E.A. Henson

#995: HALLOWEEN TASTE TEST 2K10!!!

2010-10-17T20:29:00.013-04:00

Oh...hello there. I've been out of the blogging game for a bit but, goddammit, I'M BACK.

I took a year off of the Internet to see if I could gain some perspective, re-assess life goals and set up for the imminent POST # 1,000. Well, I got sidetracked a fair bit and found that it's far easier to rest on ones laurels than it is to get out there and do something.

Character flaw? Sure. I've got plenty of them and each is more awful than the last. Anyways, as it turned out I got SO lazy I found myself at a very shitty point where I was one epic fuck-up away from getting shit-canned at my job. True story. It took me eight months or so to dig myself out of the hole I'd put myself in, but now I'm back on top. Kind of like being king shit of turd mountain.

I also used my time away to get fucking fat.

I went to the doctor back in August to have a check up and it went like this: "Hey fatty, you've gained twenty pounds since last August. You fat fuck. My prescription? Be less fat."

Since he's a doctor, I decided to do what he said. I've been eating a bit better and (gasp!) drinking less. Shannon's been doing a good job of keeping me on track and away from the fast food. I'm happy to say I'm now under 200 lbs. There's still a bit more work to do to get back to my high school fighting weight of 138 lbs... but I'm in this for the long haul. Topless photos to follow.

Let's get down to brass tacks. It's October, almost Halloween and almost a year since my last post. It's easy to make me nostalgic. If the wind blows the right way I'll start with a "Hey, you remember that time...?" So, when talking with blog co-conspirator Villa we hatched a plot. A plot to do A NEW HALLOWEEN TASTE TEST.

For those of you just joining us, the Halloween Taste Test is a time honored tradition that stretches back to time immemorial.

Here's a quick primer as to what's gone on before:

2007!

2006! Parts One and Two

2005! Parts One and Two

Everyone up to speed now? Good. Now take off your pants so we can get to it.

Here's Shannon showing off here candy hillbilly teeth. When reached for comment, Shannon could only say, "They tasted like sugar and I thought I broke my real teeth on them." She wears them well. Hers is a beauty that transcends poor dental hygiene.

Next up: Box of Boogers.

I enjoy that the box goes right for the jugular by stating that the candy mimics the look and feel of real boogers.

Well, I'm here to say that I've never had a booger quite like this one and I've had some pretty gnarly colds in my day. Plus, the taste is all wrong too.

Candy Blood!

Finally, something to enjoy during our Twilight movie marathons...

We decided to have Villa be our Guinea Pig for this one (Ha! Unintentional racial slur!). He said it tasted of strawberries. Little did he know it was real blood and he now he has AIDS. Too much? He should have thought of that before agreeing to do another Halloween Taste Test.

It's now time for us to wrap this one up. What? Already? No foreplay? Could this be the final Halloween Taste Test? I don't rightfully know. But, given the fact that I've started posting on an annual basis and the blog is slated to "end" with post #1,000 I could conceivably stretch this out for another five years.

We're going to end this by doing something that would have been considered edgy in the mid-90's (or whenever Fear Factor was popular). We're going to eat some bugs... ON VIDEO. This is all shit that would have been cutting edge five or more years ago but no one had a video camera that could upload to the Internet back then.

Wow. That was sure thrilling, wasn't it?

The bugs weren't that bad, honestly. Anyone who has seen the Food Network show Unwrapped with Marc Summers knows that the bugs they use are cleaned like crazy and then dipped in the finest chocolate known to man prior to being sold to gullible tourists. If I wanted to do something truly horrifying, I'd dig up the FDA guidelines for how many pieces of bugs or rodent feces are allowed in food and post it here.

That's it. Now that I'm solidly in my 30's I like to end my blogs with kind of an "ehh"feeling. The fourth part of our quartet, Saliba, is off making a movie right now so he couldn't be present for this outing. Hopefully, we'll get him for the CHRISTMAS TASTE TEST. That way you can count on more sexually ambiguous jokes and generally weirdness.

So, I'm going to go now. I'll have a good long think and see what I can come up with about what I should do for my life's work and maybe, just maybe, post #1,000 will be all kinds of epic... whenever that is.

#994: I Have Beaten Surgery

2009-10-18T11:41:00.004-04:00

Just over a month ago (9/9/09 to be exact) I went in for my hernia surgery. It was a blast... except for the whole getting cut open part.

I wasn't allowed any food or liquid after midnight the night before the surgery which was kind of a drag but not as much of a drag as not being able to take any kind of painkillers for the entire week proceeding the surgery. The carrot being dangled in front of my face was the promise of awesome drugs at the end of the experience.

Surprisingly, I was able to sleep the night before going to the hospital. I had to get up sometime before the sun rose to get ready for my 8:30 AM check-in. Per the packet I got in the mail before surgery I wasn't allowed any kind of deodorant or cologne. I'm sure the hospital staff is always glad to see sweaty, nervous people checking in.

So I showered, shaved, combed my hair and tried to keep the feeling that I wasn't going to wake up after going under in check. Reviewing the statistics really kept me from going completely nuts. A guy in his 30's in okay health has a pretty good shot at making it through a routine surgery. I could also tell that I'd do fine because my surgeon had 1) Done my dad's hernia surgery last year, and 2) The way he treated the surgery with the casual nature of someone that has preformed it hundreds (if not thousands) of times before. Just like flushing a toilet.

Shannon and I drove to the hospital, making it just in time for my check-in. My surgery had originally been scheduled for that afternoon but I had received a call the day before advising me that it had been bumped up.... Thanks to my father.

Five years ago my dad has lost his job as a dental technician and was unemployed for a couple years. Eventually, he got a job at the same hospital my mother works at working in environmental services. To be succinct, he cleans up operating rooms. I once asked him if all the blood and gore bothered him and he responded, "Well, it's not mine so not really."

Anyways, he had my surgery rescheduled under the guise of it being better time-wise for recovery. That is to say, I'd be able to get home and get prescriptions filled that night with the minimum of effort. It's my opinion, however, that he wanted to keep an eye on me.

When I checked in, I left Shannon in the waiting room (complete with four month old magazines) and went back to the pre-op area. As I mentioned previously I had been fighting to keep it in check, I had even considered letting Shannon drive the car to the hospital so I wouldn't alter course to Canada.

While I was waiting they had me get naked and put on the traditional hospital gown (the one that allowed for my ass to hang out). A nice nurse came and gave me shot in the arm that numbed it up enough for her to put in my IV. "You'll feel some pressure" and I did. My dad came back and checked on me, I think he was more nervous than I was.

After about an hour they brought Shannon back to wait with me. Doctors and nurses were in and out while we waited. They told me about the kind of stuff they were going to use to put me under, they gave me some concentrated antibiotics in my IV and then it was time for the area to be "prepped." That's code for having my pubes shaved.

When the nurse (a different one, it seems like they had a different activity. She must have drawn the short straw) came back to shave me, I had to make Shannon leave the room. I don't think I would have been able to keep a straight face. I already had the mantra "no boners, no farts" going through my head.

It was weird having my crotch barbered and even weirder that I was told that it may tickle. Moreover, it was weird that she was so conversational. I guess when you look at wieners and hoo-hahs all day it all becomes old hat. Even when faced with a phallus as tremendous as mine.

Freshly shorn, it was now time for the shot that was designed to calm me down. They straightened out my bed and wheeled me down the hall, followed by Shannon and my dad. While they were moving me to the OR there was music being played over the PA, it was the music box like lullaby tune. I was pretty high at this point and I couldn't see anything (I had given Shannon my glasses and wallet) but I do remember we shared a look of mutual confusion.

Then I was in the OR. I had been told that I may not remember anything after they gave me the first shot, but I somehow was able to keep with it. The had me shift over from my bed to the operating table (which was cold on my bare ass) and then they brought down the mask and told me to breath deeply. I took three big huffs off of the gas and then...

To be continued...right now!

...I woke up. I was in the recovery area, my eyes were heavy and it felt like I had been stabbed. Oh, did it ever. I had heard stories from my dad about patients that come out of it crying or ready to fight, luckily I was right back to "normal."

I don't know if this is a point of pride or not but they had to shoot up my IV bag a few times before the edge came off. Also, I'm pretty sure the vicodin they gave me after that cost about $800.

My father came back to see me first and asked how I was doing. I responded, "I had the strangest dream... and you were there, and you were there..." A Wizard of Oz joke to lighten the mood. After that, they brought Shannon back and I decided it would be funny to pretend like there had been a problem during surgery and act like I had no memory of her.

Aside from the stabby feeling, I had the shakes really bad. I wasn't exactly cold (even though my ass was hanging out as previously noted) but I was impatient as all get out. I just wanted to get dressed and get home.

Getting dressed the first time after surgery was fine, the three shots of whatever and vicoden made the stabby-ness tolerable. I was a long walk to the discharge area so they had me wheeled out to the car. Then it was off to CVS to get my prescription filled!

At CVS I slowly hobbled around on my cane, bent slightly at the waist. I wasn't yet able to stand up straight (It would be a couple of weeks...). We ran into one of our friends and I promptly jabbed her with my cane. Searing physical pain aside, this was getting to be a pretty sweet deal.

We got home I got into bed and took a couple of pills, read some comics and watched some DVDs. It'd been a long day so I took a couple more pills and checked out around midnight. When I woke up I thought I had been asleep for the entire night, the clock across the room looked like it was seven in the morning. Oh no, it was three.

It was three in the morning and my pain was back in full effect. I had to wake Shannon up to get me more pills. It was only later in the day that I found out my pills weren't working like they should and had to call my doctor for another prescription.

The few weeks of my recovery were some of the best times in recent memory. After the first week's discomfort I literally had nothing to do. It was like how I imagine rich people live, except for the money bit. So I guess it was a bir more like being retired... and on a fixed income.

Going back to work was one of the most difficult things I ever had to do. It was very much akin to a child being sent to school after a long and awesome summer vacation. I had discovered that what I liked doing best in life was nothing...and now I was having to go back to "something."

In closing, I'd like to say: Medical Leave... it's nice work if you can get it.

#993: "Sometimes, When A Mommy And Daddy Love Each Other Very Much...."

2009-08-30T12:57:00.002-04:00

"...They create a website together."

What? Where did you think this was going?

Shannon and I have launched a new blog I Love Halloween, a year-round source for all your Halloween needs. The idea came from our shared love of the season and our desire to see MORE of what we love.

Check it out.

#992: "I am old, tired, and I have stopped fucking caring."

2009-08-06T23:44:00.003-04:00

I have decided now that I am sick of all pop culture.

I used to love it, bathe in it, take it all in as a welcome distraction from the daily grind. It's taken me three long decades of of having it shoved down my throat to make me realize that everything is cyclical. It's all the same thing over and over and over again.

I'm sick of writers that preach the fantastic, create dreams but then will dump their spouse to go and fuck some Tori Amos wannabe. I'm sick of the cult of celebrity and the freak shows that are associated with it. So you've had eight or eighteen kids, why should I fucking care?

Everyone is selfish. Everyone wants to be important. But as soon as they get the chance, they squander it.

****

I hurt myself recently. Not intentionally, mind you, but it was an accident of circumstance. While hauling a large piece of furniture (Post #989) a felt something shift, bulge, and pop in my nether regions. Being a man, I walked it off and was sore all over for about a week. Last week I got up from my desk at work and stretched. I stretched like my life depended on it... and something deep inside me shifted, bulged, and popped again. But this time it bent me over in pain.

Now, I know that nobody likes a whiner... but this hurt. It hurt really bad. I let it go for a couple of days before mentioning anything to Shannon and then a few more before I consulted my mother the nurse. The pain is constant and unyielding at this point. It's made it hard to concentrate on anything of any importance lately so I thought I'd use one of my final blog posts to vent about where I'm at.

Ibuprofen does nothing and I've been doing everything in my power not to turn over every rock I can to find a connection to something stronger. So, tomorrow I go see a doctor.

I'm not a fan of going to the doctor by any stretch of the imagination. Multiple trips during my junior and senior years of high school made it something I'm not fond of doing. Hell, I don't even like going to the eye doctor.

In and effort not to psyche myself out, I devised a scale of how bad the doctors visit is going to be. "1" on the scale would be a strained muscle, "5" would be a hernia that requires surgery, "10" would be terminal cancer. I just want to make sure I'm not caught short when the doctor tells me what's up.

On the bright side, I'm overjoyed that I get to show another consenting person my genitals. What freedom, right? My only fear is that they'll tell me I'm in the wrong office and I should go see a pediatrician.

****

Back to me being sick of society... About a year ago, maybe longer , I was seeing a shrink. I didn't like doing it (Does anyone?) but I had it on good authority that I should. After a few months of going I gained some perspective but I didn't think I'd had any real "breakthroughs." Some of my insecurities stemmed from the world at large and how awful people were, and that there were people starving in Africa, and that there were people starving in Detroit. My shrink suggested, very kindly, that I should accept that I'm powerless. That I should concentrate on making myself happy. All I could think of was, "How selfish."

So I stopped going.

It pains me to know that I'm not making things better. It pains me to know that I keep the company of fantastic thinkers and artists that aren't being heard. There's a giant, roaring voice on the horizon that despises hope and chance. A voice that tells you to "play it safe" and to "stop trying."

We've been hypnotized by the cult of the individual. By the idea of one person making a difference. It's never just one person. It's that person and those that choose to act with them.

Back to everything being cyclical... I really hope that in my life time I'll see the death of the individual. Well, not exactly the "death" but more of the next logical step to the individual seeing something beyond themselves. It's every sci-fi nerd's dream.

****

I really don't know what I meant by all of this. In truth, I've been drinking quite a bit and it hasn't done much to dull the pain (metaphysical or otherwise), but it feels good to vent. Given the chance and the proper stimulants I could go on for hours and hours.

For now, I'm going to go sit on our porch with a beer and a robe that doesn't close all the way in the front.

UPDATE: Sure as the sun do rise, I was diagnosed with a hernia the morning after writing this.

I sat in the doctor's office, hungover as all get out, and listened to a screaming kid for what seemed like forever. The doctor came in to see me and then put my genitals through they type of pain, degradation, and humiliation that people usually pay good money for. After he had finished doing a 180 with my balls and asking me to cough ten or more times he told me, "well young man, it looks like you have a hernia." To which I could only respond, "Cool." ("Well, it depends on who you ask, I suppose.")

So, what's ahead for me? Glad you asked, surgery is the next step. Then, after that 4-6 weeks of recovery time. I'm slated to see my surgeon this week and then I have to get everything straight for my medical leave at work.

I'm not looking forward to having surgery. Does anyone?

#991: 8Tracks Mix For July 2009

2009-07-25T13:40:00.002-04:00

Wonder where the summer's going? A large portion of time has been consumed with getting settled in the new house, birthday parties and the like. Lots of time to listen to music such as this.

#990: I Have Conquered Old Age.

2009-07-14T22:32:00.002-04:00

A week ago I turned 30.

Believe me, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Back in June, a month prior to my birthday and our move I had requested my "special day" off. You "only turn 30 once" was the justification but, year after year I've maintained that my birthday is "just another day." I had briefly entertained the idea that my 30th was going to be a full-blown spectacle, an affront to God himself. I wanted a Moon Bounce, dammit.

But my request for a day off was denied. Too many people had already requested the day off (a Tuesday in July? Really?) it was most likely Fallout from the fourth of July weekend. So it was decided; I was going to spend my birthday in a place I didn't want to be surrounded by people I don't like.

Then Michael Jackson had to go and fucking die.

Any chance of major media coverage of my birthday was then destroyed or otherwise preempted by his memorial service. I threw away my plans to hijack an ice cream truck and canceled my order for the Hamburgler costume. I was going to sit at my desk and take abuse all day long. And I did!

At lunch I snuck out and bought some GI Joes.... Because I'm an adult goddamnit!

After work I went to see my family before going home. One truly surprising thing was that my sister had made a sign (30 ERIC) spelled entirely out of Twix. We eat them still.

Being with my family was weird. It was a collective "Wow...we can't believe you're 30" event. I was really grateful for all the unnecessary praise that was heaped upon me even though most recognition makes me uncomfortable.

Then I went to Target and paid the Target card bill.

Shannon had invited a few people over, some were friends that were stragglers from the MJ Memorial Viewing Party (Hello Kitty waffles were had) and friends that were able to come and hang out for a few. It was more of a collective hang out than a birthday party, as I'm really not one for parties. It was certainly healthier than my base instinct crawl into a hole for the evening until the date had passed and was forgotten about. I'm not much of a cake person either.

So I have conquered old age by acknowledging it and moving on. I'm not changing my ways anytime soon. My plan to end this blog on the 7th has obviously imploded since I'm still 10 posts shy of my goal... but life gets in the way and I freely admit I expected it to go down something like this. It doesn't change the fact that this is ending, it's just taking a bit longer to get there.

We're in the home stretch, we have to be. Because I'm not getting any younger now, am I?

#989: I Have Conquered Moving.

2009-07-14T21:02:00.004-04:00

I have come back from the ether to inform whoever is remaining that I have conquered moving. Shannon has conquered both painting and decorating as well.

The move from Rochester to our new digs in Ferndale damn near destroyed me. Almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong and at the end of it all I had been awake for 40 hours straight.

Starting the night before we were set to move (June 30th) we kicked the process of moving the five metric tons of our shared crap into high gear. We got kind of a late start on moving due to not finding out we were getting our new place until very late in the game. I think we had about two or three weeks to get everything in order and moved. The logistics alone were enough to

make me want to throw in the towel.

I had shanghaied Saliba to help me with boxes the night before we moved, he had confided in me that the other person that was to help us move (Villa) had hurt his back and was most likely not a go for the next day. We made a good three trips before I cut him loose later that night. Then I had diarrhea at a Meijer in Mt. Clemens.

After that I continued to make trips back and forth while Shannon painted... and painted... and painted. Until it was just right. Then painted some more. We finally headed back to Rochester sometime between four and five in the morning. Shannon went right to sleep and I, doing my best Chuck Norris, waited.

Oh, I laid in bed and closed my eyes but sleep did not come. My mind kept going back to the phone conversation I had with Budget Rent-A-Truck earlier in the day. They had called to tell me the the truck I had reserved a week earlier was not there and they did not think it was going to be there. They said they'd call me first thing in the morning and they opened at seven.

I had set my alarm for 6:30, got up and went out the door. I had hit the stage of sleep deprivation where everything seemed pretty funny, I felt a bit floaty too. Which is probably why I didn't mind when I nearly smoked a deer with my car on the way to the truck place.

When I arrived at the truck place I found the proprietor frantically making calls trying to secure a truck for me. Per his explanation, central dispatch had fucked him out of the trucks he needed. He gave me the choice of going to either Waterford (15-20 miles in the opposite direction of where we were moving) or Southfield (also in a wrong direction).

Not in any state to make a scene I told him, "If you can't get me truck here in the next 10 minutes I have to take a walk." I knew I was out of it because I couldn't believe I used the phrase "take a walk." He told me there was a U-Haul up the road and take a walk I did. I had a truck for the same price in the next 20 minutes.

I'm going to skip over the section of the story that deals with the senile/deaf truck porter because my concentration is starting to... Wait, what? Oh, yeah. Driving a U-Haul is one of the most nerve wracking experiences I have had. It's like trying to drive a giant fat kid. It's slow, loud, and it gets lousy gas mileage. By the time I got on the road I had already burned an hour and I was down one mover.

Then Saliba let me know he didn't have enough gas to get to Rochester. That was almost it. I was ready to drive the U-Haul off a bridge and let the cold black water take me. But there weren't any bridges high enough and I wasn't going to drive that fucking truck around to find one. Not at $0.79 per mile.

Luckily, Villa was still able to operate a car and I had him transport Saliba to me. Then it was time for back breaking physical labor.

Many of the things we own are small. The IKEA couch we have was easy enough to move with two people as was my computer desk. The ancient console stereo radio/record player on the other hand must weigh between two and three hundred pounds. Do not doubt me until you have had to move it down one flight of stairs and up another with only a spindly man-child to help you. I don't recall it being that heavy when we moved it the first time and I don't think my health has deteriorated much in two years. I still can't believe we moved it.

My prize DVD rack (Five feet tall! Six feet long! Other measurements!) didn't make the trip and became a casualty of space. The entertainment center that barely survived the first move didn't even make it out of the old apartment.... well not in one piece.

Saliba and I went back under the cover of night (because the power was now off at the old place) and dismantled it with a claw hammer and then drove its corpse across Rochester to my original apartment and dumped it in, uh, the dumpster. I felt it only fair to stick it to the place that screwed me out of a month's rent two and a half years ago. E.A. Henson has a very long memory.

At this point in the evening I felt fine. I had no concept of being tired, then or ever again. Tired was an idea that disappeared while I was hoisting the record player up steps and I felt a bulging sensation deep within my crotch that I later determined was the beginnings of a hernia that I'm sure will one day cause much trouble for me.

It was nearly 10:00 PM and there was still a handful of crap at the old place but it was too dark to see it all. I resolved to come back first thing in the AM and get the rest of it. Then, around 11 that night... I crashed. Actually I sat in bed for while and read an issue of the Flash while Shannon enjoyed our new porch with some friends. I had decided to go to bed because the only thing I was able to contribute to the conversation was bragging about being awake for 36, 38, 40 hours.

Everyone was kindly awed, much in the same way one would treat a five year old that wants to show you a new skill they've acquired.

So I sat there in a bed I had just assembled on sheets Shannon had just washed and I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

Again, I rose with the sun and shot back to Rochester to gather the remaining bits of stuff from the "old" place. It was July 2nd, it was cold and rainy, and I had to be back at the office by 9 AM.

I hauled my old NES system, a few blankets, a wall clock, my miniature bat from my fist and only trip to Tiger's Stadium, and Stinky Pete the Pirate Coconut down to my car. I made it was time to spare but I was in no hurry to walk out of the old place for the last time.

Looking at the empty place forced me to reflect on the last couple of years whether I wanted to or not. I walked the floor and looked out of each window, knowing that I would never see those views again. I sat in the middle of the floor and let the omnipresent white-noise of the traffic from University wash over me. I stood in the spot where I proposed to Shannon.

I had wanted to leave our mark somewhere around there. Something other than nail holes in the wall, a signature on the underside of a drawer of something, but time had gotten away from us. Earlier in the week I realized that the Degus Nibbles & Lunchbox were slowly decomposing in the side yard. I had motioned that they be exhumed and moved to a better resting place, like a long the riverbank in Rochester. But I guess they'll be our mark that we were there.

"Be seeing you..."

#988: We're Back On The Air...

2009-06-21T09:37:00.003-04:00

For the six of you that read this blog, this is going to be quite a day. We have a new computer, I will be back to posting on a "regular" basis.

My Dell POS has been exiled to the corner as of Friday when we went out and got a Mac Mini. Yes, yes... I know. The PC vs Mac debate is one that has raged since the dawn of time and it will continue to rage well after all life has left Earth and the stars start to dim. If it makes any PC enthusiasts feel any better, just let me say that I am very susceptible to marketing.

Those "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" commercials really sold me. Haw-haw, lookit the PC! He's so awkward and nerdy! They talk about how PCs crash all the time...Hey my PC crashes all the time! That Mac guy is so young, hip and cool! Hey I'm young, hip, and cool! As you can see it was a no-brainer.

Honestly, in the research I did prior to drinking the kool-aid I found that Macs and PCs are virtually interchangeable. Hell, you can even run Windows on a Mac if you have that big a hard-on for Windows programs.

My decision was also colored with desperation. My PC hadn't worked right well over a year and with each subsequent wipe/re-install of Windows it worked less and less consistently. My PC will now go to "live on the farm" as it were.

One thing I'm also aware of: Macs have problems too. I know I'm not jinxing myself by acknowledging a truth, but it's just something I wanted to put out there. I've heard that when Macs "die" they die big.

I used to follow a blogger that worked from a Mac and when his system ate it... that was it. Time for a new Mac. It's odd because you never really hear anyone speak ill of Mac unless it a PC person that says, "Macs suck!" but can't really provide any support to their statement.

It seems like Mac users are trapped in some kind of cult/abusive relationship where it's physically impossible for them to say anything bad about their lord and master. Going to the Apple Store is always an eye-opening experience. I wouldn't be surprise if one of the salespeople there was to work "You know, Jesus used a Mac" into their pitch.

Funny aside: When going to the Mac store we were stopped at the door by a burly saleswoman who politely informed us that the store was "closed" for a special event (the iPhone 3GcompasS came out that day). When she asked us if there was anything she could help us with I responded, "Well, I kind of wanted to buy a computer today."

I hadn't even finished the word 'computer' when she told us to "wait right here" and before we knew it we were on the other side of the velvet rope speaking to a very enthusiastic young man about our new purchase.

Anyways. We have a new computer. It works. Have an 8Tracks mix for June 2009 (Bet you thought I forgot, didn't you?)

#987: Mike Saliba Came Home And All I Got Was This Lousy Deer Carcass

2009-06-14T14:48:00.003-04:00

Mike Saliba returned home this week. For those who don't recall he relocated to New Mexico to follow his dreams of makin' movies back in February.

While there, he made a short film and was an extra in several super-fancy Hollywood-type movies. Why, I hear that he even me the Wilford Brimley. But, thanks to a rapidly deteriorating situation with some of his roommates, he was forced to return home.

Which brings me to the deer carcass.

Last night, the usual gang of idiots gathered at the Saliba home to drink things and burn other things. In the wooded area near his house Saliba had discovered a deer carcass that had been taken down by some animal and was in a state of rapid decomposition. Of couse I had to go look at it.

Shannon, being smarter than I, elected to stay behind and I came to find out that it was ultimately the right decision. The smell from the deer hit me about a good 75 feet from where it actually was.

While we were walking out there I elected to stay behind Mike Villa, caught in his slipstream of Axe bodyspray. I had hoped that his stentch would mask the stench of the deer. Boy, was I wrong.

While I was making my escape from what was left of the carcass I dropped my beer, my t-shirt slipped away from my nose and I got a face full of rotten body. I gave a couple of good heaves but managed to keep my dinner down. It was pretty awful.

See, wasn't that just a nice and refreshing slice of life piece of bloggery? I'll miss those the most when this is all finished with.

Which brings me to today's status update: The blog is still on track to end with post number one thousand. I had originally intended for the end of this blog to dovetail nicely with my rapidly approaching thirtieth birthday. With the blog finished, I would ride off into the sunset looking back across the last there decades... Then hanging myself in my closet.

Well, that's not going to happen now! Because 1) We're moving! Yes, at the begining of July we're saying "so long" to Ol' Stink Town and heading off to greener pastures. 2) My piece of shit computer can't go longer than 15 minutes with out crashing. Thank God for auto save or this post would be completely fucked (It's already crashed once so far). It makes it kind of hard to do much of anything related to creating whe- Just kidding. 3) I stil have a dozen posts to go. Given issues one and two it's an uphill battle to be sure.

#986: Coming Soon

2009-06-07T11:10:00.002-04:00

#985: Almost There

2009-05-27T22:55:00.002-04:00

I think I may be hallucinating because the first thing I thought to call this post was a reference to Marilyn Manson. I've never owned a Manson record or really listened to any of his music aside from what I've heard on the radio.

June is going to be Hell Month.

I'm going to be putting up the chairs and shutting off the lights around here and it will be complete madness. I'm going to have to kick up the posting around here to make my scheduled end date. I can do nine posts in a month it's just going to be about finding the time to work on everything. Traditionally, the site would be heading into a summer lull but, oh no, not this year. (Plus there's a few other things that need to happen during June. Fuck.... just remembered Father's Day and my Mom's birthday).

So, there you have it.

#984: Moon Patrol, Bitch.

2009-05-26T23:14:00.001-04:00

#983: Yes, I Have Been Watching More Degrassi...

2009-05-16T12:35:00.002-04:00

#982: Star Trek!

2009-05-10T15:30:00.007-04:00

Saw the new Star Trek movie yesterday. I approve of this movie, not just as a Star Trek movie but as a summer blockbuster type thing. Of course, I'm hardly objective on this subject. Shannon will be the ultimate litmus test as to if this movie has cross-over appeal or not.

(For the Letterman clip you can skip the first 1:35. It's pretty obvious he doesn't give a shit since he calls it Star Wars three or four times. In his defense, honest mistake for someone who's not a fucking dork.)

Of course, these two pale in comparison to this next clip (But I don't think you could say "dickhead" on TV twenty years ago).

William Shatner SNL skit Get A Life 1986-12-20
by efly2020

Oh, that hit home for some of you, didn't it? The Shatner sketch may have flipped a switch in my brain when I saw it as a kid. Something inside me said, "Don't end up like that. Get out there and touch a boob or something!"

While that sketch may have had somewhat of a Scared Straight effect on me, it horribly backfired on others. Some Trekkies took it as a slap in the face and set out to prove that, goddamnit, they were cool too!

You're not cool. You'll never be cool. At least not in the mainstream sense of the word. Sure, being a nerd is hip now, but being a Star Trek nerd is like being a dork with dork added.

Yeah, I know, "to thine own self be true" is a good way to turn it around. Plus, the only reason Trekkies (or Trekkers) are picked on is because they're easy targets. What's easier than a group of intelligent, well meaning, socially awkward people? Not much and I speak from experience.

In junior high school I made the mistake of wearing my Star Trek Deep Space Nine t-shit to school. I should have just painted a bull's-eye on my chest and back.

Yes, fellow dorks, dweebs, nerds, geeks and boners.... I feel your pain. Take some small comfort that Star Trek was #1 this weekend and is getting largely positive reviews from non-Trek fans. It's a victory for nerdkind.

...and be glad you're not a LARPer. Those people are fucked.

UPDATE (Queue Unsolved Mysteries update music here):
And I quoth, "Well, I'll be damned. I really liked Star Trek. I could have done without the B.O. and the super fans, though."

That was taken from Shannon's twitter update upon exiting Star Trek and it's 100% true! She really liked it and there really were a bunch of fucking smelly dorks behind us!

I am excited and, at the same time, cautious. Much like anal sex, Sci-Fi isn't something you can just spring on your significant other. You have to ease into it.... nice and slow. Awwww yeah....

Now that I've taken us all to a very weird and uncomfortable place.... To bed!

#981: I Listened To This On Purpose.

2009-05-05T22:21:00.002-04:00

Oh man, am I a fan of self abuse or what? Right now I'm riffing on a segment the Onion's AV Club calls "I Watched This On Purpose" where they watch crap movies and then hate on them. There's really no other purpose to this post than to spew vitriol and bring myself down to the level of the common internet troll. I should probably go and register for an Ain't It Cool News account now.

I am a hater. I enjoy hating things. For some reason it gives me strength to know that there are things more awful than I am in the world and it's easier for me to criticize than do anything of note myself. That being said...on with the hate!

Asher Roth: I Love College

I saw this kid on a bumper on the end of some MTV show and I thought it was a joke. I thought I was being Punk'd! There was just something about the song that made me think the bar for popular music had been lowered a couple of pegs.

I'll admit that I didn't go away to school. I hung out at High School Part 2 until it was time for me to go to an actual university. I worked about a part time job, lived at home and stayed in the tri-county area for a spell. So, a fair amount of the song is lost on me is what I'm trying to say.

The song seems like a new douchebag anthem with crossover appeal to the girls in their early 30s with faded tramp stamps (Because, "Asher is soooo cute."). I wish I could mumble my way through a song and kind of rhyme words.

Something not in the final cut of the song was a Weezer sample of "Say It Ain't So." Why that would have given the song a much needed touch of originality that it so sorely lacks. Because I'm sure there's no one out there that's sampled Weezer before this. I'm also sure that there's no one who has done it better, either.

Videogum has a pretty awesome compilation of acoustic webcam covers of the song. The douche level increase by a factor of 10 for each video watched. I freely admit that I know diddly-poo about the hip-hop, but something about this doesn't sit right with me.

Ida Maria: I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked.

There are a couple of things that piss me off about this song. 1) If you speak the title, you've heard the song. 2) It comes from the homeland (well, one of them at least). The song is literally nothing more than "La, la, la, la, la, la NAKED! La, la, la, la, la, la NAKED!" It just seems like lazy pop music. Plus, a raspy smoker yelling about liking me better naked isn't tops on my list of things I want to hear.

Anybody remember this?
bif naked

Pop music is cyclical. It's all happened before and it will happen again. How long until the next Beatles get here?

#980: They Have Done It Again

2009-05-03T13:11:00.002-04:00

Another video from the Cleveland Tourism Board.

The end of this video opens it up for a response from Michigan's major dying city...Detroit! Detroit sucks pretty bad...but...that's all I've got. Wait, "at least it's not in Ohio!" Yeah! Suck it Ohio!

I'm thinking about trolling YouTube to see if there has been a flood of videos that use other cities as their jumping off point. I really want to do one for Detroit, but whittling down all of Detroit's problems to just 45-50 seconds is a daunting task.

What to choose? You can buy a house for a dollar in the city (True!) or that white elitist douchebag assholes are trying to save architectural landmarks (that are rotting form the inside) with no plans for the buildings after they're saved. Unless you count letting them continue to rot as a plan.

Great. Now I'm all pissed off.

#979: 8Tracks For May 2009

2009-05-03T12:51:00.004-04:00

Apparently, it's 1996 again....

I couldn't think of anything new-ish to post today so I made myself a box to work out of. All of the above tracks are stuff I was listening to in 1996 ( my junior and senior year of high school). I had initially thought it was going to be nothing by R.E.M. but I was surprised to find I actually listened to a few other things back then.

BONUS: Two of the above tracks are connected in some way. How? That's not for me to say but it's for you to find out. When viewed in context, the answer makes a lot of sense in relation to who I was and what I was doing in the the long, long ago time of 1996.

#978: Throwback Pepsi/Mountain Dew

2009-04-29T22:11:00.002-04:00

I was sitting on the couch wearing a throwback jersey, playing an original NES game and drinking a Throwback Pepsi. I honestly tried to think of more old things I could have thrown into that intro but I am bound by the rule of threes.

Last weekend we were at a fantastically old supermarket when I spied an old Pepsi logo followed by an old Mountain Dew logo. "Throwback Pepsi," I said to no one in particular, "What the shit is this shit?" Then I bought some cheddar bratwurst and left the store.

Come Monday the interwebs were all a buzz with tales of the godly nectar that is the Throwback soda. I did some checking and found out that what makes it a throwback is that they use actual sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Why? Because HFCS is...well, just watch

See? Nobody fucking knows why it's bad! Not even the people that are trying to tell you it's good! A brief aside: I lost my shit the first time I saw these commercials. I expected them to back up their "it's not that bad" claim with some actual facts. Not, "what? That it's made of corn?" Of course it's made of corn! It's in the fucking name! It's like one of those Truth commercials telling you that smoking is bad "because I said so, and that's that."

Well, the proof is in the soda, so to speak.

In my opinion, both the Pepsi and Mountain Dew tasted better than the standard ones.

Pepsi tasted like the stuff I used to by from Hall Drugs around the corner from my parent's house. The stuff that came in glass bottles. One piece of notable feed back I saw stated, "...even my burps tasted clean!"

Mountain Dew has a flavor! A flavor other than radioactive donkey piss! I think I detected a hint of lime. I don't know, after several years and gallons of radioactive donkey piss drunk, the taste buds tend to wander a bit.

Another point of interest: Neither soda gave me heartburn or excess of burps. A welcome change of pace, especially since I keep a roll of Tums in my desk at work for when I get the hankering for a Pepsi.

Since this has taken off on the Internet, I wonder if Pepsi is going to pull a "New Coke" and say that Throwback Sodas are here to stay? I've talked to a couple of friends about the New/Old Pepsi and was advised to seek out Mexican Pepsi or Mexican Coke because those sodas are still made with cane sugar unlike the US counterparts.

One of my friends told me that he swears by Mexican Squirt (I think I saw that movie...). Oh, the soda? Right. Well, next time I'm in Mexicantown or the "ethnic" aisle in Kroger I'm going to pick some up! Thank you NAFTA! I will report back with my findings.

In closing? Throwback soda kicks water's ass.

#977: Because I Am Lazy...

2009-04-29T22:10:00.000-04:00

So what's the deal with this Swine Flu, eh?

#946: Well, That's Ohio For You...

2009-04-17T00:55:00.000-04:00

Lifted from Videogum...

#975: Tiny Blogs About Tiny Dogs

2009-04-16T13:24:00.007-04:00

It's a well known fact I don't care for dogs (unless they're unusually handsome or charming) but there are other dogs I despise more than usual due to their preferential treatment. I speak, of course, of tiny dogs.

I put up a twitter update about an hour ago debating on if I should have lunch outside or not. I decided against it because I did not want to be carried away, or otherwise attacked, by a falcon. I really wish this was a product of my fevered imagination but the "fear" has its roots in a story I heard some years back.

A prior co-worker of mine had a Yorkie that she spoke of very highly. It was the kind of dog that had a better childhood than 90% of the people I know. The dog was waited on hand and foot and shat only in the finest crystal goblets. Now that I've established how ridiculously this dog was treated, I will move on.

One day my co-worker arrived at work near hysterics because while her dog was out for his morning BM (which I can only assume smelled of roses) a hawk had begun to circle in the sky above him. I was hoping the story would end with "...and then he was gone!" but it didn't.

The hawk had opted to pass on roughly one pound of doggie meat (for some reason the dog's weight, or lack thereof, came up constantly) for something of more substance (possibly a senior citizen). I absorbed the story and filed it away for future reference.

Shannon has mentioned in passing that she wants a tiny dog, something she can carry around and dress up (Fur-Pig #1 has rejected clothing of any kind, Fur-Pig #2 enjoys some clothing which I find mildly troubling). I often counter with my steadfast "no dogs" rule and then state that we should have a child. A child can be dressed up, carried around and there's poop to clean up. Just like a dog.

Eventually a child will learn to talk back whereas a dog cannot so I guess I can see some of the appeal of a dog. Plus, if a dog runs away you don't have to do all sorts of uncomfortable explaining to the police.

Still, seeing a toy dog carried off in the talons of bird of prey would be pretty neat.

#974: 8tracks Take Two

2009-04-15T23:48:00.001-04:00

Bleh. Up later than I want to be, working I things I ought not to be working on at this hour. I was able to see straight enough to produced my promised second mix for April. "Up...Then Down."

#973: "Well, There Goes My Day part XVI"

2009-04-15T15:02:00.001-04:00

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural

Probably going to spend all day looking at this. Thanks, Max.

#972: 8Tracks Mix For April 2009

2009-04-05T11:46:00.005-04:00

Behold, I have made a mix.

I stumbled across this site called 8Tracks that allows its users to create music mixes for sharing. The site also bills itself as completely legal, so I'm on board.

It's really easy to use, way easier than the dear, departed Muxtape (A site that I signed up for but never used because I couldn't figure it out). My only complaint is that since it's so new their musical selection is somewhat limited. So get on there and upload your own stuff! You can add it to your blog and whatever else you have that takes embedded code.

I'll be doing this once a month until the bitter end (or if they get shut down, whatever comes first). So without further ado, April's mix.

#971: TELEVISION PREVIEW

2009-03-28T14:16:00.003-04:00

Last week I received in invite to participate in a Television Preview. A preview that would help shape the viewing habits of people nationwide. Enclosed in the invite were four free passes for said preview. I wanted to go. Oh man, I wanted to go.

I had never been asked to participate in a focus group before, this one promised television pilots and commercials that we would be asked to view and then give our opinions on. Given that I have both watched television AND commercials, I thought it would be neat. What it turned out to be was something else entirely.

After work yesterday, Shannon, her friend Katie and myself headed down to the Best Western in Sterling Heights for the Television Preview. My mind was racing with the thoughts of what awesome, previously unseen television shows would await us.

Earlier in the day, I had already begun to prepare myself for the possibility that the shows we would see would be awful. I had already planned on giving wildly inconsistent answers to throw off the curve. It the show sucked, I would rate it "Best Ever!" or "5 out of 5 Stars!" and if it was awesome (Honestly, something I wasn't expecting) I would do the opposite.

On the way to the Best Western, Shannon got a Facebook message from one of her friends alerting us to what was awaiting us. As it turns out Television Preview is a marketing research outfit that lures rubes such as we in with the promise of unaired TV pilots only to show pilots from the mid to late 90s interspersed with current commercials. It's a very elaborate ruse for something that works out to be telemarketing in the flesh.

We arrived at the Best Western a few minutes prior to show time. Our conference room was right next to the Lincoln High class of '78 reunion, worst case scenario we could always go hang with them. Shanon and I had picked out fake careers in anticipation of being asked what we did. I would be an archaeologist, Shannon a concert flautist.

The line for this scam was almost beyond belief. If I were forced to wager a guess, I would think most of the population of Sterling Heights and Warren was there. I think less people showed up to see the Pope back in '87.

The group was composed mostly of doctors, lawyers, and assorted members of MENSA. Kidding, of course. The line was made up of the dregs of society. Most notably, a woman waiting on the results of her drug test to tell her if she was going back to jail or not.

As we were being seated, I noted that we were in the second to last row. A good sign. If this thing was mind-bendingly awful I wanted us to be able to make a quick escape. The next thing I noticed as they were closing the doors was that they had to turn people away. Like lambs to the slaughter, people were lining up for free TV and the promise of "fabulous prizes."

The presentation began and we were asked to complete a short survey. The survey was all pictures of various household products and we were asked to pick one of each. Keeping with my promise, I selected several items at random and was done in about 15 seconds. There was a man seated down the aisle from us that took somewhere north of five minutes to complete his. He studied each picture very intently, hand on chin, before selecting his preferred brand of nail polish remover.

Then it was time for the fist drawing of "fabulous prizes." We didn't win.

On to the TV shows, the fist show we were asked to watch was a drama called "Soulmates" about past lives. The lights went down and the awfulness began. The show was shot sometime in the mid-90s as evidenced by the cell phones they showed. I believe that the last time I saw a phone that large Zach Morris was talking into it.

"Soulmates" dealt with a hypnotherapist who falls in love with one of here patients while believing they were connected in a past life. The show itself barely qualified as a narrative. Scenes were strung together in a sloppy fashion, subplots from nowhere came and went like ships in the night and the acting delivered gems such as the following:

MAN: (sitting in chair and gasping like he just cracked an epic fart) "I just did something horrible. I killed a man."
OLDER MALE HYPNOTHERAPIST: (responding to a ringing phone) "I apologize for that. It was unexpected, unprofessional....and lame."

At several points during the show we were all nearly driven to tears over how damn bad some of the dialog was. I've been scouring the Internet for hours trying to find some mention of the show. It doesn't even have a listing on IMDB. At my most paranoid, I thought that a company had shot this bad fake TV show just for the purpose of showing it to unsuspecting audiences.

During the show, they paused for commercial breaks. The real purpose of the screening was becoming readily apparent. Newer commercials were being shown to gauge audience reaction. I do admit to being puzzled because several older commercials were thrown in the mix as well. Maybe to get a baseline reading or something.

After "Soulmates" we were asked to complete a short survey about the show. They we all soft ball questions about the plot and the chemistry of the actors. I gave them all outstanding marks, but my time to shine came with the written portion of the exam. My text from the survey follows (I took a photo so I could translate it later):

"More Sci-Fi-y. Possibly some more breasts and explosions. Also would like to see more time travel. Not like that show LOST. That show sucks fat ass."

Next was a half hour sitcom called "Dads." Unlike "Soulmates" I can actually confirm this one existed. It also starred C. Thomas Howell and Rue McClanahan of Golden Girls fame. This show was from 1997. It was a mash-up of Friends, Full House, and Seinfeld set in Chicago and it was all awful. Front to back shit.

My comments on "Dads":

"See previous. Possibly a Seinfeld cameo? Put this show after 30 Rock and the Emmy gold will be yours! Trust me, I'm on the Emmy board (wink, wink). P.S. Why aren't there any black people in Chicago?"

The next drawing followed. We didn't win again.

I had asked Shannon if she wanted to bail during "Dads" but it was decided that we would stick around. Another product survey about deodorant and paper towels followed.

Per my answers, I have not bought any deodorant in the last six months, do not use deodorant and rely only on "the cleansing power of my own chi" to keep me fresh. For paper towels, it's important for me to have colored paper towels that are not soft enough to wipe a child's face. I also "make my own" paper towels and "just because it's white, don't mean it's right."

There were no more "fabulous prizes" to be had, so we were let go.

I sincerely think we were the only people in on the joke. A group of ladies in their 70's walked past us talking about how much fun they had and how they needed to do it again soon. I was a little taken aback by the number of people who really liked the shows they had seen. "Dads" actually got some pretty good laughs. It became clear to me how and Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens stayed on the air for so long.

In the end, I didn't feel cheated thanks to our advance knowledge of what was happening. Sure we were being taken for a ride, but what a ride it was. All we could do was sit back and enjoy it...and hope for "fabulous prizes."

It warms my heart that someone sitting in a shitty office in Warren somewhere is going to have to read what I wrote and place the results of my survey on a graph in relation to the surveys of others.

It also gives me hope for my chances as a legitimate writer. Because if something as fucking awful as "Dads" and "Soulmates" can be put to film there must be room for me out there.

UPDATE: Here's a wikipedia article on the Television Preview scammers. Good reading. Also, Shannon got called eight times yesterday from these assholes! The 7th time I answered and they didn't speak to me, the 8th time Shannon answered and ripped them a new one. Then the calls stopped.
Also... Proof of Soul Mates!

#970: Home Blood Alcohol Test.

2009-03-25T14:08:00.004-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, we were at Meijer getting a prescription filled, a process that took forever and a day to complete (It was only for an antibiotic and a pain reliever). Shannon and I wandered around the store for a bit but it only takes about fifteen minutes to see everything there is to see in Meijer if you're not shopping.

We returned to the pharmacy area and sat...and waited...and waited some more. Eventually, I decided to entertain myself with the myriad of weird crap they have near the pharmacy check out. All sorts of salves and suppositories, food additives that will thicken liquid foods for people who have trouble with solids, etcetera

Then, just as we were about to check out I spied a Home Blood Alcohol Test Kit. I didn't know they had such a thing! Even better, it was only $1.30!

So I bought two. If anything it's an excuse to get recklessly drunk in the name of science.

I put them away when we got home, half forgetting about them until the time was right. For some odd reason my drinking has tapered off for the time being so I didn't have much of an excuse to use them.

Last weekend came, I had a six pack that needed to be taken care of and Shannon had a bottle of wine. Five beers in I decided it was time to take the test.

The test consists of one small strip of paper to be placed in the mouth after ten minutes of not drinking. I did find it hard to go for the full ten, but I made it through. The tip of the paper is supposed to change color based on how drunk you are, four different shades ranging from "Sober" to "Shit-faced."

My strip came back "Sober."

I ignored my desire to hop in the car and drive in 'Reverse' to Burger King and had my final beer, took the test again and the color changed to the smallest bit of purple. What I've learned is that the difference between "sober" and "a little drunk" is somewhere between five and six beers. Or one bottle of wine since Shannon's test changed color as soon as she breathed on it. Probably from the grapes in the wine, I'd bet.

Also, I'm sure that the fact that these tests are set to expire in 2 months had a lot to do with why they may or may not have worked properly (and also why they were probably on clearance.) Still, another victory for Science!

#969: "Hmm, Well I'll Be...."

2009-03-24T14:07:00.002-04:00

Entertainment Weekly actually got something halfway right for once!

For those of you too lazy to click on the link, it's a list of 26 Great TV Shows Canceled Before Their Time. You have to get about eight clicks in before the good stuff starts happening...But they list The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., The Tick, Cupid, and, Clone High. Sure, the list also contains a fair amount of crap (A show about Grosse Pointe?) but the fact that a show as under the radar a Clone High made the list in a publication like EW is nothing short of amazing.

Maybe this will drum up interest in a United States DVD release with all sorts of neat bonus stuff finally. Then I can retire my trusty Canadian Border Jumper edition that I've had for some time now.

#968: This and That

2009-03-17T10:20:00.002-04:00

Shannon got Freaks & Geeks from her Netflix the other day so we watched the first three episodes of that last night.

I had missed the show during its initial run (99-00) and so had a lot of other people, which helped cement its status as a cult classic. In the past I had the DVDs of this show forced on me because it was "right up my alley." My natural tendency towards dissent resulted in me watching one episode and completely forgetting about it. However, I did get to say that the show didn't really do it for me when returning the DVDs which made me feel vindicated.

Since a fair number of TV shows I enjoy have a fairly limited run it was only a matter of time before I decided to take another ride on the Freaks & Geeks train. After watching the first three episodes I can say that I do like the show and I can see where a lot of niche comedy that followed lifted their ideas from (most notably Bill, the dork who appears to be a Napoleon Dynamite analog).

Also, the show is based in a fictional 1980s Michigan town similar to Clinton Township. The show's creator went to Chippewa High School and I seem to recall Mike Saliba being rather proud of that fact. I would be too if a show based on my school was on TV while I was going there.

Right out of the gate the show started with the Michigan references. Within the first few minutes of the first episode the mother on the show talked about going to "Farmer Jack's." Note the possessive form of Farmer Jack, a dirty habit of the Midwesterner. It's one of those things that was pointed out to me years ago and it drives me bonkers. It's the Midwest equivalent of the East Coast "Youse guys" or the Southern "Y'all."

As I was writing this I started to think about a show set in modern day Michigan. Yes, I know that Home Improvement was supposed to take place in Michigan but they never went out of their way to express their Michigan-ness.

What would the show be like? Things in the state are pretty bleak right now and I'm afraid that would be all the show would be about. A depressing show about poor people in a poor state. If I wanted that I'd watch Roseanne. God, I hated that show....

Anyways...The show could be called Rust Belt or something else that gives it some regional flavor and it would be about a Michigan family and their zany adventures. That's all I've got right now. But if TV has taught me anything, it's that all you need is a paper-thin premise and the rest is on autopilot.

#967: Spring Thaw

2009-03-16T09:37:00.002-04:00

Post #970 is coming up soon, that means it's 30 more until #1,000 and the end of this blog. I've spent the last so many months fretting over whether or not I'd have enough content to fill the coming days and now it seems like I have too much. There are always going to be things to write about.

The remaining 30 posts are going to be split in an odd way. Seventeen of them will be business as usual and the next twelve I'm toying with the idea of doing a "Twelve Labors of E.A. Henson" to cement my status as a mythic folk hero. Of course the remaining one post will be the 1,000th and ultimately the end of this blog.

With all this on my mind the idea of "this is the last time I'll do 'X'..." has really set in. It's all very maudlin like moving out of place you've lived for years or the last episode of a TV situation comedy (note to self: do list of "best" last episodes of TV shows. You know...for filler.)

So today the temperatures are set to soar into the upper 50's, I saw a robin last week and all the piles of grayish perma-snow are almost gone. Spring is here and my wanderlust is yammering away at the back of my mind urging me to get out and do something other than rotting at a desk.

Since it's Monday, I'll be filling my time by 1)being insanely busy 2)blogging, and 3)looking at Labelscar and sighing deeply. I want to get out in the worst way and my plans for a day off this week were shot down already. Very frustrating.

Winter is hard because the onset of Cabin Fever is all but unavoidable. I do enjoy being able to stay in, but the fact that I can't escape on foot does tend to get to me after a month or two. Now that spring is more or less here I am stuck inside. Feh.

The thing with writing as a career choice is that it's very much similar to what I do now. Long, weird hours, inside mostly, virtually thankless. The difference would be that I'd be my own boss. The only assholes I'd have to deal with all day would be our cats. Also, with the advent of the laptop, I'd be able to choose where I would be stuck inside.

I always hear the greatest stuff when I'm out and about and the way my Swiss cheese mind works I have to immediately turn it in to something or have ti be lost forever. I carried a moleskin note book with me for several years in my early 20's. It was helpful and I got enough to fill three and a half of them but I got out of the habit of writing in it every day. Soon it was every week, every other week, monthly and finally annually. I feel like I'm missing out on so much of the minutiae of everyday life by not doing it. Shannon bought me a new moleskin a while back that's sitting empty on a shelf. I may attempt to start fresh with that one.

I recall one such instance where I was "that guy" with my notebook. I was at a bar with some friends and while they played pool and darts I was hunched over my notebooks scribbling away frantically. Last time I looked back at that volume I noted the writing was becoming increasingly larger and more erratic at the night went on. Ha-ha... I must have been quite the sight! It's a wonder I have almost no friends.

Given the chance, enough time and a laptop with a word processing program (wi-fi Internet for research also) I'm sure I could write some truly epic tales while sitting in the food court at Fairlane Mall or the parking lot of the Meijer/Sonic in Southgate, Michigan. At the risk of sounding hippie-ish, weird places give me a charge. A feeling of unlimited potential and a tingling in my hands as it tries to find its way out.

So that's where I am on this rapidly warming spring day.

#966: The Oregon Trail

2009-03-13T11:46:00.003-04:00

Who remembers The Oregon Trail? I sure as hell do. It was the only video game available on the Apple IIe systems that populated my elementary school's computer lab. I can still recall many an afternoon where computer class would devolve into 30 kids playing this game for hours on end.

The game was great due in large part to the level of customization the player could achieve. How many oxen? What's your profession? How many pounds of food do you want to purchase? What month do you want to leave during? Names....oh, the names... More on that later.

I don't know why I have such love for a game that was as sadistically hard as this game was. Members of your party would get sick or hurt all the time. Oxen were always getting sick or stolen. How pissed off does this next sentence make you? "A thief has come during the night and..." usually follow by "all of your supplies."

Back to the naming. I'm sure on some level I wasn't aware of I enjoyed sending endless streams of pioneers to their tiny pixelated deaths because they showed you the name you entered on a tombstone. "Here Lies BONERFACE."

I'm also pretty sure that Optimus Prime led more failed expeditions than any other wagon train leader in the history of westward expansion.

O.T. also brought the knowledge of dysentery into my comedy wheelhouse. Any poo-related disease are hilarious (except when, you know, you actually have one) and with some of the names in my party it worked as a double joke: "BONERFACE has dysentery!" Comedy! Who ever heard of a pioneer named BONERFACE??? (Except for the obvious Clyde Bonerface who led an ill-fated expedition across Kansas in the winter of 1863. Near the end, Bonerface was pulling his own covered wagon after the death of his oxen before succumbing to the elements himself. This is where the phrase "pulling a boner" comes from.)

Aside from expanding my understanding of poo-illnesses, I learned next to nothing from the game. Well, maybe I learned that it's fucking impossible to get to Oregon! Seriously, there wasn't one kid that I personally knew that had made it to the promised land. I had heard all sorts of stories of a 6th grader that had done it...only he went to a different school and was friends with a friend's cousin.

The game may have affected me in ways I'm still trying to understand. In real life I've never been to Oregon....because I don't think I could actually go to Oregon and survive. I'd eat Arby's on the way to the airport and die of dysentery. Or, I would attempt to drive there only to have everything stolen from my car in East St. Louis. In some way I think we're all going to Oregon at some point in our lives....

That should bring us up to March 11th 2009. A swank new version of The Oregon Trail is available through Apple for the iPod Touch and the iPhone and while sitting in the bathroom on that morning, I downloaded it.

The new version is fun, but it's ultimately a toothless version of its predecessor. I've traveled over a thousand miles now in good/fair health. There were some broken bones, a snakebite and a case of cholera...but no one has died yet. I've even stopped for rest along the trail and there haven't been any thieves!

For a nostalgia purchase it's worth the four bucks I paid for it. The mini-games are fun and I found myself ignoring BioShock on my 360 in favor of tiny settlers last night. Very odd.

Uh-oh....

#965 "These are the Ah-duh-duh-duhhhh."

2009-03-12T11:05:00.002-04:00

Man, I feel dumb today. It's kind of scary because it feels like I have some kind of early onset retardism that's not going to go away. I started the day by responding incorrectly to a wrong email. I had never hit the recall button so quickly in my life. Luckily, I was using my company manners and refrained from sending a profanity laced tirade about someones mother.

My brain-dumb is kind of a mystery right now. I don't think I've had anything to drink this week and I've been on a pretty regular sleep schedule. I consider it a minor miracle that I was able to dress myself and get to work today. I haven't ruled out that I may need adult diapers before the day ends.

I've got (I have got? That's not proper English is it?) two event-style posts in the pipeline right now that I need to get done. Watch this space for updates soon.

#964: The "Twit" Hits The Fan

2009-03-11T10:08:00.002-04:00

Goals for today: 1) Get bad pun out of the way within first three hours of being awake. Status: Accomplished.

We're going to talk a little about Twitter today. The public awareness of what Twitter is has grown exponentially since the presidential election and during the last few weeks has been placed in the Internet pantheon alongside MySpace and Facebook.

I've been using Twitter for somewhere around a year, year and a half (I know. "Woooo! La-dee-dah!"). Initially I found out about it through Warren Ellis and his website, if you're on Twitter follow him.

Twitter is characterized as a social networking app, but I prefer to think of it as a mobile blog. You can upload 140 character updates ("tweets" which I think sounds dumb) via the Internet or SMS text messages from your phone. I haven't found a good mobile blogging app, or a fold-out keyboard for my iPhone, so it'll remain Twitter for blogging on the fly.

The 140 character updates are great. I think it forces people to be more creative when working with a limited canvas. I hear they recently had an awards ceremony for people who exceeded in Twitter-ing. I'll see if I can dig up a link to post.

At the top of this post I mentioned how Twitter has exploded recently. Over the last couple of weeks I've seen some video from either Good Morning America of The Early Show in which the hosts attempt (and fail) to explain Twitter. Flipping past E! News a reporter was asking Julia Roberts questions submitted by fans via Twitter. Martha Stewart is on Twitter talking about her dead dog.

I'm waiting for my dad to ask me what Twitter is. I can still recall the "What's a blah-ogg?" conversation from a few years back (The explanation was "an on-line journal" and that the term "blog" was derived from "Web-log." It worked. He understood. We when back to watching Stargate.)

So yeah, Twitter is everywhere. The President does it and so does almost everyone else. Now everyone can know what everyone else, including their favorite celebrities, is doing all the time. At the very least, it's free entertainment and I recommend signing up for it. However it does beg the question, "how plugged in do we need to be?" If you follow me on Twitter you will know how my morning BM went or what I'm thinking while standing in line at Arby's. It's not for the faint of heart.

#963: My Cinematic Everest

2009-03-06T10:08:00.002-05:00

I was thinking about things to "research" this morning and I began to think about The Mothman. It had been a while since I read up on cryptozoology so I deemed it an appropriate topic for the day.

Then I began to think about the Mothman movie The Mothman Prophecies with Richard Gere. I've never seen the movie...and I own it.

My history, or lack thereof, with The Mothman Prophecies stretches back to the year it was released (2002). I was excited that a subject so weird and near and dear to my heart was going to be a major motion picture. I had read the book the movie was based on and was totally ready to see it.

The movie came and went from theaters so quickly that it too was a thing of legend. Oh well, there's always cable.

The movie came to Cinemax (or The Movie Channel) as one of their overnight features. The idea was that they would run recent films at about 2 AM, you could set your VCR and have a movie ready to go in the morning. A good idea for people not around to watch stuff during normal hours...and insomniacs. Come to think of it, this was probably The Movie Channel that did this since Cinemax is nothing but tits from midnight to 6 AM.

So I taped The Mothman Prophecies...and never watched it. The tape came with me when I moved out and currently resides in my closet. Waiting.

Jump forward to when Shannon and I started dating. We were at Wal-Mart (like most young couples) and we happened upon Wal-Mart's tub-o-value DVDs. I purchased The Mothman Prophecies for $5. That was almost three years ago.

The DVD sits on my DVD shelf filed with the rest of the 'M" movies. Waiting.

I don't know what my problem is. I just can't watch this movie. It hardly ever comes up in conversation, "Hey, let's watchThe Mothman Prophecies!" Or, if it does, the response is less than stellar. I have actually been told by friends not to watch the movie because it sucks. But it's still there. Mocking me.

The Mothman Prophecies is a mountain that I can not climb. If I do attempt it, I fear that I will die before I reach the summit leaving a frozen crew and countless dead Sherpas in my wake.

#962: Rise Of The Fur-Pig

2009-02-26T09:21:00.002-05:00

I'll start this post by saying that it's all about the Fur-Pig now. We no longer own cats. We've been invaded by an aggressive colonizing force genetically designed to eat us out of house and home....and that's exactly what they've been doing.

Now, I'm well aware that it's impossible to train a Fur-Pig, in fact, the Fur-Pig usually ends up training you. Food must be consumed quickly and only while the Fur-Pig slumbers. Otherwise, the Fur-Pig will sit on your shoulder and attempt to hypnotize you into sharing your meal.

In some translations of the Bible, the Fur-Pig was one of the Ten Plagues of Egypt. They came somewhere between frogs and locusts. Curiouser still, the tenth plague has been sometimes translated as "Death of the First Born, Birth of the Fur-Pig."

REGIONAL CONTENT ALERT: On Tuesday, Shannon and I went down to Hamtramck to get our Polish on and get some authentic Pole-made paczkis. A Michigan tradition, the paczki contains about 4,000 calories that are derived primarily from lard. We brought some home...how could the Fur-Pigs resist?

Yesterday I got a text that the black Fur-Pig (the more intelligent and devious of the two) had consumed a raspberry paczki, licked all the powdered sugar off of it and then sat on the remains. That Fur-Pig was sending a message. She could have ate the entire thing but she didn't to let us know that nothing was safe. The threat of a full Fur-Pig uprising keeps me awake at night.

Goddamn Fur-Pigs.

#961: And The Winner For Best Picture Is....

2009-02-22T23:48:00.002-05:00

The sad thing about YouTube now is that I can no longer trick people in to blindly watching things because they put the title right on the still shot of the video. Regardless....

#960: I Hate The Internet And You Should Too.

2009-02-16T20:21:00.004-05:00

Subtitle: "Part 837 Of Why The Internet Is A Blight On Humanity (Except When It's Being Used For Good Like I'm Doing Now)

I cribbed this from Videogum and I had to share it because it made me die inside a little. I made it to 4:35 out of 8:03 and in doing so lost my left testicle. Don't know how. I think it just exploded when I heard her say "pedophile" in her British accent (peed-o-file). Bonus points: Here's a link to an article about how the Twilight books are Mormon propaganda. There are 100,000 websites that pop up on Google about this...making it true.

Now, I haven't read the Twilight books, nor do I intended to. But we do have a Book of Mormon in our house. I wonder what that says about me (Other than that I stole it from a hotel room in Chicago)? Triple High Score: Go to Google and type in "Twilight is" and laugh your ass off.

I knew I was in trouble when I got the email with the subject "FW: fw: fw: This video is HILAROUS!" from a co-worker. Then the attached text, "I must have watched this 25 times on Sunday!"

SNL stopped being relevant about the time I stated to drive, it was and continues to be safe, stupid humor that doesn't age well (Granted, there are exceptions to this). Any episode of Kids in the Hall could beat SNL to a bloody pulp.

A few years back when they were struggling to find the next Will Ferrell they brought in a crop of fresh faced new kids that were hip to things like the Internet, cell phones and rap music. I recall reading an interview with all the new hires and they couldn't say enough about how great they were for being picked to be on SNL. Were they able to fold themselves in two, much like a garment bag, they would have (I realize this is a long way to go to say they were performing autofellatio)This created "Lazy Sunday."

Everybody talked about it, everybody loved it. Don't even try and front. What's not to love about a couple of dorks performing an aggressive rap about going to see a children's fantasy movie (which is secretly Christian propaganda).

Then the Internet happened. Paving the way for t-shirts and more shorts from that goofball with the giant neck and his friends. Honestly, I thought they were done after "Dick In A Box" but then "Jizz In My Pants" came (?) along and then last week "I'm On A Boat."

"Jizz in My Pants" was funny from the time they got to the first hook to the time they finished the first hook. Repeat ad nauseam and you have officially worn out your welcome. Come back with a song that's as stupid as the genre it's lampooning and you need to be stopped.

I can feel my blood pressure skyrocketing so I'm going to get away from the source of my pain for a while.

UPDATE: Those assholes are fucking up my margins causing me to finally stroke out, losing the use of both arms. I was able to type this using my turgid hog mallet, but I'm too weak to screw with HTML now so I will bid you good evening while I wait for my sponge bath.

#959: No Witty Headline

2009-02-12T09:43:00.002-05:00

Couldn't be bothered to come up with one today. The urge to create was just too great. Unfortunately for you, this post will be nothing but random nonsense and nothing of any real substance.

*Getting a new pair of glasses. I'm about a year or two overdue for some. These will be a return to more of a "Classic Eric" look, the one I'd want them to use for my postage stamp. I have also become tired of my current glasses being more interesting than I am and Shannon silently hating them for the last three years.

*I'm at the end of my rope regarding Valentine's Day. The fine dining establishments I've contacted to make reservations don't take reservations. White Castle takes reservations on Valentine's Day for fuck's sake! One place I did call (Fishbones in Greektown) told me they could set something up....for a party of 8 or more. Is it too much to ask to go somewhere and not have to wait for a table?

*I got an iPhone. I was debating on if this should be it's own post or not but I don't want to be a larger bag of douche than I already am by purchasing one. That's right, in addition to the one year of Apple service that comes with the phone you get upgraded to Premiere Douche status. You'll find yourself saying things like: "You know what's cool....YouTube!" or "Hang on while I check my email...from my phone!" All that being said, I like it a lot. I don't even miss being able to send/receive picture messages.

*Trying to find a private bathroom around here is like an Indiana Jones adventure. It's near impossible and there may be mystical forces at work against me. Oh, and Germans.

*The weather was nice here in Michigan the last couple of days. It was nice to snap out of the winter misery for a short time but it's supposed to go back to cold shit any second now.

*We've started streaming movies from Netflix directly to our X-Box. It works better than I expected and I now find myself wondering if it would be cheaper only to have cable internet.

*I want French Toast. Or are we calling it Freedom Toast now?

*Huey 2 recently chewed through the speaker wire on one of our surround sound speakers. It's a good thing I had 900 feet of excess wire to make the repair with. I wonder about that cat sometimes.

#958: MIKE SALIBA LEAVING MICHIGAN FOREVER!*

2009-02-11T10:13:00.002-05:00

Subtitled: "How can you do this to us?!? More importantly, me! How can you do this to me?!?"

Last night I logged into my MySpace account (something I don't do often anymore) and was presented with a bulletin that Mike Saliba is going to be departing Michigan for New Mexico to chase his dream of being an independent film maker. I'm not sure how if this changes his plans of running for congress in the next election. Maybe it was senate? I can't keep up any more.

Talk about your mixed bag of emotions. At the same time I was happy/proud that someone I knew was hitting the road to go after something they want but my inner three year old was freaking out from the impending separation anxiety.

Mike Saliba, zaniest of my zany friends will be going away. Proving how mentally underdeveloped I am, I equate moving away to death. Much like an infant, if I can't see something it doesn't exist. While this makes for particularly intense games of peak-a-boo between Shannon and I, it kind of hurts my chances of assimilating into the real world.

The only guy I've ever known to own multiple fezzes that's not a Shriner is going off to the desert to live in a house made of pottery... or something. I'm kind of hazy on New Mexicans and their ways. Perhaps he'll make the next movie about a shaggy-haired rebel that mumbles his way through life while wearing quirky cardigan sweaters and listening to equally mumbly indie rock? (I'm calling that idea right now as my intellectual property.)

As if my life wasn't boring enough right now, the chances of me getting a call offering to go buy dynamite and drink homemade alcohol have gone from the realm of possibility to almost nonexistent. Sure, Mike Villa will still be around but Saliba is more the catalyst for crazy antics. Also, let's be honest, Mike Villa's not as tall as Saliba.

Saliba's set to ship out on the 18th and will be added to the short list of people who have escape the sucking black hole that Michigan has become.

*Forever or a couple months if nothing goes as planned. No one escapes Michigan. Ever.

#957: Mouse Hunt

2009-02-09T23:38:00.003-05:00

Been busy at work, not a lot of time for bloggery on the sly. I offer a good story to make up for the time we have spent apart.

Last Friday I heard some talk around the office about a mouse being on the loose. Some of my coworkers had cornered him and he fled into one of the supply closets, environmental services was notified and traps were put out. Traditionally, that's where the story should end.

I was finishing lunch at my desk, most likely looking at a website of cats with funny pictures, and I looked down to see a tiny brown mouse by my right foot. It was looking up at me, I was looking down at it. I decided I was going to talk to it.

"Hey. What's up?" (I posted a much more dramatic retelling of the conversation on my Twitter.)

It kind of looked back at me, not really doing much of anything. It obviously didn't know I was descended from a long line of men who kill mice with screwdrivers. Most people would be hard pressed to come up with one story of mouse murder by Phillips head. I have two.

So I decided to pipe up to my coworkers that I had indeed found the mouse. I probably shouldn't have because this prompted some of the women (and let's be honest, some of the men) near me to fly into a state of panic.

My new friend took the frantic cries of "omigod, omigod" as a sign that it was "on" and he took off. I gave chase.

I've never considered myself to be one that thinks well on the fly, but I dumped out my trash can before going after the mouse. I chased him up and down the aisle by my desk and around the corner into another department.

The first time I tried to get the drop on him I only got half of him and he escaped my real life version of Mouse Trap. The second time I was able to put my trash can down right on top of him, trapping him.

Now what?

I went over to my section manager and stated, very plainly, "I caught the mouse."

It was pretty sweet. I think I had to repeat myself twice before the statement finally sunk in that Mr. Unassuming had bested a cunning tiny brown rodent.

Returning to my desk one of the guys from the other department called me "The Great White Hunter" and then he asked me if I remembered the scene in Rocky (Rocky 2?) when he has to catch the wild chicken. Not wanting to let on that I have never seen any of the Rocky movies, I agreed and said that it was just like that. Apparently, I'm also much quicker than I look too.

Environmental Services was called to dispose of the mouse. The same people who had been freaking out were now saying that they hoped they weren't going to kill him. If that was the case I promised I would give the mouse a head start by kicking over the trash can and letting him free. Thankfully, they were able to release him outside, alive.

Having now become "E: Catcher of Mice" I vowed that I would treat the event like the episode of The Simpsons where Homer bowls the 300 game and never let it go until everyone was really tired of hearing about it. That happened around 4:30.

I look forward to one day doing battle again with my small, furry foe and I'll say this about him... he was sure hard to catch in that car.

#956: "In Case We Die"

2009-01-30T11:33:00.002-05:00

Took a day off work on Wednesday this week. It was one of those vacation days when I got up at my normal time and got a whole lot accomplished including cheating death.

Later in the day, Shannon and I went shopping for towels. Macy's was having a linen sale and we needed some new linen. We opted to go to out to 12 Oaks Mall in good ol' Number 6 (Novi). It's like Lakeside Mall with some Somerset flava. Now that I've covered all my regional references, on to the meat of the story.

I had taken the super-secret back way to get out to Novi, avoiding most major expressways and traffic. It had snowed that morning and everything was kind of a mess so I didn't want to fuck around with backed up traffic.

After we obtained our linen we started heading home. The sun had come out, that morning's snow had started to melt and I decided I-696 would be the best way to get home. The roads were clear for the most part and we had almost made it to Royal Oak when I noticed something about to go horribly awry.

Of the four lanes of eastbound traffic on I-696 we were in the lane right next to the fast lane (far left). I was watching a blue Chevy van that was next to us speed through the snow that had drifted over the wall that had drifted over from the westbound side. Then the light back end of the van started to wobble...

I took my foot off the gas as soon as I saw what potentially could go wrong and then watched as it did go wrong. The van started to spin out, making two of three complete rotations across three lanes of traffic and missing us by about two feet. No exaggeration.

While this was happening I was watching the van spin (thinking pleasedon'thituspleasedon'thitus) and I had kind of scrunched myself up bracing for the potential impact that never came. I also looked in the rear view mirror fully expecting to see the hood of someones car sitting in our back seat. Thankfully the person behind me was paying attention too but I did see cars in other lanes getting out of the way and one person with their bumper hanging off about four cars back.

So we were all stopped, I was looking out at the driver of the van looking back at me from his driver's side window. Everyone was kind of just sitting there...then the guy in the van put it back in drive and continued on down the road. "So...We're going now?"

Then we went.

We were both pretty astounded at what happened, neither of us believing that we'd been so lucky. I got off 696 as soon as I could and proceeded directly to the nearest comic book store. Upon getting out of the car, me for comics and Shannon for a smoke, we discovered a shared case of the "weak knees."

Yesterday, I found my mind randomly replaying images of the spinning van. The freak out was fully setting in that we could have been very seriously messed up. I have to keep reminding myself to chalk this one up as a victory because we made it out untouched.

#955: "Occupied. Occupied!!!!"

2009-01-27T08:48:00.003-05:00

Last Friday, Shannon and I met up with my cousin Mark at Slows Bar BQ down in Olde Detroit. We'd been talking about going there on and off for about six months or so and we finally got around to doing it.

Slows allegedly has the best barbecue in the city so it wasn't surprising that we were told there would be an hour wait when we got there. No worries. We were still waiting for Mark so we decided to go next door for a drink.

We went in to TJ's Lounge which was, in theory, a bar. There weren't a whole lot of people in there and it felt like we should have had a password to gain entry. There was another couple down the bar from us listening to the jukebox and when their songs ended they got up and left... and then it was quiet.

The bartender wasn't too interested in more music and the few other people seemed more interested in the Pistons game. I was completely interested in the the Budweiser Great Kings of Africa collectible bar mirrors (of which they had six) hanging behind the bar.

After about an hour, we went back to Slows, met up with Mark and continued to wait. And wait. And wait some more. I think it was about two hours before we asked if we could just sit at the bar instead of getting a table. During the wait I had asked the hostess if our name had been called yet and she said that it hadn't. After that I watched as other people complained about the wait and then I watched the hostess continue to not give a shit.

I guess when you're doing business hand over clenching fist you can afford to turn people away.

Anyways. Sitting at the bar I decided I was going to have something called a "Triple Threat Pork Sandwich." I ordered and was promptly told they were out of pork. Out of pork? At ten o'clock on a Friday night? In a barbecue restaurant? Madness.

I settled on a beef brisket sandwich and it was awesome. Worth the wait. Worth the place being packed and the help being nonexistant. We all ate until we could not eat anymore...and there was still food left over. Then something shifted.

As I recalled, the deadbolt on the bathroom stall was missing but I was willing to chance it. I wasn't about to make the trip back up I-75 in the state I was in. It would be a race with the devil. If there's one thing I've learned about racing with the devil it's that sometimes you lose.

So there I sat...doing my thing. I'll spare you the gory details, but I can say that the process was fast. While I was sitting, waiting to make sure there wasn't anything else I saw the one thing everyone who dreads public dumping is afraid of: A pair of feet at the stall door.

Then the door swung open.

I coughed, which seemed like the logical thing to do, and the I said, "Occupied." The door continued to open and I would soon be looking into the eyes of another man while I had my pants around my ankles and was completely helpless. Something I never hoped would happen to me. Ever.

I spoke again, louder and with a bit more annoyance "Occupied!" and the door slammed back shut. The feet of the offender quickly shifted and moved in the opposite direction...and promptly left the bathroom altogether.

While I finished up I thought of getting a tattoo along my pale thigh that reads "If You Can Read This, Shut The Damn Door." I also decided I was going to look for an ashamed man with similar shoes on my walk back to the bar.

I told the tale of my harrowing experience and everyone seemed to find it quite funny. I came up with a plan to carry a cordless drill and deadbolt kit with me if the situation ever arose again. Or, at the very least, a roll of duct tape.

#954: Have Some Videos

2009-01-25T11:34:00.002-05:00

I put this video up on my Facebook the other day when I stumbled across it. As I said in my post, I'm not a fan of ACDC at all. I don't know much about them other than that they're Australian, they wrote "Back in Black," and they seem to be one of the cornerstones (along with Metallica) upon which 101.1 WRIF was built. I think they wrote a song about big balls too.

"Back in Black" seems to tap into some kind of primal lizard part of your brain that conjures feeling of badass-ness and makes one want to pump their fist in the air. I'm pretty sure something happens in the brain at a chemical level when you hear that first riff. I'm hard pressed to think of a movie trailer or montage that ACDC didn't allow the song to be used for/

This is odd because this rendition of the song by Self (read: Matt Mahaffey) hasn't been approved by ACDC to be used on Self's live DVD. As much as I'd like to vilify ACDC for holding up a DVD release from one of my favorite bands I don't think I can. I'm sure Self isn't coming at them with Hollywood money.

So I'll just say that they're greedy instead.

I've posted videos here from Self before and will most likely continue to do so until the end of this blog. Aside from the drums he's playing an Omnichord, one of those weird synth instruments that popped up in the 70s or 80s. It makes funny noises and I kind of want one. Not sure what I'd do with it, but the heart wants what it wants.

Yacht Rock Episode 1: Don't have much to say about this other than "Fuck you, Loggins!" (Also, this is connected to the first video as Self covered "What A Fool Believes.")

Drunk Jeff Goldblum: An old iMac commercial where they slowed Jeff Goldblum down a bit... and in doing so make him appear completely wasted.

#953: New Year, Same Old Feelings.

2009-01-19T10:35:00.003-05:00

Now that things are starting to settle down from the post-Christmas fallout I'm starting to feel a little more even. Certain things are always out of whack but that's life. I'm accepting of the whackness right now and allowing it only to infect my subconscious and not infringe upon my waking life.

The ol' wanderlust is back in full force. The weather from the last two Saturdays has curtailed any kind of major activity for me since driving anywhere is a massive undertaking. It seems like it has been shitting snow here for the better part of the last month so I guess I've been getting cabin fever.

I'd like to go on a trip. Change the scenery, go some place weird. I'd even be down with sitting on a beach somewhere for a while... and I'm not even a beach-type person. I'd like to take a train somewhere.

Historically, trains are slow and inefficient. I took one to Chicago once when I was 18 and I vowed to never do so again. It took two or three times longer than driving and since it was a commuter train it seemed to stop every five seconds to let new passengers on. Surprising since the majority of South West Michigan is nothing as far as the eye can see.

Of course, there is always the risk that some kid may penny the tracks and kill us all. Train travel may have to remain one of those elusive romantic ideas at least until they unveil some kind of crazy hover train.

Moving on....

Today is MLK Day. I am at work. Being part of the service industry I work a lot of national holidays that most people have off. I've gone past being bitter to acceptance. It is what it is. What I'm kind of irritated about today is that Detroit school kids are in the middle of a five day weekend.

Allow me to elaborate. Friday it was -7 degrees around here (more with the windchill!), today is MLK and the schools are closed, tomorrow all Detroit schools are closed for the Obama celebration. Sure they most likely will have to "make it up" at the end of the year...but a day off of school is a day off of school.

Next topic...

I would like a small batch of Acme style signs on sticks I can keep in my car for whenever the opportunity to use them arises. Giving the finger is old and busted... The new hotness is holding up a sign that says "Eat A Bag Of Dicks." I think it would be so much more degrading to have someone participate in the act of reading the insult rather than just seeing and recognizing the symbol for "FU."

Continue...

I digested about an hour of the Travel Channel on Saturday night sometime around 3 AM. I became fascinated with the idea of Samantha Brown. Long time host for the channel (I think she started off on Great Hotels or something) she seems to have a kind of plain inoffensiveness that washes over the viewer like a tepid tide and translates to viewability.

That idea gave way to the nexus of likeability. What is it that cetain TV hosts have that make the majority of the population sit and stare for hours on end? I've noticed that the Food Network seems to try and cultivate this characteristic in their hosts, specifically Alton Brown and Marc Summers. I've lost countless hours to both Good Eats and Unwrapped... all in the name of research of course.

Now, I don't know if there are any hosts on the Travel Channel that are unlikeable. Come to think of it, I don't know if there are any other hosts. I do know that the Food Network has a couple of people that I can't stand, like that bag of douche from the T.G.I. Friday's commercials. Stop wearing your Oakleys on the back of your head, goddamnit! Bobbie Flay seems like kind of a bastard also.

Well, almost lunch time.... may ramble more later.

#952: 4:30 AM... What Else Should I Be Doing?

2009-01-18T04:32:00.003-05:00

So, it's late, I'm awake, and I have no strong desire to head to bed anytime soon.

I have a mountain of work I should be doing right now but I'm listening to music and updating my blog. Tonight I've killed two 40s, watched four episodes of Cranky Docktor and the 1978 Battlestar Galactica TV movie. None of this has fazed me.

I took a constitutional this evening in the snow and walked down to the local brewery to see my cousin play disco music. Whenever I have to describe what he does for a living to people it usually ends with me saying "...but they're really good." People usually tune out around "disco."

It was worth going for three reasons: 1) I walked through nearly knee-deep snow the entire way down there 2) I got to see some lady nearly twice my cousin's age try and pick up on him and 2) on my walk down there I spied a human piece of shit mopping a floor.

Moving on... The end of the blog is in sight and it will be here before I know it. I've "intentionally" tried to take it easy during the month of January so I don't stall out close to the target end date. I've been trying to decide if I want to do more of a countdown to the final post. In discussions with Saliba I brought up the idea of doing a "12 Labors of Hercules" type thing leading up to the 1,000th post. I really need to find an cheap and effective way to shoot, edit, and upload video to the internets by then.

Speaking of Saliba, his birthday was the other week. He had complete run of a bar and set up three bands to play. Of course this means that my approaching 30th birthday should be an affront to God himself.

Since we went an played skee ball this past year I plan on fully regressing to childhood this year. My rational brain (the very small part) tells me that it's just going to be another day. My irrational brain (about 95%) is telling me that it's going to be a huge milestone and I should really do something to leave my mark.... and then have the good grace to promptly die because I haven't planned much beyond that.

The human mind seeks order. It needs to apply significance to abstract concepts like the passage of time.

Recently, Burger King ran a promotion of Facebook called the Whopper Sacrifice. It was great. If you deleted (read: "sacrifice") ten of your friends you would get a free Whopper. I don't even like Whoppers but it was a great opportunity to clean house. "Hey, high school chum I haven't seen or spoken to in a decade, I'm deleting you for 1/10 of a sandwich. Yes, you mean less to me than 1/10 of a fast food burger. Well. See you later."

I never got to the full ten people but it was extremely enjoyable watching their photos burn for the Whopper and the accompanying text, "You liked XXXX, but you love the Whopper." I fear I may be a sociopath. Maybe just a misanthrope.

The sun should be booking its way over the horizon any second now so I should make the effort to go to bed.

#951: BE THE LIZARD DANNY.

2009-01-08T09:40:00.002-05:00

Still doing battle with my illness, I'm feeling way better than I was at the beginning of the week but I still have a few lingering symptoms. I had a couple of notable coughing fits yesterday that I though were going to end with me vomiting. Plus, I've spread my disease to Shannon... I will not suffer alone.

Last night we went out for supplies. It was snowing but the roads weren't icy, slick, or anything at all really, but everyone on the road seemed content to drive about five miles an hour. Unacceptable. I need to get to the supermarket that is open 24 hours as soon as possible.

One bright spot of our trip: Shannon found Jell-O Pudding Pops. Haven't seen them in years but I was able to have a chocolate vanilla swirl for breakfast and that ain't bad.

Around midnight or so, I was thirsty. I haven't quite healed to the point where I'm able to consumer beer but I didn't want water. It was too late for soda but I wanted something just as bad for me. I settled on a SoBe Tsunami. Allegedly it's got healthy shit in it but it tastes like and orange creamsicle so what do I care?

I haven't had one in quite sometime and I don't know how it worked its way out of my normal drink rotation as they are mighty tasty. Also, they put little sayings under the bottle caps. Secret messages and what not. Always a plus.

Once, my friend Dan cracked in to one and was rewarded with the saying "BE THE LIZARD, DANNY." He looked around expecting to see the SoBe marketing folks crouched in the bushes, scribbling notes on his reaction.

Last night when I opened my Tsunami I was faced with "COMIC BOOK WEDNESDAY." Strange because 1) it was Wednesday 2)Wednesday is new comic day in the U.S. 3) I am an avid comic book reader.

I too looked around and wondered if the SoBe marketing folks were going through my trash at night in, digging up my information in order to send secret messages to me under their bottle caps.

#950: I Have No Voice, Yet I Must Scream

2009-01-06T13:47:00.006-05:00

Back from a lengthy break, I am currently battling the Flu. It was at its worst yesterday when I had to call in to work. Took a lot of medicine, rested, watched TV... the usual drill. Last night I woke up hacking and gagging when the expectorant I took earlier decided to kick in. By the time I stumbled from the bedroom, Shannon already had some cough medicine waiting for me (bless her black heart).

After that I went to the bathroom and did the "stand up, sit down" thing for a bit (Seriously, I didn't think it would end and when it did I still thought there would be a 1-in-3 chance I'd shit the bed). Shannon also told me the bedroom smelled like a corpse.

Today I decided to go in to work. I felt better and I didn't have to prop myself up when I showered today. I took that as a good sign.

I got to work and discovered that my shift wasn't supposed to start for another hour. Beyond that I lost my voice after only making a couple of phone calls. Wonderful. Not only is my voice gone, it's gone gone. I feel like I should get a little tin cup of pencils and go hang out on the street corner.

During the day I was given pointless busy work to do, processing applications, filing stuff...taking down the office Christmas decorations. I came to feel that I would soon be regarded as something close to a mute, Great Depression-era farm hand. Wearing overalls with only one strap, no shoes, possibly retarded. One day I pulled a plow from the mud for the promise of a Baby Ruth candy bar.

So now that my voice has left me I fear for my own safety. If Shannon should go out tonight it'll just be me and the cats and I'll be unable to make emergency phone calls should the need arise. I can already see our apartment engulfed in flames with me in the middle calling 911 and gesticulating wildly while the person on the other end goes "Hello....hello?"

If I had more time for this entry I'd use IP Relay to contact a few people and then record the results. For now, I guess I'll go back to filing paperwork.

***UPDATE*** (Cue Unsolved Mysteries music)
9 PM, voice still gone and about to initiate the NyQuil Protocol. I plan to knock myself the fuck out until such time when my body will be free from disease. When I got home I collapsed on the couch, turned on the TV and watched WADL's Dance Show. Before I knew it I had a cat ass in my face that prevented me from moving until the Tussin kicked in. Now Superman Returns is on and I need to leave. See you on the other side.

#949: Christmas Eve.

2008-12-24T16:49:00.003-05:00

As my gift to you, I will now horrify you beyond the capacity for rational thought. This kind of shock to the system should reset your jaded mind and allow you to enjoy the majesty and wonder of the season in the embrace of your kith and kin.

Warm and Fuzzy Feeling.

NSFW (Your first clue that all hope is lost should be the music. If you've been paying attention, you've heard it before.)

#948: Just In Time For Christmas!

2008-12-23T12:23:00.002-05:00

Go and buy Great Depression the new album from Murlot and Dot Org. It's fantastic.

#947: I've done It Again...

2008-12-22T23:08:00.003-05:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Merry Christmas from Jinx and Huey 2.

#946: X-Mas Links.

2008-12-22T10:49:00.005-05:00

Given that it's THREE DAYS to Christmas and I've only done a few themed posts, it's now a mad scramble for content before the big day.

This space was reserved for a nice pre-Christmas bring down but I decided to rally against my Grinch-y feelings and post some "Yay Christmas!" stuff. So sit back and open wide...here it comes.

Topless Robot posted a list of the "Top Ten Most Underrated Christmas Specials." For me it reads like a 'need it/got it' list of my youth. I did find myself going through the list and nodding my head with each subsequent choice. It's hard for a Christmas special if you're not part of the Rudolph/Frosty/Santa trifecta. Link does what?

X-Entertainment is still doing what it does for this, and every, Christmas season...produce consistently solid and amusing content about items relative to my interests! Updates go here!

BetamaXmas Pretty close to perfect. A TV with different channels running Christmas specials from the 1980's. Want to see what's going to be on? Check the TV guide. I would watch this all day if I could.

More links as I finds them....

#945: Saturday Night Videos.

2008-12-20T23:17:00.002-05:00

I was going to do a couple of posts tonight with videos but I kind of feel like it would be a cheat as I'd be padding my numbers thus getting me to 1,000 quicker. So this post is going to be a split between Christmas videos and a new disturbing video I had forced on me recently.

Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas: We Three Kings.

This is another one of those Christmas specials I saw only one when I was a kid. It ended up being one of those Christmas memories that stuck with me over the years and I had to pick it up immediately when I found it on DVD.

The special was a big deal because Will Vinton was the guy who animated the California Raisins... and they made a guest appearance on the special! That was pretty major stuff for seven year old me. I had a couple of the California Raisins that were prizes in the Hardee's kids meal (which, oddly enough, contained no raisins) and I was stoked to see them on TV, singing Motown songs and otherwise being cool.

Of course they stuck them at the very end of the special which meant I sat through 25 minutes of other stuff. As the special started I quickly forgot about the Raisins and became transfixed on everything else going on. The special had everything... funny jokes, talking dinosaurs, you name it. It also cemented "We Three Kings" in my brain as one of my favorite Christmas-esque tunes.

Now, given that I went 20 years between viewings of this my brain had edited out the doo-wop camels and left in the bit about the three wise men and their quest across the desert to see the King of Kings.

Now, I'm going to shift gears in such a way that will leave you feeling broken and upset.

Disturbing Video: The Hand Thing.

I really don't know what to say here. I was left this video on my MySpace page, I watched it, could not stop watching it... then came back later and watched it again.

The video really speaks for itself. What it's saying, however, is a matter for discussion. I can say this, the video made me uncomfortable to a point that I've only been once in my life four years ago. The way the video was shot, the repetition of phrases, the abject weirdness combined with cyclical nature of the video, freaked me out. It seems like it never ends and that somewhere, right now, it's still happening.

"You still doing that hand thing? What is it?!?"

#944: Holiday Treats!

2008-12-20T10:14:00.004-05:00

Well, not actually Holiday treats. I'm on a bit of a budget here and instead of piss away money I've decided to use some items I've had in the pipeline for the last couple of months..

Blue Drink!
You've all seen it. That stuff at the grocery store that comes in a one gallon jug usually reserved for milk or really bad orange juice. There are a number of other colors but they all don't got shit on Blue.

I'm pretty sure the flavor is supposed to be blueberry but I don't care. This is what the color blue would taste like if it had a flavor. To steal a page from Dave Chappellle's playbook, the ingredients are "sugar, water, blue."

This stuff is bluer than Windex. I'm pretty sure this is what they used as a stand in for Romulan Ale in Star Trek VI.

Like I mentioned, it comes in a one gallon jug. That's just enough to not be healthy for you. I'm pretty sure if you drink the entire thing you've just rewritten your DNA. I can't report any superpowers yet aside from the ability to produce blue B.M.s...but that's only a superpower if you can get other people to look at it.

Hostess Pudding Pies!

I thought these things extinct for the last fifteen years of so! But, one night about a month ago, we walked into our corner gas station on the way home from the bar and there they were. At the time, my brain was able to process two very basic commands "grab" and "take." If they had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pudding Pies I may have had an embolism on the spot.

Walking home I realized that I had hit a new low. I was actually excited to have a candy that I hadn't had in a decade and a half. That was quickly replaced with the anticipation of cracking the wrapper and getting to work.

Now, the Hostess Fruit Pies have always been around and I've never been a fan of them. If you read comics at all in the late 70s/early 80s you'll be aware of the long running Marvel-Hostess partnership that featured ads showing supervillains (and other no-goodniks) trying to get a piece of that (fruit) pie.

The pudding pies were great because they didn't always seem to be around. Maybe they were seasonal or maybe they were just more popular than fuckin' fruit. Of course, one day several years ago they went away entirely. They had been relegated to that category of conversation "Hey, remember how awesome 'blank' was?" (This is usually followed by a ten minute conversation in which I talk about how awesome the Arch Deluxe was and how the world wasn't ready for it.)

It was my civic duty to do a blog post about this. Kroger was doing their own brand of pudding pie I found a couple years back. But, much like our supply of tuna, they were fished to extinction and no one believed that I had seen them. Same thing with the reappearance of the Hostess Pudding Pie. I saw them, bought some, didn't get a chance to take a picture and they disappeared again.

I think I've figured out the Hostess truck's delivery schedule since the pies only seem to appear every two weeks and sell out quickly thereafter. It's sad that I've spent this much time thinking about that.

#943: SNOW DAY!

2008-12-19T22:45:00.003-05:00

So yesterday at work there was a lot of talk about the coming snow Armageddon. I received no less than six emails about how terrible the weather was going to be today. By the sixth email I was ready to stand on my desk and demand that work be canceled on general principal.

Jump forward a couple of hours. I put in an appearance at the company Christmas (Holiday?) party, made the rounds and played the best game of skee ball in my life. I got the ball in the little tiny 100 point hole twice!

After that we headed down to the Belmont for another Christmas party with Steve Seck and Mike Saliba in tow. It was very important we get our drink on and split before midnight since that is when the snow sodomization was supposed to start.

Got home around one and there still wasn't a single flake on the ground. Passed out around two and still nothing.

We had been given a number to call in case the snow decided to show up. I set my alarm for 6:59 and called the number at 7:01. I dialed the number hoping to hear the words that would make my day and I was soundly denied. I re-set my alarm for 7:30 at which time I would begin my long difficult slog to work.

At 7:13 I got a text from co-worker Johnny Brownshoes: "Video games all day, son!" to which I responded "Get the fuck out!" and promptly called the number again to hear the words I so desperately longed to hear. Work. Was. Closed.

It could have been raining menses outside for all I knew. I got up announced that I wasn't going work, took a leak, and went back to bed.

I ventured out into the world after a shower, heading to the outdoor mall (in a snow storm) to finish my x-mas shopping, get supplies (re: beer) and the off to the supermarket to get food.

The rest of the day was filled largely with nothing, just the way I like it.

#942: Going To My Happy Place.

2008-12-18T12:24:00.002-05:00

Where Transformers ride merry-go-rounds.

#941: Instant Snow!!!!

2008-12-16T14:32:00.003-05:00

Yeah, yeah I know it's kind of pointless here in Michigan where we're about to have Instant Snow for real in a couple of hours....But I digress. SO BEGINS THE CHRISTMAS BLOGGING.

Shannon and I were at Hallmark buying X-mas cards last night and while I was paying for the cards I saw a large bucket adjacent to the cash register labeled "PLEASE TOUCH." How could I resist?

Inside was a fluffy white substance that could be a cousin of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters slime. It was cold and crumbly like real snow (that's pretty much where the similarities end) kind of like what someone from one of the southern or western states would imagine snow as being if they had never seen it before. I'd also like to imagine that all the Rankin-Bass Christmas special characters would be filled with this if one were to dissect them. On some basic level it just makes sense.

This stuff buried the needle on my "Frivolous Purchase" meter. For the life of me, I could not stop touching it. While I was signing my card receipt I had one hand in the bucket fiddling with it. I'm surprised I was able to walk out of the shop with out three tubs of the stuff.

Without a doubt I'll go back there and see if this stuff is one clearance after the holiday season. If it is, I'm going to get enough of it to fill our bathtub. It'll come in handy during the summer months because Instant Snow appears to remain cold. Further testing may be required.

It can also be purchased at the ThinkGeek website.

#940: FIRE DRILL!

2008-12-15T10:15:00.003-05:00

Seeing as I've already Twittered and Face Book-ed it, I may as well blog it: Had a fire drill at work today. No, I wasn't responsible for pulling the switch... I was at my desk and I had just finished a call. I have witnesses.

The looks you share with co-workers during a fire drill are always memorable. The look of "is this really happening?" with an undercurrent of legitimate panic. I, for one, am immediately moved to run in circles, waving my arms and screaming like I've been set on fire. For the benefit of others, I do not.

I don't know the exact reason for the alarm today. It may have had something to do with management wanting to prove to us exactly how cold it was outside. In the hour it had been since I got to work it had gone from "kinda cold" to "fucking cold."

As I sit here typing this the siren has gone off again. Kind of funny considering that everyone is on a call now. "Yes sir, everything is fine. Nothing is wrong. Now how can I help you today? No sir, I'm in no immediate danger. Thank you for your concern."

#939: "Hey! Can I Ask You A Question?"

2008-12-08T14:49:00.003-05:00

The folks over at Labelscar put together a pretty great article about the blight of the mall kiosk. Check it out. It's good reading, especially now when the economy is going to shit.

It's a pretty informative article about those damn kiosks and the sales people that populate them. Why just the other week when Saliba and I were walking the mall on Black Friday we got to watch the "once-a-year" shoppers get roped into crazy, bullshit sales pitches about bath pillows, lotions or whatever.

Saliba also imparted to me the knowledge of where these people are coming from: Israel. I wonder if their sales tactics are refined Mossad techniques?

Of course it's best not to make eye contact with any of the kiosk dwellers, if you do... they have you and you're sunk. Another helpful tip is to give them a wide berth. I've determined that anything within ten feet of the kiosk is considered fair game to them. If you fall inside that radius you will be talked at, possibly even touched.

There are other, more radical, ways of dealing with them. Saliba has taken to barking like a dog at them should they address him or being uncomfortably friendly or close to them. A word of caution: Being too friendly or close could result in dry humping. They are that committed to the sale.

#938: The Joker's Boner

2008-12-07T22:01:00.002-05:00

In celebration of the Upcoming DVD release of The Dark Knight I went up to the local library and checked out some graphic novels (i.e. comic books). I came home with both The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told and The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told. The "Greatest" label is highly debatable but I did walk away with hours of enjoyment and a new blog post.

Let me take you back fifty-seven years to Batman #66 and a story entitled "The Joker's Comedy of Errors." From the splash page of the issue I knew I'd be in for quite a ride as there was a drawing of a plaque reading "The Joker's Collection of the Great Boners of History."

Allow me to elaborate... Fifty-seven years ago, the word "boner" had a different meaning than it does today. Back then it meant "mistake," today it means "towering erection of much turgidity." For instance your father or grandfather may have been heard to remark, "I pulled a major boner today down at the ship yards." Hence the comedy.

I'm sure that I've read and article on this particular issue before. In fact, I'm willing to bet that this issue was the cornerstone of Dr. Fredric Wertham's argument against comic books as fine and decent entertainment. I'm pretty sure Seduction of the Innocent has an entire chapter on the homoerotic overtones of the Batman/Robin relationship...but that's a different discussion entirely.

So... this was my first encounter with what I'm sure this is a rather infamous issue (it did make the cut for one of the greatest Joker stories ever) but noting prepared me for a dozen boners staring me in the face. Honestly, is anyone ever really prepared for that?

Within the context of the story the Joker is purposely committing crime wrong as part of his twisted world view...or something along those lines. I found it hard to concentrate and stop laughing my ass off after each subsequent use of the word "boner."

Here's a rundown of all the boners...

Newspaper headline: "JOKER PULLS BONER OF THE YEAR!!"
The Joker upon seeing aforementioned headline: "So! They laugh at my boner, will they?! I'll show them! I'll show them how many boners The Joker can make!" and "This emphasis on boners has given me an idea for a new adventure in crime! Gotham city will rue the day it mentioned the word boner! (I'm sure they already do. -E.)
Regarding his next crime: "I will take the great boners of all time and turn them into crimes! See this picture? It shows a big boner of modern vintage!"
In reference to a battleship, a long, hard battle ship" It was quite a boner!"
Another newspaper headline: "Stung by his boner, Joker lashes back!"
In reference to the leaning tower of Pisa: "One of the great architectural boners in history!"
The Joker marveling at his own genius: "But he didn't bargain on The Joker... and his boner crimes!"
Robin on the Joker's challenge to Batman (seriously, the word "boner" appeared five times on this page and this was the best. And by "best" I mean "worst."): "What does he mean Bruce? How can he force you into a boner?" and Batman with the save, "I don't know. But whatever it is, it isn't good, that's for sure!."
Yet another newspaper headline (They may was well rename it 'The Boner Times"): "Batman's Greatest Boner!"
Finally, Robin referring to The Joker going to prison: "....Boner..."

I probably left out about half a dozen boners or so, by the end of the twelve page story I was definitely experiencing boner fatigue. If I never have to see another boner again, I'll be a happy man. On average, the word "boner" appears no less than three times on each page. That's between 30 and 50 boners in only twelve pages! Magazines like Playgirl and ManHole can only dream of achieving that kind of boner to page ratio. (Before anyone asks, I dreamed up the title of the magazine ManHole... It seems like a logical title and I'd be astounded if it's not currently in publication. Astounded, yes, but still not willing to fact check my own work.)

There you have it. The Joker went boner crazy and it landed him in prison. Let that be a lesson to you.

Boner.

#937: ULTIMATE 90's PLAYLIST.

2008-12-07T19:51:00.001-05:00

Sitting around, watching The Adventures of Pete & Pete while Shannon sleeps on the couch and I'm feeling mildly nostalgic. But of course kids today get nostalgic for the last ten years before the last ten years have passed...

Anyways, I want to put together an "ultimate 90's playlist" for my listening pleasure...and I'm taking submissions. Difficulty level: No Pearl Jam, no Nirvana.

I would take this space to complain about how they stopped making good music around the time I turned 21, but I know that's not true. It's just harder to find now. I'm lucky if I find one good band a year to listen to. EXTRA CREDIT: Tell me a new band I should listen to. Difficultly level: No country, none of that Emo bullshit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Marshall Crenshaw is rocking out in the episode entitled "A Hard Day's Pete" and I should really pay attention.

Cross-posted on MySpace, Blogger, Facebook etc.

Now, I should really get back to working on my next post that will be entitled "The Joker's Boner." Provocative, no?

#936:... Damn You Arby's....

2008-12-06T23:26:00.003-05:00

This Arby's commercial makes me almost as uncomfortable as actually eating there. Okay. I get it...the hat is his erection! He's incredibly turned on by the prospect of eating Arby's. I'm horrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

#935: E.A. Henson's Block Party

2008-12-03T15:45:00.003-05:00

I really shouldn't be left unsupervised. Here's why.

That's right, son! A house for $500! So yeah, it's got some fire damage and it's deep in "The D." Those things may be considered minuses for most folk but not me....with a monthly payment of $2.46 a month the sky is the limit.

One of my new favorite activities is to look at housing. I know the economy is in the toilet and all but godDAMN! I'm ten pages into the Detroit listings and I haven't see a house crack the $25k mark yet. So I got to thinking....

I could buy an entire block of houses. I could buy an entire block and be king of my own little corner of the world... and I, I would be king and Shannon, she would be queen. I could have my own block party and I wouldn't have to invite my neighbors...because I wouldn't have any!

Here's another reason why this is a good idea: Underground tunnels. I could have a network of interconnected tunnels running from house to house. Plus, I could lure any number of my enemies into a house, set it to blow up and then escape through the hidden tunnel!

This could be the best idea I've had in a while.

#934: My X-Mas List

2008-12-03T10:41:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I set up my Amazon.com Christmas wish list, partly out of boredom, partly out necessity. Is it sad that the list is looking kind of anemic?

I think I've got only four items on the list, three are DVDs and one is a book (okay, a comic book). There. I just added a video game that I'm peripherally interested in. I may be having a total Charlie Brown moment regarding Christmas and commercialism.

Perhaps I'm more concerned with giving rather than getting this holiday season... Yes, I'm a completely selfless individual and....hahahahaha.... Ah, that was hard to write. I want stuff... I just don't want much I guess.

#933: It's Funny Because It's TRUE

2008-12-03T00:01:00.002-05:00

I've been waiting to post this shit since May. Seeing as it's 20 degrees outside right now, why not?

#932: December.

2008-12-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

Woke up this morning (a few hours after I went to sleep) to a terrible noise. It was metal grinding on pavement and it didn’t seem to have any intention on stopping anytime soon. It was the company our landlord hires to plow our driveway and parking lot.

Welcome to December.

It had snowed like crazy last night, turned to rain and then back to snow. It was like someone had thrown a switch labeled “Winter” causing us to be ankle deep in snow. The roads were in okay shape this morning and I was thankful as I was driving to work in a haze, largely on autopilot.

I’m back at my desk today after being off for four days. It was nice to have the time off but…1) It didn’t feel like I had any time off and B) it makes it all the more depressing to come back. I know on some subconscious level the weather is affecting me. I like the snow, the cold, the grey sky, but I know not seeing the sun for months at a time is messing with my body. Combine that with a depressed economy and you have a recipe for disaster.

Another reason why the unannounced wake-up call was a drag was that I couldn’t shut off my brain. Racing thoughts like crazy last night and this morning. My thoughts were buzzing along up until the point I passed out and then I was startled awake and they started up again. Like a little tiny wind up car of neuroses crisscrossing its way across my brain. I got up, went to the bathroom, got some water because I had a crazy sore throat and went back to bed. Shannon was already up watching the news, told me something about Hilary Clinton being appointed to something or another and then I went back to toss and turn for another couple hours until it was time to actually get up.

So, I’m operating on about five hours sleep from last night and I’m in a shitty mood. It's an uphill battle not to tell everyone I see to "fuck off" today.

#931 Black, Black Friday.

2008-11-29T00:28:00.003-05:00

Ventured out into the world today.

I woke from my slumber a fatter man, secure in my mastery of Trivial Pursuit.

Actually, scratch that. I woke this morning to a rather rude, unannounced call from the Rochester Public Library. Stephen King's Thinner was five days over due and I had a late fee of $0.45. Fuck you, library, I'm not getting out of bed. Fell back asleep...

Woke up again to the sound of the boxes and comic books next to our bed being ever so delicately pushed over. Opened my eyes to see Jinx the cat looking back at me as if to say, "do something."

So I did. I got out of bed, fed the cats, walked to the post office to return my Netflix movies and headed to the library to take care of my $0.45 late fee.

Much later in the day, Shannon and I went to Target. It wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be. Kind of like a normal Friday. Later still, I met up with Mike Saliba at our old stomping grounds: Lakeside Mall.

The mall was pretty empty. We did a few laps and stopped into the Watch Station (now just a Sunglass Hut) to see if Saliba's Cheeseburger Stain Of Rage was still on the wall. It wasn't.

As it turns out, they saw fit to paint the walls sometime in the last five years. Where the fuck do they get off, I ask you? It was a piece of history, my history. If it were up to me I'd put a brass plaque up there to commemorate the event. Had I been as drunk then as I am now, I would have stopped to think about the 180 my life has done in the last five years. Then, my misery was tied to my personal life and not my job. Now it's my job and not my personal life. Wacky!

Maybe it's because it was later in the day but I didn't see any soccer moms going apeshit over the crazy deals. I didn't see any one get trampled to death at a Wal-Mart and I most certainly didn't see anyone walk into a Toys "R" Us and start shooting.

Kind of a let down, but the economy's in the shitter right now. But it did get me a copy of Gremlins for $3.98!

#930: "I'm Thinking Brown Water... I Mean, Arby's"

2008-11-26T12:41:00.003-05:00

Every few months or so I decide to eat at Arby's to remind myself why I don't eat at Arby's. I don't know what it is, but Arby's makes my butt want to go yell at the toilet. I'm sure the "food to BM" turnaround record has been broken by me after enjoying a Beef 'n' Cheddar. As well asthe land speed record with my mad dash for the bathroom. The only other thing that has come close has been a Hungry Man TV dinner.

Last night after the standard Roast Beef combo, I got up and checked my email and then right to the bathroom. Did not pass go, did not collect $200. While I was sitting there, cursing my life, I asked Shannon how long it had been since I finished eating. Her reply? "About 10 minutes." and then, "Close the door."

Of course the simple solution to all this would be not to eat there anymore.... but then the terrorists win. Hey, hopefully I won't be able to use that excuse for too much longer so I have to get all the mileage I can out of it.

#929: Hot Damn.

2008-11-25T09:55:00.004-05:00

February is shaping up to be a good month for DVD releases.

We're getting Tales From The Darkside Season 1

...and Dead Like Me: Life After Death (The movie of the prematurely canceled Showtime show).

There's no question that I'm looking forward to both of them. I've written about Tales From The Darkside before and I'm glad I'll be getting the chance to actually see them again. I hope it's not one of those He-Man and the Masters of the Universe scenarios (when the show hasn't aged well).

DLM (what the cool kids call Dead Like Me) I'm approaching with a small bit of apprehension due in part to two major characters being gone (one recast, the other replaced with a new character) but if the movie is still anything like the show it'll be a great.

This is all eclipsed by the possibility that since Tales From The Darkside is coming to DVD Monsters could soon follow. They're releasing M.A.N.T.I.S. on DVD for fuck's sake!

Now, back to my own personal Waiting for Godot: Pete and Pete Season 3.

#928: The Internet Is Over.

2008-11-24T22:43:00.002-05:00

I've been on the Internet now for about 10 minutes and I have to say that it no longer holds any mystery for me.

It's a near constant reminder of things I have to do, have done, or should be doing. I should be paying bills, I should be working, I should learn more about important issues. Maybe I'll look at more funny cat pictures.

Don't get me wrong, the Internet is a versatile tool for modern life. Why, I'm sure I've saved about twelve bucks worth of stamps since I've started paying my bills on-line. Maybe I'll reorganize my Netflix queue.

The Internet rounds are as follows: Log on, check email, check MySpace, check Facebook, check other email, browse headlines (news, comic books, action figures, Star Wars/Trek/Gate), look at funny cat pictures, celebrity gossip, traffic report for my website and repeat. Maybe I'll update my Amazon gift list. Christmas is coming.

I'm starting to feel that if I'm on a computer and I'm not doing some form of work it's a waste of time. I could be pressing off my slacks for tomorrow right now or getting in bed at a respectable hour. Maybe I'll update my blog...wait.

I'm rapidly screaming towards the end of this blog (Ending with post #1,000! July 2009!) and I'm going to have to ease back on the throttle a bit to ensure I don't run out of posts too soon. But this is really the only thing that interests me right now. Maybe I'll create another Genius playlist on iTunes.

Ideas for my final post are starting to become clearer. It's easier to color in the picture when you can see the outline.

I do believe I've sufficiently spun my wheels enough for one evening.

#927: Dandruff Of The Gods.

2008-11-24T11:16:00.002-05:00

I just posted a Twitter update about the amazing volume of snow we're getting right now. It's my belief that Smegmo (god of snow days) has awakened from his slumber and now intends to get Old Testament on our asses.

I pray that my mini SUV will get me safely home at the end of the day so I can prepare a suitable sacrifice in Lord Smegmo's name.

#926: The Stimulants...They Do Nothing.

2008-11-24T09:11:00.002-05:00

End of the year fatigue is setting in. I'm feeling extremely burned out, like the last couple inches on a Fourth of July sparkler right before it stops sputtering and leaves behind the smell of burnt aluminum and a cloud of blue smoke.

I've been sick. It's not my epic "once a year cold" that usually comes in the late Winter months, but it's a lingering feeling of crappiness that I can't shake. I went home early on Friday and parked myself on the couch and laid low over the weekend. Often I found myself wishing that I would just get "all the way" sick so I could begin the process of getting better.

While I'm looking forward to the holidays the stress of making them happen is bouncing around the back of my brain. I find myself going, "Okay, who do I have to buy for this year?" I have the mixed blessing of having a large extended family on both my mother and father's sides...that's about a dozen extra people to get stuff for. Everyone is going to get the same Hallmark card. It's all I can do really.

Last week I found out that Christmas Eve has been shifted from my parent's house for the first time in years. A while back my family inherited the Christmas Eve gathering for my mom's side when the relatives who previously hosted it skipped the state leaving that side of the family with the choice between Detroit where my grandmother lives and the suburbs where my parents live. For them it really wasn't much of a choice.

For some reason unknown to me, the gathering has been shifted to some distant relation's home in Canton. For those of you who don't know where Canton is in relation to where I live it's...really fucking far away. It's where the Ikea is. But even the promise of reasonably priced Swedish furniture isn't enough to draw me out that far on that night.

I'll miss watching my parents run around on Christmas Eve preparing for the onslaught of out-of-town relatives. I'll miss watching my dad do his disappearing act, vanishing into thin air as soon as the in-laws show up. I'll miss crazy Aunt Irene not knowing where she is or who she's with.

Now I'm left with gaping hole in my Christmas Eve schedule. I had it all blocked off for three hours of "wishing I was somewhere else." Now I don't know what to do! If we had a fireplace, I'd like to sit in front of it. Maybe I'll get one of those fireplace DVDs....

#925: The Mummy: Curse of the Aging Pop Star

2008-11-20T10:10:00.004-05:00

The last lingering threats of my hetero street cred vanished Tuesday in a puff of pink, lavender smelling smoke.

We went and saw Madonna

Assuming that you've stopped laughing by now, the tickets were free, main floor seats about 50 feet from the stage. In a continuing effort to make it okay, I'm told the tickets were totally expensive if we were to have paid for them.

All that being said, it was probably the most elaborate stage show I'd ever been to. David Bowie himself would blush at the spectacle presented that night. There were lasers. Lasers, man. It was loud too, I'm surprised the bass didn't shake Ford Field apart.

I should also point out that I had never been inside Ford Field prior to that night. As a dude, I should have at least been there for a football game before then. However, my dad pointed out that they haven't really played football there in quite some time, if ever.

Madonna made a big deal about being from Detroit and "coming home" when in reality she went to high school just up the road from our apartment. She also did it all without a British accent. I wonder if Britain is going to try and give her back to the US now that she and her husband are done?

The show, while a stunning, highly entertaining multimedia event, left me glad I hadn't paid for it. Had I gone in not knowing I was going to be paying a couple hundred bucks to watch people do Tae-Bo and jump rope for two hours I would have been a little perturbed.

Here's the section where I point out there were a lot of gay dudes at the show. There's really no way of putting it delicately so I've decided to assemble a "Top 5" list of gayness for the show.

1) There was so much lisping they were afraid Ford Field has sprung a leak.

2) No beer available, only wine coolers.

3) Went to the bathroom and came back with five phone numbers.
4) Saw a t-shirt that said "Love My Daddy" over a picture of a paddle.

5) All the dudes in the front row knew, and sang along to, "Material Girl."

Two of those are true!

Madonna is also in crazy shape for being 50. I would not want to fight her, she looks like a tough old broad. She also has a filthy mouth. But she did sing "Like A Prayer" and "Vogue."

#924: Stuffy.

2008-11-20T09:28:00.003-05:00

I'm a little stuffed up today. There's no doubt that cold and flu season is upon us now.

We were out to dinner last week and some one's chubby-faced little child saw fit to walk past us and bazooka cough as many times as he could with out covering his mouth. It didn't do much for my opinion of children I'm afraid. From here on out, whenever I get sick this year I will blame it on that child.

I ended up taking a half-day yesterday because I was feeling so rundown. A lot of it had to do with the prior night's events (more on that later) but it was something I felt I was about due for. I had been telling myself that if I could get through this week I would only have a 3 day week to look forward to before Thanksgiving. I ended up not being able to make it.

Half-days are magical. It's a topic that I've written about at length before and one that is always good to revisit. The world outside of the office during the daytime is weird.

***

Last Saturday I went down to the garage to uncover our Christmas decorations. When I opened the garage and went in, it was cold and cloudy. When I walked out it was still cloudy...but snowing.

I stood there with our giant red and green Rubermaid container and looked up. I now controlled the snow. By taking our Christmas decorations out of storage I had made it snow. Puzzled by the new power that I had my mind started to think of ways to exploit or weaponize it. I didn't come up with much.

Shannon put up all our decorations except for the tree. That will happen soon enough. I'm getting to the point of being "okay" with X-mas starting in mid-November. It's far enough removed from Halloween and close enough to Christmas. Thanksgiving is just a pit stop on the way to all out Christmas Armageddon. I'm ready for both now.

#923: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2008-11-12T10:37:00.004-05:00

This post will be a dorky indulgence so if you're not into it...move along.

Just watched the newest Watchmen trailer and I'm a bit confused.

Well, 'confused' may be the wrong word. The trailer is a bit of a mixed bag for me, Watchmen is arguably one of the tent poles of the "comics as legitimate literature" movement. It never fails to be cited as a defining work for the medium and now, of course, it's being adapted into a movie.

I can best define Watchmen in the words of Futurama: "... a dense symbolist tome like Moby Dick." I've had copy of the collected edition for over a decade now and, honestly, there is shit in there I still haven't read. The book is thick, I believe it should be, and is, taught at the collegiate level.

Alan Moore, the author of Watchmen, can be credited with moving the medium of "sequential story telling" forward. Kicking and screaming, he moved it forward. I've always regarded his work as something comparable to, I dunno, Jane Eyre. Make no mistake, Moore is communicating some serious ideas and concepts with his writing and I feel that it's all a bit clinical. But my views are intertwined with my own hang-ups on comics... so I digress.

Watchmen is not going to be an action movie. The book is a mystery and a meditation on the Cold War. It was very much a product of its time, the early/mid 1980s. I know a lot of people are going to be leaving the theater going "whaddafuckwazthat?" or "That movie sucked dick, yo!"

I'm going a little deeper here than I initially intended. I'm flirting with the age old "books-to-movie" nonsense and I really don't want to. HOWEVER... another one of Moore's works, V For Vendetta, was adapted by those Matrix fucks and went from being a tale of one man's revenge to a post 9/11 allegory. The movie cherry picks quotes from the book and twists it for its own ends.

The thing I find most funny (funniest?) is that all this is being done with out Moore's blessing. DC Comics owns the distribution rights for Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and V For Vendetta. Moore has gone so far as to have his name removed from these films because he only ever intended them to be books. I can verify the next statement but it's always been a prime bit of food for thought. While Moore isn't making money off the movies, he's still getting residuals from all the sales of graphic novels that the films have generated.

I almost would cry hypocrite on this one but I've heard varying reports on whether or not Moore refused his residuals for the sales of those books. I'll never know the real answer but you've got to respect the man for having some rules to live his life by. Everyone has their price.

Watchmen is going to be important. It's going to be a high water mark for comic book movies, if people really buy in to this the sky's the limit for what's next. Getting people to accept the idea of the fantastic has always been a stumbling block for comics and Sci-Fi. By and large, both are regarded as "kid's stuff" things that no one should take much stock in... these are the things, ideas, we need to move forward.

I'm about to start rambling here. I've consumed about 80 ounces of beer and I'm listening to music that has made my brain warm up and give off sparks. I'm going to stop now and go read comic books.

#922: Initiating Circle Of Safety Protocol

2008-11-10T23:43:00.001-05:00

I'm rapidly screaming towards the mileage cap on my current lease so I find myself having to curtail my driving habits by staying within a 10 mile radius of our home. It's maddening because it feels like I don't have the freedom to go anywhere right now.

It sucks and I hate it.

#921: It's Almost Mid-November.

2008-11-10T10:18:00.002-05:00

File under: "Where Does The Time Go?"

Friday night, sitting on a couch, I had a small existential freak out. It seems like just weeks ago Shannon was down south visiting her brother and family for Thanksgiving while I spent a lonely weekend at home.

I'm in the process of going back and performing an autopsy on the month of November 2007 because I some how managed to produce a shit-ton of content (32 posts!) that month that I have little or no recollection of. I wonder what I was on?

That being said, I have a goal in mind to top myself from last year....33 posts this month! If I can do that I can afford to slack off during the mid-winter months and still be somewhat on track for my goal of 1,000 posts by mid-next year.

Like always, I can't wait for Thanksgiving. The idea of doing a "friends only" Thanksgiving has been tossed around for this year and I support any plan that gets me more Turkey, stuffing, potatoes etc. There must be something with Thanksgiving turkeys that makes them better than turkeys served the other 364 days of the year. Maybe the little bag of stuff in the turkey's hoo-hah contains a Philosophers Stone that transforms it into something more than it already is.

#920: In My Ear November 2008

2008-11-09T22:28:00.006-05:00

I should be watching cartoons right now but I got the bug in my ass to write about music.

Wes (Black Penis R.I.P) gave me this CD a couple years back and it got a listen...and not much else. Shannon gets points for the assist on this one because the song was featured on one of the Rock Band games meaning I got to hear it at length as part of her Rock Band mix. I like the CD front to back, to me it has echoes of Smashing Pumpkins. It's nice to find new music that's not all Emo'd out these days.

The Streets - Everything Is Borrowed

Got the album last week it's good times. I've liked a fair majority of the stuff Mike Skinner has done as The Streets and this is no exception. On this go around he's making a bit of a departure, growing, and abandoning the non-stop pop culture references from prior records.

Ben Folds - You Don't Know Me

The new Ben Folds album took a bit to grow on me. He's been around for long enough that comparison to his previous works is inevitable and I tend to turn a critical eye towards anything new he puts out. We saw him in concert last month and it the experience was really a road map to the album. I was a bit more inclined to give Way To Normal another listen after hearing it live. I'm happy to say that it keeps pace with his other records.

#919: The Last Word.

2008-11-06T09:17:00.003-05:00

True to my previous statement, I am glad as shit that the election is over.

For me personally I think the afterglow lasted only hours. We stayed up late, listened to Obama's acceptance speech on the AM radio, talked about how things were going to, had to, get better. I was drinking the Kool-Aid and it tasted like Purplesaurus Rex.

Then reality showed up to cock-block our fun.

I like to make sure I don't discuss politics at work or in mixed company. If I'm going to show off my supremely limited knowledge of the subject I'll do it in front of close friends. I say all sorts of stupid and baseless things around them all the time so they're used to it.

All that being said....it's one of my favorite moments when someone presumes to know me well enough to project their beliefs on to me. Maybe it's because I don't discuss politics or religion publicly that I'm viewed as a cypher and, by extension, safe to have freaky radical discussions with.

What follows is true: Yesterday morning, about ten hours into the new presidency, I was forwarding an email of Obama astride a majestic unicorn to one of my friends (It's funny because of how wonderful he has been perceived to be) and I was approached....

Them: "Oh, is that something making fun of Obama?"

Me: "No, not really. Just a funny email."

Them: "Well, I didn't vote for him."

Me: "Ah. Sorry?"

Them: "I don't think he's ready to lead."

Me: "We'll see, right?"
Them: "He's a Muslim. Said so in the book he wrote. And if there's a war, he's going to side with the Muslims. I read it."

Me: "I don't know about that. I think I'd like to read a book that says that."

Them: "Plus, the Bible says that the reign of the Antichrist will last 42 months which is almost as long as he'd be president and...."

Me: "I'm going to go ahead and stop you right there. I don't agree with you and I'm not comfortable having this conversation at work."

That was basically the conversation. There were certain lengthy pauses while I decided what to say at points but that's what happened. The really weird part happened when I cut them off, they realized a line was crossed and went back to trying to be "buddy-buddy" with me. There wasn't going to be any going back on this one, the dynamic was permanently altered.

My head still spinning from that exchange, I decided to check out Fox News for their special brand of bullshit. I know that all media outlets have biases but Fox News is so blatant with their support for the Right that it borders on parody. The photo of Obama on their front page showed a somber faced man raising his arm in what appeared to be a Nazi salute.

I remember when Kerry lost the last election everyone was bummed out that we'd have another four years of Bush. The loss stung but I think people moved on from it quickly. I say this while being aware of my own biases, of course, but I think the Republicans are being very sore losers about this election.

I've been checking out some of the reaction photos from both sides. The Democratic side shows nothing but elated people, hugging and weeping for joy. As if their own god had come down from on high and given them a high five and thumbs up. The Republican side shows people with looks of abject terror on their faces. Somber to the point of it looking like the end of the world had just been announced.

Other things I saw that day included blatant personal attacks on people happy with the election results. People trying to twist the victory into something awful for their own horrible agendas. Not to mention straight up racism (at a man who's half black. Well, if you're going play racist I guess there are no gray areas. Or even beige.)

***

Last night's South Park was just as historic as the election because it dealt with the election. The one that had just happened less than 24 hours previously. I'm sure they had both scenarios mapped out if McCain had somehow pulled out a win, but the fact that they were able to make a cartoon that recreated Obama's acceptance speech and make jokes about it was a little mind blowing. Trey Parker and Matt Stone must both be smoking corpses right now after making that happen.

It was also important because of how perfectly it lampooned both Obama and McCain supporters. Obama supporters were partying for "Hope and Change" while McCain supporters predicted the end of their way of life and began committing suicide en masse.

It's important to remember these things going forward. It's not the end of the world that Obama got elected, it's a good thing. Shannon and I discussed that, realistically, he's going to spend the next four years digging himself out of hole it took eight years to dig. He's going his work cut out for him. You can hope all you want but it's not going to change anything...there's going to be work to do.

#918: I Don't Believe This. Not For A Fucking Second.

2008-11-06T08:53:00.001-05:00

Boondock Saints sequel HAS STARTED SHOOTING.

#917: Vote Lando

2008-11-04T11:42:00.000-05:00

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

#916: Moments In Awkwardness

2008-11-03T22:38:00.002-05:00

Once, while in mixed company, I announced with all the conviction I could muster that I thought Britney Spears looked like she had Down's Syndrome.

The people I was with did not share my views.

#915: That's It McCain...You've Gone Too Far This Time.

2008-11-03T21:32:00.002-05:00

So....getting ready to settle in for the night, relax and watch a little Heroes. Change the channel and what do I see? John Fucking McCain telling me why I'm not going to see Heroes tonight.

Sitting there with his beady, dead eyes making bad jokes he doesn't understand. It's not like I wasn't ready to vote before but after this I want to go camp in line so I can vote against him first thing in the morning. Obama only interrupted a baseball game, which I could give a shit about. Yes, that's right my voting for president will largely be based on who hasn't fucked with my shit.

Now the only thing on TV for the evening is TLC's Clown Car Vagina block of programing or E!'s Three Ignorant Skanks and Grey Balls....Next Door.

#914: Vote

2008-11-03T21:28:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is the day. I'm ready to get out there and vote for once. Are you?
I'll be glad as shit when this is all over.

Check out this video. It was made by my pals Murlot and .Org.

#913: Halloween In Chicago

2008-10-31T22:22:00.002-04:00

We headed off to the Windy Apple for Halloween this year and, let me tell you, that city takes Halloween seriously.

Earlier in the week I had decided to channel the spirt of my father and proclaim that we would leave before the sun rose on the 31st day of October. I was able to sleep for a few hours the night before, Shannon didn't sleep at all, but we were on the road, missing all the rush hour traffic and making good time.

During the first leg of the trip we switched between morning drive time radio shows Mike in the Morning (Formerly Drew & Mike) on the WRIF and Jay and Bill on 97.1. I was surprised that both stations held out until we reached Jackson, MI. We were able to hear bits about ghosts having sex with people and peoples phobias.

After that Shannon surprised me with a batch of Halloween podcasts. She had located vintage radio shows from the 30s and 40s that were all horror-themed. Some of the best ones were by Vincent Price and others were unintentionally hilarious. She had also downloaded the Mercury Theater's War of the Worlds.

Traditionally, we stop in Michigan City, IN for a final bathroom break, leg stretch, cigarette supply replenishment. Part of the tradition involves Shannon loudly proclaiming her hatred for Indiana as soon as we exit the car. I celebrated in a much more passive-aggressive way by taking a dump at the Meijer we stopped at.

While doing my thing, I noticed some graffiti in the bathroom. It was some of the charming "for a good time call..." etchings that you don't see too much anymore. The odd part was the number listed was an 810 area code, a southeast Michigan number. Before anyone asks, no I didn't write it down.

After we arrived at our hotel and promptly napped (I fell asleep watching Batman Returns), we headed into the city. It was nice to see people milling about in different costumes, trick or treating with their kids, going to bars etc.

The neighborhood we stopped in appeared to have been taking over by hipsters. Guys wearing girlpants and girls wearing ugly clothes (with cowboy boots, always with the cowboy boots) were the order of the day. I knew we could be in trouble when I spotted an Urban Outfitters and American Apparel within 50 feet of each other.

The other thing I noticed was that the majority of places had simple, direct, one word (often one syllable names). We stopped for a beer at Pint, we had pizza at Piece, we tried to go to People for Tapas.

When we were at Pint the guy next to us struck up conversation. He was pretty nice and we talked at length about this and that. He'd had a pretty rough day and was ordering a beer and a shot of Jaeger ad infinitum.

Our new friend was getting pretty smashed and while Shannon was in the bathroom he told me that he was in love with one of the lesbian bartenders. To which I responded "Ha...yeah...lesbians...what can ya do? Am I right?" I could have responded with anything at that point and it wouldn't have mattered to him.

Every so often you'll be in conversation with someone and they'll say something that causes the mood to do a complete 180. If you've been drinking, you'll be instantly sober and all will become clear as you hear the conversation grind to a screeching halt. What follows is a brief exchange that became one of those moments.

We're talking with our new friend and the conversation had started to revolve around medication. We had headaches and were going to take ibuprofen, which begat dental surgery and Tylenol 3, which begat other surgery and vicodin. There's a leap coming up here, I just wanted to make sure to take you right up to the edge of what's about to happen next.

"You know what I like?" said our new friend, his head rolling back like it was too heavy for his neck.
We scooted to the edge of our bar stools, waiting to hear what was next, "What?"
His head snapped forward as if to emphasize the point he was about to make.
"Heroin."

I could feel Shannon's eyes on the back of my head like a hot itch. I desperately wanted to look at her for confirmation of what we just heard. I think I said something like, "That's neat." or "Ha-ha. I've never done that." Which he took to mean that I wanted some right then and told me he didn't have any and wasn't currently using.

Also discovered on this trip was our need for a handheld GPS or, at the very least, a compass. Since everything in the city is laid out on a grid (North-south, east-west) it should be easy to get around. Of course that doesn't take into consideration our penchant for wrong turns resulting in death marches to the nearest train station. A good rule of thumb: If you've lost your buzz by the time you arrive at the train stop you've walked to far.

It also seemed like every single line in the city was under construction. The Blue line was closed two stops away from our hotel which meant we had to catch a shuttle to the next open stop adding a good hour to our trip. It sucked. It suck hard.

More thoughts as they come to me, stay tuned.

#912: 10/31/08

2008-10-31T06:30:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween. See you all on the other side.

#911: Ghost to Ghost.

2008-10-30T12:57:00.002-04:00

Remember, tomorrow night is Ghost to Ghost AM an annual tradition for the Coast to Coast AM radio show. I've listened every year for the past few years and it's really a great capper for Halloween. Plus, some of the callers they have are batshit crazy....that doesn't hurt.

Check the site for your local affiliate, It's AM 800 here in the Detroit area.

#910: The Stanley Hotel.

2008-10-30T12:49:00.002-04:00

Just got a text from Saliba: "I brought all my video equipment so we should get some pretty sweet footage of The Stanley."

The Stanley that he's reffering to is The Stanley Hotel. The hotel that was the inspiration for The fucking Shining. As part of his business trip he gets to stay in that hotel on Halloween. They're even supposed to have some ghost hunters there! Lucky s.o.b..... I swear, some of the things that kid just falls into are mind blowing.

Updates to follow.

#909: Pumpkin Simulator

2008-10-30T12:35:00.002-04:00

This came in handy since we weren't able to carve a real pumpkin this year. A lot cleaner too.

The Pumpkin Simulator.

Shout out to Johnny Brownshoes who gave me the heads up on this one. He's an ace, that Johnny Brownshoes.

#908: Devil's Night

2008-10-30T09:25:00.002-04:00

With all of the commotion and excitement regarding tomorrow's events I almost forgot that tonight is Devil's Night. I linked the Wikipedia article for a quick & dirty fix (Wikipedia is the be-all, end-all of objective information because everything on it is true. Everything.)

Growing up in a Detroit suburb the day before Halloween had an excitement that was palpable. Nothing got done in school, most of the teachers gave up sometime around midday, choosing to show a filmstrip or a video (Disney's version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was a perennial favorite) and students talked about how sweet their costume was going to be or how much candy they were going to get the next day.

There was always the sinister undercurrent of what that night would bring. As kids, we had no real concept of what the night was about and, given the name, we feared the worst. I know that some kids thought that the evil spirits were out and about that night so it was preferable to spend the evening indoors and under a blanket.

Eventually, when I was old enough to start acknowledging the news, I realized what was really going on out there. I was always worried that one of my grandmothers would have their houses burned down because they lived in Detroit. I was also worried that our house would burn down. But the only "arson" in our neighborhood happened when a kid named Gary, who was a grade under me, burned down his friend's house when they were playing with matches. That actually happened. A real life cautionary tale.

I think about the time my class hit 6th grade kids became very interested in the prank aspect of Devil's night. Areas around the schools were often hit hardest, toilet paper and shaving cream were the two most prevalent items used.

It was about that time that my dad decided to install a motion sensor light right outside of my bedroom window. Even in his 30's he had a "get off my lawn" mindset of a man twice his age. In the days leading up to Devil's Night he had noticed that somebody had been using our backyard as a shortcut and this pissed him off to no end.

So, that night as I attempted to drift off to sleep the light would switch on and scare the crap out of me. I expected to see an entire platoon of pranksters holding giant rolls of TP, bars of soap, and cans Colgate shaving cream. Never saw them though.

Recently there has been a push to rename the date Angel's Night in Detroit. It's working in the sense that the community has mobilized to keep arson down but I don't think the reputation of Devil's Night would be that easy to shake. Fires are down, but there are still some throwbacks out there hoping to bring a cleansing fire to city.

Here's what I have to say: Bring back the pranks, Detroit. Soap some windows, throw some TP for god's sake. But if you have to, absolutely have to, light something on fire.... bag of poop on the doorstep. From a dog or your own brand, I don't care. Just as long as your target can put it out with a couple of good stomps.

#907: Dreams

2008-10-29T10:29:00.002-04:00

Had a dream early this morning that was weird. Lately, I haven't been dreaming. I get in bed, pass out, and remain motionless until my alarm goes off. And then remain motionless again until my second alarm goes off. I can count on one hand the number of times I've over slept in my life but my paranoia knows no bounds.

My dream was a follows. I was outside somewhere (maybe outside our house) and I was sleeping. Yes, I was dreaming about sleeping. At that point I think my brain realized I was about to be trapped in a Moebius strip from which there was no escape so it added other elements.

I was sleeping in some kind of indentation in the ground. Not a grave, but more like a basin. It was circular in shape and deep enough for me to lay down and curl up in. There was music too. At one point in the dream Shannon was looking for me but couldn't find me.

I've already gone through the Dream Dictionary and deemed it crap. I just thought it was funny that I'd dream about sleeping.

#906: Where In The World Is Mike Saliba?

2008-10-28T09:52:00.005-04:00

Mike Saliba is traveling today. Traveling out west to sell energy drinks to the masses, attend trade shows and oogle booth girls. What follows will be a "real time" update of his misadventures and connecting flights.

7:12 AM: "Chicago."

8:48 AM: "Departing Chicago. Fell asleep on a bench with my ass crack out. Woke up surrounded by people about to board."

12:48 PM: "Phoenix"

12:50 PM: "I think it's call the diamond back state, or at least that's the baseball team."

2:35 PM: "Arriving JW Desert Springs Hotel"

10:52 PM: "80 degrees out, starry sky, sipping whiskey on a bench. For the moment, life is good."

Updates to follow (God willing).

#905: Fall Weather

2008-10-27T10:49:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, I was out and about delivering cupcakes (that's not code for anything. I was actually delivering cupcakes). I parked my car, walked across the lawn and kicked up a pile of brown and gold leaves. It smelled like Fall.

Maybe it's because the Summer seemed to last a bit longer than usual or maybe it's because we don't have a yard for me to do yard work in.... but it seems like Fall didn't happen until this weekend.

Fall also ended today. I'll elaborate: They predicted scattered flurries today. Flurries. Of. SNOW.

I'm hoping that the forecast is as wrong as it usually is and that the sky will continue to just look ominous. A thunderstorm would be okay right about now.

#904: The Curse of Frank Black

2008-10-26T23:38:00.004-04:00

Below, I've posted a couple of selections from the 10/31/97 episode of Millennium episode "The Curse of Frank Black."

I'm trying hard to remember if I watched it during the initial airing. I was right out of high school, going to community college and working part-time at the mall. I'm pretty sure I was home on a Friday night at that point since I was very clearly winning at life.

The episode functions mostly as a stand alone story but works within the larger framework of the series. In it, Frank Black spends a lonely Halloween thinking about his past. During the episode the letters A, C, and, T reappear several times as well as the numbers 2,6, and 8. The episode is also intercut with flashbacks of a man from Frank's old neighborhood that had a similar existence.

Eventually, Frank picks up a bible and looks up Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 26, Verse 8: "Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?" Frank's old neighbor appears with a warning for him (second clip).

The tone of the episode is hard to beat. It feels like Halloween, a day when the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its weakest and the dead are able to come back to us.

#903: Halloween Party!

2008-10-26T12:05:00.007-04:00

We went to a Halloween party last night. Took some pictures that I made black and white (1. To be more "arty" and 2. To cover up what a piece of shit our camera is).Shannon and I. I was The Prisoner and she was a sexy pirate. A sexy, sexy pirate.

And here's a better look at my costume. Shannon stitched it herself, it took hours and it turned out beyond expectations. As for the photo below...I think my nerd may be showing.

Here's more video on The Prisoner so you can get some idea of what I talk about from time to time.... So what that I'm obsessed with a 40 year old British TV show? And to prove that I'm not alone in my madness, the following video is from an episode of The Simpsons episode the has a lengthy parody of The Prisoner. I'm reasonably sure only about five people in my generation got it. They even got the original Number 6, Patrick McGoohan, to reprise his role!

#902: "It's October, Goddamnit!"

2008-10-23T12:58:00.001-04:00

A quick aside before I go back to finishing post #901...

Walking through the office on my break today I saw something out of place. On person's desk there was a tiny Santa Claus holding a box that said "Days Until X-mas" and then a double digit counter below it. Unacceptable.

#901: The Redford Theater

2008-10-22T12:15:00.005-04:00

Last Saturday we ventured out to The Redford Theater to see House of Wax starring Vincent Price...in 3D.

We were all excited to go and see the movie given our prior experience with the Redford Theater. We had gone to see National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and there were only about a dozen people in the theater. We were completely blindsided when we saw a line down the street when we pulled up this time. Who knew Vincent Price was still a box office draw sixteen years after his death?

Once inside, we got to our seats (decent but not ideal) and waited for the show to start. The shows at the Redford Theater are preceded by a concert played on their 1928 pipe organ. This one was especially weird because the organist opted to play "Stairway to Heaven." It was an...interesting interpretation.

The line for the snack counter stretched all the way into the lobby. People really go nuts when offered the chance to have really butter on their popcorn as opposed to the yellow sludge that you would normally get at the local multiplex. Plus, the prices are great. It was six dollars per ticket and only $4.50 for a medium popcorn and a Pepsi!

This showing of House of Was was also prefaced by a short performance from a local Halloween-themed theater troupe. It's in my nature to want to go on and on about how bad they were, but I honestly can't fault them for getting up on stage and doing something that I wouldn't. They get points for that. However....

Part of the bit involved two of the actors in a recreation of Abbot and Costello's classic "Who's on First" routine. Up until that point the production had been fun and a little bit cheesy, but this bit is when the show really flew off the rails. It rocketed from a fun bit of whimsy to straight contempt for the audience. It was kind of like being forced to watch someone beat your grandmother and not being able to look away.

One could argue that the act works based on the comedic timing of the duo or the proficiency of the straight man in the act. These two had neither. Being the straight man requires one to underplay the role, to be serious/oblivious to what's going on within the scene creating conflict with the other character and from the conflict...comedy.

The straight man in this act was certainly oblivious and played the role with a "deer-in-headlights" quality seldom seen outside of a 5th grade school play. The other half of the duo had her lines down but her side of the performance fell flat when she had nothing to play off of.

Also, points were deducted for audience assistance when lines were forgotten. I also think they may have repeated a section no less than three times, like a record skipping, before moving on. It was painful to the point that I felt bad for them and then I wanted to get up and leave. I couldn't look either of them in the eyes when they were in the lobby for the intermission. I wouldn't have known what to do.

Well...Moving on.

The movie itself was FANtastic. My only complaint is that Price wasn't in it enough...but when he was...boy howdy. The 3D effects worked well and it was pleasing to see the audience reacted just as well to them as they would have during the film's initial release. Yes, people still get excited to see an man in a tuxedo play with a paddle ball....in 3D!

The movie was violent, but not gory. Shocking, but not explicit and frightening, but not terrifying. All of those subtle differences keep it from being something like, I dunno, Saw 3. I often found myself wondering how the Paris Hilton version of House of Wax stacked up against the original (not very well, I'm told).

The Redford Theater is great and I'm sad we don't get to go there more often. There's usually something worth checking out a few times a year and sometimes they even show more contemporary films like Indiana Jones (the ones without the space aliens).

Post #900: Hallowe'en At Greenfield Village.

2008-10-19T22:07:00.011-04:00

I think it's safe to say that after attending Hallowe'en Greenfield Village this year it will be an annual tradition.

Look how much we loved it.We loved it. We loved it a whole lot. It could have been the perfect October evening that we went on, or that one of the first things you see is a scarecrow straight out of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, or that nearly everything is lit with hand carved Jack O' Lanterns. Hundreds of them.

Or this guy.
The picture came out well enough to show what it was....the floating head of a friendly ghost. So friendly that he advised me not to use my flash so I could capture him on film. It was weirdly cool because I had just thought the image to be a looped video projected on the side of the building. I was surprised when the floating head turned to address me directly.

Skeleton Dance.

The next stop was at a gazebo that housed a pair of dancing skeletons. Unfortunately, they had used up their best dance moves by the time we got there. Still, a glowing, blue pair of skeletons doing The Robot is pretty okay.

Ghost Lady.

One of the next stops was at the house of a Ghost Lady. She stood on her balcony and lamented her lost love and how she would spend eternity waiting for him to return. She is also definitive proof that I need a better high-end camera.
Flying Brooms!

That's right...check that shit out. According to the nice witch selling them they were the new 2009 Hybrid brooms. I wasn't aware that broom ran on fossil fuels. All the more reason to end our dependence on foreign oil! I could be ascribing my own views to the situation, I'm sure brooms run on newt eyes or frog boners or something. Also, that's totally not fishing line holding the broom up....look to Shannon's left! An orb! OMG! LOLZ! LMAO! And on and on...
In addition to all the fun stops and countless other things I wasn't able to photograph sufficiently, we got treats. I think this is the first time in about fifteen years that I was able to say "trick or treat," hold out a bag and not get punched in the throat. People in our group got apples, Sander's candy, Better Made potato chips (both uniquely Detroit)McDonald's cookies and pretzels. I got a rock.

Announcement!
Finally, as the header on this post said... this is my 900th post. Where does the time go? All that being said, this will all end with my 1,000th post. By my calculations, that should hit sometime around July of 2009.

I'm not going to be paying any special attention to the next one hundred posts or anything like that. There won't be any sense of urgency or immediacy to what I'll be doing. There will still be plenty of time for posts that are boring, of little consequence and just plain bad. I figured a thousand posts is nice round number and it's time for me to do other things.

To soften the blow of what I know is a positively devastating to about two people, I present to you a picture of Mike Saliba singing "Sweet Transvestite" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Cider & Doughnuts!

2008-10-19T20:36:00.006-04:00

Putting an ampersand between two words usually implies good times, such is the case with Cider & Doughnuts. Throw in Chewbacca and you can't help but smile.

As soon as September hit, the list of seasonal mandates was dusted off and "Obtain Cider & Doughnuts" was somewhere near the top. We actually went a couple of weeks ago but I'm just now getting the update done because I'm a horrible person and I hate myself.

From where we are in Michigan you only have to drive north for about fifteen minutes or so to get to cider country. You can't pass through Romeo or Washington without hitting a goddamn orchard. Seriously.

The process of which determining which one we went to largely involved the act of pointing and saying "that one." It was also the first one we came to....I'm glad we decided to stop.

Would you look at that? Someone name Fearless Mike killed a fucking bear and from its still warm innards planted the seeds that would grow an orchard of manliness. That means that the cider they sell ain't pasteurized... the way God intended.

The week prior, we discoed that pasteurized cider could only be saved with the addition of select herbs and spices.... and copious amounts of booze.

If this entry seems a bit more disjointed than usual, I apologize. It's a place holder, a means to an end, a bridge to nowhere if you will.

But still, let us not forget the Fall tradition of Cider & Doughnuts.

I Want This: Halloween Edition

2008-10-14T10:17:00.002-04:00

The Real Ghostbusters- The Complete Series.

Yesterday, while I was sitting in my inner sanctum (the bathroom) I was reading a magazine and I noticed that one of the most awesome cartoons of the 1980s was coming to DVD in a complete form!

The blurb I was reading gave me pause. I hadn't heard anything up until right then and it seemed odd that they were putting out a complete series (five seasons, 147 episodes) as oposed to individual seasons. The next bit stopped me cold: 25 DVDs, retail price of $179.98.

My hopes of owning it evaporated and I was crushed. Yeah, the show is awesome... but not awesome enough to blow $200 on. I can only hope that they'll come to their senses and release these as individual seasons eventually or that the complete series will drop into the realm of affordability on Amazon (which, oddly enough, doesn't even have this set listed yet).

Boo Berry!!!!

2008-10-13T20:44:00.004-04:00

Wow, talk about shit getting away from you... I bought (and consumed) this box of Boo Berry last month.

Last year, I got caught with my pants down (metaphorically speaking, for once) when I realized that come November the first...Boo Berry takes its leave of store shelves for another year. I tearfully resolved to get my cereal shit together for the next year and here we are.

Boo Berry is great. I never had it as a child, my mother wasn't big on sugary cereals. Rice Krispies was pretty much it for much of my youth (No, I'm not forgetting Smurberries. Those were a rare treat.). But the sheer forbidden fruit aspect of Boo Berry was enough for me to long for it for nearly two decades.

So great is Boo Berry that I've decided to express my feelings in the form of a poem:

Oh, Boo Berry

The Things You Do

You Take My Poo

And Turn It Blue

Your Wonder Is Something

Seldom Seen

O How I Love

Hallowe'en

Admittedly, it falls apart in the second stanza but I think I get my message across: Boo Berry is awesome and it turns your poo blue. Plus, it has little ghost marshmallows in it. That alone increases its awesomeness by a factor of 10.

I Love Reading The Classifieds

2008-10-13T11:52:00.001-04:00

"Retail Store, located in downtown Detroit, is searching for an artistic,
responsible, dependable and organized sales associate. Ideal candidate must feel
comfortable with engaging customers and should have a deep interest in fashion
and personal style Position requires self-reliance, common sense, and the
ability to jump in and help out Ideal candidate is Fashion Centered, Friendly, Fresh to death and Fabulous"