Where’s the Beef?

So I made some hamburgers the other day. Anybody else see a problem here?

Yeah, my burger to bun ratio might be a little off there.

So I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to do the cliche blog thing and put the “Where’s the beef?” Wendy’s commercial in, all embedded and such. Well, you’re out of luck. Ain’t going to happen. What do you think this is, amateur hour?

Shit.

What else…oh, a lot’s happened since we last talked. Sorry if anyone was jilted at The Deejies. The award committee is a fickle bunch. Maybe next year.

So a few weeks ago I was sicker than I’ve been in years…just miserable, hacking cough, not keeping food down, wheezing, sore all over, terrible, terrible sick. I’m all better now, but I spent one of those days helping my dad move. I’d felt bad if I had bailed on him because I promised him I would and he really didn’t have anyone else to do it, so I suffered my way through it.

Anyway, after it was over, we went out to this little general store type place up the road from his new house because they served hot dogs in there and he recommended it. As we were walking in, I saw THIS posted up outside:

Somebody want to explain to me what in the hell a “Fast Growing Kitten” is? Is this some genetically engineered Cylon cat that’s going to infiltrate the regular cat population in a sci-fi plot to take over the world? As if you hadn’t guessed, he moved kind out out in the sticks. Some weeeiiird stuff goes down in the country, man.

What else we got? I’m firing this one off kind of quick this morning because I’ve actually stayed up all night at this point and it’s almost 7:00am as I type this. I’ve got to get to bed soon because I may or may not be driving out of town later to see my family for the weekend. Haven’t decided yet. So, if this is particularly even MORE rambling than usual, it’s the lack-of-sleep-delirium talking.

Oh yeah, since we last talked one third of the entire entertainment industry died. Yeah, they’re dropping like flies. I’m really bummed that this is officially now a world without Michael Jackson. I don’t care what anyone says about him. Like Dave Chappelle once said, the man made Thriller. For that alone I can forgive any alleged kiddie-diddlin’ on his part. Hell, as long as as he’s passing out settlements outside of court, he could have diddled me.

I mean, he made Thriller, people.

Thriller.

So, yeah. The world’s going to hell. Everybody’s dying and now we got Mark Sanford once again bringing shame down upon South Carolina. Joining a long list of things that we’re already embarrassed about…lessee…we had slavery, the Confederate flag flying atop the capitol, Susan Smith, Strom Thurmond, Hootie and the Blowfish, Matchbox 20, at least one cast member of The Real World, and now this jackass. I never liked the guy anyway. He came into my office years ago when I worked at the SC Film Commission and rubbed me the wrong way even back then. For those of you reading this outside of SC (i.e. everyone), in case you’re wondering, he wasn’t exactly liked here anyway, even before the scandal. I’m almost glad it happened though. Now we might actually be rid of him.

But, to try to save a little face and put the The Palmetto State in a better light, I’ve put together a little list of things that SC has produced that we’re actually pretty proud of. So, here we go:

–Myrtle Beach–This one’s kind of a weird one because while people all over the east coast go there to vacation and think it’s great, people actually in SC refer to it as “The Redneck Riviera”. We go there every summer, but don’t really see what the big deal is. Same as anywhere else, though. I’m sure people who live near Disneyland are pretty blah about it and sick of the tourists, while the rest of the world thinks it’s amazing.

–Charleston

–Sweet Tea (yeah!)

–Blue skies, mountains, and beaches–Yeah, I know you can get that anywhere, but if you can get past the searing, 96 degree summers, this IS a really beautiful place to live.

–Andrew Jackson

–Andie MacDowell (Hotness!)

–Leeza Gibbons

–Eartha Kitt

–Shawnee Smith (Double Hotness!)

–Vannah White

–Stephen Colbert

–Peaches–I know, Georgia gets all the credit, but SC actually produces more of them. Plus, GA doesn’t have this sumbitch:

Traveling south on I-85 toward Gaffney (where Andie MacDowell is from) you get this sight. A 150 foot tall peach shaped water tower, technically named Peachoid, but us locals just call it “The Peach.” A trip along I-85 wouldn’t be the same without getting mooned by The Peach there. It’s perverted. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s freaking huge. I love it. I’ve actually urinated on it, but that’s a story for another day.

Couple more things I wanted to discuss. Oh, there’s this bird that’s been hanging around my place. It hung around last summer too, only it’s kind of creepy. It’s hard to tell in the pic, but it’s actually perched on the inside of the awning above my porch. I come out sometimes and there it is, with it’s back turned to me, all Blair Witch and stuff…

And sometimes it switches porches. I’ve got the same kind of awning on the back porch too, and sometimes I’ll see it there, right in front of me when I open the back door, back turned to me. I’m pretty certain it’s some sort of omen. Maybe it’s got something to do with those fast growing cats. Exactly what was in those hot dogs anyway?

In other news…

Hey, guess what I did a couple of days ago…

Wait…what’s all this now?

Izzat what I think it is? It looks like it could be…no, it can’t be…it’s a, it’s…

READ ‘EM AND WEEP, BITCHES! I SAW GHOSTBUSTERS AT THE MOVIES!

Yep, couldn’t believe it. I was looking at the movie listings just for the heck of it the other day and I saw that a theater in town was showing some random, one-time-only showing of Ghostbusters at the ungodly hour of 10:00 in the morning on Wednesday. Now, considering that as I type this it is now AFTER 7:00am, and I’ve been up since YESTERDAY morning, I’m not exactly a morning person. But this was worth it. So, after being all excited and going to bed at like 6:00am on Wednesday morning, I set my alarm and got up like 3 hours later and went and saw Ghostbusters. Of course even though I’ve seen it a million times and can quote like every line, I’d never seen it on the big screen. It was an amazing way to spend the morning. If I could do something like this every morning, I’d get a lot more done in life.

The other thing I know is, after all these years…I’m still scared s**tless of this:

I’m sorry, but “Where’s the beef?” just never stops being funny.

The First Annual Deejie Awards!

First off, before we do anything here, a bit of housecleaning. Once again, it’s been a good while between posts here and I just replied to a slew of comments on the last post, so head over there before reading any further if you like, and you may be the lucky recipient of my attention! I know I must come off sometimes like an absentee dad who breezes into town once every few months and tries to make up for not being around by giving a few presents, but I promise I really do care. Just because things didn’t work out between me and your mother, it doesn’t mean I still don’t love you.

You back? Good. Took you long enough. Right, well I’ve got an extra special treat for you tonight kids. You see, something quite epic occurred just a little over a year ago. On May 7th, 2008, yours truly caved into all the peer pressure and, partly inspired by the insane scribblings by that guy that runs that other site we all know and love, and partly in a desperate attempt to sit at the cool kids table, went off and got myself WordPressed. Yep, this month marks the 1 Year Anniversary of DJ D’s Great and Secret Show.

I was going to actually do this hoopla on the 7th of this month to make it extra special, but you know how it is. I think I was out of town at the time or something anyway. But, as of this writing, it’s Sunday evening, May 31st, it’s still technically May. Close enough. I have no problem having annual blog post celebrations join horseshoes and hand grenades in that heap of things in which “almost” only counts.

That was possibly the most effed up sentence I’ve ever typed in a year of doing this.

Ok, let’s get on with it. I’m thinking the best way to start the celebrations is to take a little trip down memory lane. Alright, buddy system everybody. You guys paired up? Good. Let’s go. We’re going to revisit the first ever post I wrote. It was right here.

First off, I had to come up with a name for this thing. One of my biggest obsession in life is Clive Barker, and my favorite novel of all time is The Great and Secret Show, so there you go. Thanks Clive. Hope you don’t mind.

Anyway, about that first post…I’m going to skip over the Ms. Pac-Man mug and He-Man dinner tray. Nothing much to say about them really. They’re still around and getting used frequently. But the other item…

The Girl Scout Thin Mints. It’s been a year now and surely they must be digested, expelled, and fodder for a landfill by now, right? Nope…and don’t call me Shirley.

In fact, I actually never got round to eating them all. In fact, they made the move with me to my new apartment last year. In fact, they’ve been in my freezer all this time. In FACT, they’re hanging out with me as I write this right now:

Yep, there’s that little black girl, still hanging by that rope.

Wow, I never thought I’d ever type that sentence.

In celebration, I am now going to open the box and eat a couple of these year-old Thin Mints. Gimme a sec and I’ll let you know how they are…

Holy crap, I’ve still got half a box in here! They came packaged in 2 silver foil tubes inside the box. One was empty but the other hadn’t even been opened yet. And I gotta say, these things are still delicious. They’ve got a pretty impressive shelf freezer life. Who knew?

In case you’re wondering, that thing perched on top of my monitor is my Beanie Baby Bat. His name is Batty. And he is my friend.

So, where are we now? Well, a year on, and I’ve geeked out over all things Batman, made a few design changes, made quite a few friends, expanded the audience of my radio show, and apparently have garnered quite a bit of attention from the web surfing community. Here’s a rundown of recent stats:

From the first day of this blog all the way up till January. of this year, readership stayed at a steady average of around 250 views per month, with one unusual blip in July of last year when it hit 739. I assume that has something to do with a certain movie that came out last summer having to do with a certain nocturnal vigilante that we all know is near and dear to my black little heart. But, aside from that anomaly, it never got above about 275.

Then, in February it all changed. Out of nowhere, it skyrocketed to 4,672! March…6,739!…then peaked in April with a whopping 6,924 views! You’d think Matt C. himself stepped in for a cameo writing gig.

Looking at search terms, turns out that mentioning Bugs Bunny in a list of gay cartoon characters does a lot for your viewership. On April 2nd, I got 284 views on this post alone, and it continues to be the most viewed out of everything I’ve written. Guess I gotta try to top that now.

There’s a been a slight dip for May, but I’m still riding high at 5,795 for the month. And since that’s over 10 times the number of people who viewed the blog when I first started it, I’m not complaining.

As of today, as we celebrate the anniversary of this thing, I’ve gotten exactly 300 comments EVEN. Thanks for sticking around and chiming in. My OCD side also wants to thank you for making 300 such a nice round number for the anniversary celebration. We appreciate that kind of thing around here.

Total views so far, since the first day the blog existed: 27,211

Wow.

So, it’s time I start giving back. I know I haven’t been around that much lately and have kind of ignored you guys, but I figure what better way to celebrate, than to give you something to put on your mantle piece and brag about, so I now cordially invite you to…

The First Annual Deejie Awards!

Welcome to the ceremony. Everyone please take your seats…all 17 or so of you. I hope you like what we’ve done with the place. I’ve made some changes up top as you can see.

All of you ladies looked lovely in your evening gowns as you strolled down the black carpet. Thanks for getting all tarted up for this. Guise, I see you decided to go with the bunny ears tonight. Good choice. JoshC brought his guitar….aaaaaand it looks like DC started celebrating early. That’s ok. We’ll just uh, clean that up later. Designated drivers will be provided.

So, without further ado-dee-doo, let’s get this thing started. May I have the first envelope please…

For the first award tonight, the category is Best Blog You’re Not Reading. And the Deejie goes to…

Amy! If the number of comments are a judge of how many people actually read your blog (and I don’t necessarily think it is), then it’s a sad fact that Amy’s just not getting the recognition she deserves. I was bummed to find that she closed up shop back in January, but thankfully came back. Maybe she just needs more PR. Hopefully I can help. If you’re a fan of looking at the world through the eyes of a smart, creative chick who’s an engaging writer and happens to like dodgy corn (I’m hooked already), then you should check it out.

Next up we have the Thanks For All The Memories award. And the Deejie goes to…

Annette! Let’s face it. If you’re not a fan of nostalgia then you wouldn’t be here, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m stuck in 1985 and going nowhere fast. It’s for that reason that I really look forward to checking in on one of the coolest Nostalgia Junkies out there. From trips to the thrift store, to lamenting on her failure to secure a Star Trek glass (I got the Spock one the other day, btw–neener, neener, neener), it’s a really cool spot to get your fix of 80’s and 90’s pop culture whenever there’s a dry spell at any of of your other favorite blogs.

Next up, is the You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore award. Envelope please…and the Deejie goes to…

Bill! I’ll just say it. The Veggie Macabre is hands down one of my favorite things on the internet. It just is. When I first started doing this, I was hoping to one day come up with something that people looked forward to reading near as much as I look forward to reading what Bill manages to come up with on a regular basis. If he just wrote the “Where Did You Go?” posts alone, I’d show up for it. It didn’t take me long to join his growing army of fans (that are admittedly mostly female–ladies love the VM). But, not too long ago he traded in his necktie for a fireman’s uniform (further increasing his effortless coolness), and scaled back his online activities somewhat, including commenting around here. I’m the worst at procrastinating and not keeping up with my blog reading or writing, so I don’t blame him at all, but I guess I just wanted to say the blogging universe is a better place with him in it and he has been missed.

Hope you guys are enjoying the ceremony so far. On to the next award. It’s called The Greenhorn Award and goes to…

bluesuit12! I honestly don’t know her that well and don’t know that much about her aside from the fact that chick likes to travel. She’s all over the place, and looks like she’s a lot of fun and possibly a little touched in the head. All I know is she showed up commenting here out of the blue not to long ago and she’s a cool chick. And not exactly too hard on the eyes either. Hellooo, nurse!

Next envelope please. The next award is the First One To Arrive, Last One To Leave award. It goes to…

Dan! The reason for the award is that the dude’s just always there. He’s usually the first to make a point of reading, the first to comment, and the first that I know I can call at any hour of the day if I’m bored while I’m driving and just want to chat. He and his wife are good people and for that, I say thanks.

Next up, the Patience Is A Virtue award. Goes to…

DC! Another groovy chick who I can always count on for good conversation. She gets this award because she’s been incredibly patient in waiting for a gift I promised her last Halloween but haven’t gotten round to making yet. Also, we’re all patiently waiting for her return to writing. Looks like I’ll have to get on it and give her something to write about.

Next up is the Big Eyes And Action Lines award and it goes to…

Dio! A badass artist and all around groovy chick who’s way into anime and cosplay. I don’t know much about either one of those things, but I know that her Deviant Art account makes me want to pick up my pencil and work harder.

Next envelope please…Ah yes, this is a sort of special one. It’s the Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder award…and it goes to…

dohopoki! I’d like to accept this award on his behalf, as he has been MIA for quite some time and is greatly missed. Any word of his whereabouts or condition would be greatly appreciated.

Moving on to the Excellence In Consistancy award. This one goes to…

FungusMungus! You can always count on Mungus for a great deal of content. Whether it be sharing anecdotes of his home life or leaving you entire short stories as comments, he is consistently entertaining and genuine.

Next up, we have the Great Minds Think Alike award. Envelope please…Thank you…And it’s…

Galileo! he gets this one because it seems no matter what he’s talking about, from movie reviews, to his view on the Joker in The Dark Knight, our opinions are almost always the same. It’s almost creepy.

Next up, a very special award. It’s the first one of the International category and is the London Calling award. It goes to…

Guise! It’s really cool to have a new friend from across the pond. I went to school there many years ago and not a day has gone by since I returned that I haven’t dreamed of going back. It’s nice to have a reminder of “my other home”, even if he does talk funny and use too many “u”’s in conversation. Oh, and his blog is one of the funniest, engaging, and most perverse things you’ll ever read.

Next up, the Less Is More award. Goes to…

Hazard! He’s the master of saying a lot by saying a little. He’s been somewhat of a regular around here, and while I tend to be a little on the long-winded side, he does a great job of summing up a movie review in a couple of paragraphs, and it’s always entertaining. Me, I’ll ramble on for days…

Speaking of which, we’re almost done, folks. Hang in there. I’m saving the best for last. But for now, it’s time for the It’s About Dang Time award. Congrats…

jazzy! Why is she getting this award? Because it’s about dang time she started writing again. I randomly stumbled across her blog last year while at work and sat in the corner quietly shaking with the church giggles as I read her assessment of Babysitter Club books. I knew nothing about The Babysitter Club until then but I sat there laughing my stupid head off all to myself. I anxiously awaited the next thing she would write. She shot off a few more slowly over the next couple of months, and then…nothing. But, it looks like she’s back in the swing of things now and possibly churning out some regular stuff. If you haven’t checked it out, I highly recommend it. Start with the Babysitters Club thing, and work your way up. It’s hilarious.

Alright, it’s time again for another award in the International category. It’s the Best Thing To Come Out Of Canada Since Bacon award and it goes to…

JoshC! Here’s another one that kind of disappeared a little, but that’s alright cause he and his band are busy doing the devil’s work. He plays in a punk band, knows his horror movies, and I know I can count on him when the inevitable zombie apocalypse comes. And for that, I’m willing to let it slide that his people stuck us with Alanis Morissette.

Right on. Next envelope please. The next award is the Excellence In General Badassery award and goes to…

kittymao! Aside from the fact that her name has the phrase “my ass off” in it, she gets this award because she knows her heavy metal, she likes Star Trek, and her dog is cooler than your dog. That’s all you need to know.

Here’s one I’ve been looking forward to. What do you get when you put My Little Ponies, candy, video games, and maypoles all in a blender? It’s the Ponies And Perversions award and it goes to…

Mystie! Often described as X-Entertainment’s little sister, Crown Combo is one of the coolest things on the intertubes. And if you disagree, we can settle this outside right now. When she’s not busy taking creepy stalker pics of Mennonites, Mystie can be found expounding on the virtues of the latest specialty M&M’s and hanging out with YouTube celebrities. She’s an all around cool chick, and has the uncanny ability to call me every foul name under the book and I can’t imagine ever getting mad at her. Mystie, I’ll be your slut anytime.

I was looking forward to this one too. This next award winner not only is one of the funniest people I’ve ever had the fun of rambling on with in the wee hours of the morning, but she can cook your ass under the table. The winner of the Best Blog Post Name Ever award goes to…

squee4242! She’s a gambler, a gangster of love, a little bit of a nerd, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of Lost. But why is she here? Cause she managed to come up with what I thought was the best title for a blog post I’ve ever seen. Of course, you have to know what it’s about to get the joke, so take a minute to check it out. I present to you…Bitches Be Trifilin’.

Well, thanks for sticking with us this far kids. We’ve now come to the part of the show you’ve all be waiting for. The big one. It’s the Lifetime Achievement Award and it goes to…

X-Entertainment! I don’t think I can say anything here that hasn’t been said already. Without it, I, and most of the people reading this, wouldn’t be here. I never had any desire to write a blog at all until I discovered X-E and now I can’t imagine a day without checking in for an update. I spend a lot of time reliving my childhood on my own, and X-E has managed to turn it into an art form with a heavy dose of sarcasm and originality. It’s taught us that little boys can design He-Man characters, chicken and Doritos have no place in the same bag, there is such a thing as giant ape juice (although I still don’t have a clue what it is), and Kool-Aid can be more even more exciting than you remember. It’s given us Advent calendar conspiracies, Megaparties, and Halloween Countdowns. If not for X-E, I wouldn’t know that James Lipton can shoot fire from his hands, Mare Winningham is a raging bitch, and that you can actually make friends with people online who aren’t all flakes, weirdos, stalkers, and shut-ins. Although, I still have my reservations about some of you.

So, thank you Matt. I know you’ll probably never read this, but as long as you’re writing, I’m reading.

So that’s our show, folks! Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for showing up. You can pick up your gift bags on the way out. Enjoy your Deejies, and feel free to leave your acceptance speeches in the comments section below.

Good night!

Fun With Phones

I guess I should say first off that before starting this, I responded to all the comments on the previous post first, so if you haven’t read any of that and want to, go ahead and check it out and come back. Don’t mind me. I’ll wait…

There. See, I do listen to what you people say. I want to give a special reassurance to Amy first off that I have not abandoned my readership. I suppose the least I could have done was to pop in and say something like “New Post. Well, It’s Better Than No New Post.”, but then people would have bitched that I didn’t respect them anymore and Amy and all her troll buddies would be coming up with parodies of sitcom theme songs involving me, and then saying all kinds of crazy talk about me passing the writing torch on to other people, and that the best days of this blog are behind it and all kinds of other nuttery.

No, not really. I just like to live in the delusion that this site actually is as relevant and beloved as that other site that has apparently been “abandoned.” But don’t even get me started on that soapbox.

But that’s not why you called. What’s all this about phones? Well, the other day I got an interesting call. A very different kind of call. One in which 2 people were on the other end. And one of them talked funny. He pronounced words with extra u’s in them, and said things like “‘ello guvnor” and “cheery-o, old chap!” and all sorts of other stereotypical British stuff that I just made up. The other guy was much more of the American persuasion but still talked funny. Well, not really, but since I’m from the south I’m supposed to think that anybody who doesn’t say “y’all” every 5 minutes is one of them uppity yankees that thinks they’re better than us cause they can get Slurpees anytime they want.

That’s right. I had a triple decker conference call deal with Guise and Dan.

We talked for a LONG TIME…I’m talking like 4 hours or something and the conversation flowed like a perverse river into territories that would amaze and disturb those of the feint at heart. I honestly can’t be bothered to go into all of it here so I’ve come up with a device that’s more fun anyway. The following images represent topics that were discussed. I encourage everyone to use these images to concoct their own scenarios and discussions. Please supply them in the comments section. Bonus points are awarded for disturbing and uncomfortable imagery.

Buuut, we’re not done yet folks, cause there were other shenanigans afoot. Shifting gears now. The following has nothing to do with my call from above. On April 17th I received a very interesting text. It read exactly as follows:

Why i need to go with chelsey

That’s it, word for word. Why is this interesting? Because I have absolutely no idea who sent it or who Chelsey is. The area code was from Spartanburg (in the upstate of SC), which is where I’m from originally, but I didn’t recognize the number at all.

I didn’t respond right away, so after a few minutes Mystery Texter sent me something else. Well, I can’t resist a bit of fun. Oh, and I want to thank squee4242 for her moral support during this adventure. I was also texting with her in the beginning and she was prodding me on. So, if this ends up in disaster, I’d like to say she’s partially to blame. I’m now going to transcribe the rest of the conversation, starting with the next text. Everything you see here is recreated word for word, with the exact same misspellings, spacing, punctuation, and symbols.

Mystery Texter: Wats up so icy intertanment

(WTF???)

Me: Who’s this?
Mystery Texter: Brandon so icy intertanment
Me: Yeah. Right on.
Brandon: Right on wat so icy intertanment
Me: If that’s what you want to do.
Brandon: Wat i want to do so icy intertanment
Me: Chelsey said she wants to.

APRIL 18th:

Brandon: Hey you there single Man
Me: Yeah. What’s up?
Brandon: Shit just chillin. you. single Man

(I didn’t respond…fast forward a few hours later)

Brandon: Wats up $zone 6 east atlanta$

(I didn’t respond. At this point I’m thinking it’s been fun playing along but maybe I should stop stringing this guy on. Plus, who knows what in God’s name he’s going on about anyway? Maybe he’ll get the hint. I was wrong.)

APRIL 19th:

Brandon: $zone 6 east atlanta$

(I didn’t respond.)

APRIL 21st:

Brandon: Kelvin aint go do shit about it $zone 6 east atlanta$
Me: Kelvin can suck it.

OK, WHAT IN THE HELL WAS ALL THAT ABOUT???

I don’t know if “Brandon” wised up that he was talking to a complete stranger, or if my comment about Kelvin pissed him off cause I haven’t heard from him since. So, to further the experiment, just before I finish this up and hit “Publish”, I’m going to text him one more time. If any of you can tell me what in the hell any of the conversation was about, I would greatly appreciate it. While you’re making up stories about the pics above, feel free to offer your own interpretation of this week-long mystery, cause I’m totally lost here. So, like I said, I’m going to shoot him one more just for shits and giggles. I’ll let you kids know if I get a bite.

UPDATE: I’m about 2 seconds from hitting “Publish” and I just texted him: “You talk to Kelvin?”

No response. Maybe he’s moved on. I kind of hope not. I was starting to have fun. Maybe if I just send him some complete gibberish he’ll know what it means. Any suggestions?

2ND UPDATE: I just read back over all this and I just wanted to clarify something cause I don’t think I phrased it that well the first time. What I’m looking for, if you guys are interested, is some sort of story involving all the pics above. And for extra fun, go ahead and involve Brandon, Kelvin, and Chelsey while you’re at it. You know, now that we’ve all gotten to know them so well. The wackier, more offensive, and more disturbing the better. Make the comments section your creative canvas. Now, get to it!

Somebody tell Nicholas Cage to put a frakkin’ hockey mask over Dr. Manhattan’s man-junk.

I’m sure you’re wondering now what in God’s green earth that title means. Well, little birds, pull up a chair and I’ll tell you a story. Hey, you in the back, shut it…Can we continue? Thanks.

You see, after talking to the stupendously lovely Dio the other day and discussing vlogs, I got myself a plan. And that plan was to turn this post into my first ever vlog. Well, that didn’t quite work out cause my computer decided that after hooking up my webcam it would look at me and go, “Wha?…I don’t know what this is, George? What are you trying to do to me? Can you tell me the story about the bunnies again?”

Because my computer is a moron.

If you ever make one right decision in your life, make it this one: Stay away from anything remotely associated with Compaq. Yeah, Compost is more like it. From the day I got this piece of crap, it’s given me nothing but stress, worry, and headaches. To sum up my feelings toward this drain on my wallet, patience and sanity, I provide the following video. Just substitute “printer” for “PC”, and you’ll know exactly not only how I feel, but also what I have in store for this pile of electronic donkey-dung that I call my computer once I get a new one:

But, Deej, what does that have to do with Nicolas Cage messing around with glowing man-parts? I’m getting to that! And I thought I told you to shut it! Anyway, what I was going to discuss was not only the Friday the 13th review that was supposed to be written about (*cough*) aboutamonthandahalfago (*cough*), but also some other reviews I’ve been meaning to fire off too–such as Watchmen, the finale to Battlestar Galactica, and the new Nick Cage movie, Knowing, cause I saw that the other day. Sooo, since the vlog thing didn’t quite work out, I’m going to try to squeeze it aaaaalll into one big post here. I don’t think I’ll go quite into as much depth as I would have cause I just can’t be bothered to write that much about all of them, but we’ll see how it goes. I get a little long-winded sometimes, but I’ll try to dial it back a little. I should also mention that there will be spoilers! So tread lightly if you haven’t seen any of this stuff. And off we go…

First up, Watchmen.

Well, greater men than I have summed up what it was like to see what is arguably the greatest graphic novel of all time finally portrayed on the big screen. Alan Moore has said that it’s unfilmable, and I’m not sure that I disagree with that. It’s a LOT to try to capture in one movie, and I think it could have been easily broken up into a trilogy. I first bought the trade of it about 5 years ago and read it then, but it’s been so long that I had forgotten almost all of it, so this time I stayed up late for the 2 nights before I was going to see the movie reading it again. I’m glad I did, because I really got to see exactly how spot-on a lot of the interpretation was. Some of the dialogue was almost 99% exactly the same in some scenes, and a lot of the panels were recreated as shots in the movie. The 3 things I was most looking forward to in the movie were Rorschach of course, Dr. Manhattan, and The Squid. Well, “2 out of 3 ain’t bad”, as a fat, over the top, operatic singer named after a Sunday dinner dish once said.

Rorschach–I didn’t think they’d be able to find an actor that would actually be able to accurately portray Rorschach outside of the mask, mostly because those of you who’ve read the book know that he was one ugly dude, but I can definitely stand behind their choice. I mean, anyone can throw on that mask, say the lines in an ominous, gravely voice, and that would be that, but between the intensity, the crazy read hair, and his acting chops, Jackie Earl Haley did a great job. It’ll be interesting to see how he handles his next big role, I think I’ll go into that in the next post, which I might even fire off after I’m done with this one. We’ll see.

Dr. Manhattan–Not much I can complain about here. I always pictured his voice to be a lot more distant and cold than was in the movie, but Billy Crudup added a humanity and, for lack of a better word, softness to the role that I didn’t expect. All around I was really happy with the performance and the special effects of it with the exception of one thing.

One big, blue glowing thing.

I knew going in that I’d see it cause I read the book and it’s all over that, but it didn’t make it any less shocking and a bit distracting to see that nuclear knob just a’flappin’ in the breeze for a good chunk of the movie.

The Squid–There I am. Sitting in the theatre. Popcorn’s gone. Been there for the better part of 3 hours. Here comes the end. Ozymandias is telling his plan. In the book, this takes about 2 weeks cause he goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on…but they managed to condense it for the movie. There I am, waiting on the big moment. Aaaaany second now. And here it is. The climax…the explosion…the aftermath…and we’re cutting to the two news stand guys that have pretty much been cut out of the book so far–whatever, I’ll catch The Black Freighter cartoon later–and we’re getting our first glimpse!…any second now!…and it’s…

…nothing?

What!?? Just a big fucking explosion? That’s all we got??? No tentacles thrust through skyscrapers? No big gaping maul? No giant eye staring out at you…potentially made out of half a grape? What in the hell is this? I’ve been sitting here for nigh on 3 hours dodging Dr. Manhattan and his flapping blue dong of destruction for just a giant hole in the ground? You gotta be kidding me! But sure ’nuff. There ya go. Oh well, that aside, it was alright. Why, you say?

Silk Spectre boobies. Yep. Silk Spectre boobies. Didn’t quite make up for the lack of squid, but I’ll take it. Thank you, Zack Snyder.

Friday the 13th

Well, where do we start? Ok, I’m glad that we finally got a “scary” F13 movie again. Scarier than the last few in the series anyway. We got a lot of things I’ve been wanting to see for a while. Jason’s finally running around again and setting some creative traps instead of just slowly lumbering like a giant retarded linebacker. We got some good kills and got a good deal of gore, which I was looking forward to. There were a few references to the series that I was glad to see (although I would have liked to have seen more of that), and there were boobies, boobies, boobies.

The negatives?–Terrible, stereotypical character development. Instead of the sympathetic characters you saw in the original series (well, in the first 3 or 4 anyway), we get the dick, another dick (who for extra dickiness is rich and a total prick about it), his sweet girlfriend who you like and feel sorry for but still think is a complete idiot cause she’s with such a dick (Seriously ladies, what’s up with that? Just stop it), the pothead, the token black guy…who’s also a pothead, the nerdy guy, the sensitive hero guy who’s looking for his missing sister, and my favorite…the locals.

One of my favorite parts of slasher movies is “the creepy local”–that character who knows exactly what’s going down and is either wise enough to stay out of the killer’s way or is creepy enough to warn the idiot teenagers who he’s going to be killing in about half an hour. We got it in Part 3D (It’s in 3D people!…sort of) with the old man on the road who was waving his 3D eyeball around. It’s even better in the remake when the guy looking for his sister shows up at the old lady’s house and she just tells him matter of factly that the girl’s dead. There’s just something really eerie about the idea that there are people living in a town who know the evil in the town and will warn you to leave. It’s even creepier in situations like we saw in the TCM remake when the whole town was in on it. That’s one theme that scares me the most in horror movies–that whole idea that an entire community is in cahoots and it’s like the whole town just acts as one big trap to lure unsuspecting teenagers or other idiots. Except in this case it was pot. There are theories out there that Jason himself actually plants the pot to lure people there, but I refuse to believe it. I think it was the redneck out in the shed that’s selling it. Now whether Jason partakes every now and then after driving a machete through the top of a topless water-skiier’s head is another matter altogether. I don’t know what he does in his off hours, but somehow I doubt it involves sitting around and grooving out to The Doobie Brothers and eating pints of Cherry Garcia ice cream cause he’s had the munchies all day.

Oh, and I knew the sister wasn’t dead. I called that shit in the very beginning. If the movie has another flaw, I’d say that was it. I knew he had her hidden away somewhere. I didn’t expect her to die in the end, but I knew for sure she wasn’t dead in the beginning.

What else? The mask, of course. Looked good. It’s kind of hard to screw it up, although they came close a few times over the course of the original series. If you’re interested, there’s a great article over at Bloody-Disgusting (one of my fave sites on the net) that compares all the different masks we’ve seen through the course of the series. It’s interesting to see the evolution of it through the years. A warning though, if you haven’t seen the movies and don’t want anything spoiled for yourself–some stuff’s discussed in the article that gives away why the masks look the way they do and gives away some things pertaining to the plots, so be careful. Just another friendly public service announcement from your old buddy, Deej.

Of course the whole thing set up (in an homage sort of way) the possibility of a sequel. I’m sure we’ll be seeing it in no time. I’ll be right there to bitch about it as soon as it’s over. Oh well, could be worse. Could be Part 5. Oh lord.

The Battlestar Galactica Finale

(Like I said, if you haven’t watched BSG and are interested–I HIGHLY recommend it–or if you haven’t seen any of the last season yet, I’d stay away from this review. It’s super-spoilery, and if you know anything about BSG, it’s all about mystery and unanswered questions and I’m giving away a lot here. You’ve been warned.)

I can’t believe it’s all frakkin’ over. I first got hooked on this series when my cousin insisted that I borrow his VHS tapes that contained the first 2 seasons. He still records all his favorite shows onto VHS and has an enormous library of the stuff. I borrowed them and spent the next month or so watching 4 and 5 episodes at a time until I was completely caught up, just in time for Season 3 to start. By that point I was a certifiable BSG addict. It’s one of the few shows that has caused me to scream obscenities at the TV either in shock or frustration. It’s very “Lost” that way.

Once it was revealed that The Final Five were going to be revealed, that was it. I couldn’t stop the speculation. Then, once 4 of them were revealed, it drove me nuts. I was convinced it was Starbuck. I just knew that Starbuck was the Fifth. I hadn’t quite ruled out President Roslin, and I thought it would be cool if it was one of the Adamas cause you know you wouldn’t see that shit coming. All I knew was I wanted it to be someone I didn’t expect. Someone I never thought it could be in a million years. Someone who would…

Helen!? WTF???

NOOOOOO!!! I HATE Helen! Who DOESN’T hate Helen!? There is no way that skank is going to lead an entire race of artificial beings. No frakking way. But, there you are. Well, they succeeded in surprising me at least. I gotta say I really didn’t expect it. Of course all this stuff I’m talking about wasn’t technically in the last episode. I’m just summing up the last few leading up to the end. There were a lot of revelations along the way. One thing I would have liked to have seen but didn’t was an all out war between the skin jobs and the Centurions. There were hints that the Centurions were starting to get minds of their owns a while back and I would have loved to have seen them rise up and just start a revolution. Now there’s a civil war I can get behind. I never thought we’d see some of the stuff we did though–Saul Ty a Cylon, and shacking up with a Six? Humans and Cylons working side by side? If you had told me a lot of this stuff was going to happen back when I was watching the first season I would have thought you were crazy.

And what about Starbuck? For one episode there it looked like she was a zombie. I couldn’t figure out what was going on there, and turns out she’s some kind of angel? Shit blew my mind. My theory on Baltar and Six is that that they’re basically some sort of gods that get reborn every cycle, only they don’t necessarily know that that’s what they are. They eventually drift into those roles, but it’s not until the world comes to an end and they’re reborn that they realize their place in the whole thing. That’s why Baltar formed his little cult and became a sort of Christ-like figure. He was subconsciously becoming what he knew he was already. That was a cool way to end it though, with everything just starting all over again on present day Earth. A good send-off to the Galactica too, having it literally go off into the sun. I think overall the whole thing was a good conclusion to the series. It’s been one of my favorite things on television for the past few years and I’m really sad to see it go, but at least we’ve got Caprica coming up. I could honestly write an enormous post on just this subject where I’ve got MUCH more to say, and maybe later on I will, but I’m pretty tired right now and there’s more to discuss, so I’ll move on to…

Knowing

Nicolas Cage movies are one of my guilty pleasures. I’ll see just about anything he’s in no matter how hokey and ridiculous, and by “hokey and ridiculous” I’m not just talking about his hair. But I am glad we dodged the bullet of him almost playing Superman all those years ago. I don’t think I could have let that slide.

Knowing is a capable movie that actually was worth the ticket price. If you go see it for anything, go for the first action sequence alone. It’s several minutes long and involves a plane crash and is one continuous, impressive shot with no cuts at all. The sfx are some of the best you’re going to see of anything that’s out there right now, and it’s kind of an “oh shit” moment. Another comes later on involving a subway being derailed, and another involving a car accident toward the end. At times, Cage’s acting gets a little out of hand and just plain bad, but I can let it go. I know by now going into a Nicholas Cage movie to expect that. But, I keep coming back for more anyway. Don’t know why.

The premise was unexpected. By that I mean the whole alien/angel angle, and I honestly didn’t expect to see the “big end” happen. I figured he’d decipher everything and find a way to stop it, save the day, happy Hollywood ending, have a nice day. But no, we get to see the whole world perish in eternal flames, praise Jesus! And what an impressive shot that was, too.

Yeah, it won’t change your life, and it’s similar to a lot of things you’ve seen before, but if you haven’t seen it yet and you don’t feel too spoilerfied after reading this, then I suggest it. It’s definitely worth the ticket price for the big ’sposions alone, and it’s the best thing I’ve seen Alex Proyas do since Dark City, which in my opinion is the BEST movie he’s ever made, and probably ever will make. (What, you thought I was actually going to say The Crow? Oh please. Even DJ “Dark Entries: Goth Radio” D outgrew that shit a long time ago.)

So there you have it folks, a whole slew of reviews that were supposed to be my first vlog, but didn’t because of the piece of crap I’m typing them on right now. I’ll leave you to discuss. Talk amongst yourselves. I’m going to bed, but before I do I’m stopping by that other site that we all know and love where some people can’t seem to handle it if they have to wait (gasp!) three or four weeks for new content to pour over. Whaaa, whaaa, whaaa….I’m glad my readership isn’t like that, or you’d all be screwed, as infrequently as I get around to updating this joint. Till next time…

One for all the Tim and Eric Naysayers…

Ok, so I’m getting way behind in all this. I’ve got a couple of movie reviews I’ve been promising, and I think after seeing last night’s Battlestar Galactica finale, I HAVE to write something about that. But before that, I want to fire off this quick one.

I know Tim and Eric Awesome Show (Great Job!) is an acquired taste, and I know it’s not for everybody and some of you just out right hate it. (I’m lookin’ at you, Dan!), but I defy you to not find the humor in what you’re about to see.

Patton Oswalt + Tim and Eric = Song That I’ll Be Annoying All My Friends With For the Next 2 Weeks. (I just finished singing it into someone’s voice mail a few minutes ago)

I’ll let you wrap your brains around that one for a while…BSG talk coming later tonight. Abso-lutely!

I want to be the center of attention…

Actually, I don’t. I don’t particularly care for a lot of attention. Maybe that’s why I’m pretty quiet and soft spoken in my day-to-day life and hide behind a mic to get all my ranting out. Anyone who’s listened to my show knows that I can pretty easily get off on a rant about the sorry state of horror movies these days with remakes and all that. More on that later though. I guess this is the other place where I allow myself to just let loose and ramble on with you folks.

With that being said, I know I promised my review of Friday the 13th as my next post, but I just had to throw this short one in before I get off on another bitch fest…

See, there’s a business here in town called Pistol Creek Western Wear. I see their commercials once a week or so, and I just had to share one with you quickly. Since I have no idea when the next one will be on TV and neither do I have the ability to harness it for the interwebs (although I’m sure that’s probably relatively easy to do), I figured I would do a search of good old trusty YouTube. Sure enough, I found one. My apologies for the dodgy quality, but that’s all I could find. I’m tempted to riff on what you’re about to see, but I don’t think anything I could come up with would do it justice. It pretty much speaks for itself. So, without further ado…I present..um…this:

Trust me, they get stranger than that. I’ll try to share more as I come across them, that is if I don’t find a way to start compiling them myself. Yep, life in the south. Can’t beat it.

Hockey Head talk coming up soon…Pinky swear.

And One Slurpee to Rule Them All…

So it’s been a month or so since I rattled anything off. There’s a lot to tell and believe it or not I do intend to write about all of it–specifically some Batty stuff and Halloween stuff that I’ve been hanging on to (yeah, that’s right)–but there’s an epic tale that I’ve got to get off my chest now before I forget all the details. The other day Dan mentioned his recent aquisition of a Slurpee. This was, I’m assuming, a result of a conversation that he had with me the other day that I will try to relay to you to the best of my memory in just a sec. While he lives in the magical land of Colo-RAD-o, where Slurpees rain from the sky, it’s always 70 degrees outside, and the streets are paved with gold, some of us just aren’t that lucky. He can just pop on down to his local 7-11, but for some of us, trying to get our grubby little hands on a Slurpee is an epic quest, rivaling anything that Tolkien himself ever dreamed up. What am I rambling on about? Well, let me explain…

First, let me preface by saying that I recently got a new job waiting tables…just something to tide me over till I get some real income coming in. Anyway, I’m at work the other day and I overhear the following conversation at one of the tables. A brother and sister that looked to be in their 20’s were sitting there and said that they had made their dad watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy and was asking him to explain it to someone else at the table. You have to imagine the following said in the deepest of southern accents:

“You talkin’ about that movie with them hippies that was hiking across country looking for that jewelry? It was crazy. One of ‘em was that boy that played Rudy in that football movie. He was kind of sweet on that other one. They was both midgets or something and didn’t wear no shoes. Then, you know that big-lipped sumbitch from Aerosmith? Well, his little girl showed up and she took up with one of them other hippies. She was makin’ horses come up out of this water or something…Then these 2 old men got in this fight. They was slingin’ each other around till one of ‘em ended up on the roof and this big bird came and got him. It beat all I ever seen. I couldn’t make heads ner tails of it. All I know was one of ‘em was half naked and he was hanging around Rudy and that other little one that Rudy was sweet on and he just kept talkin’ to himself the whole time. They’s all these monsters and midgets and hippies. All they’d do is walk and fight…walk and fight. Beat all I ever seen…”

It went about that like that. Anyway, after work I gave Dan the Man a call as I was driving home and we were talking about this and that and he somehow mentioned Slurpees. Well, my plan was to grab a late dinner as soon as I headed home and got changed out of my work clothes, but all I could think about was Slurpees now (Thanks a lot, btw). The thought of having a nice cherry-red Slurpee crept into my mind like a whispering cancer. Yessss….how nice that would be. I could feel myself get the itch. I was Frodo, twisting that ring around my finger. It was calling me…

What would follow would be an epic quest that would make Frodo and Rudy’s journey look like a hike in the park. I started out stopping off at a couple of gas stations right up the street from work. They were on my way anyway. The first 2 were right across the street from each other. The first one was a bust…so was the second one. Then I went down the street a bit. Found two more somewhat near each other. First one–nothing. Second one…maaaaybe something. I drove a few circles in the parking lot till I looked in the window and saw what appeared to be Slurpees inside, but they were very dark in color. I was preferring a red one–cherry or something, cause that’s the Slurpee flavor of choice–but I was willing to keep an open mind. None of this Pina Colada jazz though. So, I went inside and took a look. They had some crazy flavor that was dark that I don’t remember, and next to it was something called Polar Bear Purple, or some such shit. But you know what, by this point, I’ve put some real time into doing this, and it’s starting to get personal. I’m getting my damn cherry Slurpee, and I’m not settling for less.

Now I should take a second to mention that this is the first Slurpee of any kind that I’ve had in probably close to 10 years. I’ve never gone out looking for them, but I’m pretty sure any other time if I wasn’t looking for one, that you wouldn’t be able to sling a dead cat without hitting a Slurpee machine. Now that I’m on the hunt for one, I got nothing. So far though, I’ve counted something close to 47,000 dispensers of coffee, coming in about 48,000 different flavors. You can get jacked up on caffeine in this town, but if you’re looking for a middle-eastern man to sell you Slurpees and Slim-Jims, well, that must just be the stuff of cartoon fantasies. Also keep in mind that during this whole thing, Dan is still on the phone with me, giving me moral support–as well as the occasional chime-in from the peanut gallery in the back. And by peanut gallery, I mean his wife Michelle.

Lovely people.

Anyway, back to the journey. By this point, there’s only one place left to go that exists on the main street that I’m on (Two Notch Road–or as we in town call it, Two Crotch Road–because of all the hookers) before I’ll be forced to hit the highway on the way home. Otherwise, I’m just going out of my way. So, a quick stop later, and I’ve still got jack squat.

Now, we’re on the highway. It was about this time that Dan decided to give me some help as well as a healthy dose of ribbing, reminding me of aaaaaaallllllll the 7-11’s in his neck of the woods and how he can just step outside, and a bikini-clad model will just step out of one and proceed to pass out Slurpees to all those who ask for one. So, he hops online to the 7-11 website to see if there’s one near me because apparently that’s Slurpee-Central. Well, there’s one stinkin’ location. And it’s way on the other side of town, totally out of my way. I haven’t completely ruled out the possibility of heading out there, but at this point it is getting a little bit late and I’ve got to get home so I hold fast to my rule that I’m only going to stop by stores that I would normally pass anyway on my way home.

Well, that rule lasted about 5 more minutes.

Fast forward to me getting off the highway. This is the final stretch. It’s now or never. I hit 2 more places. It’s a bust all around. Then, I start thinking about this place where I THOUGHT I saw one years ago. It’s a little out of my way, but it’s worth a shot. It’s an Exxon station, about 2 miles up the street. At this point, Dan and Michelle are really enjoying themselves, taking turns telling me how incredibly easy it is to get a Slurpee in their neck of the woods, and basically either intentionally or unintentionally reminding me of why CO is the shit, and SC just smells like it. That’s ok. I don’t need them yankees and their high falootin’ city words and ways. Hell, they call soda “pop”, these people. They probably even….WHERE’S MY DAMN SLURPEE ALREADY!!???

Ok, settle down. Here we are. We’re at the Exxon. I pull up, and face my first tangible foe of the night. A dodgy looking guy is standing right in front of the door. I get out of the car, and he says (I swear on my life), “Hello. Welcome to Exxon. Hey man, you got a nickle?” It was like Gandalf facing down the Balrog, except the other way around. Well, not this time, old timer. I buck and weave, and dodge past him. Keep in mind, I’m still on the phone with Dan and Ms. Dan, so I pretend I didn’t hear him. Now I’m sensitive to the plight of the homeless as much as the next guy but this is serious business. Guess what…no dice. Shit! So, I bound out the door, starting to loose all hope. On my way to the car, I hear him call to me again, “Hey man, you got a nickle!?” Yeah, well, “you shall not pass”, my ass…I got a jonesin’ old man. I need a hit!

So, it’s back in the car. This is it. I’ve kind of run out of options. At this point, I’m doubling back to my house. If I take the right turn onto Rosewood Drive which leads to my house, there will be only 2 more gas stations before I turn into my driveway. It has now been a full hour since I left the Shire, and like a wound in my side from a dagger, I feel the throbbing pain of hunger and the pull of the Slurpee. Then I remember something. There’s one more place I could try. It’s a fairly big BP Station, and it wouldn’t take me too far out of my way, just past the turn onto Rosewood. I go there all the time because they have the cheapest gas in town.

So, I start heading that direction. Dan and the missus are rooting for me. And laughing.

I pull up into the parking lot. It’s brightly lit. There’s neon everywhere. I pull up close to the glass doors. I look inside and what do I see?…What appears to be 3 neon Slurpees on the wall…blinking on-and-off, as if to call to me specifically. Directly above them, in giant neon is the word “Froster.” I go into this place all the time but I’ve never noticed any of this. I have no idea what the hell a Froster is, but it’s worth a look…Dare I get my hopes up?

I step out of the car. I walk through the glass doors…I approach the back wall…

SWEET LORD, IT’S SLURPEE HEAVEN! A full wall display, with dancing neon Slurpees and 8 DIFFERENT FLAVORS! I can’t remember them all, but it was something like Coke, Mountain Dew, Orange, Ballistic Berry, Wild Cherry, and a few others. I didn’t want to make a scene, so the whole time I’m excitedly whispering into the phone that after what seems like an epic quest to Mordor and back, I’ve hit the motherload. I select the medium size (something I find I will later have trouble even finishing) and fill ‘er up with Wild Cherry. I approach the counter–the phone still held to my ear. Suddenly the girl at the counter says, “The way you were driving circles in the parking lot, I thought you were going to come in here and rob us.” I tell her I’ve been driving all over town looking for one of these damn things. She just gives me a weird look. At the counter they were selling Cadbury Eggs. So, feeling fortunate, I reward myself by getting one of those too. My first official one of the Easter season. Still feeling fortunate, I also decide to get a lottery ticket. I never buy those, but what the hell. Maybe Wild Cherry will give me some luck. I select one that has a picture of Pac-Man on it. You have 6 chances to scratch off a row. If in the row, it’s nothing but pictures of Pac-Man, you win something. If you see he’s chasing ghosts, you get jack. Well, Pac-Man’s a son of a bitch, let’s put it that way.

But, I had my Slurpee. I headed out to the car and waited till I got in to take my first sip…It was soooo worth it. Memories of walking down to this place called The Pantry near where I grew up all flooded back. It was a convenience store we used to go to to get Slurpees and Coke’s in a bottle when I was a kid. But, that’s neither here nor there.

Then I start thinking. Yeah this makes for a good story and blog post, but I gotta have some kind of photo evidence. I tell Dan I want to go back inside and take a picture of the Slurpee display. But there’s a problem. There are now a couple of girls in there getting some Slurpees of their own. Not only have I totally weirded out the people who work there, but if I go in snapping pictures now, I’m going to look like some kind of Slurpee-perv. Like this is going to go up on some website called Collegegirlscoveredinballisticberry.com or something. So I wait for them to leave. With Dan cheering me on, I hang up with him (I’m using my phone to take the pic), and bravely head back inside. We’ve made it to Mordor, now I just gotta throw the ring in.

I slyly stroll past the counter and walk up to the thing. I hold out my camera, and quickly snap off this:

No sooner than it saves to my phone, then I hear “Sir!…Sir!…” Shit! It’s coming from the counter. The jig is up! I don’t know why, but for some reason I feel like I’m in serious trouble. I’ve spent the last hour in a Slurpee-delerium…a Slurperium if you will…and I just get real paranoid. I don’t know why they’re calling me, or what kind of trouble I’m in, but I bolt. I walk briskly to the two sliding glass doors, all the while hearing, “Sir! Sir!” from behind me. I don’t turn back. I’m in the home stretch. I get to the doors, hoping they’ll open and “WHACK!” I walk right into them!

Oh God! Howawkwardhowawkwardhowaward….
Justopen…justopen…justopen…..”Sir! Sir! Stop!”

They open and I bolt like a bat out of hell. I run to my car, jump in, and peel outta there. I call Dan right back, laughing like a madman. Sauron is defeated. I win.

If you don’t believe any of this, you can ask Dan the Man himself.

So that’s that. Oh, but how could I finish the story without showing you…this! My Precioussssssss!

Next up…we review the new Friday the 13th…

chi-chi-chi….ah-ah-ah….

December: The Recap

Heeey there, folks. Finally got round to writing something else. Man, I’ve been so absent from well, everything, really. My poor little blog’s been so lonely. Thanks you guys for stopping by every now and again and keeping him company. I would like to say I was spending all my time over at the X-E Advent, but the sad truth is I wasn’t. I have a terrible, terrible confession to make. For all my preperation and investigation into the grand Box 23 conspiracy, I have yet to read Day 1 of the actual calendar. Here we are, Jan. 4th and this year’s Advent’s done come and gone. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The first few days got away from me and I just kept putting it off and putting it off and now it’s gone. I think I’ll spend the next year anxiously hitting the refresh page waiting for the next one to start—starting now.

A lot’s happened since I wrote the last post–some good, some not good at all. I’m not going to sugar coat it. This December was probably the worst I’ve had in years. There were some good parts though, and I’ll get to those in a minute. I’ll just start out with the worst of it, and we’ll get better as we go along, shall we? Hopefully ‘09 will be the same.

Ok, getting the worst part of it out the way. A while back in this post, I mentioned that one of my best friends was battling cancer and most likely wouldn’t make it to the end of the year. Well, unfortunately I was right. Her name was Laura and on December 8th, we lost her. She has been one of my best friends in the world and like a sister to me for the past 8 years. I spent the last week of her life staying up every other night at her house helping out the family with her pain meds and just sitting up talking to her. Watching one of your best friends slowly pass away is not something I hope anyone else has to go through, but she isn’t in any more pain and that makes it a little better. The night before she died, I and two of our other best friends stayed up with her all night monitering her meds and just talking. She was sound asleep the whole time but we stayed up watching 120 Minutes and VH1 Classic and just talked about music and reminisced about high school and the music we loved then and now. We had a few good laughs. Even though Laura was sound asleep, it was exactly the kind of thing she would have loved–just having her best friends around talking and laughing. Even though we knew she had only days left and could go at any time, it was great to have one last night with her. Around 5:30 the next day she was gone. I was at home when I got the call. It was a Monday night and I just happened to have my radio show that night. I decided to make it a tribute show and played nothing but her favorite songs and bands. Here’s the playlist.

If you care to check it out, here’s her obit. Take a look at it and you can kind of get an idea of what a beautiful, amazing person she was and how many people she affected. On a side note, I’ve talked to a lot of you individually through IM’s and you’ve been really supportive and I just want to say how much I appreciate all of you. Thanks for being so cool.

Well, moving along. The economy’s in the pisser. And after 2 months of unemployment because of layoffs at my company, I’m getting really antsy for a job. Anybody got one laying around? I’ll take it. Anything. Really. I’m a decent cook. I can clean. I’m fairly cute. I’m sure we can work something out…if you know what I mean. Hey baby…you want a date?

What else? Oh yeah, that whole Christmas thing! Well, as much as this month has sucked and I spent way too much money on gifts for everyone…money that really needs to go to, oh I don’t know…rent…the one good thing that stands out in December is the amazing gift haul I got this year. I really wish my parents wouldn’t spend so much money every year because I know they can’t afford it. But, at least this year they stuck to the lists that I gave them. For the first time ever, I actually got the things I asked for. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m INCREDIBLY grateful for whatever gifts I get, but both my parents have a really bad habit of begging me for a list, glancing at that list, and then promptly ignoring it and buying me like $200 worth of stuff I’ll never use and don’t want. I MIGHT get one thing I asked for. I still have things in my closet from like 2 Christmases ago that I’ll never use. My mom also is of the opinion that if it can’t be found at Wal-Mart, I ain’t getting it. I’m convinced that she is physically incapable of shopping anywhere else. But this year it all changed. While Mom didn’t leave the safe-haven of Wally-World, I did get nearly everything I asked for, as well as a few nice surprises. It was definitely unexpected and I’m really grateful for it. In a month full of disappointment, loss, paranoia, fear of not finding a job, and all the other crap, this year’s haul was pretty sweet.

There was one stand-out gift though. The one that got me the most jazzed. This bad boy right here:

Can you believe I haven’t even popped it in the dang PS3 yet? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m so excited to get it cause the first one was one of the best games I’ve ever played, but I’ve just been so busy job hunting and everything that I haven’t touched it yet. Plus, I borrowed another one from my cousin that he just got done with and I think I’m going to play that one first. As soon as I get down with some Resistance 2 I’ll let you guys know. The last few months for video games have been CA-RAY-ZEE. I can’t believe how many kickass games are out now and are going to be out in the first half of ‘09. Too bad I can’t get paid to just play games all day. How do you get that job, is what I want to know.

Also on the positive side, I got my first ever Christmas tree. My mom had it tucked away in a closet somewhere and let me have it. Try not to be overwhlemed by the sheer magnitude of it. You might need to stand back.

I know it doesn’t trump the size and magnificance that is DC’s tree, but it’s not too bad for a first one. See that bear ornament on the left there? I would have liked to have hung it on the actual tree, but it’s so small and light that after hanging the bear on it, it just tumbled over. You can see it does have some little people hanging on it though. We’ve got the obligatory nativity scene on the right. In the back, on the right you can see this groovy Coke bottle that they were selling at Wal-Mart. It’s shaped like an ornament. Once again, no luck on actually hanging it anywhere, seeing as it’s half the size of the actual tree. That’s a candy jar on the back left there. When I was a kid my great-aunt always had a tradition of putting peanut M&M’s in candy jars during Christmas, and since I get high on nostalgia like it’s Columbian blow, my goal is to fill that up with peanut M&M’s and maybe relive some of the Christmases of my childhood. I still actually haven’t put anything in it. Maybe once I do and finish off all the M&M’s, that will be the final nail on the coffin of the lingering Christmas mood.

You may be wondering what that green, coffin shaped thing taking the front and center position in front of the tree is. It’s a little thing called…SCARY SKELETONS!

In the last post I mentioned that I picked up a bunch of rad stuff at the after-Halloween sale at Target. Well, this is one of them. I never got round to writing a big post about all that stuff, so I’m just going to cover it a little bit here and there. You got a problem with that? If you can’t appreciate the mash-up of Halloween and Christmas, well, you just don’t belong here. So walk your happy ass on home.

Man, I had no idea Scary Skeletons could get me that worked up. Well, if you don’t know what it’s all about, it’s essentially the modern version of MR. BONES.

Mr. Bones was one of the million little things that used to get me all giddy around September when I was a kid. Sadly, I haven’t seen anything of the ilk in years and years. I made it a personal mission to find some Mr. Bones this year and instead came across Scary Skeletons. You might liken it to the descendant of Mr. Bones, or the next evolutionary step. I prefer to think of it as Michael Bay’s Optimus Prime compared to the comfortable Optimus I grew up with. You can put a bunch of shitty flames on him and fancy him up and put him in a crap movie, but at the end of the day we still had Peter Cullen doing the voice. Scary Skeletons is just the newest tarted up version of an old classic that didn’t need to be changed in the first place–all in the name of appealing to some almighty youth market. Sigh. Don’t worry Mr. Bones. I remember you.

Which brings us to the New Year. In keeping with the tradition of the rest of this crappy December, it was pretty sub-par. Every year my friends and I ring in the New Year at our favorite dive, The Art Bar, where I DJ live shows occasionally (I used to have a monthly gig there). Well, this year, I seemed to be the only one willing or interested to go out. They were all either at work at their respective restaurants or just didn’t feel like coming out at all because they had to be at work the next day. I showed up and didn’t really know anybody. I walked around for about 20 minutes and went home. When the ball dropped I was at home by myself, watching Dick Clark and sipping a Dr. Pepper. Could be worse, I guess.

Couple more random, totally unrelated things I wanted to talk about–So, I’ve become a little bit of a cook lately. Now, I know I’m no Squee4242, but I’m coming along. I’ve taken to baking a lot of chicken and pork chops lately, but something really odd happened the other day. I baked up this little concoction with chicken breasts covered with a sort of gravy comprised of cream of mushroom soup and onion soup mix, mixed together. After it was all cooked up, and the leftovers were tucked away in the fridge, I put the pan that I baked it in, in the sink. Well, several hours later, this is what became of the gravy:

BRAINS!!!!! Brains in a pan!!!

Here it is, brain-less and on a plate:

Obviously, much more appealing here, in it’s non congealed, zombie-food form. What we’re seeing here is a chicken breast, wild rice, and steamed veggies. That’s orange juice in my infernal, plastic chalice of doom there. Spooooky juuuuice!!!!

One last bit of housekeeping: Apparently, there’s been some confusion about my IM handle at the radio show. It was changed a while back, thanks to some help from Dan. If you want to send me an IM at the staion while I’m on the air via AIM, it’s now: wuscradio

Tomorrow night will be my last 3 hour show of the Christmas break. I’ll be getting started around 9pm and going till midnight (eastern time). After that I’ll be going back to my usual 10pm-12am slot…at least for another week or so. The new schedule starts in a couple of weeks and there’s a possibility I’ll have the new 8-10pm slot I’ve been asking for. I’ll make an announcement about that as soon as I find out for sure. Here’s the official little “press blurb” that tells you all you need to know about the show:

“Dark Entries: Goth Radio” w/ DJ D
Monday nights 10pm-12am
WUSC 90.5 FM and HD1–Columbia, SC
Streaming live at: WUSC 90.5
On-air DJ Phone: 803-576-9872
On-air DJ AIM: wuscradio
DJ D’s MySpace
Goth, Darkwave, Industrial, EBM, Death Rock, Horror

The Gayest Cartoon Characters Ever

We here at the Great and Secret Show work on our own timetable. Regular readers are pretty well aware of this. The last 2 posts were supposed to be 2 of 3 where I covered everything I did and bought for Halloween. I’ve got a lot more to talk about, but being that it’s less than a week away from Turkey Day, I honestly can’t be bothered with making that third post. So, I’m going to just sprinkle the rest of my spooky stuff (of which there is quite a bit) here and there throughout the next few posts…if I feel like it. Either way, you nuts will show up and read it anyway, so screw it. For now, I’ve got other stuff to discuss.

Which brings me to this. I love cartoons. Love ‘em. Always have and always will. But, it has occured to me lately that there is a certain segment of the animated community that is a little, shall we say, light in the loafers. As my grandfather used to say, “he’s got a little sugar in his tank.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just saying. I know that I’m not the first to notice this and I’m not the first to point it out, but I’m leaving some of the more obvious ones off the list, because it’s more fun that way. So, you won’t see any Ace and Gary here, and as much as people protest otherwise, there will be no mention of Batman and Robin. For one, they weren’t originally cartoon characters, and for two, I just don’t have the heart. Also, you’ll notice that not everyone discussed is necessarily a cartoon character. I’m kind of extending my definition to a few puppets and people in suits here and there.

So, having said that, I give you my list of all those funny (and i’m not talking funny ha-ha) characters, in no particular order, that are not only friends to us all, but more notably, Friends of Dorothy.

Snagglepuss

The other day I was flipping channels and came across an old episode of the Hannah Barbara Laff Olympics. These things were great. All the old HB characters came together to compete in wacky games. It was the only time you ever got to see all these guys together in the same place. I remember loving it as a kid. They were hosted by old Snagglepuss up there. So, I was excited to find this on TV again. I sat back, dug into my bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats, had a laugh, and let my thoughts wander to a better time. A time when Saturday morning cartoons reigned supreme. A time when Halloween and Christmas never came fast enough. A time when-

Oh my God, Snagglepuss is so gay.

I mean incredibly gayer than gay. I mean, have you heard him speak? Again, I’m not criticizing. I just never noticed it till now. Apparently, it took adulthood for me to develop any kind of gaydar. But let me tell ya, it’s pinging all over the place now, firing on all cylinders, e-ven!

Bugs Bunny

Now, while I’ve always been more of a Wile E. Coyote kind of guy, I still really like Bugs. And I know a lot of other people do too. But, let’s face it. The cross-dressing. The rabbit-on-man kissing. The love of show tunes. He could just be a debonair showman, but I’m not ruling out any possibilities.

Yogi Bear and Boo Boo

All I’m saying here is that I never saw any female bears having any pic-a-nics with Yogi. And if Boo Boo is supposed to his kid or his nephew or something, it would be nice if they had cleared that up at some point. All we know is that he’s his “little buddy.” Yeah, I think we know what that’s all about.

Bert and Ernie

Even at the tender age of 5, I knew something odd was going on here. It wouldn’t have been such a dead giveaway if they didn’t sleep in the same bed. I gotta say, they do deserve some credit for being TV’s first out couple, even if it was never directly addressed. I suppose they didn’t have to though. They bicker like a married couple anyway. And even though it’s been years since I made a point of sitting down and watching Sesame Street, I’m sure if you paid close attention to their apartment, it’s faaaabulous. Rubber ducky, you’re the one.

Big Bird

I never really suspected anything when I was a kid, but it became pretty apparent when I got older. But I have another theory about BB though. I’m not just going with gay. I think he’s all out pre-op tranny. I mean think about it. Does anyone really know what gender he/she is. Well, whether it’s an inny or an outy, BB’s OK in my book. He’s not hurting anybody. Now Snuffleupagus, that’s a different story. He’s about 3 missed Prozacs away from snapping and taking out half the street.

Peppermint Patty and Marcie

There’s not much to say about the Indigo Girls here that hasn’t been said already. From Peppermint’s tomboyish and forceful style to Marcie calling her “sir” all the time, it’s pretty clear who’s wearing the pants in this relationship.

Velma

My personal favorite of the Scooby Gang. I mean, how could you not like Velma? While Fred and Daphne were sneaking off to do whatever they do and Shaggy and Scoob were “eating Scooby snacks” (cough, cough), poor Velma was always left to do the real work. I know that everyone always assumes that Fred and Daphne were sneaking off to get up to some hanky-panky, but let’s face it. That ascot of Fred gave him away. While he doesn’t deserve an actual spot on this list just because he’s lame, I do have to mention that he was a little swish himself. I think the more likely story was that Velma was secretly pining after Daphne. Who knows, maybe Daphne was pitch-hitting too. All I know is that Sarah Michelle Gellar might be hot and all, but for my money, in the Scooby-Doo movies Linda Cardellini is where it’s at. Jinkies!:

Tinky Winky

Do I really need to say anything here?

Vanity Smurf

Now, a case could be made that all the Smurfs were one big, blue bathouse of fun, but the truth is, it was most likely just an unfortunate sausage fest. While it’s no secret that Smurfette’s mushroom mansion of merriment has been the ruin of many a poor boy (who hasn’t smurfed her by now?), it’s also no secret that Vanity’s the only one in the clan with a season pass to the American leg of Cher’s 43rd fairwell tour. Way to rock that flower, you sexy mothersmurfer.

He-Man

This breaks my heart. I don’t want to admit it. I really don’t but you can only live in denial for so long. After going back and watching many an episode of He-Man in my adulthood I can’t ignore the tell-tale clues anymore. Now, as a child I worshipped He-Man. I think I might have had just about every He-Man related toy on the market, and could quote entire episodes. Next to Batman, he was probably my favorite fictional hero. Hell, I even had the underoos. But, being a little more wordly now, it’s pretty apparent that he and his magic flaming sword are probably all the rage down at the Eternia Gym. And while I’m at it, what’s up with Man-At-Arms and that mustache? By the Power of Gayskull! (sorry, I couldn’t help myself)

Waylon Smithers

There is so much wrong with him and the Mr. Burns situation I don’t even know where to start.

Stewie Griffin

Proof that even in infancy, it’s pretty apparent which way some people swing.

Ziro the Hutt

So there I am. Sitting in the theatre, enjoying the The Clone Wars movie. Yeah, that’s right. I said it. I liked it, even though no one else seemed to. I like the TV series too. So, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Anyway, I’m sitting there getting geared up for the chance to see another Hutt character. I mean, let’s face it, as disgusting as Jabba is, he lights up the screen in a way. So, here comes Ziro…

Elton Jumping John, he’s gayer than eight guys screwing nine guys. I mean, the feather, the lisp, the movements. It’s not even subtle either. At least with C3P0 (yeah, like you’ve never noticed that one either), there was some debate either way. Again, I’m not criticizing, I just never thought I’d see the day that a Hutt would run the most limp-writed disco in the galaxy.

Hey there, Sailor. Is that a light saber in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Halloween: The Aftermath–Part 2: DJ D Does the Nine Inch Nails Tour!

Right, so this doesn’t really count as anything to do with Halloween specifically, but a lot of what I’m going to talk about happened during that week, so whatever. Hey, I’m just looking for an excuse to write about it. Over the last few months or so I’ve been lucky enough to see NIN 3 times on their “Lights In The Sky” tour. Some other big events happened too. It went something like this:

Aug. 18th–NIN in Duluth, GA
Oct. 5th–Layed off from my job (insert angry face here)
Oct. 31st–Halloween
Nov. 1st–NIN in Greenville, SC
Nov. 2nd–Birthday
Nov. 3rd–NIN in Greensboro, NC
Nov. 4th–Obama Day

What a week. So, I decided I would share the experience with everyone. The pictures I’m going to post are a mixture from all 3 shows. Honestly, it’s hard to remember which show some of them came from, so I might not really specify, but you know, whatever.

First, let me tell you about the concert going experience for us. I went to all 3 shows with my friend Donna, who’s a huge NIN fan. I was a casual fan before, but am a serious fan now. I gotta say they put on one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen in my life, and I’ve been to quite a few. We vowed that we would get as close as possible. The last few shows I had been to before this we were lucky enough to get really close (7th row to The Cure!). Little did we know our efforts would pay off so well. For all 3 shows we managed to get either presale tickests or general admission tickets and would arrive super early to stand in line for several hours in the freezing cold every time, but it was totally worth it. For all 3 shows we were either right on the rail in the front row, or right behind the people that were, so pretty much front row.

We were noticing that an aquaintance of ours from here in town was showing up to every show we went to. This was going on before we ever went to our first NIN show. Every time we saw him he would always be in the front row. Now being that I’ve been a DJ with a certain amount of contacts and ways of getting things, even I couldn’t get us in the front row every time till now. Thus, he became known to us privately as Rat Bastard. I didn’t know him that well, but now after having seen him and talked to him at the last 4 or 5 shows I’ve been to, RB and I are somewhat friends, although I refuse to call him anything other than that. He’s even listed in my phone as such. Also, at the Duluth show we met a girl who was directly in front of us called Elle, who also knew RB from the NIN shows. We’re pretty good friends with Elle now too. You spend enough time with the same people over and over again at the front row of concerts and you make a few friends. It’s an elite club I’m glad to be a part of. Another friend of ours told us we were becoming the NIN version of Dead Heads, the way we’ve been following them around on tour lately.

Ok, I gotta preface the pics first by saying that NIN has an amazing, groundbreaking screen technology on this tour. I’ve never seen anything like it. They have 2 enormous screens-one behind them and one in front-that are equipped with thousands of tiny lights that are able to be manipulated in order to be completely interactive. Not only can the screens broadcast huge images and patterns and things, but they’re somehow touch sensitive and interactive so that the band members can just walk up to the screens and the colors of the lights will change if they’re touching them or even standing near them. I’ve never seen a more interactive, cool visual at a show. Every image on both screens is perfectly timed to every beat of the music. Here’s a short vid taken from NIN’s YouTube page that illustrates how it works. I recommend watching it before you look at the pics. It helps to make sense of it all:

Ok, on to the pics:

This is them performing with these 3 small keyboards and one slide guitar in front of the small space between the first screen and the edge of the stage. This was cool cause they were super close then. My crappy camera on the phone doesn’t do it justice because you can’t really get a good feel for exactly how close they were. Plus it has a hard time with bright lights so even though there might have been something cool on the screen behind them it just washes it all out in one big bright light. If you want a better example of what I was trying to capture above, here’s a vid of them playing the same song in Europe:

The next 2 pics are taken from 2 different shows at different angles, but it’s them performing a few songs from what’s called “The Ghost Set”, where they combined several songs into one big flowing one. I think I took these while they were playing “Piggy”, where they used xylophones, a stand up bass, some wood instrument that looked like a recorder, chimes, drums, and a banjo. Yes, I freaking banjo!

Here’s a random shot of Robin Finke–amazing guitar player:

Here’s an example of one of the cool little tricks they did. Trent was behind one of the screens, looking into a small DV camera that someone else was holding. The image the camera was recording was broadcast on the giant screen. It was mostly a closeup of his mouth. At one point, he came out in front of the screen and the guy holding the camera followed him out. This is him, standing in front of the screen, singing and looking into the cam:

Here’s a better version of that, with a better look at the screen, taken from NIN’s website:

Here’s another cool screen affect. They were playing between the 2 of them, and both had these giant white swirls, like milk flowing through water, going across them. It was really mesmerizing and timed perfectly to the music:

Here’s one of the coolest screen effects of the entire show. Trent is behind the front screen, which is filled with white noise. As he walks toward it, a black hole opens up around him and then follows him everywhere he walks. If he backs away from the screen, it closes again. The effect is illustrated really well in the last part of the first vid I posted above:

During the Greensboro show (Nov. 3rd), Trent came out and gave a little speech about how he was in a good mood and that he thought that things were going to change soon. Keep in mind this was the night before the election. He encouraged everyone to go out and vote, and then said something like, “I hope we never have to use the background to this next song ever again.” Then, they played “The Hand That Feeds.” Broadcast on the screen behind them was a HUGE picture of President Bush. During the course of the song, his face slowly morphed into a picture of John McCain. Creepy. Well, I guess Trent (and most of the crowd based on the cheers after he said that) got their wish. So did I. Here it is:

At the end of every show, before the encore, they bring down the front screen with this. It’s awesome:

And then the encore. For the 3 shows I went to, they kind of varied on a couple of the encore songs but they always did “God Given”, “Hurt”, and then ended with “Twilight.” The “Twilight” thing is awesome because it’s always the last song of the show and they play it out by having each member one by one put down their instrument, wave, and walk off stage. They take turns doing this until only Trent is left, playing just a piano with a spotlight on him. He finishes the song, waves, walks off, and thats it. Amazing.

Here’s a shot of Trent singing “Hurt.” If you know the song, you can imagine how powerful it was to be in the front row, all the lights out, and looking around, hearing thousands of people singing it all at once, with lighters thrust into the air:

And now I present to you the best NIN moment of them all and probably the single best concert moment I’ve ever had. You’re going to have to just take my word on this one cause the only proof I have is this picture and I guess thousands of witnesses. During “Survivalism” at the Greenville show, the band turned a camera on the front row and pointed it at…you guessed it, yours truly! And my friend Donna too. They had the screen behind them split into several smaller screens. In the top left screen, there we were! Our faces were right there for the entire song! I just about lost my shit. We had other friends who were there seated in other places in the coleseum and both our phones lit up with texts from them screaming at us that they could see us on screen. I spent that entire song dancing with a big dopey grin on my face for the whole place to see.

I tried to take a few pics and this was actually the best I could get. I know you can’t make out much, but see that thing that looks like two hands holding up a phone?…Well those are my hands. That fuzzy lump just to the left of my arms is Donna. I pinky swear all to God this is true. Just ask the few thousand other people who were there. My cheap little phone camera just didn’t like all that black and white noise in the picture and wouldn’t get a good image. Best concert moment ever:

After that show was over, we met up with another friend who was there named Weenie. Yep, that’s her name. Every time I run into her on Halloween I have to resist the urge to say “Happy Halloweenie!” She’s used to it and also sick it of by this point. Anyway, Donna, Weenie, and Weenie’s friend and I all ended up going to a really cool late night restaurant/bar that Weenie knew about. The show was on the night of Nov. 1st and ended about 11:30ish or so. My B-Day was on the 2nd. Donna and I realized that midnight hit while we were driving to the restaurant. They had this really fun little country/folksy band playing there and someone in our group told them that it was my b-day so they played “Happy Birthday” for me and everyone in the bar sang along. It was awesome. I ate a really great burger (amazing for late night bar food), and we all sat and talked for a long time before hitting the road to make the long drive back to Columbia. I tried to take some pics in there, but it was so dark none of them came out. Anyway, it was an amazing birthday all around. The day after, I saw NIN again in Greensboro. And the next day, new president.

Like I said…what a week.