Bug Bouncer

So as I was in the kitchen a while ago, looking for the usual late-night "I should really be writing that paper, but I don't feel like it" snack, I spotted this really big, really nasty centipede hanging out on the wall. I lunged into the closet and pulled out the old bug spray, and gave it a shot. It immediately dropped to the floor, and began slowly wandering about randomly, stopping every couple of seconds to look around. I began blowing on it to coax it towards the back door, and eventually got it to wander outside.

As I was closing the door behind it, I came to the realization that I had just escorted a drunk centipede out of the house.

This amuses me for some reason.

And on that note, here's a squirrel:

Friggin' Events

My day, in review:

• 11:00 AM:Wake up after long night of planning for my radio show. (Yes, despite popular belief, I actually do plan it.) Find myself confronted by even more planning. I hate having a four-hour slot.
• 12:15 PM: After the usual morning routines, turn on radio to find out that I've missed out on a rare appearance of The Disco Desperado.
• 12:30 - 3:30 PM: Finish preparing for show, wrestle with Windows while getting files transferred to laptop.
• 3:45 PM: Leave for station.
• 3:51 PM: Car stalls out on Birney Ave. Manage to get it halfway pulled into Turkey Hill entrance. Thankfully, someone pulling in stops and helps me push it into the parking lot. He spent some time cursing fuel injection and the way everything on a car is run by computer today. After my experiences, I would have to agree.
• 3:55 PM: After fumbling through my backpack, realize that my cell phone, which I rarely use and had gotten specifically for this purpose, was in my jacket.
  
  
  
  
  
  Which was, of course, at home.
• 3:56 PM: Asked Turkey Hill cashier to break a $1 bill. Attempted to call AAA on payphone located five feet from the busiest road in lower Lackawanna County.
• 4:00 PM: Begin waiting for tow truck. AAA says that it sould be there in 20-30 minutes. It begins to rain lightly.
• 4:50 PM: Truck arrives.
• 5:35 PM Luckily, we arrive at the dealer just as they were cleaning up shop for the night. Get preliminary diagnosis (timing belt), paperwork done. Called station, hoping that somebody was still there who can give me a ride back into Scrantonia. Pete graciously agrees to clear out some space in his car for me.
• 5:50 PM: Somehow remember to separate car key from rest of key ring. I usually don't remember things like that until I find myself locked out of my house at 1 AM.
• 6:30 PM: Arrive at station, proceed to do quick filler show, as I don't feel like trotting out all my usual stuff just for an hour and a half. Lots of mock-French grunting ensues.
• 8:40 PM: Arrive home, thinking that this long day was finally behind me.
• 8:41 PM: Enter house, find out that my cat had died.

I was planning on actually getting some stuff done tonight, but now I think I'll just go to bed and hope that none of this really happened.

Pardon Meow

You know how sometimes, you'll be walking along, and see somebody coming the other way, so you move to one side to get around them. But they move to that side as well, so you move to the other side, but they move at the same time, and it takes you a few attempts to finally get around each other?

I just did that with my cat.

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.

Woof.

So my Japanese instructor handed out a bunch of New Year's postcards from fourth and fifth graders today, celebrating the year of the dog. Three observations:

1. I did not win the trip to Hawaii. Blasphemy.
2. A Japanese fourth grader has better drawing skills than I do. This is not suprising. (She was about on par with your average ninth grade American anime fanartist, only without the pretending to be Japanese, and, of course, all the emo crap).
3. A Japanese fourth grader has better English handwriting than I do. This disheartens me.

Judging by the way she quickly collected the cards at the end of class, I can only assume that one of them did win the trip to Hawaii. Unfortunately, this also means that I couldn't get a scan to put up here, but, eh, you'll live.

Mearii-saaaaaaaaaaaaan!

So now if you ever run into a Japanese woman who is attempting suicide, you'll know exactly what to say to her!
(From my Japanese workbook)

And now, a brief look at some of the various "What the crap?" moments in my Japanese textbook:

First up, we have the image above. This is from an exercise in the workbook, where you have to listen to the CD and decide what would be the most appropriate thing for the guy to say. First of all, if I were to encounter somebody about to jump off a building, I wouldn't know what to say in English. Do you even say anything? Or do you just sneak up from behind and pull them away from the ledge? Why didn't my grade school grammar classes include training on how to handle suicide attempts? Is suicide really such a big problem in Japan that this needs to be in a first-level textbook? Most importantly, why did she take her shoes off first? None of this is explained in any way.

Then, as if that wasn't enough, the third chapter of the book:

Holy "low opinion of people who want to learn your language", Batman!

That's right. The third chapter, before you even get to the all-important "asking for directions", is dating! It's almost as if they were saying, "Alright, we know that 99% of you are probably fat, smelly, anime-watching geeks who are only taking this class as part of a futile attempt to score a Japanese chick, so let's cut the crap and get right to the chase." Is this how the Japanese see us?

I'm beginning to think that it is. A few years ago, there was a Japanese family shopping at the local Circuit City. Every time an American came within 20 feet of them, the father would corral his wife and children off to another, more isolated aisle. Of course, there were a lot of Americans in the store, as it happens to be in, well, America. So he kept retreating his family further and further back into the store, until they were all huddled up in the back corner by the stereos, not moving. I have no idea how he managed to find enough of a clearing to get them into the store to begin with. But I digress...

Then, as if that wasn't enough, there was a listening exercise for this chapter that involved a guy asking an American girl out for coffee (gotta reverse the roles so it doesn't look too suspicious, you know), and getting shot down repeatedly. I mean, if you ask somebody out, and they tell you, really slowly, "Uhh... I have to... go home!", you wouldn't exactly need a degree from Sally Struthers to figure out that she means, "Go pound sand, you cretin!". Not this guy, though. No, he just keeps on trying! And trying! And trying some more! Eventually, the girl says goodbye really quickly and runs away, leaving the poor sod shouting, "Mearii-san! Mearii-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!" I'm sure that the voice actor responsible for this had to have recieved an award of some sort for his performance. It's like the ending of Citizen Kane, only better!

Anyway, I'm sure that at this rate, I'm going to get at least six more blog posts out of this thing before next semester is over. In the meantime, I need to put together a presentation on some aspect of Japanese culture. I'm doing one on baseball, although I'm probalby going to be focusing on the Hanshin Tigers, because, well, they're the Hanshin Tigers, dammit! (Curse them for making me into a fan!) I'm secretly hoping that the instructor is a Yomiuri fan, just because it would make for some really amusing looks. It'll be fun!

And now, as promised last time, and just in time for the holiday season, here they are:

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!

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!

Pay Me Baby, One More Time

(AAAARRRRRRRGH!, Part IV)

My latest pay stub contains an advertisement for Britney Spears' new perfume. That pretty much says it all, really.

In other news...

So the big movie release this week was The Pacifier with Vin Diesel. Now is it just me, or is this the exact same movie that every action star ends his career with? How do the executives keep managing to regurgitate this idea over and over again? "Hey, I've got an idea: why don't take someone who usually appears in explosion-laden summer blockbusters, and put him in a cheesy family comedy? I bet nobody's thought of that one before! Hyuck, hyuck!"

Hell, Schwarzenegger's been in, like, a metric pentabafrilllion of these movies, and now he's stuck having to be governor of California for attention.

Of course, the worst part of all will be when they start re-releasing this movie in a new special edition every three months. "Director's cut!", "Special extended edition!", "2-disc double bonus edition!", "Ultimate edition!", "No, wait, that last one was only the penultimate edition, this is really the ultimate edition!", "Best Boy's cut!", "Silent film version!", etc, etc, etc...

At least Japan is stuck in a rut that has robotic catgirls.

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

Non-triumphant return to the web

Well, after almost three years of not doing anything whatsoever with the website I had, I've decided to take the whole thing down and try doing just the blog thing for a while. I'm sorry to disappoint the thousands upon thousands of you who I'm sure are just biting your nails to the quick waiting for the Ashlee Simpson update to "Where Are They Now: 2010", but I'm sure you'll manage. (My prediction: she'll hack Jessica up in a jealous rage; then take her own life by bashing her face in with a brick. Her face won't look any different afterwards.) I think that when you get to the point where you don't even remember writing half of your site, it's time to let go. Although I'll definately have to bring back ScrantonCam eventually. Maybe I can turn the Mokona dress-up thing into a running gag? There's Mokona as Homsar, Mokona as Shaft, Mokona as Kurt Cobain, the list goes on. Eventually a small army of Kodansha lawyers will storm into my house and sieze everything I own, allowing me to not have to worry about a website anymore. Problem solved!

Anyway, I don't really get much time to walk around downtown Scranton randomly anymore, like I did a few years ago. So if you're perusing the archives and see those entries where I found strange things on such walks, you must be really bored. Err... I mean, there probably won't be too much of that anymore, as I am now a member of the Nation's Elite! That's right, folks, I'm one of the few, the proud, the retail workers! Expect a lot of griping about dumb customers in the future, as that's just what we do. Well, besides trying to deal with said customers without slamming them repeatedly into the endcap and screaming something like "FOR! *slam* THE! *slam* LAST! *slam* TIME! *slam* THE! *slam* VIDEO! *slam* NOW! *slam* PLAYERS! *slam* ARE! *slam* IN! *slam* TOYS! *slam* THIS! *slam* IS! *slam* ELECTRONICS! *slam* THEY! *slam* ARE! *slam* NOT! *throws customer out of dept* HERE!". This is, of course, after the customer insists for twenty minutes that they are in electronics and refuses to take no for an answer, somehow thinking that he/she knows the store better than you do, even though they needed to ask you for directions. Sometimes you wonder how these people manage to dress themselves, although many of them can't even manage that properly.

Also, I've been doing a show called "Chaos: Live!" on WUSR for the last three years. If you want to check that out, you must be really, just totally mind-numbingly bored. Err.. I mean, you can hear it on Saturdays, from 4 to 8 PM Eastern, either on 99.5 FM in the Scranton area, or via WUSR's Real or Windows Media streams. If you're so bored that you're almost suicidal, you can see my past playlists here. Mostly I play a lot of the Hipster standards, mixed in with various obscure or downright strange things that I find online or through listening to WFMU. It's college radio at its worst!

So anyway, that's pretty much it for the re-re-re-reintroduction thing. You may now safely proceed to a blog that's actually somewhat interesting. Assuming that you've actually bothered to read this far, in which case: Congratulations, you are indeed extremely bored!

Oh yeah, we're really grasping for updates now.

Well, it's finally happened. I've gotten so bored, so desperate for something, anything to do, that I'm actually going to write a post listing the contents of my desk. I frankly never thought that it would ever really come to this, but here it is, so you might as well enjoy. Just be thankful that this hasn't degraded into Ben Schumin's site yet. That will probably be the next update. Anyway, first off, we have my main computer desk:

Oh yeah, it's a mess. As you can see, the fire marshall is going to run in here any day now and shut down this whole operation. Anyway, starting from the left, you have the ever-present Far Side calendar, an empty Pepsi can, then a huge pile of junk, including:

• A microphone
  
• Two McDonald's coupon books
  
• A TV/VCR remote
  
• A DVD remote
  
• Napkins, napkins, napkins
  
• Several thousand manuals and driver disks strewn about randomly.
  
• A bunch of junk mail envelopes from such fine institutions as the University of Scranton, various credit card companies, and Suncoast, the official overpriced video store of the Internet Landfill
  
• About $20 in rolled change that keeps rolling off the desk onto the keyboard while I'm trying to typjhkj7uyku
  
• Battery pot luck
  
• And finally, somewhere behind that pile is a Zip drive, as well as the key to everlasting youth.
  

In front of that, I have a pair of headphones hooked directly into the soundcard, because my computer's speakers absolutely suck. To the right of that, there's a cheap souvenir thermometer from Florida that's about 20 degrees off at all times. Then there's a stack of CD-R discs that I can't use because my burner is dead. On top of that, we have a bunch of Zip and floppy disks. Next to that we have a couple storage boxes, containing even more Zip disks, and an ethernet hub. Other things to note:

• That yellow box of Pepto-Bismol tablets above the microphone. Expiration date: September 1996.
  
• Yes, that is the floating, disembodied head of David Byrne, and no, he's not happy to see you.
  
• One of the CD's in that shelf on the left is the soundtrack to the first Flintstones movie. I believe I'm the last person in the world who actually owns a copy of that.
  
• I'm not going to even get started on that huge mass of papertude in between the CD's there, so don't even ask.
  
• Why do I have two mice? The one on the right is for my other computer. And look, here's that other computer now! (Yow! Somebody give me an award for that segue!)
  

Uhh... yeah. Well, there's a dollar bill on top of the computer there, I think that's been there since 1997, and... uhh... a keyboard. Yeah, that's it, a keyboard. Oh, and napkins, lots and lots of napkins. Napkins napkins napkins...


*BLAM!*

"Hi, do you have $100?"

Yes, some girl actually asked me this the other day. I don't know what she expected; I'm a college student, I'm just as broke as she is. And what little money I did have, I had already spent on food and cartoons. So obviously, I didn't have $100 on me at the time. Okay, so then she asks me if I have $50. The answer is still no.

"Do you have any money at all?"

"Uhh... I think I have a quarter here somewhere..."

I did end up giving her a quarter, actually. And I'm sure it was for a good cause. Assuming, of course, that a drug dealer from New Jersey qualifies as a "good cause". But this brings up a good point: as I type this, there are literally millions of broke college students across America who are jonesing for their daily dose of pot/crack/Dayquil/whatever. In addition to asking random people on the street for large sums of money, they have resorted to such things as smoking University landscaping and sniffing public restroom toilets in an attempt to get a cheap high. These kids desperately need our support, folks. That's why I'm proud to announce the Stoners Across America Telethon 2001!

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, we're hoping to raise enough money in the next three days to keep collegiate potheads all over the country stoned out of their gourds for the remainder of the school year! So call now, or else we'll bring Jerry Lewis out here. You don't want to see him again, do you? Especially now that that the MDA telethon just ended. You won't believe how totally smashed he gets after...

*Loud crash heard in background*

Dammit, Jerry, get out of that golf cart!

Jerry Lewis: You'll never walk aloooooooooone, nice LAAAAAAAAAADIEEEEEEE! *VROOOOOOOOOOMSKREEEEEEEEEEEECRASH!*

You really don't want to see this, folks. So donate something; you've been warned...

(718) 387-6962

Incidentally, "Hi, do you have $100?" tops "Hi, would you like a story?" as the worst pickup line I've ever heard. It's too bad that I never actually think to say that to them when it happens. Oh well...

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.