A veerily and dastardly Happy Birthday goes out to flyswatter!!!
Thanks for all you have done for me and may you have a rocakbilly, double feature RKO day or a close facsimile.

No, I'm not always a wacky, laugh inducing joyride. I am usually quite reserved and occasionally downright sociopathic.. It is quite annoying how so many people can't deal with that in a mature matter.

Being complimented on my writings is a bittersweet pill. Even if the person has no clue as to what they are talking about it is nice to be complimented, but then it is somewhat disconcerting b/c they have no idea what they are talking about and I know that, but they don't. Actually, I'm sorry, that's not exactly what I mean.

Today, I met this really pretty girl who wore a hat and laughed at my jokes. Tis a shame.

"My country tis a thee..." Fucking racist propaganda.

Dear Cate Blanchett,
I appreciate the fact that your new gig requires you to be a cop and therefore act tough and exude some sort of command presence among your peers, but please do me a favor. Stop mean muggin'. It so does not suit you. I know you might want to show deference to the director and maybe try portraying yourself as not a skinny White woman from Australia, but you are in fact a skinny White woman from Australia. Of all the groups of White people who should not be mean muggin' on my TV screen, skinny women types are probably at or near the top of the list. Seriously, dude. Stop. I'm not saying I won't watch your new show, just that I would feel better about myself and you if I knew you weren't going to be displaying your best thugalicious face every week.


I have a crush on little Shawn Johnson from the US women's gymnastic team. She's so pretty. With her bright eyes, big smile, buck teeth, and tight little butt, she's like a sexy, adorable, athletic chipmunk. She's no Kim Zymeskal, but she's very close.


Dear Nicholas Cage,
I promise you. I PROMISE YOU. From the bottom of my heart and with all my soul and loving, I completely, assuredly, absolutely, one hundred percent promise you, Nick, that of all the things that you ARE NOT, Bangkok Dangerous is the number one of them. It is at the top of the pinnacle of the paramount of the apex of the highest point of the peak of the list of things that you are not. Are you understanding me, sir? You are not Superman, you are not cool, you are not funny, and you damn well better believe, heed, know, write a check and give it your pot dealer trust with gusto that you ARE NOT Bangkok dangerous. You are quite far from any type of dangerous. I promise you.

Sometimes I go to Dragon Con or to stupid_drawing's house and I wish I were a cosplayer. I see everyone and fantasize about how cool it would be to be that popular and talented and to have that much free time and disposable income. I wish I were "that way", doing what they do and having fun with it. I was talking to my Friend the other day and he inadvertently reminded me that I did used to be that way. I did used to make costumes and just be bizzare with them. I was actually surprised b/c I had truly forgotten. Back in high school and once in junior high, I cosplayed to school no less than 6 and a half times. It was a bloody blast. He said he wonders what happened to that version of me and I thought about it.

I have to say that, most likely, the problem comes from me never truly getting over what happened to me in May 2001. I thought I was past all that sometime in 2006, but apparently accepting what happened and actually being over it and able to move on are two different things in my head. Quite unfortunate really. Those were some pretty decent costumes. or at least it was fun wearing them.


I was watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show last night w/o all the annoying audience participation. It is actually a pretty funny movie and the songs are fun to listen to. Some of them.

Happy Birthday to the incomparable and incorrigible jaythebarbarian!!
I barely know you, but I am glad to know that small bit.
Come home safe, sir.

This is in response to a recent post by wolven. its a rough draft so respond and critique at your own risk.


The root of the stigma lies in the presentation of the form. Comic books are printed on cheap paper in bright colors and held together with staples. This is a presentation that screams to be thrown away and that is how they were introduced. Comics were created to be a simple and mindless form of entertainment that was disposable. They were not envisioned to be testaments through time. Film was created with the same general idea in mind, but where film has evolved, comic books most likely never will. There has yet to be a major call to redefine the medium because not many people are willing to recognize the form as a medium. There will be no major change in public opinion about comic books until the creators within the medium throw off the shackles of it's history.

Motion pictures were just another way to make a dollar. They were meant to be a spectacle and to entertain thru dazzlement. Comic books were essentially the same. Being aimed at children is neither here nor there. It is the purpose of the show that matters more than who the show is put on for and the purpose of things like The Yellow Kid and Dick Tracy was to give men some comic relief.

Life is stressful. These bright, little squares are not.

Take it up to Superman and The Spirit and the theme was the same:

Come over here and relax by reading about some wacky stuff. It's all whiz bang fun. Now isn't that better than a day at work?

This is the problem. There may be artists who envision more when they begin to create a story for a comic book, but not enough of them. And no matter how many of them there are, they will always be a minority b/c of the original purpose of their chosen field. Cinema had the same type of birth, but the difference is that people saw beyond the sideshow aspect. They saw a new technology and knew it could help them to do more than entertain. This technology could be used to tell a story that was beyond them as people. This has yet to happen in the field of comic books. That is not because of any lack of effort of the part of the current crop of creators, but due to a lack of interest by the audience. The audience, the Masses who spend money, do not care about high brow social commentary. They have no desire to read about the evolution of Mankind's psyche as told thru the eyes of a man in tights or a demigod in a black dress with spiky hair. They do not have any incentive to look to comic books for that type of discussion. Yes, there are people who want that discussion and understand that a comic book is just as viable a way to have it as a novel, but those ppeople are not the ones spending the majority of the money. That setback is confounded by and was instilled by the standard bearer of the tradition, namely the superhero.

No matter how strenuously Warren Ellis or anyone else objects to the truth, the truth remains that superheroes are comic books. They are not simply a genre of the medium, they are the medium. As long a they exist comic books will be defined in their terms. It will always be about Batman and Spiderman and then if you are lucky, you will hear tale of the lesser gods, those on the lunatic fringe like Sandman or Rorsach. It will take more than time and far more than a continuous diet of "hip and edgy" fair by Grant Morrison to change the assumption that comic books "are just superhero fluff". . It will take the death of Superman, not in another publicity stunt, but in the hearts of the Masses. The superhero as a symbol must be destroyed. Along with him must go Marvel and DC. Those companies must go bankrupt and take their intellectual property with them before any paradigms are shifted in the comic book medium. The reason is because of the history. People were never told to look at a comic book as a medium in which to tell a variety of stories. They were told to look at comic books as THE way to tell a superhero story. That is the mindset. This cannot be fought by modern creators standing in the Square trying to hold back the juggernaut tanks of the historical doctrine by shouting at them to "please do something different". Superheros have made companies lots of money and been around for a long time. They are entrenched in the public's collective conciosuness. It happened through repetition and by a desire to make money. In the entertainment business, you can only make money by appealing to as many folks as possible at the same time, in the shortest amount of time. You give them an easy fix. That is what superheroes are. They were born from the original mandate of

Give the guys something to laugh at.

and evolved into

Give em somethin' to shout about!.

Whether its shouting about how cool that is or how awesome that fight was or how terrible this issue was, it was shouting and shouting means revenue and enough revenue means profit. Once a profit is turned than the head man wants the bottom men to generate more by any means necessary. At the same time, once the Masses like something, you have to keep them liking it or they will stop giving up their money. What do they like? What sold last month? Oh, Superman? Ok, well here he is again. And there it began and here it will continue. The comic book is its own stigma. People want familairity. They say the want new and different, but what they mean is they want same old stuff in new clothes. They want Jaws again, but this time call it Scream. They want Barnaby Jones again, but this time call it ER.

There are a few people out there who want to present more in the medium, but the medium does not exist yet. Sure, college professors are teaching comic books as if the actual comic is important as opposed to whatever character is gracing the pages. Sure, conventions are giving host to people who want to discuss the finer points of the field. This is all good and well, but it does not challenge the central tenent which is that the collective psyche of the public has identified a comic as simply a childish toy. Yes, these professors and forum leaders need to keep up the discourse, but that alone will not change anything. Time will not change anything. The death of superheroes will. There is no such thing as a "good superhero" story. Being good or bad is irrelavent. The point is that superheros have been around too long and have poisoned the well. News people are only concerned about making a dollar. They can only make that dollar by being faster and more entertaining than their competitors. Work does not generate profit, profit generates profit and the way to make a profit is by hooking your audience. The audience, the Masses, do not want to think or to question their existence or their beliefs. This is why the news channels present the same stories everyday in different clothes. They have to give you what you want and what you want is the same thing you had yesterday b/c it is comfortable. If the news man tries to research a story about the difference b/t a superhero comic and any other type of comic than he has failed twice. He failed by wasting time doing work, the research. He then failed by challenging the audience's assumptions. The research takes time away from being fast. Fast means more headlines per hour which means more ratings. Challenging the audience's opinion makes them think. That's not what they did yesterday. The audience goes, taking ratings with them, with profits right behind, and the news man loses a job.

What this says is that superhero stories are all the same. No matter how smart you think they are or how edgy or different they are, they are still perpetuating the problem. The news man will be able to look at this edgy, hip comic and say

Oh, a new superman comic. Let me shove this in the faces of my audience and get some guy in glasses to talk about it.

Once he does this, the audience is hooked.

Ooh! New comic books. And this one is different. Superman is a woman/is Black/is on a team/is fighting crime in a future time/is etc/etc/etc. And wow! That smart guy says its cool to read stuff like that cos it's like a myth and myths are important and ...

And so on. In the end, its all Superman and Batman and Wolverine. Its all the same story in different costumes and as long as that connection can be made the men who want money will know what the people who spend money will buy and not buy. No one makes connctions b/t Lucifer and Iron man and therefore few people buy Lucifer. Lucifer makes little money so there is no incentive for a company to publish more things like Lucifer. They publish things like Superman and the cycle begins again.

A songwriter said "you say everything sounds the same, but then you go buy it." People who want to make money know that is exactly what you will do. You will bitch and moan to your friends, but when 8'oclock hits you will watch whatever is on that TV. When Friday hits, you will watch whatever is in that theater. When a "rainy day" rolls round you will read whatever you found on the Barnes and Noble 'New and Hot" table. In the realm of comic books, superheros will always be "new and hot" b/c they are familiar. You don't have to work to read them and the artists don't have to work to make them. So, yes, comic books can be used to tell many kinds of stories, but the majority of people only want one kind and they always will no matter how many new faces are telling them it is okay to read something new. Why? B/c that is easy and safe and they have no reason or incentive to change. What will it take to effect this change? The safety of the superhero has to be erased from our minds. We must lose the ability to connect a new comic book with an old superhero b/c that tells publishers we will buy those superheroes forever whereas we will hesitate when asked to buy something called Hellboy or Ghost World. Why buy that? What is it? Who do they fight? Who drew it? Too many questions to ask and answer and so we all go buy what we know the answers to. Superhero safety will not just disappear as years go by b/c comic books were never allowed to become a medium therefore the medium cannot truly evolve yet. They were stunted and retarded and have become an outlet for advertising archaic images and doctrine to the sound of cash registers. Simply saying

"Hi, I am over her with something new. Please read it."

will not work. Offering a new choice only attacks the symptom. The cause is still there and it is nigh invulnerable. And I'm out.

Tags: comics, essay, society

All of this should have been posted last night, but I was sleepy. Some of them belong on t-shirts. some of them just belong. And yes, me and seraphic_slayer are going to Hell, but we'll have fun on the way and people will be cracking up once we arrive.

"I bet Al Sharpton went to see Spider Man 3 cos he heard there was finally a black Spider Man. Boy, I bet he was sure disappointed."

Final Fantasy X-2 wasn't a video game; it was an abortion in a jewel case.
(edited from its original format to achieve maximum offensiveness.)

I'm better than you based on a sliding scale that *I* determine!

Ex-Girlfriends/Boyfriends: They're the Fox News of Love
Neither fair or balanced and they report and decide who was right.

"I have no intention of seeing it, I just think I'll start using "tropic thunder" in place of "retarded" as not to offend all the retarded people who can't understand what I'm saying anyway. You know, cos they're retarded."


"We should use that to end all arguments now:"

'Look, take out the garbage, now!'
'I will do no such thing! At least not until you give me a Black Spider Man!'
'Wait, what?'
'You heard me! Stop your racist propaganda and give us a Black Spider Man!'*


"Today in China, massive earthquakes rocked the city of Beijing. Clearly this was the work of liberals, Mexicans and non-Christians."

"Even Teletubbies is rife with communist dogma. Notice how they all get Tubby Custard, regardless of who actually did the work of pulling the lever. And one of them is RED."


*Thanks to chickwow for the icon that inspired this.

Tags: funny, random

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to courtenaybloom!
Hope you are going to have fun and be well, wherever you are.

Why is men's volleyball on my TV during primetime? Who the hell cares about volleyball, ESPECIALLY men's volleyball? NBC, stop failing.

Why is judo or fencing or archery never shown during primetime or late night? Why do I have to look at water polo? Seriously? Water polo? Dude.

Does anyone else remember Kim Zmeskal? She was pretty. I had a crush on her during the 1992 Olympics. She can fall off my balance beam anytime.

What the hell was up with the judges during last night's men's gymnastics? The Korean guy walks out of bounds on the vault and gets a 9.1 while one of the Americans takes one tiny step, well within bounds, and gets an 8.8? WTF? I can understand if the judges want to make up for cheating last time and giving that douche Paul Hamm a medal he didn't win, but this is not how to do it.

Dear Japan,
don't worry guys. I know you have had a hard week. I know the announcers have been busting your balls. I know it must feel shitty to fall off the rings. But you are Japan. You will blow America up using ninja and robotechnology someday, so don't feel too bad. You guys still rock and will do better next time. Unless the judges cheat you like they cheated the Koreans in Athens...

Dear Christian Slater,
I'm sorry sweetie. Didn't you get the memo? Your career is over. Yeah, it's been over for awhile. I know, I know, it's hard to accept that sometimes, but get real man. You're Christian Slater. People barely knew who you were when you had a career, so please, stop these histrionics and get off my TV. Stop pretending you are a noteworthy actor. You went from a bad video game movie that went straight to video to a TV show on NBC. NBC, sweetie. That's the network that thinks it's okay to remake Knight Rider. And you think THEY can save your "career"? Thinking like that is why you don't have one. Now go on, scoot. You're embarrassing yourself.


Speaking of NBC...Seriously? Knight Rider THE SERIES? Who the hell are you people trying to fool? You think America is so dumb they are gonna think there was a secret Knight Rider movie they missed and this is where this amazing new series came from? I know my country has it's limitations, but it is not THAT stupid. So, stop acting as if we don't remember the old Knight Rider TV show or The Hoff. We will always remember David Hasslehoff. That's why we call him the Hoff. Knight Rider the series. Dude. Seriously.

So...Warner Brothers thinks they can make more money by releasing Harry Potter 6 next July instead of this November. Yeah. That makes sense. Make the people who want this movie more than they want air wait another 8 months. Make them keep waiting for a movie that is already 2 years late and hope they still want to see it after another 8 months w/o any idea of what could happen b/t now and then. Makes so much sense.

Plus, it's not as if movies make money in the Fall anyway. It's not as if Return of the King, The Two Towers, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter 1, Batman Begins, Scream 1, 2, and 3, or some of the recent James Bond movies made any money at all during the Fall. Nope. Not even Titanic made any money when it opened in December. Yep, Summer is where all the cash is.

Warner Brothers? Can I share s/t with you that you should already know?

A GOOD MOVIE WILL MAKE MONEY NO MATTER WHEN YOU BLODDY RELEASE IT, YOU WORTHLESS PRICKS!

People buy tickets for movies they want to see, not for the time of year it shows up. If you are under the false impression that Summer generates more gross revenue than the Fall b.c people like watching movies then, than you are very wrong. That time of year makes more money b.c that's when Hollywood releases more movies! It's a self fulfilling prophecy and one that is very easy to correct:

START RELEASING MORE MOVIES AT DIFFERENT TIMES OF THE YEAR!

And don't use that tired excuse about kids being in school. You really think going to school or work stops anyone from going to the movies? Where have you been? This is America. We will always value entertainment more than education. Why do you think we are so damn ignorant when compared to to other nations? You think our kids have the lowest reading and math skills in the world b/c they study? No. it's b/c they spend hour after hour on the Internet screaming about how it is taking for the next Harry Potter or Freddy Kruger movie to come out. So stop being idiots and release your "summer tent pole" movie in the Fall and make it a "Fall tent pole" movie.

Bunch of morons in this business.

No, I don't think heath Ledger deserves an Oscar. A nomination? Sure. The award itself? Not as of yet. As brilliant as he was and as much as I personally love the performance, this is only August. There are still 4 months left for actors to get noticed for the Oscars. Let's not jump the gun just b/c we were all sad the kid died far too early.

Cooking is enjoyable. Like most activities, the build up to starting is a pain and I feel like I don't want to do it, but once I get started and stuff is bubbling and smells are simmering, it's awesome.

Dear guy from the special olympics,
shut the fuck up. It's just a movie. None of these retarded people you claim are so hurt and distraught over this movie they have never seen and will never see don't care as much as you claim to do about some insignificant slapstick comedy. Wanna know why? They are retarded. They don't realize people are making fun of them.

And it's totally okay for me to say that cos some of my best friends are mentally handicapped.

Dear news media,
Who the fuck cares if a little girl lip synched a song at the olympics? It was just a song. it was just the opening ceremonies. Its not like she scammed anyone out of billions of dollars, invaded a soverign country, confiscated someone's laptop at a border crossing for no reason, or supported the rape and murder of millions of Africans. She lip synched a song and the organizers made her do it b/c they were scared she might mess up since it was live. Get over it. Quickly.

My enchiladas came out too spicy. Better luck next time.

Dear douchebag olympic announcer,
shut the fuck up now. I nor anyone else watches the olympics to find out how you feel or what you dislike. If a Japanese gymnast needs to laugh to cope with the insane amount of stress he is under to win a gold medal than you sit down, shut up and let him. Don't you dare say aloud

"I don't like to see that, laughing after a mistake. Maybe thats how he deals with the stress, but that's not what you do at the Olympics."

How about this? How about you are a nameless, faceless has been or probably never was who gets paid to pretend he knows a damn thing and to nitpick every detail of an athletes performance as if you could walk down to the uneven bars and do better. Seriously, fuck off and stop talking. If that kid needs to laugh after messing up a dismount b/c otherwise his head would explode from stress, guilt, and fear, then he will and you will respectfully be quiet as he does so. Otherwise you will get kicked square in the nuts.

Dear Michael Phelps,
you are just mind boggling. I don't even like swimming, but you make me want to keep watching. Congratulations and keep up the good work. You are just amazing.

Dear Arron Peirsol,
You are maybe the hottest, sexxiest straight man I have ever seen. They should call you Arron Hot-Nett cos your name is not Hartnet, but you are a hottie.* Thank you and keep up the good work. Your no Dana Torres, but you are very pretty. Meoow.

Dragon Quest 8 is a great RPG. The gameplay is very fun and quite intuitive and the story keeps me wanting more. I highly reccomend it if you have been looking for another RPG to beat.





*a very, very inside joke and I am not sorry.

Acadamy Award winning singer-songwriter and actor, Issac Hayes, dies from undisclosed causes at age of 65.


...Dear celebrities,
Stop with all this damn dying!
Yours truly,
a suspicious and mournful fan.


Here's why I am suspicious. According to his website, Issac was preparing to star in a feature film with Samuel L. jackson and...Bernie Mac

What the flying fuck?

Tags: death, links, news

Comedian turned actor, Bernie Mac, dies of pnuemonia at age 50

I'm tired of hearing about people randomly dying so young.

Tags: death, links, news

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning Russian author whose books chronicled the horrors of dictator Josef Stalin's slave labor camps, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.

He wrote the novella, "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denosovich", a book that means a lot to me. I feel sad b/c I assumed he was already dead and then b/c now that he is dead people are going to give even less heed to his ideas for saving nations from ideology.

Tags: death, links, politics, society

HAPPY BIRTHDAY,