Note to self 335: 07/30/2008

This weekend I finally got my Mad Men Season 1 Blu-Ray set in, and I sat down and marathoned the shit out of every episode. Then, after the last credits rolled, I knew what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to become a hardcore, early 60s, cigarette smoking, womanizing, alcohol swilling, trash talking, bad ass sonavabitch like dapper Don Draper myself. So, I went down to the Sea Wench Pub to see the only person I knew who lived through the 1960s (who wasn't clinically insane with "genetically engineered monkey ass" on his mind all the time), and tried to talk him into telling me the secret of how to live like a REAL man... Unfortunately for me, the Skipper just got pissed off and started pounding my ass into the pavement for even hinting that I thought he was a day over 37. I apologized, bought him a beer, and approached it from another angle.

"So, Skipper, what's it like being a real man? I mean, how does one go around thinking-- no, I mean KNOWING that the world revolves around you, and that you can slap any female ass that you want and bed that chick within minutes? Please teach me!"

"Arrrrr," said the Skipper. "It just be something that comes naturally. You have to FEEL the power within you... The power that tells you, 'Arrrrr! I be the biggest arsehole in this room... and I can back it up 50 ways to Sunday if need be.' Arrrrrr."

"Teach me! I-- I don't think I understand, but I NEED to! I want to be able to insult dickweeds to their faces wherein they KNOW I just insulted their personal mouth-flatulence, but they're not 100% sure that I did, and therefore I can cut down on the chance of painful reciprocation while still getting my jollies at others' expenses!"

After a few dozen more drinks (on Jimmy Jammer's tab of course), the Skipper was fast and free with advice and the "Secret to Living Like a Draper." Step one, he told me, is to mentally slug every guy in whatever room I enter, but not to show it in my expression. Step two is to grab the ass of every woman in whatever room I enter (either mentally too, or physically — the choice was up to me)... Even the fatties. Apparently ESPECIALLY the fatties — they have even more tush-cush to knead, and they enjoy it more. Step three is to listen to the Upright Citizens Brigade and start handing out "ass pennies" at all the local establishments where I know the people I call friends and my coworkers shop and eat. Soon — like within a few weeks — I can be sure that everyone I know has at least one of my ass pennies in their pockets whenever I meet them (that's REAL power). Step four is to call every woman I meet "Toots." Step five is to start drinking (every day at 9AM). Step six is to not stop [drinking]. Step seven is to start smoking Lucky Strikes brand cigarettes. Step eight is to blow the smoke from each Lucky Strikes brand cigarette that I puff into the faces of everyone around me. Step nine is to start boning a bohemian artist chick and smoke all her weed. And step ten is to BECOME my idol.

It's about this time that the Skipper got really pissed off at me. Apparently he thought I was going to declare him to be my idol, so when I screamed out loud, "I am DON FUCKING DRRRRRRAPER! MOTHERFUCKERS!" he took it pretty hard. Well, actually, I took the bar stool to my head pretty hard, but then the Skipper took my left hook hard himself. Then that man in the back said, "Everyone attack," and that girl in the corner warned me, "It'll turn into a..." well, I think you know the rest.

After the Skipper set fire to that Hell's Angel's leather jacket, and I turned the firehose on the mob that started closing in on me, we teamed up to evade the cops, then we broke into a lab in town where they're working on chimps, and we taught one of the cooler apes to smoke Lucky Strikes himself. It's just what Don Draper would have done if her were still alive today, and he didn't die of seven kinds of lung and liver cancer back in '63. Here's to you, Don Draper! May you be slapping angels' asses in Heaven!... Or hot devil chicks' keisters in Hell.

Note to self 334: 07/16/2008

Goddammit! So for the past few months, every so often my air conditioning unit would shut off during the day, but still pump uncooled air throughout my house (thusly making the motor run overtime in its Sisyphusian quest to cool down my abode). A quick reset of the thermostat or a switch-on and switch-off of the breaker and it'd be back on its legs, runing the old Arctic- wind marathon. But seeing as I love it cold (keeping it a brisk 64 or so in the Winter, and a 72 in the Summer), I was kind of antsy about the unit conking out for good if a heat spell hit (average July and August temps in Georgia are in the 90s [and muggy as a wet fuck], but we've been known to hit the 100s with regularity). So I went around asking my friends who they trusted for any HVAC shit since I had no fucking idea just how badly any big shops could screw me over like a woman driver at a car repair shop... Well, that's not true, I knew that a certain company whose name rhymes with Schlunate charged me over $250 for a capacitor two years previous, which I found out later would have been about $30 and 15 minutes of my own time to fix. So I guess I should say I was asking around for somebody reliable so that I wouldn't get boned up the tuccus again.

So last Friday, two people at work complimented and stood by another big name service in town, and another gave me the name of a one-man business AC guy who I tried first, but only got his voicemail. So then I called the big name shop and set up an appointment for the following Wednesday (my unit was still running, I just didn't know for how long, so it didn't really count as an "emergency"). But then, after that, I did get in touch with the One-man Shop, and he said he could come out that very Friday evening. I was in shock and awe, and quickly gave him directions to my house.

So, long story short, he came, checked it all out, said the unit was just working too hard for its intended house-size (Christ! They MAKE houses smaller than mine!?), gave it a freon fill-up, and then gave me some tips on how to keep my energy needs down, thusly saving the life of my air unit for at least another few years. All well and good, and [relatively] cheap too.

Had a good weekend after all that semi-drama (well, the air was on, but Chi-Chi did show up, drank all my beer, raped my neighbor's cat thinking it was a dog, and made me watch the shitty version of Blade Runner [with all the crappy and laughable commentary done by Ford] 4 times before he left on Sunday night), and went to work as usual on Monday. At around 8:30 I called up the AC company that was to visit my house on Wed. morning in order to inform them that I needed to cancel that appointment, only to be told by the nasally operator that "Nooooooo, your appointment was for today... At 8. Your repairman waited for 20 minutes! Where were you?! We CALLED and CALLED but you didn't answer! WHERE WERE YOU!!!?!??"

I face-palmed myself loud enough for the operator to hear, and then explained how I insisted that my appointment was Wed. How when I called on FRIDAY they told me the earliest they could do me was WEDNESDAY, and that I should feel lucky for that. She disagreed. I asked her for her name. She said, "Michelle." I said, "You retard bitch... It was YOU I specifically remember talking to! Remember when I made that joke about the horse with one nut?! You said WEDNESSSSSDAY!"

She started to get upset at that point, but before I hung up I made her promise me I wouldn't be billed for any service call, and that my appointment on Wednesday was cancelled. She assured me there was no Wednesday appointment scheduled, and so nothing to cancel. I then angrilly turned off my cell and was in a bad mood for the rest of the day. I was in an even badder mood when I got home that evening... And my inside thermostat was dead. Depowered. Off. I tried everything to jump start the sucker, including turning off my whole house, and then flipping the breakers back on. Nothing. I even went out to Lowe's and got a new thermostat and replaced my old one... Nothing. Then I called the One-man Shop again at around 8:30 that night. I was hoping to just leave a message on his office voice mail, but instead it transfered over to his cell phone... The man was STILL making house calls at 8:30 at night! I explained the whole situation, and how I suspected foul play from the big name service group, but had no idea what they could have done, seeing as I checked the outside unit (inside and out), and nothing was cut or unplugged (that I could see), and the problem seemed to be inside anyway... He said he couldn't make it over that night (which hadn't even considered to me to have been an option, but he was really apologetic about it), but "after 6 appointments on Tuesday (and he named them all in case I doubted him... He fucking rocks balls!)" he'd be able to come on over and he guaranteed me that he'd fix it for me.

Tuesday afternoon came, and One-man Shop arrived. He first looked at the heater's fuse, then the inside thermostat, then he went around to the outside air unit, looked at the box on the wall, opened up the side of the unit itself, looked around, then stated, "Ahhhhh!" He then pointed to something, called it a relay switch, and told me that it was the easiest thing to fuck with if you ever wanted to screw over somebody's AC unit without being too obvious about it. He fixed it up real nice and still only charged me for the service call. AC works like a charm now, and I curse the ever-living MUNG out of S***es' HVAC for their beyond shitty calling center, and destructive repairmen who CAUSE more damage than they fix. He fucking BROKE my AC unit because his company has a shitty secretary! Bunch of Marties over there... They can fucking lick my goddamn nuts! I even let One-man Shop copy any pr0n from my computer that he wanted in gratitude... That could have been you, S***es' repairman.

Note to self 332: 06/11/2008

The term "remake" is pretty much defined by Webster's as "that which will never attain the greatness of the original, and which must therefore suck the black mung out of diseased prostitutes' twats." With this in mind, why are Hollywood producers and studio heads so keen on raping the wonderful memories of fantastic movies and TV shows from days gone by with absolutely horrid and shittily realized remakes?

Yes: Money. I understand that Hollywood is filled with nothing but greedy assfucks and simpering "yes" men. But can originality truly be as dead as they make it appear to be? Are there really so few new tales to tell that people think "Hey! We need another Bill & Ted movie! No, not a sequel, and not a small, charming, humor-filled movie featuring breakaway star Keanu Reeves, but a $200million shitty special effects-filled bad-ass redo set in the 2000s, and featuring a bunch of non-acting idiots stolen from godawful teen dramas on the CW or some really shitty MTV 'reality' show! This'll be bigger than Alf!"

First of all, things like Bill & Ted and Red Dawn (which they're remaking too) were only made 19-24 years ago. The number one rule for remakes should be: If the original stars, writers, and director are still alive, you cannot remake a movie.... Unless the original was pretty bad (but in which case why would you want to remake a shitty movie in the first place?). Anyway, that's the goddamn POINT of movies: They're TIMELESS (well, the good ones are at least). But no, because they can't think of anything better, Hollywood knows that remaking a certain classic flick but MODERNIZING all the charm out of it is the perfect equation to mad moneys.... Unfortunately, because the vast majority of movie-going audiences are nothing but retarded mobs who laugh at any fucking mention of the word "poo" and at any cockpunches thrown, and who stare wide-eyed at the giant silver screen with awe on their faces whenever anything blows up (no matter how shitty the movie is either before or after the KA-BOOOM), they actually DO make money off of these unoriginal retreads.

Yes, sometimes a remake is beneficial to everybody — Hollywood types and audiences alike. Very rarely the original movie or show had a decent premise, but completely missed the boat when it came to delivery and actual greatness (think Schumacher's Batman films or Ang Lee's Hulk). Usually, this means that the original was all but forgotten (or needed to be forgotten) except for a few people still alive who were gaffers in the premiere presentation, or those who worked at a video store for decades and had time to watch everything on the shelves. In these cases I don't see the harm in a remake. If the current generation (or even the previous) had no idea that the archetype existed, the it's time to take the idea that the first movie tried to deliver upon, and remake the hell out of it. For example: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is infinitely better than its predecessor, Bed Time Stories — BTS even starred Marlon Brando when he wasn't the size of Unicron, and it stunk! DRS reenacted entire scenes from the first movie, but it was so much more alive and soooo much funnier. Jesus Christ, just thinking about Rupert the monkey boy makes me laugh a little dribble of pee out.

But then there's things like King Kong and the Pink Panther movies with Peter Sellers. Why fucking bother?! King Kong is pretty much the epitome of the term "classic movie." It's iconic. Everybody and their children knows (and has seen) this movie. Yes, compared to modern special effects the stop-motion model Kong is a little rough around the edges, but it's still a fantastic flick! But no, Hollywood remade it twice since the original debuted in the 1930s. The 1970s Hippie Kong was just atrociously eye-rollingly bad (the original's effects actually outshone the man in the monkey-suit redo, and the "down with uncaring corporations, man!" message was so out of place in a movie about a giant monkey), and the 2000s Peter Jackson version just kept going and going and going... You can actually watch the original 1930s Kong in the time it takes Jackson's Kong to actually GET TO Skull Fucking Island. Then you have another 2 hours to get to the great swan dive. And honestly, I really don't HATE Jackson's Kong, but it was soooooooo unnecessary. Oh, and Steve Martin's remake of the Pink Panther movies... Oh fuck me no. Peter Sellers is spinning in his grave like a buzzsaw because of it.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of remakes out there, from the remakes of foreign films (because most people are too retarded to read subtitles or see a movie filled with 100% foreigners), to remakes of stuff made less than two decades before (the previously mentioned Bill & Ted flick returns to mind), 99% of remakes are terrible, terrible ideas. Honestly, how many versions of the same goddamn story do we need?

And as for sequels, I think that unless further story elements were thought up before the original movie was made (and thought up by the people who came up with the original's idea in the first place), then sequels should be avoided. There are exceptions to this of course: Terminator 2 obviously wasn't created in Jim Cameron's mind when he made Terminator 1, but he, and he alone, created T2... And it was good... So that counts in my book.

Note to self 331: 05/07/2008

THAT'S what it's all about! Mario Kart Wii (online) is exactly what the doctor ordered. No more assholes snaking through entire tracks (and yes, only assholes snake in online Mario Kart DS races), but blue (and GOLD) sparks abound! I am motherfuckin' ZEUS with gold sparks, bitch! Anyway, I've been sleep deprived lately, staying up till around 2AM every night since MKW came out (kicking the asses of my fellow Americans, some Canucks, Brits, Frogs, Mexicanis, Italianos, and Japaneeses in online battles), and I couldn't be happier... Well, I THOUGHT I could [be happier], and I tried to raise my jolly quotient into abnormal levels by getting the MegaPlayboy to steal some wheels (mopeds, go-karts, ATVs, whatever he could find) for a real-life kart tournament, but he only got two soap box cars and a skateboard. You can't have a kick-ass kart race with two soap box cars unless one of them is wired with TNT. And guess what else he forgot.

So instead I called up Carl, Angry Amy, Kuni, Marksy, Jaime and Kiff, and of course the MegaPlayboy, and told them all to meet me at the mall at 6 that evening ("or the pictures would go out!"... Actually, I didn't have any pictures on me for once, but they didn't know that). Once they got there I attached bombs to each of their cars (pretending I was inspecting their tires), and then I informed them that the race was about to begin!

There wasn't too much bitching from the peanut gallery as they all pretty much understand how things go nowadays. I quickly gave them a rundown of the course — three times around the beltway that encircles town — and told them that the guns, shuriken, live snapping turtles, and the mushrooms (for Marksy's sake) that were in the back of my Exploder were free for them to use against any of the challengers during the competition. If people tried to leave the course before their three laps were complete their car would explode. If they came in last place (not including anybody who may have exploded), their car would explode. And if they pissed me off during any part of the race, their car would explode. Angry Amy then threw 4 shuriken at me and tried to stuff a live snapping turtle down my pants, but missed on all those chances. She even missed trying to ram her Prius into my car at the starting line and instead took out Kiff and her own auto in a fantastic pyrotechnic display that would shame even the most ardent Chinese fireworks god! Then we were off!

Jaime took an early lead as we swept down the South-bound Loop at about 90mph. She threw a landmine into the path of Carl (I don't remember stocking those, and must remind myself to not steal her paper from her lawn anymore without a metal detector), and Marksy, Kuni and I were barely able to swerve around the fireball and the falling chunks of Jeep Cherokee. Then the MegaPlayboy shot out Kuni's rear tires with his personal glock, forcing the Asian wonder to actually drive straight for once. Unfortunately he drove straight into the backside of Marksy's Pinto and... Well, you know. Then the MPB in his Audi and I in my Exploder teamed up against Jaime. It took us almost another 2 full revolutions to catch up to her (she swore she was going the speed limit), but when we did we found out that she had installed a smokescreen on her car (actually, a mixture of a corroded engine, missing muffler, and a fill-up using diesel instead of unleaded), and the MPB and I slammed into each other and the rest of the traffic around us just before the exit ramp for the end of the race. I was too impressed with her to detonate her car bomb, and instead I just saluted her run as the MegaPlayboy's Audi erupted into flames, which actually melted a good twenty-foot radius of the Loop and caused a mile-wide forced evacuation from the fumes of all his latex toys in his trunk melting into a toxic pile of sexiness. All in all it was a good day.

Note to self 330: 04/23/2008

Hoe-lee fuck... I haven't had a dream that vivid (and that piss-me-offable) — like the one I had last night — in a long, long time. Things started out okay: I went to a movie, but soon found that the room I was in had somehow turned into the classroom of my favorite college professor (I took 3 of his classes and audited another; I knew it well). I thought nothing about this, as I usually go with the flow of my dreams (the best way to enjoy them and the only way to make sure nobody gets hurt). The prof. in question started talking about current events, but suddenly broke the class up into small groups so that he could leave to do something "urgent." I didn't join a group (since I fucking HATE school group projects), but as I looked around me I saw that there were only a few other people in the class after a little while, and they were all people I knew from East Bumblefuck High, not college.

For some reason THIS actually struck me as curious. Changes in locations, people, or things surrounding me never shake me in a dream, but this made me think something was going on. Then the professor returned (something else that was strange — once people leave my dream they never come back), and he had an announcement to make: He was getting married. Then he named his fiancee. It was my old high school girlfriend. It felt like somebody had grabbed my heart and RIPPED it out of my ribcage, which was really strange since I hadn't even seen her in years and years.

Anyway, after the announcement, my 50-something year-old professor brought her in, and there she was, just as young and gorgeous as she ever was in high school. I was much older than her now, but I found it preposterous that my ancient letch of a teacher could bag her at this time and not me! She smiled at me like she always used to, and I melted. I remember thinking, "It's not too late! I can still win her away from him," but before I could do anything she was holding on to the professor's arm, and soon my teacher was making the class (which was now being held in a different classroom than before) watch movies of he and my old girlfriend making out. I got up and left (brushing by her long blonde hair on the way out — getting a sniff of its mind-bendingly fantastic honey scent as I went), feeling like my life was over and there was no point in going on after that shock. It was then that my memory of Forgetting Sarah Marshall kicked in as I thought it would be a good idea to take a vacation to forget all the pain.

I found myself on a cruise ship after just walking down the hall from the classroom (which I still found odd, but I just wanted to get away so I didn't question it), and, just like the movie (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you fucking simpleton) my old love kept bumping into me; at least she wasn't with that asshole of a professor anymore though. I refused to talk to her, and she seemed too shy to talk to me, but no matter where I went on the boat I'd still see her (she seemed just as surprised as me). I finally ducked into a big ballroom which had hundreds of seats set up to watch a movie... As long as it wasn't my old girlfriend fucking my old teacher I thought I'd be fine with whatever they showed. Well, the curtain went up but instead of a movie screen there was just a big old tube TV (the one from UGAnime's past named "the BEAST," which was our main entertainment source for our first year of the club's existence), and on the BEAST was some new reinvention of the Tenchi Muyo franchise, wherein the cast was involved in some sort of Sherlock Holmesian mystery -slash- adventure... Man, if I could tap my mind's unlimited imagination I'd be a fucking millionaire.

Anyway, so that shitty show was playing to a fairly full room, but my old love was sitting a just few rows behind and to the left of me, and that kept my attention away from the screen. She never looked at me, but the last time I looked back at her she was sitting in my professor's lap and he was at second base with her teenaged tits. That's when I woke up in a panic. But within seconds of waking up I came to the conclusion that I was a goddamn idiot! I should have stayed in the original classroom to see if the home movie that my professor was showing his class did in fact turn into a skin flick. Damn you, hindsight!

Anyway, the Chief (and founder of UGAnime) assuaged my fears when I told him of my horrific nighttime visions. "I would never have allowed such shenanigans during a screening during my term, you can be rest assured Rossman," he verbally patted me on the head. For some reason this made me feel much better.

Note to self 329: 04/16/2008

I've been sick for the past couple of days, but you don't want to hear about the vomiting, the blood from my eyes (among other orifices), and the parasites now do you... If you do, you can go here and be just as happy.

Anyway, other than being diseased, this past weekend I was rolling in the mad bank thanks in part to Jimmy Jammer coming to me for tax help. He, like usual and like all of my acquaintances, always waits until the last minute, and he always seems to forget that I hate him whenever he needs a huge favor from me. At first I was just going to try and convince him that he should try to write off his substantial pr0n collection due to its "psychological and physical healing properties," along with his shotgun because he shot that one illegal alien (who turned out to be Mr. Sanchez from Columbus, Ohio) with it last year, thusly saving taxpayers about 2-million Pesos a year on supporting him... But once I realized that I could file his return electronically — and send his rebates directly to my bank account — I decided to go a little bit more legit.

After Jimmy Jammer left he started spreading the word to all my other friends and enemies, and soon I had Kuni, the MegaPlayboy, Angry Amy, Robot Pedro, and Jimmy Jammer again (whom I convinced needed to file separately for his blow-up doll) all knocking on my door to have me help them with their taxes before the big deadline day. Combined I raked in about $13-thousand from all of them — surprisingly enough Robot Pedro earned the biggest rebate check despite the fact that he himself is an illegal alien, and a felon (with over 20-million confirmed deaths on his hands). Goddamn government...

So, I plan to enjoy all their hard-earned cash as best I can (I've had my eye on a nice 2-month-long vacation down on St. Andrews about when the refunds are set to be sent out... They have no extradition laws down there, and lots of bars and nude beaches), but I do realize the dangerous game that I'm playing — no, not with Jimmy Jammer, the MegaPlayboy (who I already convinced that he owed the government about 2 grand, and that I would take care of for him if he wrote the check out to me), or even Robot Pedro, but with Angry Amy. She can hunt down a flea in a doggie mange contest, I know she can find me wherever I flee. Though it wasn't out of greed that I screwed her over; I just didn't want her to be able to afford those new spiked, steel-toed boots that she had been pricing for the past few weeks. It was purely out of self-preservation... And ironically enough it may lead to my eventual downfall. Crap in a hat...

Note to self 328: 04/09/2008

Philly, Philly, Philly… A fun town to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Nothing against Philadelphia itself mind you, I just detest big-city life. Though for being a big city, Philly wasn't that bad.

I spent almost all of last week “doing Philly” for all intents and purposes. Seeing the sites, hitting the best restaurants in town (well, my group never did find Iron Chef Morimoto's place dammit! So I never did see the best of the best), and pretty much drinking ourselves into a Philly-stupor most nights. Tuesday we arrived, did our meeting thing during the day, and then went for a big bite to eat at the Marathon Grill. That's where I had my very first taste of Yuengling Lager, and I never looked back. That stuff gives Billy Dee's Colt45 a run for its smooooth money! After that we took a nice, freezing, Philly walk back to our hotel.

Wednesday was a bit of the same: Meetings all day, and then party-time at night. Except on Wednesday we decided to grab some good Mexican food in Center City Philly at El Vez… 23 blocks away. It sounded like a fun thing to do in theory, but self-vacectomies sound good in theory too. We passed lots of pretty buildings, lots of homeless, and some reject from a Pat Benatar video (sparkling with leather, studs, and chains, with a wild green Mohawk) who was clawing for something underneath a Philly trash can with an eight-inch Bowie-knife. Not IN the trash can, mind you, but under it. We tried not to make eye contact, but one of our party just refused to look away… I think Mohawk ate her soul that night; she just hasn't been the same since.

Anyway, our restaurant d'jour that night was booked beyond capacity despite the fact that our Philly contemporaries swore up and down that we wouldn't need reservations. Always remember, people love to lie about this kind of shit. I think it makes them feel powerful and… I don't know… Assholic? Seriously, that's just a shitty thing to do. Instead we went to a Zagat-rated (rated what I never did ask) place across the street called Lolitas, which was pretty damn good despite its illegal-sounding name, and even more despite it not having a license to sell alcohol (though our waiter was very eager to point out at least 15 liquor stores within a 5 block radius of us so that he could then charge us a $25 uncorking fee). We made due with that food, then taxi-cabbed it back to our hotel where we found a pizzeria/bar with some college hoops playing, in which we each won Yuengling baseball caps, basketball jerseys, and our night's bar tab for betting on UCLA against Texas A&M with the bartender (who didn't seem to realize that the game was prerecorded from 3 nights previous).

Thursday was the day in which we wrangled a sight-seeing guide to take us around Philly and give us the Rocky Balboa/M. Night Shamalyanalian grand tour! First we hit Jim's for the best Philly cheesesteak (one whiz wid') I've ever had (you don't have to trust just MY endorsement, you can see all the autographs posted all over Jim's walls featuring everybody from Mr. T's “Jim's is the motherfucking BEST!” to Hall and Oates' signed support of “Thank you for remembering us, Jim's! We'll play your basement any day!”), then we walked down to the Delaware River and laughed at Jersey, then we checked out Tom Hanks' hospital room from Philadelphia (the MOVIE!) and laughed at the guy there now (telling him, “Ha ha! You're in the same bed that Tom Hanks died of the AIDs in!”), and then we went to the Art Museum. While our tour guide was parked oh-so illegally in front of the closed building (it was close to 11PM at the time) I raced up the stairs 4 at a time, and when I reached the top I pumped my fists in the air and screamed out “Adriaaaaaaaaan! Adriaaaaaaaaan!!!” along with about 50 other people who were doing the same thing. Goddamn copycats.

After that I stole the Liberty Bell for a cunning plan — one in which I had to do something so nefarious that I thought I needed "pure history" to accomplish my goals of… For the life of me I cannot remember what the fuck it was now. I'm sure it'll come to me, and in the meantime I still have the Bell in…. Oh fuck me sideways! I fucking left it in my hotel room! That bitchy little maid who got all uppity about me leaving painted-tit marks on the walls, mirrors and ceiling probably kept it and is using it as the ultimate hood ornament right now!

Whatever… -Sigh- After Operation Bell for Liberty took place (and we lost Johnson) we checked out the church where Haley Joel saw dead people and Bruce Willis (did you like how I scooted around stating that Bruce Willis' character in the 6th Sense was dead all along just in case somebody who never saw that movie was reading this? I'm great that way), and then we called it a night.

Friday we returned home and I had to try and figure out how to expense three guns, a samurai sword, 150 pounds of Beef-A-Roni, and a deed to an actual restaurant (I'm telling you, I LOVED Jim's!). I'm still working on it, but I think it may be possible if I just state that Philly is a “high cost of living environment.” I mean, my old job at the condom-testing lab allowed my friend Jenkins to expense that brothel outside of Vegas two years ago… I don't see how this is any different.

Note to self 327: 03/19/2008

Jesus! That old Roman witch was right when she said "Beware the Ides of March..." No political assassinations or anything this year, but nearly an Apocalypse or two.

Things started out a little iffy a few hours before the official Ides began. I had turned on my TV at around 10:30PM on the 14th and saw the aftermath of a fucking tornado that just struck downtown Atlanta — namely Centennial Olympic Park, the CNN Center, and the Phillips Arena where the UGA Bulldogs were playing in the SEC Championship Tourney. The storm that spawned that Twister veered South after ass-fucking the capital, and thusly missed my town, Athens... But God must have heard my mocking laughter (I take any chance I can get to make fun of anything bad happening to Atlanta — that cesspool of a latrine-city) because starting at 7AM on the 15th my house was rocked (ROCKED I say!) by a 24-hour bombardment of thunderstorms, hail, flash floods, and even a few funnel clouds (pussy tornado wannabes that never grew ballsy enough to touch the ground).

Off and on and off and on, all fucking day long. Tornado sirens at 3:30, hail the size of golf balls (FUCKING GOLF BALLS!) at 5:15, then, out of nowhere, the rain stopped and at 5:17 the clouds had blown away and there was nothing but blue sky and sunshine (well, for an hour or two). Was the Lord and Creator just on a bad meth trip? What the fuck causes something like that? To top it all off UGA won the SEC Championship that weekend too! Most people I know weren't even aware of the fact that UGA even had a basketball team before reading about the game that was hit by the twister that Friday. Nevermind the disappearing storms, where the fuck did that basketball team come from?!

The weirdest part of the whole Ides though was when that house dropped on my bitchy neighbor and that annoying little girl climbed out (of the house, not my neighbor) with her puntable lap dog that wouldn't stop yapping. I did use that confusion to take my ex-neighbor's shoes ($250 Air Nikes, bitch!) and blame that mentally screwed up child in the braids. Mrs. Thropp's feet were monstrously large, and those tennies fit like a dream! In the confusion of some other neighbors (a house full of midgets from what I could tell) who started break dancing and "steppin' up" with the confused girl, I looted the Thropp's house and left some of that lap dog's fur around the place to lead the police in the right direction (namely away from myself). Wow... What a world...

(Below you can see some pics I took of the flooding around my house just as the storm was letting up [at 5:15], and then the final image that I took at 5:17. It is what it is.)

Note to self 325: 02/27/2008

After seeing both Spiderwick Chronicles and Jumper this past weekend I think I got a little over excited in my explaining how much I enjoyed them both to Dr. Dave. He got it in his head that I wanted to "see invisible demons" and "teleport like a furry blue mutant" just like the kids in the flicks. After I initially woke up from the forced genetic-enhancement surgery that the good Doc knocked me out for, I was actually quite pleased. The teleporting part of my dual operation was pretty fucking awesome. I was hanging out with celebs in Hollywood (well, the non-douchey, non-Scientologist ones... Arnold and... Well it was really just him, and it was really just me making him say all of his catch phrases over and over for my answering machine until he got it right [I finally had to take the barrel out of his mouth so he could nail the final "So leave a message and I'LL BE BACK!"]), then I'd instantly transport myself to a high-class Beijing brothel (okay, maybe not high-class [contrary to popular belief they don't really exist]), then to the set of Kobe Tai's newest movie masterpiece, and then I rounded out my night by shooting on down to Rio for a nude beach party I had heard about back in some smoke-house in Amsterdam. That's when my second new ability made its appearance.

If you heard of any news reports of some gringo Americano running around naked on a Brazilian beach while swinging a bamboo sword at invisible monsters while screaming "OH MY GOD! Get them OFF me!!! NOOOOO! This isn't what I wanted! This isn't-- AAAAAAH! Their crawling inside of me now!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!" well, that was probably me... You know, that has actually happened to me before. If I had a couple of Jagermeisters that night then Dr. Dave may not be the one to blame for all that. Oooooooo... Now I feel kind of bad about teleporting into his place during his 2:30AM constitutional and throwing two pissed off male skunks, a shaved badger, and a wiener dog in his bathroom with him after locking his door from the outside. I may owe him a fruit basket for that one.

Change of topic: When the hell did Sola become one of the most highly anticipated anime releases of the goddamn year? I caught this had- to- have- been- based- on- a- hentai- game show a while ago, but it was just so bland and by the numbers that I didn't even bother to review it. That ending was just so fucking lame (the brother wasn't real, the sister was a vampire... sorry, but you didn't need to see it anyway), and so telegraphed. If you really didn't see that shit coming then you really need to start gargling with Clorox (The Rossman does not condone the ingesting — even to gargle — of bleach or any other chemicals that can cause bodily harm... Unless you're Jimmy Jammer). You've seen this type of shit many, many times in the past, and done much better too (Lunar Legend Tsukihime por ejemplo). Skip it, please. This is the same cardboard cut-out shit that US distributors pick up for a quick buck. There is much better stuff they need to release first though. Please, send them a message by NOT BUYING IT ("it" being Sola, morons).

Note to self 324: 02/13/2008

This has been a strange week. A good one, but a strange and melancholic one. It started out with me taking Steph out to see the movie Juno on Friday ('cause teen pregnancy movies make perfect date movies); as much as I didn't want to think about it, man, this movie really made me remember my high school days. No, I never knocked up a quirky and cute classmate, but I did know a girl back in high school who acted just like the lead character Juno MacGuff: Strong-willed, spunky, funny, and cute.

Then, the next day when I was at the gym they had nothing but early 90s songs on the radio. I was the only one there singing along to them... Punk-ass kids don't know nothin' about good music. Anyway, the nostalgia came flooding back upon me like a tourist watching a tsunami blast towards him on a SouthEast Asian beach. The final straw was when I watched Blade Runner on Sunday. That was it, I was back in my youth. Watching good sci-fi movies at Elliott and Chi-Chi's houses, cranking the car stereo as I drove some hotties home from school, just having fun.

Fun is a lot harder to come by when you're an adult. True, you can do a lot more (legally) once you're old enough to get your own place and work a real job that doesn't require a name tag, but once you come home after working said job you're too tired to do any of it. It's kind of depressing actually. And it got me so depressed that I thought it was time for a little vacation. So I called up Bob From the Future (I have to leave a message on a time-repelling voice-mail machine telling him when I'm calling, what I need his assistance with, and give a 10 page oral presentation about how I understand that time travel is not a right, but a privilege, and how I don't really plan to use his powers of temporal adjustment for petty or evil reasons... It's really a big pain in the ass) and told him of my plan: I wanted to reverse my age back to 16, go back to my junior year in high school, and live life right again (at least for a few days). Bob then appeared as soon as I was done with the recording, told me that he thought this was harmless enough, and so he went back first and sent my younger self of the true time period to an all-expence paid trip to Hawai'i for a few days (which I floated myself... With one of Jimmy Jammer's parents' expired credit cards [well, they're expired today, back in the past they were just pressed]), then he brought me back to fill in my younger self's shoes so to speak.

Holy SHIT. Everything looks so different the second time through. Sister Jaime and my parents both looked so young! Well, so did I after that futuristic youthenizing Botox that Bob From the Future shot me up with, but my family, and my friends! Damn! Chi-Chi hadn't started that heavy smoking and drinking yet, the Wolfman wasn't half as hairy as he is today, and Just Kidding... Holy fucking shit! No wonder I had the hots for her back then!

Everything else back then was sooooo much easier than it is now. Homework was a breeze, my job at Little Caesar's was stress free, gas was less than a dollar a gallon ($.77 per gallon for the cheap shit!), and all those high school hotties! Oh, life was so good back then. The only bummer part was when my younger self came back from his vacation. I had to kill him and stick that surgically implanted Lojak on him that Bob From the Future thought he was so clever in installing in my ass, and then convinced Bob From the Future that my older self ran away and tripped into oncoming traffic. Then I lived my life all over again (making minor alterations to certain preset elements in my once life when I saw fit). I put every penny I could scrounge into Apple, Yahoo! and Google stocks, became an instant billionaire, married Just Kidding (3 times, and Angelina Jolie once in between one of our messy divorces), and then I started my own movie studio where all I ever produced was sci-fi movies from Ridley Scott, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron (and Cameron never made Titanic in my new world. You're welcome).

Unfortunately Bob From the Future eventually caught on and caught up to me just three months ago (November 2007, just before I was to accept my 5th Nobel Peace Prize for kicking Putin in the pud on live TV), and gave me a looooong fucking lecture about abusing time travel and yadda yadda yadda... Ugh, I HATE those speeches. Anyway, in order to try and teach me a good lesson Bob From the Future took me back in time again, to the day before he convinced my younger self to go to Hawai'i, and then he temporally merged the two of us together, but only left my younger self's consciousness able to make decisions and function while I observed everything but was unable to act. Then Bob From the Future forced me to live my entire life over again; every original bad decision and awkward situation back in place. I only came back in control the instant that I had picked up the phone to leave that voice mail for Bob From the Future to take me back to the past a couple of days ago.

I think with all the times I've had to relive my past or future I am now officially over 416 years old. I can recite my own life now I know it so well. It's like a well-worn piece of syndication to me. I need a nap.

Note to self 323: 01/30/2008

A long time ago I came across a show that sucked so bad, with not one character I could sympathize with or even LIKE in the least, that it simply blew my mind. I hated it so much in fact that I could not make it past 6 full episodes (and I had previously finished crap like Saikano, Melody of Oblivion, and Princess Nine). Blood + was that show, and at the time I thought I'd never see the likes of suck like that ever again. That was before I started the Cowboy Bebop wannabe known as Baccano! (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine).

Baccano! goes a little something like this: ......Actually I have NO FUCKING IDEA what it's about, and I made it 4 episodes into its 13 episode run. And then I looked up its episode synopses on Wikipedia. I still have no fucking clue (granted, near the end I wasn't even trying to make sense of it all).

The main problem with Baccano! is... Let me rephrase that. One of the thousands of main problems with Baccano! is that it's all style and no substance, but its style is just an annoying and pathetic rip-off of much better shows. It tries to ooze a hip and jazzy atmosphere, but it doesn't understand that simply placing the setting of the series in early 1930s America does not a groovy ambiance make. You need a good and solid plot first of all, and characters that the audience wants to get to know better. Baccano! by distinction has a convoluted plot (that's told in flashbacks and flash forwards that randomly occur every 2 minutes or so) and characters that are either psychotic or pure morons (the crazy fuck who likes to tell his fiancee how he's going to kill her and the tattooed wang who curls up into a ball and pisses himself when somebody tells a really pathetic ghost story stick out in my memory the most). Well, I guess some are both (psychotic and simpletons), but none are neither.

I wanted to pound the stupidness and craziness out of every single one of the characters... And there are something like 2 dozen freaks who we're following in this mess of a series. No, I'm not exaggerating (by much); just watch the opening animation and you'll be introduced to a metric ass ton of retarded characters all by name. Yeah, they all look different from each other, but when you're thrown into this impossibly lame world, shunted forward and backward through time every time you blink, and when no clear plot pokes its head out after four full episodes (30% of the entire series), it's obvious that it's all just one big mess. This is what I wrote down in my notes after initially getting through the first 4 episodes (and no further): The first ep. feels like 6 or 7 different eps (or series) edited together by a monkey on crack. And holy shit, Jacuzzi is the world's BIGGEST PUSSY. As a matter of fact there are no likeable people in this entire thing — not one cool or even appealing lead or side chara. The "story" skips forward and backwards through time, but only randomly. And it fails to tell you when it's the past or the future (or present, if there is one). It's not a gimmick, it's just annoying.

Please don't buy this crap when it comes out in the States. The sooner companies lose money on shitty shows like this, the sooner they stop purchasing them.

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