Memoirs of a Gouda

Come check Gouda's new digs! :)

2008-10-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

I've been away for a long while, and the time has come to close the Gouda doors, however, I'm still lurking around on the internets. Come to my new site, Ask Allie Anything and drop me a line! I promise to feature your question and a patented Gouda answer. :) I look forward to hearing from you!

Flag FAIL

2008-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was eating lunch yesterday in one of those chain restaurant establishments after which "Chotchskies" in Office Space was modeled, and among the deluge of knick-knacks and other "pieces of flair" bedecking the staff and the walls around me was a giant American flag. I found myself initially noting its garish size, but then thought that I really do appreciate the aesthetic nature of our stars and stripes. It's bold, edging on boisterous, and its symbolism is pretty self-evident. It could also never be confused with the flag of another country, like a lot of those "three color blocks and nothing else" flags. Yes, I'm talking about you Mexico and France! This is not a patriotic statement in the slightest. Viewed simply as a piece of cloth, Old Glory is just pretty.

I then began to ponder the flags of other nations, and I realized that while some of them were also notable in the aesthetic sense, others were just downright silly. Now look, I'm not insulting your nation by insulting your flag, but come on. If a flag is supposed to encapsulate the greatness of your country on a single piece of cloth, then I think it's pretty easy to say that Canada blows. A maple leaf? Come on! Leaves are not only exceedingly bland, but they make your lawn all messy in the fall, and they're weak. A baby can tear one in half, for crying out loud! Look, I have a lot of Canadian friends. They are good folks, but their flag is gay. Sorry Canada. Fail.

Japan's flag is ridiculous. A red dot on a white field. Oh the unsavory things this symbolizes for me. Namely waking up in the morning to find you've had a bloody nose on a pristine pillow case. Look, I know that Japan is all minimalist Zen-like, but this is ridiculous.

You want a much better suggestion for the Japanese flag? Look no further than the Karate Kid. That's right. Cobra Kai, bitches. Strike First. Strike Hard. No mercy.

Then we have copy-cat countries. The ones who decided to look at the guys next door and go: "Well, what's good enough for you is good enough for us. We'll just change the colors around a little bit and no one will notice. Chief offenders: Sweden and Denmark. Granted, both countries are homes to things I love. Ikea and delicious breakfast pastries, respectively. But this is no excuse to have flags that look like poorly-wrapped gifts. If I received a present wrapped in the style of a Swedish or Danish flag, I'd set it on fire. That's right, kids. Giftbags are perhaps the way to go.
Oh, but the atrocities don't stop there. In fact, there is a whole world out there to cover. If only I had the time to pick on them all. But don't worry, I've saved the worst for last.

Poland. Please, do your countrymen a favor and try to do your part in eliminating the ancient stereotype that you're stupid, once and for all. Changing your simpleton-like flag would be a good start.

Northern Marianas has a flag that could only be described as infinitely tacky. I could sit here and stare at it for hours and still not figure out what exactly it's trying to tell me about that particular nation. What is that stone thing behind that giant star? Why the bridal garland? Listen, I'm sure all of this gaudiness is significant to the people of Northern Marianas in some way, but to the casual observer, it looks like something that was stitched together during arts and crafts hour at a nursing home. Oh, and in case you think I'm getting too cocky, remember that Northern Marianas is an American territory. Marianas needs to do a better job of representing. Just sayin...

Technically, the following flag is not for a specific country. It is for an organization of countries. This is the flag for OPEC. Nevermind that it makes the work of Salvadore Dali and Picasso look completely logical, and that it makes the wrinkled ass of John McCain look nearly appetizing. To me, it looks like four heads, one of which is being eaten alive while the other is running away screaming, which I guess is kind of appropriate. The thing is, OPEC's flag could be so cool that it could feature Chuck Norris having a sword fight with Charlton Heston and it wouldn't even matter. This flag fails just for the fact that OPEC is partially to blame for making me pay nearly $70 to fill up my gas tank. Screw you, OPEC.

But worst offender on this list is miles ahead of all the rest when it comes to making the visual senses nearly vomit. I don't even know where to begin, but Brazil has really done their nation a disservice with this doozy of a flag. The color scheme is putrid. The layout is awkward. What's with all of those stupid stars? And the words across the middle? Very bad form. This fail is bigger than the biggest shaking ass at Carnival.

I'd hate to sound biased, however. After all, the only flag in this entire blog I've praised so far is the American flag, and some of you might be thinking that this is incredibly unfair. But in my research, I have found a flag that trumps every flag ever designed in the entire world. I don't even need to see the other flags to know this. And why? Because this is the kind of flag that everyone wishes they had. Especially someone like me. Libya, you may be full of insane people and are on my personal Top 5 List of countries in which I fear being stuck. But no matter. Your flag is fucking genius. Oh yes, some might call it a tad plain. Perhaps uninspired. Empty, Spartan, or downright depressing, even. But no... your solid green field with absolutely nothing on it is the pinnacle of flaggy awesomeness. It means I can make your flag say anything I want it to say. It's so ironic, really, from a country not particularly heralded as a bastion of freedom, that your flag allows me to have so much of it! Here's my tip of the hat to you, Libya! Hope you like the falafel.

2008-05-27T14:48:00.001-07:00

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

Or more like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Da Vinci National Treasure X-Files Mummy Code*

If there is one thing that can be said about the latest Indiana Jones movie to come out in nearly twenty years, it's this: don't let anyone ever tell you that a 65-year-old man can't play an action hero. Harrison Ford remains a stalwart marvel in this film, and anyone deigning to make walker and wheelchair jokes can quietly set about eating crow. Forturnately and unfortunately, however, there is much more to say about Indiana Jones and Words...Words...Words... Let's start with the good news.

There is no shortage of thrills in the latest installment in this franchise. From breathtaking chases through city streets and rainforests, to some downright creepy moments (particularly for the insect-phobic), Kingdom delivers the adrenaline-laced goods without hesitation. Harrison Ford portrays the older and wiser Indy exactly as he should have, as a man who has visibly aged, who is a little slower, more cautious, less cocky, and not quite as lithe, but who is just as hardy and determined, and perhaps even smarter with age. Shia LaBeouf was also a welcome addition to the cast, and made cocky greaser Mutt Williams likeable and relatively sympathetic.

Now, for the not-so-good, which unfortunately tips the scales. What made Temple of Doom fall far from the greatness of the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and solified it's last place on the roster after The Last Crusade was lack of chemistry between Indy and another leading character. There was no Marian Ravenwood or Henry Jones Sr. that allowed Indiana's charisma to shine, and the movie simply failed to ignite on the character level. The very same can be said for Kingdom. Although it doesn't disappoint as much Temple of Doom did, it didn't come close to rising to the occasion of matching the interpersonal magic other two movies. While it was intended for Shia Lebouf to fill the heartfelt character role, there wasn't quite enough substance there to allow their chemistry to flourish. The return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood should also have been enthusiastically welcome, but the result fell short as the story did little more than just stick her in the middle of the action with nothing to do other than inspire nostalgia and deliver insipid dialog.

The villains were also a weakspot in this film. Because the plot takes place in the mid-50s, Indiana Jones is no longer fighting Nazis. The country is at the height of the Red Scare, so Russians are the enemy, and Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) is public enemy number one. Leading a group of Russians to acquire the ultimate in psychic weaponry from the Peruvian rainforests, her aim is to ultimately rule the world through mind-control. Blanchett clearly had fun with the role, enunciating every Ukrainian-tinged syllable with abundant zest. The problem is she wasn't nearly imposing enough. If the idea of an enemy is to create a sense of danger for our heroes, she actually failed quite miserably.

But now to the most controversial plot addition to the Indiana series. It is one that will have fans split down the middle and perhaps more than one person seething at the name of George Lucas at a level that nearly tops the ire directed toward the Star Wars prequels. Although Lucas didn't physically write the screenplay, his influence over the story feels quite palpable here. Indiana Jones has faced all manner of supernatural events, from the lethal energy of the Ark of the Covenant to the healing power of the Holy Grail. We accepted these things because he was just as much of a skeptic as the rest of us. But science fiction? Aliens? UFOs? This may just be asking too much for even the most ardent Indy fan to accept.

Some will argue that it fits the timeframe of the story well, as pop culture and folklore revolved heavily around UFO sightings at the time not to mention what happened in Roswell, New Mexico, and if the adventures of Indiana Jones are based on the pulp adventure stories of their time, there is nothing incongruent here. The problem is in the execution, as it puts Indy on completely different territory than we're used to seeing him. As a bit of a realist, he's normally just as skeptical as we are about some of these legends, and in that healthy skepticism, we always had someone we could trust. Jones knows Gods, idols, and artifacts of human civilization, and he is a dependable hero because we are able to rely on his knowledge of these things to carry him through danger, and by the end, we always felt he learned something new and was significally affected by what he saw. But even Jones was a little out of his element here, and the climax just felt awkward. He seemed neither surprised nor affected much by what he saw, and as a result, the audience can't help but be underwhelmed as well.

Overall, though, the film was not as major a disappointment as it could have been, based on the fact that what it did do right, it did well enough to keep a smile on my face, even if I felt that it was on a different dimension from the other films. The enduring likeability of Harrison Ford has a lot to do with this. Even with its slightly lackluster dialog, 2-dimensional characters, and its higher-than-normal demands on the viewer to suspend disbelief, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a worthy enough trip to the theater. The key is just lowering your expectations and shutting off that part of your brain that insists on adding logic to the mix, which has always been key to enjoying any Indiana Jones film. Just be sure to bring along your tolerance for whimsy on this one, because you're definitely going to need it.

Final Grade: B-

*Caption help courtesy of Ian T. Healy, good friend and fellow writer.

Political Math Lesson for Hillary Fans

2008-05-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

The West Virginia Primary was today. It was a race that Clinton was widely expected to win. Something about demographics of comprised widely of ignorant hillbillies and racists makes elections a shoe-in for Hillary, but nevermind. While the delusional Clinton campaign (and the media who loves it) sets about its usual course of painting inevitable races as unexpected victories and "surging momentum" in a race that has essentially been over for months, I figured I would fill in a Paint-by-Numbers of the remainder of this exhausting and most disgusting of Democratic Primary seasons for those who are still under the impression that Hillary still has a real shot at the nomination.

1. After tonight's primary, there are 189 total delegates left up for grabs. Hillary needs 172 of them in order to tie Obama's lead.

2. Even if Oregon (a state that Obama is expected to win by 20 points or more) didn't vote next week, Kentucky (another state that is in Hillary's column) will give him enough delegates to clench the majority of total delegates.

3. The delegate gap between the two candidates after tonight will be 168.5 (this is assuming a net of 10 delegates for Obama in WV based on exit polls). This means Clinton needs to pick up a net of 84.5 delegates to not be mathematically eliminated. This means she needs to hold Obama to 9 delegates in Oregon. 9 delegates. In Oregon. That would mean she would have to hold Obama to an 8 point lead in a state where he's leading by 20 with only a week to go.

But what about the Superdelegates, you might be wondering? Easy.

4. Let's give Hillary a 65% win in KY, WV, and Puerto Rico and Obama an 8 point victory in Oregon. This is the miracle scenario that makes the raising of Lazarus from the dead look like Jesus merely farted.

Hillary needs 80% of the remaining Super Delegates, or 191.

Obama needs 25% of the remaining Super Delegates, or 62. He's gotten 24 Supers this week alone. And that was leading up to a race that no one counted on Obama winning.

5. The Clinton campaign is 20 Millon Dollars in debt. Hillary's desire to run has more than outlasted her resources, or gross lack of them.

Once Barack Obama clenches the majority of pledged delegates on May 20, this race will be over. No amount of Kentucky and West Virginia lovin will be able to stop it. It's done. It's over.

That's no spin, folks. It's simple math. It can't be spun. Now, here are some potential scenarios that could net Hillary the nomination:

1. In a giant battle between Godzilla and Mothra, Obama gets stepped on.

2. Hillary finds a time machine, goes back to 1961, kills Barack's mother.

3. Four words: Obama. Airport bathroom sex.

Good luck, Hillary!

Paging Doctor God!

2008-04-28T17:04:00.001-07:00

Dear God,

I'm sure you're pretty busy playing craps with the universe and all, but I need to ask for your attention on a very important matter. See, there are some people on our humble little planet who are under the impression that you hold a medical degree. Now, I know you're all-powerful and stuff. After all, you created the planet a few thousand years ago, and there is some evidence that you have a bit of a brutal temper, but nowhere on your credentials did I see that you attended a reputable medical school. Granted, your son had some healing experience, but he seemed to deal mainly with lepers and resurrecting the dead, so he's a little limited.

Knowing this, why is it that there are so many human beings who are allowing their children to die of curable illnesses under the belief that you and only you can heal them? Today I read of a Wisconson family who let their eleven year old daughter die of diabetes because they had faith that God running through her veins would serve as sufficient insulin. Not too long before that, a 15 month old girl died from a common bronchial infection because her parents were more comfortable setting up camp in the Lord's waiting room rather than one here on the earthly plane.

Now, I could be mistaken. Maybe you do have a medical agree. But I don't recall reading the part of The Bible that said it was your job to heal every sick person on the planet. Silly me, but seeing as how millions of people die every day, I just figured that medicine wasn't high on your list of priorities and that to get by this problem, you made a few of the human beings on this planet smart enough so that they could be the doctors to treat the sick.

The only thing I really notice is that the world is chock full of ignorant, arrogant assholes who think that they are special enough to receive the Lord's special healing tonic before the glut of otherwise decent folks who wither away from stupid diseases on a daily basis. Don't they realize that with 6 billion people on this planet, you're kinda busy? But what makes this most egregious is that these freaks aren't even acting on their own behalves. It would be easy enough to shrug off such fanaticism if they were gambling with their own lives, but they're allowing their children to die for their dogma, and this is nothing short of appalling.

I read a few stories about your intolerance for bullshit. Does Sodom and Gommorah ring a bell? And you flooded the whole planet, for the love of You! Isn't there something you can do about these negligent, child-killing assholes? I mean, I know you haven't really done a whole lot about the other evil bastards plaguing this planet. Dick Cheney is a prime example. But there has to be something you can do here. These people are not only too stupid to live, but they're totally wrecking your reputation!

I know you've probably chilled out from the days of antiquity, but I think you've got some good old fire and brimstone left in you, and it's been a long time since you've done a major clean-up operation around here. These people seem like a great place to start. I'm just sayin... Besides, I think the Puritans got it all wrong on the whole witch thing. Thou shalt not suffer a dipshit to live.

Blasphemously Yours,
Allie

The Doctor Calls, The Gouda Answers

2008-04-27T09:26:00.001-07:00

Because of the concern of my friend, Doctor Boogaloo, and because I do realize that I haven't been by here in awhile, I just wanted to alert you all that I am alive and well, but I have been extremely busy of late. We've (almost, keep your fingers crossed) sold our house and are in the process of moving into another one. Packing eight years worth of life into boxes and transporting them five miles up the road is pretty time consuming.

That isn't to say I haven't been writing. I have a site over on Myspace and it's been easier to keep things up over there, and I suppose if you were on Myspace, many of you wouldn't be questioning whether I'm still alive. I guess you can say I've narrowed my focus a little. But there are some new things on the horizon, namely that I am intent on starting a freelance writing/editing business, and I've been devoting a lot more of my writing efforts to fiction.

But once things settle down, I'll be neglecting MoaG a lot less. I want to thank the dear Doctor for his concern and for getting me to come out of my hole for a little bit.

And for a something a little "blog-like," here is a piece I wrote on one of my favorite authors:

To be elevated to "hero" status in my view, you need to do something to change the amperage in it. You have to be that burst of something which moves me to a higher energy level. You have to be the spark the ignites the gasoline running through my veins. Or, to put it in its barest form, you have to make me utterly ecstatic to be alive.

Meet one of my heroes, Robert A. Heinlein:

Some of you may be familiar with his work, particularly if you read science fiction. He is often rated among the "giants" of the genre alongside Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert, and Isaac Asimov. In fact, Clarke, Asimov, and Heinlein were known as "The Big Three" in their time, and their work not only changed the face of science fiction, bringing it out of the realm of pulp and into the mainstream, but it was also prophetic in speculating on technologies in the 40s and 50s that we now take for granted today.

Heinlein's works include Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Starship Troopers, and dozens of others. It isn't merely that the literary quality of his books is top-notch; Heinlein was controversial. His iconoclastic views on the subjects of government, liberty, organized religion, marriage, and non-conformist thought are woven throughout all of his stories and create, through the use of fictional settings and dialog, a most compelling form of self-examination.

The first book of his I read, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, deals with a lunar penal colony who, with the help of a self-aware computer, overthrows the warden and the lunar government, and eventually takes on Earth itself. It took a penetrating view at the importance of self-determinism and liberty and his characters' long discussions on these subjects were like listening in on the debates of people far more insightful and intelligent than myself, and it somehow managed to achieve this feat without sounding pretentious. I found myself connecting with ideals I'd always felt within myself but lacked the ability or the courage to express. The book described what essentially was an anarchist, libertarian utopia, and I was enthralled. I raced through that book in a day and hungered for more.

Stranger in a Strange Land was almost as inspirational, but dealt more with social issues, such as the role of gender and sexual expression in society. It questioned taboos about polyamorous relationships and delved into a more evolved definition of love and human interaction that many found controversial but I find fascinating and utterly enlightened. The role of women in his novels is viewed by some as chauvinistic and unrealistic, but I find them to be empowering. They are strong, demanding, and they are sexy.

In fact, it is Heinlein's unfettered approach to breaking conventional thought that ranks him high on my list of favorite thinkers. His characters force people out of their comfort zones and make them question the customs we take for granted without even asking why. Even if you don't find yourself agreeing with what is being postulated (polygamy or anarchy, for instance), you are forced to admire how damn convincing he makes it all look.

The best part is, you don't even have to be a fan of science fiction. Before reading Heinlein, I generally avoided the genre. I don't usually get off reading the specs on a spaceship, and I generally don't find robots and aliens characters I can easily warm up to. That is not the case with this writer, because his books are more about principles and ideas that are always interesting and relevant to almost everyone, even if the settings are on fictional planets.

For doing his part to making the minds of millions not only think about their place and their actions in this universe, but also for daring to question the unquestionable while being a damn fine writer in the process, it is natural that Robert A. Heinlein is among my heroes. If you haven't read any of his novels, I highly recommend them. They will challenge you, but (if you have room for it) they might also just change you.

I will end this with a few of my favorite quotes of his (both said by him personally and by characters in his books that he generally wrote to mirror himself) that will give you more insight into his character.

An armed society is a polite society.
Beyond This Horizon (1942)

The whole principle is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak.
On censorship, in The Man Who Sold the Moon (1949)

I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!

Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, WA (1961)

Correct morality can only be derived from what man is — not from what do-gooders and well-meaning aunt Nellies would like him to be.
Starship Troopers (1959)

Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often confuses one for the other, or assumes the greater the love, the greater the jealousy. In fact they are almost incompatible; both at once produce unbearable turmoil.
Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Logic is a feeble reed, friend. "Logic" proved that airplanes can't fly and that H-bombs won't work and that stones don't fall out of the sky. Logic is a way of saying that anything which didn't happen yesterday won't happen tomorrow.
Glory Road (1963)

I will accept the rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

You have put your finger on the dilemma of all government— and the reason I am an anarchist. The power to tax, once conceded, has no limits; it contains until it destroys. I was not joking when I told them to dig into their own pouches. It may not be possible to do away with government— sometimes I think that government is an inescapable disease of human beings. But it may be possible to keep it small and starved and inoffensive— and can you think of a better way than by requiring the governors themselves to pay the costs of their antisocial hobby?
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

A society that gets rid of all its troublemakers goes downhill.
Time Enough for Love (1971)

Don't ever become a pessimist... a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun, and neither can stop the march of events.
Time Enough for Love (1971)

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
Time Enough for Love (1971)

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.
Time Enough for Love (1971)

Selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The Pragmatics of Patriotism (1973)

You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Time Enough for Love (1971)

The REAL 911 Conspiracy

2008-04-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Or, more appropriately, 9:11. As in the time, the ninth hour and the eleventh minute of the day that occurs in the A.M. and P.M.. In other words, it is the time that is displayed on the clock two out of the several times I look at the clock every day.

At first, it was kind of funny. Oh look, it's 9:11!

(Cue an awkward-sounding "Tee-hee!")

Sorta creepy, right? I mean, the significance we've applied to that particular number combination is now woven through our culture like syphllis through a whore's vagina, and that was before the Twin Towers came crumbling down (at free-fall speeds in their own footprints, almost as if they'd been a controlled demolition... you know I had to go there just a little bit).

Nine-Eleven is a number we have come to associate with a sense of fear and urgency. It's the number you call when you're being mugged or when the guy running the meth lab across the street blows up his trailer. It's the number you DON'T call when your kitten is stuck in a tree, and it's the one number in the entire world where being put on hold is most egregious. It's also a number that reminds me distinctly of William Shatner, and hopefully none of you are too young to understand why. And then the Shadowy Overlords made it even worse on September 11th by killing a few thousand people and instituting the start of a new world order. Thanks a lot, Shadowy Overlords.

So yeah, it irks me a little bit now to see 9:11 staring me in the face every time I look at the clock. I find it a tad annoying that these two digits, of all digits, the ones that symbolize for Americans shit that just isn't cool, are the ones that greet me when my internal, totally unconcious tick says "You should look at the clock now."

And in case you're wondering, Daylight Saving Time has no effect on this. I've tried setting my clocks a few minutes ahead and back. The phenomenon appears to be completely independent of the actual TIME. And yes, it happens pretty much every single day. Of course, I like to consider myself a critical thinker, so I have also entertained the notion that this is now a self-fulfilling prophecy, that I took the bare roots of a forming pattern and made an entire tapestry out of it. Fair enough. There is also the idea that if I were European or living in Zimbabwe, I would look at the time of 9:11 and not feel the same, so what I'm experiencing is a manufactured sense of dread brought on by my particular culture's conditioning regarding this number. In other words, it's not the number; it is me.

But the more colorful half of my imagination has to wonder... did I do something at 9:11 in another life? Will something happen in this one? Am I experiencing the power of prophecy? Am I being given a sign? Maybe I should stop looking at the time. Maybe I should hide all of my clocks and watches in the floorboards of my house, like the man in the Tell Tale Heart who buried the body of his neighbor in his house.

"Villains! Dissemble no more! I admit the deed! — tear up the planks! — here, here! — it is the ticking of this cursed clock!"

Or maybe I should just, I don't know, not get so worked up over a couple of little numbers. That would probably be best.

Dropping an "F" Bomb

2008-04-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

You read my blog. Chances are, you have spoken with me via phone, e-mail, or in person. Either way, you've gotten a sense of my linguistic cadences and vocabulary, and you know that the latter is not short of its share of cusswords. Well, I received a message from God yesterday that it's time to change my lewd ways. It's funny how He communicates with me. It's never first-hand. No burning bushes for this girl. This time, He used my husband as a conduit. How did He do that? The way He always does: via signs posted in front of kooky churches (see: right). Ken was with a friend in town yesterday and saw this latest revelation of the Lord staked out in front of the Lacey Christian Center (formerly known as the Ghetto Lacey Cinemas, of course) and the two of them felt inspired by it. Well, I am not immune to divine serendipity either, you know. My heart may be as black and void as the canvas of that sign, but I'm here to prove that I can use "the real F word" like the best of them, and I can very easily convert my language usage to accommodate it.

For instance, if someone says something really insulting to me, I'll simply tell the person to go forgive themselves. Okay, I can do better than that. Next...

If I get pulled over by a police officer, I'll make sure to say to him: "I'd forgive you in order to get out of this ticket, but I'm not sure if that's legal."

And with this new change to the "F" word, it will be so much easier to advertise in the paper for that orgy you've always wanted to have but were to shy to ask about. Your ad can read something like this:

"Feeling dirty? Well, nothing goes better with dirty than a good, deep forgiving from a group full of strangers. Bring yourself and any willing friends to our 4th Annual Forgive-Fest. You'll forgive the night away, but you'll never forget it."

You also have to wonder how "The Real F Word" changes the context of historical quotes:

Oscar Wilde once said: "Forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much." Methinks this will no longer be the case. In fact, I think if we made a habit of regularly "forgiving" our enemies under this new system, we might very well have attained that much sought-after world peace.

Then Mahatma Gandhi offered this tidbit of wisdom: "The weak never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong." Indeed, Gandhi. Given your emaciated state, I do wonder if you had much of a capacity to "forgive," if you know what I mean.

George Bernard Shaw once stated that the secret of forgiving everything is understanding nothing. Indeed, indeed. One need only read about the guy who let that horse forgive him right up the ass to know that Shaw was on the money with this one.

And finally, a Dutch physician of old named Paul Boese once offered this tidbit of wisdom: "Forgiveness does not erase the past, but it does enlarge the future." Oh Dr. Boese, you couldn't be more correct. Of course, under the new guidelines, "forgiveness" enlarges more than that.

I personally am grateful to finally see the "F" word through a whole new light. I don't know why I didn't stumble upon this possibility years ago when, as a young girl, I was feeling all guilty for my promiscuous actions. If I'd simply told myself I was "forgiving" my boyfriend for pressuring me, I would have felt a whole lot better about what I was doing.

There is so much more I can say here, but I'll leave off for now. I only have one thing to say: if you are reading this and are one of the people I've forgiven in the past, I just hope that it was as good for you as it was for me. After all, as Alexander Pope once said, to forgive is divine.

YouTube-ular

2008-04-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

Today I read a new article that illustrated quite perfectly the consumptive, procrastinating nature of the modern human condition. In the month of February, Americans watched over 10 billion online videos.

Yes. 10 billion.

The article, which was featured on Cnet, broke that number down even further. Roughly 35% of that 10 billion were videos streaming from YouTube and other Google-related sites. That amounts to about 3.6 billion videos. The rest were broken down between MyspaceTV, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc etc. But YouTube videos alone amassed 3.4 billion. For the average American viewer, that's about 74 videos each. In February. That's the shortest month of the year.

I'm going to do some further breaking down of my own. If we take those numbers and just extrapolate them out for the other months, that would mean that Americans watch over 120 BILLION online videos a year. And that doesn't even count the porn! There are about 320 million Americans in this country. If we assume that 60% of them have high-speed internet (I'm too lazy to do the rest of the research, so I'm being conservative), that's 192 million Americans playing around online, just in general. Let's just say about 60% of those people watch streaming video on a regular basis. That's 115 million people watching 10 BILLION videos in 29 days (remember, it was a leap year)!

Personally, I found these figures to be astounding. And it's not as if people are watching full-length movies or television shows. Figures have shown that most people still watch TV and movies on their television sets. The average video length is less than three minutes long. So what are people watching? Well, I don't have to look far. Take a look at my own Myspace page (there are three or four YouTube videos posted on on there), my comments section, your bulletin board, blogs, your e-mail inbox, etc. We've absolutely inundated our lives with streaming media. And that's not even all we do online. We read news. We write stuff. We chat. We buy things. We run businesses. The YouTube thing is just a single commodity, and we use the living shit out of it!

Think about the energy being used. Not just mental energy. Think about the energy it takes for each of us to run our computers, the servers that upload, store, and stream these videos upwards of 10 billion times per month. It's something that most people probably never even think about, but when you see numbers like that, how can anyone not be even a little bit floored?

I've made this observation before, but I never ceased to be amazed at the vast amounts of sheer STUFF human beings consume in this world. When I worked at Target, I was exposed not only to the mentality of the entitled, but the material evidence of it in just one single store out of a single 2000-store chain. That's not even thinking about Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes, Macy's, Sears, Amazon.com, major grocery chains, and motherfucking McDonald's. And that's just in America, folks! Our world has been saturated not only with needless things to buy, to eat, to drink, and new tourist traps to which to fly and drive. We've also zapped our brains with "free" things to entertain ourselves. There is just this surging mass of stimulation available at the tips of our fingers, and yet people still complain about boredom, of mundanity, of unfulfillment. Or people remain in denial that we, as individuals, have an effect on the world around us.

I look at this cluttered, crowded, noisy, often-smelly world of ours, and I wonder how it's possible our brains haven't yet exploded. I wonder how there is even still a world. It's either an opportunity for us to give thanks for our resilient, plentiful, patient earth, or to just feel incredibly lucky that we might even have another century left.

But don't take it from me. Take it from Boxing Kitty. Isn't it just adorable??:

Breaking News: The World is on Fire

2008-04-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Have you ever thought to yourself that when it comes to being aware of every single suspicious or terrorist activity in the world that Fox News just isn’t enough?

Do you ever feel like maybe the media and our government isn’t doing nearly enough to keep you in a persistent state of fear?

Is paranoia your favorite color?

Well, hunger no more little wingnuts! I introduce to you the smorgasbord of terror!

That’s right, boys and girls. Displayed before you in that above link is all the reason you need for hawkish neo-conservative foreign policy, a series of fires spread round the world that only our armies are to put out! Puff your chests with pride, America. No more do you have to live under the assumption that you can go to a local Wal-Mart without the nuisance of a bomb threat. If you were ever concerned that Mexico was a terrorist threat to the United States, look no further. On this map, you will find all of the validation you need.

And look at the United States alone! It’s a bastion of terrorist activity! The Absolut Vodka distillery is being targeted for redrawing a map that "favors Mexico." Click on the little avatar and you’ll get the full story at Michelle Malkin’s website, who is a paragon of "fair and balanced" journalism if you weren’t sure. Oh and look at Iraq! There are only TWO incidents there, same as Canada! It appears then that Iraq is as placid and uneventful as Canada! Both of which are safer than America! I see a Baghdad vacation in my near future. Who’s with me?

As you can clearly see, bombs are going off everywhere around the world. It’s pure pandemonium! Or as my favorite Ghostbuster would say: "Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!" By the way, don’t bother highlighting each icon. That’s pointless. Look at it from a distance and you will see what Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and his little puppet George W. Bush have been telling us all along:

The Enemy Is Out There.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some Kool-Aid to drink.

Like Juggling Hand Grenades

2008-04-02T16:25:00.001-07:00

It’s easy to be an armchair parent, particularly if one has very young children or no children at all. These people tend to view the endeavor of parenthood simplistically. I know I did. How hard can it be? Feed them when they’re hungry, hold them when they’re sad, change them when they’re wet, done. It’s easy for a mother to look at her plump, babbling, smiling infant gumming a rattle and feel a sense of pride at her good parenting. A smiling baby is a happy baby, a well-fed baby, a dry baby. She’s done everything right. So long as she provides that same brand of nurturing to that growing human as she did when it popped out of her womb, then the next eighteen years should be a cinch. Right?

What mom doesn’t always realize at that time is that babies eventually grow into children, and if she has done her job well, they are thinking children, and as those little brains develop through what must be a blinding and confusing barrage of stimuli, there comes a skill that can put even the most astutely-thinking mother or father to the test: the ability to ask questions. And not just any questions, but the kind whose answers can bear great significance in shaping the mind of a future adult.

I won’t lie. This part of parenthood sort of blindsided me and I’ve come to realize that the stakes of a wrong answer are high, and the thought of society being burdened by one more narrow-minded idiot in the form my spawn is a lot to endure. So the onus is on me (and their father, of course) to make sure we don’t screw this up. Sure, they might still one day be cretins, but not because I fell asleep at the watch, dammit.

Remember in Monty Python and the Holy Grail when all of the knights are standing at The Bridge of Death and the bridgekeeper won’t allow them to pass unless they answer certain questions, and if they answer wrong they get tossed over the side? That’s what being the parent of a child age 5 and older feels like.

Bridgekeeper: "What... is your name?"
Terrified Parent: "Allison. Natalie’s and Elias’s Mother."
Bridgekeeper: "What... is your quest?"
Terrified Parent: "To not raise fucked up children."
Bridgekeeper: "What... will you tell them when they ask about... sex?"
Terrified Parent: "Nothing! I mean everyth-"
[being thrown over the edge]
Terrified Parent: "aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

The current topic that is regularly posed by my daughter goes something like this: "Mommy, did God make us?"

Now, I’m sure many of you have either been asked this question by your own kids or remember asking it yourself to your own parents, and I’m sure that the answer mirrored your own beliefs or upbringing regarding matters spiritual. I’ve made no secret of my beliefs; I don’t believe in God. But my views were formed independently, after a lifetime of being raised to see the world in a Judeao-Christian mindset, questioning it, and finding what I believed were very legitimate reasons for rebelling against it. So since Atheism wasn’t hammered into my head by my parents, I guess it just feels wrong to blindly lead my kids down the same path when they might genuinely feel that there is something God-like out there. I want them to come by their views honestly and not just mimick me. So in this instance, I really have no choice but to play it safe.

Natalie: "Mommy, did God make us?"
Terrified Mother: "Well, a lot of people do believe that, sweetie."
Natalie: "Is that what you believe?"
Terrified Mother: "No, hon. I don’t."
Natalie: "Why don’t you believe that?"
Terrified Mother: "Because when I got older and learned a lot about science and religion, I made the decision that the God that they teach us about in church isn’t really there."
Natalie: "But why do other people believe in God?"
Terrified Mother: "Because when they grew up, they saw the world in a different way."
Natalie: "Are they wrong then?"
Terrified Mother: "I don’t know, hon. There is no right or wrong with these kinds of things."
Natalie: "How come?"
Terrified Mother: "Because it’s not about whether or not you believe in God. It’s about being a good person and treating other people well."
Natalie: "So how come people are bad?"
Terrifiede Mother: "Some other time, babe. Some other time."

And this can go on for hours, each new question and answer a potential for disaster. By the time I put a stop to the dialog, my body is wracked with tension akin to sharing a very slow elevator with a skittish menopausal meth addict who may or may not be armed with a taser.

Helping shape a mind requires a painstaking balance. If I lie, I may never be forgiven and I’ll always look at myself as a cop-out. If I am blunt, I will destroy their imaginations and their sense of wonder far too soon. If only kids were born with the cognitive makeup of mostly-enlightened adults. Sure, they wouldn’t be nearly as cute and it would likely have resulted in the extinction of our species long ago, but the current set-up just leaves way too much room for error.

In The Genes

2008-03-23T22:06:00.000-07:00

I never want to be referred to as one of "those" parents. You know what I’m talking about. Or maybe you don’t. I guess the term is loose enough where "those" can refer to behaviors on either end of the spectrum of "not good."

For instance, there are "those" parents who beat their children. I’m definitely not one of those (although I won’t deny the thought doesn’t cross my mind more than once on any given day, or that my hand hasn’t made contact with their little asses on occasion). There are also "those" parents who don’t believe in any sort of discipline whatsoever and believe that a future generation of decent human beings is created by making sure that little Johnny never suffers a single second of displeasure. "Those" parents can also include the ones who let their children subsist on a diet of donuts, or perhaps "those" who think that their spawn are supposed to be raised strictly in the parental image rather than let the kid grow to his/her individual potential.

And I also don’t want to be one of "those" parents who reads their kids’ diaries. When I was growing up, I almost always kept a running journal and I would have been mortified if it had been read by either of my parents. In fact, I still have the two written journals that chronicled periods of my life between the ages of 16 and 23. After that, I started blogging and with that gave up any notion of privacy. Interesting how that happens.

At any rate, my six-year-old daughter received her first diary in her Easter basket today. Over the last several weeks, I have noticed my little girl go from a timid but curious reader and writer to one growing in confidence, enthusiasm, and complexity. There is a sort of joyful yet abrupt awakening that happens with parents when they realize that written words are no longer indecipherable codes in the eyes of their children. We can no longer pull the wool over their eyes when we lie and say we aren’t anywhere near a Dairy Queen when they are clammoring for ice cream in the backseat, and I find myselfing wonder what will happen in a few years when one of them to stumbles upon something a written by ol’ mom that wasn’t intended for juvenile eyes (see: Chocolate Jesus).

As I saw my girl bent studiously over her pink and green diary today, working the pink pen with the little tassle on the end, I couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts she was expressing. A couple of times she would ask me for some spelling help, and I would be fascinated to watch the shiny little gears turning in her rapidly growing brain. I recalled sitting in a similar posture with my own diary, on the light blue couch with the white flowers on it. I believe I was doing just such a thing when I proclaimed to my mom that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. I often think the one thing we say we want to be when we are that age is probably what we ultimately should be doing as adults, when we are at our purest level of thought and at the peak of childhood optimism before any notion of cynicsm and self-doubt dare take seed like insidious mental crabgrass. It’s probably because what we express then is the most essential form of what we truly want. Most children are only focused on what instinctually drives them, not whether it will make someone else happy, pay the bills, or make us mount up insurmountable student loan debt. Sure, we will specialize that desire as we age through life, but that basic idea borne from our childhood’s most ferverent wishes is still there, and it fulfills us perhaps more than anything else we could have chosen.

After she closed and locked the journal, I felt my curiosity burning. What did she write? What delicate little bloom of thought from that six-year-old brain did she pluck out and place to dry between the pages of that little book? I could easily crack the goofy little password mechanism the diary has built into it, but to do such a thing would be petty. A child should be entitled to a few secrets if they so choose, and a parent should be secure and trusting enough to abide them.

But I didn’t have to wonder for long. Just before bed, Natalie brought her diary to me, opened it and showed me what she wrote in her sprawling, shaky (but not as shaky as before) first-grade hand (I think the kid will be bound to a life of bad handwriting like her parents, unfortunately) and with only one grammatical error there was the following written on a few little pages:

"Mom is cool. There is more then a pretty face. I love my Littlest Pet Shop book." Below that she had drawn a picture of what looked like the two of us and a cat.

Beneath my pride at her incredibly sweet sentiments, her wonderfully developing syntax, and her joy at writing was the certainty of something that could only come after someone willingly lets me read what one wrote in their diary:

This kid is a born blogger.

Random Random Random

2008-03-14T12:51:00.001-07:00

1. As most of you know, the family and I will be moving soon. But that’s not really what I wanted to talk about here. It’s about the aesthetic state of my home. With the exception of my atrocious garage and my messy back porch, my house hasn’t been this clean since I had kids. And I’m loving it. The clutter is pretty much gone, donated to Goodwill or sent to the dump, or resting in boxes ready to be transported to my next destination currently unknown, and I almost feel like I can breathe again. I absolutely cannot stand "stuff." You know, that sort of nebulous deluge of useless junk that accumulates over time and has no real place in one’s world other than to pollute it and/or destroy its tranquility? There is nothing more liberating for me than filling scores of garbage bags with this "stuff" and sending it off to have another cycle of existence in someone else’s home or at the bottom of a landfill. I develop sentimental attachments to very few inanimate things; the concept of hoarding sickens me. What would make the situation orgasmic (albeit not environmentally friendly) is if I were able to light the stuff on fire and dance around it Pentecostal Revival/National Geographic-Style.

2. I’m going to take this opportunity to correct a few of the grammatical errors I see floating around out there in cyberspace. Let me first say that I know I’m not a grammar expert. I find myself making errors on such a regular basis that it’s amazing that any of you think I have any sort of credibility as a writer. My mistakes are borne out of the same kind of misinformation/forgetfulness as everyone else, though, and I’ve had to accept the fact that I’m not perfect. That should be no reason, however, not to share valid advice when I have it to give. Here are four common errors I see in word usage that I would like to correct for the general population that continues to get it wrong, whether in the media or in casual writing. Remember these rules well, as they will make you look that much more intelligent.

a. To stimulate something is to "whet" it (as in "whetting one’s appetite"). Not "wet."
b. To be disturbed by something is to be "fazed" by it. Not "phased."
c. When you agree heartily with something, you say "Hear Hear!" Not "Here Here!" This saying is based off of English Parliamentary practice whereby when one has the floor, they shout "Hear Him! Hear Him!"
d. When your curiosity is aroused, it is "piqued," not "peaked" or "peeked." In fact, if you even deign to use the latter form of the word, you get deducted double points because you’ve completely bypassed the realm of near-correctness for one of sheer stupidity.

3. My daughter is in a multicultural dance festival/recital at her school tonight called "American’s All." Now, I’m not sure how to feel about this, as she attends Yelm schools, and anyone who knows Yelm knows that it is a little on the "cranial rectosis" side of conservative, unless you’re a follower of the whole Ramtha Enlightenment Cult thing. I mean shit, the town pharmacy has Bible verses on its reader board, which should tell you where they stand on the whole "Plan B" thing. So the fact that they are attempting to celebrate multiple cultures has me a little apprehensive. Fazed, if you will. Let’s just say that if I see kids with their faces painted like lawn jockeys dancing little jigs or other displays of "Look how we’re attempting to look diverse but we’re really mocking your culture!" I wouldn’t be terribly surprised. At the very least, my curiosity is piqued.

Happy Trails, Roger.

2008-03-10T21:08:00.001-07:00

This is Roger.

Or at least it was Roger. Whoever has the privilege of owning him in the future will be able to retain naming rights. Rog and I had a good run. In nearly two years, we managed to form a bond that was nearly impenetrable, even with his Pacific Northwest Special cracked windshield and the little "oopsie" I had when I dinged that Beamer back in November and scratched the spare tire cover. Despite that, Roger's tight turning radius and great visibility made me feel confident in my abilities to parallel park. Roger's fiery red beauty made me feel young and sassy. His tightly-tuned suspension made me feel sporty and confident. His seemingly unlimited cargo space made me feel flexible... and sloppy. The love between the two of us was deep, and I teared up at our departure. It wasn't so much that Roger was no longer good enough. It's that he suffered the fate of being worth a good bit of money, and in a household that is desperately seeking an extra dollar, it made him expendable.

So today I emptied Roger's many storage compartments and drove him up to Rodland Toyota in Everett where his replacement was waiting.

Meet Barry.

Barry is a 2001 Chrysler 3o0M. Beneath his stately dark blue facade lurks a plethora of luxury features that Roger was never able to offer: heated leather seats, wood grain trim, after-market HD radio, electronic climate control, Autostick (that allows one to shift gears manually without having to engage a clutch), and power everything. Barry also boasts very low miles for a 7 year old car, 29500, which is over 10K fewer than Roger had at the time of trade-in. Barry also isn't hurting for power with a 3.5L V6 (the same as Roger) and about 255 horsepower (which is only about ten less than Roger). Also, by purchasing Barry after getting a generous trade-in from the Toyota folks, we were able to net a very decent profit. We will also get a refund on half of our extended warranty. The gas mileage on the new car is a smidge less, however, but in the balance between performance, room, and economy, something always has to take a tumble, and I won't balk at a slightly higher gas bill if I'm driving a car I don't despise.

So it all worked out in the end, although I can't help but feel a sense of loss. Roger was the very first brand new car I'd ever owned, and there was a lot of sentiment associated with it, and perhaps a bit of status. But when one is broke, status has to take a backseat, and Barry is no slouch. I think we will eventually bond. He will entice me with his sleek leather and decent sound system. And admittedly, I was growing weary of Roger's inability to maintain a clean appearance with his charcoal interior that showed every speck and imperfection. Also, the prospect of purchasing new tires to fit his 19-inch rims was daunting.

So here's to new beginnings and a new road. As always, it will be fun rediscovering them behind the wheel of a new ride.

Screw You, Optimus Prime!

2008-03-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

I like to think I'm moderately intelligent. A few years ago, I had my IQ tested somewhere in the 130s, but I believe it's more in the 120s, which is where it was when I had it tested in Junior High, when IQ tests are typically more accurate. My strengths tend to lie in analyzing human behavior and applying logic to philosophic situations. I'm good at recognizing patterns. I'm pretty evenly divided between being detail and concept oriented, although if I had to choose one, I'd prefer to look at something as a whole. I gravitate toward politics, the study of interpersonal relations, and love examining the world in a sociocultural context. My weaknesses? The mechanical stuff, such as spatial reasoning, math, and other activities that require me to apply my analytical skills to physical objects like mind-benders and Rubix Cubes. I'll never be able to build the bridge, but I could provide a hundred and one reasons why one should be built.

My latest mental conundrum? Transformers.

Yeah, that's right. Transformers, and since I am the mother of a precocious little boy who has recently celebrated his fifth birthday, I have been reminded that there is no shortage of ways in which a mother can be reminded that she is not necessarily the smartest person in the parent-child relationship. I can't stand these toys. It's not that I think they are inappropriate or because I have a problem with robots in general. It's that Transformers have a way of making me regress to having the mental prowess of a tree stump.

Elias received an Optimus Prime Transformer toy for his birthday. I looked, or rather glared, at the piece of articulated plastic secured behind the clear bubble of its box (which proclaimed rather prominently to be appropriate for kids aged 5 and up), and I said a little prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that my son had a father who could show him the way.

But I am not always one to back down from a challenge, so when I saw Ken taking ol' Oppy out of his cardboard shelter today with all of the vigor of a die hard nerd aching to relive a chunk of his childhood, I knew that I too must finally prove myself. I took glances at him over the ten minutes or so it took for him to figure out the toy's bewildering multitude of bending joints that would turn it from a semi-truck into a fearsome robot, and I began to get a little discouraged. Undoubtedly, when it comes to my weaknesses as a thinker, Ken, the guy who spends his days looking at specs for gigantic motherboards, has them as strengths. If it was taking him that long to figure out how to transform this thing, then I would bound to be like the ape before the monolith for over an hour, and would likely give up in disgust in half that time.

When I finally got my hands on it, I was determined to turn it back into a truck. But where to begin? Curses ranging in vulgarity from "What the effing h?" to "Shit on toast in a bucket" flew from my mouth at a record pace as I managed to nearly break the toy in two spots and then hand it back to Ken in a fit of desperate stupidity. I was heartened by the fact that it more resembled a truck than something shat out of the asshole of a robot-eating troll, but given the fact that this is a toy for children of single-digit age, I felt more retarded than accomplished.

Tonight I took a gander at doing the reverse--transforming it from truck to robot. That was even harder, and my IQ took another opportunity to remind me that I was perhaps operating out of bounds. I managed to finish the job, but if I'd been graded on it, I would have likely received a B for my efforts. It was the best I could hope for under such brain-melting circumstances.

I have waged that perhaps I'm bad at manipulating these toys because I have a vagina. Undoubtedly, if one peruses the predominantly pink and purple aisles of the neighborhood Toys R Us, one will find nary a Transformer. Not to say that a person couldn't traverse the store to procure an Optimus Prime for their little girl, but I'd say it's pretty fair to assume that these toys are generally not marketed toward the female segment of the population. No, today's little ladies are busy creating mental conundrums for their parents by squeezing tiny dolls into polyurethane outfits the size of a thumbnail. Those are Polly Pockets, but those deal more in the issues of fine motor skills than sheer intelligence, which is another blog for another day.

A Few Words on Experience

2008-03-04T10:02:00.000-08:00

Experience...

Is a nebulous term. How much experience is considered to be "enough?"

Conotates a certain air of obstinance.

Is usually considered valid only if it is gained first-hand. My having worked in the same office as people who operate a payroll system does not give me experience in cutting a company's paychecks.

Is not necessarily a good thing when it comes to politics; one should always beware professional politicians.

Is not the magical ingredient in a good leader. In fact, it should be regarded with just as much scrutiny as inexperience, if not more.

Has a tendency to enhance the status quo, not change it.

Was not something possessed in great amounts by JFK, Abraham Lincoln, or George Washington.

Is overrated.

About a Boy

2008-03-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

You were 11 pounds, 3 ounces at birth.

You were the most comforting ball of weight sleeping on my chest.

You smiled early and often.

Except when you didn't. Which was also often.

You looked like this when you started walking, which was frightening.

You grew to idolize your sister, and even wanted to emulate her fashion sense at one point.

Eventually, you began to find yourself.

You like swords, karate, and you worship superheroes.

You have a knack for drawing, coloring, and building.

You wear those cowboy boots with just about anything.

Ice cream is your favorite.

When you eat chocolate, you look like Clark Gable.

You don't know how to take "no" for an answer. Never did.

You make me crazy one minute and proud the next, which I suspect is how I make you feel.

You are destined for greatness.

You are my son, and you are loved beyond words.

Today, you are five.

This is Gouda, Signing Off.

2008-03-01T10:35:00.000-08:00

This blog has been running for two-and-a-half years. It is perhaps the longest-running project I've ever undertaken, and I consider it a massive achievement from someone who, up until the start of this blog, hadn't written anything of merit in nearly eight years aside from college term papers.

All of this has the ring of finality to it, doesn't it? Am I closing MoaG's doors? Not exactly. Have I run out of ideas? Actually, quite the contrary. I still write daily, mostly personal stuff over at my Myspace blog, and I don't see stopping that anytime soon. I need to have some form of release. But there are a couple of reasons that I am giving myself official permission to not publish my wares here.

1. I feel I have lost contact with the Blogger community. One aspect of being a good blogger is the ability to reciprocate the support of one's peers by reading their work. I have gotten very bad at this of late, and the pressure of trying to keep up has been stressing me out a little. That is perhaps the one aspect of blogging I've always rather sucked at, the whole unspoken but very plain "I'll read yours if you read mine" rule. While I generally write for my own pleasure, I won't lie when I say that I enjoy receiving feedback, but what I don't enjoy is feeling like a hypocrite if I haven't loaded someone's page in a couple of weeks. I try to keep up with a handful of my most favorite blogs on a daily basis, but many more people go unintentionally ignored. Also...

2. I am still suffering from multiple-blog syndrome. I have The Reel Gouda, which is only updated as often as I watch and review new movies, the Myspace blog, which is updated near daily, and this one. I really need to cut down on my daily blogbligations (that's a mouthful, huh?) because it's cutting down on the energy I need in order to...

3. Write a novel. Never in my life have I been so serious about taking my craft to the next level. Frankly, I've been very flippant about my writing, or my ability to do so, for years. I've heard from so many people that I have a talent and that I should explore it or do more with it. I then come up with half-hearted ideas that fade back into the ether almost as quickly as they popped out. Meanwhile, I see some of my peers accomplishing great things, I read work that I often feel I could match if not master, and a sense of frustration continues to grow. I'm actually still not sure I even have the amount of ability I hope I have or have been told I possess, or if in that ability there is the capacity to write a novel, but it is something I not only want to do, but need to do. Something is crying out in me to either be expressed or put to use, and it can no longer be assuaged by blogging. It feels like hunger. It also feels familiar. I felt it when I was fifteen years old and pumping out reams of fiction on my old Brother word processor, with the promise of the future beating steadily alongside my own heart. I was certain I'd never feel that again. Then something happened when 2007 became 2008. Maybe it was this idea that my life had moved closer to some sort of crossroads or that another year had passed in which I hadn't acted on my dreams. It was probably the Nurse's Aide training I took in the fall of 2007. It wasn't only because I was looking mortality right in the face, but also because I became more certain than ever that I was traveling the wrong path.

So there it is, really. This is why I'm taking a step back. I don't think I'll be soaping over the windows and taking down the sign, however. I will likely keep up on Reel Gouda, and if I do post something over on my Myspace site that warrants a wider audience, it will show up here as well. I just need to release this little area from my "To Do List" so that I can devote myself to the endeavor of achieving a dream I've had since I was old enough to dream it up.

I can't tell you what it means to have had you all a part of my life. I hope to keep up contact with many of you on your own blogs. If it weren't for this site and the support I've received over the years, I might never have rediscovered my first real love. I can't thank you enough for letting me share it.

Twinkie

2008-02-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

It was 9:30am. I had been awake for nearly two hours, and I was starving. It wasn't just "any" kind of starving, either. It was the sort where one's metabolic functions look like a steadily plummeting barometer before one bitch kitty of a thunderstorm, except instead of atmospheric pressure dropping, it was my bloodsugar. I was on the road when the shakes started to kick in, and my stomach was staging a massive revolt whereby upon the absence of actual sustenance, it was beginning to consume itself while saying: "Feed me NOW, bitch!" I was determined to wait it out, to will away the demands of my most wayward organ, but there was no more waiting. It was either divert off the road to the nearest convenience store to grab something to hold me over, or vomit steaming bile in my lap. Not a good idea. I don't know why I let myself get to such a point of ravenous hunger. Call it thoughtlessness. Call it thinking (perhaps erroneously) that a girl of my size can perhaps stand to skip a few meals every once in awhile. There is also a bit of arrogance mixed in there. I'm "tough," dammit. There are full-grown adults who weigh eighty pounds who are still breathing. I think I can go 12 hours without a meal. Well, not this morning.

As I staggered through the doors of the neighborhood junkfood haven, I didn't really have a plan in mind. Actually there was nothing in my mind. I can't even tell you that I remembered parking the car. All I knew was I needed sugar or I was going to pass out. As is the case with any junkfood haven, sucrose, fructose, and every other compound ending in "ose" is available in outrageous supply, and I need not walk more than four steps before encountering some. So here is my big "Ah-HA" moment, for as I glance near the cash register (what I think of as the honey spot for all things fattening), I spy an array of Hostess snacks, you know, those things that are more a feat of engineering than actual food. I feel the back part of my mind groan at the sight of them. I've been culturally and scientifically engrained. As much as I love food that is bad for me, even I have a limit. But that back part of my mind also knows that it's not in charge at the moment. The feral little weasel in my gut is, and it needs to be assuaged forthwith. I step up to the counter and grab the first object it lands on: a package of Twinkies. I fumble my buck and a quarter out of my pocket and without even waiting for the change, I make for the exit, hoping that I'm staggering, and also hoping (needlessly so, thanks to the bitch that resides in the self-flagellating part of my brain) that the store clerk didn't think that the fat chick was having the physiologic meltdown that she clearly was having.

I tore into the package before I even got to my car and took my first bite of a Twinkie in at least half a decade. I had forgotten what they tasted like. The first Twinkie, I didn't even notice the flavor. I was more consumed with fixing the faltering machine otherwise known as my body. In fact, I think I nearly swallowed the thing whole while thinking to myself that this ought to do the trick. I should be able to make it home without fainting from a rare hypoglycemic spell.

And then the real taste kicked in as I started working on the second Twinkie, and the only word I could muster was "gack." Memories flooded me, ones that I were shocked were still a part of my internal hard drive. Memories of remarking to myself years ago that Twinkies are perhaps one of the most disgusting foods on the planet, those rare ingestible things that should fall under the category of: "Things People Eat When They Hate Themselves." Other players on the list would include Big Macs, Easy Cheese, Wonder Bread, and Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

There is just something so inherently "wrong" about a Twinkie. It's pure science. There is not a single ingredient in a Twinkie that by itself would allow you to survive in the wild, and in many cases would actually kill you on the spot if you ate too much of it. The overall texture and flavor of the "cake" is reminiscent of a Scotch Brite sponge soaked in anti-freeze. The filling tastes and feels like sugary lard with a metallic tinge that likely came from the machine that extruded it, and it coated the roof of my mouth like Vaseline. The overwhelmingly saccharine experience of it all burnt the back of my throat, and attempts at flushing it out with water were futile, as the greasy fat that was now lining my mouth acted like a water-tight barrier, barring my tastebuds from salvation.

To put it bluntly, my soul felt like it was raped after I ate a Twinkie, and I was left with the inalienable certainty that I was summarily subtracted two years from my life, one for each Toxic Deathcake I ingested in an attempt to recover my bloodsugar to an operable level.

And the kicker, as I now sit here comfortably in my home, thankfully not feeling the shakes but more like the shadow of death has moved ever closer to eclipsing my being (at least in the larger sense. I'm sure I've got some years left), I am hungry again. It's almost like in eating the worst food known to (and created by) man, I actually haven't eaten anything at all. It's like a cruel illusion, for I know the fetid residue remains.

Geeks With Guns

2008-02-24T16:40:00.001-08:00

It was a sunny day in Washington. Three men and one woman escaped to the remote Capitol Forest to do what is perhaps the best thing one can do out in the middle of nowhere: shoot stuff. In our arsenal: a 60 year old SKS semi-automatic carbine rifle from Yugoslavia, an equally antique M-44 Mosin Nagant carbine from Russia (with love), a 50-year old CZ-52 automatic pistol, and a small 6-shot .45 automatic from the modern day and age. Most of the ammo was as antique as the weaponry, coming from such exotic locales as Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia.

The M-44, which is displayed by the heavily-evolved nutjob to the right, was the big daddy of them all, packing a punch that was deafening and is forming a bruise on the user's shoulder as she writes.

Suffice to say, it was an exhilarating day. There is really nothing quite so orgasmically thrilling as firing a gun. One finds oneself thinking, as the gut-clenching shockwave of the mini-explosion ripples through one's body and the acrid aroma of spent gunpowder enters one's nose, that these things are fucking deadly. There is no other way to put it, really, and given the fact that these weapons had been around for several decades, and during times of war, I was more than certain that these guns had spilled some blood of their own.

But something occurred to me amid all of the gunfire. Did the Soviet Communists who originally manufactured these weapons to kill Nazis ever dream that one day four geeks would be using them to fire hundreds of rounds into computer power supplies, CD-ROM drives, a bowling ball, and several bottles of water? Probably not.

I guess that's how the Iron Curtain crumbles.

The "God" I Know

2008-02-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

Last week as I was making my twice-weekly trek to school, I stopped behind the exact twin of my car. Make and model were where the similarities between our vehicles ended, however, because this particular Toyota Rav-4 had been bedecked with all sorts of right-wing propaganda. Not your typical "W" sticker or something like that. No, this was the "Pro-Life Mobile," and amid the "Abortion stops a beating heart" claptrap that less makes people think but more pisses them off, there was a license plate bracket that pretty much took the fetus-worshiping cake and it went something like this:

"God is pro-life and so am I!"

I'm sure this sentence would have been painful to me, even without the jets of Diet Dr. Pepper attempting to exit my nostrils. I made a hasty two-part note to myself.

1. Do not attempt to read something hilariously absurd in a wrongly ironic sort of way while drinking a carbonated beverage.

2. Blog this. The "God is pro-life" thing, not the Dr. Pepper coming out of my nose one.

So yeah, I'm an atheist. Should I even be making commentary on such a subject? Yes, and I will explain why. First, before I discovered the joy of releasing my fear of going to hell, I received a pretty strong upbringing in Sunday school and churchly teachings. Although I could say that being drowned in the hypocritical platitudes of the faithful is what ultimately killed my faith, I retained a lot of the knowledge I gleaned from those years, and feel pretty confident offering my own interpretation on "God" as I see "Him," even if I ultimately deny "His" existence.

Second, I think that the world around us offers pretty irrefutable evidence that the supposed God who created us is not "pro-life" at all. In fact, I'd say given the levels of unsolicited suffering inflicted on populations circulating the globe, particularly on those of innocent children, God is a pretty selective sonofabitch when it comes to deciding who gets to live and who doesn't. Let's get philosophical for a second. The religious are forever talking about "God's will" or how the burdens God lumps upon us humans are never more than we can handle (which I think is the biggest load of self-deluding bullshit ever). This kind of phraseology assumes that God has a choice, and in so choosing has decided to bequeath misery and suffering onto the shoulders of humanity in the form of massive tsunamis and other natural disasters, deformed babies, infertile couples, horrific diseases, and entire societies who live in shit-infested slums, drink shit-infested water, and die with shit-infested blood running through their emaciated bodies.

And why does God allow this? Who knows. Call it a roll of the dice. Call it fate. Call it God giving people the free will to wallow in a giant cauldron of the turmoil and adversity of their own creation. Even if it is the latter, even if the messes we face on this planet are of our own doing, God choosing to give people the free will to create suffering or merely be the unfortunate victim of it and refusing to intervene on any sort of a large scale tells me that this so-called omnipotent, omnipresent being is quite "pro-choice." Furthermore, I'd argue that God is pretty goddamned cruel, in fact more so than the scared-to-death girl who opts to have an abortion. What it also tells me, what it has always told me (even as an eight-year old child who knew then the truth she knows now, but was then too terrified to admit it to herself), is that God, at least the one I remember from my Sunday school days, simply does not exist.

I think that's perhaps the easiest explanation. If that doesn't do it, then I'm sure these pictures should suffice.

Oh Johnny Boy...

2008-02-21T12:06:00.000-08:00

John McCain, about ten years ago, looked like a pretty admirable guy. He seemed to stake a reputation on principles that never wavered in the face of partisanship, and in making several rivals within his own party with such issues as torture and campaign finance, was someone I had my eye on for quite awhile in the Presidential sense. And then, he started selling his soul little by little to the political machine. After having his name smeared to hell and back by George W. Bush's 2000 campaign (remember the whole black baby incident), I was quite certain he was going to be more galvanized to separate himself from the undignified rancor and bullshit of "politics as usual." Then he started stumping for Bush in 2004, and he lost me a little bit. After that, he gave a grand speech at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, and I was utterly alienated.

And then, a couple weeks ago, he voted in the Senate against banning the use of torture, and it was clear to me more than ever that the man was so hellbent on becoming President that he, the P.O.W who had spent years making this one issue his political crusade, had completely lost his marbles. He wasn't only just like the rest of the Senatorial sellouts who run for President, but he was so goddamn OBVIOUS about it. He needed that vote to prove himself worthy to the torture monkeys that make up the bulk of the hawkish right wing, of course! After all, he's running for President. Now is not the time to use one's own moral compass as a guide!

And then there's today. The New York Times just released a story about how some of McCain's aides approached a female lobbyist back in 1999, asking her to distance herself from McCain so that he could run for President. According to the aides, they felt that the relationship between the Senator and the lobbyist had become romantic and would pose a problem.

Now, I'm not one to really discount the merits of a politician for matters sexual. Unless, of course, the politician in question is banging a lobbyist. What better way to buy the votes of a Congressman than to screw his brains out? Conflict of interest seems like an understatement. Unethical? You betcha. Do I even believe that McCain had sexual relations with this woman? Well, yeah!

The thing is, this development doesn't exactly shock me. I'm quite sure that the majority of the Senators and Reps in Washington have stuck their dicks into something other than their wive's hoohahs. It's what people in positions of power are likely to do. They will sell away their lifelong principles to get one step closer to the White House, they will take to the bedrooms to barter deals, or they will just resort to plain old money and kickbacks. It's cynical, yes, but it's also typical. So I'm not going to point my finger at McCain and say "shame on you!" Instead I will just re-iterate the same old mantra when it comes to government:

Whether you're a big city mayor or Speaker of the House, or a POW Senator from Arizona, it's impossible to climb the ranks unless you've got a little bit of sociopath in ya. Remember that, kids. Never trust a politcian. Not a single damn one of them.

Of course, now that I think about it, this Vicki Iseman lady had a little bit of sociopath in her too, if you know what I mean...

**And a big thank you to Doctor Boogaloo for the picture that sells the point of political ass-fuckery so damn well.

My Bucket List

2008-02-20T10:05:00.001-08:00

Is that not the most horrible title ever? God, why was that phraseology ever inserted into our vernacular by Rob Reiner, thereby blocking any avenue I might have to picking something that doesn't suck? Well, in case you aren't aware, a Bucket List is apparently a list of things that you want to do before you die (or "kick the bucket" as it were). And I'm not going to just do the usual "get a college degree/publish a novel/skydive" bullcrap here. Oh no, I plan on living a long time. If I limited myself to the usual fare, I'd be one bored individual by the time I reached 50. Besides, in classic hedonist form, my life has always been defined by my desires or the pursuit of pleasure. That means I have always had a pretty long list. Well, here are a few more things.

1. I want to own a collection of historic firearms, like flintlock pistols and muzzle-loader rifles. You know, the kind that take about a half hour to load, that you'd never want to use for home protection unless you were keenly psychic and could pack the powder down the barrel and have it aimed before the intruder entered your house? Of course, it might not work that way. I imagine a scenario that goes something like this: "Hold on there, Mister Robber Guy!" My speech is just a little distorted because I'm ripping open the little packet of gun powder with my teeth. The kid is just standing there as I'm pouring it into my gun, probably transfixed by the fact that I'm actually going to attempt to shoot him with such a relic. He probably wouldn't even begin to run until I had it pointed at him, and by then, it would be too late. Unless of course the gun misfired, as they were likely to do back in those days. No, I'd just keep such weapons for target practice.

2. I would like to successfully land a cartwheel. I've never done it. Even as a rather svelte child, I lacked the proper grace and fearlessness to just go for broke. I would start to reach for the ground and get this image in my head of splitting my skull, and I would totally wimp out at the end. Nowadays, I fear that if I attempted a cartwheel, my shoulders would rip from their sockets and my arm bones would come tearing from my back. I know it's not a very anatomically-correct scenario; my arms would probably snap at the elbow, but either way, envisioning such an end result has been horrific enough to keep me out of cartwheel mode for nearly 30 years. Well, one day I'll snap out of it. There WILL be a cartwheel in my future.

3. Make a REAL enemy. Yes, that's right. Too many people prefer to avoid having enemies, thinking that they are a hindrance to living a good life. I disagree. Enemies are generally created because we stood up for something we believed in and pissed someone else off. They are our rivals. They are the opposing forces who have shaped us and defined our life's causes. They are living examples of the importance of our own guiding principles and ethics. One needs enemies almost as much as one needs friends. Looking at my life so far, I can't say that I have any "true" enemies. Oh sure, I've pissed plenty of people off, but I haven't done it deeply enough because I've always held something back. The fear of having rivals is essentially the fear of being responsible for one's own actions and beliefs. Once one can reach that pinnacle and create an enemy for life, then I think one has accomplished something truly marvelous.

4. Live for one year like the Dude from The Big Lebowski. Bowl every day, drink White Russians, and smoke crippling amounts of pot. I just want to see if I can make it.

5. Find out a way to build a REAL Lightsaber. Or at the very least commission someone MUCH smarter to do it for me.

6. Pull a Jack Bauer. Spend 24 full hours doing crazy, impossible shit without eating or taking a piss. Examples of such activities? Get shot at (make sure one of the bullets hits a non-vital area). Hang yourself from a hook and have someone administer shocks with a taser/cattle prod. Run through the city streets, vaulting over cars. Drive said cars through said city streets, alluding the authorities while screaming to the top of your lungs into your cell phone. Get into a plane crash. Lose a relative.

7. Not only get published. Get published in The New Yorker. I think I just wet myself at the thought.

8. Achieve the level of coolness or relevance necessary to have someone model a comic book hero after me.

9. Actually learn how to use every facet of Photoshop, without the brain bleed.

10. Be in a crowded mall and suddenly have the people around me spontaneously erupt into synchronous dance, ala Thriller. That would be cool.

Imaginary Friend

2008-02-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it. While I was growing up, I never had an imaginary friend. My creative streak never quite touched that particular plane. Certainly, I had special drummed-up scenarios I created for myself. Often, I was someone else. But making up another character to join me in these adventures? Not really. Gouda has always been something of a loner at heart.

The tradition of non-imaginary-friend-ism continued with my daughter. We seemed identical in this regard in that we would form attachments to physical objects like dolls or stuffed animals, but having a 9-foot tall purple wildebeast who had to be set a separate place at the table? Again, not so much. My son, on the other hand, has decided to embark upon the quest of creating an invisible playmate. This person rides in our car and apparently accompanies Elias to preschool. According to my son, this person has brown hair, light brown skin, brown eyes, and pink lips. And the person's name?

Explodie.

That's right. Explodie. He apparently got that name because he explodes when he gets mad.

So yeah, my son's imaginary friend is an Islamo-terrorist. I want to ask Elias if Explodie is wearing a bulky-looking vest or whether Explodie has a middle name like "al" or "bin." Of course, I should probably keep this information on the down low. I'd really hate for my 4-year-old to end up on a No Fly List or having to take a trip down to Gitmo for his association with terrorists.

Right now, I'm going to keep a close eye on this Explodie character. I don't want to be reactionary. Maybe Explodie is trying to turn over a new leaf by inserting himself into a family of infidels. But if Elias starts asking when he is going to get his 72 virgins or growing a long beard, I might have to call Homeland Security myself. I have to do my part to keep America safe.

Scare Your Children

2008-02-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

I just returned from seeing "The Spiderwick Chronicles." There will be a review forthcoming, but suffice to say that it was an absolute delight. It was dark, it was smart, and it was perfect fare on which my inner-child could gnaw until the next Harry Potter movie. Of course, I noted the PG rating going in, and on the way out I remarked to myself that the MPAA might have been more accurate had they put a PG-13 brand on it instead. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he said: "Have you noticed a trend of late where we are trying really hard to scare little children?"

I thought about this and my reply:

"Yeah, I have noticed that trend, but I think it's great. Let your kids get scared a little bit."

Of course, I needed to put this remark into proper context. I am not an advocate of children watching strictly adult fare. Taking your six year old to see "No Country for Old Men" or "The Descent" is a decidedly bad idea, in my opinion. There is a difference between delivering startles and traumatizing them. But in the right environment, and with the right material, I am a firm believer in testing a kid's limits. I still have very vivid memories of cowering in terror next to my mom at the sight of the Wicked Witch of the West. And we won't even get into the flying monkeys, which still speak to that trembling first grader in me. I have a feeling it will always be that way, no matter how many times I watch stupid teenagers get hacked to death with machetes. That movie delivered a cool whisper in my ear and this cynical adult can still hear it sometimes.

When my children grew old enough to watch movies, I started very carefully observing their inherent fears. It turned out that their slates were pretty clean. No learned irrationalities. Natalie was a little sensitive to loud noises. Elias... well, he was a little more hardy, probably made so by the fact that his exposure to frightening stimuli started at an earlier age thanks to his big sister. That and the kid was a bit of a brute and spent most of his early years scaring his parents.

The first movie I took Natalie to see was "Finding Nemo." She was 2 1/2 and spent most of the film with her face buried in my shoulder. No amount of reassurance would sway her to look at the screen after that baracuda ate Nemo's mother early on. Of course, the movie theater itself is a scary deal. The screen is as big as life, and coupled with state-of-the-art audio has the capacity to turn them into Jonah inside the whale's belly. I waited awhile and decided to take her to "The Polar Express." That was so much for her that we had to leave about 1/3 of the way through. I admitted to myself that maybe I was pushing her too hard and we stayed away from the theater for awhile. It was too loud. Too big. And frankly, a movie habit is expensive enough. Having to leave partway through is akin to throwing money in the trash.

DVDs, however, were a different story. Their little eyes soaked up "Finding Nemo" and "The Polar Express" on the small screen, and with every year we moved onto bigger and better things. The greatest discovery for them were the Harry Potter movies. Initially, we had the first two in the series in the rotation, as they are more friendly for small viewers. The third film, "The Prisoner of Azkaban," was a major departure, however. Anyone who knows the stories will know why, and I only need to mention one word: Dementor. Then, on a whim one day when the kids were home on winter break, I decided to pull the third one off the shelf and give it a spin, and they were enrapt. Sure, they were scared, but I could see fireworks going off behind those wide eyes, and I was infinitely pleased. A whole new world had enfolded them, and it took me back to my first viewings of "The Wizard of Oz," where I was terrified out of my wits, but enchanted in such a way that I was determined to face it down. And when I found that I could watch that movie (remember when it used to air on TV once a year?) without being afraid, I felt I had conquered something. It was an empowering feeling, and I will always look fondly on that moment and on that movie for challenging my young little brain.

I feel that Hollywood has failed children in this regard repeatedly for the last decade and a half. Instead it has delivered redundant and unfunny toilet humor and insubstantial fluff lacking in imagination, deeper emotion, and humanity. At some point we became convinced that in order to provide future generations with good and decent human beings we had to, as parents, coddle and shield them from any sort of "negative" emotion, such as fear, forgetting that there is magic in that cold little trickle on the back of the neck and beauty in a child's imagination grasping something bigger than itself and wrestling control of it. Movies like "Monster House," "Zathura," "Spirited Away," and yes "The Spiderwick Chronicles," have gone a long way in attempting to restore this feeling in the family movie genre, and I find it refreshing. Yes, there will always be room for strictly "feel-good" fare, but that is not synonymous with "stupid" and anyone who thinks it is should consult any Pixar film.

I'm quite sure my children will see Spiderwick and be scared to death in certain parts. Hell, even I was a little bit. It's not an "easy" children's film by any stretch, but I welcome that. I look forward to seeing them cover their little eyes, finding it in themselves the courage to face something that touches the shadowy corners of their subconscious minds. If they walk out of that movie feeling even a little bit like I did, reminded of the magic in this world and in the human imagination, and feeling shed of their comparitively small burdens, then I will feel like it was worth talking them through a couple of nightmares about goblins. That's what parents are for, after all--opening doors, and helping to cushion the blows that might come from whatever is behind them.

Diversity

2008-02-13T10:43:00.000-08:00

So I registered for spring quarter classes today. I get physically giddy when I do this now, probably because the end is so close that I can smell the ink that will be printed on my utterly worthless Associate of Arts degree, and frankly it's making me a little bit high. I think they use the same stuff they put in dry erase markers and Sharpies. You know the manufacturers of those writing utensils do that shit on purpose. They know people get off on sniffing their wares, otherwise why would they make a "low odor" variety separate from the original? So they can look like they're being socially responsible while pedaling the potent shit for us addicts. It's kind of like the light beer or cigarette. One reason I can't wait to be a professor? Feeling fully justified in receiving a cheap high in front of the whiteboard. My standards for a good time are exceedingly low.

No matter. I signed up for more biology and for a Psychology class entitled: "The Psychology of Human Relations." You may be asking yourself two questions:

1. The fuck is that last class?

2. No seriously, what the fuck?

Well, believe me, if I'd had a choice I would have chosen to direct my money elsewhere. For $370.85 (not including the text book), I could have paid for someone to drill a hole in my skull and pour bubble solution into it so that I might turn my head into a really sweet bubble dispenser, and I would have been much happier about this. But, as such, I have to pay to take Psychology of Human Relations because the college has a "diversity requirement" for all students. It's state law, actually. I believe that all colleges in Washington have a "diversity requirement" for all students now.

What is a "diversity requirement?" In the college's own words:

South Puget Sound Community College requires all new students seeking an Associate Degree to complete a “diversity” course which meets the college criteria for listing as a diversity course and has been approved for such listing by the college Instruction Council prior to the student enrolling in the class.

Okay, that doesn't answer jack shit. I'll try my own words:

South Puget Sound Community College requires that all students complete a course in "diversity" because we believe that in order to foster a sense of respect and general "I love everyone hippie bullshit" in the minds of our graduates, we must bilk every one of our students an additional $400 to sit and listen to some chick with a mustache or a dude in a macrame sweater vest tell you why it's so important to gain an understanding of our differences as individuals.

There are a number of courses to choose from to fulfill this diversity requirement and they include such things as Cultural Geography, Understanding Pacific Island Cultures, and Multicultural America: Past and Present. I chose the Psychology class because, well, I'm majoring in Psych so that seemed appropriate, and it seemed infinitely more useful. Here is the class description:

Increasing understanding of oneself and others by acquiring and improving interpersonal skills including: recognizing and correcting communication errors; active listening, good-self concept, nonverbal awareness and interpretation, emotional influences, conflict resolution. Aimed at formation of positive communication environment and skills.

Now, I'm not sure just yet how exactly this will all come together to help me to be a more diverse indivdual. Perhaps I will glean knowledge from this course that can make me better aware of how much I truly am surrounded by douchebags, or perhaps make me more diplomatic in the face of retards. Maybe it will help me to sort out my feelings so I can more effectively communicate exactly why I hate black people.**

I'll let you know if it works.

**That was a joke, see. The fact that I felt a need to asterisk my blatant attempt to be politically incorrect must mean that I may have a leg up in this class. I'm so gonna get an A. Besides, I already know perfectly well why I hate black people.

Bemusement

2008-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

Just a small list of things that are currently confusing me.

1. Tyler Perry. I can't comprehend his outrageous success as a filmmaker. Is it because I'm white? Perry's recurring character Madea, whom he plays himself in unconvincing senior citizen drag, reminds me a little bit of Ernest. You know, the hillbilly made famous by the late Jim Varney who went to Camp, Jail, and Hell? In fact, "Madea Goes to Jail" is next on Tyler Perry's list of upcoming projects. Well, I did a little more research. It appears that although the maker of such films as "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" and "Why Did I Get Married?" has never gotten very high critical praise due to the fact that he, well, sucks as a filmmaker, he has a vast fan base because all of his movies have a strong Christian theme. Well, that certainly explains it. I really ought to be writing for an evangelical audience. In fact, knowing how easy it is to entice these people to the movies with junk for bait, I could construct a dramatic screenplay about how I took a trip to the bathroom, and at the end, Jesus came out of my ass and turned me into a believer. I'd be an instant millionaire. Thank you, Tyler Perry, for bringing the true cash potential for fecal matter to my attention!

2. Thirty People. The life and times of the ubiquitous celebutard Paris Hilton have always been on the disturbingly irrelevant side. While I'd certainly like to know why her latest movie "The Hottie and the Nottie" was not a direct-to-DVD release, there is a much more important question on the horizon. According to an article over at Fantasy Moguls, Paris's film did a mere $25,500 in its opening weekend at 111 screens. They broke it down further. "Nottie" made $230 per screen and, based on an average ticket price of $8, only about 30 people per theater attended a screening of the movie. Over the course of THREE days. So, about ten people per day in one of these 111 locations actually bought a ticket to see Paris Hilton's movie. Without breaking this down any further into its component parts of abysmal-ness, I'd just like to know who in the fuck these thirty people were in my town, because I need to make sure they aren't on my Myspace page, stinking it up with their stupid.

3. Curves. Marisa Miller, the current cover girl for the new Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, is a beautiful girl. I won't deny it. If I woke up looking like her, I'd clean up my wicked life and live like an angel. Well, an angelic porn star, but nevermind. Shockingly, according to the modeling industry and mainstream media, Mizz Miller is considered "curvy." Huh. Granted, her chest is more convex than concave, and if I look really really hard, I can see a slight amount of something that doesn't look like bone matter protruding from her abdominal area, but "curvy?" Yeah, about as curvy as an erection.

In Case You Hadn't Noticed...

2008-02-12T08:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't been blogging here much. When I look back at my 2006 entries compared to my 2007 ones, there shows an incredibly steep decline. 2008 isn't getting off to a much better start in the productivity sense. I suppose that is natural enough. Frankly, I'm just out of it. Winter weather has combined with winter health to effect a rather blah winter mentality. Adding school on top of it basically means that I'm barely a notch above vegetative. I'd take a video of myself so that you could diagnose me for yourself, but I'd hate to start any debates in the blogging community.

In the meantime, I'll do a re-run from the Gouda archives in order to stay somewhat relevant to this time of year. A day of love approacheth, after all:

What is all colors of the rainbow, a symbol of everything that is trite and annoying about a certain holiday, and tastes like regurgitated Pepto Bismol? (Pssst... look up).

I had meant to post something about these loathsome, licentious lozenges of love prior to Valentine's Day, but my resentment for them was still lurking somewhere below the plane of conscious thought. Honestly, I hadn't given much thought to the dreaded "Conversation Heart" until now, because I hadn't seen one in eons. It was only when Natalie came home from school last week with a paper sack filled with about a dozen boxes of these supposedly edible abominations that a bucket of latent abhorrence ascended from the caliginous well of poison that rests somewhere below my solar plexus.

So... yeah. I guess my distaste for these candies is plain. It's probably because they look "old" to me. In fact, I think the very first conversation hearts were found in the tomb of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti, bestowed upon her by her beloved Akhenaten, and they had endearing phrases written upon them such as "Hot Mummy" and "Embalm Me." They also have the distinct flavor of cough syrup or dirty feet. Or cough syrup that has had dirty feet soaking in it for about twenty years.

I am convinced that the conversation heart will survive a nuclear holocaust, if only to provide a limitless food supply for an army of highly evolved cockroaches, the surviving humans who actually dare to eat these things, and the human-cockroach hybrid creatures that the two factions will inevitably spawn.

I think the makers of the "Sweethearts" need to consider ending this chalky conversation once and for all. Besides, there are much better things that the human-roach hybrids of the future (beings I will refer to as "Roachosapiens" or "Cock-People") can subsist upon. Like Velveeta or Spam.

Democrats are Morons: In a Friend's Words

2008-02-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

My friend Brian over at The Gin and Tonic Lounge has been a source of entertainment for me for well over a year. His wry wit combined with his friends' brash commentary rarely fail to shock and awe me into fits of raucous laughter. For a group comprised mainly of lawyers and dentists, they are pretty goddamn funny. I urge you all to make a stop by The Lounge when you can.

But right now, I'm going to post Brian's blog from Tuesday. I rarely do such a thing, but it's not often that I read something that so simply captures my thoughts when it comes to my general outrage at the Democrats for not knocking Hillary out of this race once and for all on Super Tuesday. Sure, Brian is a Republican, but since most of you think I'm a closeted right-winger anyway (in spite of my voting record, my loathing of flag-waving blind patriotism and hawkish neoconservative foreign policy, my being against the death penalty, my overwhelming support for gay marriage and abortion, my desire to overturn drug laws, and my belief in a very strict separation of church and state) this shouldn't surprise you too much. I feel in my deepest of hearts that by nominating Hillary, we are essentially putting another Republican in the White House in November, and so does Brian. But of course, the Democrats are well-known for their history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (someone said that the other day, and I'm borrowing that too). Let's hope they go against the grain this time.

Without further ado, here's Brian:

Listen, I apologize here and now for the 2000 election. I apologize for voting for Bush during that first round. I was duped by Cheney's minions into believing Bush was an intelligent bi-lingual moderate.

I fess up. I take responsibility for my errors.

I voted Libertarian in 2004.

And now, here we are in 2008, with a lackluster Republican field made up of a Mormon, a Baptist and a POW. Christ, it sounds like a bad joke.

Huckabee will likely pray on his knees before making the big decision, so if something goes wrong, he can blame God. Romney, likewise, will search for the burning in his bosom before making a big call.

And McCain? Well, he'll be just fine until some one shows him the Queen of Diamonds... (go look it up)

Anyway, I'm not looking forward to another 8 years of this crap. So, really, it's up to the Democrats to get us out of this.

Now their choice of two senators is simple, really if you think about it. They both want to raise taxes to astronomical levels to pay for servcies for people who are too lazy to work. They want the government to run every aspect and detail of our lives. They want to overrule the 2nd Amendment. They want to increase the power scope, and influence of the federal bureaucracy and Labor Unions.

Fine. It's no worse than the corruption and greed we've seen over the past 8 years.

All I want is someone with a brain who can string multi-syllabic utterances together in a cohesive sentence structure. They're all going to squeeze my paycheck like a fatted udder.

So, here it is, with the current Republican administration wallowing in the worst approval ratings since Hoover, this race is the Democrats' to lose, and what do they do?? How do they mark this momentous occasion? What is their grand strategy??

Do they give it to the left-leaning, handsome, well-spoken, centrally-appealing, Senator from Illinois, with his message of hope, winning smile, and strange lure for moderate Republicans??

No.

They fumble.

They give it to Bill's wife.

Half of the Democrats hate her. All of the Republicans hate her. Very few of the independents can stomach her.

Yet, the bare majority of voting Democrats, with absolutely no eye toward ELECTABILITY, voted with their hearts rather than their heads. Obama has the mass appeal necessary to defeat the dull cookie cutter right-wing candidate, no matter who it happens to be.

Hillary cannot. She cannot win. Perhaps if she was running against Cheney, but even then, it would be too close to call.

So, thanks a lot Democrats. Thanks for nothing.

Good lord, 8 years of President McCain??
10-to-1, he finds an excuse to bomb Hanoi...

Ode to The Late Night Wiener

2008-02-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are lucky enough to live and party in Olympia, Washington, you may or may not be aware of what is, in my opinion, the best part about O-Town nightlife -- the 4th Avenue hot dog stand. Rather than merely write about it, however, I have decided to take the lyrical route, because if any of you know me, the only things that can inspire me to get poetic are food and drink. If you didn't know that, then perhaps you will sample my sweeping epics Ode to Cracklin' Oat Bran and Ode to the Margarita. Ladies and gentlemen, I now bring you (yeah, I like odes):

Ode to The Late Night Weiner

Perched with piety, on cold and rainy nights
is a savior for drunken louts desperately seeking a bite
of a delicious length of meat you can eat from your hand
It's an American icon. It's a hot dog stand.

But this, boys and girls, is no ordinary wiener
And make no mistake, it's certainly not leaner
At this steamy locale is every accoutrement you please
Not the least of which is the requisite cream cheese.

"Oh pish posh!" You may say. "Don't put cream cheese on a dog!"
And I would agree. It sounds kinda wrong.
But as the adage goes, don't knock it before you try it.
Cause after one bite, you dare not deny it.

But that is not all. There are condiments galore.
Tomatoes, onions, sauerkraut, and more.
And if you like mustard, there are several to be had.
And shredded cheddar cheese, so you can be EXTRA bad.

So stop by this stand. Your night, it will make.
If you wonder where it's at, it's just outside Jake's.
It's a dog to cure all ills. It can erect you from your funk.
Of course all things taste better when you're hopelessly drunk.

Remembery -- Yeah, It's a Word.

2008-02-01T10:57:00.000-08:00

Isn't it funny how things we thought we'd long forgotten can come rising to the surface of our consciousness like bubbles rising from an ocean trench? Of course, if we want to get more accurate about it, we can think of our memory bank as a giant computer hard drive that hasn't been defragmented in decades that will occasionally throw out some random bit of information that can either make us go "WTF? Why in the hell would I remember that?" or erupt into gales of laughter at a moment's notice, making us thankful for our brain's tendency to resemble dirty velcro. How many metaphors and similes can I fit into a single paragraph? That's another blog for another day.

Anyway, the latter happened to me just now and I had to write about it, if only to see how it looks in print. If you're reading it now, I was satisfied with it.

Growing up with my dad was probably my favorite part of growing up; although, I think it would be fair to say that I didn't really "grow up" when I was around him, because we both had a tendency to act like children. Still do, in fact. Except we have added beer to the equation. No matter. My dad fucking cracks me up. I may be the only person on the planet who gets his subtle, dry-as-driftwood sense of humor, but I feel without it, I wouldn't be nearly as witty as I am today. And that's saying something, because I don't consider myself terribly witty. So thanks, dad, for bestowing upon me the ability to wax hilarity, even on a meager scale such as mine.

So, this morning I was inspecting my toilet paper. Don't ask why. It should be obvious. Oh my god, yes, I use the bathroom! Anyway, I usually like the really soft stuff. Who doesn't, right? Well, in a rare fit of non-spendthriftiness (again, it's a word) recently, I picked up the giant pack of Scott tissue instead of my preferred Kleenex or Charmin because it was available at a MAD discount. Like, 50 rolls for $11 or something. I'd never used Scott, but I figured it couldn't be all THAT bad, right? Well, maybe if your lady parts are made of granite, you might not mind it all that much. Mine are more delicate, and they were offended by Scott tissue's tendency to resemble medium-grit sandpaper.

Then a memory of grocery shopping with my dad suddenly rose to the forefront of my mind. It was something I hadn't thought of in almost twenty years. I'm remembering my dad picking off the shelf a pack of generic brand toilet paper and holding it up to me saying: "Allison, this is John Wayne toilet paper."

Now, I could read by this point, and I didn't see John Wayne written anywhere on that stuff. I also didn't see John Wayne's face, because see, I was raised properly enough to know who John Wayne was at that young age. So I said, "Why is it called that?"

And he said: "Because it's rough, it's tough, and it don't take shit offa nothin'."

20 years later, I have learned that this is a pretty old joke, but in the ears of an 8-year-old, this was the funniest goddamn thing I'd ever heard.

So after that, everything that I would see in the store as generic would be "John Wayne" brand. Store brand dish soap was "John Wayne Dishsoap." There was also "John Wayne Peanut Butter" or "John Wayne Frozen Green Beans." You name it. If it wasn't a major brand, it was John Wayne. It was one of those things that was added to our arsenal of inside jokes that cracked us up, and would bewilder my mother.

Damn, I love that man. My dad, not John Wayne.

Titles of Poo: Electric Boogaloo

2008-01-30T23:03:00.000-08:00

Hope Floats. Stop or My Mom Will Shoot. Freddy Got Fingered.

There really is no end to the human capacity to construct a horrible title for a movie. Granted, this is something I really shouldn't be judging. When it comes to putting my creative muscles to the test, it's generally on picking a compelling title for something I've written, and more often than not I feel I fail miserably. In fact, the title of this post came after about an hour of agonizing, and even now I'm not happy with it. The only thing in which I can take solace is the fact that this is a blog about bad titles, and therefore I feel that I have some room to be ironic.

There is so much riding on a good title. It needs to grab you and intrigue you. It needs to be relevant. But it also can't be too distracting. A sure sign a title has failed is when you find yourself paying more attention to how bad it is rather than the material it's inviting you to view. That isn't to say that a bad title can't also be a great draw. I submit for your approval: Snakes on a Plane. Even if the movie sucked (and let's face it, it really did), that title created such a stir it had people talking for months prior to the film's release. It galvanized the public and sold the movie; therefore, the title "Snakes on a Plane" was actually good. Perhaps the term I'm looking for to describe a bad title is: "insipid."

Here's one for you:

"Step into Liquid"

This is not a documentary about what happens when you leave an untrained puppy in the house for too long. Nor is it the title of a porn aimed at the urolagnia sect of the perv world. No, this is a movie about surfing. Cue freshets of question marks. What in the hell? I really can't think of a title for a surfing movie that is more arbitrarily retarded. In fact, I defy you to provide me with one that is worse.

But let's jump to the horror genre. Oh sure, "The Incredibly Strange Creatures who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" is a really really bad title. But in a way, I also kind of love it. It's messy. It's funny, and it actually makes the inner MST3K junkie in me cream herself just a litle bit. If you don't know what MST3K is, you have failed the litmus test for cool, and must have some other redeeming quality that makes me want to call you "friend." At any rate, I choose to look at the intent here. I simply refuse to believe that the filmmakers who chose this as a title for their movie were aiming for earnestness. Or brevity, for that matter. So I'm cool with it.

But no, I've got an upcoming flick title for you to evaluate. In fact, it's one that you could really sink your teeth into.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you "Midnight Meat Train." I dare you to sit through the announcer ominously growling the title of this film at the end of the trailer and NOT laugh, even just a little bit. And the sad thing is, this could actually be a pretty decent movie. I sometimes wonder if movie studios really don't want to make money.

Bits and Pieces

2008-01-28T08:31:00.000-08:00

Part I: Five Reasons to Give Thanks

Upon scouring this morning's headlines, I have learned the following things:

John McCain is leading the Republican race in Florida (yawn).

There is unrest in Kenya (shocker).

The housing market has hit a 12-year low (ouch).

All boring and/or depressing stuff, right? Well this juicy nugget should get your enthusiasm sky rocketing:

The New Kids on the Block are getting back together! It's so cool to see this awesome fivesome hangin' tough nearly fifteen years after their break up. According to their revamped website, they still have have the right stuff. I'm sure they have a lot of practice to do to work out the kinks in their performances, though. The boys are in their 40s now, after all. But I'm sure if they take it step-by-step, they'll be back in fine form. People probably wonder why they're even bothering with a reunion. I'm thinking, though, that this one's for the children. You know, the children of the modern generation who haven't rocked it New Kids style. I'm thinking you all don't truly believe in this enterprise, but to Jordan, Danny, Jonathan, Donny, and Joe I have only this to say: Baby, I believe in you!

P.S. If you didn't get the joke, see me after class.

Part II: A Class Act

I want to give mad props to actor Daniel Day-Lewis whose acceptance speech at the SAG awards, during which he dedicated his award to Heath Ledger, was nothing short of moving, eloquent, and heart-wrenching. When Ledger passed away, I remarked to myself early on how similar the two men were in terms of their strong method acting capabilities. In another ten years, Ledger, with his also remarkable ability to disappear into this roles, very well may have reached Day-Lewis caliber. Apparently the elder actor felt a kinship with the late young man, even though the two had never worked together, but I can see why. I have always admired Daniel, both for his craft and his way of living, and that admiration has increased several-fold, which I didn't think was possible after my second screening of "There Will Be Blood," which just increased my enthusiasm for the actor and the picture. For those of you who have seen the movie but haven't seen Daniel Day-Lewis as how he actually is out of character, here he is doing his acceptance speech last night. It really gives one the proper perspective on his amazing talent as an actor and his sincerity and eloquence as a man.

Part III: Falling to Earth
So a U.S. spy satellite has fallen out of orbit and is expected to crash to the earth in a few weeks. Be sure to keep an umbrella handy. In other news, a large asteroid made a "close pass" by earth, but is expected to miss it completely. I can't help but wonder at how many near-misses we have with space debris on a daily basis, but don't actually get around to noticing. I mean shit, look at the moon. Look at the craters decorating our own earth. How is it that nothing gets bombarded by asteroids and comets now? Two things, other than the death of civilization as we know it, worry me about a possible earth impact:

1. I saw Cloverfield. And I've read some of the "side stories" regarding the creature from that movie's origins. I really don't want to be waking up any beasts slumbering deep within ocean trenches, you know? At least until I can move away from the coast.

2. Every time I think of asteroids hitting the earth, my mind automatically starts thinking of that horrible beyond horrible movie "Armageddon," which then makes me think about that even more horrible ballad by Aerosmith, "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing." I have a distinct feeling that if a life-on-earth-destroying chunk of rock were hurtling toward us, I would NEVER be able to get that song out of my head. And I would DIE with that song in my head. The prospect of this upsets me more than death itself. When I die, I want to have awesome music in my head. That is my one request.

Synergy

2008-01-23T18:28:00.001-08:00

When used in the corporate sense, the word "synergy" evokes in me a feeling of fascist Orwellian-ism, whereby human beings function not as individuals, but as a single unit, carrying out goals that are not meant to do anything but bolster some sort of authoritarian ideal. Yeah, the word "synergy" kind of puts a knife in my little anarchist heart and savagely twists it to keep the blood flowing.

But I'm not really here to talk about corporate synergy. The recent and tragic death of Heath Ledger brought to the forefront of my mind an act of human stupidity that, while I'm not 100% certain was the cause of his demise (as the toxicology reports have yet to bear that out), is most definitely the cause of death for thousands of people every year, and that is the synergistic effect of different types of drugs in the human body.

The synergistic effect describes the tendency for certain drugs, when taken together, to amplify one another's effects or side-effects, at times to the point of being lethal. From the few tidbits I've been able to glean from the Ledger case, it appears that he was taking Ambien for insomnia and likely combined this with some Valium or Xanax, and/or possibly some codeine cough syrup that he was prescribed for pneumonia. In other words, in his residence were the ingredients for a pretty potent death cocktail. At least for certain individuals.

Oh sure, we can look to the media for examples of people who should have died out long ago, whose bodies have become veritable toxic waste dumps whose very blood would likely kill the mosquitos that bit them, but who manage to keep on ticking in spite of it. Examples include Amy Winehouse, Iggy Pop, Danny Bonaduce. Then there are others who got away with their antics perhaps longer than they should have but eventually paid the price, such as Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Elvis Presley, Chris Farley, River Phoenix, John Belushi.

And then we have someone like Ledger who may have been into some drugs here and here, but certainly didn't stake a reputation on it, who likely just took the wrong combination of products on the wrong day, something that likely wouldn't have fazed the heartbeats of the above mentioned people, and ceased to wake up.

It all seems incredibly unfair, but it could happen to anyone at any time, and I think such is the fallibility and the stupidity of mankind. It's not smart to mix opiates with depressants. It's not wise to mix any drug with alcohol, for that matter. People never seem to realize when they're chugging away and popping pills that they're not only leaving the door cracked for the grim reaper. They're nailing the damn thing open and putting out a welcome mat and a plate of cookies. Even taking aspirin or ibuprofen for a hangover can be lethal, as it becomes incredibly toxic for a liver that is still processing the sludge from the previous night's escapades. Never should people chase their Vicodins or Percs with a cocktail. Never should one chase a joint with a tablet of acid. It's also a really bad idea to shoot heroin and snort cocaine at the same time, as I'm sure Chris Farley and John Belushi figured out during their dying breaths.

It's bad enough to engage in any of those substances singularly and to excess. But why combine them? Isn't one of them enough? Why take that kind of chance? Here we have a healthy young man lying dead in his bed, a victim of bad chemistry. It shows that no one is really immune from that kind of crapshoot when moderation goes out the window and people decide to test their invincibility, probably thinking that if Keith Richards can do it, anyone can.

A lot of people like to discuss the effect that one's celebrity status has on selling a product or an idea. It's tragic that Heath Ledger has to be the latest famous face to demonstrate the perils of playing dice with various substances. It would have been much better to see him go out an old man being remembered first for his great talents rather than for his incredibly sad manner of death.

Use as directed, people. Use as directed.

The Random Thoughts that Wanted to Be Blogs

2008-01-22T10:05:00.001-08:00

1. I was gonna do a full blog on this, but feel I am ill-qualified to do so because of the fact that I haven't seen all of the contending movies/actors' work, but can I just say this one thing about the Oscar nominations? Fucking A, Daniel Day and Javier Bardem! I predict Best Actor/Supporting Actor statues for both of them respectively, and if this doesn't happen, I will be one petulant little biyotch in front of the TV that night. I'd also like to see Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for No Country for Old Men and Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood, just to split the difference. I know it's not going to happen, though. This is the Coens' year, although if Jason Reitman wins it for the stellar Juno, I won't exactly be disappointed. Best Actress should be Ellen Page for Juno, and I have a feeling she will pull an upset here.

2. And now for something sorta related--what in the HELL is the music division of the Academy thinking excluding There Will Be Blood's phenomenal, unforgettable, strikingly unique, and haunting score from Oscar nomination?? I'm not lying when I say that Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood's composition is perhaps one of the most effective pieces of music ever made for a movie, and it is a great injustice that due to some minor technicality (like, say, a few bars weren't composed specificially for the picture) he won't get proper recognition for his genius here. I know I didn't mention it in my review, but seriously folks, you'll understand what I mean by this score when you hear it.

3. And now for something not at all related--I had a dream last night that I got a B in my math class, and I felt satisfied with that. Usually such dreams are nightmares for me. I'm not sure whether I should be frightened or comforted by this change in my outlook.

4. I had a bit of an epiphany the other night as I was ~~laughing my ass off at~~ reading with considerable gravitas the reports that Britney Spears had lapsed into speaking in a British accent. Some mental health experts were speculating that Britney was perhaps suffering from dissociative identity disorder, which angered me to no end. We've now got cranial midgets doing psychiatric diagnosis via videotape ala Bill Frist and Terri Schiavo on this debacle?? Why not take the simpler explanation: that speaking in a British accent is something that American celebrities do when they finally realize they have become irrelevant. See: Madonna.

5. It appears that Scotland is appealing to the United States to lift its ban on imported haggis, saying that there are no worries to be had about the nation's national dish being contaminated by Mad Cow Disease (after the scare in the U.K. awhile back). That may be so, Scotland, but perhaps you've forgotten the other reason we don't want your national dish infiltrating our borders: hearts, lungs, livers, and oatmeal cooked inside a sheep's stomach is fucking disgusting, okay? We'll happily take your whiskey, your bagpipes, and your hot men in kilts, but you can keep your vomit sausage. Thanks!

Cloverfield

2008-01-19T16:32:00.001-08:00

With this tape, we are so gonna win $10,000

Just when you thought that Hollywood had run out of ways to tell the "Big Monster Destroys Big City" formula, there comes "Cloverfield," a Godzilla-esque flick that married the "Blair Witch Project" and spawned a very frightening, hyperactive child." Told completely from the point of view of a guy wielding a digital video camera with seemingly endless battery life, "Cloverfield" manages to play on the senses like a ride on a very old, rickety roller coaster that also has the ability to throw bowling balls at your head. Wait... that almost sounded like a bad thing. Well, it's not. "Cloverfield" is surprisingly effective.

The movie starts with "standard use" camcorder stuff, at a going away party for a young man named Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who has landed a new job in Japan. His friend Hud (T.J. Miller) is using the camera to tape testimonials, spy on people's love life drama, and other ultimately meaningless, character-building tidbits that set the stage for a "you think you've got problems now" scenario when things start exploding in midtown Manhattan, and the head of the Statue of Liberty goes rolling down the street. At this point, Hud becomes something of an amateur documentary maker and he even manages to add a bit of comedy relief to what would otherwise be a hopelessly horrific situation. There is a giant creature of sorts laying waste to every skyscraper in its path. We don't know, at least initially, what it looks like and this amps up the fright factor a great deal.

The monster's place of origin is not revealed to us either, naturally, but Hud speculates that it could have come out of the ocean or from another planet. All we do know is it is impervious to modern military weaponry, and there are even little parasites on it (that are about the size of a compact car, which should provide proper perspective) that look like what would happen if Godzilla had visited a prostitute on the seedier side of town.

There is a lot of frightening imagery in "Cloverfield." Skyscrapers coming down in massive clouds of dust evoke memories of 9/11. Images of tanks firing at the monster felt startlingly real. The incinerated New York skyline, seen only in glimpses here and there had a rather haunting quality. And when our heroes go into a tilting building to rescue one of their friends, we feel as exhausted as they do when they climb up nearly 60 floors of stairs.

The device of filming it with such an "amateur" technique, provided it doesn't nauseate you, has a way of bringing the viewer directly into the story and behind the heels of everyone else running for their lives in a panic. Director Matt Reeves showed great instinct and restraint here by choosing to keep the monster off-camera for most of the film, not only because it adhered to the film's logic, but because it is a time-tested horror device that the less we see of a baddie, the more scared we are. There is no way the film would have been effective at generating scares if it had been filmed in sleek, "steady cam" style. The slightly grainy quality of the film has a way of unsettling us further, and it allows our imaginations to fill in details lost in the murk. Because we aren't provided with any information that our main characters haven't been, we are simply witness to, and members of, the surrounding pandemonium. Perhaps the most fright-inducing aspect of "Cloverfield" was the sound, which compensated for the visual jogs. This is a film that demands viewing in a movie theater or a decent home theater with the volume turned way up.

Granted, there were logistical questions I wanted to ask when the lights thankfully came back on during the closing credits, but I blocked them out. Who could possibly try to make sense of such a thing, anyway? "Cloverfield" was a well-made, highly entertaining film that for its short 84-minute duration removed me from my seat and planted me into that hellish nightmare version of Manhattan. My only advice would be to sit several rows back, particularly if you want to avoid a case of stomach-churning vertigo.

Gouda's Final Grade: B+

There Will Be Blood

2008-01-18T17:40:00.001-08:00

There will be blood and madness...

This is a movie without sympathy. One without pity. It features a man who is a Howard Hughes without a conscience, a Citizen Kane dipped in crude, without the concept of regret. It is a movie that is complex in its simplicity, fixed into a rigid frame as the ultimate portrait of greed and madness. And it is either in spite of or because of all of these things that Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is a great film.

The year is 1898. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis) starts with little, in both the means and the words department, as he slogs away beneath the desolate, barren Texas landscapes foraging silver in the hopes of building a fortune. He's not the enthusiastic prospector with naive optimism glinting in his eyes. He is silent and dogged in his determination. He breaks his leg and claws his way out of the desert to cash in his claim. When he eventually strikes oil, he doesn't even register surprise, but instead steps comfortably up to a future of immense wealth and power, almost as if he were entitled to it. He even inherits the baby of a fallen worker and raises him as his own son, using the child as a prop to give an innocent face to his drilling operation, swaying landholders to sell him leases to drill on their property by saying that he's a simple family man. The ploy works.

Plainview's fate turns in a new direction when he's approached by a young man named Paul Sunday, who for a price gives him the location of a vast ocean of oil. It's beneath the Sunday family ranch. Plainview visits the ranch and before long installs himself and his derricks in the town of Little Boston, where the citizens are under the sway of Plainview's vision of shared wealth and prosperity, as well as that of the Sunday family's other son Eli (Paul Dano) who also appears to be the identical twin of Paul. Of course it's hard to tell whether this is actually the case because we never see the two brother's together. But Eli is a religious zealot who runs a small church of the fire and brimstone variety, and he quickly becomes the oil man's nemesis.

Plainview makes a lot of promises to the people of Little Boston, none of which he follows through on. It becomes quite clear that he is not a man who can be trusted. Much later in the film when he meets a man who claims to be his half-brother, he confides in him that he hates everyone, and reveals what we suspected all along: a complete dearth of humanity spiraling dangerously to a place of madness.

Daniel Day-Lewis continues to be the most captivating actor on the screen today, disappearing into his roles with such convincing ease that even in the scenes where there is no dialog (the first fifteen minutes are completely devoid of it), he manages to hold the audience in thrall. This is a role that is certain to garner him a very well-deserved Oscar. The narrative of "There Will Be Blood" is signature Paul Thomas Anderson in that it's long. Quite, actually. Also true to PTA's work, it is not boring. While there were perhaps a few elements of the third act that could have used a tightening of the screws, and there was not a sense even in the last minutes that the film was winding down (which gave it just the smallest smidge of tediousness), it is held in check by our wide-eyed fascination, watching Plainview devolve into an older, wealthy recluse, wandering through the empty halls of his mansion shooting his possessions and gulping an endless supply of whiskey. The ending is by all turns amusing, sad, insane, and abrupt. It is also appropriate for this character, who really deserved no better fate and actually got his wish--to become rich enough to separate himself from everyone.

This is a film that flourishes in its ability to escape convention and manages to do it with great style and taste. There is no love interest. There is no search for redemption or betterment. In its drab colorscape, it exhibits a very limited spectrum of human emotion, focusing on its unsavory underbelly. We are taken in by Plainview's self-assured charisma, and even as he reveals himself to be something of a monster, he's already gotten his hooks sunken into us and we can't look away.

Gouda's Final Grade -- A

Copping a Phil

2008-01-17T12:05:00.000-08:00

Dr. Phil,

You sure have made quite a household name for yourself since the days when you had to share airspace with Oprah Winfrey in order to appear like a legitimate practitioner of Psychology. Not only did you get your very own television show that has been proven to be very popular amongst housewives who can't seem to govern themselves without being verbally abused by a pompous ass-hat, but you also showed your extensive knowledge of bodily health by pasting your name and face on a line of dietary supplements and meal replacements that proved to be wildly successful, at least for those who filed a class action lawsuit against you claiming that your Shape Up! diet plan was fraudulent and ineffective. Whoops on that. But we don't need to re-hash old news. Especially when there is so much going on in current headlines to hold our sway.

For instance, when you decided to intervene on the debacle that is the life of Britney Spears by counseling her mother and assuring her that she was a good mother in spite of all evidence to the contrary, I was firmly convinced that you had finally become the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson of the Psychology world--you know, by inserting your name and face into situations you think warrant your attention but in the end only make you look like an even bigger douchebag. I was actually kind of outraged that you would make a mockery of your field by doing such a thing, and it also occurred to me at the time that you might even perhaps be violating doctor/client privilege by sharing information about Spears' mental state with the press.

Well, it turns out I'm not the only one who has such suspicions. I read this morning that the California Board of Psychology is not only investigating you for a potential HIPPA violation, but also for practicing Psychology in the state of California without a license when you visited Spears in the hospital last week. Now, I realize that you've been out of the real world for quite some time, raking in millions practicing Blowhard TV Therapy, but surely you haven't forgotten that practicing without a license is a felony, and that you shouldn't be doing press releases about your "clients?" What did you think, that your celebrity shrink status would nullify California law? No way you could be that stupid or arrogant. Right?

Well, just in case you don't understand exactly the dilemma that is currently before you (nevermind how much it amuses me), I'm going to use "Dr. Phil speak" to see if it sinks in a little easier that way. After all, if a doctor can't take his own medicine, then what good is he, really?

"Now, look. You can't expect to take the ham bone out of the duck fat unless you walk the blueberry around the block a little bit. Ya know? Do you get what I'm sayin'? It's not like the doorknob was born last Thursday. If you don't understand that a winged platypus has a combination lock around its ankles, then you're. an. IDIOT!"

I really hope this helps, Doc. I mean, while it bothers me to see the mighty fall, there is just something even more tragic about watching those who only THINK they are mighty fall.

Paradox!

2008-01-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

I'll just go ahead and say it bluntly. Sometimes, I just really wish my brain would shut the fuck up. It whispers in my ear too much, always forcing me to doubt things, people, and situations, or analyze them into oblivion, until the things, people, and situations no longer resemble themselves but are instead dispersed, wholly uninteresting atoms. That most traitorous of organs will lull me into a sense of trusting, soporific, blissful ignorance for about ten minute intervals, only to then wrap a cane around my neck and yank me off that tantalizing stage and into a jarring, wintry reality where I am naked and there is nothing fun to do. I don't know how to turn it off. Drugs and alcohol don't work. In fact, they kind of amplify the problem. There is nothing worse than being drunk off your ass and finding yourself stuck in a prison made of mirrored walls...

But I digress. This was supposed to be a fun post. Imagine that!

I'm here to talk about paradoxes. Not the philosophical ones, like Zeno's Paradoxes that stipulate that motion is merely an illusion, and are tossed around pretentious corduroy-jacket-with-elbow-patches academic circles. No, I'm going to keep this relatively simple and mainstream and talk about the presences of paradoxes in movies.

If you don't know what a paradox actually is, just think of it as the migraine-causing element of a storyline, the one that makes you go: "What the??" Or "But how did they... if the... you know... this is... there...but... not... DAMMIT MY BRAIN IS EXPLODING!"

Take, for instance, the movie The Terminator. Now, if you haven't seen the movie(s) in a few years or need a refresher, I'll provide you with a quick synopsis:

The future has been taken over by machines that became self-aware and decided to start a war with humans. The leader of the human resistance is a man named John Connor. The robots then come up with this brilliant plan to send a Terminator back through time to kill John Connor's mother, thereby preventing Connor's birth. The humans become aware of this little ploy and send a man back through time as well to protect John's mother from the Terminator. This man ends up falling in love with Sarah Connor and having sex with her, thereby getting her pregnant and eventually having her give birth to... John Connor.

So think about this for a minute. The man who was sent back from a future that already contains John Connor as the leader of the human resistance ending up fathering John Connor? This... makes no sense. It's like a neuron-frying loopty-loop.

But it doesn't stop there, because there was a sequel. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, it is revealed that the parts left behind from the FIRST Terminator robot (that was crushed at the end of the first movie in a computer factory) were the basis for the creation of Skynet, the company whose machines ended up starting the war!

Now lemme get this straight... How could there possibly be a Skynet already in existence and a FIRST Terminator sent back through time if Skynet wasn't actually built until the crushed remnants of said first Terminator were discovered by Miles Dyson, the founder of Skynet?? AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

See what I mean?? While I could possibly allow the explanation that the whole John Connor/Dad problem was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy/destiny thing in that ANY child Sarah Connor had could have eventually become the leader of the human resistance, that second one is King Brain Titty-Twister right there. And yet... it's the backbone of the entire story, really! It is all based on one giant, mindfucking paradox!

Now, because I didn't see Terminator 3, I can't offer much more on this. Maybe it attempted to explain this. I'd love it if someone filled me in.

Why do we do this to ourselves, though? Not just create paradoxes, but then proceed to torture ourselves with them? There are untold millions of debates on these topics (and a myriad of others with similar components) to be found on the internet. We get all wrapped-up in them as if being able to explain these little anomalies in story-telling gets us that much closer to understanding the nature of the universe. It's fascinating, really.

Okay, I'll speak for myself here. I do this. Frequently. I love dissecting a fat, juicy paradox, and I also hate it. It has a way of removing me from the story, because it interferes with my suspension of disbelief. I don't want to think about the characters anymore because my brain is too busy trying to examine the sub-structure of the plot. I just want to be ignorant and take it for what it is, but I can never do that. Ever. Even if I LIKE a movie and find it entertaining, I have to perform an autopsy on it. With The Terminator, though, I feel particularly bothered by it because the whole time I'm like:

"You didn't HAVE to do it this way! You could have already had Sarah Connor pregnant by some other dude! Or you could have already had Skynet in existence before the first Terminator came through, thus eliminating these distracting paradoxes! Why did you do it this way, you fuckers? You must want to make my head hurt on purpose!"

I'll get into Back to the Future later (particularly the sequels). I need some Excedrin.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

2008-01-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

Emo Todd

Although I can say that I've had a great time watching certain musicals, there is something about theater at large that I've always found to be unbearably pretentious. Gestures and facial expressions are exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Simple messages and themes are often delivered cryptically and with too much fanfare, and there is always this unspoken rule that if you don't appreciate the show before you, you are a clod without culture. Well after trudging out of what is perhaps the bloodiest, most disgusting, and morally offensive musical in stage and cinematic history, I will happily don the title of Cultureless Clod, so long as I don't have to ever again see people chomping down on human flesh stuffed into meat pies.

Sweeney Todd is a grim endeavor to be sure. A revenge tragedy told on a most visceral level, it centers on a man, Benjamin Barker, whose sunny life as a husband, father, and barber was destroyed by a malicious judge (Alan Rickman) who lusted after Barker's wife. After being falsely imprisoned by the judge for fifteen years, during which Judge Turpin forced Barker's wife to poison herself with arsenic and then claimed their child for his own, Barker returns to London under the name Sweeney Todd to exact his revenge. He is helped in his dirty deeds by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), the owner of a pie shop strewn with moldy wares and cockroaches that boasts "the worst pies in London."

This is not a jolly old London, as fans of the stage musical or of this film already know. It is a sunless, poverty-stricken, sewer of humanity that likely haunted the worst nightmares of Charles Dickens. The production design by Dante Ferretti, who has spent a lot of time under the employ of many great directors (namely, Martin Scorsese), goes to great lengths to paint a portrait of dreariness that one can't help but admire for its thoroughness.

Of course, being a Tim Burton film, Sweeney Todd was sure to be a visual stunner. I can think of few filmmakers whose work plays on the most relentlessly surreal aspects of our sensibilities, and in Sweeney Todd he is at his most daring and avante garde. He painstakingly adheres to the spirit of the material and doesn't for one second let up as the blood flows and sprays in torrents, and the characters continue to achieve newer, more depraved levels of gruesome behavior. But herein lies the problem. Burton, per usual, with his concentrated focus on aesthetics, left little to no room for the heart to enter the picture. I felt no sympathy for Todd's seething moroseness, and what little I had for Mrs. Lovett was tossed into the meat grinder with the rest of the town's unsavory bits. I found myself sitting more in aghast than in admiration, and I was less than enticed by the musical selections whose occasional moments of cleverness ("For many a poor orphan lad, the first square meal he ever had, was a hot meat pie made out of his dad, from Sweeney Todd the Barber.") was overshadowed by saccharine ostentatious schmaltz.

Ultimately, Sweeney Todd left me floored, but not in a good way. Its audacity was alienating and often alarming, too much so for me to want to admire it up close. Watching it was like looking upon a piece of art that leaves one with only the ability to say: "Wonders of the human imagination will never cease" and then walk away with a sigh of relief, content never to glance upon it again.

This film is an experience to be savored by a very select crowd. If you are into self-indulgent, histrionic, caustic, pretentious, blood-drenched "high art" that can only be called "art" because it can't fit into any niche of normality, then Sweeney is your ticket to cinematic awe. For the rest of us, there is everything else.

Gouda's Final Grade: C-

Fish and Slips

2008-01-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

Picture this:

A family of four sitting down to a routine dinner at the local fish and chips joint for a feast of fried food and clam chowder, also known as "Ticket to Delicious Atherosclerosis." Of course, such enjoyment is usually interrupted by my hyperactive son making little buzzing noises and wiggling in his seat, fully zoned in on his usual "not content to sit still or be quiet for more than 3 seconds" mode of existence that is the hallmark of most 4-year-old boys. I would later come to be grateful for this otherwise massive jackhammer to my placidity, because in the midst of a moment of general calm, a ripping sound began to emanate from the table just to the left of ours that was the unmistakable sound of gas escaping someone's anal orifice.

Now, I will admit that there are juvenile remnants a'plenty in my mental makeup that make it difficult for me to hear the sound of someone passing gas without at least cracking a smile. Of course, it's all about context. Fart jokes in movies do not make me laugh. In fact, I think they are trite. But you take that shit, so to speak, and put it in the middle of a busy restaurant? The potential for The Gouda to erupt into gales of laughter is all but certain. This was made even more of an inevitability by the fact that after my brain made the connection that the rotund fella to our left actually did let slip the demons of hell from his ass, Ken looked around with a most curious look on his face like: "Did you just hear what I heard?"

It was at this point that I completely fell apart. I tried to deflect the awful timing of the onset of a most monstrous set of giggles, however, by focusing on my increasingly noisy son and saying "Oh Elias, you crack me up!"

So of course, my son takes this unintentional positive reinforcement as a ticket to raise the bar, and he gets even louder with his goofy 4-year-old boy antics. For the moment, I am thankful, because immediately after this (and after taking a bite of my food), rotund fella let's another one rip. Soup is about to spew forth from my mouth in a freshet of chowdery bukakke. I then try to cover again and say: "Elias, those noises you make are SO funny!" And then Ken says the thing which seals my fate as becoming the uncontrollably laughing nutjob in the middle of the restaurant:

"Yeah, Elias, you sound like a creaking door when you do that."

I fucking lost it. Four feet away is a guy who is munching on fried halibut and airing out the room with old man flatulence, and I'm using my son as cover as tears stream down my face. I finally know that I have to exit the restaurant or completely surrender to the monstrous torrent of cackles wanting to permanently overtake my psyche. I say in mid-chortle:

"Okay, I need to step outside for a second. I'll be right back."

And my daughter was like:

"Where are you going, mommy?"

"Oh just outside for a second. Mommy needs some fresh air."

Then the aptness of this phraseology slammed home, and I nearly doubled over. The logical part of my brain is telling me to get a fucking grip, but my vision is blurred from the deluge of liquid spurting from my tear ducts. I hadn't laughed so hard since the "punch dancing" scene in the movie Hot Rod. I was shaking. It was as if I were being tickled by a million feathers, and I couldn't shake them off. People glanced in my direction as I stumbled out of the restaurant, probably thinking that I was genuinely upset, especially given the Tammy Faye action that was happening on my face, but they had no idea that I was in the throes of a comedic orgasm.

All because someone farted.

I'm such a fucking child, I know. But my goodness, it felt good to laugh like that. Considering the fact that Hot Rod came out in August, it had been way too long.

Rude Awakenings. In List Form.

2008-01-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

So this morning, my plan to sleep in was cut short. Not by children, amazingly enough. And not by an inconvenient need to empty my bladder. No, the conditions for sleeping for an extra 40 minutes were as ripe and lucious as a mid-September blackberry, and I snuggled deep into my velour blanket/down comforter combo, relishing the warmth and quite sure deep in my mind that time had momentarily stopped. Under those blankets, there are no worries. No bills and lack of money to pay them, no homework deadlines, no messy house in need of cleaning, no fighting children. It's a fuzzy warm portal into the emptiness of my sleepy brain where, for a short duration, nothing matters.

And then...

BUZZZZZZZ!!!

Ah shit, Jackie! Why you gotta do that NOW?

For those who don't know, Jackie is my phone. He's named that because he's a Samsung Blackjack, and for those who did know that but didn't know this, Samsung Blackjacks have perhaps the most intrusively powerful vibrate setting known to man. They could sell phallically-shaped attachments for the damn thing and it would KILL the competition in both the cellphone industry and the adult entertainment one. In fact, it would be the dick-shaped bridge to unite them, and I'd be a billionaire. Fuck, why didn't I think of this before?? But I'm not here to provide you with a T.M.I. moment, as hard as that may be to believe.

So here my phone is vibrating away like a rogue dildo on a porno set. It's a friend of mine. He requires entertainment at work. I'm flattered, but, well, the monkey is SLEEPING! When he later told me that there were worse ways to wake up, I told him that yes, waking up to a dog eating my face would be marginally worse. Or perhaps someone peeing in my ear. That would rank only slightly worse on the Worse-o-Meter. Here are a few other things I came up with that, in an either/or scenario between my friend Ian disturbing my sleep in the early morning hours and "this really fucked up thing," choosing the "really fucked up thing" would really not be too big of a stretch.

1. Waking up to a very limber circus midget attempting to do a handstand on my kneecaps.

2. Waking up to a psychotic clown attempting to sew my eyelids shut.

3. Waking up to a televisied speech by Dick Cheney.

4. Waking up to someone holding a breakfast tray loaded with poo sandwiches and a giant plate of olives (I fucking HATE olives).

5. Waking up to find that I'm 12 again, and my mom telling me it's time to get ready for school.

6. Waking up to a group of cockroaches having an orgy on the other side of my bed.

7. Waking up to find I am the eighth wife of a Mormon preacher.

8. Waking up to being licked by a carnie with a syphllis-infected tongue.

9. Waking up to find that all music in the world has been replaced by country gospel.

10. Waking up to find I'd had a three-way interlude with George Hamilton and Jared from the Subway commercials, and I'm covered in bronzer and ham juice.

Yeah, those things would only slightly suck more than being texted too early in the morning.

But, thankfully for him, I'm a very forgiving friend.

Prior Art Alert

2008-01-06T12:16:00.000-08:00

My wonderfully supportive of my crazy ideas house mate has advised me that in light of my latest crazy idea (which happens to be a good crazy idea), I need to get it out there so as to establish "prior art" on it, in the event that should someone come up with the same thing, I can bitchslap them into retracting it. I mean, no, I'm not patenting something exactly, but I am creating something. And I don't want anyone else to have it.

What am I creating?

Pocket Frights.

What are Pocket Frights, you might ask? Well, rather than try to just blurt it out, I will tell you how I came up with the idea:

While driving home the other night, I got to thinking about the author James Patterson and his stupid books, and how they all have really gay titles that are actually supposed to be taken seriously, like "Violets are Blue," "Pop Goes the Weasel," and "Step on a Crack." Mine would have really gay titles too, but that would be the actual intention. The title of the first novel would be "Doe: A Deer" and it would be about... well... psychotic deer, of course. I heard in my head the voice of the guy who does the James Patterson book commercials saying in a really low, earnest grumble: "From the brilliant mind of Allison Dickson comes the latest Pocket Fright that will leave you hanging: 'Doe...A Deer.' Are you game?" And I laughed so hard the rest of the way home. After that, I was coming up with other titles based on the same song. Like "Ray: A Drop of Golden Death." And "Far: A Long Long Way to Die." And so on and so forth. They would be very short, bloody, pulpy stories and would be no longer than 50 or so pages, and because I want them to be about the size of Cliff's Notes, where they can basically fit in your pocket, I'm calling them Pocket Frights.

Sure, this sort of thing has been done before, but I think this niche needs something of a revival. I plan on self-publishing them, at least initially. I think this could become a pretty big underground project though, if I stick to my guns. My weaknesses with fiction writing have always been that I have a hard time writing more than 50 or 60 pages before becoming bored. Why not play to my strengths and only write stories of that length? Ones that are fun, enjoyable, and perhaps most importantly: exploitative.

So be on the lookout for Pocket Frights in the upcoming months. I haven't been so excited about an idea since... well, since I started this blog, actually. :)

Termination

2008-01-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

Dear Target,

I first want to thank you for firing me today. As with every bizarre experience I've had since the start of my employment (and there have been plenty), it has provided me with interesting writing material. Like how, for instance, you can give someone a glowing 90-day performance review and then summarily fire them for not following the established formula for days worked vs days called off. I particularly loved the bit that went something like this:

"You have demonstrated abilities that have met and/or exceeded the expectations of a brand Target team member over the 90 day period. You are an eager, friendly team member who has shown great knowledge of the store layout and merchandise, and who has always been quick to respond to situations that require immediate attention. Your attendance record does not meet expectations, however, for a 90 day work period and because of this your services will no longer be required. Sign here and here, and please turn in your name badge and discount card."

I mean, wow. I have to say, I've never felt so simulatenously amused, hurt, indignant, confused, and relieved. I didn't even know such a combination of emotions was possible. I was also kind of in awe of the fascist little algorithm that you use to determine the worth of your employees, almost as if they are pegs on a cribbage board that can be easily removed depending on how the cards play out. I also love how you leave no opportunity for improvement. Like if you noted an area of my performance that was lacking somewhat, you wouldn't give me a chance to rectify it and resubmit for further feedback on the next review cycle. No, if someone fucks up once, they're gone. You don't have time to institute corrective action. You can always just spend more money to hire and train new little red-shirted lemmings! It's also ironic that you're firing me because I've called off three times, and now I'm not going to be there at ALL. I'd say my attendance, or lack thereof, will be a REALLY serious issue now.

I won't lie. I'm going to look rather fondly on this rather short chapter of my life as a Target Team Member. It's not every day that I get to witness human incompetence and petulance on such a grand scale. It was kind of like a little social experiment. Also, I'm going to kind of miss treating generally mundane artifacts and incidents as life-threatening emergencies, like if we do not get someone through a checkout lane in 60 seconds and/or convince them to join the church of credit card debt by applying for a Target Visa, life as we all know it will cease to exist. Another thing for which I'll be pining away as I look wistfully back on my "Brand" period: Being an enabler of spoiled, instant gratification-seeking, myopic consumerism. Because with an "Expect More, Pay Less" motto on almost every single piece of signage throughout your stores, you can be guaranteed that there will never be a shortage of assholes who will be thrown into a panic if they can't simultaneously buy a vacuum cleaner, some suit pants, and a tub of butter while paying less than $50 for doing so.

There was just something sickly gratifying about wearing away the joints of my body and the last vestiges of my sanity and dignity, all so the big wigs at the Target Corporation could make another billion dollars of which I would see only a billionth of a percent in my hand every 2 weeks. Yeah, that was awesome.

I just can't wait to walk your aisles as a paying customer again. It's worth losing my beaucoup 10% discount just so I can re-earn the right to be as insufferable a customer as humanly possible and watch you all scramble to please me. Because remember, it's the guests who are worth something inside the Fast, Fun, and Friendly Target universe, and most certainly not the employees.

Sincerely,

Allie Naga... naga... Nagonna work here anymore.

What do Michael Bay and Hillary Clinton Have in Common?

2008-01-04T09:45:00.000-08:00

They are both excellent representatives of what is wrong with their respective systems.

What don't they have in common?

Michael Bay typically comes in number one at the box office.

Oh, SNAP Hillary! Yesterday must have been a real kick to the nuts. Better luck next time, Mrs. Pants Suit Socialist!

That is all...

Disillusionment

2008-01-02T22:55:00.000-08:00

Despite what the last year and a half's headlines have told you, the Presidential election season hasn't actually started yet. Tomorrow is the official beginning, and it will commence with the much lusted after Iowa caucus. After 8 very long, arduous, soul-destroying (at least for 70% of us) years of George W. Bush in the White House, it's time to bring in some "fresh" blood. It is a process that has in previous cycles excited me. In previous Presidential elections, even before I was actually old enough to vote, I would get involved. I would volunteer for the Democratic party. I'd "Get Out the Vote," if you will. The political process used to light a fire in me that wouldn't be extinguished until after the first Tuesday (after the first Monday, of course) in November.

But something has been happening over the last eight years or so, and this became even more apparent after 2004, and that is a steady increase in my general loathing of American politics. The system is nearing the terminal stage of a cancer otherwise known as greed, and the act of watching these suits pander to the masses with their canned words and painted-on smiles, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, Greens or Libertarians, is nothing short of nauseating. Every single one of these candidates might as well be wearing scarlet dollar signs on their chests, proclaiming out loud their lusty affair with the green stuff and the indignities to which they're willing to subject themselves in order to get it.

Here it is in a nutshell. Winning in American politics comes down to which guy (or gal) with the best personality can raise the most money, and best weild the stock one-liners from their respective party's arsenal of bullshit, in order to gain the right to sit in a chair and "represent you" while actually doing nothing but wasting the money that we all hand them on a silver platter.

All of these "solutions" they talk about, all of the hope they try to instill, all of the ideas and policies they blather on and on about on CNN or during some stump speech in Bum-Fucked Egypt, Arkansas are illusions and parlor tricks. Once you get to the Federal level in politics, the work of actually doing real things for America is over. It's all about fundraising. It's all about the money. Money to feed back into the same broken vending machine that only doles out more and more empty promises. You really want to fix America? Start in your own back yard.

I sound bitter, don't I? Take an American Government class sometime. Learn the way this system was built and the way it was intended to work, and then glimpse mutated, greenbacked beast it's become and you'll probably feel about as depressed about the whole thing as I do.

So I'm staring down the political barrel this year. I've asked myself repeatedly if I want to continue to enable the sickness that festers American politics by actually participating in the voting process. The status quo propaganda where if you don't vote you have no right to complain has grown rather thin on me. At this point, that's like saying that the only way you can cure an alcoholic is to give him more booze. Perhaps if more people held back the bottle, the system might detox itself. Sure, the initial onslaught of the DTs might be a little scary, but we might just come out cleaner on the other side.

Or maybe we'd finally succumb to the totalitarianism that's been lurking in the shadows for years.

Either way, one thing is for certain: I'm sick of this shit. I'm waiting for one of these douchebags to prove me wrong.

For what it's worth, I think Obama or Clinton will be taking Iowa tomorrow.

Celebrity DUI

2007-12-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

Lindsay Lohan, Kiefer Sutherland, Mischa Barton, Vivica A. Fox, Ty Pennington, Michelle Rodriguez, Gary Collins, Haley Joel Osment, Tracy Morgan, Mel Gibson, Shia Lebouf, Nick Nolte, Lindsay Lohan again... and again...

It appears that there is an epidemic attacking that of America's elite: Drinking and driving, or rather, getting caught drinking and driving. What was once a virus that only afflicted that of the "common" folk, the DUI bug appears to have jumped to celebrity-borne status, and one has to wonder what has been the cause of this rather entertaining, schadenfreudic evolution. It's certainly couldn't be that celebrities are drinking more than ever. I don't think such a thing is possible. The phrase "drunk celebrity" has been redundant for decades.

No, I think the problem is that celebrities are driving more. And my only question is: "WHY??"

Is the day of the entourage/bodyguard/driver dying? If I had a few million bucks stashed away in the bank, you could be sure that a giant chunk of that would be donated specifically to paying a guy to drive my inebriated ass to and from the bar. The fact that these very wealthy people aren't doing this boggles my mind.

For whatever reason, they are trying to be "normal." They choose to exit our realm by signing lucrative movie/tv deals, and now they're trying to hone in on our low class, blue collar crimes! Shouldn't they be working on cocaine possession or some Heidi Fleiss-like Hollywood Madam sting ala Charlie Sheen? What about some Martha Stewart-esque insider trading? In other words, the kind of stuff that only rich people get busted for. Notoriety-seeking famous folk are apparently getting lazy.

Are celebrities calling out for help? Maybe the pressures of fame aren't all they're cracked up to be. I think we need another big-time Hollywood scandal to put everything back into perspective. Isn't it time for another washed-up dude to kill his wife in some unbelievably obvious, poorly-executed, only to be found "not guilty" scenario again? Not THAT is Hollywood.

"Playdate" and Other Abominations of the Parental Playbook

2007-12-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

I never realized, when I opted to have children, that I would be handed a membership card to an incredibly competetive culture of child-rearing. Those of you who don't have kids now, or do but who haven't been online (or on the right websites) or picked up a book on parenting in the last ten years might not realize this, but it's war out there, and for those who are currently enlisted to fight in it, these are but a few of the battlefronts from which you can choose:

Breastfeeding or Formula? To Circumcise or Not to Circumcise? Spanking or No Spanking? Vaccines or No Vaccines? Electronic Toys or Old-fashioned? Cribs or Family Beds? Attachment Parenting or Babywise? Cloth diapers or Disposables? Television or No Television?

And whichever side you choose, you are fighting for the ultimate objective: The Perfect Child.

What is The Perfect Child, exactly?

That would be one who always says "please and thank you," who will grow up loving his mother and father, be the star of his or her class, go to Harvard on a scholarship, and become a respected member of whatever career he or she chooses (hopefully a doctor). In other words, a child who will validate the choices that we agonized over for months and years while raising him, a child who will be the living example of everything we did right, who will be the one that will make us look down our noses at in disgust those who did differently and suffered different outcomes. "Well obviously Johnny is a little miscreant. He was formula fed!"

I can't tell you how many times I've seen examples of such arrogance in fellow parents. These are parents who treat their children like leather-bound dayplanners in which they write their best intentions, hopes, and dreams. These are people who raise their children not like dynamic, organic human beings, but more like high-performance vehicles. Machines, in other words. Just like a Mercedes Benz requires an oil change every 3000 miles, Johnny requires his allotment of social interaction three times a week in the form of a "playdate."

A friend of mine asked why I abhor that word. Why it makes me want to vomit every time I hear someone use it. I'll break down everything that the word "playdate" implies for me about modern parenthood and the parents who use it:

1. It is a term that brings corporate sloganeering to parenthood. We've replaced "having a beer after work" with "team-building exercise." And now "getting the kids together" has become "playdate." This is because:

2. Given the changing family dynamic with a typical household requiring two working parents, something as simple and freeform as "play" has to be "penciled in." And we had to give it a cute little name like "playdate." Because it's like a date, isn't it? It's a social scenario where parents have to meet and put their assets (in this case, their children) on display like a status symbol, against which their worth as a caregiver will be measured. If little Johnny has a meltdown, then you have failed a little bit, haven't you? Clearly this is a result of you not letting Johnny sleep in your bed. He's expressing his angst at feeling detached from his mother.

3. The use of "playdate" also implies that you wear really high-cut jeans, embroidered vests, and likely drive a mini-van with little soccer stickers on the back. It implies that whatever hotness you once had that attracted your mate to you and got you pregnant in the first place has morphed into a Stepford-like sterility that is devoid of any and all human appeal. It implies that you have become a Mombot, and that your husband will likely be banging his secretary within three years because your vagina feels like the inside of a doorknob. Again, that's what it implies. If you are not a high-waisted jeans wearer with a doorknob vagina and you use the word "playdate" as part of your daily parental vernacular, you are part of a special minority.

But all that aside, I have noticed a trend in parenting, not only during my tenure as one, but also in the years preceding that. At some point, we forgot about our instincts. At some point, we became convinced that whatever we once thought was right was wrong, and we turned to books written by "experts" to show us the way. At some point, we said to ourselves that we weren't good enough or smart enough to figure out on our own whether we should pick up our babies when they cried, and from that point we looked at every choice we made for them the choice between whether we were raising angels or devils.

I stepped off that particular battlefield long ago, when I realized that even the best choices can produce even the worst results, and I don't merely mean bad children. I mean parents who are douchebags.

A Christmas Memory, or How I knew My Brother was a Psychopath

2007-12-25T10:20:00.001-08:00

As I sit next to a warm fire, basking in the glow of Christmas lights, and gazing upon the multitude of wrapped boxes waiting for the eager hands of two small children, I find my mind wandering back to years of Christmas past...

It was 1987. I was 8 years old. I loved still loved playing with Barbies and Cabbage Patch dolls, but only just barely, for just around the corner were New Kids on the Block, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, CD Players, and Prozac (which I wouldn't end up needing for another 12 years, but it was introduced in 1988 in case you were curious). I worshipped no other God than my 14 year-old brother, who ruled the universe in such a way that I would have probably willed my heart to stop beating if he directed me to do so.

He had been begging for a keyboard that year. You know, a synthesizer/piano deal so he could make like Harvey Hancock... or Yanni. I disremember which, but I do recall his sending me out on a sleuthing, fact-gathering mission to see if such a gift had been procured by my parents. Going to dad was no good. The man invented the word "stonewall," and would probably have been the one guy to not only survive a POW torture camp, but become part of the upper-management during a short tenure. This is a man who, during a small stint in the joint when I was younger, befriended all of the guards by wiring free cable through the jailhouse. Yeah... dad was not bound to break under the strain of an 8-year-old girl asking what her brother got for Christmas.

But mom... yeah, mom was different. Mom had a weak spot, and it was one that was passed down to her daughter. It's the thing that basically turns one's mouth into an open floodgate once one buys a present for another individual.

"Hey mom, what's up?"

"I just got Brandon the keyboard he wanted! Want to see it?"

"Really? Cool! Yeah!"

Like a good little spy with my head stuffed with an eight-year-old's version of a detailed schematic for a semi-advanced keyboard, I went back to my brother and spilled all. I gazed at him adoringly as he told me thank you over and over again. Brother was happy, I was happy. But I was worried. Mom was somehow going to find out I'd told. I just knew it.

"I swear to GOD, Allison, I will not tell Mom. Don't worry."

Of course this was a good two weeks before Christmas. It might as well have been an entire year. I knew that if I didn't do everything my big brother told me to do over that entire "year" that he would tell my mom that I spilled the beans about his big Christmas gift. My mom even came up to me a few times during that "year" and asked: "You didn't tell Brandon about that keyboard, did you?"

"No way, Mom!"

I was such a horrible liar as a child--still am, really--but fear has a way of amping up one's self-preservation skills, and I was terrified and therefore still safe. She didn't ask again. But Brandon had me firmly in the palm of his hand still, and I was his little slave for that short period of time. I couldn't sleep at night without images of my mother's reaction to my treachery flooding my juvenile brain. I saw Brandon opening the big box and simply saying: "I knew I was going to get one of these, thanks to Allison. Cool." And my parents both looking at me saying: "YOU!!"

Then came the big morning. The living room had been transformed into a Toys R Us Wonderland. I had a She-Ra Crystal Castle fully assembled under the tree, with a Barbie Corvette (silver with pink interior) parked in front. Yay for me! I spied the bulky, oblong package just beyond this that I knew was my brother's instrument of tyranny, but would then become my key to salvation once opened, because such forms of blackmail lose power post-holiday. It would also be the last present he opened, just so he could hold the scythe over my little neck just a little longer.

The moment of truth came. Brandon, wearing his new black fedora with the white band around it with his new denim jacket (again, it was 1987, people), started peeling back the shiny paper that held our little secret intact. It was going to be the moment where I was going to become the innocent bystander or the little pariah.

"Oh my god! WOW! Thank you! Thank you!!"

Brandon's elation was so authentic, so convincing, so potent, that I knew his little game of taunting me, at least where that keyboard was concerned, was over. The ways young teenagers scheme to torture their little siblings, after all, are endless.

So... This is Christmas

2007-12-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

It was a holiday that wanted to be more, but couldn't. This Christmas was sullied by much, not the least of which is now a nasty sinus infection/cold that has sapped the Gouda of the final shred of her holiday spirit. But I intend to get rejuvenated tonight, as the wrapping of presents, and the perpetuating of the Santa myth for one more year commences. The father of Gouda's spawn has headed out into the frontier of last-second consumer madness to gather stocking stuffers and fixins for a holiday dinner that I lovingly refer to as White Trash Christmas:

Pigs in blankets
Tater tots
Fruit cocktail... in a can

It's not that we couldn't have done something more fancy. I've given out prime rib recipes to three of my friends, proof that roast beef is the Christmas version of turkey. But the fact of the matter is, we love pigs in blankets around here. We don't eat them very often, and Christmas is, even in this household of non-believer/agnostics, a special occasion. It's also much easier to prepare than prime rib, especially while one's head feels like it's been pumped to 1000 psi. We'll finish it off with some Peppermint Candy ice cream and commence to playing the multitude of board games that we... er... Santa... purchased for the kids this year.

The one I'm most looking forward to? Blokus.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

12 Months of Awesome

2007-12-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

You know, I have a tendency to think this as I'm sitting behind my computer, finding interesting ways to make boring words sound interesting:

I kinda fucking rule.

Yeah, I might not look it. I'm the biggest dork I know, I have a tendency to trip over my own feet a lot (to which my friend Vickie, or rather, Vickie's hair can attest), and when it comes to actually speaking fluent English, I rest at a comfy 4th grade level. But I can definitely write at a 7th grade level, and to me that means something!

It's been another successful year orbiting in the blogosphere, I have to say, and while I'm seeing so many of these "Best Blog of 2007" contests floating about, I see no one basting themselves with the hot juices of self-congratulatory ego-stroking. Well, I'm going to be a pioneer in this, and I hope you will all join me in your covered wagons. I wrote a lot this year. Not quite as much as in 2006, however, because even a superficial fluff junkie like myself has to take a step back once in awhile and evaluate her lifestyle choices. Okay, nothing so reflective. I've simply grown lazy. But I have written enough to compile a little list of my own personal favorites just for you!

If you are relatively new to reading my ~~ultimately inconsequential~~ work, this will be like getting 12 new blogs in one! To the rest of you who have stuck with me in my endeavors to be the most famous writer in a three-block radius, you can reminisce with me instead, and there is nothing quite so heart-warming as getting nostaligc with the precious few bright moments of pure genius I had in 2007. I'm going to pick my favorite blog from every month this year. Some months were slower than others. For instance, I think in April I only wrote 8 blogs. Slim pickins. But it is what it is.

Let's get started, shall we?

January:

I celebrate Martin Luther King day by urging everyone to laugh at black people.

February:

Who can forget my concept for a new reality show entitled American Write-ol? I know I have re-posted this a couple times, but it still gets my vote. Of course that month I also got pretty controversial with my "banish all drug laws" rant, entitled Laws Suck.

March:

Two words: Chocolate Jesus

April:

Taking to race relations yet again, I throw up a big middle finger to Al Sharpton.

May:

I invent a new holiday, and I call it: Irony Day.

June:

This summer, I urged you all to embrace the word "Cunt."

July:

Clearly, I was having a bad month.

August:

In August, I congratulated the Duggar family of Arkansas (in a most sincere way) for birthing their 17th child.

September:

I provide my readers with my 10-Step Guide to Immortality. I also share the harrowing tale of a very naughty monkey.

October:

My first week of working for Target brought some very salient observations.

November:

Between Target Mutants and Touchdown Jesus, November was a rather colorful month. But because of its purely educational shock factor, I think I'm going to have to go with Butt-Hash here.

December:

Granted, there is still a couple weeks left, but I'm going to go ahead and call it. It was a close race between Christmas Todd and the Christmas Light Personality Test.

I think, however, Christmas Todd wins, based merely on the fact that I've never seen people get so worked up over a taco bar.

It was a great year, folks! I look forward to seeing what antics 2008 brings! We do have a Presidential race impending. I have a feeling it will be a political year. Brace yourselves.

You Go to Hell and You Die, Hershey!

2007-12-18T16:20:00.001-08:00

I got a thing about mints in that I kinda love them. I love them so much that I actually wrote something awhile back waxing poetic about three of my favorites. In fact, I'll even quote myself on why I think mints kind of rule, because when you've written as much about inane bullcrap as I have, you earn the right to quote yourself:

"What happens when the garlic in your marinara, the onions on your burger, the pastrami on your rye, or the beer in your glass turns your mouth into a fetid stench cavern that wafts out fumes of chi-destroying sulfuric necrosis with every uttered breath? Reach for a mint, of course!"

Indeed, reach for a mint. There is something inherently satisfying about a good mint, and it's not only because they provide the illusion that your breath smells better than a horse breeder's hand (if you've never seen how horses are bred, you will not get this joke). It's also because they are so goddamn dynamic. How many ways can the essence of the humble mint leaf be delivered to a stinky palate? Well, a lot.

But then Hershey had to come along and do something else. Oh Hershey, WHY couldn't you leave well enough alone? Why did you have to say to yourself: "Yeah, how about we make a minty chocolaty concoction that guarantees Allie will not only be unable to resist scarfing down the whole bag she just bought yesterday, but will ensure that she will be scooping up every last bag from the increasingly bare Target shelves before the end of the holiday season, after which she will be crying for a whole year until we decide to unleash them again in December of 2008? Yeah, let's do that! Because we're cruel and evil and shit!"

This wouldn't be happening, of course, if they had just merely decided to make mint-flavored chocolate kisses. That's simply not interesting enough to keep me entertained. I'm a texture before taste kind of girl, and they KNOW this apparently, which is why they decided to FILL an otherwise boring dark chocolate Hershey's kiss with soft, buttery, creamy, green mint stuff. It's like they married the Andes mint with those Hickory Farms butter mint (which are the head of the confectionery Axis of Evil). This is what their offspring looks like:

You might be asking yourself why I'm writing this. You must think I'm trying to tempt you into buying some delicious Hershey's Mint Truffle Kisses for your own enjoyment. But no. I'm trying to save your souls, people. I'm like the crack addict who has lost her last tooth and is whoring herself to her own relatives in order to score another rock saying "Don't do like I did. Use me as an example."

Consider yourselves warned.

Thursday's Inner-Monologue

2007-12-13T17:28:00.000-08:00

"Who eats this much candy? Honestly?? This is ri-goddamn-diculous, all this Christmas candy we have. Ooh... those cherry cordial Hershey's Kisses do look good."

"Yeah, it's adorable that your five month old can walk... while your back is turned... while she's in between your oblivious ass and my giant flatbed stacked six feet high with boxes of laundry detergent. Okay, it's not so cute at all now, actually. Are you going to turn around? Your kid... she's a goddamn loaf of bread with appendages. And she's in my FUCKING WAY! Turn around! TURN AROUND! TURN--- Thank you, Stupid McTwatbag!!"

"Remember, Allie, make eye contact with the good eye. The GOOD eye!"

"You mean you want the Special Edition Harry Potter movies that are staring you RIGHT IN YOUR FACE? Yeah, those are right here. It's neat how the muscles in our necks can make our heads look up AND down."

"You do realize that the service charge for using your debit card on this item costs more than the little bottle of chocolate sprinkles you're buying, don't you? Mkay, then. Have a good day, Ms. Wall Street!"

"When I said the item was available online only, I thought that kind of settled the need to check other stores, since it says on the computer that it's available online only. And yet here I am on the phone with the Olympia store for you asking if we have an item that is available... online only. Yes, mamn, the toaster you want is available ONLINE ONLY."

"Do we run out of these? Are you serious? No, sir, we NEVER run out of ANYTHING. The shelves just hydroponically grow the products all on their own. Every time you hear a bell ring, that's means Target just sprouted a brand new copy of Mario Party 8."

The List

2007-12-11T17:52:00.000-08:00

I hate Santa Claus. That eerily-congenial fat fuck has forgotten all about the grown-ups. It's almost as if on our seventh or eighth year of life he sneaks into the house to leave us presents and injects us with a serum to make us believe he never existed just so we won't have to be a part of his route anymore. Oh sure, Cringle's just looking out for himself. His sleigh probably has a weight limit (and if the Surgeon General has his way, Claus himself will be taking up less of that poundage) and his jolly little elves have likely unionized by now, forcing him to raise standards for his workers (although if he would just hire young Guatemalen elves, it would make things far simpler), but I wonder if there is some other saint/entity/deity/object of folklore out there for us grown-ups who just want to come out to the living room on Christmas morning and find something under the tree waiting just for us.

I think there is such a person, and I'm going to give him a name: Todd. That's right. Todd. I don't know why. It's just the first name that popped into my head.

So Todd, if you're listening, this is what I want you to leave me for Christmas. I know all of these things sound impossible, but if Santa can fly around the world delivering presents in a single night, these requests should seem quite easy by comparison:

1. A foot massage. By a real person, thank you. Those store-bought mechanical jobs will not do. And I'd prefer that the person doing it only speak English. I don't trust those Asian nail salon people who sit around talking in Korean while they're fucking with my feet. This reminds me of a Seinfeld episode...

2. A taco bar. Yeah, I want to be able have tacos whenever I want, and when I think the word "taco," I want the entire array of fixins to materialize right before me.

3. Karate lessons. This sounds simple, sure, but I will only accept the gift if you first resurrect Pat Morita from his grave. And make sure he's not all decayed and stuff either, because that would be gross. I can't be expected to retain the tenets of Karate such as "wax on/wax off" and "paint the fence" while chunks of skin are falling off my sensei.

4. I want my Christmas tree to be made entirely of corndogs and strung with a garland of cheddar cheese cubes. I don't know why, but those two things just sound really good right now. Have plenty of mustard standing by. Oh and make sure it's hot when I get there too. No sense in eating lukewarm corndogs.

And finally:

5. An iTunes gift card.

I'm not demanding at all. Make it happen, Todd. Make it happen.

After 2 Years, I Bet Ya Didn't Know This...

2007-12-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

A brief list of things that you might not have known about Gouda:

1. I failed Home Ec in the 9th grade. The only type of people who could have worn the clothes that came out of my sewing machine would have been bulbous ghouls born from a crack in the earth who were then slapped into a giant taffy puller. If you shudder to think what such a creature would look like, then you would would have screamed at the sight of my Snoopy sweatshirt.

2. I'm not afraid of Wendy's chili. It's pretty tasty stuff. If there be a human finger in there, then by gum, call me a cannibal.

3. Two grammatical "no-nos" that make me cringe are the misspelling of the word "definitely" as "definately," and the pronunciation of the word "human" as "yooman," as if the "h" is silent, and the speaker has a deviated septum. If you've never before noticed the latter folly, I guarantee you'll be unable to "not" hear it after reading this. I'd also like for you to disregard the irony of my use of a double negative here.

4. There is something that is sort of disgustingly divine about fake nacho cheese. Especially when it's slathered all over a pile of tortilla chips and topped with slices of jalapeno peppers. Genuine cheddar simply cannot substitute for the appeal of this uniquely Amerxican delicacy.

5. I talk to myself. I always have. When I'm doing something that requires multiple steps, I have to say what I'm doing under my breath so I can keep track of where I'm at. Also, I still use my fingers to assist me in counting for math problems. Yeah, I'm sorta retarded.

The Christmas Light Personality Test

2007-12-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

As an amateur psychologist wannabe, I have often felt comfortable (perhaps too comfortable) diagnosing people with all manner of mental pathology. It's gotten easier after a good bit of practice. All it takes is a very close examination of a person's tendencies and nuances and a knowledge of some clinical vocabulary. Psychologists employ many tools to help gauge people's personalities and other pathologies, from administering written tests, to whipping out the trusty Rorschach inkblots.

But I'm here to present a more seasonally appropriate way to determine whether someone is suffering from a mental illness, and that is by examining the state of their Christmas light displays. Now, of course, such a test comes equipped with certain drawbacks. For instance, there is not a single shread of scientific verifiability here. Like the Rorschach, the Christmas Light Personality Test (CLPT) is subject to the interpretation of the test-taker. But I'll provide you with a basic guide that will help you to become real-life psychoanalysts as you drive through your neighborhood at night during the months of November, December, January... and sometimes March or April. If you live in one of those latter neighborhoods, this test won't help. Consider those citizens beyond help and promptly move.

1. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
The minimal, monochromatic display exhibits the decorator's repressed sexuality. If the homeowner is a woman, she likely wears her hair pulled back in a tight bun, and pairs this with long skirts, support hose, and scratchy wool cardigans. The male is equally conservative and regimented in his form of dress, and is possibly repressing homosexual tendencies. Expect to see an abnormally large number of cats inside this home.

2. The Anally Expulsive
The anally-expulsive decorator, in opposite polarity to the anal retentive one, exhibits elements of disorganization and carelessness caused by being very liberally potty-trained as a toddler. It is also possible that people who decorate this way have experienced trauma that have forced them to regress to the age of five, when such a display would have been the pinnacle of winterland fantasy. Or, and this is the more likely explanation, this person is addicted to meth and strung up these lights in the midst of a 4-day ride on the dragon.

3. The Projectionist
After intense study of the image being displayed on the decorator's home, it can be determined this person will likely insist that you are a tacky, retarded individual who puts crappy, amateur Christmas decorations on your house when they are really just talking about themselves.

4. The Matrix
This decorator was presented with a red pill, which would extract him from a computer-generated mind program designed to enslave humanity, and a blue pill which would make him blissfully ignorant of the "real world." He eventually chose the blue pill, but his subconscious mind continues to replay buried memories of his experiences fighting bad guys called Agents, and looking at the world through a cascade of computer code, which is manifested by the above light display.

5. The Compensator
Penis, stature, bank account. You name it.

6. The Acrophobic
The untouched second story indicates that this decorator was loathe to install lights with the assistance of a ladder, likely due to a fear of heights. Either that, or the house is occupied by midgets. Midgets afraid of heights. Or midgets without a ladder. Perhaps both.

7. The Dissociative Identity
The disproportionately large numbers of inflatable and light-up figures in this person's yard suggests a subconscious expression of the decorator's myriad of personalities. The large snowman in the middle represents the dominant personality, suggesting that the person is rather cold-hearted, yet vulnerable to change.

8. Dashed Hopes
The decorator aimed high, yet encountered an insurmountable obstacle, rendering the once ambitious display incomplete. Or, maybe the person who was hanging the lights suffered at the hands of a rickety ladder, and the surviving spouse decided to light the remainder as a tribute to the fallen.

9. Gender Confusion
The decorator of this home is a transvestite. Here we witness the subconscious struggling with the masculine rigidity of the blue lights and the feminine flamboyance of the multi-colored festivity bedecking the window.

10. The Phallus
Need I say more?

Twilight

2007-11-28T20:48:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to write about this today. After all, how predictable could I get, right? I was going to have my first day of CNA clinicals and just kind of let it pass. In fact, I challenged myself NOT to write about it.

Then, I experienced the day and realized that if I didn't write about it, two things would happen: I would go out of my mind, and I would not get a passing grade for my class. We have to turn in a journal about our experiences. I guess an edited down version of what I'm about to write here will suffice.

The last time I felt as anxiously unsure about something was probably right before I had Natalie. Only this kind of anticipation was worse because there is some kind of maternal instinct involved in having a baby, some kind of natural guidance system kicks in when you hold the newborn in your arms that tells you what you need to do. Sure, you might not do it very well at first, but with practice you get better. What I realized as I spent the day working in the Alzheimer's wing of the Panorama City Convalescent and Rehabilitation Center was that those same maternal instincts kick in while caring for 98-year-olds who can no longer chew their food, remember their own names, and require the use of diapers and sippy cups. Only this instinct doesn't quite fit, because in spite of all those infantile things, you're still dealing with adults. These people have children old enough to be my parents. These people, amid the befuddled haze through which they now see most of the world, still maintain just enough cognitive ability to know that what they once took for granted has been irretrievably lost. They are lurking in the fading twilight of their once vibrant existences.

Today, I fed a 95 year old Navy Admiral pureed peas and wiped drops of milk from his chin as he nearly slept through most of his meal. I diapered a 105 year old woman who was once a well-known orthopedic surgeon who now thinks she lives in Idaho. I applied lotion to the bony bottom of another woman who used to be the head of the Red Cross who now spends her afternoons asking what time the church service starts. I held the arthritic hand of a woman who taught high school English Composition for 40 years who can now only speak in unintelligible grunts. I looked at her knotted joints beneath a vast network of veins and skin that resembled shiny parchment and nearly wept.

Yesterday, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in my own left hand. What would it look like in another 50 years? Twisted and useless? Would my words be the same as well?

Today was a day where I was battling back such questions and the torrent of tears that wanted to follow them, where I had to remind myself that now was not the time to face the question my own mortality. Now was the time to provide these people with the smiles and energy they need to see themselves through the final act of their lives with dignity. And I had to admit to myself that while the idea of being dead is scary to me, the process of dying--of deteriorating, of losing my strength, my coordination, my talents, my memories--is inconceivably terrifying.

Thursday I will be working in a different wing of the center. It is my goal to be instilled with more hope, or at least replace that which has been sucked from me after one day of doing this.

Oh Jesus, That's Funny!

2007-11-26T19:52:00.000-08:00

The Solid Rock Church in Mason, OH was always something of a trivial little monstrosity at which I would always gawk while traveling on I-75 either on my way to visit my grandparents in Hamilton or to a ballgame in Cincinnati. With its giant, lighted sign and elaborate Spanish mission architecture, it always seemed to my rather godless senses to be something like a comedic caricature of Christianity, an example of what's wrong with religion in this country, and the place to which I'd only rather go after being sprayed in the mouth with AIDS-tainted blood from a battalion of vampire crack whores in the middle of a Chuck E. Cheese full of screaming, puking preschoolers armed with spiked Whack-a-Mole bats on a 130 degree day. In other words, Solid Rock Church was really not my cup of tea.

Then, I moved away from Ohio, and I knew that if I was going to miss one thing, it wasn't going to be that ostentatious House of Gaud stinking up the countryside between Dayton and Cincinnati. What I didn't realize, however, was that the congregation was cooking up something special at ol' SRC. And that something?

Touchdown Jesus.

Now, this was not the intended name of the Christ-like sculpture rising from a reflective pool (or perhaps sinking into it like the Terminator into the molten steel at the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day), but that is the label that has been bestowed upon this holy terror (and by "holy terror," I don't mean the 2-year olds who designed it), and in my opinion, it's GOOOOOOOD!

Sorry... I couldn't help myself.

But now I present a YouTube video someone made commemorating this Craptastic Christ Being Sucked Down the Drain. If ever I think this statue had a purpose, it was to make the rest of us laugh. I just hope that the folks at Solid Rock Church aren't suffering from the additional delusion of thinking that they are being laughed with.

I'm Here and Alive and Such!

2007-11-26T08:32:00.000-08:00

Busy times call for non-bloggery measures, it seems. But all is well, actually! I survived (barely) working for Target on Black Friday. It was, to say the least, a rollercoaster of a day that began with me getting nearly puked on by a baby and ended with me getting my purse stolen. The good thing is, my car keys and my phone weren't in it. The bad thing is there was a good bit of cash in it. I have once and for all sworn off purses. This has happened to me so many times throughout my life that a purse is a liability. I'm going to revert to my man-like solution and just carry everything in my pockets. Last time I checked, people can't steal my pockets.

I have finished the classroom portion of my nurses aide training, and tomorrow I move on to step 2, the clinical rotations. For 5 days I will be working in a residential care center for the elderly. Part of me is welcoming this opportunity and the other half, in complete polarity it seems, is dreading it. I'm hoping that I will find a more suitable middleground by the end of the first day, and by the fifth and final day actually be looking forward to working as a CNA.

And for those who want to see a great movie, the best one of the year in fact, make a bee line to the theater to see No Country for Old Men. The Coen brothers have outdone themselves Fargo-style. You can check my review at The Reel Gouda.

Holiday! Celebrate!

2007-11-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

I only have a few days left to do this, after which it really won't matter what I say because the media talking heads will take over with their annual mental masturbations on what has happened to the Christmas holiday over recent years, and how it's been polluted and corrupted, etc etc.

I've got only one thing to say as the Christmas Cry Babies start opening their flapping yaps this Holiday (yes, that's right, I said HOLIDAY) Season:

Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Your holiday, Christmas, isn't going ANYWHERE! Oh yes, the occasional school will ban a Christmas tree (which is the kind of story that Fox News will skull fuck into oblivion) and sometimes a checkstand lackey, who only makes minimum wage to put up with your petulant bullshit, will say "Happy Holidays!" instead of "Merry Christmas!" as they hand you the receipt for your shopping cart full of goods for the alter of the Consumerism God we all worship this time of year, (which, by the way, takes away your right to complain about the disappearance of Christ from Christmas), but that doesn't mean that Christmas is going the way of the dinosaur, or into the den of relative obscruity that is Kwanzaa or Hanukkah.

In case you didn't notice, stores started bedecking their shelves and rafters with Jesus Birthday Party Favors in the form of garlands, tinsel, and Nintendo Wiis on November 1st, which is nothing short of a record. But of course some would complain that this is just a greedy impulse on the part of retailers to get a jump on the credit card holders. But have you noticed that stores aren't the only people following this trend. In my neighborhood, I've been seeing the twinkle of Christmas lights since the day after the witches and ghouls of Halloween wrapped up business for the year. Christmas, the holiday that so many are complaining is disappearing, seems to have come a full three weeks early this year!

So face it, folks, Christmas (not just generic Holidays) but CHRISTMAS is everywhere. I haven't seen Stars of David hanging around in Target, and those crazy Negroes aren't out to "Kwanzaafy" your celebrations with their pimp-looking clothes from what I've noticed either. And if all these festivities aren't holding to the "tradition" enough for you, stay home or go to church! That's where the "spirit" of Christmas is supposed to reside, anyway! Not Target, not JC Penny, not Best Buy. They shouldn't be put in the awkward position to glorify your holiday anymore than they already do with their shiny decorations and reduced prices.

Several weeks ago, I read that Washington's Governor Christine Gregoire declared the final week of October Christian Heritage Month. I suppose that the proceeding 8 weeks weren't going to be enough.

Yeah, you poor Christians... So oppressed.

The Target Has Eyes

2007-11-17T16:02:00.000-08:00

It all started in the parking lot this morning as I was rushing to get into the building. In front of me was a family of five. They were having difficulty wrangling their wayward children and were blocking my path into the door. As I went to maneuver around the wife, I said: "Pardon me."

She turned around. I stifled a gasp, but inside I was shrieking. This woman was perhaps the most horrifying looking creature I'd seen in months. Pock marks littered her complexion. A dark mustache to rival that of Juan Valdez rested mightily on her upper lip. She had a lazy eye. I routed quickly around Sideshow Shelly and went into work.

Upon clocking in, I went into the breakroom to grab something to drink before starting my shift. There was a whole group of new employees sitting in there waiting for the start of orientation. One of them was a hulking brute of a man with a face that wouldn't even qualify for radio, that is if he'd looked like he'd had a spark of personality behind eyes that looked like raisins pushed into bread dough. Next to him stood another slack-faced newbie. This one was a woman. At least I think it was a woman. In my mind, I immediately named her Andy, short for "Androgenous." I walked by Andy and it smiled at me and said hello. The timbre of its voice was also not indicative of gender. I nodded hello and smiled as I passed by. I hoped internally that my smile did not look like a bad case of stomach cramps.

In the stationary section, I was approached for help by a man with a laryngectomy box. A few minutes later in sporting goods, I saw a woman with a goiter about twice the size of my fist protruding from her neck. For a brief moment, I thought she had two heads. I scurried quickly away before she could ask me anything.

About an hour later, in cosmetics, a woman with an armload of items asked if I could get her a shopping cart. I stood up from the squatting position I was in (I was stocking a low shelf), and looked at her. The pile of lipgloss I was holding in the crook of my arm almost hit the floor. The woman had a giant purple bruise of some sort on her chin, which was haphazardly covered by a bandage. I didn't know what happened. Didn't want to know.

Just before lunch, I was called up to be a back-up cashier. I welcomed the reprieve from working the floor, because by this point, I was convinced I was missing some major holiday. You know, the one that welcomes all of the town mutants to come out and shop at Target for the day. When I'm cashiering, I'm rarely looking the customer in the eye. I'm looking for barcodes.

And then she came through my lane. The Queen Mountain Troll of Lacey, WA with her little Troll-ettes in tow. Next to this one, Miss Purple Chin looked like a beauty pageant contestant. Rather than look at this one, I would rather have gone on an intimate date with Throat Hole Guy and perhaps joined him in a threesome with the Door Ghoul from earlier this morning. What got me about this woman was not merely that she was the kind of ugly that made my eyeballs vomit. It's that she elected to procreate and pass this affliction onto innocent babies who were, by all accounts, 100% her children. Even more disturbing is that SOMEONE out there procreated with her. The collective gene pool there was likely polluted with the black ichor of Satan's worst nightmares.

It's not that I think I'm am the epitome of gorgeous. Anyone who knows me can pretty much vouch for the fact that I likes all kinds. But for the love of all things aesthetic, what happened today? Was there some kind of group telepathy among the societal underbelly today that said: "Meet at Target." Was there a nuclear accident around here I haven't yet heard about?

I need to see some beautiful people, stat!

The Student Becomes the Teacher

2007-11-16T20:16:00.000-08:00

The Assignment:

Prepare a term paper and presentation on a health condition from the list of topics given by the instructor. The presentation must include a visual aid and you will be working with a partner.

When I saw Depression listed as one of the health conditions, I signed up for it immediately. After all, it's a condition in which I'm well-versed, and I knew it would require minimal work and research on my part. I was pretty bummed about having to work with a partner, though. When it comes to large class projects, I overwhelmingly prefer to work alone. It's not that I'm an attention hog so much as I don't like my grade hinging on someone else's ability (or inability) to do their share of the work. And as it typically turns out, I am usually the default worker bee in most groups. I have no problem pulling my own weight. I just hate pulling everyone else's. As luck would have it, my partner dropped the class on the third week in. I was elated.

I was also elated by the fact that my presentation would be the last one of the quarter. This would allow me to perform my favorite hobby longer than anyone else in the class: procrastination. It would also give me the chance to observe other people's work to see what I could build upon.

Of course, November 16th, the date that looked another universe away in September, rolled quickly around, and in the weeks that spanned between today and the first presentation 7 weeks ago, I saw much. The majority of it consisted of wooden, monotone deliveries read verbatim from the term papers themselves. When questions were presented from the class, they were met with looks of bewilderment and pleas of help to the back of the class where our teacher was perched and steeped in two parts boredom and one part disappointment. Idle chit-chat fluttered throughout the class during the presentations, indicating a general lack of interest from the students. This really did not bode well. It would take a lot to hold these people's attentions, and I had my work cut out for me.

Not all of the presentations were like that, of course. Last week one of my classmates gave a lecture on cardiovascular disease that was absolutely stellar. It was fun, informative, and people were generally enthusiastic about it.

In classic "Allie" fashion, I crammed for about three days this week and put the finishing touches on everything around 1:30 this afternoon. I reviewed what I'd forgotten about Depression (it's been awhile since my last Psychology class) and even gleaned some new tidbits on the disorder. My confidence in the subject matter, however, did nothing to dissolve the giant waves of anxiety that were rolling from my brain down to the pit of my stomach today.

I thought to myself that perhaps the previous presentations were "wooden" because the students, who were previously enthusiastic, froze when they got before the class. All those peering eyes have a tendency to induce that classic "deer in headlinghts" phenomenon. The certainty that I was going to be able to convey the deluge of information on this disorder I'd prepared in a clear, concise, and interesting manner was dwindling with every tick of the second hand in the minutes before I started.

Something was going to go wrong. The computer from which I'd present my Power Point was going to fail and I'd be without my slides. I would be stuck with the crappy index cards I'd written as a back-up, which I would of course drop onto the floor and scatter in a hundred directions and never be able to re-assemble into a coherent order. Maybe I would develop a sudden stuttering habit due to my suddenly forgetting every iota of information I'd stored in my brain on this subject over the last two years. Perhaps sweat would start pouring in freshets down my forehead and my armpits, and I'd dissolve into a fit of hysterical laughter, and everyone would remember me as Chuckles the Sweaty Stuttering Depression Monkey.

I loaded Power Point. It worked fine. I dimmed the lights, and strategically placed my dry erase markers to be within easy reach of the whiteboard. All eyes were on me, and it was my turn to dance.

To my amazement, the nervousness I felt was incredibly malleable. It wasn't the first time I'd "performed" in front of an audience, but it had been awhile. I could feel this white-hot ball of terror inside me that I initially thought I could only quell with running away start to spit out strands of words and knowledge that I felt certain would allude my grasp only five minutes earlier. As the lecture continued, I became more confident. I maintained eye contact with everyone throughout the room. I moved fluidly between two boards where I drew diagrams of neurons and precisely described the chemical mechanisms behind three classes of anti-depressant medications. I fascinated the class with how the concept of "learned helplessness" was brought about by electrocuting dogs. I dispelled myths about suicide and spewed out more statistics than John Madden before halftime. Every shred of information I'd hoped to share with the class was suddenly so available to me that it was almost as if a little gremlin in my brain were feeding it to me word for word. The back-up cards and supplemental information I had on the podium before me were left ignored, unneeded. It wasn't "me" up there. It was like I was on autopilot. The frightened, self-conscious girl I was before the presentation was lying curled in a fetal position in the back of my mind. This new girl--WOMAN, rather--spoke with authority and confidence. I was not merely sharing what I'd read in a book. I was TELLING them what I KNEW.

One thing that was occurring to me throughout the lecture, though, was that no one was saying a word, neither to me nor to anyone else in the room. There was scattered laughter at my lame jokes and some gasps when I mentioned the suicide rates among the elderly, and there were a few random questions from the students, but otherwise the room was amazingly quiet. I took this as boredom among my classmates until I completed the slideshow and asked if there were any questions. Suddenly the room was filled with enthusiastic applause. REAL applause. And praise! "Awesome job!" "Wow!" Etc etc...

This feeling of utter euphoria spread through my mind like a salve to my frayed nerves. All of the last-minute work actually paid off! All of the time spent studying this stuff over the last two years actually paid off. A bunch of the people commented afterward on how confident I looked and how much information I knew off the top of my head, how much they had learned, and how interesting it all was. My teacher asked if I moonlighted as a psych professor. I told her I wished. Maybe one day.

When I got back to my desk, when all of the excitement died down, I noticed there was a giant boulder sitting on my desk. It was the one that had just rolled off my shoulders.

Down to the Wire. A Very Frayed Wire.

2007-11-14T18:37:00.001-08:00

As a student, I absolutely loathe this time of year. An entire quarter's worth of dilly-dallying finally starts to feel serious and rushed. Things that were supposed to be covered in class end up being skipped in the interest of time, big assignments that were given on the first day are very soon due, preparing for the final exam commences, and it all culminates around a major holiday that always seems to get the short shrift when one is a night student -- Thanksgiving. Add a job, kids who would like to see their mother NOT an exhausted piece of crap, various writing projects, and friends into the mix and you have the perfect recipe for a human explosive device.

I'm going out of my gourd, to say the least. I have a major project due on Friday that I got a huge start on last night. Anyone who knows me and my procrastinating ways is well aware of the fact that this is a major change in the norm for me, but as I looked at my week ahead, there was, quite literally, a major absence of available time in which to concoct this paper and presentation. So I finally got most of it done last night. The paper is completed. It's rough as hell, but I don't care about that. This is not a writing class, and I'm not out to score points for artistic merit. After this is done, I have one last "quiz" (which is really a 50 question exam) and then, 2 days later my lab final from 3-5pm (which falls the day before Thanksgiving, which is SO convenient!), and following that my 200 question cumulative final exam! And then, and THEN 2 weeks of clinical rotations!!

All other things that are immensely important to me will be sitting on the back burner until about mid-December. So if anyone asks me questions like: "How are things coming along with your divorce?" or "Have you finished those submissions you were working on for such-and-such publication?" or "Do you know what time it is?" I'm going to flip the fuck right out of my skin.

But other than that, everything is great!

2-Year Gouda

2007-11-10T09:36:00.001-08:00

Last year, I inexplicably forgot to commemorate Memoirs of a Gouda's 1 year anniversary. In fact, I didn't actually remember that I'd been around that long until my friend Matt-Man celebrated his, and in my mind I went: "Hey! I got a 6-month jump on this clown! I didn't do a 1-year post! Oh well. There's always the 2 year."

Technically, I wrote my first post on MoaG on November 8th of 2005, but I let the thing sit for about another week before I started to get serious about updating it daily. The second post came on November 14th. So I figured I'd pick a time between the two dates to do a sort of retrospective on the evolution of Gouda. Not only the website, but the crazy lady behind the scenes.

How does anyone write the very first post on their new website without sounding like a dork? Well, I'd tell you, but I don't think I escaped this fate. This is the first thing I ever wrote on Blogger:

I'm not new to the world of blogging, but I am new to the world of Blogger.

After traversing the great world wide web for a place to openly pontificate my whatevers and whathaveyous, struggling with web-building software for Dummies, I've finally decided that now was the time to throw myself on the mercies of the pre-baked bloggery known as Blogger.com.

What could be easier? What could be better for the world at large than yet ANOTHER Mir-like object in the "blogosphere"? Oh yes- my ego tells me that I am gonna rock your world, Congenial Reader!

I am still taken by my own cleverness there with the whole astronomy double-metaphor, using "blogosphere" coupled with comparing my own blog to a crappy Russian space station that came hurtling toward earth. Perhaps the comparison was a tad inaccurate. I'm still here! I mean, sure, my activity has tapered off a bit over the last 24 months, but rest assured, Congenial Readers, I am going nowhere.

That is because blogging is my junk. Some people do Butthash. I write. There is a distinction made by the fact that I smell much better than fermented feces and piss, but the effect of writing for you all is just as euphoric.

But let's dedicate the rest of this open space to a little bit of real reminiscing. Let's first start with The Gouda herself. She sure has changed a lot over the last 2 years. This is what she looked like in 2005:

And here is Gouda in 2007. Oh how young I looked! How fresh! How naive! The effects of two years of ~~drinking copiously~~ blogging have been staggering:

Or more accurately:

The website itself has also morphed a bit over the years. We changed the layout from the standard Blogger 2-column blandness to 3 columns of cheesy lovin'. The layout is actually going to be changing again very soon. It's been this way for the better part of a year. Gouda also acquired her very own domain name, memoirsofagouda.com, which just sounds so damned official.

In the last two years, I have made a slew of new buddies, and I have also brought a few of my pre-existing friends from a life of relative normality to the soul-sucking endeavor known as blogging, with my dearest friend Chris, via These are Me Thinks, and Matt-Man with Bagwine Ruminations, among them. Please read their blogs if you don't already. They are smart (well, Chris is, anyway) and they write very well. They wouldn't be my friends otherwise. If I have forgotten anyone else I have helped to pull over to the dark side, please boost The Gouda's insufferable ego and let her know!

And now, let's get to the true intention behind this Happy Blog-o-versary post--the writing. I'm going to post a few of Gouda's Greatest Hits to show what a blowhard...er... well-versed writer I truly am.

This is why the Gouda hates hippies.

And then there was this time she taunted the Department of Justice.

Although to be fair, this is the post that brought them to her blog in the first place. Want to avoid the attention of the authorities? Don't post about meth.

And we can't forget about the time she commemorated Sigmund Freud's 150th Birthday!

The Gouda then deals with her trauma over Pluto no longer being a planet.

And pays tribute to another historical cornflake, John Harvey Kellogg.

That's just a smidge of the range of subjects I've covered over the years. Luckily for you, my archives are very easily accessed. There honestly isn't much I haven't written about in two years, but I'm convinced that more subjects will show themselves. This is my drug, and all of you are my enablers, and for that I thank you -- for sticking with me, for all the times you challenged me, and perhaps most of all for all the times you agreed with me.

Here's to two more years. Perhaps by then, I'll be getting paid for this shit.

Target and The E(xc)lusive Sock Monkey

2007-11-08T15:59:00.000-08:00

There is a question that you will hear more than any other during a typical work day at Target, and it's not "Can I help you find something?" By the way, that aforementioned question is actually trademarked by the Target Corporation. So you'd better mail your nickel to them should you ever think to use it outside their venerated doors, but I digress.

No, the question you will hear asked most at Target these days is:

"Do you have any sock monkeys?"

Or there are variations:

"Where are your sock monkeys?"

"When are you going to get in more sock monkeys?"

"CAN I PLEASE HAVE A SOCK MONKEY?!"

The answer to these questions right now are as follows:

"No"

"I don't know."

"I wish I knew."

and

"NO! TAKE A NUMBER, BITCH! Er... Sorry, no."

I remember a couple weeks ago when I was working in the backroom, and I opened a fresh box of these rather benign looking creatures. Sure, they were kind of cute and I thought to myself how much my kids would love to have one. See?

What I didn't realize was that everybody in town would be thinking the same thing. As a result, every single sock monkey we had in stock at both the Olympia and Lacey stores would be scooped up faster than you could say: "Doesn't 'sock monkey' sound kind of perverted?"

The thing is, this is a Target Exclusive item, so it makes it particularly painful to hear the huffing sighs of disappointed customers when we tell them we are completely out of them and can offer them no other alternatives than to wait and come back next week.

But what is the appeal, you might be thinking? Why a sock monkey? My first guess is that it looks like a pretty safe toy. In a modern world where most childhood play things will present your kids with the potential for lead poisoning and the accidental ingestion of the date rape drug (see the latest craze: Aqua Dots), the sock monkey reminds us of simpler times, times when wooden blocks or the abacus were the hottest toys on the shelves, and splinters in your fingers (or coma from sheer boredom) were the biggest risks from playing with them.

Why do I want a sock monkey, though?

Simple, really.

La Scimmia Mortale wants a playmate.

Who REALLY wants to get wasted?

2007-11-06T17:42:00.001-08:00

The human pursuit of elevating one's state of mind has been in existence since humans have had minds to elevate. Whatever part of the brain that has the ability to process stimuli differently from that of more primitive animals also has the tendency to become dissatisfied with said stimuli in its unaltered state. As a result, we turn to substances like alcohol or marijuana in order to feel happier or more alive. I'm not judging these people, necessarily. I have a passion for vodka that is rivaled only by those who say "and I'm an alcoholic" after giving their names, and I admit fully that nothing makes me quite so content with my life as a dose of Percocet, but I tend to draw the line and more illicit substances (cocaine and heroin) don't interest me in the slightest.

Others are unsatisfied with the carnival freakshow of consumable delights available in the drug world, and they get creative. They crush up some Sudafed, mix it with some bleach, cook it up on a stove, and smoke the residue. The result? Methamphetamine, of course. Crack open an aerosol can, a tube of rubber cement, or remove the cap from a Sharpie and you can even get a little high off of that. The possibilities are endless.

But let's get down to the nitty gritty. And folks, it doesn't get much grittier than this. A good friend of mine who is privy to information from the law enforcement community passed along something he got from an intelligence bulletin the other day about the latest thing the kids are cooking up to get high. In fact, it's something that each and every one of us has easy access to. I bet you had no idea that your own body was its own walking and talking drug lab.

What am I talking about? Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce you to Jenkem, otherwise known as "Butthash."

Yes, that's right. Butt. Hash. This is no joke.

Butthash is made by combining fecal matter and urine in a bottle, placing a balloon over the opening, allowing proper time for fermentation, and finally huffing the collected gases. What results is apparently a feeling of nearly immediate euphoria (or "ewwwphoria," as the case may be) followed by a period of intense hallucinations.

There are so many things I can say about this revelation. In fact, I've known about this little gem of information for a few days now and have held back on writing about it because I was experiencing the writer's equivalent of "kid in a candy store" syndrome.

Do I talk about the repercussions of attempting to regulate the use of Butthash? Sure, we can limit sales on decongestants in order to stimy the production of meth. We can make aerosol cans that can't don't double as free whippits for broke, bored teenagers. But when it comes to Butthash, what are we going to do? Limit the amount of fiber you can purchase to products containing no more than 5 grams? Will Metameucil be the next thing to hit the black market? Will we make it illegal to eliminate our waste into anything other than government-approved containers that must be immediately shipped off to clandestine processing facilities?

Also, what does the existence of Butthash say about our society and how we've handled our drug problem? Wouldn't things be simpler if we just went ahead and made pot legal? For crying out loud, if you want to get high, wouldn't it just be a hell of a lot less disgusting and more dignified to walk down to the 7-11 and pick up a pack of Mary Janes instead of shitting and pissing into a beaker and waiting a few hours to inhale the fetid stench?

Regardless, I don't see the problem of Butthash going away anytime soon. In fact, I can see this cutting into the sales of the friendly neighborhood drug lords. How could it not when someone's next high could be no farther away than a box of Triscuits and a slammer of Mountain Dew?

Either way, the problem of Butthash is very real and imminent.

I shit you not.

Melting Gouda

2007-11-04T23:10:00.001-08:00

So so so so busy. That is really all that can describe my life lately. I need to take down the Halloween decorations here on the site. Meanwhile the dishes are piling up on the counter. There is so much funny and interesting stuff with which I want to regale you, but that will unfortunately have to wait another day or two. In the meantime, entertain yourself with my review of the new movie American Gangster, and watch this video.

My Friend Chris

2007-10-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Meet Chris. A lot of his friends call him Army, but I always have and always will call him Chris.

I've known him since he was about a foot shorter and had a not-as-manly sounding voice. In other words, since we were both about 13 and total dorks. He's been my friend for about 15 years, but he's been my best friend for nearly 10 of those, and in that time, he's been for me an immense source of laughter, inspiration, entertainment, support, and sheer awe. He's also easily in the Top 3 of the Top 10 Smartest People I Know (list still under construction). The latter half of our teenage years were spent playing hours-long marathons of Diablo II and Starcraft, having discussions on our various writing projects (we even attempted to write a novel together once, but I won't discuss that atrocity here), and spending even longer hours laughing about and quoting our favorite films, particularly The Big Lebowski.

Make no mistake about it, though. We're pushing 30, and we still do ALL of those things whenever we get to to see each other.

But of the multitude things I love about being friends with Chris, it has got to be without a doubt our ability to insult one another relentlessly. I don't know why we do this, exactly, but we've been engaging in this juvenile behavior since the beginning. We seem to particularly like portraying people with various personality disorders. It just comes naturally to us, and it exercises our need to be creative, I suppose. It's also just fucking funny. Especially when he does it, because he's a virtuoso at it. By the time I've broken from character and am laughing hysterically, he's still on a roll.

But I can't compete with Chris. I won't even try.

I could write a whole book on all of our exploits, but what I really want to focus this blog on is the birthday card he sent me this year. As soon as I read it, I felt like the luckiest friend on the planet. Here was the set-up:

Now that right there was fucking funny! The perfect kind of card for someone like me, really. And then came the special birthday message:

I know it's really hard to read, so I'll go ahead and transcribe it:

"Don't expect any special treatment because you were born on this day many moons ago. I mean, damn. The ego on you. It's like, "Ooh, how much attention can the world pay to me on my oh-so-special day?" It's not like you accomplished anything. Earn an achievement or something and then we'll talk about congratulations. Although this does remind me of a dream I had of you in which you were a colorful pinata and I was clubbing you open to snatch up your candy innards. That felt pretty great. So maybe that's my happy birthday to you. There. Are we even now? Or are you going to be one of those spilled-milk, it's-my-party cry babies? Frankly, I don't want to hear it. I've got enough on my mind, so I can't be here to babysit your feelings. You are just out of control, aren't you? Diva, what's next? Gonna show your "Britney" to the world and on TV and shave your head? Typical. Then you'll blame me, I imagine. Just remember that life is unfair and full of pain and agonizing memories that will chase you to your grave and haunt your mind to its wits end. And then you perish. Yep, you are perishable every bit as much as a piece of fruit. Tick-tock. Your shelf-life is expiring. Soon, it's fade to black. But don't lay awake fearing its arrival. Let it kidnap you in a moment of startling terror. That's what I recommend. That's my wisdom to share. Pass it on if you'd like. But don't wait too long. Time isn't on your side.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Now, maybe you'd have to know him and me, and how we are when we're together in order to truly understand why I was laughing aloud like a giddy mental patient while I was reading this. Perhaps it was enhanced by the fact that I had to turn it in circles in order to read it and it was making me dizzy.

Regardless, I freakin' love this guy. This was the best birthday present.

Fun on Gouda's Birthday? There was Nun...

2007-10-29T19:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you all after tantalizing you with the idea of me donning the ultimate garb of blasphemy, but it seems that the powers that be decided to reward my good humor with a spot of common cold goodness. I suppose it could have been worse, when you consider the following:

I don't think the above picture was all that bad. I was merely showing my passion for the word, after all. I had no idea what was REALLY tucked between the pages of Leviticus, but I have to admit that it has been awhile since I've read the Bible.

Nay, I wasn't doing the work of Satan. In fact, I was spending plenty of time smiting his minions.

I also discovered that there is not a damn thing wrong with a nun enjoying a little beer.

I mostly just stuck to my Holy Vodka with a little bit of Ethereal Tonic Water mixed in. Notice how I can fit that AND my Bible in the same hand? That's called good practice.

But in the end, I mostly enjoyed the company of my amazing friends, who made this one hell of a birthday celebration.

Until next year... Who knows what evil we'll stir up.

I Don't Want to Start Any Blasphemous Rumors...

2007-10-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

But I think that Gouda has a sick sense of humor.

Tonight is the night of Gouda's Birth-o-Ween shindig at the favorite local watering hole. I might have mentioned before that I'm going as a nun. Of course, not just any ordinary nun.

Let's just say that my friends and I have taken a traditional nun costume and cooked up something a little on the unorthodox side. If you are a religious (or Catholic) person, you might not want to get within touching distance of me. The G-O-D Man has me in the crosshairs of His Lightning Bolt-o-Matic sniper rifle, and I wouldn't want you to get burned.

Gouda Superior will be blessing drunken lambs with condoms and Holy Vodka, slapping their wayward hands with a red ruler, and reading them verses from a tattered Bible filled with cut-outs from Barely Legal. Those things and so much more. If you are seeking redemption, Gouda Superior may just be able to get it for you.

Pictures will follow as soon as she manages to pray her way out of ~~tomorrow's likely hangover~~ purgatory.

Thank you all for your wonderful birthday wishes below, by the way! I feel truly blessed!!

Target-ology Part Deux

2007-10-23T17:27:00.000-07:00

I've discovered over the last few days that there are a few things that I used to kind of like that I now hate since starting to work for Target. I will list them below:

1. The song "Vertigo" by U2. Granted, it was never really my favorite song by Bono and his crew in the first place. I tend to go for the old school stuff by them, namely The Joshua Tree. After the first verse or so of this song, it kind of wears thin on me. Upon hearing it in a constant loop while stocking the MMB department (that's music, movies, and books in case you were wondering), I can honestly say that I want to bitchslap Bono uno, dos, tres, catorce times upside his stupid head for writing it. I feel kind of like that guy in the movie The 40 Year Old Virgin who was telling his manager what he was going to do if he had to listen to that Michael McDonald song again. "If I have to hear 'Yah Mo Be There' one more time, I'm gonna yah mo burn this place to the ground." If I hear "Vertigo" one more time, I'm gonna verti-go slit my fucking wrists.

2. Another thing that I now hate since starting to work for Target is the color red. It's a shame really. The color red used to be my favorite color. I loved red so much that I painted half my living room red. Red is strong. Red is bold. Red is sexy. My car is red. Now I have to wear the color almost every day. Red is the laser beam I stare at every day when I'm shooting labels. It's the color of my eyes at the beginning of my shift and it's the scarlet blood that threatens to seep from the soles of my feet at the end of my shift. Red is my face after shelving two dozen 30-lb buckets of kitty litter. Soon it will be the holiday season, and red will dominate even more. By the time Christmas gets here, I'm going to have been arrested for drop-kicking Santa Claus. Why? Because the motherfucker wears red.

3. Shopping at Target. It doesn't really have the same calming feeling it used to have before I started working there. I walk past every aisle in that store as a customer and I see the careful work I did the day before torn asunder by ass-hats who don't know how to put things back where they got them. I see items I just put out that day already gone and know that I will be scanning them, marking them, and re-stocking them the next day. My employee discount is 10%. I'm not sure if it's enough savings to give me incentive to shop there on my days off.

4. Twisted Sister. Particularly the song "We're Not Gonna Take It." I must say that I debated putting this here. It's not that I ever really loved the song in the first place. Its chorus is on the same level as "Tainted Love" for its ability to wedge itself into my head like the ass of a 400 pound guy in coach seats. In fact, it's preaching its sermon of torture within my exhausted psyche as I write this blog, due mostly to the fact that it alternates on the same video with the aforementioned Vertigo. As a result, the two tunes are clashing inside my skull like two brutal Titans, and once the battle is done, my brain will resemble a bowl of bloody oatmeal. Besides, why is Target playing such a song in their stores in the first place? Don't they know that by subjecting their employees to such lyrics, they are merely inspiring them to revolt? Maybe they are just daring us.

And finally...

5. People. To put it plainly, many of the people who shop in these types of stores are by and large detached, spoiled, joyless assholes. They don't actually speak. They either whine or they mutter. Smiling is foreign currency that these "guests" dare not spend in the Target confines. "I'm here to buy cat food and a bra. My life sucks." God bless rampant consumerism.

But let's not all be Negative Nancies here. There are plenty of things I actually like more since starting to work for Target. Here are a couple:

1. My couch. I never thought I'd miss it as much as I did. I want to weep with gratitude every time I sit on it.

2. Tylenol PM. This goes without saying.

2. Box cutters. They really do make my job easier and life practically worth living. I feel so powerful with one in my hand. It's almost as if I could hijack an airplane or something.

David Copperfield: Caught Up in a Little Hocus Poke-Us?

2007-10-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Is THIS the face of a sexual deviant? Wait... Don't answer that.

Hey Dave, you know that any time a team of FBI agents raids your super-secret warehouse and confiscates computer hard drives and digital camera equipment, it can mean only one thing. And it's not because the Feds want to learn how you made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Now, is it my job to try and speculate and convict David Copperfield as a pedophile before he's even been charged with anything? Well... yeah! Why am I doing this? Because it's fun, of course! And honestly, it gives me inspiration to work my own brand of magic. If you don't know what that is, you haven't been reading my blog long enough.

David, David, David. You have spent half your life in the business of trying to fool people. You have set up the most elaborate illusions that have astounded and entertained millions, but in the end, your failure to make your salacious tastes in the forbidden disappear has become your undoing. How hard could it be for a guy like you? Seriously? You levitated a Ferrari and went through the Bermuda Triangle! You escaped from Alcatraz and floated over the Grand Canyon! You wore open-throated white shirts with leather pants and yet managed to be engaged to a super model! For the love of God, you've pulled off the impossible for thirty years, and now it appears that you have failed at the simple trick of hiding your kiddie porn from the FBI.

For shame. For shame.

Now, I don't know for a fact that Copperfield was in possession of kiddie porn. It appears the news is still pending on the full nature of the investigation. I admit fully that I am riding the Conjecture Express straight into Pervopolis, and I'm okay with that. But I didn't board this train alone, folks. The gorgeous female assistants, the failed engagement to Claudia Schiffer, the aforementioned leather pants and open-throated white shirts, the HAIR.

It's was all smoke and mirrors, folks. Smoke and mirrors.

Well, at least if he ends up going to jail, he'll be able to get out. He did walk through the Great Wall of China once.

Target-ology

2007-10-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't combined work with school since I was 19 years old. I haven't combined work with school and child-rearing since... ever. Suffice to say that The Gouda is dog tired.

A few things I've learned since starting to work for Target:

1. Target uses the word "brand" as an adjective. For instance, the sentence: "Keep it brand!" is an oft-repeated request to keep things nice, neat, and attractive. In other words, adhere to the "Target Brand!" This phraseology makes the left side of my brain bleed. Probably because said brain has been "branded" by a grammatically bad "brand" of corporate sloganeering. See that, kids? "Brand" is a verb AND a noun! It is not, however, an adjective.

2. And speaking of the color of blood, the Target uniform of red shirt and khaki pants is an aphrodisiac. I never realized that 4 hours spent working at a checkstand last night would involve being exposed to so many lecherous old men. Don't get me wrong; I know they are out there. I am a regular target of them (pun not intended) at bars and whatnot. I think to gentlemen over the age of seventy, they look at a large, generously-hipped woman like myself and think: "She's built for workin' the farm and makin' babies!" Oh how I have them fooled! Thank you, hip-widening fast food! The red shirt and khaki seems to act like visual Viagra on top of it. I bet Wal-Mart employees never have to worry about this.

3. Although I wasn't hired to be a cashier, everyone who works for the store is cross-trained on the register so that they are available for back-up during peak hours. I haven't operated a register in about eight or nine years. Back when I did, it was a meagerly intelligent system that ranked about a 5 or 6 on a difficulty scale of 1-10, with "1" being: "Anyone in the state of Arkansas can operate this machine purely by instinct" and "10" being: "The act of operating this machine is less appealing than receiving a thousand paper cuts on your body and taking a bath in lemon juice." The Target POS system (Point of Sale, as it were) ranks something more like a 0.5 on this scale. 0.5 means that Terry Schiavo could have done this job.

The act of cashiering at Target requires no higher brain faculty at all. Everything is automated. For the average transaction, I have to push only one button. I don't have to handle credit cards, credit slips, cash drops, counting my drawer, etc. There is a button or a prompt for everything. The only real skill required for being a Target cashier is the ability to stand in one spot for a long time, and place sometimes awkward objects in bags that like to stick together. I know that these systems have gotten so easy to use in order to increase efficiency and decrease loss. The less a cashier has to think for themselves, the more money the company makes, but if I had to spend hours a day doing this job, my brain would begin to resemble a gelatinous grapefruit.

2007-10-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Kahki Pants,

You don't know me very well. In fact, in the many years that I've been making my own clothing decisions, I have never seen fit to make you a part of my wardrobe. Granted, I have been acquainted with a couple of your relatives, khaki capris and khaki shorts. For some reason, it seems that draping only a portion of my very ample legs in fabric of your color is just enough to say: "Hey, she came VERY close to making a fashion mistake, but not so much that she can't be forgiven."

It's not so much that I don't think you are a prudent enough couteur choice in and of yourself. You look great on some people. Particularly the type of people who don't have the problem of abundant body fat. In fact, on a guy with a nice ass and a flat stomach, you, khaki pants, can look downright sharp.

Alas, khaki pants, I do not have a flat stomach, and my ass... well, it's the kind of booty only a drunken Sir Mix-a-Lot can love. You can see that we just aren't compatible. And there is also the problem with my legs. For some reason, every pair of you that I have ever tried on has this remarkable ability to fall into every crevice, every imperfection, every dimple of my flesh. When I see myself in a pair, I am forced to wonder if those are, in fact, my legs or did someone dump a five-gallon bucket of Knudsen's cottage cheese in there.

It pains me to reveal all of this to you, khaki pants. After all, we are about to become very well acquainted with one another, now that I am an official Target peon. Their dresscode stipulates that you and I become good friends, or I will have to suffer the inconvenience of finding a job that allows its employees to wear jeans. Frankly, I don't have the time for that. So please try and be kind to me. I will make concessions. I will eat better and work extra hard so that maybe we can make this relationship more tolerable.

I just wish I could quit you, khaki pants. But in order to do that, I would have to quit my job.

Sincerely,
Kvetching in Khaki

The Stalkers of Health Care

2007-10-13T14:23:00.000-07:00

You think bill collectors are bad. Who doesn't? They are relentless. They call all hours of the day, leave either dry or scathing messages on your voicemail, and they have the ability to reduce your lofty stature to mere inches. But one must admit that however inconvenient and cruel their bulldog tactics may be, they are at least warranted. The companies to which you have indebted yourself want their money. Fail to live up to your end of the bargain, and you've basically given a group of vultures permission to pick your carcass clean.

But what about when you are being pursued just as aggressively by people to whom you owe nothing? I'm not talking about telemarketers. Recent legislation has gone a long way in curtailing that scourge on one's sanity. No, I'm not being stalked by people trying to sell magazine subscriptions or vacation getaways. I have had the distinct honor instead of being zeroed in on by the local blood bank and my insurance company.

First with the blood bank. There was a drive at the local mall a couple years back. I decided to be a sport and donate a pint. What can I say? I was jonesing for some free cookies, juice, and that distinct light-headed feeling that comes after you spill sixteen ounces of blood from a hole in your arm. A few months went by and I honestly lost all memory of my good deed, until I got a phone call. It was a fellow from the local blood bank. They remembered my previous donation and wanted to see if I was interested in giving some more. Now, don't get the impression that this was a casual, Friendly McFriendster invitation. It was more like a subtle admonition.

"You should be aware that your blood type is in extremely short supply in our blood banks. If you donate now, you have the potential to save several lives."

The rest of my mind completed the man's sentence:

"If you choose not to donate, you are an asshole of gigantic proportions."

Fair enough. I scheduled an appointment to come in. Now, keep in mind that this was awhile ago. I do remember having to call and cancel my appointment, and if I recall, it's because I was feeling ill and was extremely busy. It was during a quarter in school that I was taking three difficult classes and had barely enough time to breathe, eat, or give a shit about anyone other myself. And that includes A-positive kids with hemophilia. Screw them. I needed all the hemoglobin I could get.

Not long after that, I developed a pretty nasty case of anemia, due mostly in part to the fact that I was practically hemmoraging to death once a month. Revel in that TMI. Anyway, the phonecalls continued. I informed them that I was having some health problems that were not conducive to my donating blood. Miraculously, I heard nothing more from them. At least until two months ago. Now, once an evening, the Puget Sound Blood Bank rings my house. They have likely determined that my anemia must have been cured, and it's time to ante up once again. I have told them that I am short on time and am not prepared to donate at this time. Yet the calls continue. Right now, I am choosing to ignore them.

Listen, I know I'm being a jerk. Donating blood is easy enough, right? Well, for me, it's not. The last time I did it, I was feeling like shit for exactly three days. I don't have twenty minutes right now to feel like shit, let alone three days.

And then there is the insurance company. I am lucky enough to have decent coverage. It's a Cigna HMO and I haven't had to pay more than $15 for any medical procedure I've had done, and believe me, I've had many. Including three hospital stays, two outpatient procedures, not to mention uncountable office visits. It's great insurance. I'll miss it dearly when I'm no longer legally married. What I will not miss? The Cigna Well-Aware nursing line. This is a service provided to the female members of my network. A nurse makes a periodic call to the house and asks me general questions about my health. How am I feeling? How much do I weigh? Any pressing issues or concerns? Pretty much everything that is asked when I go in for a yearly physical. I went through this once already, after repeated entries on my Caller ID forced my curiosity into action.

I'll go a month or two without a call, and then they start trying to reach me again. They want an update. They want to know how I'm doing. I guess this is the insurance company's way of getting a gauge on your health so that they have some way of anticipating future claims or something. That's at least my theory. But here is what I think:

If I have a pressing health concern, I will make an appointment with my doctor. And even then, I will often wait it out. I HATE going to the doctor, and I HATE having to discuss the very things that these faceless nurses are asking me over the phone. I am well-enough in tune with my body to determine when things aren't running right, and I can handle it. I have absolutely NO desire to converse with these people. The last time I spoke with one of these nurses, I told her as much, that I prefer to speak with my doctor about issues regarding my medications, mental health concerns, etc. She insists that the service she provides is perfectly free and confidential.

But it doesn't end with the phonecalls. I get regular letters in the mail from them asking where I've been and how I'm feeling.

JESUS!! You know how annoying it is when people keep asking over and over again how you're doing, and you just want to scream in their faces that you would be FINE if they would just leave you the eff alone?? That's what I'm dealing with. One one side of me is a thirsty vampire wanting to extract my blood, and on the other side is a stern looking nurse poking and prodding me into an outright tizzy.

It's enough to make me wish it's a bill collector when the phone rings.

Enjoy the Creepy Digs, Yo!

2007-10-08T19:35:00.000-07:00

This place needed to get a little more into the Halloween spirit.

Of course, the way I've been keeping up this joint lately, I'll probably be like that annoying neighbor who never takes down the Christmas lights until the 4th of July. If you're still seeing this at Thanksgiving, feel free to permanently diss me.

Today, I bought a Halloween costume. I'm going out as a nun. Now, I know this might sound a little frightening to some of you. After all, my inherent evilness could immolate the chintzy fabric of my habit and wimple faster than a group of angry Iranians with an American flag, but I think I'm slowly converting the costume to my way of thinking. I tried it on once at the store, and then again when I got home, whereupon my children fled in terror.

Yes, I daresay there is nothing quite as frightening as someone like me fully garbed in the black folds of blasphemy...

Eastern Promises...

2007-10-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

Click on over to The Reel Gouda if you're up to reading a review of the latest by director David Cronenberg. I saw it a week late, but it was definitely worth the wait.

TB or Not TB... That is The Blog Title...

2007-10-05T10:35:00.001-07:00

The only reason I am even writing this blog is because that title popped into my head when I was driving back from Yelm (see: road rage) this morning. As an aside, my car is where I get almost all of my ideas. I've heard that a lot of people get their brainstorming done in the shower. Nope. Not me. In the shower, I'm so focused on cleaning my body fast and getting out, that my brain kind of throws up a creativity shield. Of course, it's safer to brainstorm in the shower. Zoning out on the road is probably not a good idea. But it's not a zone out, necessarily. It's hard to describe. It's just that as I'm driving down a long stretch of road, my mind starts casting out lures into the idea pond, and while there is often a nibble, there is an occasional snag. Mind you, the ideas flow better when I'm not road raging. It's a wonder I get anything done, really.

So back to the point. This one came after I set an appointment on the way home to go in today to have a tuberculosis test done. This may seems shocking, but in the American health care system, the health care workers are required to be healthy-ish, and for some reason they don't want said workers to be walking through the halls where sick people reside, coughing up blood that contains a particularly deadly form of bacteria, which in this case is tubercle bacillus. No, if you go to a hospital, you will have bigger worries. Like contracting a drug-resistant, flesh-eating bacteria (aka Streptococcus pyogenes).

So I guess I'm going to go in and they're going to inject a tiny amount of PPD tuberculin right underneath the top layer of my skin. Over the next couple days, my body may or may not mount an immune response to the bacteria. If it does, that means that I've been exposed to tuberculosis. Now, that doesn't mean I have the disease, but it could mean that I am an asymptomatic carrier. Isn't that fun?

For the record, I think I'm at pretty low risk. I don't spend a lot of time hanging around homeless people or partying in developing countries (Zimbabwe! Woooohooo!!), so that helps a lot. I also don't have AIDS or any immunity-killing disease. Besides, anyone who has seen my skin knows that I have an over-abundance of T-Cells, not a shortage. If you didn't know the mechanism behind psoriasis before, well... now you do.

Okay people, school is out for the week. On Monday, tune in for Allie's PPD Test Reading! It could be a shocker! :)

The Smoking Small Screen

2007-10-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how we often feel like we have to justify our television watching? TV, in many aspects, has become like the "smoking" of media; it's just not all that socially acceptable anymore. TV is for lazy and mindless people. It makes kids fat and dull. It has been not-so-affectionately dubbed the "idiot box." I think that is kind of unfair, and I also think that making such blanket observations about something so complex is the sure sign of someone who has taken the Stupid Avenue exit off the Critical Thinking Highway.

There is a large abundance of intelligent, entertaining, and harmless programming on the airwaves, and even if a lot of it is mindless, so what? Most people spend their entire days with their brains fully engaged. If slumping back and watching Hugh Heffner's girlfriends have a naked pillow fight on The Girls Next Door helps you to decompress, have at it. I don't personally like the reality stuff, but my own guilty pleasure is currently Dancing With The Stars. God I love that show.

But that's not what I'm really here to talk about. Actually, none of what I just said had anything to do with what I really wanted to write about.

Have any of you ladies SEEN the massive abundance of hot guys on TV lately?

I mean, yes, there has been no shortage of good eyecandy in the entertainment biz since its inception, but this season of fall shows has been particularly kind (or cruel, depending on how you want to look at it) to my horrifically underfed libido

First off, I don't really get into medical dramas, BUT the presence of this one man is seriously making me consider recording the new Grey's Anatomy spin-off, Private Practice. I'm talking, of course, about Tim Daly. Good Christ, that guy exudes sexy more than he ever has. Rawr!

Second, if you aren't watching the show Heroes, you really really need to hop to it. NOW! Not only because it is probably one of the most creative and exciting dramas on network television, but because the show is brimming over with steamy male specimens. My favorite is Sendhil Ramamurthy, the hunk who plays Dr. Mohinder Soresh. That man is just all sorts of beautiful. Swoooooon!

ABC also has a new legal drama called Big Shots, which is just really nothing more than a one hour long "intelligent men in suits" sexual fantasy starring Michael Vartan (formerly of Alias) and Dylan McDermott. Now, this show could very well suck, but who actually needs to pay attention to the plot?? For the love of God, just put the thing on mute and dare yourself to not lick your television.

In conclusion, I think that there is definitely a lot more value to be gained from watching television than a lot of people will admit. Especially if you're a horny female. I'm just sayin...

Film Sheeple

2007-10-01T12:16:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me even remotely knows I love movies. If I didn't, I wouldn't make a hobby out of writing about them, and I certainly wouldn't devote as much of my "entertainment" budget to viewing them in theaters if that weren't the case. A majority of the time, the reviews I write tend to go with the consensus of most major critics, and this is not merely due to the element of suggestion. In fact, in order to test the theory that I might be operating under a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy, I have made an effort to avoid reading critics reviews before screening the film myself. After I write my piece on it, I hop on good old Rottentomatoes.com or Metacritic.com to see how my take on the picture meshed with the big wigs.

As much as I attempt to avoid the lemming mindset, there is something sort of comforting knowing that I am not too far off base from the general word of mouth, that my relatively untrained eye got the same effect from the same piece of art as someone who has likely seen ten times as many movies as I have.

But there are times, and they aren't exactly infrequent these days, when I run into a complete cognitive void with the rest of the herd, when I'm wondering to myself if I have actually seen the same film as these 60 or 70 people. I had that experience this morning when I pulled up the reviews for The Kingdom, a film I saw, loved, and reviewed yesterday. First, my eyes widened a bit at the paltry 52% rating. 52%?? That's worse than Transformers (57%) for the love of God!

Determined to not be swayed by mere numbers, however, I delved into reading the critical blurbs, which of course give a more detailed illustration of the general buzz. On the front page alone, I counted the word: "jingoistic" and its variations five times. That's a pretty uncommon word, but for that brief moment, I felt like I was watching one of those flash montages from The Daily Show where they show all of the news pundits and politicians saying the same sound byte ad nauseum.

I wholeheartedly disagree that The Kingdom was jingoistic. There are far more movies to which that term can more easily apply. For instance, pretty much anything ever made by Michael Bay or produced by Jerry Bruckheimer qualifies. See: Armageddon, The Rock, or Transformers. And then we have movies like Rambo, Behind Enemy Lines, or Independence Day. Or how about every other movie starring Arnold Schwartzenneger or Bruce Willis? Trust me when I say I have an eye for that kind of arrogant chauvinism, and if the film looks like a Toby Keith song would fit right at home on the soundtrack, it's crossed firmly into the nationalistic territory of jingoism.

A film, by virtue of detailing a tragedy against Americans and attempting to bring those responsible to justice does not fanatical patriotism make. I'd no more like to be witness to a terrorist attack in another nation than our own, but I have to admit when it is against my nation, it's going to stir my emotions much more. That's nothing to be ashamed of. That does not mean the film is attempting to be divisive or "fist-pumping," especially in a film like this that actually does attempt to instill a sense of empathy for the opposing side. Not for the terrorists, of course, but for the citizens of these counties who have been killed by the fanatical factions of their own populations.

For a minute this morning, I felt like I was stuck in some yuppie coffee shop filled with a bunch of self-hating pseudo-intellectuals (you know, the ones who all look and sound like Janeane Garofalo) who think it's somehow a bad thing that a movie dares cause its viewers to sympathize with its own country. Of course we should never turn our eyes from the fact that we have had a hand in our own lot. I believe that lack of such perspective is what causes that aforementioned jingoism, that chauvinistic patriotism that denotes, above everything else, chosen ignorance. But we should never, ever feel guilty for being moved into a sense of unity when we see what terrorists are willing to do in order to accomplish their goals. That's not "jingoistic." That's purely instinctual.

I learned something today...

2007-09-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

I learned that all those times when I would dress to the nines for a job interview all those months ago, I was pretty much wasting my time. I wonder if I would have fared better if, instead of donning the black suit and jewelry, impeccable hair and makeup, I had just put on a pair of frumpy jeans, a plain black shirt, ditched the makeup, and tied my hair back in a ponytail walked in off the street. After all, that's what worked for me this morning when I walked into Target intent upon killing some time before lunch and said to myself: "Huh... why not fill out an application? Besides, now that the kids are in school during the day, and your classload is light, you might as well be working!"

So I did that. I went through their computerized application process, picked up their little red phone by the computer just like they told me to when I was finished, and they called me back for an interview. An hour later, I walked out of there with a job.

Granted, working for Target is not exactly the pinnacle of employment success, but it is employment, and it will provide desperately-needed money that will hold us over until I get my CNA certification. And frankly, the job description sounds fun, easy, and stress-free. The people who interviewed me were incredibly friendly, and although the average employee there will be on average 5-10 years younger than I am, I'm not worried about my ability to make friends there.

One could say that I landed the job because they will pretty much hire anyone who walks off the street, provided they have the availability the store is looking for, but I'd also like to think that after endless practice interviewing for jobs that pay twice as much, I had more than enough left in me to land a job straightening shelves for a big box retailer. lol

A Foreign Jungle

2007-09-23T20:35:00.000-07:00

Never in my life have I attended a sporting event where I was a raging fan of the visiting team--until today. My dad came out for a short jaunt to Washington so we would have the pleasure of attending the Seahawks/Bengals game together. This was intended to be an early birthday present, and I couldn't possibly think of a better gift. We are die-hard Cincinnati Bengals fans. No bandwagon-jumping, fair-weather fans here; we're born and bred Ohioans, and we wear our tiger stripes with pride. There is something particularly appealing to my nature in being a follower of the Bengals. We're hardened with cynicism by our many humiliating past defeats, but there is still an element of hope present, and when they are playing competitively (as they have the last couple seasons), there is magic there that feels like the first rays of sun penetrating a dense raincloud.

I will admit that there is always something anxiety-inducing about being out-numbered in any situation, and being one of relatively few specks of orange in a sea of blue was downright terrifying. But that didn't mean that I'd lost the ability to be an asshole, because let's face it--when you are in such a scenario, being an asshole is the only line of defense you have. My exhausted vocal cords are testament to this. There were so many occasions where I felt like I was the only person in the stadium cheering, and the silence eventually became my best friend. I knew when things got quiet, it was good news not only for my eardrums, but also for my team.

Granted we took our share of ribbing. Seattle fans are nothing if not boisterous about their undying love for their team. The sauntering strut of a few dozen people telling us to go home, even though we were at that point down by merely 2 points, was a little ridiculous, but we took it in stride. For the most part, the Seahawks fans were magnanimous. They are certainly more friendly than Steelers fans, anyway.

Unfortunately, the Bengals made a few too many mistakes, and as such they didn't walk away from this game victors. They didn't hand it over too easily to the Seahawks though. Seattle had to work hard for that 3-point win, and the game was a nail-biter of classic proportions. So few sporting events are ever so exciting, and I felt incredibly privileged to have been there to witness it in person, to feel the sway of a crowd so large that it operated like a single organism, with we the visitors, the parasites, attaching ourselves like remoras to a great white shark.

And it was particularly fantastic to share that experience with my best friend, my dad. I wouldn't have wanted to face that crowd with anyone else.

"The Secret" to Being a Prick

2007-09-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Human beings can be incredibly pathetic creatures. When it comes down to it, we're miserable. We know we're miserable, and we will do next to ANYTHING in order to not be miserable anymore. Those things include (but are not limited to): drinking excessively, abusing drugs, compulsive shopping, compulsive sex, compulsive gambling, lighting things on fire, kicking people in the nuts, primal scream therapy, and finally: clinging to the latest version of recycled self-help mantras that have been on the market for the last thirty years, but have now been modernized to appeal to your attraction to The Da Vinci Code.

What was that last one, you ask? Oh please, like you really NEED to. If none of you have heard of the latest self-help craze The Secret by now, you have probably been too busy being happy of your own accord.

According to the authors of this system, it basically boils down to something like this: If you think about something you want long and hard enough, it will eventually just happen!

Now, I know what some of you are already going to say. "There is nothing wrong with that approach, Allie!" Or some of you die-hard optimists out there are going to tell me that I am being too negative, that I will never get anywhere in life if I don't start thinking more positively about things, and by and large, I will agree with you. But here is my problem with programs that over-sell the concept of positive thinking, and it will be illustrated by a really sucky metahpor that I've come up with basically on the fly:

There are three types of vehicles you can choose to drive through life. One of them is a piece of shit that always breaks down and uses your soul for fuel. Listen to the song "Piece of Shit Car" by Adam Sandler, and you will get what I'm saying. You drive this car, and you begin to resent every other driver on the road for having something better than you.

The next type of vehicle is a luxury land yacht that runs on sunshine, children's laughter, and butterfly kisses. The interior is gingerbread and gumdrops. It makes you so happy, that you pretty much forget about the people in the shitty car, and you turn into a pretentious dickhole.

And then there is the "car" that people drive. It's the middle of the line vehicle that might have a crack or two in the windshield and might stall from time to time, but it will get you where you're going, provided you keep the oil changed, have a decent set of tires, and enough money for good old-fashioned gasoline.

In other words -- there is nothing wrong with harboring occasional feelings of negativity, so long as you're still GOING somewhere or DOING something. You have to keep "driving," per se, and remember that although you could be driving the Sunshine Land Yacht of Happiness, things could be considerably worse.

How does this apply to The Secret? For starters, it's ridiculous in the way that it treats the concept of optimism like something that people haven't heard of. Second, it presents this idea of "visualizing your goal" as something almost mystic in nature. If you want a 15 carat diamond ring, you need do nothing more than cut out a picture of that ring, hang it up on your refrigerator, and think about it really, really hard. But this doesn't apply to only material things. Got cancer? Paralyzed from the neck down? Forget about that nasty medical crap, and just think positive! Apparently Christopher Reeve did not read The Secret, because if he had, he would have been running the Boston Marathon instead of dying from an infected bedsore.

Think that last sentence sounds bitter? That's called "blaming the victim," a concept that is also highly recommend in "The Secret." It goes so far as to advocate not only avoiding negativity, but completely shunning it, because it can seriously interrupt the positive thought process it might take for you to get your shiny red bicycle. Bad things happen to people simply because they weren't thinking positively enough! You must SHUN people who are having hardships. Only then will you succeed in claiming what is yours!

In other words, be a complete psychopath, and you will be rich!

And they call this shit a "Secret?"

So what does this boil down to? The Secret is nothing more than a tool to turn people into complete and utter... tools. It insists that you eschew things like reality, empathy, and compassion and turns you into a materialistic asshole whose eyes are focused on nothing more than the self-serving prize.

I think the world has enough of these types of people, don't you?

The only thing that should be shunned is this kind of "program," that at its core is ugly in the most transparent way in its attempts to lure people with the promise of happiness by bringing out what is one of the worst things about human nature: its selfish vanity.

In making you think that you are on the road to happiness, The Secret has done nothing more than encourage you to line the pockets of the only person who is truly benefitting from your transformation into a smilingly deluded imbecile-- Rhonda Byrne, the creator of The Secret.

Animals with Dirty Stuffing

2007-09-17T23:17:00.000-07:00

Natalie exited her school bus today full of gusto. She was given the honor of bringing the first grade class mascot, Bongo, home for the night. Now, some of you might remember what happened when she brought home the Kindergarten mascot, Huggy Bear, last year. Suffice to say I was a little bit leery. I just steam cleaned my carpets, after all, and mopping up a post-coital fluffy bear and bunny fest, just wasn't my idea of fun. So I regarded Bongo with both eyes open. By all appearances, he seemed rather harmless and actually kind of cute. A hell of a lot cuter than Huggy Bear was, anyway. He had a few scars on him, but he was otherwise well-cared for. I plucked him from the bag and gave him a nice squeeze, welcoming him to the family for what was hopefully going to be a quiet night.

After an evening filled with Natalie dressing up Bongo in every piece of princess clothing she could squeeze the animal into, I was finally given a few minutes alone with the weary monkey, and to my astonishment, he had plenty to say. The room grew dark around me, and I was thrust into a tale of brutal, visceral proportions. This was no ordinary ape.

I know how I look, lady. You think I'm fresh from the factory. You think I ain't seen nothin' but a buncha screamin' kids my whole life. I wasn't always like this. I turned over a new leaf, ya know. It's amazin' what happens when ya ain't got nothin' left. Where ya go. Whatcha do.

"Bongo? Are you talking to me?" I asked.

Shut up and listen, lady. I'm only gonna tell this once, and after that you ain't heard nothin'. Nothin'. Ya got me?

"Well, sure Bongo." I said. I didn't want to piss the damn thing off anymore. Damned if I was going to let my kid be the one to take Bongo back all torn to shreds.

My real name ain't Bongo. Back in the day, on the streets of the Big Apple, my name was La Scimmia Mortale.

"Is that--"

The Deadly Monkey. Yeah yeah yeah. It ain't important. Look, do ya wanna hear this or not? He seemed impatient.

They called me The Deadly Monkey cause that's exactly what I was. I didn't fuck around. I'd just as soon rip out the stuffing of anyone who crossed me. I didn't care if you was a Beanie Baby or a Raggedy Ann, ya get me? They mess with La Scimmia, they get la lama.

He saw the look on my face. The knife, lady, the knife!

"Oh. Ok," I said. I was quiet after that.

The night it happened, when I lost it all, I was goin' to meet my gang at the old underground club The Fuzzy Bunny. It was where we did all our business. Ya know, the usual. Sawdust was big in those days. All the crazy kids loved it. Couldn't get enough of the shit.

Sawdust? I thought.

Anyways, I was there for a poker game with my closest boys. Mia Famigilia, if you will. Rocko the Mutt, Grizzly Benny, and my right-hand man, Snowflake.

Yeah, Snowflake was a little eccentric. You probably wouldn't bust a nut tryin' to figure out his weapon of choice if you saw him. The others who didn't know him good thought he was a little on the girly side, but anyone who seen Snowflake's bad side knew not to fuck with him if they didn't want their filling all over the room.

Bongo started getting a little tense talking about Snowflake. But I was quiet. If there was one thing I'd figured out in the few short minutes I'd talked to this monkey, it was that I didn't want to make an enemy out of him. There was just something about him that was deadly and hard, that even years spent playing with little first graders would never soften.

The game was goin' pretty slow-like, but I was cleanin' up the table just fine. I knew that I was gonna have to bring up the night's real business soon, though, but I was reluctant. No matter how I tried to think it through, it was just gonna be dirty.

I look over at Rocko the Mutt, and I says to him: 'Hey, you got any leads on that break-in at our warehouse over on the east side?'

Rocko looks at me and says: 'No way, boss. Whoever put that job over knew what they was doin'. It's like they knew where all the stuff was, how to get in and everything. They didn't leave nothin' behind.'

'Yeah,' I says, and I turn to face my right-hand man. 'That sure is interestin'. Ain't it, Snowflake?'

And he looks at me with his eyes kinda wide. Like he wasn't sure I was actually talkin' to him. What he didn't know was I put the pressure on some boys on our payroll downtown who had some witnesses on file. There ain't but one pink and white boy unicorn on this island, and they all seen him that night.

'Snowflake, snowflake, snowflake," I says to him. "'Next time you try to double-cross me, you need to use a disguise.'

It suddenly got real quiet in the room. Except for the passed out broads behind me, anyone who wasn't at my table cleared outta there real quick.

'But... Boss...' Snowflake was caught and he knew it.

'I want you to gimme what you stole from me, Snowflake. I want it all.'

'I didn't steal nothin' from you!' he yelled. It's like he thought like my head was filled with foam pellets or somethin'.
'Snowflake, I'm gonna give you one more chance to come clean with me. After that, you're gonna be one deflated piece of maggot shit sittin' in a Build-a-Bear workshop. So what's it gonna be?'

I had him then. Snowflake goes to the bar and brings me a bag of sawdust. One measly little bag of the stuff. So I says to him: 'Don't tell me, Snowflake. Don't tell me that's all you got. There was at least ten times that stolen.'

He's shakin now. He knows that the jig is up. He knows that he fucked with the wrong monkey. La Scimmia Mortale.

'You broke my heart, Snowflake. You killed us both tonight,' I says to him. And just like that, I took out my best friend. If I hadn't, I'da had all them other boneheads stealin' from me the same night.

But then I look over at the table. Rocko's lookin' at me all funny. It's like he knows somethin' else.

'You better start talkin' now, Rocko', I says.

'Russ is comin for ya,' Rocko says real quiet.

Russ. My rival from way back. He has my entire east side supply. I knew right then I was finished. And they all knew. They all knew. I unzipped Rocko and left him for dead.

And then, because I was mad, and because I felt like it, I decided to just choke the fuckin' bear to death too. He was always a fuckin' little prick.

After it was all over, it was real quiet. I knew Russ and his boys was comin' for me. They was gonna take me down and take me out. I had to act quick. I had to get away while I still had a chance. But oh how I hurt then. My boys. Mia famiglia was dead.

I went and hid out in a toy store for few weeks. Used up the last of my connections to get in somewhere far away. I changed my look and changed my name to somethin' cutesy. Bongo. Yeah, the kids would like it. No one would suspect. And the rest... Well, lady, the rest is history.

I asked him if he ever thought about going back to the life.

Nah... I lived it once. Let someone else do it. Besides, you would not believe the dames I meet on this job." He pointed over in the corner where Raggedy Ann was sitting. "That redhead over there... Well let's just say she's gonna be in trouble later.

I thought of her last escapade with Huggy Bear and I said: "Have at it. Just don't smoke in my house."

Sluts on a Plane

2007-09-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Can I have some nuts, please?

Southwest airlines is apparently tired of mother$%*%(@ sluts on their mother@$%$&% planes. In recent months, two women have come forward claiming that flight attendants have deemed the passengers' outfits inappropriate for flight and have asked them to cover up.

Now, I can't really judge whether these women were truly dressed like whores, as there were no pictures provided. Besides, my definition of "over the top" hinges on a few variables, among them whether or not I think their body style qualifies for that kind of outfit, and whether or not I actually like the person in question. Since I didn't actually KNOW these women, then I can't really say that I LIKE them. So they probably really were dressed like prostitutes.

But be that as it may, I have this to ask -- would any of you REALLY care? Seriously, as a woman with a respectably-sized pair, I am pretty comfortable around boobs. Honestly, they don't bother me. In fact, if the boobs are presented attractively, I have no problem saying "Hey! Nice rack!" At least to myself. I imagine if I were a heterosexual man, I'd have an even more positive reaction. Not to stereotype or anything, but most men don't mind being presented a decent set of knockers.

But that's not even the POINT, really. The POINT is, airlines are the biggest money-grubbing dickholes on the planet, only a step away from oil companies and Chuck E. Cheese in their capacity to make you pay egregious sums of money for the privilege of being absolutely miserable. For roughly $300 (on average), you get to experience the nightmare of airport security, delayed or late flights, bad food or the complete absence of food altogether, dour airline staff, cramped coach seats, lost baggage, and so on and so forth. And now, NOW they want to tell you how to DRESS?

Body odor, I can understand. No one likes body odor. And if you literally take up two seats with your ass, then you should pay for that seat. The guy who paid full price for this ticket should not be relegated to half a seat if he was booked to sit next to Jabba the Hut.

But in a world where flying is generally a chore only moderately enjoyable under the influence of pills or alcohol, where the movies (if the airline even offers one) are still five bucks each, why take away perhaps the only source of enjoyment or entertainment on the plane that is over-exposed 36Ds in 21C?

It's Not Just a Snack! It's a SnackSTER!

2007-09-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

Gouda is proud of the fact that she sent so many of you running rabidly for the supermarket when she blogged her orgasmic turpitude for the scrumptious Oreo Cakester. Sadly, however, Gouda had a recent realization as she was packing another one of those tasty treats down her gullet, and it went something like this:

"Christ, woman, your ass is becoming the fleshy equivalent of Mt. Rainier!"

No more Cakesters for Gouda. It's back to Weight Watchers with her rotund self. Back to tracking every bite. Back to carefully measuring every portion. Back, alas, on the bariatric bandwagon.

It's okay, though! Gouda is not alone in this fight. Given that some 65% of her fellow Americans are suffering as well from the nuisance of Fatty McAssness, the market has responded amply to our needs to make dieting not only easy, but FUN. For instance, good old American ingenuity has come to the forefront in the "snacks disguised as pernicious delights" department. At the top of this hierarchy rests the 100 Calorie Packs that debuted a couple years ago with the promise of perfect portion control, and it worked. You TOO can have a bag of chocolate cookie wafers, and it will only cost you a hundred calories! The trend has continued, and you can even get Twinkies and Ho-Hos in 100 Calorie portions. Where will it END?!

Well, I found my 100 Calorie Mecca, ladies and gentleman. Sure, the Oreo cookie wafers are decent. The 100 Calorie Right Bites Pecan Sandies are also mighty delish. But that was until the Hershey's company saw fit to unleash Snacksters on the portly population.

This brilliant 100-calorie packet of love contains peanut butter-flavored puffed cereal pieces, peanut butter chips, and... hold on... Reese's Pieces. Don't like peanut butter? Don't get your panties all in a twist. This is from the Hershey's company, remember? They have a chocolate flavor as well! And that one contains mini chocolate-chip cookies, chocolate chips, and some kind of Cocoa Puff cereal-type stuff. When you eat it, your life will extinguish and you will look up and see a kindly old man standing before a gate, and you will exclaim: "St. Peter?! No fuckin' way!"

It's time to make the trade-in, people. The Cakester is not looking out for your best interests! When Nabisco decides to shrink them by half and stamp "100 Calories" on the package, they might be worth buying again. Until then, grab yourself a box of Snacksters and weep. With joy, that is.