Hollow Points

Screw Thanksgiving

2010-11-24T13:37:00.005-05:00

I'd like to say worse about Thanksgiving right away, but I guess it wouldn't do to title my latest rant, "FUCK THANKSGIVING." Allow me to explain.

I'm a first generation American, and proud of it. My folks came to this country to study and make a better life. Through a lot of hard work they got a good life. My pop worked his ass off, and he died to give me a better life than what he could have had if he had stayed in Korea. A little over 14 years ago, my pop passed away from a protracted battle with Colo-Rectal cancer. I saw that once proud man die by inches. He passed away on 21 November 1996 - a few days before Thanksgiving.

When I was a college freshman in 1985, I had to go to a local hospital for a check up. Simon's Rock of Bard College is a small liberal arts school in the Berkshires, and they didn't have the facilities, so I had to take a van ride to get sorted out. On top of that, I was 16 at the time (don't ask), so driving a van was not in question. An older student named Kevin Hodges drove me there, and his girlfriend drove on the way back. Unfortunately on the way back to campus, there was a serious accident. If I had been sitting 6 inches to the right, my head would have been cleaved in two by the guard rail that impaled the van. I was knocked unconscious and when I came to, I saw that Kevin was knocked out of the van. I later found out that he had been DOA with a big hole in his aorta. That was on Thanksgiving. On top of that, right after I came to, it took about 15 minutes before someone stopped to see if they could help. There's a van impaled on a fucking guard rail, and nobody stopped for 15 minutes. I guarantee you - Thanksgiving has had a whole different meaning for me since then, but even before the accident, Thanksgiving didn't mean shit to me.

As a kid, I lived in lots of different places where there weren't a whole lot of people who looked like me. I assimilated fairly well wherever I lived, however, but holidays like Thanksgiving always pissed me the fuck off. Let me get this right - a group of white people try to escape religious persecution in Europe and head off for the new world. They settle in an area completely ill-equipped to survive and depend upon the kindness of those who lived there. In return, these people raped, pillaged, and decimated these natives. They started a culture of bum-rushing natives off the land they had, but they were kind enough to leave them with tasty smallpox and other treats.

And I'm supposed to celebrate this by eating a fucking turkey, pumpkin pie with marshmallows, cranberry sauce, and shitloads of other stuff that I normally wouldn't eat any other time of the year? I'm supposed to eat like a fucking pig when people are starving around the world? FUCK and NO. Even before I went vegan, I never liked turkey. My mother is a great cook (no matter how much I kid her) but she never liked preparing turkey. I grew up thinking that most people ate turkey during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now if you like eating turkey throughout the year, that's one thing, but it's pretty goddamn mean spirited to go out of your way to whack a bird and eat it when you normally wouldn't just because it's part of some bullshit tradition. On top of that, it's fucking stupid. I'm not helping celebrate a bunch of hypocrites as part of a cultural tradition almost 4 centuries old that has NO bearing on my life. I don't remember there even being a lot of Koreans on the Mayflower. If Miles Standish was Miles Kim or Miles Chung, then I could see how some might see a connection between Koreans, turkey, and giblet gravy, but nope. Not my fucking ancestors, not my fucking tradition, and don't shove that horseshit down my throat.

After all I've been through, I'm thankful every goddamn day I'm above ground. I'm thankful for my girlfriend Dawn, my friends, my mother, and my pets. I don't need some bullshit holiday to remind me of that.

Hello, I'm Korean and I love Donuts, but WTF?

2010-06-04T10:36:00.002-04:00

Recently on The Travel Channel, there was a special on donuts. I was drooling like Homer Simpson. I fucking love donuts, but as I'm still trying to drop some weight, I gotta stay away from donuts.

Then there's also the added problem of some ingredients not being vegan. I'd have to check, but it's a fair assumption to make that unless specified, most confections are made with traditional necrovore-friendly sugar. That is to say sugar bleached through the charred remains of animal bones.

Yuck,

Then I saw this list of Most Unusual Dunkin Donuts from Around the World. The list starts off on a great note with Mojito and Banana Daiquiri flavor donuts, but shit goes downhill real fucking fast. I have a few questions:

1) Who would have thought that Dunkin Donuts had such a stranglehold on the world?
2) Do cops from other countries have their own favorites?
3) Did NOBODY in Dunkin Donuts R&D get the fucking memo that Koreans + donuts = fail?

To back up my last question, I present this evidence:

Yes, that's not only a Garlic Donut, but a Garlic GLAZED Donut.
But that's not the worst part.

This is.

A Kimchee-Filled Donut. Sweet Sonny Chiba, WHAT THE BLESSED FUCK?

My Sentiments Exactly, Dude

2010-04-25T14:20:00.003-04:00

This was taken from the infamous "Episode III: Backstroke of the West," or "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" translated into Chinese by a bunch of crackheads. English subtitles were done by more crackheads, and some enterprising jackass took out the Chinese language track, and added back in the original English language track. Oh yeah - the also added bogus timecode bars up top to make it look like an official workprint.

Hilarious.

Patrick Pogan Is a Moron and Deserves Hard Time

2010-04-24T11:51:00.005-04:00

According to this New York Times article, FORMER NYPD rookie cop Patrick Pogan, Jr. testified a line of bullshit about why he cross-checked bicyclist Christopher Long during a Critical Mass roving bicycle advocacy rally on July 25th, 2008. The facts of this case aren't as subject to interpretation as Patrick Pogan Jr's defense would like because THE FACTS were recorded and posted to YouTube.

Allow me to clarify a couple of points here and add some facts that John Eligon, the author of the New York Times article, was either unaware of or decided not to include. The Pogan family has been a part of the NYPD for two generations before Patrick Jr. took a steaming dump on his family name. In fact, his father was not only a highly decorated NYPD cop, but he served on the Joint Terrorism Task Force. Patrick Sr. was recognized by federal law enforcement agencies for his work after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. You'd think that with that sort of legacy, Patrick Jr. would have known what to do. Christ, at the time he fucked up, Patrick Jr. was living with his father.

Patrick Jr. was only on his 11th day on the job (having graduated from the New York Police Academy on or about July 14th, 2008) when he bum rushed Christopher Long. Patrick Jr. was assigned to the Midtown South precinct, an area of New York City that is generally light in bona fide criminal threats. It is generally considered to be a cake walk. Patrick Jr's defense claimed that Mr. Long was on a direct collision course for him and that he was being abusive, screaming, and flipping both middle fingers to the him. Determining the exact extent of his claims isn't going to be too tough because there's video evidence. On top of that, Patrick Jr's partner (or at the least another cop) was standing further into traffic than Junior was, and he didn't flip out and fuck up a cyclist. Gee - maybe he wasn't a FUCKING MORON, Patty boy.

Mr. Eligon paints a rather distorted picture of both Patrick Pogan, Jr. and Christopher Long by presenting completely irrelevant facts about both parties. Yes, Christopher Long struck and killed an elderly pedestrian with his car in North Carolina. Was he driving a car when Patrick jr. beat him out of traffic in 2008? Nope. Was he even riding his bike recklessly? NOPE. Christopher Long also was discharged from the US Army for testing positive for marijuana. Was he stoned when Patty boy smacked him off his bike in 2008? NOPE. But hey, Patty boy was an emergency medical technician who saved the life of a 56 year old man from cardiac arrest. Guess what, Patty boy? THAT WAS YOUR FUCKING JOB. What the fuck - do you want a cookie and a pat on the back for doing your job as an EMT? Should I buy you a drink? Considering what a dumbass he was and how quickly he fucked up his career with the NYPD, I'm surprised he knows which end of a syringe to put in someone.

Mr. Eligon also stated that Patrick Jr. also was an altar boy. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Wow. So there was a good chance that he could have been molested. I guess we should give him a cookie for that, right Mr. Eligon? In fact, at NO POINT WHATSOFUCKINGEVER does Mr. Eligon make any mention of the fact that Patrick Pogan Sr. is a legitimate New York Police Hero. How the fuck isn't this relevant? Maybe because people might wonder how could a hero cop have such a dumb fucking kid? He didn't mention that at the time, Christopher Long was a green grocer in New York City's Union Square and had long been regarded as quiet and mild mannered. Yeah, that's not relevant either. Mr. Eligon.

If convicted, Patrick Pogan, Jr. faces up to 4 years in prison. You might think there's no way a former NYPD cop is gonna do that length of time, but then again you might think there's no way even a rookie cop could be that fucking dumb. I hope he not only does time but gets ass raped, shanked, and ass raped some more . Fuck you Patrick Pogan, jr. And Patrick Sr? Fuck you twice for not pulling out and glazing your wife's face instead of giving birth to a disgrace of a cop.

Hell Can't Be Painful Enough for Daryl Gates

2010-04-16T21:17:00.002-04:00

Back in the mid-90s during my time as a book editor, I was invited to attend a software rollout event at a midtown Manhattan hotel. The software line was Sierra Online, and they were responsible for titles like "Leisure Suit Larry," "King's Quest," and "Gabriel Knight," (I'm old enough to remember Sierra Online from their seminal titles for the Apple II Plus). They had released a series of police thriller games called "Police Quest." In 1995, the first four games were re-released with the dubious cache of a celebrity cop endorsement.

Daryl Gates.

As in "Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates" who guarded the City of Angels literally with an iron grip during the Rodney King riots.

I have no fucking idea why Sierra Online thought it would be a good idea to have one of the biggest, dirtiest, least ethical cops to be the spokeswhore for a computer game. That's like having a fucking Nazi in the Vatican.

Oh wait.

At that software show, I watched a monitor showing off gameplay from a "Police Quest" game, and I felt grossly uneasy. The only way I could describe it was I sincerely felt a disturbance in the Force, and it was standing right behind me. It was Daryl Gates. He explained to me the "pioneering" work he had done with SWAT teams. He thought a double tap wasn't good enough, and he proceeded to poke me in both shoulders and the forehead to demonstrate a "triple tap" to effectively and permanently drop a target with three bullets.

I felt nauseated that he touched me and I was debating bludgeoning him in a room full of witnesses before I pitched him out the window, down a couple floors and into Midtown Manhattan traffic.

But today I read on Cnn.com that Daryl Gates died from bladder cancer. I hope it was fucking painful, and it's appropriate that one of the biggest pricks in law enforcement died from problems with his pecker.

Burn in Hell, Daryl Gates. You have left an indelible stain on any cop around the world. Burn in Hell motherfucker.

Shatner 2.0 Maybe?

2010-03-25T22:38:00.005-04:00

I've heard an ugly rumor that there's supposed to be a "T.J. Hooker" movie. I'm not fucking around. I mean if "Rise of the Dragon" is going to be for all intents and purposes a sacrilegious remake/update/reboot of "Enter the Dragon," then why not a fatassed Cannuck gripping onto a car hood for dear life....AGAIN?

For one thing, I doubt that there is a mass production level of vehicular shock suspension short of the military that could support the greatness that is Shatner. By "greatness," I mean "hypnotically morbidly obese ass crack."

While Shatner languishes in cable television Hell with his "edgy" face-to-face interview show, he at least had the smarts not to take part of J.J. Abrams' batter-fried glitter dipped demon cock that is the "Star Trek" reboot. How massive was this clusterfuck of special effects, Wagnerian music, and childhood memory assrape? It was so massive that Harlan Ellison (one of the most iconic figures in the Star Trek firmament and the man who wrote the "City on the Edge of Forever" script) said he'd love to work with J.J. Abrams on a sequel. For those who don't know, Harlan Ellison is an angry old fucker with unimpeachable genre writing history. He's long bristled at the pervasive insistence that he as a writer must use technology more advanced than his MANUAL typewriter. I lost all respect for Harlan Ellison when I heard that, and when I heard that Shatner resisted the lure of being in one more "Star Trek" movie, I gained a little bit more respect for one of the greatest singers of our time.

Organic Vegan Tofu Summer Rolls

2010-03-17T19:40:00.003-04:00

After whipping up a Thai-inspired noodle dish, I decided to take things a couple steps further and attempt Summer Rolls and not Spring Rolls because I was trying to stay as far away from deep fried as possible. As Dennis Hopper said in a "Saturday Night Live" opening monologue, "There was always one thing I stayed away from - fried food. Laugh now, but that last donut killed Elvis."

To tweak my earlier recipe, work from that, but with the following adjustments. Read through this recipe from beginning to end before starting because some of the later sections overlap.

N.B. All ingredients should be organic. If you can find organic toasted sesame seed oil, I tip my hat to you.

The Sauce
Non-emulsified peanut butter
1 large lemon
3 cloves garlic, minced
grated ginger (to taste)
powdered cayenne pepper
salt
toasted sesame seed oil

Using a tea strainer to catch the seeds, juice the lemon into a large bowl. Discard the seeds, but toss the pulp in. Add three to four liberally heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter along with a few pinches of salt and a few dashes of toasted sesame seed oil. Depending upon how masochistic you are, use a few shakes of chili powder along with the diced garlic cloves and mix well. The sauce should be rather thick. Set aside and prepare your veggies:

Veggies
3 green onions, diced
1 large carrot, grated
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 fistful of fresh basil w/ stems, minced
1 small fistful of curly parsley, minced
1 slightly larger fistful of cilantro, minced
A few handfuls of roughly chopped up organic raw peanuts, shelled (duh)

After mincing, dicing, and grating up your veggies, mix them together and mix in a couple spoonful of the sauce. It won't mix as well as you'd think, and you will eventually need some more toasted sesame seed oil (you did save some, right?).

N.B. Organic raw peanuts aren't as difficult to find as you would think. They are more expensive, however, and they're smaller than conventional peanuts, but they're tastier and absofuckinglutely worth it in my mind.

If you're feeling artsy-fartsy, you may want to use a few extra big ass basil leaves in between the filling and the rice paper wraps. I was just nervous about fucking up the rice paper wraps having never worked with them before. More on those later.

Tofu,My Brothas & Sistas
1 pound extra firm tofu, drained & diced

Heat up a wok, but do NOT add any oil yet. Using a good sharp kitchen utility knife, slice the block of tofu into about 4 - 5 sheets before cutting into smaller cubes. Toss the tofu into the wok and sear until it begins to stick to the pan (depending upon your wok and how hot it is, this should take a few minutes). Add in a couple spoonfuls of the sauce and add in a few tosses of the toasted sesame seed oil. Mix so that the sauce and oil is evenly distributed. Remove from heat and toss into your veggies. Mix thoroughly. If you have any sauce left, mix that in with a couple shakes of toasted sesame seed oil. You want the mixture to be chunky but not unwieldy.

The Noodles
I used a box of Annie Chung's Pad Thai rice noodles. They don't have to be that particular brand I guess, and from what I saw at Whole Foods, the different Pad Thai rice noodle packages all seemed about the same size.

Start boiling water for the noodles in a deep pot right before you heated up the wok. Once the water reaches a rapid boil, toss in the noodles. Cook for about 5 minutes, then drain teh noodles in a colander before returning to the pot to "shock" cool them down in ice cold water. You may have to drain again and shock the noodles again until they're cool. At that point drain the noodles well, and return to the pot. Cut them up with a pair of scissors. The reason for this is that you want them to be small enough to be spooned onto the rice paper skins. Mix the cut up noodles into your veggies & sauce mixture.

You're pretty much done except for the last part.

The Rice Paper Skins
Finding these wasn't too difficult at Whole Foods. You might also find them easily at a Vietnamese or Thai grocery store.

While they look stiff and mildly flexible, After soaking them, they're easy to use. They don't tear all that easily, so don't be frightened by their filmy nature after soaking them. You'll need a small shallow pan of cool water. Soak the rice paper skins one by one in the pan for a few seconds. Place the wet, filmy skin on your plate, spoon in the noodles & veggies mix, and wrap it up as you would a burrito.

With some practice, you should be able to wrap these up to set aside in a container for another meal or picnic. The mixture should serve about 4 hungry bastards, and you should still have some leftover skins. Keep the leftovers dry in a bag.

Organic Vegan Buckwheat Noodle Tofu Salad

2010-03-12T08:16:00.006-05:00

I was debating what to title this. It's not really Thai, but I suppose it's "Thai-inspired." It's incredibly easy to make, but you'll need to get things in order to pull it off quickly.

N.B. Ingredients should be organic whenever possible. The only thing I wasn't able to find organically was the toasted sesame oil.

INGREDIENTS:
1 package Buckwheat Noodles (three bundles)
Non-emulsified peanut butter
3 large green onions
1 handful curly parsley
1 large lemon
1 large carrot
4 cloves garlic
ginger (to taste)
chili powder (to taste)
1 pound extra firm tofu
salt
fresh basil

NOTES: The peanut butter I used was organic from Woodstock Farms. It was non-emulsified with a layer of oil on top. This means you'll have to stir it up in the jar before using. It also usually means that this kind of peanut butter will be a wee bit looser than conventional peanut butter (great for sauces, but not as great for a PBJ sammich). I've also found that it's a bit looser than freshly-ground peanut butter.

DIRECTIONS:
Heat up a wok, but do not add oil. Dice the tofu and sear the tofu until crispy. Stir every now and then to prevent sticking to the wok. While the tofu is cooking, Put about three big heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter in a mixing bowl. If I had to guess, I'd say use about 2/3rds of a cup. Juice the lemon and remove the seeds. Mix that into the peanut butter. Add the toasted sesame oil. Add salt, chili powder, and freshly grated ginger to taste. This mixture should have the consistency of a thick sauce, so you may need to add more toasted sesame oil. When the tofu is crispy, place it in a bowl to cool.

Start boiling water for the noodles in a large pot. While you're waiting for the water to roil, mince the garlic and add to the sauce. Grate the carrot and mince the parsley and green onions. Add to the sauce along with the tofu. Mix together. Boil the buckwheat noodles for a few minutes until al dente. Drain, and then soak for about a minute in ice cold water. Drain again. Return noodles to pot and then mix in the sauce. Roughly chop up a couple handfuls of fresh basil and add.

Serves 4.

Goddamn, I Hate George Romero

2010-03-08T11:26:00.003-05:00

Ain't much in life that can put a smile on my face easier than a bunch of zombies. I love zombies, and more specifically, seeing them get fucked up with shotguns, baseball bats, chainsaws, garden tools - anything.

You'd think that because of my penchant for the undead, that I'd love the movies of George Romero.

You'd be dead fucking wrong.

George Romero is revered as the Godfather of horror movies having churned out "Night of the Living Dead," "Dawn of the Dead," "Day of the Dead," and a bunch more. The problem is that he was too fucking stupid (or stoned or both) to copyright "Night of the Living Dead." You can find a shitload of different legal releases of "Night of the Living Dead," and Romero ain't gonna see more than a squirt of piss off of them. He also freely admits to ripping off Richard Matheson's seminal vampire novel I Am Legend as the "inspiration" for "NOTLD."

OK, so he's an idiot and a thief. Big deal. So's George Lucas. Maybe he can churn out a decent zombie movie, right?

Nope.

I looked around for "Dawn of the Dead," and I found out that there were at least three different edits of the movie. The special effects were apparently deemed too gory to get an "R" rating from the MPAA in 1978. I finally saw a fanedit (and no, I'm not telling how or where) of "Dawn of the Dead" that incorporated all three different cuts, and I don't necessarily have a problem with the gore or the cheesy makeup. The pacing sucked. It looked as if Romero bit off more than he could chew. There was no real consistent sense of impending doom from the undead. There were a few memorable bits but on the whole, it was boring as fuck. I'm not buying into the praise of "DOTD" as a critique of modern consumerism. Zack Snyder handled that a LOT better in his 2004 remake, and the remake was a lot scarier. No, Romero failed to understand the transition from the claustrophobic environment in "NOTLD" to a wide open shopping mall in "DOTD."

In 1996, Capcom released their "survival horror" video game "Resident Evil" (known in Japan as "Biohazard"). There were monsters, traps, and VERY hungry zombies. Speculation began almost immediately about a movie, and while it took a long time to make through "development Hell," 2002 saw the first "Resident Evil"-inspired movie. It and the subsequent movies weren't entirely faithful, but it could have been a lot worse. George Romero was the fanboy favorite to direct, and I remember there was some outrage that he wasn't actually going to direct it. The "Resident Evil" movie was far from briliant, but I can't imagine how much it would have reeked of fomunda cheese if that overrated Roger Corman-knockoff directed it.

Super Godfather Fighter Turbo!

2010-03-07T09:09:00.006-05:00

I remember when Electronic Arts released their first game based on Francis Ford Coppola's movie series, "The Godfather," Coppola himself shit a brick in protest bitching about it being too violent, yadda yadda yadda.

Firstly, I strongly feel that Francis Ford Coppola is a huge fucking bitch, and I would love precious little more than to bludgeon his ass with a lead pipe, and that's before I'd get creative with his suffering.

Secondly, I'm assuming that one of the reasons he may have bitched about the game was the money he stood to make off it in terms of licensing.... unless he didn't stand to receive a piece of the action in licensing deals in which case he's free to disparage the game because he doesn't stand to make all that much dough from it. Marlon Brando's last work was literally for "The Godfather" video game. That's one Hell of a "va fangu" to Coppola's "artistic vision."

Thirdly, the movie series was incredibly violent for its time. Carlo Rizzi getting a royal asswhooping, Sonny getting perforated on the Causeway, Moe Greene getting shot through the eye - what was that, fucking Sunday School? I guess the Bonnano family (upon whom the book and subsequent movies were based) ruled the Mafia with hugs and kisses, right?

Finally, Coppola's vision of Mario Puzo's epic crime novel The Godfather was a bastardization of the source material. The first two movies were great, but it's a little known fact that there was a shitload of finished footage (75 minutes worth) that Coppola hacked out of "The Godfather, Part II." This footage was re-edited AT COPPOLA'S BEHEST (while he was filming "Apocalypse Now") He did this in order to make a television version of "The Godfather" to raise money for "Apocalypse Now" which was apparently insanely over budget. The first two movies were re-edited chronologically from when young Vito Andolini left Sicily to Michael Corleone pondering what's left of his family empire. While this was a wonderful achievement, it was still a tribute and reinterpretation of Mr. Puzo's original novel. You may wonder why this re-edit hasn't seen release in ages (outside of being on Bravo every now and then). I'm guessing it's because NBC may have a stake in the home video rights, and they're not playing ball. Any claim Coppola wants to make about being true to the source material is rendered fucking moot by his own greed.

I would like to see Coppola squirm and bitch even more with a Godfather fighting game. None of this "work your way up the Corleone crime family chain of command" shit. I mean an honest-to-God fighting game like Capcom's "Street Fighter" and Bandai Namco's "Tekken" series. Between the three movies, there's a shitload of main and ancillary characters. You might have to prove yourself by training against Al Neri, Sal Tessio, Rocco Lampone, Michael's unnamed bodyguard, and the formidable Luca Brasi. You could pit Sonny against Carlo Rizzi - AGAIN. Mamma Corleone could beat the fuck out of Fredo with a rolling pin. How weird (and yet oddly satisfying) would it be to have young Peter Clemenza fight "Fat" Clemenza? I'd love to see Apollonia Vitelli Corleone unleash her Sicilian rage against Kay Adams Corleone. There could be handicapping like if Connie Corleone got to fight Carlo Rizzi, she could have a 25% - 50% power bonus (tough shit Carlo. That's what you get for cheating on your wife and beating her). If by some randomization Mary Corleone had to fight Vincent Mancini, she'd fuck him afterwards.

But most of all, I'd like to see a gang beating of ~~Mary Corleone~~ Sofia Coppola.

Unclean Stuff I Think About

2010-01-22T20:04:00.003-05:00

Man, I used to love the Smurfs. Little blue gnomes living peacefully in a mushroom village...I'm fairly certain that before the cartoons came out on NBC on Saturday mornings a lifetime ago, I knew that it was a hit comic strip in Europe. I remember having the Windsurfing Smurf.

Somewhere between that idyllic moment and not, I became a cynical, angry motherfucker of a jackass, and I think about weird shit.

Like that skank Smurfette. She was such a goddamned slut. You live in the woods, there are predators and at least one mincy little bitch of an evil wizard Hellbent on eating Smurfs, and there's a skanky blue 'ho in pumps? And let me get this straight - 100 MALE Smurfs, and 1 FEMALE Smurf. Can anyone say "Bluekakke?"

Maybe I'm imagining things, but aside from Poppa Smurf and ~~Paris Hilton~~ Smurfette, the rest of the Smurfs were bald. Yeah, I know about Sassette. That little ginger Smurf can kiss my ass.

Who could forget Jokey Smurf, the crazy little fucker who liked watching shit explode? When the fuck did al Quaeda get a splinter cell amongst the Smurfs?

Was Hefty Smurf overcompensating for something? I mean statistically, at least 10 of those Smurfs had to be gay.

Poppa Smurf should have checked Dreamy Smurf's arms for track marks. I'm guessing he was rocking the white horse.

Farewell to Bob Shamrock - A Saint Among Men

2010-01-14T21:45:00.002-05:00

(Big Props to Knucklepit.com)

This is Bob Shamrock (right) and his son Ken, legendary UFC Hall of Famer. Bob passed away today at the home of Ken and his wife Tonya. There's a great obituary on one of my favorite MMA websites, MMAWeekly.com. Bob died from a long-term battle with Diabetes, and he was fortunate to have passed on in the company of friends and family.

"Family."

Let that word settle in for a moment, because Bob has a huge family to match the depth of his heart. He opened up his home in Susanville, California to hundreds of boys that society had turned their backs on. Foster kids, runaways, and even guys as fucked up as Ken Wayne Kilpatrick who at the tender age of 13 already had a police record including armed robbery. Bob saw sports as an outlet for his boys, and whatever they needed, Bob gave. It may not have been the best education money could buy, but it was good, and it was what he could afford. A college education may not have been at Stanford, but it was a college education, and Bob footed the bill. FOR ALL HIS BOYS.

On Ken's 18th birthday, Bob legally adopted him, and out of respect Ken legally changed his name to Shamrock. Frank Allsio Juarez III came to the Shamrock Boys Home under similar conditions as Ken, and Frank also changed his name to Shamrock out of respect for the man who had done so much for him. Frank went on to become a legendary MMA fighter.

Farewell, Bob. Your charity and generosity have given hope to hundreds of boys. You are a true inspiration and a saint.

My God, It's Full of Stars

2010-01-01T10:38:00.004-05:00

And with those fateful words, David Bowman, protagonist of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, dove into the unknown. I may be amongst a minority of science fiction fans when I say this, but I didn't hate Peter Hyams' "2010: The Year We Make Contact," (the sequel to Stanley Kubrick's film"2001"). In fact, I loved it. I may also be in a minority of film and movie buffs when I say that I do not deify Stanley Kubrick. Out of his body of work that I've seen ("The Shining," "2001," "Dr. Strangelove," and "Full Metal Jacket") I only really liked "Full Metal Jacket." I have no desire to see any of his other films based on "Gosh - it's Stanley Kubrick's [FILL IN THE BLANK]! I have to see it because he's a fucking genius!" No, he isn't. He may have had a great eye, and a great sense of direction, but he also made a lot of thematic changes to both "The Shining" and "2001." I'm convinced that he had something to do with the missing footage of "2001" being truly missing and indeed actually destroyed. He made it nearly impossible for anyone to think about those books without the movies first, and that is a crime I will never EVER forgive. Yes, Peter Hyams' "2010" is guilty of the same crimes I levy against Mr. Kubrick, but with all due apologies to Mr. Hyams, nobody is putting him on the same lofty pedestal as Stanley "Film God" Kubrick. I remember seeing "2001" a bunch of times before I worked up the courage to read the book. It was one weird fucking movie. "2010" inspired me to read the book 2010: Odyssey Two immediately, and it gave me a deeper appreciation for Sir Arthur C. Clarke.

But I digress.

Peter Hyams' "2010" and the original book are noteworthy for a number of points, but as it is New Year's Day, I thought I'd reflect upon the ones that came to mind foremost: politics and optimism. The background of "2010" is set against a US-Soviet conflict that goes hot rather quickly. "Soviets," not "Russians," or "Chinese" (which would have been more appropriate given the book). This is amusing in our current world, one which is literally a generation since the books publication in 1983. Mr. Hyams deftly uses the book to weave his own story of optimism and doesn't seem to forget the central message behind Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Monolith story device. It was meant to spur the next step in evolution, to inspire us to grow and go farther than we thought possible. What better way to think about optimism than against the backdrop of World War III?

And David Bowman (who had since he uttered those fateful words had become closer to his antagonist, the HAL 9000 computer as well as what we could become) visited his former wife and his mother to let them know in what limited way they might be able to understand that "something wonderful" was going to happen. I cried during those scenes the first time I saw the movie, and I still cry when I see it. Such a wonderful message of optimism was released in a year when we were still entrenched in US-USSR agitprop bullshit. It would take us a generation to get out from under the shadow of Reagan-Bush and Bush-Cheney, and maybe now we finally have reason to have hope. Maybe now we can believe that it is full of stars.

Payback's A Bitch, Isn't It, Lars Ulrich?

2009-12-29T06:45:00.003-05:00

Even though he's a famous douchebag, and because of his station in life as a "famous douchebag" it would be customary to put up a picture, I fucking hate Lars Ulrich, so no picture for Lars. Just on his name alone, you'd expect to see a guy who looks like he could kick Thor, Norse God of Thunder, square in the nutsack. The sad thing is that he looks like a cross between an angry dwarf and an oatmeal cookie.

According to this recent CNN.com article, Lars Ulrich has tinnitus a common auditory condition that can result in hearing a phantom high pitched tone. It's apparently very common, especially in sell-out, over-the-hill heavy metal rock band drummers.

The article states that for the 35 years he's been playing, he never used to use ear protection.

Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

And then the article goes on to say that he now uses earplugs while performing. I guess we should give li'l Lars a cookie and a gold star! Yay for Lars!

And apparently in the article, Lars Ulrich is concerned about "young people" with their new-fangled iPods. Where was Lars' concern when Metallica sold out big time to make a "Guitar Hero" video game? And this is the same benevolent Lars who whined like a greedy little bitch about kids illegally downloading Metallica songs via now-irrelevant file sharing service Napster and other similarly nefarious services?

Fuck you, Lars. Oh I forgot, you're hard of hearing now. FUCK YOU, LARS.

Oh Great. No US Release for "Hachi: A Dog's Tale"

2009-12-22T22:48:00.006-05:00

I first heard about Hachiko, an Akita dog, via Japanprobe.com I generally dislike Japanprobe now, because I find them to be biased, irresponsible, and a big group of pompous douchebags. Kind of like Fox News.

Hachiko was owned by Hidesaburo Ueno, an agricultural professor at the University of Tokyo in the 1920s. Hachiko would see his buddy off at the front porch, and every day, Hachiko would be waiting at nearby Shibuya Station for the good professor. Hachiko knew which train his buddy would be on and when to wait for him.

Unfortunately one day in May, 1925, Professor Ueno died of a massive stroke in the middle of class. Nobody told Hachiko.

People that saw Hachiko and the good professor at Shibuya Station would bring Hachiko food while he waited.

FOR TEN YEARS.

Hachiko died waiting for Professor Ueno.

In 1987, Hachiko's story was made into a movie called "Hachiko Monogatari." If this sounds familiar to my fellow geeks, it should. Hachiko's story was the inspiration for the "Jurassic Bark" episode of Matt Groening's science ficiton cartoon series "Futurama."

On August 8th, 2009, "Hachiko: A Dog's Story" was released in Japan. It was directed by Lasse Hallstrom and starred Richard Gere, Joan Allen, and Jason Alexander.

In addition to directing virtually every ABBA music video, Mr. Hallstrom directed critically acclaimed films like "My Life As A Dog," "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "The Cider House Rules," and "Chocolat."

You'd think that with that sort of cast and director, and that the story was Americanized and shot in Rhode Island, that a US theatrical release would be a no-brainer. Film geeks would go on to presume that because this is a tearjearker with great talent behind it, that it would be a Winter release and thus a sure bet for Golden Globe and Oscar nomination.

You'd be DEAD FUCKING WRONG.

Apparently some group of retarded assclowns calling themselves Consolidated Pictures Group had secured the rights to distribute this in the US. Unfortunately, they claimed they didn't have the time or money to properly publicize this movie, and they sold the distribution rights to Sony. The upshot of this is that while it has seen theatrical release in virtually every other fucking corner of the world, the closest the US is gonna get is waiting until January, schlepping out to a Wal-Mart, and picking up the DVD. Anybody who doesn't want to go to Wal-Mart will have to wait a bit longer than that.

No, I'm not kidding.

I was seriously looking forward to seeing this in the theater. I was looking forward to this more than seeing "Avatar," motherfuckers. So now I have to wait until after Wal-Mart's exclusivity retail deal on this ends before I can find it on Amazon.

Ummm... Ken, Is There Something You Need To Tell Us?

2009-10-29T07:58:00.003-04:00

One of my new favorite sites is ToplessRobot. As a playa-hatin' geek, I love their sense of humor even if I don't agree with them all the time. Some of the shit they find is pretty damned funny and pretty damned scary.

Like this:

The abomination you're seeing there is "Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken" As in Barbie's ~~boyfriend~~beard, Ken.

No, this wasn't a "you've gotta be fuckin' kidding me" joke like you might suspect from this ToplessRobot article, but it is very real and apparently very collectible as evidenced by this Entertainment Earth product page.

I'm cool with whatever Mattel wants to do with Barbie & Ken, but i I ever hear about a "South Beach Rough Trade Action Ken" or a "Las Vegas Glory Hole Barbie," I'm gonna vomit a little in my mouth.

Note to Mssrs. Seagal, Chan, Jagger, Stallone, West et. al - FUCK OFF.

2009-09-27T15:15:00.008-04:00

It doesn't take a Jedi Master to trick someone into buying shit they don't need. Sad to say, but celebrity endorsements or celebrity driven products do well enough and then hopefully plummet like the stars that wanted/needed their third rate shit to sell.

Here are a few examples:

Steven Seagal: This once proud and imposing action star has been reduced to a reality show that's been mired in legal issues even before it airs. He may be a bona fide martial arts master, but he is also a black belt in douchebag.

Dude - "Asian Experience?" Shouldn't that be "Long Island/Staten Island Guido Wannabe Experience?"

Jackie Chan: I used to like his movies, but then it became apparent to me that while Jackie Chan may not be a mean-spirited cunt (see above), he has taken so many shots to the head to actually believe that he's a great singer. He also needs to be beaten into a permanent state of retardation just for agreeing to star in "The Kung Fu Kid," a remake of "The Karate Kid." He went from international action star to international house bitch. He's also selling his own line of instant green tea If you go to that Amazon.com link, the funniest bit isn't Jackie Chan selling green tea - it's the "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought" section. Instant chicken soup, green tea, sweat bands, gummi bears, cheddar cheese soy crisps, beef jerky, and toilet paper. Man, if that's not a pothead's shopping list, I don't know what is.

Kanye West: I never liked this douchebag, but when he lost his shit on MTV recently (and if you need a link for that, please do us all a favor and die in a fire), I was forced to look back on this floating loaf. Where the fuck would he have been without Daft Punk's "Harder Better Faster Stronger?" I thought Sean Combs was the worst talentless bitch who kept biting off of other artists, but I was wrong. Oh yeah, Kanye West has his own travel agency.

The Rolling Stones: These rock & roll legends need to go back to roots, and by that I mean composting themselves. When is the last time you remember a NEW Rolling Stones track hit the airwaves instead of being used to hawk Kahlua, greeting cards, and other sundry bullshit?

Don't worry, I'll wait for your answer.

But apparently The Rolling Stones weren't rich enough, so they decided to hawk their own fucking wine. They're not as greedy as The Beatles, and I for one would love to have Mark David Chapman given early release to whack Paul and Ringo. Fuck those greedy cunts.

Sylvester Stallone: The cast list for his new movie "The Expendables" reads like a who's who of action star legends - real and film: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Randy "The Natural" Couture, Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueria, and shitloads of cameos. The plot isn't really going to matter. There will be better plots in Arlington, but Stallone is milking his once good name for more flicks and more HGH. The ironic thing is that he has his own line of sports nutrition supplements, "InStone." Yeah, I'm gonna buy supplements from a guy who freely admits to using Human Growth Hormone. He even had 'high protein pudding" in different flavors presumably selected to appeal to people who eat pudding. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have anything to do with Sylvester Stallone's high protein banana cream pudding.

Stank Like Shatner

2009-09-06T21:45:00.002-04:00

This is taking licensing a wee bit too far.

Usually Star Trek geeks (myself included) are sticklers for detail and authenticity, but there's no way in Hell I'd want my b.o. to remind people of the rutting Canadian man beast known as Shatner.

I found this lovely little gem on Entertainment Earth.

This is going to set a dangerous precedent for licensed goods. Do we really need to see the possibility of a "There's Something About Mary" hair gel?

Vegan Ginger Prawn Stir Fry

2009-08-23T18:34:00.006-04:00

My gf and I had just finished off Summer Streets NYC '09, and afterward we went to May Wah Healthy Vegetarian in Chinatown. It's a little bodega sized vegetarian oasis, and they have a wide selection of vegetarian and vegan groceries. Most of their selections are mock meats, and so far I've been very pleasantly surprised by the quality and price. We got a bag with mock chicken slices (dehydrated), mock beef chunks (dehydrated), vegetarian grilled eel, and vegetarian prawns - all for $16.00. With rice and veggies, that's a week of dinners for us. Last night we had the vegetarian grilled eel over leftover rice, and that was damned tasty. Tonight, I tried something more inventive. Keep in mind that I don't have all that much experience with Asian cuisine or at least stir fry dishes. I wanted it to come off as close to conventional stuff as possible.

3 cups Forbidden Rice
6 garlic cloves
1 package vegetarian prawns
1 green bell pepper
1 purple onion
1 can sliced water chestnuts
1 can bamboo shoots
soy sauce
miso paste
ginger
red pepper flakes

While the rice is cooking, dice up the bell pepper and onion. Set that aside in a bowl. Mince the garlic. Mix about 1/3rd the minced garlic in with the rice as it's cooking. Put the rest of the minced garlic in a small bowl. Cut up the vegetarian prawns. I did them in thirds, but I probably should have cut them smaller. Heat up a wok. Pour in some extra virgin olive oil and the minced garlic. Spoon in some miso paste. Stir it up a bit and pour in some soy sauce. While that's heating up, grate some ginger into the wok. Throw in a pinch or two of red pepper flakes. Toss in the prawns, and coat them with sauce. Then toss in the veggies. You may need to pour in a little bit more oil. Evenly distribute the prawns, sauce, and veggies. Next toss in the water chestnuts and the bamboo shoots with the water in the cans. This will help cut down on the saltiness. Stir everything up, and let the sauce reduce for about 10 minutes or so.

Serve over rice.

Serves 4

Asshole Litmus Test

2009-08-21T22:18:00.004-04:00

A friend of mine on an abolitionist animal rights forum recently encountered a bunch of assholes on Facebook because they posted 35 reasons for going vegetarian. It was disheartening to my friend, and I said that vegetarianism was one of those volatile issues that will polarize people and reveal your true friends from detritus filling your life.

I called it an Asshole Litmus Test, and I thought to expand upon that concept. As a fierce individual, I have a lot of shit I believe in and a lot of shit I simply won't budge on. I remember trying to date some friend of a friend, and unbeknown to me, that chick went to an old friend of mine and asked what kind of person I was. They responded, "There are two kinds of people. Those that don't know him, and those that would take a bullet for him. You have to figure out which one you are." I nearly cried on the spot when he told me this.

The maturity of your friends will be partially measured in what or how far they are willing to accept you in spite of what they don't agree with. However, you may grossly overestimate your friends, and while it may be disillusioning to see a friend revealed to be a real bunghole.

This is a work in progress. This helps me to determine if I should not return their calls, ignore them, or slap them so hard they hit the pavement. This list is in no particular order of importance. Just what came to mind.

Can I take them in a fair fight?
Can I take them in an unfair fight? (i.e. armed, unethical strikes, etc)
Are there police around? (Public disturbances are subject to being served a summons)
Do I need to associate with them directly?
Do I need to associate with them through friends, family, and/or loved ones?
Do they owe me anything?
Do I owe them anything?
Are they diametrically opposed to what I believe in?
Are they assholes about it?
Are they inebriated?
Are they in need of medical assistance not caused by self-destructive conditions (over-eating, inebriation, etc)?
Can I distract them with pornography, shiny objects, and/or flatulence?
Can I ignore them?

May Robert Novak's Infernal Torment Be Epic

2009-08-18T14:28:00.004-04:00

As recent visitors to my little corner of the blogverse have seen, I am a vegan. I love to cook, and I have a deep abiding respect and awe for nature's majestic beauty. This does not mean that I am incapable of hatred.

For as long as I have lived in Bethesda, I have had to endure a smarmy group of Washingtonian gasbag pundits known as "The McLaughlin Group," a roundtable discussion of hot button topics in the news from columnists inside the Capital Beltway. The group is led by John McLaughlin, a Jesuit who left his order to become a speech writer and advisor to US President Richard M. Nixon. He also supported the Vietnam War. There were many McLaughlin Group alums I'd love to see tortured in extremely criminal and pornographic ways. Charles Krauthammer, Carl Rowan, and Republican homunculus Pat Buchanan should all be assraped for a very long time, but Robert Novak? Whoo boy, where to begin?

I don't care if he died after brain cancer. Whoopee-fucking-doo for him. Boo hoo for his family. He was speeding in his Corvette when he ran over an 86-year old pedestrian. He tried his damnedest to get away, but a civic-minded bicyclist prevented him from getting away until the cops came. He outed Valerie Plame, a CIA deep cover operative after her husband, a US Ambassador, bitched about Bush Administration policy. His dirty tricks back in the 1972 US Presidential election cost George McGovern the election, and it gave us more Nixon, more Vietnam, and oh yeah - WATERGATE.

According to Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, the lowest part of Hell, the 9th Circle is reserved for traitors to their family, their country, their guests, and to God in that order. I hope that Robert Novak enjoys eternity in the 9th Circle of Hell. He fucking well deserves it.

Osu, Zombie Sensei!

2009-08-02T08:57:00.002-04:00

I almost wish I could understand what was going on, but I'm not screwing with art.

Vegan Organic Ginger Lemon Pancakes

2009-08-01T11:52:00.003-04:00

I got the idea for this from my girlfriend's reaction to part of this recipe. She really liked the coating on the fried tofu, and I thought it had been a long time since I had pancakes, so I thought to cobble something together.

1/2 cup organic cornmeal
1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour
1/2 cup organic all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup organic sucanat
1 cup organic vanilla soy yoghurt
Juice & pulp from 1 large organic lemon
Organic ginger (to taste)
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Grate some ginger in (not a lot - maybe 1/2 tbsp at the least), and add the lemon juice & pulp. Mix in the yoghurt and a little oil.

Add some oil to a non-stick frying pan. I know, it sounds redundant, but I rarely trust non-stick pans when it comes to pancakes, and the oil makes the pancakes crispier. Heat up the frying pan and add some batter. You'll more than likely have to spread the batter out in the pan. Flip the pancake with a spatula once the edges get crispy and bubbles start to appear.

This recipe makes 4 big ass "You better do some friggin' road time to burn these off" size pancakes. Serve with vegan soy butter and syrup.

Cheap Organic Sprouts (in a week)

2009-07-21T15:00:00.007-04:00

My gf and I love getting a wee plastic tub of fresh sprouts from the grocery store, but the cost can be kind of bad. Nutritionally, there's more in a small bin of sprouts than a big ass bowl of salad. I've seen sprouting kits online, and after a bit of trial and error, it's rather easy to go from this

to this

in about a week.

This is all you're gonna need:
1.5 tbsps of organic seed mixture
4" square of organic cheesecloth
1 stout rubber band (I found the kind used to bunch up celery works best)
1 20 oz mason jar.

Getting good organic sprouting seeds doesn't require boocoo money. In fact, even if you do this often enough, you'll get really good sprouts for a fraction of what they'd cost in hoity toity health food stores. Just go to amazon.com and type in "Organic sprouting seeds." Wheatgrasskits has a great selection as well.

Put the seeds in the mason jar. Cover with the cheesecloth. Secure it tightly with the rubber band. The cheesecloth should be taut, or else this isn't gonna work. Soak the seeds for the first night (about halfway will be good). Drain the seeds in the kitchen sink, and fill with water. Drain again slowly and leave the jar tilted slightly (resting against something like the wall) or in the sink. You don't want the seeds to completely rest against the cheesecloth. It's there to provide a permeable barrier for oxygen and water. If the cheesecloth is obscured completely, the sprouts will go bad or won't grow at all. You'll need to keep it somewhere dark or out of direct sunlight for about the first 3 - 4 days. Every day, you'll need to fill the mason jar with water, and drain carefully a few times a day. This allows the seeds to evenly get air and water.

After about 2 days, you should notice that the seeds have begun to sprout. After about 4 days, you should see the sprouts grow considerably, and you may see some leaves. After about 4 - 5 days, keep the jar of sprouts on the windowsill (but still tilted). You'll still need to fill the jar with water and drain the seeds. After about a week's time, you have a jar full of super duper tasty sprouts.

Vegan Ginger Lemon Crusted Tofu with Forbidden Rice & Veggies

2009-07-18T18:53:00.005-04:00

This was dinner tonight. It wasn't as hard to make as you'd think, and while I'd love to provide more accurate details, I played it by ear.

For the batter:
Organic corn meal (fine grain)
1 Organic Lemon
Organic Ginger
3 Cloves of Organic Garlic
Organic Agave Syrup
Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Habanero based hot sauce (to taste)
Red Pepper flakes

Organic Tofu

3 cups organic rice
1.5 tbsps vegetable soup mix

Few Cloves of Organic Garlic
1 Organic Green Bell Pepper
1 Organic Purple Onion
A pinch of sea salt
Soy Sauce to taste

Drain the tofu and slice into 6 equal pieces. Lay them carefully in a towel & wrap a couple times to absorb the water.

Put the vegetable soup mix in with the rice before cooking. Depending upon the soup mix, it may clump, so whisk together with an egg beater. Start the rice in a cooker.

Juice the lemon into a mason jar using a tea strainer to catch the pulp & the seeds. Throw out the seeds, and add the juice & pulp to a bowl. Grate a fair amount of ginger root into the bowl. Add the corn meal (I used about 3 tbsps) and oil. Mix in a few drops of really good hot sauce & a pinch of red pepper flakes. Dice the garlic and add in along with the agave syrup. Use the syrup sparingly. You want the batter slightly sweet - not cloyingly so. The same could (and should) be said about the hot sauce. You want a little heat - not hellfire.

While the tofu is drying out, dice a few small cloves of garlic & set aside in a small bowl. Dice the green bell pepper & the onion. Fry up the diced garlic in a flat pan along with some olive oil. Toss in the diced bell pepper & onion. Fry the veggies lightly & add in a wee bit of salt and soy sauce. Transfer the veggies to a bowl, and add more oil to the pan for the tofu.

Unwrap the tofu. Dip each piece in the batter and fry until both sides are nicely browned. You may have to add more batter to the tofu as it will not stick like conventional egg-based batter.

Serve with the veggies over rice.

Coolest Restaurant Ever

2009-06-07T22:01:00.003-04:00

Having worked in multimedia nightlife event promotion (a fact I'm not entirely proud of), I know that while popularity may be fleeting, there are a shitload of restaurants and clubs that thrive on gimmicks, chicanery, and bullshit in general.

The Demachi location of Gyoza no Osho in Kyoto, Japan is the real deal. From the article in The Mainichi Daily News (via Tokyomango), Gyoza no Osho is a fast food chain serving up pot sticker dumplings, noodles, rice, and other traditional budget-friendly fare. The Demachi location is close to Kyoto University and Doshisha University, and as you can imagine, hungry students are plentful. Sadahiro Inoue, the manager at the Demachi location, has hung up a sign for the past 27 years promising free meals to those who promise to wash dishes for 30 minutes after eating.

Holy Shit.

He keeps in touch with many of his former dishwashers and thinks of them as family - much as an elderly couple took care of him and his wife when they were young, struggling newlyweds. He hopes that they go on to do good deeds for others. Stuff like this makes me still believe in altruism.

Horror Fiction Now in Two-Ply!

2009-06-01T22:25:00.007-04:00

I look high and low for stuff that will amuse me and sometimes I find shit that just stops me dead in my friggin' tracks. As much as I would try to resist making inappropriate comments, I remember that old adage, "To thine own bastard be true." So here we go kids. Strap your helmets on, because it's gonna be a bumpy ride, bitches

I've never been one for the trend in movies to assrape a piece from one culture and "adapt" it to fit a different market. It's happened notably in modern horror movies with Japan & the US (e.g. "The Grudge," "The Ring," "The Steaming Crock of Shit"). It's happened in cartoons, and usually those efforts have failed miserably. Still, this doesn't hurt a huge collector's niche market that will eagerly swallow any tripe that's translated, subbed, or fansubbed. Borders Books has sections devoted to anime and manga.

I say this to prepare you for this lovely little nugget.

Let's look at a few points in this article, shall we?
1) "Drop," set in a public restroom, takes up about three feet (90 centimeters) of a roll and can be read in just a few minutes, according to the manufacturer." Given the horror motif, I think "Splatter" would have been a better title. It's more familiar a term to horror, and in the john, what's worse - something that drops or something that splatters?

2) The company promotes the toilet paper, which will sell for 210 yen ($2.20) a roll, as "a horror experience in the toilet." You could get a horror experience in the toilet after a sack of sliders from White Castle. Then again, the former Senator Larry Craig has his own horror experience in the toilet.

3)Toilets in Japan were traditionally tucked away in a dark corner of the house due to religious beliefs. For example, "Holy Shit, Jiri, what the fuck did you eat, you nasty bastard? Light a match!"

4)Parents would tease children that a hairy hand might pull them down into the dark pool below. If your kid is pinching loaves that look like hairy hands, then your kid needs to go to a gastroenterologist toot fucking sweet.

How long do you think it will take some douchebag Hollywood producer (I know, I know - I'm being redundant) to option "Drop" for a movie? And then a musical? And then a movie based on the musical based on the movie based on a fucking roll of toilet paper?

And if this is from the author of "The Ring," does this make "Drop" a "Ring" piece?

Becoming Self-Aware

2009-05-31T11:20:00.004-04:00

In deference to protect the delicate sensibilities of some, I am changing the identities of certain people in this essay.

I was walking with a buddy yesterday, and we were talking how one of my friend's co-workers (hereafter to be referred to as "Penn")is painfully Caucasian to the point of being targeted with every "white boy" joke in the book. Penn looks kind of like Andrew Daly of MADtv, and that doesn't exactly help him out to further any arguments that he is anything but an ofay honky. My friend has a pretentious cunt of a boss (hereafter to be referred to as "REMF") who is also painfully Caucasian and aside from being a less intelligent than a corn-studded loaf of shit, REMF deserves every "white boy joke in the book. REMF truly is a "cracka-ass-cracka."

The difference between Penn and REMF is that as far as I can tell, Penn became self-aware whereas REMF wouldn't know an original though if it teabagged him. I share some degree of sympathy with Penn aside from the fact that he has a good and twisted sense of humor and as far as I've interacted with him, he's been fun to chat with. While I may appear to be just an average Korean, I am not the motherfucker who does your dry cleaning, who sells you your groceries, or who delivers your takeout orders.

I like country music. Not country pop bullshit, but Hank Williams sr, Johnny Cash, Randy Travis, and Dwight Yoakam. I love to cook and bake Italian food. I have TWO liberal arts degrees. I love tequila. I could go on to describe any number of other things I enjoy that aren't stereotypically viewed as "Asian" or "Korean," but that's less important as the fact that at some early point in my life, I took a look at not only what Koreans were like, but how the people around me (i.e. white people) saw me. I didn't want to be their Charlie Chan or even their Jackie Chan.

It's important to keep an open mind about what the world has to offer. There's a lot of fun to be had, and as a warning, if you don't keep an open mind, you're by default setting yourself up to be marginalized by people like REMF and other morons. I'm assuming Penn had that same sort of self-realization and tried to cultivate his own little world of stuff that brings him joy & fulfillment or at least offers him respite from the bullshit that can piss you off.

Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body

2009-05-16T10:11:00.004-04:00

As things were winding down to AIDS Walk New York this Sunday, I wanted to make sure I was up to snuff physically. I'm a fanatical inline skater, and Ive skated AIDS Walk New York 8 out of the 9 times I've done it. Here's the link to my donation page in case you can donate. Every now and then Mother Nature looks like she's gonna give New York the finger with rain, but she's been pretty good so far.

I just checked the weather report, and it still looks like rain. What are ya gonna do, eh? So I have to walk. That sucks. It sucks even more because one of the reasons I skate AIDS Walk New York is to blaze through the 10K route in order to help at the last checkpoint where all the refreshments are. There are at least 5 freight trucks there loaded with food, snacks, water, & supplies. That's a lot of stuff, but then again, there was something like 50,000 people at AIDS Walk New York last year. I like to start early and help out as long as I can.

I'm in fairly good shape, and while I've been training like a madman for this, I could always train harder. I'm not going to be in any shape to bust out a triathalon anytime soon, but I'd like to aim for that as opposed to ending up like a big fat slob. I've been going to the AIDS Walk New York office headquarters to volunteer as much time as I could lately. There were loads of envelopes to stuff, label, and mail out as well as prep work on a massive scale. They can always use more volunteers, and I was good to go. A little over a week ago, I must have blown out my right knee on the way to the office. As I was skating at the time, the adrenaline and endorphins must have masked the pain up until I was walking. Blessed Buddha it hurt. The weird thing was that it hurt walking and especially going up and down stairs, but it didn't hurt while skating.

A few days ago, I put some Phiten Titanium tape above and below my right kneecap.

That made it easier to cut down on the ibuprofen, and I have more flexibility, but it royally sucks to be immobile. Essentially Phiten products act as a heat sink regulating energy ionically. I've been wearing a Phiten necklace for years, and it allows me to train longer & harder with less pain and shortened recovery time.

It still sucks that my girlfriend and I will have to walk, but we're still going to bust our humps and volunteer as long as we can. I still have faith that Mother Nature will shine down on us.

Vegan Buckwheat Soba Noodle Salad

2009-05-09T07:31:00.002-04:00

After getting the packaged buckwheat noodle salad sold in plastic bins at Whole Foods & Health Nuts, I thought to try my kung fu. This is more or less raw & organic.

1 8oz package of organic buckwheat soba noodles
1 1/3rd cups organic Arame seaweed
2 organic carrots
4 organic scallions
1/3rd (or so) organic purple onion
1/2 a bunch of organic parsley
1/2 cup organic TVP (textured vegetable protein)
1 1/2 tbsps organic chia seed
Organic ginger
Organic sesame oil
Seasoned rice vinegar
salt

Crush the arame seaweed and soak in fresh cold water for about 20 min. While that's soaking, finely dice the scallions, parsley, & onion. Combine in a large bowl. Grate the carrots and toss that in as well.

The seaweed should have doubled in volume. Drain, but save the water in a separate bowl. Toss the rehydrated seaweed in the bowl of chopped veggies. Use the seaweed water to rehydrate the TVP. That should take about another 20 - 30 min. Grate some ginger into the veggies, and add the seasoned rice vinegar and sesame oil to taste. There should be very little water left over from rehydrating the TVP. Use that and a wee bit more water to rehydrate the chia seeds. Start boiling water for the noodles.

Once the water is boiling, reduce heat a wee bit and cook the noodles on medium - high for about 6 min. Drain in a fine mesh colander and wash with cold water a couple times. Add the noodles to the veggies and toss. You may need to add some more oil, vinegar, and salt to taste.

Note to Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi: Va Fa'n Culo

2009-05-03T19:47:00.003-04:00

As far as politicians who shouldn't open their mouths too much, it's hard to beat Gov. George Bush. I categorically refuse to think of him as "President," because the motherfucker stole the Oval Office. Governor of Texas was the last legal office he held.

But even good ol' Dubya wasn't nearly as much of a jackass as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. This aberration of a public official has a LONG history of saying and doing things in public that even a Ku Klux Klansman wouldn't say in Harlem. This guy is more of an embarrassment to Italians than all the guido motherfuckers in Long Island.

Seeing this little nugget of joy on CNN.com really brightened my day. To be sure, divorce is a tragedy no matter how you look at it. When you're a 72-year old vulgar politician, and you're seen going to an 18-year old girl's birthday party, your wife isn't gonna be too happy. For a hypocritical bastard like Berlusconi, the tragedy isn't nearly enough. If it's ok for him to act like a pig and make obscene gestures behind a Spanish Foreign Minster (intimating that he was a cuckold), then it's ok for the Italian and International press to rake his his ass over the coals. Hey Prime Minister Berslusconi - Payback is a bitch, you asshole.

May The Force Be Wit Ye (But Nae Wit The Sassenach)

2009-04-16T19:34:00.003-04:00

Now you may be wondering if the title is a puerile attempt at humor, and you'd bloody well be right. I've no love for George Lucas, or more precisely, I've no love for what the fat fuck continues to do to his movies. I love "Star Wars," but goddamnit, Han shot first.

There. I've said it. I promise I won't go too much more into why I'd be happier than a pig in shit if George Lucas were to choke on a Krispy Kreme.

Still it never fails to amaze me to consider the depth and range of the impact of "Star Wars." Like this little nugget. Stunning, isn't it? If this religious movement ever gains momentum, I'd sure as Hell love to put a Jedi Master in the octagon with Pope Benedict XVI.

And on that happy note, I leave you with this other nugget I found online:

Woody, Lay Off the Pipe, Dude

2009-04-11T19:56:00.002-04:00

Lord help me I love zombies. It's incredibly difficult to make a shitty zombie movie, but then again George Romero has made practically nothing BUT shitty zombie movies.

Yeah, I said it, and I'll take any motherfucker who takes exception to the octagon.

I'm enjoying the fact that Hollywood seems to be making more zombie movies. I read that there's going to be a movie based on the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I shit thee not. Reading this recent story on CNN.com, I thought less of the movie "Zombieland," and more of Woody's recreational drug use.

I doubt any victim of paparazzi would have second thoughts of bitch slapping them, but Woody's excuse for his behavior leads me to believe that he needs to lay off the pipe. Seriously dude, you're not doing a blessed fucking thing for either hemp as a viable alternative to conventional resources or to the "Zombieland" production. Are you fucking kidding me? He was soooo good a method actor that he was "in character" while he was with his daughter in an airport? What the buggery Hell made him think that paparazzi were zombies and NOT flight attendants?

Woody needs an intervention or he needs to go on a pot bender so deep that his eyelids will reek of bongwater. It's getting incredibly hard to accept him as a serious actor without the benefit of Funyuns and White Castle.

PeTA Protests The Pet Shop Boys, Captain Beefheart is Nervous

2009-04-10T20:13:00.004-04:00

Now I love the good work that the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals does. I don't agree with all of their work or some of their tactics, but you have to expect to have differences with any organization. The bottom line is that for the better part, they do great work, and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk's book Making Kind Choices (ISBN 0-312-32993-8) is as broad and inspirational as it is applicable to virtually every facet of life. That book is noteworthy also for its non-judgmental tone. Never once did I get the sense that unless I go "cold turkey" off all animal products, I am as heinous an individual as Michael Vick. Every little step counts, and it's not as hard to go vegan as some might think.

But like I said, I've had problems and differences of opinion with PeTA. I'll go into some of them later, but for now, I have to seriously question what the HELL they're thinking when they protest Neil Tennant & Chris Lowe, aka "The Pet Shop Boys." For those of you who are too friggin' young to remember, The Pet Shop Boys are a 20 years old pop music group with some incredibly catchy yet vapid hit songs. They had hits like "West End Girls," and "What Have I Done to Deserve This?"(with Dusty Springfield) as well as covers of classics like "Always on My Mind."

According to the CNN.com article, PeTA wanted to draw attention to inhumane conditions breeders keep their animals in before they sell them to pet stores. The assumption that can easily be made from this article is twofold: 1) All pet stores get their animals from disreputable breeders, and 2) The pet stores themselves don't take good care of their animals. This is a gross disservice to good pet stores and pet supply stores.

On top of that, what the buggery fuck was PeTA thinking of protesting a 20 YEAR OLD pop music group? Where the Hell was PeTA in 1984 when The Pet Shop Boys released their first album? Were pet breeders that much better back then and were the conditions in pet stores that much better than now, or is this more than slightly fucked up that an animal rights organization would bitch at a music group that's about as relevant as Betamax, New Coke, and HD-DVD? If the last Pet Shop Boys track you remember hearing was their debut hit "West End Girls," AND NOTHING ELSE SINCE, then their relevance is right up there with Laura Brannigan. They could have bitched at a nutty bastard like Captain Beefheart about his name, or they could have bitched at Francis Ford Coppola for actually killing a fucking cow during the filming of "Apocalypse Now," but I can't seem to find anything archived on any news site about Coppola's Viet Nam War epic.

PeTA needs to stop devoting energy to pointless, laughable protests and focus more on winning the hearts and minds of those who can actually change, or else they'll continue to freely give ammunition to those who yearn for the opportunity to deride the good work PeTA does.

Stuff I'll Always Watch

2009-01-31T04:18:00.005-05:00

Going through the many choices of crap on digital TV to clog up my optic nerves, I thought I'd take a moment to reflect upon some of my favorite stuff to watch. This list is in no particular order, but each one is dear to my craven little heart.

1) Nazis, Neo-Nazis, & Assorted Knuckle-Dragging Thugs: There seems to be a surfeit of documentaries & speculative shows on that perverted Austrian midget and his legions of jackbooted thugs. While it can get tiring to see the same shit about the Waffen SS, or Eichmann, every now and then there will be something different like the extent of Hitler's drug addictions. Then again I can never get tired of seeing what troglodytes racists can be no matter if they're Klansmen or Aryan Supremacists.

2) Goodfellas (but only on Lifetime): Ah, the Holy Trinity of mob movie goodness - DeNiro, Pesci, and Scorcese. How can you lose? From any number of points, "Goodfellas" is a masterpiece, and it would be criminal to see it in anything less than letterboxed and uninterrupted. I have the special edition DVD with commentary by the real Henry Hill and the Federal Agent that arrested him. What the hell this magnum opus is doing on Lifetime is beyond me. Seriously - How the blessed fuck is seeing "Now go shine my fuckin' shoes" empowering to women? Bad enough that you have to watch something like this in anything less than the original film aspect ratio, but to have all the profanity and violence neutered? Why not show it on some holy roller channel? It's like a big road accident in slow motion - with commercial breaks. You have to watch the bodies go splat. And no matter how many times the same travesty is on TV, you have to watch to see the cinematic equivalent when a nearsighted mohel (on crank) performs a bris. And let me ask one more time - how is "Goodfellas" a chick flick?

3) Discovery Health Channel's (& The Learning Channel's) Freakshow: Yeah, I said it - freakshow. I mean no disrespect to people who are genuinely trying to make a better life out of what shitty cards fate had handed to them, but when Discovery Health Channel has a special called "Trash Can of Skin," you're forced to watch out of morbid curiosity. That particular gem was about an English lady who had rapidly lost a massive amount of weight after stomach reduction surgery. Unfortunately here skin was so distended, all elasticity has gone and thus a wide tract of skin had to be removed in a groundbreaking surgical procedure. The leftover skin filled up a trash can (thus the title). You think that's bad, you should see "Half Man, Half Tree." And before you think I'm being particularly morbid, which are you more inclined to watch, "Valerie's Circumferential Body Lift Odyssey," or "Trash Can of Skin?" I thought so. What's worse is that Discovery Health Channel made "Trash Can of Skin" more appealing to wider audiences by making it part of its "Medical Incredibles" series with an equally touchy feely title.

4) The Godfather Epic: It's a little known fact that there's a shitload of footage that even the most devoted fans haven't seen, like Don Vito Corleone going with his sons to visit his old consigliere Genco at his death bed. Or seeing a young Hyman Rothstein start work with Vito Corleone, or even little bits like seeing more wedded bliss between Carlo and Connie or seeing Anthony showing an interest in his father's work only to be harshly rebuked by his mother Kay. Now you may wonder why this footage hasn't seen a proper restoration and home video release. It kinda sorta did a long time ago as "The Godfather Epic." The first two movies (there wasn't much cut out of the 3rd) were re-edited chronologically to start with young Vito Antonio Andolini and end off with Don Michael Corleone at the end of "Godfather, Part II." It was shown on NBC a long time ago, and while legitimate copies of "The Godfather Epic" have disappeared, it's sometimes on Bravo once in a blue moon. Actually, I kind of suspect that being the greedy fucker that he is, Francis Ford Coppola is holding out for participation in a grand restoration of "The Godfather Epic" until Paramount throws him a shitload of dough. Some people will say that the movies are fine the way they are, but having read the original novel by Mario Puzo, I want to see something closer to what Mr. Puzo wrote instead of Coppola's interpretation.

5) Godzilla, Gamera, Ultraman, and other Kaiju Goodness: Maybe it's having grown up watching "Kaiju" (giant monster) movies & shows, but good lord, I love watching cheesy giant rubbery monster movies. OK, I doubt if there is a giant rubbery monster movie that isn't cheesy, but as far as I'm concerned, the cheesier, the better, and keep the property damage cranked up high.

Is Football Messed Up, or Is It Just Me?

2009-01-27T13:34:00.003-05:00

I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a Washington Redskins fan. I haven't always followed pro football, and I lost interest about the same time as when Coach Joe Gibbs left the team the first time in the late '90s. Coincidentally they really stank right about the same time, but there was something wonderful about them.

I guess you had to be there.

Unfortunately, pro football has become even more of a behemoth, and if it seems like the bone-jarring plays have become a lot more painful, they have. According to this report on CNN, The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy did a comprehensive study based on brain tissue samples (posthumously, I hope) from NFL veterans. Michael Vick is ineligible for this study as he has no fucking brain (nor does he have a soul).

The results from this study are redefining the level of long-term impact of a concussion. Severe damage has a name - Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Depression, sleep disorders, mental fatigue and worse have plagued players long after their retirement.

This is utterly tragic, and it surely points to a gross lack of player protection. In essence, The NFL is not looking out for its players in the best way possible. While this is sad, as an ardent MMA fan, I have serious questions about "legitimate" sports versus "barbaric" sports as dear old John McCain described the UFC. Actually, that racist motherfucker called it something along the lines of "human cockfighting." Certainly MMA is hard to understand if you're a pinhead, and it could easily be dismissed as a fad or not worthy of mainstream media, but while MMA fighters run the risk of getting knocked out cold, medical suspensions prohibit them from fighting until after a careful and long period. Last weekend, Andrei Arlovski got knocked out by Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction: Day of Reckoning, and it will be at least a few months before either Mssrs. Arlovski or Emelianenko will be allowed to fight by state controlled athletic commissions.

In the context of the NFL, those guys would have to suck it up, walk it off, and get back on the line of scrimmage as quickly as possible. Maybe not within the same game, but damned soon. There's a word for that kind of business practice: IRRE-FUCKING-SPONSIBLE.

I certainly hope that the NFL allows for greater care for the well-being of their players, but I also hope that the Redskins will win another Super Bowl trophy in the next couple years.

On a related note, how the fuck is American Football a legitimate sport, and there's slim to no chance that the UFC or some other MMA organization will have the mainstream appeal of a Madison Square Garden event? Shit, even World Wrestling Entertainment was at the Garden.

Super Mariusz!

2009-01-20T19:43:00.009-05:00

This is Mariusz Pudzianowski (his official site while impressive is in Polish, and his English language site is buggy and needs updating).

He is a 5-time World's Strongest Man title winner. For those of you not familiar with Strongman competitions, think of practical application of bodybuilding. Sure those guys look big & diesel, but what can they do? Lift cars & refrigerators. Toss beer kegs over a wall. Lift & carry cannonballs and place them on stands. Oh yeah, this sort of thing is timed against other competitors. It's some pretty freaky stuff, and Mariusz retired from competition in 2008 with more titles than anyone. This is not a man to be trifled with.

In the summer of 2008, my girlfriend and I adopted our second guinea pig. While our first guinea cavy (as they are properly known) Saku is more skittish & cautious, our second cavy is fearless. He has dominated our apartment going wherever he pleases. He is bigger & more muscular than Saku and when the time came to name him, I could think of only one suitable moniker: Mariusz.

Note to PBS: Evolve or Die

2009-01-18T20:04:00.004-05:00

I used to love and respect PBS across the board no matter where I lived. There would be a slice of life that regular television simply wasn't addressing, or the commercial viability of such gems like "Masterpiece Theatre," or "Nature" were not nearly as good as Fonzie jumping the shark. Pretty sad, eh?

While I am indebted to PBS for giving me my first exposure to "Doctor Who," Joseph Campbell, and series like "Sesame Street," "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood," "Cosmos," "I, Claudius," "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries," and "Monty Python's Flying Circus," the quality of programming on PBS nationwide has plummeted.

There isn't one blessed thing on PBS that you can't find elsewhere on the Internet, satellite, or cable TV. NOT ONE FUCKING THING. "Doctor Who" (or at least the current iteration) happily resides on BBC America. I've seen "Cosmos" on one of the Discovery channels, and "Monty Python" has it's own YouTube channel. Who the Hell wouldn't want the Ministry of Silly Walks on demand?

It is a buyer's market for television programming, and while the quality of programming has arguably increased and broadened in scope, PBS shuffles out the same goddamn shit every time they try and hit you up for money during a membership drive. While PBS used to have membership drives a couple times a year, they're practically begging for dough at least 6 - 7 times a year. Either the accountants at PBS collectively have one of the worst cases of Alzheimer's Syndrome on record, or they're about as adept at managing money as Bernard Madoff. I don't know which is worse.

I've been fortunate to see the wonderful work that stations like WETA, WNET, and WGBH do or at least have done. When stations play the same stuff like Doo-Wop Music Tributes, Andre Rieu, The Irish Tenors, and touchy-feely Dr. Wayne Dyer mystical wooga wooga seminars every time they want my money, I tend to think that these stations are not for me. With all due honesty, I'd rather suck down the business end of a loaded Desert Eagle .50 cal and pull the trigger than watch any of that horseshit. It's obviously intended to appeal to the baby boomer generation while ignoring the fact that the generations after them have money as well. Moreso than money, My generation has a notoriously short attention span. If you don't appeal to us in a short order, or if you piss us off, we're likely to change the channel FOREVER.

I would love to think that PBS is going to straighten the fuck up and fly right, but I'd also like to think that George Bush will apologize for the past 8 years.

Mighty Saku the Weed Wacker

2008-11-11T21:05:00.005-05:00

This is Sakuraba Kazushi, one of the most loved and respected mixed martial arts fighters of all time. He is known as "The Gracie Hunter" for having fought and defeated some of the most feared fighters in the Gracie family. He is goofy and brings a wonderfully lighthearted sense of humor to a decidedly brutal sport. He also has some incredible moves, and if you get the chance, I'd highly recommend you look for DVDs of the early Pride F/C matches he fought in.

When my girlfriend and I got our first guinea pig, we thought long and hard about what to name him. We didn't want to go with the usual cutesy crap, and it dawned on me. Saku. Trust me, it fits the lil guy's personality, and I would hope that Sakuraba-san would approve.

This is clip of Saku going medieval on some organic dandelion greens. So far he nibbles away at most anything, but lordamighty, he inhaled the weeds.

Cute lil booger, isn't he?

Never Kick Someone When They're Down. Get Them in a Kimura

2008-11-03T18:46:00.002-05:00

Lord I try and be chivalrous, and there are paragons that I aspire to, and rather than give in to the obvious temptation to kick a beeyatch when she's down, make an object lesson out of them. A painfully elaborate and Tarrantino-esque object lesson. The kind of object lesson that ED-209 was used for in the beginning of "RoboCop." Gov. ~~Palin~~ Twinkie, this is for you in earnest hopes that you make the most of your community college education and settle into a life of a truck stop waitress. Lord knows you are not nearly as sophisticated as Sen. Ted Stevens, and look where that moron is headed. I know damned well that he's not going to get cornholed in prison along with the other CONVICTED FELONS, but we can hope his ass becomes the Bridge to Nowhere, eh?

While I am not a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu student, I and my girlfriend are mixed martial arts enthusiasts and have followed Pride, K-1, UFC, and other promotions avidly. One of the most feared moves is the Kimura lock (gyaku ude-garami). There's a particularly nice illustration of it at Grapplearts. I'm dying to take a practical martial art like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and I can only imagine how much pain and damage something like this would do to an opponent. Let's unleash a figurative Kimura (or even better yet - a Crucifix) on Gov. Twinkie so the dumb bitch is reduced to a blubbering mess. Gov. Twinkie has not elected to take the high road, nor has she proven that she can take simple orders or abide by her position in the election. I would like to believe that Sen. McCain is capable of some of the ~~steaming bullshit~~ campaign promises he's put forth, but this guy makes Ronald Wilson Reagan look brilliant.

And Reagan thought Ketchup was a vegetable. By the way, did you know that if you rearrange the letters in "Ronald Wilson Reagan," you can spell "Insane Anglo Warlord?"

So, let's do to Gov. Twinkie what the Allied Forces did to Omaha Beach. Attacking her because of her children and their shortcomings is not cool. The kids are obviously of flawed character, and while it would be easy to use her kids as political liabilities, that does not address the fact that if Sarah Palin is a dumb fucking parasite in public office. I would be happier than a pig in shit if she were removed from public office and became as relevant to American politics as Lyndon Larouche.

Sarah Palin is about as sophisticated as a Stuckey's Pecan Log. A bipartisan panel found her guilty of abusing her power. The dumb bitch tries to cry foul and use the 1st Amendment as a defense against criticism. Umm... no bitch, The 1st Amendment doesn't protect that. A humanities and liberal arts education does, but then again, she wouldn't know much about education. Walking around in a one piece bathing suit and fuck-me pumps, yes. Shooting an animal with a high powered rifle and a scope from an elevated and advantageous position, yes. Understanding the application of that festering mass between her ears? Hell fucking no.

Take a look at this list of her highlights from Who Sucks. Certainly it is incomplete, but I hope that if this dumb bitch thinks she's ready to step into the ~~political arena~~ Octagon, then she should be ready to receive the asswhooping of her life.

I'm NOT with Stupid

2008-11-02T21:12:00.004-05:00

Before I get started, I feel it important in the interest of full disclosure that I was not the best overall student, nor had I made the most of my academic promise. I feel I owe a great apology to my parents for fighting and working to provide me with all the opportunities and support they could muster. I am not a simpleton (angry or otherwise), but I am certainly not everything I could be. Mom & Dad, sorry about that.

With less than 30 hours before the next US Presidential election, you may wonder why I would start off with such a personal confession. I strongly believe that my familiarity with failure gives me a painfully sharp perspective on why it is vitally important to make sure that we as a nation take a firm stance prohibiting fucking morons from public office. It's one thing to squander your resources. It's a different and worse thing altogether to fuck over generations of people because of your shortcomings.

Sen. McCain's campaign has often made attacks on Sen. Obama's character portraying him as elitist with great aspirations but little experience and great shortcomings. Let's take a look at Sen. McCain, shall we? He is a 3rd Generation US Naval Officer. Both his father and his grandfather were 4 Star US Navy Admirals. There is only one rank higher than that, and it is reserved for use in formal war. With that kind of military pedigree, John McCain's career in the military should have been idiot-proof, but Johnny was that rare idiot who could fuck up a family dynasty. McCain entered the US Naval Academy as a legacy with a golden ticket. Out of a class of 899, he held a class rank of 894. There were only 5 people more inadequate than him. His early career as a Naval Aviator is marred by a partying reputation as well as crashing twice and colliding with power lines.

While his time as a POW in the Vietnam War is well known, what isn't terribly well known is that while he suffered two broken arms and a broken leg prior to capture, the only reason he received medical care during his beatings and interrogation was that the North Vietnamese had learned that his father was a top US Naval Admiral. If it weren't for his family, he wouldn't be puttering around today.

Throughout his 25 years in the US Congress, he has had many achievements and many scandals including voting against the creation of a federal Martin Luther King, jr. holiday, being one of the infamous "Keating 5"during the Lincoln Savings & Loan scandal, and of his North Vietnamese captors, he said "I hate the gooks." He was adamantly unapologetic... up until it dawned on his wizened noggin that gee, maybe Asian-Americans might be offended at his blatant racism, and that might hurt his chances for a run at the Oval Office.

Sen. McCain has distanced himself from this gaffe and while Irwin Tang wrote about this episode in his book Gook: John McCain's Racism and Why It Matters," I have to seriously question whether or not we need someone with such gross shortcomings of judgement in a decision making position that could and has affected the lives of others. In short, this racist motherfucker shouldn't have been let out of the Hanoi Hilton. He wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for his family and his rich trophy wife.

But rather than focus on a racist idiot like Sen. McCain, I want to focus on this stigmata of a well-educated person as an elitist in this country. Why is it that a man who graduates from Columbia University, works for the New York chapter of the Public Interest Research Group, and graduates from Harvard Law School magna cum laude an elitist? He fought to get to where he is,and he didn't have two generations of family history to fall back on. Sen. Obama may not have 25 years of time in the US Congress, but given the state of the Nation today, is that really so bad? I have lived through the roughest 8 years of my life with a sub-standard (and that's being generous) simpleton in the Oval Office. Why is it that we praise the individual who kicks ass and takes names on the gridiron, racks up trophies and Super Bowl rings, and we call the individual with a slew of academic achievements a nerd? When's the last time being a nerd was a good thing?

I genuinely think that what this nation needs right now is a President who is smarter than his cabinet instead of the other way around. We need not only President Obama, but more people like him who have shown a passion for excellence and civic pride and duty.

Tour de Buhdonkudonk

2008-10-08T21:40:00.004-04:00

I almost missed this one, but thank god I had my digital camera on me at the time. Lining up the shot was hard enough because I didn't want to look terribly obvious in a "HOLY MOTHER OF NICK NOLTE! WHAT THE BLESSED FUCK IS THAT?"-state of mind.

Damn, I need another drink.

Memo to Mrs. Palin: It's pronounced "NEW-KLEE-ARE"

2008-10-03T20:19:00.005-04:00

I must be some kind of masochist, because I watched the US Vice Presidential Candidate debate last night. I didn't mind the rhetoric being slung back and forth. You have to expect a high degree of bullshit in any electoral debate. What I mind is the quality of bullshit from the Republican candidate, Gov. Sarah Palin. On virtually every question she tried her damnedest to deflect attention from her inability to respond capably and divert attention with 1979 vintage Republican hyperbole-drenched bullshit. Remember - 1979 was a very good year for Republican bullshit. She tried to appear approachable and familiar and yet brash and iconoclastic.

That load of bullshit may have worked when Reagan was about to bitch slap the Carter Administration, but it sure as Hell isn't going to work now. To prove my point, watch the debate over again, but this time under the framework of a drinking game:

1) Gov. Twinkie pronounces "Nuclear" as "Nuke-U-Lar:" 2 Drink
2) Gov. Twinkie says "looking forward" (or some variation thereof): 1 Drink
3) Gov. Twinkie says "Maverick:" 2 Drinks
4) Gov. Twinkie refers to her gubernatorial or her mayoral experience: 1 Drink

By the end of the debate, I guarantee that you will be more fucked up than any 3 blocks of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

With all due respect to Gov. Twinkie, I say this: Bitch, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Trying to pull a Jedi Mind Trick in trying to respond to a question with a non-sequitur only works if you're a Jedi Master and not a dried up old whore. The only thing she proved was that Rednecks don't just have to come from the South. The fact that this Twinkie has a chance of being a heartbeat away from NORAD launch codes scares the shit out of me.

Allow me to end with this: In 2006, the same year Twinkie took office as Governor of Alaska, "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard" premiered as a television series on BBC One. It would reach US audiences via PBS the following year. Jane Horrocks (arguably best known for her role as "Bubble" on "Absolutely Fabulous") played Rosamund Jane Pritchard, a supermarket manager who runs for public office and improbabaly becomes the British Prime Minister. She is saddled with a jackass husband and a daughter who is wildly out of control and a great embarassment to Mrs. Pritchard. Sound familiar? "The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard" was a brilliant series that died an ugly and undeservedly early death, but taken as a de facto miniseries, it is eerily apropos.

Gov. Twinkie, you are NO Mrs. Pritchard.

Midtown Hot Mess o' Hair

2008-09-20T19:43:00.003-04:00

I was walking with my girlfriend one morning to see her off to work while I went on to get groceries. We were right across the street from her office building, when I spotted this menopausal hot mess.

Drink it in, bitches.

I silently reached in my pocket for my camera, and I tried carefully so as not to draw attention by shouting "Holy FUCK! Check out that prune's mullet!" I could see my girlfriend's face tighten up as she tried desperately not to laugh. She kind of looked like when Harvey Korman tried to reign it in as he tried not to lose his shit during any random episode of "The Carol Burnett Show."

And if you think that's bad, you should have seen this taxidermy experiment from the front. Sweet Blessed Merciful Buddha, it took every ounce of restraint I had not to go get hammered off of some fortified wine.

Umm... Dude - You Should Change Your Light Bulbs

2008-09-20T19:38:00.003-04:00

You gotta love being at the right spot at the right time to see crap like this happen.

Robert Novak, Karma is a Royal Bitch, Isn't It?

2008-08-06T06:21:00.011-04:00

In deference to those more even-tempered than myself, I should warn that profanity will ensue.

I've been wrestling with any number of reasons to take the moral high ground more often than I have. This isn't to say that I'm not a good person, but as some have pointed out, I'm not a nice person. I can live with that. I'm trying to be good, and as a vegan, I can appreciate the sanskrit belief of ahmisa, or the avoidance of violence. It is central to Vegan philosophy in that no animal or animal product be used. That means no meat, no leather, and nothing else obtained from an animal by violent means. It's a wonderful belief, but there's more than plenty of cases to press my adherence to Ahmisa.

There aren't enough ways for me to think about how I'd love to pound Michael Vick into a simpering little bitch, and that would be after I neuter him with the repeated trauma of having his genitals shot with a shotgun.

Loaded with Taser XREP ammo.

Thankfully there's a very short list of people I want to exact this sort of punishment on, but Robert Novak just made it to the top of the list. I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland. One of the things I had to endure was "The McLaughlin Group," a locally-produced political affairs roundtable tv show moderated by a pompous gasbag named John McLaughlin. I thought that it would go no farther than any other of DC's assclowns like Marion Barry, but "The McLauughlin Group" was nationally syndicated by PBS (Thanks, motherfuckers. Thanks a lot for that). The tragedy is that many if not all of the commentators who have ever sat on the Mclaughlin Group thought they possessed rapier-like wit worthy of Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, and the rest of the Algonquin Roundtable when in reality, even the most even-tempered of McLaughlin Group Alumni had the charisma of a dried-up Coney Island Whitefish. It was one of the first soapboxes upon which Robert Novak revealed himself to being a bitter, angry, Napoleonic Cunt. Then again, if I looked like one of the residents of Innsmouth from H.P. Lovecraft's brilliant short story The Shadow Over Innsmouth, I'd be angry at the world too.

This little motherfucker had been guilty of spewing his venomous bile to one and all no matter who was his employer. He was used as a selling point much in the same way that people wanted to know what kind of scandalous shit Howard Stern would do. On top of that, Robert Novak outed Valerie Plame, a deep cover CIA operative whose own husband (a US Ambassador!) had no idea what she did. If you call Lindsey Lohan a cokewhore who would felch a drug mule for an eightball, big deal. But if you arrogantly fuck up US foreign policy and disrupt national security, and oh yeah - PUT A CIA OPERATIVE'S LIFE AT RISK, isn't that treason?

Aside from the other bullshit he's pulled like attempting to foster intercine warfare between Sens. Clinton & Obama's campaign offices, he's guilty of hitting an 86-year old pedestrian while the self-described "Prince of Darkness" was driving his black Corvette convertible. A bicyclist who saw this go down chased Novak down and prevented him from zipping away until the cops came.

It would be easy enough to hate this little greasy queef just on those two aspects alone, but he's also gone on record as saying that while in Puerto Rico in 2002, he attended a cockfight, and he relished it tremendously. He's also gone on record in avid support of dogfights and other forms of animal fighting.

Holy

Motherfucking

Asscrackers.

While he relishes in public scorn of him, he is far from being the self-described "Prince of Darkness," and yet if he is precious little more than the annoyance of letting rip a a loud thunderous fart in a museum, it is easy to wish upon him so criminally violent a fate that it would require a thoroughly sadistic and psychotic surgeon to pull it off. He has profited greatly from his grossly unethical behavior, and he has shown no remorse for putting national security at risk for the supreme goal of preserving the visibility of his byline.

He recently revealed that he has a pretty serious brain tumor occupying his head. My first reaction to this was that the diagnosis was impossible, because that would require that he have a fucking brain to begin with. I guess this is where we're supposed to feel sympathy for a craven little shit who's dying painfully instead of hoping that someone who not only ran into a pedestrian but fled the scene of a crime get prosecuted. I wish his last few days were even more painful, and I'd want his wife, his son, and his daughter to watch his withered genitals be removed with a Dremel and force fed to them.

That Little Monkey Just Ain't Right

2008-06-29T17:24:00.005-04:00

So I'm looking around Drugstore.com to pick up some stuff I need, and because I'm a cheap bastard, I wanted to see what I could pad my order with to get free shipping. I'm looking around, and I came across this little item.

Sure looks cute, doesn't it?

First off, are kids so goddamned pussyfied that they have to have a "safe" version of a pinata? I guess beating the holy bejeezus out of a pinata for candy & toys isn't cool anymore. Then again, I suppose that a kid's party "off the grid" is an odd concept. God forbid kids should actually PLAY OUTSIDE.

But let's look at a line from the product description:
"Pull the correct string to get the candy (not included)."

Now look at where the strings are placed on good ol' Curious George.

What the fuck? What happens if you pull the wrong string? George shits on you? And I guess a wonderful Mexican traditional children's memory is further bastardized by not only taking a central element out (beating the Hell out of it for candy), but replacing it with some sick version of Russian Roulette that a Priest would play with young kids.

Questions About the Undead

2008-06-26T21:03:00.003-04:00

I generally don't cotton to what's commonly referred to as "torture porn," a modern Horror film genre that seems to rely more on shock and gore as opposed to characters. Eli Roth has carved out a reputation for himself with his tasty li'l nugget "Hostel," and apparently he's been keen on making a zombie movie.

Now I fuckin' love zombies (no, not like that). While I love Zack Snyder's remake of "Day of the Dead," I have no respect or appreciation for George Romero's zombie movies. They suck. Don't get me started about that bloated ass-clown of a director. The only movie of his I really liked was "Monkey Shines." That movie was friggin' hilarious. But enough about that jackass.

While there's probably no chance that I'm gonna rush out to see "Hostel" or any of Mr. Roth's filmography, I'm really looking forward to one of his upcoming projects, "Trailer Trash." It can be summed up with three basic questions:

1) What do zombies eat? (People - duh)
2) What happens when you smoke pot? (You get the munchies)
3) What would happen if zombies smoked pot? (Oh Blessed Mother of God)

While I eagerly look forward to "Trailer Trash," it got me to thinking about zombies.

1) What would happen if a zombie bit a vegan?
2) Is it possible for a zombie to be bulimic?
3) If conjoined twins (joined at any part other than the head) were attacked by a zombie, would both become the undead? Would one twin attack the other?
4) Two words: coprophilic zombies (Yes, I know there's something wrong with me)
5) How fuckin' cool would it be if a zombie bit into The Duggar family?
6) If a zombie bit into Dubya, would that give the zombie the shits, and how could you actually tell if Dubya was a zombie?

I ask questions about stuff like this on a regular basis. Sober.

Damnit, I'm Trying.

2008-06-25T10:22:00.003-04:00

I remember waiting for the bus having picked up some groceries, and I saw something that pretty much made me sick. Some guy was wearing a replica Michael Vick Atlanta Falcons jersey walking down the street.

I hope to God he got the stink eye from a bunch of people. I'm grateful that this jackass didn't bump into me, because even in the middle of the day in public with witnesses, I would have made him eat his jersey shortly before giving what appeared to be his common-law wife/baby momma/sister/girlfriend an object lesson of what happens when you indiscriminately allow anyone to poke your cooter.

Out of respect to my girlfriend (who is eminently more grounded and less hot-headed than me), I made a vow to her and to myself not to pick a fight. I wouldn't go out of my way to start some petty bullshit, but I am more than willing to finish the fight. This jackass was sorely testing my beliefs, but then I had to hope that Karma would smack his punk ass hard.

Another time I was crossing the street right by our apartment building, and some dumb bitch was jaywalking and in the way. I barreled through her, and she expressed her indignance and shock. I retorted by flipping her the bird and telling her to go fuck herself. Regardless of where you are, if you don't abide by public safety and traffic laws, you'd be lucky if the least of your problems is a Korean telling you in plain language what to do with various parts of your anatomy.

The best part of this is that she was a diplomat (or at least some fucking jackass tourist who arrogantly doesn't know better) and had the bearing and stature that we should all get out of her way. On top of that, she pretty much followed me. I went to a nearby bank to make a deposit, and after I was done, she was waiting for me. She said something to the effect of "Didn't you know I was pregnant?" I responded with "Bitch, I don't care, and I didn't fuck you." Luckily for her sake, she walked away.

I tell you all of this because I'm trying my best to be compassionate towards all living creatures. As a vegan, I have vowed to avoid all animal products including leather, silk, and honey much less alone food. I still have some leather and silk, but once that wears out, I ain't getting any more of that crap. I'm trying to lead by example and help other people understand that there is a better way to leading one's life, and using animal products is not it. I believe that compassion towards animals will lead not only to a healthier life, but to a healthier world. How can you not want that? I'll go into some personal details and how veganism has helped me in another posting.

There's an old saying, "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time, and it annoys the pig." You can help people only so far as they are receptive to listening to you, and one thing I have to do is to try and be as diplomatic as possible as well as trying to understand the psychology and frame of mind of the other person. Generally it is worth it, but what's deeply troubling is when you can't help those closest to you because they're too pig-headed. You can hope for the best, but if you can't help those who need it the most, try and help someone - or something.

But one thing I've always lived by is never, NEVER take shit from anyone. If someone is going to give you shit, make damned sure that person and others know what happens when they fuck with you. Unfortunately, life doesn't always present you with this opportunity to respond, and more often than not, you carry around a lot of anger & bad karma like back fat & muffin tops. Even if you're working out like Lance Armstrong, just try and get rid of that kind of flub. The best thing to do is to just drop that shit toot sweet. Move on.

The Sierra Club Sold Out to Clorox

2008-05-11T09:35:00.004-04:00

The first time I heard about the Green Works cleaning product line from Clorox was on TreeHugger, and attention was drawn to two factors, both of which comprised the 1% of Green Works that wasn't natural.

The preservative agent used, "Kathon," is made by Rohm & Haas. On their main product page, they show that they have tested on rats. On another product page, Rohm & Haas shows that they tested on female and male rabbits. These product pages also list side effects as well as possible long term impact in the water.

Now either this information was not made available to either Clorox or The Sierra Club, or there's some kind of Jedi Mind Trick being pulled here. Maybe Clorox does not use animal testing (or more specifically maybe Green Works doesn't use animal testing), but at least one of the companies that supply ingredients to Clorox does, so guess what? Green Works tests on animals.

Now let's take a look at the coloring, shall we? I suppose that Clorox feels that it's less important that a cleaning product does its job well, but that it smells nice and looks like a urine sample from The Incredible Hulk. Yeah, that makes sense. The manufacturer's website wasn't easy to find on a Dogpile search. What was easy to find was a lot of websites & news stories drawing attention to these colorants in Green Works. Milliken Chemical does not readily list their product information for their Liquitint line of dyes on their website, so it would be grossly unfair to them to assume that these dyes are either tested on animals or have dangerous side effects. However if they are evasive about providing this information or if they do not make it available at all, then serious issues are not being addressed, and we have the right to ask WHY.

Clorox and The Sierra Club have NOT acted in the interest of full disclosure and transparency. I can understand the reasoning behind The Sierra Club selling their support (after all, The Sierra Club was compensated for their endorsement) to Clorox. You want to have as much of an impact in fighting for the environment as possible. That's commendable. The question is which fighter do you support - the one most likely to win (who uses questionable ethics & tactics) or the smaller, lesser-known fighter who stays true to their beliefs and never wavers? We can focus on how much of a pain in the ass it is to spend significantly more money on organic, free trade, and vegan choices as opposed to conventional, plentiful, and cheaper choices. We can assuage any moral dilemmas with reasoning like The Sierra Club had in defense of their endorsement for Green Works. This really isn't so bad because Clorox has a huge market share and The Sierra Club can reach a broader audience with them than endorsing Seventh Generation, Method, or my personal favorite, Dr. Bronner's.

Or you can stop the nonsense altogether and fight for the future.

The Worst Goddamned Album PERIOD.

2008-03-29T22:28:00.004-04:00

Sweet friggin Jesus, all I wanted to do was to read the paper with my girlfriend in Borders. Seriously. That's it. I can deal with the hyperactive ankle biters flailing around, their nannies/parents who don't give a crap about how atrocious their spawn are acting, the emo bastards shuffling through life, and the ultrafabulous (and clueless) meatsacks who are bitching about shit to no end on their ultrafabulous cell phones. Hell, I can even deal with the bloated gelatinous mass of recycled Cheetos, Yoo Hoo and Jolt reading comic books, because I like comic books, HOWEVER, I don't leave a wake of junk food and armpit musk for all to enjoy. Goddamn, how expensive is Old Spice now?

I can deal with all of that, but when my girlfriend starts to ask how does a books & music store determine what music to play in the store, I figured it was getting on her nerves. Then when I realized that she wasn't reading as much as holding her head in her hands trying to drown out the sounds of mediocrity that I figured she was gonna lose her shit. Let's put things in perspective for a moment. When I lose my shit, people generally know within a few feet at least. It doesn't surprise some people when I go off like an overcaffeinated Lewis Black (my inspiration and hero). But when I see my girlfriend lose her shit, I know it has to be really fucked up.

We both wanted to ask a clerk what cd was playing, slap the holy bejeezus out of the clerk, rip the cd out of the player and shatter it. We had no idea what the buggery bollocks it was, and all we remember was that they didn't so much as cover a Beatles track as they raped it with slack key guitar. I love real country music (Randy Travis is the shit), adn this wasn't country. A track or two later, the "artists" saw fit to do a simiilar raping of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." Throughout this audio torture, my girlfriend pleaded with me to shut up and stop with the potty mouth. Ummmm.... nope. At this point in time, the football has been passed to the President, and it's on like muthafuckin' Donkey Kong. If some smarmy little clerk comes up to me and asks me to shut up, I'll ask him to put on some friggin' Van Halen (NOT Van Hagar) or Kiss to drown out the crap.

Another point to understand: my girlfriend and I share a masochistic love of shitty music. When we started dating, as a gag I got her a couple cds loaded with some heinous covers like Cassius Clay singing "Stand By Me," and William Shatner singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." I told her that William Shatner did an album called "The Transformed Man," and she made me hunt for it. This is one reason why I love her. She couldn't bring herself to listen to Pat Boone's collection of Heavy Metal covers ("In A Metal Mood"), nor will she listen to David Hasselhoff. However, if William Shatner is coming to New York, we're there. I paid money for a David Koresh (Yes, that David Koresh) cd. You gotta love an album title like "Voices of Fire." This album, "Volume One" by She & Him was worse than all of that. Apparently I'm supposed to be impressed by the fact that Actress Zoey Deschanel thinks she can sing. I will not link to this album, because I hope in earnest that this album goes down quicker than Elliot Spitzer's career. If you see this album in a "staff picks" section, Inquire as to the mental health requirements of their staff. If you are curious about this album enough to listen to it, wash your ears out with some Madeleine Peyroux, BT, or Hapa.

In Space, No One Can Hear You Gag

2008-02-14T11:02:00.005-05:00

Lordy, I love spicy food. I love habanero peppers for the endorphin rush, the fire, the pain, and that you can actually taste the pepper. I grew up with some of the stinkiest stuff under the sun, kimchi. This isn't so much as a delicacy as some have generously said. It's more of a way for blind people to hate Koreans. kimchi usually consists of cabbage, garlic, salt, carrots, LOADS of red pepper, radishes, ginger, and sometimes some anchovies, and some other stuff I'm almost afraid to think about.

I kid. It's really quite tasty, but it stinks. Twice. Once when you eat it, and well, you get the idea. I read a wonderful little story on BBC.co.uk about Ko San, the first Korean about to go into space, and I had a whole mess o' questions. Take a look at this story and let it digest. I'll wait.

Here are my questions:

1) What if Mr. Ko has some terrestrial kimchi before launch, and he lets one rip in the space station? Would the bacteria in regular kimchi wreak havoc, or just stink?
2) While it stands to reason that any food going into space would have to be rigorously tested, is kimchi so volatile that it needs the stamp of approval from the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI)? Is there a risk of weapons grade plutonium being smuggled in a jar of kimchi?
3) The article goes on to quote an official KAERI statement that "Kimchi must be provided in a germ-free state," but God have mercy on your nose if someone lets off a ninja biscuit. Actually it's not a case of "if," but "when."
4) The articled mentioned organic produce as well as instant noodles (bastards HAD to throw that one in there, eh?) and cinnamon tea. What about bulgogi? I may be a vegan, but some of my fondest memories growing up were of Korean barbeque. How the Hell are they gonna set up the grill in space?

I'd love to see the state of the International Space Station after Mr. Ko leaves. More specifically I'd like to express my sympathy to whomever would use the zero-gravity toilet after him. Yeah, I'm playa-hatin. So what?

The Clown Prince is Dead

2008-01-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

Damnit, damnit, damnit. Why does this shit happen? I thought that the story on Superherohype.com was a sick joke, but it's on CNN.com. I was not terribly familiar with Heath Ledger's work as an actor. I know he's had his time in the gossip rags, and I know he's been perceived as aloof and serious about his work, but goddamnit, why does this have to happen? Chris Nolan's brilliant direction in "Batman Begins" breathed fresh life into an all but dead franchise. It was ok for comic book geeks and respectable people to like comic books again, and who didn't get a shiver at the ending? A sequel was a sure bet. With "The Dark Knight," there was finally going to be some respect paid to one of the least understood villains in pop culture. Cesar Romero was friggin' great, and Jack Nicholson was an obvious knee-jerk choice, but The Joker was finally going to be one scary bastard thanks to Heath Ledger. I hope that the Joker will be as constant a character in the movies as he has been in comic books.

My heartfelt condolences to those that loved him, especially the daughter he leaves behind.

It's Not TV, It's Crap

2008-01-21T16:32:00.000-05:00

One of the few reasons there is left for me to watch HBO now is "Real Time with Bill Maher." I love that show. I love Bill Maher's "Take No Shit From ANYONE" attitude. There was one episode last season in which some jackass in the audience started yammering about some 9/11 conspiracy, and Bill Maher shouted back to the jackass something to the effect of "Can I get some fucking security in here, or do I have to throw you out myself?" Bill leapt into the audience and along with security, he gave a hearty "va fangu" to the morons. This shut up even a loudmouth like Chris Matthews (who was, of course, in the wingnut seat). One of the best parts of "Real Time with Bill Maher" is his "New Rules" coda segement in which he skewers particularly egregious assholes with a short, yet stinging rule.

Right about now, "Real Time with Bill Maher" is trying to get momentum going for its new season in the midst of the Writers Guild Association strike against The Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers. This has cripppled television, killed shows, and has affected the development of films from script to grossly overpriced tickets. The strike has continued since July 16th, 2007, and while the Directors Guild Association has recently tried to intervene to resolve this conflict, I strongly feel that things are gonna get worse. Bill Maher was able to get some kind of waiver to go on with his show minus the opening monologue, comedic interludes, and unfortunately, "New Rules."

In other words, "Real Time with Bill Maher" has been partially neutered. As a Bill Maher fan, it pains me to say this, but it sucks. The show still has its merits, but imagine if you've driven an Aston Martin DB-5 for years...and someone tells you that you have to ride a Big Wheel until they tell you you can have your DB-5 back. Some shows have actually bought the farm, and it's really tragic that shows like "Scrubs" won't be able to end in the way they dserve because of a bunch of greedy bastards.

Right before July 16th, 2007, there was an insane rush to get scripts approved and put into production at movie studios. They knew the shit was gonna hit the fan for a long time, and they wanted to get their biggest projects taken care of. There will still be big movies, and reality shows have flourished, because for the better part, they're unscripted. That giant sucking wound is not the usual lack of creativity in mass media culture - but the pronounced lack of even rancid shit dressed up to look respectable.

So, while there hasn't been much of anything to watch on TV recently outside of stuff we've seen endless times before and documentaries, I have one question. Why has there been no massive rush to libraries and bookstores? What does it say about us that we'd rather watch recycled old crap than read a book?

Happy New Year, Whitey

2008-01-15T00:23:00.000-05:00

This is my buddy Whitey's lil slice of the Big Apple, the Pond at Central Park. From this map, it doesn't look all that impressive, but it's a beautiful little quantum of solace, and that's probably one of the main reasons my girlfriend and I visit this part of Central Park so much. That and to hang out with Whitey. He doesn't ask for much, and we try and bring him some nice stuff to eat.

On Dec. 30th, we went to see Whitey with bags of birdseed for him and the rest of the ducks. Something looked odd about the Pond, but I didn't pay too much mind about a duck shortage, and a strange accumulation by the water's edge all along the perimiter of the Pond. Whitey has been missing before, and it's not for me to question the ways of Whitey. He was with some Mallards, and they were grooming themselves. On Dec. 31st, we saw him and a few ducks on the other side of the Pond in a spot where we could not get to him. I don't think he heard us or knew that we were there. I know he was kinda distracted, because he usually waddles, swims, and on occasion flies right for us, because he knows well have good food for him and his buddies. Still, we didn't see one duck in the Pond. Something DEFINITELY happened, and this is how we found Whitey on New Year's Day.

Ducks are NOT supposed to look like this. There's a gland that produces an oil used to clean themselves off and to make sure their feathers are waterproof. If they can't get whatever is out of their feathers, they're gonna die. Needless to say, my girlfriend and I were worried shitless. One of the people we regularly see at Central Park told us that he noticed an oily spillage in the Pond after Christmas, and it looked like it was coming from Wollman Rink, or a vendor there. It could have been some chemical spillage or oil, but no matter what it was, this was not right by a longshot.

After calling up the Central Park Conservancy and the Cenrtal Park Rangers' office, someone was sent out to investigate. I later found out that while precious little has been done short of putting up a boom to collect whatever had been leaking into the Pond, the going theory was that it was used cooking oil. The Central Park Conservancy did their best to flush the crap out of the water. They ran a hose, and it was running solid for at least a couple days. Still, while he lookd better the first week in January, he still looked spooked by the water. He was hardly swimming, and that broke our hearts. Just last week he began to swim for a lil bit, but he was doing his damnedest to get back to his old silly self. He'd carefully tread over icy bits to come to where we were. His feathers looked remarkably better, and I knew he was on the mend. Over the past couple of days, he'd swim for a lil bit, and he came to us easier. Just this part morning, he came waddling for us whe he heard the clicking sound, and he was swimming around after he had his fill. Whitey was practically all better, and while I should feel some degree of peace of mind, I want to know who thought it was ok to dump that much oil into the Pond. Even if that asshole doesnt understand that what they did will have an impact on the environment, I'm damn sure that this was illegal, and I want to know that this asshole is going to get punished. Since there's not a whole lot we can do about that, my girlfriend and I will continue to go to see Whitey, and feed him and his buddies.

Holiday Wishes & Some of My Favorite Stuff

2007-12-25T08:13:00.000-05:00

I thought that now would be a good time to spread a lil good cheer, and some gentle nagging to do the right thing.

Santa Claus was especially nice to me. My girlfriend got me exactly what I wanted - she adopted a rescued animal at Farm Sanctuary. Of course I want a big friggin TV, a PS3, yadda yadda yadda, but if it came down to saving an animal or playing more video games, the lil buddies come first. ALWAYS. We're the proud "parents" of Harper, a duck rescued from the foie gras industry. He's a scrappy lil bugger, and we can't wait to go up to the Sanctuary to play with him.

We did our holiday shopping in a couple of the pavillions in NYC. One pavilion at Bryant Park had a little nook of a shop called Recycled Planet Store. While it's cool to see an increasing number of companies understand that recycling is a good thing (and from their perspective a growing demographic), Recycled Planet Store stands out because the husband and wife owners were dental surgeons who gave up their practices to not only recycle stuff like newspapers & magazines, inner tubes, & plastic bottle caps, but they work with impovershed communities in Brazil. There, artistans whip out gorgeous bowls, placemats, boxes, ornaments, and other nifty stuff. I have rarely been touched by individuals who have had such a strong devotion to giving back to those who need it while creating really cool stuff AND recycling. Take a look.

The holiday shopping pavillion at Grand Central Station has a lot of nifty shops, and one thing I noticed was that some of the merchants couldn't afford (YET) to establish a physical storefront. This doesn't detract from a really cool t-shirt or in the case of Engage Green loads of cool bags & some nifty home accents all made from recycled materials. I swear one of their bags felt like suede, but it was a combination of cork and organic hemp. Very playful design, good karma, and tips to help the environment.

While I'm on the topic of recycled materials, I've noticed that a couple of top tier outdoor gear manufacturers Mountainsmith and Osprey Packs are making a variety of backpags & bags from recycled materials like PET-based fabric. Mountainsmith is expanding its recycled line in 2008 to include camera bags & a wider range of day packs & backpacks. Osprey Packs has a bag recycling program where people can send in their used bags, and Osprey will distribute them worldwide to charities that need them.

One last thing about recycling (I promise) - Just about everytime I go out in NYC, I see the detritus of modern life. There's a trash can at every corner, and every so often, there will be recycling bins as well. In spite of these conveniences of urban life, assholes are going to dump their crap all over the city, because they're ignorant bastards, they're lazy, or they just don't care. I could either slap the shit out of the scumbag who's going to leave their garbage on the street, or I could pick up a little bit myself every now and then. I still get angry, and I'm waiting for some fucker to toss their lit cigarette or cigar butt out their car so I can pick it up and fling it back at them - or better yet - IN their vehicle. Everytime I leave the apartment, I try to remember to have a plastic grocery bag in my pocket to pick up water bottles, cans, etc. Eventually they'd end up in a landfill, but why not pick the stuff up and ensure that they get recycled, or at the very least thrown out properly? This is MY city, MY state, MY country, and MY planet. I am partially responsible for making sure that it doesn't stink to high heaven, and I'm going to practice both environmentalism and civic pride and duty. It doesn't take much time to do, and the end result is an overwhelming sense of good karma.

Now on to some lil notes about some of my favorite stuff.

MMAMania.com This site used to be UFCMania.com, but the focus is still on the UFC - the largest Mixed Martial Arts organization. If you have any love of a good asswhooping, take a look. On top of stout and earnest reporting, I'm especially impressed with the intelligence of most of the commenters of this blog.

Free Rice Where the HELL was this website when I was studying for the SAT? For every English vocabulary quiz answer you get right, Free Rice donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Since the website went live in October 2007 Free Rice has donated over 11 BILLION grains of rice. The sponsors list is wide and very touching. Beef up your vocabulary, and end hunger. WOW.

DrunkCyclist You don't have to be a cyclist or a fitness enthusiast to love this blog, but it helps. Bug Jonny, the dude who runs this site, is passionate about purity in cycling and sports in general as well as finding some really bent and funny news stories. He also is Holy War dedicated to expose hypocrisy and political injustice.

2 Dinar I am a passionate American patriot, but I am nobody's stooge. There's no way in Hell I'd ever trust the current administration to tell me the truth, and I genuinely believe that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are criminally retarded, evil, and without souls. 2 Dinar is a great op-ed site that gives a clarity and a unique perspective on current events and foreign policy: from the perspective of armed forces veterans. If your bullshit meter is going off everytime you read or see a news story that involves the current tenants at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, then visit 2 Dinar.

Joe Rogan If all you know this mook from is shows like "NewsRadio" or "Fear Factor," or as the longtime color commentator for the UFC, you have to hear his comedy act. Yep, Joe is a comedian, and a damned funny one at that. He's had is run-ins with other comedians like Carlos Mencia, but his album Shiny Happy Jihad is one of the funniest things I've heard in ages. Joe is one of the few comedians I would go out of my way to see.

A Whitey Christmas

2007-12-23T19:46:00.000-05:00

This is my buddy, Whitey. My girlfriend and I first met him in the summer at Central Park. He kinda sticks out at the Pond amidst a bunch of Mallard ducks. Some people know him as Wiggles, Quackers, or Willie, but to us, he's Whitey. Whitey is an Indian Runner Duck, and while related to Mallards, Runner Ducks are domesticated. Theoretically all the animals in Central Park are wild, but you might ask how did a Runner Duck make it to Central Park? The sad reality is that someone probably got him as a cute little chick, and he became too much to handle, and some asshole abandoned him in Central Park thinking he'd be ok with the other ducks.

Yeah, I know. It sucks, but Whitey is ok. He's got lots of buddies, and apparently he's got a couple of grown up children, so he's not doing so badly. My girlfriend and I started feeding the ducks crumbled up granola bars, and we moved to birdseed. After doing some research, we quickly learned that feeding any bird crackers, torn up bagels, pretzels, and bread is generally a bad idea, because birds cannot digest processed flour products. It leads to engorged fatty organs, heart conditions, and other debilitating ailments. Whole grains and wild bird seed mixes (non-medicated) are higher in protein and generally suitable to feed ducks. Still, be careful. Some park conservancy workers may not understand or appreciate why you'd want to feed the ducks, or worse -they may be able to fine you.

Virtually every argument for NOT feeding wild birds does not apply to Whitey. Runner Ducks cannot migrate because they generally can't fly for great distances. He is not a wild bird. He is a domesticated duck that was abandoned. He is sharp as a tack, although my girlfriend and I sometimes think he's dumber than a sack of hammers. We love him dearly. It didn't take long for him to recognize us, and he knows we'll always have treats for him. He'll waddle up to the fence or tentatively come to us directly and eat from our hands. I remember when I first started doing the research about what to feed Whitey, a nice person at The Audubon Society said that the important thing is to regularly feed the animals. You can't just feed them once or twice and then go on to something else. That would be just as bad as the bastard who abandoned Whitey when he was a little chick.

My girlfriend and I get up extra early 4 times a week to walk over to Central Park with our breakfast and a couple ziploc bags full of bird seed. We'll pick up big bags of wild bird seed regularly, and I found a hardware store in Ithaca, NY that regularly makes trips to Manhattan to take care of things like the Mounted Police, Circuses, etc. We're gonna get waterfowl pellets, food specifically made for ducks, geese, swans, etc. It's a slight pain in the ass, but Whitey may be hungry, lonely, or maybe he's just bored with the same old diet. Why wouldn't he and the other ducks like good nutritious treats? Why shouldn't they be spoiled rotten? We're never gonna give up on Whitey and his buddies. Recently they all started to come up to us and eat from our hands. I'd like to think it's because they understood that we're not gonna hurt them, and that we love them, but I know it's because they're hungry as Hell.

Still, we love them, and especially now during the Holidays when we are flooded with messages of warmth, friends, family, and good karma, how could we not want to make sure that at the very least they have more to eat?

Pray for Megan Meier

2007-11-17T20:38:00.000-05:00

Megan Meier was the ebullient, quirky 13-year old daughter to Ron and Tina Meier from Dardenne Prairie, Missouri, a community of 7,000 close to St. Louis. According to the CNN article, she liked hanging out with her friends and liked going fishing with her dad, Ron. Still, she suffered from depression, was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and was on medication. For the better part of September, 2006, Megan had corresponded with Josh Evans on MySpace. Josh was a teenager who had recently moved to the area from Florida. Josh was homeschooled, and they seemed to be hitting it off pretty well.

Megan even went so far as to tell her folks about an affectionate note she got from Josh. On October 15th, 2006, Megan received a message from Josh saying rather abruptly that he didn't want to be her friend anymore, and that he had heard she wasn't nice to her friends. Josh went off on a tirade saying she was a slut and that she was fat. Megan told her her mom. Her mom had apparently been monitoring her online activity and was upset about her vulgar language and behavior. Her father tried to comfort her and said that everything was going to be alright.

She was found in her bedroom 20 minutes later. Megan had hung herself, and she died the next day. Her father found a message from Josh saying that she was a bad person and the world would be better off without her. Law enforcement officials had not been able to backtrack the message, because Josh Evans never existed.

Six weeks later in a counselor's office, another mother had confessed that she created the "Josh Evans" profile on MySpace to gain Megan's confidence and learn what she was saying about her kid. The mother, her daughter, and another person all had corresponded with Megan as "Josh Evans." The mother has not been charged with any crime. I'll repeat that. The mother has not been charged with any crime.

Ron and Tina Meier have since separated and they plan to divorce. An ordinance relevant to child endangerment and internet harassment is set to come before Dardenne Prairie city officials next week. THE MOTHER HAS NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH ANY CRIME.

There's something massively fucked up when a twisted bitch wants to destroy a young girl simply to see what she's saying about her kid. More details are coming out as stated in this story in The O'Fallon Journal. There's something even more fucked up when MySpace's boilerplate position has been that users have to be at least 14 years of age to create a profile. Too bad for Megan, eh? I'm all for net neutrality, and I find it grossly questionable when media conglomerates demand the removal of content from sites like YouTube due to copyright infringement, and yet it would take the considerable bad publicity of Megan Meier's suicide to make MySpace and its corporate pimps at News Corp. understand that MySpace is ripe with abuse. Then again, I'm probably overestimating the assclowns at News Corp and MySpace.

My heart goes out to Ron and Tina Meier. I hope they get through this tragedy, and I pray they and Megan get justice.

The Kindness of Strangers

2007-11-12T22:57:00.000-05:00

First off, allow me to apologise for being away for so long. I really have no viable excuse for not being a smarmy little bastard, and there's certainly a lot of stuff that's pissed me off, but I saw this and well, I'm speechless.

This is Mike Batchelor. He is the President of the Erie Community Foundation in Erie, Pennsylvania. The CNN article describes Erie as a city of many industries - most of which have either closed or moved overseas. The poverty rate is twice the national average.

However the Erie Community Foundation worked for years with an anonymous individual to identify deserving charities. 46 were found, and the anonymous individual coughed up $100 million. Mr. Batchelor will not reveal who the individual is, their possible connection to Erie, or even if the individual is alive or not.

$100 million.

A homeless shelter will receive $2 million. Among the other charities receiving this massive windfall are a women's shelter, a food bank, three universities, and a group for the blind.

Mr Batchelor called in the heads of these charities to tell them of the $100 million, and that the donor wished to remain anonymous.

I'm ashamed to say that the cynical side of me thought for a moment that the benefactor may have been trying to do some karmic cleansing of some past crimes. Still, it forced me to think about the depths of people's hearts. It doesn't matter if this person gave up $100, or $100 million. The point of charity is to enrich another person's life, and one aspect of anonymous donations is that hopefully people will think better of others. After all, you never know where the next helping hand is going to come from.

I promise I'll try and be a jackass soon enough. I'll try and say something funny, but for right now, I'm having a warm and fuzzy moment.

Mr. President, You're Making Us All Look as Stupid as You

2007-09-23T20:16:00.000-04:00

To paraphrase Chris Rock, "[picking on the President] is like calling out a retarded kid for double dribbling. You have to let some shit slide."

Now, this is a guy who apparently went to college. A man who served as the Governor of Texas, and a man who ... Ah screw it. As President, George Bush, jr. manages to make Emperor Nero look like a brilliant civil servant. One fuck up after another desensitizes the world to the sheer scope of his stupidity, and while he is his own man, this jagoff manages to make all respectable Americans look like we were shook from the same genetic driftwood as his dumbass.

In a bizarre attempt to defend his administration's Iraqi policy in a press conference last Thursday, President Bush made the following statement: "I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." (Reuters)

Please try not to think about this too much. Trying to figure out what the Hell goes on in Dubya's head is like trying to find the nutritional value in a Twinkie. Any reference to Nelson Mandela's death is considered insensitive in South Africa. I wouldn't expect Dubya to know that what he said wasn't even remotely funny much less alone understand that he had maligned a Nobel Peace Prize winning humanitarian.

John Wayne once said of President Kennedy that while he did not vote for him, he was still his President and that he hoped he does a good job. Well I didn't vote for Dubya, and he is NOT my President. Even if Dubya manages to somehow not shove his foot in his mouth any more than he has in the first seven years of his administration, I know he has done the worst job of any president in my lifetime or in my memory.

Brett Somers was a classy BLANK

2007-09-17T21:39:00.000-04:00

Broad. Dame. Lady.

One of the saving graces of digital cable has been the sheer amount of recycled cheese. For a while, "The Glenn Campbell Good Time Hour" was back on one of the Country channels (yes, damnit, I watched that. You want a friggin' piece of me?), Nick at Nite has given new life to old sitcoms (although still no friggin' "Love Boat."), and The Game Show Network continues to embarass those of us that grew up in the 70s with some of the best game shows ever, like "Match Game" hosted by the Mack Daddy Pimp of Game Shows, Gene Rayburn. This show was so friggin' HUGE that it gave birth to "Family Feud" with one of the biggest Game Show Pimps, Richard Dawson. Think about that for a moment.

On Saturday, September 15th, 2007, Brett Somers died of stomach and olon cancer. While Ms. Somers' career is full of achievements in the Golden Age of Television as well as making her name as an actress in Broadway theatre productions, she will always be remembered for playing Oscar Madison's ex-wife (against real-life husband Jack Klugman), and for her spot as a long standing regular on "Match Game."

Along with other regulars like Charles Nelson Reilly, Richard Dawson, Fannie Flagg, and Marcia Wallace, Ms. Somers' wit proved that "Match Game" was her house as much as it was Gene Rayburn's. Her tongue was razor sharp, and while some if not most of her answers stank on ice, she was hillariously unfazed and took it all in stride. This past weekend, GSN ran a marathon of "Match Game" episodes to remember her. Brett Somers was one funny broad, and I'm gonna miss her.

Coney Island Lifeguard Saves Baby.... Shark

2007-09-07T06:02:00.000-04:00

There's been some pretty heinous news lately that got me angry as Hell and made me incredibly depressed. Animals getting tortured, cyclists getting broadsided, and the environment in a general state of BOHICA and TARFU.

Every now and then I'll read a rare gem of a story that will bring a tear to my eye and make me believe that maybe things aren't so bad and there are everyday heroes. While Coney Island may be changing (there are plans underway to replace the Astroland amusement park by 2011), the beach will always be part of New York City history. Just this past Monday, Lifeguard Marius Mironescu saw a crowd of people on the beach surrounding a baby 2-foot sand shark. According to the New York Daily News article (via The Goat), Mr. Mironescu knew he had to do something to help.

"There must have been 75 to 100 people circled around the shark in the water and they were bugging out. They were holding on to it and some people were actually hitting him, smacking his face. Well, I wasn't going to let them hurt the poor thing," he said. He took the shark and swam with it until he let it free.

Wow. Thank you, Marius Mironescu. You have made my day.

Beverly Hills Police Officer D. Prenesti Is an Asshole

2007-09-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

I have a great amount of respect for the police. While there are lots of cases of cops abusing their power from thugs like Bernard Kerik on down to cops who are little more than street thugs with badges like the scum responsible for the arrest and torture of Abner Louima, it is grossly irresponsible to assume that all cops are as bad as them. There are going to be abuses of power at any level, and we cannot confuse the abusers with those that do the badge and the job great honor.

That having been said, I sincerely think that Beverly Hills Police Officer D. Prenesti #421, serial no. 74700 is an asshole. Officer Prenesti is the kind of scum without compassion, sympathy, and the intelligence you'd find in a compost heap. Roughly two weeks ago, a cyclist was nearly broadsided by some fuckwit in a Black Ford Explorer in Beverly Hills. According to the story on DrunkCyclist (and in detail on laist.com and in greater detail on illuminateLA.com) When the police arrived, the jackass officer (Beverly Hills Police Officer D. Prenesti #421, serial no. 74700) was abusive to the point where I would damn well hope that this "Officer" loses his badge or at the very least gets humiliated and demoted for a gross dereliction of duty. Officer D. Prenesti is nothing more than a thug with a badge. This bully showed no compassion for the cyclist, and he ignored any possible explanation to suggest that the SUV driver was at fault. On top of that, his gross insensitivity to the cyclist nearly drove her to tears, and at no point in any of these stories did I read ONE FUCKING WORD about how the officer called in for an ambulance or at least asked if the cyclist required medical assistance. And he mocked the cyclist by saying "You quote me the section of code that she violated and then I'll write her a ticket." Maybe I missed that part of civics class where it said that it was the citizen's responsibility to know the law better than the police.

Even if you don't live in and/or near Beverly Hills, remember that there are lots of things you can do. Election Day is creeping up, and I'm damn well sure that elected officials in Beverly Hills don't want or need an embarassment of this size.

1)Make Calls to the following numbers:
Beverly Hills City - Operations Bureau, Police Department: (310) 285-2101
Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce: (310) 248-1000
Beverly Hills City - Library, Mayor and City Council: (310) 285-1013

2)Email the follpwing public officials:
Mayor Jimmy Delshad - JDelshad@beverlyhills.org
Vice Mayor Barry Brucker - Bbrucker@beverlyhills.org
Councilmember Linda J. Briskman - LBriskman@beverlyhills.org
Councilmember Frank M. Fenton - FFenton@beverlyhills.org
Councilmember Nancy Krasne - NKrasne@beverlyhills.org
City Manager Roderick J. Wood - RWood@beverlyhills.org
BH Police Chief David L. Snowden - DSnowden@beverlyhills.org

Remember to report Citing officer: D. Prenesti #421, serial no. 74700

3) Contact the Press:
If you know anyone in the press, by all means tell them about this travesty of justice.

I have great sympathy for the police. They are providing a public service that not many are willing to do, and they are doing it under severe conditions. Your average NYC Cop has to wear a level 3 bullet resistant vest at all times, and it is strongly suggested that they wear the added reinforcement of a "shock plate," (a thin metallic plate to add even more protection). No matter what the weather is like, that along with the standard issue equipment is heavy. On top of that, each cop has to unfairly bear the burden of dirty, corrupt, and/or moronic cops like Beverly Hills Police Officer D. Prenesti #421, serial no. 74700. It is grossly unfair to think that all cops are like Officer Prenesti, but then again, Officer Prenesti is a scumbag who deserves to be exposed for the heartless thug he is.

DMX Is A Punk Ass Bitch

2007-09-03T16:16:00.000-04:00

I have been a fan of Rap and Hip Hop for a very long time. I’m old enough to remember when the most scandalous thing was Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di,“ and when Run-DMC was considered “new school.” I used to have Earl Simmons’ (DMX) albums in heavy rotation on my iPod.

I had been thrilled to see that DMX’s strong performance in Romeo Must Die blossomed into stronger roles in Cradle 2 The Grave and Exit Wounds. I had never thought too much of his many brushes with the law, but I was nauseated by the news that the corpses of dogs were found on his property in Arizona, as well as a small cache of weapons, drug paraphernalia, and assorted cars to which the licenses and registrations did not match. Here's the story from DListed. After researching DMX, I was further disgusted to learn that in 2002, he pled guilty to charges stemming from a 1998 raid on his property in New Jersey involving the neglect of 13 pit bulls.

And this is a guy who allegedly loves his dogs? I have to live knowing that I supported DMX, his way of life, his flagrant disregard for the law, and his abuse of animals. That stops NOW. I went through my CD collection and shattered my DMX CDs and tore up the booklets.

I want to do whatever I can to make DMX pay for his crimes, and I want him to suffer the only thing he has shown he is capable of understanding: an abrupt and unilateral boycott of anything even tangentially related to DMX. This will achieve two goals: 1) Through a drop in revenue, he will be forced to understand the heinous nature of his crimes. 2) Anybody thinking of financing or distributing movies with DMX as part of the cast will see him for the liability he really is. He will be seen as a negative publicity magnet and as a pariah no film wants or needs. This may not be fair to people who work with him and who may be sympathetic to animal rights, but DMX needs to be made into an object lesson of what happens to you when you abuse animals repeatedly and don’t learn a blessed thing.

If I am guilty of supporting DMX and his habitual abuse of animals, anybody who works with him is equally guilty. Stop him NOW. Write PETA. Write The Humane Society. Write The ASPCA. Create such a storm of outrage that his label and anybody employing him knows that he is a malignant little bitch and needs to be stopped.

Gotta Love Trailer Trash

2007-08-31T06:58:00.000-04:00

This is Weston Schnobrich. Like most 5-year olds, he likes playing with cars, only Weston's mommy let him drive her Mitsubishi Galant. Did I mention he's 5 years old?

Apparently Holy Schnobrich (24, of Lafayette, Indiana)has a taste for Percocet. According to WRTV she washed down Percocet with vodka ('natch) not because she was hurt, but because the kids were acting up. She then buckled up while Weston tried to see over the wheel and get his li'l tootsies to reach the pedals, which is exactly how a neighbor found them.

She had been charged,and her kids are being watched by the Dept. of Child Services.

In case you can't see, Weston's t-shirt reads "I do all my own stunts."

Yay! Another Reason to Hate Yoko Ono!

2007-08-30T23:24:00.000-04:00

Sweet googly moogly, what the blessed fuck is going on with Yoko Ono? It's not bad enough that this bitch of questionable talent is riding her dead husband's name (cough - Courtney Love- cough), and it's not bad enough that she's tea bagging of the memory of the Beatles with Cirque du Soleil Vegas glitter, but this bitch has to rape the environment as well.

Oh whoopee.

I usually go to TreeHugger to see how I can help the environment, things to avoid, and products to support for their good karma. They posted this wonderful reason (source: ContactMusic) to bitch slap Yoko so hard, she'll think she got fisted by Godzilla. I guess giving peace and love a chance is cool with this dried up goat as long as she gets to rape the environment in her Bentley Armitage.

Someone please dip this bitch in caustic lye, dump her in a compost pile, and take a shit on her. Believe you me, I'm all for good karma, but for the way she's shitting on John Lennon AND her inability to understand that we must do what we can to save the planet, I hope Yoko Ono's last memory is trying to scrape the dough for meth.

Burn in Hell, Michael Vick

2007-08-28T06:10:00.000-04:00

Sweet merciful crap, with each day, I'm learning more about what a simple moronic bitch Michael Vick is. I'm stunned by the completely disingenuous bullshit statement he gave after pleading guilty on Monday, August 27th, 2007. So he found Jesus. Whoopee. This is an insult to anybody who has faith like my girlfriend's mom. She genuinely has the faith. I don't agree with a lot of shit that goes on with the Roman Catholic Church, but hey, if it works for her, more power to her. I respect the strength of her convictions as I would respect those of anybody else as long as they don't infringe upon my rights or my peace of mind. His bullshit "I did a lot of heinous shit, but hey it's ok, I found Jesus" statement also insults the memory of much better men like Malcolm X and even a heinous criminal like Sanyika Shakur (born Kody Scott), a former member of the Eight Tray Crips, It's possible to do far worse than Michael Vick and still find redemption, but examples like Sanyika Shakur are absolultely rare.

Michael Vick didn't admit guilt or voluntarily stop Bad Newz Kennels before it effectively ended his career in the NFL. He apparently had good enough legal counsel to plead to the lesser charges he's facing. Still, I hope that upon cross-examination and once the evidence of the case comes out, he is revealed for murdering animals AND gambling on their deaths - two allegations he has denied. As reported in the DailyPress, Michael Boddie, his own father, stated that Vick has been running dogfighting since 2001, the same year he entered the NFL draft. I find it suspect that Mr. Boddie didn't do anything to stop the dogfights, and that he pleaded with his son to at least try and have the property for Bad Newz Kennels put in his friends' names to avoid legal trouble. He should have listened to this smart, if morally bankrupt advice. I sincerely hope that Michael Vick suffer as much as possible. It's bad enough that Pit Bull Terriers and similar breeds have bad reputations, but he has made it even harder for people to see them as anything but killing machines.

Long before this shit hit the fan, I remember walking up 3rd Ave heading home one day. I saw a 3-legged Pit Bull tethered by its leash just outside a bagel shop. She was absolutely adorable with clear eyes and she bounded towards me for a hug. When the owner came out, he told me how he volunteered at a shelter and he got to know her and made it his mission to rehabilitate her. She gradually warmed up to him and got over whatever fear she had of people. For whatever reasons, he was unable to adopt her right away, and one day he found out that the dog had not only been transferred to a different shelter, the head of that shelter apparently was incredibly afraid of Pit Bulls, because she wasn't given much time to live if nobody adopted her. When this guy found out and with the help of the head of the shelter he worked at, he did everything he could to rescue her... and he did. I shook his hand, thanked him for what he did, went home, and cried. She is a happy playful creature. She has been shit on by whomever took her leg from her. She has been shit on by the system, and yet there were at least two people who belived in her and felt that she was worth fighting for.

And Michael Vick has shit on all of that. I would sincerely like to believe that he is capable of redeeming himself. Sanyika Shakur had been convicted of crimes so heinous, that he spent 4 years in solitary confinment at Pelican Bay State Prison. Somewhere in his incarceration, he found redemption. Unfortuantely he was arrested on March 7th 2007 for beating a man in attempting to steal his car. While this has surely may force other's to question if he really did find redemption, he tried, and he continues to try to make more of himself than a thug. Michael Vick has had a rough life, but he has an incredible amount of resources, he has fucked up a number of times, and he has never learned ONCE. I am not, nor was I ever a fan of Michael Vick's. He is just another idiot athelete who would rather give into shitloads of money than complete 4 years of college. I feel great sympathy for anyone who was a fan of his and feels betrayed.

Hey Tony Snow, Karma is One Hell of a Bitch, Isn't It?

2007-08-18T07:12:00.000-04:00

Nothing wakes you up like a spot of good news. Just this morning, I read this on CNN.com about the White House's latest embarassing departure.

Let me see if I have this right. Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, former guest host for "The Rush Limbaugh Show," "The O'Reilly Factor," and formerly of Fox News Channel, has Colon cancer. It spread to his liver, and he's claiming that he may have to leave for financial reasons? According to CNN.com, Tony Snow makes $168,000 a year as the White House spokesman. At least that's what he makes on the books. I'd be very surprised if he didn't have more dough stashed away. But let's say that he was a good little citizen and reported every fucking penny he made on his 1040s. Are you telling me that a Washington insider like Tony Snow can't get the best health care in the world?

Gee, maybe the US should have had a better health care system like Michael Moore said in "SiCKO."

I'd like to see this asshole come to understand the error of his ways. I'd like to see him recover fully from cancer and do something with the rest of his life, but this is Tony Snow we're talking about. He'd have to personally be responsible for the Cubs winning the World Series for me to believe he's capable of miraculously understanding what an evil shill he's been. I hope his money dries up, and I hope nobody wants to hear what he has to say or how much he's suffered with cancer. If he has crapped away so much of his money that he's already thinking of what little dough his kids will have for college, he's a fucking idiot. And if he thinks that we're going to buy half the shit he's tried to shovel down our throats about the Bush Administration, he's insulting our intelligence.

Don't Mess with a Classic

2007-08-10T12:50:00.000-04:00

Before I go into the nasueating details, I have to warn you that this made me angrier than I've been in ages.

Those of you that know me personally know that this is not a good thing in the least. Lord, I've tried not to react at the provocation of assholes, but sometimes there is no other course of action but to go apeshit. This is one of those times.

ComingSoon is one of the best news sites out there for TV, Film, and DVD info. While some sites like AintItCoolNews are full of freshly churned horseshit and have to issue retractions or rampant disclaimers, ComingSoon is consistently solid. Which pisses me off about this nugget of shit.

Yes, you read right. Apparently Warner Bros. through their Warner Independent Pictures division is looking to remake the martial arts classic film "Enter the Dragon" into "Awaken the Dragon." I don't give a dry fuck who is trying to do it or what their motivation is. To fuck with a classic film and assume that you can get away with anything more than a disturbingly poor reflection of the source is unforgivable. Kurt Sutter may be an incredible TV series producer having worked on "The Shield,," but does this mean that he is qualified to remake Bruce Lee's magnum opus?

HELL FUCKING NO.

To be fair, Director Robert Clouse had a lot to do with the success of "Enter The Dragon" as any director would be partially responsible for the final product, but "Enter The Dragon" was all Bruce Lee. There will NEVER be another martial artist like Bruce Lee, and to even think of remaking one of his films will earn you a savage beating. To be fair, the only remake of a Bruce Lee film that DIDN'T suck was "Fist of Legend," a remake of "Fist of Fury" (known in the US as "The Chinese Connection"). Part of that was because of Jet Li's phenomenal skill as a martial artist, and part of it was the adherence to historical authenticity (both were based on actual events).

I'd like to believe that there are martial artists who can aspire to be as brilliant and innovative as Bruce Lee. I'd like to believe that there can be as important and inspirational a film as "Enter the Dragon," but Kurt Sutter and those parties responsible for trying to pull this off should be savagely beaten and used as bukakke targets. If they recover, simply suggest to them that if they want to make a movie, try making something for which they will be remembered as original artists and not a bunch of brain-dead ass clowns trying to rape the corpse of a genius for a meal ticket.

Excuse Me Father, Your Holy Water Sprinkler Is Showing

2007-08-10T09:11:00.001-04:00

This is Rev. Robert Whipkey. He officiates in three different parishes in the Denver, Colorado area. He is seemingly well liked in his community, but he was placed on administrative leave yesterday because he was caught nude in public before sunrise. Jogging. At a local high school track.

He was running around nekkid at a high school track.

According to the KMGH (via CNN.com) report, his excuse for this was that he didn't think that anybody would be around at that time of the day, and as he explained in the police report "I'm a heavy man and wearing clothing while running makes me sweat profusely. I know what I did was wrong,"

Riiiiiiiight.

If convicted of the misdemeanor of indecent exposure, he faces up to 18 months of jail time and he would have to register as a sex offender.

The KMGH report goes on to show that Father Whipkey was arrested on June 22nd for walking bare-ass naked down the street at 4:35am.

How much you wanna bet that he'll have lots of running buddies in prison?

Ooooh Speed Bumps! I've Been Naughty!

2007-08-09T08:41:00.000-04:00

This is Verle Peter Dills, a 60-year old resident of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Verle is a somewhat average man...outside of the fact that he likes to have sex with road signs. As well as flog the dolphin in public. And he likes to videotape his shenanigans.

He likes to have sex with road signs.

Big Jonny over at DrunkCyclist posted a link to a story about this nutty jackass, and The Smoking Gun got their hands on the affidavit with all the sordid details. Trust me - this nutty redneck is way too weird for even the NYC Village Halloween Parade.

He likes to have sex with road signs.

I've got a hunch that Verle (or as his landlady calls him - "Bubba") looks forward to road construction.

Memo to Sir Elton John: Shut Your Fat Gob, You Wanker

2007-08-07T06:55:00.001-04:00

If the title seems a bit odd considering I'm not a British Subject (although I am an anglophile), allow me to explain. I wanted to make sure that if Sir Elton were to see this, he would understand. Given his recent comments in The Sun, I have serious doubts if Sir Elton would understand that he's a tired old fart. Captain and Tenille are more relevant than him.

Normally I wouldn't care two squirts of piss off a squirrel's ass what he had to say, but I was reading a story on P2Pnet about some jackass named Reginald bitching about the internet on The Sun, and how it's stifling creativity in his esteemed opinion. That jackass is self-described luddite, Sir Elton John. He even went so far as to suggest shutting down the Internet for 5 years to see what kind of art would result. If by "art" he means "mongolian clusterfuck of biblical proportions," I'm sure it would be the kind of art that would make Hieronymus Bosch giggle.

If you're scratching your heads and wondering how far Sir Elton's head is buried up his distended ringpiece, then think about this - his 60th Birthday Gala Concert was streamed over the internet. I'd certainly appreciate it if someone could explain to Sir Elton what a "hypocrite" is, but make sure not to use big words. As reported in The Sun article, sales for his latest album "The Captain & The Kid" are just creeping past 100,000 copies. Gee, I wonder if the olad fart is bitter about something.

Kingpin 2: Electric Boogaloo

2007-08-06T22:46:00.000-04:00

Brothers and sisters, can I get an "AMEN" for GorillaMask?

I kinda wish I knew more about Japanese game shows. They had this link of a wonderful yet waaaaaay disturbing mashup of a slip & slide, bowling, and oil.

In fact, I don't know why y'all don't just click on the link. You know you want to look, you cheeky little monkey.

I have a few questions:

1) Was this dude wearing a cup?
2) How the Hell did he manage to maintain his footing, soaked in oil while running towards the pins?
3) If he did get the equivalent of a 7-10 Split, how would he pick up the spare?

Michelle Madigan is a Stupid Bitch, Flees in Shame at DefCon

2007-08-05T05:43:00.000-04:00

Tell me if this makes sense to you. DefCon is a 15 year old convention drawing a huge crowd of internet security professionals, "freelancers" (gasp - hackers, perhaps?), law enforcement agents, and of course, reporters. Reporters have to pay to get in like anyone else, and they are rigorously screened. After all, you wouldn't want to attend a convention and have some jagoff reporter try and catch you admitting illegal activity on camera, would you?

But that's precisely what Michelle Madigan, a producer for NBC Dateline, wanted to do this past Friday. According to Wired, she tried to bullshit her way into DefCon to out an undercover Fed. What she didn't know or bother to research was that "Spot the Fed" is a long standing tradition at DefCon. It's all in good fun, and the Feds that do get caught usually take it in stride. They sure as shit wouldn't need her help. She had been asked a number of times if she wanted to obtain press credentials, and she refused. Eventually they lured her into an auditorium where a "Spot the Fed" game was underway. DefCon changed the game from "Spot the Fed" to "Spot the Undercover Reporter."

Eventually the dumb skank figured out that they were on to her, and she bolted with a swarm of hackers in tow. They royally took the piss out of her, and luckily one good soul caught it all on camera. You can view the tasty clip here.

Wow. I have seen some dumb bitches in my life, but Michelle Madigan takes the cake. Was she so arrogant to think that she could bullshit her way into a convention of hackers? Hackers have turned bullshitting into an art form, and this goober thought she could pull a Jedi Mind Trick on them? Considering that she had not only pissed off a HACKER CONVENTION, and that she was hounded until she drove off, I think she'll be lucky if this is the last she'll hear of it. Gee, do you think the simple bitch should have covered up her license plates?

Once More with Feeling - Impeach Bush & Cheney

2007-07-24T08:35:00.000-04:00

One of the unparalelled joys I have online (get your minds out of the friggin' gutter, you perverts) is DrunkCyclist. Big Jonny, the dude who runs it, is passionate about a great many things, but he is especially driven to expose bullshit in politics. I believe that Big Jonny would be as equally vocal against a Democratic President who screwed over America as he is about Bush & Cheney.

I have RARELY if ever seen a group as eloquent, angry, and direct as DrunkCyclist when they air their grievances against the government. The only other people I trust to give me the straight poop are Bill Maher, Lewis Black, and Jon Stewart. Even when DrunkCyclist simply throws up links, it's usually dead on target, funny as hell, or sometimes both. In this case, there's a great YouTube video that adds to the damning call to punish the Bush Administration across the board. Check it out here. Forward it to everyone.

Get angrier than you've ever been before, and do something about this bullshit.

Robert Byrd is a Racist Moron, but He's Right

2007-07-22T18:44:00.000-04:00

To quote the great philosopher Larry the Cable Guy, "Lord, I do apologize." I've had just about all I can take with Michael Vick, and while I made a conscious effort to try and reign in my usual levels of profanity, I just don't give a fuck. If this offends you, I'm genuinely sorry, but I hope you see the strength of my convictions.

That having been said, I want to hurt Michael Vick in a way the dumb fuck will understand: take away his money. This asshole has a history of displaying the kind of behavior one would expect from a common thug. In March, 2005, he knowingly gave Herpes Simplex 2 to a woman without telling her. On November 26th, 2006, he had flipped the bird with both hands. He made some lame-ass apology, and the NFL fined him $10,000. On January 17th, 2007, he had hesitated in giving up a water bottle at Miami International Airport. He eventually gave it up. It had a hidden compartment that may have had drugs in it, but the bottle and Vick were cleared. His excuse was that the bottle was something he used to hide his jewelry. Riiiight. This isn't lockdown, and he doesn't have to keister stuff to avoid inspection or theft.

He has enjoyed a shitload of money coming from both a lucrative NFL contract worth $130 million over 10 years with a $37 million dollar signing bonus, but from endorsment deals with companies like Nike, EA Sports, Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Rawlings. He was ranked 33 in Forbes Top 100 Celebrities in 2005. Vick is such a dumb fuck that his own behavior had caused all but Nike to drop his ass. He's still rich, and he's living proof that a dumbass with money is still a dumbass. His recent criminal indictment could change all that, and he is not only facing serious accusations and potentially equally serious jail time, He is surely going to be branded as a pariah in the public's eye. There are simply somethings you do not do. NEVER fuck with children, and NEVER fuck with animals. As Nike has stated, Vick deserves the same rights of due process as would befit any US Citizen, and his day in court will come. It's gonna cost him a shitload in legal fees, because it's going to take a fucking miracle worker to make him look like anything but an evil, malicious punk-ass bitch.

Currently The Humane Society is the only organization running an online letter writining protest to Nike to plead with them to drop Michael Vick. You can sign it here. Pass it along to everyone you can. Michael Vick may get his day in court, but make damn sure Nike knows that as long as they continue to do business with him, it's going to cost Nike a shitload in lost revenues.

You want proof of how fucking evil Michael Vick is? Take a look at Diane Jessup's site. She's passionate about Pit Bulls, There's a shocking section with photos of the victims from dog fights. You can click on it here, but be warned - it's truly fucked up. I'm still in tears from seeing it, but it MUST be seen.

Now getting to Robert Byrd.

As you can imagine, this has generated a shitstorm of protest. One voice has been that of Sen. Robert Byrd. Senator Byrd is the longest serving US Senator,...and he's also a former Klansman. He didn't attend a few rallies or make a couple of off-color jokes - he is a heinous motherfucker. He has gone on record in 1945 that the reason he dodged the draft in WWII was that he didn't want to fight alongside blacks. It's ok, he worked as a ship welder instead of defending the US. In 1964, he filibustered for 14 hours against the Civil Rights Act. He's voted against Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, the two African-American Supreme Court Judges. As of March 2001, he made a lame-ass apology that using the word "nigger" may have offended people. I don't give a dry fuck if he's sorry. He continues to make lame-ass apologies, and he continues to say and do shit that's unequivocably racist and stupid. He's a racist motherfucker, and it says a lot about the people of West Virginia that they would continue to elect the same racist goober to the US Senate or not fight enough to get the asshole out of office. I am simply stunned that this racist motherfucker continues to live off taxpayers' dollars, and yet he is right about Michael Vick. Dog fighting is barbaric.

I am really uncomfortable about the fact that I have to agree with a cornpone-eating, banjo-playing former Klansman like Sen. Byrd.

I sincerely wish I could take the moral high ground and hope he sees the error of his ways, but I truly want to fucking cave in Michael Vick's skull in front of his family. I want him to die in ways that the Marquis de Sade would describe as "fucked up." I hope Michael Vick dies alone, destitute, and criminally insane with nobody to care for him and his only activity to pass the time being "Connect the Dots" with the track marks up and down his body.

What an Idiot

2007-07-21T07:22:00.000-04:00

According to a ComputerWeekly.com article (via P2pnet.net), some dumbass cop in Japan installed Winny, a P2P application, on his computer, and was unaware of the fact that his computer and anything on it was being shared for one and all to see on the Winny network.

Moron.

What's the damage? Over 6,600 documents have been compromised including interrogation reports and the locations of automatic license plate readers. It gets worse. The personal information of 12,000 individuals related to criminal investigations has also been compromised.

Oh lordy, it gets a LOT WORSE.

The names, addresses, and personal information of 400 members of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the oldest and largest Yakuza gang have also been compromised. Actually, "gang" is an understatement. The Yamaguchi-gumi are more of an empire, raking in billions in drugs, the sex industry (in Asia, that's saying a lot), stock market manipulation and lots more.

I am not condoning violence towards police, or endorsing organized crime, but considering what this idiot has done, I have a feeling he's not going to be around long enough to collect his unemployment checks.

What Would Frank Castle Do about Michael Vick?

2007-07-20T18:58:00.000-04:00

This has been one of the hardest things for me to write about. I love animals. For any number of reasons - health, environmental, compassion - I have tried my damnedest to give up eating m meat or for that matter using anything harvested from an animal. This isn't exactly easy, but it is without question the compassionate thing to do.

I love a good barbeque. I was raised on a Korean dish called Bulgogi - thinly sliced, marinated beef. Give me some of that, rice, steamed bean sprouts, and some kimchee, and I'm happier than a pig in shit. But I'm trying to give that stuff up. Rather than get on my soapbox about why it's the right thing to do, I wanted to say that I am trying to do the right thing. So, when I see some stunningly evil piece of shit like Atlanta Falcons' Quarterback Michael Vick and what he's done to dogs, I have to think, "What would Frank Castle do?"

Frank Castle is one of my heroes. I know he's fictional, but as Marvel Comics' brutally cold and righteous anti-hero The Punisher, he does what we'd all love to do. Go ahead. Click on the link. I'll wait.

When we see someone who runs a criminal enterprise for years as well as knowingly infecting a woman with Herpes Simplex 2, what do you think someone like Frank Castle do? Michael Vick not only bet on dog fights, he (along with 3 other assholes) set up "Bad Newz Kennels" on his 15-acre property (valued at over $700,000) near Smithfield, Virginia. Bad Newz Kennels would bring dogs across state lines to fight in seclusion. On top of that, whatever dogs did not die in matches were executed by gunshot, electrcution, drowning, strangulation, and/or hanging.

On April 25th & 26th, 2007, police had raided his property and found overwhelming evidence including 60 dogs (including pit bulls) scarred up and in generally poor condition. For this alone, he and the three other assholes face $350,000 in fines and up to 6 years in prison if convicted. Additional state charges are being pursued, and this case has generated an overwhelming amount of public protest. I'd love to see Michael Vick and the three other people responsible for this travesty suffer like the same animals they saw suffer. I'd really love to see them die slowly, painfully and loudly. They did this to animals commonly thought of and feared as aggressive and deadly. The sad reality is that domesticated animals like dogs want nothing more than love. A little food, walking, playing, and a hug doesn't cost all that much, and the payback is a buddy for life. Dogs aren't born evil - it takes pathetic losers like Michael Vick to turn them into killing machines. How long will it take those surviving dogs to come to trust people again? Will they ever trust someone to be their buddy?

I can think of a lovely punishment for these guys involving epidurals, strategically placed mirrors, and wood chippers. This not being possible, we need to do whatever we can to make their lives an unending Hell. PETA has a petition that they're presenting to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. You can sign the petition here. Currently Michael Vick is still raking in a lot of dough from his deal with Nike. While the Air Zoom Vick V shoe was scheduled to be released from Nike this summer, they're holding off, and waiting until all he's enjoyed due process to determine if they should sever their relationship with him. This is not good enough. The Humane Society is currently running a petition they're sending to Nike CEO Michael Parker. You can sign it here. Inquire why the ASPCA and PETA aren't running similar petitions.

Make sure that Michael Vick and the rest of the Bad Newz Kennels receive the same compassion they showed dogs.

Giant Rubber Duckie Sighted in France, Godzilla Overjoyed at Lost Bathtub Buddy

2007-07-20T12:36:00.000-04:00

It's takes a lot to distract me from some of the heinous acts against humanity committed by Bush & Cheney as well as comparatively minor things like drug abuse in sports, or more pervasive problems like how to repair the environment. Sometimes I just want to curl up in a fetal position. Most times, I get angry and go off on a rant about whatever is pissing me off and hopefully do something to help.

I still get depressed, and while I wouldn't normally care or notice a story about an art exhibition in France, one aspect of the Loire Estuaire 2007 almost brought a tear to my eye and made me feel like a kid. The same kid who believed in Santa Claus. The Loire Estuaire 2007 is an outdoor art exhibition along a 40-mile stretch of the Loire River from Saint-Nazaire to Nantes. It highlights work from 30 different artists across the globe. Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman has stood out with a piece that manages to cross cultural boundaries with the same sense of wonder, whimsy, innocence, and joy - his 105-foot tall rubber ducky.

Here's another shot to give you a better idea of the size.

Now you could try to go to Florentijn Hofman's website, but I'd be willing to bet good money that you're gonna get some kind of choked bandwidth error message. In a nutshell, this means that more people are visiting his site than his website host can accommodate. I sincerely hope that he gets significantly more bandwidth, because this is too precious and too delightful a creation to fade away into obscurity. While not everyone may not be familiar with Ernie's ode to his friend "Rubber Duckie" on "Sesame Street," Mr. Hofman's creation is unadulterated joy.

Mr. Hofman put it best on his website with this description:

"A yellow spot on the horizon slowly approaches the coast. People have gatherd and watch in amazement as a giant yellow Rubber Duck approaches. The spectators are greeted by the duck, which slowly nods its head. The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn't discriminate people and doesn't have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them. The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages! "

I'm sure the Rubber Duckie has growing legions of fans, and my girlfriend and I would dearly like to see him make a world tour. How cool would it be to see him putter by the Statue of Liberty? I thought that he should be named Peep after the marshmallow candy. This little bundle of joy can't go through life without a name, right?

If Jobs is greedy, what does that make Stringer?

2007-07-20T10:55:00.000-04:00

One of the first things I do when I get up in the morning is to check the news on a handful of different tech sites like Endadget, Gizmodo, AppleInsider, as well as general news sites like CNN. I'm always stunned at the level of moronic stupidity some people when they open their mouths without considering their perspective and how their very position grossly undermines any credibility they may have.

Apparently there was a media conference in Sun Valley Idaho this week with a roundtable discussion led by Anderson Cooper. Among the panelists were the founders of Amazon (Jeff Bezos), Google (Sergey Brin), Media mogul Barry Diller, and Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's CEO. The focus of the panel was changes in multimedia delivery technology for entertainment and news. Sir Howard has a bug up his ass about Apple. This is not entirely surprising as Apple has questioned the use of DRM software and has taken great pains to appear as consumer-friendly as possible by trying to eliminate DRM through their iTunes service. Never mind Apple's FairPlay software or the fact that their CD-quality download options come tagged with your personal iTunes account info. In the event that you should hypothetically copy or distribute these tracks, you could be nailed for it.

So where was I? Oh yeah - Sir Howard's comments.

Sir Howard had called Apple Chairman Steve Jobs "greedy." He felt that it was disingenuous of Mr. Jobs to accuse record companies of being greedy because they want to get paid a percentage for music downloads. Sir Howard's basis for this accusation was that with the recent launch of the iPhone, Mr. Jobs wants a marketplace where only he makes money.

Let's take a look at a few facts, shall we? While Sony was one of the first companies to embrace digital media for music, they had used proprietary technology like SonicStage and the ATRAC codec. Any piece of Sony hardware that plays digital music defaults to ATRAC, and it usually comes with SonicStage as well. The only problem is that ATRAC and SonicStage suck. ATRAC file sizes may be smaller than other audio codecs, but Sony has been grossly reluctant to embrace other standards and hardware from competitors. To be fair, this was not on Sir Howard's Watch. At the time ATRAC came out, Sir Howard was busy as CBS President. He had his hands full getting David Letterman to move from NBC to CBS.

Also to be fair, Sony has their hands full with a really shitty couple of years. Sony laptop batteries have been known to overheat and catch fire. Immediately before the PlayStation3 came out, Sony was the proverbial 800-lb gorilla in the video game market. Thanks to the raging success of the PlayStation2, and the launch of the PSP (PlayStation Portable), Sony was riding the gravy train with biscuit wheels. The PS3 was supposed to be not only a shitkicker of a video game system, it was supposed to be the new center of home entertainment with next-gen Blu-Ray DVD playback. The problem was an exorbitant pricetag, gross hardware shortages, underwhelming software - shit I could go on, but for now, let's focus on Sir Howard.

Sony has all but a stranglehold on life. While they make some products that live up to their hype, It is grossly hypocritical of Sir Howard to bitch about Apple getting a larger share of consumers' wallets. Sony Ericsson phones, Walkmen, TVs, DVD players, Vaio computers, software, video games, toys, music, and movies are just some of the examples of Sony's penetration into our lives. Am I complaining? Hell no. Apple is trying to get as big a piece of your wallet as they can. This is simple marketing. If you have any doubts as to this fact, try your best to dislodge your heads from the sand.

I absolutely love my PS2, but if Sir Howard is going to go on record making inflammatory remarks about ANYONE much less alone a competitor, he better damn well be able to take the heat. Apparently Sir Howard lacks the courage to even stand by his remarks, because when Anderson Cooper and Barry Diller called him on his statement at the panel, Sir Howard backed away from his jab at Steve Jobs. And what the Hell is with his Knighthood? Maybe I'm being overly romantic about this, but I thought that a British subject was knighted for their service to or defense of the British Empire. If making sure that I can get "TJ Hooker, Volume 1" on DVD is a suitable defense of Balmoral, then all I have to say is "God Save the Queen."

Impeach Bush and Cheney

2007-07-09T06:40:00.000-04:00

I've been trying hard to turn over a new leaf and try not to be as angry as I have in the past, but every so often, I get monumentally pissed off, and I remember why I wanted to blog in the first place. President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's sentence reveals his contempt for the American public and his gross understimation of what we are capable of. It isn't enough that Libby was conviced for his part in the treasonous crime of revealing the identity of a CIA operative. It isn't enough that we will probably never see all the guilty parties be convicted and punished for their part in this crime. Bush assumes that we are just as stupid as him because some of us voted for him, and that we won't instinctively know that something is heinously wrong here.

I wasn't qute sure how to put it into words, but thankfully Big Jonny over at DrunkCyclist threw up a link to Keith Olbermann's special commentary on "Countdown" from 7/3/2007. I thought Mr. Olbermann was just another sports journalist who made a career change to be taken more seriously.

I'd like to take a brief moment to apologise to Mr. Olbermann for grossly underestimating him. He has perfectly captured my disgust with Dubya. Instead of going for the easy shots, Mr. Olbermann exemplified the kind of grace under fire that one would expect of a seasoned diplomat perpetually thrust into crises. He starts his commentary with a quote from a grand American hero, and he ends his piece with the five simple words of another American hero. "Edward R. Murrow's iconic "Good night and good luck." have rarely been more poignant than as the coda to Mr. Olbermann's impassioned plea to Bush and Cheney to resign.

These Are A Few of My Favorite Things

2007-06-19T09:03:00.000-04:00

I have a handful of things to work through for my next couple of posts, but I thought I'd stop for a moment to give y'all an idea of some of the things on my Mental Etch-a-Sketch.

Garth Ennis
He has been responsible for writing some of the best stories in comic books with a powerful run in Marvel Comics' brutal anti-hero, The Punisher. The "Welcome Back, Frank" storyline is credited with revitalizing The Punisher for Marvel as well as being the basis for "The Punisher" movie (the one that didn't suck). He's also responsible for some of DC Comics' brightest achievements through their Vertigo imprint. It would be insanely difficult to isolate one particular storyline in his run in DC Comics' John Constantine: Hellblazer. You could start out at the beginning with "Original Sins", but my favorite was "Dangerous Habits". "Dangerous Habits" reads like a well-executed and supremely funny dirty joke. What convinced me that Garth Ennis is not only one of the best comic book wrtiers, but one of the best writers I have ever read was "Preacher," co-created with long time collaborator, artist Steve Dillon. All I'm gonna say is that "Preacher" is about Jesse Custer, a Preacher possessed with an unholy spirit of unimaginable power. He's on a mission to find God - and make him answer for what Jesse has learned. "Preacher" is a phenomenal achievement in storytelling. I cannot say enough about this. Go to your nearest comic book shop and get the 9 softcover graphic novel collections and the hardcover collection of cover art. DO IT NOW. You'll thank me for it.

DrunkCyclist
I love this site. You don't have to be a cyclist or a bicycle enthusiast to understand that DrunkCyclist is about more than the Tour de France, chamois pads, and helmets. While DrunkCyclist is centered on anything related to cycling, there's a huge emphasis on domestic and international politics as well as on environmental affairs. Plus, DrunkCyclist has a great, brash sense of humor.

TreeHugger
I try to reduce the environmental impact of my life as much as possible as well as helping others with charities I strongly believe in. I thought that what I was doing was enough, and while it may not ever be enough, we all have to try. TreeHugger covers a wide variety of topics that affect us in some way or another. This is probably one of the most important websites you will ever visit.

UFCMania
MMA is changing and growing into one of the most visible sports. Hell, even the Oxygen Network is cashing in with their "Fight Girls" reality show focusing on female Muay Thai boxers (and yes, I know Muay Thai is not MMA, but just a part of it). While there are plenty of websites to get your MMA news fix from, most are happy to post speculation and rumor alongside bona fide news and their comment sections are littered with sub-juvenile users who feel it incumbent upon themselves to rant inanely about how they could kick Ken Shamrock's ass or similar bullshit. UFCMania focuses on the UFC (duh), and their reporting has been even, fair, and their site is updated frequently. On Fridays, they post fan-made videos that show off a great amount of editing skill.

Justice Wasn't Served, but Pizza Was

2007-05-10T13:58:00.000-04:00

This is Philip Workman. As The International Justice Project meticulously reported, on August 5th, 1981 in Memphis, Tennessee, he robbed a fast food restaurant at gunpoint. Unbeknownst to him, a silent alarm had been triggered, and police were on their way. Unfortunately one of the officers, Lt. Ronald Oliver, had been shot in the chest and died. Mr. Workman admitted that his drug addiction had led him to the crime, and on March 30th, 1982, he was convicted and sentenced to death for first degree murder.

In addition to The International Justice Project, CNN has reported an overwhelming amount of evidence and doubts raised by how this case was handled. Everything from eyewitness accounts to ballistic tests suggested that Lt. Oliver was killed by friendly fire, but not even an appeal to the US Supreme Court would allow Mr. Workman the justice he deserved. Make no mistake - he committed a crime, and he paid for it, but under NO circumstances was a death penalty warranted.

At 2AM Eastern Time on Wednesday May 9th 2007, Philip Workman was executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee where he was incarcerated. He requested that his last meal be a vegetarian pizza, but here's the thing that's going to mess you up - he requested that the pizza be given to any homeless person near the Riverbend facility. They refused his last wish because according to Riverbend spokeswoman Dorinda Carter, "We can get some special things for the inmate, but the taxpayers don't really give us permission to donate to charity." The limit for a last meal at Riverbend is $20.

Later that day, homeless shelters across Nashville had received a windfall of pizza. Donna Spangler, a 55-year-old woman, had called some friends and bought $1,200 worth of pizza and they deilvered them to the Nashville Rescue Mission. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) had stepped up to the plate and ordered 15 pies to be delivered to the Rescue Mission. The first 17 pies to come to the Oasis Center in Nashville were donated by a radio station in Minnesota.

Philip Workman's case is a nauseating travesty of justice. I am disgusted and far angrier than I've been in a very long time. While Philip Workman was incarcerated for over 26 years, justice was NOT served. One of the eyewitnesses later admitted to perjury having never been anywhere near the scene of the crime. The Medical Examiners have backgrounds peppered with incompetence, unethical professional behavior, and even indictments of illegal possession of a bomb and lying to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco , & Firearms. You couldn't make up shit like this if you tried.

In spite of it all and knowing full well what was going to happen to him, Philip Workman's last act was one of humble generosity. While he more than paid for his crime, his life will have the impact of helping out far more than he could have wished for. While I am saddened by the way our legal system has callously failed him, I am overjoyed that so many random people would want to honor his last wish.

Big Surprise - Kenneth Eng Is Insane. Now What?

2007-05-07T12:52:00.000-04:00

I can't remember exactly when I read about Kenneth Eng's article in Asian Week, an Asian Pacific American newsweekly, but I knew that something was seriously wrong. Asian Week is a well-polished magazine of high standards - making the publication of his article on February 23rd, 2007 entitled "Why I Hate Blacks" all the more troubling. Asian Week quickly fired Kenneth Eng, and they issued a front page apology. They have remained open to dialogue in earnest hopes of showing that they are deeply regretful for publishing the article and in hopes of fostering better understanding between Asian and African American communities.

However, this was only the tip of the iceberg. I went online to research Kenneth Eng. He was a flim student at the Tisch School at NYU. He is a published science fiction author, and he has a blog section on Amazon.com. His meagre efforts as an author are laughable at best and represent the meaningless deaths of the trees harvested to print his drivel. His blog section is loaded with the kind of lunatic rantings you'd come to expect of someone who would describe themselves as "An Asian Supremacist." He not only hates Blacks, Whites, other minorities, and even some Asians - he also hates virtually every religious denomination as well.

I'm not going to lie to you or deny that I felt that I wanted to find this angry little twerp and cave his skull in. I wanted him to shut up. Ultimately I realized that I wanted Kenneth Eng to disappear. He is delusional enough to think that his literary efforts are equal to truly great authors in Science Fiction. What better fate for him to suffer than obscurity? But he wouldn't shut up.

Shortly after Cho Seung-hui brutally shot 32 students at Virginia Tech on April 16th, 2007, Kenneth Eng sent a video to YouTube essentially calling the massacre hillarious. This video was quickly taken down, and it only brought more attention to the fact that he is not only disturbed - he is dangerous. On May 1st, 2007, Kenneth Eng was interviewed by The Village Voice, during which he was happy to draw similarities between himself and Cho. Eng has been institutionalized, he had stalked a female student, and he drew the strong concern of his professors at NYU who had deemed him dangerous enough to suggest dismissing him. In the article, Eng even went so far as to call Cho his hero, and he admitted that the only reason he didn't go on a rampage was that he couldn't afford a gun.

Let that settle in your minds for a moment.

The Virginia Tech massacre is a horrible tragedy, and while we try to search for indications how this could have happened, we must not lose sight of the fact that 32 people have died. We need to stop this from happening. As comedienne/activist Margaret Cho said on her blog, "What is lost here is the grief. What is lost is the great, looming sadness that we should all feel over this. We lose our humanity to racism, time and time again."

On top of that, anybody who tries to capitalize upon this tragedy must be held accountable to public scrutiny. NBC aired Cho's videotaped manifestos, and they were lambasted for their insensitivity. Kenneth Eng has a history of saying precious little more than the volatile rantings of someone not capable of creating a coherent thought pattern. While it would be easy to dismiss him as just another talentless hack, he could just as easily go on a rampage as another. The big question now is what do we do about Kenneth Eng? I have no clear answers about him. I only know what I'd love to do jsut to shut him up. That is not the moral thing under any circumstances. The best thing is to hope he fades into obscurity. I have strong doubts whether there is any good to Kenneth Eng or if he is even capable of understanding that what he is saying is hurtful to others. I don't even know if he cares, and that's the worst part.

Respect, Simple Bitches, and The Ultimate Fighter

2007-05-04T11:03:00.000-04:00

OK, before I go into last night's episode of "The Ultimate Fighter, Season 5," I should explain the title. When I say "Simple Bitch," in no way do I mean women. This is NOT intended to malign women at all. "Simple Bitch" refers to any whiny little cry baby who is not capable of owning up to one's own faults and genuinely trying to overcome them to become something greater than before.

For those of you that don't watch "The Ultimate Fighter," the concept behind the show is to take a group of fighters with experience in a number of different disciplines (e.g. wrestling, boxing, grappling, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, etc), split them up into two teams, and have them fight individual exhibition matches from week to week. The teams are coached by veterans of the sport. The grand prize of the show is a contract with The Ultimate Fighting Championship, arguably the largest mixed martial arts organization. The show is hosted by the President of the UFC, Dana White. These contestants range from also-rans to rookies, and you'd think that they would all have a burning hunger to excel. You'd think that their eyes would be focused on the contract and woe be unto the poor bastards who get in their way.

You'd be dead wrong.

Season 5 of "The Ultimate Fighter" was created to give Lightweight fighters a chance and so the UFC could broaden appreciation for the sport. Currently attention is focused on heavier fighters ranging from Welterweight to Heavyweight. The two coaches, B.J. Penn and Jens Pulver are not only veterans, but bona fide legends. Both have had huge amounts of success as well as colorful histories with The UFC. Like recent seasons, losers in any given match stay on the show to train even if they are ineligible for the contract prize as there may be a chance that one contestant will be forced out and another will be called to come back as an alternate.

Tony DeSouza is part of B.J. Penn's coaching staff. His experience in grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is rock solid, and in last night's episode, he got tired of eliminated contestant Noah Thomas' lackadaisical attitude and his joking. He not only taught Noah several object lessons in grappling, he got him in some rather punishing and obviously painful positions, forcing Noah to bitch even more.

At the beginning of Season 5, Gabe Ruediger started off 20lbs. over the 155lb. weight limit. While losing weight is part of training for any fight, the chance that he will be called in any episode put stress on him and his team. This would give him something like 1 day to lose 20lbs. before the weigh-in. If a contestant does not "make weight," they usually forfeit the match and are booted from the show. 20lbs. in one day is practically impossible, and he would have time to recover in the time after the weigh-in and before the actual fight. Unfortunately in the first five episodes, Gabe Ruediger was eating junk food like it was going out of style, not training as hard as his teammates, and he was even given special dispensation to leave the training facility to get a colonic with the hopes that it would help his weight loss. It didn't do a blessed thing, because he was a delusional, lazy bastard, and he thought he knew what was the best way to train and to lose weight. The irony of it is that he has an impressive fight record, so you'd thinkt hat the idiot would know best.

When things got to a few hours before the weigh-in, he was still massively overweight, and while he lost a couple pounds, he was forced to wear layers of clothing including a non-permeable "sauna suit." He didn't run on the treadmill, he walked. He took breaks. His coaches and his teammates were wondering waht his motivations were. This didn't work, so he had to go into a sauna with all the clothing on AND ride a stationary bike to drop a massive amount of weight. He was bitching and crying and asking for help to put him back in the sauna when he staggered out to cool down. The upshot was that he was literally within 3 pounds of making the weight limit and either he passed out or he gave up. An ambulance had to take him to a hospital for rehydration. Once he was let out, Dana White threw the book at him and kicked him off the show with no chance of coming back as an alternate. Gabe was crying rivers of tears, saying a crock of bullshit about this being his career, that he needed fighting, yadda yadda yadda.

I have no sympathy for either Noah Thomas getting the crap choked out of him in training or Gabe Ruediger coming to the startling conclusion that he is a self-absorbed moron with less of a grip on reality than President Bush. One thing that Dana White has been absolutely clear on is that no matter what the theme of a particular season of "The Ultimate Fighter," it's all about giving contestants a shot at a UFC contract instead of having to fight tooth and nail in smaller organizations and pray that they're gonna get a call from the UFC. There has been some speculation that the contestants who come out of "The Ultimate Fighter" aren't as worthy of title fights as regular fighters, but recent examples like Forrest Griffin, Kendall Grove, and especially Matt Serra with his stunning upset victory over reigning UFC Welterweight champion George St. Pierre in UFC 69.

"The Ultimate Fighter" contestants have a shot at greatness. They have been given a huge opportunity not only to learn from veterans, but to become fighters that command respect. The thing is that morons like Noah Thomas and Gabe Ruediger don't understand that in order to get respect, you have to give it back to those that know more than you. What kills me is that while these simple bitches were enjoying the limelight, scores of fighters with more promise and talent have to suffer. I'm clearly not stating that I could kick either of their asses, but if somebody told me that I could become as great as one of my heroes, I would listen to them implicitly, and I would show them nothing but unflinching respect. If this is as much a part of their lives as they claim, then they are completely delusional and I can only hope that they realize that they are wasting their time. Then again, I hope that Noah Thomas, Gabe Ruediger, and other morons like them kiss the third rail.

Party at Central Park on May 20th!

2007-04-23T12:30:00.000-04:00

First, off, allow me to apologize for not posting in a while. I had my head foresquare up my hindparts, and while I always say I'll do things differently next time, I always end up waiting 'til the last minute to do my taxes. And then a lot of shit hit the fan with Don Imus acting like a jackass, and the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech. I've been pretty bummed out about that, and I'll tell you more soon enough.

I'm also looking for work more than freelance (read: mercenary) as a content manager/ editor, and that's frustrating as Hell. It's taking a lot of strength not to get terribly frustrated or depressed, but there are far many who have delt with far worse than I will ever know.

Hey, if you're seriously looking to hire, drop me a line.

Now about the party next month. I'm preparing for it in a big way, but then again, AIDS Walk NYC is a pretty big event. I've skated through NYC for the past 13 years or so, and in that time, I've skated AIDS Walk 4 times. 10K of New York City streets without cars? Woo Hoo! On top of that, I have NEVER seen so much good karma in one location as I have with AIDS Walk. Something about being part of it inspires you to do more. With the festive atmosphere and goodwill, it's important to never lose sight of the fact that while it is fun, people are dying.

One of my heroes is Lance Armstrong. That man has gone through more Hell than most people will ever know, and he has shown an amazing amount of grace and skill. He's not from Krypton. He's not a mutant with rapid healing & metal claws. He's a regular joe, not a superhero. Over the past few years, I was fortunate enough to find replicas of three of his Tour de France Winner's Jerseys. If anything, he has shown that people are capable of doing great things. Every life has the potential for similar greatness, and to see that hope taken away by AIDS is heartbreaking. The next poor soul to die of AIDS could have written something as deeply eloquent as "Bohemian Rhapsody."

For me it is a race, and I want to do more. It doesn't take all that much time to skate the AIDS Walk, and if you really push yourself, you'll find that you have loads of time to spare. I help out at the Finish Line, because there's always gonna be people who need help. One year it was scooping ice cream throughout the afternoon. Another year it was unloading trucks.

I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd think about sponsoring me for this year's AIDS Walk NY on May 20th. To make things easy, you can click here for my donations page. Your help means a lot, and hey - if you're already registered as a participant, look for me at the Finish Line checkpoint unloading trucks & helping to serve stuff. I'll be the guy in the Tour de France 2006 Winner's Jersey.

May Uwe Boll Suffer a Criminally Pornographic Death

2007-04-09T18:15:00.000-04:00

If this posting seems long winded, I apologize. I have a lot to get off my chest, so bear with me.

I love video games, and I am deeply troubled not with the violence that is part and parcel of some of the most notorious ones (e.g. "Doom," "Grand Theft Auto," "Quake"). It may be callous to say that there is always going to be a group of people whose developmental problems prohibit them from discerning reality from fantasy.

In other words, morons are fucking it up for rational people.

As prevalent as video games are becoming with advances in hardware like the XBox 360 Elite, and the PS3 along with innovations with the Nintendo Wii, video games are still considered a niche market, albeit a lucrative demographic. No matter what you think of movies like "Silent Hill," the "Resident Evil" series, and "Doom," they are seen as success stories for studios eager for similar hits. Some movie projects rumored and/or confirmed to be in development are "Castlevania," "Tekken," and "Metal Gear Solid." Maybe that last one is a pipe dream, but these are all titles that have made immense amounts of money and reaped critical acclaim from gaming communties.

One of my favorite games is Sega's "House of the Dead." It's hard not to love a game in which you shoot zombies. This isn't lush storytelling or unique gameplay like the classic "Myst." This is cathartic, mindless fun. While the game iteslf had a threadbare plot, the movie adaptation was grossly removed from anything resembling the source game much less alone a storyline that wasn't insulting. "House of the Dead" was disturbingly bad, and I'd rather watch a test pattern than watch it on cable. It was at that point that I started to take notice of the director, Uwe Boll.

His career has miraculously come back after flop after flop after flop. He continues to get work as a director and not what he deserves as a bestiality porn fluffer. OK, that was mean to animals and they don't deserve Uwe Boll's lust. I can't figure out how or why this little troll continues to get work. At least it's not like he's getting choice titles to adapt (read: "rape"). He is making a concerted effort in not only adapting video game properties into crap movies, but he has some how managed to use his reputation as one of the worst filmmakers of all time paradoxically as a selling point. It's like a badge of honor for him. While I would normally ignore him in the hopes that interest in him would die out so he would be forced into retirement, I came across this little nugget from BollBashers. To say the clip spoofing the WTC attacks on 9/11/01 is offensive is an understatement, and you are forewarned.

Like the mediocre game series from which it was spawned, this year's "Postal" thrives on controversy, a threadbare plot, and the inevitable outcry from critics like Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. While this clip appears to be the real deal, "official" clips are almost as disturbing. This is less of an example of artistic freedom, but of a glaring lack of sensitivity. To use a tragedy of this scale as a selling point for a movie is sickening.

I am deeply saddened and angered by the fact that Uwe Boll is ruining both video games and action movies with his latest malignant tumor, "Postal." Some are bouund to see this unfairly as a broad example of what video game based movies can be. Hopefully he will die as a reviled and hated man, and "Postal" will fade into obscurity. Am I being prejudicial of Uwe Boll? Hell Yes. Then again, based on his body of work, how else could someone think of him besides a misguided, talentless hack?

My iPod Feels Funny

2007-04-06T17:29:00.000-04:00

It used to be that Apple hardware was thought of being impervious to viral attacks, and while Apple's various OS systems are a lot more secure than Microsoft Windows, there are still lots of possible ways to screw with your Mac, and now your iPod.

Yes, I said your iPod.

As reported on ITWire, Kaspersky Lab has discovered the first iPod virus, Podloso. More accurately, it's a "proof of concept virus" that has has the characteristics of a Trojan Horse and affects iPods running Linux. Even though the chances of this are pretty slim due to the sheer scarcity of iPods running anything but iTunes, it still exists.

What's worse is that while Podloso isn't loaded with malware, it proves that it is possible to create code that would not only screw with your iPod, but whatever it's docked to, thus, as the ITWire article states,renewing calls for iPods & other MP3 devices to be banned from workplaces. The overwhelming majority of iPod users don't have much to worry about...unless hypothetically they're illegally downloading music (Heaven forfend!). As most Apple tech geeks would dismiss this, be wary about how you use your iPod.

Pop Quiz: Is Newt Gingrich a Moron or a Racist?

2007-04-03T16:17:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke to the National Federation of Republican Women, and he made statements that made me wonder if Newt can peel fruit with his feet. "The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."

According to the CNN story, the "crowd of more than 100" was cheering. First off, a group of 100 isn't a crowd - that's a couple of lines at the DMV. Second, any group that is going to cheer for Newt Gingrich is probably so stupid, they wouldn't know that "Talladega Nights" isn't a documentary.

I'm not troubled so much by this little group of cackling bitches as much as what he said. Think about it. This is a great country filled with opportunity, however a jackass like Newt Gingrich is going to say if you aren't fluent in English, tough shit for you. Should anybody living and working in the United States be required to learn English? Absolutely. But how the Hell is someone supposed to learn English? Instead of bilingual educational programs. perhaps Mr. Gingrich would prefer that we beat immigrants upside their heads with dictionaries. Maybe Mr. Gingrich could offer his services and teach English through some Redneck Asshole Mind Meld.

And then there's the real problem of what he said, equating bilngual education with "the language of living in a ghetto." Does he really have that little regard for minorities that he would trivialize their existence in urban America much less alone their contribution to the vast diversity of the American fabric? Is he singling out one or two minorities he especially despises, and is he so much of a chickenshit coward that he won't say that he doesn't like dark and swarthy people? His remarks are incendiary, hateful, and ignorant.

Here's the best part - apparently Grima Wormtongue -err Newt Gingrich- is considering running for President in 2008.

I shit thee not.

Mr. Gingrich has apaprently overlooked the fact that the American people includes citizens as well as people simply working and living here. Our strength as a union comes from our diversity and how we relate to other cultures. Unless we make not just bilingual education but multicultural education mandatory, we will never be as strong as we can be.

'member when Carlos Mencia used to be funny?

2007-03-26T18:59:00.000-04:00

I can't remember exactly when it was I fell on the floor, but I remember it was Carlos Mencia's fault. He was a funny bastard, and I loved his first HBO stand-up special. I laughed so hard, I nearly browned out. I was thrilled to see that he was the host of "Loco Slam" on HBO, and I was bummed out that it fizzled. Carlos Mencia got a second HBO stand-up special, and I loved that one too.

Somewhere between then and now, Comedy Central changed from a showcase for a broad range of comedians to a clearing house for recycled sitcoms, crap movies, and the occasional bit of gasp some actual funny shit. Carlos Mencia's raw and vicious series "Mind of Mencia" was one of these bright moments, but I'm only counting the first season. At this point, I picked up his album "Take a Joke, America," which, after some thought, seemed like a recycling of his half hour Comedy Central special. I picked up one of his concert DVDs, "Not for the Easily Offended," and I felt he was riding high. Hell, I even wanted to see him live in concert.

Until I saw the episode in the second season of "Mind of Mencia" during which Robin Williams was a stunningly unfunny guest. Carlos Mencia plugged Robin Williams' movie "RV" so many times that I felt nauseous. After that, I would watch "Mind of Mencia," but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it. There had to be something more compelling on - like public access cable or The Weather Channel. It was obvious that Carlos Mencia was a sellout.

Then I saw this little nugget.

I really wanted Carlos to be a funny bastard. I sincerely did. But after seeing this and reading about it on Joe Rogan's website I really lost respect for the little hack. Joe, thank you for saving me the money I would have spent on more Carlos Mencia crap.

I wouldn't say that Carlos Mencia was one of my heroes, but he was someone I respected. He did this bit about white racists not making any real distinctions between racial stereotypes. His routines usually had something more than just cheap gags. Is Carlos Mencia a hack thief? More than likely, but thievery amongst comedians isn't new. What Carlos Mencia doesn't seem to understand is that when you start lifting from other comedians, the worst thing isn't the ire of your fellow comedians; it's losing fans who are gonna start following FUNNIER comedians like Robert Schimmel, George Lopez, Louis C.K., Jim Norton, and Judy Gold. It's a buyer's market, buddy, and Carlos Mencia lost another customer.

It's Best You Don't Ask Too Many Questions

2007-03-23T15:04:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to think about how to give my blog a better sense of definition aside from whatever I wanted to talk about, and the best I can think of right now is that every Friday or so I'll try and post something particularly quirky. One week it could be William Shatner's rationalization about why he may not think that he is bald when even Stevie Wonder could see that he's wearing a wig. Another week, it could be stunning examples of stupidity that you may have missed, and this week it's gonna be about one of my favorite movies,"Enter The Dragon."

Evil crimelord Han was a Shaolin disciple and aside from his martial arts tournament of "truly epic proportions" and a really heinous haircut, he is noteworthy of having lost a hand in an accident. It's possible that this was a really cool plot device and a tip of the hat to "Doctor No," but then it's also possible that it has its roots in Shaolin history and out of respect to Shin Huang, a former general who after killing many in battle, became a buddhist monk who cut off his left arm to show his devotion to the teachings of Da Mo (Bodhidarma).

Then again, I'm probably reaching a bit with this part of Shaolin history, but it is interesting nonetheless. In any event, Han had at least three spare hands, one of metal, a claw hand, and a hand made of blades.

So here's the thing. Those fingers on the metal hand were pretty close together. How did he pick his nose? Sometimes you need to go in with a left-hand finger, and sometimes you go mining with a right-hand finger. This had to be frustrating for the bastard.

And then what would happen when Han felt like, well, "rubbing one out?" It's gonna suck if Han's happy hand was his left. Did he have to have a left hand curled like it was gonna grip his bits & pieces? Could he have a lotion dispenser put into it? What if he was a freak? Could he have a hand made to reach those special places?

And let's say Han was a little forgetful. Can you imagine how embarassing it would have been for him if he went out and forgot he had his "backdoor buddy probe" hand on?

Still, on the plus side, Han would have been a really effective pimp. None of his bitches would step out ouf line for fear of a pimp slap from "Lefty" Han.

This is the kind of stuff I think about. Like I said, it's best y'all don't ask too many questions.

Frank Albrecht is an Insensitive Bastard

2007-03-21T14:21:00.000-04:00

Last December, two polar bear cubs were born to Tosca, a retired circus performer, currently at the Berlin Zoo. Unfortunately the mother rejected them, and to make matters worse, one of them died shortly thereafter. The surviving cub was named Knut, and here's am early picture of the little bugger from the Berlin Zoo's website:

The Berlin Zoo's website has lots of adorable pics of Knut and there's a video clip that's sure to melt any heart.

Wel except one or two.

On Monday, March 19th, animal rights activist Frank Albrecht commented to "mass circulation" newspaper (I guess that's a nice way of saying "tabloid rag") Bild, "Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws. In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub."

Holy Fuck.

It's tragic that Tosca rejected Knut, and yes, this sort of thing does happen with polar bear mothers & cubs in zoos, but what was the Zoo supposed to do? Put him down? Release him to the wild? The Berlin Zoo has shown a great deal of care for Knut as evidenced by his keeper, Thomas Dorflein. In Knut's first days, Mr. Dorflein has slept at the zoo to give constant attention for Knut. Mr. Dorflein is a paragon of compassion.

Of course, it would have been best if Knut were rasied by his mother, but as that isn't possible anymore, the Berlin Zoo has made sure that Knut have the best possible upbringing. The key word there is "POSSIBLE." As Knut grows up, he will be a wonderful ambassador for threatened species. He has already drawn a great amount of attention to the Zoo. The Berlin Eisbaren (Polar Bears) hockey team has asked zoo officials if they could adopt him as their mascot. Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz has taken shots of Knut as part of a wildlife conservation campaign.

As far as Frank Albrecht is concerned, I hope he suffers a fate of pain, anonymity, and apathy. That and backing into a woodchipper. Feet first.

So You Think Your Boss Sucks?

2007-03-21T09:25:00.000-04:00

We've all worked for some reall dumb sumbitches, and I've had the misfortune of working for some of the absolute worst bosses in existence (You simple bitches know who you are). A friend of mine had sent me this internal memo a while ago. At the time, they worked for a really musty reference publisher that would have to be dragged into the 21st Century by its withered appendages. After reading the original memo, I would dearly like to see the simple bitch who wrote this memo suffer such a criminally pornographic death that only Salvador Dali could draw the crime scene chalk outline of his corpse.

Now, this may look innocent, but if you highlight over this whole posting, you'll see my edits. I don't give two squirts of piss about the well being of the asshole who wrote the original memo, but out of respect to my pal, I have omitted any names in order
to make sure that nothing gets back to anyone. This pains me,
because as I've said, I'd love to see the asshole who wrote this suffer the kind of fate that befits a child rapist in prison.

Subject: Kitchen Table Press

From time to time, I'll be leaving on our kitchen table a book I've found particularly interesting on the chance that someone else might also enjoy it.

Of course, this does not necessarily mean I've read the book. the state of having my head well up my ass past my grossly distended anus makes it rather difficult to read.

The first title in this series (that--unlike everything else--comes without obligations or a schedule) is W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants (New Directions), a book that I've found works its magic on the reader slowly but steadily.

As does Syphilis.

If you have titles you want to contribute, please do so. If there's a lot of interest in this, perhaps we'll dedicate a shelf in the library to OMITTED staff picks.

Yes, let's dedicate time and effort on other books instead of what we're publishing. After all, it is of utmost urgency that I add to the magnitude of my stunning levels of ignorance and insensitivity, while stroking my ego as a trendsetter.

Here's to literacy,
And here's to having you kiss my perpetually erupting boil crusted ass.

CENSORED
Publisher and Festering Wart on the Yam Bag of Literacy

MMA - It's What's for Breakfast

2007-03-19T18:23:00.000-04:00

Good lord knows I love a good fight, and I remember the first time I saw a really scary one. It was the first time Riddick Bowe squared off against Andrew Golota in 1996 at Madison Square Garden. I was not physically there (THANK GOD), and it changed from a comedy of errors and hits below the belt into a full blown riot. I was laughing my ass off watching this on HBO. I sincerely wish I could get a tape or a DVD of this fight. The normally stoic ring commentators were crying and about as confused as headless chickens.

Coincidentally in the same year, the Ultimate Fighting Championship was born out of a desire of the Gracie family to show the world its dominance over martial arts with its Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. In the first UFC fights, there were lots of blood, brutal hits, and on occasion a flying tooth. Eleven years later, Boxing is still seen as a viable and highly promotable sport, while there are still states in the US that won't legalize Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). I honestly believe that I will see a Van Damme movie that doesn't suck before I see an MMA fight in NYC. And I like Van Damme.

The UFC has been resurrected in recent years, and foreign promoters like Pride and K-1 are enjoying a growing market in the US. In the past couple of years, the International Fight Leauge (the IFL) has put MMA in the context of team sports - and it has enjoyed growing success. And yet the sad thing is that even though MMA has become increasingly regulated and rules have been enforced globally to protect the fighters long-term careers, it's still perceived as an underground bloodthirsty sport. Kind of like the highlights of a good Hockey game.

Watch a good fight, and instead of seeing a bare-knuckle throwdown, you'll see a couple of tacticians quickly size up their opponents, look for their "tells" or weaknesses, and exploit them. Shit, if Poker can be considered a sport, how long is it gonna take for the New York Times to do have a regular MMA section? I know it will take a while, but there's even another more cynical way to look at MMA. Marketing.

The mats of any fight are loaded with sponsorships from products ranging from beer, tires, major motion pictures, and even Microsoft and other computer/video game hardware/software companies are getting in on a very lucrative market. Watch the highlights of a UFC fight and pay attention to the audience. On top of that, take a look at the size of arenas in Japan that have been host to fights like Pride F/C or K-1 Hero's. Not since the heydays of Queen, Bruce Springsteen, or Kiss has an arena been so filled with energy.

Even if it's going to take a while for MMA to become as viable a sport as boxing in the US, I can wait it out. And let's look at boxing for a moment. Sure boxing is on pay-per-view cable, and sure it makes a lot of money, but can you name more than one current Heavyweight Champion?

Don't worry, I'll wait.

And no fair using the 'net.

The sad reality is that the precious few people give a wet slap off a donkey's ass about boxing anymore. It seems like the one thing that everybody remembers is Mike Tyson making an hors d'oeuvre of Evander Holyfield's ear. Don't get me wrong - I would like to see a good boxing fight, but with the sheer amount of different ways to punish your oppponent, MMA offers a lot more for the viewer than boxing.

As for me, I'm looking forward to watching Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell and Quentin "Rampage" Jackson square off again. And who would have thought that Randy "The Natural" Couture could have given such a resounding ass- whooping in his comeback?

The Fall of Rome

2007-03-19T06:54:00.000-04:00

Aside from propelling Russell Crowe to megastar status, Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" continues to have a profound impact on pop culture. There have been lots of attempts to do something similar to varying degrees of success, but one standout has been HBO's short lived series, "Rome."

As of this writing, there is only one episode left. That's right, ONE. Never mind that whie the series started off with the rise of Gaius Julius Caesar, and that the Roman Empire extended well past his reign to Constantine (not the movie, you jackass), the series looks to end very prematurely with the rise of Octavian, who history shows will become Emperor Augustus. This is troubling on for a number of reasons.

"Rome" has presented a great number of compelling characters and fleshed-out storylines through no small part of its incredibly talented cast. To try and pick a favorite actor would be like picking out a favorite Single Malt Whisky. It's shows like "Rome" that blur the lines between Leading and Supporting Actors because every single role is played out well. For the record, I'm partial to Kevin McKidd's Lucius Vorenus and Ray Stevenson's Titus Pullo.

But, with ONE FRIGGIN' EPISODE LEFT, there are a great number of storylines to wrap up. It would be a huge testament towards the scriptwriters if they could pull this off within a 1-hour or a 2-hour season finale, but I fear it is hubris to think that everything is going to be finished with the respect that befits such grandeur crafted over a meager span of only 22 episodes.

I have my theories about this. A staggering operating budget split between HBO, Cinecitta, and the BBC is still a staggering operating budget. For this to have succeeded past even another season would have meant that this would have had to have the ratings of virtually every other stellar HBO series combined. As odd as it sounds, it does not look like HBO, Cinecitta, and the BBC could see that "Rome" is a critical and resounding hit deserving of far more than two seasons. I would have liked to have seen something past the impending conflict between Octavian (err.... I mean Augustus) and Mark Antony. I would have liked to have seen Pullo settle down, but perhaps the greatness of "Rome" is in the fact that it never even came close to jumping the shark. There hasn't been one weak moment. NOT ONE. The cynic in me believes that there is a very good chance that even if this was milked out for another season or so, it would have lost some of it's luster. To paraphrase Joe Turkel's character Eldon Tyrell in "Blade Runner," "The star that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and Rome has burned so very, very brightly."

The fanboy in me cries out for more, remembering the short-lived brilliance of the HBO Series, "Carnivale." I can only hope that future series like HBO's upcoming "Preacher" (based on the critically acclaimed DC Vertigo series created by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon) get more support than "Rome."

Welcome to the Clubhouse

2007-03-19T06:25:00.000-04:00

I know that I'm supposed to say something witty, and perhaps not just a little grandiose here, but I'm at a friggin' loss. Maybe it's because it's almost 6:30AM, or maybe it's because I haven't had my first double espresso yet. I suppose I should go into the name of my humble little blog for a wee bit.

I wanted this space to be open ground for meaningless ramblings. There's too much stuff going on, and if I wanted to keep track of all the things I want to get off my chest, I'd never get any sleep. On the odd chance that something I ramble on about has some degree of resonance with you, I want it to have the same degree of impact that a hollow point bullet has.

Of course, this isn't gonna make too much sense, but like I said - it's somewhere around 6:30AM, and I have to get started on the day.

Cheers.