Panhandlemonium

Peanut Gallery!

2007-07-12T21:43:00.000-04:00

Ok, ya'll. I'm stumped. Need your help. :)

Here's what's going on. As some of you know my Grandma passed away a few months ago. To help me remember her every day (not that I really need help doing that.. she's always on my mind), I want to get a turtle tattoo.

Here's where I need your help coming up with something cool. Ok, one of her favorite sayings was "Things work out the way they're supposed to" (which is a good saying, but awful hard to accept, sometimes). My idea is a pic of a turtle turned over on his back, legs wobbling in the air.

What I want is to have something else there, something cool/good that the turtle would not have seen/experienced if he hadn't flipped over on his back. That's the part I can't quite figure out, so I was hoping one of the you, the best and brightest bloggers, could help me out with.

Basically, a super simple pic that shows that even if the circumstances seem like they suck, they happen for a good reason. Make sense to you? Thanks!!!!!!

Scavenger Hunt List

2007-03-07T17:05:00.000-05:00

Ok, here is the list for the digital photo scavenger hunt!

The rules are posted after this list. I'll also be sending this to all participants through email.

1- Ring of fire
2- Monkey
3- Fire hydrant that is not red or yellow
4- Confederate flag
5-Double scoop ice cream cone
6-Barber shop pole (the stripey thing)
7-State or town border
8-Pink car/truck
9-Semi truck w/graffiti on it
10-Homeless person
11-Farm tractor driving on the road
12-Totem pole
13-Someone dressed like it was 1985
14-Grave stone with either your first or last name on it
15-A giant mascot
16-Your best Danny Pearl impersonation
17-Eating a rival restaurant’s food in another restaurant (ie eating BK at McD’s)
18-An Epiphany
19-Fat man in a little coat
20-Spitoon
21-Train depot/station
22-Your favorite restaurant
23-Too much to drink
24-Work in progress
25-Three legged animal
26-Popcorn flavored jelly bean
27-Winning scratch off lottery ticket
28-VW bus
29-Denny’s
30-Poison ivy
31-666
32- Purple heart license plate (send to me for # blurring if needed)
33-Sewer rat
34-Poster/sign in foreign language
35-Completed crossword puzzle
36-John Wayne
37-Waiter/waitress on roller skates
38-Grosser than gross
39-Drive thru restaurant (one that you can’t eat inside - only drive thru service)
40-Insanely large food
41-Jellies (the shoes)
42-Tacky souvenir
43-Elephant ear
44-Who’s your daddy?
45-LP (record for you young kids)
46-Cow pie
47-Abandoned gas station
48-Church lady
49-Confusion
50-Fishing hole

***RULES***
The hunt will start whenever you get this email/post, and will run until March 31st. That should give everyone plenty of time.

1) Interpret the items as you wish... be creative!
2) Don't do anything illegal! I ain't bailing your ass out of jail over this.
3) Please don't cheat & use pictures from online or old pics... cheating spoils the fun!
4) At the end of the hunt please post the pictures online, with the number from the list somewhere in the caption. I think everyone that has told me they want to participate has Myspace, which now allows you 300 pictures, so that's probably a good place to post them.
5) When your pics are all posted drop me a quick comment/email to let me know.

Have fun!!!!!

Photo Scavenger Hunt!

2007-03-01T17:37:00.000-05:00

I'm bored.

Let's have a digital photo scavenger hunt of monumental proportions!

Hooray!

I just need your help, and need to know who wants to participate. This scavenger hunt is open to anyone who reads this post. Anonymous comments are allowed :)

What I need y'all to do is tell me if you'd like in. If you do want in, just give me a list of some items you'd like to have on the scavenger hunt.

I'll figure out more how this is going to work once I figure out if anyone else wants to participate.

Leave me a comment to let me know what you think! Keep checking my blog for more info. :)

Disillusioned

2007-02-04T18:58:00.000-05:00

OK, I know it's been a while since I've blogged. Something finally happened to me today that was so utterly blog worthy, I had to post it.

Some of you know about the "issues" I've been having with my bed. Issues involving my favorite waterbed, forty kitten claws, and about a half inch of water.

Yeah, the kittens popped the waterbed. Not on purpose, or anything. They were just being true to their kitten nature.

When I finally drained the waterbed (R.I.P.) and took it apart, there was about a half inch of water on the bottom of it. Thank heavens for waterbed liners. Only the water had been in here so long (tiny kitten claws leave tiny holes) that it was beginning to seep through the liner. Right onto the heater. Who knows how long away I was from being electrocuted while I was asleep?

Well, I decided that this was a blessing in disguise. I ran down to Walmart and bought one of those spiffy air mattresses. I figured that this was a good idea (which is was) because I would now have this awesome air mattress for A) the rare times I have house guests stay the night, and B) for when I go camping (if my lazy/poor ass ever buys a tent).

The air mattress was great. At first. The longer I slept on it, though, the more strain it caused on my lumbar and cervical spine. Yeah, L4-5 have horrible kinks in them. Any volunteers to rub them out? I'll give you a back rub in return.

Anyways, this would also be a great idea, because now I would have no excuses to get my bedroom painted. Yeah, my bedroom that was painted that god awful blue. The one that about three years ago I said "Hey!! I'm going to paint my bedroom!" and hurried up and patched all the holes with putty so I could paint.

Only I never painted.

So, now I had no excuse. Except for not being able to decide on a color.

Now, I like bright colors, as those of you who have been to my house can tell. Bright colors are usually cheery and happy, and all of that crap. However, whoever built my house was real stingy with windows. So, my bedroom doesn't get much light.

So, off to Home Depot I run and come back with a stack of paint samples about a mile thick. A good friend picked out a color for me, and it turned out being really awesome.

Another good friend volunteered to help paint. We got it done in one coat (one coat if you don't count the coat of primer I put on a few days before), and it looks great.

Now, the aggravation from painting only went to turn the dull throb in my lumbar into a fiery sting. The air mattress, which I once thought was really great, did not help this any.

So, after consulting with my dad, we decided that a new mattress was the perfect birthday present for me, albeit six weeks early.

Yesterday I decided to check out the local furniture stores to get an idea of prices of mattresses and bed frames.

Holy frickin' crap, dude.

The first store I went to was Scan House (on the Parkway), which is one of those cool Scandinavian - Ikeaesque furniture stores. Funky modern stuff that I like.

Dude, mattresses are expensive!! Beds are expensive!!! What the hell???

Discouraged, I left for home.

Today my dad and I went out shopping for mattresses. The first place we stopped was Sears. They were having a 50% off mattress sale! Hooray!!

Nope. No hooray here. Even half off, the mattresses cost an arm and a leg. No, more like a dozen arms and legs. Made out of gold. And encrusted with diamonds.

We head off to Penny's, which, as it turns out, does not have mattresses.

Off to Bed Bath and Beyond. Which also does not have mattresses. So, I guess it's not really "Bed Bath and Beyond". It's more like "Bedroom Bath and Beyond". Only, they don't sell tubs, either, so it's more like "Bedroom Bathroom and Somewhat Beyond to a Certain Extent". For crying out loud, I went there to find a recipe box the other day, and they didn't even have one.

Now, there had been some commercials on TV recently for this factory warehouse that was having a mattress sale this weekend. We knew they were probably going to be crap mattresses, but we figured, what the heck, and headed down to this place.

We get there, and it looked like one of those crappy furniture warehouses. When we went inside, it did not disappoint. It was a crappy furniture warehouse. With furniture made in China, by them little kids that have been sent to Commie Retraining Camp. Hmm.. maybe that kid who made my old cell phone is working there now.

We actually found a decent mattress there, but it had a brand name of something like "Snooz Good". It was comfy, the price was fair, and it was in stock. So, back to the house we head to pick up my pickup (ha ha) to take it home.

On the way back we passed a Discount Bedding place. We figured we might as well stop there just to see what kind of prices they were offering.

It was one of these Serta places with the sheep in the window. We walk in, and there were some on sale, real brand mattresses. I tried one out, and it happened to be way more comfy than the one at the Crap Warehouse. It happened to be the cheapest one in the store, but it was comfy.

The saleslady came up to me and asked what kind of mattress I was looking for. I told her that I was used to sleeping on a waterbed.

"Ooooh, well if you're used to that, you'll probably like this one!" and walks me over to this Serta bed. THAT COST $1500.00!!!!!!!

I was nice and tried it.

"Very nice, but I like that one" and pointed to the cheapest bed in the store.

"You, um, like THAT one???" She gasped, and gave me this smile:

Yeah, you know the ones that the southern women have perfected the art of. The one that they give you just before they say "Bless your heart" (which I have been told really means "F*** you, bitch!").

Yup. That's the one I want. Ha ha, fake smiling saleslady!

So, here we are, waiting while fake smiling saleslady rings up the sale. Right by the sales desk is one of those Tempurpedic mattresses. You know, the ones that you can jump up and down on without spilling that glass of wine you carelessly placed on your bed? The one made of SPACE AGE TEMPUR MATERIAL DEVELOPED BY SCIENTISTS FOR USE ON THE SPACE SHUTTLE!!!!!!!

Yeah, they're also the ones that cost, like, $1700.00 for a queen sized mattress!

So, knowing that I will never in my life be able to drop that kind of cash on a mattress, I figure, what the hell, and lay down on it.

I cannot describe the disappointment I felt.

I mean, this is supposed to be the worlds greatest mattress! It's supposed to be so comfortable that you never want to get out of bed! (Hey, even when I'm sleeping on the couch I never want to get out of bed).

No.

Nope.

Not at all.

The mattress was quite UNcomfortable. It was really really firm. Granted, it did confirm to your body, and did create the proper ass dent where it was necessary. But, once your body was sucked into that mattress, you really couldn't move!

No wonder you stop tossing and turning when you sleep on one of those things! YOU CAN'T MOVE!!!!!!

Getting out of the bed was a real big chore, too. I think the reason that people who sleep on one of those mattresses don't want to get out of bed is because of the work you have to do to even be able to sit up!

Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed. Not too too disappointed, though, because now I will never be upset that I cannot afford this mattress.

Cleaning House

2007-01-15T15:19:00.000-05:00

Paper shredding,
what a drag.
Shredded papers
in a bag.

Paper shredding,
what a joy.
Paper shredder,
not a toy.

Find old bills,
why'd I keep this?
This company
no longer exists.

Paper shredding,
oh what fun.
Paper shredding,
almost done.

Paper shredder,
paper jam.
God damn!
God damn!!

Paper shredder,
tiny scraps.
Paper shredding,
holy crap.

Txt Msgs R C00L

2006-12-09T10:24:00.000-05:00

OK, I've become addicted to text messaging. Someone got me hooked on it. I started off by signing up for the 300 messages for $5 a month. Seeing as incoming messages count towards that 300, I think I used those up in a matter of a few days. So, I switched to the 1000 messages for $10 a month - which would have probably been used up in a week or two.

Now, my old piece of crap phone broke. This is the phone that I thought was the greatest until the little hinge broke off, because it was a cheap piece of shit made in China by a seven year old starving boy who got fired from Kathy Lee's factory, and doesn't know the meaning of the word quality. This little piece that broke off (which in all reality was just a tiny piece of plastic less than a quarter of an inch long) caused my flip phone to not stay open all the way. Which called for the top part of the phone to be held open with one hand so I could actually see what was on the screen.

This sucked for several reasons:

1) It is awkward to text message with only one hand.

2) It made it hard to play Tetris on my phone in the bathroom at work.

3) It felt funny when I was talking to someone on the phone.

"Aw, to hell with it!" I said, and logged on to my cell phone carrier's website to see what new phones were available.

I saw this pink phone there for $179. I checked my eligibility for the rebate, and saw that I could get a $75 rebate towards a new phone if I signed on for another two year contract. Which just means now that I am attached to my cell phone carrier, which is the bane of my existence, for another year.

So, off to the cell phone store I go. I explain my situation to the not-so-friendly representative. He addresses my situation by proceeding to yell at me that I cannot simply buy a new cell phone. What I have to do, according to him, is shell out $50 for phone insurance, hang onto it for just a little over a month (and still use the broken phone, btw) and then turn i my broken phone over to the store for repair. They will return it to the factory, and attempt to repair it. The representative did truthfully advise me that he did not know how long this would take, especially since the starving boy who is familiar with the manufacturing of my phone has been thrown into a Chinese torture/prison camp for violating some red commie law.

If the phone could not be repaired or replaced (which probably would have been the situation - since I was informed that my phone was so old that there are hieroglyphics of ancient civilizations text messaging on it) I would be provided with a new phone of my carriers choice. Which (ooooh, here comes the good part) MIGHT EVEN HAVE A CAMERA!!!!!

Aw, screw that. Look, dude, I just want my pink camera phone today, and I want to pay as little as possible.

I did not like this fellow's attitude, so I basically said (to quote Cartman) "Screw you guys, I'm outta here". And took my business elsewhere.

Which you really can't do when you have a cell phone. That dame contract is more binding than any business contract ever written.

So, off I go to Radio Shack (which is now a "cool" place to shop. Radio Shack used to be only for the geeks and nerds - now everybody shops there. I want my store back!!! But, that is a story for another blog), who just happens to be an authorized dealer for my cell phone carrier.

I'm looking at the phones, and there is my beautiful pink phone, surrounded by an aura of light, begging to be taken home, looking at me with big pink puppy dog cell phone eyes.

The store chick comes up to me, which is a relief. There's just certain times that I feel more comfortable dealing with women. And, buying a pink cell phone is one of them. Don't get me wrong, because there are certain times that I feel more comfortable dealing with men. For example, does it make me sexist/racist/age-ist because I feel more comfortable having my taxes prepared by an old White man than I do by having them done by a young Black woman? Maybe. Oh well.

So, back to the store.

No pressure, no nothing. This chick is all right in my book. I tell her I want that phone. She says "Well, the only one we have in stock in this model is the pink one with the camera."

It's like it's meant to be.

Let me tell you why this phone is so damn awesome:

1) It's pink.

2) It's chunky.

3) It has a camera.

4) There is shiny pink on the front of the phone.

5) You can edit the T9 predictive text dictionary.

6) It has a speaker phone.

7) The little hinges that broke on my previous phone are not so little, ergo harder to break.

So, I get the phone. Rock and roll!

I sign up for the unlimited text messaging feature, because I am about to become a text messaging fool. I am training my little fingers to fly over the number pad with lightning speed. My T9 dictionary is being filled with words that no T9 dictionary has known before. Rock and frickin' roll, baby.

I also sign up for the internet access feature. Which is great, because the first month is free. A month is all I need to download all the ring tones and screen savers that I could ever use. Yes, I am one of those people who gives everybody their own distinctive ring tone. Have any requests to what your ringtone should be? Just let me know, and I will see what I could do.

I also am going around taking pictures of everything with my new camera phone. Screw you, 5.1 Megapixel Cannon camera with 12x optical zoom! I have a cell phone camera now! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! I spit on you! (Ok, no I really don't. I love my Cannon camera with all my heart).

Wow, I didn't mean to ramble on that much about my awesome new pink camera phone. So, to summarize - call me on it! And see me sometime so I can take a picture of you and assign it to your phone book entry. And pick a song for a ringtone. And come over and look at my screen saver of my pissed off cat wearing a Santa hat with reindeer antlers.

Why Can't I Get Warm????

2006-11-20T18:26:00.000-05:00

Damnit, it's not fair.

I move back to Florida to escape the winter. To get away from the sub-artic temperatures. To get away from the snow and that evil evil black ice.

So, what's going on now? It's like 43 degrees out! I'm freezing! This is nuts! It shouldn't be this cold in Florida! WTF???

To top it all of, I haven't been warm for one second since that first cold snap we had back a few weeks ago. I even think I'm colder than S. who shares the gazebo with us on morning break, which doesn't make sense, because I outweigh her by twice, at least!

Even inside my spider hole of a cubicle, it's freezing. I'm getting laughed at because I'm there in my nice cammie jacket, with the hood pulled tight around my head, my light jacket wrapped around my legs, and still shivering. I'm just waiting for a killer whale to bust out of the floor and Nanook the Eskimo to go chasing after it with a harpoon.

Yeah, it's that frickin cold at my desk.

There's little penguins dancing around my desk, frolicking in the prime winter air.

I try to beat it, and go into the horrible horrible bathroom, and hold my hands under the hot water until I can't take it anymore. I even go so far as to turn the tap on next to the sink I'm using, and blast the cold water out of that one. I've even been contemplating running into the stalls and flushing the toilets, in hopes that the water emerging from the tap will thaw my hands.

I'll hold my hands under the water until they are beet red and stingy.

Alas, they are icicles by the time I am back to my igloo desk.

Even here at home I'm freezing. Tonight was the first night that the heat kicked on. Oh, no. It's going to be a long long cold winter.

I'm starting to wonder if I have some sort of strange vitamin deficiency, which not even the One-A-Day is making up for.

My poor feet feel like they are in the beginning stages of frost bite.

Sincerely, I can't wait 'till July. Or August. Yeah, August will be even hotter.

That Doesn't Make Sense!

2006-11-11T09:06:00.000-05:00

So, I'm rereading Jurassic Park, which is a really, really, really great book. The first time I read it was back when I was in High School, right before the movie came out. I started reading it in home room, and then just left school for the rest of the day so I could go home and finish reading it.

Yeah, it's that good of a book.

I haven't read it since then, but have seen the movie about a million times since then, so it's really like reading a brand new book.

However, I did discover something within the first few chapters that really pissed me off. It's been bugging me since I read it a few days ago.

It's inaccurate! There's fallacies! Damn you, Michael Crichton! You're like this super smart science guy! You shouldn't be doing things like this!

Ok, so here's what I noticed. If you've never read the book, and plan on reading it, you probably shouldn't read the rest of this blog.

The book Jurassic Park starts off the same way the movie The Lost World does. With this family on a deserted beach in Costa Rica, and their little girl gets bit by a Procompsognathid. Little chicken sized dinosaur. They call them "compy" in the book, which is easer to type and spell, so I'll do the same from here on out.

So, everybody at the hospital they take the little girl to thinks that it was just a crazy accident, and that she was bitten by a baslik lizard (the ones that run on their hind legs and have that strange skin thing that flares up around their head). They say that that's been happening a lot lately in the area.

To prove this, we cut scene to a clinic, where a midwife has just delivered a baby. She hears squeaking and chirping coming from the nursery. She goes to check on the newborn baby.

"Elena opened the door. The infant lay in a wicker bassinet, swaddled in a light blanket, only its face exposed."

Ok, we get from this that the baby is wrapped up tightly, and only it's face is showing.

"Around the rim of the bassinet, three dark green lizards crouched like gargoyles. When they saw Elena, they cocked their heads and stared curiously at her, but did not flee. In the light of her flashlight Elena saw the blood dripping from their snouts. Softly chirping, one lizard bend down, and with a quick shake of its head, tore a ragged chunk of flesh from the baby."

Ok, so obviously the lizards tore a giant chunk of flesh from the baby's face. Remember this.

"Elena rushed forward, screaming, and the lizards fled into the darkness. But long before she reached the bassinet, she could see what had happened to the infant's face, and she knew the child must be dead."

So, the lizards killed the baby. All plain and simple there. You can check for yourself, page 26.

Next chapter "The Shape of the Data"

Later, when she was calmer, Elena Morales decided not to report the lizard attack. Despite the horror she had seen, she began to worry that she might be criticized for leaving the baby unguarded. She told the mother that the baby had asphyxiated, and she reported the death on the forms she sent to San Jose as SIDS: sudden infant death syndrome. This was a syndrome of unexplained death among very young children; it was unremarkable, and her report went unchallenged."

Which is all good, except for one thing.

Babies that asphyxiate do not have large chunks of flesh missing from their faces!

Didn't anyone notice that?? Didn't that raise any questions? Did anyone even bother to ask the negligent midwife Elena why the baby's face was missing? Or why the sheets in the bassinet were covered with blood? Do they just not pay attention to this kind of thing in Costa Rica????

What the hell, Crichton? WHAT THE HELL??????

Did the mother not even ask to see the baby when she was told it was dead? Or, did she not even care? What the hell?

I have issues with that. If I ever happen to meet Michael Crichton, I'm going to have to discuss that with him.

But, then, that got me to thinking about the movie. Great movie, BTW. I remember my dad and I stood in line down at the theater at Main Street, in Miami Lakes, to see it the first day it came out.

There was all this hype, because of all the great special effects that were in the flick. And, the special effects did not disappoint. Actually, they should re-release this movie now that they have those real cool theaters w/the stadium seating and the kick ass surround sound.

Anyways, there was this dad with his two young boys standing in line behind us to go see the movie. All the time waiting, the boys are talking about dinosaurs, and how awesome dinosaurs are, and playing dinosaur, and talking about how they would never be afraid of dinosaurs.

They sat behind us during the movie, and when the T-Rex began to attack, them kids were screaming their little heads off. Which was kind of funny, but understandable.

But, anyways, back to what I remember from the movie.

Remember when Grant and the two kids were walking around the park trying to get back to the lodge? They come to the giant electric fence? And, to test to see if it is electrified or not, what does Grant do? He throws a stick up against it.

Now, I may be wrong here, but doesn't wood NOT conduct electricity? So, wouldn't a stick just harmlessly bounce off of the fence even if it was electrified?

Please correct me if I am wrong on this, because that whole scene is bugging me too, now.

Well, I'm off to finish the book and locate more inaccuracies.

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-11-11T09:05:00.000-05:00

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-11-04T09:08:00.000-05:00

This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen! Although now they've come out with the ultra Collector's edition of Holy Grail, which makes my plain Collector's Edition look like ass.

My costume rocks

2006-10-31T20:20:00.000-05:00

Here's a pic of my Little Goth Girl costume.

Bill just happened to have a costume that made him look like Ozzy, so I had to get a pic with him.

I tell you what. I had more fun dressed up in this outfit. Let's just put it this way. Don't be too surprised if the dog collar makes a come back in the future. :)

The only drawback the costume had was that the hoops on my earrings kept getting caught on the spikes on my collar, causing a semi-painful costume malfunction. Ah, the price we have to pay to look cool as hell.

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-10-28T09:19:00.000-04:00

Just in case you were wondering where my love for the word "plethora" came from.

Hooray!

2006-10-22T21:05:00.000-04:00

Okay, my free image hosting server is back up, and the pics are back in the blog. I'm glad I don't have to go down to wherever their office is and knock some skulls. :)

Okay, WTF???

2006-10-22T00:24:00.000-04:00

I sincerely hope that there is just something going on with the free image hosting server that I use, because I just viewed my blog, and noticed that every single picure that I have hosted there is not showing!

I'm going to be pissed if I have to re-upload every single picture that I have posted on my blogs.

Oh, BTW, the three bottom blog links on the right hand side of this page are mine, so be sure to check them out. Only, don't bother with them right now, because they are mostly photo blogs.

Frickin' great.

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-10-21T07:58:00.000-04:00

This one goes out to Sammy Pants.

Damn, Johnny Cash was awesome!

Back in the Day

2006-10-17T17:40:00.000-04:00

So there I am, waiting to pick up my takeout, and the song comes on the radio. You know the one. The one that should have never been written, but was written by the band that never should have existed.

I can't even remember the name of the stupid song, but it was that one put out by Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine back in the day. You know, the one about doing the conga. The one that was incredibly popular where I grew up near Miami.

"Hey! Miami Sound Machine! I know Miami! Yeah!"

This took me back to my days spent in grade school, at good ol' Palm Lakes Elementary. Ok, now for those of you who don't know (that's probably a few, because I don't really like to admit this), I was born and raised in Hialeah. 'Nuff said.

So, somebody at DCPS (Dade County Public Schools) had the brilliant idea that it would be beneficial to the small percentage of White kids at my school to be taken out of normal classes (such as math) and thrown into Spanish class.

Because of that, to this day I have problems with long division, fractions, and math. But! Thanks to DCPS, I've retained some knowlegde from that forced class! I still know how to say perro (dog), gato (cat), and mesa (table). So, if I ever find myself in a Mexican restaurant, and there's a cat or dog on the table, I'm all over that.

That class didn't even teach me the most valuable Spanish phrase. This is a phrase I used a lot when I was a courier working around Miami. "Mucho trabajo, un poco dinero." Which, I think means "Lot's of work, little pay."

Then again, I could be wrong about that translation. There was this one Cuban guy that was the parking lot attendant at the dog track who didn't speak a lick of English. So, I'd say that to him every week, and he'd bust out laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Then he'd point at me and say "Jew a fonny gringa!", and keep laughing as he lift the parking gate. He'd still be laughing when I drove out after making the delivery.

Thinking back, I do take offense at being called a gringa. <sigh> The things you do to keep the work environment comfortable.

So, back to the stupid conga song.

Here we are... must have been around third or fourth grade. The Youth Fair (county fair) was coming to town, and the school was abuzz with students working on their projects. Our Spanish teacher got it into her head that it would be a fantastic idea if her Spanish class did some crappy little dance to this song.

So, we got pulled out of even more classes (yeah, dancing to the conga song at the fair is much more important than learning about the Declaration of Independence) to practice our crappy little dance.

There we were in the PE field, about half a dozen White kids, trying like hell to magically grow some Latin rhythm and be able to dance this. Let me tell you something. Not one of us White kids had a nano-ounce (is that a word? It is now!) of Latin rhythm in us.

We were knocking eachother down, falling on our asses, stepping on eachothers feet, and generally ruining what probably would have looked a bit cool had some kids who could dance did it. Every now and then you'd hear the teacher (whose name I forget.... I forget a lot of things about South Florida, and that's the way I like it. It's not easy repressing memories!) groan "Aye yos mios!" and shake her head back and forth.

I guess finally we sucked hard enough to make her forget about it, because we never did end up dancing at the fair. Which is just fine by me! That's all a pre-adolescent kid needs is to be up on stage sucking at dancing, while a bunch of people laugh their asses off at you. Thank you Nordic Ancestors for not giving me rhythm.

People Watching at the Gym

2006-10-16T18:40:00.000-04:00

As you all know I've been kickin' butt down at the gym after work. I've been doing this for about five or six weeks now, and I've surprised myself by really enjoying it. It's a great stress reliever, and looking forward to going makes the work day go by pretty quick. Besides, I don't feel bad about eating a ton of carbs at lunch, because I know I'm going to use them all up later on that night.

Also, as you all know, I'm a people person. I enjoy interacting with (most) people, and I enjoy people watching. Well, there's plenty of people watching to be done at the gym. Plenty of blogworthy people watching, too. So, without further ado, I give you people I've seen at the gym.

My favorite people watching place is on the stationary bike. It's upstairs, and they are right in front of the edge, so you get to slyly look down at everybody without them knowing.

One night I'm just sitting there, pedaling away, when I see this guy in the weight room, which is lined with mirrors on three walls, open on the fourth wall. He could have been considered attractive, but you could tell he was all into himself, which made him completely unattractive. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with thinking/knowing that you look good. I just don't think that you should let people know that you think you look good. That's way too cocky for my taste. This guy looked like he spent a lot of time getting ready in the morning. I couldn't ever be with a guy who spends more time on his hair and outfit than me.

So, here's this guy lifting the dumbbells. He puts them down, and walks up to the mirror until he is about six inches away. Maybe this caught my eye because I personally am a mirror phobe. Wait... is there a medical term for that? Sit tight while I Google that. Holy crap. There is. It's catoptrophobia. See? Ya learn something new every day, even when reading my blog.

So, here he is right infront of the mirror, when he starts doing these insane flex moves. Kinda like the Hans and Franz sketches from SNL back in the day. This was pretty funny, but then he started making kissy faces at his biceps in the mirror. The guy was just one step away from petting and kissing his muscles, which, admittedly, were pretty buff. Pretty funny stuff!

Tonight, I'm on the bike again, and I saw this girl working on the leg machine. The one where you push the bar up with your legs, and it exercises your upper thigh muscles. Great machine, but whups my ass. I'm still only on 10 lbs, and it's been like two weeks. I can do about 5 reps on 30 lbs (don't ask me why there's no 20 lbs), but my legs are shaking worse than they did on the high dive platform at Wakulla Springs.

So, here's this chick, dressed to the nines. She had on this designer (DKNY is designer, right?) ball cap on, that was baby pink, and had glitter and rhinestones on it. Her top was also a DKNY baby pink, with more glitter and rhinestones. Her capri pants (also DKNY baby pink) were also glittered and rhinestoned. I'm pretty sure that if she would have stood up, they would have said something along the lines of "Sugah Angel" or "Ghetto Baby" across the butt.

Look, chick, you don't wear fancy clothes to the gym, just for the fact that they get all stinky, sweaty, and dirty pretty quick. That's why I wear my old softball t-shirt (with fish blood stains), some $7 capri pants, and my lucky camo turkey hat. I really don't care if they get ruined. Well, I would be upset if something happened to the hat. It's my favorite.

Then you have the complete opposite. There was this dude walking around today, again could have been attractive, except he was so full of himself it was overflowing. He had this green t-shirt on that was perhaps a size too small. He turns around, and there is this giant gaping hole right smack in the middle of the back.

No, I mean a giant hole. Not a little hole that you can't notice. Not a little hole that nobody else can notice. Not even a little hole that you notice but don't care about. I'm talking like a hole big enough to be a secondary neck hole that his head would have fit through had it not been so fat.

To top things off, he had one of those disgusting hairy back. I mean really, really hairy. Take the hairiest Italian man you've ever seen and somehow cross breed him with those Mexican wolf boys, and an angora cat, and that's how hairy this dude's back was. And, it was this nasty disgusting sweaty hair, too. Just popping out of that horrible hole in his shirt. It looked kinda like that hairy mole on the lunch lady's chin in grade school. Except, instead of being surrounded by greasy skin, it was surrounded by this sweaty stinky green cotton.

Ugggh. That was sincerely bogus!!!!

After my workout today, I headed back into the locker room to grab my stuff and dip. Now, the ladies locker room has nice little curtained changing rooms, which is great. I don't like changing in front of strangers. Even if I had that perfect super model body I wouldn't like changing around strangers. I just don't like the thought of other women seeing me in my undies, let alone seeing me in what God gave me.

But, apparently, this chick tonight didn't have the same issue as I did. Never mind the fact that there were about three changing rooms open at the moment. Never mind the fact that I am standing there, about two feet away from her. She wanted to change right then and there, so change right then and there she did.

Good lord, why couldn't she just wait five seconds until I was gone! Maybe she got some kind of high by watching me squirm as I tried to pack up and leave while looking straight down at my feet, and trying like hell not to look in the mirror and see her reflection.

Come on, girl, not everybody wants to see your ass cheeks and skanky underwear. Have some courtesey for the rest of us!!!

Amy Zen

2006-10-14T08:48:00.000-04:00

Here is a month's worth of zen for you. Thanks to Beth for the idea. Enjoy.

Zen is not something that you can think up. It just comes to you.

Cake energy is false energy.

Apathy is a pit. Empathy is a mountain. Walk the land between both, and life will be good.

Rules are rules. If more people understood this, the world would be a better place.

Never play Flock of Seagulls before 10:00 AM.

Notes don't mean crap unless you do something with them.

Jeans can fool you, but panties don't lie. (Beff Zen)

Priest or not, God still wants you to obey all traffic laws.

When you're 40 and still living with your mom, everything crap rolls right down the hill with you. (no, just because I can't drop it after 7 months doesn't mean that I'm bitter)

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-10-14T08:45:00.000-04:00

Oh, man, I loved this show! They just don't make 'em like this anymore. :)

Food Ruined

2006-10-10T19:55:00.000-04:00

Ok, you all know that I am on a diet. Bustin' butt at the gym every day after work. Counting every calorie and gram of fat that I consume.

I hope I'm not pissing anyone off by announcing how many calories are in foods. It's just the way that is working for me. I found out that by becoming concious of what I am consuming, it's easier for me to consciously cut back.

And, so far, it's worked. To date, I've lost 22 pounds since I started this around mid July. I'm taking pictures every month to keep track. No, I'm not posting them here. Not sure if I'll want to post them once this journey of mine is done. Depends what the end result is.

As a result of my calorie announcements I've managed to ruin a couple of foods for Beth. So, in all fairness, I'm going to ruin those foods, and some others for the rest of you.

It all started with Pop Tarts.

2 Pop Tarts - 420 calories!!!
Slice of Little Ceasers Cheese Pizza - 167 calories
Ruby Tuesday Buffalo Chicken Tender Platter - 1108 calories, 74 grams of fat
Chik Fil A 4 piece Chicken Strip - 290 Calories
KFC Individual Popcorn Chicken - 380 Calories, 21 grams fat, 4.5 grams trans fat
Big Mac - 204 Calories, 16 grams fat
McDonald's medium Fry - 450 Calories, 22 grams fat
Whopper - 700 calories, 42 grams fat
Papa Johns Slice of Cheese Pizza - 310 calories
Zaxby's Chicken Finger Plate - 1077 calories, 86 grams fat, 8 grams trans fat

Uggh. That's all that I can do for now. I'm **starving** now for some real food.

Zentacular Sunday

2006-10-09T10:12:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a really great day. I am so relaxed after Beth and my mini road trip to Itchetucknee.

We had been planning a river trip for about a month now. If you go to the Itchetucknee after Labor Day, the tram service is not running, and you pretty much have the river to yourself. The first Saturday we were supposed to go Beth had to go out of town. The second Saturday, I had to go to work to give that cheezy presentation. The third Saturday (this past Saturday), we had the mystery meeting sprung on us.

When we heard about that meeting, we decided that we were going to go either A) After work on Saturday, or B) on Sunday. This week was really the only Sunday we could have gone, because my dad was out of town, so I wasn't going fishing. Besides that, it's starting to get pretty chilly here. If we had waited any longer, it would have been too cold to go.

So, we left about 10:00, hoping and praying that by the time we got down there it would be a bit warmer than the 65 degrees it was now. We head on down I10, with the river in our sights. Blasting 80's music, and singing Journey at the top of our lungs.

Our first planned stop in our journey was the Little Skeezers off of I75 in Lake City. Little Ceasers is such a treat for us since there isn't one around Tally. It's cheap, good, and chock full of trans fat deliciousness.

Finally we get there. Get our pizza and cRaZY bread, and sit down to enjoy the goodness. This chick walks in the door, and as she's waiting for her order, she keeps glancing over towards us trying to make eye contact.

I'm silently repeating my mental mantra that I always use in these kind of situations. "Please don't talk to us, PLEASE don't talk to us."

I don't know what it is... I must have this giant invisible tattoo on my forehead that says something along the lines of "Hey, freaks! Talk to me!"

Wherever I am, the freaks are always compelled to strike up the most bizarre conversations with me. Don't believe me? Come hang out with me one day, you'll see what I mean. It's been like that all my life.

And, I'm not the type of person that can ignore somebody or just walk away. I can't really give someone the cold shoulder without feeling like crap inside. I have to stand there and listen to what they say, and pretend to give a crap, when all I really want to do is scream from the top of my lungs "Shut the hell up! I really don't give a damn!" Just watch my interaction with that chick we work with.... no, those TWO chicks that we work with (L & V).

But, I'm getting sidetracked here. Although, loyal readers, you're used to that by now.

I had to get up and hit the little girls room, so I left the table for a few minutes. When I came back, I realized that poor Beth must have that same invisible tattoo on her forehead, 'cause the chick had struck up this insane conversation with her.

I sit back down. Ok, here's what I missed. The chick informed Beth that she was the youngest of 12, and she's had a man for two years. The way she said it was like this was a major accomplishment for her family.

She's showing Beth her ring (not sure if it was a wedding ring or engagement ring), which is sincerely the most god awful thing I've ever seen in my life. This wasn't no Wal-Mart ring. This wasn't even a K-Mart ring. This was more along the lines of a Circle-K ring. I've seen prettier rings come out of a gumball machine.

Beth did the proper thing and oohed and ahhed over it.

Trying to take some of the heat off of Beth, I comment on the chick's nails. They were done in a black french manicure. Since I had painted my toenails black, I said "Hey, I like your nail polish, ha-ha!". She holds her hands closer to me, and OH MY DEAR SWEET JESUS. I swear to god, they were Lee Press On Nails! I could have sworn they stopped making those things in the late 80's! To top it off, we were informed that the white tips glow in the dark, and they "Ain't never comin' off now, 'cause my man done super glued them on."

I swear, I'm not making this up. Let me take a quick moment to describe this chick to you. She is barefoot, with the bottom of her feet black as the ace of spades (This is a known fact, because she showed them off to Beth), wearing these pink short shorts that said "Candy Girl" across the butt, a black produce trucking company t-shirt, no bra, and was sporting a really really horrible hair cut. The only way I can think to describe it was as a reverse mullet gone wrong.

Look, I hate to make fun of rednecks, because 1) I'm a redneck, and proud, 2) Rednecks aren't bad people, and 3) They all ready get made fun of enough. But, this chick really made me look like just a pinkneck.

For some reason she starts talking about the CB radio that she has out in her "ride".

"No really, my man just put a CB in my ride. If you don't believe me, come see! It's in my ride!"

Knowing that she would never LEAVE if I didn't at least go humor her, I head out to check out her "ride".

Hey, wow, I've never seen a CB radio before. That's just frickin' great.

I tried desperately to head back inside to the safety of Little Ceasers, but she wasn't done with me yet. She begins to tell me how her Daddy is building a mud bogging truck to give to her.

OMG, will this horror ever end? I just used my ol' customer service trick and said "Wow! That's cool! Well, drive safe and take care!" waved, and walked back inside.

The second her truck was out of sight, Beth and I cracked up, making the church people inside give us strange looks. Look, ya'll are just jealous because we're going swimming.

The ordeal is over, and we head out to hit the river. On the way out we see this, and I had to take a shot.

Hey, baby, going my way? (BTW, that is sarcasam. We would have picked him up, but we didn't really feel like getting killed. I especially like the way he is holding his thumb out.)

So, we head down the road, once again, river bound. On the way we pass the tube centers, and see that there should be at least a couple other people going down the river, which is a relief to me. I don't know why, but I did feel somewhat uncomfortable about the two of us going down the river alone. This way there would be people in front of us to scare the gators in my mind away.

Finally! We're at the park! Hooray! Let the fun start! We are both so psyched to be there. This is one of our favorite things to do, and knowing that this would be possibly the last time that we could do this until next spring made it even better.

We head off down the trail to the mid point landing. I tell you what, right then, in that very moment, I felt so perfectly southern that it just made me grin from ear to ear. And, I mean that in a very good way. Here I am, walking down a dirt path through the woods, barefoot, heading towards the river to do some swimming. The sun was shining, there was a cool breeze, and the fallen leaves made a pefectly soft carpet to walk on. It was bliss. I LOVE this state!

We get to the landing, and start heading down the boardwalk. At the start of the boardwalk, there is an abandoned baby stroller, pair of shoes, and a pair of jeans with a really bogus stain on them. God, I hope we don't run into the owner of said jeans. At the raft at the end of the boardwalk is an abandoned t-shirt, which means that someone is very possibly heading down the river butt neked.

There is a couple of hikers standing on the raft, gazing down the river. They must have been newleyweds, because they just had that aura around them of sheer happiness. I think we ruined their moment. ;)

I didn't want to ruin it too much further, so I politely asked "Hey, do ya'll mind if I run here?"

No, they did not mind. And after a few minutes of hesitation I run and cannonball into the river, coming up with a hoot of joy. It is sheer ecstasy jumping into the river and being surrounded by the crisp, clear, flowing water. Beth throws me my raft and jumps in behind me. The river begins to carry us away.

If you've never been down the Itchetucknee River, I beg you to come with me one time. Beth shared this utopia with me, and I want to share it with you. I know that's a real gay sounding statement, but it's true. Just let me know when you want to go.

We're flowing down the river, and didn't even run into any tubers between Mid Point and Dampiers Landing, which was great. I wanted to jump back in, so we got off at Dampiers Landing, trying like hell not to slip on the moldy limestone bank.

We had to wait on the raft for half a dozen kyakers to get out of the water. Once they were out of the water, I was back in the water with a quick run and a jump, and a huge splash.

Now, I had an underwater camera, which is reusable (woot!), and my plans were to have Beth take a picture of me being a spider monkey on the jumping tree. Of course, I didn't even get halfway up the tree before my adult instincts kicked in and I chickened out. That's okay, though. I guess it's not really all that safe to jump from the tree.

Back down the river we head, belting out corny songs at the top of our lungs. When we got to the bouncy log (it's a submerged tree that lies just under the water. You can sit on it and make it bounce. In the summer, you get a little kid to stand on the end that sticks out... five or six people stand on the underwater end and all jump off at the same time, flinging the kid into the air) we sat there for a break, and to let the tubers that came in behind us to pass.

While we're just sitting there, Ranger Cheech comes along in his kayak.

"Did you girls loose something?"

What, do we have these lost looks on our faces?

"No, we're just taking a break. We're waiting to see if we can see the hawk that's been screeching."

Ranger Cheech, who was smoking something really really good, looks up into the trees. We hear taptaptaptaptap coming from the trees.

"No, that's the pilated woodpecker."

Oh, wow, thanks for that lesson, Ranger Cheech. I for sure thought that the taptaptaptap was a hawk crying. Thank you so much for educating us on that matter.

"Yeah, that's a woodpecker, but we heard what I think is a Red Tailed Hawk."

He looks around again, and hears a small bird call.

"What kind of bird do you think that is?"

"I have no clue" I reply. By now we've been out of the water for a good 10 minutes, and I'm beginning to turn blue, so naturally I'm shivering.

"If you're cold, you shouldn't stop swimming. You should keep swimming or go to the side and sit on a tree."

Wow, thanks again for your wisdom there, Ranger Cheech. Just what the hell do you think we're doing right now? I swear, this guy was stoned out of his mind.

"Um, yeah, we're, uh, fixin' to get back in in a bit." I say, and thank heavens, Ranger Cheech merrily paddles away.

When he's out of sight, we're back in the water.

Now comes the mellow part of the journey. Goofing off is over, and it's time to just lie back and enjoy the beauty of the place. Be at one with nature, and all that tree hugger shit. I love it!

The rest of the trip is pretty mellow. We stopped to take a quick water break. These kayakers passed and asked Beth "Are you going to swim down the whole river?"

No, idiot, in a few more minutes she's going to sprout wings and fly us back.

No, dummy, she's getting off the river at the next bend and taking the subway back.

No, chump, we parked in the swamp right over there, and we're taking the truck back.

Hello?! What other choice does she have than to swim down the rest of the river??

Other than that, the rest of the trip was uneventful. Oh yeah, except for when Beth slammed me in the face with a tree limb.

When we get to the final landing, Beth did slip on the slimy limestone resulting in this:

Oooooooh, that looks like that smarts.

We're out of the river, dripping wet, freezing cold, and faced with a 15 minute walk back to the truck. I'm barefoot, and it's all blacktop. I have nice blisters on my feet now, but at least the pavement was warm. On the way back another insane ranger almost runs us down on the road, and then waves to us.

What the hell, do you have to be psycho to be a ranger at this park?

We get back to the truck, dry off, and get into some warm clothes. We head over to the North Entrance of the park so I can show Beth the head springs.

Which is by far one of the most beautiful springs I've seen. The plaque out front of the head spring couldn't be more right:

We ran into the newlyweds from the raft. They asked us to take their picture. They were so cute! Especially the woman who had the most adorable southern accent and sweetest voice. I hope their marriage lasts.

This is what we saw at the river head:

Again, with crystal clear water. Good sized fish there, too.

I think this is what was needed to convince Beth to go down the river from the North Entrance. Hooray!!!

We leave the park and head back towards home. I decide to be all cool, and take a different way back to 27. Boy, was I wrong. Because pretty soon we were lost. Not too too lost... I'm sure we could have found our way somewhere eventually.

I gave up, pulled over, and decided to ask some directions from a smart ass (thems my kind of people!)

"Um... where the hell are we?" I asked the guy.

"Florida" he replied with a smile.

"Yeah, um, could you possible narrow that down a little bit?"

"You're near Lake City."

"Ok, how do I get there?"

"Well, if you keep going down this road, you'll eventually get to 90. Where are you trying to get to?"

"Tallahassee" I replied, and you could tell by the look on his face that he didn't really know what that was. "We can get to there on 90, but we do have to be back before Tuesday morning. Can you get to 75 or 27 from here?"

So, he gives us directions to 75, which did take us through some real real rural farm country, but eventually did put us on the highway.

Back on the highway, we head back down on I10, the state's most boring stretch of highway. We're looking for the DQ. Finally we find it, and pull over to eat.

This was a bad decision. Beth got gyped on her Blizzard, which smelled oh so good, but I was trying to be good and not have any ice cream. We both ordered foot long dogs, but what we got was two hot dogs stuck together in a foot long bun. The small fry should have been called a mini fry.

However, it was food that was well needed. Swimming down the river really takes it out of you.

We head on back down the highway as the exhaustion begins to set in. I freaked out Beth by announcing "Huh! I really should be wearing my glasses when I'm driving at night!"

Hee hee! Just the words you want to hear from someone who is driving you home.

We finally got home. I don't know what Beth did, but I crashed within seconds of walking through the door. I slept until 9:30 today, which is something I haven't been able to do since I hit 30.

I'm still feeling the affects of sleep today. My legs and L4 are sore from the swimming, but it's a good kind of sore.

Know what? I can't wait to go back to the river next spring.

Another Fishing Post

2006-10-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

Just incase you all thought that fishing was just something I picked up when I moved to Tally...

To this day I remember catching that grouper. That was a fun day.

So, see? Fishing is in my blood. :)

Sunday Morning, Not Fishing

2006-10-08T09:00:00.000-04:00

No fishing today. I'm sincerely upset over that. Sunday morning fishing is my religion, the East River is my church, and my soft plastic swim minnows are my offerings.

Ok, maybe that is a bit of hyperbole, but I do enjoy my Sunday fishing. I'm sitting here, just hoping and praying that any second my dad is going to pull up to the house, with Mitzi in tow, and say "I came back from vacation early just so we could go fishing!"

Alas, not gonna happen. So, instead, I leave you with this fishing related blog.

I will now answer the question which has racked man's brains all throughout history.

Why do mullet jump?

I'll tell you why.

They jump in fear of me and my cast net of bait fish doom.

The pinfish and mullet swim like they have never swam before when they hear the silent approach of the boat. They become paralyzed with fear when the shadow of me standing on the bow, with cast net in hand, hits the water.

They would rather swim into the jaws of the bull alligator that silently waits in the shallow water along the shore than to be caught under my mighty cast net of doom.

They know that once they are caught they will become the main course for a much bigger, hungrier fish. There is little consolation in knowing that the bigger fish that eats them may very well become my neighbors or coworkers dinner.

I stand on the bow, looking for the slight ripple in the water from a school of fish. They swim to the small, shallow inlet, thinking that there is safety there, not realizing that Mitzi is a flats boat, and can easily navigate eight inches of water.

With a quick twist and toss, the cast net is in the air, arched in a perfect semi-circle. It hits the water with a spectacular splashing sound, and sinks to the bottom, trapping everything in it.

I pull the net back in, my feet and legs getting covered with muck, and drop the captured booty on the boat floor. There are 6" mullet, which do get let go, because they are too big for bait. They are the lucky ones. There is a medium sized crab, which would have been let go, had the bastard not pinched my fingers. You made me bleed, you are now redfish bait. An eye for an eye, baby. What remains is about half a dozen pinfish.

These make excellent bait. We throw them into the live well, and head out to deeper water.

I grab a pinfish and stick it on my hook. I hate the way that their little mouths open in surprise when you jab the hook through their back.

The pinfish gets the ride of his life as I cast him out. I tell you what, them fish aren't stupid. They go right for the long grass and hide. I make sure to yank on the line every few seconds to keep him exposed to larger fish.

If I don't catch anything after a while, the little guy gets set free with a complimentary body piercing, courtesy of me.

Saturday Morning Flashback

2006-10-07T12:02:00.000-04:00

Holy crap, remember this?

From the Electric Company. This stupid song has been stuck in my head for the past 25 years. It got to the point where I thought that it was something I had made up.

Thank you, Youtube, for posting this video and proving that I am slightly less insane than I had previously thought.

Damnit! The Japanese did it again!

2006-09-30T19:10:00.000-04:00

Today was our company get together for Customer Service week. Hoo-frickin-ray.

It was at the Fun Station, which is nothing like the Fun Station type places that I remember from my childhood.

You know the Fun Station. Every town that's anything has one. Video Games, Skee-Ball, Go Karts, Batting Cages, Putt Putt... I'd go on some more, but you know what I mean.

Honestly I thought that it would be pretty lame, but it did end up being a good time. Pretty fun to get out there with your co-workers, and not really be all stressed out from work. See people that you work with every day not wearing work clothes and the such. See everyone's kids.

I got my chance to be a semi social butterfly, which is a skill that I am trying to develop. So far, it's coming along nicely.

Now, I love me my arcade games. I remember going with my dad, back in the day, to the Westland Mall, and spending hours in the Fun-o-Rama. Back then arcade games only cost a quarter. You could stick a $5 bill in the token machine, walk away with $6 worth of tokens, and have a field day. That's because the arcade games were easier to play, less complex, way more fun, easier to score a free game, and all in all better than arcade games are today.

The only game in the entire place that I had played before was Galaga, which made me feel really old. Number 1, it's Galaga, which even though it's a great game, it's pretty Old School. Number 2, it had to announce, in big bright yellow letters on the front of the machine, that it was from the "Class of 1981". For crying out loud, I work with people who weren't even alive in 1981! When I made the joke "My Atari thumb is cramping up just looking at the game" many people didn't get it.

It's such a shame. I won't mention her name, but one of our co-workers did say, one day "What's Atari?"

OMG. That hurt. That hurt bad. I spent many a summer day glued to the green shag carpet in our living room, planted in front of our GIANT TV set (you know, the kind that was in a giant wood paneled box? No, TV's didn't look like they do today) playing Space Invaders and Pitfall until my eyes were crossed. When I couldn't see straight anymore, I went outside and played on the Slip n' Slide for a while.

Damn, those were good ol' days. I wonder how much it would cost to get an Atari console on EBay. Hmm.... I'm going to have to look into that.

But, back to Galaga. Do you know that it cost two tokens to play that bad boy?

And, another thing! You only got three tokens for $1. What the hell?!? What kind of allowances are kids getting these days so they can afford to play arcade games? I tell you what, when I was growing up I got $12 a week for allowance. And, this is when I was about 10 or 11. And, that money lasted me like it was a million bucks. That bought me the new copy of Tiger Beat, a cherry Slurpee, a pack of Nerds, a back of Bubbalicious, and I still had plenty of money left over.

So, now, at the arcade, they had two of those crazy Japanese dancing games. I played one of them with G., and was immediately addicted. I swear, I must have pumped a good $20 bucks into that machine. But, I tell you, that game was fun as hell. And, some good damn cardio. Beff and I have plans to go back and play that game some more. I think I may have sprained my L4 & L5, though. I guess that's the price you have to pay to kick butt on the Japanese Dance Game.

I get home, and all I can think of is this awesome awesome game. According to J, you can get this game for your X-Box.

I was on a mission to find this game for my X-Box so I can majorly kick some butt on this machine.

After looking around online, I find a game shop on my side of town that has both the game mat and the game in stock. So, off I head down the Parkway to buy this game. I go to the secondhand game shop down by the WalMart down there. They basically looked at me like I had a giant penis growing out of the middle of my forehead, and stated that they did not carry those.

I know that there is a game shop that has these in stock, because I called them before I left the house. The guy on the phone guaranteed me that they had them in stock. I remember seeing the address as being on the Parkway.

Oh, holy crap.

Yeah, you know where this is going.

It was the game shop... IN THE MALL.

Uggggh.

What was I thinking? Going to the mall on a Saturday afternoon? Going to the mall at all?

Damn you Japanese Dance Game and your crack like addictive ways. Damn you for making me need to have you right now. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

Now, I don't know what it is about malls that makes people walk uber slow. I hate that. When I walk, it's get the hell out of my way. If you're going to walk slow , move over to one side of the mall walkways. Don't spread all out in an uber slow moving line. MOVE YOUR ASS!

I hate slow. It's the new millennium. Everything should be fast! No, not just fast, uber lightning fast! Nownownow!

Maybe high speed internet has spoiled me. But, in my opinion, everything in life should move as fast as DSL. No, not as fast as the DSL ISP I have, because that can be dreadfully slow.

Ok, I'm off track.

So, I make my way through the (uggh) mall, and get to the game store. Get my game and game pad, head back through the (grrrr) mall, and go home. Plug the mat in. Pop the game in. Get ready to dance Japanese style. Oooooooh yeah, baby. Loves it.

You know what? That fucker is so damn hard and fast that I can't do a thing with it!!!!

Damn you Japan. Damn you and your wacky games. Damn you all to hell.

Survivor - S13E3

2006-09-29T19:00:00.000-04:00

Dude, I'm just giving up on this. Survivor this year is so horribly lame it hurts my brain too much to even think about it. And, right now I'm bored with life and am in dire need of intellectual stimulation, so you know that Survivor has to be pretty damn lame.

The tribes merged. Flicka is really pissing me off. So is that Parvitti chick, especially since I found out her name is pronounced "Poverty", which, in my opinion, is a pretty gay thing to name your kid. No longer semi attractive Jonathan is starting to piss me off.

I end this Survivor blog until something blogworthy happens, which just might be never.

On that note, I leave you this cool link.

www.jumpedtheshark.com

Enjoy.

Rant blog

2006-09-27T19:47:00.000-04:00

Hooray! It's another classic Rant Blog from Amy.

I know I said that I wouldn't be using this blog for rant blogs, that I would save those for Myspace. However, this is something that has been picking away at my brain for a while now, and something happened that I can't keep it inside anymore. This is a serious rant blog, though. After the intro, this is going to turn into a letter to my friend. I don't know if she will ever read it.

One of the things that pisses me off more than anything is stupid women. Stupid, dumb ass women, who let asshole men walk all over them.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love men. Oh, yes I do. So, don't get the ultra wrong impression that I'm some sort of man hating lesbian, because I am **SO** not. And, this isn't an anti-men blog. It's actually an anti-asshole men blog, but more importantly, an anti-certain type of woman blog.

I hate the women that don't think that they can live through life without a man. The ones that think that they need a man to be happy. The ones that jump from bad relationship to bad relationship, just to have the company of a man.

Honey, you don't need a man to be happy, make you happy, keep you happy, keep you sane, help you live life, or anything like that. It's a little something called self reliance, which far too few people seem to have these days.

But, what I hate even more than that type of woman, is a woman who has a uber horrible relationship with King Asshole of Infected Rectum City (who, incidentally treats her like ass, no pun intended... or maybe it was intended. Not important here), SEES the problem, ADMITS the problem, COMPLAINS about the problem, CRIES about the problem, TALKS ABOUT SOLVING THE PROBLEM, but NEVER DOES A DAMN THING ABOUT IT.

Whenever I hear about a woman in this situation, I do feel bad for her at first. Women are very emotional, caring, loving creatures, which I think are both the best and worst qualities about our sex.

However, I stop feeling bad for her after the umpteenth time I hear her say how she's going to fix the problem. Or how he has until suchandsuch a date to straighten up, or he's gone. Or, how "NEXT TIME" is the last time.

The problem with this type of woman is that there is always a "next time". This date always gets pushed forward until the next one. The problem never gets fixed. She just keeps having a relationship with the asshole, allowing him to take advantage of her more and more. She's just digging her hole/grave deeper and deeper.

Dear Friend,

Damnit, woman, why can't you stand up yourself and be the strong chick that I know you can be? Don't you understand that you are under absolutely NO obligation to this asshole? There are only TWO people in your life that should be your priority right now. Your child and yourself.

Stand up, and show your daughter and yourself that you are a strong, powerful woman, who don't take shit from nobody.

Don't let your daughter grow up in this environment and think that it's perfectly normal for men to take advantage of women, and treat them like crap. You have to take the step and show her that women are strong beings that deserve to be placed on a pedestal, and respected.

Don't you understand that if you don't stop this now, THIS WILL HAPPEN! Your daughter will find herself in horrible relationships similar to the one you are in now! If her husband or boyfriend steals from her, she will think that it is fine; that there is nothing that can be done about it. She will think that it is normal for her husband or boyfriend to treat her like shit. She will think it is absolutely fine that her life is crap because of her husband or boyfriend.

And, I know that your relationship isn't to the point that I am about to touch on. I pray that isn't isn't like this. But, even worse, she will think that it is perfectly normal for her husband or boyfriend to beat her up after a hard day at work. She will think that it is fine for him to rape her when she is not in the mood. Even worse, she will think that she somehow deserves ithis type of treatment. She will think that it is her fault, and that she is to blame.

I beg you to take a stand right now, and not let this happen to your precious, beautiful child. I swear, friend, I am crying as I am writing this, because I do not want your beautiful child to have this grim future.

I say that I don't feel sorry for you anymore. I say that I can't feel sorry for you anymore. But, the emotions that I am feeling while writing this show myself that that is not true. While we are not best fiends, you are my friend, and I do care about you, and I do love you. Even though I haven't seen your child since she was a day old, I deeply care about her, and I do love her too.

You know that I am always there for you, if you ever need me for anything. If you ever need help leaving this asshole, I will be there for you, and will do whatever it takes to help you out. You have many caring, loving friends that I know will do the same.

Please be strong, friend. Look deep into your heart and soul, and do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your child. I know that you can do it, because you are a strong, beautiful woman.

If you read this, I don't know if you will never speak to me again, or even hate me. But, if this letter gives you even a small push towards making your life better, it will all have been worth it.

Survivor - S13E2

2006-09-21T21:06:00.000-04:00

You know, I'm sorry. I'm just not feeling Survivor this time around. This season has proved to be completely disappointing so far. I don't know if it's because the show jumped the shark a few seasons back, or if it's because of the multiple five member tribes, or if it's because there are no real hot guys on this season, or if it's because of the way that Survivor seems to be completely disregarding Team Whitey. Whatever the reason, I'm just not into it. I'm really hoping that the show takes a turn for the better real soon.

Well, even though this isn't being written full hearted, here is my recap of S12E2.

Opening scene of SWA sitting around a mound of coconut husks, trying desperately to make fire. It's still just not happening for them. Which is somewhat funny, and, yet, somewhat sad in a real, real pitiful way. It's something like day four, and the four remaining "city kids" still don't have fire, even though a flint was very generously given to them, as charity, by Probst.

One of the tribe members starts complaining about not having fire, and how this isn't cool, especially since they are supposed to be representin'. Well, girlfriend, you better start representin' like hell and get a fire going. It is the most essential element that you need in a survival situation such as, well, Survivor.

Nate gives up, and walks away in obvious frustration. One of the women picks up the flint, and starts banging the machette against it. After a few knocks, Hooray!, they have fire. All is well in SWA now, hugs are passed around, and backs are slapped.

Cut shot to Surviving La Vida Loca out fishing. Dude, what did ya'll do, take every single spear gun that was on the schooner? I swear, everyone in the tribe had a spear gun. Except for Billy Boy, but we'll get back to him in a minute. There were so many spear guns in the tribe, that the chicks were even using them to spear crabs on land. Hey, I guess if I'm allowed to catch crabs on soft plastic lures (even though I'm not aiming to catch crabs), these chicas can spear them. Before they know it, they have a virtual smorgasbord of seafood.

They're back on shore, and you hear Cristina, the chick cop, telling about how she got shot and almost lost an arm. That's why she wears a bullet around her neck. Hmm.

So, Billy Boy is telling one of the chicas that he does not feel that he is part of the tribe. He tells her that metal is his culture, not the Hispanic culture. Okay, Billy Boy. We all love metal. And, no one is denying the fact that metal absolutely kicks ass. However, it's not really a culture or heritage.

(side note here - maybe this would make for a good Survivor experiment. Metal Tribe, Easy Listening Tribe, Techno Tribe, and Opera Tribe. Just something to think about, CBS. I bet you a million bucks it would be more entertaining than this Season's Survivor has shown to be so far)

(second side note here - It's Saturday. The show was two days ago. It was so remarkable unrememberable, that I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of things. I don't really care at this point, since this show royally sucked. I did ask Beth to TiVo it for me, but I don't really care to see this episode again)

Cut shot to Survivor Drop Soup, where one of the girls let Cao Boi know that she had a headache. So, he starts doing his face-mashing thing, again. She, however, has about three hickie marks on her head. Again, she confesses that her headache is gone.

I have to find this Cao Boi guy, and let him mash my face. Then my headache would be gone, and I, too, could have an odd hickie looking mark, therefore leading people to think that I'm getting some action.

Um... sorry.

So, now it's night, and the Asians are all cuddled together in a group spoon in their shelter. Cao Boi is still cracking the Asian jokes, but the two other guys are complaining, and ask him to stop. Now, this is where the show really pissed me off. Cao Boi says, hey, I've got one more "What do you call a Vietnameese man with three dogs?".

And, you NEVER hear the punchline.

That is soooo lame.

Thanks to J., though, who had the answer. "Well fed."

Ba-doom-boom.

Survivor Drop Soup and Surviving La Vida Loca have both managed to catch wild chickens (holy crap, there is such a thing?). However, there was a bit of drama at Surviving La Vida Loca camp, when the chick cop wanted to do it one way, and Ozzy (the moppy haired Mexican) wanted to do it another way.

Ozzy knows the outdoors, they did it his way, caught a chicken, chick cop gets pissed and walks away.

Now we have what I think was the only shot of Team Whitey in the whole show, aside from the challenge.

Jonathan comes back from Exile Island, and, no, the idiot did not find the HII (Hidden immunity Idol). He is greeted by false hugs and greetings. How friggin' gay was that scene.

He gets right to work in building a shelter. His plan is to build a shelter floor, which I assume would be about a foot off of the ground. This is actually a great idea, and it is good to see that at least one member of Team Whitey is able to think. I was beginning to worry after Flicka (nappy haired chick) released the chickens.

I say one member, because Golden Boy starts pissin' and moanin' about having to build a floor.

"Why do we have to build a floor?"

"Because, it will keep us drier."

"How is it going to do that?"

OMFG. Are you serious? I forget which one of the girls had to explain it to him, but it went something like this: "Ummmm (real sarcastic tone here), because when it rains the water is on the ground?"

Either he A) didn't care about getting wet, or B) still didn't grasp the concept. He was still pissing and moaning.

Cut back to Surviving La Vida Loca camp, where there is a group meeting, minus Billy Boy. Billy is fast asleep, allegedly snoring so loud that the others can't sleep, which is what prompted this midnight meeting.

Ozzy, who we are now finding out is weasley, too, is suggesting that they throw the challenge just so they can vote off Billy. At the same time that he is saying this, there are great night vision shots of rats. Nice touch. The other guy is in on it, but chick cop doesn't think that it's such a good idea.

Next day. Tree mail!

Ok, meet the new SWA, minus Seku.

(oh, man, I just thought more about the musically segregated Survivor! You could have the Metal Tribe with Henry Rollins, Chris Cornell, Sebastian Bach, Angus Young, and some other metal guy. Techno Tribe could have Moby, Beck, Fat Boy Slim. Easy Listening Tribe could have James Taylor, Elton John, John Tesh, and Yanni. Dump the Opera Tribe, and replace it with a Boy Band Tribe. Fill that with whoever is in boy bands these days. I betcha John Tesh would end up kicking some ass. And, Henry Rollins would kick even more ass, because that's the kind of guy he seems to be)

Here is your challenge. It's one of those rope and maze and puzzle dealies. I think they were attached together with ropes around the waists. Go around this maze type thing, collect trivia answers. Go over the rope bridge. Put together the trivia answers and the questions to match. First three tribes win immunity. First tribe wins immunity and two tarps.

Probst tells a quick story about Captain Cook. This is what the trivia questions and answers are pertaining to. Teams have a chance to go right to the challenge, or read a book that retells the story to make sure they get the trivia portion right.

Quick note here. It was, like, a one paragraph story. Not rocket science.

Ok, tribes. Since SWA has only four members, every other team must sit one member out.

Now, it's not really important who Survivor Drop Soup or Team Whitey sits out. SLVL is discussing who should sit out. Billy Boy immediately volunteers, which makes sense, because he is a big, slow, dude. Kinda like an overweight sloth in a skull t-shirt. Ozzy says no, and the professional volleyball player, their strongest player, sits out instead. Let's not make this too obvious, okay?

Survivor's ready? GO!!!

SWA, SDS, and Team Whitey all dash out into the maze. SLVL stays behind to read the book. For crying out loud, if you're going to do something as lame as throwing the second challenge, at least make some sort of effort to not make it look like you are!!!

Long challenge short. SDS and Team Whitey both finish in a tie, both winning immunity and two tarps. SWA comes in a not even close third, which, when added to their making fire, is a well needed boost. SLVL comes in last, and gets to choose who to sent to EI (Exile Island... I'm liking this acronym thing).

Who do they pick? Yul, the smart Asian.

Who, incidentally, goes to EI, reads the clues, and has the HII within five minutes. Again, not rocket science.

Back to SLVL camp, where Billy Boy is talking to chick cop, desperately grabbing any straw that he can. She agrees to talk to the other chick, to see if the three of them can vote Ozzy off, because he is turning into a weasely rat. She agrees, and the plan is in place.

Tribal Council. Billy states that he knows the challenge was thrown, and he knows that he's on the chopping block.

Then the highlight of the show.

Let me just make a real brief recap here. The chick cop and the other chica have basically agreed to vote for Ozzy and keep Billy in the game.

I repeat. The chick cop and the other chica have basically agreed to vote for Ozzy and keep Billy in the game.

Billy says that there is only one real reason that he is playing the game. And that is "Love at first sight." And, her name is Candace. Apparently they had this "thing" on the boat, and mouthed the words "I love you" to each other.

Seriously, now. I fell off my couch I was laughing so damn hard.

I wasn't alone. Even Probst was dying laughing, as was the rest of SLVL.

Let's vote. The second person voted off of Survivor Cook Islands is none other and Psycho Billy Boy.

In the end shots, you see that it was a completely unamious vote. His completely off the wall... no, off the whole universe remark scared the crap out of the two chicas. And, I don't blame them. If I ever heard a guy say those same words, I'd be outta there soooooo quick.

According to the Survivor website, there are changes coming to S13E3. Pleasepleaseplease be a tribe merge. Be anything that makes this season less painful to watch.

Racial Survivor

2006-09-14T21:07:00.000-04:00

The new Survivor is here! The new Survivor is here! Hooray!

As much controversy as this season's Survivor has caused in the media, I have to admit I was disappointed with the first episode. But, before I go any further, let me make this disclaimer. This season's Survivor is politically incorrect, so this blog about this season's Survivor is going to be politically incorrect too.

I'll give those of you who know me a moment to catch your breath, because you all know that I am **never** politically incorrect. ;)

Ok, so Survivor starts out on one of those old time schooners packed with the contestants. The ship stops, the anchor drops, and this crazy bell goes off. All the survivors start scrambling. Here comes Jeff Probst to explain the melee. The survivors have all of two minutes to loot the boat for whatever they can. The Whites and the Asians were both at a disadvantage here, as they are typically the ones on the other side of the looting. Just watch the others and learn, people. Survivors start grabbing machettes, logs, rope, crates, and, yes, even chickens. People are chopping bamboo rafts off the side of the boat. People start throwing things off of the boat. Not having put much thought into their actions, as is typically done in riot like situations, the things they are throwing overboard either A) bounce off the raft, or B) miss the raft completely, and presumably sink to the ocean floor.

"Get off the boat!" Probst yells, and the few survivors remaining on the schooner jump into the water and swim to their prospective rafts. Pan to several shots of the survivors floating on their racially segregated rafts, and you hear mumbling about how they think it is strange to be separated by race.

Ok, let me get two things straight here.

1) You weren't aware when they chose you for the show that tribes would be separated by race?

and

2) The thought of racially separated (no, I think I'm going to stick with segregated in this blog. It's not a word you get to use often, and it fits) tribes didn't cross your mind when you got on this schooner and saw more Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks than have been on all of the previous Survivor episodes combined???? Hmmmmm....

So, off to their respective islands. While they're paddling, let's roll the opening shot. Cue the Survivor music. Look, forgive me for not remembering the names of the tribes. It's only show one. I will make sure to get them when they're online, and add them to this blog. Nah, that's too much work. I'll just make up tribe names. Also, forgive me for jumping around in the story line. I was all gung ho about setting up my VCR to tape this so I could make a killer blog, but I got lazy and never did it. Besides, I don't have any blank tapes. And, Beth is out of town, so she couldn't TiVo it for me. Way to go, Beth.

And we have:

Survivor Drop Soup

Becky, the cute Korean chick who will probably whoop your ass
Brad, who looks a little light in the heels
Cao Boi, yeah, you say it "Cowboy", the Vietnamese hippie
Jenny, who looks like she might be Hawaiian
Yul, who looks like he would be a great ninja

Surviving La Vida Loca

Billy, the heavy metal guitarist, who looks the part
Cecelia, who has a funky looking face
Cristina, a chick cop from LA
JP, professional volleyball player (Jesus, is that really a job?)
Ozzy, the Beaner with moppy hair

SWA (Survivors With Attitude)

Nathan, in dreads (shudder... dreadlocks are so bogus)
Sekou, who is really not Asian, despite the name
Rebecca, New York chick
Sundra, New York chick #2
Stephannie, the odd man out

Team Whitey

Adam, the golden boy
Candice, the modern southern girl
Jessica, the freaky chick
Parvati, the chick whose name I thought was Pavoratti, until I read it again
Jonathan, the slightly hot older white guy I'm pulling to win. Not as hot as Tom and Terry, who were both absolutely babe-o-licious, but up there.

Back to scenes of the tribes rowing to their islands.

On the Survivor Drop Soup raft, Cao Boi is cracking more Asian jokes than I've heard in a long time. "Hey, how can five Asians on a raft be so heavy?" and something along the lines of "Eat more rice!", and his four tribemates seem to be getting peeved at this. Which is funny, because out of the five of them, he was the only one who actually was born and raised in Asia. That gives him the right to rag on Asians as much as he wants to. :)

Pan to the Surviving La Vida Loca tribe paddling. You overhear Billy Boy "My parents rowed away from an island on a raft, and now I'm rowing towards an island on a raft!" I guess that's the circle of life.

Cut to the shots of each tribe landing on the island and setting up camp.

The SWA Tribe gets together and talks about "representin'", and whatnot. They all explain that they are "city kids" and that this is their chance to show that Black people can swim, and things like that. Hey, everybody knows that black people can swim. That's not the stereotype. The stereotype is that they can't swim as well. Get your stereotypes right before trying to disprove them.

One of the chicks points out that they are in trouble, because "black people don't like being told what to do", or something along those lines, and they all share a laugh over that, which obviously means that they know it's true.

Cut to Surviving La Vida Loca setting up camp. Here comes Billy Boy talking about how strong he is, and all the work that he can do to help the tribe. Ok, Billy Boy, cut this bamboo stalk so we can build a shelter.

Billy Boy is all over that like a duck on a june bug. He just has his own special (needs) way of doing it. How is he going to cut that bamboo? With the machete? Noooo, that would actually make sense. He's going to cut it by banging the shit out of it against the palm tree. I don't think we ever got to see the shot showing if this actually worked or not.

Now they're trying to get coconuts. That was accomplished much easier. Little dude just shimmied up the tree like a spider monkey and knocked a lovel-ley bunch of coco-nuts down. Hoo-rah!

Cut to the Survivor Drop Soup tribe. We learn that Cao Boi may just be a little whacked. He's keeping the Asian jokes coming. Cao Boi up, my friend. Now we get to see a shot of him hunkered down and eating coconuts. It looks so natural, with his freakishly long hair. He could play the part of a savage very well.

Cut to Team Whitey landing. They all get there, and toast each other with some coconuts, and congratulate each other on kicking ass in the boat looting. Which is true, they did kick some ass. Jonathan, the slightly hot older White guy, even managed to steal a chicken from the Asians. One point for Jonathan. Because of that, Team Whitey now has two, count them, two chickens. They pack them under a crate for safekeeping.

Cut shot to Jessica, the chick with the freaky hair. "Wow, I'm such an outsider! We have the golden boy, the two girl's next door, and the family man" (yeah, chick, and that's one of the thing that makes him slightly hot!) "and then me, the freaky chick". Well, you shoulda thought about that before you got all these visible tattoos and did whatever the hell it was you did to your hair. You know if you're going to do something like that to yourself, you're going to stand out. So, don't complain when you stand out. Dur.

So, off goes Chickie (Jessica) walking around camp. She sees the crate that is temporarily housing the chickens, which are bound to be an excellent source of protein. What does she do? She promptly lifts the crate, setting the two chickens free. The men folk try to catch them, while Jonathan tries not to murder her right then and there. You even heard one of the other girls saying "Jessica, why would you do that?".

Uber-points against you on your first day, chickie.

We go back to Survivor Drop Soup, where one of the boys is complaining to Cao Boi that he's got a killer headache. Cao Boi tells him that he has a "Bad Wind" (it sounded like it should be capitalized) in him, and explains that he knows how to take care of it. So, Cao Boi goes over to the kid, and starts mashing the hell out of his face and head with his fingers and thumbs. The end result is this giant bright red hickie-looking mark on the kids forehead.

The kid heads back to camp, and the rest of the tribe laughs about what happened. HOWEVER! In a confessional, the kid does admit that it was pretty weird, but he NO LONGER HAS A HEADACHE. Hey, them Vietnamese know things.

Cut shot back to SWA, who are all gathered around trying to make fire. We see Sekou (who the chicks call "Se", which is not only easier to say, but easier to spell, so he will be referred to as such from this point forward) trying to make fire, with the rest of the tribe gathered around him. How many bla..... um, nevermind. But the point is, that he's going about it the wrong way.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not a woodswoman or anything, but I've seen enough episodes of Survivorman to know that you're going about it the wrong way. He's sitting there slowly rubbing a stick back and forth between the groove in a split open log.

Admittedly, this is a way to make fire. However, I'm pretty sure that you need something crisp and flammable to catch the sparks. Also, I'm pretty sure that you have to rub the stick back and forth a little quicker than he was doing. After a few seconds, he gets up and says "I need a break", and proceeds to lie down on the raft.

Dude, you don't want to be slacking off on the first day!

Tree mail!!!!

Challenge for both immunity and reward. The first three tribes to complete the challenge get flint to build fire, and immunity. The first team to complete the challenge gets a fire kit, which is an ammo crate filled with kindling, waterproof matches, and kerosene.

"And, if you can't light a fire with kerosene, you should just go home right now." Probst says.

Only one girl from Surviving La Vida Loca laughs at this horrible, horrible joke. Don't laugh at Probst. It only encourages him.

Naturally, the last team goes to Tribal Council tonight. And, there is this tiny mystery envelope (seriously, couldn't CBS have afforded a bigger envelope?) that will be opened when the challenge is over.

Here's the challenge. All team members must race over a hill, down into a water filled gulch, back up the other side of the gulch, and down the beach. There is a raft that is in something like four pieces, that must be put together like a puzzle. There are about half a dozen planks with holes that fit over pegs on the raft that hold the raft together. Build the raft, paddle out into the ocean to the fire. Light your torch. Paddle back to the beach. Disassemble the raft. Take the planks back up and down the water filled gulch to a table, where you must assemble for smaller puzzles "N", "E", "S", and "W". Take the assembled mini puzzles, and the planks, and go over to this tribe colored wall. Put the planks on the pegs (which is a third type puzzle), climb half way up, put the mini puzzles in their respective places on the wall (this challenge is a plethora of puzzles), have your whole tribe climb the wall, and light the uber-torch with your smaller torch.

While chit chatting with the contestants, one of the Survivor Drop Soup members mentions that one of Team Whitey's members stole his chicken, and points out Jonathan.

"Was that your chicken? I didn't know.... I just saw the chicken and grabbed it." Jonathan stutters with a sly grin on his slightly attractive face.

Dude, I seen what ya'll did with that poor chicken. You just threw it's ass overboard, and nobody is even sure if chickens can swim. That chicken was fair game the instant it hit the water.

But, enough of that.

Survivors ready? Begin!

Surviving La Vida Loca very quickly assembles their raft, and the humor and dark irony does not escape me, as I giggle to myself. Survivor Drop Soup gets their raft together almost just as quick. Team Whitey is having a bit more difficulty, but finally gets it together. These three tribes all get out to the fire, and are almost back to the beach before SWA even gets their raft assembled and out on the water.

Surviving La Vida Loca is running back the beach with their planks, and go up and down the gulch rather quickly. The humor in this doesn't escape me, either. Hmm, this season's show should at least be funny. Survivor Drop Soup is right behind them.

Survivor Drop Soup quickly assembles their mini puzzles, puts the planks on the wall, puts the mini puzzles in the wall puzzle, climbs up, and lights the uber-torch, winning first place. Surviving La Vida Loca is right behind them.

Meanwhile, Team Whitey is still struggling to put the mini puzzles together. Come on, guys, it's not rocket science. Then again, I look back in sorrow at Dan Fuego failing at the challenge in last year's Survivor. And he actually was a rocket scientist. Well, an astronaut. Which is close enough in my book.

SWA has used Team Whitey's puzzle inaptitude to catch up with them, and are now working on their own mini puzzles. Team Whitey finally gets it together (pun intended), puts the planks on the wall, and begins to climb.

"You forgot your mini puzzles!" Probst yells. Back down they climb, assemble the wall puzzles with the mini puzzles, and climb the wall, lighting the uber-torch, and winning the third slot for immunity.

Survivor Drop Soup, Surviving La Vida Loca, and Team Whitey all win flints. Survivor Drop Soup wins the fire starting kit. SWA wins squat.

Or, do they?

Probst waves the miniscule envelope. Opens it up. The message inside informs us that the last place tribe gets to choose one member from one of the winning tribes to spend two, count them, two nights on Exile Island.

Aw, crap. You're not bringing that back again, are you?

SWA is all excited, thinking that this is a reward. Look, dummies, it's not a reward, so don't get all excited. All you're really getting is a chance for one of the opposing tribe members to find the hidden immunity island. So, see, going to Exile Island is not really a punishment.

Se and Nathan both take a step back to study the situation and make a decision, leaving the three women behind. I guess they didn't really stop to think that they should not be alienating the three women that obviously OUTNUMBER them.

Do they choose somebody from Survivor Drop Soup, who in this challenge has proven to be both intellectually and physically superior? No. They choose Jonathan, because he stole the chicken. This show keeps getting funnier and funnier! So, off Jonathan goes to Exile (uggh) Island, where he will hopefully find the hidden Immunity Idol which will carry him to F4. We do see Jonathan reading the clue, which seems to be a pretty good clue. It says something about finding a good grade, and finding the idol when an island to the south is out of sight. This obviously means that you have to find a "good grade", whatever that is, and walk away from it until you can no longer see an island to the south. Again, not rocket science. I bet he can figure that out. He didn't in tonight's show, but, there is always next week.

Let's take a quick flash back to last year's Exile Island. The first couple of people that were sent there walked around and around, digging holes everywhere looking for this idol. Then, smart, hot, Terry gets sent to Exile Island. Reads the clues. Thinks for a second. Walks over to a tree, digs a hole, and viola, he has the hidden Immunity Idol.

Once again, people, it's Survivor, not rocket science. Regardless of what Dan Fuego did last year.

Back to SWA camp. The two men are talking to each other, trying to decide which of the three women they should pull into an alliance with them, not realizing that they are all ready screwed. The three women are tight with each other, and you've all ready tried showing them that the two of you are boss. Dude, you won't be able to save yourselves now.

So, Se pulls Stephannie (which you would think is said "Steph Annie", but its just said "Stephanie") aside and tries to pull her into an alliance. "If you get rid of me or Nathan you won't make it! If you get rid of me, you won't have fire!"

Definite points to Stephannie for saying "But, we don't have fire now".

Off to tribal council. The two men vote for Sundra, and the three women vote for Se. The tribe has spoken.

Now, at the end of tribal council, Probst says "Since you've been to Tribal Council, you now have fire." and throws them a flint. HEY!!!!!! That's not fair! You've NEVER done that before! They still have to earn their fire! You're supposed to send them back to camp without their torches, because they have not earned fire yet! What the hell is this, fire welfare? SO not fair, Probst. They're supposed to earn fire, not have it given to them as a consolation prize. Hey. The name of the game is SURVIVOR. Not, here have fire without earning it because we honestly don't think you'll ever get it on your own because you're black.

More to come next Thursday, when we review S13E2 (Season 13, Episode 2).

Hurricanes

2006-09-13T19:52:00.000-04:00

Well, now there's a hurricane Gordon out there. Doesn't look like it's coming anywhere near anything, though, which I suppose isn't a bad thing. I tell you, though, they've got to stop giving these hurricanes wimpy names. "Ooooh, hurricane Katrina! I'm soooooo scared!" Yeah, we'll she showed you.

So, here is my list of hurricane names that are guaranteed to make people head for the hills:

Asswhoop
Benito
Charlie Manson
Death
Excrement
Fireball-o-Death
Grave Digger
Hell
Icestorm
Jamestown
Kahlid Sheik Muhammad
Lentil Soup
Mufasta
Nine-oh-two-one-oh
Oprah
Pray You Get Out Alive
Quentin Tarintino's Evil Twin
Red Alert
Tom Cruise and Katie Holme's Baby
Ugly Ass Mo-Fo
Vito
Waco, TX
X-Files
You Better Run
Zoo Animals on the Loose

Just watch out for hurricane Oprah. That one's gonna be a real bitch.

Office Senryu

2006-09-10T15:19:00.000-04:00

Senryu is like haiku. Haiku deals with nature, while senryu deals with unnatural matters. Damn, those Japanese got it all covered.

Someone get the phone.
It is ringing off the hook.
Just hang up on them.

Who took my scisors?
I swear, things dissapear here.
We work with some theives.

Paper tray is jammed.
There is no paper stuck there!
God damn printer lies.

Someone went to jail.
Embezzlement is a crime.
See? Crime does not pay.

Monkeys flinging poo.
That is what this meeting is.
Incompentence sucks.

I can't take this job.
The bane of my existance.
I'm gonna die here.

Can I get a raise?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
That is so funny!

OMG, WTF?

2006-09-09T19:44:00.000-04:00

So, here we all are on Friday morning at work, headed out to the smokers gazebo for the morning break, and what was there to greet us?

photo credits: Beth

Yeah. It's exactly what it looks like.

Underwear. In the middle of the driveway at work. And, to make things worse, I have confirmation that the underwear were not there at 8:00 when the work day began!

I know it's casual Friday, but come on!

How skanky do your underwear have to be to take them off when you get to work and throw them in the street?

And, to make things even worse, this is not the first time I've seen underwear at work!

We seriously work with some gross people.

Many thanks go out to Beth for documenting the renegade undies with her camera phone. :)

90's Poetry

2006-09-07T20:47:00.000-04:00

Here's my last post in my 90's writing.

I don't think any of you have ever read my poetry.

There's a perfectly good reason for that.

Let me just take a quick moment to interrupt here. Yes, I was going through a box of old stuff, and did find a notebook filled with stuff I wrote back in high school. It was all in this notebook that I decorated and used throughout my senior year.

Let's examine that notebook. Standard blue cheap $0.25 cent notebook. Ok, there's pictures I taped up there. There's a picture of a scary looking Uncle Sam, holding up a cardboard sign that says "will work for food", which I probably got from one my metal magazines. Next to that is a picture of a Spitfire (airplane). Next to that his a purple monster with the word "heavy" written over it. Next to that is a picture of Heinrich Himmler, which is halfway covering a sticker of a teddy bear. There's a picture of a cryptkeeper looking guy with a Mohawk, and pierced ears. A picture of a field of sunflowers. A picture of a skeleton with wings. A photocopy of the S.O.D. CD cover. Here's a picture of Mussolini, another picture of prisoners, a picture of American GI's in Vietnam. A skull & corresponds, a German eagle, and (the peice de resistance) an Apple computer sticker. Now comes the words. We have "Helter Skelter" pieced together in a ransom note fashion. Also, there's "Way Too Sick", and "Sacred Reich", which, BTW was a great band. Here comes the most disturbing part. Written in red nailpolish: "Piggies".

Ok, open the folder up, and here's a nice picture of the Beatles. There's a picture of the Beatles on the back cover of the notebook, too. No, not the hippie White Album Beatles, but the young I Want to Hold Your Hand Beatles.

I think it's pretty safe to say that I was a strange kid.

So, without further ado:

Poetry

Success

Working you fingers to the bone,
Only to receive a pat on the back,
And a meaningless "Job well done"
For twenty-five years of your life.

Working in the same office,
At the same desk,
In the same chair,
Answering the same phone,
For the same boss
For twenty-five years of your life.

By some fluke of nature
Your work is actually noticed.
You're called into the office.

What awaits you?
A promotion?
A raise?
A partnership?

No.

A "Job well done"
And a plaque of recognition
To sit on your desk
Another twenty-five years.

1/7/93

(hmm... a premonition of my life in 2006? No, my company never would give you a "job well done", let alone an actual plaque! And to be there for twenty-five years? I could only dream of that kind of job security)

---------------------------------------------------------
Mercy Lord - 1992

Sacrafice your young to me
Or you shall surely die.
Do not stop to question me
Or even ponder why.
Many young die innocent
In every single way
By the tender hand of the Mercy Lord
Who powers night and day.

He kills them fast and painlessly
To save them from this world
Where peace is gone and all that's left
Is the horror we've unfurled.
A toxic wind has swept the earth
Destroying all in its path;
Leaving sole survivors
To suffer in great wrath.

He guides them to the underworld
And starts them on their way
To living life in happiness
To run, to laugh, to play.
They now can live so carelessly
Without the fear and hate;
Or wondering why they were brought to
This dreaded world too late.

I, myself, the Lord Elect,
Contorl your very lives
I power joy and happiness
Until your own demise.
None around can take control,
I've got that in my hands,
There are none more intelligent
In here or far off lands.

How, you ask, can I stop this fate?
The answer is simply said.
Control the growth of toxic weapons;
Do not avenge the dead.
Put aside your petty fears
And think of all of man;
Join with friends and enemies
To save the sacred land.

1992

(uggh, I'm glad I'm older and wiser now! I totally support nukes, war, and avenging the dead. Thank god my liberal days are long gone!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, that's enough embarrassment for now. I'm hoping this will get me back into my fiction writing.

Ok, let me just say one last thing.

Shut up!!!!

The Life Cycle of a Belch

2006-09-07T20:03:00.000-04:00

Here's another one from creative writing class, '91 or '92. The teacher comment on this was "This was funny and enjoyed by your peers as well". Can you guess who found her old notebooks from high school?

The Life Cycle of a Belch

Hello again, and welcome to the Wild World of High School. I'm Bea Boring, and I am your hostess this evening. Tonight we travel where no other wilderness documentary show has gone before. We study the life cycle of a belch.

To fully understand the creature we are studying, we must know the definition of the word. The dictionary tells us that to belch is "to expel gas noisily from the stomach through the mouth." A belch, whose Latin name is Belchius Grossius, is also known as a burp, or gas. Many things can cause a belch. Drinking soda or swallowing air. The stomach forces the unnecessary air up through the throat, and through the mouth. Depending on the shape of the mouth at the time, the passing air makes a rude sound.

Let us examine the birth of a belch. Contrary to what some believe, a belch begins its life before reaching the stomach. It is born in the mouth, as a bubble, or pocket of air. When the air is swallowed, gravity pulls it down towards the stomach. An unknown force, one that may have to do with the moon, repels the air back to its birth place. The life span of a belch can last anywhere from a few seconds to periods longer than 24 hours. A belch can be very painful for the host, therefore a belch is not always a pleasant visitor.

Let us now trace the difficult journey from the stomach to the mouth. On this strenuous trip, the young belch encounters many dangers. The belch must brave many attaching germs, and downpours of liquids. Here the belch may also encounter a chance to mate. There is nothing beautiful nor passionate about the mating habits of the belch. One belch simply runs into another until they eventually form one belch. The result of this union is usually a larger, louder emission of gas.

Here to explain the complex molecular structure of the belch is the famous German scientist Doctor Karl Wolf von dem weinerschnitzel aus Sauerkraut Katze Mause aus Berlin bon Schultz Heinz Mitagessen Flergen Flugen Dummkopf. Karl? Could you please explain?

"Well, we really can't say at this moment."

We can't say at this moment. What can we say? What can we do? What do we care? Where do we go? What do we think? Why am I writing this paper? Who knows? Here to answer is a professional badmitton player.

"Well, I...."

Very nice. My thoughts exactly.

Moving right along, we examine the death of a belch. When a belch dies, it lets the whole world know. It goes out with a bang, not a whimper.

This has been a Wild World of High School documentary. This is Bea Boring reporting. Good night, folks!

"Hey! You didn't let me finish my opinion!"

Oh, go away.

Fiction from the 90's

2006-09-07T18:19:00.000-04:00

That story that I've been telling you all that I want to write? It's stuck, and I don't think it's going to come out for a while.

So, here is the original story I wrote, which inspired me to want to write a new one. This must have been written back in '96 or '97. I'm copying this verbatim from some notebook paper that has yellowed from cigarette smoke over the years.

You probably won't get as much enjoyment from this story unless you worked at good ol' Papa Gino's #138 between 1996-1997. So, just a quick background. Papa Gino's is a pizza shop. Ray was this short, fat, lazy, Chinese man that kept you guessing if he really was mentally retarded. Mike was the anal manager. Tim was the air headed delivery driver. Those were all real people. Perry is based on a real person, Phillip, who tried to strangle another worker one night.

Enjoy.

Untitled

1997

It seemed like an ordinary Sunday night, as Papa Gino's Bridgewater began closing the store.

Tim, the manager, was out sick with the Tibetan flu, and Mike couldn't be reached, so, like a good PapaPerson, Ray offered to close the store.

At about 9:45 the college bus pulled up, and a large gang of young men with baggy pants and nappy hair got out and headed towards Papa Gino's.

The new kid, Perry, looked out the window at the would be customers, and shuddered. He knew that something wasn't right as they walked into the store.

The biggest one, with the nappiest hair, stepped up to Papa 3 and looked impatient waiting for service. Perry walked over slowly.

"May I help you, sir?" he nervously asked.

"Yeah. Give me three large breadsticks, a small cheese pizza, three cokes.... AND ALL YOUR MONEY, FOOL!" He finished with a mean yell. One of the men locked the door and pulled out a 9mm. Three others, including the one at the register, pulled out guns, too.

"Now, dorkface!" He yelled, pointing the gun at Perry.

"I can't! I don't have the keys!" Perry stuttered. He backed away to the far end of the pizza bench, where he fell into the fetal position against the wall.

"Wrong answer, looser!" The man yelled, and shot Perry three times in the chest.

Just then, Tim, the delivery driver, walked in through the driver's door. Seeing a large group of nappy headed punks, he dropped to the floor and slowly crawled around to the back of the store.

"Ray! They've shot Perry! You've got to do something!" Tim yelled. He picked up the phone and began to call the police.

"Where the hell is the money?!?" The gang leader yelled, clearly getting angry. "I'm getting pissed! Give me the money or more are going to die!"

Ray peeked around the corner to assess the situation. There were six of them, three of them with guns. They were bigger than anybody in the store. Maybe Perry was as big as their shortest, but he's dead, what difference did that make?

Ray had a plan. He sent Tim up front with a giant set of keys.

"Stall them" he said, hurrying out back.

"Ok, man. Ok, man. I've got the keys." Tim said, working his way over to the register.

"Well, hurry the hell up and give me my damn money!"

Tim pulled the drawer out, and made a big production of trying to find the right key.

"It's got to be here somewhere! Ha ha! Can never find it when you need it, huh? Ha ha!" Tim laughed nervously.

"HURRY!"

Suddenly, Ray stepped out from behind the grill.

"I don't think so, assholes! Duck, Tim!" He yelled as he threw a ladle full of hot Fry-o-Later oil at the vigilantes. One throw hit the gang leader square in the face.

"Aaauuuggghhhhh!" he screamed. By the time he was able to see again, Ray was gone.

Tim had ran out the door, and was waiting inside Blockbuster for the police.

Back inside, the gang was getting nervous.

"Man,we gotta leave! This ain't working! The police are going to get here soon! I don't want to go to jail!" One of the gang members screamed.

"Yea, I know! We gotta split, man!" another agreed.

"No! We stay here! That man's going down!" the gang leader said.

"So you think!" Ray hollered. He began throwing frozen hamburg patties at the gang like they were Chinese Death Stars. They all hit with deadly accuracy.

Four ran out the door, and one lie unconscious by the gumball machine.

That left two.

"Get out of my store!" Ray yelled.

"Man, I ain't leaving until you give me my money!"

"The only thing I'm going to give you is a headache, pal!" Ray yelled back.

Using a thick pan cover as a shield, he made is way over to the front counter. He lifted a bucket he had hidden on the floor.

"Eat this, monkey boy!"

He heaved the bucket, which was filled with sopping wet dough, at the men. It slimed all over one of them, and he fell into a writhing ball on the floor as he tried to get the dough off.

"Now it's just you and me, nappy haired one!" Ray said with a wicked laugh.

The gang leader raised his gun, but it was too late. Ray had jumped over the counter and kicked him in the head.

The police walked in (finally), and it took two of them to pull Ray off the guy, who was now crying.

"Good job, Ray!" They said. They collected the guns as evidence, and left.

Tim came back in and helped Ray clean up the store. They closed up and went home.

"You know? I have a funny feeling we forgot something, Ray" Tim said.

"Don't worry, well get it tomorrow. It was a hectic night, Mike will understand" Ray said as he got into his car and drove home.

The next morning Ray and Tim walked into the store. By the sound of Mike's scream, they now remembered they had forgotten about Perry's corpse.

They laughed and laughed, and hoped that Mike really would understand.

Bumper Stickers - Part Deux

2006-09-07T17:48:00.000-04:00

Hooray! It's time for more bumper sticker fun! Woo-hoo! Keep on expressing yourself via the back end of your car, Tallahassee! We love ya!

1- "Silly Boys, Trucks are for Girls!" - Okay. I love this bumper sticker. In fact, if you're ever out shopping and see one of these stickers, please pick it up for me. I will pay you back. Unless it's some horrible color like orange. Then never mind, but thank you anyways.

2- "Dave Matthews for President" - Is this really the best candidate you can find for the job? Come on, the band was just okay, not phenomenal or anything. I can see it now... peace talks with a hostile country turning into days long jam sessions.

3 - "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If it's in English, thank a soldier." - True dat. I know that the first thing a foreign occupying government would do is take over the bumper sticker industry, which would just be tragic.

4 - "This car is headed to Tao Kwan Do" - Whoopee! That's a great thing to deter carjackers. Now they have to wait until you're inside the Tae Kwan Do, um, gym (??) to steal your car.

5 - "How do you spell relief? Alloy, Williams, and Fletcher Bail Bonds" - Ooooookaaaaaay. So, you're proud that you had to get your ass bailed out of jail?

6 - "I (heart symbol) My Wife" - I bet you didn't (heart symbol) her so much after she made you put that gay bumper sticker on your car!

7 - "Willkillya County" - I think I may have touched on this one before, but it is so good it deserves a second mention.

8 - Ok, this one isn't really a bumper sticker, but it is bumper related, so here goes. Here's this rust bucket red Toyota Corolla from 1980-whatnot. It's rear bumper has fallen off. So, the driver, needing a bumper, replaces it with a pressure treated 2x4. That's redneck ingenuity for ya!

Um....

2006-08-25T17:29:00.000-04:00

I want you to do something for me. A little experiment, if you will.

For the next 24 hours pay close attention to anyone you hear talking. Radio show hosts, people on the news, people you're talking with, whoever. I want you to listen for, and pay attention to how many times people say "Um".

Once you start consciously hearing this, I think you'll notice that people say this an awful lot!

Now, here comes the second thing I'm going to ask you to do. This is hard. I know, because I've been trying this with myself for the last few weeks.

The next time that you have a conversation with anybody, try not to say "um".

Think this is going to be easy? It's not. This one little syllable is such an important part to our everyday conversation that I think you will find it extremely hard to have a conversation without saying it.

Just try it. Let me know what happens by, um, leaving comments. :)

Dimebag Darryl is Dead, and I'm Old.

2006-08-22T21:43:00.000-04:00

So, I'm out at lunch today, and talking to the cashier "J", who is usually my waitress, and provides the most excellent service. Since she's real cool, I'm a friendly person, and I do enjoy the perks of the service you receive when you're friendly with the servers, I asked her how she enjoyed her vacation last week.

"It was great! We went to Ozzfest, and had a blast!"

Oh yeah? I went to the very fist Ozzfest, back in '97, and had a blast. We were just expecting to see a Black Sabbath concert, and couldn't quite figure out why it was starting at 11:00 in the morning. When we got there, we were extremely excited to find out that it was a whole day concert event. We were amazed by the number of great bands we were about to see. Let me just say, that this was, by far, one of the best concerts I've ever been to.

Downset, Cold Chamber, Powerman 5000, Machinehead, Type O Negative, Fear Factory, and my favorite three, Pantera, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy. I saw every single friend and acquaintance I knew in Whitman and Bridgewater at Great Woods that day. Every. Single. One. No exaggeration here... If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'.

Debbie, Joe, Pat, and I were just chilling out on the bleachers watching the crowd, waiting for the real good bands to start. PM5K hadn't even hit the main stage yet, I don't think. There was an older couple sitting right in front of us (when I say older, I mean mid 30's. Keep in mind that this took place about 10 years ago!). They turned around, and they were both wearing face powder that made them look dead, black lipstick, and the thickest liquid black mascara that I've seen since I left Junior High. They kind of freaked us hippie stoners out.

"When is Marilyn Manson playing?" they asked.

"Um... I think I heard that he cancelled." We replied.

"Oh", they said, with obvious disappointment. I swear, I think the guy was going to cry.

We laughed at them for a little while, and sat back. All of a sudden, out of nowhere walks Ed Ballard. He came up and began to talk to us about the show, in the definitive Ed fashion. Except Ed was drunk as a skunk, and stumbles over absolutely nothing, and would have fallen to certain death or injury, had the two middle-aged Marilyn Manson fans not broken his fall.

"Aww, don't worry dudes, that's just me falling down!" Ed says.

The Marilyn Manson fans proceeded to get up and walk away, as we were trying real hard not to bust out laughing in Ed's face.

It was just another memorable moment in an awesome day. Great Woods was filled with every type of person imaginable, and they all came there to see just one person. Ozzy.

There were long grey haired scraggly old hippies, and big beefed up bikers, young kids with spikey hair, and chicks who were allowing their boyfriends to walk them around on dog collars. There were little kids wearing rock-n-roll t-shirts, and skanky ho's walking around wearing barely nothing at all.

Man, that concert was a blast!

For us the real concert started when Pantera came on stage. Don't get me wrong, all the other bands were great, but we hadn't really heard of them. So, to us, they were all just a real long opening act.

So, out comes Pantera. They promptly proceeded to puke on stage. Niiiiiice.

After Pantera, Ozzy came out and did some solo stuff. He was barefoot. Where Pantera just puked. Wicked nice.

Then Black Sabbath came on to finish the night off. They played a lot of their great songs, but the best one for me that night was Fairies Wear Boots. It's a great song anyways, even better live. Especially after spending all day in the hot summer sun, and drinking water from a spigot (hey, I wasn't paying $5 for a small bottle of Aquafina).

But, I've sidetracked. Which is just another indicator that I'm getting old. So, let me get back to the main point of this post.

"Hey, I went to the first Ozzfest back in '97!" I told J. "Sabbath, Ozzy, Pantera, PM5K were there... It was great!"

"Those were all great bands! Ozzy didn't make it to this show, but we saw Disturbed and System of a Down!"

And I was immediately jealous. I wouldn't mind seeing System of a Down. Just last week Beff and I were crusing through Woodville blasting SOAD and screaming at cute redneck guys.

So, I leave the pizza parlor, and head back to my dreadful job. And then, it hit me. It hit me slightly harder than a ton of bricks. Do you remember Wayne's World? The scene where Garth is in the diner, daydreaming about the pretty girl? And all of a sudden he's knocked out of his chair?

Yeah, it hit me something like that.

"Those WERE all great bands!"

"WERE all great bands!"

"WERE"

That's the main word here. Were. As in at one time they were all great bands. As in back in the day those bands were great, but now they're all moldy oldies.

WERE.

Dimebag Darryl is dead. Dead! He will never puke on stage again.

WERE.

As in those bands were popular, but now they really aren't anymore, and I'm old. I probably would feel old and out of place at today's Ozzfest.

I'm not "with it" any more. I'm not even sure that I know what "it" is.

Wow, I was only 22 when I went to that concert. 22!!! That seems like forever ago! For crying out loud, I was just a kid! A kid so wet behind the ears that I should have worn an extra absorbent chamois cloth turban just so the wet from behind my ears didn't puddle up around my feet!

Wow, that seems like forever ago.

When I was 22, I hadn't even lived on my own yet. I worked at a pizza shop as a delivery girl! I had only been able to drink legally for a year and a half. I had only been driving for SIX years. I drove a GEO! It was my first car! I had only had a checking account for two years! I made $6.10 an hour! I could stay out until 2 or 3 in the morning and be fine the next day!

Wow.

Now I own my own home. OWN. I am one of the top performers in my department at work. I don't even get carded when I buy alcohol or cigarettes anymore. I've been driving for 15 years now, and drive my sweet silver truck (still only my third vehicle, but it's PAID OFF!). I have a BALANCED checking account, and can trust myself with a debit card now. I make considerably more than $6.10 an hour, but it's still not quite enough. It's 11:00 at night now, and I'm rushing to finish this up so I can hit the sack. I haven't seen 3 AM in a long time, and the last time I did, I paid for it the next day. Staying up that late just isn't the same when you can't sleep past 7 in the morning.

Hmm.

Realizing that I'm getting old somewhat freaked me out this afternoon. But, now that I think about it, it's not really that big of a deal.