Various events and levels of meh.

My internet never actually got turned off.  I just haven't been in the mood to say much.

I got a new job finally, after eight months of being destitute.  It's in collections.  I'm not thrilled.  I never would have even looked twice at it under normal circumstances, but things haven't been normal for awhile now.  I'll say this much, the people are friendly.  Just about everyone I've met has tried to make me feel welcome, which is cool.  My boss seems like he could have the propensity to be a bit of a dick but who knows, maybe not.  The job though, I've sat for the last two days asking myself over and over if I really think I can even handle this.  It's all rhetorical, of course.  I'm stuck here for now; if I quit within the first three months they can knock my pay down to minimum wage for any hours worked, so I could technically end up owing them money.  That's how fucked I was, I actually agreed to such an insane arrangement.

My friend who was ignoring me (third paragraph; don't bother with the rest, I was unbelievably depressed that night) is still ignoring me, and now so are three others.  This is after one, who used to call me every day and talk to me for at least two hours, dropped me like a bad habit.  Or another who was messaging me non-stop who simply disappeared.   So that's six total:  F, L, K, L2, E and A.  All of them women I met online in internet forums.  No idea why I'm suddenly persona non grata, except for L2, the phone caller.  She doesn't talk to me anymore because of two internet forums having a pissing match with each other-- she chose Forum X, I chose Forum Y (which I regret immensely and have since quit the place).  Now she no longer speaks to me.  If that sounds completely dumb and immature, it is.  But in the age of the internet all sorts of new drama seems to have erupted.  Ten minutes on Encyclopedia Dramatica will confirm this.  

The others though I don't get.  E and K were crazy about me, at least they acted like they were.  I haven't been able to get a hold of E (the text/IM queen) since February.  K I still see online but she's not even responding to my emails.  At least F, the girl I wrote about before, had the decency to respond.  Though come to think of it, if F really is just pretending not to know who I am, maybe it wasn't so decent after all.  A is a chick from back home who was just fun to talk to.  I think she might be like L2, a Forum X person who's turned her back on me.  Again, it bites but I'll live.  L...I could write an entire other blog about L.  She was much more special to me than she should have been.  I've said in the past how much I can't stand poetry, yet one night I actually wrote one about this girl.  Of course I don't want to call it a poem, but that's what the fucker is.  It's like I couldn't find another way to express my feelings about her.  I take a little bit of solace in the fact that she and F (they're roommates) aren't only ignoring me, they're ignoring all the mutual acquaintances we had as well.  But still, the three of us were always closer to each other than any of them.  I thought if there was anyone they'd still want to talk to it'd be me.  Guess not.    

I wish it didn't matter to me.  These are just girls on the internet after all.  The chances of me ever meeting any of them were always slim.  Still, I had what you could call "unique online relationships" with three of these girls (and yes, that means exactly what you think it does), so to go from getting dirty instant messages and naked pics to zero communication, how could it not affect me?  What the hell happened?  

I'm reading this back to myself and it's a jumbled mess.  Good thing this is 'just some guy rambling' and not 'just some guy making well constructed and coherent points.'

Fuck.  I should be in bed now.

It's not all bad though.  I've downloaded a bunch of movies, a couple of games, some music. a shit ton of porn.  Charley Chase is the closest I'll ever get to seeing Darian Caine do hardcore, unless Darian Caine has actually done hardcore in which case somebody please let me know.  Paris Kennedy, I just discovered her last night.  She does a lot of weird fetish stuff, which normally I wouldn't get into, but she's hot and her voice...it's nice to know she can do more with her throat than just suck a mean dick.  And I mean that in the nicest way.  If you love your penis as much as I do these two ladies are highly recommended. 

Speaking of weird fetish porn, the same page I was looking at most of the Paris Kennedy stuff on, I looked around to see what else they offered and sweet fucking Christ, do people get off on some weird shit.  Girls in high heels crushing crickets?  Simulated necrophilia?   Dudes jerk off to this shit?  I take back 80% of the negative thoughts I've had about myself now.  

Oh yeah, and for what it's worth, I searched for Natalie from Big Brother 9 again tonight for the hell of it and finally found some decent topless/naked pics from the show.    w00t.  I gotta get a DVR so I can start grabbing all the After Dark stuff, there was plenty I missed last season and BB10 starts in a couple of weeks.  Who knows what sort of magical slutty babes CBS will bestow upon us this time?  Oh, the adventure begins again!  Hooray!

Awww. It's nice to end on a positive note for a change.  

So my internet's going to be cut off in about half an hour...

And I'm downloading Firefox 3.  Makes sense.  

Okay, just fired it up.  Snazzy.  Think I'll spend these last few minutes poking around and seeing what's new.  I guess I'll be back to this as soon as I get reconnected.  On the bright side, I've got plenty of movies I need to catch up on and I made sure to pull some new porn before midnight.  So I've got that going for me.  Later.  

Not rock bottom, but close.

Reality has given me a swift kick in the ass in the last few days.  A person who I hadn't talked to since February, but whom I consider a friend, has either forgotten who I am or is willfully pretending they don't know me.  It's bad when you're hoping someone is playing a cruel joke on you.  My phone is off, and by this time tomorrow my internet and cable will be gone as well.  I'm negative 600 bucks in the bank, my car is busted, and I'm about to run out of food.  I am, in short, well and fully fucked at the moment.

I'm praying this is it.  I'm praying this is the lowest I go in life and that if I can get back on track, I'll finally get my shit together because I'll remember what life's been like for me so far this year.  But frankly I'm scared.  This has happened before.  The first half of 2006, things weren't much better than they are now.  I worked a job for a couple of months, but I was so depressed from getting dumped-- mind you, I got dumped in October of 2005-- that I couldn't cope with anything and I ended up getting fired.  I tried to drink myself unconscious on Valentine's Day that year.  And the thing is, when I finally got a job a couple of months later and things started to level out, I told myself then, "Don't let this shit happen again."  Now this.  

I think I've said this before, but I feel like Dante in Clerks.  Somewhere along the line I quit doing what was necessary to better myself.  I just settle for what's around me until inevitably it all turns to shit and someone has to bail me out.  I don't know when, why or how, and I don't know how to fix it.  What's worse is that there's a part of me that doesn't want to, because that would require effort, and what happens when you try, really try, and fail?  Get rejected?  This friend of mine who doesn't seem to remember me, I've written her twice now, told her about conversations and events from less than six months ago, and she replies she's "still having trouble figuring out who you are."  I'm down on myself enough as is, I seriously don't need reinforcement of the notion nobody gives a shit right now.  

I could never join the military.  I don't want to fight in wars.  I hate authority and being told what to do.  Yet if I were to be completely honest with myself that kind of system is exactly what I need.  That structure, the complete lack of freedom.  Rank and file, rank and file.  I need to have my ass kicked before I'll do anything.   It's like this:  When I was in high school, I did pretty well.  Everything was laid out.  I went to my classes because attendance was mandatory.  After school I came home, did my homework, that was it.  There was time for a job and to hang out with friends but Monday through Friday, that was it.  I just accepted it and went about my business.  When I got to college though, that changed.  I had a lot more freedom and immediately I started screwing up.  Didn't go to classes.  Hung out with my friends and did absolutely fuck all.  The grades would slip, my mom would get pissed, I'd turn it around for awhile because I knew she'd give me shit if I didn't, and then the whole thing would start over again.  

So basically, and I fucking hate to admit this, for me to straighten up and act like a human being I need something like the threat of my mom giving me shit.  Is that really the fucking case?  I know deep down inside I have it in me to stand on my own two feet.  I've done it before.  But I guess that's it; I can only maintain the status quo.  I either can't or won't try to achieve more, and I have a sneaking suspicion that until I do, this endless cycle of suck is going to keep repeating.  I need help.  Serious help.  I've tried to get help before though and I never stick with it.  It's the same goddamn problem.  I don't put the effort in.  So I fail, and what happens.  I get it in my head that I can't do it.  That the problems are unfixable.  FUCK.  Even typing this out now I see it all.  The loop of shit I'm in.  I see my problems.  I know my faults.  Why am I so unwilling or unable to make things better?  When did I turn into this person?  What the fuck is wrong with me?   

Choice of viewing.

What movie do I watch while waiting for my various Wendy James and Sunny Leone torrents to finish and the new 'Doctor Who' to be aired and uploaded?

Rambo?

Jumper?

Or The Machine Girl?

The first two were impulse downloads.  Rambo's gotten decent reviews; Jumper, meh, it just looks like a sci-fi action movie that might not blow.  I'm thinking Machine Girl.  I've been wanting to see it since the trailer popped up late last year.

Okay, this was the first time I've watched that since Christmas.  Holy shit.  I'm going to stop typing now and check out the whole thing.  

Remember that scene...

...In Terminator 2 when John Connor calls home and the T-1000 picks up the phone, Arnold hops on the phone and figures out who it is and hangs up?  They're playing T2 on AMC today and after he hangs up they cut the line where he says "Your foster parents are dead" in that matter of fact tone.  Why would AMC do that?  I don't see the purpose.  

...In Idiocracy where the most popular show on TV is 'Ow, My Balls!'?  Look at this.



Mike Judge had it wrong.  We're not going to need 500 years to collapse.  

No news today.

More to the point, no news for me today.  Usually at this point in the day I'd be listening to Rachel Maddow and gearing up for Olbermann-- though since it's Friday I'd really be gearing up for 'Doctor Who' and 'Battlestar Galactica'--  but on hearing the news of Tim Russert's death I can't do it.  I've mentioned before about my anxiety about anything having to do with hearts and death, and the way he passed so suddenly, with no warning, it immediately set off all those alarms in my psyche.  It couldn't have been more than five minutes after reading the news I was sweating and looking for the aspirin because I could be next.  Never mind that Tim Russert has twenty eight years on me and I have no idea of his lifestyle or family history, the hyper-vigilance kicks in and it's game over for me thinking like a normal human being.

That said, I'm sorry to see him go.  I never followed 'Meet the Press' but I've seen it a few times when I've stayed up all night on a Saturday, and the day I sat watching Hillary's concession speech on MSNBC he was the guy everyone was deferring to.  The general consensus is that he was one of the few journalists left who really did fit the mantra of "fair and balanced," a term which has now become more a punchline than anything else.  My condolences to his family during their time of mourning.  

Passing rain and passing memories.

This past weekend my state got hammered by storms.  A town near here got pretty much wiped off the map.  Me, I slept through most of it.  The morning after it'd all blown through I took a walk through town.  This was at like 5 AM.  I'd been so busy sleeping through the storms that when I finally woke up it was about the time most people should be going to bed.  Everything was grey and wet outside.  It was also almost seventy degrees, so the slight fog amped up the moisture in the air that much more and I could feel my shirt starting to cling to me.  What was odd to me though was the smell.  There was that fresh clean air smell you always have after a rainstorm, but it was mixed with something else-- all the branches down, the puddles of mud.  It was vegetation and silt, and it brought me back to my grandparents' house back home.  They lived on the water, and the scent in the air that morning was the same as when I'd wander out onto the public pier next to their house.  It hit me then how long it's been since I've been home.  I haven't heard my grandmother's voice in five years, and the last time we spoke she didn't know who I was.  Fucking Alzheimer's.

I've always told myself I wanted to make it back and see her one more time before it was too late to say goodbye, but another part of me is wondering if the moment's already passed and maybe I'd be better off.  The last time I saw my grandfather was two weeks before he passed away, and it was a rare good day for him.  He was lively, he argued with Grandma, had a milkshake.  The spark was still in his eyes.  The night he passed he went into a deep coma, and when my mom asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital to see him and I just couldn't do it.  I wanted to remember him the way I'd seen him that day.  I don't even remember the last time I physically saw my grandmother.  I know it was probably a day or two before I left.  I know that we talked on the phone a few times; she yelled at me for not introducing her to the pretty girl I liked so much and kept asking when I was going to take a vacation and come visit her.  What I remember most though is the last phone call, on my lunch break at work, standing in the parking lot and listening to my grandmother tell me what a nice young gentleman I was to spend time talking to her.  

"Of course, I'm your grandson."  

"Are you?  I'm sorry.  Well, that's good!"

"Yeah, it is."

My mom tells me that physically Grandma's doing pretty well for someone pushing 90.  Mentally, it's hit or miss.  It's more a matter of lucid days vs quiet and staring off into space.  Part of me still wants to see her so bad, hold her hand, tell her I love her.  But again, I just don't know if I can do it.  

Despite all that, when I walked in the door after that walk I actually felt better than I had in days.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was just getting out after having been cooped up so long, or maybe it was that I was happy to have remembered that smell of the saltwater and all the good times that went along with it.  When I do eventually make it home, I'm going to drive down to the place where my grandparents' house stood.  I'm going to walk out on the pier, because I know it's still there.  I'm going to sit down, watch the waves roll in, and think about nothing but when I was a kid, running around with a water pistol and a crab net, not even knowing about the sorts of things that are weighing on me now.  I think Grandma would appreciate that I was finally taking a vacation.

That girl, that girl, that girl.

I just went and looked at the MySpace of the girl I'm currently madly in love with again.  For real, I know I'm just setting myself up but I swear to god, every time I read her writing or look at her picture, she's just so amazing my brain starts to hurt.  Especially because her last blog entry is about her spending Memorial Day weekend in my hometown where her family is from and talks about visiting all the places I used to slog through for something to do.  I wanna go run laps and work on witty one-liners now so I can prepare for when I finally get the nerve up to try and talk to her again.  

God, I just realized the perfect song to sum up how this is all eventually going to go down.

I'm actually in a better mood for even having seen her smile this morning. Christ I've got problems.

"I'm gonna show her my E.V.O.O. face."

Ah, Rachel Ray. Cook. Talk show host. General television personality. Terrorist sympathizer*. I've been in love with her for awhile now. I know, I know. She is grating, yes. She does walk the fine line of enthusiasm and obnoxiousness, yes. And yes, I'm sure in real life she's a huge bitch. I know all that. But there's just something about her. I get the feeling that she is absolutely the dirtiest whore in the world in bed. You know damn well she cusses like a sailor; with that voice there's no way she couldn't. She's the kind of freak who gets on top and tries to break your dick off while she's riding you and uses her teeth a little more than you'd like when she's giving a beej. Probably slaps you around and screams a lot. But by the same token, she probably goes in for anal no questions asked and wouldn't even care if you maybe wanted to piss on her a little. (Not that I would personally, I'm just saying.**) I've even downloaded Eva Angelina vids because she bears a passing resemblance to Rachel Ray. That and the fact she likes to wear her glasses when she fucks. That shit is hot.

So until a sex tape gets released. and twenty bucks says she's already done a couple, I'm going to have to settle for matching up the audio with these pictures and using the power of imagination.






Yum-o indeed.



*For the record, Michelle Malkin is one of the few women on this planet who define wholly and completely the term "grudge fuck."
**Just kidding. I'd totally piss on her.

In other news.

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In love and hating myself for it.

Have you ever seen someone where you look at them and you just know that's the person for you? A couple of years ago I came across this girl's page on MySpace, and it was like lighting had struck. She was gorgeous, she was funny, she was everything I could have possibly wanted in a girl. I sent her a message, which is no east task for me. I hate introductions. Trying to make a good first impression is one of the greatest fears of my existence. But she wrote back. She thought it was cool how much we had in common. She seemed genuinely interested in knowing more about me, So of course I freaked out and wrote this entirely too long reply. That happens to me sometimes, I get overly excited and start babbling and go completely overboard. To my complete lack of surprise I didn't hear back, not that I blamed her. I'd probably scare me off too. Still, I figured I could wait a couple of weeks, send another message apologizing and try again now that I'd gotten the initial "OMG YOU"RE SO COOL" out of my system. When I went to find her page again though it was gone. Vanished. Deleted. "This member does either not exist or has had their membership cancelled" or whatever the line is they use.

I wasn't crushed. I didn't cry, I didn't shake my angry fist at God. But I won't lie, there was a part of me that was heartbroken. I know how that sounds. I mean it was a fucking MySpace page. Still, haven't you ever been walking down the street when you lay eyes on someone walks who captures your imagination? In that five or six seconds before your paths cross you live out the rest of your lives together and you picture what your kids are going to look like. You almost wish you'll "accidentally" bump into each other just so that you'll have an excuse to say something. But then they're gone, and when you turn your head to look back you get a little bummed because they didn't do the same thing. You keep on walking though. That's just life.

Anyway, point is I never forgot this girl, and every once in awhile I'd type her name in to see if she'd gotten a new page. Never had any luck...until late last week. She's back, and as god as my witness she's somehow even more awesome than before. So now I'm trying to work myself up to sending her a new message, but the truth is seeing her again has taken all my flaws and laid them out very plainly in front of my face. You can't write her now. Look at you. You're a fucking mess. Out of shape, no job, no car. You're a fucking loser. No way she's going to want anything to do with you, and that's if you're lucky enough for her not to remember what a spazzed out geek you were last time. Asshole.

It's a kick in the gut but in a way it's what I need. For the first time in a long time I'm starting to feel motivated to actually do something with my life and dig myself out of the hole I've been in for the past eight months. But there's also a part of me that's still giving myself shit in my head. This? This is why? You finally start to feel your oats again and it's only in the vain hope some girl on the fucking internet might want to talk to you? WHAT THE FUCK. I know that I'm supposed to want to fix the problems in my life for me, to feel better about myself-- that's what everyone tells me. That's what my ex told me when she dumped me. But frankly, that's something I've never been able to do. I've never cared about myself that much. The only time I ever want to be a better person is when there's someone I want to be a better person for. And right now I want to be a better person for this girl. Is it bad to have a goal like that? Maybe it is, but I have to believe having a straw to grasp at is better than nothing.

Well hello, dolly.

Quick question.



I'm going to hell for wanting one of these, right? Yeah, that's what I figured.

No woman, no cry, no black folk?

There's a Damian Marley concert on PBS right now and I just noticed the entire audience is white. I don't know exactly how but there's got to be irony in there somewhere.

A conundrum of nowhere near epic proportions.

It's 78 degrees outside.
I have next to no food in the fridge.
I've been craving tacos for the past four days.

My choices therefore are:

-Walk down to the grocery store about 1/2 a mile away in what I consider to be sweltering heat and sweat like a can of beer in a cooler full of ice.

-Sit in my air-conditioned apartment and go without.

-Get my fucking car fixed so that I don't have to make decisions like this anymore.


So...that'll be a no-go on the tacos then. Apathy: Making decisions easier since whenever the word apathy was first used.

I can't wait to be in love again.

Why I should know better than to use different passwords.

Awhile back I created a Photobucket account to use on a couple of message boards I belong to.  A couple of minutes ago I decided I wanted to move some of the images from that account to the one I've made for this blog.  But of course, I can't remember the password.  Even better, the email account I used to sign up for the old one has been deactivated.  What the hell do I do now?  Fuck. 

UPDATE!  I got in.  w0 to the 0t.

Hearts and anxiety-filled minds.

"I’m taking my thoughts to a railway station
Put ’em on a train just to see what’s coming back
What’s coming back
It’s coming like a heart attack"
-The Jesus and Mary Chain, "Far Gone and Out"

If you've never had a panic attack, you may not be aware that it's not uncommon for a person to think they're having a heart attack.  That's what it was like for me the first time.  Shortness of breath, numbness, pain.  Things go swimmy and you're scared it's all going to turn black.  I ended up going to the hospital and everything.  I've only had one that was as bad as that in the ten years since, but some have come close.  Whatever your own personal concept of "pleasant" is, it's the exact opposite.  

One of the aftereffects of that first attack, besides becoming suddenly and painfully aware of my mortality much sooner than most people seem to, is that I also became a bit of a hypochondriac, especially as it pertained to my heart.  It turned OCD fairly quickly.  People close to me know I'm extra anxious about something when I cross my arms over my chest.  Any new detail or symptom I would learn about heart attack victims or heart disease in general, I immediately set to convincing myself one way or the other whether I was similarly afflicted.  I gave up soda and Soft Batch cookies because I'd had way too much of both that first night.  I stopped eating meat for two years, convinced that a single Big Bite from 7-11 would be my last meal.  I took up the habit of popping an aspirin any time I started to feel off because of commercials saying it could save my life.  Any time my hand hurts or my arm is sore, there's always a little prickle of "Aaaaahhh" that accompanies it in my head.  "Is my hand hurting because of the way I was sitting?  Because I fell asleep on it?  Or is it something else...?"  Followed by a round of internal nail-biting.  Likewise, anything dealing with hearts or the chest became anathema; to this day I can't watch the scene in Temple of Doom where Mola Ram rips the dude's heart.  Same thing with any of the Alien movies.  And though the song at the beginning of this story is one of my favorites of all time, and I love to sing along at the top of my lungs, you will always hear me go silent near the end of that first verse.

Now clearly there's a lot of issues going on there, but one that bothers me in particular is that I've spent so long now trying to remind myself every time I feel a panic attack coming on that "...that's all it is, a panic attack, I'm not about to keel over, I'll be all right, I just need to calm down," is that I'm now starting to worry that if something is or was seriously wrong with me that I might not get it taken care of in time.  I'll be honest.  I'm not in shape.  Am I morbidly obese, no, but I am overweight and I do lead a mostly sedentary lifestyle.   And yesterday morning, I felt some pains that weren't like any I'd experienced before and it freaked me the hell out.  It really did feel like it was coming from the center of my chest, not the all over uncomfortableness I've gotten used to working through.  If you've seen The Frighteners, it was like the ghost of Jake Busey was jamming his hand in to squeeze the life out of me.  It wasn't continuous, more like a series of quick twinges over the course of an hour or so.  All the same it put the fear of God in me and left me a wreck.  It took me back to that first night, not knowing whether to call for help, feeling completely lost and wondering if this was it and praying it wasn't.  I was pacing back and forth, looking at my phone and trying to decide if I should call my best friend and have her take me to the hospital, and how foolish I would feel if it was just another 'episode' and how expensive it would be and how there was no way I could pay for it.  I made all the usual promises to myself-- eat less junk food, exercise more, actually do the first two things this time.  It even occurred to me at one point that at the rate I was screaming at myself in my head, I was probably working towards a panic attack either way.  So I took three aspirin, curled up in the fetal position with my Nintendo DS on the couch and didn't move for the next three hours.  

Eventually I started feeling something approaching normal again, though I'm still not quite right yet.  Like right now, if you offered me a cookie/taco/burger/slice of pizza or whatever I'd turn it down.  There's still a twinge now and again but it's moved more towards the back, in the muscles.  I'm still concentrating on every sensation emanating from my left arm way too much, that however is a habit I don't know I'll be able to break any time soon. I'll probably go lie down in a little bit, I've had all of three hours of since yesterday.  First though I feel compelled to check out 'The 10 Hottest Titty Flopping Sex Scenes Of All Time.'  With any luck my guilt over surfing a webpage with such a scholarly title combined with...well, the ten hottest titty flopping sex scenes of all time will take my mind off all the other crap I've been dealing with.  Fingers crossed.  On the left hand anyway.

Random things I hate at this very moment.

In no particular order:

• The .mkv file format: Apparently this is a new format for hi-def video, and I don't know if it's my video card or the age of my desktop in general, but out of all the files I've downloaded (check your torrents, people) I've only gotten one to play even close to normal, and that was by halving the video size and quitting every other application. Fuck that noise. Give me an .avi file and let me watch the damn movie.


• The Playstation 2: Or at least my specific model of it, which I only today discovered is one of the only two revisions of the PS2 hardware that can't play the game I just spent two days downloading. I can see the disk from here, sitting there. Mocking me.


• The company that owns my building: Thanks for not allowing us to go with satellite, thereby putting us at the mercy of Charter Communications and their choppy service. No, really, it's okay. I didn't need to watch FOX tonight. Dicks.


• Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones: It's on TV right now and there's a lot of it that actually works, but the fact that nobody could pull George aside and talk to him about the dialogue in some of these scenes...I don't have that pure fanboy bile that a lot of dudes do (I'm a Trek guy), it's more that feeling you get when you're watching a game show and somebody blows their winnings on a really easy question. Pity mixed with annoyance. "How could you fuck that up? You were so close!" That feeling.


• That ASPCA commerical with Sarah McLachlan: For being depressing and making me want to amass a vast fortune so that I might save all the animals at risk of being put to sleep for no good reason, and for Sarah McLachlan looking damn fine and the knowledge that I will never, ever have her. Bah.


• Me: I'm lazy as hell and for all the things in my head I'd like to write about it's like I can't be arsed to just sit here and do it. I just mindlessly surf the same sites over and over again, get bored, play some video games, bemoan the fact that I'm wasting my life and then pass out on the couch. I need a swift kick in the ass and I need it now. And by now I mean about twelve years ago.

Nature: God's prissy drama queen.

The following things all just happened at once: Weather radio kicked on, tornado sirens for the city went off, and a huge gust of wind nearly took the curtains off the sliding glass door. Okay. I get it. It's going to rain. No need to get all up in my face about it.

Thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow, snow on Sunday. You're an indecisive motherfucker, April.

Finally.

For the first time in recent memory the month of June has something to offer. Sunday, June 1st, 11:30 pm EST, comes...the third season of 'The Venture Bros.'



I'll admit it. I'm aroused.

Agent 47 wants a banana.

I've gotten to a point where ninety-five percent of all things "LOL-" related annoy me. This is from the other five.

"...And stir."

There's more. So much more. Five hundred and twenty six videos more. A science fiction series in which he portrays every character more. I'm as fascinated by this man as I am terrified by the thought I could one day become like him. I need to get outside more often.

And now they own all our buildings.

Not that you can ever put anything past the YTMND crowd, but wow.

http://slapthejap.ytmnd.com/

What a proud moment in our history. Oy. I'm going to have to double up on anime and ramen purchases now just for having clicked on that.

Do they still f**k 'em like they used to?

Do porn movies still exist? I'm talking about the ones where there's a script and a plot and the characters have names. I know it might sound weird to ask but I was going through my folder on the computer last night and noticed almost everything was from a website: Big Tits at School, Big Tits at Work, Big Tits Boss, Bangbus, My Sister's Hot Friend, etc. They must still make "full-length"* features though, right? I mean, I know porn's job is to get you off. Ron Jeremy will never be on 'Inside the Actor's Studio.' Peter North and Jenna Jameson knew they weren't getting Oscars for Priceless, though I suppose they could've gotten AVN awards so that's probably not the best example.  

Point is I was curious, so as an example I googled the old Where The Boys Aren't series and discovered that the latest entry (pun most definitely, and considering it's girl-on-girl, somewhat ironically intended) is the first one to forego a storyline and just have chicks banging, no rhyme or reason. Now this doesn't necessarily break my heart in twain but all the same, I'd hate to think honest to god porno films are a dying breed. There are most assuredly dudes out there who actually want to watch the entire thing, if only to get their money's worth. (I haven't checked lately but back in the day, a lot of the new titles were damn pricey.) I know I've definitely kept watching a couple after the task at hand** was done, and there's always been those times hanging out at somebody's house where Anal Anarchy or Meatman and Throbbin gets thrown in for everyone in to sit around and laugh at. Guess I'm not enough of a porn connoisseur to know the answer to this one, I just never hear about them anymore. Shame.


*Heh.
**Double heh.

Tunnel (tele)vision.

I've had a lot of free time lately. Wait. Let me clarify: I've had a lot of time lately that I should have been using to look for a new job and better my current lot in life, but have instead spent being lazy and depressed and goofing off. Anyway, one of the big things I've done with this time is catch up on some TV shows I missed out on; in particular, 'Dexter' and 'Battlestar Galactica.' My best friend had been bugging me about 'Dexter' for awhile; add in all the hoopla surrounding this being the last season for 'BSG' and the final five Cylons and truth be told, morbid curiosity since I thought the original was so lame, I finally gave in and decided to watch them both.

Holy crap. I honestly wish I could go back in time and kick myself in the balls for not having watched these when they originally aired. The excruciating pain would be worth it. I'm especially impressed with 'Galactica'-- never in a million years would I have suspected that Sci-Fi, the same network whose schedule is comprised of films cheesier than a Wisconsin dairy farm, could turn out something of such quality. Ronald D. Moore, the showrunner on 'BSG' has crafted this universe that's space opera, war epic, political drama, religious parable, all these separate elements coming together and not only does it all work, it even makes me forgive the sometimes overabundant use of a fake swear word ("frak," as in "Go frak yourself, motherfrakker"). As for 'Dexter,' along with the guilty pleasure I derive from 'Big Brother After Dark' (though sadly not as much now that my favorite houseguest is gone) it's the only real reason I can justify paying for Showtime. Truth be told it edges out 'Galactica' in both writing and acting-- especially acting; Michael C. Hall should have a pair of Emmys sitting on the mantle at home-- but as a lifelong nerd I'm a sucker for science fiction so 'BSG' gets the nod.

Which brings us to today. I've gone through both seasons of 'Dexter' and as of this afternoon I'm all caught on 'BSG' (poor Cally!). So...now what? 'Arrested Development,' 'The Wire,' 'The Shield,' 'The West Wing,' '24,' 'LOST,' still haven't seen seasons five through seven of 'Buffy,' 'Firefly,' 'Freaks and Geeks'-- the list goes on. So many shows I never gave a chance the first time around and I've no idea where to start. It's almost enough to give me a frakking headache.

"They might carve your head into a mountain."

From Monday's 'Daily Show,' Jon Stewart riffs on the latest insurmountable-but-oh-maybe-not crisis to hit the Obama campaign:

Once again it falls to a comedian to provide actual insight while the appointed experts on the news networks are the ones making it sound like a joke.

What annoys me most about this story (term used loosely) is that Barack Obama tells the truth, and people rush to drag him over the coals for it.  I mean, seriously--  "Barack Slams Small Towns?"  Really, CNN?  Is that the story we're going with?  Maybe it wasn't in Pennsylvania, but I've spent my time in the kind of small town where walking around drunk randomly shooting things with a .22 is the epitome of a fun night and racial epithets don't so much as raise an eyebrow.  Like Stewart says, bitter doesn't begin to describe it.  Yet yesterday I read in the Wall Street Journal that the McCain campaign is going to use this to their advantage and plan to take Obama to task for decrying "the small town values that made America great."  Ah yes, the values that keep Pat Robertson, NASCAR, the NRA and the term "pro-life" in business.  Allow me to happily take my place among the liberal elitist crowd when I say, fuck that. 

The upside of panic attacks.

I've had panic attacks off and on for the last ten years now.  Thankfully in that time I've learned to control them much better-- there hasn't been a full-blown one in a long time now-- but after being so sporadic the last few years, lately they seem to be coming on a little bit more frequently.  It's a lot of stuff that contributes to them:  Fucked up sleep schedule, stress, shitty eating habits, depression.  I get these flashes just about every day now.  Just real quick shots of terror, most of it centered around the fact that I'm mortal and I'm going to die one day.  Which sucks, you know?  I've been worrying about death since I was twenty.  Isn't that what the whole mid-life crisis thing is supposed to be about?    

Anyway, had one today walking to the grocery store.  On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being nervous and 10 being about to pass out, this was a 4.  Truth be told it started before I left the house.  I could feel the dread and the unease, the tightness in my chest.  But part of dealing with these things is just trying to push through that shit and go about your business.  A few hundred yards from the front door is when it really hit.  Breathing starting to go ragged, heart beating faster, the world closing in around me despite walking in the fresh air on what might be the nicest day of the year so far.  Like I said though, you've got to keep going.  So I kept walking and as luck would have it, one of my favorite songs came on the iPod.  One of those songs that no matter what mood you're in it's going to lift you up, if only a little.  And it worked-- the beat, the rhythm, it gave me something to focus on until I was able to pull myself together.  By the time I'd reached the corner the exercise high had kicked in and I was almost normal again. 

At this point you might be wondering where the upside part comes in, because so far the experience sounds pretty crap.  Well it is, but this is how I see it.  Before I left I was planning on buying some beef sticks, chicken wings and brownies.  Once I'd had my little episode however, the thought of eating any of that stuff...no fucking way.  I walked out of there with a bottle of orange juice, fake vcgetarian ground "beef" and a bag of Sun Chips.  

And that negative reinforcement, as sick as it sounds, is the upside.  For every moment of near crippling hysteria I've suffered through over the past decade I've ended up doing something good to make up for it.  No liter bottles of soda (no soda at all actually).  No Soft Batch cookies every night.  A salad every once in awhile.  Eating out less.  Walking more.  Do I always stick to it?  Of course not; if I did I wouldn't have been thinking about getting brownies in the first place.  But even if it's only for a month or two at a time, I'm living better than I was, and eventually the changes become permanent and benefit me in the long run.  With any luck, I'll make it to an age where it's actually expected to be worried about dying.  Hopefully by then I'll have learned to accept it.  

Lesboriffic.

Found out a few days ago that the last girl to have the pleasure of my company (as in we knocked boots-- I'm subtle) is now batting for the other team and scissoring with this:

Honestly?  I don't blame her.  I mean I know we men have real working wangs and all but you have to admit, a body like that is hard to compete with.*  Question is, since these two got together after I had my turn, do I still get to say I had sex with this chick by association?  Because I'd really like to, it just feels a bit like cheating.  

(More pics:  1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

*There's a joke here about being hard and "competing" with myself, but I'm too classy for such lowbrow humor.

30 Helens Agree this is funny.

The Kids in the Hall are going to be in town at the end of the month and it pains me to no end that I'm not going to be able to see them live.    Especially with fantastic new ideas like this one.

Well that sucked.

This is the first post I've been able to write in over a week.  Thanks to Blogger's 'Possible Terms of Service Violation' system for giving me such a well deserved vacation after only two days and seven entries.  Good looking out, people.  Good looking out.  

Eh, whatever.  It's too early in the morning for righteous indignation.  Moving on.

  

"...The second single from Peter Gabriel's 1992 album, Us."

I was on a message board about a month ago and while I couldn't tell you the whole conversation note for note it went basically like this.

"That remake of [whatever it was] is going to suck."

"White people:  Ruining Asian film for over twenty years."

"American Godzilla = epic fail."

"Poor Matthew Broderick."

"Ferris Bueller was the bomb in Project X."

"Shock the Monkey!"

So of course I had to go find some Peter Gabriel.  I ended up downloading Hit, which is two discs: 'Hit' (guess what's on here) and 'Miss,' which is the stuff he did that either he or critics thought was super but nobody else gave a shit about.  Anyway, I'm listening to "Steam" now and I noticed for the first time it says it's the "radio edit."  At six minutes?  Jesus, really?  How long is the original cut then?  I'm calling bullshit.  Time to turn to the most authoritative voice on any subject.

And the truth shall set you free. 

(By the way, the video is a minute shorter.) 

FEAST/A place to unwind.

I keep a separate blog at another site.  It's under my real name, and people I know in real life read it.  So I often feel, and this is going to sound dumb but fuck it, 'obligated' to put my best foot forward.  Try to have a point, try to be clever, try to be entertaining.  Don't get into subjects that might be considered depressing unless there's going to be some sort of uplifting/humorous bent to it at the end.  Don't write about anything perverse or overly weird, no matter how into it I might be at the moment.  Basically the Reader's Digest version of my life.

Which is why this place is such a breath of fresh air.  I can post about any damn thing I want.  That chick on Big Brother with no brains but superbly enhanced tits?  Done.  My recent downloading binge of vintage 70's European porn?  We'll get to it.  That Snickers commercial I love where all the dudes sing "Greensleeves?"  Bam.

Complete and utter freedom to talk about meaningless bullshit for no other reason than I like to see myself type.  That is why I'm here, and I love it.  

Smile and nod.

On Tuesday a friend of mine will have her first book published, a collection of poetry.  Now as a rule I'm not a fan of poetry.  In fact I'd go so far as to say I hate the entire genre in general, but over the years there have been a few authors or pieces I've managed to come away appreciating.  (Plus, if you count Shakespeare as poetry, that dude was pretty on the ball.)  Unfortunately this is not the case with my friend.  I've tried my damnedest to enjoy her work on any and every level, and the most I can come away with is that it's usually well spaced and all the punctuation is correct.  I'm sure it's my natural aversion to anything that rhymes but lacks a beat for me to dance to, on the other hand I'd be curious to hear what someone who knows their iambic pentameter from their sonnets has to say about it.

Anyway, she's giving a reading at a local bookstore and has asked all her friends to attend.  I am proud of what she's accomplished-- getting published is a big deal-- and I do want to be there as her friend.  But not only is this going to be a lengthy reading, without going into detail it's also centered around a subject I'd just as soon not dwell on.  So the question I face now is, do I go, sit through what could well be a very uncomfortable time for me, then stand up and clap and hug her and tell her what a great job she's done?  Do I, in short, smile and nod?  

Yeah, probably.  Fuck I hate having a conscience.  

All kids out of the pool.

This is the opening theme song for the anime version of 'Death Note' that's airing on Adult Swim now.  

The full version of the song is here if you're into screaming and loud noises.  

I used to work in a video store right about the time anime was starting to get noticed and it always amazed me when parents would pick up something like Akira or Ninja Scroll with the intention of buying it for their kids, thinking it must be fine because it was a cartoon, even if the cover/back of the box did note the nudity and graphic violence contained therein.  Hell, my stepfather bought me Legend of the Overfiend when I was only 14.  (If you've never seen LotO, two words:  Tentacle rape.)  I wonder if that still goes on?  I mean something called 'Death Note' is bound to raise at least a couple of eyebrows, but even 'Naruto' and 'BLEACH' aren't really what you'd call tame and they seem to bring the youngin's running.  

My guess though is that for the most part (there'll always be exceptions), we've pretty much seen the last generation of kids who are going to get away with seeing naughty bits and exploding heads just because they happen to animated.  The people my age who are having children grew up with 'Batman: The Animated Series,' 'Ren & Stimpy,' 'Beavis & Butthead' and 'Aeon Flux.'  We've learned that animation isn't just for the 12 and under crowd anymore; it can be just as powerful a storytelling medium as regular film or television, and it can also be filled with nipples, fart jokes and shit blowing up.

But don't worry, youth of tomorrow.  You'll still have the internet to fulfill your desire for all the illicit forbidden things you're not supposed to know about yet.  Just think, in another twenty years you'll be able to tell your own kids how people used to think '2 Girls 1 Cup' was shocking.  Progress is awesome like that.  Sort of. 

"Saturday Night Lizzive"

They're repeating the Ellen Page/Wilco episode of SNL tonight. I could go into a whole other thing about how SNL does four weeks of shows after coming off a five month break and that's supposed to be a big deal but I won't. Anyway, first off: Fuck Wilco. I don't care how much Pitchfork or NME or whoever else wants to rim them and remind me of their indie cred, they're fucking boring.  

Speaking of indie cred, Ellen Page.  Ellen Page, Ellen Page, Ellen Page.  Oh how I adore thee, my little Canadian kitten.  I could totally understand how Jason Bateman would want want to commit adultery with you in Juno.  You were Kitty Pryde in the last X-Men movie, and I've always had a hard-on for that matter phasing Jewish princess.  Even in Hard Candy I thought you were hot.  Sure, I know you were playing a 14 year old, but I also know you were 19 at the time so it's cool.

But back to Juno for a minute.  Now I liked the movie, but part of it never felt real to me.  I'm not talking about the near complete absence of black people in Juno's high school-- I've only been to Minnesota once, but judging by my experience there I'm willing to buy into that concept-- no, what I'm talking about is the dialogue.  Do 16 year old girls living in what looks to be suburban Minnesota honestly say things like "I blog to differ?" Do they watch Dario Argento films and listen to Iggy and the Stooges?  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if there are any such girls, they are few and far, far between.   

I don't know.  Maybe I'm cynical.  Maybe with the advent of the internet and music and movies and hipster slang being only a click away, things are different from when I was sixteen and the sassy, independent girls only had Tori Amos or Nine Inch Nails to turn to for their sassy, independent needs.  Whatever the case, I could never quite believe that a character like Juno could truly exist.  She was simply too cool, hamburger phone and all.  

Or was that the point?  Is Juno supposed to be an alternative to the Miley Cyruses and Paris Hiltonettes of the world?  To show that in an age of La Lohans and Britneys there are still ladies bringing intelligence and humor to the table?  Because we already--

Hold on. Wilco's on again. Let me mute the TV.

Okay.

Because we already know that.  That's what Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman are for.  Maybe only Sarah Silverman from the neck down though.  She looks too much like her brother.  It's like watching a Bizarro version of Weekend at Bernie's where the hero has nice boobs and sings about fucking Matt Damon.

Point is, Ellen, if your role in Juno was in any way at all supposed to help usher in a new era of smart, hip, and funny young women in cinema, that's awesome and I hope it's a sign of things to come.  Having said that, I still hate you for dropping out of the new Sam Raimi film.  I don't care if Spider-Man 3 killed the franchise or not, that motherfucker directed Army of Darkness.  Hail to the king, bitch. 

She loves coffee, bikinis, and God. And acting like a slut.

I dig Big Brother.  At least I usually do.  That's why when I saw this season the houseguests were going to get paired up and play as teams I thought, "Cool, that's new.  That's different."  And at first it was awesome.  See, the other thing they did this season was get all these young studs and babes (and one old chick, but she was in Penthouse twenty years ago so you know, give her a pass) so of course that immediately led to girls getting naked and dudes getting up in each other's faces in macho pissing contests.  I was happy.  I was serene.  I was pissed because the camera operators are obviously gay and more often than not turning away when the chicks are stripping and focusing on a dude's abs.  But mostly the first two.  

Then something happened.  It got boring.  It got boring real fucking quick.  I was still tuning in but instead of watching it obsessively like I did last season it was just sort of on in the background while I did other stuff.  Even the After Dark stuff on Showtime wasn't really holding my attention.  Yeah, it's starting to get interesting again, now that the teams have split up, everyone's playing for themselves, and most of the dead weight's been dropped leaving only the stronger players.  But that's not really why I've kept with it as long as I have.  As boring as this season as been I've stuck with Big Brother 9 for two reasons.  See if you can guess what they are.

(Hint:  It's not her personality or warm smile.)

Yes.  Natalie, the "bikini barista" from Oregon.  I fucking love this bitch.  

Painter.  Aspiring actress.  Hooters Girl.  Model.  Cute.  Dumb as a box of hammers but smart enough to buy herself a pair of 34C's and constantly show them off much to me and my crotch's delight.  And of course, "good Christian."

"And lo, the young woman did fellate the cucumber.  And it was good."

That's in the King James version.

Okay, maybe not.  But check this out.

Clearly she is giving of herself unto others here.  I feel the spirit running through me even now.  It's centered in my pants.

Should you still doubt her commitment however, Natalie has proven she knows how to show true love and compassion to her fellow man, which she aptly demonstrated by blowing her partner before the second episode of the show even aired.

In all seriousness, CBS needs to give untold amounts of thanks and praise to this girl's choice of tight low-cut tops and slut-tastic attitude.  Natalie Curinal, I salute you.  Or at least I will once I have a free hand.

(Bonus:  Here's a huge directory of photos and caps from the show; should get updated until she gets evicted.)

I woke up at 5 PM today.

And said, "Okay.  Today's the day.  Let's do this shit."  

So here we go.