Saturday, August 30, 2003

Possibly the Best Spam I've Ever Received

From : 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

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.

Found on a Slip of Paper in the Library

". . . but you might corrupt them!"

Friday, August 29, 2003

This Week In Review

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.

Freshmen Week

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.

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Labret

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!

Sunday, August 17, 2003

In

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.

Friday, August 15, 2003

Out

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.

Thursday, August 14, 2003

'Horror' Movie or 'Horrible' Movie?

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.

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

The (Dodge) Spirit Is Failing

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.

Saturday, August 09, 2003

Dont' Tell Me This Isn't a Good Idea

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?

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Why Wasn't I Born in the 1920's?

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.

Tuesday, August 05, 2003

To Be Discontinued . . .

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!

Monday, August 04, 2003

My Kind of Woman

"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?

I’ll tell you what kind. A real go-getter.

I think I’m falling in love all over again."

--Pat Freestone

Sunday, August 03, 2003

Hell Is Other People

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!

ESTELLE
What!

MAN
Oh man. I just realized: this is just like that play!

ESTELLE
What play?

MAN
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.

INEZ
French Stewart?

MAN
No, it’s a french name.

ESTELLE
The name of the play or the name of the guy?

INEZ
The French Connection?

MAN
No, I’m talking about the guy.

INEZ
Casa Blanca!

ESTELLE
That’s spanish, you moron, not french.


Read on -->

All Kind of Girls

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.

Friday, August 01, 2003

Adaptation

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.

Circa Now