Please, God...

Let the playoff loss in a couple weeks finally be the end of the Rex Grossman era in Chicago.

THE GREATEST GIFT OF ALL

THE GIFT OF KREUTZ.

Today Was a Good Day

I found out I'm below 220 pounds for the first time since the 8th grade, ate a steak, watched Over the Top, and got a message board post replied to by Scott "Flash" Norton. Plus, nobody I know got killed in South Central L.A.

Seriously, man.

Before and After

Me in February: 293 lbs.

Me now: 221.

I am awesome.

DAMN THE TORPEDOES

Current Status

Plecostomus still only remaining living fish. He doesn't seem to mind. Not sure if it was that bacteria cycle stuff or what, but the tank has suddenly changed. The water looks a lot clearer, the plecostomus actually comes out in the open during the day for some reason, and algae seems to be growing on everything, thankfully not including the glass. Before, it never would grow on anything, despite the fact that I was constantly dropping the little wafers in there. Also, I gave up on the search and bought new algae wafers, which in addition to being a different brand are also a different color. So maybe now, the new green algae will mix with the old reddish algae that's already there to create some new greenish-red strain of super-algae. Or it could just kill us all, who knows. Hopefully the former.

Have I mentioned

That I love the Bowman brand of football trading cards?

(SpecialgoldcardofJ.D.Runnelsholycrap)

Always taking things from me...

In the last couple days, my algae wafers and bottle of Cycle bacteria crap for the fish tank, as well as a single glove have all disappeared, and a complete tearing-apart of the apartment and the car turned up neither. The only answer is that someone with a key to my apartment has been coming in and taking things. Someone with a fish tank that has an algae-eater inside and who is missing their left hand.
The glove is especially infuriating, though. A while back, like in the summer, I decided, "man, you know what I never have? Decent gloves." So I spent close to twenty bucks on these things. And for me, they were pretty nice. Well, they weren't particularly stylish or even all that attractive, but they were constructed well and really warm as long as you didn't get them wet. Also, at one point or another, Booker T, Goldust, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Sting (Steve Borden, not Gordon Sumner) have all included a pair in their ring attire. And so it finally gets cold, prompting me to finally wear some gloves and have my hands be totally comfortable and warm. And I wear them for like three days and lose one of them, rendering the other one useless, unless I want to be some sort of reverse-color Michael Jackson. The world is so cruel.

Deathride into terror, part 34534534

Well, the ice is off the roads, but I just almost totally died, which is quite common around these parts. A guy in a truck was in the wrong lane, and I almost got hit head-on. The reason he was in the wrong lane?

He was swerving to miss a transvestite.

in lieu of hot chocolate

I am sipping hot tea like no other.

SONG OF THE DAY SUPER SPECIAL

SONGS ABOUT BEING COLDER THAN POOP

Metallica - "Trapped Under Ice"

I don't know how to live trough this hell
Woken up, I'm still locked in this shell
Frozen soul, frozen down to the core
Break the ice, I can't take anymore

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice

Crystallized, as I lay here and rest
Eyes of glass stare directly at death
From deep sleep I have broken away
No one knows, no one hears what I say

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice

Scream from my soul
Fate, mystified
Hell, forever more
No release from my cryonic state
What is this? I've been stricken by fate
Wrapped up tight, cannot move, can't break free
Hand of doom has a tight grip on me

Freezing
Can't move at all
Screaming
Can't hear my call
I am dying to live
Cry out
I'm trapped under the ice

Mastodon - "Siberian Divide"

Ice god shakes the earth
Destruction of the path
Sinking deeper in the snow
Eating bark with blackened hands
Swollen fingers frozen jaw
Warm teeth wrapped around my wrist
Frostbite eating away at our limbs
Slit the belly brontotherium
Climb towards vermillion snowbank fall
Station of the crosses prayer save all
Chewing bone
Euphoria
Land and sky
Shining skull
Ice field blanket land
Hunted beyond the fray
No direction known
Running with the band
Provisions wearing thin
Avalanche sweeps the land
Starvation setting in
Spilling all that's left
Should've kept the fruits from virgin's vine
Three-horned face
Pillar of red
Evil lives atop my crooked spine
Rosebush current flow
Carmine river go
Solar storms erupt on the sun
Ice fields blanket land
Snow queen
Hypothermia
Ice lips
Hallucination
Ice field blanket land
Hunted beyond the fray
No direction known
Running with the band
Provisions wearing thin
Avalanche sweeps the land
Landscape ebb 'n' flow
Think I felt the end of time
Skulls aglow as crystal shines
And starts to warm the empty climb

Iron Maiden - "Stranger in a Strange Land"

Was many years ago that I left home and came this way
I was a young man, full of hope and dreams
But now it seems to me that all is lost and
nothing gained
Sometimes things ain't what they seem
No brave new world, no brave new world
No brave new world, no brave new world

Night and day I scan horizon, sea and sky
My spirit wanders endlessly
Until the day will dawn and friends from home
discover why
Hear me calling, rescue me
Set me free, set me free
Lost in this place, and leave no trace

Stranger in a strange land
Land of ice and snow
Trapped inside this prison
Lost and far from home

One hundred years have gone and men again
they came that way
To find the answer to the mystery
They found his body lying where it fell that day
Preserved in time for all to see
No brave new world, no brave new world
Lost in this place, to leave no trace

What became of the man that started
All are gone and their souls departed
Left me here in this place
So all alone

Stranger in a strange land
Land of ice and snow
Trapped inside this prison
Lost and far from home

What became of the man that started
All are gone and their souls departed
Left me here in this place
So all alone

Stranger in a strange land
Land of ice and snow
Trapped inside this prison
Lost and far from home

Voivod - "Polaroids"

Hostile white
Blizzard's rage
Crystallized
Frosted Face
The sore shoulders
The weight of days
Haw far to go
In desert snow

Where the wind takes our dreams
Where the scene is unreal

Across the iceland
Enduring fate
The hills of sickness
The cliff of fear
Months of darkness
The loss of time
Only a limelight
Flows in the sky
And every morning
Buried in place
Zombies awaking
And keep the pace
There is no crossroad
Nor choice to make
It's always further
Always ahead

Where the wind steals our dreams
Where yourself is revealed

Hey !

Turning in circles
Our worst nightmare
No more supplies
Nor food to share
All the strength
I've left behind
Would be useful
Now that I die
It doesn't matter
Not anymore
Only a limelight
Flows in the sky
Glows in the sky

Where the wind takes our dreams
Where the scene is surreal
Where the wind steals our dreams
Where yourself is revealed

Who wants to land
On no-man's land?
Who wants to end
On Morgoth land?

And oh man

This is the least-burnt bag of popcorn, ever.

Man, for right now at least

Diet Cherry 7Up is like the greatest thing, ever.

Also, fuck Rex Grossman.

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

BOB THOMAS

SONG OF THE DAY

Iron Maiden - "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Hear the rime of the Ancient Mariner
See his eye as he stops one of three
Mesmerizes one of the wedding guests
Stay here and listen to the nightmares
of the Sea

And the music plays on, as the bride passes by
Caught by his spell and
the Mariner tells his tale.

Driven south to the land of the snow and ice
To a place where nobody's been
Through the snow fog flies on the albatross
Hailed in God's name,
hoping good luck it brings.

And the ship sails on, back to the North
Through the fog and ice and
the albatross follows on

The mariner kills the bird of good omen
His shipmates cry against what he's done
But when the fog clears, they justify him
And make themselves a part of the crime.

Sailing on and on and North across the sea
Sailing on and on and North 'till all is calm

The albatross begins with its vengeance
A terrible curse a thirst has begun
His shipmates blame bad luck on the Mariner
About his neck, the dead bird is hung.

And the curse goes on and on at sea
And the curse goes on and on for them and me.

"Day after day, day after day,
we stuck nor breath nor motion
As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean
Water, water everywhere and
all the boards did shrink
Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink."

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1798-1834)]

There, calls the mariner
there comes a ship over the line
But how can she sail with no wind
in her sails and no tide.

See... onward she comes
Onwards she nears, out of the sun
See... she has no crew
She has no life, wait but there's two

Death and she Life in Death,
they throw their dice for the crew
She wins the Mariner and he belongs to her now.
Then ... crew one by one
They drop down dead, two hundred men
She... She, Life in Death.
She lets him live, her chosen one.

[NARRATIVE]
"One after one by the star dogged moon,
too quick for groan or sigh
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang
and cursed me with his eye
Four times fifty living men
(and I heard nor sigh nor groan),
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
they dropped down one by one."

[SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1798-1834)]

The curse it lives on in their eyes
The Mariner he wished he'd die
Along with the sea creatures
But they lived on, so did he.

And by the light of moon
He prays for their beauty not doom
With heart he blesses them
God's creatures all of them too.

Then the spell starts to break
The albatross falls from his neck
Sinks down like lead into the Sea
Then down in falls comes the rain.

Hear the groans of the long dead seamen
See them stir and they start to rise
Bodies lifted by good spirits
None of them speak
and they're lifeless in their eyes

And revenge is still sought, penance starts again
Cast into a trance and the nightmare carries on.

Now the curse is finally lifted
And the Mariner sights his home
Spirits go from the long dead bodies
Form their own light and
the Mariner's left alone

And then a boat came sailing towards him
It was a joy he could not believe
The Pilot's boat, his son and the hermit
Penance of life will fall onto Him.

And the ship it sinks like lead into the sea
And the hermit shrieves the mariner of his sins

The Mariner's bound to tell of his story
To tell his tale wherever he goes
To teach God's word by his own example
That we must love all things that God made.

And the wedding guest's a sad and wiser man
And the tale goes on and on and on.

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

WENDELL DAVIS

two things i am not thankful for

1. Realizing that I have no butter, which kicks ass on pumpkin bread.
2. Realizing that I still don't own a single Tommie Harris trading card.

Two things I am thankful for

1. Deciding to take a peek into the Thanksgiving leftovers they sent me home with and seeing that I got hooked up with a FAT SACK OF PUMPKIN BREAD.
2. Topps's Bowman division, and their wild-eyed, crazy obsession with rookie cards.

Dead Guppies aren't much fun.

Now, I'm down to just the Plecostomus That Wouldn't Die. Stupid fish. Gonna change out about four more gallons of water today, and just let things sit empty for a while until I can buy more water and finish the total water changing process around Friday or so. And while I've always liked them, I'm giving up on putting guppies in there. I've already killed five, and that's more than I need on my conscience. If the algae eater decides to die in the meantime, I might just ditch the heater and go with goldfish, since those are also hard to kill, and new ones go for like a quarter.

Stupid fish. I should just have a tank with nothing but algae eaters and plants. Or maybe some snails.

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

Doing a lot of these lately...

CEDRIC BENSON (2006 EDITION)

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

DAN HAMPTON

Goddammit.

I think I'm about to give up on this fish tank thing. Kellen Winslow Jr. bit the dust this morning, and the dalmatian molly followed suit sometime between lunch and me getting home today, and the black molly won't eat or swim in any direction, even if you tap on the glass right next to him, meaning he's probably got a few hours left. The yellow guppy and the algae eater show no signs of any trouble right now, but aside from the black guppy with the mangled tail, neither did any of the other fish I keep killing. With hindsight, I should have just gone with the gangsta-ass Oscar tank, because that way, all the fish would still die, but they'd be going out fighting, instead of just floating.
Keeping fish might be the most depressing and infuriating hobby there is, outside of being a Chicago Bears fan.

r.i.p. black guppy

Bummer, dude. Not sure if I'm gonna go back to PetSmart for a replacement any time soon, but whenever I do go back there, I'm making sure the bitch that butchered his tail and eventually killed him isn't the one who scoops my fish out this time.

Return to the sea, little friend. *FLUSH*

current status

I'm worried about the black guppy. His tail fins got all screwed up somewhere between getting scooped out of the tank at PetSmart and getting dumped out of the bag here, and they seem to look worse every time I check him out. Also, he's just kind of hovering in one spot at the top of the tank most of the time, which is also kind of scary. He is eating though, which is never a bad thing. Everybody else is pretty much kicking ass at not dying, on a more positive note, and the hungry-ass dalmatian molly has cleaned up all the algae disks that the plecostomus won't eat.

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

DWAYNE SLAY

current status

Added four more fish; a black molly, a dalmatian molly, and a couple more guppies, black and yellow. Decided to feed everybody, and all the new fish ate like crazy. K2 seemed horrified at the entire occurrence, hovering in the back corner and not eating, until the yellow swam up and they were all "aw yeah, you my nigga" and they're all schooling together now. The tank seems pretty segregated, though, with the mollies hanging out on the right and the guppies on the left, with the dalmatian molly running over there and scattering guppies every so often. The mollies appear to be way more gangsta than the guppies, which is troubling, since a molly is like the size of four guppies put together, but they aren't even semi-aggressive, so it should work out okay. Meanwhile, the rubber-lipped plecostomus remains unaffected by the festivites, and is still stuck to the back glass. Hopefully, everybody makes it this time, but I've put in about four gallons of the store-bought good water, so I remain hopeful. The black guppy did get his tail fins all screwed up somewhere in transit, but he did seem to be the hungriest and most active of the three in there, so things look good for now. Stay tuned for further details.

oh man i need this card

Leon Washington thinks you're Number one. So much so that he had to tell you with both hands.

CURRENT STATUS

More than likely due to the ill-advised decision to use tap water and various chemicals, rather than the fancy store-bought stuff from downtown, I'm now down to one guppy. As such, I have decided to go against my normal policy of not giving fish names, (Because man, what if you use up a good name you could have given to a cat or something?) and he will now be known as "Kellen Winslow, Jr.", because he is clearly a fucking soldier. The algae-eater remains as well, but those hit a point where the only way to kill them is with hammers or fire, so he gets no such special treatment for now. Anyway, I bought the good water, and scooped out a little over a gallon of the old stuff, which is something I'll probably do on at least a daily basis for a while. Tomorrow (or later today) I might go to Petsmart to get more fish, because the way K2 swims up and down looking at his reflection in the wall as thought it was another fish is starting to depress me. Also, I got some new fake plants.

"You don't know what I'm up against."

Orson Welles rules. "This is a lot of shit, you know that."

These Charmin Freshmates...

It's like the comfort and superior cleaning power of wiping your butt with a wet washcloth, but without the embarrassing inconvenience of having poopy rags laying everywhere.

Ooh, that's not good...

Got the Transformers the Movie special 20th anniversary edition DVD yesterday, and while the special features are awesome and totally made it worthwhile, there's a huge problem with the whole "widescreen for the first time in 20 years" thing. Check it out:
Full-screen version from disk two:

Widescreen version from disk one:

Notice anything missing? Like perhaps the TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN?
Also, the "color correction" job they did on the super-enhanced widescreen version mainly just brightened everything and turned Hot Rod pink. D'oh.
But there's two commentary tracks, so it's all good.

Current Status

Started small on fish tank; three random guppies and a rubber-lipped plecostomus. Plecostomus darted and hid behind heater, possible bad sign; guppies saw floating food and munched like no other, possible good sign. Water temperature approx. 78 degrees.

I know I could have gone big time and gotten some gangsta-ass Oscars or something, but I'm really into peace and harmony amongst fish, so I went with guppies. I'll let those guys flutter around for a while, and if the tank proves survivable, I'll go get some neons or those little frogs something, or possibly a betta, since their brains only fill up with murder when other bettas are around. I thought about those pink kissing fish, but my brother's is like the size of something you could totally eat now, and it's only a ten gallon tank, so that may not be wise. Also, I need more plants and something for nocturnal stuff like the algae eater to hide under.

A work in progress

Coming soon: FISH!

i'm not feeling so good about the bears anymore

It's becoming more and more apparent to me that this team is a 7-9 team that's just had an insanely easy schedule. Things started great, but despite the 7-1 record, the only way they're making the playoffs is because everyone else in the NFC North would be lucky to win 6 games. Stan Grossman's evil twin Rex is back in at quarterback, which means they're back to having a sub-50% passer who crumbles at the slightest suggestion of a hint of pressure, the running game never even got going when they were everyone's pick to have an undefeated season, the defense gives up yards and points like crazy as of late while forgetting how to sack the quarterback, Tommie Harris and Bernard Berrian have all but disappeared, and rookie superstar Devin Hester can't hold on to the ball and has no idea when to just let the punt bounce. Simply put, this is the only team I've ever seen put up 41 points on a bad team and not look very good at all while doing it.
The funny part is that after a way-pessimistic look down the rest of their schedule, they'll still probably go 11-5, at least.

FIRE! WATER! WATER PUTS OUT FIRE!

ACTIVATE THEIR BATTLE BADGES!

My hands are so dry...

That when I put lotion on them, it BURNS.

my insulation is crazy

It's been all cold today, but it always seems to stay a comfortable room temperature in here. But tonight, it finally got a little chilly, so I flipped on my little $19 electric heater and let it run on low while I was in the shower. It is totally warm in here now. Wow. Also, my electric bill this month was like fifty bucks.

And for the final Halloween content

What a nightmare! Who were those guys?

also, thanks to the remnants of my halloween costume

My Tick poster has got THAT MUSTACHE FEELING.

happy halloween, bang bang

oh man oh man oh man

I just came this close to brushing my teeth with generic Ben Gay.

I was gonna wear a halloween costume to work today

But then I realized how bad it would suck to unload pallets of freight while wearing some uncomfortable crap. Think I'll go normal first, then change when I come home for lunch.

Well, cleaned the apartment

Not like totally clean, but at least it's somewhat presentable now. The problem now is that all the dust is stirred up, and I can't stop sneezing. Think I'm gonna go look for an air filter thingy of some sort. I wonder if I have any of those Bed, Bath, & Beyond 20% off coupons anywhere. Also, I'm seriously considering dropping some money on a new bean bag chair and possibly some sort of small (like five gallon) fish tank. Another odd thing is that I did some desk rearranging, since I'm trying to turn all my stuff that's only available on cassette into CDs. So now, I have this desk with a 19 inch LCD flat-panel monitor, a few spindles of things like DVD-R and LightScribe CDR disks, a computer with a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 processor, and a nearly thirty year old cassette deck. I don't know, there's just something I really like about that.

"HEY MAN, IS THAT FREEDOM ROCK?"

"YEAH, MAN!"
"WELL TURN IT UP, MAN!"

Meanwhile...

Got my jacket back, (the part of me that still has faith in humanity thinks someone grabbed it by mistake yesterday and brought it back, but my brain tells me someone stole it and was stupid enough to wear it to work today and leave it on the same coat rack they stole it from) and I might be getting hooked up with a new job that starts out at like a buck more an hour, and could be as much as 30% less soul-draining than Wal Mart. Also, Bully is awesome.

Good times.

seriously, though, let me put it this way:

Saturday, I got so fed up with work that the only reason I even came back after going home for my lunch break was because I had left my jacket hanging back by the break room. And well, after today's events, THE FUCKING THING ISN'T THERE ANYMORE, IS IT?

I'm totally need to get some kerosene and burn that place down. Argh.

open letter to the guy who stole my jacket off the coat rack at work today

FUCK YOU IN THE ASS.

TAKE A LOOK, IT'S IN A BOOK...

I get bored sometimes.

FAT SALE?

So here's the deal. I'm like 60 pounds lighter than I was earlier in the year, and I can't wear XXL shirts anymore. So if there's any lardos out there who want any of this stuff, drop a comment or something, and maybe something can be worked out, be it through money being exchanged or some sort of trade of other crap. I'm not saying all of this is definitely for sale; I'm just kind of throwing this out there to see if there's any interest. Here's the stuff I can think of off the top of my head, and there might be more:
- An assortment of plain t-shirts. Some new, some old, a couple ringers, maybe a solid color or two. Think I paid like 5 bucks apiece for most of this stuff.
- One Mastodon T-shirt. The "In Search of / Est. 2000" Bigfoot design. Worn a few times, but still pretty good shape. (I think I got it in like January)
- One Anthrax T-shirt. State of Euphoria album cover. Not really worn that much. Almost new. (Got it the same time as the Mastodon shirt.)
- One Marcus Robinson Chicago Bears home replica jersey. Fit huge even when I was still huge, so keep that in mind. Also, it's only been worn maybe five times (because it was too big for me) and cost like $75 when it was new, so if you want this, it's gonna cost you.

Well?

Hey, new blog thingy

Basically, I noticed that I have a whole crapload of CDs. Some I haven't listened to in a long time, and a few that I've barely listened to at all. So I decided to make a way to force myself to listen to all of them, one-by-one, with my thoughts on all of it shared with you, the seven or eight people who stop by this place from time to time. And I know I'm far from a professional music reviewer or even a half-decent amateur music reviewer, but I'll do my best to make this thing have some amount of quality. Perhaps even RESTAURANT QUALITY.

THE CONVERSION PROJECT #2

Hey, last time around I got a record player, so I could finally play records. This time, I spent 35 bucks on an old tape deck, so I could listen to tapes without them sounding like utter poop. Pretty decent one, too. It's almost as old as I am, but it's in good shape, as far as I can tell. It's an old Technics deck from all the way in 81 or so, back before dual cassette, and when tape decks had two microphone inputs and you could hear squealy crap when you rewound or fast-forwarded a certain way. It's not like a zillion-dollar Nakamichi or anything, but hey, it cost someone 200 bucks when I was a year old.
Anywho, I got this one tape a while back from Bobby, one of my old internet homeys who promotes shows down in the New Orleans area, in addition to being master and commander of the good ol' fashioned paper (and in the internet age, that means something) 'zine Paranoize. Anyway, the main things on this particular mixed tape were the albums Innocents by Only Living Witness and Watch it Burn by Cast Iron Hike, and there were also a few songs on the end of side two by some other band I had never heard of. And while the stuff by the other band was pretty awesome, the other stuff on there (particularly Innocents) was like totally awesome, and the extra stuff tacked on at the end kind of got lost in the shuffle as I wore out the tape with what are now two of my favorite records of all time on it while piddling around in my mom's 1993 Ford Tempo. But now, fast-forward to a few days ago. I had decided to pick up a copy of Mastodon's 2005 The Workhorse Chronicles DVD, since they're pretty much my favorite band on Earth at the moment and I had some weird Jones going for anything Mastodon-based. But anyway, Troy Sanders is all talking about the stuff they did before they were Mastodon, and damned if he doesn't mention that he and Brent Hinds had been in Four Hour Fogger. Holy crap, they were the kind of awesome band that I had forgotten about, because Only Living Witness was so totally awesome. I HAVE THEM ON TAPE. So now, here we are, with three and a half songs of theirs. I have no idea when these were recorded or where they came from. They might be demos, there might have been a Cd made, there could have been some vinyl pressed. I just don't know. Aside from the fact that Mastodon's bass and guitar players/dual frontmen were in the band, there seems to be absolutely no information about them on the internet anywhere, and I'm too lazy to go hunt Bobby down and ask. All I do know is that this stuff rocks, except for the fourth song, which would have rocked if the tape hadn't run out. Here you go. (And since this is only a few minutes of stuff, the Jerry Clower album I converted a little while back is still available for download)
POSSIBLY RANDOM FOUR HOUR FOGGER STUFF:
1. Triracial Isolates
2. Victim Eyes
3. Test of Toast
4. (some of) Pita Bread

hahahahahahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1h71vEQtCM

i just had like seven heart attacks

AND IF I HAD TO BE GAY WITH A MAN, IT WOULD BE DEVIN HESTER.

YAY FOOTBALL.

stupid bears

Seriously.

hey, dvd collection

R U JEALOUSE??

oh man

I think one of my neighbors is listening to "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." Or at least that's what the faint hum through the walls sounds like. Actually, it sounded like someone from upstairs was trying to saw through the floor/ceiling into my apartment earlier, so I hope my through-the-wall noise assessments are incorrect.

My utopian vision.

51% of Americans don't believe in evolution. 36% suspect that 9/11 was a government conspiracy. I bet if we killed that 87% of the population off, we'd have a totally kick-ass country.

With lots of room to move around.

So yeah, I just spent like almost fifty bucks on DVDs.

But now, I have like every Nightmare on Elm Street movie ever. Except Freddy vs. Jason. But still, it's not like that one's going to be out of print any time soon. It will come in due time. But yeah, the new super-special Infinifilm version of the first one, with special features and stuff just came out, and the rest were on sale for $4.88 apiece. What was I to do?

Also, like a week ago, I decided to drop five bucks on a used copy of No More Tears by Ozzy Osbourne, because it just seemed odd that I didn't have it already. And all it did was serve to remind me that there might as well only be one song on there, because the rest of the CD isn't very good. And don't mention "Mama, I'm Coming Home" to me, because I can't be bothered with boring lighter-in-the-air ballads for Sharon Osbourne. Oh well. Totally should have gotten the $5 used copy of The Ultimate Sin instead. Because it's a shot in the daaaaaark, ooooone steeeeepp awaaaayyy from yooooooouuuuu. Yeah.

But while I'm typing, here is a more-than-likely-incomplete short list of songs about Freddy Krueger, in some attempt at chronological order:

S.O.D. - "Man of Your Dreams"
Hirax - "Raging Violence"
M.O.D. - "Freddy Krueger"
Dokken - "Dream Warriors"
Sacred Reich - "Man of Your Dreams"
Fishbone - "Freddy's Dead" (honestly, this one's not really about Freddy at all, but it's the title track for a Nightmare on Elm Street movie soundtrack, so that counts, dammit)

Are there any I've left out?

OH MAN KANGAROOS

So I read the new Achewood today, and it got me all nostalgic to Google Kangaroo sneakers, and HOLY CRAP SOMEONE DECIDED TO BRING BACK KANGAROOS. WALTER PAYTON WORE THOSE. But they're like sixty-five bucks a pair, and that seems a bit much for what appears to be the kind of shoe Reebok and Adidas sell for like thirty bucks less, but with a pocket on the side. But still, POCKETS FOR YOUR KEYS AND CHANGE.

Well, it's official

February: 293 lbs.
This morning: 233 lbs.

At this pace, I might not be a fatass in a few more months.

IF YOUR LOCAL GROCERY STORE HAS HONEYCRISP APPLES

BUY THEM. OH MAN.

what

My impression of every motorhead album review anyone's done for the last 10 years

"There's really nothing new here, but hey, Lemmy is way cool!"

another reason to love blood mountain

Joined a gym today, and put in about an hour and a half on various devices designed to simulate walking and other stuff you do with your legs, but without actually taking you anywhere. And they had little TVs set up on all of them, which was pretty cool, as I don't have cable right now, (and for the record, every time there's a new episode of The Venture Bros. on, you'll find me at the gym now) but after a while, nothing was on, and it got tiresome. So I turned on my newly-acquired, two-year-old MP3 player, freshly stocked with my own MP3 files, including a ton from the new Mastodon album, Blood Mountain. And every time one came on, I had to reset the machine to make it go up a steep incline every time one of those songs would come on, because holy crap, it felt like I was going up a goddamn Blood Mountain. Seriously. It had its drawbacks, however, as when I finally stepped off after a whole hour on the eliptical thingy, I almost fell on my ass in front of a bunch of people, because those machines make your legs stop working. Stupid Mastodon.

Also, note to self: Put "Eye of the Tiger," "The Touch," and some manner of Chris Benoit entrance theme on your MP3 player.

I just bought a guitar

Been thinking about it for a while, and found one of those crappy beginner kits for a good deal today. Fifty bucks off, and the regular price was fifty less than what those things usually cost. And I figured that I had random spending money for a change, so why not? So I got it, and it comes with the guitar, a whammy bar, some extra strings, a few picks, a little practice amp, a battery-operated tuning thingy, a fairly cool bag to put most of it in, and an instructional DVD with one of those dudes who's probably in some will-never-be-known local band but makes a ton of money anyway off instructional DVDs showing you the basics. But after I spent some time with it, watching the video and tinkering around with it for a few hours, I think it serves an entirely different purpose than what was originally intended. I think I just spent $112 on a "your fingers are much too fat to ever properly play a chord, jerk" starter kit.

Fuck.

Maybe I should look for a Dino Cazares guitar instructional video. That guy can play, and his fingers have to be like ten little Grilled Stuft Burritos.

Oh yeah

According to the internet, yesterday was "International Talk Like a Pirate Day." Despite this, no one I encountered in my dealings yesterday (And I do have dealings. So many dealings.) actually spoke to me in a pirate-like manner. Oddly enough, I also never slapped the shit out of anyone yesterday. Something tells me that these two things are somehow related.

I'd like to tell the internet

When forming sentences in the present perfect or future perfect tense, the word to use is "have," not "of." Yes, when someone uses a contraction such as "should've," the second part sounds like "of," BUT IT IS NOT FUCKING "OF."

Also, the letter A does not ever appear anywhere in the word "wrestling," and there is no E at the end of "her."

DID YOU KNOW?

THE CONVERSION PROJECT #1

Since I had the money, I bought a record player today. Actually, I bought one twice. Went to Best Buy, and they had one that was like 15 bucks off for being an open item, (red flag) so I got it. Then, I got it home, hooked it up, and realized that there was a reason it had been opened and returned, and the damn thing didn't play at the right speed. Instead of 33 RPM, it was more like 28 or so. So I took it back with the intention of trading it in for the unopened, full-priced one, and just paying the difference, only to discover that the unopened one also had the 15 bucks taken off for no apparent reason. So I wasted a bunch of time by going for the cheaper one in the first place. But anyway, yeah, I have a record player now. And I don't have many records, maybe ten or so, but a few of them aren't available on CD. So now, I've got the turntable hooked up to the computer, and I'm converting the things to a more modern format, and eventually, I'm going to get around to doing the same with a few cassettes I have.
First up is something I picked up on Ebay for like five bucks earlier this year, that really seemed as though it should have cost more than that. It's the 1971 first album by legendary Southern comedian and Grand Ole Opry star Jerry Clower, entitled Jerry Clower From Yazoo City - Mississippi Talkin.' It was never released on CD, but a few of the tracks, most famously his signature bit, "A Coon Huntin' Story," (You know, the one where he goes, "knock him out, John!") are on a few compilations that have come out over the years. I figure this should make for a nice cleansing of the palate before I convert stuff like that Sacred Reich live bootleg or those Turbonegro 7"s.
Track Listing:
1. Introduction (0:20)
2. A Coon Huntin' Story (7:24)
3. Bully Has Done Flung a Cravin' On Me (2:31)
4. Baby Goes to College (7:08)
5. Homecomin' Steaks! (1:52)
6. The Graduate Returns (8:00)
7. Marcel's Talkin' Chainsaw (3:49)
8. The Chauffeur and the Professor (4:59)
9. Good Citizenship (3:48)

It's all on nine 192 Kb/s mp3 files, all crammed into one 56 megabyte (so don't even bother if you're on dialup) ZIP file.. DOWNLOAD IT HERE. And just remember that whenever I convert something else, this file gets deleted, so if you want it, you better get it now.

Alright, who did it?

Who kidnapped Rex Grossman and replaced him withy an actual NFL quarterback?

SONG OF THE DAY FROM THE HOME OFFICE IN ANTARCTICA

GWAR - "Penguin Attack"

THEY ATTACK
THEY ATTACK

They were born

They are on a rampage
Unleashed from ancient time... TIME!
Stumbling from the ice age
Marching side by side... SIDE!
Beaks of steel are flaming
Women are enraged... RAGE!
Sky of death is flaming
Women get engaged... ENGAGED!... ENGAGED!

They were born of atomic steel
Life and death to them seemed so unreal

Slashing at the ramparts
Hurling tons of shot... SHOT!
Shopping now at Wal Mart
Smoking tons of pot... POT!
They are on a rampage
They were first to fight... FIGHT!
They would write a new page
If they could only write... WRITE!... WRITE!

They were born of atomic steel
They attack
Life and death was so unreal
They attack

C'mon baby, kick 'em in the ding-ding
Trouble on the double's what it b-b-b-b bring bring

They were born of atomic steel
They attack
It's a penguin attack
It's a penguin attack
It's a penguin attack
So get back

They were born of atomic steel
Life and death to them seemed so unreal

They attack.
They attack.

armored phalanxes
Flanking maneuvers (they attack)
A vomiting terror
Gibsons and Hoovers (they attack)
Blasted by fusion
Kicked in the head (they attack)
Just to make sure (they attack)
We've chopped up their dead

They were born of atomic steel
Life and death to them was so unreal

Stumbling from the ice age
They were last in flight... FLIGHT!
They would write a new page
If they could only write... WRITE!
Rumbling from the ice age
They were last in line... LINE!
They would start a new age
If they could just take time... TIME!... TIME!

For a penguin attack
Attack
Attack
Attack
It's a penguin attack
Attack
Attack
Attack
It's a penguin attack
It's a penguin attack
It's a penguin a- (they were born)
It's a penguin attack (they were born)
It's a penguin attack (they were born)
It's a penguin attack (they were born)
An attack
An attack

Uh!

C'mon baby, kick him in the ding-ding
Trouble on the double's what it b-b-b-b-bring bring

They were born of atomic steel
They attack
Life and death was so unreal
They attack

Thigns I think about at 1:58 AM

If you drank, and drank, and drank, until your liver got all screwed, and you got all yellow and jaundiced, would that mean that you couldn't be fucked with by the Green Lantern Corps?

My Stupid Ebay Activities

I won't bore you with the details, but if the post office can get their shit together, a financial windfall, at least by my standards, should be hitting me in short order. And after the car and the student loans are paid off, (don't freak out - It's an almost paid-off $2500 car and like a year worth of Delta State University) I'll have a hefty chunk of disposable income on my hands. So in anticipation of this, I spent some cash on Ebay today. What did I get? A new computer? No. Big screen TV? No. Kickass car stereo? Nope.

I spent 30 dollars for almost every Chicago Bears trading card released by Topps between 1981 and 1990.

By book value, it's a fairly decent deal, but not as good a deal as it would have been if some of the major rookie cards had been included. But of the seven cards left out, I already have the Dan Hampton, Richard Dent, and Doug Flutie rookies, the Willie Gault and Todd Bell rookies could easily be scooped up for like a buck, total, and only the Mike Singletary and Jim McMahon rookies are truly bummers by their absence. And I've already found a place selling the McMahon for like three bucks if I get some sort of crazy McMahon-rookie Jones going. But yeah, the final tally:
177 cards, with no duplicates, all Near Mint/Mint:
Neal Anderson - 3 (RC)
Trace Armstrong - 2 (RC)
Johnny Bailey - 1 (RC)
Brian Baschnagel - 3
Kevin Butler - 6 (RC)
Mark Carrier - 1 (RC)
Jim Covert - 6 (RC)
Ron Cox - 1 (RC)
Richard Dent - 5
Dave Duerson - 4 (RC)
Robin Earl - 2 (RC)
Vince Evans - 2 (RC)
Gary Fencik - 5
Dave Finzer - 1 (RC)
Leslie Frazier - 3 (RC)
Steve Fuller - 1
Willie Gault - 5
Dennis Gentry - 4 (RC)
Dan Hampton - 8
Jim Harbaugh - 3 (RC)
Roland Harper - 1
Mike Hartenstine - 3
Jay Hilgenberg - 5 (RC)
Noah Jackson - 3
Vestee Jackson - 1 (RC)
Lorenzo Lynch - 1 (RC)
Ken Margerum - 1 (RC)
Wilber Marshall - 2 (RC)
Dennis McKninnon - 3 (RC)
Jim McMahon - 6
Steve McMichael - 6 (RC)
Emery Moorehead - 2
Ron Morris - 1 (RC)
Brad Muster - 2 (RC)
Jim Osbourne - 1 (RC)
Alan Page - 1
Bob Parsons - 3
Walter Payton - 21
William Perry - 3 (RC)
Mike Richardson - 2 (RC)
Ron Rivera - 2 (RC)
John Roper - 1 (RC)
Thomas Sanders - 2 (RC)
Terry Schmidt - 2
Mike Singletary - 7
Revie Sorey - 2
Lemuel Stinson - 1 (RC)
Matt Suhey - 7 (RC)
David Tate - 1 (RC)
Bob Thomas - 3
James Thornton - 1 (RC)
Mike Tomczak - 2 (RC)
Keith Van Horne - 1 (RC)
Len Walterscheid - 1 (RC)
Rickey Watts - 3 (RC)
Dave Williams - 1
Otis Wilson - 3 (RC)
Donnell Woolford - 2 (RC)

Also, adding in the random extra stuff the guy threw in with the deal, you get:
Red Grange - 1 (from 1988)
Walter Payton - 1 (1991)
Adrian Peterson - 1 (RC - 2002)
Gale Sayers (1997)
Mike Singletary - 3 (2 from 1992, 1 from 2002)
Brian Urlacher - 2 (2002)

Ho-lee shit.

Reason I Need a New Job #1

I spent ten minutes today having a coworker explain to me why white people needed their own homeland.

I have roaches.

So many roaches. Roaches in the bathroom. Spray does not kill them. Boric acid will kill them. I will go to buy boric acid now, to kill them. The roaches.

Fuck.

TOP 6 OF 2006

I've only bought/downloaded six new albums from 2006, so now that we're 3/4 of the way done, let's see how they stack up:

1. Sepultura - Dante XXI
My second favorite Sepultura album of all time now, and I'm not ashamed to say that. They finally got it right, and it's a bummer that the only good Derrick Green-era Sep album will probably be the last one before they go back to shitty Max Cavalera-fronted nu-metal. Tasteful use of horns, too.
2. Mastodon - Blood Mountain
It was probably impossible to live up to Leviathan, but they lived up to at least 99% of it. Any other year, this would have been my #1 album. Guitar-wankery is annoying, but they manage to do an entire album of nothing but guitar-wankery and make guitar-wankery not suck, while getting all "prog" without thirty-minute songs.
3. Voivod - Katorz
Shit, if this is what they managed to put out with what they had to work with, more bands need to have their guitar players die tragically before they even start recording their albums. My favorite album of theirs since The Outer Limits.
4. Lacuna Coil - Karmacode
You could tell they really wanted to break through and become more of a major mainstream-known band, but thankfully, that didn't really require changing their sound too much. There is sort of a disturbing Ross Robinson production sound going on in points, but if you can get past that, this might be their best album.
5. Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life and Death
This was decent, but definitely didn't live up to any of the "Maiden is back!" hype at all. I found myself enjoying everything I heard, but not being able to recall a second of it once the album had ended. Still, a mediocre Maiden album is equivalent to a pretty good album from someone else.
6. Body Count - Murder 4 Hire
You know, it's been all downhill since the first BC album, but I still liked Born Dead and Violent Demise, and I've been looking forward to this album ever since the first time they said a new Body Count album was "coming soon," in like 1999. But aside from a few brief moments, mainly on the two instrumentals, this album sucks shit like no other. Like it takes a big fat shit in a bucket and passes out straws. God damn, son.

Reign in Blood isn't that good.

There, I said it. The whole album is like 28 minutes long, and it still manages to have like 7 songs of filler. I mean, when was the last time you ran to the stereo, thinking, "holy crap, I sure would love to hear 'Altar of Sacrifice!'" There was no last time, because no one's ever said that goddamn sentence before! It's like the whole reputation of the album is based on the fact that all the songs kind of run together and that you don't have to listen to it for very long. Isn't that something you usually make fun of an album for? Whoopty-freakin'-doo. It's not the greatest heavy metal album of all time, it's not the greatest heavy metal album of 1986, and it's not even the best Slayer album of the 1980s. And Slayer never has been very good. Except for Seasons in the Abyss. But still.

I got that grape drink, y'all.

Shit is purple, son.

Open letter to the dog that peed on my new phonebook before I got it inside

Fuck you, too.

Open Letter to the Guy Who Parked a Bicycle in the Last Parking Space

Seriously, fuck you.

Home refrigerator repair

My refrigerator sucks. Like my popsicles were melting, and a few days ago, I went to take the last drink out of a gallon of milk that allegedly expired a week from then, and ended up spitting sour milk chunks all over my sink, because the milk had stayed too warm. So I'm all bummed, making plans to call the landlord and all. And for some reason, in my frustration, I get all pissed and punch the back wall of the refrigerator. Now, all of a sudden, there's hell of cold air coming out in my freezer, to the point where everything's getting all frosty, where there was no frost in earlier times. Hopefully, this can trickle down to the place with the milk and cheeses.

UPDATE: Last night, I put my little battery operated clock radio with a digital thermometer on it in the fridge. At that point, it was 56 degrees in there. This morning, it was 26 degrees, and my milk was ice. The refrigerator has been turned from 9 to 7 now.

Oh yeah, also

I also went to the West Side Wal Mart and scored three $8.99 bags of frozen chicken breasts on sale for three bucks apiece. Basically, a buy one, get two free deal.

METAL UP YOUR ASS \m/

Neat Random Used CD Find

I was on the west side of town today, doing my usual weekly routine, where I go to Big Lots for cheap cereal and canned food, then head over to Hastings for a while, where I'll look at things I can't afford, then get bored and leave. But today, I had to actually spend money there. $8.99, to be exact. I was looking through the used CDs, and something caught my eye. It was Metallica's Kill 'Em All, but something looked wrong with it. The spine was WHITE. I've seen a bunch of that CD; hell, I actually own two copies of it. (one with "Garage Days Revisited" as bonus tracks, and one without that I had to buy when the first one got scratched too bad to play on a track or two) Upon closer inspection, it was the original Megaforce Records release of the album, with no mentions of Elektra or "E/M Ventures" on it anywhere. Not sure if it's rare enough to be worth anything, but it's definitely rare, and there's at least one guy trying to sell it on Ebay right now for 69 dollars. Anyway, here are some pictures:
First, the front cover. The colors seem a bit different, with the picture not looking so white, and the letters being a lot brighter, almost orange in some places. Also, the title of the CD is like twice as big as on the normal version. For a comparison, here's the front cover of the 1994 version.
Inside, there's a huge difference, as there's no booklet of lyrics or anything. It's just one white page with a few credits.
The back cover is where the huge differences lie. It doesn't resemble the usual version at all, and even has the Rich "Banger" Burch misquote, "bang the head that doesn't bang," (it's supposed to be "that," instead of "the") intact, and they leave the second T out of Kirk Hammett's last name.
And, in case you care, here's the actual CD, which sounds no different from the version everyone else has.

Neat.

WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE

The Department of Homeland Security just raised the threat level.
We are all DOOOOOOOOMED.

In that case, here's your SONG OF THE DAY:

Sunday, Monday, Happy Days,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Happy Days,
Thursday, Friday, Happy Days,
Saturday, what a day,
Rockin all week with you.

This day is ours
Won't you be mine. (Oh Happy Days)
This day is ours (Oh Happy Days)
Oh please be mine.

Hello sunshine, goodbye rain,
She's wearing my high school ring on her chain.
She's my steady, I'm her man,
I'm gonna love her all I can.
(Chorus)
Gonna cruise her round the town,
Show everybody what I've found
Rock'n'roll with all my friends
Hopin' the music never ends.

These Happy Days are yours and mine (oh Happy Days)
These Happy Days are yours and mine (oh Happy Days)
These Happy Days are yours and mine, Happy Days.

MORE FREE INTERNET CRAP

Free Movies Fallen Out of Copyright

This site should fill all of your requirements for cheesy old sci-fi flicks, weird educational films, and bullshit documentaries about how George Bush and/or the Jews are going to kill us all with evil oily sex powers.

Highlights so far include:
Plan 9 From Outer Space - Ed Wood's unintentionally hilarious classic.
Reefer Madness - AHHH DEVIL WEED
Gayniggers From Outer Space - No comment necessary.
Powers of Ten - Like the neatest math-based documentary that I was ever forced to watch in school.
The Secret History of Hacking - The history of when hacking was real shit instead of just preteens downloading scripts, from Captain Crunch to Kevin Mitnick.
Duck and Cover - "Always remember: The flash of an atomic bomb can come any time, no matter where you may be." Oh, we're FUCKED.
Thank You, Mask Man - Cartoon version of the old Lenny Bruce routine about what a ungrateful homo the Lone Ranger is.

Check it out yourself. Lots of neat crap here.

The Most Inappropriate 9-11 Tribute, Ever

Mullah Omar is gonna be your Frankenstein.

FREE CRAP ALERT

Like a zillion free TV channels from across the globe.

And right now, there's an Overkill show on AFTV 5 in the USA section.

More CSS Chicanery

Here's the continuation. Cascading Style Sheets like a motherfucker, y'all. Note that it's not supposed to look like anything at all, and I'm just trying to figure out how to work the tags. I wouldn't make such a pile of crap on purpose.

Learning new internet nerd crap.

I'm trying to teach myself how to make pages using CSS styles, without relying on some program to do it for me. I now present to you like twenty minutes of fiddling with really basic stuff. Hold the mouse over the text to see my blatant abuse of the "title" HTML tag.

How to Eat a Watermelon

Lord, have mercy.

What a fucking Bomar.

Seriously.

Define awesome:

Coming to the realization that the belt I've been wearing to snugly hold my pants up for the last decade is now like way too big to even poke more holes in and use.

On the other hand,

The last thirty minutes or so were actually pretty good, with a relatively awesome ending. Still, with about sixty minutes that I could have done without, overall, Clerks 2 pretty much fucking failed.

Seriously, though

Watching this movie is like... You know, when you're reading some message board, and they're having a discussion about some really nerdy shit? It's like that in movie form, except it's like the meaningful posts where the few people who actually have lives outside the internet and intelligent thoughts every now and then who are all breaking the shit down have been erased, and it's all just the guys with screen names that end in numbers calling each other fags. This is mixed in with stuff that's like all those Saved by the Bell ripoff shows that came out in the nineties where the already bad writing and acting is way worse, but with the laugh track removed, so you can't tell where they were trying to be funny. And I think we're supposed to think it's awesome, because they're mentioning things nerds like and hitting all the standard Kevin Smith high spots where they talk about sucking cocks or whatever. This movie is like an episode of California Dreams where they keep talking about Lord of the Rings and ass-to-mouth, and it's not funny, and I'm glad I didn't pay money for this shit, and KEVIN SMITH, YOUR WIFE IS NOT THAT ATTRACTIVE AND SHOULDN'T BE IN MOVIES. BAAAAUUUURRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

The part with Jay talking about Jesus was alright, though.

So I Illegally Downloaded Clerks 2

And yeah, 25 minutes in, and I still haven't even smiled. Life is filled with disappointment.

It's my way, or the SONG OF THE DAY

Voivod - "After All" (2006)

Joey Died
And nothing has changed
The street corners
Are still the same
I guess he still
Lives in my Head
When it's time
To share the bread
Still got holes
On my knees
But I won't
Buy the figurine
Yeah it's kind of
Sad to see
You in a box
Wrapped and Sealed

Who cares after all?
About the rise
And the fall
Makes the papers for one day
Not for what you had to say
Who cares after all?
Another flyer
On the wall
All the times have been washed out
All the ones we care about

Seen it, been there, done that!!

When I am mad
When I see red
I refer to
What Iggy says
I want to find
Myself in you
You wanna find
Yourself too

Who cares after all?
Win the race
Or drop the ball
If I make a silly face
Is it really what it takes?
Who cares after all?
About the records
On the wall
And the tattoos on your skin
Be the one you've never been

Yeah

Seen it, been there, done that!!

INTERNET! YAAAAAY!

Yup, things are slowly getting back to normal here. Now, I'm gonna go put on some pants, run by the bank, and maybe go box up some more of the little dregs and crumbs of stuff left at the old apartment. I mean, not that I don't have on pants now, I mean like I'm gonna go put on different pants.

Also, Mike Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame is doing a new thing where you download an mp3 of him making fun of a movie for you to play while you watch said movie, and it's only a dollar ninety-nine for the time being and awesome. Check it out. Now, I need to find a copy of Roadhouse.

Total Moveage, Pt. Three

I'm unmotivated to retype my thoughts, so this is copied and pasted from a message board I posted on a minute ago:

Right now, I'm in the process of moving out of this apartment, with the computer still here for the use of the internet, which isn't hooked up at the new place till Monday. Right now, the air conditioner is broken. Right now, it is possibly over 95 degrees inside the apartment. Right now, you can all eat, and quite possibly choke on, my balls. My sweaty, sweaty balls.

Yeah. I'm gonna go clean out the bathroom now, while chugging whatever this Wal Mart generic Crystal Light stuff is called.

And I hate you.

Total Moveage, Pt. Two

Quick update before I head back to the non-internet apartment here. Yesterday was U-Haul day, my stuff fit ionto the new place shockingly well, and my cat is all sad and needy now that she's the lone cat in an apartment, which makes me want to try my luck with a second cat to occupy her all day. On another down note, I think moving my brother's fish tank reinjured whatever the hell was wrong with my foot a few months back, which is currently stuffed into my shoe with an Ace bandage wrapped around it. There's still a lot of moving out to do, with pretty much all the kitchen stuff still here, along with damn near everything my brother owns, it seems. He acted like he was going to spend all of today doing stuff yesterday, but as far as I can tell, I'm the only one who's been here today. But seeing as it's a little past eleven PM here, and it's 90 degrees outside and only five degrees cooler in here, I can't say I blame him. Fine time for a broken air conditioner. Anyway, for some reason, I'm feeling hella-unmotivated tonight, so I'm going to head back to my place, (it's weird saying that) do a little more arranging and moving in, maybe watch a movie or something, and pass out. Updates and presence on the internet will be sparse to say the least, as most of the time here will be spent doing moving stuff, there will probably be work to do on such things until the end of the month, and the internet won't be on at the other place until Monday. Also, this is Cox we're talking about, so that probably means the dude will come Monday, the net will stop working around Wednesday-ish, and I'll have to get the guy to come back some time in September. Cable-free life preparation continues, with illegal downloadings of Cool Runnings, an episode of MST3K from the Comedy Channel/Dr. Earhart era, and the newest Venture Bros. episode. That is easily the best show on TV, and Brock Samson is my hero. Anyway, I'm going to go hook up electronics, drink canned iced tea, and snuggle my fucking cat.

Oh yeah, In other weird news, I might be coming into enough money to pay off my car and kill my student loans, effectively raising my income by over 100 bucks a month sometime soon. I'll update on that later, I guess.

Go me, it's my birthday

And my first official act as a 26 year-old was to download and watch Karate Bullfighter, starring Sonny Chiba. This was important for me to do, because a while back, I spent like fifteen bucks on Ebay for a somewhat miniaturized version of the movie's poster, and it's got to be some sort of sin to own a movie poster for a movie you've never seen. (Even if it is the most kick-ass movie poster, ever.) Also on the illegally downloaded viewing agenda for the days to come are Karate Bearfighter, Karate Forever, (Those two being the other two thirds of the Oyama Trilogy, starring Sonny Chiba, of course.) and Big Trouble in Little China. (Perhaps one of Kurt Russell's finest moments.) With my mad skillz as a downloader of bullshit, I should be well-prepared for my upcoming life without cable. Which reminds me, I need to look and see if a new Venture Brothers episode is up anywhere.
Turning out to be a fine day so far. I'm gonna go sleep till noon or so, and then see about getting a new, in-state driver's license.

Voivod and Other Stuff

Hey, so I illegally downloaded the new Voivod album, Katorz, the other day, (You know, the one they made from demo recordings after their guitar player died, etc.)and while I don't have time for a full review, I will say that unless I'm completely broke again by then, I probably will buy it for real whenever it comes out on the 25th. I'm cool like that. But anyway, there's a few different camps when it comes to Voivod:
The first are the too-old-school-for-their-own-good metalheads who have been wishing since 1989 or so that the band would just make a generic thrash re-hashing of Rrroooaaarrr or War and Pain, and have brains too walnut-sized to handle anything they've done since their (kinda shitty) early material. If this is you, you won't like this album.
The second really dug all the weirder stuff they were doing on albums like Nothingface and The Outer Limits and aren't too tied down to the idea that they have to "totally thrash, dude." I suppose you've got maybe a 50/50 shot of liking this one, I dunno.
Third, if you don't need everything to be all-out speed metal and can stand the idea of Voivod doing some straight-forward rocking, instead of just going all over the place, you'll probably dig this album a lot. Basically, if you liked the self-titled 2003 album, you'll love this, because it's along the same lines, but better. This is pretty much where I fall, thus the decision to pay money for it someday.
After that, there's the "why the hell is this guy singing through his nose?" crowd, and I suppose you guys should probably just skip this one.

But really, all this serves as a reminder of my crappy luck with bands I like putting out good stuff lately.
Anthrax puts out We've Come for You All, their most critically-acclaimed record in a while and maybe their best with John Bush, and the next thing you know, they've kicked him out of the band and put together the old lineup, which includes a singer who doesn't fit anything Anthrax has written in over a decade and a guitar player who thinks Scott Ian is going to burn in hell for reading Stephen King.
Sepultura finally puts out a good album with Derrick Green on vocals, (and I'm not ashamed to say I liked Dante XXI better than Beneath the Remains or Arise.) and it's immediately followed by the only remaining Cavalera brother leaving the band to do techno and hip-hop or some crap like that, and Andreas Kisser undecided on whether he wants to continue with the band after the tour is over. This will undoubtedly lead to them reuniting with Max Cavalera, who's spent the last decade pretending he's a rock star and making horrible mall-rock albums with Soulfly, reforming the lineup that most recently gave us the steaming pile of shit that was Roots.
Then, there's Voivod, who put out a really good album, but have to record it AFTER one of their main guys fucking dies, which kind of makes touring and future albums difficult. (I know they said Piggy had recorded enough stuff for three or four albums, but you have to assume that the best stuff got used for this one. Remember when Metallica crapped out an album of Load leftovers? Yeah.)

I just can't win sometimes.

GRANDMOTHER QUOTE OF THE DAY

"All them Indians out there, and you ain't found a girlfriend yet?"

Yep.

Gotta go to Mississippi. Be back Wednesday-ish. Whee.

Total Moveage, Pt. One

Over the course of the next few weeks, I'm totally moving out of this place, and into a place of my own. It's like either the world's smallest apartment or the world's most luxurious closet. It's gonna be sweet. And until the inevitable gap between when I ask Cox to transfer my internet over there and when something inevitably fucks up, leaving me net-less for a week, I figured I'd chronicle anything interesting that happens between now and then. So yeah, website updates will be nonexistent, as all free time will either be spent packing and moving, or spent doing nothing while thinking how bad I need to be packing and moving. Anyway, the shit went down today. All kinds of deposits and first-month's-rents, and shit like that got paid. Right now, my bank balance is officially 914.77, but by the time all the checks and stuff from the last few days clear, I'll have a little over 200 bucks. This includes the last rent for this place, (double the usual amount, since my brother paid like five whole months at once earlier this year) the cable bill I just paid, the deposit to turn the electricity on, and the ten bucks or so I spent today for some mini-blinds and one of those sink strainer things you use to keep your sink from getting clogged by hell of macaroni noodles. Also, the deposit and first month's rent had already been paid for the new place, which serves as a startling example both of how much money I can accumulate over the summer, as well as how fast it can be pissed away. Also, I paid forty-five (gotta love those 20% off coupons you get every week from Bed, Bath, & Beyond) dollars for a Foreman Grill of my very own. Turns out, my brother's girlfriend has like five and would have given me one, but fuck it, I'm getting most of my other appliances for free, so I have to do at least one giant spendathon to ring in the new life of roommatelessness. Plus, it has detachable grill plates. It'll be so clean so often. Man. Anyway, power's on at the new tinyplace, so I managed to take a Hefty Carload over there earlier. The blinds I bought ended up being too small, but this was rectified by moving the blind-holder things in a quarter inch or so with the weak-ass-but-still-useful Black and Decker cordless Battery Operated Screwdriver I splurged fifteen dollars on a month ago. The only potential problem I see so far is the air conditioner. The thing's bootleg as all hell. Like the decorative-and-functional front part air conditoners have to protect the delicate inner-workings is completely gone, and there's not even an air filter on there. Also, the fins or whatever you call them are all mashed down, (possibly attributed to the front part being gone) so air intake is probably a problem, leading to future disaster, and the thing is loud. Supposedly, a dude at work has a fairly modernized window unit back home that I can use if my window will hold it, so this might not be too much of a concern, though. If he comes through with that, I have to hook him up with pirated Venture Brothers DVDs. A good aspect of the new place, past the bootleg air conditooner and the tinyness of it all, is the shower. The shower at the current homestead sucks. Actually, it's broken, as in having to take baths. But even when it worked, there was no water pressure. But the new place, man, it has huge carloads of water pressure. I cleansed myself there earlier, and it was beautiful. And when I transfer my $17 shower head to that one, I'll be in for a new world of shower-based luxuriation. The only problem was that I forgot to take a towel, so I had to dry off with the pants I wore today.

And oh yeah, after I was done drying off, I had to run a naked lap around the living room-type area.

Just because I could.

My Fortune Cookie Finally Got it Right

HE IS THE GRAVY CHAMPION

He requires nothing less than the freshest gravy, served in a glass.

God damn

Thanks to the elimination of bread and peanut butter from my diet, in addition to the switch to nasty-ass fat-free mayonaise and the fact that I've eaten two loaves of bread in that period of time as opposed to the two a week I was going through before, I've lost roughly 23 pounds in the last two months. Only about a million more to go.

SONG OF THE DAY

Iron Maiden - "The Number of the Beast"

"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the
beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the
beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and
sixty six."

I left alone
my mind was blank
I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind

What did I see
can I believe that what I saw
that night was real and not just fantasy

Just what I saw in my old dreams were they
reflections of my warped mind staring back at me

'Cos in my dream it's always there
the evil face that twists my mind
and brings me to despair

The night was black was no use holding back
'Cos I just had to see was someone watching me
In the mist dark figures move and twist
Was this all for real or some kind of hell
666 the number of the beast
Hell and fire was spawned to be released

Torches blazed and sacred chants were praised
As they start to cry hands held to the sky
In the night the fires burning bright
The ritual has begun Satan's work is done
666 the number of the beast
Sacrifice is going on tonight

This can't go on I must inform the law
Can this still be real or just some crazy dream
But I feel drawn towards the evil chanting hordes
They seem to mesmerise me ... can't avoid their eyes
666 the number of the beast
666 the one for you and me

I'm coming back
I will return
And I'll possess your body and I'll make you burn
I have the fire
I have the force
I have the power to make my evil take it's course

CHICAGO BEAR OF THE DAY

TERRY OBEE

See you fuckers in a week or so.

Later, folks.

ONE OF THOSE SONGS OF THE DAYS

Suicidal Tendencies - "I Saw Your Mommy"

Yesterday, as I went out of the house
I saw a body lying down quiet as a mouse
Lying face down in the sewer
I got up closer and realized that I knew her
All her organs coming from her inside
Slashed up skin sliced up hide
Turned her over and saw the tire tracks on her head
That's when I realized she was dead
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead

Twisted body chopped off feet
Her body was minced meat
Bugs crawling on her arms
She's dead, can't do no harm
Gnarled up legs, broken and bent
Her last breath has been spent
I wonder how much you had to pay
To get your mom killed in such a bloody way

I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead
I watched her as she bled
Chewed off toes on her chopped off feet
I took a picture cause I thought it was neat
But the thing I like seeing the best
Was the rodents using her hair as a nest
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead

Twisted body chopped off feet
Her body was minced meat
Bugs crawling on her arms
She's dead, can't do no harm
Gnarled up legs, broken and bent
Her last breath has been spent
I know it's your allowance that you really miss
But make it look good at her funeral, and give her a little kiss

I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead
I saw her lying in a pool of red
I think it's the greatest thing I'll ever see
Your dead mommy lying in front of me
I'll always remember her lying dead on the floor
I hope she dies twenty times more
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead
I saw your mommy and your mommy's dead

Twisted body chopped off feet
Her body was minced meat
Bugs crawling on her arms
She's dead, can't do no harm
Gnarled up legs, broken and bent
Her last breath has been spent
I wonder how much you had to pay
To get your mom killed in such a bloody way

I talk to customers sometimes

Dude buying apples: You ever try one of these? (points at the Gala apples)
Me: Yeah.
Dude buying apples: You like 'em?
Me: Those? Yeah.
Dude buying apples: Shit yeah, dude, they're the fuckin' best. Especially after a FAT BOWL.
Me: Uh, right on.

Memories of Terror

Man. Someone on this one message board just mentioned the one thing thaqt truly terrified me beyond all other things when I was a kid. Q: The Winged Serpent. Back in small times when we could still afford HBO, this movie would come on, and it would freak my shit out. That flying snake-god thing just had to be real, and it just had to be coming to eat me and my dog. If I watched that movie, I wouldn't be able to sleep comfortably for weeks. Even now, as someone who rounds up to thirty years old and has seen multiple Evil Dead movies, a Faces of Death video, and got real bored one night and read a bunch of Cannibal Corpse lyrics, looking at stills from this movie gives me kind of a weird, uneasy feeling. Holy crap.

I'm better than you

Because I have a Neal Anderson rookie.

I Solve Crimes

So earlier today, someone posted this story at a message board I frequent. Basically, this dude raped somebody, and the cops released the composite sketch to the local news media type places, so people know who to look out for. And in case you were wondering, here's the sketch:

An impeccable likeness, I'm sure. Thing is, I got to looking at this picture, and something dawned on me: I've seen this guy somewhere before. But where? Then, while staring blankly at a wall and thinking about cartoons, which is what I usually do all day, the answer came to me:

The rapist is none other than Rusty Cuyler of "Squidbillies" fame. Case closed.

My name is Lucas. I solve crimes.

In other news...

Bill Introduced to make sex toys illegal in South Carolina.

If you outlaw dildos, only outlaws will have dildos.

Song of Thy Day

Vaginal Discharge - "Meth Lab Trailer Park"

So we bought the stuff and we headed home,
We're gonna make a lotta dough
Just crank out meth from our bath tub,
Won't have to work no more

And none of the neighbors gonna turn us in,
'Cause they're doin' just the same
So come on down and buy a bag,
And we'll be glad you came
Said we'll be glad you came

And the air smells bad, and the dogs are barking loud
But we've got satellite TV with stereo surround
Brand new carpet and furniture, all you see around
And it's always a party after dark in the meth lab trailer park
Said it's always a party after dark in the meth lab trailer park

Well, I've been up for four straight days,
And things are lookin' weird
No, I can't get a wink of sleep,
Though I drank about sixty beers
My head is startin' to hurt again,
Think I'll do another line
There goes my nose, it's bleedin' again,
But man, I'm feelin' fine
Said MAN, I'm feelin' fine!

And the air smells bad, and the dogs are barking loud
But we've got satellite DVD with THX surround
Brand new carpet and furniture, all you see around
And it's always a party after dark in the meth lab trailer park
Said it's always a party after dark in the meth lab trailer park

My plan

Someday, I'm going to become famous. Not sure how, but I will. And I'm going to totally become one of the cool kind of celebrities that everyone wants to be like. Like when I wear something, other people are going to wear it. And I'm totally going to bring back striped socks. That is my plan.

Messing around with some stuff.

Yup.

HAPPY EASTER

YOU FUCKS

Things I just learned...

In freezing rain that turns the road into a sheet of ice, the average driver in Norman, Oklahoma still sees nothing wrong with not using a turn sugnal and/or pulling right out in front of other cars.
Also, when my anti-lock brakes lock up, my car skids hard to the right.

When I'm God, it will be illegal for stupid people to drive.

Heard Rick Rubin's Gonna Produce the New Metallica Album

Here you go, Rick. Good luck.

HAPPY VALENTIME'S DAY

Today at work

While trying to say the phrase "put 'em too far apart," it came out as "tut 'em poo tar afart."

I've decided...

That the weight control cat food that Nutro makes smells like iced tea.
I wish we still had the bag it came in, so I could look up what the ingredients are. Perhaps orange pekoe is among them. Or something.

With all that in mind, here's a Voivod video.

SONG OF THE JUDGEMENT DAY

Anal Cunt - "Your Band's in the Cut-Out Bin"

Your record cost $3.99
Your record cost $2.99
Your record cost $1.99
And then it gets returned

Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin

You're right next to Hall & Oates
You're Right next to the Commodores
You're right next to Cameo
And you're a fucking homo

Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin
Your band's in the cut-out bin
Cut-out bin, cut-out bin, cut-out bin, cut-out bin

You're in the return line
They don't take back records under $3.99
Then you start to fucking whine
Buy a real album next time

For the record

I can't believe I just spent ten minutes writing haikus about Terminator 2, either.

Terminator 2: Haiku Judgement Day

Terminator 2
I've watched it thrice in two days
That can't be healthy

Advanced prototype
Total liquid robot guy
Have you seen this boy?

Hey, this bigass dude
Is my own Terminator
Just don't kill those guys

How's my dog Wolfie?
Oh, Wolfie's doing just fine
But parents are dead

Learning computer
A neural-net processor
Helps Arnold find keys

A crazy-ass bitch
There's no fate but what we make
Gonna kill Dyson

The Terminator
Goes apeshit with minigun
Cacualties? Zip.

Liquid nitrogen
T-1000 all froze up
Blown up like a bitch

I know why you cry
But it's something I can't do
Now, please melt my ass

Haiku Massacre

I'm not Charlie Brown
He's a guy from out of town.
I met him in jail.

Ding Dongs, yo. Ding Dongs
You ain't fat. You ain't nothin'.
Inflatable suit.

Enis, Terrell, Haynes.
Rashaan Salaam, Cade McNown.
Cedric Benson? Fuck.

Oh, knock him out, John.
Shoot up in here amongst us;
One must have relief.

This toilet paper
It reminds me of John Wayne
Rough, tough, takes no shit.

I'm the Boogeyman
And I'm comin' to getcha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ever notice...

Sometimes, I get bored and go to chatrooms. And in particular, I've noticed that heavy metal chatrooms are filled to capacity with dumbasses. No surprise there. But I've also noticed that these dumbasses will always do the same crap. Come in, yell something stupid, then start typing out song lyrics, like that's going to let us know they're truly cool, or something like that. And the lyrics are almost always either completely wrong, horribly misspelled, or both. And always in all capital letters. And it's always one of the same three or four bands: Metallica, Pantera, or occasionally Slipknot. Example:

Some dumbass: WISKY WEED AND METTALICA FUCK YEAH!!!!!!
Me: Aw hell.
Some dumbass: NEVER THREE NEVER ME SO I DONE THE UNFORGIVEN YEAH

And it's always the same, just like that. You never see one of these winners spitting out lyrics of someone like, say, Voivod:

Dumbass: NO ONE HERE NOWS REAL METAL! PASS THE WEED MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!
Me: Jesus, here we go again...
Dumbass: HERE YOU ARE, YOU'RE WITH ME, PROTECTING ALL MY CREW, I CARVED YOU FROM A TREE, MY VISION IS YOU
Me: Holy crap!

Yeah. I'm typing about weird crap. Maybe the fever is corrupting my brain or something.

And again

This morning, I woke up and all was well. My body didn't ache, I wasn't coughing, and my body temperature had lowered to a brisk 98.6 degrees. Then, when I got to work, my nose started running, which is something that it didn't do for the last couple days. So I blew my nose. And blew my nose. And blew my nose. And the pressure built in my sinuses. And everything started to hurt. And the world around me seemed to get colder and colder. I was sick in a way completely unrelated to how I was sick for the last couple days, and ended up going home an hour and a half early, which is something an iron-man like me would never do. Now, I'm back over the 101 degree mark and absolutely miserable. So, in an attempt to ease my misery, I strolled to the kitchen to get some ice cream. As I pulled it out of the freezer, it slipped, and in an ill-fated attempt to keep it off the floor, I ended up slamming the ice cream into my left ball at a high rate of speed.
The world can French-kiss my ass.