Last Week of NFL: Feel Free To Talk Shit
Happy New Year’s!! Enjoy the games today and have a great New Years Eve!
Feel free to chime in and let us know what’s going on with your favorite team or in the game you are watching! Talk to you next year! Ha.
Carolina at New Orleans - 1:00 pm
Cleveland at Houston - 1:00 pm 
Detroit at Dallas - 1:00 pm
Jacksonville at Kansas City - 1:00 pm
New England at Tennessee - 1:00 pm
Oakland at N.Y. Jets - 1:00 pm
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati - 1:00 pm
Seattle at Tampa Bay - 1:00 pm
St. Louis at Minnesota - 1:00 pm
Arizona at San Diego - 4:15 pm
Atlanta at Philadelphia - 4:15 pm
Buffalo at Baltimore - 4:15 pm
Miami at Indianapolis - 4:15 pm
San Francisco at Denver - 4:15 pm
Green Bay at Chicago - 8:15 pm
Ernies analysis on this weeks games are right back here
Like I said, it wasn’t always this way. When I first started with the ACME company I was a page boy. I ran errands for mid level managers and made sure that they’re coffee was always hot. In time I received a slight promotion and was transferred to the Research and Development division. I did odd jobs here and there before the head of the department recognized my unique talents in finding the design flaws in ACME Products. It wasn’t long before I was testing dozens of our latest releases. I was the first person to work with our 
After I was released from the hospital, I took a sabbatical to concentrate on learning to walk again and to concentrate on my own engineering ideas. I came up with a few things that would eventually make it through the ACME labs and be released to our clamoring masses. The company was on a huge upswing at the time, money was being thrown around like it was toilet paper. The president of ACME sent me an email, outlining a problem his was having with his winter house in Nevada. He was quite distressed that a small pack of roadrunners had taken up residence on his property. They were doing quite a bit of damage, tearing around his gardens and upsetting his staff. He asked me to look into the problem for him and I was quick to say yes.
Sweet, it's "Dirty Harry" by the Gorillaz. That could have been much worse, like Maroon 5 or something.
My media player spat out Opeth's "Advent" from Morningrise. It's one of two Opeth albums I don't own, and I downloaded the song for a special edition of my radio show a few weeks ago where I did all instrumental tracks. Morningrise is the first Opeth album where they start to develop their signature sound of quiet, reflective parts interspersed with very heavy metal. Hell of a song, that's for sure.
"Theme From Don" is a theme song to a fictional TV show about an Indian detective who's part spy and part cop. It's a blast to wake up to and the album is great at parties.
Then, last Friday, I open my Yahoo home page and see this headline… 
Things the sneaky bugger is working on… 
losing a few inches on the pads won’t kill a guy (seriously it won’t – it’s the motion of the goalie, not the pads!). Hell you could even take away the stick, or better yet give him the same one that the players use. That’d be interesting to me to watch. 
This is an intellectual version of Frankenstein, not a brute, although all the things you think happened to Frankenstein probably did happen at some point in his past. Thematic elements that appear in his videos come from a variety of sources. To name a few:
1976. The bicentennial year. Everything was draped in red, white and blue and movie theaters were charging 76 cents admission and there were bicentennial quarters and tv specials and my mother, bless her American heart, went all out for this special occasion by redecorating the living room in a Colonial motif, complete with replica Liberty Bell. She also dressed my little sister in red white and blue bellbottoms. She tried this with me, but I was 14. She got a derisive laugh and a “what the fuck are smoking, lady?” look. She said something like “Where is your pride, young lady?” And I thought hey, Bellbottom Pride would make a great name for a song. Because when you’re 14, every semi-witty phrase you utter would make a good song title, even if you aren’t in a band and can’t write songs. It’s all about the titles.
Illinoise
The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Matthew Good
As an undergraduate I never schmoozed because it was not important to actually get to know the professors. I turned my papers in on time, studied for exams and crossed my fingers when the grades were about to come in. Grad school is different. I have to be “collegial.” This is not the natural role for an introverted bookworm, but there are things we all have to do in life and I am slowly training myself to do them. Things like attending department functions. Or sitting through four hour lectures on eighteenth century novels that nobody told me to attend. And, finally, the holiday party, the subject of this festive week’s post. 
Here’s the thing: I know full well that no one was paying any attention to me, but like I said I am very self-conscious, so even knowing that no one cared whether I sat or stood did nothing to help my mental state at that moment. I finally knelt down where I was standing just so no one could see me, and found out that I had been standing next to a trash can. So, I was sweating profusely and kneeling next to a trash can where people occasionally leaned over to dump their half-eaten food. 
Slumber Party Massacre
Return Of The Living Dead
Here’s the story of one of the best gifts I ever got. 
I turned around and there was an old guy behind me who really didn’t look like he was much better off than I was. I just remember telling him I was hungry and I couldn’t get any food. He helped me up and said he didn’t have much money, but he was going to make sure I got some food. 
I think what pissed me off most about the show was the complete disregard for pacing and characterization displayed by the writers. For some reason, they've decided that every show must have flashbacks, whether or not those flashbacks have anything to do with the character's current plight. But why have flashbacks anyway? They're a fine device at the beginning of the series featuring a bunch of strangers on a plane that had just crashed on an island. It's natural to explore who these people are and where they came from. The flashbacks also provided a nice foil for whatever was currently vexing the character, but now they just get in the way of good character development and bring the show to a screeching halt as soon as you hear that whoosh. We already know who these people are and they're associated foibles. Why can't we concentrate on what's happening to them now? I mean, if they keep with the damned flashbacks long enough, they're going to have to start flashing back to the first season. Just drop it and get with moving the plot along.
Speaking of the "Resistance", what makes BSG great is how they can change one little word and completely throw your perceptions out of whack. The audience obviously identifies with the humans, so their sympathies lie with them. Since Our Heroes are currently under the occupation of an evil force, we naturally cheer them on as they fight back against the aggressor. Here's where synonyms and their connotations come into play. When Americans hear the word "Resistance", they tend to have romantic notions about French or Polish freedom fighters resisting Nazi occupation. The word has a positive meaning. But the writers decided to start calling our plucky heroes "insurgents". Insurgents? Wait a minute, that's what we call the people in Iraq who are fighting us. So if the Cylons are calling it an insurgency and we use the same word, then that would make us...oh, I see what you did there. By simply exchanging one synonym for another, the audience is forced to see the battle from both sides: as Occupier and Occupied. We want to root for the humans, but they're using the same tactics that our real world enemies use and we despise. We don't want to identify with the Cylons because they're Evil, but they're having to deal with the same things that we have to deal with in real life, so it's hard not to sympathize with their situation, even though we never want to see ourselves as an Occupier. We like to think we're doing those people a favor, but the Cylons thought they were doing the same thing, too.
But why focus on the future when the present has so much to offer? Especially one that offers us Hiro Nakamura, the stand-in for every teenage boy who wished he could do neat stuff and be a hero. Hiro's genuine enthusiasm and sense of mission really make this show. We've already caught a glimpse of future Bad-Ass Hiro with a sword, so seeing how he goes from excited guy who can't control his powers to a katana-wielding bad-ass with a perfect command of the English language will be interesting. The best line of the season is when the Mopey Guy tells Hiro that he met future Hiro who had a sword. Hiro's reaction is priceless: "I had a sword?" Turns to friend: "I had a sword!" I think any number of geeks out there would've reacted the same way and that's what makes this show so fun. You can see yourself in a lot of these people because they're not lawyers or millionaire playboys. They're like us and people we know.
Now, most people I know make the same resolutions every year. Lose weight. Quit smoking. Lay off the booze. Have more patience.
Consume my weight in dessert products
Rose Bowl
BCS Championship
For instance, David and Goliath. David has his name changed to "the little dude" and the Giant is "that big mean guy." Noah turns into "that old boat man." Jonah was swallowed by a dinosaur, Samson had long hair on his legs, and when God created the world he also made monster trucks. I love that he is learning these stories and usually don't correct him. Hey, he knows them better than most so why should I change how he remembers it? 
customary pink rose bud in the center I firmly believed that the rest of my existence would be all fun, football games, cheerleading, dating, kissing, and ultimately, marrying my high school Zach Morris look-a-like sweetheart right before we both skipped off to Yale on scholarship; perfection, in a dream world. I was just praying my very own seemingly useless 32 AAA cup bra would bring me some boys, popularity, and hopefully at some point, breasts. 
Popularity didn’t come so easily either. The very fact that I dress like a nun hindered me from ranking any higher than Drama Nerd in school. Even with padding, wearing a lacy V-neck “down to there” is out of the question. I just end up looking like a little girl playing dress up in her mother’s clothing. I had been convinced for years that I would never grow up, and eyed the leggy, full-busted, and seemingly perfect eleven year old Jamie Bohanan with a pure hatred that I’d later come to understand was jealousy. 
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Black Swan Green
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
The Things They Carried
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
Singers
My nephew has 
mostly CGI. But the initial trailers and some links can be found at the “Internet Movie Database”, one of my all time favorite sites for anything up and coming in the movie and video world.
My rhythms shattered concrete his leads did sever. 
Santa, it’s time for an upgrade. We took your busted ass sleigh and completely demolished it, FTTW style. Two tons of TNT and one FTTW Pocket Nuke later and that wooden antique is nothing but dust and memories. And in it’s place, we’re proud to present, The Present Flinger 9000.
But with all the eating and drinking you’re gonna be doing, you needn’t worry about having to find a Stuckey’s to stop at so you can do your business. The Present Flinger 9000 also comes with a fully equipped bathroom at no extra cost. That’s right, all the power of the Ultra Flush 450 for proper disposal of all your yule-turds and a full sized shower, so you and the Missus can clean up after a hard nights work. Speaking of “A Hard Night’s Work”, the Present Flinger 9000 also comes with a King-sized bed and the Comfort Excel Mattress system. You and your special someone can “get down” or just drift off to Toyland, knowing that you’re on the most comfortable mattress system available to man. And for those nights when baby oil is a must, not an option, remember that the Comfort Excel Mattress system does have an available vinyl cover for easy clean up. 
So today we were asked what we thought would be a cool car to get Santa around the world. Cause sleds kinda suck. Well, no.They really suck. Can't do anything with them. So let's upgrade this thing like on Pimp My Ride and get Santa rolling and looking good! Mine took a little thought and I broke some of the rules, but this is what I came up with for Santa to get laid and paid while making all the little children smile on this holiday.
Indianapolis at Houston – Indy is another team vying for the number two seed in the AFC. They can clinch the bye week with a win and a Baltimore loss. (Go Houston!) 
Here’s a tip for all you players and wannabe players out there. If you want to score you have to SHOOT AT THE FUCKING NET. Look, I’m happy that you have “perfected” your passing skills, but when you spend more than half the fekking power play passing, looking for the perfect fekking shot you don’t score. Hell – you usually end up losing the puck anyway. Put the GD puck to the net and see what happens. For the love of Dog! 
We were both the tail end of the hippie generations. We grew up in the whitest state in the Union, so we were never really exposed to racial prejudice - it was real easy to be liberal, there was no reality to test our philosophies and assumptions against. We believed in the innate goodness of humans.
I've seen that look before. I was it in my father's eyes, when he finally deemed I was old enough to have the photos in his war album explained. He had pictures of buildings in Manila, where the Japanese had herded Philippine civilians, told them the building was rigged with explosives, and then shot them as they tried to leap from the windows. These stark, black and white photographs of public buildings, partially collapsed from the explosives that were finally set off, riddled with bullet holes, brought that same look to my father's eyes.
We haven't learned that we need to understand the history of a region before we go in and disassemble the current government, or we won't be prepared for what happens when the existing order is erased. Prior to the Russians and then the Taliban, regional warlords ran Afghanistan, and opium poppies were the biggest cash crop. 
After getting only half the job done before getting diverted by Iraq, why are we surprised that it has reverted to warlords and heroin production? In Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime enforced religious tolerance and stifled sectarianism. After the American invasion, the first people to get out of Iraq were the Iraqi Christians, because both Sunnis and Shiites were after them. Sunnis and Shiites have been at each other's throats since they buried Mohammed; why did we not anticipate the civil war?
They perform some excellent, crazy indie rock. I see them classified as emo at times, but I think that's a stretch. I don't actually know how you would describe their sound. Discordant, cacophonous melody? It's a crazy mishmash of guitars and a wide array of other instruments—a horn section, piano, accordion, god knows what else—and it all roils together into an off-kilter but compelling package that serves to underscore the lead singer's crazed, tortured voice. However you want to describe their sound, it's great. 
Every time I listen to this album, I will be left thinking about my orientation in the 
Yet, this is the year that I actually bought the album and I feel compelled to include it in this list simply because it's so 
Two Gallants - 
I used to love Christmas music. I was a sucker for all kinds of sappy, traditional songs. I loved Jewel's and Mariah Carey's Christmas albums, amongst others. But for years now, the Christmas music just hasn't worked as much for me. I can still listen to it without wanting to kill myself, but I avoid it for the most part. Of course, that's impossible this time of year, but I at least don't specifically put on Christmas music when I'm outside of, you know, any and all public places, where you have to listen to it whether you want to or not. 
This is another band I kept hearing about back in 2005, but I never got around to actually listening to 
I have a long love affair with 
Home I went, to ice cream and Jello for the next couple of weeks. My very first solid meal was Christmas dinner. I was so happy I didn't have to skip that - my Mom was a great cook. After we stuffed ourselves, we all went into the living room for presents around the tree - where I promptly threw up Christmas dinner all over the tree. But I missed the presents!! My sisters were not amused.
Then a couple of years ago I was facilitating a Wiccan circle for a friend of mine who had a New Age/Metaphysical/Alternative Healing shop. The first year of the Circle we had our Yule celebration in the Education Center he rented upstairs in his building. Great pot luck dinner and a Yule ritual, lots of mingling, some new faces. Then last year, due to shrinking finances, he had given up that space and when he tried to rent it for the evening for us, we found out that his landlords considered us a cult and refused to rent it to us. Whew.
So this year, we are again hosting a Wiccan Yule party on the 23rd. That has become our second family tradition. It should be an amazing party, because this year I have two adopted grandchildren in the mix - two of my Wiccan daughters gave birth last spring.
If you are spraying long enough that visibility drops - you are spraying too much. And, perhaps the easiest to understand, if bees are roused out of hibernation to follow you around - it's just too much.
but they have a lot in common with that other very common type of tissue: I don't want to watch you use them. I'm not asking that you find a stall every time you need to sop up your nostril drool; just please at least turn away from me. And if you have to honk and squeeze and then dig around I think finding some alone time is the least the rest of us can ask of you. We'll return the favor, promise.
mock-fodder for those around you. Second, don't make eye contact and pretend that you are so put upon by the caller and/or your hectic life; you had the option of not taking the call. I'm not going to play along and eyeroll with you, you are the one carrying a self-imposed leash around, I'll only be eyerolling at you with other people.
well mostly that power's gone. it moves into a whole 'nother realm. then i have to go find someone else and make them want to fuck me in order to get the high back. (ya i know it's sick i belong in every 12 step program they have come up with so far.)
Don't even get me started on you, you assholes. Thank you for reminding me what a three ring circus my life is, that I haven't waxed my eyebrows in over 3 months, that my legs are so pale you can almost see through my skin to the bone, and that I perpetually have snot or Kraft macaroni and cheese smears on me somewhere. Thank you for reminding me that my husband and I will not get to take a vacation alone together on an island for the next 17 or so years, that the only places we will get to go will have to include the words Land, Mountain, Park, or Water in the title. Thank you!
The Levi Jacket.
Me, I was smart. I hired Matt to paint my jacket. Matt was a freshman and a pretty damn good artist. And cute. Really cute. But my sister had a crush on him so I had to back off. Besides, I already tried my hand at dating a freshman and that didn't turn out so well. 
A week or two ago I mentioned a movie called Fear No Evil, an early 80’s movie about Satan in high school and I caught myself thinking about the first time I saw it. I was about 11 or 12 years old, I guess, and my Dad was in the next room. I’d only rented the movie because it was about Satan and it had a good soundtrack, but somehow my very religious Dad overheard Johnny Rotten say that he was an Antichrist. He came into the living room to see what I was watching, just in time for the scene where a guy pulls his pants down and runs after his girlfriend in the high school boiler room. Dad made me turn it off. No smut in his house, no sir. 
The first time I saw Prom Night 2, it was at the theatre with my first serious girlfriend. We’d been going out for about four months, man, it was crazy. Never thought I’d get tied down like that. Anyway, we hardly saw any of the movie because we were busy making out and doing the stuff that horny kids sometimes do in the movie theatre (playing with each other’s genitals). And she’d started her period that evening without realizing it, and we both got blood on our clothes. The situation reminded me of a kid in my class who once got caught picking his nose and eating it when his pen leaked ink and left the evidence. It was obvious what we’d been up to. I had a couple of big red smears on my jeans from wiping my hand off, and a few more on my shirt from when I wiped the popcorn butter off – I tried not to think about that too much. She had bloodstains too, mostly on and about the crotch of her pants. Maybe a little on her shirt. I was just happy that everyone had to walk in the same direction to get out of the theatre and didn’t look at the front of us. Of course, we then had to decide between getting the bus home or calling one of our parents for a ride. We walked. 
All right, I know that this isn't a conversation. It's not talking. It's just me blathering on about roller coasters. I can't help it. I DO blather on about roller coasters. They get me all hot and sweaty, even when I'm sitting at my keyboard blathering on about them. My pulse increases when my mind remembers prior moments of g-forces and laterals. I get a mild erection when I think about upstop wheels and chain lifts. I breathe heavy over stats like "height of lift hill" and "maximum speed".
Voyage is in the brand new Thanksgiving section, and refers to the voyage of the Mayflower. The coaster is aptly named, as it's super long for a coaster. 6442 feet long, which makes it the eighth longest coaster in the world, and the third longest wooden coaster. (The only longer wooden coasters are Beast and Son Of Beast. Both are located at Paramount's Kings Island, over in Kings Mills, Ohio.) The Voyage runs for over a mile after passing over a single lift hill.
The first third of the coaster is big dramatic airtime hills. The tall steep kind, all in a line. Your stomach floats over the tops, and slams into your shoes at the bottoms.
The weird thing is that this coaster makes all the coaster geeks rave, and it also attracts the general public like crazy. That's rare, and that's a huge success. Especially when you compare tiny little Holiday World against the big amusement park juggernauts like Six Flags and Cedar Fair. For such a small family-owned park, The Voyage was a big risk. And it paid off big time.
I pull into the gas station and I see a guy with, no kidding, one crutch and the bottom half of his leg not in a cast but with some kind of small-scale building scaffolding type thing going on where it looks like there are some pins and he's in the frozen food section grabbing for something and as I get closer I see it's the last container of eggnog. I ask nicely, in the holiday spirit and all, if he could see his way to letting me have the last bottle of eggnog as it's very important to my dear sweet uncle and all and he just smirks and starts hobbling away from me so I clip him in his bad leg and as he shouts yuletides at me from the slushy, cigarette stained floor I grab the last container of eggnog out of his clutching, mittened hands and run up to the counter where I pause as the lady running the register looks at me all shocked. I give her a sweet holiday smile and as she runs my credit card and hands me the receipt I say "God bless us...everyone".
I was having a discussion with a friend, and we got on this topic because her husband is currently on detachment. During her husband's detachment, her baby got a bad ear infection and then promptly found out that the baby was allergic to the medication to treat the infection. She made a comment that she couldn't depend on her husband, not because he wasn't dependable, but because with the military nothing is set in stone, even if it is set in stone. I once knew a couple who had orders to move to a state across the country, and while driving to their new duty station, they got a cell phone call telling them to go somewhere else. If this isn't a kick in the balls, I don't know what is.
Overall, marriages are a team effort. At this brief I had for the spouses of deployed service members, they joked about common arguments that couples have their first few weeks of being together again after deployment. It's called the "Who Had It Worse" argument. You want to know who had it worse? We did, because when we had it hard, no one listened, we were just expected to deal with it because this is what we "got ourselves into." Officers' wives club and enlisted wives' club drama aside, military wives stick together in times of need because no one else will listen to our bitching. And the bitching that our husbands do while deployed (yes, men do have PMS too) usually are heard by us at home. So it's not that we don't appreciate what our hunka men are doing over there, we just need to be able to bitch about it sometimes because war is terrible, but a sick baby screaming bloody murder can be just as stressful. And since our men can't tell us what's happening over there, our world is all we know and, frankly, all we care about at the moment.
Gloria - the self-appointed "leader" of our gang - stepped forward, staring down Murray. "Yea, well, Ricki and Larry are Jews and they're singing!" She pointed to the siblings who were now staring at the floor. 
That's where we were supposed to chime in with LIKE COLUMBUS! and get a nice round of applause. But during the "reindeer games" verse, the instructions came from the back to the front. No one was supposed to say the Columbus line. Everyone just stay silent. I shrugged and went along with the game. I just wanted to get my damn Slurpee and go home.
First, let me address how a woman gets attacked. Knowing this may keep it from ever happening to you. Most women get attacked inside their own territory: their homes, places of work, the stores they frequent, etc. This is simple math, though -- if that's where you spend the most time, it's the most likely setting for an attack. You obviously can't avoid these places and you can't always travel in pairs or packs for protection. So how do you avoid the problem? Situational awareness. This is your territory. Learn it. Learn to notice when something is not the way it usually is. Look for broken light fixtures where before things were well lit. Look for a vehicle hanging around that doesn't belong. Pay attention to the people around you. If you look everyone you meet in the eye and make them realize that you see them, not just notice them out of the periphery of your perception, you will weed out a huge portion of scum who will see you as a hard target and they will go on to easier prey.
2. FALL DOWN
Today let’s talk about “naughty” words. Specifically “naughty” words that the little cherubs start to use at a very young age. 
He comes home from the babysitter one day and says, “Miss Evelyn says that God doesn’t like Dammit." I guess he is using it at daycare too! We try to explain to him that it is not a nice word to use and he, with all the innocence of his age says, “you say it too. Mommy.”
2. The Year without a Santa Claus
3. How the Grinch Stole Christmas 
Oh yea. I'm gonna date myself here. Best Christmas present ever - An 8 track player. 
Jesus. What did I see in this thing? I swear to you, the Christmas I opened that player up, I thought I had died and gone to cool heaven. I was hip. I was in with the in crowd. Only the coolest of the cool people carried portable 8-tracks around. Someone with a player walked into the schoolyard or behind 7-11 or wherever we were hanging out and it was like The Pied Piper of cool entered the gate. Everyone swarmed around them, checking out the player, listening to the awesome portable tunes. It was like if you had a portable 8-track, you brought the party with you wherever you went. I was going to be that girl. 
Speaking of Journey, who the hell thought Steve Perry was cute? My god, he looked like a deranged girl. He reminded me of Kerry Anderson in my seventh grade class who had this It's Pat vibe going on - I only knew she was a girl because she was in my gym class. When Journey came around I remember thinking, Wow, Kerry Anderson is a rock star! But it was just Steve Perry, girly man.
4. If you were a superhero, what would your name be?
10 What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your 
Alex Skolnick has long been a favorite guitarist of mine. I picked up on Testament when the released their “Legacy” album. Sure, musically they were very derivative of Metallica (pre-sell out Black album), but there was one thing that set them apart – Skolnick. Alex has always been a hell of a guitarist playing just enough to match the music, choosing his notes carefully and using cutting, clear tone. 
Must we all make others miserable for no reason? I work in a very stressful environment, with upset guests unhappy because we don’t carry any jacuzzi tubs in any of the rooms, or if there isn’t any snow on the mountain. (My imaginary response to the latter is “I’m sorry, I left my wand and wings in my other pants, but as soon as I get home I’ll do a snow dance for you.”) You really can’t say that sort of thing in my field of work, but there are days… Anyway, smiling and being the pleasant person, is kind of my job. It falls under the whole performance aspect of my personality, because no matter how upset I am with the world, when I come into work, I smile and act as though everything is right as rain and perfectly marvelous! I know that for some people this is really a chore. However I suppose I am glad that I’m not swamped with fake happiness during the season, I feel that there should be at least a little real happiness during this season. When I’m shopping for my family, I’m trying to find things they will like, which makes me remember fond times, and naturally, I’m smiling as I look about. I know that the lines can get long, and that sometimes the store is out of stock in the things that we might have wanted to purchase, but is that a reason to treat our fellow shoppers as though it is all their fault? Start smiling people. No matter what anyone says, it IS contagious and sooner or later, someone will smile back. It only has to start with one person.
think I might have cried. But the impact was there. I remember that was the same time I got FOB. Fob is a creature from the land of “Teddy Ruxbin” that kind of creepy talking bear with the cassettes. Fob was an orange and brown oddity with a round head with antennae, a beak and a squat body with flippers and a tail. (Can we find a picture of this thing???) It worked as a sock puppet, with a sock style sleeve that served as the neck, enabling it to look elongated or squat, kind of like the neck on some E.T. figures. I was surprised and happy to get it and that year I also received one of those “SNO- tubes”. Another great invention! Anyway I recall that particular year I was playing at being “Santa” and placed all my gifts into the sno-tube and was trying to drag everything up into my room, when everything fell down the stairs and landed in a heap on the floor. I recall running down and though nothing seemed wrong, I had broken the mechanism that worked my poor new friend’s mouth. Fob would always speak in a whisper from that day forward because his mouth would only open about an eighth of its potential. That was a particularly rough year for our budding fairy. But I still have Fob, and I recall that Christmas every time I hold him.
“Voltron” cartoon show. I also received a Pogo stick from Santa that year. Boy did I ever suck at using it, but I can tell you now, I learned! I recall one year eating enough of that flavored popcorn to make myself quite ill.
Now, as an adult I look forward to other things during the season. In my adult years, I have taken to collecting wooden nutcrackers, which are on display year round at my house. Every year I look forward to receiving at least one new nutcracker for my collection. Tragically due to a flood a couple years ago, my collection was ruined and I had to start from scratch. However once my friends and family heard that I was upset about loosing them, I was assaulted by nutcrackers from all sides. Last year I received a large glitter covered one, and four small ones from my family, and from Ms. J.W. Carbonell herself, I received a very rare “Wizard of Oz” Tin Woodsman nutcracker. I don’t have a clue if it was a limited edition or if it was even endorsed by MGM or the people who own the rights to the characters. But it is one of my favorites and I will take care not to let anything unfortunate happen to it. This past year also marks the first time I was ever given diamonds. My friend Nick, of whom I have spoken of in subsequent articles, bought me a stainless steel, gold, and diamond bracelet. It contains seven small diamonds in a neat row. It is simple, and tasteful, and I have worn it every day since I received it. I have never actually had anyone get me something with diamonds in it, and Nick said that after ten years I deserved them. I don’t know if he’s right, but the sentiment touched my heart and I will never forget that morning either. So as a closing, I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to my readers for bothering to go so far as to read my dribble, and a thanks to my friends for their unfailing generosity, and most important of all, to my folks for giving me one of the greatest gifts ever, the love of reading! 
That’s the inherent problem with becoming friends with the people who serve you booze regularly…. You end up hanging out until four or five in the morning, hitting up every after hours joint in the city… Checking out strippers drinking themselves stupid after a hard night of shit tips and shittier customers (“You’re not so pretty when your forehead bounces off the table after your fifth tequila shot, kiddo”)…. Barbacks bitching about their tips and some sous-chef at some frou-frou joint up the street (“Ice… That motherfucker wants ice and I have three customers asking for me. Me!!”)… The same handful of young waitresses lined up to use the bathroom, over and over again ("Did you leave the mirror?") And my friends, the bartenders…. Well, shit man, they’re tired… They just wanna put their feet up for a little bit, have a beer and chill for a few minutes (“Take my shoes off and… ahhh.”)…. 
I call it quits around eleven, after some small talk about the previous night with the barback. The crowd is starting to head in. They’re getting loud and tonight, apparently I don’t feel like loud. I head back to the neighborhood, pick up a six and a bottle of whiskey for when I get home. Open the door to my little hovel with fumbling hands and say “Hi” to Guinness (the cat) who barely glances in my direction. Open a beer and turn on the TV….
After an hour of coloring and a half hearted attempt at doing a craft, I decide to move time forward. I turn the clock ahead, tell the daughter it's midnight, and we celebrate the new year with a toast of sparkling grape juice. I make plans to go cry myself to sleep while thinking about the misery that is my life (cue tiny violins).
10:00 rolls around. Fuck this. I'm going to bed. I call my parents to wish them Happy New Year and I sneak in a few passive/aggressive twinges of self-pity, hoping they'll tell me to pack up the kid and come on over to celebrate with them. But my parents have a long-standing tradition since all of their kids were old enough to be out without a curfew that New Year's Eve, being my father's birthday, is their special night and no one was allowed to interfere with it. My father makes this gourmet dinner and he and mom sit in front of the fireplace and sip wine and enjoy the evening alone. We all comply with their wishes because it's our understanding that this is the only night of the year that my father is able to get some from mom. At least that's what he tells us.
was the one who’d hired me a few months earlier at the bookstore. She and I had been getting pretty friendly at work and apparently I was getting friendly with her brother, too. We all laughed once the initial shock wore off and you know how the rest of that story went. 
Needless to say, the entire experience was uncomfortable. Things had been shifted around in the house, like the silverware drawer, so I couldn’t find anything when I went looking for it. The entire place didn’t feel right and more than once I drifted past or into a conversation that related to the size of my balls for even showing up. I quickly grew tired of the whispers and forced smiles that were made my way, so continued to refill and drain my highball glass and make sure that the happy couple was doing okay. I kept drinking more and more, but the simple fact was that this whole situation was incredibly surreal and it kept killing whatever buzz I tried to tie on. After an hour or so, I told Aidan I was going out back for a cigarette. He knew that I had every intention of leaving, so he hugged me and said “Thanks”. 
Everyone always "supports the troops" when there's a war on, but once these people come back, they're pretty much ignored and forgotten, especially our disabled vets. They've got a tough road to hoe (tougher than most), and they deserve more than token gestures and empty support. I've worked with disabled vets in VA hospitals and other places. They're like a piece of furniture that's been put away and forgotten by their families and their countrymen, but most of them are still in good spirits and have positive attitudes despite of everything. They're great people who've gone and done things that
Such a tiny baby, breathing by means of machinery and hoses. My brother and my sister-in-law were able to keep us all updated via Caring Bridge, easily putting in updates and pictures as things progressed. It was incredibly helpful to our family to see things as they happened, and to keep up with little Will's progress.
As soon as she was gone, I called my mother. Don't ever trust me with a secret like that. She should have known.
Also I don’t have enough hate in me for a rant this week. It must be the Christmas spirit or some such shite. I am starting my gift shopping next week, so I should be plenty filled with the hate, for the ranting, next week =) 
ONES TO WATCH 
SUCKAGE? 
A long day of working on the house, putting up Christmas stuff and working on the site has turned us into piles of goo. You might have noticed in the last few days, we have been kinda, well, slow. The reasons behind that are kinda simple. Christmas. Duh. Well, there are other reasons, but that is the main one. So by the time everything is set up for the next day and things are ready to fire, we are kinda blown out.
Well, I used to watch a lot of shitty movies in the theaters for like a buck, but they don't seem to have any of those discount theaters around here so I have to make due with Saturday afternoon flicks. And my main passion, as Michele found out, is martial art movies. The shittier the better. I know about the Wu Tang, Shaolin and Drunken Masters. I speak Seven Ways to ass kicking when I sleep so anything that is on works for me.
Well herein comes the problem. It seems every other motherfucker in this town had only one arm. Some weird ass atomic testing must have went off around this town cause it seemed like they all had some sort of missing arm or leg. The funny thing was people with two arms were hiding their arms and claiming to be the One Armed Boxer. I guess they didn't get that the Master of the Flying Guillotine was blind and his mantra of "I'll kill everyone with one arm" cause they seemed not to care.
And I'll say "No suckers in this house!" Sucker Free. The way to be.
The music was still blaring, and he wouldn't even look over at me. I said something like "Ummmm, I'm really sorry about your window..." and he still wouldn't say anything. Finally, I asked him if he could pull over so that I could pull out the shards of glass that were digging into my thighs and ass. He said, and I quote, "FUCK YOU! You broke it! You're sitting in that shit until I park the car!"
I listen to music in many different places. One of my favorites is in the car, which is perhaps where I can best concentrate on the music. It's a great place to listen to a new album and form an opinion on it. I'll listen to music when on the internet or writing, as well, but it tends to slip more into the background as my mind focuses on whatever task is at hand. I also listen to music when falling asleep, which is a habit I picked up during childhood. Yet, unless I'm drunk, the music I go to sleep to is really more background noise than something I'm actively listening to.
the music somehow integrates into my life and thoughts and begins to invade the mundane realities of my day, taking simple events and turning them into strange and altered versions of themselves.
For the first time since Monday I left my block to put air in the tires and get some change for the laundry room. My God, people actually exist outside of the telephone and computer. Who would have thought? 
3. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: This quarter I had to read Jane Eyre for the third time in my life. Next quarter I’ll have to read it again. What the hell is it with this book? While it is not the first of the proto-Fabio novels, it is certainly the most popular. Florence King wrote something once about how the formula for the romance novel is to take a mentally unbalanced squire and a young maiden (usually lower class) and have them somehow fall in love. That’s Jane Eyre in a nutshell. Add to that the fact that it has that creepy old dude marries nineteen-year-old girl thing and you’ve triggered my gag reflex. 
1. Hamlet by William Shakespeare: I just don’t get why this one is so important. Dude, if you’re gonna murder your uncle man up and do it already. “To be or not to be?” I don’t give a shit, Mr. Prince of fucking Denmark. You’re boring me. Macbeth kicks this play’s ass all over town and yet this is the one we always have to read. At least with Macbeth we get all sorts of murder and intrigue. If I’m some dumb groundling out to hit the theater in Elizabethan England you had better believe I’m going to want some gory entertainment, not some boob philosophizing about the meaning of life. More proof that Macbeth is better than Hamlet: Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh both did versions of Hamlet. Roman Polanski did a version of Macbeth. 
One of the great traditions of Christmas is to fuck with kids' heads. Really. What do you think Santa is, anyhow? One big mindfuck. Aimed at gullible, innocent children.
So by blaming every bad or missing present on Santa, you just exacerbate the situation. Because one day in the future, at a drunken family gathering, someone will be telling the story about the time you got plastered at your office Christmas party and called your boss an ugly coont, and you got fired on the spot. A light bulb will flash in your son's head, at which point he'll stand up and shout "You god damn liars! You told me I didn't get the Ewok Village that year because Santa was disappointed in my report card!" Estrangement ensues.
I was a single mother. I hadn't had sex in over a year. Cobwebs were forming. I though to myself, "if Santa comes down that chimney and say let's make a baby, I'm going for it." I spent that whole night waiting for the sound of sleigh bells on the roof. Sure, I stopped believing in Santa when I was seven, but sometimes, when you are in the throes of desperation, your mind plays tricks on you. 
So now the tasting begins. I'll let you know what I'm drinking and then I'll offer thoughts. However, the thoughts are probably going to be musings more than anything, and my opinions about the actual taste of the whiskey will be kept to a minimum, both because I simply am not sophisticated enough to understand the undertones, origins, and complexities of the taste of these whiskeys and also because I don't want to bore you.
Last Saturday I was out in front of my house, drinking beer and putting up Christmas decorations. I had one of those reindeer that light up and pretend to eat stuff, and I was putting it right between two bushes when a thorn broke off in one of my fingers. A nasty splinter, but I didn’t notice right away, not until I felt an itch and scratched it. Fuck’s sake! Isn’t it weird how little things seem to hurt more than big things? Fucking splinters. Hell, my Dad caught a metal splinter in his eyeball a few weeks ago, and he’s already blind in the other eye. Dealing with metal in your eye is one thing, but adding blindness to the unaffected eye would make the ordeal that much worse, that much more psychological. “Holy fucking shit, what if I fuck up this eye too?? Am I gonna be totally fucking blind for the rest of my life? Jesusjesusjesus, oh shit my fucking eye.” Closing one eye in pain and not seeing anything. 
Juan tells me the interview is mostly a formality, but the jefe wants to take a good look at me to make sure I am peon material before he signs me up. It is my understanding that there has been some trouble recruiting quality cocoa leaf picking peons lately although I cannot imagine why - what an opportunity!
Just a quick entry today - I asked Maria to marry me and she said yes!
I never thought picking leaves off of a plant could be so hard! We have to use a very sharp cocoa knife to get the leaf off and I am ashamed to say that I cut myself frequently. Jefe saw my distress and sent me to the infirmary with a clap on the back and a hearty “Don’t worry about it!” Jefe says it happens a lot and that the blood adds a pleasant bouquet to the cocaine - something about the blood cells bonding with the chlorophyll in the leaf during the heat extraction process, or, well, something like that, it was interesting but a bit over my head really. Jefe also said they market the blood cocaine under Ricardo Carlos’ ‘Sangre de Cristo’ label, so everything is just fine.
Anyway, after all the excitement we cleaned things up. Jefe said he was very proud of my courage and promoted me instantly to Peon II. Peon II! He said from there I could go on to be a Thug I, Mule I or a Lab Assistant I. I don’t know about the lab stuff, that all seems so complicated, but being a drug mule or a thug sure sounds interesting. The Mule I position pays more, but it is a 90% travel position so I’ll have to talk it over with Maria to see what she thinks.
Let me first explain that the Officers' Wives Club is a group of women who join together "voluntarily" to support each other in times of major life changes, deployments, etc. In no way, shape, or form is this club mandatory, but should you decide to participate, you are required to pay dues for ugly gifts that will normally just go in the nearest garbage can. 
A few days later, Madeline, who sounds nice in her first email, promptly turns into Joan Collins and sends out another email that went like this:
a bunch? Regardless of all the problems with this scenario, whether she has forty dollars or one hundred dollars, a gift can still be purchased. Madeline just wants to get a really big gift. That's her problem. Personally, I'd leave a lump of coal on her doorstep or even a flaming bag of dog poop, but that's just me. My lovely friends still have to deal with this Nazi big-panty-wearing gift-giving psycho, so their response will be slightly different.
I'm not really into killing bugs. I kinda like them. Well, that's not totally honest. I don't particularly like bees and I have no qualms about smashing them into black and yellow paste. And I don't like wasps and I won't hesitate to corner one and spray it with whatever is handy, be it Raid or WD40 or AquaNet hairspray. Oh, and I don't like filthy, dirty mosquitoes and I take great pleasure in knocking them around with a rolled up newspaper. 
the cicadas crunched underfoot. We couldn't go barefoot that summer. We couldn't even eat outside. These things would just randomly drop dead and fall out of trees.
Anyhow. I don't remember the cicadas ever coming back, but I do know that I would have gone on a stomping rampage once again if they did. 
Every year, I'd say no. And every year I'd get the lecture about the family traditions and how the kids look soooo forward to it. My ass. They're crying to go home five minutes after we get there. And with good reason.
Lady: Well fine, I see you don't like me. The hell with you, then!
The aftermath of pooping in the tub is not pretty, not pretty at all!!!! Hopefully you have already soaped up and rinsed your child, if not you have to start the entire bath process all over because your child is now attempting to catch the poop while still making bubbles in the now contaminated water! If you haven't pretty much finished, you then have to grab the wet, slippery, wriggling child who is now protesting loudly, "no out mama" and then try to towel them off before they go running naked through the house dripping wet. 
High school had been disappointing for me, to say the least. My generation was spoon-fed Amy Heckerling movies like Clueless when I was younger and, consequently fell in love with the idea of high school and the witty banter and 90210 inspired couture that supposedly came with it. When I was four, I distinctly remember pretending my cubby in pre-school was a high school locker. I couldn’t wait for high school. I was gonna be a cheerleader! Popular! Big breasted!
“Yeah, an alumni!”
I had never before considered going to my high school reunion. I can already tell you who gets fat, who gets skinny (if only from lipo); who is poor and who is wealthy. I can tell you who became a drug dealer, a failed muscian, a Target team member, and a porn star if only because I went to the same high school as everyone else in the world. Not the glorified high school that makes its way onto movie screens and television sets, but the gritty, disgusting, dismal, and depressing high school that forces kids to wear short shorts on cold winter days for PE and give speeches on dead presidents and bad literature. I know that in ten years, when I see these people again –if I see these people again-, everything will have stayed the same. We’ll all mingle in the same crowds, albeit this time with legal alcohol.
After all they do let you come back in and out and the Land of the Mouse. Besides, I only have to be in the club for a few hours. There has got to be a bar somewhere around your town. That's where I'll be till around 10 o'clock. Send someone to fetch me when we are up cause until then, I'll be here trying to peel my face off of the table. Thank god for ins and outs or a lot of bands would have quit along time ago.
I work with my sister. She's this social butterfly, someone who lives to socialize and mingle. She's the one who organizes the office birthday breakfasts and holiday luncheons and any of those get togethers I try to avoid. I'm not what you call social. While everyone else is chatting and eating and whatnot, I prefer to sit alone in my office and mutter under my breath about everyone else. But because she's my sister, sometimes I have to partake in these things she organizes. Because I'm a good sister like that.
Fresh batch. I made them a little bigger; somewhere between a tablespoon and a scoop. This time they weren't rounded enough and came out looking like lumps of brown coal.
And then I see it, right there in my cabinet.
1. Who are you?
9. Do you have an arch enemy? Would you like one?
It usually begins as always with the date. Once that is set in stone, the cogs begin working on what the evening will entail, whether it is a raffle, silent auction, or just a spectacle. For example, when I was asked to do a fund raiser for Shooka Dookas, I began by thinking about what would make some good money. So we decided to have an auction, AND a fifty/fifty raffle. In case you don't know a fifty/fifty raffle is where there are prizes all assorted out there and you can buy one or more of those colored tickets like you get when you go to the fair. Corresponding tickets are placed in a bucket, and near the end of the evening, you draw the tickets, and the last prize, is half of the income from ticket sales. So now that I know what I'd like for the event, I have to try and find people and items to facilitate this. So what I do is go around the city stopping at every available store and asking for donations to my cause. Some store owners are really great and donate a number of things that are expendable, because it's good publicity. Others, sadly enough refuse because I'm not feeding starving African mice with Guatemalan ancestry, But in truth supporting a gay cause. Either way all of the donations are kept secreted away until the final day to resist temptation. The rest of the prizes are purchased at different stores for the pure comical effect. Last years prized included a "Love Truth Or Dare" Card game, and a selection of erotic lubricants and "Massage" oils. (Which, funny enough, my Aunt won!)
what decorations would be good for the performance space available to us. What do I do, you ask? Well I am the Queen of the castle. I have the power to veto anything and everything. I plan out the order in which the performers go onstage, I plan where the props will be, when the raffle and auction will be held, I approve of decorations and I also make suggestions on performance pieces and routine styles. I am the director, choreographer, planner, and event coordinator. It is a lot to put on my plate at times, however it is totally fun!
I also make a point to rehearse with the other performers and allow their input on my own work because as we all know, any feedback is good feedback. Sometimes I like what they say, other times I don't give a hoot, and I'm ultimately going to do what I want. I do make sure that I perform the opening and closing numbers, and do the announcement work during the show. I wind up doing more costume changes than anyone else, while at the same time running about like an obsessive compulsive on crack. I get a great work out and have a great time.
Even with all the preparations it doesn't ever prevent disaster from striking. I remember one show I did, and at the time I was working with basically water balloons for boobs. It was inexpensive, and jiggly, people like that. Don't ask me why. Anyway I was doing a rendition of one of the wonderful songs from Cher's last studio album, when all of a sudden; my right boob popped out of my bra and went rolling down the stage and onto the floor. Now one of the things that makes a performer good, is ignoring the little things and continuing the show, while acting as though nothing is wrong, whether you've lost a shoe, or there is a strap about to break off your bra… Which wasn't the case; my boobs were just a bit slippery from my sweat. So I laughed and dropped the other one. The audience roared with glee right along with me, and I somehow felt vindicated. Even fabulous persons like myself are only human and are prone to accidents. I was in the middle of a costume change during "Moonlight Dancing" when one of the performers finished and I held up my own show because my earring was caught up in my wig… But Jason Wolf helped me out of that little jam. Thankfully, my boob didn't pop out at my show, but plenty else went on that night. All boobies aside. So that's a small taste of what goes on behind the scenes at one of my shows. Perhaps later I'll give you the backstage pass and tell you all about the crazy things that go on back stage before and during a show. I've been performing for a while, and I have lots to tell! Until then, I hope you find happiness in the coming week. Don't worry about me, I'm a Drag Queen, What do I know?
I really never noticed until I started hanging out with Jonny D. While he wasn’t exactly a genius, he was capable of simple feats, like following directions. He and I started building models right around the same time. Scale stuff of tanks and jeeps. Mostly so we could blow them up later. While he would always fly through them, I always struggled. It just seemed like the directions never made sense, no matter how many times I read them. I’d sit there and look at the pieces for a half hour and always end up with something that looked nothing like what I was trying build. I’d do a lot better if I didn’t look at the directions at all, but most times I’d feel lucky that my fingers weren’t stuck together. 
improvement place, trying to figure out if I could justify the cost of a 5000 piece ratchet set on the off chance that I might actually need and use four or five of them. The first and only project I undertook for the house was to replace the garbage disposal. It took me all day, the kitchen sink was completely unusable and I still had to call a plumber to finish the job and make my sink useable again. After that, I started to gather phone numbers of reliable repairmen. 
It's a funny thing. When I first started thinking about coming to Japan, I was really interested in Japanese pop-culture, specifically in manga and anime. I also watched Japanese films, especially those creepy ones. No one does atmospheric horror better than the Japanese. 
It takes a lot of material to fill those covers, and of course it ain't all gonna be Eisner Award material. 
The isolation of the otaku comes from the resulting lack of meaningful social contact, and drives them deeper into the ever-widening ocean of pop.
It is at this point in the cycle that a comic or anime blips on our radar in the states. By this time, the work has undergone a thorough vetting by a decidedly picky Japanese audience, and has proved to have enough substance to merit a wider distribution. This process is almost invisible to the average American manga reader, but it is decidedly invaluable. The obsession of the Japanese otaku allows the rest of the world access to the good stuff in Japanese pop without having to go through all the crap to find it.
these are the teams that are out to get you. They are the teams that have basically no shot at getting into the post season and they want to drag your favorite team down with them. It does not matter if your team happens to have the best record in the NFL and they are facing a team with the worst record in the NFL, you need to be wary of these teams just as much as if you were facing a legit playoff contender. 
That whole spoiler thing comes fully into play here. New England is facing one of its archrivals as well as a Divisional nemesis, The Miami Fish. Miami is 5-7 but they have been improving as the season moves on. They are coming off a tough loss to Jacksonville last week and they are playing at home. The Fish would LOVE to take a game from The Pats, who have the chance to clinch the AFC East if they can win this game and The Jets lose. The Pats almost let one get by them last week and they know what’s at stake in this one. They should be up for this game. It should be a good one to watch.
Hardly any padding. I mean the jewels were covered, and the knees and elbows, but there was nothing on the head AND, if you were a goalie, nothing on your face. 
1. “I am NOT a crook!” ~ Alan Eagleson
players are rumored to have pooled money together to put a hit on him. 
1.) Earlier this year, due to my own stupidity, three of my closest friends decided they didn't want me in their life anymore. The first gift I was given this year that really was wonderful was the completely random addition of 3 newborn kittens into my life; Spazerella, Greebo and Gilligan. Three, perfect, orange tabby triplets. Caring for them gave me a new purpose in my life. I'd been emotional beaten and bruised and making sure that these 3 kittens survived became my new reason in life. I consider them a great gift.
Book: Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel "Wintersmith" - third in the series about a juvenile witch and the mistakes she makes because she's kinda going it alone. Has one of my favorite Pratchett quotes about witches: "Some people think a group of witches is a coven. It's not. It's an argument." I swear that man is a witch!
24 - I'm teling you. Does this show get any better? I mean how many shows get the coveted "Don't talk to me while this is on" award? Not many. I mean Little House on the Prarie barely gets this award. And knowing that Chloe is a strong regular and they killed that fat guy who had a crush on her, nothing stands in my way to full on stalk her now!
TV show: Cash Cab (Discovery Channel). I am hooked not only on this show, but on Discovery Channel as a whole. But Cash Cab is such an awesome show. We watch it every day from 5-6 and let me tell you, I kick so much ass at this. But I know that if we ever got into this cab I would probably freeze up and not even be able to answer the simplest questions.
Best thing to happen to me this year was the birth of my baby girl.
2006 has been an interesting year... But it was loaded with good stuff and surprised me more than once. My favorites:
1. Adobe Flash - This animation program affords users the capability (if not ability) of a full fledged animation studio from the 60s. It rocks.
1. Shooting a .22, .36 Special and a 9mm Glock. Who says romance writers are all hearts and flowers? For that hot hot hot afternoon in Atlanta I was a fearless sharp shooter. The Glock rep was inpressed that not only did I hit the target, I took his head off...
Seriously people, what is this? Not every word needs to have four or five syllables. Toleration is the worst. What the fuck is so wrong with tolerance? It's one letter shorter, and it's been around MUCH longer. Why do you make me hate? Any vocabulary that has its own generator (No, 
I made some cool friends through doing this, and working so hard on this also helped Turtle and I realize how well we work together. It's helped us learn a lot about each other and gave us a chance to figure out how to compromise, cooperate and communicate with each other; lessons we transferred from working on FTTW to our lives together. Plus, I get to write every day, something I love to do, and share it with all of you.
A year or more passes and one day you realize that the band still exists.More importantly, you realize it’s about time for a follow up to this album that you adore, that you never grow tired of. So you research, check the band’s website, and there’s nothing. You go back to listening to The Album, waiting.A few more months pass, then maybe a few more, and eventually you one day think to check the band’s website again and there it is, the news, that small paragraph of text that tells you, yes, the band is in the studio. They’re recording.They are making new songs. 
You want every pleasurable moment you spent listening to The Album over the last two years to be encapsulated in that one song, in that first listen, and you want an unbreakable guarantee that the full album will offer just as much brilliance as the last one did. 
There are times when you listen to the new album five times, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty and you realize that, yes, this is another album you love.I t’s not the exact same as the last album, of course, but it’s great in its own way—brilliant in an entirely new way—and when you realize that, there is a giddiness and excitement that actually makes the world around you brighter. It dawns on you that you actually can relive history, but that it’s even better than you hoped because it’s the same base excitement and satisfaction wrapped in a new package, with new twists and elements, with new pleasure points.
halfway through my cuppa and a smoke in the backyard, I started to remember the dream I’d been having before my eyes popped open. I’d been home for Christmas.
Walking down that long, long hallway, knowing that at the end of it, there’d be coffee, a great breakfast and a kiss on the cheek from the Momma-san. We’d all go our separate ways after breakfast, but for those few minutes, we acted like a “family”. 
That's right, I said Winter Wonderland. I understand that it is a huge holiday classic but honestly, I don't know what's wrong with you people. Not only is the song irritating as all hell, but the lyrics make no damn sense. Let's break it down, shall we?
If I wanted a clown, I would just build a fucking clown in the first place! What a stupid waste of perfectly good time and snow.
Thomas: Simon, I do not know why I put up with you. We have not spoken in over a week, and I grow weary of standing in this room waiting for you to talk. You were about to say something about what you call the artiste, and then you simply stared blankly at the floor. Speak, already!
Thomas: Why on earth would anyone want to be an artiste? It sounds dreadful.
Simon: Yes, and the result is almost always disastrous either for the artiste or for society at large. An example of the former is Jack Kerouac, the latter, Allen Ginsberg. On the other hand, the commercial artist who tries to become an artiste is bound to turn into a laughingstock. Case in point: Madonna.
We had absolutely crappy weather for the two days. The day before we had partly sunny in the 60's (which is pretty neat for Vermont at the end of November!). Then we got hammered by 40-60 mph winds, flooding rain, the temp dropped to freezing and we had snow on Day 2. Today, the day after, was still cold, but sunny. Okay, so maybe the heavens did open up, but I'm not self-centered enough to believe it was just because I set foot on their campus. I graduated with one of my degrees from that school and worked there for almost two years - you'd think if the Trinity was going to object, they would have sent my computer room up in flames long ago.
5. "Tiny Rubberband" - Butthole Surfers & Moby Rooster Sauce and tofu. See, tofu tastes like whatever you put on it, so you can’t go wrong with it. It doesn’t matter that Moby exists within this tune because it’s really all Butthole Surfers weirdness. Which is good. Like Rooster Sauce covered tofu.
Handling of the children changes also, upon the advent of a second child. We handled our first child, if not like actual spun glass, then at least like something that would chip dreadfully if bonked in the slightest. With our second child, it is often like we are test driving her for Road and Baby Magazine's special Off Road edition, making sure her suspension holds and her chassis is sound. Not that we are dangling her by one leg while we change her diaper or anything. Well, just the once, maybe.
“But orange juice is so good for you,” I hear you say. “So healthy and nourishing. It tastes so good! And orange juice from concentrate is even better because it is less expensive than orange juice!”
Sure, buying regular orange juice will be okay for a couple of weeks, your spouse will leave your best friend and cry their undying love for you while your kids sign up for classes at the local community college, but every time you grab for that half-gallon or gallon of orange juice your eyes will drift to the frozen food section where those tidy rows of orange juice from concentrate cans are lined up and you’ll think of how much money you could be saving and then, one day, you’ll break down and buy a can.
Vibrators, a glorious gift to women but a terrible tragedy if you find out that your batteries are out of juice and you don't have any replacements anywhere in your house. And, of course, you have looked everywhere. I even tried to take the batteries out of my tv remote, but they didn't have enough juice left in them to power me up. Tip from me to you: vibrators work the best on brand new batteries. Trust me, you don't want to use old batteries, because just as you are getting there, you find your vibrator slowing down. Not good!
I'm not having, and then I get mad. On the phone the other night, I brought up some random bit about whip cream and chocolate syrup. It totally came out of left field and my husband's pause from being shocked just pissed me off. The poor guy isn't having sex either, and I'm mad at him for it. The cruelty of it all, I swear.
It was really my first “official” band. And we were all friends of a sort or another. But it was the kind of thing that, from the first time we jammed together, we knew we had a good thing. We stopped, looked at each other, and went “Hot damn! Baby I need a cigarette!”. 
Your attitude sucks. Your playing sucks. Your tone is awful. No one likes you. You need to turn down, down, down yeah there… I know you can’t hear yourself and frankly that’s the whole idea, because none of us want to hear you, either. 
Ok, I like the traditional Christmas music. It gets me in the mood. But by the time it gets to be five or so days before Christmas, I get tired of it. I'll take the Frosty and Santa's Coming to Town and Up on the Rooftop and all those kid like goofy songs. But some of these tunes, oy vey. They bring out the Scrooge in me. Felice Navidad makes me stabby. That Christmas Shoes song makes me want to choke someone with a pair of cowboy boots. Have you ever heard Barbra Streisand's version of Jingle Bells? It's enough to make you turn Jewish. 
And, for Turtle:
You'll find the occasional mall with a full-sized coaster in it. The Mall of America has two of 'em. The Ripsaw is a family coaster that floats all around the Mall's amusement park. It also circles the Timberline Twister, a spinning mouse coaster. It's not often that you find a coaster inside a building. Disney aside, enclosed coasters are just not common.
There's the now-defunct High Roller on top of the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas. As far as I know, it's the only coaster ever built on top of a tower. Not much to ride, from all reports. It was so badly designed that you couldn't really see the height. It basically just circled the roof a couple of times. Thrills? Not so much. It also had a bad reputation for shedding parts. I'm not sure I want to ride a coaster that occasionally drops pieces on the windows below it.
But an unbelievably realistic fake sewer. The entrance is a large sewer pipe leading into a hillside. Poorly lit, wet, leading to a circular staircase going down a shaft, wrapped around falling water. Insurers would freak if such a thing were built in the US. It was the only time I've been more intimidated by the entrance than by the coaster itself.
There's Speed, partially embedded in the NASCAR Cafe in Las Vegas. There's Manhattan Express, partially embedded in the New York, New York casino and hotel in Las Vegas. Nevada seems to have a thing about coasters embedded into buildings.
Being a young woman myself, my first reaction is a cross between enraged “girl power” and “misery loves company”. Parts of me want to stand on my table and shout a decree: “That boy!” I want to point to the greasy kid across the way who is breaking the blonde woman’s heart without an ounce of class or manners, “is scum! Sic him!” Patrons of Barnes and Noble, the less dorky ones with some meat on their bones, would stop reading their Hemingway and Better Homes and Garden to mangle this young man with his hair slicked down thick with oil under a baseball cap. His ex-girlfriend would be handed a hardcover copy of War and Peace by the good looking, though probably gay, book store employee and she would join in, slamming the book hard into his nose, instantly breaking it. His nose, not the book. Hardcover books are expensive and one would hope they could endure the slight abuse.
Since I am a college student, I recognize this part of the conversation. “We can still hang out” is the equivalent of a “dude” saying, “We’re taking a break”. In a lot cases, it just means he would like to keep his options open. I always believed honesty is the best policy. These “dudes” should just put on their “man pants” and explain, “You won’t sleep with me so I’m going to date around, but I still think you’re hot so I’ll keep you on the backburner just incase this thing with your friend Michelle doesn’t work out.” It would save women from a lot of sad nights clinging to their cell phone incase their little non-boyfriends called for some coffee or to “just to talk”.
Go figure.) So there I was. Sitting face to face with this strange talking family feeding me this soup. Man they talk funny. Have I told you guys how funny New Yorkers talk yet? I might have covered that once or twice before so I will move on to the soup. It was good. It had scallops. I didn't puke. So I guess I am over it. I don't know.
My cousin suggested that I might add something to the chow mein to make it more tasty. I figured I had to, because my dad had this rule about putting something on your plate and eating it. As in, if you take it, you eat it, or we'll stay here all god damn night until you wipe that plate clean because there are starving children in China. Ironic, I know. So my cousin passed the soy sauce. And the sweet and sour sauce. And the hot mustard. 
I ate some mashed potatoes to take my mind off of it. But the potatoes could not fulfill me the way some deep fried chicken parts could. I couldn't resist. My yearning was too great. 
One of the things I love best about the town though is the winters. It doesn’t get really cold (negative numbers once you factor in the wind chill)until mid January or so, but it is cold enough to snow for the majority of December. And that’s all I’m waiting for this holiday season. You can keep the trees and the presents. I just want snow.
I enjoy the Christmas season, or at least the idea behind it. I mean aside from being a wiccan/pagan type, I do believe that the man “Jesus” walked the earth, and had a lot of revolutionary things to tell us about life, loving, and living. The time of Yule has long been celebrated, and Christmas is yet another festival for the occasion. Sadly it seems more of a commercial holiday lately than ever. It could be that I’m just a grown up and the time of wide eyed wonder is over, and the time of dread and bills is now upon me. Or it could be that I’m right, and the season is loosing its hold on us as a time of warmth and love, instead being a time of buying and obligation. I look forward to seeing friends and family this time of the year, but it truly is daunting to have to spend all the cash annually, just prior to the expensive winter months. 
that I don’t stop and donate on the way both in, and out of the store. These people are seldom polite, and in case you didn’t know this, they get paid to do it. I can’t imagine taking money FROM the United Way. 
Don’t hold up your neighbor just because they ordered one in advance. It makes you look even more foolish. I will never understand why we go so crazy over gifts that can wait if there aren’t enough lining the shelves right then. 
So I’ll be decorating a tree this year and breaking out the “RuPaul Christmas Ho Ho Ho” album for the holidays, and getting treats for those people I care for. I’m also going to turn a blind eye to the terrible things that happen around me. Or at least try to not let it bother me. This is my first Christmas season with a boyfriend to spoil, so I’m going to do my best to make him happy. It also looks as though I’ll be getting a new niece for the holiday as well! The family is very excited about the new arrival gestating in my sister in law. We may not have them home for the holidays, but the thought of a new little face in my life makes it worth the time apart! It will be the first girl that my twin brother has fathered biologically, and we’re all a twitter to see how our genetics will look in a female relative. (Given that my brother and I are adopted, it’s really neat to see how bloodlines actually do show through to our/his kids!) The holidays won’t be a waste on me, but I still wonder why we put so much emphasis on what we buy, and not on who we love. But don’t worry about me, I’m a drag queen, what do I know?
There are already far more proficient people doing a far better job of that than I ever could. The idea is that I would, perhaps, introduce folks to guitarists they didn’t know much about, share my love with other people, and talk about some history and technical aspects of the instrument. To that end, I usually switch weeks – one week I’ll focus on a guitarist or band and the next I’ll do a “tech” article. 
Ingredients:
Then follow the instructions on whatever packet of chili mix you get about adding spice. Most chili kits come with masa and red pepper, which don't get added in right at the beginning. Regardless, now is the time to throw in all of your ingredients except for the jalapenos and habaneros. You'll get the solution simmering and let it go for about 20 minutes. Then put in the jalapenos and habaneros. You can do whatever you want with the jalapenos—cut them up, put them in whole, whatever—but be very careful with the habenero. Don't cut it up, don't touch the skin if you can avoid it. And if you can't, don't touch anything on your body until you wash your hands. Habaneros are among the hottest peppers in the world. They have an oily skin, and you get that oil on your hands and then inadvertenly scratch your eye, you will regret it for about half a day. So what you want this pepper to do is just sit and simmer, because aside from their spicy attributes, habaneros have a delicious taste. Now, you'll let this solution simmer for another fifty minutes or so, and depending on your chili kit, you'll have a masa solution to mix in at one point. You can also add navy or pinto beans, but I'm from Texas and would get my ass kicked for pulling shit like that. 
September cover – Guided by Voices – The Brides Have Hit Glass
For being a damn hippy, Victor Wong was a pretty cool dude. But team him up with John Carpenter and give him a bag of magic tricks, he becomes Master Egg. Egg was cool cause he had the ability to listen to you while ignoring you at the same time. Trust me. This is a hard feat to learn, and Victor Wong did it perfectly. Plus, he gets the nod cause he would always be in the Safeway parking lot at 1:50 in the morning when we ran in to get beer before 2. I don't know why he shopped that late, but he was always a cool guy. Never asked him to do Egg Shen for us, but he played along.
When not watching football, Ernie enjoys Rooster Sauce and is always willing to accept free bottles from his fans. Gmail in pro.
Okay, I'll get in on this one. My favorite is the TV special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". Why? Because (1) I grew up with Burl Ives records, and he voiced the snowman narrating it; (2) The Island of Misfit Toys; (3) a geek dentist-wanna-be elf for a hero?! Seriously, while the lesson kids take away from Rudolph himself is that you can be a misfit if you do something heroic and wonderful, the lesson they take away from the toys on the island is simply that it's okay to be a misfit, you're still entitled and worthy to be loved by someone. Not a bad lesson - makes me feel good, too!
I like all the standard Christmas movies, you know the ones I'm talking about. One of my favorites that does not seem to make a lot of lists is is 'Jingle All the Way' with Arnold and Sinbad. This movie cracks me up every year. I've seen it at least 10 times and it still
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians - I don't know if this one really counts. I mean the movie is all Christmassy and stuff, but it really kinda sucks. I guess the only version of it I like is the MST3K version on DVD. God, I am a dork. And if you know what I am talking about, you too can join my dorkdom.
I like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. I saw it many, many times before MST3K (or whatever the acronym is) ever had it. The week of Christmas on Los Angeles' Channel 5 with Tom Hattan (movies in the afternoon or something, i'm sure any other 30+ year-old Los Angelite would know what i was talking about), every year, had the craziest Christmas movies on it, and this was one i looked forward to. I know the words to the theme song. You had to feel sorry for the Martians, if they're lives were so miserable they had to steal Christmas and kidnap Santa. I sometimes think, and i'd have to watch it again, that there was some sort of corrollary to the cold war involved. Plus, it had Pia Zadora in it when she was, like, 7. Who can hate that? There were some other not-so-famous yet people in it, but i don't remember who they were. 
1. Its a Wonderful Life - I like this film because back in its day, Frank Capra made a neat little movie that was a little unconventional for the time and should even the guy who always did the right thing had failings and could feel like it all wasnt worth it. People like this movie for many differant reasons, i like it because its a sweet story about an honest guy almost getting crushed under the weight of the world for just being a good guy.
"Oh yeah? I heard it was inchworm." Classic scenes, like a nun practicing swordplay with a yardstick, and one of the girls catching a basketball between her legs. Supersoakers filled with holy water. Lipstick that crawls up a chick's vagina. Not to mention hot naked chicks, and a recognizable cast. Ever heard of Christine Taylor? Yeah, Ben Stiller's smoking hot wife. If I remember right, you get to see her tits in this movie. Or maybe some other chick's tits. Hell, I don't know. What about Darin Heames? You'd recognize him as a member of the Pit in PCU. And, a bunch of other people that have cameos in tons of cheesy sitcoms. So we watched this flick probably a dozen times the first time we rented it. I don't think any of us will ever forget my buddy Thomas screaming "That fool's bonin' Satan!" as one of the guys onscreen was, well, boning Satan.
