Controlled Chaos

The repairmen descended on the house this morning like the wrath of God, and since there were two different groups of them, one working on the heater inside, the other installing the refrigeration unit outside, the day had a vibe of a kicked over ant-hill about it. There's also the revelation that the fuggin old ass wiring in this house won't readily support the newer model high-power coldinating box they installed outside, so we have to have their electrician out tomorrow to finish taking the rest of our money. Gone is the old-fashioned 'twist to adjust' style thermostat, replaced with a slim oblong box the size of a PDA that glows dimly from its mount on the wall and in addition to controlling our climate in here, even tells us the outside temperature.

I don't give a shit how cold it is out there, I just want it comfortable in here, ya hear me, ya damned new-fangled technology?

I'm getting old.

Tomight's post will be a patchwork of somewhat random ideas sewn together in no particular order, and I fucking defy you to tell the difference from any other days' post.

The wife and I were in a Starbucks yesterday because I have a jones, and when presented with the wife's debit card, over-caffeinated counter girl, who we're supposed to believe really cares about us asked the wife how she happened to have a platinum debit card, because hers was only a gold one.

"I didn't know they offered platinum ones, you must have more money than I do." she said.

What in the hell do you say to that? Probably? I walked off, afraid she'd want to see a deposit slip or something next.

I'm excited to see the new Sarah Silverman Program that premieres tomorrow evening on Comedy Central, just to see what she'll say next. There's a few clips available on the dedicated site here, and of course the usual treasure trove via YouTube.



I really dug last year's Jesus Is Magic, and am happy to have something new to watch on Comedy Central, since David Spade's Showbiz Show has apparently disappeared forever.

I stuck to my new self imposed schedule today, with a two hour session with the graphs in the AM, then a break to stretch and return e-mails and the like, as well a playing around with the useless reviewing and ratings over at Flixster. It is fun though. I did another couple hours in the afternoon, and have begun to officialy think if this as my job, and wondering what I can call it when I eventually update my profile, because Blogger still thinks I'm a florist.

I want to make sure to use the word 'plotting', because it's not only somewhat descriptive, it also sounds quite sinister.

Mwah-ha-ha-ha.

There's more new crap than you can shake a stick at over at the Big Suck Loser, so grab your favorite shaking stick and get clicking.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Awkward Questions, Television, Sarah Silverman Program, Flixster, Big Suck Loser

What A Twisted Interweb We Weave...

I came to the whole interweb mess fairly late in the game, and was always a little confused and slightly annoyed when a search engine sent me completely off the trail of something I was looking for, y'know, like when you Google virtually any actress and end up with the usual useful links, as well as dozens of porn sites promising to show you nude photos of them.

I don't need to know that much about Jessica Tandy, thank you very much.

I feel bad today because I've derailed any number of searches with my dumbass shenanigans from last freaking year that generally speaking have nothing to do with what the person or persons were actually looking for.

Somehow I've received about 25 hits today alone based on a post I made over two months ago in which I made mention of Jenny Agutter's enduring hotness, as well as linked to an image on someone else's site. I've been getting no end of hits based on Google Image searches for that particular image, which I don't exactly understand, because I merely linked to it, rather than using the image itself.


Speaking of enduring hotness, holy shit, Pam Grier is absolutely amazing in tonight's feature, Foxy Brown. It also featured more of Sid Haig in a bit part, and all the explotative violence that you can shake a stick out. I'm heading over to Deep Discount DVD to check into the Soul Cinema boxset that came out a few years back, see what kinda deal they can cut me on some Blaxploitation fun.

Worked on the graphing bit for a couple hours this morning, while the wife was at a meeting, then ran errands with her all afternoon, finally ending up back here to pick up the dog and go to the Mother In Law's house for supper. I feel a little bad for missing my afternoon session with the graphs, but I'm going to try and make up for things tomorrow.

I also paid a few bills online this evening, which left me wondering how the fuck anyone ever manages to steal anyone's identity, as a forgotten password had me fighting a credit card's website for the better part of 30 minutes, eventually resulting in my account being locked and my being forced to actually call the damned customer service number on the account to reset the account to where I could access it and give them my money.

And all that hassle was for my own account, I can't imagine how the fuck you'd finagle your way in if you had no idea where to begin, I at least had all the pertinent information in front of me and still had no end of problems.

'Save a stamp' my ass!

New stuff over on the BSL, yadda yadda yadda, you know what to do.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Jenny Agutter, Foxy Brown, Pam Grier, Blaxploitation, Credit Card Frustration, Identity Theft, Big Suck Loser

Your Money's On The Dresser, Chocolate

Continuing the slow but sure viewing schedule I've adopted for the Rob Zombie approved TCM Underground segments, I finally got around to watching the Pam Grier classic Coffy, which was a helluva lot of fun. For a start, Grier looks amazing in the role, and it was amusing to see Captain Spaulding himself, Sid Haig, looking relatively young. Great flick, check it out if you have never seen it, it was my first taste of the Blaxploitation genre and makes me want to see more.

Tomorrow we have Foxy Brown on tap, more on that is it develops.

Grier's awesome afro in this film also made me want to order this print set from Glenn Barr's website, which is called, from left to right Avenjah and Destroyah.

Another beautiful piece in the same vein is pictured below, called Keeper Of The Flame, which pictures another foxy sistah with a mystic cartoon image floating from her hand, which was featured in an art show at the La Luz de Jesus Gallery in LA, more information on that can be found here.

I went and saw the boss this morning (I'm still not sure how I want to refer to him on the blog, as I am working for him, but I'll be seeing him once every three or for days at most, which doesn't exactly conjure the common impression of a boss to most people) and he made one small correction to the addition I was fucking up, and I was good to go. He also suggested that I go through all the pages and check off everything and make certian the numbers match up before I started trying to plot things out on the graph, as I had been trying to go over one page of info and then graph it at that point.

I worked for few hours this morning, finally backing off for a stretch and to go to lunch with the wife, and then put in a couple more hours towards it this afternoon, finally calling it quits for the day around 5:00. It is actually pretty slow going right now, but I feel like I accomplished a lot with it, I think once I get the hang of the scheduling my time around a more daily routine I'll really get a decent rhythm going, I picture a few hours of the graphs, an hour or so online to write for this and the other site, and then another few hours of graphs, try to work out, etc. I should press the importance of the work out possibility, because if I'm doing nothing but bumping around the house for a job, I'm going to end up the size of a house unless I make a concerted effort to be active during the day.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Coffy, Blaxploitation, Art, Glenn Barr, Workday

TiVo, What Are You Trying To Tell Me?

I'm not sure what sort of messages the televisionary box and its unholy minion TiVo is trying to send me the past few months, but they've conspired against me to arbitrarily decide that I'm a huge fan of the programming favored by BET, specifically amazingly dated re-runs of In Living Color along with newer stuff like 106 and Park with a little Rap City thrown in periodically for flavor. I can say with a certian amount of confidence that I've probably never watched anything in BET's line-up, and I've sure as hell never TiVo'd anything off there.

The same can be said for The Food Network, which has also been getting a lot of heavy rotation in the TiVo recording schedule. The only thing that has ever been recorded off there was a ginger bread bake-off that the wife wanted to see, which has been recorded per our request the past two Christmas seasons. This does nothing to explain the endless food/travel combo style programming that the machines have chosen to choke the suggestion box with in the past couple of months, completely ignoring the fact that they're passing over any number of programs that we've actually recorded in the past to save shows we've never expressed any interest in. The easiest solution is to go through and give a whole bunch of shows the old 'thumbs-down', and my only fear is that in doing so we'll scare the stupid thing off from recording anything we might be interested in.

I'm really just curious what we ever happened to watch that gave the box the idea that we would ever in a million years be interested in what they keep recommending for us?

We had a nice late lunch with Daveyyojimbo and his wife Blancodeviosa, along with their son and Robbb as well, a meal that drug on for an extraordinarily long amount of time, presumably because one of the cooks had passed away during the middle of his shift or something. That's only a guess, because the waiter apparently would be Goddamned if he'd offer anything by way of explanation, we were lucky to get bread and drinks and should just count our blessings and hope for the best on his next circuit of the room.

We dropped by the Mother In Law's house for a visit after lunch, well, a visit and an opportunity for me to check out her swanky new HD television that she'd bought a few weeks ago for her bedroom. I was a little nauseated to find that it was being used as I'd feared, which is primarily to dispense the latest unbiased and fairhanded information from those fine folks at Fox News Network. I'm going to try to slip off to her room on the next visit and program the DVR to record as much random left-wing programming as I can find, just because I don't want to be the only person in the family left out in the cold fighting with their technology.

I'm out kids, I wanna be up early to get a jump on this stupid plotting gig before I lose what tiny bit of it that seemed to take on the original lesson.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Television, TiVo, BET, Food Network, Fox News Network

Lazy Saturday

The wife was up early today to run the dog to the spa for a grooming, and then went to her nail lady for a pedicure herself.

I didn't need anything buffed or polished, so I stayed home and slept in.

Once out of bed, I checked into theater times here locally, because I keep seeing the odd Pan's Labyrinth commercial on the televisionary box, and it invariably makes me forget that we live in the armpit of the fucking world and will never have that film here, despite the fact that it's been in theaters for over a month. My hopes were of course once again dashed, though I notice the newest Almodóvar film is actually playing in Odessa, which might be worth driving over to see.


We took in the Omen sequel this afternoon, more Devilish supernatural fun brought to us by the TiVo over the past week, thought the wife dozed of during the latter half of the film. I'm also now in a quandry, because we've seen the first two films in succession recently, which makes me sort of want to try and track down the third film, either from those rental throttling pricks at NetFux, or from a local source. Despite the typically amusing debates on the IMDB forums as to whether or not Damian is having anal sex in a particular scene, I may still give this one a pass on the re-watch kick. I've still never seen the fourth installment, and don't know if I'll bother since it seems like a desperate "but wait!" last minute addition to a series that should've just ended.

I also freed up my entire evening and was able to at long last watch the Peter Jackson King Kong re-make, which was a lot of fun. I can still remember watching his early work with Daveyyojimbo and Buckaroo Banzai way back in the day and being blown away with what he could do without any help from the customary special effects houses like ILM here in the states. I really enjoyed the film, and aside from the T-Rex battle seeming to drag on a little, wasn't as frustrated with the pacing of it as a lot of people were, I actually found the expository bits from the beginning pretty charming.

I played around with the new work project this afternoon and had a pretty decent pace going before thing started to look a little off, so I've decided to step away from things until Monday and give the man himself a call to see if he's available for a little help session/tutorial, something I wouldn't think is out of line considering I've never done anything like this before. I considered calling him today and thought better of it, if I'd just hired someone, I'd rather not hear from them saying they were fucking things up first rattle out of the box on a weekend, no less.

Monday it is.

Oh, and for any interested parties, there's a new review up at the BSL, and I want to try and get something else together over the weekend just to keep things fresh.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Pan's Labyrinth, Netflix Rental Throttling, Omen II, Peter Jackson, King Kong, Big Suck Loser

You're Excited? Feel These Nipples!

I'm very happy to announce this evening that I am once again gainfully employed, in a capacity which will allow me to work from the home (goodbye, pants!) for about 25 hours a week. This will also be something I can do at my own pace, meaning if I want to work five hours a day all week, or pack the entire week into three days and then go out of town, it's completely do-able. I met with the gentleman this morning, and after about an hour of explanation of the job and getting to know you kind of chatter, I started learning how to read the information, and then plot it in graph form on the provided sheets. This is pretty alien to me, and there are definitely intricacies to the methods of reading the information that will prove tricky for me until I get the hang of things, but I've no complaints because the job is such a perfect fit for the scheduling and flexibility I have been after for quite some time.

The only wrinkle to any part of things is that while I am in charge of keeping track of my hours, the only way I'll be getting paid is once the entire project is done. This means about 20 pages of stuff graphed out before I see a check, but the money is great (about a $2.00 raise over the last job) and will be worth the wait. Once I get something of a rhythm going this won't be a big deal, as the projects should have a certian amount of overlap and keep things rolling, financially speaking.

I'm very excited about this, and can't wait to get the hang of things and really dig into it.

I'd also like everyone to share in my excitement and join me in a massive 'new employment' wank for joy, so please push back from the computer and let's all rub one out in celebration of my new career path.

Or just because it's the weekend, whatever floats your boat.

I told you I was excited.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, New Job, Graphing, Celebratory Masturbation

The Plotting Thickens

I'm pretty happy to report that I heard from one of the gentlemen who is in the geologist game this afternoon, who wanted to schedule a meeting to see if the job he has available is something I can do. I had to preface the entire conversation with my apprehension about having absolutely no idea what the job entailed, and he assured me that he doesn't have a problem training me.

The job as he described it is a pretty nebulous affair, as I was told that I can do it "for an hour a day, or ten hours a day, whichever you prefer; it's something you can do in your free time at your house". I'm really curious about what that actually means, because there obviously has to be some sort of median productivity that is expected and beyond that, I have to wonder if it's something I can even bend my mind around to actually do.

This job (if I remember the wording correctly) would involve plotting graphs of the drill rate of an oil well, and since math has never been anything I have a particular passion for, I'm a little nervous to see to what extent I'll be doing computations of my own. I do, however, crave an office free 'work from home at your own leisure' type of job. This is something I'm really hoping works out, especially since this would also fall under that 'things I never thought I'd be trying to do for a living' catagory in my already odd career path.

*Crosses Fingers*

Daveyyojimbo had the afternoon to spend with the wife and I today, and we drug his unsuspecting ass through any number of random errands, running the gamut from feed stores for the chicken's scratch to a girly little gift store so the wife could look for some invitations for her Grandmother's upcoming birthday.

I picked up the newest Juxtapoz Magazine, check out their website for more information. This issue will soon make its way to the pile of stuff to read that hangs out on the nightstand, a pile that grows dangerously tall at times, and then drops back to normal on occasion. Right now we're on an upswing, I really should spend more time reading rather than blogging for 24 hours straight, y'know?

The wife and I re-watched the original Omen this evening on a weird whim, which was a lot of fun, and made me wish Bella was just a little more evil, because it'd be fun to have a Yorkie for a hound of hell.

Considering that I have somewhere to be, possibly in a job-related capacity early in the morning, I'm calling it an early night.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Unemployment, Juxtapoz Magazine, The Omen, Yorkie

Housekeeping Auditions, Take One

The wife had the repair folk in this morning to look at the heating unit, which has started in the past few days to make some sort of annoying locust like buzzing whine. Couple this with a freon leak from air conditioner outside, and with both units being a combined 20 years old, we've decided to bite the bullet and replace both rather than limp along any further. This process will take place next week, on Wednesday and Thursday.

The wife had a meeting this morning that she'd planned to blow off, and changed her mind about, but only after she'd scheduled a walkthrough with a group of housekeepers who were supposed to drop by and look over our house so they could tell us what they'd charge to clean the place pretty thoroughly twice a month. This would allow us to pick up, do dishes, do laundry and handle the light stuff ourselves, while they would do floors, heavy cleaning and the like. Dashing my hopes, they looked nothing like what you hope for in a housekeeper, but were instead a team of small Mexican women, two older ones chattering in Spanish while the younger pregnant member of the team translated and asked questions of me. They settled on $70 a visit, twice a month, the first one to coincide with the installation of the heating unit next week, since we'll already have people underfoot, I figured why not go nuts?

The most amusing part of this was being asked what we wanted cleaned? "Um, the house, duh?" was my first reaction, and it makes me wonder how clean people usually keep their own homes if there's varying degrees or levels of cleanliness that they offer. I guess we'll see how this works out.

There's a couple new reviews up for your disinterest over at the BSL, give it a peep if you have a lot of free time like I do, and there should be more to come closer to the weekend.

In that interest, I re-watched a film called Shopping that's been on cable recently, directed by the other video game adaptation extraordinaire, Paul W.S. Anderson. It stars a young Jude Law and Sean Pertwee as rivals in a criminal underground that steals cars for fun and profit, generally crashing them into store windows and going 'shopping' for a specific series of items for a bigger crime boss. I'd seen it before but wasn't actually aware of Anderson's involvement until the credits rolled. There'll be more to come over at the BSL eventually, but suffice to say that he's directed better (Event Horizon) and much worse (Aliens vs. Predator) after he made this one.

We had the Mother-In-Law and Grandmother over for supper this evening, the MIL bringing her Pomeranian for the trip so she could play with Bella. Before we actually sat down to eat, the MIL stepped out back for a cigarette and to let the Pom do her business. Imagine the chickens surprise when this fuzzy white interloper came bounding around the corner and saw them. The Pom freaked a bit, having never seen a chicken before, the chickens proceded to begin cackling and going generally apeshit, because they don't see a stupid lapdog, they see a vicious canine predator. There's nothing quite as amusing as watching hens take a break from trying to peck each other and do a panicked and squawking 3 foot vertical leap when the dog got within about 6 feet of the containment unit.

Good times, good times.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Personal, Housekeeper, Movies, Shopping Film, Paul W S Anderson, Family Dinner

The Late Edition

Today was merely a series of household chores and consumption of random entertainment items via the television, with a brief interweb diversion at mid-day to express my excitement over the impending Twin Peaks release.

The Marc Forster film Stay was something that has been on the TiVo for quite some time, and was a pretty decent film, though I have to say that the plot-twist if the ending isn't anything you haven't seen before, and is pretty obvious from around the 20 minute mark of the movie, if you're listening carefully. I've seen most of Forster's catalog, and actually reviewed his earlier film Everything Put Together for BSL awhile back, his work has never completely let me down, but has been of varying quality. This film was on the higher end of the spectrum, but not as good as Monster's Ball. There will be a full review later in the week over at Big Suck Loser.

In the interest of cleaning out the TiVo, I decided to check out the Andrew van den Houten film Headspace, an alleged horror/thriller that I ran across whilst searching 'horror' on the TiVo movie listings. Not exactly the horror film I expected it to be, there's decent gore throughout the movie, but the climax and reveal of the actual creatures we've been waiting to see was pretty anticlimactic for me. I'm going to be writing a review for the site of this one as well, so check that out later in the week if you're in the mood for some reviewing love.

Concluding my movie festivus for today was a film sKincarver recently reviewed, A Scanner Darkly. We both enjoyed this a great deal, the banter and mannerisms of Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson were worth the rental price alone. Keanu is a little blank, even as a cartoon, but the film moves along at a decent pace and has enough double crosses and intrigue to keep you interested even after the novelty of the animation might get old.

I'm committing myself to writing several things for the BSL this evening, and hopping over to eBay to dick around and see if I can actually remember what my damned password is so I can clear out a few of the DVD's that are wasting space on my shelves. I'd been doing a decent little bit of business on there with a handful of movies back around June, but lost momentum after we got married.

This in mind, I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Movies, Big Suck Loser, Stay, Marc Forster, Headspace, A Scanner Darkly

Thy Collection Complete, On Earth As It Is In Lynch Heaven

In my rampant wasting of time this morning on the interweb, I ran across something I'd begun to think was never going to actually happen.

Twin Peaks The Second Season on DVD! I'm quite excited, as there haven't even been any bullshit rumors about this in a great long while, and I had basically given up on the idea of owning the complete series and being able to lock myself in the house for a weekend and watch the entire series in order in its entirety.

That dream is alive again, and though the street date of April 10th is still a good ways away, I've already begun to celebrate with a slice of pie and coffee.

The midget comes around later to speak backwards and trip a light fandango.

I never watched that many of these when thy originally aired, I seem to recall being in either junior or freshman high school when this stuff was airing on ABC, and I had to check it out after an interview with David Lynch ran in Rolling Stone, in which he spoke about the show. Getting in one the complete middle of the series, I barely understood what was happening, but damn if it wasn't intruiging. I eventually bought the first season (I believe) on VHS, and enjoyed the hell out of it, but I honestly don't think I've seen anything from the second season of the show save for a few clips here and there.

I'm quite excited about this release.

More later this evening, kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Television, Twin Peaks, David Lynch, Rolling Stone

Oh, No You Don't....

Today falling directly in line with my ongoing 30 years+ life-lesson regarding the fact that no amount of positivity is going to really help in the long run, the job I was kinda hoping to get has already been filled. While I've not reached the end of any economic tether per se, I'd rather not be completely broke before I find a suitable job. I mean, I can go and get a job doing what the fuck ever tomorrow, I'm not too good to dig a ditch, but I'd rather have something that I at least sorta want to be doing.

The wife remains ever encouraging, which means a lot to me, saying that "it obviously wasn't the right one for you" and reassuring me that there's no pressure to find the first thing that comes along. She also noted that I seem to feel even more guilty about not working because she can afford to float us along, which is probably true, because I don't want her (or anyone else, for that matter) to ever think I just want to be living off of her.

After errands this morning, and a once over of the paper, we settled in and just chilled out for the afternoon.

We watched Munich, which I enjoyed quite a bit, although I felt like I do with a good deal of these big Hollywood productions, in that I know it's probably going to be an interesting film, and will probably tickle my fancy. This tends to be why I end up seeking out a bit of the more esoteric films most of the time, rather than diving in with both feet for something that is more of a given that I'll like it.

We also watched Dementia 13, something that had been TiVo'd off the TCM Underground awhile back. This was an interesting first effort from Francis Ford Coppola, and something I can now cross off my list of things to do eventually.

I was also curious about the new Sci-Fi Channel series The Dresden Files, so we caught that this evening. It was basically what I was expecting, a mixture of Hellblazer's John Constantine and Steve Niles' Cal McDonald, and before any sci-fi fans correct me, I know the Dresden material is based on a series of books, I'm just talking about how it compared to what I was anticipating. I will probably give it a few more episodes, just to see if it really grabs me, but it has an intriguing premise thus far, a freelance wizard/PI type is involved in cases that border on the edges of the real world and that of the magical one.

Listened to a few things recently on the old iTunes, still without any particular period of time to listen to anything on the iPod, so I've squeezed in several podcasts in the past few days while I'm writing this junk. That would include the most recent episodes of Cinemaslave (who I can identify with as far as watching a lot of crap cinema lately, I mean c'mon, Scary Movie 4? Dumb as hell, but I still got a few laughs out of it), the newest (Cool Shite), and the last few things on the Subculture Collective feed.

I'm out kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Unemployment, Movies, Munich, Television, Dresden Files, Comics, Hellblazer, Podcasts, Cinemaslave, Cool Shite, Subculture Collective

Visual Media Sunday

Late to rise, there was not a lot going on today, save for a bit of unpacking and since we got in fairly late yesterday, I had to go out and check on the birds, who were milling about in their waterlogged containment area. It's been fairly rainy or threatening snow most of the week, but the chickens seemed fine, no one has gone on a crazed attack of their fellows recently, and all seemed well in their world, plus they also got some left over french fries, just for the hell of it.

In my absence from the movie watching world, there's been some sKincarver activity over on the Big Suck Loser, for a film which sounds pretty cool, so be sure to check that out. I've not been watching anything truly worth reviewing in the past few weeks, and have had a partially written review for the Black Suckmas re-make sitting in Word for the better part of a week and a half, maybe I'll finish that soon, even though the stupid thing is out of theaters by now.

My internet travels this afternoon took me by Filmrot, which had a little blurb about a new horror flick called Dead Silence from the guys who brought us the first (and best of the lot, generally speaking) Saw film, and a little bit of Googling brought up this trailer, which looks like a mixture of the old school horror film Dolls by Stuart Gordon mixed with that God-fucking-awful movie Darkness Falls from a few years ago.



I have a few misgivings about the immediate comparison that springs to mind, because I'd rather have elective surgery than see Darkness Falls again, but from the looks of things this one doesn't look quite as over the top CGI'd as that film, so I'm willing to try and stay optimistic about this, if only because it's not a re-make and doesn't look like a videogame from the first frame.

The wife and I watched the newest Masters of Horror today, a loose adaptation of Poe's The Black Cat, starring Re-Animator's Jeffrey Combs (in a Stuart Gordon project, how shocking, right?) as the writer himself, complete with a fake flat Poe nose and wild hair. It was pretty interesting, though the idea of adapting Poe's personal life to accomodate inspiration for his wild and fantastical tales seems like a fairly obvious move, it was nevertheless a decent episode and fun, if a bit predictable.

I also sat through something I remembered rating on the old Flixster account awhile back, and was curious if it was as bad as I remembered it being. I can say with the utmost confidence that G.I.Joe: The Movie is a real disappointment from my rose-colored childhood. As much of a fan as I was of the daily cartoon, which was always something to look forward to during the long haul at school from lunch until 3:30, the movie was just a huge letdown, turning everything from the previous continuity into a larger plot by previously unseen characters that (to my knowledge) are never seen again after this film.

Bah, nostalgia bites me on the ass every other time I look back on something.

I'm out kids, I've gotta hit the grocery store with the wife and pay a few bills in the morning before hitting up a few of the people I talked to last week about a job.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Big Suck Loser, Movies, Dead Silence, Television, Masters Of Horror, Nostalgia, GI Joe The Movie

Thank God That's Over...

We woke up early this morning, and decided to screw in the spare bed, not as much out of passion but more to feel like we'd been fucked by someone other than the Sundance Film Festival while we were in Utah.

We checked out of the hotel, drove to the airport, turned in the rental car, the wife not even bothering to stop to fill the gas tank (something we always do), preferring to spend the $6.00 dollars a gallon for them to fill it simply to be one step closer to having this Godforsaken trip over.

We got checked in, got the bags checked and sent off to hopefully make it onto our plane, then grabbed food at one of the random stands along the way. Waiting for the plane, hating every one who we'd be flying with, I'm feeling a certain sense of relief just to be on our way home. We board the plane, the flight crew is a complete bunch of jackasses, rather than direct the cattle to their seats, they're (no shit) telling bad jokes and singing over the intercom presumably to amuse themselves, and I'm thinking that we're going to be on this plane for 2 stops (2 and half hours) before we get back home.

Contemplating murder, I delve deeper into my book, and they eventually shut the fuck up. That's about the only good thing to come out of this weekend, I've been able to read Max Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide in its entirety over the last couple days (which I enjoyed a great deal, I'm looking forward to the next book), as well as start over and nearly finish that damned Palahniuk book that I'd bought when we went on that trip to Tennessee a while back. I will finish that book this evening, come hell or high water.

Our first stop is in Phoenix (Hi Yas), we lose the Star Search flight crew (for fucking real, they behaved as if they were auditioning for something), we re-load the new set of passengers and head to Albuquerque, there's a quick turn-around there and we are finally back in Midland.

We picked up the dog, drove thru some supper and came home to try and relax and put off unpacking because who gives a shit anymore? We're home and that's all that counts.

Oh, and here's a report or two about what we're missing, just to piss me off.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Sundance 2007, Travel, Books, Zombie Survival Guide, Haunted

How Much Can One Trip Suck?

Oh, let me count the ways.

As I've written in the past, there was the fuckup from the get-go, wherein we either missed or didn't even receive an e-mail from the nice Sundance folks, which meant that we'd only be able to get a set of vouchers which could be exchanged for whatever tickets might be available.

We already knew about this...

But:

This morning, we got up at an unGodly hour, packed the dog off to a friend's house, and then drove through the drizzle to the airport, submitted ourselves to the customary strip-search, boarded, settled in for the flight. When the wife selected her seat, on the window side so she could sleep, away from the passengers who were still flying through from wherever, she noticed that someone had left some magazines behind, but, oh well, we tucked them under the seat and settled in. Imagine our surprise when some trendy blonde bitch, who apparently thinks that whatever airport she happens to have a 'stay on the plane' layover at is her personal playground, has left her shit to save her seat while she nipped into the snack bar for some food!?!?! Annoyed, but still in the wrong, she gets her shit from us and moves back a row, settled now on the aisle rather than her preferred window, beside two chatty Mexican guys who obviously annoy the shit out of her for the next two hours until we reach Las Vegas for our hour and a half layover after the bumpiest flight in recent memory. She springs out her seat and near paces in frustration until she can get off the plane.

"I sure as hell hope she gets where she's going." was K's comment.

We wander through the Vegas airport, have a little lunch at a place that tries to sell me a margarita at 9:30 in the morning, and grab a cinammon roll from Cinnabon for dessert. The wife throws $5.00 in a slot machine for a good minute and a half of spinning fun, I watch a counter attendant shout at an older man, and even though I'm itching to see it escalate, nothing happens. How cool would that have been, a fifty-something white man in a scuffle in the middle of the airport with a 40 yr old black woman with a lot of attitude?

Once we settle at our gate to wait out our departure time, we're surrounded by the type of people who I imagine you'd have to wade through droves of in Hollywood, trendy self-involved
pricks who should be exterminated. Most of the people are going the same place we are, either for the film festival, or the skiing. I, of course, immediately hate everyone on the plane, they all seem to know each other and are very pleased with themselves because of it...seriously, if I see anyone else wearing enormous sunglasses faux-kiss someone on each cheek in greeting, there will be murders.

Once on the ground in Salt Lake City, Utah, we go and stand like cattle in a waiting room around the gawdamned baggage carousel, which after a 20 minute wait (!) eventually spits out luggage from no less than 6 different planes, so we have to stand around for another 15 minutes or so, before getting all our crap in hand. We pick up the rental car, a Cheverolet Something, I have no idea, but it runs like it has a lawnmower engine in it, and is a lovely shade of metallic orange.

We take turns throwing up, then load the luggage and set out for Park City.

We take a driving tour of the town, as we have a bit of trouble finding the hotel, and eventually get turned around, and locate our lodgings, which look a little suspect, but trying to have a positive outlook, we check in and go up to the room.

...which turns out to have a strange stale smell to it, and two twin beds rather than one queen or king...I feel like Rob Petrie or something, but figure we can deal with it, sleep in them on alternating nights, whatever.

K has her reservations about things, and I begin to as well, when I notice that the internet connection in the room is run through the television, via a wireless keyboard that has virtually no response unless you stab at the keys in fits of anger, I finally do get pissed and call the front desk, asking them where the hell I can plug a laptop in within their hotel. They assure me that there's wireless capabilities with the proper password, which settles me a bit.

Still trying to keep a positive outlook, we head into town to go to the box office and see what the deal is with the tickets, and what movies we can actually get into. After circling the entire town looking for a parking spot, or one that doesn't want a $20 parking fee, or one that simply isn't full, we spy a lot directly across from the box office, with free parking for 15 minute limits for people picking up tickets. After making our way through two different lines, we have vouchers for tickets, but the real trick is that the first film that has any tickets available is on the afternoon of the day we leave. What we can do is fight our way through the other suckers each morning for the next five days to get on a waiting list in case someone doesn't show, or we can do some weird lottery option in which we turn up 2 hours in advance of a film's showtime, take a number, and then come back 30 minutes before showtime and see if our number is among the cancellations they've had.

The upshot is, we may get to see a few movies over the bext five days of fighting our way through absolutely horrendous traffic and schmucky people.

We've booked a flight home for tomorrow afternoon, because this sucks and maybe God was trying to tell us something when we originally found out we didn't have tickets reserved.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Sundance 2007, Travel, Misery & Vomit

The Day After

While it wasn't quite as apocalyptic as the image might imply, but yesterday still had a hellacious effect on me, from which I am still recovering. I signed off this pig last night shortly after 6:00PM, and began the tedious process of trying to wind down after being up for so damned long. I had some leftover chicken strips and tried to watch television, dozing a little bit, but couldn't get to sleep, finally moving to the bed, wondering why the hell my stomach was kind of cramping a bit.

It's around this time I'm realizing that I hadn't really ate any food in my efforts to stay awake for the 24 hours, save for a piece of pizza in the AM, and then a couple of chicken strips in the afternoon, so when I ate something resembling a full meal, I got a weird bloated stomach cramp thing going on.

I of course slept like a rock finally, for about 4 hours, and was wide awake shortly after eleven, read for about 3 hours, finally trying to wind down for good shortly after 2:00 AM, only to toss and turn for nearly another hour, my mind racing with weird what if? scenarios of what will happen for me job-wise once we get back from Sundance. I'm mulling trying to take on the manufacturing gig I'd had such a great interview with (assuming in a big way that I ompressed him enough to have the job still available when we get back) as well as looking for something else part-time. This has to be one of the strangest fucking notions that's popped over into my head, particularly when you consider the fact that I've recently quit a job because they didn't want to give me the free time I wanted.

I think I was able to successfully talk myself down on that one, because as with all things in life, it all comes down to money, and if I can score the one job, I'll be set for paying my bills comfortably, and that's honestly all I've ever been interested in. I've often said that I'm a lousy American, because if I can comfortably pay all my bills and buy a few DVD's when it suits me, I've succeeded. I have no desire to continue to increase my income just to be doing it, which is an easy thing to say now, considering the higher tax bracket my wife lives in, but this has honestly always been my outlook on things, even when it was just me living pretty hand to mouth by myself and scrimping at every turn, all I wanted was to be comfortable, not rich.

Weird, eh?

I think I'm best suited to living pretty close to the bone simply because if I have a lot of extra cash, I simply run through it and have more shit piled up around the house, and if I'm saving it, what am I saving it up for? To eventually buy shit?

I'd easily weigh my free time and ability to write or spend time with the wife against having extra cash for no particular reason any day.

The interweb travels this evening seemed like I'd been away for weeks, checking out all the bloggy buddies, and finding out more information about the upcoming Texas Frightmare Weekend, which looks to be pretty cool, hell, I could even meet Pinhead, ya'll! How cool would that be?

My suffering could be legendary, even in Hell.

I'm going to be up very early tomorrow, having decided to pack in the morning for the Sundance trip, and we also have to drop the dog off at a friend of the wife's before we head to the airport to see if it's not too icey to fly out of here.

God willing, the next time you hear from me, it'll be from Utah.

Oh, yeah, and my weird obsession with Bai Ling takes an even more erotic turn, as she reveals her bi-sexuality.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Sundance 2007, American Dream ?, Texas Frightmare Weekend, Pinhead, Bai Ling

Once More, With Feeling (5:00PM-6:00PM)

Well now that I've finally managed to pry open Blogger's goddamned unaccomodating window, I'm going to forcibly shove a quick post through before the opportunity is lost forever!

This will probably be it for tonight for me, kids, as I'm planning to return any commentary that's popped up recently, and then grab a bite before going to bed early for a change.

If I've (God forbid) missed any typos throughout the day, I apologize, but they've been popping up more and more as the hour grew later, I can tell that despite how I'm feeling in general, there's obviously some fatigue setting in. I believe that I've managed to catch them all, but who knows where a stray semi-colon or an 'i' in place of an 'o' might've juked its way past my bleary eyebulbs.

Thanks to everyone who dropped by today and last night, Samuraifrog, Angela, Yasamin, Daveyyojimbo, Dale, Johnny Yen, sKincarver, Ellen Aim, Buckaroo Banzai, Blancodeviosa, Scottsdale Girl, El Vox and any other lurkers who dropped in for a read.

I feel like this lost a bit of steam in the latter portion, or maybe you just saw a more realistic picture of your humble narrarator, who knows?

Either way, the blog-a-thon is over, I will mutter a Christ-like "It is finished." and bid you a fond Good Night.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Personal

The Penultimate Post (4:00PM-5:00PM)

I hear the thumping stereo of little baby-junior sonofabitch teenage kid next door pull into his parent's driveway, the glass packed bullshit on his car letting everyone know that he's thundering into the otherwise quite suburban neighborhood, shattering the peace and quiet. It's been a strange and rewarding day, and I'm content with what I have to show for it, this blog has always been described as a 'forced exercise in writing', and that's never been more true than today, particularly after about 11 o'clock this morning.

I'm not sure what I've gained from this exercise, but I can say that it's something else I've set out to accomplish with the writing that has panned out, as has the self enforced daily blogging up to this point.

Where does this go from here?

I've long kicked around the idea of trying my hand at fiction, or at the very least some sort of wise-ass essay/observational humor type of endeavor, will this be the impetus to kick off into that type of writing as well?

I think my biggest stumbling block with that type of idea has been that there must be a clear division between what I want to write and hopefully try to sell, and what I write just to be writing, to hone the craft (if such could be said to apply here) and keep in the habit of the daily exercise. I tend to get caught up in the material I'm writing for fun just because it's easier to throw it up here and forget about it rather than to try and polish and re-write and work at a longer, more serious narrative. If I'm ever to do this seriously, I somehow doubt that my fortune will ever arrive due to the pressing of the 'publish post' button.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes. Blog A Thon, Personal

The Blog Is In The Details (3:00PM-4:00PM)

Through no fault or credit of my own, I was able to bullshit my way through that last post, and now we're entering the real home stretch of this entire day.

I am beginning to feel as though I've stretched this concept about as paper thin as I possibly can, although I'm quite proud of what I've been able to piece together to write about, that's seemingly been entertaining to the faithful who have made their way by this afternoon and last night.

I will have to admit that I've quite possibly failed on one major front, in that I was hoping that the frequent updates would possibly draw in a few new people from the Blogger homepage 'recently updated blogs' section, and this is most definitely not the case, from all available evidence, the people who've been by are interested parties who know what kinda crazy shenanigans I'd set out with and wanted to check up on me, which I really appreciate.

I'm also amused that I've spoken this past evening about drug use, knowing full well that I have an Aunt and Uncle who read this stuff, and that's nothing that I would have ever decided to volunteered to them, but I have no qualms just throwing it out there into the world in this manner. Oh well, it's not as if I've admitted to running a crackhouse or something.

Home stretch people...

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Personal,

The Coffee's Not Working Anymore (2:00PM-3:00PM)

For the reals kids, the last two coffees have done nothing, and it's not even that I'm getting more tired, exactly, just that I'm not perking up at all anymore.

The wacky part? About six hours ago, a drink was sounding good, even though it would've hit me like a ton of bricks.

I keep checking the clock out of paranoia that I've managed to miss a deadline on this turkey while the back of my mind hopes for the end to pop up and surprise me.

One Mr Johnny Yen expressed interest in graphic novel recommendations, which I don't know if I'm exactly in a position to make recommendations anymore since I've not bought anything with any regularity since the late 90's and into 2000, but it's good enough to pawn off as a post for this hour, so let's see what I can come up with.

The only fly in that ointment is that I only read the first few series of either Aliens or Predator, and I honestly don't remember the tone of the books at all, so I'll make a few suggestions and see if there's anything that grabs you.

One thing that I have adored in recent years is the Transmetropolitan series written by Warren Ellis, which follows Gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem on a campaign of terror against the hypocrisy and lies of a future government.

Ellis also gave us two different takes on the superhero genre with The Authority and Planetary books, which have been compiled as well, both series have been referred to as 'widescreen' comics, in that the action has a realistic approach to it, but the scenes are protrayed in larger than life detail. The art teams on both books are phenomenal, and worth a look.

And I'm sure that any number of readers would probably have suggestions as well....

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Comics, Warren Ellis, Transmetroploitan, The Authority, Planetary

The Well May Be Dry (1:00PM-2:00PM)

The floundering continues in earnest now, I'm kinda running low on ideas as we slip into the void of the afternoon.

The little experiment has gone rather well, I'm still alert and actually typing pretty well, I just don't have anything to type right now.

So how about some historical facts?

I've been in a strangely sentimental mood the past couple weeks, I would blame the musical choices in the car, the Bone Machine album by Tom Waits that the wife got me for Christmas, it reminds me of a much simpler time in my life. It also puts me in the mind of the music that you no longer play, because it reminds you of a specific individual, and it colors how you feel about the music. I've only been in one relationship before the one I'm in now, and it was a helluva thing, let me tell you.

I'd met a girl at the place I worked, and when we started dating, she was about three months pregnant, and the guy was history. I was 21 at the time, and she was 18, and I was pretty taken with her, in spite of different warning signs that I chose to ignore. I decided early on in the relationship that I could have two roles in this child's life, and I could either be the guy who was fucking her mom, or I could be Daddy, and I made my choice and down the road we went, our little instant family. This went on for about 5 years, and she and I grew further and further apart, and I was constantly left raising the child while she worked a night job, and then went out for drinks after she got off. Tensions mounted and eventually broke, and I was forced to say "hey, this sucks, maybe we should think about doing something different" which allowed me to be the bad guy and her to skate scott free "hey, you broke up with me".

She had another place by the end of the day, she'd just been waiting for her get out of jail free card, hadn't she?

The music of that time period, all the alternative rock of the mid-to-late nineties is now tainted, dead to me, I can't hear it without re-living a part of my life that was joyously miserable in its own way, times with a wonderful daughter that I'd give anything to have in my life, but was never truly mine to have. It took a very long time to get to a place where this doesn't just gut me like a fish, and I'm saddened at the loss of the child and the loss of so many different albums that I used to be able to pop in and feel good about that now only serve as a channeling mechanism for a time best forgotten.

I can't stand to live in that old house anymore, or dance with those ghosts.

So was that cheesy sentimental, or heartfelt? I can't tell anymore?

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Personal, Misery & Vomit

Chasing The Yorkage (12:00PM-1:00PM)

Several posts back (okay, ten, I don't remember exactly, sue me) I was mentioning giving you a bit more of a personal look into the Mob, so here's a tidbit of the daily life for those who might care, otherwise, check back in an hour, maybe there'll be more porn links.

It's after noon, so I had a bit more to eat, and cracked open another Starbucks doubleshot, still feeling surprisingly fine, and not even as irritable as I would have thought I would be.

Bella isn't used to me being as inert as I have the past 18 hours, so I finally relented the computer to the wife so she could check e-mail, and make certian that another of her meetings, this one for this evening, had indeed been cancelled, and took some Daddy/Doggie time, chased her around the house and wrestled with her a bit. She loves the chasing, and it cracks me up when she does her little Jackie Chan routine and runs up the side of some of the furniture.

I think since she and the wife have been lounging in bed most of the day, she's kinda feeling her oats this afternoon.

I remember when we drove to San Antonio to pick her up, I was pretty apprehensive, especially after the care and feeding spiel we got at Yorkies-R-Us or whatever the breeder was called, I can't be bothered to go find out right now, but the care was supposed to be similar to that of a Faberge Egg, from what I recall, as she's a very delicate animal.

We also got a spiel about how Bella's father was supposed to be the Yorkie representing the breed at the Westminster dog show that year, which I assume is true, but didn't particularly care, I just wanted to grab the pup so we could get the hell on the road.

She's not show quality, but Bella is registered blah blah blah, and she's turned out to be a really sweet animal, very relaxed for the most part. We had some tense moments in the beginning, because she didn't want to eat her food, which had me frustrated, because if we've just bought a dog that's too stupid to feed itself to stay alive, how in the hell are we supposed to treat it? This turned out to be a viral thing that was soon sorted out, and things have been fine.

Except when she's pissing and shitting on the rug, then it's a similar situation to that old chestnut about why God makes babies so cute.

They're that cute so we can resist the urge to kill them when they act out.

Seriously, I love that dog.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Yorkie, Personal

Scrambling For Purchase (11:00AM-12:00PM)

I'm still treading water here on the schedule, but that's about it.

I've also been looking around a bit after the last few things I'd heard on Indie Spinner Rack, including checking into a book by Brendan McCarthy, and artist who did a lot of cover illustration work for DC's Vertigo line back when I was still reading comics. He did a lot of collaboration with Peter Milligan, whose work has always a strangely amoral tone to it that I found kind of intriguing in the genre, as you usually don't run across such a grey moral tone in the average book.

This has become more the norm in what I've seen in the adult oriented comics of recent years, particularly in the work of Mark Millar and Garth Ennis, but for the time period (the early 90's) it was a different take on things, more cynical and jaded.

McCarthy's day glo art has a strange appeal, the rich colors are a lot to take in, and his work is so busy, it makes for an interesting read.

This is a short one, I'm cheating. You get what you pay for.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, DC Vertigo, Brendan McCarthy, Peter Milligan

Well, The Weather Outside Is Frightening (10:00AM-11:00AM)

Bah.

The food might've been a mistake. I finally decided to eat something since I'd been grumbling since around 6 this morning, and it may be doing me in more than I'd planned. I actually feel a little tired.

We are in hour seventeen of things, and I've been able to barely stay ahead of the commentary on the site and try to get something interesting written. The wife and dog have retired back to the bedroom since there's nothing going on today, and I've been spending my 15 minutes of free time between posts stretching a bit and trying to stay alert, considering I was awake yesterday at 9:30.

There's still no call-back from the geologist gentleman, which to be honest I'm not too worried about today, just because I don't think I could make any kind of impression today, except maybe a bad one.

I've also managed to squeeze in several podcasts over the past few hours, including the newest Rue Morgue Radio, Night Of The Living Podcast and Reel Horror Podcast. I'd been hoping to work in some television or something around the posting today, but I'm thinking that it's probably not going to happen.

Oh, and according to several websites, there's a remake of Motel Hell in the works.

Leave my pig man alone, you bastards.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Podcasts, Movies, Motel Hell, Remake

It's A Snow-Day People (9:00AM-10:00AM)

Being that this is a desert environment, I have no idea what the hell's going on outside, but I'm going to have to dust off that Bible I use to level the endtable in the guest bedroom and see what type of Apocalyptic shit this 'snow' falling actually is. I don't know that it bodes well for humanity as we know it, Mob and family in particular.

There's talk hereabouts that there will be sleet and snow Thursday night on into Friday morning, and if there's sleet a' sleetin' on the morning that we're supposed to fly out of here at 8:45 in the AM, then I imagine that the Sundance thing is probably shot to hell.

Again.

We received an inch of snow last night, and all the schools are canceled, all the daycares are closed, board up your doors and windows, roll up the city streets, we don't have any idea how to deal with this kinda strange mysterious moisture falling from the sky.

The entire city is virtually crippled, hell, even the Museum board meeting the wife had scheduled at 10:30 has been canceled.

I'm certian all my Canadians are laughing their asses off, as well as most of the folks from up North. I don't know what would happen if we actually got some real weather. Probably something like that picture above, hell, that's probably in the local school's handbook under 'inclimate weather'.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Snow Day, Sundance 2007, Apocalypse

Jane, Stop This Crazy Thing! (8:00AM-9:00AM)

Lordy, that last all-text bit of nonsense really took longer than I had anticipated, especially since I kept having to fix typos. The caffeine is definitely making its presense known, and I'm a little on the twitchy side right now. The wife and dog are up, so the weird night of solitude is behind me and we're on the downhill side of this thing.

I have to say again, the repetition of finishing a post, and having about 10 or 15 minutes before starting the next is probably working in my favor, what with the attanetion to detail required, it may be saving me from drowsiness. The feeling of being on a treadmill is quite tangible right now though, and I feel as though Blogger may lap me and suck me under at any moment.

During my time online this evening, I've been forced to come up with one beef against the time-sink that is Flixster: the weird "hey, I'm in love with you, e-mail me at blahblahblah address, I really like you, etc." messages that I've gotten two of in the past 12 hours. It's bad enough to be getting spam in my damned e-mail account, but I draw the line at dumbass come-ons via a service like this.


**EDIT** Fuck me, one popped up whilst I was bitching about it. If anyone's interested in ruining their life, here's a good way to do it, reply to this stupid shit:

FROM: DEAF GIRL
ABIDJAN.IVORY COAST
WEST-AFRICA
EMAIL deafblackgirl002@yahoo.com
DEAR ,ONEI AM DEAF GIRL MY NAME IS STELLE KOMANA THE DAUGHTER OF LATE DR AND MRS ALFRED KOMANA, MY FAHTER WAS A VERY WEALTHY COCOA MERCHANT BASED IN ABIDJAN. THE ECONOMIC CAPITAL OF IVORY COAST BEFORE HE WAS POISONED TO DEATH BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES, ON ONE OF THEIR OUTING TO DISCUSS ON A BUSINESS DEAL.

WHEN MY MOTHER DIED ON THE 21ST OCTOBER 2001. MY FATHER TOOK ME SO SPECIAL BECAUSE I AM MOTHERLESS.BEFORE THE DEATH OF MY FATHER ON 29TH NOVEMBER 2002 IN A PRIVATE HOSPITAL HERE IN ABIDJAN.

HE SECRETLY CALLED ME ON HIS BEDSIDE AND TOLD ME THAT HE HAS A SUM OF US$12.500.000 (TWELVE MILLION FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND, UNITED STATES DOLLARS) LEFT IN A LOCAL BANK HERE IN ABIDJAN.

HE ALSO EXPLAINED TO ME THAT IT WAS BECAUSE OF THIS WEALTH THAT HE WAS POISONED BY HIS BUSINESS ASSOCIATES, THAT I SHOULD SEEK FOR A FOREIGN PARTNER IN A COUNTRY OF MY CHOICE WHERE I WILL TRANSFER THIS MONEY AND USE IT FOR INVESTMENT PURPOSE. (SUCH AS REAL ESTATE MANAGEMENT).

I AM HONOURABLY SEEKING YOUR ASSISTANCE IN THEFOLLOWING WAYS : TO PROVIDE A BANK ACCOUNT WHERE THIS MONEY WOULD BE TRANSFERED TO SERVE AS THE GUARDIAN OF THIS FUND AND MY YOUNGER BROTHER KEVIN IS 20 YEARS.

TO MAKE ARRANGEMENT FOR US TO COME OVER TO YOUR COUNTRY TO FURTHER OUR EDUCATION AND TO SECURE A RESIDENTIAL PERMIT IN YOUR COUNTRY.

MOREOVER, I AM WILLING TO OFFER YOU 10% OF THE TOTAL SUM AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR EFFORT INPUT AFTER THE SUCCESSFUL TRANSFER OF THIS FUND TO YOUR NOMINATED ACCOUNT OVERSEAS. FURTHERMORE, YOU CAN INDICATE YOUR OPTION TOWARDS ASSISTING ME AS I BELIEVE THAT THIS TRANSACTION WOULD BE CONCLUDED WITHIN SEVEN (7) DAYS YOU SIGNIFY INTEREST TO ASSIST ME.

ANTICIPATING TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON.AND PLEASE DO HURRY TO ASSIST US OUT HERE NOW THAT THIS COUNTRY IS IN POLITICAL CHOAS ,WE URGENTLY NEEDS YOUR KIND ATTENTION.

THANKS AND GOD BLESS

STELLE AND KEVIN

What they urgently need is a foot in their ass. What a scam. I got a chicken coop you can stay in, blind deaf girl, you just c'mon over.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Flixster, Random Come Ons, Scams

Because I Got High (7:00AM-8:00AM)

A post now about something I don't do anymore, inspired in part by a recent post on Ultra Toast Mosha God's blog, which captured some of the helpless feelings and rambling thought processes that one goes through when under the influence.

I'd not partaken of the Devil's cigarette (as a co-worker once dubbed it) in quite some time, years, I believe, when on a trip to Dallas, the wife's friend Morris took us to a party in a trendy area of the city, with my good friend Corinthian along for the ride. This party was quite a sight, with a dj set up in the garage of the townhouse, and the birthday party in full swing when we got there. We settled in and Corinthian got me a vodka tonic, which turned out to be a glass of vodka with a splash of tonic. I balked at the taste, but once it watered down a bit, was able to drink it up, we had some snacks, and generally made ourselves at home.

The wife (then Girlfriend), Cornithian and I were a minority at this party, which was populated mostly with very cosmopolitan lipstick lesbians and a few gay men, which amused Corinthian to no end. As we walked downstairs to the 'bar' area, several female couples were doing a little bump and grind in the garage/dance area, and Corinthian turned to me and said "Hot women freaking each other and free booze. Thank you for this."

"Hey, we're all just along for the ride, but I'll try to never steer you wrong."

I drank another glass of vodka with a splash of tonic, and felt generally numb. We are approached by Morris to retire to another friend's home for more drinks, and we take our leave of the party.

Morris friend is a short, heavyset woman, funny and personable, who wants to get us high. This being something I've not done in ages, I as much as ask K if she'll think less of me (because I know it was a problem with a past boyfriend for her), and she assures me that she doesn't care, and I'm obviously not driving, go for it. So we smoke out and as soon as I feel the little tingly lightheaded feelings creeping up the back of my skull, I begin to doubt the sanity of this endeavor, but it's now of course too late for regrets.

Our heavyset host asks K something confidentially in the kitchen, and I'm having a bad feeling about things, and thinking that those meatballs I ate back at the party aren't getting along too well with my two or three (I honestly forget how many) glasses of vodka. I try to focus on the high and let the real world feelings recede into the background, ride this out, sink intot he couch, relax and hope for the best.

Morris' heavyset friend, she's a strangely open and sexual creature, and quite the exhibitionist, and before I really know what's happening, she's volunteered to show Corinthian and I her 'rosebud' and has whipped open her robe and is laying flat of her back, legs spread and I'm staring at a stranger's pussy and fighting all manner of personal issues on the inside while trying desperately not to betray shock, horror, and yes, quite possibly illness while looking at the strange twat on display before me.

Then she's up and back in the kitchen sipping her martini as though nothing has happened, we chit-chat a bit about everything but the vagina we just saw, I eventually excuse myself and go to take a piss. Once finished, I genuflect before my porcelian deity, and hoping that he will take my pain away, I am horrendously sick.

There are sketchy details after this, I remember floating out to the car later, I remember popping in and out as we drove back to the hotel, I remember Corinthian possibly coming up, or maybe he just said goodbye in the parking lot. What I do remember most of all is passing out shortly after saying to the wife and slightly into my pillow "That was the last time I'll ever do that shit."

The wife prefers to bring it up as "Remember the time Morris' friend showed you her pusssy and it made you throw up?"

Never again, kids.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Cautionary Tales, Personal, Rosebud

Halfway To Hell (6:00AM-7:00AM)

We're now over 12 posts into this turkey, kids.

What have we learned?

Not a whole helluva lot.

The first post was a pretty tense experience, as I was realizing that Blogger was playing hard to get while I was trying to publish. The next few posts were all concerned with the puzzling popularity of that damned American Idol, and then I had a little ramble about the newest horror-lite debacle from the producers of Underworld, a film called Blood and Chocolate that no one should ever have to see.

Awhile later, I launched into my burning desire to own a new cellphone, and went on to link to and blather about a site filled with hot girls groping each other.

I staggered down memory lane after that, with a musical sampling from my youth, and then we entered the early morning with a bit about Rob Zombie's newest film endeavor.

Then I totally copped out and wrote a stupid re-cap masquerading as an actual post.

More to come...

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, American Idol, Movies, Rob Zombie, Cop Out

Rob, Don't Let Me Down (5:00AM-6:00AM)

During the 4 o'clock hour, in addition to scouring YouTube for obscure industrial bands, I also ran across this article on Fangoria's website, which is an overview of an early draft of Rob Zombie's script for the new Halloween re-vamp, which sounds interesting. I've enjoyed his first two movies (sue me, I know they have a divisive effect on a lot of people) and am looking forward to him getting behind the camera again.

I've also been playing around on the old Flixster site a bit more, and rated a whole shitload of movies in the past week or so, only to run across many other people on the site who have rated twice as many films. I've rated over 1300 films on the Netfux website, and only around half that on the Flixster site. There's people I've run across on the Flixster who have somehow rated 16, 000+ films, which I find quite baffling, unless this person in question has been trapped in a video store for a prolonged period of time.

I mean, holy shit, I thought I had a lot of free time.

It's snowy as hell here, and a frigid 23 degrees outside, I'm kinda glad I've made myself housebound for the next day or so, because I have no interest in braving the weather.

All is quiet in the Blogger world this early morning, Samuraifrog finally disappeared after 2:00 AM, and there's been no activity on the site for a few hours, save for my own posting. The idea of a short catnap is tempting, but I think I'm going to ignore my instinct and plow ahead.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Movies, Rob Zombie, Halloween Remake, Flixster, Netflix

Time Keeps Slipping (4:00AM-5:00AM)

Dear God, it's 4:13...when did that happen?

I'm back on the coffee now, I'm not about to let the caffiene get completely out of my system, or it'll be game over, kids.

About an hour ago, I was yammering about nostalgia, so let's hit the ground stumbling with this post, eh?

Over the past few weeks I've spent a lot of time listening to a cd that I've only known two other people to own, a disc by a group represented in the early 90's on Trent Reznor's Nothing Records label, a little band called Prick. The self-titled album is one of those weird relics from that time period of my life that I can still pop in and listen to in its entirety, and still sing along to all the songs, it's like having an old friend back in town for the weekend. The band's one single was called Animal, which, like all obscure music and webcam vids of stupid teenagers, was of course available from YouTube, so here's that for your viewing pleasure.



Yes, it's quite dated and owes a helluva lot to the Closer video of the same time period, but I can still remember the one or two times this damned thing was shown on 120 Minutes, and how happy it made me.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Nostalgia, Prick Band, Animal Video

Not Safe For Work (3:00AM-4:00AM)

This hour's post is dedicated to sKincarver, simply because he and I were joking earlier today (well, yesterday, now) about what weird shit you end up looking at as the hours get later, and you run out of your usual interweb searches and haunts.

Thanks to the Pickled Embryo episode I recently listened to, I ended up spending a looong time flipping through the pictures of hot college babes groping each other and making out and being frisky over at a not safe for work (unless you have a way cooler office than most people) Flickr page called Binky's Girls. While there's no full-on sex per se, it's probably a little risque for the workplace, click with care, as we here at Dear Bastards take no responsibility for your failed careers due to questionable web-traffic while on the clock. There's about 150 pages of pics, and after awhile all the boobs just blend together, because really, how many drunk chicks mugging for the camera in their bras can you take in before you're eyes just glaze over?

I must be getting old, but it's like spending that extra hour in a strip club when you know you should go home, where it gets a little too late and goes from fun to just a little sad.

Blargh. I've switched from coffee to water for this hour, and a Zantac for good measure, as I was getting into a touch of heartburn. The combination of pizza for supper, as well as a healthy dose of Crunch 'N Munch (I know, I know, what am I, five?) afterwards was making life uncomfortable for me, so I had to head that off at the pass.

Be seeing you.

Tag, you're it, Baggy Eyes! Blog A Thon, Flickr, Binkys Girls, Boobs