Scooby Doo and the Blues
We are fast approaching the first birthday of Faster Than The World. We've come a long way since those early days and we realize that a lot of the readers we have now missed out on some of our favorite stuff. So each weekend, we will run one or two of our favorite columns from back in the day.
One night we did a list of our favorite cars from movies and television, with help from the FTTW readers. Then we chose a few and wrote about them. Here's our favorites:
Turtle:
Bluesmobile - 1974 Dodge Monaco
A car that was bought at a cop auction. Powered by god himself. What the fuck? Cops and god? And cigarettes? And Nighttrain wine? And being late for shows? Oh...this is classic. This car could move through anything. Get away from anything. Escape from anything. It could do anything. It would even kill its own kind to get to the Cook County Assesor's office in time. Those orphans needed saving. They needed to hear the blues. This car was the one that would do it for them. They knew it, god knew it, and it knew it. It could do anything. Well, almost anything. It couldn't light your cigarette. You were on your own for that. Broken lighter.
It's had a cop motor, a 440 cubic inch plant, it had cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks. It was model made before catalytic converters so it ran good on regular gas. It could do anything.
But it had a broken cigarette lighter. That was the only sucky thing.
See dude. That's fucking cool. This car was power. Not in engine wise power. But the backup behind it. It was on a mission. It would get through this. It would help you. But it sure wasn't gonna be happy on regular gas. Sure, that's a thing of the past now. But back then, a car that could take the cheaper gas was like an over the hill hooker at a bar who still could fuck your brains out, but you could see the years in her face and you wouldn't have to pay as much. Beat the fuck up looking. But just moving. Powered by god to just keep moving. And moving faster. Like cops had been using it for years and it got out. Just to help two people who were fucked up. Three fucked up souls. Two human. One Bluesmobile. All together. They were gonna get into this show together and they were fucking gonna get out together. God commanded it. I think it was even in some chapter in the bible or the Koran but don't quote me on that.
One of the best movie cars of all time. This car had life. It had fire. It knew evil. It knew good. It knew what it had to do. Sure it didn't like these assholes sitting on it or that cheap gas. But it had to do what it had to do.
This might be the "turtle took too much acid as a kid thing again" but who knows?
This car was cool.
It didn't have a shitload of power or look that cool. But once it jumped that bridge, you all know you fell in love with it.
And you know you all cried a little when it died. That car...died...no....
It had done its job. It had gotten them to them to the Cook County Assesor's office. This car helped two souls get out of purgatory.
A car that cared enough to die for them and kill its own kind.
That's like the ending of "Old Yeller".
Pure tears. - T
Michele:
The Mystery Machine
Let me preface this by saying that I never really liked Scooby-Doo. I didn’t watch the show in its original airing, but when it switched to ABC sometime in the mid 70's, I got stuck watching it at my friend’s house because for some reason, most of my friends found it amusing. Or maybe they just didn’t know better. They were content to get stoned and sit in front of the tv, all slack jawed and red-eyed and hands stained by Cheetos, mesmerized by the day’s mysterious entity doing mysterious things in mysterious surroundings. Not me. I kept saying to them “Guys, don’t you realize it’s the same mystery day after day, just with different characters? Don’t you realize that there never really is a ghost, it’s always just some batty old person trying to wreak havoc on the world? Wake up, guys, you are being played!” But I watched anyhow. I watched for one reason. The Mystery Machine.
See, my mind works in mysterious ways (see how I worked a variation of ‘mystery’ in there? It’s the word of the day!). Instead of focusing on the lame mystery, I focused on...well, no. Focus isn’t the right word. My mind would drift. Was it the drugs? Was it the banality of the show? Who knows? I just know that each episode of Scooby-Doo got me thinking about what really goes on inside that Mystery Machine.
Hey, this was the era of vans. Customized vans were all the rage. And, as I’ve written about before, the insides of these vans often looked like a bizarre amalgamation of Liberace’s decorating sense and Hugh Hefner’s fantasies.
This was the Mystery Machine, man. If the van is rockin’, don’t come knockin’. Know what I mean? We’re talking teenagers here. Well, hmmm. Are we? Were these ghost hunters teenagers? They look kinda old, don’t they? Were they young adults? I never paid enough attention to the show to figure out. But now I’m hoping they were at least of age of consent because in my mind, all they were doing in the back of that Mystery Machine was partying. And by partying I mean snorting lines of cocaine, performing sexual acts that would make John Holmes blush, worshiping Satan and sacrificing small animals and virgins. We’re talking Rosemary’s Baby and Hunter S. Thompson meet Behind the Green Door. Total debauchery.
Hey, don’t look at me like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not into cartoon sex or anything. Turtle is the one who goes on about Barney Rubble getting laid. That’s his gig, not mine. I was just imagining what goes on inside every van of that kind. I had a short attention span, ok? My mind would wander. Mystery Machine. What was so mysterious about? What darkness and depravity lurked behind those sliding doors? We’re talking bad ass van, people. You have to know that when the mysteries were all solved and the bad guy was in jail and Scooby was tied up in the backyard like a normal fucking dog, those kids kicked back in the Mystery Machine and drove around looking for virgins or a good dealer.
Ass, gas or grass, baby. Nobody rides for free. -M
Michele sometimes calls Turtle the "mystery machine"
In the moments of reflection, I'll usually put on some music. Something light like Slayer's South of Heaven or Coltrane's A Love Supreme(Pursuance!) or, as was the case this morning, a little Queen. Before the late Freddie Mercury debauched himself into an early grave (Pot, meet Kettle), Queen were a truly superb bunch of smarty-boots who started a little combo for the express purpose of thriving in the music business. They succeeded, even with Brian May's degree in infrared astronomy, in a long stay at the top of the charts and in the hearts of their countrymen, here and abroad.
Pantera - Domination
How many should haves, how many should have nots
Anyhow, that's how it started off. As usual with these FTTW board meetings, things stray, get out of hand, go off topic or just morph into something else entirely. Or maybe they just don't pay attention to what I ask of them. Short attention spans. Must be the on-site meth lab and moonshine still that causes it.
Anchorman. Old School. Any of the Will Ferrel flicks like this.
Baby Huey: if you ever besmirch the name of Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo again, I will cut your face.
I was always buying those auto-trader papers and scrounging through them looking for a used 240Z that was in decent shape and not too far out of my price range. There were always a few of them listed every week but the prices were always kind of beyond my means.
Anyone else started drinking? I don’t drink anymore… I don’t drink any less either…
I've been thinking a bit lately about how we communicate. Written communication has its advantages over oral/aural, but there are a few disadvantages as well. At first thought, that is, let's have a look. I'm specifically thinking of emails/forums/texts/fortune cookies/greeting cards versus human to human speech, although anything written down belongs with the former. If it's written down, it's not subject to your nor anyone else's ability to recall it; you can look it over again and again to be sure exactly what has been 
And for crepes' sake STOP saying "on acid" to describe things, it's lame. I was a teenager in southern California in the 80s, so I've smoked some stuff and taken LSD and mushrooms on a number of occasions; geez, I think 'Get High' was my eighth period class first semester of 10th grade. Perhaps it is because of those experiences that my mind has been adequately expanded to the point that I can choose words to describe what I want to say, I don't know. If you've never done these or other hallucinogens then you're probably more likely to describe "Peewee's Playhouse" as 'Captain Kangaroo ON ACID!!1!', but believe me, everyone knows that. Not that you haven't earned the right because you haven't had your mind expanded or any such nonsense, but because anyone who has tripped isn't going to consider using the reference where it doesn't apply. Neither am I suggesting that you head to the park and score some windowpane so you can use the reference, I'm saying that the reference is virtually meaningless and very lazy writing. "Hillary Clinton ... on CRACK!!1!" is even lazier, how does nobody see how overrated and unimaginative Chris Rock is? Besides, there is a generation of recreational pharmaceuticals that came of prominence after my chemical retirement, why not reference things as 'like Larry King ...ON GBH!!1!', I won't bitch about it being an inappropriate reference because I won't notice. I might bitch that I don't get it, but there really is no pleasing me.
It's when the mountains after a new snowfall are so piercingly bright you have to wear sunglasses when it's overcast. It's when you take bets on how long it'll take before your neighbor the snowboarder breaks his collarbone this year. It always starts with a ritual snowball stuffed down your daughter's collar (and then you run, laughing, 'cause she's gonna thump you if she can catch you). It's when you finally take the silly cat that wants to go outside OUT, and throw him in a snowbank so he understands why you won't take him out for walks. It's when you make "sugar on snow" after a fresh snowfall (get a lasagne pan full of fresh snow, bring a couple of cups of REAL maple syrup almost to a boil, then drizzle them over the snow - you get strings of maple taffy that you pull off with your fingers and eat - serve with sour pickles and plain doughnuts). It's when you have no problem waiting for the oil truck to finish it's delivery so you can get out of your driveway, 'cause it means you'll be warm for another month. It's the season when the earth sleeps, beneath this coverlet of white, and rests for the coming year.
Winter used to start around the end of October/early November here, but thanks to global warming, this year it really didn't arrive until after New Year's. One of the state's major ski areas didn't even open for business until the middle of January. The biggest ski area in Vermont, Killington, was sold this year - the old owners getting out while the getting's good.
Then spring arrives. The temps climb into the 60's and low 70's, the breeze is gentle and from the south, the migratory birds come home and every plant and tree busts out in vegetative ecstasy. Little pregnant buds on the ends of branches are suddenly leaves, gardens are filled with green knives of crocuses and daffodils and tulips thrusting their way to the sunlight, farmers are out in the fields turning the earth and planting corn. The cows, sheep, goats, horses, emus, llamas and whatever else has spent the winter cooped up in barns are suddenly out on the hillside meadows again. Walking through downtown you discover all the people you vaguely know who were pregnant when winter started and you didn't know it, because now they're all out there pushing strollers.
Sometime around late September to mid-October, fall arrives. The mountains turn wheat gold and luminous scarlet, with swaths of deep evergreen where the pine and balsam grow. The TV stations run foliage reports (where the best color is and is going to be over the following weeks), and the new driving challenge is leaf-peepers. These are tourists who come up to drive slow, stop unexpectedly and hop out of their cars to take pictures. Fortunately, they leave money - lots of money. They are a mainstay of the state's tourist economy, so those of us who realize that try to be tolerant and not run the idiots over on the highways.
First up? Gojira. Their latest album, From Mars to Sirius, is on Prosthetic Records and was recently reviewed in this very column. We showed up towards the end of their set because neither she nor I, nor my buddy Ace that was with us, really cared about seeing them. Boy, were we wrong. They rocked. The fuck. OUT. Tight, crisp performance. The 9:30 club, by the way, has amazing sound. For the two or so songs we heard of them, I think I can safely say that we were all pretty damned impressed.
Mr. Cleland’s Book, told from the perspective of a Whore by the name of Fanny Hill, is replete with tales of the most unnatural acts, Viz. self-love, acts between two members of the same sex and other such grotesqueries that I shall not describe in detail lest I become implicit in so soiling the moral fabrique of you, my dear Reader, as the abominable Mr. Cleland has so clearly sought to do. I know that we English could not possibly imagine such deprav’d and contemptible acts as those which take place within the pages of this Book, so I suspect that Mr. Cleland is a nom de plume, either of some wanton Frenchman or an agent of the Romish Church, seeking to corrupt and undermine the principles of this fair Sceptr’d Isle. The very fact that this Mr. Cleland would stoop to speak from the voice of an English woman is all the more loathsome, for to impute this kind of ill behaviour and rude manner of speech on one of our fairer sex is to tarnish the moral nature of both our Nation and her women. 
But the suffering is there and I don't believe it will ever go away. I do think the human race is capable of great gains and achievements, of righting wrongs and carrying out justice. I believe that we can make lives better and that we can improve the world. I do believe in progress. But I also believe that pain is a constant, that it will always exist and that the only difference is in how it manifests. Pain changes and morphs and puts on new faces, but it never disappears. It simply takes a different form, the same as energy.
Give me the misery. Give me the horror, the tragedies, the injustices. I want all of it, because that's what this life is. Give me the pain, let me feel it. Rip my fucking heart out; this is what I want. I can take it. I'll have to take it, because how can I manage real life pain if I can't take the pain that artists feed me? How do you survive your own very real life if you can't even handle the imagined lives?
*four* - when i was in my senior year of high school this new boy transferred in and he was kinda cute and he played football and lacrosse and he had a crush on me. this was news because everyone knew by my senior year that i was 
A motorcycle!
That was one of the big reasons I had decided I wanted out of my life. When it seemed that I wasn't living my life on the edge anymore. Now I was over it. I guess I could compare my life right then to the last scene of Escape From New York. You remember that movie. Where Kurt Russell has a clock on his hand and if he doesn't get his fix before the timer hits zero a small explosion would happen inside of his brain killing him. That timer started about three hours after my last drink. Every time. Every day. That explosion was waiting in my brain.
A red wristband was affixed to my arm as I was searched. Not like jail searched or anything like that, but they did find the pack of smokes I had on me. Didn't matter. I had another carton in my bag. About twelve different samples of my blood were taken. My teeth were ready to jump out of my skull. I had to say something. Fuck whoever was around to hear it. I just had to say it.
I'm going to have to cover his movies over a few weeks, so what do you want to hit first? Well, The Fly is a classic, isn’t it? A well done remake of the 1958 classic, with a lot more special effects and gross disgusting fluids. Seth Brundle was a scientist who was working on a teleportation…. Um…
You know when you've had a friend for a while all the things you once found extremely unique, - like double-jointedness or a knowledge of all things perverted or the ability to pick things up with body parts other than his/her hands - you hardly even notice anymore? Well, the psychic part of our friendship is no different. It's just kind of a matter of fact thing. I no longer bring all my other friends in to peek around the curtain at the side show freak. 
When I got home that night I realized - when I actually started listening to the conversation thread in my head - that I was bothered more by the fact that Bunny could be wrong than the fact I had just lost my perfect $300.00 eyeglasses. So I did what everyone tells you to do when you lose something. I retraced my steps. I remembered that I had the glasses when I left work. So let's start there. (check denotes places I already looked for or called inquiring about lost glasses.) 
He’s never performed either, and also mentioned in the letter that he’s ready to take that plunge. As soon as he gets a new guitar, I guess. He’s on the opposite side of the state, and one over, or I’d call him on his shit and go to his town and drag him onstage at an open mike thing. I still might. It’s only a 10-hour or so drive. There’s no better place to learn than in front of 50 other people.
I got no problem with that because I've always been a ham and a song and dance man at heart, but it's just indicative of what awaits anyone that is a performer. There's this thing called "paying dues" that no one, talented or otherwise, can get out of doing over time. Like gravity. it sucks and every day too. So what's some dues paying, you ask? Hmmmm.....
Think about it. Anders I can see. He has no real back story. The same goes for the President's aide. Tyrol's been freaking out that he's a cylon for the last two years. In fact, there was a little incident that took place in last season's finale where he beats the shit out of his future wife, because he's "under stress" or some nonsense. It was forgotten after all the New Caprica crap, as if the writers said, "Well, that was fucking stupid. Let's forget about it."
We’re sitting on the pink rug in her bedroom staring at a Hustler we stole from her older brother’s room. I am constantly looking over my shoulder just waiting for her mom to bust in.
This depiction of heaven can mean a lot of different things to many. It may represent the glory of achievement - finally reaching the goal of quiet contentment. Perhaps it signifies an escape from the daily grind; the longing to step aside and just be. To me, this representation and the thought of alone symbolized my own private hell which, until recently, took the identity of my own worst enemy. Alone meant isolation, quarantine from the familiarities of daily life. Alone was downright frightening. If you break it down, alone has one letter as a saving grace. Just one letter, clinging to alone like a leash on a dog. Take away the A and you have the making of other words that don't correlate with the fantasy of paradise. Words like loner, lonely and loneliness. Everything I feared and never really wanted.
It hit me one night. I sat sipping my tea, entranced by the sound of nothing all around me. The children were fast asleep in their beds. The dog lay in his own bed, more than likely thinking of a way to catch those damn birds he sees everyday out the windows. The cat dreamt quietly on my lap as I stroked her fur. I took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled. And with that exaggerated breath, it all went away. Instantaneously, I was O.K. I was O.K with alone. I was O.K with not planning my next move or reaching for the phone to create virtual company. At last, I was O.K with me. I came to terms with the fact that I needed to stop running from me; my fears, my worries and my anxieties. I needed to face the demons I had created in my own mind and realize that just be-ing was fine. No, better than fine, it was great! It took me over twenty years to realize that my best source for reassurance, the best company I could keep, the greatest friend I had never known had been with me all the while.
I am writing to you because it has come to my attention that you have all been having some fun at my expense. What I had originally imagined to be an unhappy string of coincidences has now clearly become an engineered attack upon my good fortunes. And, although the magical man or woman who hatched the plan to jinx me with a devastatingly bad luck is to be commended on their comedic schadenfreude, I feel that the joke has carried on for long enough.
At first, this party was going to be an opportunity for me to finally meet not only the friends of Lisa's that I’ve heard about for years now, but it was also supposed to be a chance for me to finally meet the guy Sam’s been wanting to set me up with for a couple of months. Schedules have conflicted and such, so we just haven’t met yet. As it turns out, Joe gets invite to a bachelor party in Vegas and can't make it. A make-up meeting is already being planned. 
I volunteer to go check on Alan a short while later. John volunteers to go with me (nice, eh?). We get there, and Alan is puking up pure liquid. Just the alcohol. Nothing too gross or I would have gotten sick in the state I was in. John hangs around for a bit then leaves. 
Betrayal At House On The Hill is an Avalon Hill board(ish) game based on every bad horror flick you've ever hid your eyes from. You and your friends are the intrepid explorers of a Creepy Old House, and you start out with all the cliches, like the Jock, the Little Girl, the Hot Chick, the Gypsy and the Scientist.
It is cold and dark. The air is damp like tiny hairs on the nose of a feral pig after a kill. It reminds me of the era when Don Ho ruled the night and cheerleaders roamed in packs, bent on destruction and out for blood. Hushed whispers filter through cracks in the alleyway walls and the winos cower in fear of the light from Indiglo watches passing by on the street, unaware of the fear they instill the homeless, grape-loving peanut farmers who inhabit our alleys and basements. 
I passed a late-night, toe jam cafe; the pale, green Freon sign still lit, frigid and unforgiving. Beads of moisture gleam on the window, pearls of misplaced wisdom. A stark contrast to the mouth-watering smells of honey-roasted radio and deep-fried copy paper emanating from its slightly skewed, geometric interior. You know. The kind you find in dime-store novels depicting horseless carriages that seem to run on the very stuff dreams are made of. I was hungry yes, but not that hungry, so I made my way toward the center of town, the tripods and my fate of fates, while you sit staring, confused at this arrangement of little, white letters on a black page, Pirated for your pleasure, or perhaps, pain. 
Incidentally, Scooby sounds very Chinese to me. I never really thought of that before. 
So I’ve been thinking about love a lot this week. Because it’s much different than I thought it would be. I mean, sure, we had our period of puppy love, where I’d write her poems and shit like that. But that wore off. We still get romantic occasionally, but most of the time, we’re just together. Being best friends.
I suppose we never will know simply because we all have our own ideas about what is correct and what is not. Though there are a few things that I personally believe are WRONG, among them are stealing, adultery, and lying… There are others but that’s just the three big ones. I am not without fault because I have broken my own rules. But I still see it as wrong, and emotionally batter myself whenever I catch myself doing something I find morally wrong. It really can sometimes amaze me when people do these things without having any feelings of guilt at all. I have a drag queen friend who used to be a complete kleptomaniac. He would steal shoes, jewelry, and even dresses! He has since reformed, however his lack of guilt for those occurrences to this day makes me wonder what kind of conscience allows for such behavior? I know that I once stole a bracelet by accident. I had been trying it on, and was suddenly dragged out of the store by my friend in such a rush I completely forgot that I had it on. I felt extremely bad about it, but could not get my friend to turn the car around so that I could bring it back. So I gave the bracelet away. I didn’t want a reminder of that accident staring me in the face on a regular basis.
Lying happens to be the rule I break most often, most often to spare someone negative feelings, like “No really you look great!” But on occasion I do tell larger fibs, and you know what? Every time I tell one of the larger ones, I never get away with it. Proof that it will always unravel upon you. I don’t believe any of these rules should be broken either. It never bodes well to enable someone to cheat upon a spouse, to lie without reserve, or to steal anything that you do not have the cash to pay for. I have still as I said, been guilty, but it won’t stop me from pushing myself to become a better person. So I learn from my mistakes and continue to move on. I wonder, how many people can say that about themselves. I wonder even more, about the people who say they have high moral fiber, and yet dabble consistently in such affairs, without looking at themselves and saying “Gee, I continue to repeat doing these things, and have not yet made any attempt to better myself.”
To me, it's an amazing concept. Think about it for a minute. People render scenes in real time, using video games or something close, and from that they in turn, create a film, telling a story from start to finish. Now, some of you may already be into this or aware of it, and that’s cool. What about the mainstream? For me, it's just as much a form of art as anything. It's creative storytelling. Period. I watched a little film called “The Days After” created by the folks at 
The story is about two physicists who are working on a super secret project in the Arizona desert. That project is to figure out how to time travel. Their future selves send back in time the technology to time travel, to their past selves, and while drunk, atheist Dr. Tom Greenbaum decides he wants to go back in time to meet Jesus and prove to his believer partner, Dr. David Goodman that Jesus was a fraud and never rose after three days & was most certainly not God. 
Lucky for David, he happens to speak the Aramaic of 2000 years ago. Tom limps along on his rudimentary Hebrew. Thankfully, Tom remembers how to order beer in the right language. 
The song is a fun piece of solid rock guitar. One of the things a lot of modern instrumental guitarists get into is weird time signatures and progressive time changes, but not Joe. He’s a solid 4-4 rock and roller. And it’s damn cool. This song is a solid assault of slipstream cosmic coolness, like the comic-book character from which the song was inspired.
I love Pink Floyd. My relationship with that band goes way back. I mean, I was seven years old when I first heard Careful With That Axe, Eugene. And all these years later, I'm still listening. My 14 year old son is listening. My 68 year old mother listens obsessively. I guess PF is somewhat of a family tradition. So I feel comfortable in sitting here explaining to you why The Wall is overrated. I'm not some PF play hata throwing rocks at Roger Waters. I'm a fan who can admit when an album just over reaches.
It was when I finally saw the movie version of Waters' nightmare that I started to go from "what a work of genius" to "what a load of narcissistic crap." My god. Two hours of sitting through someone else's bad acid trip. That's what the movie was. I had enough of my own, thank you, without watching someone else have the freak out of their life. Not even the wretched depression of 
nope, no conscience. just hud. i ned to find me a movie poster to put in my living room. a real rebel without a cause. (it doesnt hurt that paul newman is hott with two tees)
F is for friends who do stuff together,
villains in the same movie, the entire universe would explode in a ball of fire.
Ummm... 
Since the Boston Bruins have basically eliminated themselves from any shot at making the NHL playoffs at this point, I have hereby decided to choose The NY Islanders as my backup hockey team. Should the Isles not get in, I have the Toronto Maple Leafs as my backup, backup team. And if Toronto does not make it, then I’ll settle for The Ottawa Senators.
James. I am writing to let you know I forgive you. I forgive you for making my high school years a living hell, I forgive you for writing those hateful comments on my locker, and for spreading those vicious rumors about me in grade ten (he was my SECOND cousin TWICE REMOVED and that was a one-time thing...well fine he was my first-cousin but he's English and that stuff's legal in England) I even forgive you for “accidentally” shooting off my pinky toe with a BB gun. (I didn’t need that one anyway).
Here I was in a car hundreds of miles from home. My face pressed on the glass, savoring the coldness of it. There is no other way to describe the brutal reality of being driven away somewhere because you couldn't control yourself. Failure, maybe? You couldn't stop doing drugs and you couldn't stop drinking. You couldn't even live right and you had went so far as to believe that your life had actually ended about 10 years before. The rest of this was just some sort of cruel punishment. Someone's idea of a joke to watch you count change for a bottle of wine or a few lines of dope. Self respect was the first thing to go when you started shaking and you didn't want to be a victim of sobriety.
But now it was over. Well, I thought it was over. I had made it through the night. By the time the sun was rising, I was heading to a rehab that is on late night TV ads. St. Helena. Seemed good and I had an in at the place that got me a bed. In all reality it was my mom who convinced me to go in. There were some other reasons, too. Maybe it was a girl who would give me once last chance if I just stopped this or that or maybe a friend who wouldn't stop thinking of me as an embarrassment and start talking to me again or maybe it would be my brain who let me forgive myself of all the things I had done in the past and all the people I hurt just living my life on my terms.
There are too many damn movies coming out each year. Worse yet, most of the good ones are the ones you don't see. Still worse yet, because people don't see them, they assume they don't exist. But that's not the case. There are plenty of great movies that come out each year, they just don't always get wide releases or a lot of publicity. And I'm not just talking about foreign flicks and wacky art house films filled with odd people who don't quite know how to interact with the world (though I love those movies). I'm talking about all kinds of different genres--dramas, thrillers, comedies, crazy horror movies, and so on.
This is a nice, short, simple film dealing basically with a relationship and crazy family issues. It stars Katie Holmes, back when if you knew her, it was because of Dawson's Creek, not because Tom Cruise was slowly destroying her soul. She turns in a strong, subtle, convincing acting job in this movie and I really feel it's a model for the kind of acting she should be doing. Small character pieces seem to suit her well.
The first time I ever went to a strip club was the second I turned 18, with my friend Mikey whom is a couple of years older than I. He had already been hanging out at the strip clubs and took me to the one he had made his home. That is the first group of strip club denizens, the 18-30 age group. This group includes everyone from guys that have never seen a real live set of boobies to the guys that think they have a chance of dating a stripper. This is also the age range of most of the dancers, so that happens more than you might think. Mikey dated a few of them, until the novelty of it wore off. (There's a good story about his experiences with one particular woman that will have to wait for me to stop shaking with laughter too much to type every time I think about it.) I went a few times and got over it, went back to the rock clubs to hear music and be rejected by slutty girls that weren't being paid to dress that way. When I turned 21 I went back, to see the same thing only without having to drink in the parking lot first. Same deal, a bit different only because Mikey had the flu and horked in the parking lot and then again almost immediately after we entered; prompting the management to make me take him out. They didn't want to hear that he wasn't drunk, that's the thing about vomit; no one cares why. I don't think I went back more than a time or two, in groups wasting time before something more exciting and such.
The main attraction in the Internet age is featured performers that the patrons have already 'viewed' online. These are the weekend nights, traveling famous strippers/pornstars show up for two or three performances a night, and probably sign stuff and pose for photos with the cave-dwellers. Not that there is anything wrong with having favorite pornstars, or driving a few hours to wait in line to get Amber Deepcrotch's autograph on your copy of "Quadruple Penetrations #12", it's just not something that I'm into, and it is at the very least, very sad. But there's nothing wrong with it if that's your thing, people do the same for guys that bounce/kick/throw/hit balls with a stick, right? Now that I think about it, there was a pornstar when I was a teenager that I would be very tempted to go and see if she rolled through town, but she was really hot. She's probably pushing 50, but I've never had a problem with older women, and you never know, I might catch her eye, and there are much stranger couplings in the world than former 
Apparently there is an anniversary party for either this location or the strip club chain (yeah, everything is a franchise now) coming up in April, and the featured performer for Friday, April 20 will be Ron Jeremy. Yeah, a dude. Not just any dude, mind you, you don't really have to have ever been into porn to know that name, he is like the I.M. Pei Jeopardy answer for male pornstars*. He's known for three things, he's been around since the 70s, he's very hairy (his nickname is 'the Hedgehog'), and he's gotten pretty bloated over the years. There's a fourth thing but this is a family paper (no it isn't). The fifth thing he is known for, and it's too funny to just be a rumor, is that some pornstars have had a clause written into their contract that they would not have to have sex with him. Yikes, even public fornicators have their standards, I guess.
I wrote here a few weeks ago about a protest that the Legion of Bored Students threw in order to skip class and make a bunch of noise. Well, they had another one on Saturday, probably to make room for those who wanted to protest something but actually had to be somewhere during the week. I figured that by Saturday night there would be something up on the Web regarding the whole thing, so I ran a Google News search to see if anything had been set on fire. The Google News affiliates were silent, as were the blogs (which surprised me,) but an interesting bit of news came out from a few days prior that I had completely missed. Apparently, there was a gang brawl among a bunch of junior high and high school students in what we quaintly call the “downtown” area of what is really just a big suburb, and the brawl ended with one death and one murder arrest along with the lockdown of several city blocks. 
They oughta round up all these Mexicans and send ‘em back to Tijuana. Don’t these people know that without us they’d all be speakin’ German?” Type 1 of course has no clue as to the national origins of those in question or their status as immigrants. They may be fifth generation Americans from middle-class homes, but why bother even thinking about that possibility when you are a dumb, ignorant prick? 
Type 4: The Blamed: “I am a parent! I teach my children to have values!” “I am a teacher! I don’t get paid enough money!” “I am a police officer! We were on the scene within minutes!” The blamed then deflect the blame onto one or more of the other groups. Because, once again, things really are that simple. 
Anyway, what brought all this to mind was the warning label on a package of Maximum Strength Midol I just bought (yes, I read labels - they pass the time when you're on the can and are occasionally funny). This one said, under the heading of "Ask your doctor before using if:" .... "you have painful urination from an enlarged prostate gland". Umm, this is Midol - heap big women's medicine. We don't have prostate glands. What the hell dumb male is taking Midol?!
Let’s see...last time I told you how I nearly vomited asking Jared out. We did end up talking for almost three hours that first night, so that was a pretty good indication that things might go well, at least as far as not having huge gaps in the conversation. 
...pause…”Sternum?” you ask. Well, I should tell you guys that instead of having a nice rack, I have a nice sternum. I have to thank a friend from another website to introducing me to that phrase. God’s truth, though. I am not blessed with ginormous tits, so I instead profess to have a killer sternum. That’s good, RIGHT? 
The sun lit the sidewalk as Megan drew the outline of an umbrella on it, using a jagged piece of blue chalk. First came the top: an upside down 'U' with a spiked bottom. Then the big 'J' of the handle. A classic drawing, which satisfied her. It needed to be simple and recognizable, of course. She set down the blue chalk and picked up a yellow piece. Inside the umbrella's top, she wrote, "I feel unnecessary."
As I’ve mentioned before, the first blues recording was of a woman, in 1920. Her name was Mamie Smith, and the song was 
Back in the day, seriously, the late 70s, we would have killed to have some sort of dumb druggy banner make it to the local news, much less make it all the way to the Supreme Freaking Court as a free speech for students case. I mean my class were the ones that when the principal tried to ban tube tops and halter tops, he announced, "Bottom line, belly buttons MUST be covered." What did the girls do? You got it, they wore tube tops and halter tops and covered their belly buttons with band aids. Some of the guys joined them. It was a liberal neighborhood, and seriously, not that far from the gay village. We were very accepting…especially when it helped frustrate the administration. I think the jocks even quit locking them in lockers for almost a month after that just because the Principal was so pissed.
Bong Hits 4 Jesus.
Where and when did self take a turn for the worse? And what's more, can we ever redeem it to a more desirable status? In a society that desecrates the notion of self-love (i.e narcissism) and self-reliance (i.e "you mean you're not married yet?"), the outlook for redemption seems very bleak. Yet as we explore the fantasies of being comfortable with self and accepting to self, we find that a bright future is not unfathomable. In a perfect world we could collectively start to be O.K with who we are and how we look and knock society's standards and idealisms off their golden pedestals. But that's in a perfect world. How great would it be not to pay mind to the pages and pages of magazine models carefully orchestrating what most of the people in our surrounding environment don't look like? What a relief it would be to be proud of academic advances instead of how many dates we've been on or the amount of sexual encounters we've kept on our proverbial belts .
Self is defined by Websters as "an aspect of one's personality" or "what one is". I find it intriguing that numerous personalities seem very consistent with a myriad of others and if self is what one is, how is that possible? The amount of energy we put into our self-confidence and self-esteem through therapy, prescriptions and life-altering remedies, seems like a contradiction. To heal ourselves in order to be well-adjusted; just like everyone else.
The key is to relax. Yes, I know your deadline is coming in only 7 hours and I know that your boss will literally tear off his toupee and beat you around the face with it if you don't have something spectacular and the kids are screaming and your significant other is a raving lunatic and the dogs need to be fed and you just don't... Just cool it. No wonder your brain is freaking out, and you want it to be creative right now? Take deep breaths, grit your teeth and just start typing.
I can speak frankly to Brooke because I've known her for forever. What started as a hate/hate relationship for both parties Freshman year of high school turned into a friendship by the time we were Juniors. And by senior year, we spent hours upon hours working on our school newspaper together and wondering if we'd ever get to have sex with our Journalism teacher.
He snaps another picture and holds his camera out to me so I can see the LCD screen, "I took um, about four years off from school before going to college. You like this one?"
Otherwise, it's a bullet to the head. Those of you who know me and squirrels, know I'm capable of it. So what do you say? I'll give you a week. He's a goner after that. I mean, he's got his moments, but I can't take it anymore. You can though, he's much better than he was and I'm just bitter about the past. Save him. You know you want to. 
I was just wondering what I would do for a living if I quit the pirate business and had the freedom to go anywhere and carve out a new career, doing whatever suited me. I’ve been rolling it around in my head all day and I’m still not sure. I’ve been at sea for 11 years, but a few years back, I took three years off and did just that, I carved out a new career onshore in a totally unrelated field. I was immensely lucky given where I live, to find a position working to maintain and protect the quality of the water on an under a Native American Indian Reservation as well as a good chunk of one of the Great lakes. It was an interesting, rewarding, exciting and unbelievably fun-filled job. Unfortunately, it just didn’t pay the bills and had little future prospects associated with it. Had the money been enough to put my kids through college on, I would still be there today, canoeing the rivers and streams, at peace with the world and myself. But it wasn’t, so I went back to my mistress, the sea. 
from which the fart smell can’t escape, but when you get up, the odor has magnified to some radioactive intensity because it has fermented in its humid, methane tomb? Well, she stood up and pungent, aged egg fart filled the air. And I know it wasn’t one of my buddies, because guys can’t wait to claim that shit and we all looked at each other like, “Was that you?” “Nope, not my brand.” 
Steak Café
Psyopus 
Most Overrated Rock Band
WooHoo, of course, can lead to wee ones. Sims2 babies look like a combination of their parents, and as they grow up, they remember events. Yeah. Your Sims remember who taught them to talk, they remember their first kiss, moving to a new home, getting sick, falling in love or their first car crash. (Ok, that's not true. Only FTTW Sims remember that.) They still don't remember which bed is theirs, though, and just wander off to the first available spot when they get tired. Perhaps all Sims are born polyamorous.
Cash, it seems to me; is the bane of my existence. People spend all the time in the world at work to earn it, and yet what they get is never enough, unless they happen to be one of the few who simply inherit large amounts of it, or do something ridiculously easy to achieve mass amounts that no sane person would really know what to do with… Like say the heiress, Paris Hilton, here is a chick with OODLES of money, and she did nothing to really earn it, aside to being born into a wealthy family. She tried her hand at singing, which I suppose would be commendable, but you know, there are enormous amounts of people who could do the same thing if they had the kind of cash to pay for the studio time, the band members, and the mixing that it took to actually make the album what it is. I think I might respect her music a bit more if I knew that she’d been a broke homeless chick with nothing but her guitar, like Tracy Chapman. She used to sing on the street and collect cash from passer-bys until she was discovered by a chap who then helped her to make “Fast Car” a song that is really quite well known.
What would happen if annually, you had to give money to your boss for the privilege to work for him? Isn’t that the way things look like they are going? I just think that it sucks. Every week I bust my ass so that someone else can get rich. I know that if I were to stop doing so, they would still be rich, and I wouldn’t have an income at all. So how do I make the kind of money that it takes to live in a comfortable small home, with a decent, yet reliable car, with food in the fridge, and a little extra cash to do with what I please? Why does it seem like every single fucking time I manage to get a raise, the cost of everything goes up? So I continue to spin my wheels and get nowhere. I hear “Go to college, go back to school…..” Yeah, well where does that put me? AHHHHH yes, in debt! So not only would I have gone to school, but I would have a piece of paper that says I am all knowledgeable, and I would still wind up at the bottom of the ladder because in this day in age a college degree means you know what you’re talking about, but you have absolutely no experience to back it up.
Why is it that the less I work, the more I get back in taxes, and then the more I work, the more they take? Shouldn’t we be rewarded for working hard and doing what is necessary to keep the economy afloat? Shouldn’t the single people out there be rewarded for picking up the slack from all the parents out there who call in to work all the time? Why do we all work ourselves to the bone just to help some asshole sitting in a chair wage war on the rest of the world? We pay for social security, but I won’t see that money ever. By the time I get old enough to collect it, there won’t even be enough money to buy a tank of fuel for my car. Retirement fund? Who in hell makes enough money to pay for all the insurances that one seems to need in life, rent, taxes , food, electricity, water, in some cases, car repairs, clothes, and medical bills? Where should this money come from, when you work 40 hours a week for a few hundred dollars every month? How can I spend 400 bucks on a prescription to cure an ear infection, 500 bucks on rent, another 100 bucks on my electricity, 70 on a phone bill, 60 on fuel for my car, and 50 on food when I earn maybe 800 dollars a month before they take 100 dollars out for taxes on the money that should be mine? So the rich people continue to get more rich, while the rest of us work to support them, and barely get by. So much for the land of opportunity… It seems to me that the only way you have an opportunity in this world, is if you have a few million bucks to blow. I have my plans for the future, there are things I want to do for me. One of which is to write a book. I plan on doing just that. But I know that someone somewhere out there will find a way to make it so that I have to pay them for material I made. Because nothing in this world is your own folks. I may seem to own what I have, but I don’t. It can all go away at the wave of a pen. The bank could seize it, the collections people could take it, or I could be taxed to death.
A few hours later I watched her take the saucepan to the sink, pour out the remaining water, and then dump the solid contents into the garbage can. 
The Last Starfighter was the first movie to use CGI for all the spaceships instead of using models. I love that movie! To this day I will sit and watch it over and over. 
going to pay $8.00 for 20oz. of soda I better enjoy the flick. It’s bad enough that I have to deal with people kicking my seat, talking on their cell phones, and generally yelling at the screen. But I won’t go off on that tangent, even though I was about to rip someone’s braids off their mouthy head during 300 ‘cause they would not shut the fuck up. 
last Sunday morning, i was coming home from work and i’m extra pissed because of the jump to Daylight Savings Time. she’s out and about with her two animals, only this time, she’s in between me and the stairwell doorway. i’m not feeling much like a chit-chat, but for fuck’s sake, i can at least try and be cordial. 
I hear strings sing when I say goodnight. 
Meanwhile, the father, Norman, is confused by these people he is somehow related to, has no idea how to communicate with them, and Deirdre and he constantly go round for round screaming and shouting, culminating with the Deirdre accusing Norman of trying to kill her. So what does he do? Loses himself in booze. 
Augusten Burrough’s brand of writing was swift and easy to understand, a quick read that can be gotten through on a flight from the Midwest to NYC. 
"Way out west there was this fella I wanna tell ya about. Goes by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. See, this Lebowski, he called himself "The Dude". Now, "Dude" - there's a name no man would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place so darned interestin'. See, they call Los Angeles the "City Of Angels"; but I didn't find it to be that, exactly. But I'll allow it as there are some nice folks there. 'Course I ain't never been to London, and I ain't never seen France. And I ain't never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I'll tell you what - after seeing Los Angeles, and this here story I'm about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin' every bit as stupefyin' as you'd seen in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin' like the good Lord gypped me. Now this here story I'm about to unfold took place in the early '90s - just about the time of our conflict with Sad'm and the I-raqis. I only mention it because sometimes there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause, what's a hero? Sometimes, there's a man. And I'm talkin' about the Dude here - the Dude from Los Angeles. Sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that's the Dude. The Dude, from Los Angeles. And even if he's a lazy man - and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in all of Los Angeles County, which would place him high in the runnin' for laziest worldwide. Sometimes there's a man, sometimes, there's a man. Well, I lost my train of thought here. But... aw, hell. I've done introduced it enough."
I don't think we saw much of the parade. Mostly we walked around the streets acting like idiots until lunch time, when we parked ourselves inside the Steak & Brew, a restaurant that gave out free beer with meals. Those of us who were only 17 showed fake ID, which the waitress barely glanced at. We stayed for a couple of hours, drinking and laughing, until the waitress said if we weren't going to order more food, we should leave. So we did.
We talked about life, too, laying on that rock in the park as the sun started to disappear and the day turned cold. We guessed what our futures would be like. We wondered how long our friendship would hold. We made plans, laughed at our own dreams of fame and fortune and stayed on that rock until our fingers and ears went numb from the cold. It was as if we knew that we were experiencing one of our last great days together. We hung onto it for as long as we could, and then we made an impossible promise to each other. We promised that no matter where life took us, no matter how far we roamed, we would come back to that very rock on St. Patrick's Day in the year 2000. Twenty years. We'd share our stories, show off pictures of our families, give each other autographed books and albums, since we were all destined to be famous authors or musicians. And then we headed for home.
- Replacements - Bastards of Young - that opening guitar lick just makes me want to rip off my clothes and dance around a pole.
I go around all day making up silly rhymes and stuff like that to keep the kids entertained, and thus, I have decided to create a collection of my wonderfully charming and cute stories and rhymes for children. Can you say easy money? Oh yeah!
Hi-ho, the derry-o, the dog at the grass.
Well the NHL did give Chris Simon a hefty 25 game suspension – even though there was no injury, but ignored Chris Neil’s (Ottawa) head shot to Chris Drury (Buffalo), which resulted in a lot of bloody ice and a concussion. Then there was Cam Janssen’s (New Jersey) late high body check to Tomas Kaberle (Toronto), causing a serious head injury – no penalty, during, Delayed 3 game suspension, Kaberle has yet to return to the line-up (although he did skate at a practice yesterday). 
This is usually a good thing, but if you team is one of the ones who are fighting for their lives; your stress level goes through the freaking roof. And you don’t get to be stressed at just your team’s games, NOOOOOOOOO; you get to stress out at EVERY FEKKING GAME that involves a team that might knock you out of, or into, a playoff spot. 
But this wasn't my room I was looking at. It was somewhere else. Back in the somewhat normal life, I guess. Things were clean and bright. I guess I got away somewhere. But where? I was used to getting away when things got this bad, but this was different. Where was my dog? Where was my wallet? This wasn't my get away spot. This was mom's house. Totally naked, covered in blood and stitches, a wave of shame hit me. I don't feel shame, usually. Never really have, but this time it had hit me bad. I was sitting at my mother's house reeking like booze and chemicals. Detoxing with stitches hanging out of my wrists, I remembered being picked up behind a dumpster by the police. Something about me being a danger to myself. Librium and shaking off heads and hands. Then mom's house. Having a few pills left and a half bottle of vodka stuffed in my bag before I left my own home for the very last time.
Scientific Name: Geekus Rollforinitiatous
* Scientific Name: Geekus Indilabelisic
*Scientific Name: Geekus Piledriven
so there's this ad here, the one i've included, that people are all up in arms about. D&G's peeps are calling it "fantasy rape." HOT! so fucking hot. but we'll get back to that later. the ever popular "women's groups" are calling this ad violent. (who are these women in the women's groups, anyway? i picture fat and bearded ladies, don't you? oh wait ya there's tipper and good old stand by yer man hillary... right. just like i said, beards.) drama! (drama said like Dramamine, not like your high school drama teacher.) anyway they pulled the fucking ad. shit those ultra skinny women offend me way more than this does.
I have to confess, I play the lottery. No, not scratch cards. The Powerball lottery and the Tri-state Megabucks. I consider it my contribution to funding education in my state, 'cause I sure as hell have never won anything like what I've spent. I think my biggest win was $40.
Okay, so you might be wondering who my clan is (or maybe you're not - you could just be reading this to kill time while you inhale your bagel and coffee). My clan consists of like-minded blood relations (I'm not spending the rest of my life around people I don't like, even if we DO share DNA!), and my "adopted" kids, kids-in-law and grandkids.
The other advantage of owning the entire mountainside is that you can clear land near the top, shielded by the woods, for the active solar panel and wind power installations. I know folks who do those for private landowners. The idea would be for the clan to be self-sufficient for power. Add wood pellet furnaces for sub-floor heating, and everything's renewable energy.
And then there's my brother, if I could talk him and his wife into moving back here from Iowa, of all places! First thing I'd want to do is hire him for my architect. He did some awesome design work when he went to the Colorado Institute of Design - designed a passive-solar mall! Then I'd back his dream: designing and crafting bentwood furniture. I know someone who does chair caning who could teach him how. He and his wife have three kids they're raising to be happy little pagans, home-schooling them and so forth. I could easily see Brita running the clan daycare.
Of course, being a practical witch, I already know that I'd have the land put in trust, and have every adult in the clan who's working the land or providing services to the clan or starting up their own business be an employee of a holding corporation I'd set up. That way we could get damned good health care for everyone, from the babes to the elders.
Suddenly I was menaced from three sides: a woman, fortyish, with three ferocious chihuahuas on one side. On another, a high school kid with eyes red like flame asking me for a cigarette or some spare change. On the third, a homeless man ranting about technology and Armageddon and Jesus. I could not run, for I was surrounded, nor could I fight for I had been eating nothing but pasta for three days. Panic mounted.
Many people talk nowadays about messages everywhere, inside the organism a hormone is a message, a beam of light to obtain teleguidance to a plane or from a satellite is a message, and so on; but the message in language is absolutely different. The message. our message, in all cases comes from the Other by which I understand “from the place of the Other.” It certainly is not the common other, the other with a lower-case o, and this is why I have given a capital O as the initial letter to the Other of whom I am now speaking. Since in this case, here in Baltimore, it would seam that the Other is naturally English-speaking, it would really be doing myself violence to speak French. But the question that this person raised, that it would perhaps be difficult and even a little ridiculous for me to speak English, is an important argument and I also know that there are many French-speaking people present that do not understand English at all; for these my choice of English would be a security, but perhaps I would not wish them to be so secure and in this case I shall speak a little French as well.
I'd never been to Dog Mountain. The hike was in one of my hiking books and apparently it's a great place for wildflowers, but that wasn't a deciding factor. The wildflowers won't be out in full force until May. We went simply because it was a gorge hike, it seemed a good distance, it promised some great views, and it was one we hadn't tried before.
It was a fine way to cap the hike. Sadly, the porter that I ordered was less than fantastic--refreshing yet lacking in taste, in need of smoke, or coffee, or chocolate, or some fine combination of said flavors. However, the barley wine and Scotch ales ordered by others were truly magnificent. The barley wine was sweet, but not sickeningly so, and beautifully robust. The Scotch ale was thick and dark and heavy--immensely satisfying. I regretted that I could not follow my lackluster porter with either due to their high alcohol content and my designation as driver, but I am happy to have had the tastes I did have, and further pleased to know that I--oh yes--will be back to experience those drinks in full.
As I wrote a few lines up, I made a throwaway profile for lurking, and I was amazed by some of the things I discovered. Along the way I found that my friend Isabel's teenaged cousin was not shy about posting pics of herself with a vodka bottle and bragging about how often she gets drunk, and the neighbor kid was making up pretty much everything on his profile, but I think that is expected. As you look around, from one profile to another, the other thing that becomes apparent is a lot of white suburban teenaged girls think they are Snoop Dogg or DMX or whoever. They be thuggin' "4 realzz"! It would be a lot more comical if it weren't so tragic. Consider, if a few of them were doing it; ha ha, very funny. Since pretty much all of them have a gangsta rap song playing, (thank you dial-up, I shut them down before they get started), a few slutty mirror pix, and the requisite "Where my niggaz at? Hollla!!"in the comments header, there is a lack of irony that is awe-inspiring at this "place for friends to meet and greet" - or whatever the slogan is. There doesn't seem to be much going on other than tagbacks for each others' photos, and half conversations through the log, interspersed with a few "thanks for the add, you're sexy!1" type comments.
If I had human emotions I would have cried. Instead, I stared into her eyes for a bit, trying to think it wasn't her, perhaps thinking that would be better than having found her. Of course, I would have continued looking, compulsively. But it was her, no doubt. (We both like that band, tee hee.) Do I think she (and her Mother) were much better off with whatever life has brought them in the last 14 years without yours truly? Indubitably. Is it still horribly sad to think that maybe you missed out on what your life was supposed to be? Yep.
With everything resolved, there was nothing for the team to do in Season 8. In fact, Richard Dean Anderson (Col. Jack O’Neill) had been reducing his commitment to the the series for the last couple of seasons and wanted even more time off to spend with his family. Combined with the departure of Don S. Davis (General Hammond), the writers resolved the dilemma by promoting Anderson’s character to General and putting him in charge of Stargate Command (SGC). This broke-up the successful team dynamic that had been in play for the previous seven seasons, leaving a team of three members with nothing to do.
, and adapting a strategy geared toward long-term success that exploited opportunities as they arose. They certainly didn’t focus every season looking for a magic bullet to defeat the Goa’uld at the end of the season.
ABC – The Jackson Five
So I bought it (and then pulled every muscle in my body hauling it) and all went well and then all went wrong and to make a long story short - it's assembled but don't breathe on it. Basically I'm putting heavy stuff on the shelves to make it more sturdy. It's reminiscent of those makeshift shelves with the concrete blocks and planks of wood - yeah, steady like that as long as you don't ever ever ever take any of the books out. Or stare at it too much.
2. Jack Bruce – Keep It Down
Oh, it’s celebrated alright, and then some. Particularly among strict Irish Catholics, who view it as the only legitimate break from Lent (Lent being an annual period of forty days when some Catholics punish themselves for being Catholic, as well as for the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert with himself in a way that most of us wouldn’t bother with), which means an excuse to party while commemorating Jesus’ self-imposed starvation. 
2 28 ounce cans of WHOLE San Marzano tomatoes
Dying Fetus 
It was a magical evening.
Aside from partaking in voluntary war zones for my children as the wheel turns again to mark another year of growth in celebration, my home is transformed from time to time in order to participate in the delicate art of entertaining. It is an art I relish in. I like all four walls of my home to be hidden by bodies and banners. I enjoy the sound of chatter and laughter echoing through the vacant rooms and the eclectic mix of people, young and old, enjoying one anothers' company. I thrive off entertaining to the point where it should be classified as an addiction or behavioral problem, a bad habit perhaps to those who need a label. This issue, however, is one I would rather not take medication for or seek a therapists couch to correct.
The stories of glory days and days yet to come. The entourage of foods and drinks, games and music, the clinking of glasses as offering to the Gods and Goddesses of celebrations and festivities. It's hard to say; they all weave a wonderful web that embraces the very core of my soul, leaving me happy to be alive at that moment in time.
How’d it start? Well, Jay takes this gummy worms bag and licks one, then throws it at the ceiling - it sticks! Like Susan's Margolow’s panties after prom, they stick like GorillaGlu. In 20 seconds this whole bag - 1000 piece assorted worms, but tasting all the same – is on the ceiling of a century-old hotel room!
I am not happy about this. Mostly, the idea of having someone put me in a twilight sleep and then drill through my jaw bone to grab four teeth that no longer fit into the average sized human head -even if some badass pain killers are involved- doesn't really appeal to me.
It has been my choice for most of the last ten years to make the world my cubicle and certainly after 6 weeks of actually working out of a cubicle last year, I can honestly appreciate how rich and full my life has been and how god-awful lucky I am not to fly a desk, nine to five in some white-walled office prison bathed in fluorescent light, fed the corporate America line, contemplating the sale of my soul to Satan for a long weekend. I loathe that life and lifestyle, and this is just the way I need to roll in order to stave of the madness. OK, to stave off total madness and yes Queenie, I have not forgotten being chastised for posting Edvard Munch and screaming about the voices in my head. They are mostly quiet these days, thank you. 
Which now leaves me with nothing else to say except why I sat down at my laptop, put on my “I am angry at the world, want to kill someone and cry because I’m scared shitless” music. For all I have gained by this strange life I lead, I am at this very moment dying inside because of it. Tonight I got an instant message from my wife just before she was rushed to the hospital. Eight hours later, after numerous phone calls and frantic online messaging with my best friend (May whatever God you believe in wake up and cut you some fucking slack soon, my friend), I am still at sea, roughly 2,000 miles and at least two days from my wife who is somewhere between really fucking sick and maybe a lot worse-nobody seems to know, yet. My youngest girl is staying with friends tonight (thanks peanut, how do you repay somebody for this?) and somebody’s going to let my dog out tomorrow so he doesn’t take a shit on my couch, out of spite and need. It seems that all the bases are covered, dog, child and wife in the care of doctors and nurses and cat scan people and I am dying, a little more every minute. I’m cursing myself for doing my job and not being there when the love of my life needs me the very most. What the fuck do I do? I’ve walked laps around the ship, smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes, slammed coffee, talked to people and I finally ended up here, writing this mindless, stream of shit for lack of, well for lack of any fucking thing to calm me down. 
The next morning I hopped into my car yet again and made the trek to my twin brother’s house to give him a gift I had collected for him. Up here on the mountain they have been doing a “Jack Daniels” promotion. It happens to be my brother’s favorite liquor, as well as my own. So when I told the representatives, they gave my brother a nice collection of promotional material. Stick-on patches, shirts, bandannas, and key chains. So I boxed it all up and personally bought him a pint of the stuff to go with it. So my brother was totally “Jacked Up” for his birthday. The manager here at the hotel gave me a “Jack Daniels” Hoodie sweater that he didn’t want or need. So even I got a little something! I spent the afternoon just keeping my nieces and nephews company and once my brother got out of work, we all had pizza and a shot or two of JD to commemorate the event. After about 11pm I had packed up the car once again and made the two hour drive back to my small abode, where I was instantly smothered in animal fur as my pets all wanted my attention.
Had he actually been there, I think he would have been on my end of things. But then that’s the trouble with the police, isn’t it? Once they arrive, everything is now a matter of what they think, regardless of what may have actually happened. The other was when my friend Nick and I were driving to a mutual friends funeral, when we come around a corner and find a vehicle in our lane, heading directly for a small stand of trees to our right hand side. I can only think that the man in the car had fallen asleep. So given the speed that we were traveling at, and the path that this other car was taking, I had to swerve into the left hand lane and go around him. Well that fool woke up just as I was almost around him, and he jerked his car into the lane I was occupying crushing my back bumper and sending Nick and I skidding onto a ditch. Once the car had come to a stop, there was a body check to be sure neither one of us was hurt, then we checked on the other driver. I still never heard his end of the story, but what I do know is that he was at fault, and I made money off of the incident thanks to good insurance, and my almighty brother, the car genius. We never did make it to that funeral…
1. Bob Dylan's Tangled Up in Blue
4. Outkast's Southernplayalisticadillacmusik
“what the fuck was that?” he says.
When I come back to an artist (usually months, sometimes years, later) I still have a strong connection with the music because of such previous studious listening.
I decided not to do the temperature thing. You know, where you measure your temperature every morning for like ever and wait for it to spike like .03 degrees? Some ladies have time for that. Me, I'm lazy. That is why God invented those fertility/ovulation tests. It's like a pregnancy test, only it lets you know when you are most fertile and when—in laymen's terms—you should let your guy nail you all he wants.
When David discovered that Phoebe was handicapped, he handed her over to Caroline and instructed his nurse to take her to a home for mentally challenged kids, so she bundled up Phoebe & took off for the home.
We’re sitting there watching the game before my daughter’s. I’m on one side of the court, and Jared is directly across from me on the other side of the court and surrounded by three kids. I hear them talking to him because, as you might surmise, kids are just loud little creatures. My daughter, I’ll name her Direct Child for ease of reference, is asking Jared a million questions, as is the other girl sitting there. My ears perk up, very non-chalantly, because, ya know, I don’t eavesdrop on any conversation. That’d be rude!
After the generalities that are said at the beginning of a phone call…
A: I think he would have played through the 70’s making some of the greatest electric funk ever heard, skipped the 80’s and re invented the 90’s musically.
1. What is your favorite word? 
A fat deranged Elvis is sad. A young Elvis would likely share his drugs.
5. What is your favorite curse word?
2. Zombies - undead monstrosity or the next logical step in human evolution?
10. What's the title of the movie they are going to make about your teenage years? 
Moot. I hate that word because it always sounds like you mean something else that you aren't saying right. It's like the noise a retarded owl would make. Or an owl that mated with a cow. Wouldn't that be something?
Marc(k). I want to begin my apology by first stating that things did not have to be this way. I'm not sure if you are still serving your sentence, but if you are, know now and for evermore that it is technically your fault. Look around you. Look at your dark, dingy cell, the crusty bars. Look at your bunkmate, Franklin. Look at Franklin's tattoo, and the thick layer of filth garnishing his skin. Feel Franklin's strong, firm hands grasping your neck as he goes in for the kill. I can only imagine the nightly ritual you endure.
This weeks theme was suggested by Bonnie. We think it is a good one. For future reference, if any of you alls have an idea for a Group LNT, email it to us and we will use it. But, don't do it in here. Makes things messy and dirty. Mongo doesn't like mess and dirt. Mongo just pawn in game of life.
Well, that's the first one. And now that you know mine, doesn't life just make a little more sense?
"We're just going to be working on consistency. We've played some good games and some not so good, so we need to get four or five in a row that are played really well."
The frantic voice in the message implored me to call him right away and as soon as possible because, 'I'm having a HUGE problem here and I REALLY NEED SOME HELP!! Please call me at 555-5555!!' 
'Hello operator? Yeah, I'm wondering if you can help me. Someone is urgently trying to get in touch with me but they keep forgetting to tell me the area code in their messages. Is there any way I can find out the area codes that could go along with the number 555-5555?' 
one of the dudes at the batcave has just had knee surgery so he has the serious big motrin and says "take these it will take the swelling down." so.. add motrin to the diet and laissez les bon temps rouler boys! off i went to be completely wasted for the next four days. showing my tits to anyone with beads or a camera. (for years i had to turn the "girls gone wild in new orleans" commercials off when my dad was in the room for fear he'd see my little mug up there sweaty and nakid)
"Let Go" by Frou Frou - Okay, this one is vaguely embarrassing. Not really, though. Basically, I don't think this is a song I would normally like if not for the fact that it was the song used in the trailer for Garden State. And I love Garden State. I have a deep, strange, probably unhealthy love for Garden State. And Natalie Portman. And Natalie Portman's character. Not Zach Braff, though. I mean, I have a gee-that-guy's-funny-and-a-good-writer-and-actor love for him, but not so much a God-I-want-to-violate-him-but-in-a-consensual-way love. You know what I mean?
"Helena" by My Chemical Romance - Have I mentioned these guys are great and you'd be a damn fool to dismiss them because of their theatrics and 12 year old fan base? Okay, good. This is another great song off an album that's full of ridiculously great songs. I don't know how they managed to put together Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It has no right being so good from start to finish. It's one of those albums I've listened to hundreds of times and could listen to hundreds of times more without ever growing bored with it. That's rare, and that's an album to be treasured.
"Willing to Fight" by Ani DiFranco - Jesus Christ, it wasn't bad enough that one of her songs had to come on, but two? This is ridiculous. But hey, not embarrassed, right? This is another great song from her. And this, actually, is the live version off her double disc live album, Living in Clip. I remember buying this album, actually. For some reason, I just got a bug up my ass late at night about owning it. I ran to Fred Meyer, found they had it in stock, and bought it outright. I don't even remember why I needed it so badly at that moment, but I did.
Dear K___,
Perhaps part of the reason you feel so old is that your boyfriend is barely old enough to walk through a casino in Vegas. I know, I know. When you got together you were attracted to his Perry Farrell wannabe charms and the fact that he is in a band, and it might have even been appealing at first when he left you those embarrassingly heartfelt declarations of undying love all over every online forum, but now you are both showing your ages, or at least the difference therein. Well, we all make choices in life. Not that I am completely unsympathetic toward the guy. I only see a bit of it when you email me at two in the morning, probably drunk, but this poor wretch bears full witness to the hornet-infested viper’s nest behind your heavily pierced (and certainly not unpleasing) façade. I can only imagine what it must be like for him to try to console you as you lay curled up in the fetal position and weeping while his balls resemble those of a Smurf. Then again, maybe all this is for the better. You caught him at an early age. An older guy would have run for the hills somewhere between the first manic and the first depressive. 
I short-handed a cliched old saying because I could save space since everyone knows the rest, and what it means. No? Okay, the saying is, "Six of one, half dozen of another", and it is supposed to mean that there is no difference, just semantics, describing the same situation with different words. The same thing, or the same difference, I have trouble with that too, but I'm getting further off track.
especially a pie factory. Heavy sacks of sugar, flour, and kidneys to lug around, loud, dangerous machinery putting that wavy crimp in the crust, hobos flying all around, I don't think so, not for me, thanks.
SELF DEFENSE: When I was six I was the unfortunate victim of beatings on the way to school everyday. My main bullies were my younger cousin (by a whole whopping 6 months) and his best friend. One day I came running back home crying because my cousin and his friend had a pop-gun that shot blanks and made really loud noises. They held me down on the sidewalk and shot it right by my ear until I began to cry from fear. So my mom was fed up with sending me to school and then me coming back home halfway through my walk crying because of my stupid little cousin and his stupid little friends. So at the age of six my mother and uncle taught me "Self Defense". My first lesson was how to drop-kick a boy so that he lands on his knees on the ground. I didn't go to school that day, instead I got lessons. BUT the next day, my cousin's little friend was my first victim. They came up on me and tried to beat me up and instead of taking it, I grabbed my cousin's friend by the shoulders and kneed him right in the nut sack! He hit the ground and began to cry. My cousin stood amazed for about two seconds before he saw me looking at him and then he ran for it. I never got picked on by him again. {My first day back in High School I ran into my cousin's old friend and when he saw that I was bigger than him, he decided he desperately wanted to be my friend.}
As I said above, I was taught to defend myself and someone else if they were in danger. Angela was the first person I ever had to defend. At the age of 12 I had to stand up to an adult for the first time, an adult that was NOT my mother. I was at Angela's house for a family get together. Her whole family was there and me. Her uncle had come to visit from out of town and he was swapping stories with the good ol' boys in her family. Angela and her mother were in the kitchen making dinner as I sat at the table with the men. Suddenly Angela was screaming. I looked and her mother was hitting her repeatedly with a metal pitcher and screaming at her that she was useless. Angela tried to back up, but the pitcher just kept being swung over and over again. Angela backed up from the kitchen, through the dining room we were all in (no one reacted), and all the way down a 10' hallway to Angela's room where she cowered in fear on her bed as her mother beat her. I realized that no one was going to do anything to save her, so I did. I stood up from the table, looked at all the men and in my creaking voice said "You are all cowards!" I walked down the hallway and just as Angela's mother raised her hand with the pitcher one last time, I grabbed the pitcher out of her hands. Thankfully she was a very short Irish women and at age 12 I already towered over her. I held the pitcher over my head and said "Do YOU want to know how it feels?" She was in shock. I was completely calm, but she could see the anger in my face. I told her that if she ever touched Angela again, I'd make her wish she hadn't. To my knowledge, she's never touched her since. Today Angela is a mother of two wonderful children and her eldest is my godson, Gregory. I like to think that if it wasn't for me, she probably wouldn't have gotten this far.
My mother also taught me about Love. Not the type where your parents go "When you grow up, you'll fall in love with a nice man/woman and you'll get married and live happily ever after." My mother taught me about the other types of Love, like Platonic Love. The type of love you feel with someone you can't have as a lover. There is nothing wrong with loving someone, but our society says there is. My mother taught me that "friends can be lovers" and vice versa, but it doesn't mean they have to marry you. She also taught me about Love for my planet. As a child I wanted to grow up to swim with the sea animals. My mother fed my imagination and hopes with National Geographic issues and news about SeaWorld down in Florida. My first trip to SeaWorld I learned a little truth about the big bad world. I got to take a backstage tour of the pools they kept Shamu and the dolphins in. At the time I was starting to pick up Animal speech in my head. As I was listening to the dolphins it occurred to me that I was understanding some of what they were saying. One of them said something about a "fish sandwich" and I found ti rather odd until I looked around me. Twenty feet from me was a Food Stand that was advertising "Fish Sandwiches". It suddenly occurred to me what the dolphins thought. It made sense that they would think that if they didn't perform well, they would be fed to the humans on a bun. I suddenly wanted nothing more to do with the world of captured animals and moral less Marine Biologists. My love for animals increased, but my respect for people diminished a bit.
So since I don't spend away my days drunk and high, what to do to kill the hours before work starts? The History Channel is great and all, but if I see one god damn more Alaskan King Crabbing show I am going to fucking kill the Gorton's Fisherman and go after his kids next. So I need something to do. Easy. I build. It's what I do. Give me five minutes and I will think of a way to build anything that looks cool and works. See, that's the difference between me and a tweaker. I can put things together. They just pull things apart. But what to build? And how many things have I built in the past? 
Some of us did photography and silk screening, some were working on the city wide video competition. Me, I worked the mixer at the Saturday Night Coffee House and volunteered back in the hotline room.
I’m taking a break for one week from the American Music series. Between trying to figure out my tax crap as (ding dong!) the local whiskey-swilling, bass playing, trouble causing Avon lady, and the research that goes into even the kind of lame American Music essays, and The Cold That Wouldn’t Go Away!, I need to give my pea-sized brain a rest. 
“Friend”, I say, “Play the bass for six months, I think it will help you”. He won’t do it because he wants to play lead. I sit at a table and bang out a steady count with a pencil on the wood for him. He’s all over the place. 
The devil takes up a lot of space in our culture. I mean, religion takes up a huge amount of our culture; even if we don’t go to church or believe, we’re surrounded by those who do. And the devil takes up a lot of space in most of the religions we deal with. Not all of them, but, you know. A few of them.
Unfortunately, it was not to a duel. I always wanted to be challenged to a duel. It's such a gentlemanly way of settling an argument. Sure, it usually ends with someone's death, but at least he dies a gentleman's death. 
"I Woke Up in Love this Morning"
BH: dude. rapper's delight is made of win.
Shes juicy and shes trouble
Yeah, that sucked. So let me tell you a little story. I'm a big fan of cooking as a pasttime. You know, live to eat, don't eat to live. So last weekend, I went on a little shopping spree. I went to a restaurant supply store, which, by the way? For a guy like me? Kid in a fuckin candy store. Got a whole bunch of restaurant-quality gear on the cheap. I'm glad they were closing for the day soon or I'd never have left. From there, I went to the Italian market. I love that place. Buncha greasy wops hanging out, eating canolli and drinking espresso. I loaded UP! Olives, tomatoes, anchovies, oregano, great big block of parmagiano reggiano cheese. Went to the local meat market, and got some good stuff. Came home, and made some marinara sauce.
Alabama Thunderpussy
“You know that hum that you can only get from pavement? You know, that noise that just sorta- just sorta vibrates in your brain, and the only thing that can make that sound is rubber on road for hundreds of miles at a stretch?” Brian looked away from the lines of the highway blurring past beneath the aging Cadillac and looked to the passenger side at his – for lack of an official job title – closest friend in the world. The companion in question was staring devotedly at the tip of his own nose, trying to pluck an overgrown hair with the tips of his fingers. Brian observed his efforts for just long enough to be considered recklessly negligent, then returned his eyes to the two globes of light in front of him that revealed the dark surface of I-90. The tires hummed in unison in the hot night. Silence prevailed until he tried again. “Sam?”
Brian repeated himself. Sam grunted his assent, which was characteristically the most elaborate use of phrase for his half of any of Brian’s metaphorical conversations. The tires hummed, a third voice in this conversation on the lonely road.
As I pulled into the lot, I felt like a million eyes were on me. I could hear the snickers and the disapproving head shakes as though I were a dead man walking. I envisioned that if a fruit stand were handy, my car would have been littered with fresh produce lunged by the passerbys. I pulled in behind the car I struck and awaited my fate. Worse case scenarios played out in my mind. Every law firm commercial I had ever seen played over like a recording; "if you or someone you know has been hurt in an automobile accident..." and I clutched the steering wheel harder, wishing I had paid closer attention to the names repeated numerous times in those classic advertisements. Then I saw a man emerge, cell phone in hand, from the struck vehicle.
While the simplicity in these ancient words appear to be more comical than profound, I ask you to keep an open mind so we can continue the trend of sharing this knowledge to our children and for generations to come. Think back to the times when you got bent out of shape because someone spilled beer on your jacket or your hair wasn't fixed to perfection. You got angry. Down right livid, if you're anything like me. You shouted and cursed, cried and whined, maybe stomped your feet like a five year old, but you emoted rage and frustration as though your bangs were out to get you. Had I known the ways of old, I would have shook my head, threw on a baseball cap and said aloud, "shit happens".
Yes, on the beach of a deserted Island, I managed to let two people walk right up on me, unnoticed, as I stood there, buck-ass nekkid. I am not ashamed to admit I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed and I suppose prior events have already cemented that fact. Anyway, they were a couple and the guy’s parents actually had a cabin a mile or so down the beach. I hobbled over, grabbed a pair of shorts out of the trees and we waited for the guys to come back from their scavenger hunt. Eventually they did, bringing nearly all our gear! It had washed up all down the beach. We stowed the gear and the couple took a picture of us standing in front of my windbreak and our cats, with our clothes stuck up in the pine trees in the background. I still have it somewhere-they mailed it to me. I bet PW will be down in the basement, looking for the picture, tomorrow, although I’m pretty sure she has seen it once before. It is my favorite picture, outside of a particular one of PW and a few shots of my kids. 
I married, moved eight times, had 2 kids, a half-dozen other jobs, racked up a degree and a divorce, and eventually went to sea as a pirate, over the next sixteen years. Then, by sheer dumb luck, I became re-acquainted with PW (I’ve known PW since we were 11, or 12), in 2000. She agreed to give up her career, friends and most importantly her family, to move 600 miles North from her home in Detroit to become the PW she is today and I am forever grateful for that. We packed up her things in a big U-Haul truck, hitched up her little, mini-SUV on a car dolly and began the 600-mile drive to her new life in a tiny town located in the western end of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or as we affectionately call it, the UP. I drove all day and talked her ear off the whole way, I’m sure. I remember her being terribly nervous and me telling her way too many stories. 
This one is sure to cause some controversy as to the definition of what we are looking for:
Baby Huey eyes little girls with bad intent.
5. What is the drunkest you've ever been? 
On March 9th the movie 300 is being released in theaters. The flick is based on a graphic novel (comic book) of the same name and I am looking forward to it seeing it. It's that release that brings me to the book review for this week.
To catch you up….Back at the end of August/beginning of fall, I started dating Rob. Rob seemed really great. Single dad. Three boys. Alas, he proved himself, after three months of seeing one another regularly, that he was just not everything he seemed to be. Too bad for him, RIGHT? Immediately after a very boring, bizarre phone conversation with him the week before Thanksgiving, I sent him an email with the following text, “Rob-I’m not interested in seeing you anymore. Good luck with the boys. –DR” 
Now, a little background. My ex and I have a relatively good relationship, and when he’s not being a jerk, we hang out like really good friends. This is a good thing for our kids, but it’s a bad thing if we’re at a kids’ thing somewhere and everyone thinks we’re married. Which evidently they do. Which sucks. Never mind that his girlfriend is there most of the time. Nor do I wear a wedding ring. Apparently no one thinks it’s odd that it appears he’s married to me but has his arm and sometimes kisses the other woman standing next to him. Huh. Who knew so many people were open to open relationships that are so openly open? (now say “open” a few more times and it won’t even sound like a word anymore) 
i was in Baltimore, visiting the fam back around 1984, i guess. one of my cousins – 19 – would school me on all the finer things in life: when i was younger, it was baseball cards, video games, and poppin’ wheelies; a little later on, it was music, alcohol, and pussy.
so while i’m waiting for my younger cousin to finish emptying all of the batteries from the flashlights in the house…we needed that radio, you understand…i perused big cuz’s record collection.
Miles Davis’ Birth Of The Cool was one of the first albums to grab me. Miles was always experimental as hell, and this album is considered to be the one that started the break away from bebop jazz in the late 40’s– which is cool too, but, you know. One step at a time here.
Everyone knows that London Calling is a great album, a breakthrough milestone yeah yeah yeah. And it is, and it completely redefined The Clash at the time. The first two albums are that classic late 70’s punk sound, but London Calling drew on a lot more influences. Other influences were expanded on. 
Man I loved DRI when I was a kid. Still listen to them every now and then for that matter. Not as much as some other stuff from my younger years but it gets its turn…. the self titled album and Dealing With It in particular. Makes me think of drinking beer in a garage. Those guys were young and messy and they had a blast making fast messy music. But they had ambitions too, and they liked more than one kind of music. So they threw some metal into it and released Crossover. And yeah, I still liked it. That album redefined DRI pretty well. Some people hated it, they didn’t want no chocolate in their peanut butter. Other people loved it. DRI are mentioned time and again as influences on newer bands, and the boys are still around.
1983 - Kill 'em All
1984 - Ride the Lightning
1986 - Master of Puppets 
1988 - ... And Justice For All
1991 - Metallica
This album also marked a turning point for hip-hop - until then, it was more party/fun music than anything else - bringing a little dose of reality to the rhymes. It shaped the future path of rap more than any other album. 
This is where pop music proved to the world what some of us jaded, cynical music lovers already knew: that it is nothing more than a giant manufacturing conglomerate that cares less about the end product (the record) than it does about what items the product can sell. And it also proved that 90% of the record buying public are sheep-like slaves to the flashing lights of mass media.
"Fifteen minutes is the perfect amount of time to squander any suspicion," he whispers under the protective cocoon of darkness in the wee hours of dawn. Fatigued after a long night's session of lovemaking under the light of Orion, Camelopardalis and Coma Berenices, the two lovers prepare to feast on ham and mutton on the back veranda, the juices of the animal carcass dripping onto their perspiring bodies. The meat is tempting, but not nearly as enticing as the prospect of the union of their bodies into one heaving mound of flesh. The ham will have to wait . . . yet again.
Hi Everybody! Happy Friday my friends!! Friday fully fucking rules, does it not? Yes indeedy it does… Alright you guys, I’m not going to lie to you. I don’t have a lot for you today. Things are pretty slow in the beautiful land of football.
Do trades really matter? I mean if your team sucks is adding a shinier new pylon at defense REALLY going to give you the magic you need to win the cup this year? 
The Prestige. (Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson David Bowie) WOW. This is filmmaking. This is how you tell a story. It from Christopher Nolen, who brought us the oh so clever Memento. The Prestige is a unique story with a familiar theme, revenge and obsession. It follows the lives of two men, Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, who once worked together as magicians in early 19th century. When a tragedy comes between them, their entire lives are spent trying to ruin and steal from the other. On the surface, it’s a tale of two very driven men obsessed with being the best. One of them, well he’s the real deal. The best there is, and nobody knows how he does it. Any of it. He’s got an air of mystery and a strange manner of doing things. Driven by a deep seated anger and desire to ruin each other, even better is the one upping and treachery and the thing is, these two are willing to go to any extreme to bring bad things to the other. When you can really do magic, that makes it more interesting. And did I mention David Bowie flawlessly and creepily plays Nikola Tesla. Yeah, this film is amazing. 
This is no different. Its nothing like The Prestige, this is part love story, a bit of a thriller and mystery, and a story of truth set in turn of the century Vienna. Let me start by saying, Nortons Character, Eisenheim the Illusionist, is the real thing. The story makes it clear. When he was a kid, he met a magician, the story goes, and soon after that meeting could do amazing things and tricks. As a kid, he and the soon to be Duchess played by Biel, are childhood lovers, and the well to do family of Beil will not have it. So they of course threaten to jail his family if he sees her again. So off in the world he goes seeking out the mysteries of the universe. The next time we see him, he is a successful performer. With one notable difference. He performs on an empty stage. Nothing but a chair and occasion prop. Behind the scenes playing out is the politics of the story, where the Crown Prince, played masterfully by Sewell and all around evil fellow, is setting himself up to overthrow the king. Guess who he is set to marry. Yup, Biel. So they attend Nortons show, and the rest is love lost love found. But that’s just on the surface. The murder, intrigue and plot twists have only begun. Like I said, anything more would spoil this. Just watch it, and I can promise you wont be disappointed. It’s an amazing film, shot with a subtle air of the first films ever made, it has this soft glow about it that doesn’t bother you, but gives it an amazing look. Its almost like the whole thing was lit like a turn of the century theatre and that’s what they shot. The story is wonderful, and I just cant say enough about these tow film. I rarely get the chance to add new favorites to my list, these two went on it faster than anything I can remember. I think you will enjoy them. 
nonexistent. In fact, it seems that cybernetics has actually regressed quite a bit.
Maybe that is why when I used to go on the road a lot, I needed to get away at the end. Well, maybe there were some other reasons for getting away but I think one of the main reasons was because I was bored. Maybe tired and bored. I will be the first to say that there is nothing like the feeling of seeing home after you have been away for a few months. I mean really, seeing that crest of your hometown after hours upon hours of just driving on unknown roads to get to godforsaken clubs takes a toll on you after awhile. I had a friend who used to say that the road was 23 hours of hell. I never thought of it as hell. It was more like 23 hours of blah. But what else can you do? You have to do those other hours in the day just for the one hour of heaven. Sounds cheesy. Really it does. Sit and waste away a day in a van playing gin rummy and seeing how many rest stops you can pass before someone needs to piss or you run out of beer. It gets old really fast. You can be on the road with your best friend but at the end, no matter who they are, you need to get away from them. 
I was lucky when I ran away. Coming from where I did, going back to my real home was kind of out of the question. I was lucky enough to have a few friends with places hidden up in Tahoe so going there to escape was really a blessing. No one around for a mile or so my nudity and love of BBQ came out as I taught those fish a lesson on what it means to be cooked. Maybe it was the solitude or being surrounded by nothing but trees for miles around that did something to me. The trees weren't asking me for gas money or my last drink tickets so they were cool. The dog just wanted whatever kind of fish I was eating that night so she was cool and my beer just wanted to be in my tummy so they were cool. Everything was pretty mellow and the only time I had to talk was when the TV was talking shit to me or I ran out of cigarettes or beer. Everything else was just a detail. I know it was weird but it was what I did. After a few weeks of the house phone ringing and people trying to find me, I would get bored of the silence and come back home. Back to the routine of what I did before I made the great escape. The dog would go back to sleep on my bed and I would resume socializing again. Get my pool game back up to speed and settle back into another routine.
A sucker is not necessarily a chump, but a chump is definitely a sucker. Here's the distinction: A sucker is someone that is ripped off in some kind of exchange because of what they do not know, whether they should have been aware or not; a chump knows better yet allows it to happen anyway. A sucker buys charity candy bars from children without uniforms, a sucker buys an Acura, a sucker follows a low-carb diet. A chump would buy the whole box of candy, a chump would pay sticker for the Acura, a chump would pay out-of-pocket for his health care crisis that arose due to his low-carb diet. Because, of course, a sucker may pay too much for his insurance; but a chump won't turn anything in to his insurance company.
Ernie: Well I don't play a lot of video games so... The only video game I can think of right now that has women in it is the old X-Men arcade game. I think maybe Storm and Jean Gray are in that one? That works for me.
Josh: dude. pegasus = horse with wings
Turtle: There is also a That's So Raven video game.
Richard: I am so all about Raven's redheaded friend, whatever her name is, that's mine. If she isn't in the game then Raven or maybe Ms. Pacman; she's basically all mouth. Yes, they're all over 18.
Turtle: I don't know if this adds or detracts from the thread, but I just woke up from a dream in which Wayne Brady was the first black James Bond
And maybe it actually took effort and wasn't a foregone conclusion. Maybe the less hardcore fans left, because they weren't willing to wait around to see if the band would come back on stage. Maybe when the band did suddenly reappear, there was a thrilling element to it, a surge of happiness, and uplift to the spirit. Rather than it being an obligation being fulfilled, expected and unsurprising and utterly incapable of inspiring strong emotion because it's the only possible outcome—maybe at some point in the past it was actually cool and exciting when the band reappeared simply because there wasn't a guarantee it would happen. Maybe there was once a point when the crowd had to earn it.
It’s a damn funny scene and the ironic pitch of just what a jackass the character is is perfect. The professor who read the passage, though, read it in a completely flat voice, skipping over every mention of the “n-word” like we were all a bunch of impressionable youths (even though we all had the book right in front of us) and treating the whole passage as if it had absolutely no comic intent. The message is clear: if the book is not a stinging indictment of American society that is so obvious it feels like being beaten with a phone book, it is not worth consideration in the academy. And we don’t want no stinking humor. 
I was born in Rutland, Vermont to young hippy parents. My mom, you all know her as Pat, had to raise me as a single mother (Dad split after 6 months). Thankfully she had the support of our family and her friends who also helped in raising me.
They are called Zener Cards. If you don't have the cards (which we didn't) then you can do what we did, which was use a normal pack of playing cards. My mother started by holding the card up with the back facing me from across a table. I was to try to "see" if the card had a red suit or black suit. After that I tried to see what suit it was. After that I tried for numbers. We kept going until I could tell her exactly what card it was. And can you guess what this little test proved? In ESP circles it would prove that I have Telepathy, whichs means I read the mind of the person holding the card and saw what they saw - a clear image of the card they held.
Until I'd become an adult myself, I never realised just how much my mother went through to raise me to be a good person. Yeah, I'm not a church-goer, I've broken some commandments in my time, my morals are my own- not something mandated to me, and I don't spend my life on my knees asking for forgiveness for being born, --BUT I've been told by many people that because of my actions and the person I am that my wings are already waiting for me in Heaven. I blame my mother for that. She taught me how to care and be responsable for someone other than myself. She taught me to be good. She raised me to be a White witch, just like herself. "Do no harm." I live by it. I also live by the Golden Rule (do you remember it?).