Movie Gong Show Marathon Saturday Episode I

Thanks to everyone who participated in Movie Day! Here is your magical recap. (movie synopsis from IMDB.com) Note: I did not include any details about the favorite scenes in order to keep out spoilers. I highly suggest that you watch these movies to see for yourself.

1. Star Slammer - 7.7/10 beer cans
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087945/

from: http://images.contentreserve.com/
"Two women who have been unjustly confined to a prison planet plot their escape, all the while having to put up with lesbian guards, crazed wardens and mutant rodents."

Favorite Character Award:

• All - Short Lunch Guy

Favorite Scene Award:

• Molly - knife fight
  
• Sara - arena of death
  
• Dan - Dr. Po death scene
  
• Lauren - mace whipping scene

Honorable Mentions:

• misleading movie title
  
• completely inappropriate soundtrack
  
• need to watch the sequel - Torah and The Chain Gang Planet
  
• never once is anyone in this movie wearing anything on this cover, nor do they ever get lazer guns from what I can remember.
  

2. Switchblade Sisters (the jezebels) - 7.425/10 beer cans
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073778/

from http://blog.tilos.hu/filter/archives/2005_08.html
"The "Dagger Debs" are a gang of snarling girls, and Maggie is their newest member. Lace, the ever tooth-gritting leader, befriends her but soon has doubts --it seems Lace's man, Dominic, head of the "Silver Daggers" fancies the new recruit. Lace struggles to keep control of the Debs, and a handle on Nick, as they face off against the rival gang of pushers lead by Crabs."

Favorite Character Award:

• Molly, Sara, Lauren - Donut
  
• Dan - the Principal

Favorite Scene Award:

• Molly, Lauren - "Surprise" bedroom scene
  
• Sara - opening scene at the burger place
  
• Dan - Maggie's escape scene

Honorable Mentions:

• the scene in the juvy center had some great action
  

3. 1990 - Bronx Warriors - 2.6/10 beer cans
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085124/

from http://www.movieposter.com/
A Heavy Metal Journey Into An Urban Hell Where Everything Was Done Wrong!

Favorite Character Award:

• Molly - Trash's chest
  
• Dan - Ogre
  
• Sara - Mysterious Drummer

Favorite Scene Award:

• Molly - the release of ashes into the river, but never made it into the river
  
• Sara - opening credits
  
• Dan - piano lounge party

Honorable Mentions:

• Molly did not actually watch this entire movie, and requested a gong, which was turned down by majority vote
  

4. Crack House - 9.2/10 beer cans
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097119/

from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/
Rick and Melissa are a pair of young lovers hoping to get out of the slums for good and escape the poverty and crime their families and friends have gotten involved in. All this comes to an end when Rick feels he must rejoin his old gang to avenge the killing of his brother by a rival gang. In the course of getting even, Rick is arrested, leaving Melissa without anyone to protect her. She falls in with a crack dealer and quickly becomes addicted to the drug. When she gets sold to a drug kingpin by a minor dealer to pay off a debt, only Rick can save her.

Favorite Character Award:

• Molly - OG Jammer
  
• Dan - the teacher
  
• Sara - Tripper
  
• Vince - Chico

Favorite Scene Award:

• Molly - dance party
  
• Sara - pocho party
  
• Dan - school bathroom fight
  
• Vince - car crack shoot scene

Honorable Mentions:

• everyone had a really hard time picking their favorite scene.
  
• one of Sara's favorite movies ever
  
• Steve and Sara must throw Crack House themed party
  
• G FO LIFE!
  

5. Never Too Young to Die - 9.5/10 beer cans
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091621/

from http://www.amoeba.com/blog
A secret agent is murdered, and his son--a high school gymnast--teams up with a spy to catch the man who killed him.

Favorite Character Award:

• Molly - Caruthers
  
• Dan - Cliff
  
• Sara - Pyramid
  
• Vince - Pyramid
  
• Greg - Cliff
  
• John - Ragnar

Favorite Scene Award:

• Molly, Sara, John - the payoff scene
  
• Dan - guy getting bent up on rail (death scene)
  
• Vince - Stargrove Sr. death scene
  
• Greg - guy exploding on motorcycle
  

Honorable Mentions:

• the only movie featuring an ex James Bond, Gene Simmons, John Stamos and Vanity
  
• the best soundtrack of a movie ever
  
• the winner for the night, and a MUST-SEE
  

I'm toying with the idea of dressing this review up a bit in the future. Thanks again to everyone who came out and drank beers all day. Stay tuned for the next edition, coming January-ish!

hey i got married!

who knew!

Everyone always talks about the perfect wedding, but I don't think they really every feel like they got it.

The only issue I had with mine? I didn't get any cheese whore deserves.

Staarrrlllaahhhhhhhhhhh

I had two dreams last night, both of which stayed with me all day. The first was shorter but the time lapse was longer. I was in a house with a friend of mine. The house was a guest house that belonged to her mother, and a guest was staying at it. We were staying there as well, but we weren't to disturb the guest. The guest, as it turned out, was Albert Camus. Somehow I ended up sneaking out of the room we were staying at and befriending him. As it turned out, another person was staying at the house as well. This person was Daniel Quinn. The three of us stayed up all night, drinking a lot of whiskey, and talking about the existential issues I have been having. There was also peanut butter cheesecake to eat. I remember the setting of this dream very vividly. I do not remember anything that we actually spoke of. I remember the looks on their faces as they spoke. This is very odd to me, because I don't know what Albert Camus looks like. The second dream took place at my parent's house in Brick, NJ. I had friends visiting there, friends that have children. We were on the dock, and my bad tooth fell out. This is a normal occurrence in my dreams. This time was different in that due to my missing tooth I was able to pull back my skin from my face and my gums from my teeth. I did this while looking in the mirror and saw that my entire skull was covered with tar. Tar from smoking. I spent the rest of the dream trying to pick the tar off my skin with a toothpick and wipe it off. I remember only having soap and nothing else, so the tar was very hard to get off my skull.

I almost called out of work this morning. Mike suggested I take a shower and see how I felt after that. I felt better, so I went in. When I left James was sitting on the couch in his pajamas watching a tv show about house cats, taking tea and giggling uncontrollably. I think he hadn't gotten much sleep last night; he was still in the light blue pajama pants I had bought him for his birthday.I had a BLT for lunch and some smoked Gouda and red pepper soup. I didn't finish all of it. I left early to go to the doctor. I got there late. I was in the waiting room for an hour and a half. The doctor didn't tell me anything I wanted to hear and sent me away with two prescriptions. I went to KMart to look for shoes to wear to the gym. I didn't find any sneakers in my size. I bought other items I needed instead. After that I went to the grocery store and bought noodles, hot dogs and fruit. Ice cream was buy one get one free, so I bought that as well. I came home and ate Disney Princess shaped spaghetti-o's and watched James on You Tube. I left the ketchup out all night by mistake.

A gentleman could, but he doesn't.

Last night I had a very vivid dream about going back to high school. I was caught skipping class. My old middle school gym teacher placed me in handcuffs and took me to a room with other offenders. I also found sixty dollars that was dropped by a freshman. Today I worked, had not that great of a day. I clicked the show desktop button and saw James May wearing a shirt that says "i am the stig" on it. I was cheerful after that. I told Dan I was going to pretend from now on that I am married to James May. I imagined that I was going to go home and he would be playing his baby grand piano and watching some show on Discovery channel on mute, occasionally laughing about how unintelligent the programming actually was. Dan played along and we had chatter about how my conversations would my pretend husband would go. Then I went to the gym and met with my personal trainer. She had me do something called "rolling". It felt good, for the most part. I then went to belly dancing class. I flexed a lot. On the way home I bought Gatorade and beef jerky. I ate the entire bag of beef jerky, save for a small piece I gave to my dog. Now Mike is home and we are deciding on what to eat. He just discovered that he bought a tampered-with carton of milk.

Ham-Ham Heartbreak

My hamster is very sick.

I first noticed it last Monday - the usually lazy, but healthy ham seemed to be staggering around his cage and obviously breathing heavier than normal. I also noticed that the left side of his face, around his eye and nose, were swollen. He was making small panting noises, and wasn't sleeping through the day as normal.

At first I thought he was just old and dying, but when I took him out of the cage he started to bolt around the couch as normal. Everything about him other than the symptoms above was normal. At this point I also noticed that he had not touched his food (not even his treats, which is completely absurd) in two days. I felt helpless for a little bit, hoping that he wasn't hurty, and then turned to the internet.

All of his symptoms showed up in a search for hamster problems - the culprit, according to several websites, was an abscess in his cheek pouch. I was somewhat relieved, but also worried even more now - especially due to the lack of appetite he seemed to develop. I took him to the doctor the next day.

Getting a hamster to a vet is kind of a pain. People on the phone at the vets offices seemed to be taken aback by the fact that I wanted to bring a hamster in. I think one of them laughed at me. Eventually I found him an appointment at a place in Fairless Hills for the same day. I learned that hamsters are considered "exotic" and therefore more expensive to bring in. Funny to me how they are probably one of the cheapest pets you can buy.

Having the hamster at the vet was very cute but very worrisome. I giggled the whole time the vet was handling him. He weighed him in a little bowl, used a stethoscope to listen to his little heart, used a little pointer thing with a little light to check in his mouth and ears. The vet said he seemed pretty healthy, he was acting very normal, but he did have a problem. He said that there wasn't enough puss in the back of its mouth for it to be an abscess, but he thought it would be more of a tooth issue. Either way he wasn't exactly sure what it was, but gave me some medicine for him and said it should help. He was prescribed an antibiotic which he is to take twice a day for ten days, painkiller that he can take once or twice a day, and some powdered diet.

I took him home and started him on the medicine. He seemed to like the painkiller, as it made him sleep a lot. I had a lot of problems feeding him, though. The dropper the vet gave me was too small for any food particles to make it into the dropper, so I was basically force-feeding him water for at least a day.

For two days he seemed to be alright, I gave him pieces of apple that he chewed a bit of, and he was still running around happily.

However, Saturday morning things took a turn for the worse. I woke up the ham to give him his morning dose of medicine, and noticed that he had diarrhea. I also noticed that his weight had dropped significantly more - I could now feel the little bones in his rib cage and back. This made me very upset - my hamster has always been very fat and seeing this physical change in him was quite a shock.

I assumed that the diarrhea was because of the fruit I had given him, so I made a change. Instead of giving him the apple I was going to feed him more times a day with the liquid diet. I cut the top off of the dropper and finally got it so it sucked up nothing but food. He ate for awhile, but definitely made it known to me when he didn't want anymore. He spent the rest of the day sleeping.

Sunday morning and afternoon he did not have diarrhea again, so I was relieved. he did eat, however, instead of running around a bit he just sat in a ball cuddled up on my lap. Every time he tried to move around he stumbled a bit - it was completely obvious that he was weak and starving. This morning his condition had not changed at all, but instead of eating a lot I believe he stuffed up his cheeks with a lot of the food. I hope he eats it.

So this is where we are now. I'm feeding him once in the morning and once at night, and I plan on adding another scheduled feeding after I get home from work today. The outlook is grim, I'm really unsure where to go with this, but I'm doing all I can.

50 Movie Pack - Nightmare Worlds MOVIE REVIEW TIME FUN YAY part deux (a French word for "2")

Saturday and Sunday I was able to fit four more movies in.

ATOMIC RULERS OF THE WORLD
IMDB link
This is the first of the two Starman movies I watched. (There are 3 in the entire set, and also 3 American movies.) Starman movies are about what I discovered to be Japan's first on screen superhero, Starman, played by Ken Utsui. A little wikipedia digging informed me that Ken Utsui is a respected actor, but to this day refuses to talk about the role, mainly due to embarrassment. Apparently they used to stuff his crotch area with cotton. The suit was a little silly too.

Regardless of what you think about Starman's cape attached to his arms or his little antennae coming out of his over the head spandex costume, the movies are kinda neat. Originally parts of movies from a Japanese series called Super Giants (yes plural, and there's only one super hero.. he is not very giant either..), the plot revolves around a group of aliens from a distant planet who need to protect Earth from nuclear disaster. They do this in order to protect their own planet; nuclear fallout on Earth could directly affect them. Somehow, from space, many miles away. I'll allow it. Starman is their answer to Earth's bodyguard needs, armed with this watch that gives him the ability to speak every language on Earth, look like a human, and fly through space. I think he is also made of super powerful metal, because he has super human strength. It is Starman's duty to thwart any nuclear threat on Earth, which is convenient, because in these two movies a country that doesn't really exist and some aliens from another planet, respectively, are determined to blow up the Earth.

Starman is a friend to children, and boy that is a good thing because there is a group of sneaky orphan kids that sure do like to get themselves into trouble in these movies. In both movies one of them gets kidnapped and Starman, being the gentleman he is, makes it a point to save them. After all, children are the Earth's future. That's the movie talking, not me.

White people always play the villians in these movies. They're pretty decent, I think, and kind of cute. There's some really bad fight scenes, I think he was fencing in one of them. These two movies were basically the same plot with different people, but I enjoyed watching them both.

The Alpha Incident
IMDB link
I thought that I had finally reached a movie that wasn't about aliens coming to Earth, but boy was I wrong. This one definitely tries to sneak it past you though.

A space probe comes back with a deadly virus. It killed a bunch of rats. We aren't told how they died. These scientists for some reason think its a good idea then, to put this virus on a boxcar train guarded only by some guy that reminds me of a girl I went to high school with's dad (Mr. Rogers but less fun and totally scary). They don't even package it up well. It just kind of sits there in jars in a box.

The hillbilly that is driving this boxcar train gets so curious as to what those bottles are that he breaks them open. Now this guy is a piece of work. He's really endearing because of how silly stupid he is, and I felt bad for him the whole time to tell you the truth. Anyway, boxcar stops at a station, Evil Mr. Rogers discovers that the bottles have been broken, and is totally forced to quarantine himself and the three or four (doesn't matter) people who are at the station.

Long story short people start to freak out, wondering what happens when they die. We find out here that the way to survive is to stay awake. They do some drugs, a woman kills herself, one guy falls asleep and dies. And I'll spare you having to watch the movie, his skull contents like his brain and eyes and shit start to expand and bubble out of his head. The whole thing is pretty gory and gross, but its the only good part of the movie. In the end the government doesn't find a cure in time, and goes to exterminate or whatever the whole place. At this point Evil Mr. Rogers discovers he's fallen asleep but hasn't died, realizing he hasn't been infected. OOPS, TOO LATE, the government exterminators shoot him in the stomach. He's dead.

The end!

Beast of the Yellow Night
IMDB link
Yellow Night indeed! The whole film was washed out and yellow and dark and at times completely unviewable. Good job.

The only thing I got out of this film is that a man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for his life, he may or may not have become immortal. This said man also has a hot wife, who he either hates or loves. This man is the head of a company somehow and tries to dick a bunch of people over. Or not. He may or may not have tried to kill his wife. I am 80% sure he ends up turning into a vampire or demon or wereworlf at night eventually to pay the devil back. And according to this movie I am 100% sure the devil is a fat Philippino man in a bad suit and snarky attitude.

50 Movie Pack - Nightmare Worlds MOVIE REVIEW TIME FUN YAY

I bought a 50 movie pack featuring Sci-Fi movies from Best Buy this weekend. I plan on watching each one of them and posting a review of each. I find it hard to keep up with blogging when there are so many things I'd like to write about, so I thought this might help me get my shit together.

Today while doing some freelance work I watched two movies. Please be aware that I might have some of my facts wrong because I wasn't paying complete attention to them the whole time, but I don't think that is mandatory to enjoy these to begin with.

First I watched:

ALIEN CONTAMINATION

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082000/

Alien Contamination is about aliens coming to take over Earth. A mystery occurs on board a cruise ship; mostly everyone is dead, or hopped overboard abandoning ship in the middle of their meals. A team is sent to investigate. They find some dead bodies that look like they've been "blown up from the inside". That is what the investigating team said, not me. I thought they had contracted some rare skin virus. The team also happens to find a glowing, pulsing, humming pod, which once picked up proceeds to rhythmically hum and glow faster, then explodes. The green goo turns out to be acid, and everyone starts bleeding and face melting, then exploding. (There are a lot of exploding people in this movie.) Somehow one of the investigating team members makes it back to whatever lab they had come from, and we're introduced to a cold-hearted bitch scientist CIA whatever woman who's name escapes me. She has some kind of fucked up love affair going on with some other member of her team. Somehow that is relevant to the rest of the movie because they talk about it through the rest of the movie.

They (the scientists, or some scientists, not really clear on this one) bring back a pod from the ship. Bitch scientist lady proceeds to explain to people who I have no idea what relevance they carry to anything be it government or what have you that when the pods warm up they explode acid everywhere. She then makes sure that they get the point by injecting some of that acid into a rat (WTF?) and everyone gets to watch the rat explode about five seconds later.

Later on they somehow seem to end up with a TON of pods in what seems to be a warehouse that may or may not be in the process of being robbed by thieves. Of course the scientists run into the thieves and try to warn them about the exploding pods, but they fail, and all of the who I am assuming are thieves explode.

Either before or after this the scientist lady contacts an ex-astronaut. Apparently he and his partner a few years back had traveled to Mars and might have seen these pods before. Of course the ex-astronaut is an alcoholic and accused of being insane. Its the lady scientist's job to get him to tell her what he actually saw (reluctantly because she was involved with his removal off the astronaut squad back in the day because no one believed him the first time). We have a nice little Mars expedition flash back here. She convinces him to help. He slaps her in the face (I think). No one explodes in this scene.

They decide that they're all going on holiday to south america. I think this is because ex-astronaut's partner, retired from the astronaut force, is running a coffee company down there. And why not? A bunch of things happen. Again, no one is exploding.

Once they get to South America scientist lady becomes a bitch because she wants to shower before dinner. This is really important. The two dudes don't get it so they go off to get drunk and play loud music in their rooms. Somehow scientist lady gets trapped in her bathroom. With a pod. No one can hear her screams because they are off playing loud music in their rooms. I guess she escapes though, because she's alive later. No exploding people in this scene either.

I won't ruin the end of the movie for you, but you definitely get to see a pretty creative alien named "The Cyclops". A couple more people explode, and someone gets eaten as well. This movie was a great start to this dvd set. It was both hilariously awful and hilariously gross. The special effects were pretty bad, but they weren't terrible, and exploding people definitely make up for everything else that sucks about this film. Actually the film didn't really suck at all.

I would recommend this movie to a friend.


I just finished watching the second movie, called Alien Species.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115506/
This movie is about aliens coming and invading earth.

It was so bad I'm not even going to waste my time talking about it. This is one of those movies where you just sit and wonder to yourself how it ever got made. It looks like it was shot on my parents camcorder from 1987. The acting is worse than Southland Tales. The plot doesn't make any sense. Nothing ever gets resolved. Somehow people are stuck underground with aliens. There's some classic early 90's special effects in there, the kind you'd see in the student work commercials for the Art Institutes. The song in the ending credits has seriously got to be from 1985.

If I was me now sitting next to me then watching this movie, I'd probably fast forward to a few parts for a laugh, but no way would I let myself watch it in its entirety.

All in all 50% awesomeness is a good start to this DVD adventure.

What one might call a "hairy" situation

So I have been catching this show on the science channel called My Shocking Story the last two days. Its a pretty amazing show. Yesterday I watched people get face transplants (woah), and today, real werewolf-people. Well, children, rather. There are a few people in the world with a disorder that causes hair to grow all over their bodies.

According to hairweb.org,

This phenomenon manifests itself in extreme growth of hair all over the body - almost the whole body is covered in hair. It is known as an extreme form of hypertrichosis and it is one the worlds rarest hereditary diseases - due to a gene defect.

You can see pics of people with this on the internet if you're really curious, but it looks just like it sounds.

Anyway they were discussing a young boy from India who has this whole problem and the treatments he was receiving and you know all that good Science Channel stuff. They went on to explain how the doctor who was treating him in India was working with an American doctor from Columbia University who deals with genetic science. They showed a clip of the doctor from India on the phone with the American doctor, speaking about the genetic mumbo jumbo and discussing some options. The Indian doctor agreed to send her samples from the boy (hair, skin, etc) to see what they can or might be able to do. Sounds great for him, right?

Then they showed a picture of this doctor from America.




If I was the boy's doctor in India, I would hesitate to show the boy's parents a picture of this woman. Considering HER hair issues, I don't think they would feel very hopeful about their son's future relationship with his hair.

image from http://clonemyhair.com

Green Ginger Tea to the Rescue!!

Sara and Lee and I sold a bunch of stuff at the punk rock flea market in Philly today. We had something for everyone! I sold mostly toys, Sara sold clothes, and Lee sold some stuff and records. We all did well! And I sold four pieces, two paintings and two bottles. Super! IT WAS SO PACKED. They overstuffed the place with tables, there was SO much traffic. I don't think they were expecting that many people to show up. There were people lined up AROUND THE BLOCK to get in. Jeez. R5 better make some adjustments here. We also all agreed that we will get a table in the future. We had a really good time. Even having to crawl under the table was fun in its own way.

I was just watching the commercials during the superbowl, and some of them were in "Real-D". Well I have a pair of those glasses from the movie My Bloody Valentine (which was AWESOME btw, a great slasher flick), so I put them on, and they didn't work. Are there some kind of differences between movie glasses and tv glasses, or were those commercials really not in Real-D?

Things that make you go hm?!

I met The Muffs!

Jesse and Mike and I went to see The Muffs at maxwell's in hoboken. I went with every intention of meeting them, because their singer and guitarist Kim Shattuck has been a hero of mine ever since I got into them. In case you aren't familiar with her band at all, you might know her as the girl who guest sang on Lori Meyers on NOFX's Punk in Drublic. Being that they were playing at Maxwell's (a small hole in the wall to say the least), I figured that I had a big chance to make it happen, so I brought my autograph book with me and some of that liquid courage.

They played a great set - way better than what I had heard from their live recordings. They rocked out a lot, they sounded great, and they even played new material, which not only super surprised me, but got me excited for a new album!!

After the show we stood next to the stairs leading down to the basement of the place, which we were assuming was a large area with many rooms and corridors. I stood up at the top of the steps, nervous and giddy as all hell, trying to get up the courage to go downstairs and find them. Thank goodness for Jesse and Mike and their "DO IT" egging me on, because without them I don't think I could have done it. I almost fell down the steps from excitement, and when I got to the bottom of them to find only a single storage room, there they were, just hangin out. I couldn't believe it, it was way easier than I thought. I talked to Ronnie (bass) first, telling him that I have been listening to them since I was 13, that I'm so excited to meet them, to see them, blah blah blah, I was a wreck. I got Ronnie's autograph and then talked to Kim, telling her something like, I sent you a myspace message years ago and she's a hero of mine and I'm sure I didn't make much sense and thinking back to it I must have sounded like the biggest idiot ever ever ever. She gave me a hug, even. I got a hug from Kim Shattuck!! I know, it sounds like no big thing to you, but it was really just plain awesome for me.

Kim and the drummer both signed my book, and Jesse and Mike also came downstairs, so I even got this awesome picture thanks to Jesse's iphone. I could go on about what a complete toolbag I felt like I sounded like after we left, because I am rather embarrassed about the whole thing, but I think I will leave it at that. I mean, a 28 year old girl acting like a 12 year old groupie of the Jonas Brothers for a punk band that's been around for 18 years .. kinda silly.

Thanks to them for understanding how silly I must have felt and being so cool about everything, and playing an awesome set. And on a side note, Jesse Rohland has the coolest bedroom in an apartment I have ever seen in my life. And Hoboken sucks, by the way.

Killer Jellyfish!

Image from: irukandjijellyfish.com/

These things are really tiny, only 2.5cm big. Its one of the most poisonous things on the planet! From wikipedia.com:

Irukandji syndrome is produced by a very small amount of venom and includes severe pains at various parts of the body (typically excruciating muscle cramps in the arms and legs, severe pain in the back and kidneys, and a burning sensation of the skin and face), headaches, nausea, restlessness, sweating, vomiting, high heart rate and blood pressure.

And to top it all off, there is no anti-venom. ANNND that pain lasts anywhere from hours to days. On the TV show on Animal Planet that I heard about this from a girl they interviewed while she was all doped up on morphine from a sting which they said barely masked the top of the pain and she talked about how painful it was ugh and she was in pain for two weeks. TWO WEEKS! That's scary!

I just heard that you can't keep them in a regular fish tank because if it runs into the wall it will die!

Obamamania!
I'm happy about the fact that our new president is just a regular guy who grew up in a regular family and got some pretty damn serious ambition to do some shit. I think that means more to me than anything, because it really does prove that anyone can do what they put their mind to it. All around I feel that we can only wait and see what really goes on for the next four years, but at least people are trying to feel good about something when things are obviously so bad.

The Muffs!
I'm totally going to see them tomorrow. YES!! I'm bringing my autograph book to see if Kim will sign it. I feel kind of embarrassed about it. But she rocks so hard! The Muffs! I wonder if they will have any new material. We're heading to a guy I used to work with's house up there to throw back before the show because I'm broke!! I really want a t-shirt tho. =o(

Punk Rock Flea Market
Lee and Sara and I are selling shit at the punk rock flea market on feb 2nd. Come check it out! I'm getting rid of mad 80's toys and stuffed animals and just some shit I have laying around the house. Should be a good time. At the Electric Factory, btw.

Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavillion is so good! They really reached a point where they can say the sound is completely theirs. Not that their other stuff sounded like much else, but this album is much more well fused than their previous material. I still love the Jam, but I can't get enough of songs like My Girls and Summertime Clothes.


I'm sleepy..

Happy New Year

Sorry

So, I made my friends all their holiday presents this year except for Greg who I got a shirt with a screaming cat face on it that says "STRESSED OUT!". Sara and Lee got refurbished action figures made to look like Zed from Zardoz, John and Dan got Katamari Damacy custom cousins. I wanted to put pictures of them up but I completely forgot to take some. They seemed happy. I made Ralph a box with the logo of the French Foreign Legion on it, ha ha ha.

I just got back from Washington D.C. and we were there to a. pick up things from my aunt's house in Annandale VA (totally sweet area) and b. to go to the zoo. I will have to put them on Picasa later. I also have several videos of Tai Shan munching on some 'boo (that's what we pandas call "bamboo" around here) I will have to put up as well.

Pandas are so stinking cute I can't take it.

SO from my aunt's house I got a new sweet couch and furniture for upstairs in the extra room and oh man its just ending up to be sweet around here, but we have a lot of work to do rearranging and cleaning. I also got an asian (I think it is Chinese, but I can't be sure) ink painting my aunt's girlfriend was presented with in Korea. I know I know it might be Korean if she got it from Korea, but the text inked on it looks like kanji, though I've never actually seen any Korean calligraphy so maybe I am just being stupid. Its so beautiful, and its HUGE!

I've been doing nothing else besides playing Persona 4 and I plan on writing my very first full game review upon completion. Its cold, so I'm gonna go make some cocoa or some shit. Later, suckers

Recent Love Affairs

Here are some things I have been obsessing over lately.

1. Vanilla Cream Soda
Soda is ok, it makes you pee a lot, but vanilla cream soda is the closest thing to heaven you can get in the soda department. At the Bent Spoon in Princeton, they have italian soda ice creams, and my next adventure in the Bent Spoon department will be to have a vanilla cream ice cream soda. heck yeah!

2. Leg Warmers
I've been searching for a good cheap pair of leg warmers for forever, always too lazy to order from catalogs and internets, but always on it when I find them in stores. This Sunday Lee and Matt and I went to Columbus flea market, and I bought 3 pairs of legwarmers, 2 pairs of tights, and 4 pairs of socks. The legwarmers are my favorite. They're just so practical, and, since I bought them in the brightest colors they had, guaranteed to make a statement to what might be an otherwise colorless work outfit. Bonus - they can double as arm warmers. Also, two pairs of them have lil buttons! Too cute. P.S. the two pairs of tights that I bought had nifty patterns - grey and black stripes, and get this - ARGYLE.

3. Dr. Mario
I'm good at this game. Some days, I'm great. I can beat everyone I know. I can't beat everyone on the internet though. There are things I see people who are better than me doing when I'm playing against them that I understand, but can't recreate with that amount of speed they do. Right now my rank on Wii kind of shuffles between 6600-6800. Over the last two months I've completely lost interest in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 (its just too much of the same thing over and over again, regardless of how many jobs they've stuffed in there it can be extremely boring to the point where i've fallen asleep playing it) and since Persona 4 comes out in a steadily decreasing amount of time I have refused to pick up another serious game. That has led to me playing Dr. Mario, sometimes for 5+ hours, online, almost every day. The big lure is that I am more often than not going to play against someone different every time, so its a constant gauge on my skills. I really would like to have some serious bragging rights to this game, so if you have a Wii, and you have downloaded this game, lets play. I'd like to prove to you that I can kick your ass. And if you're better than me, well hell, its awesome to play against you. You will never get better at a game unless you play people who challenge you.

That's that. Persona 4 comes out in about.. 2 days, so don't expect many things coming from here that aren't related to that game.

I got a new hat

It cost five bucks. What do you think?

This is the last time I ever do this ever.

Lauren and I went out on the porch to smoke, which is weird because I've been trying to quit and didn't really expect to smoke, and there happened to be two small white dogs walking through the street. One of them is shaggy, one of them is a chihuahua. The shaggy one they named Dusty, the little one Peaches. Peaches is a boy. He snaps at everyone, he sucks. Dusty pissed on my floor.

I'll post pictures tomorrow. I'm also going to call animal control. It sucks to have to keep them here in the cage, but I couldn't just let them roam. We put money on the idea that some family had mad people over for dinner and the dogs escaped. If I see a flier up I will call, but I can't keep them here. Wilma would flip.

In other news, we got an X-Box!! Heck yes. We don't really have any games that I'm super excited about right now, but the library will build. We have Bioshock, so good for that but its too scary for me to play home alone.

Happy Thanksgiving

//~DOG UPDATE, FRIDAY~//
This morning a guy was looking for a dog, so I asked him if the small dogs were his, but they weren't. I walked around the neighborhood and asked around to see if anyone had lost dogs, with no luck. Animal control is closed. Fuck. I let the dogs outside, and the chihuahua found a way to escape my yard and wander into Rocky's (the neighbor's dog). Well the neighbor pulls up, and I tell him about it, and we end up talking for about an hour cause some serious shit just went down in his life. Rocky tries to have sex with the small dog (who has attacked my neighbor and I a few times for no reason at this point), and neighbor guy goes, why are you putting yourself through this, and we kick the dogs out.

So that's that. I don't feel bad about it, because those dogs were assholes, especially the small one. Mike was right, again. We should have put them in the oven.

We painted the living room!

Check out the living room!

We painted and cleaned for about 6 and a half hours on Saturday. This is how it came out.

The kitchen is half stripped of wallpaper, so I should have that done by the end of the holiday weekend. So cool! Home decorating is rad.

pho pho pho nom nom nom (plus aquabats = superrad)

Mike bought us tickets to the Aquabats.

We left early (about 6:45) because I thought it would be a good idea to get some pho at anywhere in Chinatown before the show (at the Troc). We got to about Girard Ave exit (40 mins to get there, the exit right before the right one to get where we were heading), when Mike asks me if I have the tickets. I didn't. We turned around and drove back home, got the tickets, and headed back down to Philly. At this point I'm starving, so I ask Mike to call the Troc to find out what time the bats are playing. 9:45. Perfect. Its only 8:30, and we're right outside the city.

We roll up into Chinatown, and drive to the Troc. I think to myself, great, we're going to spend a half hour finding parking, and I'm still going to be starving.

Not so. There was a parking spot right in front of the Troc.

I'm not talking about down the street, I'm talking about RIGHT IN FRONT. HA! Fuck all you guys, its cold. We don't have to walk NO blocks to our car. Double luck hits us as well, because there is a pho place right across the street. We both get the same thing, pork with spring roll and verm noodooz, scarf that shit down in 15 minutes, and go to the show.

We missed Tragedy, the metal tribute to the Beegees, but whatever. We did see the end of Suburban Legends, who we thought were a boy band before the dancers picked up their horns and started playing, that was pretty cute. The Aquabats were hilarious - I had never seen them before, and now I am superglad I did! I did get a belly ache and missed a portion of their set while I watched a cockroach come alarmingly close to climbing up the toilet I was pooing on, but overall a great time.

There were lots of kids there which I'm sure you already knew, but they were really cute. Its good to see that there are plenty of kids out there still going to shows and having fun. We also saw a MIKEPASUNDOPPLEGANGER - this kid was just like Mike 5 years ago RIGHT DOWN to the flannel shirt. He didn't have the sleeves cut off, but it was cold, so I'm going to stick with the idea that he probably wears cut-offs in the warmer weathers. The thing I noticed the most about him though was how he was singing in the crowd and rocking out - so incredibly like Mike's mannerisms.. people, it was eerie. I should have gotten his number.

Sunday we .. well spent all day in bed, but we also went to SKA IS DEAD at the Starland, which I hate. Having slept until about 4:30, only getting out of bed around 530 and stopping at a bar to eat on the way there, we got into the venue right as the Toasters were finishing their set, which sucks, because they were the real reason I wanted to go in the first place. If we had waited to get bar food until after the show we would have seen it, but I was convinced that the Toasters were more important than the Pietasters and Mustard Plug. Turns out I am incredibly wrong. The show had started at 3, but the Toasters basically opened up the show for the other three big names (about 7 bands played, i think). THE TOASTERS PEOPLE! TWO TONE ARMY! I guess I am one of the few people in the world who think that they are one of the most important bands ever, or people just don't care. Who knows.

We left about 20 minutes after getting there.

At the bar, there was a bug hanging out on a chair. The bar's motto was, "A good place to hang out". I guess the bug thought so too.

So that's my ska weekend, in a nutshell.

(we also painted the kitchen and got verizon fios, but we no longer get MSNBC. KEITH OLBERMANN! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Oh, hi internet

Things that have happened that are cool:

Pumpkin carving party at Sara and Steves, we carved about 30 pumpkins in 3 hours
My brother moved out
I went to Salt Lake City for work, more on that later, because there are a few pictures I'd like to share
Works been ok
World of Goo is a great game
Saw a girls volleyball game at Princeton, was rad
I'm officially a Supervillian, arching Princeton, more on that later
Totally obsessed with the Venture Brothers
Keith Olbermann, what a douche, but so funny
Barack Obama is our next president!

Things that have happened that are not cool:

My brother took his Xbox and his computer (but my new computer is on its way)
I got serious depression (working on it)
Wilma got fleas
I have to give my brother 200 bucks (for the tv)
Mike's been working too much
When we get verizon, all of the DVR items are going to be lost.

So that's about it. I haven't seen any movies.
The games I have been playing are: Pokemon Pearl, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, World of Goo, Megaman 2 and 9 (fuck 9), Dr. Mario.

Japanese classes have started and they're half awesome and half shitty. We're covering things I've already learned, but it has made me feel so much more confidant in my skills. I'm pretty sure that I could have a serious conversation with a Japanese person at this point, so long as they talked a little slow. There are two reasons that the class sucks, one its kind of slow, and two its at 9am in the morning on Sundays. I really dislike having to get up early on Sunday.

Salt Lake was interesting, I didn't get to see the stupid lake again, but we had a good time. We hit a martini bar, I played shuffleboard for the first time with my boss (and got beat), we met some cool people, learned some stuff. I was really bored a lot though, and totally bummed that no one would go swimming with me. We ate SO MUCH food though, which was great, even though I'm starving now.

Money and I aren't getting along really well. But I wonder if that is really just me, or if things are really that stupid expensive now? My brother and I are also not getting along, mostly because I think he is a putz and lazy.

Works been good, I've been proud of a lot of the design work I've been doing lately, but I'm still interested in a different position.

My first arch in Princeton didn't really start as one. I gave Dr. Boyfriend some money to play tunes in a bar there, and there were stuffy jerks all over the place, I mean CRAWLING with them. So he put on six dollars worth of metal. They got so annoyed after awhile that they actually TURNED THE MACHINE OFF. HA.

I've realized, in this new endeavor that I am on, that it is very hard to come up with ways to arch without risking yourself being labeled a terrorist or being brought up on some kind of homeland security issue. I mean people are so scared these days, that even what I might think is the smallest prank ever may be taken so seriously. Its been harder than I imagined to really get a system down on how I am going to pull this off. In time, I suppose, I mean, I really just started this whole thing two weeks ago.

I'd like to take this final moment to recommend The Bent Spoon in Princeton. See, I have three soft spots for that town. One, the girls volleyball team, two, the store "Morning Glory" run by Koreans with tons of awesome import items in it, but also, The Bent Spoon. The people who run The Bent Spoon are my heros. Its an ice cream place, with THE BEST ice cream ever, and all kinds of home made stuff like marshmellows, whipped cream, root beer, hell, they even have HOT hot chocolate. Like jalepenio hot. No shit, right?

I promise, more to myself than whoever reads this site, to write more.

Bloomsburg Fair = Chicken Pretzels and Huge Cows

So Sara and I went up to Bloomsburg for the annual fair they do up there. Its a pretty amazing event, with amazing people, livestock, food, I mean pretty regular state fair stuff but in coal country, the raddest place on earth.

Some highlights include:

Livestock: Holy crap I saw the largest cow I have ever seen in my entire life. I can't wait for Sara to get the picture over to me. I can't describe it anymore. You'll have to see it. Also there were giant cocks and cute bunnies. I'm pretty down with the livestock thing, except the size of the utters kind of upset me, since you know that was all kinds of hormone induced. I was definitely afraid of being shat on in the cow pen. And the horse show, for crying out loud young girls, stop putting glitter on your horse, its fuckin trashy. Also, it smelled, so bad. SO BAD.

People: I love you guys from the coal region. You did not disappoint.

Food: I still did not try the chicken pretzels, but I was tempted to this time. Last time not so much. I got some great chee fries, dollar ice cream, and a 2 for a dollar hot dog that was definitely only worth a dollar. It basically tasted like bologna. But man, you can't beat fair food. It actually seemed this time like there was more food than actual stuff to buy.

We saw a sideshow, which could have been cooler if it didn't seem like it was run by a bunch of kids. if they had really tried to sell it I think it could have been a lot better. They had the oldest working munchkin from the wizard of oz there, and man that guy was really creepy looking. They had a spider lady, a snake lady, a headless woman, but it was more of corniness than actual entertainment. You can get away with doing really corny shit if you just put a little OOMPH into it, and this really didn't have it. It kind of ran like a bad talent show. Now they said that they are trying to keep alive the traditions of the day back before we had YouTube and could watch all of it online, but honestly, they could have spiced it up, and with all the money they make, I think they could also have gotten better spider lady costumes.

Long story short we got exhausted even though we tried not to, ended up at the Silver Spur in Mt. Carmel, where we thought there would be karaoke, but no luck. We ended up talking to a really great older man at the bar for a few hours. Alex, I think his name was. He chatted it up with us about everything from the bail out to comic book movies. There is nothing better for the soul than some good wisdom and conversation with a stranger from Mt. Carmel. We thank him for a great time at the bar.

Our room at the Pine Burr Inn (classic 1970s decor Inn) was pretty awesome. It had plastic couches. They overcharged me. I have to call them about that tomorrow.

The next morning we went to get blastin blueberry pancakes at our favorite spot to eat up there, Yanni's. The horrifying thing about being there was the lack of customers due to the smoking ban and financial crisis. Honestly, I won't talk politics here, but fuck it was scary.

The drive home was the most horrifying drive I had ever been on, ever (with a sober person). The highway looked like a lake. And to top it all off, when we got back to Sara's, her street was blocked off because of a block party, that had been rescheduled from another time due to rain, but failed to tell anyone else about when it had been rescheduled to.

It was an exhausting, fun, disappointing, happy, long weekend. Cheers.

You can see pictures by clicking anywhere on this long sentence.

Ok, here is the cow.

Sea Creatures are Really Really Cool.

From http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-94406: