in Cali.

I'm in California because I'm a jerk. Well, actually I didn't know we were going this year. But Chad wanted to. And then my mom realized that we needed to deliver our gifts to people. And we needed to trade some stuff with cousin Wesley. So on Christmas day someone told me "We're going to California tomorrow. We'll be back Monday." So here I am.

We were going to leave today and go halfway but then people started getting all huffy and saying 'It's snowing in the pass which means instant death so you must stay here.' So I will be back in Leb tomorrow evening. We started a new post-Guns Behind Brett series, one in which Jack and Alex chase each other, and Chad and Wes and Brian and Elaine and Connor all have parts in the struggle. The movie turned out quite good. They call it "Old School Style".

No more for now.

on his way, in the night, Saigon hero pistol light.

Last night I had a dream that George Dubya Stupid was trying to set up missile-launching bases here in Oregon. He set up one, and people found it and protested, so he closed it up and then set up another base which we found again. Then in part two of the dream I was driving to Portland with my friend who was a bizarre mixture of Andy and David Villenueve. In the car we were talking about A.R.E. Weapons. Along the way we stopped and met up with his girlfriend, who was a complete figment of my imagination. She was not based on anyone. I find it fascinating that when I'm not even in control of my brain it can create an entire person, with distinct physical traits and personality. She was nice.

I'm using the computer of mon mere et pere, and it sucks. Sure, it has DSL, but it has fallen victim to the scoundrels of the internet. Some people say "ah, what's so bad about pop-up ads?" What's bad is when they infect your PC with a virus and then completely take it over. I am assaulted with ads every minute or so. The homepage is always automatically set to some "daily offers" page that sets off a chain of pop-ups when you get on the web. Some sites are inaccessible because "this computer has been hacked. File error 556TTTG7,,[ 99--hjh3ASSH*&Y6677. Go download this stuff." Just now the computer froze up for a good 20 seconds as if it was processing something. Then it stopped and nothing happened.

I know the Davey picture didn't work. That's because I can't get onto the Google image search to find any pictures. The page won't work. So I must use the Yahoo image search, which is far inferior. Jeremiah on a horse to Mexico!!

So that's what's up. I have yet to write about Christmas. But it's comin.

art imitating life? or just crap?

I have conquered Daydreamin' Davey. For those of you not in the know, DD was a poorly made game for the NES from the HAL company, the same people who brought you...I have no idea what else (but according to the end credits, DD is "another fine product from the HAL company", which sounds strangely sarcastic).

In the game you take control of Davey, a young ADD victim with the tendency to drift off into dangerous dream worlds while attending school. During the first part of the game there is some setup for each level, like a teacher saying "now we will talk about the middle ages" or "let's watch a video about the old west", which thus sends Davey into the Daydreams of his namesake. But as the game goes on, things stop making sense, and at one point Davey simply runs out of the school and falls into delusion right on the front lawn.

The daydreams are all based in history, which leads one to believe that the character Davey is either a super-nerd or that the game was made as a final project in someone's world history class. Throughout the game Davey visits the middle ages, the old west, ancient Greece, the middle ages, the old west, ancient Greece...and then the middle ages, the old west, and ancient Greece again. And every time each world is laid out the same, which means Davey must have a very uncreative imagination. The worlds start overlapping near the end of the game as a hole in the ground of the old west suddenly leads to Hades, and a bridge in the middle ages leads to "the dark forest" which is just a green Hades where arabian sultans shoot magic at you. Maybe Davey has some creativity after all, or maybe he's just been poppin' too many pills.


Every school has it's "special" students...

The game ends with Davey awaking in class after shooting some cowboys in his dream world. A girl sitting next to Davey asks him if he would like to study with her sometime, because apparently she is very impressed with his ability to sleep through class but still know how the shootout at the O.K. Corral went down (because he was there, of course). But I guess Davey prefers living in his dream world, because he exclaims "I'm outta here!" to the girl and proceeds to run out the front doors of the school. The end.

So what did Daydreamin' Davey teach me? That it's okay to spend $10 on a nintendo game if it keeps you occupied for a few days and leaves you with a sense of accomplishment after you complete it. I'm outta here.

brain-exploding breaking news.

"Saddam, with a thick, graying beard and bushy, disheveled hair, was seen as doctor examined him, feeling his scalp and holding his mouth open with a tongue depressor. Saddam blinked and touched his beard during the exam."

You're kidding!!!! He blinked??? And then proceeded to TOUCH his BEARD?? This is the most mind-blowing report I've ever read!! I peed my pants twice while reading it! I couldn't ever, in my wildest fantasy science-fiction dreams, imagine an Iraqi dictator blinking and touching his beard. That's enough to make old men drop dead from disbelief. I have to hand it to those reporters for giving the American people just what they want to hear.

I hear that CBS is already planning a prime time movie about the event. They must find the right actor who knows how to blink well on camera and touch a beard with authentic fervor. Maybe Sir Richard Attenborough?

Christopher Lee's goth wig!

Momus meets The Wicker Man.

'The Wicker Man' is a movie I watched with Tristan at the Wells Manor a while back. Not since Zardoz had I seen such a bizarre, head-scratching, confused-laugh-inducing piece of 70s cinema failure. Maybe I wrote about it on my site before. It's one of those films that really isn't very good, but for some reason you remember it for the rest of your life. Kind of like Flash Gordon.

Something I found interesting was that according to the video's box the movie is terrifying and disturbing, "a totally corrupt shocker". But the actual film isn't standard movie horror. It's more like conservative-Christian horror, the kind of "nightmare tale" that bible-beating parents would tell their kids on Halloween (but they would probably change the ending and have Jesus nuke the island like in Jurassic Park). To a modern college student, the movie is just wonderfully wierd and funny. Anyway, Momus apparently took more from it than I ever could, but at least he recognised the same basic things Tristan and I did. Rent it today, kids!

"Hobbits UNITE!"

lame
adj. lam�er, lam�est

1. Disabled so that movement, especially walking, is difficult or impossible: Lame from the accident, he walked with a cane. A lame wing kept the bird from flying.

2. Marked by pain or rigidness: a lame back.

3. Weak and ineffectual; unsatisfactory: a lame attempt to apologize; lame excuses for not arriving on time.

4. Leonard Nimoy singing a song about a hobbit amidst a bunch of women born without dignity: Now hobbits are peace-loving folks, you know; they're never in a hurry and they take things slow.

amazing developments.

Way to go Tristan for figuring out how to make pictures happen! Now I can do this!

listening to Japanese new wave.

So last night I had a dream in which Chad and I downloaded a home video of Paul McCartney singing his lost song about the Hamburglar. The last few minutes of the video were just his kids drawing pictures of war, with little stick figures getting shot. In the dream I was laughing so hard I was crying.

I hear ya, Tristan.

"Y'know, college is a lot like a disease."

"Because if you live through it you become stronger?"

"No, because it sucks."

Continue on for 2 more new posts.

...in other news, the Grammys still suck.

Oh boy! The Grammys! You know what that means?

Beyonce and her boyfriend, Jay-Z, were contenders for record of the year for their summer anthem "Crazy in Love."

Not only that, but Evanescense and Justin Timberlake and 50 Cent all got nominated! Isn't that great?? It's wonderful that such talented artists are getting nods, but what about that song in the McDonalds commercials? I thought for sure that would be up for record of the year.

God, I hate the Grammys. They get worse by the year. My first gripe with the 'awards' was back in high school when I realized that there were awards for best classical album, best modern Christan album, best Caribbean dance album, best Bulgarian goth album, best interplanetary polka album, and best album recorded by a household pet, but there was NO category for electronic or DJ. Sure, there is a 'dance' category, but the nominees are always FM radio hot-mixes of pop songs. I remember when they threw William Orbit in with the 'instrumental pop' category and swept Moby into 'alternative'. The latter category seems to be where they put all the music they didn't see on MTV.
"Have you heard of these guys The Beta Band? I hear their album's good."
"Who? Just put 'em in alternative."

The good news is that Outkast and The White Stripes are nominated for album of the year. The bad news is that so are those people I mentioned earlier. It's a sad world in which Justin Timberlake's "Justified" and The White Stripes' "Elephant" get nominated for the same award. Sadder still is the fact that Justin has a much better chance of winning. I feel like the Grammys should just ignore good albums altogether. Last year they didn't even mention Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and I was okay with that because it's obvious that they specialize in awarding shallow, financially successful pop records. They should just stick to that. They should never consider Radiohead, or Wilco, or The White Stripes, or The Strokes, or The Flaming Lips, or even Beck. They should just continue throwing awards at new R&B "geniuses" and showing nostalgic pity for acts like Steely Dan and Willy Nelson. But I guess then people might notice that the Grammys are the same as the Billboard Music awards and that both are just evil schemes concocted by the big record companies to increase sales (and I think Cobra may be involved, too).

So what do I think was the best music of this past year? Follow this link and click the picture.

Send down the birds.

"People thought I was dead but I was just directing The A Team."

Here's to David Hemmings.

Doom: thoughts and meditations.

I'm going to talk a little about video games. The Doom series to be precise. If you don't know Doom, you just won't know what I'm talking about. So go home.

Doom 3 is coming out soon. If y'all remember, Doom I and II pretty much defined the first-person shooter genre as well as the PC gaming scene when they were released back in the mid-90s. So now the long awaited 3rd is about to be dropped, and some information and screenshots have been released. The new game is apparently intended to be darker and scarier, more twisted and macabre, and more realistic. The monsters have all been redesigned to look nightmarish and horror-like, and the people at id software say Doom 3 is going to be more about creeping around and being scared than just shooting everything.

And this all makes sense. If you look at the current state of action and first-person shooter games you will see that the scary, disturbing motif has become quite popular, and it isn't very surprising to see the Doom franchise making an attempt to become part of that crowd rather than remain a nostalgic inspiration. It's kind of like how Vanilla Ice tried to make a comeback as a rap-metal act, or how Ozzy Osborne tries to stay potent in the shock-rock world that he created long ago.

I was playing Doom II the other day on the old family computer in Lebanon. The PC hadn't even been turned on in a year or so, but I started her up and had some fun in the Doom world in which I used to play every day after school. I put in the codes - God mode, happy ammo, no clipping - and shuffled around the halls of hell, turning big exaggerated demons into piles of pasta. As I played, I thought about the new Doom, and the scare factor, and the disturbing imagery, and I figured "to hell with it" (excuse the pun). It hit me that all that horror stuff isn't what Doom was all about. It wasn't about being scared, or being immersed in a dark story of survival and terror. It was about shooting monsters. It was about getting a bigger gun and saying "hell yeah" the first time you use it. Back in the era of the older games, the first-person shooter was a young medium that people were just starting to enjoy. Now that a game engine had been created that allowed players to simulate first-person killing sprees, the only variables were who to shoot and where to shoot them. First, id made Wolfenstein 3D which let you walk around a castle shooting Nazis. Nazis, of course! Everybody hates Nazis! What better way to utilize this first-person shooter stuff than give everybody the chance to gun down such a widely hated villian? After the success of Wolfenstein, the Doom games used the same template and just plugged in the idea of demon-martians in hell. Brilliant! Demons and martians! They're even more basic human enemies than the Nazis!

It is obvious when playing Doom II that the purpose of the game is good ol' fashioned blowing stuff away. There's an underlying element of fun, a hint of camp, that makes the game a joy. It's the way your character's face at the bottom of the screen is slightly comic; the square jawed, confident everyman that is stuck in this horrible environment but maintains a sense of arrogance. It's the darkly-comic hidden Wolfenstein levels that throw blond, blue-eyed Nazis in with hungry monsters that will eat them as soon as you. It's what "BFG" really stands for. These are the things that made Doom what it was, and it's that very same "don't give a shit" attitude that later resurrected Duke Nukem to take the genre to new depraved heights.

Doom 3 will come soon and a new generation will sit, frightened and disturbed, in front of their computers. But when I think of the imp, I will always picture a little brown guy who shot fireballs at me before my BFG turned him into stew.

news.

There's a new song. Well, it's from last week, but I didn't get around to putting it up until today. It's right here.

"whinny whinny...horse sounds, horse sounds"

What do you think of the new Hotmail?? Comment below to start a flaming controversy!! Biggins!

I meant to talk about this a while back in response to Trickstan, but I didn't. Now it comes.
I made a movie way back in the day called From the Earth to the Moon part XXVII, and it starred a bunch of G.I. Joes and animal toys and various action figures. It was an epic, two parts even, about an evil Space Nazi and the noble idiot Captain Tommy. I can't remember the whole story. Something about Tommy and his crew getting captured because they stopped to get some drinks, and then all hell breaks loose and such. The action scenes were spectacular; one featured a giant ...talking crab and another focused on a battle between a dinosaur pinata and a friendly Gobot mobile fortress. The movie also featured an unforgettable robot character named Probe-Bot, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his brilliant line delivery ("Now I will proceed with the probing of your anus" and "I am dead now, you bastard"). If any of you haven't seen it, remind me next time you're at my house. Your head will explode upon viewing!

this internet makes no sense.

Hey, kids! Here's a tip:
If my site doesn't show up, go to the address bar and either add or remove the 'www.' This usually works for me. I don't know why, or what's wrong with the address, but that's how it works.

My day of Thanksgiving was a good day. I ate things. Over the weekend I also viewed the second Lord of the Rings film, and I enjoyed it. Magic midgets and tree people. Those tree people sure kicked some ass. I think everybody in the movie should have asked the tree people a long time ago to wipe the floor with the bad guys, because that's apparently what the tree people do best.

Also, I didn't mention that I bought a guitar last week. It is certainly a nice one for $100. I would provide a link to a picture of it, but I couldn't fine any pictures of anything like it on the web. It's from a company called Lyle which apparently specializes in hollow-bodied blues guitars, yet mine is just a standard electric. Anyhoo, I like it.

...and placed in the care of an old eternal bachelor.

Momus's family.
...How 'bout that?

thankgiving.

So Thanksgiving is coming tomorrow. Turkey time in the vegimime.

The very first Thanksgiving was a long time ago when the the Spanish conquistadores visited North America. They had a big feast where the Spanish ate a bunch of indian food and the indians ate a bunch of sword and disease.

So then later the colonists came and set up shop and the the indians were uneasy about these new white people but the Europeans said "Don't worry about us. If we have any problems, we'll just kill you." So then they started trading and had a big super happy Thanksgiving feast and the indians were feeling pretty good until the colonists wanted to expand their settlements and had to sweep away some indian tribes.

So after a while the colonists just told the indians to beat feet out west and play with the western indians. This wasn't such a good idea, however, as the different tribes didn't get along very well.

Anyway, sooner or later people started getting together and having big thankful dinners and calling the day Thanksgiving and attributing it to the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. And that's why stuffing tastes good with turkey.

ha. ...ha ha ha ha.

Harry Potter is Evil.

Dr. Brett's comment:

No parents, it is not okay to let your children enrich their minds by reading the Harry Potter novels. They are evil, dealing with supernatural subjects and magic spells. However, it is okay to force your children to read a book about a murdered man who rises from the dead to become an all-powerful space ghost and condemns mankind to an eternity of pain and anguish.

the music of the devil.

If you've been to Tristan's site, you've probably found the link to the first 'song' from the project Andy and I are working on. I was going to wait until we had more songs up before posting a link, but what the hell. The song is here.

Captain A and the Sounds of B present an exercise in music and absurd narrative. Coming soon. We haven't decided on an album title yet.

Oh, and I may be posting some live Momus songs on that there site for a nice gentleman in Berlin. Just so you know.

a bit of importance.

For some reason or another Qwest has disconnected my phone line. I pay the bills and everything, but the other day I found that my apartment was cut off from the outside world. So if I don't respond to any emails right away or return any calls, now you know why. I have to come to this damn crowded library to use the internet.

late birthday spirits.

You're the birthday
You're the birthday
You're the birthday
Boy or Girl

Hey Tristan have fun with good birthdy! You've come so long from your behind years of small! I hope things are there that are your happiest thing!

Happy day, Tristan. If you were here, I would take you you water cow hunting. I can only imagine what you're doing over there at Goshen.

Super beans!

to the Peacock: a thieving, frat boy odyssey.

Being 21, I am now mature enough to delve into the immature world of bars. So last weekend a couple o' me mates took me to the most popular bar in town, the Peacock. It only cost me 3 dollars at the door and my jacket.

The first floor is the standard pool hall, where all the older guys in denim jackets with long goatees hang out. The real 'spectacle' is upstairs, where apparently half the population of OSU goes every Thursday. At around 12 everyone gathers on a big dancefloor and attempts to dance to the most obnoxious, offensive hop-hop the charts have to offer. It didn't take long for me to figure out that this place was all about sex. The guys show up to drink enough liquid arrogance in order to go out on the dancefloor and try to attract some drunk sorority girls, whom the guys hope will stumble back to their rooms with them at the end of the night. The girls show up to drink enough so that they no longer object to some intoxicated ass with a backwards hat bumping up against them on the dancefloor. Why? Because it's their role. If they weren't there for the drunken asses to take home, the bar would lose its business and the fraternity institution would cease to exist. Without fraternities, sororities would seem rather pointless and sexist, and they would go extinct as well. Without sororities, the rich girls with bleached hair would be forced to live in dorms, apartments, or other environments that don't deem them as "special", and that would be, like, totally unfair. SO, for their own well-being, these girls must put on short skirts, tube tops and (a certain kind of) boots every weekend and go drink themselves senseless at the Peacock.

Anyway, when I was ready to retire for the evening, I found that my jacket was no longer on the back of the chair where I had placed it. My mate's sweatshirt was gone as well. We stuck around searching for them, even after the bar closed and the lights came on, but to no avail. The bartenders were no help; I don't think they can actually see what goes on outside of the bar.

So that's that. I have other jackets, but I liked that one. It was old and it was warm. And now some other guy's got it. And that's just not good. The end.

things fall apart.

This computer's getting sassy. I think I need to defragment it or kick it or something.

And the damn old messenger won't move out. I downloaded the new version, but the old one won't pack up his things and go. I removed his program from my system and even deleted his shortcut, but he still won't leave. Everytime I get online he starts up on his own and pushes the new messenger out of the way. I always have to sign out on him and sign in on the other, and it's a genuine pain in the ass. The most frustrating thing is that I can't exit him. I try to exit and my computer tells me "Duuuuh, you're using other applications that are, like, using his features." (This, of course, is not true; I think the old messenger pays my computer to say that.) It's like he refuses to go to bed. He just sits on my desktop all the time with a little 'x' in front of him. I wouldn't be surprised if he's actually a little software spy sent by Bill Gates. Damn nerd! Take your little instant messenger away! He's not wanted here!!

And the radio station screwed me over. I did the apprenticing, I took the test and found a spot for my show, like I was told to, and waited for the people to contact me and tell me what week I start. They never contacted me. One night I went by the station and looked at the big schedule board, and some other guy has my spot now. ALL the spots are taken. I have no show. It was nice of them to email me and tell me, which they didn't.
The lesson I learned from all this is that it is better to do your brother's radio show illegaly than to go through all the training to get your own.

Anyhoo, more news later.

Bill Cosby does another picture page with you.

I took this picture. They're cups.

Does anybody remember that show Picture Pages? Bill cosby would draw stuff on the 'picture pages' with a super amazing future pen that made queer sounds when used. That's all I remenber about the show. I just spelled remember wrong. I like it better the other way.

Well gee, kids, here is a site about Picture Pages. It turns out the pen had a name, Mortimer Ichabod Marker, which is quite possibly the coolest name I've ever heard. What's also cool is that Bill Cosby apparently wore a bunch of t-shirts with drawings of himself on them. This show was the definition of rock & roll.

only Louis and Clarck know.

Something has been driving me downright looney. Do this: go to the google image search. Type in "bear attack" for the keyword. Search. Look at the very first image. What the hell is that??? The link is broken! You can't go to the site, because IT DOESN'T EXIST! The picture seems to be the remnants of a website that documented a bizarre alternate world of Lewis and Clark, which I have dubbed the Louis and Clarck World of Intrigue and Foreboding. In this alternate dimension, the two adventurers look like scarecrows and they trek across a smooth, featureless landscape, tirelessly pursued by a large, akward man in a bear-dog suit. And what's more, apparently postcards existed of the journey, but I sure wouldn't want such a strange image on my fridge.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that with you. If you further investigate the search results you will find this image, which is equally disturbing.

them ugly banana nut bread.

Look, Tristan! It's your other site! Gee, I didn't know you were taking a film class.

So I had this disturbing dream the other night. In the future, ugly people have realized they are getting the short end of the stick in areas like employment, dating, showbusiness, etc. (this idea may have sprung from what I learned in sociology recently). So the country is divided between ugly people and non-ugly people, kind of like a racial difference. But in my dream, something about accepting the fact that they are ugly has made the people evolve into especially ugly-looking people, with oversized heads and dwarfish bodies. So suddenly the ugly people start rebelling all over across America, attacking non-ugly people and destroying property. I knew something was up when I was riding with Chad and Joel in a car and we drove by a woman in the road yelling at us. When we slowed down a little she tried to pull the car door open, but we sped off. The we noticed there were riots breaking out everywhere. I remember some kind of "action sequence" in which we were in an apartment building fighting for our lives against a bunch of big-headed ugly people, hitting them with chairs and pushing them out of windows. I guess it was kind of unconsciously arrogant of me to automatically see myself and my group of friends as non-ugly people. But you should've seen the people; they were pretty scary.

And here is Friend Bear!

Halloween.

Guess what! I just wrote a whole post about Halloween, but it got lost! You know why?? Because computers suck!! They suck, kids! For many, many reasons!!

Anyway, I saw a Japanese guy dressed as Adolf Hitler and a little kid dressed as an olive, and Andy and I wore creepy animal masks while we drove from Albany to Corvallis. A little girl in a suburban thought it was fantastic.

I don't feel like writing it all over again. I will just say this; Elks clubs are funny.

21 crazy fists.

This is my birthday post! In celebration, I give you some fun birthday links! Enjoy!

birthday fun #1!

birthday fun #2!

and birthday fun #3!

birthdays and laws and celebrations and halloweens and tests.

Man, there's just too much going on this week. I feel like it might explode. Weeks can only hold so much.

I forgot (and I'm kicking myself...really!) that Oct 24 was the one-year-hoopla of this very eblo. That's right; the Cloy Harlequin is one year old. I want you all to celebrate by saying "I'll be damned!" wherever you are right now. Or just post a comment; that thing's gathering cobwebs.

Then there's my birthday, coming up here in about 2.5 hours. I should enjoy this last bit of being 20, even though I know I cannot because I have to study for my Japanese final tomorrow. Being 20 doesn't get enough recognition, just because it is the year before 21, which is when an American becomes magically able to drink responsibly (see my sarcasm-soaked birthday post from last year). I feel like if 21 wasn't such a big deal, 20 would be like the new millenium of birthdays, signifying one's departure from the teenage years and all that is carefree into a world of expectations and responsibility. Everyone would celebrate that and go crazy and such. But no, 21 is when you get to drink, because no one ever drinks before they are 21. Whutevr.

Then there's good ol Halloween, but I will wait to address that on Friday. Ta for now.

God isn't an apple...is he?

People are standing. Just standing, waiting for someone to get off a computer. Or maybe they are trying to make people feel guity so that they will say "I'm sorry you have to stand. Here; have this one." I chose a computer in the back of the room thinking that all the vulture people would circle the front and leave me alone, but sure enough, right now there is a girl just standing a couple feet away. She walked all the way to the back of the room just to stand next to me and make me feel uncomfortable. There's a whole damn room! There could be a guy right over there who's done! Go away, dammit!!

So yesterday I defeated some Christians. There were 3 girls in front of the library who were nice enough keep me from entering the library and studying because they wanted to guilt-trip me into joining their religion. I gave them 2 minutes to give some reasons why their God is the best (immediately after which I said "whoop, time's up!"). But before I left one of them presented me with an analogy. She was so confident; it was almost cute. It went something like this:

her: Do you believe in gravity?
me: I suppose I believe in the theory of gravity.
her: So say I have an apple here in my hand. What's gonna happen if I drop it?
me: I suppose it's going to fall and hit the ground.
her: But how do you know that for sure?
me: Because I've dropped things before and seen it happen.
her: ...But, just play along; What if you've never done it before, how do you know gravity exists? You have faith in it, right?
me: Well, before I believed in gravity I would have to test it by dropping the apple a couple times. Then, after witnessing it, I would have reason based on my experience to believe that it will happen...
her: Well, c'mon, you know what I'm...okay, bad example.

At that point I started to walk away and, seeing that they'd been defeated, one of them just said "Well, think about it!" I did, girls. I did think about it.

beanbag war syndrome.

I just thought I'd comment on the subject of how Andy, Tristan and I used to beat each other with bean bags and pillows and such, in response to them posting about it on their respective sites.

So Tristan would scare us sometimes. When he put on that blindfold and picked up the beanbag, he would transform. He would exorcise his inner demons through the large bag of beans. Sometimes, while Andy and I would be consistently uttering things like "who's over here?" and "take this...no, wait...AAUUGH!", Tristan would just be silent, waiting for the time to strike. I pictured him - since I had a blindfold on I couldn't see, right? - anyway, I always pictured him sitting perfectly still, feeling the vibrations and honing in on the sounds, and maybe rubbing mud on his face like war paint.

There's the time he broke Andy's shelf while in one of his berserker rages. We have it on film. You see me, crawling to avoid the swinging bean bag as it gets closer and closer. I get cornered by the shelf and just try to shield my head from the impending blow. Tristan swings and swings and gets closer and closer. Then he swings and there is a "CRASH", and items from the shelf as well as pieces of the shelf itself are seen flying through the air. Then I yell out in terror, thinking that I am next (luckily the battle was put on hold due to the damaged furniture and Andy's mom wondering what the noise was). Thinking back, I kind of look like a Vietnam POW in the video, cowering in the corner with a blindfold on.

Sometimes I have flashbacks when I'm in the middle of class, and I fall on the floor yelling "No! No! Tristan, you're still a man, you ain't no animal!! Andy's dead, man! Don't kill me!!" Well, maybe. Maybe I just made that up.

"I am not afraid to die..."

Strange. Just this morning I had a song called "In the Lost and Found" stuck in my head, a song I haven't heard for probably a year or two. The catchy piano just started playing, over and over.

So they say Elliot Smith stabbed himself in the heart today. Jeez, man; too bad you're not still around to write a song about your own suicide. I guess the material for his album-in-the-works got to him. He always did stick to mopey, quietly pissed off kind of songs, but dammit, he was the best at it.

still nothing to write.

It was all right
the band was all together
It was all right
the song went on forever
it was all right
really quite out of sight
and he sang all night
all night long

a view of the background.

mint tea puzzle drinking, and fun with translators.

I translated some of Emi Necozawa's web diary using one of those online translators. Here are some highlights of the results:

"Making the tea drink, you nap. When lavender oil is kindled at the bedroom, rounding, the child we would like to see you slept. 2 hours later, it routs."

"Because work did one conclusion, the walking 2 going to the Egypt coffee of neighborhood next, while mint tea puzzle drinking, you converse."

"You become tired and - are."

"To unreasonable doing ballet. I of left-handedness the movement of the right one half of the body am bad."

"It is holiday after a long time of the 1 human drill. When you become suddenly 1 person, it is a little lonesome. However, 1 person today feeling is good."

fun with e-libs.

Flag
A piece of material, usually attached to a dung beetle , used as a standard or signal, or to mark a bump , commonly attached to one end of a dingle . Flags have been chucked since delicious times and some symbols are universal. A white flag signals a newt ; a yellow flag signals the presence of thing . A nation signals its surrender by pushing its pants at half mast. To signal distress, one flies Harry Bovlin upside down.

day eight in pictures.

I don't remember ever being 'upended', but I had the last laugh...

me

stuff and things.

Not much to talk about. I talked to a liberal arts advisor today, and he was not helpful at all. He pretty much drank a bunch of water and then spit in in my face and said "that's water I spit on your face, kid! Get a major!" That's pretty much what he did.

There may be a musical project in the works, a collaboration involving music and narrative. Check back here for updates on that.

Here is a link to my favorite ninja website.

And here is a quote from the past: "Vultures are scavengers, feeding off the remains of dead animals. Something fun to do is to put peanut butter in their mouths. Ha ha, stupid birds."

rain.

It's been raining a lot. All this water from the sky and stuff. Here is a picture of rain.

Rain.

the second coming.

Boy, that Guitar Wolf link sure got a lot of comments! Boy doggie!

Anyhoo, I posted this link a while back, but none of you seemed disturbed enough to convince me that you actually clicked and watched. So I'm posting it again, just because this is a monumental piece of work.

DavidHasselhoff.com

"Last scene I cut the UFO by guitar-sword."

This page has a great interview with Seiji from Guitar Wolf. Perhaps the most insightful and entertaining rock interview I've ever read.

things that make me laugh for days.

Today in Japanese we were learning the words for different clothing, and verbs for "wear" and "take off" and such. The teacher asked a kid what he will wear for Halloween, and he replied in Japanese "I will wear scary pants."

The other day I passed a large, quarterback-built young man with a full middle-eastern beard. He was singing to himself "Back in the Saddle Again".

Refurnishing

I'm changing the color motif of my eblo, but I've run into a bit of trouble with the color of the links (that blue just does NOT work). The trouble is that I can't find the damn color code of the links in my html template. If I can't find the code, I can't change it.

If anyone thinks they know anything about this, just click on the big glaring blue "comments" word below and enlighten me.

Burn!!

So Sofia Coppola also thinks Cameron Diaz sucks...

"Sources tell Page Six that Coppola based the "annoying, cloying, ditzy-blonde actress" played by Anna Faris in "Lost in Translation" on the "Charlie's Angels" star. "Sofia thought Cameron was all that -- and more," said the source."

Rad.

I think one just humped my leg

"Fighting the Freshman Fifteen" - title of the book I saw being read by a thin, bleached-blond, Abercrombie-wearing girl

There are too many new students this year. The commons are always super full. The sidewalks are hazardous. Kids on bikes are battling for their spot in the bike lane. The library is always packed and the computers are always being used, so I don't get as much precious computer time to write for you people. I don't remember there being so many kids last year. I guess OSU just opened the floodgates for all these little biting, knawing freshman and said bring your tired, your poor, your backwards hats and low-cut jeans. "They're crawling out of the sewers like rats, climbing up the flagpole, and eating away at our stars and stripes!!"

Until I get my phone working I have to use the internet at the library, and so far that has not been easy. Students hover about like vultures. The kid next to me just got pecked at - "Are you done??" -"No, I just got here." I see a kid over there getting his ear bit off. Shoo, you harpies! Let me access my email in peace!!

The phone thing is getting on my nervies. Qwest asks me for an advance payment of $26, tells me to go to some place in town, pay the people and then fax them the reciept, there's a bunch of numbers I gotta know, so I go to the place, the lady's an asshole, she tells me I need more numbers, I'm still confused... So anyway today I'm going to call Qwest and tell them "Yeah, I'm seein who my friends are, mo fo, but I ain't goin to no Check for Cash crap to pay you." I don't know if you understood any of that, but just know that I'm
frustrated.

I think I see an impatient student setting up a sniper rifle, so I guess I should leave this computer. Oh but oh! I'm adding some links to my boyz' pages. Check those out if you haven't. (down at the bottom of this here page)

Fire Up the Shoesaw

I'm back to the old bullocks. School started again today, and I am in the process of finding out what books I will need to buy for outrageous prices. If knowledge costs so much, how come that crazy homeless guy always seems so knowledgable?

It was a little depressing to return from Japan. It hit me when we stopped over in Canada. Suddenly the people were fat, ugly and loud. The floors weren't as clean. The airport employees were no longer young, smiling and friendly. Everything was less colorful. Welcome back to the west. Of course, it is good to be back where everything is more affordable (and I can use paper money again), but leaving Japan is kind of like leaving Disneyland. You have to get used to the real world again.

But anyhoo, I am enjoying my new apartment. Everytime I walk in the door I think to myself "but...there's so much space!! How can I be living here?" I will have to find some way to fill the place. Also, the mythical rock band The Taste has come together, just like the scripture prophesized, and noise shall ensue from hence forth (?). And who knew I could play the drums worth a damn? I didn't!

My stomach is talking to me. It says "blurgurlcguglg urglgceeeugh", which I think means "go home and eat your leftover bento food." So that's what I will do now.

Okaeri Goblins

Natsuki is dying her hair with her friend Masae, a little lightning bolt who loves English even though she doesn't speak it. We are back in Ehime today after our voyage to the ends of Japan. After Tokyo we spent 4 days in Hokkaido, the big island at the top of the country. The weather there is a lot like Oregon, and the scenery also. It's my understanding that Hokkaido was visited by many western explorers and settlers back in the 1800s, so many of the towns are a mixture of Japanese and European architecture.

I've run out of film. I have 2 1/2 tapes worth of Japan. Luckily I was able to stretch the last one out until our last night in Sapporo before coming back to Ehime (which I already have footage of), but I am contemplating buying another tape just for filming this and that. Of course, with the money to buy a tape I could buy a bowl of tasty ramen, or a plate of tasty curry or gyoza. Oh, the money! Here is a warning to any Americans who wish to visit Japan: Japanese people are all rich. The other day I was looking at a menu in a little sushi place we stopped into for lunch. For the equivalent of $10, one could order a little ball of rice wrapped in seaweed with a shrimp on top. I tried explaining to Natsuki that in America something like that would never sell, because we have words like 'budgeting' and 'minimum wage'. But she said it is not uncommon for Japanese people to spend 1000 yen on a single bite of sushi, because 'it tastes good'.

Then there are the young people, with their $60 T-shirts, $95 Converse, and $100 hair, but I won't go into that now (there's also the $11-$13 ramen, but I never eat that). Another thing about the money is the coins. If there are 2 things about Japan that I can say I never got used to, they are 1) the crazy driving, and 2) the damn coins. Just buying a can of Boss coffee can be a pain in the ass when you have to dig around in your wallet for a 50 yen coin, which is about the same size as a 5 yen coin, and then you don't have either so you have to break a 1000 yen bill and get another handfull of coins.

Aside from the coins, it's hard to complain about Japan. Everything is so clean, convenient and futuristic. Some places in Tokyo and Sapporo have doors with little buttons where the door knob would normally be; you press the botton and the door slides open, complete with a little Star Trek noise. It was things like that, and the completely motion activated bathrooms (you walk in the stall and the seat lifts up! Crazy!) that I just couldn't get enough of. Also, everything has its own song in Japan. The subways play a little song when the train is coming, the elevator plays a little song with you reach your floor, and the walk sign plays a song when it's time to cross the street (I had to videotape that one). Even when we were walking down the street in Otaru, Hokkaido, there was music coming from the street lamps. I asked my friend what song it was, and she said "It is kind of Hokkaido theme song." Great!

I have been in a couple million puricuras, those little photos that you can write on and add graphics to. It's kind of interesting the first couple times, but I don't see how Japanese girls can do it every two days. I ran out of crazy poses, so I tried some other things like draping myself in the backdrops or making the same face for every picture.

Natsuki wants to use the computer now, so I'll go. I will see some of you in about 8 days, when I return to America. Until then you can go to Adi's site, who accompanied us to Hokkaido and took some great photos. See his pictures of Japan here, or see some quick pictures of our gang in Hokkaido here. Later, y'all.

Tokyo Vogue

I haven't had access to a computer in about 2 weeks, and I don't really have time to write anything right now, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I am alive, I am in Tokyo, and I am having fun. I will write more when I have more time and another computer. Later--------

Pt. 3: Ninja High School

Here I am again. I added a little to the last post, as I was a bit rushed earlier. Also, I forgot to mention something very important in my last postings: IT'S HOT HERE. Everyone tries to stay indoors because the air is so humid, heavy and hot. The outside is one big sauna, and it doesn't cool off at night, either.

Anyhoo, I've decided that want to open a ramen place in Oregon. I told Natsuki that if there was one Japanese ramen restaurant in Corvallis I would eat there every day. Y'all have no idea! Ya don't! The ramen here is so good! Byegyeyjahjagaaa!

Yesterday we picked up Chiaki (Natsuki's sister) from the airport. She flew in from Tokyo, where she is going to college. She is very nice; while Natsuki was at the byooin (hospital) to have a rash looked at, Chiaki took me for a little walk around the town. We went to the high school which she and Natsuki had attended and bumped into Saiyuri, Natsuki's friend whom I met a few days ago. I saw all the boys and girls in their uniforms, and they all looked a little surprised at seeing me, but in spite of feeling a bit out of place I found it all very interesting. It was cool to see a real Japanese high school after seeing them animated and drawn in countless cartoons and comics.

Also, a few days ago I visited a super modern Bhuddist temple, and got some great shots of it. I best go now; something crazy is on TV.

Pt. 2: Square Cars

I greet you again from the land of square cars. I say so because almost everyone in Japan has a compact, cubic automobile. I have seen many Mini Coopers (none of them new models), and a couple strange little 3-wheel scooter cars.

Yesterday I visited the ocean with Natsuki, her friend Shinji, her father and some of his friends. It was fun, aside from all the water-crashing. I rode an inflated banana boat, which involved inevitable crashing, but it was still fun. Then there was the sea-doo crash. I don't know, but something about hitting the water face first at 70mph and struggling to breath afterwards put me off water crashing for the rest of the day. But the water was nice; not too cold.

Today I hung out with Natsuki and Chiaki (her friend, not sister of the same name). We went to a pretty deserted shrine and a mall, which were both very interesting. We went to a store in the mall which sold a bunch of crazy Japanese stuff, kind of like a mixture of Spencer Gifts (minus the prevalent bad taste), Hot Topic, and a hip bookstore. Then we stopped by those photo booths that Japanese girls base their lives around and took some silly pictures.

Well, it's bed time now. I'll post later.

Japan Land log, Pt. 1

Hey there, everybody. I bet you'll never guess where I am. ...No. Wait. Duh.

Yep, I made it to Japan. It's about 9:45am now. I just had some coffee and some chocolate Charlie Brown cereal, and I just thought I should let everyone know I am alive and well. I don't think I have the time to write out a fully composed post, as I still need to get ready to go out and gawk, so I will try to make this brief yet telling. I will say this, though: so far Japan is just as mad-crazy and awesome as I expected. Here's a little run down of the trip so far----

-Vancouver airport made me feel like I was in Japan already. Nearly everybody there, the travellers, the employees, was Japanese. I ate a sandwich and a muffin. I did see one Canadian pilot riding a segway around, and it was pretty damn funny.

-The 10-hour flight was very disorienting. I kept falling asleep and waking up not knowing where I was. Time didn't seem to exist. I tried to watch Agent Cody Banks, but it sucked. I tried to watch Gattaca (because I wanted to see it), but I fell asleep. Then I woke up and thought "where the hell am I?"

-Kansai airport was very...empty. For some reason there wasn't many people when we arrived. Oh yeah; The Beastie Boys from the Intergalactic video guided our plane upon landing.

-Japan is beautiful.

-When Natsuki and I were waiting for her parents to pick us up from a bus station, the empty bottle of a Japanese drink fell off my suitcase and broke on the sidewalk. As I was trying to clean it up, her family found and greeted us. They are very nice, hospitable people, but their first impression of me was a tired American kid holding a broken bottle. *sigh*

-Natsuki's hometown is awesome. It's about the size of Corvallis, but it's JAPANESE, which makes it ten times more interesting. I ate at a little ramen place, and it was grrrrreat. All the food here is incredible.

-Japanese people are reckless drivers. I'll explain later.

-Yesterday Natsuki and I visited the family home of her friend Kaori Manabe, who is a national TV star and model. Kaori lives someplace else of course, but her mother and sister were super-nice, and they thought I was great. I also ate some cereal while I was there. That's right; I ate cereal in a Japanese supermodel's mom's house. Rock.

I know there's more, but I should go get ready now. Just know that I am geting lots of great footage. I will write later. Mata nee!

Blind Like a Willie Nelson Monster Truck

I haven't been too good at posting lately, because I am in Lebanon. I don't get as much internet time here at home. So here's what's been going on:

Takuya and I have found a place to live for the coming Fall. It's a DAMN nice apartment, pretty close to campus. Once I actually start living there I will give out the address so people can drop by.

I leave for my adventure in Japan Land next Monday. I guess I'm ready; I figure there is nothing I can really do to prepare myself for this excursion, because I just know that my mind is going to be blown the second I get off the plane ("I'm in Japan? ...How the hell did I get here??!"). So for now I'm just enjoying summer at home. Last Wednesday I woke up and realized I had no plans for that day. Such a feeling I have not felt for ages. It was awesome.

This evening, Andy and I are going to attempt to hook up my Playstation to my computer and make another Playgrounds CD, because it would be really keen to explore a foreign country listening to music that I've made.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. Not much else to say right now.

Hansel? Hansel?

Bugs Bunny was sued?

Yes. But after reading this, it just brings a little truth to his comment...

Don't Ask, Just Watch

-----> David Hasselhoff.com <-----

Be amazed. Be afraid. Be confused.

Bonus post!

Hey, I just realized that my archives (right down there on the left) are 100% complete. You can go back to the very first posts I did, complete with the pre-Mondrian page style. Maybe you already knew all this, but I just found out. So mmmmnnnnyyyeeeeeaah.

By the way, I'm thinking of refurnishing the eblo. If any of you have any color-scheme suggestions, go ahead and comment.

Photographs!

Here are some people pictures from Adi's website. Just click on my wry titles of each to see 'em.

Cover photo of my autobiography

Yakuza meeting (plotting the hit)

Yakuza meeting (suspicious peas)

The look of terror

Fischerspooner

El Gato

More News

I have moved out of my apartment. That's news.

Also, I saw the movie "Finding Nemo". Easily the best one I've seen recently. You have to check it out. You just have to.

Also, Bob Hope is dead. Can you believe it? I thought he was just gonna go on forever. So who will take his place as the army's official smart-ass? That young buck Don Rickles?

Also, Tristan is on his way to Pantastic Land. Or Indiana, whatever you call it. I told him he should start up his own "eblo" just like mine, as should everyone reading this, because it's so damned easy. It's quicker and easier than...getting a shot!

I don't have much to report at this time. I'm going to go figure out how to play my ukulele.

News

I've been in California for a couple days. I'm back now. That's the news for today.

Music Showcase with John Louie

Sunday I saw Clem Snide, the Long Winters, and the Carolines at the Wow Hall. Here's the rundown:

The Carolines- sucked
The Long Winters- better, but kind of sucked
Clem Snide- good, but I'd never buy their albums

There was, of course, a superfan up in front rocking out to Clem Snide. Normally I don't mind it when a guy rocks out to a band, but it was Clem Snide. They don't rock out. They reflect, they express, they emote, they play well crafted country-rock. They don't really kick out the jams. But hell, this guy did, and even ended up onstage singing a duet with the lead guy. So good for him.

I suppose superfans always feel that they have the right to slam-dance at their favorite band's shows. I wouldn't be surprised if I went to a Yanni concert and saw a long-haired guy in flannel up against the stage bangin' his head.

"The other is busy holding loo roll next to ear to catch drips."

The Secret Monkey Experience. I like reading this guys blog just because he uses a lot of British slang.

"Well find ya a woman...And gun her down good!"

Oh, man. Vegas just continues to beef up its reputation as the in-all-ways-wrong-entertainment capital of the world.

"Bambi Hunts". It was probably some guy's lifelong dream: start up a game in which rich guys pay $10,000 to chase nude women around the countryside with a paint-ball gun. Normally, common sense would have led him to think "Nah, there wouldn't be any girls that stupid or guys that depraved to go through with it." But wait! Sir, you're in Las Vegas U.S.A., and those are the kinds of people that keep the city alive! So badda bing; before long the guy's dream is a perverse, ludicrous reality.

And of course people are gonna be pissed off about it. If he had started any other business that got him in hot water, he could've said "at least I'm not having men pay to hunt down naked women" and landed on his feet. But this little entrepreneurial venture is so deep in the gutter that there's little anyone can say to defend it, save for a phrase like �These are just fun guys who thought they had done everything, ridden everything and hunted everything." Well shit! If they're just a bunch of fun lovin' good ol' boys, let loose the women!

This is the kind of thing that keeps feminists alive. You can just picture one sitting around bored until she turns on the news and sees something like this. Then she yells "We got one!" and hits a buzzer, and all the other feminists in the house perk up and slide down firehouse poles to hop on the Anti-Oppression Mobile. "Let's roll, girls!"

It says in this article that one of the game's "prey" admitted that she cried after being hit in the posterior by one of the paint-loaded pellets. I'm sorry, but I just can't feel sorry for this girl. I suppose when she signed up for the job she thought "running around naked eluding gun-wielding men" actually meant serving drinks in a posh bar or standing on a pedestal while rich young bachelors say "I respect you as a woman." It would be easy to end this objectifying, evil business if the guys behind it actually kidnapped these women and forced them to be the prey, but these women do it voluntarily. I think if a young woman sees playing the part of a two legged, hairless deer as a good job opportunity then she probably deserves to be gunned down with paintballs.

But even if this Bambi Hunting thing does kick the bucket (ha...as if it won't), chances are it won't be down for long; the Fox network is always looking for another degrading reality show concept...

Things I've Seen

I've seen some things recently. I will tell you about them.

I saw Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of nacho whatever. I liked it. Even though Jerry Bruckheimer was the producer it doesn't suck, and it doesn't feature any slow-motion American flag shots that have come to be his trademark. Pirates are cool, dammit! And the movie is just built around that fact. By the end of the film, all the characters love pirates. And why not? I mean, they steal, murder, smell bad, rape...they're just all-around lovable. And Johnny Depp is pretty entertaining, taking his Hunter S. Thompson persona out of the closet and dressing it in pirate clothes.

I also saw 28 Days Later: The Pirated Laptop Version on Adi's laptop. It was alright. That's pretty much all I can say. There's not really anything wrong with the movie, but there's nothing outstanding about it, either. I just feel like there could have been more. I think they should make another movie focusing on someone who doesn't wake up quite so late in the action. They could call it 18 Days Later. Then maybe the antagonists would actually be zombies instead of a bunch of horny soldiers.

Then there is the Electric 6 video Gay Bar. It's the kind of video that is so senseless and stupid you wonder if it's okay to laugh. Well, I laughed. I couldn't help but compare it to all those Wierd Al videos that try sooo hard to be funny but just end up mundane and dumb. Electric 6 seem to be specialists in making videos that don't try at all. It's like watching the first idea one of them had after finishing a bottle of vodka.

Porcupine Pie.

poop

"One time I secretly placed a fake "poop" on their bed. When I heard the screams I knew they had found it. After showing them it was fake, they started laughing so hard. The next day they sheepishly wanted to know where I had gotten it so they could get some poop of their own. That was not the last of the poop, though. On their last day, after they had gotten on the bus, the teacher told us of her most memorable moment in class, when Ayami and Megumi were recounting the story in their best English in front of the class. However, they could not come up with an English word for poop that anyone understood. Finally, Ayami said "fake sh__" and everybody understood! The whole class erupted in laughter. "

No Title

Momus visits that new retro-hip McDonalds I talked about a while back. The picture of him with Ronald McDonald and the retarded kid is priceless.

There are a bunch of little kids running around today. It seems during the summer there are always little kids running around OSU, but today there are more than usual. I don' t know what they want. In front of one building they seem to be erecting wooden cows. Maybe it's some kind of pagan thing.

My summer term ends tomorrow. Japanese Culture ended last week, but Theater went on for another. I will be reading/reciting the monologue at the end of "The Glass Menagerie" as my part of a group theater project. I wish I could do it with a sword; I feel like theater monologues can only be done right if you have a sword to wave around. Maybe I will write my own play, and have the characters pull swords out of nowhere whenever they go into a monologue. Or hell, just give them swords to hold for every second of the play, even if there is no fighting and it takes place in modern day. I could call it "The Sword Menagerie", or just plain "We Have Swords". And it would have to be a musical, but instead of singing, the characters would play harmonicas. Hm... That might be hard to do if they are holding swords. Well, anyway, if you have any ideas on how to make "We Have Swords" the best play in history, feel free to comment.

VOIP!

This is Adi's photo site. Adi is my Indonesian associate, and he takes damn-good pictures. I can't see why he's majoring in computer-industrial-engineering-booglarizing-physics...or whatever it is. He could be the next [insert name of famous photgrapher besides Ansel Adams here].

I figure I should give my thoughts on a growing phenomenon, just so y'all know that I'm hip to what's...hip:
Homestarrunner.com is worth checking out, if only for the Teen Girl Squad comics/cartoons. I'm not saying it's the best thing since the ass-spike, but I have gotten some good laughs out of it.

The Plum Frog

Since everyone is using the term "blog" as a shortening of "weblog" nowadays, I am going to be different and call this page my "eblo" from now on. Doesn't it sound more ethnic?

So last night I had this dream. I can't remember all of it, but the first part dealt with me finding a little tiny pond creature and taking it home as a pet. Chad told me it would die soon, but we were both surprized at how long it ended up living. What started out as a little planaria-type thing grew into more of a frog type thing, with amazing tree climbing abilities. I had him on an exclusive plum diet. He would climb trees and eat plums and I would stand below and say "that's a good frog-pond-thing." Then I ended up being on the news for having this creature that climbed trees and ate plums; I guess it was considered extraordinary in the dream world.

The second half of the dream involved me and some other students taking some sort of tour around a surreal college campus. We all had boxes of Triscuits, and this other guy kept looking at my box in a suspicious manner. I never found out what his problem was.

Recently I've been browsing other people's blogs. Other people are so interesting.

From Justin to Psychic Roaches

I was just reading some other guy's blog and he posted this little something he read somewhere:

"There's a story that when the cockroach sees another insect trying to attack it, it becomes so mortified with fright that the image of that insect freezes in its mind. Due to the intense ideation of the form of its enemy, the enemy actually sees the cockroach as one of its own kind. In other words, the vibration emanating from the cockroach's mind influences its enemy's mind into thinking that it is a member of its own species. Thus the cockroach is saved from death, since the insect will not attack one of its own kind. "

All I have to say about that is... Crazy.

So anyway, what's up with that From Justin to Kelly movie? I got so wrapped up in Charlie's Angels 2 sucking that I almost let it this other movie slip by without complaining about it. Just for the record, I don't know if I would say From J to K is quite as bad as Charlie's Angels. Whereas CA tries to act like it is an action movie rather than just a bunch of crap onscreen, I'm pretty sure the former is quite aware that it is just a bunch of crap onscreen. What else would it be?

Okay, this time I will try something different. I will look at it from an admiring perspective, as if i actually saw the movie and liked it. *Ahem*

From Justin to Kelly is the best movie I've seen all year. If there's one thing I want to see in a movie, it's an American Idol winner and a loser flaunting money and dancing around and singing. I just love the movie. And i love the singing. There's this one song that is so great, I almost cried and slapped the person sitting next to me. Justin is so cute. His hair is all frizzy and stupid and great. Kelly is a good singer; I am so glad that they let her star in her own movie. She is the greatest goddamn actress since Ingrid Borgnine, or whatever her name is. She could also be president. They should let her be president. And they should make her into a robot so that she doesn't die. And then they should make the robot have sex with Justin and repopulate the earth with perfect singing frizzy-haired people. This movie is so good, it is better than my dog.

...Maybe that wasn't what a real fan would say, but it would have to be pretty close, right? I mean, this movie isn't just stupid. It really makes me wonder; could no one involved in its production think of a better way to spend a couple million dollars? I mean, this Kelly girl became an American Idol a whole year ago, so of course she is not still regarded as one. And why the hell is that Justin guy even in it? I think the only redeeming factor that would have made this movie worth seeing is if Kelly continually addressed Justin as "the loser".

Ah! I can't do it anymore. This movie is too easy to criticize. I'm going to go find something worth writing about.

Real Ultimate Power

I have two links for you today. First, there's this guys site, who uses the same template as I do, but that's not what makes him special. What is significant about this site is that the Cloy Harlequin is referenced. I don't know this guy, and I had never been to his page, but he used opinions expressed on my site to back up his point. Isn't that rad?? That's what rocks your socks about having your own webpage. So check it out; you can use that "find" doohickey to locate where he namedrops the Cloy Harlequin.

Second, here is the Official Ninja Webpage. It's just as cool as it sounds, and cooler, so go and read and laugh and make funny internet delicious thing!

A Naked Woman and a Flying Dog

Hey, wanna see a naked woman and a flying dog? You would probably like to see a naked woman and a flying dog. Who wouldn't want to see a naked woman and a flying dog? I don't know!

So now, I give you, a naked woman and a flying dog.

Never Approach a Squirrel on Drugs

I was surfing the internet recently, looking for the taboo and the bizarre, and I couldn't help but take note of what a blessing the World Wide Web is. Businesses can flourish online, blogs and personal websites can inform friends and relatives of one's wherabouts, and small organizations can get their word out into the world and gain notariety that would otherwise be unattainable. Case in point: the S.A.P.P. (Squirrel Attack Prevention Program). These boys have started up this site to warn people of the growing threat posed by squirrels. One of the creators even takes the time to assure us "I am the opposite of cool", so we know that they are not doing it for any kind of personal glory; this is a labor of brotherly concern. And I, for one, appreciate the warning. Thank you, brave sirs Matthew and Derrik. (Be sure to check out the anti-squirrel gear.)

Cameron Diaz is Stupid

Today I actually have something to write about. I don�t have it all organized and I will probably just end up ranting, but I feel like this has to be said.

I know this can only be my opinion, but I am presenting it here as fact: Charlie�s Angels 2 sucks. It really sucks. I have not seen it, nor do I plan on seeing it, and if you have seen the previews or know anything about it I shouldn�t have to tell you why. Just the fact that it IS sucks. I know that a whole mess of movies come out every year just like this; big budget, juvenile �fun� movies that are formulaically produced in Hollywood without a brain cell of creativity or respect for the viewer, and usually I don�t mind. I don�t see them, and I don�t have to think about them. But something about Charlie�s Angels 2 just gets to me, personally, as if Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu have stolen my bike or kicked my cat in the face. I think the reason I am so offended is that it is a sequel. The first CA was bad enough; I made it out of that campaign having only viewed the last half-hour of it, and that was all I needed to see. My roommate Kenta was watching it one night when I returned to the dorm room. His words stand out in my memory like a critic�s quote:

me: What�s this?
Kenta: Charlie�s Angels. Have you seen it?
me: No.
Kenta: It�s not good.

Take a look at the title of this post. It may seem childish or ignorant, but I�m just being blunt in presenting my opinion. I don�t have to sugarcoat it because it�s her own fault that I hate her. In all the roles I have seen her in, not one of them has appealed to me as a likable character, not even when she played the idiot in Being John Malkovich or the other idiot in There�s Something About Mary. I think she�s stupid because of the movies she continues to star in and the characters she continues to play. Movies like Charlie�s Angels, Charlie�s Angels 2, and the brain-dissolving, please-kick-me-in-the-head-with-an-iron-boot The Sweetest Thing.

Getting back to Charlie�s Angels 2, I am offended because it is a sequel, as if the first one was such a goddamn masterpiece that we wanted more. When I am caught off guard by one of the overly obnoxious previews for the crap (I will not call it a film), I can almost hear director McG�s voice in my head shouting �You wanted more Angels, and here they come! In your face! G-dogg, bitch nigga! Whut??� (By the way, I think it no coincidence that this McG guy is also responsible for the Fox series Fastlane, which is quite possibly the dumbest show I have ever seen. What does McG mean? I have no idea, but it might have something to do with him looking like this.)

The other night I watched the movie Punch Drunk Love which is now on video and DVD. This is one of the best films I have seen in the past couple years, for a simple reason: it�s creative. This movie can be admired for a number of things, but what I took away from it more than anything is the idea that movies don�t have to be cliched, they don�t have to follow formulas, and they just plain don�t have to be anything. Punch Drunk Love is exciting to watch because it strays from all convention, placing you in a space beyond the average movie world. It is a world that seems strangely real in its surrealism, unbound by the traditional structures of what a movie should be and how characters should behave. It seems like the kind of film that someone like, say, McG wouldn�t be able to sit through because it would show him just how pointless and repetitive his work is. I believe Paul Thomas Anderson is on to something, picking away at a genre that exists somewhere between realism, French new wave, and hallucinogenic idealism.

If McG and Paul Thomas Anderson got in a fight, McG would probably win. ...I really don�t know how to follow that up. But know this: some movies stimulate brain cells, and some movies kill them.

Brett 33:45

And he appeared unto them, and they knew the word was God. And they spoke the word God, and it was he, their Lord and shepherd Jesus Christ. And Jesus thus spoke the word, and the word was Jesus God, their savior and word. And they prayed Jesus word God, the Christ savior. And the Heavenly word spoke word, and God was all, Jesus God word Christ bullfrog. And the word spoke God, and Jesus prayed Christ, and God spoke the word of Jesus, who was the astronaut savior. And they realized Christ, the shepherd orangutan of Nazareth, and God word Christ savior Jesus God word word Holy. And God spoke word, and the shepherd spoke word, and the Holy Spirit spoke "word up". And the Lord Savior Statistical Firehose Shepherd Jesus Christ God sat and dined on Rocky Road cereal. Word. To your mother. Amen.

Nothing Interesting to Write

Today I started my summer classes. The highlight of the day was when my theater arts teacher thought Survivor was called Off the Dangerous Island. More later.

Props to All the David Nelsons

Dear dear, I haven't posted in a while. Sorry about that. I've been busy. I hope the beasts at supermundane.com and that site about Egon Schiele kept you busy.

This week I am moving out of this little apartment. I would like to look around the rooms and say "this place was good to me", but I can't help but think about the refrigerator that doesn't refrige very well, or the shower that produces less water than the kitchen faucet. This morning I found the local ant-brigade invading my sink again, and I told them "In a few days it will be all yours, chums." Then I doused their numbers with soapy water.

I was reading the other day about the silly airport security these days. Apparently the feds are giving anybody named David Nelson a hard time. I've had a few ideas for when I depart on my trip; I could go to a dollar store and stock up on tweezers and small scissors and hair pins and the like, and put them all in a bag. Then I can hand it to the security folk at the airport and tell them "by the way, my friends call me Dave Nelson." But maybe that would be too extreme. What I AM going to do, though, is pack some kind of toy gun, obvious in its fakeness, and see if they confiscate it. If they do, I'm going to take a picture of the guy taking it and ask him to "smile justly".

Anyhoo, I will get back to my cleaning and boxing. That's right; Holyfield's up next. Bring it on, bitch!

C'est Genius!

Hey everyone, go look at the beasts. It will make your day.

Or you can read about my latest demi-idol.

Back to the Real World

Here's another world event. 4 Get Monkeypox Virus from Prairie Dogs. You know what? I didn't even read this article. I just love the headline. Read it. Read it again. This is the kind of thing that you'd think would make people want to read on, but yet I do not, because I know that if I knew the whole story then the headline would make perfect sense and stop being funny. So now you must make this decision for yourself: will you read the article in risk of diffusing the humor? Or Not? Choose!!!!

Brett's World of Corvallis

Here's what's new: my Japanese final oral exam was kind of like an episode of ER when they bring in the guy who swallowed a fire cracker and it got stuck in his heart and then it blew up and there was a big bleeding hole in his left ventricle and so they took him in and yelled some stuff and the camera made a bunch of quick sweeps of the OR, and in the end the guy dies. Well, okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but I'm still unwinding from the stress of it all.

In other news, it's hot outside. I saw a cockroach pass out on the sidewalk this morning.

In other news, there's a big Reggae festival going on in the MU Quad right now. It's a refreshing alternative to the other local bands, who wear backwards hats and want to be like Limp Bizkit or Saliva. The Raggae groups just get up, say "hi everybody. Sure is hot today. Well, here's some music," and do their thing. Maybe it's the ganja. Eek-A-Mouse is even going to perform.

In other other news, today was my last day in Human Sexuality and I learned that girls really are bitches.

Finals and Brain Boxes

I am studying for finals and such. It's not very fun, and I don't have much to say about it. So I will refer you to this other site...

Dino Riders. I used to eat these things up as a kid. Not only does this site have info on all of the toys and merchandise, but the guy who put it together seems convinced that this was the greatest franchise man ever created. He's even got shit on the Smithsonian Dinosaur Collection, which makes me wonder how easy it was to get a "Authorized Replica, Smithsonian Museum" sticker on a toy line. Apparently the Smithsonian thinks dinosaurs had 4 points of articulation and perfectly symmetrical bodies, and that the T-Rex drug his tail around with a big grin on his face.

Deconstructing the Blog

As you can see, I've refurnished this here blog with a Mondrian motif. And I like it.

For Setsuko

I wish I could see you on the playgrounds of the cosmos, your eyes reflecting every sun to infinity. Meet me on the slide and we can ride it down to Venice; your life will be a luminescent memory

Last weekend one of my friends in Japan closed her eyes, and the world got a little dimmer.

busy signal

Classes and people things make me busy. Please be patient.

T-Shirt Makes the Man

Yesterday I was looking at T-Shirts. Seeing what the kids are wearing these days. Aside from those fake vintage shirts that are all the rage now thanks to American Eagle and Urban Outfitters, some OSU students had interesting threads. The best I saw: a black tee with the words "QUIT WORK MAKE MUSIC". The worst I saw: a sorority's shirt mimicking the "Hooters" logo. And who's complaining about stereotyping?

The prevalent poor t-shirt fashion sense of OSU gave me some ideas of my own in shirt design. Watch my wardrobe for developments.

"It's like an airplane, sir. But...without wings!"

Maybe I'm doing too much commentary on world events, but dammit, there's so much silly stuff to write about!

Yet another U.S. Helicopter has crashed in Iraq. I'm not even going to link to the article this time. So this is, what, the fifth copter our troops have planted into the ground during this "war"? Isn't becoming a tad obvious that our boys just don't know how to fly them fuckin things? I thought it was morbidly funny when the first big loss for the U.S. in this "war" was one of our helicopters crashing on accident. But when it kept happening over and over, it stopped being funny. It became hilarious! But now it is kind of sad. I can just picture a general briefing his troops over in Iraq: "Okay, we need a helicopter team. Who's in?"
"Not me, sir."
"Someone else, sir."
"I have palsey, sir."
"I get air sick, sir."
"I..um...just don't want to go because we've already lost a whole shitload of marines in copter crashes, sir."

I am guessing it's the air force's job to teach these grunts how to pilot a whirly-bird. So what's going wrong? Maybe all the recruits want to fly jets. Once they get out on that airfield, humming to themselves "high-way-to-the-danger zone", they all sprint to the coolest looking jets they can find. There's always the instructor pleading "c'mon, guys! Doesn't anyone want to learn how to fly a helicopter?" But a cocky young Joe shouts back "helicopters are gay! WOOO!" as he flips the switches in his Tomcat and lifts off. "Take my breath awaaaaaaaay!"

Anyway, thanks to movies like "Apocalypse Now" and the G.I. Joe franchise, I think helicopters are pretty cool. And that's my final thought.

Spit for your Forefathers

"Spitting, backed by a common belief that frequent internal cleansing is good for your health, has a long history in China." That's right; the nation of China was founded on the right to spit. Emperor Ming Mu, some 800 years ago, was walking up the palace steps to inherit his political power when he turned and spit on a civilian baby. A hush fell over the crowd of onlooking thousands. Then cheers broke out as everyone remembered how important it is to cleanse your insides frequently. The mother of the wet, baffled child had tears of pride in her eyes knowing that the emperor had chosen her offspring as a target for his saliva. In modern China, it was a common site to see people walking down the street spitting on things. Parents taught their children how to maximize the force and distance of an expelled loogey, telling them "spitting holds an important place in China's history. Now spit!" But recently, with the emergence of SARS, Chinese citizens began noticing that whenever they spit, people around them would fall over dead. In more serious cases, spit units were reported to have changed into a bomb-like shape after leaving a person's mouth. So they passed a law. Now, the fine for spitting is $24. This has made Chinese citizens very selective in choosing what to spit on. Also, it's a good threat; if someone pisses you off, all you need do is make that *hoooiiik* noise and flash 24 bucks, and your opponent will back off, fearing for his life.

Strangely enough, officials are now saying that the epidemic is receding. Now that people are keeping their spit urges repressed, the virus is not spreading as rapidly. It's like the ultimate manners lesson:

"Now now, Jimmy. Don't spit."
"Aww, why not, Mrs. Thabernackle?"
"Because if you keep doing it, Jimmy, all of your friends will fall victim to a deadly virus that crushes the life out of their lungs."
"...Oh. Okay."

"Japanese/English Ear Canal Translator"

Don't ask me how I found this (how do I find any of these fuckin sites?). There are a lot of American nerds with ponytails and computers who spend an unreasonable amount of time expressing their sci-fi/anime fantasies in the form of poorly drawn online comics and poorly written "fan-fiction" stories. But David Gonterman has achieved psuedo-star status amongst these people, namely for being exceptionally, consistently terrible at what he does.

Click here to find out a little about him, or click here to read a chapter from one of the best goddamn stories ever written.

Today

The sun was out today, and it was hot. I saw some birds. A bunch of queer kids talked in my Human Sexuality class. They talked about being queer. I saw some people riding bikes. My shirt today reads "EXPORT ME", but no one did. Jumpin' Jivin' Jimmy Bo Jangles!

The Wives Of Ely EP

Playgrounds is up to something. I just know it.

The Sea Quest chimney sweep steps lightly, but with haste in Georgian.

Current Inspiration

Gilded Age aesthetics and commercial art; the art nouveau movement; children's books; 50s pop; 60s lounge; Takashi Murakami; the dawn of travelling circuses; textured sound; nonsensical babble

Turn The World Upside Down!

I'm pretty sure the Japanese midterm I took a few minutes ago confirmed my shitty grade for the class. It's just too much. Direct style affirmative-imperfective? Fuck that, sensei. I might have trouble memorizing 3 pages of words for every session.

But everyone says "don't let things like that get you down." And that's a good idea, so rather than feeling like I failed, I am going to feel like I won. That's right, let's celebrate! All this week we can celebrate my low standing in all my classes. A bad grade in Art History? Have a drink! It's not often things bomb so badly, so let's sieze the moment and party hard. Come, chums! A shot for every point I missed today! We'll beat the candy out of a big pinata 'F'. Imagine, if the whole world was like this, things would be...crazy!

Anyhoo, I have to go type an essay. If I get a bad grade, we'll roll out the Twister mat!

Still Busy (but musical gears are turning)

A: I can make it sound like I recorded the album in a iron drum.

B: So why not just record the album in a iron drum?

A: Well, it might be cramped, and I can't afford the drum.

Mr. Celegans Lives!

I have too much shit to study for, and I may be losing my mind, but I had to post this:

Live worms found in space shuttle debris. In case the astronauts found any fishin' holes while orbiting the earth, there were a couple containers of C.elegans (little worms) stored on board the Columbia. Apparently workers looking through the shuttle debris have found hundreds of worms that survived the re-entry explosion which turned the seven astronauts into pepper. While the worms are having little parties in their petri dishes, NASA experts are suspicious. "We're beginng to consider the possibility of sabotage on the worms' part," says NASA scientist Robert Bostiersnoodle.

God's Homepage

It's right here> The Homepage Of God

Today I have been searching for my multi-subject notebook that seems to have disappeared. I took this notebook to almost every class, and we shared all kinds of information and drawings. You might say it was my closest companion. So that's sad. Something else that's sad is that it contained all my Japanese, Human Sexuality, and Art History notes, which are very important, so that's also sad. In fact, that sucks major metaphysical divine ass. I have to go look for it...

A Hero In His Own Right

I don' t know who this guy is, but he's got a bunch of pictures of guitars and a serious problem with Blink 182, and you know that's all right with me. (note how he doesn't think Incubus sucks, just the fans of Incubus)

website of a guy who loves guitars and the Allman Brothers but hates Blink 182 with a passion

Dining Mac's Retro Peaceful-ness

Is it true that no two countries that have McDonalds have ever gone to war? Can the universally-recognized golden arches really prevent bloodshed? Are the fries just that good?? Well, we may never know for sure, but for now we can discard that issue and look at this. It's the plans for a new, ultra-stylish McDonalds(or Macadonadodos, or Dining Mac) being built in Tokyo. I figure a stunt like this wouldn't really make much of a difference in America; the arty hipster crowd probably wouldn't start trading their mochas for a filet-o-fish. But it is nice to know that the franchise is making an effort to stay hip, in Japan at least. Then again, even Q-Tip companies strive to be hip in Japan. So maybe it won't make much of a difference there, either. Of course, I forgot what I was talking about, so I will close by saying I am at computer No. 50, and there is no food or drink allowed in the library.

I Wanna Be Like Mike

I have compiled excerpts from articles and websites and pieced together Mike Tyson's psycho rant that he delivered after beating Lou Saverese. Based on my sources, Mike said something like this:

"I'm Sonny Liston! I'm Jack Dempsey! Lennox Lewis, I want to eat your heart. I want to eat your children. You're no match for me when I'm right. I want to rip his heart out and feed it to him. My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I am the most ruthless, brutal champion ever. I have never cared about the public. I enjoy doing this. I enjoy hurting people. That is how I make a living. I am in the hurting business. I sometimes do not like myself. I can understand why people do not like me. Praise be to Allah."

When he's right? What the hell does that mean? Just for the record, he also once said "I could sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating." Mike Tyson is such a funny guy.

MARSELLUS (OS)
I think you're gonna find -- when
all this shit is over and done -- I
think you're gonna find yourself
one smilin' motherfucker. Thing is
Butch, right now you got ability.
But painful as it may be, ability
don't last. Now that's a hard
motherfuckin' fact of life, but
it's a fact of life your ass is
gonna hafta git realistic about.
This business is filled to the brim
with unrealistic motherfuckers who
thought their ass aged like wine.
Besides, even if you went all the
way, what would you be? Feather-
weight champion of the world. Who
gives a shit? I doubt you can even
get a credit card based on that.

Now the night of the fight, you may
fell a slight sting, that's pride
fuckin' wit ya. Fuck pride! Pride
only hurts, it never helps. Fight
through that shit. 'Cause a year
from now, when you're kickin' it in
the Caribbean you're gonna say,
"Marsellus Wallace was right."

Breaking News

Remember back in elementary school when kids had little clubs? And remember that one kid who was a real jerk and would try to force everyone to play his games, and if you didn't want to play he would call you a wuss? And then remember how that jerk would stop inviting you to play and say "you're kicked out of the club because you're stupid"? Well, most kids grow out of that, but...

Yahoo! News

I Love ASIMO's Ass

While America is still proud of My Pal 2 as its most advanced humanoid robot, Honda of Japan has ASIMO, an astronaut-looking robot that knows over 100 words (that's still less than Furby...), can recognize human faces and mimics human movements. So what is this robot used for? Well, um, he stars in car commercials, goes on world tours, and recently rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. But what really sets this 3P0 unit apart from other droids is that ASIMO has his own job. That's right, the robot is working as a receptionist, welcoming people to department stores and company buldings and making $280,000 a year.

I'm sure ASIMO is very proud of himself. You know you're a true humanoid when someone makes you get a job. It all makes sense, though; after doing some commercials and touring for a while, ASIMO probably started spending all his days watching TV and eating Pocky. Finally a Honda technician walked in to find him lounging on the couch, and said "Christ, ASIMO, get a job or something."

I also think it's great that the most advanced humanoid in the world gets a job usually given to beligerent old people. I'm sure standing, lifting his hand and saying "Irassyaimase" is utilizing his multi-million-dollar programming to its best potential. But hell! I love the guy anyway. He's out makin a buck, payin his dues, and representin in the face of Sony's SDR4 robot ("He's wack!" says ASIMO. Probably.)

That's all for today.