Festa Etiquette

Some advice for those of you attending La Festa Italiana this weekend:

Do: Enjoy your food while standing off to the side, out of the way of walking traffic.

Don't: Just plop your plates down on top of your baby stroller and proceed to gather around it and have a picnic right in the middle of the sidewalk, causing that entire side of the festival to become gridlocked with people trying to get around your lazy asses.

Seriously, what the hell? I've been going to this thing for years now, and I've never seen such a blatant display of sheer ignorance before this year. I witnessed at least four instances of this in just the hour that I was there! Including one group that had the Adams Ave. side (which was already severly narrowed due to the courthouse robb^H^H^H^Hrenovations) blocked to the point where only one person could pass at a time. They really should make it a rule that you are allowed, or even encouraged, to plow over such people.

Yeah, thanks for getting flooded, asshole!

What remains of Lonesome Road in Old Forge, after the Lackawanna River made a snack of it during the June 2006 floods.

From the "Why Retail Workers Should be Armed" Dept.

So the Scranton Times-Tribune has an article today about the struggles of the Dollar General store on Lonesome Road in Old Forge, which can be seen in the background of the above photo. Not struggles against rising water, or the road being out, mind you. We're talking struggles by store employees against angry customers. Let's review their plight, shall we?

1. One week ago, the Lackawanna River surged, flooding the store under several feet of water. Much of the merchandise was, obviously, destroyed, and the store needed a major cleanup as a result.
2. In addition, the road in front of the store was washed away by the river current, leaving the store inaccessible for almost a week since.
3. When PennDOT finally built a temporary road around the washed-out portion, it was too narrow for the company's large trucks to navigate, leaving the store unable to replenish its stock, most of which is now waterlogged and unsellable, even if it is a dollar store.

Yet despite all this, there are still pieces of human garbage out there that actually have the gall to complain that the store is closed! From the article:

“Great. Now I have to go all the way out of my way. Thanks a lot,” one man yelled out of his car window before speeding out of the parking lot.

What the fuck do these people expect? "Yeah! Thanks a lot for not miraculously parting the Lackawanna like Moses so I can buy all my dollar store crap right this instant!"

It was much nicer back in the old days, when problem "customers" like that were shown the door and told never to come back, lest they be charged with trespassing. Now, all the retail business is done by large chains that hire managers who are too chicken to tell the terminally ignorant to get the hell out. This, in turn, makes it worse for the rest of us to shop, since we're always trying to get around idiots who:

• Block entire aisles and refuse to move
• Hold up the register for hours on end haggling the cashier over various expensive items that she swears were all marked 3/99¢ on the shelf
• Take the motorized carts simply because they are too fat and lazy to walk a few damn feet to the potato chips, leaving none for those who are genuinely handicapped and need them
• When an employee is assisting you, walk up screaming, demanding that the employee help them instead, despite the fact that you were there first (bonus points if they just need to know the location of an item they just walked by on their way to throw a tantrum)
• Take items out of other people's carts
• Allow their filthy, grossly overweight, lice-ridden children to run around the store completely unattended, tripping people, running into shopping carts, blocking aisles, and generally making enough retarded screaming noises to rival the taping of your average MTV show.
• Are filthy, grossly overweight, and lice-ridden themselves
• And so on, and so on...

I propose that we find the "man" (note the use of quotes) mentioned in this article. When the land along Lonesome Road is rebuilt, have a cheap, one-story house built alongside the river, and force this guy to move into it. Next time the river floods, we all get together and beat him with bricks for every hour that he is not finished cleaning up and rebuilding said house. Afterwards, we all take turns yelling, "Thanks a lot, jerkwad!", and speeding off his lawn.

It'll be the best national holiday ever!

Impatient for Independence

So it's only July 1st right now, and yet despite this, most of my neighbors are already setting off enough rocketpower to launch a small satellite into geostationary orbit. The air outside reeks of smoke and beer, explosions can be heard from all directions, and I swear I just saw Iraqi security forces patrolling the neighborhood.

Needless to say, I've put the fire department on speed dial.

Of Blasphemy and William Campbell

So I was down in the diner^H^H^H^H lounge in the basement of the student center (or, as I call it, "That place you go when the Pro Deo Room is full") today, and somebody had a talk show featuring Paul McCartney on one of the TVs there. Suddenly, a shot was fired that was heard around the world. That's right, somebody comitted the heinous act of saying that Sir Paul "wasn't that good". This, of course, infuriated a bystander, who apparently didn't get the memo and spent the next half hour railing on about how great and immaculate McCartney is. The kicker was when she claimed that "Paul McCartney is the only reason why anybdody listens to the Beatles!".

I Feel sorry for this generation.

Tomorrow: What's the deal with my Japanese textbook? Also, Canada's top Ukrainian-Canadian recording artists, Mickey and Bunny! Be there!

Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli

Random observations from this year's La Festa Italiana:

• For some reason, there were a lot of people dragging their dogs along this year. This is the first year that I've ever seen anybody at this thing with a pet of any kind, and for good reason. If you've ever been to La Fester, you'll know that it is no place for pets. I even saw a few people pulling chihuahuas around on leashes, wich I'm sure resulted in more than a few people leaving with chihuahua pancakes stuck to their sandals
• Out of all the stands that were there, not a single one had a genuine white pizza. Too many people these days seem to think that a white pizza is nothing more than a regular pizza with no sauce, and usually, to add insult to injury, tomato slices on top. ("Ha ha! You will have tomatoes on your pizza, whether you like it or not!") There's a number of spices that are needed to have a good white pizza, and nobody there this weekend had 'em.
• While we're on the subject, "Buffalo Wing" is NOT a legitimate pizza topping. Where did you learn this? STOP DOING IT! You see those little red discs over there? Those are pepperoni. Try putting those on a pizza, I heard they're pretty good.
• Also, while geographically close, gyros do not count as Italian food. Let's try not to have three tents selling them next year, mmkay?
• Finally, there was a local restaurant selling fried ravioli at $4.50 for a plate of 4. That breaks down to $1 per ravioli (if you assume that the sauce is $.50). The goddamn things better be made of solid platinum with diamond cheese for that price.

Anyway, that's enough griping about food for one year. Now it's time for that most sacred of post-Labor Day traditions in Scranton: The week's worth of heartburn and indigestion! Wheeeee!

The anti-gay marriage crowd proudly displays their intellect to the world.
(AP Photo)

Florida Standard Time

A sheep grazing in the Turkish town of Gevas jumped from a cliff last Thursday, causing nearly 1,500 others to follow. The leap resulted in the deaths of 450 of the animals, in addition to prompting several million college radio DJ's worldwide to play the Monty Python "Flying Sheep" sketch over the course of the next week.
(AP Photo)

Actual conversation I had with the woman sitting next to me in the jury lounge today:

Crazy old woman: (Refering to a spot for Space Shuttle coverage on the TV:) What time is that supposed to happen?
Me: I think it's around 4:00 or so.
C.o.w.: Is that their time or our time?
Me: Well, it's in Florida, so it's the same time.
C.o.w.: How can that be? It's 18 hours away!
Me: Yeah, but it's in the same time zone.
C.o.w.: Even though it's 18 hours away?

So I pretty much spent the next five minutes trying to explain to her that time zones only change when you're traveling East-West. She eventually gave up trying to understand it and just went back to watching whatever crap it is that NBC kills the time between Today and the 12:00 news with. The defendant ended up pleading guilty, which was probably a good move, considering that his fate would have otherwise been decided by people like her.

This does, however, explain why a thief can successfully sue his victim for injuries sustained during a burglary. Let's hear it for the American legal system, everyone!

Fweeeeeeeeeee!

Well, that was quite possibly the single most funnest semester that I've had ever! It was, in fact, so great that I haven't even had the energy to write anything about it until now. That's how wonderful it was. Tremendous! Fabulous! Spectacular even! Please hold on while I go over here and shoot myself.

*BLAM!*

Okay, that aside, let me just sum up my entire spring semester in one word: "Whuh?". That's pretty much how it went. I ended up stuck with an instructor who graded her course pretty much entirely on a single project, that had to be accompanied by many, many "short" pieces which were then changed to 5-page papers at the last minute. Did I forget to mention that she gave us absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what these papers were supposed to be about? Nope, no explanation at all. She just gave us a vague title for each paper and we had to guess from there what she meant by it. Also, I never got a single one of them back, so I never even knew whether or not I was writing these things correctly. This, of course, kept me from ever being able to do any decent work on my actual project, which ended up being a steaming pile of crap. Despite all this, I managed to get by with a B. I don't know how, since I don't think I handed in several of the things on her list, but again, I can't be sure, since that list seemed to change with every class. Yes, folks, this is why I'm only going to school part-time. If I had to deal with four or five of these people at once, I probably would have shot myself by now. Or at least died of sleep depravation.

Anyway, now that that's over, I can finally turn my attention to that horrendous pile of DVD's and CD's that I've been gathering over the past several months but haven't had time to watch/listen to. At least in theory, anyway. So far, it doesn't seem to be working out that well.

"Carrot Top's Last Stand"
(Image taken from amusing.org)

Latest Update from Retail Hell

So last week, a woman waddled on over to the electronics department and racked up an order of over $500. When she got to my register, she proceded to pay this down with gift cards until it was under the limit at which I would have had to automatically call for a check approval. She then handed me the most blatantly obvious counterfeit check that I have ever seen in my life. I mean, this thing was just horrible. It was like she wasn't even trying. There were no security features whatsoever, most of the numbers were missing, the box for the dollar amount was just a very tiny line, and to top it all off, the whole thing had that "inkjet printer running low on ink" blur to it.

So I call the supervisor over, show her the check, she tries not to burst into laughter in front of the "customer". When she informs the worthless crook that we're not going to take her check, she, as expected, starts throwing a fit. So she calls somebody from the accounting office over to look at the check. At this point, the woman realizes that the gig is up, and tries to get her gift cards back and hightail it out of there. She eventually made off with a $250 item on the gift cards, which we later found out were purchased only minutes earlier. That's right, three of our illustrious front-register cashiers actually accepted those pathetically bad fake checks.

I really need to find a job where I won't be associated with these people.

Sakura Kinomoto and a small contingent of Mokonas are confronted on their travels by the nefarious Sw!ms footsoldier.

And now, a play-by-play recap of CLAMP No Kiseki Volume 1

• Cover: Good Lord, this has to be the single pinkest thing that I have ever had the courage to walk into a store and buy. Somehow, I don't think their target audience for this is 25-year-old ponytailed dorks. Just a hunch there. I also bought an Atom & His Package CD along with this, so if you can picture the contrast of those two sitting on the register counter together, you can imagine that I'm probably on every mental health watch list in America right now.
• Page 1: You know, one of these days the Blue's Clues people are going to send a platoon of lawyers into Tsubaki Nekoi's place and banish her off to wherever it is they exiled Steve to. Although it would be fun if Nickelodeon replaced Blue with Ioryogi for an episode or two. You just know those kids are gonna have problems.
  
  Also, Mokona is drawn with a very serene appearance here, which is probably a boon for all those people who believe the "Mokona Is Dead" rumors, but I'm still not buying it. And yes, I have listened to Raison D'être backwards. Several times. I don't hear it. Besides, I don't think William Campbell would be that great of a manga artist, anyway.
• Pages 2-3: I am thoroughly convinced that there was never, at any time, tea spilled on this illustration, and that CLAMP wrote this just to trick their fans into poring over it for hours in a vain attempt to locate the stain. Well, I, for one, won't fall for it!
  
  Okay, okay, I fell for it. DAMN YOU, CLAMP! DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU!!!
• Page 4: I wish I had a bathroom that looked like that. Although it leaves me wondering what the rest of the fixtures would look like. Would the toilet have wings, too? Because it would be kind of weird doing one's business while sitting on a physical manifestation of a screensaver from the waning days of the After Dark era.
• Page 5: So in case you haven't guessed yet, this volume happens to be entirely about Cardcaptor Sakura, which is a bit strange. It's sort of like making a Beatles retrospective, and starting it off with an in-depth look at Sgt. Pepper's. Sure, it's probably more well-known than the earlier stuff, but it pretty much kills all sense of context when they arrange it like this.
• Page 6: I do not, however, wish I had an outfit that looked like that. Poor Li looks as though he had a run-in with an irreputable lederhosen dealer. Granted, he's practically guaranteed not to have a "wardrobe malfunction" with all those straps, but I don't think that's really a concern of his.
  
  Also, I never would have pegged Sakura as a Grateful Dead fan. But there you go. I'll be willing to accept this so long as we never see Watanuki in posession of a Phish T-shirt.
• Page 7: And by "atypical", they mean that CCS actually doesn't consist primarily of long, drawn-out transformation sequences and gratuitious upskirt shots. It's amazing the level of quality that you can achieve when you leave those out.
• Pages 8-13 And now, for those of you tuning in late, a recap of Cardcaptor Sakura, complete with all of your favorite moments!
  • The awakening of Sakura's powers!
  • The appearance of Syaoran!
  • Rika and Terada: Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot?
  • Sakura is kidnapped by the Empire!
  • Syaoran finds out that Darth Vader is his father!
  • Tomoyo is frozen in carbonite and taken prisoner by Boba Fett!
  • Ewoks! Ewoks! Ewoks!
• Pages 14-15: I am astonished that the character pages contain no mention whatsoever of those two girls in the top panel of the eleventh page of chapter 10. This is clearly a glaring omission, and I will be demanding a refund.
  
  ...
  
  Yeah, yeah. I know it's a dumb joke. But I just spent a half hour scouring through my copies of CCS trying to find some suitable nameless extras (there aren't that many, amazingly), and I'll be damned if I let that time go to waste.
• Page 16: Ah, it's good to see a reminder of what a great company Piffle Princess was before they were acquired by an American big-box retailer a few years ago. Now there are always fat people blocking the aisles in smelly motorized carts, the register lines are about three hours long, you need to take out an extra life insurance policy just to venture into the parking lot, and don't even think of entering an angel you bought there into a tournament, unless you want to be laughed clear out of Tokyo when it inexplicably falls apart right in the middle of fall-in. It's a crying shame, really.
• Page 17: The essay manages to do a perfect job of describing what appears to be a favorite CLAMP storytelling strategy: Lull the readers into thinking that it's just a mindless fluff story, and then when they're least expecting it, sneak up behind them and whack them across the head with a very large cinderblock. It's like a top-40 station that suddently cuts into an entire Captain Beefheart album accompanied by an old, scratchy LP of Tuvan throat singers played at 45. Jarring at first, but way more addictive than it should be. Miyuki-chan In Wonderland is actually listed as a controlled substance in many European countries because of this effect.
• Pages 18-19: This outfit is a lot better than the strap polka motif, although I probably would have gone with an off-whie sport coat and a grey shirt with those pants. Then again, everybody knows that striped pants are a violation of the Geneva convention, anyway, so it's all a moot point.
• Pages 20-21: So here we have a look at all of the original Japanese cover art for pretty much every CCS-related thing that ever existed in Japan, most of which we never even got to see because we're stuck having to get these things through &#@%ing Tokyopop. And now that I've seen the original DVD artwork, I'm just a bit peeved about that, too. But only a little bit. It could be worse. We could still be stuck with nothing but the dub.
• Pages 22-23: Something I noticed in all these illustrations is that they're all covered in these little white dots, as though they've been lightly sprinkled with bleach or white-out or whatnot. I'm waiting to see how long it takes until Pete starts using a technique like this with his photos. He'll probably work it in somewhere between "burning the negative" and "soaking the print in Kool-Aid and letting it sit under a rock in the neighbor's backyard for six weeks".
• Pages 24-25: Yoshiki Tanaka is a man who has a fedora, and knows how to wear it. 'Nuff said.
• Pages 26-31: See, this is what I meant by that cinderblock comment earlier. Just when you thought you were reading a nice, sane retrospective: *WHAM!* Six pages of fighting cat-fairy-things. You will now be left wondering where the hell that came from for several weeks. That, I think, is the sadistic beauty of Kiseki thus far. You pick this up, thinking that you might finally get some answers as to where some of these f**ked up ideas came from, and not only do you not get any of these answers, but you end up being left even more confused than you were before!
  
  Poor Kakyo. She's so misunderstood. *sniff*
• And finally, the chess pieces: I'm kind of torn over this. On one hand, there's the coolness factor of having a full CLAMP chess set. On the other hand, everybody knows that it can't be a true novelty chess set unless it's made out of pewter at the Franklin Mint. Not only are these things made in China, but they've also committed the blasphemous act of making them out of plastic! And not even the good kind of plastic, either! I'm talking the really weak, bendy stuff here. Where's the fun in it if you can't throw a pawn at your opponent in an angry rage and leave a nice Mokona-shaped bruise on his/her forehead for the next several weeks? Feh! Feh, I say!

Anyway, that's it for this edition. Be sure to tune in next time, when we'll have with us special guest Roger Moltewicz. We don't know who he is yet, but we're sure it will be interesting. Goodnight, everybody!

Relive the magic of Cardcaptor Will

Wow, that's a really impressive increase there.

And now, yet another random sign posted on every available vertical surface on the University of Scranton campus:

At one point, there was an entire rainforest in the form of these flyers occupying the St. Thomas Hall stairwell.

Wow, 98%, that's a pretty big number. But wait, according to that text on the bottom, the increase in hits occured during the week of January 31 through February 5, during which the site recieved 97.8% more hits than in the previous week (January 23-30). Let's take a look at the University's academic calendar, shall we?

Source: http://matrix.scranton.edu/academics/ac_academic_calendar.shtml

"Housing opens for returning students at noon - January 30"...

Gee, you don't think that the 98% increase was due to the fact that there was nobody on campus last week, do you?

*Boiiiiiiiiing again!*

Missing the Point Entirely

The University of Scranton's crack team of "Students who pretend to care about issues in the hope that people will think that they really aren't just a bunch of shallow twits who are concerned only with their own image" has apparently noticed that many major clothing manufacturers are running inhumane sweatshops in China. Nevermind that every other person on the face of the Earth has known about this for at least 10 years, now we have a bunch of college students from Scranton on the case! Oooooh, I'm sure the CEO's at Nike et al. are really quaking in their Italian wingtips right now! Especially with intimidating protest ideas such as this:



Of course, you could always just

NOT BUY THEIR MERCHANDISE!

*Boing!*

AAAARRRRRRRGH!, Part II

A local radio station left a three-minute long message on my answering machine the other day. Apparently, they've been suffering from a bout of low ratings recently, and are now pulling out the desperation attempts. I predict that they will switch over to the all-"Louie Louie" format any day now, actually. So here, for your viewing enjoyment, is a transcript of the entire message, complete with commentary. Since I obviously don't want to advertise these idiots, I've changed all references to the name of the station in question to "KRAP". This name fits it perfectly, since that's all they play.

Answering Machine: *Click!* *Whirrrrrr...*

Jeff: Hi, wassup, this is Jeff.

Justin: I'm Justin.

Drew: I'm Drew.

Nick: I'm Nick.

Jeff: Hey, wassup, we're...

All: 98 Degrees!

(Because we all know that there's no better way to advertise a radio station than by having a boy band whose career ended two years ago spam answering machines across the region. Also, why is it that nobody in a boy band has ever had a last name since New Kids On The Block went belly-up? I mean, yeah, nobody cares enough about these people anyway, but still...)

Jeff: And since you're hanging out in (Struggling to read it...) Lackawanna County, we want you to do us a huge favor. We want you to listen to KRAP on XX.X and now on YY.Y. You know, it's Northeast PA's #1 Hit Music Station®. In fact, right now, KRAP is playing the most Hit™ Music for you in Lackawanna County, with 10 in a row!

(Sure, they play crappy music, but they play it in ten-song blocks, by God! How can that possibly be bad?)

Jeff: So go ahead, Lackawanna County, make the switch to KRAP on XX.X and YY.Y KRAP. Plus, don't forget to check out our good friends...

All: MUMBLEMUMBLE! And the KRAP Morning Crew©!

AJ: Thanks, guys. It's Jen and AJ from the KRAP Morning Crew© and we just want to thank you for checking us out on weekday mornings on XX.X and now on YY.Y, KRAP

(But I *didn't* check you out!)

Jen: As we begin to rebuild our Great Nation™...

(Oh yeah, as if this whole concept couldn't possibly get any cheesier, let's take advantage of the attacks for an advertising angle! Way to go, elite marketing squadrons!)

Jen: ...we want to let you know that we're going to be there for you, every step of the way.

(...Doing absolutely nothing.)

AJ: So go ahead, make the switch. Turn on XX.X and YY.Y KRAP and you'll always get ten in a row.

Jen: That's the most Hit™ Music for all of Northeast PA

(And thank God that we don't have any more than that.)

AJ: Plus, you'll always get the best concert tickets from the...

(With the acts we get in this area, the best ticket you can get is for a place somewhere far, far away from the actual concert.)

Answering Machine: BEEEEEEP! CLICK! WHIRRRRRRRR!

Machine, I have never been happier to hear that sound in my life. I feel like listening to KRZ now, just out of spite. *Tunes radio to KRZ*

*Instinctively picks up radio and flings it out the window*

Okay, maybe not.

Next week: WNEP meteorologist Joe Snedeker and MegaTokyo's Dom battle it out in a bloody stick figure fight to the death! Or maybe not...

And now, as promised last week, here's what I ate for breakfast:



AAAARRRRRRRGH!, Part I

Only in Scranton, Part I

What's the best way to show your undying support for your favorite team? Paint their logo on the hood of a beat up '85 Plymouth Horizon, of course!

You know what the saddest part of this is? It probably doubled the price of the car. Although it was probably worth about $65 before, so I guess it's not really that big a deal.

Next week: How to advertise in Scranton! Be there! Or not! See if I care!

We get letters

And now, I'm going to answer some of the feedback I've gotten from people just like you over the last 3 years. Actually, I'm going to answer most of it. It's pretty hard not to, since only 8 people ever bothered to send anything. In fact, the feedback file contains more "script test" entries from myself than it does actual feedback. Sad, really. Anyway, on to the first message, from "meow.":

meow.

meow. meow meow meow. meow meow, meow meow meow? meow, meow meow. *sigh*

I'll let University of Scranton President Fr. Joseph McShane, S.J. handle this one. Fr. McShane?


Thank you, Fr. McShane. Our next letter comes from jerry. He writes:

It was great to see the Casey still stands; they've only had nearly 20 years to figure out what to do with it!

I attended the University of Scranton in 1984 and hoped to be able to see the inside of that buidling before it fell. Unfortunately, the city did not find the need to preserve it the way they did with the Scranton Dry Good building, which was empty but fully heated the last time I saw it.

I got this one back in 2000, when the Hotel Casey was indeed still standing. Unfortunately, it was demolished earlier this year to make way for a large hole in the ground:



Right now, they're in the process of building a brand new hotel and conference center across the street from the former site of the Casey. I don't know why. Who the hell would want to have a conference in Scranton, anyway? I'd say something about how the loss of the Casey is a very bad thing for the city, but Peter Hocking already handled that topic in the June 4 entry of his weblog thingamiwhoozit (No longer online. If you wanted to see it, too bad.). As for the Scranton Dry Good building, I think Scranton Prep bought it and is planning to tear that down, too. That might be another building I'm thinking of, though.

By the way, if you're interested in what the inside of the Hotel Casey looked like, you can check out this site, which contains many illegally-obtained photos. Trespassing: W00t! This has been a message from the National Trespassing Bureau.

(Oct 29, 2001 update: Unfortunately, this site appears to have vanished from the face of the Internet. If anybody knows of a new location or even has the pictures from it sitting on their harddrive someplace, please let me know. For those of you who are still wondering what the Casey looked like inside before it was torn down: take what's left of the Titanic, remove most of the water, and replace the fish with pigeons. For those of you who are wondering about what the Casey looked like inside after it was torn down: you *really* need to get out more.)

Our next letter, from Erica:

Um, I realize that I am a big loser for actually writing and the fact that I am from Scranton, PA; but I was looking at your ScrantonCam and the picture that is supposedly taken from the 6th floor of the Casey Hotel had some, I believe they were, Cacti? Now, as many people realize, Scranton is in the North Eastern section of the US where I really dont think that there are any cacti. I just thought I would tell you. Yes, you can rant and rave all you want because some chick from Scranton corrected your site but I am really friggen bored and this took about 10 minutes of my pathetically anal life to complete so thankyou for filling my life with wonderfful things to complain about. Okay...I am going now.

You... Nah, it's too easy. Next!

The UK's very own raziele chimes in with the following:

wot s this site about please send me death threats so I can send them around

Okay, so this person apparently found my feedback page while doing a search for "death threats". I don't know why, but for some reason I find the thought of somebody saying that with an English accent absolutely hilarious. Then again, I live in Scranton. You almost have to be easily amused in this town. Anybody who lives here will know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, anybody who isn't named Erica, anyway.

So that's it for the feedback. I'd answer more, but that would mean that I'd have to get more first. So send something. Please. And Be sure to tune in next time, when I'll don a skimpy Sailormoon costume and juggle morningstars with my nose while singing Oops, I Did It Again. Or maybe not...

Hi, would you like a story?

Haven't updated this thing in a while. And why should I? It's not like anybody ever visits this thing.

Anyway, I went to this concert up at the Montage Mountain ampitheater last year. For those of you outside the Scranton area, it's basically a stage, a giant tent with a bunch of seats under it, and a lawn that has no view of the stage whatsoever, because the back of said tent comes down in front of it. It's poorly set up and gets very few acts that are actually worth seeing, especially since tickets cost about $20 more there than they do at any other venue within a 500-mile radius. Also: they serve cheeseburgers made of cardboard.

So I was at this Bob Dylan/Phil Lesh (some Grateful Dead guy) concert with Pete last year. Boy, was that an adventure. The parking lot was packed with people who for some reason can't figure out that the '60s ended 30 years ago; stoners in brightly-painted VW Buses as far as the eye can see. None of them were actually there for the concert, they just hung out in the parking lot the entire time. The few who actually did attend the show were there to see Lesh, and not Dylan; a sure sign that we should just drop the bombs on ourselves already.

We made it up to the gate, about an hour before Montage's crack security team (Motto: "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ") finally got around to opening the place. While we waited, we were approched by these two girls who, unfortunately, did not want to take us back to their respective VW buses. Instead they asked, "Hi, would you like a story?" They then proceeded to hand us these really cheesy, poorly-drawn cards that don't make any sense whatsoever. And now, for your viewing enjoyment:


Here it is! Wheeee! (Part One) (Part Two)


Pete might have the one he got up over on his site eventually, assuming he figures out where he put it. Until then, feel free to drive by his house and throw Rat Pack CD's onto his lawn.

"Hi, would you like a story?" Man, that's got to be the worst pickup line I've ever heard.

AAAARRRRRRRGH!

For those of you who have actually visited this site more than once, all one of you, you may remember that I had a message board a while back. Then, almost a year ago, I swithced to an outside message board hosted by the fine folks at Computer Stew, which ceased to exist a few months ago. So today, I decided to bring the old board back. Mind you, this thing didn't have a single link at the internet pointed to it in almost a year, and nobody even visits this site anyway, so I was pretty suprised when I saw this message posted two months ago:

This is no joke
Posted by Sanchez on April 11, 2001 at 18:44:47:

TURN $6.00 INTO $6,000!!!
IT'S SIMPLE AND IT'S LEGAL!!!!!!!
I found this on a bulletin board and decided to try it a little while back,
I was browsing through news groups just like you are right now and came
across a article similar to this saying that you could make thousands of
dollars within weeks with only an initial investment of $6.00!!

(Rest of message omitted. What, do you actually think I'm going to promote this twit?)

Anyway, the whole thing was about three fricking pages long. Nice to see that the scum of the Internet have not only spread to message boards, but message boards that are inaccessable from anywhere on the Web. I can't wait for the day when they can just post their shit directly on the front page of every website in the world. Wheee!