.

I went to Google (at the behest of a coworker). I entered the words miserable and failure, with quotes. I hit "I'm Feeling Lucky."
Here's the google search page.
Here's what happened when I told it I felt lucky.

That's actually a parody of another list. How meta. How geek. How personal and relatively unfunny to the masses.
It's also a joke based upon a misheard conversation, based upon an old kinda joke that isn't a joke, exactly. How to explain without explaining?

From the Desk of Satan

Shopping list:
Pears
Milk
Sunglasses
Cigarettes
Ketchup

There's an old adage that goes "You Can't Cheat An Honest Man." I, though, don't like nice people 'cause it's so damn hard to cheat them. Grrr...

It's that other Mister, the one who sneaks to the top when I'm tired or feeling the need to be liked, that weirds me out. He's so damn slimy and I know that everyone should hate him and want to shun him, but it never happens like that. I want so very much to be tired, but I don't think it's really an option right now. Maybe if I sleep, I can shut him out.

And by the way, juvenile creepy is so much creepier than adult-y creepy, but I think most of the really nasty creepy stuff that people do to eachother is really juvenile. Adults don't act like that, or rather, people who are adult and have adult views and outlooks don't act like that. Grown-up persons of age advanced beyond 12 do, in fact, act like that, even though they eventually get called adults.
My point: they aren't necessarily adults.
Also, ewww, creepy!

It's so hard sometimes, but I gotta limit this to
ewww, creepy
with no details on a public forum.

Oh, hey!
Please Note:
I guess it's worth menthioning the following:
1. Point the First
        a)the bear crapped out (sorry, sorry) after about 80 hours of number generating.
        b)dinner was nice. Thanks, you guys!
        c)see youse Thursday.
2. Point the Second
        a)I didn't have one.
        b)or, actually, I forgot and am trying to remember it.
        c)or something.
3. Point the Third.
        a)nope.
        b)still nothing.
        c)OK, I give up.

Reposted from another time&place

 *Ahem*
BLAH BLAH BLAH
NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU SAY.
SHUT UP ALREADY

Haiku for a Monday Morning.  

There Can Be Only Bun. Sheesh.
But the strip's been really good lately.

Sherbert: It's done.

I'm altogether too amused by this bear.
It's at 1948759. That's the 145428th prime number, according to the bear. It's been running for right at 48 hours. Hee!
That's what I do when I'm not shifting books.

I hope that's prime. It could just be spitting out (ahem) non-primes, and I wouldn't know. I mean, let me think: what are the factors of 922283...
OK, I checked some, and I'm more sure that's prime.

I left the bear running here at work overnight. It's up to just about 73000 prime numbers. The last one was 922283. When it gets up past 100000, I'll probably post again because I'm a geek that way.

It was a calm and rewarding holiday weekend here.
About 8 people were in my house, in total, for Thanksgiving, including three of my coworkers (and one of their sweeties), Toshi and a pair of pleasant and lovely Invisible Citizens. Jon made Jon-Bread, which was soft and fresh and had pine-nuts, which are three really admirable qualities in a bread. There were sodas, and potatoes and wine all around. The whole of my Wednesday Night D&D group were there (all 5 people, although there's this sixth who hasn't played in a while, but isn't quite out. He wasn't there, but he's been busy.)
On Saturday, Sherbert and Pandathan brought over their projector set-up, and we watched The Two Towers Extended Movie Thing on the relatively large screen that is the wall of my living room. I made a lasagne dish that will be better the next time I make it. I'm still learning. I mean, it's not like it's hard to cook lasagna, it's just hard to spell lasagnia the same way twice. Also, I'm making it with several substitutions in the interests of making it taste different. I put in a thick cream bechemel with cheese instead of ricotta, and I like the idea of using crushed (or whole, what the Hell) fire roasted tomatoes instead of a tomato sauce. OK, so it's not really Lasegne, it's just a dish that resembles it closely enough to fool the casual observer. Same thing, yes?
Oh, and The New Heroclix Expansion is out. (Bliss)
That's been my weekend. How 'bout yours? Oh wait, there's no commenting system on here. Ha ha!

I've had The Prime Number Shitting Bear up for an alarmingly long time. It's up to better than 12000 prime numbers and a 9.3% density.

I'm linking to them because they have a new calendar. You should buy six of them. That'd show ya.

Oh, yeah: First, owww. I worked until I was gonna puke, and then I worked some more until I was gonna puke. I'm gonna be OK now.
Second: The really barebones menu, as I promised.
Two chickens. One will be marinated with a simple brine. I'll add a little rosemary and maybe some black peppercorns. The second will be marinated in a brine with crushed red pepper, garlic, habanero sauce, black peppercorns and rubbed with a ground black pepper mix.
Steamed broccoli and asparagus. We also got apples (a pie? I don't know yet.), bananas and a seedless watermellon. The mellon was quite a treat to find and I'm excited to eat it in winter, just 'cause that's really when you need a summer fruit, right?
Sweet Potatoes with little marshmellows. marshmallows. marshmelows. Those little spun sugar doodads. You know.
A very plain sort of mashed potato. I think we'll leave the skins on. I've threatened Toshi with a split batch and the second being seasoned until the spuds turn black. That's still a possibility.
Wine. We got some tasty wine from Sister Creek. It's the same one we've been drinking for months now. The 2003 oughta be out before too long, but we're enjoying the 2002 so very much...
So. There ya' go.

I use an electronic calendar here at work.
I had a reminder that said "DEAL WITH (a particular person. I won't mention names)'S CRAP."
I thought that was unprofessional, so now it says "SETTLE (that person)'S HASH."

Also, on the Thanksgiving thing, I'll post a really bare-bones menu after we hit a grocery store tonight to pick up some specifics. I know, I'm a suicidal loon for even thinking about a grocery store this close to Black Thursday, but I'm brave and there's only so much you can do with Soy Sauce and Talcom Powder before somebody realizes that you aren't actually serving food.
Oh, and we also have mustard. Still, there's only so many ways to combine those ingredients.
So, yeah.

I'm doing Thanksgiving, sort of. Actually, I'm putting my house up as a place where folks can meet up for a meal and social time, should they so choose. I'll be cooking a little and opening it up for potluck. If you are in Austin and know how to get a'hold of me, go right ahead. I can give directions 'cause I'm just that cool.

P.S. My cooking plans as of right this moment don't include any bread, and I'm particularly not planning to make rosemary Jon-Bread, hint hint, if anybody were, hint hint, able to bring some, hint hint.

On the one hand, owww.
On the other, my arms have never looked better, I've got more energy (when I can move) and I can feel myself slowly losing that nasty jiggle around the middle that's been my trademark since college (and in elementary school. Really, It just took a sorta break during part of high school).
It's not that I don't think a belly is cute. I do, and I wouldn't want to get rid of the belly completely. I just need a little less of it.
The last estimation I got put my belly at containing twenty to thirty pounds of fat. That's too much fat, says me.
So, owww, but I'm feeling good.

The Lizard Brain is pretty damned irrisistable. I'm just glad I trained mine to make me write sometimes.

A little bit of sugary stuff makes a big difference in recovery from solid, hard work. Maybe it's also got to do with loss and reintroduction of salt, but I feel better for having had this stuff that's basically a 4:1 ratio of sugary stuff to protein, combined with electrolytes and fiber.
Point is, I don't hurt so much as I did this morning.

I just have to keep telling myself: this is not killing me. It is making me stronger.

Years ago, Toshi told me I'd die in a fire. I think that was just wishful thinking at the time. Nope, it's my own personal ill intent that's gonna kill me.

     It's raining right now.
     I've had an offer to go watch British movies tonight at a coworkers apartment. The idea interests me, and I'll have to see how I'm feeling tonight.
     The rain is coming down fast and hard, and it makes a background roar that says "You Will Soon Be Wet."
     I need a new meme. Being a cowboy has been a lot fun, but it will stick if I am not careful. Maybe a tortured writer. Maybe just a prolific and thoroughly happy one.
     The intensity of the rain oscilates between bone-soaking and soul-drenching and the city cries for cleansing.
     I've embraced my heritage before. I've been southern at various points in my life. The accent slips in a little too easily when I don't keep it down. I've also embraced my upbringing as the child of educated parents. There are certain shames in being "from" anywhere that were instilled in me by these parents for reasons I've never fathomed. These reasons are inscrutable but undeniable and enforced by the best police there are: siblings and self. If my brothers are the "from nowhere" mob, then I'm right there with them.
     The rain is not falling but being pulled in suicide dives to the earth, where each drop is dashed to pieces on the flat, paved rocks of reality.
     Happiness calls. My phone's on vibrate.

A very cool thing will be happening soon at my work, but I'm not supposed to tell anybody until next Friday. Maybe, if I were pressured in person I might let it leak...

Much as I hate to do this, it's easier than linking to my other archive:
originally posted a godawful long time ago:
From where I am sitting, I can touch God.
He's in the next booth, and I can smell a trace of his cologne. Not a whole lot, like stupid yuppies wear, where it crushes your whole nose and makes you want to barf; just a whiff. I can't place the scent. It smells soft and whispy, like clouds. Maybe he just smells like that all the time. It reminds me of being a child, when I'd smell something, then try to go back later and have it smell different, not so neat. New toys used to smell so good, but now they just smell like plastic. This is like finding a smell when you were a kid, and then finding that it smelled the same, just as magical when you are an adult.
He's wearing a blue suit. It's a very tasteful one, with a banded collar, kind of like a priest should wear, if he wants to be fashionable. His hair is black and curly, and he's got perfect, smooth olive skin. His eyes, when I cought a flash of them a moment ago, are very deep black, with very well-defined whites, the two perfect examples of the colors, deep and bright, inky and glowing, in absolute contrast to each other. They are like a perfect Yin Yang. He looks very middle-eastern, and yet not. From the right angle, he looks more mexican or asian or even sometimes like a well-tanned European. It's hard to say what kind of ethnicity he is. I couldn't help but notice he's wearing very snazzy blue shoes with black laces. They're shiny and not scuffed or dirty at all. He really looks like he has everything together.
I haven't heard him talk yet. He's just sitting there playing with a palm pilot. A minute ago he had one of those fold-out keyboards out and was writing something in a big hurry. You can tell, he types really well, and really fast, too. It must have been an important thought, too, because when he put the keyboard away I think I heard him give a thoughtful "hmm." Now he's just playing with the thing. It makes the occasional beep or whistle, but he's a really quiet person, it seems.
The waitress didn't even ask him what he wanted. She just brought over a big salad and a cup of coffee. I noticed she left him extra cream and she changed out his sugar cup for him. I think he probably just gets that kind of service everywhere he goes. If he doesn't I guess it's all for the best. Divine plan and all that, yeah?
He hasn't touched his salad except to take out the croutons and put them on a plate and eat one of the cherry tomatoes. I guess he's like me in that. He doesn't eat the croutons either. Sometimes you just have to be in the right mood. And when the tomatoes are ripe, and I guess he can tell if anybody can, they're really good, when they've just got a little spot of dressing on them so it doesn't cover the taste all the way and just adds a little zip to the flavor. Yeah. He's done this before.
I wonder if, every time he looks at something he thinks "I did a good job on that," or "I need to fix that. I'll get around to it," or something. Is it kind of like the guy who builds machines for a shoe factory going out shoe shopping? I don't know.
The whole impression, though, is just that he looks absolutely comfortable and at ease. He's doing his own thing and loving it.
I feel like I'm seeing the better version of me, the version with all the upgrades, where the engineers have taken out all the stupid features and replaced them with ergonomic ones that work every time and never burn out. I'm the model T, and this guy's the flying car the uses no gas, puts out no pollutants and folds up into a 6-pound suitcase.
I think he's done. He ate his salad, and obviously enjoyed every bite. He chewed slowly and closed his eyes while he ate. After each bite, he waited a couple of seconds and just seemed to enjoy the flavor. It's the same crappy dressing I got on my salads here a hundred times. He just seems to be able to relish it properly. After his salad, he drank his coffee. I couldn't help noticing that it was still steaming. He had the first sip black, and then, while he was still smiling from it, he opened a creamer and a sugar packet. He added a little of each, then had another sip. He kept that up, sip by sip until at the bottom it was probably just a sip of cream and sugar with a little coffee flavor in it.
He left a pretty good tip. God, it seems, tips 30%. I hope the waitress knows what she's got. After he was gone, she just came around and picked up the money and wiped down the table. God didn't leave a mess and he seems to have bussed his own dishes. I wouldn't even know where to put them. I always leave a mess at this kind of diner. I thought that was why you leave a tip.
It's a funny thing. You can't just walk up and say "Wow. You're God. I love what you've done with Honey Dew melon. I think it's your best work. I have your book here, will you sign it?" I think that would be rude. I just let him go. When he noticed me staring, he gave me a little wink and a thumbs up. Obviously, he knew I knew who he was. He was very cool about it.
All in all, God seems to be an alright guy. I've got to find out where he gets his suits made. If I could look half that good, I'd be satisfied.
That was a good looking suit.

Moving along slowly, the cat sneaked down the hallway.
Why sneaked? Why not snuck? Or Snook? I mean, it could be either, I suppose. Most speakers of English would understand and be able to decode either of those. Snuck may, arguably, be more correct (righter? more right? Damn this language.) aber da hab' ich kein idee.
Die katze ist ein maus gesehen, und snell gespringen. Und so endet ein lebe.

This is an interesting look at Porn by a feminist. I'd posit, however, that her point about porn making people feel alienated even when together is not really as accurate as it could be, if only because she asked people who feel alienated all the damn time how they feel about a subject that they probably feel they have a duty to think about in unconventional terms. I'm just sayin' is all...
I read this on BookSlut.

Getting healthy is killing me slowly. I have a headache you could bounce a quarter off and sore joints I wouldn't wish on a dog. I need sleep.
But hey, writing tonight! That oughta be fun at least.

Hey, funny:
Amazon dot com sells cheese.
And, I mean, books&cheese, right?

I keep tryin ta write at work, but they keep catchin me and makin me work instead.

Hey, a 26 letter Pangram: Blowzy night-frumps vex'd Jack Q.
Can you do it in 25?

128 fluid ounces=16 cups=8 pints=4 quarts=1 galon.
You lose, according to two sources I've recently bumped into, 80 to 96 fluid ounces of water a day due to normal activity, which need to be replaced through fluid consumption. You can do the math to figure out that this comes to a paltry half- to three-fourths-gallon of water a day you're supposed to drink. Let's say five eights, or 5 pints.
Assuming 1 pint to be .5 liters, this means you oughta be drinking about about 2.5 liters. A medium soda bottle and then a little soda bottle full of water every day. No Problem, says I. I've had almost that much already, and it's only 11am.
How's my math? I'm damn tired, so I'm sorry if I'm off a bit.

Oh, yeah: all the stuff I posted on the 3rd was anagrams of my various and sundry names, including my whole given name, my first&last given names (no middle, y'see), and my chosen name which is the site you're reading.
So far, I like "Being B-Jam Bins," but I could be talked into "Bambino Jenning's Jobs," neither of which have real meaning per se in the "real" sense of the word.

I love when people update religion for the 21st century.

And, in one of the big shockers, at least to me:
MisterNihil Is Henri Milt!
How you like that?

Being Jamb Bins.

Bing "Jamb" Ibsen

"Nabob Job 'em," sings Jinn

Nabob Jinn begs son Jim.

Bambino Jenning's Jobs.

Jinn jogs Bambi-Ben's son & Bambi Benson jogs Jinn.

Jones, nabbing min jobs.

Nib men, jabbing on Joss.

Before that, I had a dream about an airport highjacking. I think I'm going to keep that one to myself, as it'll be good fodder for my book. Speak of which, have you signed up yet?

Last night, I had a dream about Toshi. She was going off to work. She was employed to eat souls all day. I don't remember much of the detail, but she didn't enjoy it because every time she ate a soul, she took a little of its personality.
This morning as she left, I advised her to "watch what you eat! be careful what you eat!" I think she took it personally, but I'm pretty sure she had no idea about the dream.
Huh.

I have a piece of business etiquette to keep (the generic you, the one that isn't you, personally, but the you-who-is-not-me) you from getting punched in the face:
If you have bad breath, and you have bad teeth, never never get up and whisper RIGHT UP IN MY FACE.
OK. Back to yer lives. It's one of those stories. We can all imagine how it goes, and that it involves a person with bad business etiquette.

I'll post this the way I know to be true, and you can infer the way I suspect to be true: A cup of dark roast coffee followed by a large, fresh orange juice produces the same taste in the mouth as a slightly stale, well-packed Camel Filter cigarette. Make of it what you will.

Speaking of which, Andre the Giant Still Has a Posse!

The midnight movie at Alamo WayTh'FuckNorth next weekend (the 7th&8th) is Princess Bride. I'm gonna have to think hard about that one. I'm one of the millions of Americans who missed it first time through the theaters. Plus, there's a bonus...

I've got to publish this before somebody else does, so I own it.

The Gibbs Diet; a simple way to lose up to 30 pounds a week for life!
This is a simple one-step diet. For the first six weeks, and then for the rest of your life, you eat only red meat. It metastacises all the higmoglobulineen in the intestines, which causes the body to shed fat. Believe it or not, you should eat the fattiest, worst cut of meat you can stand, as that's where the densest nutrients are. Yeah.
And, beware of Lamb, which masquerades as red meat, but is actually not. It doesn't count, and you shouldn't eat it. The answer to your weight loss is beef. Pure, grade A (or B) American (Or whatever) Beef. Suppliment this with 2 to 6 gallons of water per day. Never drink less than 2 gallons of water per day. Never EVER drink more than 6.

The New Gibbs Diet, Revised Edition; Lose no weight for six months, and then lose all of it!
This diet is meant to be separate from the previous Gibbs Diet. Do Not Combine These Two! For the first six months, eat nothing but Processed, Refined White Sugar, Straight Out of the Bag. If you become bored with this, you can heat some in a skillet, as a treat, and eat is warm. DO NOT CARAMELIZE THE SUGAR! During this diet, you should exercise as little as possible, and I recommend you not travel, as many people in other places will try to make you eat the local, exotic sugars rather than plain, refined white sugar, straight out of the bag. DO NOT eat brown sugar of any kind, and do not take in any molasses. Remember: you only have to keep this up for six months, which is a tiny slice of time when you consider the eternity you get to spend being thin.
Drink no water. This creates what I call the Kool-Aid Man Effect within the body, as fat collects along the torso and creates an appearance not unlike a pitcher with a face on it. Do not drink water during the time you are eating your (say it with me now) Processed, Refined White Sugar, Straight Out of the Bag.
After six months, you will die, either from malnutrition or from a massive coronary. Then, after death, you will be able to harness the natural "fat digestion" elements of the air to simply melt away the fat. Within as little as 6 to 8 weeks, you will be thinner than you have ever wanted to be. That's a promise.
So remember, that secret is Refined White Sugar, Straight Out of the Bag (tm).

Hell yeah, baby. Now I even got a slogan, and a previous diet, which shows that I am learning as I produce crazy, stupid fad diets.

I was just re-reading my old archives. I'd just like to point out:

PreSeptember11th2002:
"Well of course I wasn't paying attention," said Bill.
He was staning on my foot, and looking around at the bad paintings around the room. According to the program, this was the single largest collection of the worst paintings available in America today. Of course they had to obligatory Pollock, just to appease the critics, but the rest of it was real proper garbage. The walls were crammed with paintings; my first impression was that a child could have done them, but upon closer inspection they were clearly the work of adults. Attempted symbolism was rampant and the sheer number of "baby-as-bowl of fruit" still lifes was agonizing. As I walked through, I could hear the everyman putting on airs, trying to be the artiste. And you've never seen so many bad paintings of the Madonna with Sean Penn. Somebody thought the Mother of God and Madonna Ciccone's first husband would be a funny pairing. Then everyone else thought it too. That was in the '80s. Today, it's just hack. I won't even go into the internet art. Yes, being able to self-publish is nice because it takes out the editor and allows the artist more free range, but there's a little thing called taste that goes right out the window with it. A thousand blinking lights told me there was more to go.
I didn't heed the sign that said "Bad Art Exhibition." I thought it was a joke. Learn from my mistake. Don't let it happen to you.

PostSeptember11th2002:
When I was a kid of perhaps four, I saw an ad for Kraft Singles (Kraft is German for strong, or strength. For a German to be Kraftig is for that German to be Strong) (And to sell cigarettes to children) in which a kid was sitting on a porch in front of his happy home, eating a Kraft Single, which is a piece of cheese that comes wrapped in plastic and in a big squished-together lump, for those of you who don't know. I didn't know that at the time. I watched that kid pick up that pack of Kraft Singles, and look at it funny, and then a piece of cheese rose up from the pack. He took it and bit into it, looking as pleased with himself as anybody ever has any right to look. Then his dad came over to him and said something to the effect of "Hey, Sport! Can I have a piece of Kraft Singles Cheese, the Only Cheese Made with More Milk than All the Rest Put Together?"
The kid looks at him funny, and then holds up the pack, and a piece of cheese comes rising magically up out of the rest of the cheese. The man bites into the corner, and looks just as pleased with himself as anybody ever has any right to look. The two of them sat there on the porch, eating cheese.
I had no idea what the actuality of a Kraft Singles was, but I knew one thing, in the very fore-front of my mind: I needed it. I desperately needed a cheese that would magically levitate from the block, spreading joy and happiness. I think that in the commercial, it even made a "vooieet" noise as it rose. It was something I could not live without.
I bothered both my parents for days on end, needing that cheese. I offered to go grocery shopping every time Mom went. Eventually, I wore her down in that "OK, but you'll be disappointed and I'll have to deal with cheese you don't like" way. We bought the cheese and brought it home.
I ripped thumb-holes in four pieces before AngelBob and Dad could convince me that the cheese levitation trick didn't work. I got a good solid mouthful of inedible orange gunk before I could be convinced that the cheese was wrapped in plastic, a fact carelessly glossed over in the commercial.
And Mom was right. I didn't like the cheese.
I still don't. It tastes like the biter ashes of defeat and the must of lost childhood innocence to me.
I still believe I have lead a charmed life.



That's for those of you who think that I wasn't affected by the date. Just so's you know. Also, I self-edited my anti-American, anti-religious diatribe that I had scheduled to post on that day. Man, I'm bitter today. I need to go home.

Rejoice in me, for I am risen. By which I mean there should be a party because I managed to wake up.

There's a place with a thing that sings a song that says "You're All My Dearest Darlings."
There's a song in my mind swatting flies that sing "I'll never be your friend"
There's a reason that the people with black eyes in their heads don't say "I love you"
There's a hope for tomorrow with a plastic landfill sign that screams "there's always room for more."

It's hard to keep pretending to care.
It's like Seth says.
I hate me 'cause even though I cannot see I know I'm always here pretending to care.
Well, Fuck You.

Stetsons don't come in my size. I'll have to find another kinda hat.
I'd say Fuck, but it'd be redundant.

I wonder where a feller'd go to buy a Stetson in this town...
And where he would, by extension, bring his friend to also buy a Stetson so that they could send chills down their respective ladies' spines...

The food here is good, and I have reservations for Friday. After that, we're gonna go watch Lost Boys/MisterSinus at Alamo downtown. The perfect Friday? Maybe, maybe not, but close enough for me.

This dissection and comparison of webloggerly stuff is interesting. 10 points of difference between traditional journalism and weblogging.

Every time I go to Ebay, I feel like the (usually blonde, sometimes Aggie, but you can pretty much understand that what I mean is that the joke is pointed at a group of people who are supposed to be stereotypically stupid, not that I am saying that these groups are necessarily stupid, just that that's how the jokes work) person in the joke, feeding dollars into the vending machine and dancing.
Asked what I'm doing: Duh! Winning!

Tomorrow's Saturday. Actually, now Today's Saturday.
And I gotta work.
I'd say Fuck, but that'd be redundant.

Additional climbing tonight. I feel closer to a coronary just looking at Cheeseburger fries.
Just kidding. In my youth, them was called, and I know this is gonna shock ya', "Steak Fingers." They sound nasty the way Hightower describes them, but they're still just steak fingers.
With cheese.

Ummm... Cheese. Burger. Fries. I'm just sayin' is all...
In the Hightower's column which pointed me at them, he quotes I-don't-know-who at the Beef Association saying, "We want beef in dessert if we can get it in there."

Updated: I found a CNN thing that says the person who said that is named Betty Hogan.

Whatever else it is, Tom's Diner is a bad song to get stuck in yer head.

My novel is getting neater as I get more of an outline. It's about truth. Actually, it's about lies, which are about truth.

Notice I didn't make the whole movie review dump on Monday. Stupid work all intruding and stuff. But on the other hand, I GOT TO MEET TERRY PRATCHETT yesterday. WOO HOO!

We also saw two bad horror movies this week.
Miner's Massacre, with nobody you've ever heard of, and
R.S.V.P., with Jason Mewes and Glenn Quinn.

The first, which I find out is actually called "Curse of the Forty-Niner," although that's not anywhere on the movie or the box, is a bad slasher flik. It's got senseless killing, an unbeatable villain, and bad acting all around. There are cheap relationships defined by stereotypes and characters ruled purely by their lusts. It's a bad horror movie.
I fibbed when I said it's got nobody you've ever heard of in it. It's got Karen Black, a character actress with more than 100 movies under her belt, and John Phillip Law, who is named John Law, which I find funnier than is really appropriate. Richard Lynch makes a great cameo as an old man who dies, which is always nice to see in a crappy movie. All in all, given what it is, it's as good as it can be. If you walk in expecting anything but a bad movie, you'll be disappointed. If you walk in expecting a strong story that drives actors with a strong character, you're missing the point. If you are looking for a bad horror movie with a creature from hell that's secretly a guy with a mask on, this is yer movie.
There's a type of movie bad guy that I never understood: He was so bad in life that he gets to stick around after he dies and do bad things. The assumption seems to be that one can sell ones soul for evil powers, which is fine if one knows where the souls-for-powers store is. I checked the yellow pages, and I can't find one.
These characters never need motivation or back story, really, 'cause they're just bad. If you're just an evil so-and-so, you don't need to have a reason, it seems. You just get to come back with a bad makeup job. Yay!

RSVP, also called Sticks & Stones (It's just a day for alternate titles), was a pretty good suspense-y, horror-y Rope remake kind of thing. We got it, to be honest, because it had Glenn Quinn (TV's Doyle, from the series Angel) (I've always wanted to say that. TV's somebody. It's such a funny convention) and Jason Mewes (whom many of us know better as Jay of Jay & Silent Bob).
It's got a pretty set upon which most of the action happens, and a series of deaths, alternately believable and not. The people who are killed via asphyxiation die slowly and with jerking motions. The two people who are shot with a rivet gun don't manage to yell, nor do the two killed with a cane. Eh.
The end of this movie sucked, but it sucked in a particular way. It ended absurdly, and it kind of had to. The whole thing was absurd. One of the characters is murdered because he is locked in a box (with air holes, mind) for several hours. Whereas that would be really particularly unpleasant, I like to think that a person could survive. I'm just sayin'.
From the beginning, you know that a)a particular character has murdered another, and b)there will be more deaths. This is as good as said in the opening shots, and very precisely said in the establishing shots a little later. Then it's stated again a couple of times, and then we see the murderer clumsily keep the guests from finding out about the first death. As the audience, you know exactly what's happening, and you can just sit back and watch the characters, simple as they may be, philosophize about death and dying, life and dying, and smoking, drinking and dying.
The movie was pretty unexceptional, a middle-of-the road movie with a script that tells a story and a series of murders that had to happen from the first moments of the film.

Miner Forty-Niner's Curse of the Massacre: 920 milinovas. This kind of movie rates down here, even though it's supposed to be bad. I rate them between 800 and 950mn on principle.
RSVP of Sticks & Stones: 750 milinovas. It's nice to see Doyle in a movie, as he only had a short career, but it would've been nicer to see him in a better movie.

Secondhand Lions, with Haley Joel Osment, Robert Duvall and Michael Caine
I saw this weeks ago at a special sneak-preview screening thing, and enjoyed the heck out of it. I was ready to write a review, but also felt like I wanted to a)GO BUY IT RIGHT NOW (which you can't, of course), and b)watch it again a little more critically. I've done the latter, and I'm still thinkin' hard about the former.
This is a fine piece of film. It's got good performances from all of the actors, and it's got a story that's believable where it matters and absolutely absurd where it matters more. There's a sense of adventure akin to classics like the Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and a wide-eyed awe in the face of blatant reality that I compare favorably to Don Juan De Marco (the Depp/Brando movie. It's a hoot). I love that there are 4 stories that explain the Uncles' backstory, I love that there are lies surrounding everything the Mom does, and I love that there's a difference.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Secondhand lions is the story of two crazy uncles (great uncles, if one is being correct) who are left with a nephew to take care of for the summer. Or, it's the story of a boy who is ditched by his mother with his two crazy uncles. It's a movie about abandonment and love, and it's a story about getting old and getting useless and the two not being the same. It's a movie that could have been a "tear-jerker," but catches itself and makes a good story happen instead. There's a love that grows between characters, two of them gruff but human, one a weenie, that is believable because it takes time and it grows throughout the movie. The three begin as adversaries (two on one, no less), and are thrust into a situation in which they have a common enemy. The boy proves himself capable of being more than a simple weenie, and the adults prove that they have a backstory. By the end, you believe that they'd want the boy with them, and that they boy would want to stay.
This is a tear-jerker that forgets about maudlin sadness, and plays instead to those of us who enjoy a story. It's funny where it needs to be funny, and sad where it needs to be sad, and not a moment more.
For example: there's a moment in the movie in which the emotion is almost too much. The boy, Walter, played by Osment, has been told a bold lie by his mother, and his eyes are welling up with tears. It's a moment that a lesser movie would have milked with sappy music and three minutes of bleak, brown views of Texas fields. This movie, though, throws another twist and parades Duvall and Caine in overalls and silly accents. You can't cry, because it's life, and Walter doesn't get time to cry either.
This was fun, and it's got good performances and a good story. Osment has a funny way of emoting, but once you get past that, it's easy to believe him. His acting often looks fake, but he is also always standing next to Duvall and Caine.

*End of movie spoiler*
I had one editing problem, and these next two paragraphs contain the end of the movie, so be aware. After the end of the movie, and the unnecessary deus ex machina that proves that the uncles weren't particularly crazy, nor liars, there's a recap. It gets all sappy, and says, more or less, "Hey, remember four minutes ago? That was so great. Yeah." The movie should have ended with the catch phrase "Yes. They Really Lived," which is trite, but at least it's not a recap of 4 minutes ago. Sorry. Had to get that off my chest.
Oh, right: the ending. The movie was good. It's easy to overlook the ending. The movie ends, and everything is fine. Then, the end of the big adventure intrudes. Real, big adventures have to end badly because they imply that everything must be wonderful or die horrible, and either way, that's a sucky ending. After the end of the real story there's a deux ex machina (Hey, remember four sentences ago? That was so great. Yeah) (See how obnoxious?) that brings the otherwise pretty neat little story to the level of high-flung adventure, which doesn't work.
*End of Movie Spoiler Above. Just so you know.*

It clocks in at 325 Milinovas. Not bad, but not classic.

Oh, Hey! Monday's a great day for a movie review dump! I've got several I can review, many of them pretty good.

So, I don't know about you, but I've always heard the term bowdlerize with a negative connotation. Faithworks Press, publisher of scary nasty books, gives us these two titles, which it proudly calls "Shakespeare: rated G," and crows to the world have been bowdlerized. Hell, they're edited by the Thomas Fucking Bowdler.
In these books, for example, Ophelia's drowning is edited to be an accident.
So, then I went to the Faithworks page. I'm amused and a little sickened by the description of the book here. On the one hand, it's a true statement. On the other, ick.
It's part of my job to know what's coming out next year. It's part of my personality to be a little ill when it's icky.

Since I was browsing their site, Hey! Remember this game? Hee hee.
I'm recalling spending hours, feeding quarters into grubby plywood boxes, waiting for a helicopter to strap a gun onto my nondescript sports-type car. Hee hee.

I got a promo copy of a DVD from a local company. I'm looking forward to seeing it, and to showing my friends, provided it's even half as cool as it seems it must be.

I'm ready to write, but in a bigger way, I'm ready to sleep. Huh.

In its way, it's better than the OED. I just got it (ignore the 10-20 release date, it's sorta available now), and it's sitting in my car, calling me to get the hell off work. Hee hee.

On the one hand, I don't want to be one of the 86 quintillion Americans who doesn't have health insurance, but on the other hand, it doesn't cover everything it's supposed to cover, and it's expensive. Hmm...

I've asked it before, and it's only gotten worse, so I'm asking it again.
Is it wrong or just ironic to beat a co-worker about the head while yelling "CHILL the fuck OUT!"
I'm just askin'.

I'm going to pretend that I thought of this, even though I was just a collaborator.
On Missing Books:
Person A (a bookseller): Why Can't I find 300 Copies of Book In Question?
Person B (a manager of inventory): They're here, they're just in Overstock.
A: What?
B: It's where we put books that we order too many of, but aren't ready to return yet.
A: Well, can I get a copy. It's for a customer, and he's already pissed. I don't want to tell him we have the book but can't get it for him, even though it's in the store.
B: Well, we could have done, but we can't any more.
A: Why?
B: When we put it into overstock, it was with an additional thousand copies of Last Week's Book In Question, and six hundred of The Event Book We Didn't Sell Enough Of Yet...
A: And?
B: They collapsed.
A: Well, if the pile fell over, can't we just dig out a copy of Book In Question?
B: No, not on a structural level. On a quantum-material-black hole level. They've formed a quantum singularity. The overstock is sucking in books of which we don't have an overstock. The whole collection of books collapsed into a single book the size of The Little Prince. We have a Book Hole floating around the overstock shelves.
A: So, some mad crazy Shrinkage?
B: Ba-dum-bum.
A: So, I should tell the customer to fuck off?
B: I'm afraid so.

Inspired by actual events. Only it was a bad record system and an offsite event. Long story.

Since I'm dropping links:
Bubbleboards is very cool, and getting better all the time.
I can't link to these folks enough.
Try Blogger. There. Now I've recommended Blogger to several billion people. All of you, in fact. Hee hee.

The one on the bottom right is just wonderful. I know that The Onion gets plenty of praise, but I'll say it for you who've been living under rocks: Check 'em out.

At risk of stating the obvious, Mortality is something of a cruel bitch.

I'm taking this directly from Publishers' Weekly. I hate to just cut & paste like this to my page, but I can't find the story anywhere on the web (at the time of posting). So, this is from Publishers' Weekly's daily newsletter.


Borders' Suggested Retail Price Policy: Priceless


Borders Group wants publishers to stop putting prices on books and
plans to begin working, in cooperation with publishers, toward that
goal next year.

"Bookselling is one of the few retail environments where the price is
fixed by the supplier of the goods and not by the seller," says
spokesperson Anne Roman. "This is not the most advantageous
environment for any of the key parties." Borders maintains that if
prices weren't set by publishers, the retailer would be free to price
books strategically to give consumers more incentive to buy certain
titles--such as offering books by new authors at a lower price.


The debate over printing prices on books flared up earlier this month
when Borders U.K. managing director Philip Downer used his keynote
speech at the Borders management conference in Bournemouth to blast
the practice. "Publishers do not know what their books are worth,"
Downer said. In the U.K., the issue is expected to be a top priority
for a new committee made up of representatives from the Publishers
Association and the Booksellers Association.


In the U.S., it's too soon to say exactly how Borders will go about
pursuing the change, Roman says, adding, "We will move toward working
together on the pricing issue with more of a focus next year, always
in the spirit of partnership with our vendors."--Karen Holt

I talked about it but didn't link. I'm such a hoser. BubbleBoards.com. Keen-Niftiness from Austinites.
Austinians? Austinoids? Whatever. Austians? I like that one.

Hey Sherbie: I got pointed at this, which should make your blood boil. And if it don't, try this on for size.

To you who ain't Sherbie: Check out the above links, and keep in mind that she's works at Dell, where programmers employ this kind of crap every day. She has then to deal with the second-hand obfuscated code passed to her to fix/improve/cry about. She was teaching a group of us to code, and has much to say about these coding techniques. It's fun to see them written out, all in one place.

If you aren't Jon or Sharon of Invisible-City, I am obligated to ask you: Have you seen this?

It looks real. It smells real. If it's fake, it's a damn good fake. Somebody went to the trouble not only of not printing the BBC logo as the primary distributor (it doesn't happen. This is America.) but of figuring out that it goes through A&E, not Warner. For all intents and purposes, I have no reason to suspect that my copy of NeverWhere is a fake, stealing money from Gaiman and food from his kids. Hell, if it's a fake, they went to the trouble of fooling Amazon, and if the bootleggers went to that much trouble, I'm willing to pretend that they're not bootleggers. Until Gaiman says otherwise. Of course the DVD also features his commentary and an interview with him, so they're pretty thorough. Maybe they fooled him, too.
But, no, the point is, NeverWhere is available in this country on DVD. I am inconsolably happy.


Added later: Not for nothin': I didn't buy my copy at Amazon. I picked it up at a local scuzzy store, which I love to frequent.

Oh, also: Within the next 50 hours, more or less, Bubbleboards.com will go live. Yee haw, as it were. They'll also exist as bubbleboards.net, because of an odd technicality, but that's neither here nor there. It's better to have both, right? It nips the squatters in the butt. There's one less misleading thing. If we really cared a lot about foiling squatters, we'd go ahead and buy .org, .biz, .tv and .edu, but we don't. It'd be funny to have .edu. I mean, U of BubbleBoards. I'd pay money for an email address at bubbleboards.edu. Wouldn't you?
Oddness: Bubbleboard.com exists, but seems to be something wholely other.
Bubbleboards.com will be incorporating, or whatever you call it when you form a business (They have the details. I'm an unofficial research assistant and part-time investor. I don't have details) this week, also. Everything must be fun. Hey: They oughta have a party. That'd be neat.
Anyway, the point is, I'm outskirts-involved in a dot come launch, more than a year after the bubble burst. And here's a new, keener bubble. It's like it was meant to be.

I've got a challenge for you. Here's the story that explains it:
I am the proud owner of a pound (more or less) of dark roast guatamalan coffee. This means, beyond that I now have some tasty coffee to share with friends, that I am in possession of a dark roast bean that does not weight very much. Each bean is very light. I am trying to convey this, and am looking for a word that describes it. I said to a coworker, "It's a light bean, yes?" but light doesn't really cover it, because it's dark-roast. It's un-dense. It's porus, which is the best word I've found.
What's a 1 word synonym for "not dense?"
If you have a good one, you can email me at misternihil, which falls neatly at the domain of Misternihil, which is a dot(dizzie, G-money!) com(Kizzie, yo!), which will get a letter to me via the electronic mail (in the Hizzie!). I write it like this because I don't want any chance of webspiders harvesting my email, which is not GWBUSH@CIA.COM. Hee hee. Now maybe he'll get the desperate pleas for help from Nigeria and the offers for zzbigxxcockyyenlargppmenzx from fake email addresses. Lately, they all say they're from my Mom's email address. They're such liars. Or she's earning money on the side. Whatever.
Point is, if you wanna, email me a word if you have it. A one-word synonym for "not dense."

I hate spam. It's fucking obnoxious because there's nobody to throttle over it. You can't report them to anybody, because their email addresses are fake (unless you know how to get scuzzixxxbigdixxx@szxcxx.yzzzxx, for example, as your address), and there's no way to get off of the list. Sure, they put the requisite "to unsubscribe" bit at the bottom, but it involves replying to a fake address. Fuckin hell.

Keel haul you hosers, eh!

Yarrrr, brainssss

(sigh.)
Yarr.

psst:
          wink!
heehee.

It's off pissing, the way people from government institutions place orders with us in their own personal names, instead of the names of their institutions, and then try to pay with purchase orders from the institutions. I mean, it's no additional trouble for them. Just for me. And here I go, insulting everybody's favorite movie, then bitching about our government. What a subversive dick I'm being today.
Ho.
Hum.

OK. We saw a super special sneak preview of the movie Underworld last night.
If you don't know, here's the plot: There's all these vampires and werewolves, and they hate each other, and there are big gamer-type plot-machinations in swing, and they fight and there's a war and people get shot lots of times.
And therein lies the problem. It's like an RPG plot. The plot of an RPG is only fun because you get to decide what happens. You get to control one of the crappy, one dimensional, puffy faced, pale-ass characters on the screen, and make them do things. If you think it would have been cooler for the vampire girl to have had some guile of her own, perhaps to have had something resembling a subplot (in a whiny voice: "Everybody else got one, where's mi-i-i-ine?"), you could arrange that. Not in a movie. In this film, you can tell who's a bad guy, because there was only one good roleplayer in the bunch, and he was running the damn game. All of the NPCs have a little depth. All of the PCs (I'd argue that there were four, two regular and two who showed up for about three sessions in the campaign, never at the same time) are simple, like they were defined by numbers on a sheet instead of what we like to call "character."
OK, so that's a little bit of the overall criticism. What was good about this movie? The action wasn't bad. I don't like the idea of a half ton, 12-foot-tall wolf beast walking on plaster walls, but it was relatively effective in making you think, "Gawsh. Somebody at Sony owns a computer." There were some nifty big fight scenes, and some nice "guy shooting people" scenes. Lots of guns were fired. Lots of bit characters died, some of them twice, I'm pretty sure. I commented to Toshi, "Well, it's loud, I'll give it that." That sums it up, I think.
The fact that some of the movie was pretty tolerable, I think, is why it can't achieve greatness. It has all the ingredients to be a new SuperNova (the movie by which all other bad movies are judged. The worst of the worst. Worse, even, than Manos.), but it just never quite gets all cylinders misfiring at once. It's a big-budget movie with a bad script. It's got half-assed performances from people who don't look "movie pretty." It's got a gratuitous naked ass. It's hyped so hard it hurts. It's a bad series pilot masquerading as a movie. It just never quite matches Supernova for badness. It actually rates higher than I think it deserves (how 'bout them apples?), because of the small amount of stuff that didn't manage to suck.
This next paragraph is a little bit of a spoiler. Be aware. If you're going to see the movie, be aware, there's this spoiler in the next paragraph.
The bad guy dies. I know, I know, it's a big fat fucking shocker that the "good guys" in the movie win. Get over it. The bad guy has a terrible death scene. It is stupid. It is a big pile of badness. The death scene there at the end of the movie is suckedness warmed over. It's what happens when a scene in a bad movie gets a lobotomy. It's exactly what you're afraid it will be, and then some. Suck suck suck, suck suck suck suck. Did I mention it made the rest of the movie, which was bad, seem better? It was like chewing on tin foil and then being shot. After you get shot, the tin foil seems not so horrible. It was like being poked in the eye with stupid badness. It was crappy. The end of the story, before the set-up for the sequel (god forbid. God Forbid. GOD fucking FORBID.), is just a big pile of badness wrapped in week-old stupid. I mean, she jumps past him and his head falls in half. The audience cheered. I like to think they did this because it meant the movie was over. Probably, it was more puerile than that.
This is a movie that substitutes bad special effects for story. It does so in the accepted way. It will be lots of people's all-time-favorite movie until 3fast3furious hits theaters next summer. It had potential, but never got quite as bad as SuperNova. I could see it strain to be the worst movie ever, but it didn't quite make it. I'm sad to see such potential wasted. In another universe, I might be rating movies in Underworlds. Sadly, though, this one is only

950MilliNovas. Bad, but not the worst. I'd posit that this isn't even as bad as Manos (clocking in at a whopping 998). It's pretty much on a par with Jesus Christ:Vampire Hunter (940, but it's supposed to be sucky). If you get to see it for free, you'll get most of your money's worth. If you pay for it, you'll pay too much.
More reviews soon.

It's like making gamers do anything. Orisinal is awfully cool.

a quadruple shot of espresso
     jitter, I'm jittery I have to answer the phone
four shots of chocolate syrup
     I hate to talk to this guy he has thirty books he wants we don't carry them
mixed thoroughly to a beautiful mocha brown
     I can't stay in my seat it hurts to stop moving I ' m g o i n g t o d i e
served in a "to go" cup
     I have a million things to do but I can't hit the right keys on the kjeybvoard
drunk fast.
     fast
fast

Here's the Canadian take on the story of Imam Samudra being sentenced to death for an attack in Bali that killed 202 people. I've heard two American versions of the story. The first said Samudra said "God is Great" in arabic. The second reported his shouting "Death to the Infidels! Death to America," in English, when the sentence was passed down. The Canadians say he sort of did both.
Yay Canada.

Here, at my work, is a soda and snack machine. It dispenses candy, snack foods, and bottles of soda on a merit based system.
You put in your money, you gaze forlornly at the glass, not really seeing the cookies, bacon and noodle rations, but deciding slowly which you think you want. You press buttons and make a selection, but this is merely a formality. The machine comes momentarily to life.
It weighs several factors: how badly do you seriously want this item; what have you done today to deserve it; are you of a social class in which you can truly appreciate it; how heavy are your boots, and what is your likelihood of kicking in the glass? About six times in ten, it decides you are worthy and may have the item you have selected. Sadly, those four times in ten, people walk away and swear not to come back.
When they do come back, it is often with a roll of quarters and a determination to obtain what they think they should have. It is a lucky thing for them, then, that putting additional moneys into the machine can help your case to get your gum. Or whatever.
When I approach the machine, as I often do, I always want the king of the snacks, the Hostess Fruit Pies. I don't care the flavor, when I can get them, I am a happy serf. The machine, in its infinite wisdom, has only dispensed them to me twice. Always since, it gives me a bag of stale popcorn and a nickel change.

Wow. I'm shocked.
I got one of those ads, the ones that say "If Flashing you have been selected! You won a free thing!" (plus spam for life). It wasn't flashing.
How 'bout that? My luck finally ran out. After more than a thousand wins, my streak is over. I've been the 1000th, 50000th, and 1000000th visitor to more sites than I care to count. I've won fabulous vacations, DVD players and deals too wonderful to mention in the ad copy itself. I've had the offer of cameras, free pornographic subscriptions and free email for life.
I'm sad now, as I never claimed any of these things. I had fabulous opportunities, but it looks like my salad days are over. If only I hadn't been so cocky! I could live in a world of free electronics, porn and vacations to exotic cancun or Disney. But no, I never believed the hype, and now I never will have a chance for those wonders.
It's time to hang up my mouse. My stuff-winnin' days are over.

I'm gonna quote directly from the Random House catalog for y'all. There's a new John Grisham. No really, I mean it. Here's the whole blurb:
Nothing takes the chill out of February quite like the newest legal thriller from John Grisham. This time Grisham pulls out all the stops as he dazzles readers again with the storytelling skill that's made him America's #1 bestselling author.
The headline on the two page spread in the catalog (plus another two page spread in the large-print catalog, and another in the audiobooks) says "John Grisham: The Suspense Never Rests."
Do you see what's missing from these displays? I'll give you a hint: When we pull the book up in our title field, we get "Untitled." There's no mention of characters, setting or time period. They know how much it's going to cost (no, really), and they know it'll be on sale in February, and that these two facts never change between the announcement of a book and its release. No really. Don't look so incredulous. There's a list as long as your arm of media outlets that will be plugging the book.
There's a shit-load of hype, and no, as it were, book.
Hee hee.

Stress from work... becoming too much...
must get away... must rock climb...
urge to kill...
rising...

These people. I love to get their calls.
Them: "Hi. We used to do business with you a thousand years ago, and now we need to use our account. Give us a better-than-industry discount and print us up a listing of every book you can get."
Me: "Well, we are a RETAIL BOOKSTORE, which is clearly indicated on the site about fifty times. We can get any book in print, more or less, because we are a RETAIL STORE. You have called me here at a RETAIL ESTABLISHIMENT where we deal with RETAIL CUSTOMERS. You clearly want to talk to the wholesalers."
Them: "Oh. You aren't them? I assumed from the site..."
Me: "The one that says Retail?"
Them: "Yes."
Me: "Clearly says retail, and not wholesale."
Them: "Yes."
Me: "The one that absolutely never says wholesale."
Them: "Yes. I assumed you were a wholesale establishment."
Me: "We are not a wholesale establishment."
Them: "Are you sure?"

Grumble. I need a vacation. I'm thinking about, like, 40 years.
Not really.
Grumble.

Wow. That so goes along with what passes for modern times. It can't beat ascii star wars, but hey, what can?
There's a book with just the Genesis portion coming out from Chronicle in October. How bout them apples. And by the way, the Chronicle catalog comes with a disclaimer that LEGO "does not sponsor, authorize, or endorse this book."
Just so's ya know.

I went to a school like this. That kind of attitude from a school doesn't necessarily make people drink less. It just makes them drive to Austin and get stinking drunk, then drive home. Or maybe that's just in Texas.

Hey! Flash Won!!

Hey. You wanna know something mildly neat?
Austin's got a water park.
How 'bout that?

Is it Libel if you said it about yourself?

'Course, it also says don't chant (later in the same chapter), and don't draw pictures (that'd be one of the ten big commandments, wouldn't it? The first one, in fact), but that's easier to forget isn't it?

You go looking for a bible verse, it won't come up. If you just wait, it will usually come to you. That's the one I want to quote when I drive by the tent on my way to work that says "Free Prayer Here," and often sports a woman with a sandwich board with the same legend. That's the one that's why I don't pray in public. 'Cause the Bible friggin says specifically not to. That's all I'm sayin'.

Hey Sherbie & Panda: You noticed this earlier, but now UT noticed.

Hey:
This is worth noting if you are in Austin.

I'm quoting directly from the Workman Publishing Fall 2003 Catalog:

What is an owl pellet? It's the football-shaped object regurgitated twice a day by owls, which contains the skeleton of at least one owl meal, be it a mouse, vole, shrew, or small bird. Used in elementary schools to teach the "food web" - but virtually unavailable at retail - a professionally collected heat-sterilized owl pellet is now married to a lively two-color illustrated book filled with facts and related activities about these most amazing birds.

The book's called Owl Puke. We aren't carrying it.
My gramma was a science teacher for years, and I remember her collecting owl pellets with Flash. Still, that wasn't her packaging them and selling them to bookstores. I guess she missed a niche market.

It's like lord of the rings, only... um.
Found via Publishers Weekly daily email thingy.

It appeals to me if only because they look like they take this very seriously, only they are rappers who base their act on LOTR.

I give up.

I'm So Fucking Sick, I'm the King of the World.
-Cracker

Summer's half over.

Toshi and I have just been on a streak of good movies lately. The last 3 were really keen, and the last four were at least tolerable.
We started with Shanghai Knights. It was exactly what you'd expect, only with glaring historical glitches thrown in for the sake of cheesy jokes. The movie pinpoints itself as happening very precisely between the years 1897 and 1912. It happens in several years between those two, in the space of a week. It wasn't really a problem, except that this could have been avoided with the inclusion of fewer crappy jokes. That's all I really have to say about that. It's Jackie Chan. It's what you expect.
We saw Monster Squad, Toshi for the first time in years and me for the first time ever. It wasn't as bad as I'd heard. I liked several of the jokes, the effects were at that point in the 80's when they weren't quite horrible and they actually used the odd puppet instead of lousy computer animation. I thought the transformation scenes (Dracula to bat and vice versa, and human to wolf-man) were particularly good. The story is silly, but if you go into a movie called Monster Squad that touts its virtues relative to Ghostbusters, you have no right to be surprised when its silly. Ghostbusters is silly. This is silly.
Between these two, we saw a movie that was a genuinely pleasant surprise: Jeff Daniels' Escanaba in da Moonlight. What can I say about this movie without ruining it for everyone? Nothing, really. It's a movie about a man who hasn't shot a buck. It's a movie about hunting. It's a movie about Jeff Daniels. It's... It's artful, smooth, awfully close to home for those of us with a midwestern heritage and absolutely the nicest surprise I've had from a movie I knew nothing about. There isn't a bad performance from any character in the movie. Despite the handicap of having been made in 2001, this movie honestly projects the 80's Aura called for in the script. It's entirely possible that you need to walk into this movie expecting a comedy, but don't get your heart set on it. It's much more. It's beautifully screwed up, and by the time it's over, it's gotten so weird it's come out the other end and wound up back at normal. I'll bet the stage play was great.
Most recently, we watched Elling. It's about two men being relocated from a mental institution in Norway to a welfare apartment (in Norway). It's a great movie, but really, really intense. I found through the film that I wanted desperately to like Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen), but absolutely could not. I think that's one of the halmarks of a great performance, being able to show the complexity of wanting to be liked while being unlikable. Kjel Bjarne (Sven Nordin) comes across beautifully as a man with no guile thrust into a real world in which he only marginally functions. He wears his emotions on his sleeve and is, as Elling calls him right from the start, an orangutan interested only in food and women. Both actors are wonderfully believeable, and the duality of the personalities is played nicely. The cast is small, but every member does an admirable job of sinking the audience deeper into the story. It is very intense. We had to stop it for a breather and five minutes of King of the Hill to decompress before we could finish it.
So, four movies, I owe you four ratings:
Shanghai Knights: 682
Monster Squad: 550
Escanaba in da Moonlight: 446
Elling: 467

Hey! They guy who wrote Wicked, Lost and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister has a new book coming out. It's called Mirror Mirror, and he'll be AT BOOKPEOPLE ON OCTOBER 23 to sign his books.
Yo.

My page is down, so you probably aren't reading this right now. How 'bout them apples?

I am such a geek. I bought a magazine with a model in a swimsuit on the cover. I bought it for the articles. There's a price-guide in it that details the new lines from several guitar manufacturers. Yeah, there's a centerfold of girls holding guitars, but they clearly don't know how to play them. The instruments look awkward in their hands. I am such a geek.

Hey! We were recently lamenting the fact the Dairy Queens don't do proper ice cream cakeyness in Texas. Here's an answer. Their ice cream's plenty smoothe. I haven't tried the cake thing, but I'll haveta give it a try.

I love working in a bookstore.
Berk Brethed's new book is announced, and I've read an advance copy. They do this thing for kids books, where they release the actual pages from the book saddlebound with the dust-jacket (with no actual cover) so bookstores can preview the book but the publisher doesn't have to send out finished, salable copies. We got one for this new book, Flawed Dogs. It's a catalog of unwanted dogs at a "last chance" dog pound in a tiny (fictional) Vermont town. The poetry is a little simplistic, but you're reading the book for the drawings of grotesque dogs. I loved it.
Terry Pratchett's newest book is also very good. The story is better than early discworld, and the tendency to use (terrible) old jokes dwindles. Naturally, there are occasional slap-sticky moments and it wouldn't be a Discworld novel without bad puns, but the stories have come a long way since the beginning of the series. This newest book has some real character development (not that the last one didn't. It was also great. I get the feeling Pratchett likes Sam Vimes as a character), and introduces a whole new character set, complete with a history and a well-defined look into a future. I've been really impressed with the last seven or eight Discworld books, including the departure "The Last Hero." As the world becomes better defined, the stories only seem to get better. I liked it from the start, and the few that I honestly didn't like, I've liked better upon re-reading.
The other recent book I'm reading in advance is the Adventures of Samuel Blackthorne, Book 1, the Case of the Cat with the Missing Ear (from the notebooks of Edward R. Smithfield, D.V.M.). It's a Sherlock Holmes mystery set in San Francisco at the turn of the century, in a world peopled with talking animals. This story specifically deals with dogs mostly, but a cat appears and the suggestion is made of several other species on the burner for future books. Now, I admit, I'm not done with it yet. I'm about 4/5 of the way through, but I'm going to make a couple of judgments based on the 189 pages I've read so far (of 237 total) (in the advance reader. This does not necessarily mean that the final book will be exactly this long). The book is written very much in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle. With the exception of leaving out Holmes/Blackthorne's use of opium (which Doyle didn't introduce until the second story. Emerson's Blackthorne has more in common with the first incarnation of Holmes than with the second, although he does have the later Holmes' love of all subjects and supernatural preparedness. Here I site Holmes' rolodex of every person in Europe and Blackthorne's massive index of the types of hair of every breed of dog, cat, rat, bat, moose, horse, cow, "and a number of other animals."), this could very easily have been written as a "lost Holmes" mystery and rewritten with dogs. The oddness comes in the little details. Emerson often talks about different breeds of dogs, at one point having the minute protagonist identify a group of attackers by their hair (thus being able to determine their breed), and also by having Blackthorne sniff at every crime scene. It's a great book, and I am most impressed that Emerson didn't feel the need to dumb down the language particularly. It's still a pretty high vocabulary level, especially for a kids book. If my opinion changes when I finish the book, I'll update, but until then, I'm duly impressed.

Coming up in later reviews: The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes and a new R.L.Stine book called Dangerous Girls. I guess I ought to go ahead and put a review of Wee Free Men up here, but I haven't written a good one yet.

There's a new vending machine in our break room. Inside, I found my old nemesis, Hostess Fruit Pies. They only have the lemon ones, but oooooh, fruit pies.
On the other hand, check out that creepy Twinkies web page. No, not SeanBaby's, the "real official" one. I mean, planet twinkie? We'll be lampooning that one in twenty years, right? Or have kids eaten enought twinkies that the secret chemical ingredients have sapped their naturally occurring lampoonides, and they'll have to appreciate crap at face value? Will the children of tomorrow be able to enjoy He-Man for the story? I hope not. Of course, they already don't know who Twinkie the Kid, Fruit Pie the Magician, The Corn Pop Kid and Mayor McCheese are. Will the children of tomorrow know the joys of crappy cartoon characters invented to move product?
Oh, wait, PoKeMon, right. I almost forgot.

Oh, hey! It was Flash's birthday Monday.

I had this idea, about precious chickens and fun. I'll get back to you.

On the phone with a publisher right now. Every thirty seconds, a recording comes on, asking me to push a button to keep holding. The other option is to leave them a message so they can get right to the business of ignoring it. I've left messages, but this is more... um, fun.

Everybody Needs it

Busy morning, busy night before.
This looks neat.
I saw a movie that I quite liked. It starts odd and gets odder, but hey! Wil Wheton's in it! So's Danica McKellar! It's a neat movie. Definitely a renter. The DVD has drinking games and a scavenger hunt.
Oh yeah, and we got a tent and sleeping mats. We are gonna be all campery! (and flashlights and lots of water, too)

additional: Keen or crappy? You decide...
If you'll notice on that link above, Captain Hook is listed before Peter Pan. 'Cause he's Lucious Malfoy. Hee hee! He may be a better Hook than Dustin Hoffman, who I think did an excellent job. I mean, he's no Hans Conreid, (aka Dr. T) but Conreid has really become quintessentially Hook, hasn't he?

OK, so think about this:
SRIs, Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, cause nausea, bloatin and gas. They cause ugly stomach upset combined with very acidic stomach.
Caffeine is an base. It reacts with acid in the stomach and produces salt and water. That's how I understand it, remembering from Chem 111.
Taking SRIs gives me pain all day. Drinking coffee makes me feel better. Hey!

Don't go near a movie theater this Christmas.
No, I really mean it.

OK, so no friggin way!

I found that here.

My little brother's a rock star. Yeah!

04/09/04: link fixed. -MN

SRI = stomach upset.

He said, "Fucker, I can hear the desperation in your thought."
I flipped him the bird, and when he turned to walk away, I shot him.

I need a new word. Sexy isn't covering what I want it to cover lately. What I'm trying to describe begins with the look of an inch-thick multi-gigahertz processor laptop, but it continues on to mean more than that.
Two examples:
a) I've recently spoken to a local woman who lived in Germany at the time of World War II. Her grandfather was an engineer who worked with Messerschmidt. Hearing her say the word Messerschimdt did things to my spine. She didn't say it sexy; she was not, in herself, particularly sexually attractive to me; she mostly just said it right, which is beautiful.
b) There was a girl at an open-mic performance last night. She had what I can only call a cherubic voice, but rich and clear. It was a voice like a bell and it was very, very pleasant. She played guitar cleanly and with an easy skill and grace. It was, again, not sexual, but it was what you sometimes gotta call sexy.
So, where does that leave me? Needing a new word. I'll play with it and think about it. If you get any ideas, I'm open.

It is 9:43pm, and I am standing inside a Church's Chicken that is trying hard to close for the night. The seating area is already closed, although the sign on the front says it will be open for another 17 minutes. I have placed an order at the drive-through, and have been permitted to wait inside for a part of my order that will take, she offered, about 4 minutes. She offered me a free soft drink, which I politely declined, as I am not in a hurry. I have half-an-hour, more or less. I don't mind waiting. There is a man behind the counter, behind the food. He is frying the part of the order that will take an additional 4 minutes, more or less, and looks both very intense and very distant. His ancestry is clear in his features and proud in his baring.
In my head, The Reverend sings a song called "Generation Why" that's got lyrics worthy of Tim (pre-influence, post-creepfeed).
There's a woman behind the counter with whom I have already spoken. She talks into a headset and takes orders quickly and precisely, but in with an unfriendly air.
There's a man standing at the counter, leaning over with obvious hostility in everything about his bearing. He is fat and tense, as if ready to spring ineffectually at any moment. He has a moustache and a tick that says he is a jerk and a smoker in need of attention and nicotine. When I parked my car and walked up to the door of the lobby, to wait for my order to be ready as instructed, He pulled up and parked in a handicapped space in front of the store. He stepped out of his car, fists clenched, and glared from the door to me. I felt pressed, and so said, "I think they're trying to close the lobby. There's still the drive-through." He responded, "No Way. No FUCKING Way," and clenched and unclenched his hands, turning a shade redder. I was afraid he would try to punch me, and took a subtle step back.
When this man growled, another man inside the lobby opened the door and said, "Are you guys waiting for the tenders?"
I said, "I am," and the other fellow shoved the man who had opened the door back, and stomped up to the counter. I made eye contact with the employee, and made a conciliatory shrug. I've worked retail, and I know that people suck. He looked from me to the newcomer and realized instantly what was happening. He went back to sweeping. I stood by the window, where I am standing now, at 9:43pm, and waited for my order as patiently as I know how to. I looked at the menu, watched the man sweep, and smiled quietly to myself. It's how I wait, when I have no place to be, and 10 minutes of cook time ahead of me.
My phone rings, and I chat for a moment with a friend I have missed of late. The woman with the headset says to me, "You're order will be ready in just a moment." I give her a happy wave and a faint smile, and keep chatting quietly. I'm enjoying the moment of wait, although that seems not to be an option. I think she's worried that I'm mad and I don't know how to assuage her concern. I did, after all, wave away a free soda.
The man outside is smoking a cigarette angrily as if it were making him late.
I notice for the first time, the woman behind the counter filling an order. I assume it's not the first since I started standing here, but it's the first I see filled. She uses long metal tongs to fill an order for a three piece mixed with biscuit. She is lightning quick with them, snatching pieces of chicken with absolute precision and stacking them into a paper box which she pulls from a pile and shakes into life with one deft motion. It is poetry to see her move so swiftly and so precisely. I think to myself, this is a woman who is good at her job and doesn't want to do it forever.
It is 9:47pm. She hands me a box containing precisely 20 assorted pieces of animal flesh. This will feed me and Toshi for several days. I say lamely, "You're very quick with those tongs. It's impressive." She very obviously wonders if I am being sarcastic, seems to realize that I don't mean anything terrible by it, and says "Thanks." I take the food, and head out of the lobby.
As I pass the newcomer, the man torturing his now third cigarette to death, I wish him a good evening. He glares at me for a moment, then says "Yeah." I go to my car, turn on the radio just a bit too loud, and drive the four and a half minutes home. It is now 10:01. I make a wish, turn off my car, close the garage door, and go inside.

Hey, Sharon&Jon, Peter David is the name I was trying to remember.

"How Is What You're Doing Good?"
It's a useful question to ask oneself.

Again, I'm sorry.
They're my Two Blogs, and they go TweetTweetTweetTweetTweet like little birds.
Don't click on all of those. It's the same joke over and over.
I know. I hate me too.

I'm sleepy. It's a good afternoon to be sleepy. The clouds are thick, the sun is dim and the air is heavy. My work is tedius today: entering books into the computer. It's a good job, but one that involves making tiny motions over and over again and not thinking too hard.
The beginnings of a song have started in my head. I'll look into that a little further.
Odd badness all this week. Work has been my escape.

Oh yeah, and about 850, Sherbie, since you asked.

So, it seems that I now have 2 blogs, because of some silliness that happened when Blogger switched over. I need to find a way to put the two together. I have this idea, and I'm gonna try it out. We'll see...

OK, so, wheras this is a little harsh, I have to agree with him. That movie was too long and too bad.
It should have been a tight 97 minutes, more or less, instead of almost twice that. It's different with, say, Lord of the Rings, which is a long movie that actually includes two or three hours worth of events and still makes people complain because important stuff is left out.
How bad was Hulk? Watching it at the Drafthouse couldn't make it enjoyable. Not even a snack and ice cream could make that movie better than terrible. Think about that: Amy's chocolate ice cream couldn't make that movie good. Amy's makes broken legs OK.

And I look in your eyes
and my head explodes again.

So, Barbeque sauce is one of those art forms doomed to stagnation. At its best, the sauce is a thick, sweet, tomato-based fluid for marinating and cooking meat or other grilled items. At its most complex, it contains such wonders as black pepper or black-beans and corn. At its simplest and, apparently, most historically accurate, it's ketchup with sugar added.
From what I hear, that's the origin of what we today call barbeque sauce: cowboys on cattle drives in the early-to-mid 19th century cooked with a sauce made of sugar mixed with ketchup.
Personally, I think that limits the end product. Perhaps, if we think about it historically, a wider variety of sauces can be called Barbeque, but still, with the origin being two commercially manufactured products being mixed, and a market of approximately six thousand brands and types of sauces available today and relatively unchanged since the 50s, I'm going to posit that there will be few if any big advancements in barbeque sauce in the near future.
In fact, I'd say that there have only been two real advances in barbeque sauce technology, ever: one was, of course, the invention of Ketchup. The other, I'd say, is the relatively recent discovery in this country of real peppers.
The import and growing of habanero peppers (as well as other "exotic" pepper varietals) has only recently become big business, and these spicier and tastier peppers have only become available in the common grocery store in the last quarter century. They allowed barbeque sauce to change and become, far from just ketchup with sugar in it, very spicy ketchup with sugar in it.
Happy 4th.
My intent is to barbeque, besides the obligatory rump roast, portabello mushrooms (which, yes, I have the materials necessary to french fry, in case one of my readers thinks I misremembered) and firm tofu, both of which are wonderful with a spicy barbeque sauce, smoked on mesquite briquettes.
Oh, yeah, and live music is probable from these fine folks.

Updated 7-15
The rump roast was predictably tough. I braised it in butter and a homemade barbeque sauce, and it came out to be very edible, but the really nice meat was the slightly better cut of meat that I just put on the grill until it was cooked. It came out tender and smoky and really very nice. I also tossed on four yams which came out soft and sweet, as yams are want to do. It was good, and the music played after was very nice. I had a little squabble with Toshi after, but it was nothing serious and was fixed as quickly as these things are fixed.

Hey!
Good birthday, sez me. Toshi came and visited me at work and brought me SpiderMums and cake. We had hamburgers, and I learned that there's a new Tricky record, and, wonder of wonders, a new one from Poi Dog Pondering.
A neat day so far, and it's only half happened.
Also odd-badness, but I won't dump that right now.

"I am so mad at you right now."
We all agreed, that was the best way to end that speech. "Won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more" lacks a certain panache. If I were resigning the presidency, I'd have to do the "mad" line.

HEY, JON!
LOOK! How cool is that?
Almost as cool as I think this is, I hope.
Niftiness, it do abound!

I haven't posted in a while again.
It's inventory, and I've been busy with lotsa stuff (related and un-).
Also, there'll be a party for me on Saturday.
Everybody's invited.
Hooray.

I had a dream last night:
Jack Lemmon was trying to get into a movie theater (not, I don't think, to see one of his own movies). He was wearing a grey, pinstripe suit. Outside, there was a gang of young toughs, most of whom looked about 15. They moved so he couldn't get in. He plead with them but I couldn't understand what he was saying. They were clearly not going to let him in. They seemed to make a demand. He looked pensive and then reached into his coat and withdrew a pack of cigarettes from which he took roughly foot-long cigarettes and handed them out to the kids. They looked delighted, and accepted them as one might accept a puppy.

As I sat in a small White room:

The walls are plaster and thin. On one side they contain blocks of concrete to keep out the rest of the world. On three sides, if I am quiet, I can almost make out interactions of other people. In front of me, when I press my ear against the wall, I hear a quiet moaning. He (she? One cannot tell) moans and giggles and calls out for people, sometimes by name, sometimes by title: BOB! uuuuhhhhhh MIRIAM! uuuuuhhhheeheehee FIREmanFIREmanFIREman uuuuuuuhhhhhh.
Behind me a woman is speaking a language I have never heard before. It has too many consonants, and sounds like a person trying to speak with a mouthful of pudding, ramming his fist in and out of it while trying to form sounds: Mmmm(shlorp)ng-k-tch!(shlorp)gHRKgHRKgHRK ahhh ngaaauuu(shlorp).
It's the man to my left who scares me. He just keeps whispering "Not that anybody noticed," louder and softer, over and over again, up and down like a sine wave. Sometimes I can't hear him at all; sometimes his voice echoes in my ears and I feel the need to cry out, but I don't. I'm afraid he'll hear.

Guessing they haven't Finished Layout

In one of those surreal masterstrokes, DK, publisher of fine childrens' and reference books (according to their fall catalog) have released a book entitled "Crime Detection with Batman," which includes pictures of Batman and crime detection equipment, along with the text of a book about Greek Gods.
There's a wonderful picture of two gas masks, a bullet-proof suit and military-issue boots, along with the text "The Sandals of Hermes allowed the user to," (it cuts off there) and labled "The Sandals."
It's a beautiful dream.

Paid attention reflected
sparkles on water
blinding flashes black depths
the look of love-hate-love.

To which he replied, "You, sir, are a MotherFucker."
I was momentarily stunned, then punched him in the nose, and stomped away.

I am horrible, horribly inclined to agree.

There are just days when it's hard not to say Man, we're a collective dumbass.

Yay! Midwinter Birthday Party for Me! Huzzah!
(It's July 5th, this year.)

Why is "It's None of My Business" such an easy thing to say and such a hard thing to know?

Timing may be everything, but it still is hard without a watch.

Writing sucks. Mine, anyway.
Does it move along? Perhaps.
Does it flow? Nyet.
Does it exist? For the most part, not at all.
Ahem.
Moving on.

Toshi's going to do a redesign on this page and hers, so they should be changing any time now. A-a-a-ny time now. Yup. Any old time. Uh-huh. Yup.

Trying something different. Let 'em all go to hell, except cave 76, right?