I'm A Reasonable Man, So I Know This Can't Be Snow

Yesterday, it was a balmy 75 degrees in this area during the midday, and then a front blew in last night.

Today it was around the mid to high 30's. Living in a desert sucks.

This morning the dog was doing her excited dance and bouncing her little Yorkie ass around playing with the wife and fell off the back of the chair. I'm in the computer room checking e-mail and hear this horrible yelping that doesn't stop, it goes on into a whimpering, which means that my first instinct (that the dog got stepped on) wasn't true, so I go running in there, and K is cradling the dog, who finally stops whimpering. We sweet talk her a bit and then set her down, and she's limping from her right front paw, and only wants to be held in your lap, which almost makes me fucking cry, because she's so tiny and frail to begin with. I hold her for awhile and feel out her entire leg, which doesn't get any kind of wincing response, which I take to be a good sign, but she is still limping when we leave, K to a board meeting and I to go and decorate the sister-in-law's Christmas tree.

Five hours later we reconvene back at the house, our various errands complete, and little Bella (the Yorkie, for those not in the know) is thankfully back to normal, and bouncing off the walls again, happy to see us. I'm so relieved, because as small as she is, I'd freak the fuck out if we had to take her to the vet for anything major.

This afternoon I watched another Netfux film, Lucky McKee's The Woods, which was pretty spiffy, I even made time to bang out a little review for it for the old Big Suck Loser, which should be up and ready for your perusal directly. I also managed to finally watch a film that's been bumping around the old TiVo for literally three months or more, Broken Flowers, which was okay, but honestly not anywhere near Jim Jarmusch's best film. I guess everyone has a miss now and again, but this was pretty boring, even though the pacing and portrayal of workaday life wasn't that far removed from his previous films, this one just didn't grab me.

I also wanted to mention a magazine I randomly picked up while at Barnes & Noble yesterday, Domino, which is pretty interesting as far as decorating and style magazines go, in that it seems to be a nice blend of modern with a touch of traditional. It's been a long time since I really saw a magazine that I was very interested in as far as home decor goes, and the wife's subscription to Southern Living just isn't cutting it, so this is something I may have to throw down the $10 for a subscription to, just for the hell of it. I realize that this is a weird tangent for me to get off on (Even for a site as scattershot as this one), but hey, I am a floral designer, of course I'm interested in style magazines, sue me.

I think that my podcasts are all playing hard to get this week, because over the course of the past two days very little has accumulated to entertain me at the long workday tomorrow, and I already listened to the latest Hellbilly Wreckhouse last night, so I have pretty slim pickings to fend off the co-workers tomorrow.

I'm off to update the Amazon Wishlist for Santa, and then head to bed.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Yorkie, Christmas Decorating, Netflix, Lucky Mckee, The Woods, Big Suck Loser, Broken Flowers, Domino Magazine, Podcast

Long Workday And Sifting Through The Birthday Loot

Since I'm accustomed to having a day off on Wednesday, and had told the boss that I would help her decorate a couple of houses today, I went in with the sneaky idea of going out and doing the two houses with the ladies, and then trying to get the hell out of there, since they're not used to having me around anyway, so what harm could be done if I left, right?

The two houses usually take around 2 hours and then an hour, hour and a half respectively, and of course the best laid plans of Mob and men go awry as I find myself fighting with timers for all the lights at the first house, while the boss gets waylaid with proposed changes and additions to the usual Christmas decorating we do for the woman. We finally drag out of there after about 3 hours and some change, the ladies go to drive-thru some lunch, I elected to blow off lunch entirely and head to the next episode, which went fairly quickly, but when I asked about maybe leaving after we got back to the store, the boss got all defensive, because we needed to work ahead because we might be busy tomorrow, etc. By the time we got finished and I fluffed and lit a garland for a lady to pick up tomorrow, it was pushing four in the afternoon, and I still hadn't eaten anything, so I started looking for the boss, prepared to argue my way out, only to find that she'd left to do God knows what, so I approached the assistant manager with the options of her letting me go for the day, or that I was going to take my hour lunch and come back for thirty minutes and basically do nothing.

She set me free, and I was able to go and grab an early supper with the wife, who hadn't eaten lunch either, and then pick up a few items at the local Barnes and Noble with a couple of giftcards I'd received for the old birthday. I picked up the first volume of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, which my friend Buckaroo Banzai had recommended quite heartily. I was also happy to find a copy of the Gorillaz book, Rise Of The Ogre, which looks to be an interesting read.

Speaking of my favorite cartoon band, I was surprised to find out in a recent issue of Juxtapoz Magazine that they have made at least one, possibly two different sets of vinyl figures of the characters, which would be amusing to have, thought the set looks to run around $60 or so, I may have to do some hunting on e-Bay to see if I can swing a baragin somewhere.

There has been a veritable flurry of activity over at the Big Suck Loser, where I posted a review of 2001 Maniacs, and sKincarver chimed in with one for Head Trauma, go and check it out, hell, bring a friend, we're people persons.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Workday, Christmas Decorating, Walking Dead, Gorillaz, Big Suck Loser, 2001 Maniacs, Head Trauma

Focus, Dammit

I feel as though I'm trying to do a million things at once this evening, to squeeze it all in before midnight, when I want to try and be in bed.

Moving swiftly on:

We had dinner this evening for the sister-in-law's birthday, which was surprisingly hassle-free, though I am tired as hell after the day of decorating and funeral work.

We actually got finished early with our Christmas decorating at the lady's house, but then had a stack of funeral orders about an inch thick waiting for us when we got back to the shop. I suppose it would be asking too much for the people who are left working the store to react as if there are about four of our regular designers out of the shop, but no, they just keep taking orders and plowing stupidly ahead.

I managed to get bills paid online, balanced the checkbook, and managed to re-shuffle the cd's that have been on rotation for a couple of months in the car cd changer, so I may actually hear something new and different tomorrow, just for a change of pace. I also started to get my little catalog ideas together for K's Christmas this year, and since I don't want the one time I mention anything secret to be the one she actually reads this, I'll just say that I need to head over to Tiffany's website after I finish boring you nice folks here. I'm lucky in that she knows the limits of my crappy job, so I'm not ever pointed in the direction of anything out of my means, because Lord knows a man could ruin himself trying to purchase that kind of over-priced stuff.

I need to try and bang out something for the Big Suck Loser this evening, so I'm going to throw the tags on this turkey and call it a night.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Christmas Decorating, Funeral, Tiffany's, Big Suck Loser

Anime Aggravation

Since I've been quite lax in my Netfux movie viewing, I decide to slog through the two discs of Samurai Champloo that were hanging about on the coffee table, gathering dust, thinking that they were the final two discs and I'd get some closure.

Oh, hell no, there's a 7th (!) motherhumping disc still somewhere in the pipeline from the kind folks at Netfux, so I still have no idea how this series will end.

Grrr.

Work was surprisingly hassle-free, as we had several people call in sick, and one of our decorating jobs got bumped until later in the week, so I had some time to catch up with my iPod.

I listened to a new Night Of The Living Podcast, Pickled Embryo, (Cool) Shite On The Tube, and a couple different things on the Hot Buttered Pop Culture feed.

In a recent podcast I listen to someone compared a blog to a shark, in that it has to keep moving, always with new content, otherwise people will be leaving in droves, and I was mulling that over a bit at work, wondering what could be done to drum up some warm bodies for the readership, since I seem to have a pretty loyal core group of folks who stop in regularly, but I seem to have hit a wall. Imagine my surprise to find an extra 20 or so hits in the past day, for no discernible reason other than random searches and 'next blog' clicks, and I figured I should maybe try to keep that rolling. I decided to play around with the idea of inserting Technorati tags into the next week or so's worth of posts, just to see if it makes any difference in the daily hits. I expect nothing, and I doubt I'll be surprised.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, baggy eyes! Samurai Champloo, Netflix, iPod, Podcasts, Blog Tags

The Only Words I Can Understand Are God And Damn And Christmas

I was addressing bills and making out thank-you cards for the folks who turned out for the birthday shenanigans a week or so back, and I've been using the handy little Christmas return labels that State Farm was nice enough to send me as a 'thank you' for letting them slip it to me each month for their insurance. After writing everything out, I did a little head count and realized that this has caused me more stress than I really wanted it to, but according to State Farm's estimations, I now have to go out and make at least sixty more friends to use up all these stupid labels.

Either that, or I'm going to be using Christmas labels on correspondence to my creditors in the middle of July 2007.

And when you're as unfriendly as I am, that's a helluva lot of people to try and make friends with simply to be able to mail them a card of some kind.

The front room of the homestead has been Christmasafied, after a long battle with a reluctant extension cord which I now fully intend to replace tomorrow so the fucking house doesn't burn down. I was able to finagle the tree, the mantle and the armoire decorations onto a single power strip that happily plugs into a timer, so all this shit lights up simultaneously. The biggest nightmare is synchronizing multiple timers, and I've never had them work as close together as I'd like them to, so this small Christmas miracle is more than I'd hoped for, until the stupid tree keeps flipping off randomly, and will pop right back on if you give his cord a little jiggle (insert your own dick joke here), so I'm going to have to replace the cord, since I don't trust it to not burn us to death between now and Jesus' birthday.

The decorating frenzy begins tomorrow in full force, I'm readying the iPod as I type and planning on a fairly early bedtime tonight. Also listening to an all-metal episode of Evil A Go-Go, they apparently got the go ahead to play Danzig (Hiya, sKincarver!), which is kinda cool, check it out if you're into it.

Be seeing you.

The Tree Is Looming Nearer

I had an average Saturday afternoon, with not a lot going on except for a few funeral pieces for a service tomorrow. Myspace managed to milk out the three orders she had beeen given by the front-end people as if they couldn't bury the fucking guy if she didn't lay her special touches on the service or something. I love that shit, she bitches and whines about 'all the orders they keep giving her' when she actually eats it up, ("oh, I'm sooo busy, I have all these orders I have to do...") while I personally snap at anyone even trying to pawn off orders directly to me as if they want a kidney or something, and they've taken the hint.

I slept like total shit last night, so I grabbed a short nap after work while the wife ran over to say her goodbyes to The Political Consultant, who is leaving on a flight at 7:30 in the AM, and would be spending time with her mother this evening.

We ate at a Mexican place over on the south side with Morris and then had a few beers and watched 2001 Maniacs back at the house.

The Christmas rigamarole is planned for tomorrow afternoon, which I'm dreading ever so slightly, since the decorating process begins in earnest on Monday. I'd like nothing more than to lay on the couch and watch a few movies tomorrow, but I know the wife will appreciate the Christmas cheer being spread, so I'm biting the bullet and getting it over with, setting up the tree, and decorating the living room for the holiday.

Bah. I may be buying the shirt pictured above there from Prickwear.com within the next few weeks, just to get in the proper frame of mind.

Be seeing you.

Mid-Day Moderations, Nausea And Pods

I've been forced to enable the comment moderation due to some recent interweb vandals who want to leave snarky comments about things I don't care to discuss at all, let alone in a public forum. This effectively kills any comment conversation threads that might have developed, since both of the people who usually comment won't know what's been said until it's approved hours after they say it, but perhaps one day we can go back to normal. Until then, please bear with me.

Work is fairly slow, as it usually is after most holidays, and Myspace decided she wanted a mid-morning snack, which turned out ot be Corn-Nuts. That has to be one of the most noxious odors that I've ever encountered attached to an item that's made for human consumption. It's akin to what I'd imagine Satan's toe-jam would smell like, and permeates the entire design room, I seriously thought I could become ill from inhaling it for an extended period of time, and had to go and move shit around in the back room to escape the foul odor.

I've had some time to catch up with little Agador Spartacus, my iPod and trusted companion, which included new shows from Mondo Movie, a couple of (Cool) Shite daily shows, new Reel Horror Podcast, and a rant from Mark Kermode comparing The Santa Clause 3 to tertiary syphilis, which made me laugh aloud.

Be seeing you.

Not So Much Of A Black Friday, More Like Gray Friday

This will probably end up being a little short, as I have a new destination I want to hit before I go to bed.

I experienced something that I'd not had the privelege of doing for quite some time today: I awoke the day after Thanksgiving with nowhere to be, which was very nice for a change.

I left the house this morning and rather than going to work, went and helped out a friend who was decorating a house for someone.

The wife went shopping with Morris, and then we reconvened later in the day back at the house, grabbed a short nap and then got the house ready for some of the out-of-towners who wanted to get together and have drinks.

I was happy to see that sKincarver has posted a new review over on the BSL, for a movie I watched awhile back and hadn't felt compelled to write about, so I'm glad he took one for the team and posted something about it. I've been itching to sit down and watch a movie that I could actually write something about for the site, but the week of holiday related engagements has put a kibosh on that plan, night after nightafter night. Maybe I can be more productive next week, God willing.

I discovered a link late last evening, and if it's something you already know about, super, but for me it was quite exciting, a website that has a great amount of television that can be streamed in your browser, all of which are available from http://www.yourtvlinks.com/. Among those included are recent favs of mine like Dexter and Entourage, as well as a lot of network stuff in pretty sizeable chunks, even seasons at a time. Totally worth a look if you have a decent connection and don't mind a little pixelation when you try out a show you've maybe never seen before.

I noticed that they had movies, anime and music videos as well, but the films all look to be mostly stuff you can just buy, so I'm not sure it the possibly shoddy picture is worth it versus a trip to Blockbuster

Millions Of Wasted Turkeys....

Here's another cop-out post like I did for the birthday, with the same caveat: This may be all you get from me today. So Happy Thanksgiving, to all of you Jive-Ass Turkeys who read this everyday, I hope you have a nice holiday.

Now I've gotta go watch some kinda parade with the wife....

Be seeing you

This Is Why I Take Notes...

Because it's 11:34 as I start typing this and I have no idea where I want to go with it. I do, however, have a few different notes that I jotted down during the course of the day in case I got completely stumped for a topic this evening.

Based on a post that I commented on over at Ellen Aim's blog, I was thinking (and I may have already stated such in these Bastardy halls before, if so, I apologize) that it would really be a nice touch if reality television did indeed take a page from The Running Man and start killing off some of those involved. Who wouldn't sign up for a pay-per-view special that had The Bachelor walking into a room with a handful of roses in one hand and a loaded pistol in the other?

"I'm sorry Shelly, but I just can't give you a rose after your behavior on the group date yesterday afternoon." POW!

At least when they had those sobbing meltdowns in the taped aside portions, it'd be for a reason, not just because they're losing the 'game'.

I was browsing a few blogs at lunch, and I have to ask you, am I just getting lazier, or is a word verification that contains a few letters over half the alphabet more than you're prepared to try and decipher just to leave your cutesy observation? And when the vees and double-you's start to blend into a slanting heart-monitor read-out, I have just hit enter to try my luck again and hope for something simple like 'grtf' or 'sdyn' rather than something that looks as if my head hit the keyboard and stuck there for a moment.

Boring workday, had a nice dinner with the wife and then we played Scrabble with The Lobbyist, who actually works for a political consulting firm, which sounds even cooler, so she may be known as the Political Consultant from now on. I lost miserably at Scrabble, it's hard to spell anything with six fucking vowels and an H, unless you're prepared to lie your ass off as to what 'IOIEHAI' means and use it in a sentence.

Watched a couple episodes of Entourage on HBO and decided to call it a night.

Be seeing you.

I Feel As Though Someone Has Beaten Me With A Pipe...It Must Be The Christmas Season

What a long day.

I went out with two of the women to decorate a house, mis-remembering that we had re-lit her tree last year. What I ended up doing, after we'd gone to the woman's storage and retrieved all her Christmas stuff, was helping hang a garland that the two other gals worked on while I re-lit the entire fifteen foot tree for about four and a half hours.

Yes, a fifteen fucking foot Christmas tree. It was like two of those over there to the right stapled together! Things like this are why I occasionally question the existence of God. My back is killing me from twisting at weird angles to light the tree while perched on a ladder, and the faux-pine plays hell with your skin, I look like I've been forcibly bathing cats, my hands to forearms shredded to ribbons with tiny cuts.

I did have the foresight to bring the iPod, so I was able to listen to a few things, including a new Monster Squad Terrorcast and the latest Pickled Embryo, which read an e-mail I'd sent them awhile back, as well as plugging both this waste of time as well as the old Big Suck Loser, which was cool of them, thanks for that, guys. I also checked out a few old Nate And Di Shows, because I'm thinking a lot of my usual suspects are taking the week of Thanksgiving off, so I had less stuff to download.

I'm beat, I'm off to read a few chapters in the first Dexter novel and call it a day. Tomorrow promises to be a day filled with nothing but Thanksgiving centerpieces and misery, I hope you're proud of yourselves, you turkey-loving Bastards.

Be seeing you.

I Really Have To Start This Crap Earlier...

It was a long day in the flower mines kids, and I haven't a thing to show for it save for a thorn in my index finger that won't come out for love nor money.

Tonight will end up being more of a personal riff rather than anything topical, not that it seems to matter one way or the other as far as interest or response goes.

The wife and I went to the museum's holiday open house this evening with a friend of hers who's in town for Thanksgiving. This was an event that we had decorated the tree for a week or so back, so I got to see it in all its glory, which was kinda nice. Her friend is a lobbyist in DC, and shall be known as such when I finally get around to adding my dramatis personae page that I keep yammering about on occasion here in the hallowed Bastardy halls. The Lobbyist is a lot of fun, she's one of K's most easy-going friends, and was one of the bridesmaids at our wedding.

Speaking of weddings, Ellen Aim has posted a few pics from their crazy costume wedding antics, one of which I swiped for my own purposes just in case you folks don't make the rounds to all the links to the left as religiously as you should.

Pictured from left to right are Corinthian's brother Brett, Corinthian himself in full-on Robin Hood mode, me rockin' the Catholic Girls socks right off as Father Mob and Corinthian's buddy and former room-mate Rob as a sort of half-assed zombie. For more on this wackiness, check out Ellen Aim's recent posts which have an assortment of pics from the big day. You can also view them on a larger scale, I just can't be bothered to dick with it right now.

Christ I'm tired, and we head out early tomorrow to set up one of the first homes for the season, I'm thinking I'm gonna call it an early late night.

I must sleep now, so the clowns can eat me.

Be seeing you.

I'm Sorry, Czechoslovakia, I Just Don't Get It

Jan Svankmajer.....a noted name in stop-motion animation, who I've always heard mentioned in the same breath as The Brothers Quay, whose work I've only been aware of with Institute Benjamenta, a live action affair that featured very trippy, stylized visuals and was filmed in a style reminiscent of the Nine Inch Nails Closer video, sepia toned and aged looking.

I'd rented The Ossuary And Other Tales via Netfux, and had it hanging around on the coffee-table for waaay too long, as I hadn't been in the mood for short films, much less ones in Czech, so I finally kinda forced myself to sit down and watch it this afternoon. A capsule review would be "Not worth it", which may be a little unfair, considering there are interesting elements to the different shorts, but I just could not get into it. It turned out to be a lot less dark than I expected (I guess I was wanting early something similar to the early Tool video catalog), and aside from the titular film, was fairly boring in a lot of ways to me. I thought I was going to lose it during an extended swordfight between two puppets, I had to pause the film and go grab a beer for strength.

The work contained on the disc is fairly dated, ranging from the mid-sixties to seventies, so perhaps his newer work would be more to my taste, but I won't be running to seek it out anytime soon. Fool me once, shame on you and your puppets, fool me twice, you get the idea.

Posted a new review for the Big Suck Loser, may actually expand on my dislike of the Svankmajer later in the week as well, it seems as though that site is getting decent traffic considering how infrequently it's been updated recently.

I'm in the neighborhood of tired, kids, so I'm gonna call it an early night and end this quickly.

Be seeing you.

Completely Off My Game

This is why I have been so anal about the daily schedule. By throwing the one little half-assed post up at mid-day yesterday, and not bothering to mess with this in the evening, I've completely thrown myself off, I don't know where to start with tonight's bullshit.

Possibly the best search leading someone here (topping even 'pile of dead squirrels' and 'my shit in your ass') : 'cowboy hats worn by bret michaels'. This is truly the best I can do with my ever dwindling readership, random hits like that, so if you need me, I'll be riding the wave of the blog, circling the drain at the bottom of this toilet, just give me a shout.

The hat really is quite fascinating, and those eyes are just dreamy, huh, kids?

The thirty-second birthday came and went, the wife planned a surprise party of sorts, I expected to go to eat dinner and then chill at the house, but was surprised to find an assortment of friends at the restaurant, and a few others meeting us at the house later after they finally shook free of work. The wife is quite sweet to plan anything, and I had a good time in spite of myself.

The wife overgifted as she usually does, I'm not sure what I did in a previous life to deserve such a sweet woman spoiling me in this one, but I'm certianly glad I did what ever it was.

We visited, drank a little and then went to bed waaay to late to be at work today on time.

Work was steady and boring, though again, as with a previous Saturday, everyone took a moment from their day to compare notes on how much Myspace sucks, so I guess she's still making 'friends' and influencing people, as the old saying goes. I'm starting to think that I'll begin wearing a shirt with the old Seth Tobocman art that states 'You Don't Have To Fuck People Over To Survive', just to see if she can take a blatant hint, but I doubt it would do any good. Her only method of elevating herself in this world is by standing on someone else, and ass-kissing her way to the middle.

I finished watching the second season of Entourage this evening, great show, but now I'm jonesing for the third season in an easily digestable format, as I just bought and watched the first two. For whatever reason, the re-runs that keep turning up on the cable recently are from the second season rather than newer ones, so who the hell knows how long it'll be before I see how all this turns out.

I'm beat, I'm off to bed kids.

Be seeing you.

32 Wasted Years...

I'm not exactly having the best day one could've dreamed of, so this may be all you people (all four of you who still stop by here) get today.

Not a bid for sympathy or anything like that, just a brief FYI.

Charity Is Ruining My Marriage (No, Wait, It's Probably Me)

One of the charity events that the wife's been planning was this evening, and I attended with her, surprised as she yet again dropped me in a roomful of 200+ people, of whom I knew maybe five, none of which were seated at our table. I keep thinking that if I attend these stupid things long enough, I'll eventually know most of the people around town, or at least enough to have something to make small talk with at a large gathering.

This doesn't seem to be happening, possibly because I fucking hate people and have no interest in the 'getting to know you' song and dance.

The event this evening was to honor a local gentleman and raise funds to help those who have lost their sight or are in danger of doing so. I got to meet a real live seeing-eye dog and her master, as well as hear many stories about the honoree from his friends and grandchildren, who were all very sweet.

This whole event, which, because of the wife's behind the scenes involvement, we arrived early for, ended up being a grueling four hour ordeal, and when the organization's president started telling us what all we needed to do once the event was over, I suppose lost it a little. I blame the three glasses of wine, but damnit, I was ready to go home, and as we finally left the wife and I got into a huge arguement about things, because I have no interest in attending these stupid things and then playing janitor afterwards, which to her is no big deal, as it's part and parcel of the charity event procedure, so why was I bitching?

I have done this before, only with a different organization, one which I am at least familiar with and know the members of, so maybe that stung a little less, but I knew hardly anyone this evening, least of all anyone I wanted to help clean with after a party for a man I don't fucking know.

In short, I'm an asshole (ask any of my growing number of ex-friends, they'll give you an earful, I'm sure), and I can't be trusted to behave after a certian point in an evening, apparently.

Happy early birthday to me.

Be seeing you.

Too Much Taint? In This Sick Fucking Society?

Tonight's post title comes from a capsule review on my good friend Ellen Aim's blog, in reference to today's cinematic adventure, Borat.

Loved the film, but as far as going too far, I have to reiterate: In this sick fucking society? I've seen a dog being masturbated into a pastry treat that someone later ate in Van Wilder, I've seen Seann William Scott's Stifler character eat dogshit in one of the American Pie films, I'm about to be able to see Eddie Murphy fart and belch and be generally fat and gross and supposedly funny in the upcoming Norbit film...is there anything shy of a snuff film that should really shock me anymore? Hell, we originally saw Stifler consuming semen in a beer in the first film, I find it a little sad that the epitome of humor in cinema these days is basically resorting to complete gross-out humor to get people to giggle and gag at the same time. At least the creepy feeling about the naked wrestling in this film was the documentary look of things, putting a weirdly realistic spin on it.

I had lunch at a friend's little cafe this afternoon, with the wife and her friend who's in town from Austin. They were late to lunch because of said friend, which was annoying, as I had very little interest in seeing her anyway, much less tolerance for her fucking up my feeding schedule.

I went and ran around this afternoon, did a little early Christmas shopping, since I know I won't be in much of a mood to fuck around with it once we start decorating in full force here in a few weeks. I picked up a few items for the wife, which I won't mention here, because frankly the way my luck runs, this week would be the one she randomly decides to start reading this bullshit. Suffice to say, I picked up a few of the 'staple items', as I've come to think of them, because I'm lucky enough to be with a lady who collects as much oddball stuff as I do, so there's a handful of different types of items that I can choose from each holiday and select new merchandise from that pool. I always have gift ideas, my only fear is that she'll come to get burned out on the standard 'set' of gifts each year, so I try to keep it mixed up a little when I can.

I'm tired and a little buzzed, after drinking a heroic dose of cheap beer left over from the wedding 5 months back and currently taking up valuable real estate in the fridge, so I think I'm going to call it a night.

Be seeing you.

All Of A Sudden I Can't Think Of Anything Remotely Funny To Say

I was able to take a late lunch and throw up a random little filler post today, but was otherwise pretty busy with work.

After the lackluster job that Myspace did yesterday, I made a point of taking someone different back with me to the museum this morning, and this one agreed with me that the swags looked like complete and utter shite, so we re-hung all of them, and the finished things up in a fairly timely manner. Once we got back, the boss and I loaded up and went to a lunch meeting to show a group of ladies the proposed table-dressing and chair-covers for their event, which was thankfully well-received. I also had a chance during this to have a long talk with the boss about Myspace, and how she and I will eventually come to a parting of the ways unless she can 'come on, get happy' like a fucking Partridge and shut her trap and do as she's told. The boss backed me up on this one, saying that I was taking people to help me, not going along to help them, so whoever is going had better be prepared to do as they're told.

I honestly have no ego about what I do for a living, but I have been doing it longer than that bitch, so she'd better recognize, y'know?

I listened to the last couple (Cool Shite) Podcasts, as well as the newest Hot Buttered Pop Culture, and the new Night Of The Living Podcast somewhere along the way.

I randomly watched what was on HBO when I turned on the television this evening, which was the all-star thrill-ride Alec Baldwin vehicle from 1994, The Shadow, (damnit, I wish this thing had a 'sarcasm' font!) which I remember seeing when I was working at the theater and being vaguely disappointed by, though I couldn't remember why. The film never found its tone, half the time it wanted to be serious drama/action, the other half it wanted to be comedic pulp adventure, and committing to neither basically killed the film. I'll certianly wait another 10 or 12 years before watching it again. I decided that since the film sucked so much, I'd prefer to include a picture of the first issue of Howard Chaykin's revival of the character, which I enjoyed a great deal more rather than the box art from the lackluster film.

I'm tired, I'm off to check out my usual grocery list of blogs and call it a night.

Be seeing you.

I Wouldn't Go Calling The X-Men Just Yet, Buddy...

I've been quite remiss in my reporting of a situation that's been developing over the past few weeks, and I have a few moments on the lunch hour to catch up.

Our creepy molestor delivery guy, who I've spoken about before, has been visiting a doctor recently, whose testing has revealed that he officially has a third kidney. It's non-functioning, but a kidney nonetheless, and his "fluids are murky", whatever the hell that means.

He's been heard proclaiming to be "proud to be a mutant" around the store.

I don't know how much more I really want to know about this situation, but if you're indeed a mutant and best you get out of the deal isn't a healing factor or teleportation skills, but an extra non-working organ, you got screwed.

She Tore My Heart Out And Stomped That Sucker Flat

The workday was fairly blah, I spent the morning getting my little party bullshit ready for delivery at four o'clock, snacking on the leftovers from yesterday's open house.

I was able to listen to a new Pickled Embryo, with a horror movie forecast for the rest of the year and into next, and a new Cinemaslave, which had Joe talking about bears congregating on his car while he was at work, and a brief discussion of film as well.

After lunch I ran an errand with the processor kid, who thankfully escaped last night without herpes, and was frankly disappointed that they merely had a drink and dropped him back at his car. Both of the females involved seem to project a fairly wild reputation, I guess he was expecting more of a spectacle. I ended up having to take both of them, Myspace and her pal to the museum to decorate a tree that we do for a charity night they have, which was somewhat annoying, as Myspace told me on the drive over that she isn't used to decorating, and doesn't feel comfortable with it, then questioned a lot of the direction that I gave her. I will need to discuss this with the boss, as she obviously plans on sending me as her HNIC, and I don't really want to do it in the first place, and I'm certianly not going to be doing it butting heads with someone who openly admits that she doesn't know what she's doing, yet still wants to question what I tell her to do. I feel I need to nip this in the bud, or else the phrase "Bitch, I've been decorating these rich fucker's houses for five years, now shut the fuck up and re-hang that Goddamned pine swag like I told you to!" is going to come up, and that'll just get ugly.

Rather than watch either of the two films languishing on the coffeetable from Netfux, I was flipping channels this evening, and I got caught up in the last hour of Walk The Line. As is usually the case, I was so swept up in the emotional resonance of the music in the film that I found myself thinking of my parents, this was a lot of the music that they used to speak fondly of, and that I remember being played around the house at an early age, it echoes with memories of my childhood, for better or worse. Now in the mood for more gritty, emotional music, I decided to also take a look at a film that I had TiVo'd off IFC recently, a documentary about the Blues artists represented on the Fat Possum Records label called You See Me Laughin'.

The film gives an overview of many fairly unknown Blues musicians that the two white guys at the label have been pursuing and recording for several years now, tracking them down in the rural backwoods and juke-joints that they frequent. They've produced some really amazing results, albums that harken back to scratchy records from the 30's, full of emotion and the wailings of a tortured soul. I want to try and write a more complete review later in the week, over at the BSL, which I've been a bit lax in contributing to since my Saw III review from last week.

I'm loading up the iPod for tomorrow, even though I know of at least two different outings that are planned for me that'll eat into my listening pleasure time tomorrow morning alone. This does not bode well for my decorating season, if I'm expected to decorate houses and have to talk to these people, I may end up snapping far sooner than I was expecting to.

Be seeing you.

Our House Is Your Open House

I open the old blogging window early this morning because I fully expected to come home this evening and find the Blogger site fully tits up, dead to the world, and be unable to post anything about what I figured would be wacky events of today's open house event at the job.

My favorite quip of my own when asked how things are going:

"Well, I'm still doing this crap with my Sunday, so you tell me, now do you think things are going?"

The workday begins at noon, with an hour to get things set up for the great unwashed that will be beating down our doors at one o'clock. Brisk customer traffic, not too terribly crowded this year, but steady, so I got a lot of exercise helping to keep the refreshments filled, pulling items out of trees for customers, carrying shit out to people's cars, things like that.

We closed around four, and then booked ass to the next town over, where our yearly ritual is to go and check out the parent store's decorations before we then go to a restaurant and eat, so we headed to the store, gave it a once over and then made for the steak-house. The processor kid rode with me, and once we got to the restaurant, I tried to get him to sit with me at a table near the end, as I saw a lot of the women from the Odessa store that I knew were a lot of fun, but he declined, so I ended up sitting at a table by myself, adjacent to my peeps, but this afforded me a great conversation spot, so I was quite happy. Everyone else was seated around a table that stretched to infinity it seemed, 14 or so people on each side facing one another, while I got to chill at the far end at my own table, squeezing in a chair near the ladies and chatting it up, which was way cool.

The service was fairly slow, considering you had one waiter getting food, beverages and alcoholic drinks for around 30 people, but we had a lot of fun visiting, and the other end of the table typically got annoyed because we were having more fun than they were (something that happens every year, I swear to God) so they even started a dumbass game which effectively derailed conversation for awhile. I don't know what the game is called, as I've never been forced to play it before, but it's something where you whisper something to the person sitting next to you, and then they pass it on, until it has made a circuit of the table, and then the last person announces what was told to them and everyone laughs because it's nothing like the original statement, ha-ha, ho-ho, it is to laugh.

This was a basic attempt to involve everyone (our end somewhat against our will) in some sort of activity, which makes me want to ask "Don't you realize that if we wanted to chat it up with you, we'd have sat down on that end?"

Best anecdote from the Odessa folks: In regard to one of their 50+yr old women who works in their store, a rather matronly type, who has apparently told several different new employees that she has a tattoo of a mouse in a fairly private spot, only to take them aside and pull down her pants a bit, revealing panties and her upper thighs. She gets a confused look, as if she can't find her tat, then announces "I guess my pussy must've ate it."

WTF, over? And she's done this to several people now, like three of the four women I was talking to at the end of the table.

This is the same woman I first met at one of these open house dinners, who in the course of some weird conversation at the table announces to me that she happens to like younger men, touching my arm somewhat suggestively for comedic effect with our other diners.

I replied, quite calmly "I might need a few more cocktails before we have this conversation, my dear."

My peeps from Odessa were a lot of fun as always, and I was struck by the fact that I think their crew has gotten more interesting, less of the stick in the muds that I first knew them as when I started this job. They've had a few that came out of their shells, and hired a couple that are really fun to be around, they even had hilarious mock-lesbian romances to tell me about (all the girls playing at hooking up in couples, and I even got invited into a threesome with a middle-aged white woman and a young Latina, which made me laugh), crazy stories from different events they'd done, I had a great time with them, as always.

I've noticed that once we get through the actual open house, the dinners are usually a lot of fun, if you can find the right seating. This year I had to make my own, but it worked out well.

The processor kid left to go out clubbing with Myspace and another co-worker, I can only hope that he's not in jail right now, or in a threesome with them contracting some loathesome disease.

Be seeing you.

Workday And A Late Dinner

I must be getting even more jaded than I realize, because I feel little to no excitement over our Christmas Open House tomorrow, it's just another Sunday afternoon that I'm giving up to go and entertain customers I don't really care a whole lot about. I also find that a lot of our women are whining about where the owners are taking us for a free meal and drinks after the Open House, which makes me think that they're a bunch of fucking ingrates, you're getting a free steak and cocktails out of the deal, shut the fuck up, y'know?

Yeesh.

I spent most of the day with the iPod, trying to ignore the frantic last minute preparations that everyone else was scrambling around to get done before tomorrow. I listened to the newest Psychobilly Fury, which had the usual mix of great stuff, as well as a few that Donny had finally gotten permission to play, a couple songs each from Nekromantix and The Reverend Horton Heat. That's right, one of my favorite bands, the band that played our wedding reception, one of the most successful 'billy bands in the world has finally consented to being played by the grassroots guys who have been supporting the scene for nearly a year now. Who would've thought that would be such a struggle, y'know? Come to think of it though, their manager was a bit hard to nail down when we first contacted them about a gig, so maybe that's just par for the course.

I worked on the party order I have for Monday, twelve centerpieces that I started kinda getting the containers prepped for, so it'll be easier to throw them together that morning.

What I found so silly was that we're frantically trying to get silk arrangements built at about fifteen minutes after closing, which is stuff that should've been done about five days ago, not the day before the event in a tizzy. Personally, I said fuckit, and left shortly after closing, and because I wanted to catch a cat-nap before meeting friends for dinner at a little Italian place downtown.

Wrote a few e-mails, jacked around with this thing, and now I'm off to bed, it was a long dragging day and I'd like to be fresh tomorrow when I go out and press the flesh like a politician running for sweet fuck-all.

Be seeing you.

Blogging My Life Away

I'm weirdly conflicted about what I sat down to write this evening, because I'm not sure if it will piss people off or hurt anyone's feelings, neither of which I'm necessarily afraid of doing, per se, but not something I usually set out to do.

That said, deep breath and plunge ahead, I suppose.

From the various blogs I frequent on a daily or every other daily kinda basis, I've become aware of a great deal of drama or deception or allegations of racism within a fairly small handful of blogs. Some of this has somehow involved the blog I read, or a blog that that author reads, which has in turn had them writing about it, etc., and all of it hadn't really clicked in my mind until I had the wife ask "what's happening on the blog?" while we were at dinner this evening. Usually this question would be met with reiteration of someone's comments on my stuff from the past few days, but this evening it kinda hit me how much (sorry to keep using the word, but it really fits) drama has been going on.

What I guess I find surprising (and I guess I'm probably naive) is how much contact outside the commentary posted a lot of people seem to have with folks (IM's, e-mails, etc.) from the blog world. I don't really correspond at all with people who I've not met in 'real life' outside of the blog itself, and would be surprised if someone actually wanted to strike up correspondence, aside from a few random questions I've fielded here or there.

In recent weeks I've read portions of stories, and only portions, mind you, because I really haven't got that much interest in trying to piece together what the hell went on between a bunch of strangers in some sort of weirdly skewed retrospect. Tales of deceptions, fake screen-names being used to impersonate fictional people to try and reinforce stories told online, people so burned out by being lied to by a stranger that they no longer want to write. On at least two other sites people have been defending themselves against accusations of racism because of jokes or comments made by them in their posts, and later going so far as to reiterate time and again how many friends or acquaintances they have of different ethnicities, and usually receiving even more flack for bringing those facts up.

I don't know what particular direction I'm going in with this post, this has been a certian amount of free-form rambling, but I guess my gut reaction to most of this has been a thankfulness for my icey detachment for a lot of people in life successfully translating to the interweb as well. I enjoy what interaction I have with a few of my personal friends who read this, as well as an ever dwindling handful of people who stop by here out of the kindness of their hearts. I haven't tried to attach to any of them any more than (I hope) they've tried to attach to me, we have a friendly "hey, how's it going?" nodding relationship that I feel is ideal. With few exceptions, I can't imagine trying to push that further, though if Ultra makes it to the States, he has a place to stay if he's interested, as he's the only blogger I've met.

The whole racism thing kinda weirds me out as well, because at some point you'll offend just about anyone, but when you have blogs with a few different people asking things like "do you think I should use racial humor on the blog?" it makes me wonder why you need it that bad, is that your only schtick? But by the same token, I don't think someone should completely self-censor if you're speaking in a vernacular that you're comfortable with and aren't resorting to wholesale use of racial slurs, because that's just ignorant.

I guess my roundabout point to all this is just curiousity as to why someone would want to bring all the real-world hangups to the interweb? Why wouldn't you take everything with a grain of salt, given the fact that we're always dealing with total strangers on this crazy box? I had started writing this crap as an exercise to get in the habit of writing each day, and hopefully pursue some sort of fiction writing, which hasn't really happened as I found myself enjoying writing about my stupid interests and little anecdotal kind of stuff more than trying to make up clever crap. I can easily find things to piss me off or complicate my life if I walked out my door and talk to someone, I can't imagine ending up in the same kind of drama on the web as well. I think that in some ways this is my little escape, write a few stupid stories, vent about the job, talk about movies or whatever else is interesting to me that day, and generally try to not get involved in some kind of arguing or hurt feelings. I can do that at work pretty easily, why would I even give it the time of day online?

At this point in my life, I barely believe this 'interweb' place really exists, so for all I know you people might just be figments of my imagination.

Be seeing you.

Dear Bastards: Now With Mid-Day Bullshit!

Once again the wife is in meetings at the lunch hour, so I thought I'd pop in with a brief update on my developing poultry riot in the backyard.

In short, there's nothing to tell.

The larger hen's comb was much worse looking than it actually is, and they're all crowing and going about their chickeny business as if nothing happened. Perhaps they're like geese and wake up in a new world every day, and just wonder where they are and how they got there, it's like that film Cube, except with more chickens and less death-traps.

Weird factoid though: Apparently two different people doing a blog-search found the site via the key-word 'chicken' in the past 24 hours.

I'm crossing my fingers for an uneventful afternoon, though Myspace has been in and out of the store on her cell-phone all day, which is causing friction, so I may get to see a different form of hen-fight yet.

God + Damn + Chickens

If these chickens aren't the fucking death of me, they're hell-bent on being the death of one another.

I look out the window this evening, and had a weird deja-vu feeling as I saw not one, but two birds wandering about the back yard as if in a new world. Just like last time, I scrambled out the door ready for the worst, but the confusion of the new surroundings seems to play to my favor when capturing the birds, which were both of the hens, oddly the largest the worse for wear, her comb bloody and thoroughly pecked at, as was the red hen to some extent. Once they were both back in the containment unit, I took time to fortify the sides, where their vigorous scuffling had torn loose the staples and allowed them to slip out. All of this at dusk, so they finally, after a few more small attacks on each other, settled the fuck down and retired to the well house that serves as their bedroom.

My fucking backyard is fast turning into a Saturday afternoon's entertainment in a third world country.

I'm at something of a loss, because there's now way we can let them run free in the yard, it's just not feasible, and if the close quarters is what's driving them to violence, then I don't really know what the hell we're going to do, because I had thought they had a pretty decent sized living area. If all they're going to do is hurt one another, I guess we'll be getting rid of all, or at least three of them, and if the fourth one still finds ways to hurt itself, I'm going to make it a tiny noose and let it end things if it sees fit.

All of this hassle, pain and suffering over what was initially a cutesy Easter gift from a friend, and boy, we had no idea how much she was screwing us on that one.

*******************************Damnit***********************************

I had actually written a great deal more, and I mean that, a helluva lot more, and then the damnable Internet Explorer encountered some fucking error on a different window and promptly shut down all of them, effectively screwing me out of about 45 minutes' work. I'm beginning to think with all the recent problems that writing may not be for me, indeed, perhaps a higher power is trying to tell me to shut the fuck up.

The rest of that lost story may turn up tomorrow, but it also involves a lot of expository backstory about a person I've never mentioned here before, which leads me to a thought I'd had recently: Should I take the trouble to possibly add a 'Dramatis Personae' page to the blog, just a cheat sheet of the various people I refer to now and again, so the average passerby won't be confused when I speak of Myspace as an ignorant slut rather than a website?

Let me know (all seven of you who might be reading this...).

Be seeing you.

Damn You Lawn Guys! Damn You All To Hell!

After an early morning phone call from that sweetcandymary himself, Robbb, I found myself online, somewhat against my will. I would have preferred to go back to sleep for a bit, but the neighbors lawn guy was apparently weed-eating what I can only assume was the fucking magnolia tree in their front yard, because he's been at it for a good 45 minutes so far, with no sign of letting up.

Talking of sleeping, or the inability to, those damned chickens have been developing the habit of crowing for about thirty minutes or so around 3 or 4 in the damned morning. I have no idea what started this trend, but it usually seems to go on at least two or three times a week that I'm aware of. Thankfully, there are the rare nights that I sleep the sleep of the just and make it through an entire night without waking up tossing and turning.

I'm off to lunch with the Robbb soon, more later.

Be seeing you.

Would You Like To Play A Game?

I can proudly say that I had an amazingly productive day, which can be few and far between when I'm not stuck at work. I got up pretty early and checked e-mails, returned a few, then went to get the oil changed in the car. While that was being done I balanced the checkbook and then ran by our local Hastings: Books Music and shitty service, I mean, Video.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a used copy of Dead Man's Shoes, a film I was raving about a few months back, actually cheaper than I've even seen it for on Deep Discount DVD or elsewhere online.

Afterward I called in a food order and killed a bit of time in a used bookstore on the way to the restaurant, where I actually found the first Jeff Lindsay book in the Dexter series, basis of the first season of the show from the look of the synopsis, which has me kinda torn. On one hand I really want to read the entire thing tonight after I finish boring you folks here, but then I don't know if I want to know how things on the show will theoretically end.

We'll see if delayed gratification wins out, or if I waste the entire day tomorrow nursing a drink and reading on the couch.

The wife got out of a meeting around one in the afternoon, so she and I ran a few of her non-profit related errands, picking up a few things for a couple of the upcoming fund-raisers, then headed to the theater to spend around $25 for matinee tickets and refreshments, which had me nudging her at the concession stand, "See, this is why I don't like to buy this shit at the theater." She hadn't had a chance to grab lunch, so she decided to bite the bullet and snack it up a bit, but damn, y'know?

Saw III was pretty cool, I have enjoyed the first two, and I thought this bad boy paid off pretty well with a lot of back story that fills in a few blanks between the other films, as well as the usual slew of traps and gore. Review forthcoming on Big Suck Loser, which has been updated fairly frequently lately, I'm proud to say, we've been reviewing our little hearts out.

For my listening pleasure this evening were a few of the recent Subculture Collective shows, both Madhouse Mauly's Evil A Go-Go and Bibb's Hellbilly Wreckhouse, as well as a new Reel Horror reader mail episode, which also detailed weird moments with celebs and various beefs with online antagonists, fun stuff as always.

Awright kids, fuck this for a game of soldiers, click on something above that's more interesting, I'm out.

Be seeing you.

Why Are Dead People So Popular?

I mean, damn.

We were busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest this afternoon, and all of it was funeral work. This one little old lady must have been really sweet to everyone, because Gawddamn, it seemed as if everyone she ever met was sending flowers to her funeral.

Me, I'm doing everyone I work with a favor by being such a prick, if I croaked tomorrow, like, three people would send flowers, tops.

My service to you, my fellow flower fuckers.

Much ado about nothing would accurately describe the tension level once I got back to the store, both of our potential combatants had seemingly cooled off, which annoyed me to no end, as I'd been kinda hyped up to see some blood hitting the old carnations this afternoon only to be greeted with apathy and acceptance.

These people never tire of letting me down.

I sought solace in the iPod, which included new stuff from Rue Morgue Radio, another (Cool Shite) On The Tube, a new Cinemaslave, and a new Monster Squad Terrorcast.

Talking of podcasts, I was amused to hear that the Mikes over at the Reel Horror Podcast had noticed that I commented on one of their episodes being even pissier than usual on a recent show, nice to know that they are still checking in here from time to time. Hello fellas.

They also talked a bit about the Max Brooks recently released World War Z book, which I'm hoping the wife will gift me with when the birthday rolls around, I'm very interested to read it.

I want to run some errands tomorrow morning and then try to catch the third Saw flick in the afternoon, just because it's still in theaters and who the hell knows when I'll have the time to see a movie once we get into full-blown Christmas decoration mode. The boss has already started making noise about how I won't be able to have my preferred days off once we get into the Christmas swing of things, which had me asking "Even with the extra help you normally bring in?"

Seriously, I can't understand her attitude that I need to be her representative when we do these decorating jobs. I mean, I get it, I can schmooze the rich fuckers we do work for, I'm pretty good at it actually (not that you'd ever get that idea from these writings), but I know they could train some other monkey to not say 'fuck' when dealing with rich housewives, y'know? I personally suggest grooming our creepy molestor delivery guy for it, he has a strong back and a weak mind, surely we can mold that into something useful. Hell, even Myspace herself wants to be our star pupil, let her go out and press the flesh, I'm ready to hang up my hat as public relations coordinator.

And Britney is finally divorcing her ass-hat of a husband. Yay.

Be seeing you.

On My Signal, Unleash The Bitchslap

Since the wife is in a meeting today at the lunch hour, and with all of Blogger's malfunctions fucking up my daily posting idea anyway, I've decided to go ahead with a little variety to spice up this waste of our time. You can expect a short one mid-day today, then a longer one this evening, much in the same way I might take a shit.

Yas commented about her amusement with my office politics, and today we've had a breakdown in the tenious détente that had been declared, as our third in command has taken it upon herself to call out Myspace on her being on the phone and not at her desk, right in front of our second in command, thus fucking up the chain o command and throwing Myspace into a complete fucking tizzy.

I'm crossing my fingers because I've never had the chance to see a knife-fight in person before, let alone between a middle-aged Spanish woman and a young white gal. I'd put money on the younger gal, if only because I know for a fact that she's been involved in a few drunken brawls before.

The funniest thing about the whole situation is that the second in command didn't even get involved in any, way, shape or form as these two got a little heated and near shouty in the design room. I own chickens, I understand the concept of 'pecking order', the second in command should've been right in the middle of both their asses because one was doing nothing and the other was getting out of line in the order of who yells at who when they're fucking up.

More on this as the police reports are filed.

Be seeing you.

It's Hard To Type With Your Fingers Crossed

I'm writing this in a state of apprehension, as the Blogger service is behaving properly so far this evening.

Since that could go to hell at any moment, I'm going to try and make this fast, even though I want to cover a good number of things that I've ignored due to frustration with the service of late.

My pal Myspace (the slutty girl at the job, not the online stalker tool) has been acting really erratic lately, because her alleged betrothed is in town for a visit, and this past Saturday she had called in, because her son was sick. She then preceded to go out drinking later that night, I guess that meant she found someone to babysit him while he was on his deathbed, and then calls in again today, because he's still sick, which also conveniently ties in with her boyfriend's last day in town. C'mon, we're not stupid, she obviously wanted to spend time with her guy, why is she lying to us so obviously? And why is my boss talking to me about it rather than yelling at her when she called in?

I was also amused to find out Saturday that virtually everyone at the store has an axe to grind with her, if only because she has such a two-faced manner about her, the best friend to your face, and turns on you the moment you're out of the room. Glad to know it's not just me.

Watched the latest Masters Of Horror this evening, directed by John Landis, called Family. I enjoyed it immensely, and hope that more of this season is like this one, really creepy and unsettling. Well worth a look if you have the option, I even took the time to tap out a quick review for the Big Suck Loser, which should be up and running soon.

We also watched a TiVo'd Girls Next Door, amusing as always, though I still want to choke Holly every now and then. I find that Hef's brother also gives me a bit of the willies, he just has a creepy old man vibe that is even weirder considering he's Hef's brother, and looks nothing like him, even in older clips from past news specials about the Bunny Clubs and whatnot.

Listened to a lot of stuff today, while trying to drown out the chatter of the store, including the Supanova coverage from last week's (Cool) Shite On The Tube Podcast, a new Pickled Embryo railing against Bill O'Reilly's recent Halloween-topical beef with the current spate of ultraviolent horror films, a new Night Of The Living Podcast, the latest Mondo Movie, and (at long last) a new Keemecast.

What little I heard of the O'Reilly stuff amused me simply because he had the attitude that the studios should admit that they're pandering to a lowest common denominator with this type of film and should be apologetic about what they're doing, which I find interesting, considering that no one's apologizing for shit like Fun With Dick And Jane, which almost made me walk out of a trans-Atlantic flight, it was such a piece of shit. No one's calling the Wayans Brothers out about shit like Little Man are they?

I don't know why I even acknowledge anything that O'Reilly says, all that guy does is put my bowels in an uproar.

Be seeing you.

Shit. Son Of Bitch.

Tonight’s post will ensure that I will never be a ‘Blog Of Note’ on the home page, because I am rather pissed with their “service” this evening, and will probably be talking a lot of shit, and even reiterating sKincarver's link to Wordpress, a service I may indeed have to look into sometime soon.

I came into this evening’s post hoping to find Friday’s entry somehow added back into things and came up short, I offer this post under the same circumstances. I wrote an opening sentence, then hit save, which gave me the same fucking ‘database error, Blogger monkey has been notified’ message, along with the information that ‘the information wasn’t saved’. Then the post turns up in my archive under ‘edit posts’, as though it does indeed exist. This leads me to believe that somehow the system may truly believe in the posts’ existence, for a time, and then drop it like a hot rock, hence Friday’s now non-existent post.

Taking a cue from Angela, I’m writing this in Word, so I can at the very least re-post it at a later date, not that anyone anywhere in the world besides myself would notice if I skipped a day on this bullshit, it’s now become the principle of the matter.

I don’t know if these ‘database errors’ have anything to do with the timeframe in which I am accustomed to posting my shit (usually anywhere from 10 to 1 in the morning), or if it’s just a random problem that they keep encountering, but it’s really beginning to get on my fucking nerves. Bad enough to have to fuck around with something I fully expect to lose into the ether, but even worse to try and add any photos and linkage to the mix only to have it disappear at a later date.

Watched a lot of really great television this evening, including a new Desperate Housewives and Dexter, which was quite fabulous, I still highly recommend the show to anyone who can get Showtime in their home. The Housewives was fun, with a crazed woman involved in a gun-toting standoff in a grocery store that ended with enough shots fired to clean up a few plot-points that were getting too messy.

Dexter was great, with a near-miss scenario involving a witness who might've seen our serial-killer protagonist (Michael C. Hall) in action giving us a fairly tense episode, but everything worked out well in the end. I'm quite looking forward to the next episode, if only for the sheer fact that Dexter's girlfriend has an abusive ex-husband who's destined to make an appearance, and I'm crossing my fingers to see Dexter put him down.

I'm off to bed, just to allow the Blogger servers plenty of time to fucking delete this post.

Be seeing you. (Or maybe not.)

Since We Live In The Armpit Of The World...

I won't be able to check out the recently released Borat film until next week at a theater in the next town over, I had to settle for a crash course in Sacha Baron Cohen via a marathon presentation of Da Ali G Show on HBO that had the TiVo recording its' little heart out for me all morning and afternoon.

I'd never watched the show at all, so today's marathon of the entire series was a helpful primer for what to expect with the film. What a bizarre concept, I wasn't expecting the entire series to have that weird "Let's fuck with people" kind of straight-faced approach to things, à la Tom Green's early dead-pan approach to tormenting unsuspecting strangers. The biggest difference being that a lot of Sacha Baron Cohen's victims are political figures or celebrities who really don't seem to get the drift that someone's fucking with them big time.

There's a very in-depth review that can be read here, if you're interested.

As I was typing the last little bit there, I received an e-mail notification that I had a new comment posted to the blog, which was from sKincarver asking me if I'd deleted a post from yesterday, which leads me to believe that Blogger may have lost yesterday's post, as it is nowhere to be found on my archives as of this writing at 11:30 PM on the evening of November 4th, 2006.

This is quite annoying, as I had a daily vibe going since March, and now through no fault of my own it's shot to hell. I had trouble saving things last evening, and was quite relieved to finally get the damned thing posted, so why the fuck wouldn't it disappear completely just to aggravate me, right?

If it somehow magically re-appears from the abyss of the interweb, I take back everything I've said about the Blogger service, no harm, no foul, but since I don't expect it back, a brief synopsis would be that I'm an idiot and I was very mad at myself yesterday, thank you for playing, please drive through.

That said, since this post will probably self destruct within 24 hours, I'm going to go do something more constructive with my time and look for porn.

Be seeing you.

The Best Laid Plans Of Mob And Men (Or, TVLand Part Five)

Y'know how I said that I was going to get out of the house today?

Yeah.

That shit didn't happen at all, except for walking out back in pajamas and slippers to feed the chickens and get pecked at randomly by those ungrateful fuckers.

The wife has been involved in a project for one of these non-profit organizations for a fund-raiser next spring that has been wearing one since August of this year, and I would personally cite this particular ordeal as to why I'd much prefer my charity done in check form rather than personal involvement. Y'know how it's rude to call a person's house who has kids after, shit, I don't know, what is the cut-off? 9:00? 10:00, at the latest? The woman she's been doing this project with is in the habit of calling to report concerns/criticisms and to simply brainstorm as late as ten-thirty in the evening (presumably after she's put her kids to bed) and as early as eight in the fucking morning. The point of this anti-charity ramble is that any plans I had to do anything online today were cut short by the wife's use of the computer and printer for printing out a thousand or so letters to ask the nice locals for money, so I found myself in a special one on one relationship with the couch yet again this afternoon.

Listening to the newest Hellbilly Wreckhouse as I type this, which featured stuff from The Tremors, The Tombstone Brawlers and Sasquatch And The Sick-A-Billys, great show this time around along with a tale from Bibb about what's becoming the trend of costume-less trick-or-treaters invading his building on Halloween.

Watched the Halloween: 25 Years Of Terror documentary, which was a pretty interesting and informative overview of the series of films. It also conjured up reasons why I haven't bothered to revisit anything past the first three films in a good long time, it was as if the producers lost their fucking minds after awhile and assumed that people would turn out for any film they decided to put out, hell, half the studio people interviewed in the documentary make mention of how the series is a product that (and I believe I'm quoting here) "...can include creative and unique ideas." but is primarily considered to be a money making vehicle, with creativity and continuity being a novel idea that gets pitched somewhere in the back of the trunk when the machine gets rolling.

Watched another disc in the Samurai Champloo series, which was cool, I'm still quite enjoying those, I'm tempted to bump the other three discs up in the Netfux queue just to have a little marathon, but I have been trying to stop doing that, just so things will pop into the post inthe order they were added rather than basically standing still while I add new stuff to the top of the list.

Back to the job for the weekend blitz, I have heard from an unreliable source that our Christmas Open House is coming up this Sunday, which I am now doubting because the invitations that we send to customers regarding their attandance haven't even been addressed yet. I believe the person telling me about the date meant to say November 12th instead, which would make more sense, considering it usually tries to fall on a date in mid-month, not too early, nor too close to Thanksgiving.

I was happy to see that sKincarver has added a new review over at the Big Suck Loser, we seem to be nicely puttering away in our little review corner, slowly building a database of reviews, which is kinda cool, check that out if you haven't already.

Be seeing you.

TVLand Part Four

I'd like to open with a weird factoid that I realized while watching An American Werewolf In London this evening: In addition to featuring the gorgeous eye-candy of Jenny Agutter, it also has a cameo by Alan Ford, alias Bricktop from Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels as a taxi driver, onscreen for all of about a minute, but I recognized the voice immediately and kept waiting for him to go off on a ramble about being a 'orrible cunt, like he does in the Guy Ritchie film. I seem to recall he had those same glasses, as well.

I left the house this morning with a few errands in mind, chief among them being to pick up and deposit my paycheck. This being the first item on the lost, it got immediately and completely derailed within minutes, as the woman who usually hands out the checks had apparently placed the extra ones for people who weren't working today in the pocket of her smock and then went the fuck home for lunch about five minutes before I walked in. I said 'eff this' and picked up some Thai and went back to the house, ate and watched a series of films over the afternoon and evening.

I remembered my friend Buckaroo Banzai mentioning the last time I saw him that he had enjoyed the Fantastic Four flick, and since it's been on cable a helluva lot recently I decided to give it a shot. I seem to recall that this one got a lot of bad reviews, but I enjoyed it for what it was, a fun comic-book action flick, and was actually kinda impressed with the visuals. It was as changed from the source material as I'd expect any Hollywood project to be, and barring some lame music cues from the soundtrack, it didn't make me cringe throughout the same way something like Daredevil did.

The wife was out of the house for a board meeting, and I had fuck-all else to do, so I plowed ahead with some of the bonus materials from the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre re-issue, and then watched the recently TiVo'd House Of Dark Shadows, which was a film I've always been curious about, particularly since I've only been aware of Dark Shadows peripherally. I enjoyed the film, but still have issue with Jonathan Frid as the vampire lady-killer Barnabas Collins, as I think the actor is quite trollish somehow, and have to question the instant attraction most females seem to have for him in the series. I suppose it must have something to do with the whole vampiric seduction that I'm not privy to.

The wife came home and watched a bit of A History Of Violence with me before getting caught up with another non-profit database collating issue in the computer room. I hadn't seen this one before, and had blind bought it awhile back on Cronenberg's name alone, as I'm quite indifferent to Viggo Mortensen one way or the other, and generally think Maria Bello is cute, but would probably confuse her with Deborah Kara Unger if pressed for a role she's played. Flicka? Really? She was in that?

Rounded out my day of couchy laziness with the aforementioned AWiL, which was a lot of fun as always, I don't think I'd seen it in at least a few years.

I did write a new review for the Big Suck Loser, if anyone is interested, give that a peep.

I may leave the house tomorrow.

Be seeing you.