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.

Halloween: The Aftermath–Part 1: The Birthday Massacre

Wow. Where the heck did I disapper to for so long? It’s been over a month since the last post. Back into my little coffin of job hunting, Halloween shopping, going out of town to visit the family, and celebration I guess. Celebration? What’s all this about celebration? Well, Halloween of course. Oh yeah, and there was that other thing…

Sunday was my birthday!

Man, there’s so much to talk about regarding birthday stuff, Halloween of course, our new president…where to start? Well, first off, you guys have been putting up some really groovy stuff lately. I would recommend anyone reading this who doesn’t read the other blogs on my blogroll to click on any random one, sit down, have a drink, and get comfortable. You’ll be thoroughly entertained, I assure you. I’m also jazzed that I finally got out of my slump and started posting on X-E again. I’ve sooooo missed it. Sometimes I just crawl into my cyber coffin and hybernate for a while, as you regular readers well know. But, I’m back for a while with a whole slew of stuff to write about. No, I’m not making any kind of convoluted promises or anything cause God knows I can’t keep ‘em! Just saying the last week has been REALLY eventful and I’m really excited about writing about it.

Ok, what to do first. Well, as of this writing, about one hour ago Barack Obama gave his victory speech. I have no intention of turning this blog into anything political because I honestly just have other things to talk about. Catch me one-on-one and we’ll talk, but I’m going to steer clear of it here. I will say that while I don’t completly trust or get too excited about any political candidate I am really intrigued by him and his speeches just give me goosebumps. I mean, the man is just inspirational. It may all be total B.S., but I like him. For now, I’m really glad things turned out the way they did. I think we’re better off as a country tonight than we’ve been in a while.

Ok, now on to the fun stuff! I’m gonna talk more later about what I actually did on my birthday, but let’s go back to Halloween for now since it’s been while since I’ve posted anything. With that, I give you…

The Great Punkin’ Carving of ‘08!

My cousin and I have a tradition every year. We usually sit out on his porch or in the garage and carve up our punkins while listening to a CD of skeery Halloween sounds. We’ve been listening to that same CD with an old boombox for years. Here it is in case you care.

Well, because it was raining this time we moved everything indoors and did it at the kitchen table. Then, my cousin came up with a really groovy idea. One of my favorite horror movies from one of my favorite years (1985!) is The Midnight Hour. Even though it’s a Halloween themed movie and the big day has now come and gone, I suggest you check it out if you’ve never seen it. It’s got a little something for everybody–zombies, a werewolf, a guy in love with a ghost, a completely random song and dance number, and not to mention LeVar Burton–aka Geordi La Forge, aka Kunta Kinte, aka Reading Rainbow. Depends on which way you swing, I guess. It’s equally genuinely creepy, funny, over the top, outlandish, and is one of the most amazing things ever put to film in all of American cinema.

So, with The Midnight Hour playing on the TV in the background, we set about the dirty deed of putting knife to flesh. Here’s a pic of the 2 that we got from Wal-Mart. They’re really dirty as you can see, so I spent some time just cleaning up mine before I started carving. That’s mine in the foreground there.

Now, my cousin and I have 2 totally different ways of carving. In my bloated ego, I fancy myself to be quite the artist and am very anal about drawing everything out before I start cutting. I spend a lot of time planning out every little stab and detail. He just takes a knife to the thing and starts hacking away with no plan at all–complete freestyle. The result is that it takes him all of 5 minutes and he’s always happy with it. It takes me the better part of an hour and I’m constantly going back and looking at it and finding a million things that could be better. Such is my life. Anyway, here it is with the design drawn on–pre carved:

Here she is all carved up:

And now, the finishing touch:

Isn’t that just precious? Remember what I said about my cousin’s freestyle way of just hacking away at it? Well, check it out:

I’m not sure exactly what’s going on there. That’s obviously an eye on the right there–classic triangle shape. We can make out the wonky mouth too. Now that diamond shaped thing in the middle is supposed to be the other eye. I finally had to break down and ask him exactly what in the hay that thing is on the left is. He said it was “a scar.”

I sat right next to him the whole time he was carving it. I swear he wasn’t drinking.

Right, so what punkin carving story would be complete without finding out the eventual fate of Toothy McGrinnerson over here? Well, he ended up on the porch with my other decorations I got from Wal-Mart. I really wanted to go all out this year and put a lot more into decorating the yard since I finally actually have one, but having just gotten layed off 3 weeks ago, I gotta watch the spending until I get more work. So, I got this nifty little graveyard scene. Everything you see here (minus the punkin of course) came together in one package and only cost $15:

The skeleton actually had feet popping out too but they didn’t fit in the picture. I only had one group of like 8 trick-or-treaters that came all at once. They greedily took giant handfulls of candy, almost emptying my bucket. Then I found later as I was leaving to go out for the night that they had stolen one of the hands from my skeleton. UNGRATEFUL BASTARDS!!! If I ever find out who took it, I’ll be replacing it with the real thing. Oh yes. Real bones once attached to the plump limb of a thieving, sugar filled 8 year will look so much better in my yard of the damned.

Oh yes.

So, after the tricking, treating and petty theft were done, I headed out to my local haunt (puns are fun) to look at costumes and hold up the wall. This was the first year in about 4 years that I didn’t dress up. I’ve done the same thing for the last few years–going as Buffallo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. I walked around with a bottle of lotion inside of a bucket which had a rope tied to the handle. On my shoulder was a little poodle (Precious). I’d walk around the bar, standing on tables and lowering my bucket down. “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again!” SotL is one of my favorite movies of all time and I can just about quote every line of it. I figured I’d played out that costume though, so it’s retired for now.

Best costume I saw at the bar: Joker from The Dark Knight in nurse outfit with wig. There were like 5 Jokers, but the nurse outfit made all the difference.

Worst costume and thing that made me want to scrub my brain: Giant bloody tampon. Ew.

Moving on. So, what became of the punkin after Halloween came and went? Well, as you know, they don’t last forever:

Poor old coot. He’s in his final resting place now–the woods out behind the house. He will be missed.

So, that does it for Part 1 of The Halloween Aftermath. I’ll try to return tomorrow night with Part 2 where I’ll tell you guys all about the 2 Nine Inch Nails concerts I’ve been to in the last few days. Got loads of pics and stories from those.

Oh, btw I called this one The Birthday Massacre for the obvious reasons but also because it’s the name of one of my new favorite bands. Listeners of my show have probably heard me play them from time to time. I want to kidnap the lead singer and take her home with me and keep her forever and ever and ever. Here’s why:

“With Great Power Comes Great Responsibili-Tin”

This was going to be a completely different post tonight. I had something really groovy planned, but something happened just as I was leaving for work today that changed everything. First off, it was going to be my last Batman post for a while. “But DJ D, you said you were going to write nothing but Batman stuff for the time being!” I know, I know…well, I say a lot of things. Honestly, I’m getting a little burned out on it, and since I’m back in the swing of writing JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN, there’s a lot of other stuff I want to talk about. It’s better to spread the Bat-stuff out anyway. I’ve got tons of it, and I’m a big enough nerd I can keep it going forever. So, my next post will be the last Batman thing for a while, then I’ll be on to other stuff.

That being said, I had just locked up today, was about to hop in my car to head to work, and lo-and-behold, here comes the mailman. I walk over to the mailboxes and do that awkward thing where you kind of wait for him to hand you YOUR MAIL and wonder if he’s just going to ignore you and stick it in the box anyway. I always expect him to not believe me and ask for some kind of ID, but that never happens. He’s kind of like the ice cream man, only with AARP solicitations. Well, he only had one thing for me today, and it was this:

So, by now you’re wondering what this is. Well, kids, it’s something I’ve been waiting for for a little while now. You see, not too long ago I was one of the lucky winners of…(drumroll…)…DC’s Huge, Spectacular, Fantastic, Ginormous, Stupendous, Superb Giveaway Of The Centrury! I’ll give you a second to click the link and read what it was all about. Don’t worry about me. I’ll wait.

You back? Wasn’t that cool? As of this afternoon, the wait was over.

I gotta say, DC wraps a package like it’s her job. This outer layer of white you see there was one of 3 layers you had to get through to get to the thing. You’d think she was using actual webbing to hold this thing together. Christmas at her place must take all damn day. I can imagine the extra unwrapping time that must be factored in before anybody gets to eat anything. Who let DC wrap again this year?! Come on! Turkey’s gettin’ cold! Friggin’ tape…

I’m just funnin.’ I’m actually impressed by a good wrapping job. I’m one of those freaks that actually enjoys wrapping presents.

Ok, so after you get through the first layer of Fort Knox over here, you get to a second layer of newspaper. I’ll spare you anymore pictures of the other layers before the big reveal, but I did find something interesting while I was frantically tearing into the newspaper like I was expecting a cool re-issue of Optimus Prime to be under there. (hint-hint, Christmas IS coming up folks). Staring right up at me on the top part of the box was this. I tried to reconstruct it the best I could:

It’s a missing kid! Ok, maybe I shouldn’t have used an exclamation point there. Makes it sound like I’m excited about it. It did make the journey to Spidey a little more exciting though. The picture on the left is her when she disappeared and the one on the right is her computer-ly aged 20 years. The caption under the morphed up picture reads: Age progression to 20 years sponsored by Firestone Complete Auto Care. Well, it’s nice to know Firestone gives a shit.

Ok, so why am I inculding this? Well, I’m thinking it’s the Spider-Man-ly thing to do. I think he’d really appreciate this. I mean, here I am, selfishly tearing into my new package, thinking only of myself (and pretty much scalping the poor girl I might add–as if she doesn’t have enough to worry about already) and staring me right in the face (almost literally) is the chance to make the world aware of a missing child via the power of my blog and all the internets. And we all know what Spidey thinks of the nature of power and reponsibility. So, for those of you who care to read them, here are the stats that are below the picture of li’l Missy Milk Carton over here:

Name: Emily Sawyer
From: Toledo, OH
Date Missing: 4/1/1988
Date of Birth: 4/3/1983
Sex: Female
Age: 25 yrs
Ht (at age 5): 4 ft 0 in
Wt (at age 5): 45 lbs
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue

So, there you go. Good luck, Emily Sawyer, wherever you are. Maybe someone somewhere will see this and something good will come of it.

Right, so now that we’ve done our good deed of the day and scored some brownie points with the man upstairs, lets get to the tin. After the newspaper, there was the final 3rd layer which was basically a little plastic baggie–strangely the exact shape of a small Spider-Man tin. Theeeennnn. we get THIS!

If you want some good pictures of the sides of it so you can get the full effect, I refer you to the link of the contest above. By now you should have read it anyway. I was gonna try to snap one of the bottom of it cause it had a great paragraph that details his origin and some of his villains, but I just kept getting the reflection of my phone in the picture so I gave it up. I’m sure Peter Parker could have done a better job, but this ain’t the Daily Bugle, and from the pictures on the tin, he looks a little busy anyway. I still have no idea of what I’m going to put in it, but I’ve got enough nerdy comic book cards and things that I’m sure I can find something. Maybe it’ll be my official storage spot for concert and movie tickets and momentos. That would work.

So, thanks again DC! You’re the bees knees! And while I’m still waiting on DC to eventually humor me with that debate on who could win in a fight–Spider-Man or Batman–I give you this–a great memory from the Saturday mornings of my childhood.

This was one of my favorite lesser known cartoons back then. I remember that it came on as part of a block of cartoons called the Marvel Action Universe, which also included a Robocop cartoon and one called Dino-Riders about a race of dinosaurs from outer space that had cool weapons and allowed humans to ride them. Highly unlikely. Something tells me if dinosaurs could come from space and carry weapons, they’d wipe us out and put our bones in museums.

The thing I like most about Spider-Man and His Amazing friends was that one of the Amazing Friends was Iceman, who was always one of my favorite X-Men, and sorely underrated. What you don’t see in the intro is that the way they get in and out of the house is through an underground tunnel that eventually leads them to a secret door…in the front yard. Yep, they just come right out of the ground in the front yard, costumes and all, right in full view of the whole neighborhood. And not a soul spots this when it happens. Not one. But, let’s just say for the sake of argument that it was common knowledge around town that Spider-Man, Firestar, and Iceman always used the front yard as a hidden entrance to that house. You never know what these kinky freaks from the east coast are into. Despite this, no one ever questioned the fact that Peter Parker, Bobby Drake, and some hot redhead also happened to live there. And you never saw them in the same place at the same time with the three nutjobs that just happened to live in that house and were flying in and out of the joint all hours of the night.

It’s a good thing Spidey and His Amazing Friends were there to protect the town, cause their neighbors were idiots.

Rumblings from inside the coffin…

There is a gentle stirring inside the coffin tonight. The leaves are dancing alive just outside. The feint scent of All Hallows Eve is in the air–a hellish beast riding a wave of black wind, rushing toward us. Soon, kids. Very soon. The slight breath of life inside this body is slowly growing into an excitement that forces my rotted hand to push open the lid of the old pine. I grip a handful of dirt, clawing my way to the surface, yearning for the company of you fellow demented ghouls. It’s been far too long since I enjoyed the company of all of your maddening scribbles, and a certain brand of entertainment that can be only described as “X.”

I think back on fond memories of giant purple ape juices, chicken flavored doritos, movie reviews and true words of wit from the land of snow topped mountains, cakes in the shapes of a feral beast, an amazing driven athlete–racing across this country to his destiny, like a bat out of some southern Hell, all the while tossing out the most ingenious insights you’ll ever know, images of the far east born from the hand of a wicked goddess, mirth and mayhem from the white north, and ramblings of the deepest perversions from across the pond. These and many others race across my twisted thoughts as I break the surface of this most unhollowed ground. I take a breath of haunted air and look toward the coming days of horror. There’s much to be said and I’ve slumbered for far too long…