NEW 2.0

"Free at last, free at last, thank Gourd, all righty! I'm GEOCITIES FREE AT LAST!"
--Bill the Splut


8/10

Whew.

And so here we are. There's going to be...not a lot of newocity anywhere on the page except here, until I figure out Readyhosting's naming conventions & use FTP seriously for the 1st time ever. For all Geo's faults, they did have the best online editor. And auto-deletor, unfortunately, or I wouldn't be here. FTP means I have to edit & reupload every time I update, & make damn sure the file names are correct, or I'LL be the deletor. At least now I have no choice but to make backup files.

Upcoming on the new site:

The News, obviously, isn't going to look much different. It'll be the only thing that regularly updates for a while. The only change is that it's also going back to its original purpose, which is actually saying when there's something new on the domain.

The missing InExObs will go up 1 at a time each day. The destroyed News may go up quicker, as those don't require images (which I haven't learned to do here yet). Those are priority one.

After that, bits of the old page will go up. First will be my masterpiece, "Super Green Beret." Don't need to lose that, too. Some new content may creep in sooner rather than later, as I get bored with shuffling files around. As I've said, I have ideas, but they're all just stuff that kinda occured to me at the moment, so I don't know how much follow-through there'll be on them. I'm an inherently lazy bastard. Possible new things:

That is all. Thanks for stopping by, & update your bookmarks. That email address is still inexob@c4.com, if you have any comments or suggestions.

8/11

The following is only a test of the FTP program. If this is a real emergency, you'll hear a loud siren screaming. That siren will be Bill the Splut.

That IS a scream you're hearing, but it's a scream of triumph! I FIGURED SOMETHING OUT, without running to Kim for help! I self-taught myself Geo HTML, & since I started playing with FTP & Readyhosting yesterday, my educated guesses have worked. It'll be a while before I'm making subsubsubdirectories like her, but I don't feel like the idiot I'd assume that I'd feel like before I was able to actually work on this site.

Oh...the picture.
Jessica & I went to John Harvard's Brew Pub tonight. This was our Monthly Saturday Thing up until a year ago, when she got her swingin' bachelorette pad & lost the free babysitting service of her parents. A long series of flukes allowed tonight's visit: her fiance having to babysit his nephew, & her white trash exboyfriend getting married today--he invited their daughter, Jess's parents, Jess's sister, everyone except Jess. Although this totally sums up his level of trailer park classiness, it was fine by her not to go. I asked her what her daughter thought of Daddy getting married. Put it this way, she said: "She told me 'I can't wait for Saturday!' 'Why?' I asked. 'Cause Sunday you & me go to the BEACH!'"
Jess gave me my very belated Xmas gift, some little Femo (sp? It's a type of art clay) people she made. The tiny, fragile things got busted up a bit, despite being wrapped in tissue paper, so she took them back for repair. I said "Well blow me down!" when I saw that she got me a Popeye articulated action figure! I love those old 1930s Fleischer Popeye cartoons. It comes with a snap-on spinach-enhanced arm muscle, with a picture of a battleship on it.
"POPEYE THE SAILOR!" barked the waiter, both startling Jess & interupting her in mid-sentence. She shot him a "no tip for YOU" look, but he crouched next to the table & said "HI, I'm Chad, I'll be your blah fuckin' blah blah" or whatever. Chad is the name of Space Ghost's Evil Twin, & this Chad even had the Evil Twin Facial Hair (a la Evil Spock). Jess ate only half of her burger, saving room for her beloved John Harvard Apple Crisp, the 1 she's craved for a year. "We're out of that!" said Chad, gaining him another unhappy look from Jess. How the hell does that happen, "we're out of it?" "The apples were rotten. All we have is crisp"?
Prly best that they were out of it, as it's topped with ice cream, & it was freezing in there. Apparently they didn't notice that the heat wave ended yesterday, & it was 75 degrees out. So we left to have dessert at Friendly's. Jess made a stab at the claw machine, trying to grab a really unsettling stuffed animal--no, not animal, The Mummy from the old horror movies. It looked pretty evil; if your parents gave you this as a 4-year-old, you'd have nightmares. "The monster's not under my bed, IT'S IN IT!" She failed, but the claw rearranged things enough that the withered undead face of The Mummy now had a tag across it that read "Cuddly Cuties." Yeah, maybe in the wonderful childhood world of Jeffery Dahmer.
Oh, yeah, the picture.
Friendly's has a can of crayons at every table (pictured above). They used to give everyone colorable placemats, but I guess that those are saved for kids only now. But the can is amusing enough. Note the facial expression on the Cone Head. And what's he passing to Burger Head Chick? A giant doobie?! "*KOFF* Hey, Burger Chick! Have a toke! *KOFF KOFF*" That sure explains his expression. I took a crayon out & adjusted the eyes to the proper shade of red. We think that this was the "before" scene. The "after" scene came when they were all stoned enough to think that the other living food people looked really, really tasty, & showed them all with big bites taken out of each other.
They botched both our sundae orders. Jess wanted to complain, but instead emptied her styrofoam bowl of extra Reese's Pieces into a napkin, put the crayons in the bowl, & put the crayon cup into her purse. I drew a Cone Head face on a Piece & propped it against the cup to further hide it.
We had to wait a while at the cash register. They were doing a carryout order for a surly fat white guy with a buzz cut. The cashier read off his order, which included "a bowl of soup." The guy gave her a look a hundred times dirtier than any Jess had given Chad. "NO." he sternly said in a you-fuckin'-tard voice. "No soup?" asked the cashier. "SOUP?! It WASN'T a bowl of SOUP!" he snarled. "It was a bowl of CLAM CHOWDER!" Thanks for clearing that up, chowder-head. It WASN'T a BURGER, it was a CHEESEburger!
In the parking lot, Jess pulled the cup from her purse & gave it to me. "Thanks!" I said. "None of my other friends ever shoplift me anything for my birthday!"

8/13

As threatened, an update only on what is actually new here: The Missing InExObs are being replaced daily.

Kirk informs us that Al Gore has a beard!
I find this interesting due to the fact that I had a dream 2 days ago wherein I turned on a TV to see a bearded Gore. This is despite the fact that I had no idea Gore got all Grizzly Adams. Possibly I overheard "Gore has a beard" without realizing it, & I was in REM sleep & my brain was deciding what it needed to keep as memory & what was worthless (that's what dreaming is for, all of you who think that it's really some Important Harbinger of the Future or whatever). Except in the dream, Gore didn't have his real-life ratty little number (either dye ALL your hair or NONE, Albert!). He didn't look all "Ryker as an aged Bukoff-drinker" but "Worf as a Gore that KICKS ASS" style. Like in a video game! Like in "Street Fighter" or "Tekken" or "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out," or whatever the Kids Today are playing!
That would be cool, a Gore vs Bush game--TO THE DEATH! They'd battle in a ring, trading blows while grabbing piles of cash thrown in the ring by special interests for power-ups. Gore could get a deadly Debate Sigh Attack (which causes as much harm to the user as the target), while Dubya would get The Media Ignores Reality defenses (getting fatally wounded & having the Media pretend it didn't happen, or even losing the fight & having his cousin at Fox News declare him the winner anyway). A banana power-up would turn Gore into ALPHA-MALE BEARDED WORF-GORE, smashing the talking heads from the Media & destroying Dubya's poll numbers. The banana would give Dumb?YA! the power to turn into a monkey on the back of his tag team members: Sneerin' Dickey Cheney, who'd get 1 deadly punch in before he collapsed from a "cardiac episode," or Ash-hole Ashcroft, swinging his mighty Burnin' Klan Kross! The Republican Nat'l Commitee would bus in agitators to prevent the audience from cheering. Gore, of course, would WIN! Then, InJustice Scalia would descend on wires all deus ex machinalike to overrule the referee & declare the bloody & broken corpse of Bush the winner. And to hand the championship title belt to a teeny marionette named "BUSHBABY" as giant corporations pulled the little brainless puppet's strings. "Hoo-way for me! HOO-WAY!" the puppet would cheer in jerkily-moving triumph, as the CEO who can do the funny voices tried not to move his lips too much.

8/16

I have little to say. Another Sense of Duty posting.

Only in Japan: the Spank 'Em! video game. The controller is an ass. That you spank! "This is a fun game of spanking the peopple that make your life miserable." The 8 characters include "Prostitute," "Gangster, " & "Child Molestor." "Ha ha, this game of spanking the ass of the man molesting me is fun! Oh well, I'm out of yen, time to get molested by Daddy some more." Jesus Christ.

OK, read this fast! Remember that I mentioned Jessica's white-trash exboyfriend got married last week? Here's her description of the event (without her permission, so this may not be here for long):
"First of all charlie left the reception as soon as he got there because he said he had to take a walk and think. There was sooo much shit that happened I'll have to tell you all about it,to long to write. Second of all Colleen had him wired so she could hear everything he was saying all night long even though she wasn't with him. My sister tried to dance with him several times and he kept telling her NO! They got into a fight and Charlie yells at Colleen "THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE AND IT SUCKS!" They didnt have a limo instead they used charlies step fathers old corvette that broke down not once but twice on the way to the reception."
She didn't say where the honeymoon was. Prly at a NASCAR event.

8/17

Norwegian Army promotes Nils Olav, a penguin, to Sargeant Major. What did Sgt Olav do to deserve such an honor? No man can say...

ARAB 1: Hello, I'm an Arab!
ARAB 2: I'm an Arab, too!
ARAB 1: 2 Arabs in a room? Then we must be--TERRORISTS!
ARAB 2: Allah Snackbar! Or whatever it is! We are EVIL!
ARAB 1: I'm so EVIL, I'm not going to work in my West Bank job! Instead, I will shout, & maybe Israelis will shoot at me!
ARAB 2: I will throw rocks at tanks, & then have my entire village destroyed by missiles!
BOTH ARABS: We are SO EVIL!
UNREPENTANT NAZI WAR CRIMINAL: Heil the Maggots with tummies full of Hitler! You non-Hebrew, yet still Semitic guys, need EVIL lessons!
UNREPENTANT RUSSIAN COMMIE GENERAL AND/OR RUSSIAN MAFIA DUDE: And WE'RE here to help! Despite the fact we all HATE each other! We must band together!
SOUTH AMERICAN DRUG DEALER: As we are all EVIL CLICHES! And we exist for ONE REASON ONLY:

ALL: TO SCARE WHITE MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS!

AVERAGE AMERICAN TEENAGER: And *I* brought an Eminem CD! I am VERY EVIL!
NAZI: Not while wearing AberZombie & Fitch you ain't! Away with you! Seig Heil!
COMMIE MAFIA GENERAL: What is our plan? Of EVIL?
ARAB 1: Blow stuff up!
ARAB 2: Yeah, blow it up REAL GOOD!
NAZI: Then CONQUER THE WORLD!
COMMIE: What a well-thought-out plan! Thank God--No, wait, thank my ATHIEST EVIL MONSTER COMMIE GODS for our brilliant plan!
NAZI: Of EVIL!
DRUG DEALER: Anyone got Fritos? I'm like starvin' for Fritos here, dudes. Hey, wait--Am I like the only dude who smells herring & shit?
ARAB 1: ALLAH MONKEYBARS! There is something FISHY here, indeed!
COMMIE: I detect something here in the shadows! I will intelligently leave my AK-47 on the table & investigate by MYSELF!
NAZI: Wait, I will take my EVIL LUGER GUN & help!
COMMIE: Fuck YOU, tovarisch! We are EVIL, & thus NEVER think clearly!
NAZI: Ach, ja. I forgottenzee.
COMMIE: A black shape in the darkness, which I perceive despite the aforementioned black darkness! It must be a WORTHLESS FOOL that is aslo a GAY FAG LOOSER LOL! U R no mathc 4 ME!! [Editor's Note: Commies invented chat rooms]
FIGURE IN THE BLACK DARKNESS: Wak.
COMMIE: EEEEEEAAAARRRRGGGHHH! I've been fatally stabbed in my knee aorta! By a knife with a beak-like blade! That smells of herring! Ohhhh...I am dead. Wait! A Tunnel of Light! Am I going to HEAVEN, which is impossible for an athiest Commie? Hey, I AM! I'm in COMMIE HEAVEN! The line for bread is only ONE MINUTE LONG! THE TOILET PAPER IS ABUNDANT! IT RAINS BORSCHT AND VODKA DAILY! Wow, I kinda feel sorry for the non-athiests. Hey! It's Trotsky! And he brought borscht & vodka!...
NAZI: WHERE is that untrustworthy Commie? My Palm says that I have a full day of EVIL ahead of me! I'll just sit on this chair! This EVIL chair! Ach du lieber, who bought me this fine footstool? This footstool that's all black & white & kinda fishy smelling with a pointy beak? I'll just put my evil Nazi jackboots up on it, & relax like I haven't since the day they lost the page with my name on it at Nuremburg!
FOOTSTOOL: Wak.
NAZI: EEEEAAAARRRGGGHHH LILI MARLENE! My FOOT JUGULAR has been cut! I'm SO DEAD! LIKE HITLER! TALK ABOUT YOUR IRONY! AS HITLER'S DEAD! LIKE ME, ANOTHER NAZI! Wait! A Tunnel of Light! Am I going to HEAV--no, wait, I only fell face-first on a flashlight.
DRUG DEALER: Bummer.
ARAB 1: I still have my dynamite!
ARAB 2: And I, my rocks!
DRUG DEALER: Arab 1, that is SO an M80. And Arab 2, those are Pop Rocks! There's like NO WAY we can conquer the world with those!
ARAB 3: What about your EVIL DRUGS?
DRUG DEALER: It's just shake, man. Twigs & seeds. I got like, so little, I uhh, really can't afford to share, you know?
ARAB 1: Arab 3?? I thought that there where only 2 Arabs here!
ARAB 3: Wak.
DRUG DEALER: AHHH! It's like some ninja death machine! Except he's 3 feet tall & smells like...Damn, I could SO eat like a dozen Fishwiches right now!
ARAB 1: It's--NILS OLAV!
ARAB 2: Agent Double-Oh Anchovy-breath!

And then a terrible explosion from a giant M80 ended Nils Olav's life, and the story that Bill realized had no punchline.

But 00Anchovy-Breath will be BACK--in "The Spy Who Loved Herring"!

8/19

Sorry, no wacky penguin-based comedy today. Just a simple "what's new": All the easy InExObs have been replaced (namely, the ones that Geo didn't eat the HTML along with the pictures).
Maybe it's been too long since I saw the old InExOb layout, but the old "space background" on The Last InExOb looks like a forgotten friend.
The Canada thing was among the stuff just recovered.

Current Music: The Greatest Hits of: Herb Alpert/Astrud Gilberto/Art of Noise/Ron Geesin/Booker T & the MG's/and a nature sounds CD, on shuffle.

There is a very good chance that I'm the only 1 of 6 billion humans on Earth listening to that mix right now.

Astrud is prly all I should be listening to, here on a lazy warm late Summer evening. I keep looking at Kill Kill, sleeping on her perch near the window, framed by the setting sun, as Astrud sings
"I am quite hopeless, it seems,
Two things I know how to do:
One is to dream
Two is loving you."

Current Mood: Too lazy to join Govynda's open mike night.

8/20

I. Am going. To puke.
I went to redo 1 of the totally destroyed InExObs, Monchichi Rubbers. Certainly a classic, given its reception & wide linkage. As I went to my Google-saved files, I froze: It's arch149! I only saved arch150 & above!
I feel SICK. Like I did when Geo wiped out the whole inexob page. Calm down & do what Gally told you when it 1st happened: Search Google for a cached version. IT'S THERE! Hey, if Google saved that after all these months...What about the missing 1956 Newsweek Ob? I was thinking about that today--Can I really reconstruct that from memory? Probably not, but OH GOURD, IT'S THERE TOO!
Now I REALLY feel sick...If Google resurrected an Ob that it said was dead a month ago...
All of New35, even the links, is there too!
I am. Gonna puke. From joy. Gally, forget the Inexplicable Medal of Honor. You are headed for Inexplicable SAINTHOOD.
(This is good news for you, too, as it means that the search request story will continue)

8/21

Back to blogging.

I'd mentioned before how a study indicated that TV watching caused Alzheimer's. Now it seems that video games cause brain damage, leading to violent behavior:
"Whenever you use self-control to refrain from lashing out or doing something you should not, the frontal lobe is hard at work.
The students who played computer games were halting the process of brain development and affecting their ability to control potentially anti-social elements of their behaviour."

From the people that brought you the Explorer with Firestone tires, Ford funds a hi-tech simulator that appears to say that you can crash your car while you're checking your email while driving.
Duh.
Why not check to see if it's unsafe to drive while changing your pants & juggling rabid skunks? Sad part:
"While applauding Ford's effort to study driver distractions, one safety expert said he doubts the results will have much effect on the proliferation of telematics.
"'They're the new money makers for the industry. They're loathe to give them up,' said Clarence Ditlow, director of the Center for Auto Safety. 'The simulator may give them answers they don't want.'"

Like Father, Like Scum: Dubya's massive tax cut (like Bush Sr's) may eat up the budget surplus. Remember, Senior kept his "Read my lips, No New taxes!" campaign pledge. Those weren't tax increases he later passed, they were revenue enhancements.
Dumb?YA! himself plans to donate his whooole 600 smackers to charity. Which charity? He doesn't know. Has he received his refund yet? He doesn't know. If he used a $600 check every day as toilet paper for a year, would it affect his personal economy? He wasn't asked, but that would work out to his yearly presidential salary, & that's the Corporate Sock Puppet's pocket change.

More Americans are believing in ghosts--of the "Casper the Friendly" variety, in the wake of Patrick Swayze being one in "Ghost." "But for all the hype of the supernatural, Peters cautions that people should trust in God, not ghosts. 'We can see that people are projecting their unfulfilled wishes onto ghosts, and that's very dangerous for your faith,' Peters added." Like the guys would say in a Casper cartoon, "Ghosts? BAH!" Believe in that all-powerful & all-knowing white-bearded white man up in the sky!
Believe in SANTA!
(Note that it's in a Salt Lake City paper, a place where no one has crazy beliefs)

"Do not leave question 35 blank." "As his first act to raise awareness of the issue, he stood outside last month's sold-out Radiohead concert at Stone Mountain Park holding a banner that read: 'Which of these crimes will deny you federal financial aid? 1) Arson 2) Armed robbery 3) Murder 4) Rape 5) Smoking pot' -- with No. 5 circled."

8/22

As Bill Idol might have sung--"What a day for a White Trash Wedding!"

"Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity." says the email forwarded by a Republican legislator. "There's a lot of it that's truth, the way I see it," Davis said. "Who came to this country first -- the white man, didn't he? That's who made this country great." In a coincidence that strains credulity, he's a white male Christian! WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!
Of course, hours later he claims "The only reason the document was forwarded to each of you was for information and to show the type of messages that come across the Internet...In fact I made no personal comment with the e-mail, it was simply forwarded as information only."
So he's a white supremacist asshole AND a lousy liar.

On a related note, Jesse "The Nazi" Helms is to retire. "I guess the 19th century is over now," said a Democrat, while Bushbaby simpers that Helms is "a tireless defender of our nation's freedom." Just not for the freedom of them damn Niggers & fags!

The southern sun speckled the water in the Olympic-sized swimming pool & gleamed from the chrome of Jesse Helm's walker. The ocean breeze cooled the humid air as it fluttered the Confederate battle flag. The flagpole wavered slightly. Jesse's faltering eyes caught the motion, but he decided that it was merely the mint julep he slurped that caused it. It wavered more, then dipped dramatically before righting itself.

"CONSARN YE!" Jesse yelled. "Can't you damn Negroes hold a flagpole straight?!"

"S-sorry, your worship!" grunted 1 of the 3 Negroes. "It's powerful heavy, sir!"

Jesse smashed his glass in anger on the forehead of the Hispanic child laborer who was laying concrete for his personal missile silo. "DAMN YOUR LAZY BUTTOCKS! No food for the likes of you tonight!" He turned to his wife. "Sorry to use profanity, dear, but I'm too tired to get out the horsewhip."

His wife, resplendent in her bathing suit, turned to smile at him. "That's okay, honeychile," she drawled as the sweat ran through the wrinkles of her weathered body like water in the ancient canals of Mars. "Can you get me another nigger, though? The one I'm using as a lounge chair seems to have got all rigid once he passed out."

"Surely, my little flower of Christian charity." he said. "You know, in MY day, we sat on them niggers till they was DAID!" He stopped as the phone rang.

"Hello, God's voice on Earth here. Oh, hello, Boogernose. HAW HAW! Sure, I'll call you 'Mr President' if that's what you want--PRESIDENT BOOGERNOSE!" He turned to his wife. "George's kid again." He said into the phone, "What you want, boy? What?! Come out of retirement? For one last job? Boogernose, what for? WHAT?! Our nation's freedom is being threatened? By what, exactly? You don't know? That's good enough for me!" He slammed the phone down. "Hey, NEGROES! Prepare the Helmsmobile! I have LIBERALISM to smash!"

A short, black man walked up. And did nothing.

"Snap to it, boy!" shouted Helms. "There are same-sex couples doing nothing to anybody that must be smashed! There are civil rights being unviolated! There's so-called 'art' being made that doesn't glorify our white male Christian highly-judgemental God!"

The short black man didn't move.

"Hel-LOO! Hey, Sambo, you can gather your wool later! There's a big shiny watermelon in this for you--AFTER the horsewhipping!"

"Honeychile," said his wife. "There's something odd about Sambo."

"BAH! He looks the same to me!"

"Honeychile, they ALL look the same to you! Especially as you never make eye contact with any of them."

Jesse squinted his cataract-rotted eyeballs on the recalcitrant Negro. "What do you have to say for yourself, boy?!"

"Wak."

Helms reeled back, or as far back as his osteopariasis would allow. "NOOOO! NOT NILS OLAV!"

"News at Eleven Top Story: Former Senator Jesse Helms was found dead in his pool today. Police say that his servants claim he fell off his walker, and repeatedly slashed his feet on a beak-shaped fork. His wife, here seen spending the money she just inherited from his estate, says she has no idea why his body smelled like herring."

8/23

Blogging seems to be eating into my InExOb-replacing time, so I took a break and did Weeks 149 to 154. We're into the utterly-destroyed ones, which (IMO) I think were the ones that came out best. Only a few more to replace. Then, finally, I think we'll see some new content on the main page.

8/24

InExObs are done, except for the one where the punchline was the eBay listing. I coincidentally saved a screengrab of that just days before The Destruction, but that'll take some playing with before it's ready.

This is really funny--and, as it should be, kinda irritating: Windows RG

8/27

"He's not going!" said coworker Dan about me and the boss' stripper-laden stag party on Saturday. "HE'S going to the oxymoron!"
Said oxymoron was KMDS' annual vegetarian cookout. I'm always glad to go to one of those, even if it means missing out on CT's own "Get Wet" girls performing with double donkey-dong dildoes. :P It wasn't so much of an oxymoron as the antithesis of morons; a bunch of drunk Privileged Class right-wing males exchanged for a group of intellectual friends more bleeding heart liberal than even I am. I chose Spock over Evil Spock With A Beard.
Glad I went for another reason; last year, there were 2 dozen people there, this year only half that. But this year was more funner anyway. Kevin's ride-on lawn mower being used as a go-cart. A fire in a barrel with a cup of gasoline thrown on it. A DVD of Bjork videos. Sweet corn on the cob and Boca burgers and tabouli. Jokes and stories and beer and pot (I partook not of the evil weed; I had to drive home & haven't smoked since...When?? Years now, I guess).
Kevin went to feed his vacationing Mom's cats beforehand. The door to the house has a cat door; the door to her porch was wide open when he got there. And a cat was missing! Possibly for 2 days! 411 didn't have the 411; they kept trying to give him the number to the Animal Clinic instead of Animal Control. He eventually figured out that he could call the Police and get connected to them.
ANIMAL CONTROL: We don't pick up stray cats. Just dogs.
KMDS: What? Why not??
A.C.: We consider cats to be wild animals.
KMDS: Wild animals...with collars.
A.C.: Yes.
Kevin was still arguing with the guy when he glanced out the door. The missing cat was lying there. Chillin', really. "Uh, gotta go!" said Kev to the cop.
At one point he'd walked up the street trying to call the cat. "That never works!" I said. "What you need to do is get a really long extension cord and an electric can opener. Every cat within 10 miles will come running!"

Yesterday I spent trying to work on that alleged New Content here. I think that anything that involves drawing can be written off. I kinda get the feeling that this and the KK page are all you're going to finally see here.
I also tried to install the CD-RW drive and got as far as realizing that I had NO CLUE as how to remove the faceplate or the 5-1/4 drive bay.

Today was supposed to be rainy, but it was all sunshine when I got up. It clouded up when I went to the state park, where I promised myself that this year I'd go to every Monday that it wasn't raining. I checked the weather radar before I left--not a drop of rain in the whole state. I was 2 miles from my car when there was a WHOOSH, chasing through the trees to my West. Aw, shit! Here comes the rain. It wasn't so bad, really; the fully-foliaged trees acted as umbrellas. Too bad I left my car windows open, though; the seat'll be wet. I was a mile away from my car when BOOOM! cracked thunder directly above me. Aw, FUCK.
Then it came down in sheets. I was drenched to the skin in seconds. I had to take off my glasses and hold my hand over my eyes in order to be able to see. As I dodged through the growing puddles, I thought CRAP! And how did we check the radar before we left? The Web. My computer was not only on but online during the storm. The last time that happened, I was greeted by the Blue Screen of Death and a fried modem.
I ran the last 100 yards to my car. It really didn't matter that the windows were open, as the seats were drier than I was. Visibility on the road was about 50 feet; some shithead pulled over on the shoulder decided to re-enter traffic right in front of me, without signalling. I nearly rammed her. I drove for 2 and a half minutes after I got into the car aaaand...it stopped raining. 1 minute later, the road was DRY. If the storm had run 2 miles to the South, I never would've felt it.
Went home, changed clothes, turned the computer off just in case, and went grocery and SalvArmy shopping ("Submarine Commander" for the 2600 for 99 cents--never heard of this 20-year-old game). It took me 3 times as long to do my normal Net browsing, as there were constant rumbles of thunder to the South, so I kept shutting the Pookie down. But it never more than drizzled.

I need to move to Canada!

'We are, as a people, lied to so routinely that if you believe a fraction of the TV commercials that you see, in practice you get used to being a gullible fool,' Solomon said."

Kirk sends Reality Cracking to me as a link cause he ain't sure he wants to use it. THANKS, KIRK! I gots me some moldy food in the fridge for you I don't need! It's IN THE MAIL!
Actually, what I've read is interesting, although the deliberate mispellings get a bit twee after a while. The Lottery one nearly inspired me (as a person in a Powerball state that works in a store that sells Powerball tickets) to do my long-delayed Lotto rant, but I'm nearing my typing limit for the day).

Kevin bought a 6 of Pete's Wicked Ale Red Rush at my store for the cookout (warning: that link leads to one of those overblown, Flash-heavy corporate sites where the embedded audio is more important than any actual utility to the user). Pete's used to be the biggest threat to Sam Adams in the macromicrobrewery wars. So much so, that it got bought by hated Miller. Their new line of longnecks seems to be all packaging and no quality. Put it this way: There were 5 Red Rashes in the fridge at the beginning of the party, and by 11PM 5 Red Rashes on the kitchen table, none of which were missing more than a third of its contents. Everyone's opinion was:

8/29

Fretting eats into the blogging.
Kill Kill has been quiet, unplayful and mopey tonight. Her nose is warm and sorta dry. Thus I fret. Then, I read of Lily's fretting over her Lemieuxmew's health. NOW I'm paranoid. KK has her off-days, but if she shows no improvement tomorrow, off to the vet.

I haven't looked at X-Entertainment in forever. The only articles I've read appeal to the former 80s toy store manager I once was:
Sea Monkeys, The Most Depressing Pets Ever! "Watch them be born in their 100s!" said the package. Yeah, then watch them DIE in their 100s.
The Worst He-Man Figures of All. I have the minicomic "STINKOR: The Stench of EVIL!" in the desk somewhere. Oh, here it is.

SKELETOR: Stinkor, with your powerful SMELL, I would like you to spread your FOUL ODOR where the air is clean!
STINKOR: YES! YES! I revel in all that is FOUL!
SKELETOR: Then let us take the SMELL OF EVIL to ETERNIA!

Yeah, Stinkor is so great, he gets his skunky ass handed to him by Moss Man. His personal power is that he's covered with...MOSS!
Crimeny. I could just not use toilet paper for a month, and become Shit Man. I'd be Stinkor combined with Moss Man! WHO COULD STOP ME THEN?!

I just had to turn the window  fan around to blow out...Skunk Stink! What are the odds? And guess who's suddenly perked up, wanting to chase her toy mice!   Hey!  She just knocked a whole shelf of Godzilla toys over!!  Yay, little white cat!

8/30

I fretted more when KK still had a dry nose this morning. Enough so that my lunch break was spent driving home just to check on her.
She's fine. The nose gets wetter and colder as we speak. Still lazier than normal, but more playful than yesterday.

Why is it that every blog I read that mentions the "Kill and Cook the Kitten" video mentions it smugly? There's always this attitude that that it's no different than killing any other animal for food. I can't figure out if these people are cow-chompin' carnivores or Vegans (totally unfair generalization from me: A Vegan is a vegetarian who's an asshole). I avoid red meat, and specifically don't eat pork for the reason that pigs are smarter than cats or dogs. But cows and poultry are NOT BRED TO BE PETS. They're bred to be artificial lifeforms. The cow's ancestor is a very dangerous animal (wild cattle are like rhinos--would you want a ton of enraged meat with big horns charging you?), and wild turkey are smart creatures. So smart that they were bred to be incredibly stupid. Cats and dogs were bred to be intelligent, are meant to be companions and friends. So--when you have kids, I can eat them, right? It's no different than veal!
Listen, pal, there IS a difference!

Don't complain about warm soda in Florida!

Fragments from my mailbox:

From Star Chaser:
"'...tastes like beer...as you're vomiting it up.' My friends and I used to call that reverse gravity booze. When you get the reverse gravity shot or bottle or whatever, it inverts the attraction of the earth in a localized area, and what went down, must come up. I got dragged to a 'party' at a friend of my brother's once...they had a 2 liter bottle of Everclear...They opened the bottle, half of it evaporated, and everybody fell over...then, someone who was showing off took a shot of it...Guess which one he got? It went down, enlisted the poor oppressed masses of his dinner, and led them in a charge for freedom. It blew the glass out of his hand, (It went in and out that quickly) and all over his shortly thereafter ex-girlfriend..."

From 9th Tee, today I got 3 Super Joys! 1 for Jessie, 1 for her dad, 1 for KMDS! Everyone who plays Super Joy wants one!
Coincidentally, Chris Downey from Canada got 1 based on my recommendation, too. But he got the higher-tech model:

"After reading your praise of Super Joy a few weeks ago, I checked out the 9th Tee shopping site (and a few others) and ordered the mysterious game system. It has arrived, and it is indeed, super. There are a few strange things however. The label on the game itself says "Super Joy", the picture on the box says "Super Joy III" and the name on the box is "Power Player". A little lack of consistency. The box also has, for no apparent reason, a photo of Q-J and Obi-Wan fighting Darth Maul. I didn't know Star Wars: Episode 1 had tie-ins to Chinese bootleg game systems.

"The "start" screen that comes up when you turn on the system seems to be shooting for some kiddy pop-culture reference points, as there are crude pixel drawings of Pikachu, Toy Story characters, a Ninja Turtle and others. My Super Joy may be the newest model because it seems to have more games than the one advertised on 9th Tee. The menu screen has the same exaggeration as yours, but instead of delivering 76 out of 76000 games, it promises 168 games in one and delivers over 100. There are some duplicates, but you still get a pile of different games. Some games that are pictured on the 9th Tee site are missing (like Dig Dug, Pac Man and others), and some are obvious bootlegs. Yie Ar Kung Fu (sp?) and 1942 are there, but they look like the NES versions. Super Mario Bros., Contra and Baseball are true to their NES versions, and there are faithful arcade-type versions of Kung Fu (Spartan X) and Elevator Action (yippee!).

"That "Binary" game you have with the opposite-moving characters is named "Ding Dong" on my version. I'm assuming "Dong" is the male character. The funniest bootleg on my version is "Turtles I" which is actually a good version of Donkey Kong Jr. The only problem? Donkey Kong Jr. has been replaced with one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You are still trying to save a giant monkey (Kong himself) but when you get to the little cinema part where Kong is released from his cage, the big ape turns green! I guess he was a turtle all along...

"I'm still going through the games, but it looks like there are more good ones than there are duds. I see many hours filled with Tetris, Jewelry (Columns), Mappy, Arkanoid, Sky Destroyer, and others that I thought were cool but can't remember right now.

"Chris Downey of the Great White Nord'"

In a new twist to reality television, a Turkish show is pitting two middle-class couples against each other to see who can survive on the country's minimum wage of $84 a month. "The couple who spends the least money during the month without exceeding the minimum wage will win a car, $17,250 in cash, and a one week trip to Europe.
"They are lucky. Most Turks are stuck with minimum wage for life, and there is no award awaiting them," said Menekse Yucel, an unemployed secretary looking for a job."

8/31

Whaaat?! There are new Pokey the Penguin strips?! I stopped checking after the long lull that followed "Pokey and the Leaded Pants." There's like 40 more. I'm linking this 1st, but look at it last. Pokey just sucks ya in.

Ahh, the usefulness of the Net. I saw the phrase "Who's up for some steamed hams?" on The Bleat. I knew that I knew that from...somewhere. I remember nearly 10 years ago when I was stuck in my 18 months of unemployment (thanks, Bush Sr, for cutting taxes for the rich and then increasing spending on the military and corporate welfare, thereby wrecking the economy! Good thing Your Son the Genius learned from your mistake!). MST3K had an ep that included the line "But we wuz--too late!" It took me half a week of constantly trying remember where I'd heard it (hey, I had the time back then) before it clicked: "THE BISHOP!" from Monty Python.

(VICAR is at a christening. Everyone in the family has dark glasses and a pencil-thin Mafia moustache, including the women and the baby)
(THE BISHOP! bursts in)
THE BISHOP!: The NAME, vic! DONT SAY THE NAME!
VICAR: I name you Luigi Fricotti--
(Ticking BABY explodes; VICAR is shot straight into the ceiling)
THE BISHOP!: We wuz--too late! The Reverend Grundy bit the ceiling!

I immediately decided that I didn't want to spend 3 days identifying the quote, so I hit c4.com. As soon as I saw "Simpsons" as a result, I got it. So you don't go insane, this is the quote:

Skinner: I hope you're ready for mouth-watering hamburgers!
Chalmers: I thought we were having steamed clams?
Skinner: Oh no, I said steamed hams. That's what I call hamburgers.
Chalmers: You call hamburgers "steamed hams"?
Skinner: Yes. It's a regional dialect.
Chalmers: Uh-huh...What region?
Skinner: Uuuh...Upstate New York.
Chalmers: Really? Well, I'm from Utica and I've never heard anyone use the phrase "steamed hams."
Skinner: Oh, not in Utica, no.  It's an Albany expression.

Adultswim is Sunday!!! No, wait, let me rephrase that: Adultswim is Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!

I really need to read more X-Entertainment stuff.

Laborious Day

REALLY long-time readers of this drivel may remember that I used to use this day to impart the important news that, unlike predictions from our psychic friends, the world has not ended.
The world has not ended this year, either.

Uneventful weekend, in excrutiating detail:

Labor Day weekend SUCKS HARD when you work in the booze business. Damn crazy busy, and every person in the world decides to bring their stinkin' drippin' empty bottles and cans from the whole Summer in AT ONCE. 1 ass brought in 2 shopping carts worth, including 2 bottles of a type of Sam Adams beer that hasn't been made in 2 years. That dime was too important to write off, but not so important it needed to be brought back 2 years ago.
I also had to work with this guy who's like Jerry Lewis with Tourette's. He gets really annoying really fast.

There were ad flyers in the mailbox I got home. One of them was for Big Lots' precursor in the area, Ocean State Job Lot. They had "1/3 Million Meals. Eat like our Soldiers do! MRE Meals Ready to Eat"
[Have you ever heard someone say "I'm gonna join the Army! For the FOOD!"?]
"Survivalists, Campers, Emergency Supplies, Bachelors" OK, I'm about as bachelor as you can get, & I've eaten tuna from the can over the sink, but MREs? My line in the sand in the bachelor food pyramid won't even drop to Chef Boy-R-These-Gross. I'd seen these in the store & I had to laugh: Manufacture dates were all mid-1999 (remember Y2K?), & these all had sodium levels over 25%. You won't survive on those things forever!

Slept late Sunday. Like 1PM late.
Screwed with the CD-RW drive. I do mean screwed; I couldn't get it to work no matter what, not even when I unplugged everything from the current CD-ROM and stuck it in the CD-RW. The the Pookie wouldn't boot. Bah to this, I said, & left the house.
...To go to the new Big Lots! Or, as it now seems to be called, BIG!Lots. It opened last week to incredible fanfare, ie the Lite Favorites station played an ad twice a day for 3 days.
I never did get to hear the whole thing. It never grabbed my attention until I thought "This announcer is SO ANNOYING." The announcer being, of course, Jerry Van Dyke.
(Hey--what do you call the type of beard Spock had when he was in the Evil Universe? A Van Dyke! It's the recognized standard for EVIL!

I was hoping to find those 99 cents 3-packs of Hartz Mt mice. At the old Big Lots, I found 1 last package that prly had fallen behind something. "Look what you got!" I proudly said to KK. Her big eyes grew huge, & she ran over to meow while I scanned the UPCs. These are the mice with the staple through the tail, & she was very impatient to play with them. I put the plastic bag down, & she began rubbing her cheeks on it while simultaneously purring & meowing. I held her 3 future victims in my palm, & she ecstatically rubbed her face on them. So cute!

I didn't find them, of course, though this BIG!Lots was BIG. About twice the size of the old 1. It was in the former Mitch's Place, a different close-out company. I love this kind of store; they're like the retail version of the Land of Misfit Toys. I hated Mitch's. Big Lots does overstocks (meaning new items that didn't sell) whereas Mitch's bought out the inventories of bankrupt chains after their going-out-of-business sales (meaning everything was incredibly shopworn). And also overpriced; yeah, I'll drop $20 on a 4-year-old computer game in a box that's held together with packing tape. With perfect irony, Mitch's went bankrupt.
Huge this BIG!Lots was, but they just spread out what they had, rather than bring in different stuff. Long aisles of the same cheap Halloween stuff. 3 endcaps of Pop Tarts. Lots of inflatable Hello Kitty merchandise (uh, chairs & such, not love dolls, though with HK's propensity for condoms & vibrators, it wouldn't surprise me if you thought otherwise). The only thing of interest that I bought was

Damn but he's shore proud of them beans! He's like psychotically happy bout them thar beans. As happy as the Unabomber showing you his new invention, the Exploding Turnip.
It's the retro look that sold me--There's no way that this label has changed since c.1973. So---is John huge like the Jolly Green Giant? If so, I sure don't want to be in the same county when he starts farting them beans. Or has he knocked me to the ground, & is about to force-feed me them thar beans? With fixin's?
The Fixin's are in a seperate can strapped to the top. That kinda makes sense when its like Chun King chow mein, with the meat & sauce in 1 can & the veggies in another, but the Fixin's are just BBQ tomato sauce.
The recipes include "Bean-A-Roni Bake." Just the thing when you have Brak over.
Sodium level: 25%. Just like the MREs. Except these I ate. And today, discovered why they're called "Big John's." Cause that's where I was, big time.

I went to 2 pet stores, looking for a cat carrier (Jessica's mom finally noticed that hers has been AWOL over here since 12/99). And I complained about the grocery store selling the Hartz 3-packs for $2.79--they both wanted $2.79 for ONE Hartz mouse. I tried to get help with the carriers in the 1st store, as they were stacked to the ceiling & the prices were unreadable. Looked like $20, & I had a 20% off coupon, which was about what I'd expected to pay. "I'll--" said the woman working there, but was interupted by a pressing order for 20 live crickets. 10 minutes later, I was still unclerked & I left.
The 2nd store had the same carrier for $35!! so I abandoned them as quick as the mountain men do the night after Big John eats that thar Bean-A-Roni bake.
The grocery store had Hartz 5-packs for $4 so I settled for that. Kill Kill was happy.

Then a bunch of nothing happened until I watched Adult Swim.
I've been jealous of people that get the idea to blog something as it happens, but into the 1st show of A.S. I decided to post to the Ghost Planet list my thoughts.

Sun, 2 Sep 2001 22:27:09
Why did people say Home Movies was bad? I think Katz sucks, but this was pretty good! Low expectations, maybe.
PASTEUR: Hello Louis! How are you?
BRAILLE: I'm blind!

22:43:00
Leave it to Brak--AHHH-HAHAHAHAHA!
Oh gourd. I wanted to find a quote to quote, but I was in too much laughter of spasms of laughing.

Why do the AS ads want me to watch Rush Hour 2 & join the Navy?

22:56:24
Oh, I get it! Brak will have a new sitcom parody name each time! I like that.
Pretty funny ep. Liked the 1st one better.
CN ended it with a threat of "UP NEXT: A Pup Named Scooby Doo, followed by a SCOOBY DOO MARATHON!"
NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

23:13:05
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Funny as it was the 1st time, even with sound effects.
Anyone else sick of that giant TV14 block in the corner? Or sick of me posting every 15 minutes?

23:25:19
Sealab 2021: Wow. That SUCKED. I didn't laugh even once. Wow, that sucked.

[Evidentally I was alone in thinking this, as the rest of the list loved it. It was exactly what I'd feared AS might be, a few swears and sexual innuendo masquerading as content. The other 2 2021s I've seen were hilarious, with the patented Space Ghost bizareness, so hopefully this was a fluke]

23:46:21
Space Ghost: HEY! How can anyone be mean to Bjork? She's like a kitten. That speaks Icelandic to you! And also not mention Yorke's English teeth?
Pretty good. Not great, but SG I've set my standards pretty high for. I did like Moltar's DJ voice though.

23:57:34
Hey! Where was Aqua Teen Hunger Force?

[At this point, other people started joining in. 1 person had this odd comment]
SGC2C: Awesome. There's never enough Zorak for my money, though. Zorak is my honey. I bet Bill the Splut doesn't like my website. That's OK, it's not for everyone. Bjork is cool.
[And you are...Who are you again? I have no problem with this website I've never seen, it's your dog that I don't like]

00:14:48
Cowboy Bebop: What the HELL is going on?! Don't care! Looks cool!

00:28:48 -
Bebop II: Guh.

No idea what was going on most of the time. But...
GUH. Bebop is good. Damn fine.
Damn fine apple pie.
Still not sure why this should make me join the Navy. Where are the Blo-Pen ads? KIDS LUV EM!

[Here someone screams "You East Coasters are RUINING it for me!" despite no one giving any real spoilers away. And the fact that no one's making this tard read his email except for he, the tard]

00:59:01
Bebop II: Mac Royale: BEBOP ROCKS!! It's like Pulp Fiction crossed with...
uhh...
A Japanese cartoon!
Funny & ballistic at the same time!
"It seems so!"

aDULT sWIM: You are my new best friend! I (heart) U so much that I would join the NAVY for you!!

At any rate, it repeats Thursday night at 10PM EDT. As I (don't heart) 99.9% of TV, when I recommend, You Must Watch!
"Three hams will thrill him!"

Today I got up late. Like 12:30PM late. No, I'm kidding! That's what I thought it was when I woke up. It was really 2:30PM.
Sleep must release some drug in my brain. Sometimes I can't get enough. It prly releases seratonin, which I know my brain doesn't produce enough of when I'm awake.

Finally read the long, detailed email Star Chaser sent me after I asked for his tech support on the CD-RW issue. I think that the problem was simply that I made 2 mistakes; 1) I assumed that I was too stupid to install it, so I explicitly followed the instructions, & 2) I AM stupid. The manual had 2 sets of instructions, 1 if you had a SCSI CDROM already installed, & another if you had an IDE. Huh? I don't know these highly technicalificatious terms! So, let's try 1, if it doesn't work, try the other. It didn't occur to me that I could change 1 bit of the instructions (switch the jumpers to Slave) & make it work.
So now I'm going to save this & try again. Hopefully I won't end up as a new anecdote on Computer Stupidity's "Smoke."

...And now we listen to our freshly minted copy of Brain Eno's Music for Films, in the correct song order. It wasn't until I bought the CD of this--my very 1st CD, in fact--that I discovered that the American & English versions had different song orders. I've listened to this album more than any other in my life, in moods ranging from utter joy to darkest suicidal depression, & it's the only album that always lifts my spirits. The American LP version begins with "M386." That's the Messier designation for the Andromeda Galaxy. It's the only loud, discordant tune on the album, & I thought that it represented the loud, ugly world we live in. I thought that the title was a deliberate irony on Eno's part; the rest of the music is so serene that it makes the real world seem like it's in another galaxy.
I bought the CD & discovered that M386 was the 3rd to last track. It's like having the most perfect day, then rear-ending a garbage truck. But now I finally have a CD in the correct order.
Next we backup the HD & install the new HD. Unless I screw that up, too.

9/4

Too sluggish to post much. Perhaps the weekend's endless sleeping is an encroaching disease. But you do need to see this, from Chris Downey's souped-up Super Joy:

Chris sez: "Kitty - AKA Hello Kitty Dig Dug. It's Dig Dug with Hello Kitty as the hero instead of the regular pump guy. Madness I tell you. Madness."
Man, I'd buy all the games if they replaced the main character with Hello Kitty! Sanrio Invaders! Yie Ar Kitty Fu! Other amusing titles that I have no desire to come up with at the moment!

9/6

No no no desire to post. No reason; just don't.

There are some more bizarro screenshots from Chris; the Deluxe Version of Super Joy has many funny, weird bootlegs like the Hello Kitty, with famous games altered with inapropriate licensed characters. Hopefully, I will be motivated to install the HD & maybe some of mine will appear.
Motivation.
It is an interesting concept.

From Kirk & hours later cruel.com, The Wrath of Gord. Some of his snide comments are funnier if you read them using the voice of Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons.

The recently well-named Gone and Forgotten has finally updated. This was a longtime InExArchive link, so you either know it & have seen, or didn't like his funny comments on really bad comic books & have ignored. (How bad? The letter column makes brief reference to a Viet Nam-era comic with "Beret" in the title) If this is somehow new & interesting to you, make sure to read them all. He doesn't update frequently, but the page has been there for years, so there's plenty to laugh at.

That is all.

9/7

Toonces, the Driving Toddler!

GOOD GOURD! Back in the 70s, the schoolyard had a yarn that if everyone in China jumped up at once, it could cause an earthquake! PRAY THEY DON'T GET INDIA IN ON THEIR EVIL SCHEME!!

If you get Cool & Strange Music! Magazine (and why don't you?), the issue I got today (not as of now pictured on the site) has a letter from a subscriber since issue 1, 5 years ago (Me, p.22). While that's not really exciting, I get a big kick out of the fact that this issue has a cover story on The Residents & a backup article on Sparks (2 groups that represent about 40% of my fave music in my college years), an article on "The Record Stores of Cleveland" (the only city near where I went to college), a CoverMania! spread on Arthur Fiedler & the Boston Pops' LPs (My parent's Fiedler collection led directly to my early love of classical music, which led to prog rock appreciation, as well as Eno & Ambient & Electronica & Trance & etc--Well, Fiedler, but also Herb Alpert, who gets a review in the magazine, too). It's the BILL TRIBUTE ISSUE!
And there's an article on the music of Russ Meyer films. He did an opus titled "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!"
It's a tribute to my whole household!


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