big cliché

Thanks Dusty for sending this over. By the way, I have no idea what happened to 3 and 4. That's the way I received it.

1. What time is it? 04:52 CDT
2. Name as it appears on birth certificate? Wayne Douglas Wright
5. Eye color: Brown
6. Place of birth: Oklahoma City, OK
7. Favorite food: chilean sea bass from the Hotel Derek, Houston
within reason: grilled chicken breast at home
8. Ever been to Africa? Drove past it on the way 'round the world.
9. Ever been toilet papering? yes
10. Love someone so much it made you cry? Yes
11. Been in a car accident? Yes
12. Croutons or bacon bits: croutons
13. Favorite day of the week: Saturday
14. Favorite restaurant: Lynwood's Pizza, Randolph, MA
within reason: Red Lobster (quit laughing)
15. Favorite flower: giant calla lillies
16. Favorite sport to watch: motorcycle racing
17. Favorite drinks: coffee, water, tea
18. Favorite ice cream: Blue Bunny Bunny Tracks
19. Disney or Warner Bros: WB
20. Favorite fast food restaurant: anything chinese
21. What color is your bedroom carpet? tender taupe
22. How many times did you fail your driver's test? failed MC test once.
23. Before this one, from whom did you get your last email? Jefe
24. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Epperson Photo
25. What do you do most often when you are bored? surf internet
26. Bedtime: right after this!
27. Who will respond to this email the quickest? not sure. Kelly?
28. Who is the person least likely to respond? Not sure. Kelly?
29. Favorite TV show: Green Wing (BBCAmerica)
30. Last person you went out to dinner with? Aimee
31. Ford or Chevy? Honda (currently driving a ford)
32. What are you listening to right now? CPU fans. Musically: Killswitch Engage
33. What is your favorite color? none
34. Lake, ocean or river? ocean!
35. How many tattoos do you have? 4, but it looks like 3
36. Have you ever run out of gas? Oh yeah.
37. Any piercings? just the ears, man. Two in the left, one in the right.

I just put up the "Open Floor" post over at the ICR, and guess what it's doing? I don't know if I have it in me to build another custom 'plate. I may just pick something off the shelf this weekend. For now, I'm leaving it as-is. (Insert explicative here).

I mentioned earlier that TN9P would be financed by donations and auctions. Well, since the donations aren't "payin' da bills" I'm getting ready to start some auctions. Because you have all been faithful readers, I'll let you in on what is going first. I have a nice Warwick bass getting ready to go up. I think I'll list it this weekend because I've learned the hard way if you have a listing that ends at 03:00, there are very few bidders around at that hour to try to outbid each other at the last minute. If you want to check out what the listing will look like, click here. It is sweet, but I just don't play it, whereas I do go to the shooting range. If that one sells, I won't need to list anything else, but remember, this is stuff I no longer use, so I might just list it anyway.

So I'm over at MTV2 (quit laughing) trying to find this band who didn't suck, but I couldn't remember their name. Aimee and I saw their video in the wee hours of the morning a few weeks ago and, as usual, I neglected to write their name down. I finally found them tonight. The band's name is Muse and the single was Stockholm Syndrome. Which is rock-a-delic goodness of the highest order. The singer is a dead ringer for Thom Yorke, vocally, and they even sound a bit like Radiohead. But it is like the tracks on Pablo Honey. Remember when Radiohead went all experimental? Muse is the band Radiohead would've been if they had progressed on that straight rock track kind of laid out by Pablo. (I'm sure I've just offically pissed off all Muse and half the Radiohead fans who may be reading. Sorry gang, but I call 'em like I sees 'em.

Anyway, the original point of all this was that while at MTV2 (which is a dog of a site as well as a channel) I noted this little gem:

Metal File: Lamb Of God, A Life Once Lost, Otep, Motley Crue, Cattle Decapitation & More In This Week's Hard News

Now who in their right mind is going to stick lame ol' Smutley Crue in with those guys under the heading Hard News? I almost laughed out loud. To be fair, I remember a day when Motley Crue was indeed making some of the harder music out there, but by comparison with today's hardcore goodies, they seem downright and positively bubble-gum pop. Think about it: how can anything MC have ever done (think "Girls Girls Girls") possibly be placed in the same category as Lamb of God or Otep? I've never even heard of Cattle Decapitation, but I can only imagine that even their sound check would eat MC for lunch and spit them back out for being so sugary sweet and wholesome. Although, I thought the band "And you will know us by the trail of dead" would be super-heavy, but that wasn't the case at all. I was all expecting some black-metal goons, all dolled up in pleather and pale blue skin, but out came four little white guys who looked as if they would be more at home in a dockers ad than on stage. Needless to say, we changed the channel for that one.

I tell you what, kiddiewinkies, this here Killswitch Engage album is beyond words. I've been listening to it pretty much every night for about the last week and it keeps getting better every time I hear it. Dang, those boys from up north know their metal, I tell you what. Some favorites are "Breathe Life", "Rose of Sharyn" and the title track. It was actually the title track that caught my ear over on the ChronixRadio. Mmmmmm. Chronix. Well, now that I think about it, it was the video for "Fixation on the Darkness" from the previous album that initially peaked my interest, but I didn't think much more about them, being on the MTV and all--I figured it was a one-off. Boy was that a mistake. Anyway, if you want to check out something just a tiny bit different--kind of like Fear Factory, only not so sampled and techno-fried, with a bit more mainstream vocal werks--then you may dig the Killswitch. And speaking of new music, is it just me, or does the latest thing from T. Reznor sound exactly like the last thing from T. Reznor? Yawn. It literally bored me to the point that I had to give it back! It was on loan from Rob with the condition that if I liked it, I could keep it.

In movie news, we checked out one of those HBO films called The Girl in the Cafe. It was quite good, mainly because of excellent casting. In actuality, the story was a little thin, but the cast was able to make it seem almost intimate--kind of like a play. It has Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald as well as a few others you may have seen before if you check out the BBCAmerica frequently. In fact, it was directed by the same guy who brought us State of Play, which was quite a good drama that also starred Nighy and MacDonald. Good stuff. Another HBO film I may have neglected to mention was Empire Falls. That one is a bit of a serial, but it surprised me. You never really know what you're gonna get with Ed Harris. One of my all-time favorite roles was his Blair Sullivan in Just Cause. But...like I said, Milk Money was put out just one year earlier, so you just can't tell sometimes. And Paul Newman as Harris' dad will make you forget his cheesy mug on all that salad dressing.

We have an updated total for The New 9 Project! After JHAL's generous contribution today, the kitty is officially up to $29.27. I can almost smell the CLP now! Speaking of the project, I am thinking (seriously now) about coming up with some T-Shirt designes and a sticker or two for cafepress.com. After Dusty's suggestion, I did some further checking on those guys and found it takes absolutely 0 US dollars to get started! Basically, you set up an account, give them the artwork and they smack it on stuff that is made to order. No overhead, no startup costs and best of all, my office won't be taken over by tons of product waiting to be shipped. (Ask Nate how many Monstrous Cock T's he still has in the garage).

And finally, I have decided that Aimee and I are kryptonite for any new sitcom that we like. I know it sounds strange and rather egocentric, but every. single. time we decide we like a show, it quietly slips away without so much as a goodbye. And for us, finding a show is no easy task. We refuse to watch any reality program, so all of the networks' big fish are out. No survivor, no Donald Trump show, no big brother. None of it. We used to tolerate Fear Factor just to see what kind of stupid crap people would do for about 27K after taxes, but when that became the "big tits--little brains" show, we gave it up. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this all started with Stark Raving Mad. Despite Tony Shaloub's Stark Raving Lib'ralism (sorry, couldn't resist) he is a funny man. And then casting Neil P. Harris as his neurotic agent was pure genious. But alas, it was not long for this world. Halfway through the second season, if I recall correclty, it rather uncerimoniously disappeared. Same thing with Boomtown, which was the absolute shizzle when it comes to cop shows. It completely blew Third Watch (which wrapped last season) out of the water and was every bit as good as any (and a lot better than most) cop movie(s) out in the last 10 years. But again, it quietly slipped away midway through the second season, completely dissed and unsupported by N.B. freakin' C. Shortly after that, the netowrks wrapped Frazier, Friends and not long ago, Raymond. (To be honest, I quit watching Raymond some time back, but for a very long time that show was funny). Friends wasn't such a big loss, and I'm inclined to agree that it was time, but Frazier hurt. That was one of our absolute favorites and the cut was almost as deep as when Sienfeld left us. What brought all this on, you ask? We just saw a commercial for something new starring Jennifer Finnigan, which means...you guessed it...Committed isn't coming back either. Dolts.

This is the postcard for those who contribute. I will hand-sign every single one that is sent out with a personal message just for you! By the way, this would be in addition to any cookies or T-shrits you get-- it's your own 4" x 6" piece of cliché history!
Another fine ww production.

One of these days, I'm going to have to break down and learn me some real html coding. My current method of editing the template by starting with one that is almost what I want, then changing fonts, layouts, etc. by trial and error is rather frustrating.

I started recoding this one around 1:20a.m. or so and here we are all finished up and looking good (fingers crossed).

It seems there is something wrong with either the way blogger is reading the header information, or the way it was saved during yesterdays' crack-up. Although, Kelly's blog is now exhibiting the same symptoms that prompted Jefe to pick a new 'plate for SITD, and is still causing HE to be jacked. Since my blog is kept on the cox-hosted webspace, and Jefe's is on the blogger, I'm of the opinion that it has to be something with the way blogger is reading the sidebar info in the "style" information of the header. But with all that said, why is Kelly's just now acting all afool?

I came to the conclusion that it is something in the header because when I first started to edit this 'plate, I copied my older header information from Wednesday, just to get the colors and such, and it hosed the entire 'plate! Even when I put the original header information back in the 'plate, it was still hosed! So, like I said earlier, this is definately outside the scope of my kung-fu. And I'll tell you something right now: if this one ends up all jacked, I'm going to cry like a second grader.

I don't know what gives, but earlier today when I used the blogger button off the Yahoo! toolbar to publish that absolute shite the Supreme court called a decision, something...odd...happened. I even got a nice message from blogger that they were paging an engineer to fix the problem. I don't know what that asshat did to the system, but since then things have been AFU. I deleted my index twice to make sure nothing was left behind, I have cut and pasted a template with a functioning sidebar, and I even completely copied Kelly's template to my blog, but nothing works!

It looks like the sidebar is somehow getting sandwiched between the post title and the post body, but I have compared, line for line, a working template and my AFU template and they are identical. To. the. friggin. >.

I started work on a new template earlier this week, or more accurately a new color scheme, but now it looks like I have to completely redo the whole she-bang. Lovely.

Well, at least the tamales were good.

I now know why people will go to a restaurant and shell out 10 bucks a plate for 3 tamales: one could say they are a pain and rather time consuming.

I still don't know why, but last week, I decided I wanted some home-made tamales. Well tonight was the night I got down with my bad self. Since we're not big fans of the puerco, we opted for chicken. I started with the Bandito's recipe for Red Chile, modified for two peeps (6 dried chile pods, 4 cloves garlic, pinch salt and sprinkle oregano). You first cut off the stems, then soak the pods for a while to rehydrate them before taking them for a spin in your blender. I then baked the chicken in the resulting chile sauce, tightly sealed with foil. Once the chicken was done, I mixed up the masa. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I had the corn husks soaking in crazy-hot, but not quite boiling, water for an hour or two before rolling. I milked Paul for every bit of tamale knowledge he would share--being a native New Mexico cook, he has the skills to pay the bills--and read about every tamale website I could find, but they all failed to mention one thing: just how much that masa likes to go everwhere but where you want it! Each time I would try to spread it over the husk, it would curl up and pull away, sticking to the spoon. Really though, it wasn't that bad, just a bit annoying. Soon, I had gone through all of the chicken (three boneless, skinless breasts) and almost all of the prepared masa. They are gently steaming even as we speak (as I type, whatever). After much ado about nothing, meaning I spent waaaay to long trying to figure out what vessel to use to steam them, I ended up using our trusty black-n-decker veggie steamer. However, the tamales were too tall for the basket so I had to tent it with foil--problem solved! I may have achieved two dozen, but they are all different sizes because the husks were all different sizes. It hadn't occured to me to sort them for size before starting. The chicken was delicious, the chile sauce exquisitely good (thanks to Paul's straight-from-New Mexico chile pods) and I seasoned the masa with chipotlé chili powder, garlic powder, salt and paprika, so if the flavor of the components is any indication, the results should smack us back to next week.

We tried to watch The Cooler tonight during dinner, but it just didn't do it for us. William H. Macy was bringing me way down, and I have never been a big fan of any of the Baldwins. Oh well. You might dig it, but the third strike was that it was set in Vegas. Vegas wasn't all that in person, and movies shot there just bore me to tears because they often try to fill in slow bits by showing all the glitz. No thanks.

Still haven't gotten the 9 Project post cards worked out yet, mostly because I was wrapping tamales for the last 2 hours, but we gots plety o time on that.

After doing about 5 different very time-consuming google image searches, I ended up shooting my own image for The New 9 Project banner. Granted, the picture is not of the CZ-75B, but then again, if I had one to shoot the project really wouldn't be neccessary now would it?

I'm working on a postcard-type thing that would be sent to anyone who donates, but the stupid Paintshop apparently does not care that I sized the image as 4"x6" because it keeps printing it just slightly too big for the postcard. It could be a printer issue, since this printer is a complete piece, but I'll try to work that out tomorrow.

BMEshop.com: Needles: Spinal Needles

Dear God in heaven, why would anyone put the words "dual testicle" and "skewering" in the same sentence and actually mean just that?

This just ain't right, people.

FOXNews.com - Foxlife - Fox411 - Katie Holmes' Missing Days

There! You see? This all but proves my long-standing theory that scientologists kidnap and brainwash all their members. Unless your family hires the A-Team to rescue you during the washing process, you're doomed, man. Doomed.

16 nickels, 1 dime and 1 quarter.

That was the exact count of our change jug. About 11 years ago, I brought home an empty 1 gallon wine jug from Royal Bavaria so Aimee and I would have someplace to put our pennies. After 11-odd years, that dang thing weighed a ton. Well, not a ton, but you get the vibe. Tonight, I cashed it in at the Albertson's down the street. After their sorting 'fee' I've got $26 and some change and you know where that's going. That's right--straight to the New 9 Project. Awww yeah.

Artwork is still in development, but that's no reason to skip contributing your 6 cents!

Outside of that, I've nothing much to say at all, except..."Fershizzle!" I've always wanted to say that.

The New 9 Project has received it's first contributions!

Chris S., longitme reader, co-worker and all around good guy, has kicked down with not one, but TWO hits worth of cold, hard cash-ahol. That's right kids, he scrounged through the seat cusions in the car and came up with 12 cents!

The rest of you are now officially behind, so as the daddy tomato said to the baby tomato after stomping on him, "ketchup!"

(Come on guys, think Pulp Fiction)

I've decided I need a new 9. Sure, the Beretta is nice and shiny and goes "bang" when the trigger is pressed, but a new 9 is just what I need to fight off the impending summer dolrums that are rapidly, and unstoppably, approaching. Problem is that since we are using all our "disposable" income to make extra-phat principal-only payments on our mortgage, there just isn't any money for a new 9 in the budget. This is where I think I will put my mad baking skills to work. I think I'm going to see if I can convince wm to let me sit outside their stores on Saturdays selling cookies to raise money for the New 9 Project. Na, that sucks. Who really wants to spend their Saturdays outside a wm huffin' parking lot exhaust, cigarette smoke and wm customer funk in general? Not I, kids, so maybe you can help me out. At last count, there have been almost 10000 hits here at the cliché. I figure a sweet new 9 will set me back about 600 clams, so if you kind people could all mail me 6 cents, that should just about take care of it. Surely, you have had 6 cent's worth of enjoyment while reading all my inane rants? Or we could go the other way: if you donate 6 bills, I'll officially quit blogging. My brand of useless vanity will never darken your browser again. Or maybe, just maybe, I could have some T-shrits printed up and sell those to raise moo-lah for the project. Yes! That's it! I'll work up an official "New 9 Project" T-shirt, and anyone who kicks down a Jackson will get one in return for their trouble. Or I suppose I could priority mail you two dozen vacuum packed cookies for the same low, low price and include a "New 9 Project" postcard, suitable for framing.

I think I like this idea. I'll work up some art this week and see if we can make this thing work.

CJ - Man Claims David Blaine Stole His 'Godly Powers'

Thanks to Dusty for pointing out this story. It is absolutely delicious. Not like crepes with fresh peaches and sour cream sauce, but delicious none the less.

I think I have all the broken links cleaned up. Sadly, there were some casualties. POT? is no more. I have neglected it for months and in the really real world, it accomplished its goal. I am just about 100% familiarized with my camera gear so it's done. From time to time, if I take a great shot or something I just have to share, I'll put it up using that Hello thingy.

Also, there may be some photo links still missing from the archives, but I'm just not going back through December 2003 to look for dead photo links that no one is reading anyway

I still have all of the POT? files on my HDD for now, so if there was one you were particular fond of, let me know and I'll zip it up and email it to you. Eventually, they will be added to the general photo collection which is burned to CD from time to time, so getting them now will be much easier.

I have to go eat some brain food now, so I don't do some silly crap like that again. I guess that's what I get for trying to rush through stuff at 4 in the a.m.

Oh happy day! I just deleted my entire waynesblog directory from the cox hosted webspace. So while all of the text is safe on the bigcliche directory, all of the photos and the like (POTW, self portrait and God knows what else at this point) are all gone.

You have no idea how amazingly, glaringly stupid I feel at this exact moment. Please ignore all the broken liks until I can get them all cleaned up.

Dolt.

Collect: graham crackers, your favorite chocolate and the rest of the marshmallows from the last time you made rice crispy treats.

Get the Coleman propane burner you purchased 12 years ago out of the garage (you know the one that has never been on a camping trip?) Grab one of your grill skewers.

Break the grahams in half so you have 2 squares instead of one rectangle, place a piece of choclate on one half, then spear your first marshmallow. Heat to desired "doneness" over the burner. If you are one of the fortunate, use your gas range. Immediately smack the ooey-gooey 'mallow on top of the chocolate piece you placed on the graham cracker and press the other half on top of the mashmallow. Pull the skewer out while holding the 'mallow in place with the two halves of your graham crackers.

Repeat this until you have the desired number of s'mores on the plate. Then put the plate in the microwave for 30 seconds because your marshmallow never got hot enough to melt that huge hunk of choclate you put on that graham cracker!

***

By the by, I just finished my pro-death penalty harangue over at IRC. I feel like I've given birth (intellectually, that is) to a very angry ultra right-wing conservative. Good thing the world needs more of us huh? Oh yes, we're all armed and we vote too.

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes Engaged on Yahoo! News Photos

Dude. Mark my words: In 3-5 years when they file for divorce, Katie will snap and go on a hollywood shooting spree. After all, this was her childhood fantasy and those things don't die easily. Or quietly. Or sanely for that matter.

Last night I got a call from Aimee asking if my Lexar JumpDrive was waterproof. I was at lunch at the time, so her message stated to call her back if I wanted to know why. I immediately remembered that I had left it in my pants pocket yesterday. She was doing the laundry and, you knew it was coming, she washed it. That's what I get for being a dork and forgetting to check my pockets before I put things in the hamper.

Anyway, I tried it out and it works fine! Who would've guessed.

Now we just have to wait and see how it's doing in 2 months.

I was reading Yahoo! News the other day and they reported that Michael, despite his acquittal, is no longer allowing boys to stay in his bedroom. Man, didn't see that one coming! You know, I'm thinking it might be best if parents didn't allow their boys on the property at all. In fact, the county should seize the whole thing and sell all of that crap, including the dang chimp, to Disney to pay off his legal bills--thereby sparing us the inevitable "benefit" concert--and they can make a theme park out of the whole sh'bang. Although I have no idea what they could call it. Maybe there would just be a sign out front which read "If you don't pay our $60 dollar admission, Michael will do a come-back tour in your home town". That would probably do it.

We watched this amazing Russian film tonight called Nochnoy Dozor, or The Night Watch. (I gots to give mad props to my man Parker for the hook-up on this one, by the way). Man, was it different. It is the first chapter of three which tell yet another epic tale of good vs. evil. Or in this case, the light and the dark. The premise is that 1000 years ago, the forces of light and dark met up and when neither would yield, a battle (of course) ensued. Once the leader of the light realized both sides were equal and the battle would rage on until they were all dead, he struck an armistice with the leader of the dark forces. They came to the conclusion that they would have to learn to live with each other, so an un-easy peace was reached. The beings who guard this truce are called "others". Neither light or dark can do anything to the humans without the other side's permission. However, the "prophecies" foretold of a Great One who would come and tip the scales for either dark or light depending on which side he chose. Once a human hears the "call" they are free to choose which side they will fight for. Well, they aren't really ever human, they just aren't activated yet. Most, but not all, of the others police each other, making sure that they aren't doing anything to the humans that they aren't supposed to be, like throwing around a curse or making a human into a vampire or practicing magic without a license. Seriously.

The cinematography and photography are super, or at least I thought so, and the acting is very good as well. The problem with the version we watched is the crappy subtitles. The entire thing is in Russian--this is actually the Russian DVD we were loaned--so we had to try every single menu item until we could locate the subtitles. The translation leaves a bit to be desired and there are a few places where it's obvious they chose the wrong word. The biggest issue, and thank God Senor Parker pointed this out, is that they keep referring to the others as "the" other instead of "an" other. This gets confusing because the opening voice-over speaks of "The" Other who will tip the scales in the battle and then through the entire movie they keep saying stuff like "where is THE other" or "he is THE other" instead of "he is AN other".

All in all, I loved it. Aimee did not. There are two story lines going in in this that have absolutely nothing to do with one another except that the protagonist is tied to both story lines. I expect they will be tied together at some later point in the trilogy. If not, they wasted an hour on telling the story of what happens when an other curses someone. So if you are looking for something completely different, this is your movie. I will caution you that one must pay close attention or risk being lost, but I felt it was worth it. I got so distracted by the imagery at one point that I forgot to read the subtitles and had to run it back to understand what they were trying to impart. You can view the trailer here, and I would highly recommend you do so right now.

Well, not really, but I can't seem to get these Morrissey songs out of my head.

The real point of this is to let you know that if you have not seen Spirited Away yet, you probably should. Seriously.

Why are the good weekends always so short? Seriously. If you've got 100 errands to do, have to mow the lawn, or some other unpleasantness it just drags on and on and on. But when you're having fun, or just generally doing nothing, it flies by. That is wrong, people. Just plain wrong.

Here's a little tidbit you can put in the "things I can take Wayne's word for" file. Ballet combined with opera is the most God-awful thing ever to darken the television set. Please allow me to elaborate. You see, as some of you may know, if you decided to plunk down all those extra dollars for the HD tv set you can now experience a picture clarity never before seen by mere mortals. The flipside to this is the relatively scarce amount of HD programming. Unless you feel like springing for Voom, or some other specialty service, that is. Cox has like 5 HD channels now, so you takes what you can, when you can. The real problem here is that the picture is so crystal clear, so vibrant, so...dare I say alive, that most of us can't turn away from even the most sick-inducing programming. Now I can't remember which one of the channels is bringing this muck, but one of them is taping "performances" where someone (obviously a twisted masochist) takes a classic tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream for example, and then makes it an opera with ballet. The end result is a troupe of dancers prancing around like a bunch of twits combined with the melodramatic mewlings of the opera singers--and somehow this is supposed to be enjoyable. There are people in the audience when these things are taped, so even more confusing is that they paid to see this. This strange phenom kept me and Aimee mesmerized for a good twenty minutes. I kept waiting for it to get good or at least better, but it just didn't. In fact, the longer we watched, the more absurd it became. And then there was that nagging thought: they paid to see this live! Trust me on this one, folks, don't ever watch one of these abominations, no matter how good the picture.

We did two and a half movies this weekend. But for the life of me I don't know why we watched that half. It was a stinker called Don't Look Back. It had a promising cast: Eric Stoltz, Billy Bob, John Corbett, Annabeth Gish and others, but it just never came together. The story was lame, the acting even worse and the ending was fully predictable and contrived. Don't look at it! No matter what. The other two were Easy and Collateral. You probably all know about Collateral by now and it was pretty good, despite my initial feelings. Jaime Foxx did a super job and Tom Cruise was, well, Tom Cruise. I will say that my favorite scene in the whole thing was when the street punks steal Vincent's briefcase. Vincent sees them walking away with it and calls them back. Of course, street punk 1 pulls his weapon all gangsta-style with his wrist cocked at some crazy angle and walks towards Vincent. Vincent grabs street punk 1's wrist and simultaneously draws his ultra-sweet HK USC and double-taps him right in the sternum. Before sp1 can even hit the pavement, he pumps two rounds in the chest of sp2, while he is still fumbling with his weapon, then pops one in his forehead for good measure. Then after assessing the situation to make sure there are no more of their friends, he comes back to sp1, who is now laying on the pavement, and pops one more in his forehead to put him down for good. This may sound incredibly goofy, but it is really annoying to me when they portray a character who is supposed to be a "pro" taking one shot at the "mark" and then walking off. To me, that is just as bad as when you see a smoker in one scene with a full cigarette but when they cut back to that character two seconds later it is down to the filter. A true operator won't leave it to chance with one round--especially with an under-powered handgun cartridge. Anyway, the entire shooting sequence is over in about a millisecond and I must admit it caught me by surprise. Oh, and just in case you were thinking "no one can fire accurately that fast" check out this guy. Watch those "Bill Drills" and be amazed!

Easy was just about the first (egad, I hate this genre) romantic comedy that didn't completely suck in about, oh, 2000 years. It was pretty funny in bits, but it still followed the old tried and true rc formula, so it will never achieve true greatness. One of the best bits is when one of the chief characters who has a late nite show interviews "Tom the vegan S&M artist". Tom is a S&M kind of guy, but he's also a vegan with a heart, which means he can't reconcile his love of S&M clothing with the fact that it is mostly leather, which of course comes from dead animals. His "thing" is that he creates animal friendly S&M gear. Now there's a phrase I thought you'd never hear! It's worth a look, but wait for it to come on IFC or something. Oh yeah, if any one of you brings up When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman, City of Angels or Titanic in defense of the rc, I will ban you for at least a week!

Finally, there is action over at IRC, but I haven't put my two cents in yet. I'm still formulating my presentation so it may be a bit yet.

That is it. I am not returning to that damnable "what XXXXXXX character are you?" website any more. I blame Jefe for the whole thing.


You are Carol Anne, from "Poltergeist."
Bad luck just seems to follow you.


Which Horror Movie Character Are You? (Many Options)
brought to you by Quizilla

Here's your picture, imagine your one thousand words.
Another fine ww production.

MTV Movie Awards on Yahoo! News Photos

I guess the context may have made the joke, but this picture does not look much like "joking". Looks more like assault to me.

FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Supreme Court OKs Medical Pot Prosecutions

What the fudge is wrong with this picture? Don't answer that. We all know what is wrong with this picture.

Today is June 6th. Many years ago today, my friend Robert K. was born. If you see him, because I know I won't, tell him I said Happy Birthday.

And if you didn't get a birthday shout-out, it is because I either forgot or don't know your birth date. In either case, Happy Birthday to you too!

Didn't do much this weekend, it rained most of Saturday. At least the part I was awake, anyway. I was able to find the radio freq's the storm reporters (not spotters) use to relay their current observations to NWS here in Norman. That was kind of cool--way better than hearing the storm warnings from Electroman on the national weather radio. Speaking of radio stuff, I also found a HAM network where the entire purpose seems to be for people to contact people from specific states. The members would each take turns calling for other members from their target states to get a confirmed "contact" for their log book. Throughout the course of the half-hour or so I listened, I was able to discern operators from Cali, Wisconsin, Missouri and a few others I can't recall--and this was all at 0300cdt on a Saturday morning. I bet those guys know how to party!

In movie news, there are two more in the can. Saw and Dirty Pretty Things. Both were very good, but neither will leave you feeling all warm and fuzzy about life. I particularly enjoyed Saw, if for nothing other than seeing Cary Elwes completely snap in the end. To see him go from goody two shoes Westley in The Princess Bride to incoherent screaming madman was enjoyable in a very wrong way. The story is basic enough, but it really tries to make you think how far you would go to get back your life that you have started to take for granted. I was actually surprised by the ending, but I've given up trying to figure out the 'whodunit' aspect of these because I usually get it wrong and end up missing out on the details, so I never saw it coming. Dirty was all about the bad things to happen to illegals in London. The two main characters are both immigrants, one completely illegal, Okwe, and one who is on immigration probation, Senay. They work at the same hotel where there are some very strange things afoot, which start wtih Okwe finding a human heart clogging up the lav in room 510. It goes even farther south from there, and includes sweat shop labor, forced fellatio, prostitution, and kidney thieving. Fun for the whole family as they say. Seriously though, it is a good movie about bad things happening to basically good people. If that makes any sense. I would highly recommend it as well as Saw if you have a few hours.

Lastly, Aimee's folks came up for dinner. They brought the food and I cooked it while they tried to pare the rotten peaches out of the tree. It never fails. There are probably several hundred peaches on that tree, and the critters have to taste every other one. No sir, they couldn't just pick a few dozen and eat them to the pit. Oh no, they have to take tiny bites out of every other one on the tree. And really, who wants to share a peach with a finch or a bunch of insects? Not I, that's for sure. Also, Aimee talked her dad in to getting on the roof and fixing a leak in one of the vent pipes. A person would think that with two of us living here, one of us would be able to get on the roof without soiling our trousers. Strangely enough, we share the same paralyzing fear of heights. And rickety ladders. What a pair of chickens, huh?

Oh yeah, don't forget: the final season of 6 Feet Under starts tonight on HBO, so set your VCR/DVR now!

Taken after finding out Jefe is the prince of unintelligible brit-speak.


I'm Alice Cooper!
Take Which Washed up or Dead Rocker are You? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

In no particular order...

A nice, humid early morning to sit on the deck.
Rice crispy treats.
Well worn-in flannel PJs.
Leather seats.
And Swedish fish.

People who use the term "entertaining" to describe having a dinner party or just a plain party. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones on HGTV who are having a room remodeled and when the host of the show asks them how they intend to use the space they invariably reply "well, we do lots of entertaining in here..." Guess what? Unless you are doing plays/concerts/dramatic readings, you ain't entertaining anyone. And even then you probably aren't really that entertaining. Just once, I want to see one of these couples bust off in a Vaudeville style act or even a little piano jazz to validate their claim to be "entertaining".

Now call me old fashioned, but last time I checked prison was supposed to be a bad place you would not want to visit twice.

Earlier tonight I caught a piece on Discovery HD about SuperMax prisons. This where they put the absolute worst of the worst. You know, the ones who just can't play nice with others--even when the others are also convicted inmates who may choose to kill you over looking at you depending on their current mood. These places are no joke, kids. We're talking one-hundred percent solitary confinement 23 hours a day. And you don't get to play with the other cons during that one hour. Oh no, that is your one hour of rec time, usually in an only slightly larger concrete enclosure which has no roof. Gots to get that full-spectrum sunlight, right? To me, this is how a prison should be. Well, actually, that is even a bit soft. I think they should be growing every single thing they eat and should literally be working from sun-up to sun-down to make sure they have enough put up to last through those winter months. But some freakin' hippy lib'rals have convinced Mr. and Mrs. America that having to work just as hard as the farmers who feed this country constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. So instead, we feed them better than our poor, give them gyms and health care programs far above what our vets have access to, and then put them in gen. pop with the finest (well maybe not finest--after all, prisons are where they put the ones who get caught) of this country's criminal minds. It's almost like college for crooks. But there is that anal rape thing, so I guess it's not all holiday, huh?

Anyway, they detailed all of the super-cool technology used to control the SuperMax up in Mass and I was right there with 'em, but then they bring in some touchy-feely, psycho-babblin', love-child of the 60's who is concerned, and this is no joke, that all that solitary confinement may be harming the tender psyches of our country's precious rapists, murderers and child molesters. Well shucks, kids, the murderers are feeling bad! Oh my goo'ness, what ever shall we do? I say let them rot.

Now I know some of you are getting ready to post a comment about "forgiveness" since that is one of the major doctrines of Christianity, but to that I will simply say, you reap what you sow. Yessir, if you are a murderer, than as far as I'm concerned your rights as a human being are forfeit--buried right along with your victim or victims. And this whole ruse of "rehabilitation" is a giant waste of hard-earned tax dollars and, to me anyway, quite offensive. Do you really think anything anyone has to say is going to make these guys and gals stop the behavior which landed them in the bighouse to start with? Nope. If they were going to listen to authority figures and do what good responsible folk ought to, they wouldn't be in the grey bar hotel in the first place, now would they? I say lock them up, work them hard 12 hours a day, then put them to bed in solitary and let them think about exactly why they are there. If they are going to make a change, it will come from within during the wee hours of the night when they've got nothing else to do but think about but the choices they've made which have landed them in their current accommodations.

Here's an idea: hows about we take all the money used for all the extraneous crap they give inmates (TVs, newspapers, mattresses) and make sure there are enough corrections officers to get the job done? Then, just for grins, we give them the tools they need to do the job safely, like riot gear and stab-proof vests. I heard on NPR this weekend that the Oklahoma Department of Corrections will have to be granted a special appropriation, again, at the end of this fiscal year because they will run out of money, again. Alls I gots to say about that is I'm happy none of my family or friends are employed by ODOC any longer. You see kiddiewinks, as Kelly will no doubt concur, if you grow up in Lexington, OK you know someone who works at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center and I don't want any of my peeps working in a prison that can't afford to keep the lights on, let alone give officers the tools they need to protect their lives.

So when these "experts" start talking about how we're damaging people by locking them up, I say let them rot--I'm tired of coddling these animals. If you're going to act like one, then shouldn't logic dictate you be treated like one?