Who would steal an XBOX from a fraternity house on Christmas Day when no one is around?
Someone with a good plan and a lot of balls.
I don't know how to break the news to my roommate whos system it was. He's gonna hate me; I told him I'd watch it for him. Damn! If I ever find that XBOX thief, you can bet your ass I'll give him what for.
Maybe this is just my karma for stealing pumpkins.
I just got my final paper back from my Modern American Literature professor. I got an F.
These are my comments on said professor on TeacherReviews.com:
Dr. Red is very knowledgable in her field and is well-spoken, but her arrogance and self-importance often get in the way of her teaching. She is very inflexible and unreasonable about dealing with problems pertaining to class work and assignments, and is usually very insensitive about other's opinions, often ridiculing students for even having a differing one. In fact, she values her own opinions so highly that "class discussions" often become lectures with little regard for students' comments.In this course she based our grade on only three assignments: a notebook, the mid-term paper and the final paper. I think she may also have thrown some arbitrary "participation" grade in there, too. Too few assignments, too shady of a grading system. Take at your own risk.
The only thing worse than taking a final is taking two finals, on the same day, back-to-back, starting at 7:30am, when you stayed up the whole night studying. My head doesn't do statistics or speak Latin very well before noon. In fact, my head doesn't do anything well before noon.
Yesterday afternoon I and a few of my friends took some psychoactive mushrooms. The experience was very interesting.
It took about an hour after we ingested them (on peanut butter sandwiches) for them to start taking effect. At first, we were all just pretty tired. Then we started giggling and laughing at anything and everything. It became a little harder to control my movements: my legs were weak and my fine motor skills were all but gone. About a half hour after we started to feel the effects, I decided to do laundry. I needed help starting the washing machine.
About another half hour later, I could feel a difference in my sensations. Lights were different, brighter, moving; they seemed to come toward me. Everything I looked at seemed new and interesting. This is when I decided to pull my clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer. I stood next to the dryer for probably ten minutes listening to and feeling it hum. It was incredible, so smooth and cold and dead, but so full of energy and alive. I had to pry myself away and go tell the others.
Sometime during this, the others had started to watch "Malrats." I remember seeing the beginning, a few scenes from the middle, and parts of the end, but I don't remember an hour and a half elapsing. From the moment I came back from the dryer until several hours later, when the effects had worn off, I had no perception of time. I kept looking at my watch and I couldn't believe how so much or so little had elapsed since the last time I had looked at it.
Things became so profound. I remember saying, "Everything is the most profound thing I have ever said. Like that, that was the most profound thing I have ever said." Everything was interesting, and I couldn't believe how much I had missed seeing before. It had all always been there, but I just hadn't seen it. Everything was finally real and I could finally see it. Feelings of well-being washed over me in waves.
Then the colors started coming. Like the feelings of well-being, they would also come in and out like the tide. Objects would change from black and white to the most brilliant hues ever seen. Colors and patters that hadn't been there before appeared in the shadows. Light and dark became almost like physical objects, like I could have plucked a handful of light from the room.
I found myself in the living room watching "Lilo & Stitch" with two of my friends, while my other friend talked (to whom, I'm not sure) out of sight in the back room. I started to feel as though the living room was my conscious mind and the darkness in the back room was the depth of my subconscious. I could hear my friend talking back there, as if she was a part of my mind. To further confirm this, my other two friends seemed not to notice her, so I began to realize that she had never even existed. She was a voice in my head. When I told my friends this, they just laughed at me.
I started resent how profound everything was. Then I began to become paranoid that these effects would never wear off, that I was going to be stuck in the living room of my mind forever, but my friends assured me otherwise. I sat in a chair in the living room for probably the last hour of the trip, fearing my fate trapped in my head with all too profound thoughts and ideas. As the effects of the mushrooms wore off, the feelings of paranoia were replaced with feelings of sadness. I was sad that I might never have the insight -- the insight that I had just come to resent -- I had had just a few short hours ago.
About five hours after eating the peanut butter / mushroom sandwiches, the trip ended. I still felt tired and weak, and my joints were a bit stiff, but my perceptions were back to normal. I was still a little bit giggly for another half hour, and I felt cold. All the lights seemed washed out and bland.
All in all, it was an intensely bizarre but pleasurable experience. I wouldn't want to experience it again any time soon, but I wouldn't be opposed to doing it another time. Until then, DON'T DO DRUGS, KIDS.
For the next week, most of my posts will probably be whining, droning tripe about how Finals suck and how I hate them and how I don't want to take them and how I've lost so much sleep and how . . .
Well, you'll see.
There was nothing particularly striking about them except they were artist of the kind that talk. Everyone knows of the talking artists. Throughout all of the known history of the world they have gathered in rooms and talked. They talk of art and are passionately, almost feverishly, in earnest about it. They think it matters much more than it does.--Sherman Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
If a pretty young lady at a party comes up to you, pokes your pointy-spike labret, and tells you, "I wonder what it feels like to kiss someone that has a chin piercing," do not shrug your shoulders and then go into a three-minute dissertation about what it felt like to get it pierced; just kiss her. Kiss her, you fucking idiot. *sigh*
Last night I was elected "C" of my fraternity, which is basically the secretary. Great, now I actually have to pay attention during chapter meetings and learn parliamentary procedure to find out what "quorum" and "call to question" mean.
But really, having an executive position will probably be pretty cool. Maybe now I'll actually be informed about what's going on in this fine organization. Maybe.
In Star War, why is it that, on all the zany planets they traversed, out of all the crazy aliens and droids they encountered and the millions of creatures they came in contact with, there was still only one black dude in the whole fucking galaxy?
Yesterday, Nic-O-Bob Nuffins, Stellar's roommate, gave me a brilliant green Mountain Dew vest that I had been coveting ever since she brought it home from a thrift store two years ago. And last week, one of my friends, Country, bought me jacket that says Toastmaster on it from the Salvation Army. Thrift store clothing is the best!
So anyway, my fraternity's formal is this weekend, and the girl I asked said she doesn't have anything to wear. So, today we're going shopping to see if we can find some matching thrift store formal wear. If I could find a nice plaid green suit, I'd be in heaven.
Update: I just got back from the Salvation Army. . . with the coollest checkered suit jacket, green pants, and orange and blue crop-bottomed skinny tie. And better yet, she bought a skirt that matches my jacket! We are going to be the best-dressed (most obnoxious) people at the formal.
"So, what was wrong with people in the eighties? This isn't music. . . . It must be Reagan's fault."
--Jeff the cook, in reference to some crappy Flock-of-Seagulls-esque eighties song playing on the radio
The Day after Thanksgiving is a fine day to set off fireworks. Or so think the people that live in the apartments down the street.
Everyone is gone for Thanksgiving Break. Now, it's just me and Cody (Stellar's cat). I'm taking care of him for while Stellar and her roommate, Nic-O-Bob, are gone for the break.
Update: Cody and I have been chillin' most of the day, hanging out watching TV, and attacking my hand. Well, Cody attacks my hand, I attack his face with my hand.
He was kind of a spaz when I first visited this morning. He just kept running in an out of the living room, then when I fed him, he would take a couple bites and then come to me and purr and then go back. I think I'm going to spend the night with him, so he doesn't spaz out again tomorrow morning.
My fraternity's formal dance/dinner is coming up in less than two weeks. There's nothing more fun than getting dressed up and getting drunk.
I went to the Student Health Center today looking for someone to heal my aching swollen throat and they turned me away. Apparently even on "walk-in" days you have to have an appointment.
I would be all for nationalizing health care, like Canada, but I'm afraid that it would end up like the "health care" at my university: Less-skilled physicians and more patients clogging up the system (I've got a papercut; I'll go to the hospital. Because, hey, why not? It's free!).
Julian found a magic stone, but he did not realize it at the time because, of course, it looked just like any other stone. It was a small, flat, and smooth oval about half the size of Julian’s six-year-old fist, and had a black stripe down the middle on both sides, dividing the stone into two nearly equal hemispheres. After flipping it over in his hand several times closely inspecting it, Julian smiled and put the stone in his pocket, along with the other rocks he had found in the dried-up creek bed: the one shaped like a heart, the dark blue one, and the one that looked like a quarter made out of granite.
Somewhere deep in the woods, miles away from Julian, something stirred. The birds flew off from their perches high in the trees, some abandoning their nests. A rabbit froze for a moment and scurried off into the underbrush. Two squirrels stopped their chattering and fled. In a circle seven feet across worms struggled to evacuate the ground.
As if time had been sped up, the grass on this spot began to wither and turn brown. The ground dried up and turned dusty grey. A tree standing halfway inside the circle began to turn black from the trunk up. Its mid-summer green leaves quickly turned autumn red and brittle and fell off their branches.
Something evil was awake.
I've had a sore throat for the past few days, and it's really killing me today, so I think I'm finally going to call the Student Health Center.
I think the thing that hurts worse than the pain every time I speak, cough, swallow, yawn, and just sit there, is that it physically hurts to make a sarcastic comment.
Cameras flash like foghorns Signaling the approach of two photographers. They meet in the haze And take photos of amorphous human figures, Distant and barely visible in the translucent night. The two stand in the ambient fog together, Illuminated by nebulous lamp post light, Silently reveling in the “bad weather.”
Today was a bad day for tests. I took a Basic Stats test earlier today that I'm sure I failed, and I just got back an American Nat'l Gov't test that I nearly did fail. I hate Gen. Ed. classes. I should have taken all of them back when I actually cared about college . . . which was never.
Mom Finds Out About BlogRead whole article -->MINNEAPOLIS, MN—In a turn of events the 30-year-old characterized as "horrifying," Kevin Widmar announced Tuesday that his mother Lillian has discovered his weblog.
"Apparently, Mom typed [Widmar's employer] Dean Healthcare into Google along with my name and, lo and behold, PlanetKevin popped up," Widmar said. "I'm so fucked."
In those often awkward pre-adolescent years, young people do strange things when learning to cope with their developing bodies, increasingly independent minds, and the pressures of their social environment -- when they must quickly make the transition from child to youth. I am no exception.
I -- we -- regretted it almost before it happened. But when two young friends get it in their heads that they know somthing, something about being in love, something about being lonely, it is hard to change their minds. We pretended it didn't happen, smiling as we passed. But soon our relationship became just smiling and passing, and we eventually stopped talking. And then, it seemed as though she'd vanished from reality.
I've had loves. I've had losses. But I'll never forget my first kiss with my imaginary friend.
The Good Book serves to satisfy The snooping eyes Of the oft-uninvited deacons' wives Whose frequent persistence in visiting, To bring tidings and Tupperware Brim-full with cookies and gossip, Heralds more of here-say than heresy. On the table by the front door, Being begrudgingly displayed, The gargantuan tome is Left out to collect dust And impress visitors With visions of pious righteousness. A thin film of grey Coates the pages, Blending the black with the white, And even the red words of Jesus Fade.
"Excuse me, ma'am, may I please look in your purse?"
Elmira looked quizically at the young store clerk. "What? Why do you want to look in my purse?"
"Please, just step back here, ma'am, and hand me your purse," the store clerk gently but sternly insisted. He motioned with his hand and ushered the elderly woman back through the exit door.
"I don't understand this; what is going on?" Elmira asked.
Lowering his voice, the store clerk began, "Please, ma'am . . . ."
"No, don't try to placate me, young man, tell me what it is you want." Elmira's volume grew with her frustration.
The young man looked around and saw the other patrons beginning to glance curiously in his direction. The consternation on his face added twenty years to his youthful appearance. "Let's not make a scene, ma'am. I think there may just be a misunderstanding."
"Who's making a scene? You're making a scene, harassing an old woman," Elmira scolded. Then condescendingly she ordered, "Let me see your manager."
He nervously glanced around the store again and noticed several people staring. "I am the manager." You'd better be right about this, he thought to himself.
From : ciaran -sakuranoki@lineone.net-
To : "cynicalmcbastard@hotmail.com" -cynicalmcbastard@hotmail.com-
Subject : (no subject)
Date : Thu, 06 Nov 2003 03:04:50 +0000
You, my friend, are a complete and utter CUNT, so why don't you just fuck off.
If you'd rather see people die than have an "innocent animal" killed, I would like to see what decision you would make when put in a cage alone with a bear and a gun, or put on a desert island with no plants and only one rabbit.
Due to copious amounts of whining and an impressive disregard for rules, my fraternity decided to turn on the heat in the house. Not only that, but we replaced the "doors," the flimsy obstructions that once blocked the doorways into our residence with real doors that close all the way and lock! Now it's nice and nearly warm in our uninsulated home.
See, kids, what a negative attitude and liberal amounts of bitching and moaning can accomplish!
Pat Freestone cracks my shit up!
November 6, 2003As a highly advanced race, the Qzzv pride themselves on their understanding of all eighteen dimensions of the universe. They were very surprised to find that our civilization has attempted to create mathematical order out of complex concepts like time, space and gravity. I explained to them, as best I could, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the more recent String Theory. They just sort of stared at me, and telepathically suggested that we, as Earthlings, master the more basic concepts like Not Killing Each Other and Not Using the Ocean as a Fucking Toilet before we get to the complicated stuff like How Heavy the Sun Is.
In any case, the Qzzv took pity on me, and explained to me in very simple terms their mathematical formula that solves and explains everything. It is basically this:
a = b
What it comes down to, when you factor it down from the thousands and thousands of pages of calculations from which it is derived, is what we would call:
Same shit, different day.
There you go.
Pat Freestone
As the end of the semester draws ever nearer, I find myself in the library more and more, not because I am studying or writing papers, but because it's a lot warmer in the library than in my unheated house.
My fraternity is really poor (read miserly) and we like to save money any way we can. Several years ago one member came up with the idea to wait until after Thanksgiving break to turn on the heat in the fraternity house. The other brothers liked it so much that they made it a rule and inserted it into the by-laws. So now, despite what temperature it is, despite the apendages that fall off due to frost-bite, we don't turn on the heat until December. This is going to be a long winter.
Machine Name: PL308013
Serial #: D4WFM11
Truman Tag #: N/A
PC MOdel: Dell Optiplex GX240
[hand-written in pen]
WINNERS GET THEIR HEADS CHOPPED OFF BY NINJA-COMPUTER
When something so distracting hits the eye And scoops the mind up off from its soft perch, And with the thoughts in tow it soars the sky Then descends the atmosphere and sweeps the earth; When something so exciting takes the breath Out from the lungs and stops the beating heart So teasing life with short glimpses of death And no apologies does it impart; When nothing so does happen to my being It leaves me with an emptiness inside. Like eager eyes forced to go unseeing Once opened, from the sunlight they would hide. It’s dangerous to live, but even though I fear my death, I long for something so.
In his latest novel, The Last Line of Defense, author Tom Clancy breaks free from his usual action-adventure genre and finds himself writing a grotesque attempt at a love story. Try as he might, a romantic writer – let alone a Harlequin novelist – Mr. Clancy is not. Just as competent as Clancy is at relating an action-packed escapade reveling in every nuance of war, espionage, and international intrigue, so is he incompetent at successfully writing a romantic love affair.
The novel follows Jack Ryan, Clancy’s favorite recurring character, as the young man attends Georgetown University. While getting an education that would one day lead him to serve our government and even eventually lead it, Ryan experiences the hardships and heartaches that come with pursuing the opposite sex. The novel chronicles his one-night-stands, sexual flings, and many other romantic romps in post-adolescence, but in true Clancy style, there is plenty of heart-pumping action along the way.
It just hit me today: With his goofy demeanor, lame puns, and childish humor, my step-dad would make a pretty good grandfather.
The only thing that sucks more than Gertrude Stein is wacked-out avant-garde freakos in weird costumes doing interpretive dance to a narrator with a voice synthesizer singing a short play written by Gertrude Stein.
You know you're a dork when you've got the song stuck in your head from Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope when Luke and Obi-wan go into the cantina on Tatooine. (Also, you know you're a dork when you refer to every Star Wars movie by it's full and complete title.)
No more papers. No more tests. No more missed classes. No more floats. No more parties. No more drama. No more Homecoming.
I am sleeping through this entire week.
Here are the totals for this weekend:
Friday:
hours spent in a car: 4
Smashing Pumpkin songs listened to: 30
Simpson's quotes spoken: incalculable
legal limit of alcohol percentage in Kansas wine coolers: 3.9%
legal limit of alcohol percentage in Kansas beer: 3.2%
beers smuggled over state line: 114
Saturday:
hangovers: 1
weddings attended: 1
inappropriate thoughts while in church during wedding: more than 10
trips to bar at reception: 5
bad eighties songs danced to: well over 15
cigarettes smoked: 13
shots taken: 1
times vomiting: 2
Sunday:
hangovers: 1
beers left over: 12
hours slept on trip back: 3
As it turns out, in addition to being a bad dancer, a bad student, a bad writer, a bad Christian, a bad friend, and a bad son, I'm also a bad waiter.
Who knew?
Turn and die, leaves, fully confident that your reincarnation will come next Spring, only to die again in Autumn. Like one thousand tiny green Jesi resurrecting themselves to dangle off the tree, once more they come. For whom do you die so many times?
It's my Creative Writing class. I promise, after this semester I'll stop writing so many lame poems.
When her snow soft lips would winter sweet nothings (in my ear) her December cinder soothe under wool would fire flesh, making my Autumn heart smile from my chest.
Both my pockets have holes in the bottom -- drainage for loose change -- that are big enough to stick my finger through. This makes them only useful to protect my hands against the biting September air.
behind the bed under in on the shaggerous shadow of a tiger waits watches while the tivelless child plays content smiles laughs until unexpected exploding from the dark claws scrape walls pillows sheets teeth wrend hair fingers limbs the cody monster with ruthless fangarity crushes devours its idontic prey
I used to play with the towel-head and the chink from down the street. Jerry didn’t really wear a towel-on his head, but that’s what he was. I think he said his family was from Pakistan or something. And Sing-song – that was as close as we could come to pronouncing his name – even though his parents were from Korea he didn’t talk funny at all. He talked really good for a chink. In fact, if you talked to him on the phone you might have thought he was a regular person. Both Jerry and Sing-song talked just as good as anybody else.
So, I always used to hang out with them – ride our bikes and pick on the younger kids mostly – because they were the only guys the same age as me on my block. Well, Sing-song and me were the same age, Jerry was a grade above us in school, but besides us, the only other guy on the block was Thomas, the retarded kid.
Sometimes we used to wait at the bus stop until Thomas got off the short bus and we’d pick on him for a while. We weren’t really that mean or nothing; we didn’t hurt him. We’d just ask him dumb questions and he didn’t know no better, so he’d always answer them funny and we’d all get a big kick out of it. Even Thomas most times. I think in his head we were all best friends, which I guess was kind of true, seeing as we were the only people that talked to him, besides his family. After we were done picking on Thomas every day, we’d always take him home, mostly so Jerry could see if Claire was home.
"And that's what smoking is. It's twenty little conversation-starters in a box."
--Jay
"In the end, if I had to choose between a girl with nice face and mediocre body or a girl with a mediocre face but nice body, I'd have to prioritize the face. Butts get big, boobs sag, but you'll always have that pretty face to look at."
One of my favorite blogs, Escribitionist, is no more.
Let's all have a moment of silence in memory of its author, Jane Irony Doe.
Goodbye, Jane. I'll miss you.
I'm waging war with a pimple the size of Minneapolis on my chin. I'm sad to say that it's winning.
Interview of StellarMel:
1. Who is the most influential person in your life?
2. If you could live in any city in the world, where would you live?
3. What one thing do you find most attractive about the opposite sex?
4. What is the most devious thing you've ever done?
5. What is your quest? your favorite color? the airspeed velocity of a laden swallow?
Please, white-guys-with-cornrows, just stop it already. What's next, do-wrags?
Interview of Miss Madness:
1. What is your favorite season of the year and why?
2. When and why was the last time you cried?
3. What is your favorite guilty pleasure?
4. Describe the attributes your ideal soulmate must possess.
5. What are your worst vice and best asset?
First things first, here are the rules of the Interview Game:
1. Leave a comment or send me an email, saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
3. You'll update your website with my five questions, and your five answers.
4. You'll include this explanation.
5. You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.
Gimmy of Gimcracker asked me the following five questions:
1. What do you love most about women?
I enjoy how most of them can make a big deal about even the most trivial of things. It brings excitement into my usually boring life.
2. Describe your worst habits.
I have a bad habit of looking at the ground when I'm talking to people I don't know very well, and boy do I slouch. Also, I'm not sure if this is a "bad habit," but people tell me I don't smile enough.
3. What's the best moment you've ever experienced?
It's funny how, when I'm trying to think of all the best moments I've experienced, only the worst ones come to mind. I guess that's why I'm "cynical" McBastard, huh?
4. Boxers or briefs?
Actually, both. A couple years ago I started wearing boxer-briefs, and I've never gone back. I used to wear briefs, but I thought they were too constricting. And boxers, well, I felt like I might as well have been free-balling. The genious of boxer-briefs is the marriage of the comfort and freedom of boxers with the support of tightie-whities. It's so simple, it makes me wonder why they didn't come up with them hundreds of years ago. Did people even wear underwear hundreds of years ago?
5. Describe a technological innovation you hope will be commonplace in 30 years.
I would like to see Aritificial Intelligence developed to the point where computers could actually think and learn for themselves. That or a George Foreman Grill that not only cooks your burgers and warms the buns, but does your taxes while you wait.
Blogger is harder to operate when intoxicated.
Where did they go?
Foreign oblivious.
It's like a poem.
Talking on the stairs.
"You can't see all my piercings"
Secrets, secrtes are no fun . . .
Lonely, in all the wrong places.
The best things in life are out of reach.
Barefoot
One last thing.
I just kinda left.
For Tom's birthday last night, I helped get him piss-ass drunk.
Too bad it was me who threw up instead of him.
From : roman obadilla
Dear Sir,
I am the confidant of the ex-president of the philippines (Mr.Estrada) who was removed from power as you may know. He has secretly in formed me to contact you and to liance with you to invest the sum of $12M (Twelve million dollars) which he deposited in a bank during his tenure.
Now the proceedures are that you will be given the contact of the bank as soon as you show your intrest so that you will contact them to open an account online where the money will be transfered into from his account since he can not come out in the open to use this money. After you open this account I will order the bank in a written form to transfer the money into your own account after which you can then transfer it to some other account in your place for sharing. Upon request by you I can send to you the certificate of deposit of this amount for your assurance.
We are willing to conceed up to 25% of the total sum to you for all the anticipated help from you hoping that it will cover all your expenditures before and after the transaction. However, we will desire that you will help us invest our share till we will be free to meet you up in your country for futher talks, Please if this proposal is Ok by you, please write me back via this address so that i can give you the details and the bank informations.(romanobadilla@post.cz).And please if you are not interested kindly write back so that i can contact another person.
Thanks.
Regards.
Roman Obadilla.
To : roman_obadilla@x-mail.net, UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS@.SYNTAX-ERROR.
Subject : FROM
Date : Thu, 28 Aug 2003 06:51:02 -0800
This week was the first week of classes. I'm really excited about my Creative Writing class, but the rest of my schedule looks blah.
I've got two gen. ed. classes -- Basic Stats (for the second time) and American National Government -- that I absolutely don't want to take, but I've been putting off taking all my gen. ed. classes for the past two years now, so I figure I had better get them out of the way.
I know I'm going to have a hard time with Intermediate Latin. I seem to have literally forgotten nearly everthing I learned about Latin in the past two semesters over the summer. God, help me.
I've also got Modern American Literature which doesn't seem so bad, but the professor acts like kind of a bitch and I've heard some bad things about her.
I haven't really been post much lately because lightening struck behind my fraternity house last week and killed our modem, so I've been having to go to the library to access the intarweb. And I try to avoid the library at all costs, lest I break down and actaully start studying. So, in case you've been wondering what I've been up to in the past week and why I haven't posted, there's the scoop.
Last week was "Freshmen Week." During Freshmen Week the freshmen move into their dorm rooms, get acquainted with the campus, and ease themselves into the college lifestyle; and the upperclassmen throw parties every night of the week, get completely obliterated, and celebrate the end of the summer / mourn the oncoming schoolyear.
I'm glad Freshmen Week only comes once a year, because I don't think I could take more than one solid week of being drunk.
I just got my labret pierced twenty minutes ago. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. It was just a little sting for a second or two and then it was over. But what hurts more is that it's so hot that sweat is running down my face into my newly opened lip-hole.
Ouch!
I finally got settled in to my room and got my computer set up. I put all my clothes away, organized my desk, and made my bed, which is probably the last time any of this is going to happen for the rest of the year.
I'm moving out tomorrow. I'm not really sad about it this time -- as opposed to the past few times I've moved out. I hope this time is for good. Not that I hate my parents and can't stand living with them, I just feel bad every time I mooch off of them.
Speaking of mooching, my parents are helping me pay for fixing my car. Those wonderful miracle-working mechanics pulled the Spirit out of it's coma, and it is now running as good as it was before. Hooray!
Stellar and Leon, thank you for your prayers.
I watched the movies Valentine and House of 1000 Corpses today. I not a real big fan of the slasher flicks in general, and these two movies are great examples of why.
Valentine is a story about a group of friends haunted by an incident, as well as a person, from their past that ends up murdering most of them and a bunch of other innocent people in the meantime. (Plot courtesy of I Know What You Did Last Summer.) And like any other slasher film, the audience is supposed to try and figure out who the masked and mysterious murderer is before he/she kills the entire cast, being misdirected the whole time by accusations and assumptions from every character about who they think the killer is.
This film, though, is unique (at least to my knowledge) in that it has a double-twist at the end. You see, once the main character has determined who the killer is (so you know that person can't actually be the killer), the 'twist' happens: the killer is finally vanquished by the thought-to-be-killer and is shown to be, via a very suspenseful mask off-ripping scene (Device courtesy of Scooby Doo, Where Are You?.), one of the group of friends!
Da-da-dun!
But, Valentine doesn't stop there. No, it adds a second twist in which the person who the main character thought was the killer (now hold on to your buckets) actually is the killer!
Da-da-dun!
I can't wait until a slasher movie comes out that has the incredible triple twist in which the thought-to-be-killer kills the killer, but then turns out to be the killer himself, but when he pulls off the mask he finds that he's killed the main character who was, in fact, himself!
DA-DA-DUN!
As for House of 1000 Corpses, Rob Zombie needs to stick to making mediocre music instead of really bad movies. The plot: a group of friends (gee, there's a lot of them in horror movies) that gets held hostage in a creepy house by a freakin' weird-ass family (Story courtesy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.) I use the term plot loosely here, because, try as I may, I just couldn't find one.
While House of 1000 Corpses was basically plotless, it did at least have a unique style that appealed to me. However, that wasn't enough to save this movie. I also use the term movie loosely. This was more like a series of random scenes about torture methods (granted, with the same characters in most scenes) than a movie about anything in particular. It had stunning (and appalling) visuals, but shiney and shimmering (or in this case, bloody and gruesome) objects won't distract me from a poor story.
The actors did great (except the two girls who, for most of the movie, I couldn't tell apart) despite a poorly written script. It had uninteresting characters (except for the funny but seemingly unnecessary Captain Spaulding) that lacked motivation. Yeah, sure, the main characters were scared and the villains were creepy, but if I don't know why they do what they do, then I'm sure as hell not going to care what they do.
Overall, my faith in the slasher film genre was not restored by either of these two movies. Fortunately, though, it hasn't deminished either.
My car is in a coma. It's in critical condition and may not pull through. It is leaking oil and the engine will turn over, but the gears won't catch. My dad found a hole somewhere in the undercarriage, and his diagnosis is good. He says that a small plate just needs to be taken off, patched, and welded, and the car will be as good as new.
Despite this, I'm prepared for the worst (Murphy's Law rocks!). Please, keep my car in your prayers -- unless you pray to Satan.
Do you know what I think could solve a lot of problems in this country? Problems like welfare costs, over-crowded prisons, and unemployment. Slavery.
No, hear me out on this. I think slavery could really work in the 21st century, with the right legislation, of course. Hell, civil and animal rights laws already cover half of it as it is, all you'd need is a couple more to regulate the fine details of slavery. Laws such as one preventing children from being slaves and laws preventing slave owners from making their slaves work without certain amounts of food and rest.
What? Slavery was outlawed with the Emancipation Proclamation? Ah, that flimsy, hundred-year-old document would never hold up in a modern court. Slavery is against the Constitution? Since when have Americans been governed by that useless piece of crap. "Freedom of speech . . . ." Dont' make me laugh. If history has taught me anything it's that Americans can make any damn silly law they feel like at the time, and then later make another damn silly law to repeal the first one. I think slavery falls under this catagory.
But why and how would anyone become a slave? Well, you've heard of welfare, right? Let's do away with it and make everyone who can't (or won't, in some cases) get a job a slave. If they find a job later, then they can appeal their slave status and go back to being a full citizen. If not, then they stay a slave, and instead of not working and living off the government, they would work and live off of some slave owner.
Another way a person would become a slave is through the judicial system. No more would judges have to condemn someone to life inprison or death row. Instead they could condemn them into life-long slavery. Cruel and unusual punishment? Ha! I'd take slavery over prison any day. As a slave I would be free to do as I please (as long as I've finished the work my owner set out for me) and there would be a whole lot less people around that would want to bum-rape me.
I'm sure there are many more applications for slavery. And I'm sure if the word "slavery" didn't have such a negative connotation on it, this plan to solve our country's problems could probably be taken seriously.
Speaking of problems, do you want to hear my solution to prevent World War III?
Of the few compliments on my appearance that I've received in my life, I would say that the majority of them come from elderly women that come through my check-out lane. You're the best looking checker they've had in a while and You're a handsome young man are the type of things I hear from horny old ladies that want to jump my bone.
I don't think I could ever bring myself to have a sexual relationship with a geriatric, which could really put a damper on my career if I ever want to realistically do it. There's just something about kissing those old, wrinkly lips (and I'm not just talking about her mouth) that would probably scar me for life. And knowing that "Let me slip into something a little more comfortable" meant that she was changing into a clean diaper would just be too much.
Sorry, ladies, if you were sixty years younger I'd consider making out with you. As it is now, I'll just let you give me a blow-job. But take your dentures out first.
McDonald's doesn't give out those little cups of honey anymore. I asked for it at the drive-thru, and they said they "discontinued" it. How can you fucking discontinue honey?
Now what am I supposed to dip my McNuggets into? Barbeque Sauce? How barbaric!
"What kind of woman would attempt to seduce an independently wealthy man via e-mail, lure him to her apartment, and then discreetly poison his drinks with sedatives and erectile enhancers, allowing her to attempt to impregnate herself by him without his knowledge or consent? What kind of woman, I ask?--Pat FreestoneI’ll tell you what kind. A real go-getter.
I think I’m falling in love all over again."
INT. THE WAITING ROOM
A small, sparsely-furnished room with no door. MAN, INEZ, and ESTELLE examine their surroundings and try to determine where there are and how they got there.
MAN
Whoa! This is so weird!
What!
Oh man. I just realized: this is just like that play!
What play?
You know, that play with the guy and the two ladies stuck in a room and they’re all fighting. It’s by a french guy.
French Stewart?
No, it’s a french name.
The name of the play or the name of the guy?
The French Connection?
No, I’m talking about the guy.
Casa Blanca!
That’s spanish, you moron, not french.
There are fat girls, and there are skinny girls. There are fat girls that think they're skinny, and there are skinny girls that think they're fat. There are tall and skinny model-looking girls. There are tall and fat football-player-looking girls. There are short and skinny waif girls. There are short and fat oompa-loompa girls. There are girls that are skinny-topped and fat-bottomed ("Fat-bottom girls, you make the rockin' world go 'round." -- Queen).
But perhaps the most perplexing girl body type is the fat-topped girls with skinny bottoms. How is it possible? It seems that gravity would dictate that all the fat stored in the upper body would slowly migrate down into her chicken legs, and so be evenly distributed all over her body. But no, she goes right on defying Newton's favorite law and walks around looking like an pear held up by two toothpicks.
My new favorite movie is Adaptation. I really enjoy ironic humor, and Adaptation is chalk-full of it. I laughed some during the movie, but I think I've laughed more since I've watched it and have realized some of the more ironic things that happened/were said.
I think my favorite instance of this is when Donald is telling Charlie about his script with the guy with cop/serial-killer/victim split-personalities. Charlie angrilly tells Donald that "the only idea more overused than serial killers, is multiple personality. On top of that you explore the notion that cop and criminal are really two aspects of the same person. See every cop movie ever made for other examples of this." Thinking about this later made me laugh because, really, what is Donald if not Charlie's alter ego?
I would like to be able to write like this, like Charlie Kaufman. Right now, all the humor in my writing seems to be either sophomoric or overly sarcastic. I guess it's just something I'll have to work on. Thank you, Mr. Kaufman, for inspiring me.
My little hometown that sits smack-dab in the center of the midwest, one thousand miles from anywhere important, is actually famous for something.
Today at work when I was in the restroom pinching a loaf during my break, I started to read the graffiti on the stall walls. There was the usual phrases: Fuck you, I suck dick, _ _ _ is a whore,etc., and then there was one that kind of stood out. Right in front of me, etched into the stall door, was Jesus saves.
Christian graffiti is uncommon, but if you take enough craps in public restrooms, you'll see some. And believe me, I've taken enough craps. So, it wasn't the fact that it was religious in nature, among all the other filthy language, that made Jesus saves stand out. It was the thought that occured to me when I read it.
Under normal circumstances I would not vandalize other's property, so I had to convince myself that these were not normal circumstances. What I was about to inscribe upon this restroom stall door was not just another graffito utilizing a curse word in some not-so-clever anti-homosexual phrase, nor was it some infantile poem detailing the writer's bout with constapation, ending in the line "But only farted." (You know the one.) No, what I was about to write was far more intelligent, far more poetic. I couldn't just keep this all to myself; I had to share it with the whole world. Yes, what I was about to write was art! And this door was my canvas.
As I washed my hands, a wry smile spread across my face. I looked in the mirror at the stall I had just exited. The stall door slowly swung close, the canvas still wet from the artitst's pen strokes. It read:
Jesus saves
up to 15%
with GEICO
I just finished watching 8MM. It is an excellent film depicting the gritty underworld of S & M pornography. What makes it so great is the way it shows how (but not always why) regular people can do "evil" things, and how an ordinary man is only two steps away from being a killer. You dance with the Devil, the Devil don't change. The Devil changes you.
People, even "evil people," are still human beings. There are no monsters. The only reason we make them out as such is becuase to admit that we are the same as "evil people" would be to acknowledge that there is a monster caged inside everyone of us, yearning to be released. And we don't want to taunt a caged beast, do we?
I added a section called Sites of some of favorite places on the internet. I also finally updated my Blogs section to contain all the blogs that I peruse on a regular basis.
I never noticed it before, but in my Favorites folder I have nearly twice as many blogs by female bloggers as I do blogs by my gender (10 to 6). It got me wondering: Is this just me, or is this ratio indicative of the whole internet blogging community? It wouldn't be unfathomable to believe that there are twice as many female bloggers as male bloggers. I mean, keeping a diary or a journal of one's day-to-day activities is usually thought of as a feminine past-time, but you still see some men doing it. So, is this the reason why there appears to be more female than male bloggers?
Or is the real answer that are nearly equal amounts of male and female bloggers, but females, on average, just have better, more interesting content?
Or are neither of these true, the real answer being that out of the small slice of the internet that I have viewed, I just happen to have by chance run across twice as many interesting female bloggers than male bloggers?
Someone should do a study.
Guy1. D'you know what the longest word in the dictionary is?
Guy2. Is this a joke?
Guy1. No, I'm asking you. Do you know?
Guy2. No, what?
Guy1. "Antidisestablishmentarianist."
Guy2. Oh. (pause) Is it hyphenated?
Guy1. I don't think so. Why?
Guy2. I don't think it would count as the longest if it was hyphenated.
Guy1. Well, I don't think it is.
Guy2. What does it mean?
Guy1. I think it is someone who is against the downfall of a society. "Anti" "disestablishment."
Guy2. Oh. (pause) Wouldn't it just be easier to say "proestablishmentarianist?" Someone who is for the "establishment?"
Guy1. (thinking) Yeah, I guess so. But it wouldn't be as long of a word that way.
Guy2. Oh. Good point.
I was minding my own business when I heard one of the dogs whining and yelping in terror. I rushed to the garage to find Ish, the pug, running around with a fly trap stuck to her head. In the process of ripping it off of her, I got sticky fly trap goo all over my hands (and inexplicably on the back of my right leg). When my mom got home, I had to hold the dog while she shaved the sticky fur off. And after that it took me an hour of scrubbing with paint-thinner and soap with pumice to get the stickiness off of me.
It's official. I officially hate fly traps. O - fficially!
See How They Run is over. Promptly following yesterday afternoon's matinee performance, we (the cast) promptly struck the set and cleaned the stage. I give congratulations and thanks to the cast, crew, and director. It was definitely the best show I've ever worked in or on, and my best perfomance yet, if I do say so myself.
I think the depression is already starting to set in. If you've ever been in a play before, you'll probably know what I mean. It's the same sort of thing that a mother feels after she's carried her child inside of her for nine long months, and then it finally comes out of her. She's left feeling empty. Postpartum depression, I think they call it.
Anyway, it's sorta like that. After pretending to be someone else (and in some cases, actually becoming someone else) for so long, it's hard to just let go of that person. They've been inside you for weeks and weeks as you rehearse the play -- so long that they've become a part of you. They've affected the way you walk, the way you talk, and even the way you think, if only for the several of hours you spend at rehearsal each week.
But if you're like me, and I'm pretty sure most people are, your character isn't just developing inside you during rehearsals. He's growing every time you read your script. He's growing every time you practice a gesture, a fall, a turn, or a look. He's growing every time you're in a conversation and you respond with a line from the play -- his words coming out of your mouth. He's growing and growing and growing and growing, until he's so big that both of you can't occupy the same body any more.
The contractions begin and you're rushed to a stage, dressed in your maternity constume, and wheeled onto the set where a hundred, maybe even a thousand, eager father's expectantly await their child's arrival into this world. You pant and sputter and groan and scream until finally the character comes out of you and into the open arms of their father, who immediately checks for all ten fingers and toes, and ultimately, deems the child perfect despite the occasional unsightly birthmark, dropped line, or late entrance. And there it is, a new life is born.
The father welcomes their child into world with applause. And as you bow, you resent the father. Where was he when you were fat and ugly and there were lines memorize and blocking to learn? Where was he when you were eating pickles dipped in double fucge icecream and screwing together wobbly set pieces? Where was he during this whole process? He hasn't done any work; this is your child, and yours alone! Then the realization sets in that without the applause, without the wide-eyed excitement and laughter, without the energy radiating from every audience member in the house, this character could not have been born.
And then the curtain falls, the audience leaves, the lights go out. It's over. You can no longer feel the character kicking inside you and you feel like an empty, useless husk. You change back into your regular clothes, get in your car, and drive home in silence.
I apologize for my extended, two-week absence. If you feel that an explanation is in order, here it is:
When I awoke on Saturday, July 7th, my mother explained to me that my computer was inexplicably* ill. As I had to be at work that day, I couldn't spend time trying to diagnose the problem. When I finally got time to examine my computer on Sunday, I could not, for the life of me, figure out what was wrong with it. Windows XP was just going crazy-go-nuts, and nothing was working properly.
Then last week was the final week of rehearsals before the opening night of the show I'm in, See How They Run. (More about that later.) So, the entire week, I was either at play rehearsal, at work, or sleeping. I didn't have time to look at my poor little computer. But after the show last Sunday, I knew that I would never have another opportunity to fix it until next week, as the show is running this weekend as well.
So, I sat down and fiddled with it, but ulitimately I decided that the cure for my sick little Sony was a system recovery. I did my best to back up my important files (scripts, stories, poetry, bank book, favorite illegally downloaded songs) and started from scratch.
So, today when I didn't have to work or go to rehearsal, I thought about my blog and remembered how I've neglected it over the past two weeks. I hope my lack of posts hasn't turned away any readers, (Ha ha, McBastard, funny joke! You know you don't have any readers.) so I just thought I'd write a little something to let all of you know that I'm not dead, and to apologize in advance that I will not be able to post again until next week after the play is done.
Until then, I'll be missing you.
*I actually do have an explanation for this occurance, but unfortunately no hard evidence. You see, my mother had been using my computer for the past week because hers had "inexplicably" crapped out. So, when mine did the same, I became a little suspicious of her. I mean, only so many computers can die at your hands before people catch on to you. I don't know what she did or how she did it, but I'll always be a little wary of my mother when she's around my computer from now on.
There is a woman that works with me. She is possibly one of the most annoying people I've ever met. She talks loudly, she likes to interrupt people, and she has a god-awful annoying laugh. But the thing that bugs me the most about her is her New Jersey accent. How a woman from New Jersey ended up in rural Missouri, I'll never know (literally, because I don't think I could stand to listen to her try and explain it to me). But now I know why New Jersey and Missouri are separated by a thousand miles.
At work today I had to man the outside register and watch the clearance merchandise that the store puts on the sidewalk. Since the register's battery died, I basically just had to stand out in the afternoon heat for three hours, making sure that no one made off with a truck-load of discount clothes. While standing there, a truck rolled up to right in front of the doors and the tinted windows rolled down. The driver beckoned to me and I looked inside.
The driver was a fat old man. And by fat, I don't mean that he was slightly overweight. He was obscenely, grossly fat. So fat, in fact, that I'm not sure how he could turn his steering wheel because his belly was mashed up against the bottom half of it.
The fat man asked me to run in the store for him and buy him a gallow of 2% milk (Why not Whole milk, are you trying to be healthy, mister?) and bring it out to him. I assumed he had to have someone else do it because he was either too tightly wedged in his car, or so obese that walking would break his knees. I begrudgingly agreed to do it -- knowing that by walking the twenty feet to the milk cooler, another ten feet to the register, and back to his truck myself was depriving him of the only exercise that he would have gotten that whole week -- took the money he handed me, and walked into the store.
Now, all that's not so bad, I guess. Fat people are people, too; some can help it, some can't. So, I tried my best not to pass judgement on this hefty soul. But after I'd bought the milk, put it and his change in a sack, and gone back to his truck is about when I threw all that "don't judge him" crap out the window.
When I handed him the sack he asked me how much the milk had cost. I told him the approximate amount. He asked me the exact amount. I told him that his receipt was in the sack, and I was about to add that his change was with it, but he cut me off and rudely accused me of taking his change. His change was a matter of pennies. If he had told me to "keep the change" as a tip, I would have been offended. Even if I had taken his change, there was no reason to get as upset as he did about a few pennies.
As I've learned in the past, the best things to do while dealing with stupid customers is to shut my mouth. Saying to such customers what I actually want to say has gotten me in a little bit of trouble in the past. So, I just turned and walked away from the fat man in the truck.
So, I wrote all that so I could finally say this: You stupid, fat fuck! I just saved you from an activity so strenuous it most surely would have given you a heart-attack, and now you want to bicker with me?! I hope you choke on your 2% milk and it froths up in your mouth like cream in a cappuccino maker and you drown! Fuck you!
Thanks for listening.
I hate the movie "Step-Mom," not only because it's a horrible movie and I'm afraid of Julia Robert's mouth (It's so cavernous and scary -- don't even get me started!), but also because every time I hear the title, I'm reminded of how much I despise my own step-mother.
I just saw a snippet on E! Network of an interview with Paris and Nicky Hilton in which they stated that just because they are blonde, it doesn't make them dumb.
I've decided on a career path:
I am currently "job-hunting," looking for powerful and rich women. Preferably, young and hot. But if they're young and hot, why would they want to marry me?
Hm, I guess to make it more believable, this hot, young, rich woman should be a parapalegic, giving her a kind of desparation in knowing that I may be the only man that could ever lover her, the only man that could see past her debilitating condition and see the real woman inside, or some crap like that.
She should also be deaf, so she won't hear all the moronic things I say.
And blind, for good measure.
Now we're talking! Anyone know any hot, young, rich, deaf, blind, and paralized-from-the-neck-down ladies on the market?
It’s been a week now, and my attempts at growing a moustache have been completely unsuccessful. Damn my lack of sufficient testosterone levels!
Actually, it wasn’t a complete failure. I mean, I have a moustache, of sorts. It’s not the complete, bushy caterpillar that I was going for, but it is a moustache. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like an inverse Hitler ‘stache; instead of trimmed to be only right under the nose, under the nose is the only place it didn’t really grow, leaving two out of place patches of hair above my lip on either side of my mouth. If I were to grow them out to about a foot long, braid them, and dye them grey, I would look like a wise old Chinese monk (sans the oriental facial features). Hey, that gives me an idea!
MAN. Who?
DEATH. The Angel of Death. He thinks he's hot shit because he’s got the title "Angel." Yeah sure, he gets to do the big stuff, but who's taken more lives over the course of history? Me. He does these big, sweeping, dramatic genocides every couple hundred years or so, but I'm the guy who works every day and every night, escorting the average Joe Blow into the Great Beyond. (To ANGEL of Death) Hey, what's up, Angel?
ANGEL. Hey, Reaps, how's it going?
DEATH. (To MAN) I hate it when he calls me that. (To ANGEL) So, got any big decimations coming up?
ANGEL. Yeah, actually I’ve got one coming up in about (looks at watch) forty or fifty years.
DEATH. Oh yeah?
ANGEL. Yeah, it's gonna be real big, too. I'm pulling out the Fire and Brimstone. It'll be like Sodom and Gomorrah all over again.
DEATH. (To MAN) Oh, here he goes. Once he gets started on Sodom and Gomorrah, he never stops.
ANGEL. Oh man, I'm really gonna have to rain down God's Wrath this time, literally. The work order calls for a flood immediately followed by "fire pouring down from the heavens." (Whispering) But between you and me, I think I'm just going to use some meteors. On fire, of course. That ought to be good enough for You-Know-Who. Man, I tell ya, That Guy calls for some weird stuff sometimes. I mean, come on! A flood and a rain of fire? Is that really necessary? But I just stopped questioning the Big Guy after He asked me to kill everyone in Egypt that didn't have their door painted with blood. Sometimes it's hard working directly the Man, Himself. But then again, it's hard work just being the Angel of Death.
DEATH. Hard work? When was the last time you had a job? The Bubonic Plague?
ANGEL. Yeah, and my shoulders are still sore from that one. Killing one third of the population of an entire continent is murder on your joints!
DEATH. Europe is the smallest continent!
ANGEL. By land mass. But it’s third smallest by population after Australia and Antarctica.
DEATH. (To MAN) Didn’t I tell you he was full of himself?
ANGEL. Do I detect some bitterness here? What is all this animosity directed towards me?
DEATH. You walk around here like you're so important when in reality you sit around on your ass for centuries at a time, only to get up for the occasional mass smiting, while I'm working day in and day out ripping souls from their bodies with this stupid thing (holding up scythe).
ANGEL. I think you're jealous.
DEATH. What?
ANGEL. I think you're jealous because I wield a great amount of power and can harvest many souls at one time. But that's just what I do. I'm sure you’re very good at what you do, too.
DEATH. You know, I can bring in a lot of souls at one time, too! I've done earthquakes! I've done plane crashes!
ANGEL. (Placatingly) I'm sure you have. Look, I don’t want to upset you. I was just passing by on my way to a meeting with the Big Guy. So, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go. (Exits)
DEATH. I hate that guy!
It's like climbing back down into the valley after you've seen over the horizon from the top of the mountain.
That is, don't watch television with my dad. Especially not a program on the Discovery Channel that you've been waiting to see for a week. If this program has anything to do with scientific theory or evolution, you will not get a chance to enjoy it.
I saw a commercial last week for Walking with Cavemen, a documentary on the evolution of homonids over the past 3.5 million years. It looked cool, so I made a mental note to watch it on Sunday the 15th, ten o'clock (nine o'clock Central). My dad was in the room when I changed the channel, so I knew I was gonna catch some flak. If it's not a rodeo, a horserace, or a western, my dad doesn't like it. But he surprisingly didn't leave the room. He sat down and prepared to watch it with me. I'd soon wish that he'd done otherwise.
As soon as the narration started, he turned to me and said, "This is one of those things where they try to find the 'missing link' isn't it?" I just nodded and continued to watch the TV. But throughout the whole show, my dad had many words of wisdom to share. Some of the highlights:
You see, my dad is one of those Christians that mistakenly believes that all science is evil and somehow undermines and discredits his beliefs. Personally, when I was a Christian, I believed that Christianity and Evolution can go hand-in-hand; Evolution explaining the method and Christianity explaining the purpose of why we exist. I could never understand why people believed that belief in one excluded belief in the other. Why must science contradict religion, and vice versa? And now that I'm not a Christian anymore, I see that modern science doesn't contradict religion.
Because Modern Science is a religion. Science claims to be the pursuit of Truth. This is also true for every religion, from Buddists being reincarnated until they realize the ultimate truth and reach Nirvana, to Christians who believe that Jesus their savior is, in his own words, "the way, the Truth, and the light." Some would say that, unlike other religions, Science does not take anything on faith, that it must have evidence. But how is believing a hypothesis based on a theory based on postulate not taking something on faith? The truth is that Science can do no better than any religion at explaining the Creation, the End of the World, or anything in between. Modern Science does not have any more valid of an answer as to why we are here than any belief, religion, or crack-pot cult. In the end, it's all just a matter of believing in something -- anything -- to get you through the day without having to constantly question your existance.
Well, if there are no Amish where you live, you may not understand. You see, the Amish aren't an attractive people. It's not that they're all ugly, but they're all so bland and average (kinda like their clothing). The women usually have robust facial features; they're also seldom thin, and often rather manish. So, to see an Amish girl that is actually pretty is quite a treat.
So, I see this young Amish woman (about sixteen or seventeen years old) standing in front of me at the check-out lane in Wal-Mart. I wouldn't have thought twice about it except that I noticed she seemed thin, even in her drab, home-made blue dress. She was standing in profile, but I couldn't see her face because of her black bonnet. But then she turned to look behind her and I caught a glimpse at her face. She had a slender face and refined features and several whisps of curly blonde hair draping over her forehead. I would never have guessed that she was Amish -- except for her attire and the large Amish woman and two Amish boys standing in front of her that assumably were her family. She didn't even have a greasy face, rough-looking skin, or any trace of a tan. I noticed that even her hands were dainty and feminine, unlike the thick, rough hands of the aforementioned large Amish woman.
It was almost as if she was just a "normal" girl pretending to be Amish, like she was wearing an Amish Halloween costume or something. I could almost picture her in a tank-top, hip-huggers, and flip-flops. She would fit right in with any other girl her age.
Or maybe she was just trying to start a trend. Like a fringe-of-society trend that will slowly become mainstream. First, there were the punks, then the emo-kids, and now the next big thing is the Amish look!
Well, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go buy some brown work-shirts, suspenders, and a black hat so I can get in on this fad before it becomes so cool that it's uncool. Seeya!
FFF: (Out of the blue) Would you go out with
me?
McB: What do you mean?
FFF: What do you think it means?
McB: I don't know. Did you mean "Will you go out with
me?" or "Would you go out with me?"
FFF: What's the difference?
McB: Well, one's a hypothetical question and the other
one is an actual invitation.
FFF: Let's say it's a hypothetical question, what would
your answer be?
McB: Ah, a hypothetical question within a hypothetical
question.
FFF: (laughs) I know; I'm good!
McB: I guess, if it was a hypothetical situation, I'd go
out with you.
FFF: Is your answer different for the non-hypothetical
one?
McB: I think so.
FFF: You think so? How can you think so?
McB: Well, I don't know. I mean, yeah sure, it would be
cool right now. But what would happen after the summer? We'll
go back to living far away from eachother and . . .
FFF: So? We've both done the long-distance thing
before.
McB: But I didn't really like it.
(long pause)
McB: What's wrong with 'us' the way we are now?
FFF: Nothing? I don't know . . .
McB: I mean, what would you change? Like, add the . . .
physical stuff?
FFF: (laughs) Yeah, "the physical stuff" would be
fun. That'd be part of it. But there'd be other, going-out
stuff.
McB: Like what?
FFF: I don't know, stuff.
McB: Like, hypothetical stuff or real stuff?
FFF: Real stuff. Very, real stuff.
McB: Ooh, sounds exciting!
FFF: So, is that a 'yes?'
McB: I still don't know.
FFF: You suck.
McB: I know.
Thank you, Jane Irony Doe, for putting it into words for me.
Thank you for kissing me
Like I had always dreamed
Thank you for holding me
I was never so warm
As when you were in my arms
Thank you for being so kind
Thank you for being so beautiful
But the best thing that you ever did
I never thanked you for
The best thing that you ever did
Was to forget about me
Thank you for forgetting about me
Thank you for forgetting me
Thank you
Sloth
1. What is one thing you're supposed to do daily that you haven't done in a long time? Pray
2. What is the latest you've ever woken up? I don't remember, but I have slept 15 consecutive hours
3. Name a person you've been meaning to contact, but haven't: My grandparents
4. What is the last lame excuse you made? "I think I hear my mom calling me..."
5. Have you ever watched an infomercial all the way through (one of the long ones...)? Yes, I *heart* Ron Popeal!
6. When is the last time you got a good workout? I did push-ups and sit-ups the other day
7. How many times did you hit the snooze button on your alarm clock today? Twice. Man, noon is just too early to wake up.
Gluttony
1. What is your overpriced yuppie beverage of choice? Does Mountain Dew count?
2. Meat eaters: white meat or dark meat? Blood, mmmm. . .
3. What is the greatest amount of alcohol you've had in one sitting/outing/event? I drank a 40oz in a about 5 minutes. It made me puke :(
4. Have you ever used a professional diet company? Nope
6. Do you prefer sweets, salty foods, or spicy foods? Spicy foods
7. Have you ever looked at a small house pet or child and thought, "LUNCH"? "MUTILATE, TORTURE, RAPE," yes; but "LUNCH?" no.
8. What is the one food you can't resist, even if you are not hungry? Jell-O, but then again, there's always room for Jell-O.
9. Best school lunch? Friday's Pizza Day
Lust
1. How many people have you seen naked? Only a handful. Unfortunately, my family members are about half of them.
2. How many people have seen YOU naked? It just jumped from four to nine. Last weekend, five people were added to the list. Damn streaking!
3. Have you ever caught yourself staring at the chest/crotch of a member of your gender of choice during a normal conversation? Hell yeah! You don't just listen to TV, do you? You've gotta have something pretty to look at while they're blabbering on.
4. When fantasizing, who do you fantasize about? It's usually just a nameless, faceless, pretty woman.
5. What is your favorite body part on a person of your gender of choice? Legs and waist/belly
6. Have you ever been propositioned by a prostitute? No, but that's one of the things on my List of Things To Do Before I Die.
7. Want to be? See above answer
8. Have you ever had to get tested for an STD or pregnancy? Nope.
9. Does wearing something sexy make you act differently? Nope.
10. Do you ever feel somewhat attracted to members of your sex? Not sexually, but I do sometimes feel a 'wierd' connection with other guys.
Greed
1. How many credit cards do you own? None
2. What's your guilty pleasure store? I don't think I have one.
3. If you had $10 million, what would you do with it? Save it and never work again for the rest of my life.
4. Would you rather be rich, or famous? Famous
5. Would you accept a boring job if it meant you would make megabucks? Only for a while. After a while, I'd probably end up quitting or killing myself.
6. Have you ever stolen anything? Yes, LEGOs from my kindergarted classroom.
7. How many MP3s are on your hard drive? 2,282. Man, I need some more tunes!
8. What are you most greedy about? My food.
9. What do you have TOO much of, but don't care? Braclets.
Pride
1. What one thing have you done that you're most proud of? I really don't know.
2. What one thing have you done that your parents are most proud of? I really don't know on this one either.
3. What thing would you like to accomplish in your life? Writing and having a novel published
4. Do you get annoyed by coming in second place? No, I'd be pretty happy.
6. Have you ever cheated on something to get a higher score? Yes.
7. What did you do today that you're proud of? Woke up?
Envy
1. What item (or person) of your friends would you most want to have for your own? Some of my friends have nice cars.
2. Who would you want to go on "Trading Spaces" with? My friend Kim. She's got a crazy but cool sense of style.
3. If you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be? I'd be me, only taller.
4. Have you ever been cheated on? No.
5. Have you ever wished you had a physical feature different from your own? See Question #3
6. What inborn trait do you see in others that you wish you had for yourself? Confidence
7. Do you wish you'd come up with this survey? Not really, but it is interesting
He thought about Gwen, how her face looked close-up and out of focus, how she felt in his arms, how her breasts felt under his head. He remembered the first time they’d kissed, lying on a bed in the back room of her aunt’s house watching sci-fi movies. He remembered the time he’d driven three and a half hours just to fall asleep with her on her couch at one-thirty in the morning. He remembered when she had come to visit him. All his roommates had left for the weekend; they had the room and the night all to themselves, but they didn’t have sex. Their entire relationship seemed to revolve around lying down, but never once did they have sex. He was sure she had wanted to – she’d mentioned it to his best friend. He had wanted to have sex with her also. But he wasn’t ready, he told himself.
That reminded him of Evelyn. After having known her for only a week, he found himself in her bedroom with his shirt off and his pants unzipped, staring into her hungry eyes. She’d playfully offered to rape him. He’d somewhat begrudgingly declined her offer. He wasn’t opposed to sex, he told himself (and her), he just wanted to wait until he was in love.
Love.
Love, what was that? He didn’t know. Maybe he had been in love with these women and he just hadn’t known it. No, that was a lie. He hadn’t loved them. He didn’t know what love was, but he was pretty sure that if a person was in love, they’d know it. At least, that’s what he hoped. He didn’t know whether it was an emotion, an idea, a force, a lie, or a rationalization that people used for the stupid things they did, but he did know that love had to exist. Didn’t it? Maybe not. Maybe it was all bullshit. Maybe he had passed on having sex with these women not because he wasn’t in love with them but because he was scared. But maybe love was not being scared.
So, whatever the fuck it was, what if he never found someone he ‘loved?’ Not that he’d been looking hard for such a person, but so far, he’d hadn’t met a person to love. Not one. He’d met some people that had seemed promising, but for one reason (or several) or another, they hadn’t been what he was looking for after all, or he hadn’t been what they were looking for. Either way, eventually, he ended up alone again. He ended up lonely. He ended up wanting something.
His breathing had slowed. His penis had gone flaccid. He opened his eyes and let out a sigh. A tear trickled down his cheek, and he wiped it away with the knuckle of his left index finger.
Fifty miles away
Somewhere you lay
Your pretty face
Somewhere on your pillow,
And I'm here alone.
Any given day
Some time I'd pay
To see your face.
Some times I think of you.
I always think of you
At night
Tonight I'm going to dream of you.
Hold me tight in your dreams, too.
I was a mild fan of the first one. It did have awesome fight scenes and sinful amounts of gunplay, and after all, it was a sci-fi movie. So, I was kinda excited to see the sequel. Despite Reloded's shameless cliff-hanger ending, I thought it was a super fan-fucking-tastic thrill-ride. It's got pointless-but-cool fighting sequences, explosions galore, a hot chick in leather, and the coolest special effects this side of Star Wars Episode II. And underneath it all, Reloded still has some hardcore science fiction, semi-philosophical themes. Any movie that makes you think (except for City of Angels which made me think Have I died and gone to Hell?) is alright by me.
So, what did Reloded make me think? Well, this is me just speculating here, but I think that in The Matrix Revelations we'll find out that the matrix is inside of a matrix, itself (a la The Thirteenth Floor). I guess we'll have to wait until November to see if I'm right. Until then, I'll have images of slo-mo jump kicks and exploding cars running through my head.
You could feel it in the ethereal; there was a charge in the atmosphere, a faint smell, and a flash in your peripheral vision. And of course you could feel it in the physical, in your stomach, in your chest, in your legs, in your erection, in the back of your mind, and on the tip of your tongue. It was everywhere: the glow of the TV, her bottom lip, your stupid hat, the storm clouds, the pain in your back, the wood-paneled walls, the drunks outside, her feet, her eyes, her breath, and every move she made. You were being overwhelmed by it, about to drown.
And then suddenly it was all gone, and you were walking the several blocks home shivering from the cold May Sunday morning breeze. Six hours had never seemed so long. You found yourself thinking irrational things such as hoping McDonald's would burn down, so that she wouldn't have to work and could come home to find you waiting for her on the bench next to her door. That's when you realized that it was still there.
You didn't know what the hell it was, where it came from, why it was there, and why it wouldn't leave. But you liked it. And it made you smile.
I am everything you hate, nothing you are, anything you want, and something you thought about last night. I am your best nightmare and your worst dream.
I am a clever line of poetry. I am a perfectly-written paragraph. I am a happy melody in a sad song. I am a bad joke. I am a laugh that stays in your throat.
I am action and I am stagnation. I am intelligence and I am ignorance. I am the world and I am nothing. I am understatement and I am contradiction. No, I'm not. Yes, I am.
When he walked to work this morning, he was shivering. He thought it was because it was somewhat cold out. When he got inside he didn't stop shivering. Clenching his fists was the only way to stop his hands from shaking. He feels his hand begining to tremble again.
An incredible apathy washes over our subject and he realizes that at this moment he doesn't give one damn about this meaningless world. Time is just a matter of perspective; reality is a construct of the mind. Our subject is so fucking profound.
Sex.
The lights all seem dim, the noises so distant. Our subject feels as thought he is outside of his body watching himself on TV. He is watching his not-so-story-book life scroll up a computer screen, line after line of his justifications and explanations slowly gliding upward like movie credits. All the while impressively juvenile metaphors float through his cranium, distracting his attempt at concentrating on one thing. It's not working, and realizing that it isn't working gives him something to concentrate on.
Earlier, when our subject was crossing the street, a person not five feet in front of him tripped on the curb and fell. Our subject didn't even look to see if the fallen person got back up. Our subject begins to think it will be "cool" to try and stay up for 48 hours.
At a party last night, I asked a really cute girl to dance. I had strategically planned to ask her to dance during a slower song. So, when Elton John's Rocket Man started blaring over the speakers, I knew it was go time.
I did my best strut -- "ramble" seems like a more appropriate word here, seeing as I was somewhat intoxicated, but my intention was to strut -- over to her, and in my suavest voice and most eloquent speech spoke thusly, "Hey, wanna dance?"
She giggled and told me that nobody had ever asked her to dance before; I was soon to find out why. She put her hand gently on my shoulder, I wrapped my arm around her small waist, and she proceeded to freak out!
She was twisting and shaking and writhing and poppin' and lockin' like nobody's damn business! She was dancing at least slightly faster than double-time to the music. I was so confused that I started to wonder if I was dancing to a different song than she was. I knew I was drunk, but I didn't think I was that drunk.
She continued to dance to Elton John like she was dancing to Nelly. I continued to be baffled by her complete lack of rhythm; all the while I want to say, "Quit dancing so frantically. Settle down, let me grab your ass, and let's fucking dance."
I guess I just took for granted that every girl could dance at least as well as I can. Every girl I've danced with in the past has been able to, anyway. It's like it's genetically encoded into women's chromosomes to be able to dance. I feel sorry for that poor genetic mutant that I danced with last night.
Who knew?
The only problem -- and part of the "problem" is that I can't tell if this situation is a problem -- is that she's just sixteen. Four years younger.
Four years is one fifth of my life. I almost feel that there is some imaginary barrier between us. She's still in the "high school" portion of her life, not that her being in high school is bad. But I would feel just as uncomfortable being with someone four years my senior because she would most likely be in the "career" portion of her life while I'm still in the "college" portion of mine.
Am I just making this up?
Probably; I always look for reasons not to fall in love.
| Disorder | Rating |
| Paranoid: | Low |
| Schizoid: | Low |
| Schizotypal: | Very High |
| Antisocial: | Low |
| Borderline: | Moderate |
| Histrionic: | Low |
| Narcissistic: | Moderate |
| Avoidant: | High |
| Dependent: | Moderate |
| Obsessive-Compulsive: | Moderate |
-- Personality Disorder Test - Take It! -- | |
I am most likely:
Schizotypal Many believe that schizotypal personality disorder represents mild schizophrenia. The disorder is characterized by odd forms of thinking and perceiving, and individuals with this disorder often seek isolation from others. They sometimes believe to have extra sensory ability or that unrelated events relate to them in some important way. They generally engage in eccentric behavior and have difficulty concentrating for long periods of time. Their speech is often over elaborate and difficult to follow.
Avoidant Avoidant personality disorder is characterized by extreme social anxiety. People with this disorder often feel inadequate, avoid social situations, and seek out jobs with little contact with others. They are fearful of being rejected and worry about embarassing themselves in front of others. They exaggerate the potential difficulties of new situations to rationalize avoiding them. Often, they will create fantasy worlds to substitute for the real one. Unlike schizoid personality disorder, avoidant people yearn for social relations yet feel they are unable to obtain them. They are frequently depressed and have low self-confidence.
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