Do they make a six hour chip?

On top of my growing love affair with Yuengling I recently found a vodka that tastes like coffee. Not tastes like coffee with vodka in it, it tastes like coffee. Period. I give it two months before I'm standing in front of a room full of strangers starting sentences with, "Hi, my name is..." and telling them how long it's been since my last sweet snort of hooch, which I will lie about of course.

I'm not complaining, it'll totally be worth it.

I'll have you Walking Spanish

So as is my way I recalled a thing that happened to me sometime after the fact (my memory will come and go as it pleases, wandering away for wild adventures before finally finding its way home to settle down) and when it popped back in my head I blurted it out to the first person I saw, which was Taco.

"Hey", I said, "Did I tell you I got hammered and stole a pirate hat from a liquor store?"

And so it began.

Demands for a complete retelling, pictures of the glorious thing itself, getting other people to demand pictures until I just couldn't take it anymore. So I sent those out to those as asked after them but then I got to thinking that such a fine tale of daring should be shared and passed down to future generations.

So we're out sailing the seas (at a bar) and decide it's lame and to take all the cool people (us) over to Mike's to just hang out. We drop the women off and we hearty menfolk drive to the liquor store to raid it for it's boozey goodness as I'd not had my fill yet.

We arrive (flourish of trumpets) and storm into the joint, as is our way, looking for our chosen plunder. On our way down an aisle I see a Captain Morgan display and on it, a hat. Not just any hat my friends, an awe inspiring cheap plastic pirate hat. It was love at first sight.

"Mike!", I yelled (because, Mike). "Dude!" (because, sometimes, dude). "Look at this hat!"

I put it on and instantly I could sense it had been waiting for me. It was MINE.

Mike turned and, seeing me in all my piratey glory, bellowed, "That is the GREATEST fucking thing I've ever seen!" Truly he is wise.

We raid and plunder the store for our desired libations and boldly stride up to the register, me with my new hat in its rightful place.

"This hat is awesome," I said.

"Look at how awesome that fucking hat is!" Mike added.

They looked upon me and were appropriately moved by my mighty visage.

"Look how great I look in it."

"Look at how fucking gorgeous he is in that thing!" It should be noted that Mike, like so many straight men before him, is confused by the feelings I give him in his swimsuit area.

"I'm taking it with me, obviously."

"There's no WAY he's leaving without it!"

Now you might be saying to yourself, But...stealing is wrong! and you'd be correct. Mostly. There are situations that warrant a little misdemeanor larceny. Some even that demand it. This was one of those times. If police had been present they surely would have applauded me and told everyone to calm down and, if it came to it, stand in front of a judge and declare my actions naught but joy filled shenanigans. Though of course I'm not sure how shenanigans are covered under the law. Does the 3 strikes rule come into play? Are previous shenanigans held against you or in your favor? It's a mystery.

Anyway, we paid for our booze (a noble act on our part, I feel) and headed for the door.

One of the still stunned employees blurted out, "So...you're taking the hat?"

"Yeah. Later."

So I told you all of that to tell you this. I got this cool plastic pirate hat now. It's awesome.

Is that Henry Rollins in pink sweatpants?

If you can pine for someone or something can you also elm for them/it? Douglas fir? When does it get dirty? Baby I oaked for you all day. What'd you do last night? Redwooded for your fine ass. I'm curious as to how it works.



My petition to the FDA to have fire reclassified as a vitamin on the grounds that nutrition should be awesome is still being ignored. On an unrelated note, this weird black van has started following me everywhere.



I'm still afraid of Skynet. Moreso now than ever before.



I like to come up with answers in advance to questions you get asked a lot. For the inevitable interview question, "What is your biggest weakness?" I've settled on "Kryptonite, tough gal reporters and kneeling before Zod."



The Fuck should be a unit of measure.



I want to buy a motorized scooter they make for the elderly and try to sign up for marathons in it.



Should I be concerned about the number of conversations I start with, "So when the zombies come..."?



I've recently started calling people gormless. I think it needs to make a comeback. Bonus, no one will know what you're talking about. I've gotten my nephew doing it...to his teachers.



"Biggest strength?" "Collapsing probability waveforms."



I am unbeatable at Scene it. Got that? UNBEATABLE!



I want to heckle someone during sex. "Boo! You're terrible at this! I've seen sexier shit in midget porn!" Something along those lines. Just have to remember to cover anything easily hurt and run before they can find anything sharp.



Great way to get out of a stupid conversation: After the other person prattles on for a few sentences stop them and say "Wait, I thought we were talking about my penis. What are you on about?" They'll leave you alone after that.



"Unique quality you can bring to our company?" "Gibbering madness. IA! IA! Cthulhu fhtagn!"



I'm still not on myspace or facebook or twitter. I win. Yay me.

So you've seen it then

As I was coming in from work on Friday I got the mail, as I always do, and took it in. Once inside I noticed one of the things was a Victoria's Secret catalog. Not being one to just casually toss away a whole magazine filled with pictures of women in nothing but underwear and come hither looks I flipped through it. When I turned it over to look at the back I saw that it was addressed to:

Gigantic Wang

Or Current Resident

So whoever is responsible for this, well, thanks. It's pretty fuckin' funny.

Actually

Scratch all that. It occurred to me today that while I have been getting pounded down by life since, well, birth, I keep getting up. I thought for a long long time that I was just too stupid to just stay down. That's not it. I keep getting up because you can't beat me bad enough to keep me down. You can take everything from me but when you take everything away from someone all you do is set them free. Kill me? Ha! G'head, kill the lifelong depressive. Pfft.

You pound away and pound away and we can never hit back but still you can't beat me. I'm always going to keep getting back up. You. Can't. Beat. Me. You can however kiss my high yellow ass.

Sick and tired of being sick and tired

Ah life, you miserable fucking whore. Full of ups and downs but it turns out the ups are only there to make the downs worse than they might normally be. Then you get the obligatory "everything will be ok" or "things will get better" from all and sundry which is no help at all because neither of those things are even remotely fucking true and only serve to make you feel like an even shittier and more furious. Keep that shit to yourselves, I don't want to hear it.

Of course this will often lead into someone telling you to let this or that god take care of it. Really? These same gods you people seem to think having been taking care of me up to this point? These same gods that have overseen the most heinous shit being visited on me and mine the entirety of our lives already? Fuck off. If that shit is your idea of something being taken care of then do me a favor and tell your chosen god to fuck off and leave me alone.

Then of course come the brain damaged fuck smudges that love to tell people that it could be worse. Other people somewhere have it worse. Someone in the world is having a worse time of it than you. Really? Is that idiotic bullshit supposed to make someone feel better? Are you fucking retarded? It's ok that you got mugged because someone else got mugged and gangraped. It's ok that you got mugged and gangraped because someone else got mugged, gangraped and then set on fire. It's ok that you got mugged, gangraped and set on fire because someone else got mugged, gangraped, set on fire and then put out by being pissed on by a phalanx of lepers.

This is your helpful input? How about you do something actually helpful and go choke to death on a bag full of diseased cock. That'd be great. Thanks.

Anyway, life. Fuck. You.

Movies '08

So last year, by my count, I saw 128 movies counting only those movies I saw from start to finish in their entirety. That's actually less than normal but not too bad as far as totals go, I guess. Anyway, here are some of the best.

Let's start with the obvious and say The Dark Knight. Believe the hype. It really was as good as people say and Heath Ledger was flat out brilliant in it. There was nothing bad about it. Writing, directing, acting, editing, music, it's the total package. They even replaced the bad actress from the first one with an actual actress and filled out the only soft spot from the first one. Whether you like comics or not, whether you like Batman or not, you will like this movie.

Next up is Tropic Thunder. Not only is it hysterical, it skewers every single level of the Hollywood machine from directors, actors, agents, producers, FX guys, writers, you name it. Think about it like this, this movie is so funny it made people laugh at a white man in blackface.

Doubt is a powerful story with wonderful acting though I include the disclaimer that I am a huge Philip Seymour Hoffman fan.

Gran Torino is Eastwood displaying his prodigious acting talent. He got some flack for playing a politically incorrect character but I applaud his realistic effort and love it top to bottom.

In Bruges is a movie everyone should see but very few have. Hopefully all the awards it was nominated for will cause more people to seek it out. I love black comedy and this one is black as pitch with sharp writing and acting. Go rent it. Now.

George Romero got back on track after the deeply disappointing Land of the Dead with Diary of the Dead. Yes it's a zombie movie but unlike the crappy ones, it's not about zombies. This entry is about the modern person's inability to disconnect from the constant stream of INPUT. Internet, cell phones, 24 hour cable news, the neverending slam of information that people just can turn away from. Hot damn it's good. Welcome back George.

It wasn't a great year for horror but there was the aforementioned Diary of the Dead, Cloverfield, The Orphanage, Let the Right One In and REC (remade in the U.S. as the vastly inferior Quarantine). On the B-horror front there was Otis and Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! which hit the B bone just the way you like it.

It was a decnt year for the R rated comedy, which I appreciate. I'm a grown person and I like grown person comedies. Pay attention Hollywood. Tropic Thunder and In Bruges were joined by Pineapple Express, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Zach and Miri Make a Porno. Five isn't a huge number but how often do five good R comedies drop in one year?

It also wasn't a great year for indies as far as I'm concerned. Previous years have been much better but this year did have Son of Rambow, Smart People, Be Kind Rewind and my favorite Teeth. Teeth makes female empowerment so empowered it's downright frightening. See it. Soon.

Other notables include Burn After Reading (another solid entry in the Coen brothers army of fine films), Iron Man (which was Downey Jr's big comeback even though he's been in some damn fine movies in the last three or four years), Hellboy II (visually stunning if nothing else), Run Fatboy Run and The Bank Job which I didn't think I would like but I did.

I haven't seen Frost/Nixon, The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button yet (soon though) but I hear very good things about them so they probably deserve a spot on your To View list.

And while Heath Ledger got all the press we should all remember that we lost Paul Newman last year. One of the last remaining titans has fallen. They don't make them like him anymore and he will be sorely missed. We also lost Chuck Heston, Roy Scheider, Isaac Hayes, Sydney Pollack, Cyd Charisse and Eartha Kitt along with many others I forget off the top of my head. Rest in peace, all.