence. The first is that I have declared Nick Chinlund to be the man who will fill Michael Ironsides' shoes in the future. The second is that there is going to be an Onion movie. What the hell. That will either be comedic gold or an utter failure. I can't wait to read The Onion AV Club's review of that.

Editing Unfinished Posts: On Subtlety

I was rooting through my unfinished posts and I found this one. At the time, I thought the whole thing was hilarious. Since then, it has become apparent that maybe I am being way too subtle. Or that I am not really all that funny, but no one wants to let me in on that joke. I think this a comment on Pop Renaissance and I decided to turn it into a post about one of the ways I make jokes.

You walked into yet another comment line wherein AG tries to out-tough the boys. I was being extremely subtle (that was actually a joke about how I don't like Mondays either) and AG missed the joke entirely. I suppose I should explain it to Aggro Girlfriend.

By making a joke about Morrissey I was clearly trying to poke and prod PopRen because we all know how much he loves Morrissey. There is ample evidence on this blog, and on mine as well, in the February posts. Since nothing helps a bad mood like sharing, clearly I was in a bad mood. The day I made the comment and tried to share my bad mood with PopRen, instead hitting Aggro Girlfriend, was a Monday. I was not actually making an attack on Morrissey so much as I was making a very circumspect claim of enjoying the song, "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats.

Clearly, we must never allow Aggro Girlfriend to be president or she will quickly doom us all to a nuclear hell.

Actually, I still find it extremely funny when AG tries to get all tough on people. In part because I bet in real life she is this totally sweet, normal person and hardly says a mean word to anyone. I bet she helps old men across the street and stuff. My mental image of her while she blogs is a standard female body with a head that is in frenetic motion. The speed at which her head flips around keeps her hair in equilibrium with gravity so that it is suspended in air and completely occludes her face. The center of the mass of whirling hair is a blur due to the speed at which her heads flails. There is so much that aggravates her on the internet that it seems to whip her into a frenzy.

I agree that a lot of the people on the internet are both mind-bogglingly stupid and maddeningly hateful but I try to let it wash away as soon as I unplug. Ultimately, I think AG gets so worked up is because she is such a nice person that it infuriates her when other people are shitheads. Or shitbags. Or cobags in the insulting, non-endearing way.

To conclude, nice try with the hard core tough chick routine, but we all know you're a nice babushka.

The Hee-Haw Hormone

I am required to read a lot of interesting stuff for work. I am also required to read a lot of bunk for work. Recently(30 seconds ago), I have been reading Andrew (A little bit doughy) Sullivan's April 2, 2000 NY Times piece "The He Hormone." The article is up in its entirety and I have read more than a bit of it in my endless fact checking quest at work. Comments have been made that I am more than a little aggressive. Comments have been made that generously describe me as cocky. Comments have been made that I am hugely endowed.* There are tests that can be performed that will determine your average level of testosterone. I heard a cool bit on This American Life wherein the studio staff were tested for their testosterone levels. There was a pool as to who would have the highest level and everyone was asked to justify their picks. One person picked the pregnant woman, someone else chose the bossy boss and someone chose a feisty female colleague. In the end, it was a woman who had the highest levels and she was really perturbed by this. She felt totally different and disappointed somehow in the results because she didn't feel, to paraphrase, cavemany.

I thought this was a little lame. It is one thing to get tested and quite another to allow those results to carry weight.** You are still the same person you were before you had the test, so any changes in your personality after the test are essentially fake. They are based on pointless information. It is a bit like cancer or HIV. Getting cancer doesn't change who you are, it just changes aspects of your life. I think I am wandering here a bit.***

IQ tests and testosterone levels are silly benchmarks for other people to judge you and then sell you medication. Hell, I took an IQ test when I was a young lad, but I have never seen the results. I know I am a genius because I have only been beaten in speed, perception and analysis a couple of times in my life. Some people may think that my experiences are skewed due to my upbringing.# I also know that I am smarter than the average bear because I wear clothes and don't shit in the woods unless I am camping. You are who you are and if you don't like that, then change. A test doesn't mean crap.

Some people think I am totally aggressive and ridiculously arrogant. Some people call these traits indicative of testosterone overdosing. I say that is bullshit. In these times, the increasing anonymity of the average life of anyone on the planet requires people to either accept their lot, get a blog or get on a reality show. Since, I never want to be a reality show turbowad, I blog. And make outrageous claims in regards to my abilities, both mental and physical. The truly crazy aspect of this whole setup is that I never make a claim I can't meet.

More revenge stories later involving beer bottles and crickets.

*Ok, so that last one was mine, but penis enlargement is the entire point of the internet as far as I can tell.
**I also choose to disbelieve all scales, because they are clearly biased.
***When don't I wander?
#These are the people who claim that a battle of wits with a rock is no contest. But these are the same people who never tried to win a staring contest with the same rock.

Work is SO Hard!

I had to remember to bring in my sunglass clips today. In case you haven't heard, my office has three windows. It is an odd shape and over the atrium of the building, so the afternoon sun shines right through the building and into my face. It is a hard knock life, I tell you what. Only one of my THREE windows opens and the sun shines through the building into my face for half the day. Sigh. Woe is me, bitches.

My boss thinks I look like a jazz musician with my office clothes and my shades. Just wait till I bust out my bitchin sax solo at 517 PM.

DL Hughley Nailed It!

IF you get HBO and didn't watch Real Time with Bill Maher, then you suck. D.L. Hughley went off on Bill Maher when Bill started talking about how George W. Bush is a man of faith and Christian. D.L. ripped Bill a new arsehole on this with a quick rant on how Bush and his people are not following the Christian ideals at all. It was really nice to see Bill one-upped in this. I like Bill Maher and I will continue to watch his show, but he does tend to use the Republican vocabulary in ways that I find detrimental. If we refuse to let these people control the debate, they will start to lose ground with their fake issues.

Messages from My Mouth!

My three most recent fortune cookie fortunes:

Every woman is at heart a mother; every man is at heart a bachelor.

You find beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability.

Your biggest virtue is your modesty.

So, one out of three isn't bad.

Perspective

I watched ... nevermind. I was totally about to write a post about stuff I'll never experience (it was inspired by the movie Whale Rider and some stuff I saw written on a car), but instead I have been derailed. Go figure. I have found the solution to the world's impending energy crisis. All we need to do is harness the Gilette company's scientist to work on cold fusion and our problems would be solved. Those dudes are using fusion and high tech nano-regulators or a super samo-flanges to engineer razors that will flay the skin from your connective tissue from two states away. If we could apply their brain power and laborotories to solving the elusive mysteries of cold fusion, we would be synthesizing molecules and creating unlimited power for eons to come. Dude, I could have a vacation home on MARS.

Random Music Sometimes Surprises Me

From Bad Religion’s Leaders and Followers

There's the image of a man
Who commands a high opinion
But he hides his hatred with a sheepish grin

And beside him flanking closely
Are the boisterous hollow masses
Who lap up whatever trickles in

This intercourse of nature,
This vulgar social pastime
Reflects the lowest mark of our progress

And the few who ride peripheral
Maintain subtle advantage
Fighting hard to abstain and redress

Do you know your place
In the big charade?
Are you more than they?

Leaders and followers
Leaders and followers

Recognition by proximity
And a brand new face
Just a smidgen of success pie
And a pinch of social grace
You can play with the big boys
Or you can tell them what to do
But sooner or later there's another one like you

The voyeuristic public
Of which we're all a part
Maintains perspective on the human play

And while many have desires
Of joining in the show
Many turn and go the other way

Tell me do you know your place
In the big parade?
Are you fear and shame?

Shameless Once Again

Did anyone catch ER last night? That was so utterly shameless. I can't believe they would have the temerity to suggest that we, as a nation and international community, aren't doing enough to help those poor bastards in Darfur. It was almost enough to make me watch that show again. As it is, I think I'll just bemoan our lack of action and maybe email my Representatives and Senators. Or sit in a coffee shop and bitch. One of the two. I haven't yet decided which is more effective.

SEE!?!

I've only been saying this since 2003 or so. I am glad that at least one person is speaking up with me. This is from the comments at Calling All Wingnuts.

Steven M Mar 3rd, 2006 at 9:45 am

Stop using the term “Pro-Lifer.” It is misleading at best and it is people like O’Reilly’s term. Most of those who call themselves “Pro-life” are in favor of the death penalty so it is completely false. The proper term for these people is “Anti-abortionist” and it is important to the neurolinguistic and framing of progressive’s arguments to use our accurate terms, not their made up ones.

Some Examples:
Late term abortion NOT Partial birth abortion
Inheritance tax NOT Death tax
Conservative Corporate Media NOT Liberal media

Read George Lakoff for a better understanding. We have to stop shooting ourselves in the collective foot.

This Boy Needs Help

This photo pretty much speaks for itself.

Further clarification: This is my nephew, not my child. So ladies, please feel free to continue making with the sexy.

A Word of Warning

It is highly likely that there will be more odd posts this weekend. I am removing the filters at 630 PM Eastern Standard and they won't be replaced until 930 AM EST. This is likely to continue through the year. Forecsters predict extended stays in crazy land as a low pressure system moves into my neocortex. The high pressure storm system in the cerebellum shows no sign of movement and is also predicted to remain fo rhte foreseeable future. Given that I can actually see the future, this prediction carries with it a 97% accuracy rating.

Dune was such a cool book. It really is a shame Herbert couldn't keep it up for the rest of the series. I totally lost interest while God-Emperor Leto II was torturing Siona with stories of his/her past. As a corollary, Fallout 1, 2 & Tactics were awesome games. I am pretty psyched an hopeful that Fallout 3 by Bethesda Softworks will be at least as good. If it isn't I know where they live. Well, work, but who's counting?

High functioning autistic, my ass. I just use 12% of my brain. Or more. Cuz I'm a genius, see?

Is this stupid or just inane?

From the comments on Atlas Shrugs:

Well, for one thing, it will make the separation of nonevil terrorists (jew killing) from evil terrorists (killing Americans) more difficult for our fence-sitter-in-chief to split hairs between.
They all need a good dose of "death from above" as a permanent cure.
Pres. Bush is not a conservative, but the only people backing him as president are, so we should have some influence in how he responds, and firmly head-in-sand mode isn't supposed to be one of the options.

Posted by: Jhn'1 | Thursday, March 02, 2006 at 01:45 PM

What? How is Bush not conservative? What world am I living in and how can I get to the one where Bush is a good guy? I bet I could get there pretty easily by repeatedly hitting myself in the head with a ten pound sledge.

Teh? Why must you remain silent?

I eagerly anticipate teh l4m3'z righteous fury on the video tapes of teh k4tr1n4 governmental meetings. I want to read his loathsome* anger on the contradictory statements of the feds about their preparations and predictions for the New Orleans disaster. I would also like to see how people can spin away the recent batch of evidence that further indicates how truly awful this administration is. What evidence does the right need? Does the vice president need to shoot people in the face before people realize he is a total bastard? Oh, wait.

*Have I gone all wingnut with that use of loathsome?

Coffee and Other Related Subjects

So it has been a rough day. Meh. I was up to 330 AM due to a truly outrageous cup of coffee I had at 5 PM. I thought it was 3. I may be a genius, but I haven't quite mastered time travel yet. The technique I hope to master someday involves subjective and objective realities. Some people might cite Berkeley as a direct counter to my methods of time travel/universal travel, but I don't believe in God and there is no evidence that there is a direct perceiver, but there are the apparent laws of the universe like the Speed of Light and the Speed of Electrons to consider. Since a person can change the nature of his/her reality through force of will and effort, (Bill Gates and Donald Trump are adequate examples) these laws should be mutable to some degree. I guess my failings so far are due to my incomplete understanding of certain principles. A person really should take a decent spread of courses in order to gain a thorough grounding for living in this world. Physics, philosophy, arithmetic, literature and history in particular. I am sure that there are more subjects that one should study but really all topics are just offshoots of philosophy anyway, so what is the point of studying anything but? Even the samurai knew that Socrates was the original. Half of the Hagakure so far has been Socratic in nature and the other half is just a response to Socrates because the Japanese are, as a people, haters.* After all everything is just a footnote to Plato, so stop hating. Anyway, I think it would be pretty awesome to see a movie starring Socrates because he was such a hard core bad ass mofo. Some people may try to say that Socrates was an old flirt who liked the boys and talking and what has talk ever done for us? Well, to those people I say, you are quite the students of history. Socrates was a soldier who lived to be fifty or sixty. I remind you that this was back in the days of spears and shields and giant, unholy cans of whupass. Medical care? Field hospitals? Not likely. It is more like being an old mobster or something. You know they are hard core because they are still around. So have a little respect for Socrates because he'll bust a busload of caps in your miniscule cranium if you keep on talking that crap. I just came up with an awesome idea for a series of movies. And they are good. Now I just need some money.

*Not so much, the guys I have known were actually pretty damn awesome and could pound beers with the best. Not for as long but with as much enthusiasm.

Shamelessly Neener Neenering

Here are a few of my rules:

1. Let them be sandwiches. Plan your sandwiches according to your schedule. Nobody wants a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on Tuesday, those are reserved for Thursdays.

2. You won't be able to change sandwiches without going to the store again.

3. Trust in the sandwich. (Don't be stupid though. If the meat is fuzzy, dump it. There's always more sandwiches. Always. More. Sandwiches.)

4. Let them be clubs. (BLTs are not the only sandwich style for bacon. Do NOT make the bacon feel guilty about this. Ever. evar?)

5. Let a man go out for sandwiches. (If he is going out excessively, well, then, maybe he needs a better selection of deli meat in the fridge but if it's only once a week, so what?)

6. Lose the drama. (Sandwiches hate drama. You are only hurting yourself here. Basically, don't say stupid, mean shit just to get a reaction out of the muenster. Grow the fuck up.)

7. When they first walk in the door, don't talk so much. Sandwiches like quiet. Just let them sort of acclimatize for a few minutes. They'll be ready once they settle down. Just give them time. (And if they never smell good remember they'll never be good even with frying and dump them. Because there are always more sandwiches.)

8. If you are out at the grill and you see a cute sandwich looking at you, don't break eye contact until it does. See what it does next. It can tell you much, like if it has an overpowering mustard that drowns out the subtle flavors of the smoked gouda.

9. Finally, don't be afraid to be firm with it. If the cheese isn't quality, dump it. There are always more sandwiches.

10. Never, ever put ketchup on a sandwich. Not even catsup. This abomination of the wonderful tomato plant destroys flavor.

11. Meatloaf may scream for ketchup, but that is because meatloaf is typically insane due to its mélange nature. Pour a judicious amount of hot sauce on there along with a smooth, creamy cheese and the meatloaf will settle down.

12. Never overwhelm a sandwich with hot sauce. See rule 11.

13. Mayonnaise is for pussies. See rule 10.

14. If you are dating someone who asks for a sandwich, receive explicit verbal creative permission before proceeding to locate all necessary items. Never listen to their requests for toppings because if they are dating you, they are likely to be incurably insane and should not be trusted.