One Lucky Beaver

          Whenever I have a few moments, I like to imagine woodland creatures meeting cultural and historical figures of note. I told the great, intrepid Jess this and she drew one for me, in MS Paint no less. Exhibit I: A Beaver Meets Jim Morrison

Movie Reviews, Schmovie Schmeviews

         While Dana is engaged in her training for our imminent rumble and Andy fights the good fight against his intruding legumes, we here at Ok Times thought you could use a little heads up for the holiday movie season, the most consistently disappointing time of the year not counting the televised hockey season. Hence, a new bit: Ok Times presents: Movie Reviews, Schmovie Schmeviews: Episode I: Drastic Colon Overuse:

Aeon Flux

I’ve seen pretty girls in leather suck before, but never like this.

Syriana

Ever wish you could see an anonymous six-year old and George Clooney’s fingernails finally get their just desserts? Wish granted In this groundbreaking film from Steven Soderbergh’s precocious left testicle, George Clooney and Matt Damon fight thousands of Arabs and one black guy to an oily death, high above the futuristic oil fields of Syriana, a futuristic nation state where the remaining 1% of Earth’s population fight for survival in the future. Just who is that black guy and what is he doing for whom? Twenty dollars if you can figure it out.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

What does Disney have against my childhood? Honestly, it never did anything to Disney, except that Herbie the Love Bug incident in fourth grade, but I thought we were even after Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman shat down the collective throats of the world with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apparently we weren’t. No, Disney had one more knife to firmly plant in the pale, fleshy back of yesteryear. Did you know that if you hang out with Liam Neeson at a Renaissance Faire for two hours you become the greatest swordsman in the world? Did you also know that if you sit in a theater for two hours watching this movie you’ll hate Santa Claus and little children? Et tu, the estate of C.S. Lewis, et tu?

Brokeback Mountain

I’ve seen cowboys suck before* but never like this.







* The Cowboy Way, City Slickers II, and Young Guns 4: These Guns is Young

Open Letters From America

         

Dear Mr Walken,

Allright, we get it. You can stop. You’re wacky, we understand. Relax.


Sincerely,
America



Dear Guy on King of Queens.

I don’t know who you think you are, but I must remind you, sir, that this country has a tradition of disliking shitty kings. Unless you are on the very cusp of reinventing your self as the Elected Public Representative of Queens (in which case your mediocrity would be expected and welcome) then let me be the thousandth to tell you to, ahem, Get Out of Me.

Sincerely
America



Dear Africa,

Let me start by saying how great it is to finally write you. We don’t see each other enough Hey, sorry about letting you die of AIDs for the last few decades. We were all really busy, you understand. I mean Britney Spears wasn’t going to make herself famous. But seriously, about the debt, well, about that debt, Haha. The thing is, we’ve fallen on kinda hard times (Did you see the gas prices? 3.50?! Whew! ) and we need you to pay up. Please send cash, check, or money order to, well who are we kidding, just give it to China next time you see her.

Sincerely
America

P.S. BFF XOXOXOXOXOX

Lies I've Told Children

         As you might not know, I don’t just sit around writing brilliant quips and revolutionary blog entries all day. In fact, I occasionally work. As an elementary substitute teacher. Sometimes in the course of daily events, I find it necessary to polish the truth a bit. I tell different lies to different age groups, but I’m not sure why. See if you can come up with a good answer and post your hypothesis as a comment. Here is a collection of exaggerations, half-truths, and lies I’ve told children:

Lies I’ve Told Kindergartners

Anybody can be in the space program.
Money doesn’t matter.
I met the President, and he says you should put your head down and be quiet.
No one’s going to hurt you.
I wrestled a bear, but it wasn’t a big one.
It’s okay to cry.

Lies I’ve Told Fourth Graders

I am very rich.
You are a great reader.
I’ve never seen a cow.
I could lift you with one arm.
Jefferson Starship is a great band from the seventies.
Love conquers all.
You know, back in the old Soviet Republic, nobody was allowed to have puppies or kittens, so they took all the puppies and all the kittens and mashed them up and let them rot in a big underground chamber that would collect all the gas from all the rotting and turn it into electricity. It powered Moscow for three years.

So it's come to This

         Well, I guess you can invite people to share a "information-super-highway-journal" with you, but you can't make them actually write in it. Andy could be dead for all we here at Ok Times know. Dead and, as he often was in life, full of maggots. Maggots and beer. And pornography. Maggots and beer and pornography. All three. Dana's probably busy teaching the dying children of sub-Saharan Africa how to add appendices to their women's lit papers, or some other "worthwhile" "goal". Will we see her again? Let's "hope" so.

Which leaves me. I've got plenty of time. My 4-8 job down in the Irregular Product section of the local muffin factory, Jonah's Most Magnificent Muffinery (23rd and 2nd Ave), leaves me plenty of time to do fun things, like see how much sunblock I can eat (6 3/4 tubes), or how much sunblock I can make a cat eat (3/5 tube), or driving to the hospital for a scratched cornea when one of my stupid friend's stupid cats scratches me ON THE EYE for NO GOOD REASON! But I digress. The point of this all is that, for obvious reasons, I am challenging Dana and Andy to a fight, to be fought within the next three months, on grounds of their respective choosings, with weapons to be drawn randomly from this list:

1. Ike Turner
2. High Heeled Shoes (1 box)
3. Unexpected Tenacity
4. Any novel by Ernest Hemmingway, or that Proust guy. (not sharpened)
5. Scrabble letter tiles (2 bags)
6. Hot glue (just the glue, no guns allowed)
7. Squash (the sport, not the vegetable)
8. Kitanas
9. silenced Berringer Semi-automatic .42 caliber pistols (standard German issue)
9. A nice game of Chess
10. Thermonuclear Warfare (Did he just reference War Games? Yes. Yes, yes he did.)
11. Nerf javelins atop Mounted polar bears
12. A one hundred dollar bill (unfolded)
13. The Boxcar Children
14. Fisticuffs (although I must warn you, I boxed at Yale)

So there, consider the gauntlet thrown down, picked up, and thrown down again. I will consider a post to the site to be your acceptance of the terms in full and should you not respond within two days out of this post, be it for inconvenience or the cowardly coward's fear of a coward, I will consider it your total and unconditional surrender, coward. The winner will of course recieve glory, a small monetary donation in their name to the charity of their choice, and an entire family of slaves.

Put thine dukes up.

New China Town Buffet Food of House and Family

         I was on my way to pick up my sesame chicken from the local egg-rollery, New China Town Buffet Food of House and Family, when I ran into this skinny guy passing out flyers. I mean, I ran right into him. Didn't mean to, I was just totally absorbed in some old DJ Jazzy Jeff b-sides, you know? Yeah, ran right into his back. We exchanged "scuse me"'s and I was about to walk on when he thrust this into my hand,



I read it and walked on, but not before turning around to see that that the "skinny" guy was actually a skeleton! A real skeleton, right there! On my street! I didn't see that anyone else was taking the flyers, and he looked like he was really cold. Our eyes met briefly before we both turned away. I thought about it for awhile, but I don't think I want to be a skeleton.

Why I Killed That Panda

         Whoa, whoa. Let’s just slow down a second here. Just stand up and listen for a second. Please stop screaming. Please. Please stop. Thank you. Now, I know, I know we have a big mess to clean up. But before you. . .What? No I didn’t mean “we” as in you and I. I meant it in the collective sense. Now please listen. Don’t look down, look up here, we’ll worry about ‘down there’ in a minute, and stop screaming, stop, everything is going to be fine. Right now I want you to look at me, and listen, so I can tell you why I killed that panda.

         Honey, I know things look bad, and certainly you have every right to be shocked and a little angry, but if you don’t pull yourself together. . .What? Yes, I am fully aware that the panda had a name. . . No. Because it doesn’t matter if I tell you what the panda’s name was, that won’t help our situation and. . .Honey, Honey, I know. I know. I told you I knew Prince Bobo’s name. I told you I did. Please stop shouting. It’s what Prince Bobo would have wanted. Thank you.

         This is a testing situation, no one would disagree with that. Also, I don’t think anyone would say that I am completely blameless in bringing us into it. But just as the Scottish philosopher David Hume said, “If one particular event is said to cause another, are the two events logically connected, if all inferences from experience are effects of custom, not reasoning?”, I think that in a way, this, Prince Bobo’s final tableau, is not my fault, per se, so much as an event giving rise to the customary illusion of fault. After all, isn’t this horrible fate simultaneously everyone and no one’s fault? For example, although it was my idea to come to China for our second year anniversary, it was your idea to come to the zoo today, not mine. Does that mean that. . . Okay, okay, I know that you didn’t “force” me to drink ten beers at the monkey house concession stand, but you know how hard I work during the week! Don’t I deserve the occasional restorative?. . . I take your silent, open-mouthed glare as a sign of disbelief, but I assure you, a twenty-six hour week is more than enough to drive man to drink. So please don’t hold my own terrible cross to bare against me. As it appears our time for discussion is waning let me sum up my reason for killing that panda. . . sorry, why I killed Prince Bobo.

         To be completely frank, this hot air balloon wasn’t going to make itself any lighter. Admittedly, it was I that forced the three of us, you, myself, and Prince Bobo, into what I thought was just a large prop for a wicker basket exhibit, but sometimes the past and the illusions of gross negligence to which it will inevitably give rise must be put aside in order to focus on the present, i.e. forgetting how we got in this hot air balloon in order to focus on not letting said balloon collide with that very large mountain range. Yes, Honey, that mountain range right there. But of course, we’d still be on the ground if not for the unforeseeable consequences of my previous actions at the Insectatarium.

         Nobody, and I mean nobody, could have predicted that those vacationing taikonauts would have reacted so violently when I stood up during the “instructional video of welcome” and called them “orange wearin’, tube eatin’, slant eyed, moon fuckers.” Who would’ve even thought they speak English? Certainly not I. Of course some response was to be expected, but, again, how was I supposed to know that all Chinese astronauts are also expert martial artists? Why would they need that in space, honestly? And no one could have suspected that they would hunt us down later and untie the balloon’s only earth bound tether. Perhaps the Chinese space program should focus less on perfunctory kick-boxing skills and more on recruiting level headed adults that don’t get so mad at a simple stranger’s drunken epithets.

         In summary, I fully admit to making a poor decision when I bribed the comely assistant animal handler to let me take a panda out for half-an-hour. It was neither thrifty nor respectful of Prince Bobo or our beautiful, meaningful sense of marital trust and obligation. By, what some people would call, “kidnaping” Prince Bobo, I put not only myself, our visa status, and the future of the Asian panda population in danger, but also, most importantly, you. And for that I apologize.

         But, now I am sure that you see why, when the weight of the balloon brought that ever closer mountain peak into our path, I had to do what had to be done. When you were over there, screaming down to the emergency vehicles tailing us below, I chose the heftiest half-brick from that pile of half-bricks in the corner of the basket and in one deft and athletic motion helped Prince Bobo shuffle off this mortal coil. Now, we must find some way to lift this gentle giant over the side of the basket. . . Now, Honey, don’t say that. This isn’t Prince Bobo, just his physical husk. Prince Bobo will always be with us, in our hearts. And please, darling, remember as I stand here, bloody half-brick in hand, that I am a man that killed this panda for one reason and one reason only. . because I love you.

Priceless Document Found in My Backyard

Recently, the American Society for Securing Socially and Historically Interesting Traditions, ASSSHIT, has been digging an excavation pit in my backyard in order to find more of those dubloons I told you about back in June. They had been here for almost a month with nothing to show except half a chimp skull and an old bag of Moon Pies until yesterday, when they discovered a rotting black trunk adorned with Christopher Columbus's coat of arms,



Needless to say, they brought the trunk inside and we opened it without hesitation. But instead of dubloons, maps, or the ubiqitous slave corpse, we found only a moist, semi-disintegrated parchment. On further examination it was concluded that this was a portion of the journal of Brittel MacAckack, a Scottish mercenary that served as third sous chef sencond class on the Santa Maria around 1490. How this manuscript ended up in Birmingham is still a mystery and a constant source of tension and infighting amongst the dig team. Here I have posted the journal's entire salvageable contents:

It was a fortnight and a weekpenny before master Christopher was well again. His first night back on his feet he came bursting through the galley hatch at a quarter past midday on the eleventh of October wearing nothing but his knickers, an Italian flag, and a hat he had fashioned from driftwood and rat pelts.
"Anon," he said, "by Henry's watch we should be in India within a month's breast. We shall have our tea then, gentlemen, that I can assure you!" He grabbed Timmyson's goblet and used his mulled wine to gargle the Spanish national anthem, which was customary after the bearing of good news at sea, then sprang back outwards of the hatch to whence his quarters wherethefore he came. The men became restless as they knew of Henry's disposition to inaccurate timepieces, but I only smiled and said, in Italian, "Wherewithal boys, wherewithal, that's what we need, some good old-fashioned wherewithal." only in Italian.
For some time afterwards the crew made a good effort to avoid Captain Christopher as if he were the very bubonic plague that had ravaged our home port of England only some weeks before. It was during this invlountary exile that Master Columbus wrote his best poetry. He called his poems his "barbies" and scrawled them on the railings with sticks of dried rat dung.
"Don't be lookin' at me barbies," he'd say, "or I'll give ye the old Cordovan One-Two One-Two. Aye, then we'll sees what ye laugh at like school children." But we laughed anyway. Good days those were.
Master Columbus's writing flurry was over and done, though, the week the storm came. The men and I were playing Pigs and Spoons on the tertiary poop deck when, out of a heretofore clear blue sky, a school of thunderheads and rainyladies rolled in from the southwesterly. Once we finished our game, Robertonson having won the queen, we barely had time to soothe the dogs or finish our hatch battening before our ship was awash in a sea of water, only this sea came from the sky! The rain washed away all of our captain's poems, at which some of the men burst into song. Captain Columbus had them beaten, shot, and beaten again before anyone could stop him. Although the altercation admittedly lowered morale, the surviving members were ecstatic that Harringfortonton, the ship's resident bully, had been among the beaten, shot, beaten. His wife and children remarked that the last beating, publicly held, had been unnecessary. They were promptly kicked in the teeth and tossed overboard.

Great Fiery Bird of Zeus!

Look, on the horizon, it's Ok Times!! Like a great drunken, mythical bird rising haltingly from it's pile of ash and empty cans, I have returned to you, and so be ye not afraid, my children. And of course, by "me" I mean "us", for the authorship of Ok Times has not singled, not doubled, but tripled! Behold the three headed blog-hydra! Thy name be Andy and Dana. It won't be so lonely around here with two more pretty faces roaming the vast hallways, of this, the information superhighway.

I'm not gonna do some song and dance and apologize for letting the blog die and rot in the summer sun, but I will say this. . ."It will never happen again. I swear on the risen body of Christ our Lord, the swollen belly of the Laughing Buddha, and the pleather beanbags of our old uncle Allah." And so, with a fresh eye towards tomorrow, a spring in our step, and a quart of vodka hidden behind the car owner's manual in the glove compartment, let us ride into the future. Giddy up.

Does kitty want a fruity helmet?

So the blog is about to hit the 200 viewings milestone and to celebrate I went online and looked for funny pictures. I wanted to ask the question "Can anything be funny?" and after a few stretches and a deep tissue massage with warm stones and avacado defoliate mask, I was ready to do some serious askin'. So, I sidled up to the Google Image Search and typed in really serious things, like "muffins". Here's what happened:

Okay, let's start with something easy, like "faire." No, it's not funny, but it is how people spell the "fair" in rennaisance faire, so I knew this one had promise. I was right on the money, or pence, or whatever, dork.


"It's okay, everyone! Lord Douchebag is here, the party can begin!


"And he's brought Sir Baby!"

Sitting ducks right? Yeah I know. But really, don't mention Lord Douchebag's bald spot. He's really sensitive, and he will "put you on the fucking RACK!" His words, not mine. Next word was a little harder: muffins. There were quite a few pictures of muffins and people eating muffins, i.e

but then, there was this. . . .


Turns out that muffins are pretty funny, and the muffin on the back left might turn out to be an alien.

Then it was time for the gloves to come off, time to play some hardball, time to take the gloves off the hardballs, and then put those gloves in a bucket of tar and a bucket of nails, in that order, and then punch whoever looks at my hardballs. In other words, it was time for the worst word ever: "fiduciary" No way I thought "fiduciary" would produce anything more than a giggle. Well, I was wrong.

Fiduciary

You can't prove it's not funny.

Allright, I said, that's enough. Let's do. . . . . . math. I mean, my fingers just fell asleep from typing it, there's no way. Just. No. Way. . . . . . and yet, in a universe of infinite possibilities, someone did this:




"Does kitty want a fruity helmet? Hey kitty, come here, kitty. Does kitty want a fruity helmet? Hold still. Hold still. Kitty does want a fruity helmet. Kitty does."

Yes, that's right, I just posted a funny cat picture on my blog. And I feel fine.

the morning laughter

Steph just asked me if I felt her throwing things at me on the couch last night. She says I was snoring, what Steph describes as the "traditional, long, loud snore." Hey, I said, at least I stick with the classics. At least I'm not some post-modern snorer who recites Victorian shopping lists or Thomas Pynchon novels or something. Nope, give me a good, long pig-getting-sawed-in-half snore any day of the week. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Snore what you know. At least you know where I am at night. And, don't forget, guys that snore aren't allowed to work on submarines, so. . .

The post bellow is a good reason I try not to drink near wifi hot-spots. Although, Trash Baby was based on a real life, actual, not-even-drunk conversation at The Shed in Palmer, Mass. last night. Something else someone said last night really got me to thinking. Whatever happened to hoverboards? Did we just forget to invent those? If I had to pick, as I'm sure I one day will, between a cloned sheep and a hoverboard, I'd pick the hoverboard every time. Unless the sheep is full of cloned human organs that will allow me to live forever. Then I would pick the sheep.

Quick, Trash Baby!

So what if you had a baby and you held it while you took out the garbage and you accidentally leave your baby in the trash can and take your garbage bag back inside and start nursing it. And then you say, "What am I doing in Jail?", because that's where you are, you're in jail. But don't be sad, there's a small chance of hope for you, yet. Tell your trash baby to stand in the middle of the cell and pretend to be sick. "Ooooohhh, my stomach," your trash baby might say. You hide behind the door and when the guard comes in, you klang him on the head with the toilet seat you tore off the john earlier and say, "We're home free now, Trash Baby, we're home free now." and then cry some and then run away, you know, just crying and running and crying again and then some more running. . . or crying even. "Oh Trash Baby, you saved us that time, hahahahahahahahahaha!" But secretly you know that the danger has yet to pass.

Tiger Princess: Activate!

So this might be my last post for quite a few days. My roommate, Steph, is taking me down to sunny Massachussesseschussetts, or whatever, for her birthday. Steph talks about her friends and family back home alot. . . a whole lot. And now I finally get to introduce myself and make small talk with them. Spring is the season for the reason!. . . What?
I'll try to take pictures of the hot-town no-frown hoedown in Boston this weekend if my new digital camera works. I bought it on ebay for quite a steal and dropped it the second day I had it. Turns out that "greasin up the old digital camera" is not an old Sioux custom, only a recipe for a well-lubricated disaster. Although, I can think of worse things to be well-lubricated. Like Emmanuel Lewis. Am I right? Huh? Am I right or what? You know what I'm talking about.

Steph's dad is in a Jimmy Buffet cover band called Changes in Latitudes. And who gets to see them? Me, that's who. When I was in fourth grade I listened to Jimmy Buffet almost exclusively, specifically cassette tapes of his live concert recordings. From what people tell me this is pretty unusual. Not many fourth grades listen to Jimmy buffet. I don't listen to him anymore. But I have to listen to nine piece Jimmy Buffet cover bands. It's in my contract.

On the trip down, I get to work on the script for the next big project. I'm co-writing and co-directing a movie with Lily, a nine year old who lives here at the camp where I care-take. She likes tigers and princesses. I enjoy activating things. The movie? Tiger Princess: Activate!. It's about a princess who is also a tiger and apparently a known activator. I recently scored some sweet editing and effects software for my laptop and was eager to try them out on something. This was until I tried to use them. Imagine solving a Rubik's cube with your nipples. . underwater. . .and your in nipple-cuffs. . . and also you're dead. That's hard. (this is also a beautiful image if you've ever seen actaul Nepalese nipple-cuffs. I've got a pair of the 900 series if you want to call me.) Damn you, Adobe. I don't need your rules! I'll "perform an illegal operation" , on your face! Oh great, now I'm crying with my terrible, terrible rage. Stay back, especially if you are allergic to terrible, terrible rage.

Also, everybody should go rent Primer and watch it as soon as you can.

Via El Tumore

My roommate, Steph, is housesitting for a friend of ours who lives down the road. I went over there last night to see how Steph was recovering from the stomach flu I gave her and to play with the three golden retrievers who live there. I really love dogs, and since I left mine back in Alabama, I take every chance I get to party with other people's. I was petting them down on the floor and asked Steph,

"What's this one's name?"

"Daisy." she said.

So I went scratch Daisy on her belly and, lo and behold, ran right into Daisy's enormous dog wang.

"Whoa," I said, "looks like Daisy's got some gender identity issues."

Then Steph said, "No, that's a tumor." And it was. It looked like someone had been keeping their cucumber inside a dog, and now it was desperately trying to escape. Then I noticed my hand was wet.

"Ewwwww. Tumor juice."

"No," Steph said "that's from the other dogs licking it all the time."

Now, I don't normally mind a little dog slobber, but somehow, for some reason, I was overcome with intense and unspeakable disgust. This was the grossest thing I had seen since that leper caught fire in that beauty parlor (and also there were snakes). I think it's because it came off a tumor. Just a guess, but being transfered via tumor makes anything, especially anything already marginally gross, about ten thousand times grosser. Imagine this dialogue:

"Here's some mayonnaise for your sandwhich."

"Thanks. Is there a knife I could use to spread it on my sandwhich."

"No. No knives. But here, here's a tumor."

"Jesus Christ! What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"What, you're too good for mayonnaise now?"

"No. I'm not too good for mayonnaise. I would still enjoy mayonnaise on my sandwhich, but I'm not going to apply it with a tumor, you twisted jackass."

"I cleaned it. It's clean. It's a clean tumor."

"No, dammit!"

"Well shit. Cry me tumor why don't you."

So what did we learn? We learned not to read my blog before you eat. And in summary, always wear gloves, no matter where you are or what you're doing. If people ask questions, just hold your palms towards them and say "Gloves." like that's all the explanation you've got, and they should leave you alone.

I think I know you if you are a karate senci

I was interviewed again last night on the Mr. Reeves Show at Musicisthegatewaydrug.com (link to the right). This time it went out over the internet airwaves without a hitch, unless by hitch you mean a rambilng, cursing drunk idiot, in which case, yes, there was one of those.
The Death Flu is gone, and so is winter, which means if I can get a fire permit, we'll have a big 'ol bonfire on Thursday night. No, that isn't a brilliant song lyric I just made up. It's a real live fact, baby. And boy, will there ever be pictures.
So, I was googling an old friend of mine and e-stumbled over this baby-naming page where anyone could suggest names for a young couple's new baby. Sweet God in paradise, I love the internet. Here are some actual quotes, and how they make me feel.

"Janessa" is a good name, but I can warn you that she would accidentally be called "Vanessa" most of her life.

Can you imagine a worse fate than being called Vanessa? Yes. Being called Janessa.

For girl names, I like the name Irissa Sylvana

"Wesly Diane" if it's a girl because it combines both an unusual name "Wesly" and a more usual name "Diane" which flows very well together and seems to represent past, present and future.

Hell, just name her Unlucky Time Machine, and stop screwing around.

2 cool girl names: Naquel (like Raquel but with a N) Storey (a woman I know just named her kid this-- kind of weird but it grows on you!

No, it doesn't.

A boy - Brayden a girl - Braelyn (Both really unique!!!)

For a good reason!!!

Adia (from the Sarah mclachlan song)

Alexxus Kristin

The extra 'X' is for extra Alexxus!

Ricky because it means "powerful god."

Wait. . . Ricky?

and now, my favorite. . .

Alicia because I think I know you if you are a karate senci



The page is enormous. Please, enjoy it as much as I did. Namesplosion!

Martian Death Flu. . .

or food poisoning, or wrath of vengeful Greek deity. Nobody knows. One facet of life without health insurance is the necessity of self-diagnosis. Yes, you lose the accuracy of an actual doctor, but gain the freedom of an energetic layman, with no oversight board or prohibitive laws or ethics. Why limit yourself to known ailmemts? "I don't have the flu. I have Entitilitis. . of the Cockerel. Ohhh, my cockerels." But, whatever it was, it's almost over. Just a lingering feeling of general unease now. My roommate, Steph, thinks it was food poisoning from eating popcorn off the floor of the movie theater when we went o see Sin City, Saturday night. I told Steph that, "It was only one or two pieces, and the Five Second Rule is first-day-of-medical-school material, everybody knows that; now close the door so I can vomit in peace. HOOOORRRKK."
But, regardless of how or why, I've been sicker than Karen Carpenter after Thanksgiving dinner. And on the nicest day of the year so far, too. It was one of those days where you wake up and you know, "I am going to be sick all day." Then you remember all those fatal diseases like meningitis and SARS that start out with "flu-like symptoms", because there's no way to tell if you have the flu or flu-like symptoms. So you start making funeral plans and, well, it's all brown water and loud groaning from there.

Some things I've learned:

1. Pepto-Bismol tastes just as good coming back up.
2. Don't chug the Gatorade no matter how thirsty you are.
3. If you do chug the Gatorade, go ahead and do it in the bathroom, cause that's where your heading anyway.
4. No matter how much better you feel after a nap, stay away from the tater-tots.
5. Sometimes, the nicer toilet paper is worth the extra fifty cents.

Please enjoy these vomiting links. Careful, some are not for the queasy.

Physiology of Vomiting

Sass, the Incredible Vomiting Cat

Your Vomiting Baby

The Puke Club

The Vomitorium

Radio Silence (with Dippin' Dots, baby)

Didn't work. Not even a little bit. The interview I mentioned in the last post didn't go off so hot. We talked about an hour, then I played a few songs, and then Reeves told me that none of it had gone out over the air and the same amount had been recorded. Technical difficulties. So, we'll be trying again this next Monday. So all none of you should listen in and laugh, love, and, yes, maybe even learn.

I will find out who is responsible for the snow/hailstorm outside my window and heads will roll. Heads. Will. Roll. It's April, for Harry Belafonte's sake, and just when I thought I could go outside barefoot, Jesus starts shitting white Dippin' Dots all over the place. Come on, Jesus, even the ice cream of the future has its place. And it's not on my lawn. For those who don't know, I'm currently hiding out in southern Maine, working as a live-in caretaker for a kids summer camp that keeps animals in the winter. Snow, especially an inch of snow over two feet of mud, makes my job a hell of a lot harder. The horse paddock look likes it was filled with those cancerous lungs they show you in sixth grade to make you hate smoking, and the piles of llama shit have thawed and re-frozen into a series shin-snapping sink holes and mottled brown, jagged edges. When I'm too lazy to put my good boots on before going out, walking around becomes a drunken tango of quick dodges and little victories as I almost fall into piles of animal crap every few feet. This morning, one of my bosses, Meg, one half of Peter and Meg, the couple that own the camp, told me to start digging up the layers upon layers of wet, fetid pine shavings that had been building up for months and months in the back of the barn where the donkeys live. So I did half of it, saving the other half for Thursday, the next time I'm due to feed the critters. It smelled like boiled shrimp. So, I didn't mind too much, but then I felt odd, about not minding the shrimp smell, and I stopped breathing through my nose.

I'm not sure how I feel about shrimp now.

Ask me no questions

I'm being interviewed tonight on the Mr. Reeves internet radio show over at Music is the Gateway Drug (link to the right). Music is the Gateway Drug is a perfect example of the potential of democratic broadcasting. They're brand new, so go over and give a listen, let'em know how much they rock you into puddles. I haven't heard the live jams yet, but I will soon. Music is the Gateway Drug: one of the few good things to come out of Alabama since . . .shit, I don't know, Jesus or something.

Batman Hates Your Mom

I found these over at Superdickery
Thought you might like 'em.
I also thought you'd like that awesome contraction I just used.
Who needs a 'th'? You get me, and I can tell these things.
You're flowin' wi' m'groove.

And the winner isn't. . .

Me. I lost fifty borrowed dollars last night playing 1$/3$ open poker. And let me just say that even
though this means I can't buy food until wednesday, and now I owe my roomate 75 dollars, I'm taking it all extremely well. I didn't kill a hitchhiker or leave vulgar phone messages or anything. The worst part was after I lost my last dollar. I had to sit there waiting for my ride to lose all of his stash or get tired call it a night. Three painful, stoic hours later he drove me back to my car and I made the long, cold journey back home. And of course, my roomate was awake.

"How'd we do?"

"I lost everything-"

"Fuck you!"

"-and by 'lost everything' I mean 'I won forty dollars!'-"

"Haha, sweet!"

"-but by 'I won forty dollars' I actually meant that 'yes, I really lost
everything' "

"If I tell you to fuck off, are you going to say that you really meant that you won forty dollars?"

"No."

"Well, fuck off!"

But she was laughing at the end.

I found some rice in my attic this morning, so it won't be starvation that gets me this time. God bless you soy sauce, you are good on rice, and make other foods Jappier. But you can go to hell cheapest-soy-sauce-at-the-grocery-store. You taste like steak-ass.

Fest in Show

More pictures from last year's Odysseyfest down in Bama. I've had these laying around since October 2003, and now, through the magic of the tiny unicorn-mounted leprechauns that run back and forth between my laptop and heaven, I can share them with everyone! Except Jesus, who has seen them already.

The Great Brown Beauty, Chino's travelin' van, patiently waiting on Idlewild Cricle, but ready to go at a moments notice. The cone came down for the trip.

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Then it was on to beautiful, pastoral, lip-sweat-inducingly conservative, South Alabama, were we sat in a field, wishing we had brought beach umbrellas, or much larger hats.

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Back at camp, the fun flowed like slutty wine. Being one of the first entourages to arrive we were able to grab an island of shade giving hammock trees, where we circled our cars and hammocks, and also there were hammocks. The Travelin' Van went into action, or I gues, inaction, like the rest of us. God bless you Travelin' Van. There's a bed inside you.

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Sunni enjoys the air of lethargy that has settled over camp.

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Three, of many, wonderful things that happened:

1. The first night it got cold. But fires weren't allowed. Unless, of course, you had some sort of way to contain the fire, like a giant metal barrel I stole from my school's recycling center. Well, HA! And don't you know everybody doubted me. "Why is it smoking so much?" "I don't want to breathe in the smoke." "The smoke is black and smells funny." Granted I didn't know what had been in the barrel before I stole it, but after awhile it quit smoking, and no one's got cancer yet. Then a cop walked up, we all crapped our pants, he (I still don't believe it) congratulated us on having a safe, legal fire, and boom! I was drunk on vindication for the rest of the festival.

2. Reeves and Sunni had an air gun that shot gusts of air at you.

3. On the last day, a complete stranger walked into our camp, took off his shirt, and passed out on our tarp. He was there for six hours. I don't remember him leaving. He was very popular.

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Maybe he had too much vindication.

Eighteenth hole at sunset

Eighteenth hole at sunset
Originally uploaded by Wereturtle.

First post, so I thought I'd start with something pretty. Who it is I don't know. But I do know this was taken after a round of disc golf at the Odyssey Music Festival in 2004. It was hot. I mean sweaty hot, not sexy hot.