Years ago while watching a sunset on a Maui beach, I turned to a friend and said "I'm really glad I saw this before I die" to which she replied "well, scratch it off your list then." That's when I became acquainted with the fact that some people make a list of things they wish to do before they die in order to be assured of experiencing everything they want out of life before death comes a calling.

I decided to make my own list in a little notebook I found, and came to this realization: it would be pretty depressing to lay on my deathbed clutching a list that still has a bunch of items left unchecked.

I don't need that kind of failure looming over me, so I figured out an entirely new approach: Don't add anything to the list until you've already done it. Brilliant! That way, no matter when you check out, the list of things to do is certain to be complete and you can die a success!

So, here it is... a transcription of my list of things I want to do before I die (all of them done, of course) in no particular order. A few of the more personal and, ahem, "questionable" items have been removed to prevent offense and embarrassment (yours, not mine)...

NOTE: I moved my list to a separate page so I could find it easier when it needed updating. You can visit my List of Things To Do Before I Die (That I've Already Done) right here.

Earlier today I had written a long and very involved entry for my blog that included such topics as "How much I loathed the movie Spanglish" along with "the horrors of using pixel-height type in my blog re-design" and "the dangers of venturing out during last-minute holiday-shopper frenzy." But, after re-reading it, I decided to toss it out as a public service.

But then I had a problem. What to write about for Saturday? A meme perhaps?

And now there's a bigger problem... most of the memes are dying off. "Something for Saturday" hasn't been updated since September. "Pieces of You" has been dead for a month. "Meeting of the Minds" dead since March. "Fragment" gone. "Saturday Slant" stalled at week 33. Even "Witches Weekly" is now two weeks overdue. I suppose I could take a crack at "Sexy Saturday" but it's also overdue (and the last question was about AIDS testing?).

... ten minutes later... and I've found Saturday-8!

1. if you celebrate christmas, do you have your tree up yet? if not, what's your excuse? I don't really celebrate Christmas because I study Buddhism (which doesn't have a Christmas).
2. christmas is in a week ... do you have you holiday shopping done? I do like to buy holiday gifts for my friends and family who celebrate Christmas, but will worry about it next week.
3. do you take time off during the holidays, or do you work straight through? The last couple of years I've worked on Christmas day because it's quiet and I can get caught up.
4. do you take a winter vacation to go skiing or do the iditarod? I think the Iditarod is kind of cruel to the dogs (many of which die during training) and I don't ski. Since winter is when my never-ending travel seems to slow a bit, I'd rather just stay home.
5. in your neighbourhood, are there a lot of holiday lights up? Not really.
6. do YOU put holiday lights up? if so, are yours up this year? if not, why don't you do it? No. As for why... see Question #1.
7. describe the most gaudy/tacky/cheap holiday display you've seen. where was it? Aren't they all when you think about it?
8. for this holiday, mr. laura is gutting my dining room and adding on a computer room, so my house will be full of drywall dust instead of holiday house trimmings. have you had a year in which you didn't or weren't able to decorate your house for the holidays? I leave the decorating to everybody else.

Another bit of fun... Who Links Here

In addition to the Political Compass Test (which I last saw at Neil's World and took here), another meme crawling through the blogosphere is the Myers-Briggs "Jung Personality Test" (which I last last saw at Jay's Party). Ordinarily, I pass on these types of things, but I went ahead and took it while waiting for the washing machine to quit.

I have to say, after trying to answer the questions as honestly as possible, the results seem fairly accurate. I took the Short Test, Word Test, and the Word Choice Test, and got the same result every time: Apparently I am an ENTP (Extoverted - iNtuitive - Thinking - Perceiving), which is classified as an "inventor" who shows "enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Non-conformist and innovative. 3.2% of the total population").

Yet another meme I've stolen from Neil (and I notice Patrick has found it as well). This one is "Year in Review" which encourages you to copy the first sentence from the first posting of every month in 2004. This meme is potentially more horrifying than the Music Shuffle Meme, heaven only knows what's going through my head...

• January: In coming back from celebrating the New Year with friends in Seattle, I have to travel back over Stevens Pass which just happens to be in the middle of a winter storm warning... — From the entry "Happy New Year".
• February: Alrighty then... a show of hands as to how many people are actually gullible enough to believe that Justin Timberlake's exposure of Janet Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl Half-Time Show was an accident due to a "costume malfunction." — From the entry "Look, Boobies on TV!".
• March: I just got an e-mail from somebody who noticed that my cartoon persona looks a little different in last night's entry. — From the entry "Meagan Wins".
• April: This week has the perfect theme for where I live: beautiful things... Spring has sprung, and there are literally beautiful things everywhere you look. — From the entry "Theme Thursday: beautiful things".
• May: After a nasty lull when Phil Hartman left, Saturday Night Live finally seems to be gaining some momentum again. — From the entry "SNL Harry Potter".
• June: I am not a big video game fan... I never really have been because I just don't have the time to play them. — From the entry "XboX".
• July: After the easy Theme Thursday last week, I suppose it's no accident that this week's theme is a bit more difficult. I mean, what do you shoot for cliché? — From the entry "Theme Thursday: cliché".
• August: HRC Cologne: A quick hop with the most excellent (and amazingly cheap) GermanWings airlines, and Perry and I were off to the beautiful city of Cologne. — From the entry "Day Seven: Cologne".
• September: Just because I don't like the idea of being the only one having nightmares tonight, here's a tale of your tax dollars at work. — From the entry "(Un)safe".
• October: What happened the last time you thought yourself to be in danger? I've only been in a couple of truly dangerous situations, but the one that sticks in my mind is being held up at knife-point while walking through a not-so-nice part of San Francisco in 1999. — From the entry "FridayQ: danger".
• November: ACK! PLAGUE SHIP!! For the past week, it would seem that everybody onboard has been coming down with a cold, including the crew. — From the entry "Cruise Day 9: At Sea".
• December: Today is World AIDS Day. I've known three people with AIDS. — From the entry "Fight"

Not as bad as I thought, actually.

This time, it's not my fault... Neil says I have to do this "Meme à Trois"...

• Three names you go by: Dave, David, Duke.
• Three screen names you have: Dave2, Daveweb, Blogography.
• Three things you like about yourself: I ride a motorcycle, I'm open-minded, I'm tolerant.
• Three things you dislike about yourself: I don't speak a foreign language fluently, I am easily distracted, I can't keep up with my email.
• Three parts of your heritage: American, Dutch, German.
• Three things that scare you: Bush, Deep Water, Heights.
• Three of you everyday essentials: Food, Water, Macintosh.
• Three things you're wearing right now: Joe Boxers, MIA/POW Bracelet, Glasses.
• Three of your favorite bands/artists: Depeche Mode, a-ha, The Corrs.
• Three of your favorite songs at present: Until She Comes by the Psychedelic Furs, Inner Smile by Texas, New York Minute by Don Henley.
• Three new things you want to try in the next 12 months: Try to renew my love of painting with watercolors, Try studying a foreign language, Try to simplify my life.
• Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given): Honesty, Passion, Fulfillment.
• Two Truths and a Lie: Kindness is its own reward, Violence is cowardly, There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
• Three physical things about a love interest that appeal to me: Cleanliness, Cuteness, Hotness.
• Three things you just can't do: Listen to a country-western song, Watch a musical, Enjoy using Microsoft Windows.
• Three of your favorite hobbies: Travel, Hard Rock Cafe, Television.
• Three things you want to do really badly right now: Eat breakfast, Ride my motorcycle, Go back to sleep.
• Three careers you're considering: Marine Biologist, Astronaut, President of the United States.
• Three places you want to go on vacation: Greece, Australia, New Zealand.
• Three kids names (either boy or girl): Ellis, Emma, Beelzebub.
• Three things you want to do before you die: See as much of the world as possible, Ride my motorcycle every chance I get, Refrain from hating anything or anybody.
• Three people who have to take this quiz now: Let's see... who hasn't blogged in a while? How about: Jenny, Kirk, and Steven?

Ooooh! A movie meme! I wonder why nobody thought of this one before? As seen on Kazza's Blog. The Rules: Pick ten movies you enjoy. Pick a line of dialogue that you like. As people guess the films, strike out the entry. NO CHEATING!

UPDATE: Added another quote from each film here...

UPDATE: I went ahead and finished this up by answering #9 myself. It's kind of a shame nobody got this one, because that means none of you has seen the movie Creator. This thoughtful, charming, intelligent, romantic, funny film is one of my all-time favorites. The fact that it stars the brilliant Peter O'Toole is just icing on the cake. Run right out and rent it immediately.

1. "Now, that is a big trunk! It holds a tuba, a suitcase, a dead dog, and a garment bag almost perfectly."
   "Someone stole Marilyn's jacket last night. And Poe is missing." - Wonder Boys (Amy got it!)
2. "Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason."
   "Look it, everybody needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometime. It's what we are." - Strange Days (Richard got it!)
3. "Can you hammer a six-inch spike through a board with your penis?"
   "That's popcorn! Get it away from me, I can't stand popcorn. I hate popcorn." - Real Genius (Aravis got it!)
4. "The closer you get to being a pro, the closer you can get to the client. The knife, for example, is the last thing you'll learn." - Leon: The Professional (Richard got it!).
5. "Look, if you want me to talk in front of him you may be asked to kill him later. It works for me, your call." - Long Kiss Goodnight (Art got it!)
6. "You have got albinos chasing you down the street, prowlers breaking into your apartment, don't you see? They're only after one thing!" - Foul Play (Tonya got it!)
7. "He was very nice about it, but he made me feel like a third class witch doctor!" - The Day the Earth Stood Still (Dennis got it!)
8. "You know something, I don't think the sun even exists in this place."
   "Hey! Ya happen to know the way to Shell Beach?" - Dark City (Rick got it!)
9. "That's it? One course in 'The Big Picture' - twelve credits?"
   "One of these days we'll look in to our microscope and find ourselves staring right into God's eyes, and the first one who blinks is going to lose his testicles." - Creator (NOBODY got it!)
10. "Oh, just a few special effects... sort of the Universal Studios tour of evil. It normally works pretty well but, evidently you weren't going for it. That last wish of yours was a deal breaker." - Bedazzled (Ben got it!)

Hmmm... looking these over, I wonder if even I would be able to figure them out!

Just when you think you've done every meme in existence... here's another. Only for you Chris! (Though, there is a clue to the Movie Quotable of the Day if you feel like reading on). I don't know if I've done this one before or not so, even if I have, the answers are probably different since I can't recall any of it!

If you've read my "100 Things About Me" page, you will know that I am not a big believer in astrology or any of that crap (see item #4). But I will admit that I find the Chinese Zodiac to be eerily accurate in describing my personality and whatnot. Since Girl On A Glide has asked "what's your sign?" - I though I might as well put it out there and let people draw their own conclusions.

As it turns out, I am a Fire Horse. From what I've read, this is a pretty good sign if you are a guy, but a very bad sign if you happen to be a woman. In Asia, girls born as Fire Horses are considered unlucky to the family who bore her, and catastrophic to any man who is unfortunate enough to fall in love with her (as her sign is thought to be an overly-assertive troublemaker). This is odd, because those are exactly the traits I seem to attract in a woman. You can read all about that in this extended entry if you should so choose...

It's kind of strange how the blogosphere has been so quiet lately. Many regular posters have been skipping days... even weeks... and, most surprising, I haven't seen any new memes running around. I don't know if the advent of Spring is causing people to be distracted, or if bloggers are just tired of blogging. These things run in cycles I suppose.

Imagine my surprise when I see a new meme has been started over at DOWN WITH PANTS! (just after their one-year anniversary, I might add). Inspired by Jay & Silent Bob's bit on VH1, I give you Three Guys I Might Go Gay For. Since this is not a topic I tend to think about, I've decided to make it easy on myself and stick to movie actors so I don't have to get into sports stars, singers, politicians, and other guys I don't know much about...

Hugh Grant. I will admit that I find nothing attractive about Hugh Grant, but his lips used to be pressed against various Elizabeth Hurley body parts, which is somehow appealing to me. He's not an overly-great actor, but he finds roles that he is well-suited for (I thought he was especially good in Notting Hill) so perhaps I could use that as a reason to go all gay over him. Well, that and his money, of course.

Dominic Monaghan. The least gay of all the gay Hobbits in Lord of the Rings, Dominic Monaghan is HOT! Because of his humor, he is one of the few characters on Lost who can divert my attention from Evangeline Lilly (who he happens to be dating), so I can only guess that I could go all gay over him.

Scott Plank. In an attempt to be semi-serious here, if I were to go gay, there is one actor I can think of that I wouldn't mind spending time with... mainly because I have been lucky enough to spend time with him (uhhh... but not like that!): Scott Plank. Unfortunatley, he has passed on, so I'm not sure if he counts. I met Scott during a horrible three month involvement I had with a Hollywood movie project, and can say in all honesty that he was the ONLY person I met during that time who wasn't a self-involved, artificial, arrogant, jerk. When the project ultimately fell apart, I tried my best to put it behind me and forget all about it, but it would be difficult to forget such a fun, humble, kind person like Scott Plank. I was saddened to hear he had died, even more upset that his potential as an actor was never realized while he was alive, and am devastated that my search for photos of him on the internet found practically nothing (the above image was from some kind of stage play he was involved in, because pictures of his television and movie roles don't seem to exist?). Granted he wasn't especially famous, but he was on a number of shows like Air America, Strange Luck, and Melrose Place... surely he should be remembered somewhere? Anyway, a guy could do a lot worse than going all gay over Scott Plank.

And there you have it. In reviewing my picks, I'm not sure what they say about my choice in men. Humor perhaps? That seems to make sense, because once you remove things like "breasts" out of the female equation, that's an appealing factor for me.

There was a dry spell for a while, but now blog memes are slowly starting to creep back into the blogosphere. This time, it's Kirkitsch over at My So-Called Strife who has discovered the "Personality Disorder Test." This is one of those tests that would have been more interesting to take back in high school when I was all messed up and actually cared about being messed up... instead of now, where I am still messed up, but just don't worry about it. Since I so rarely care about what other people think about me, that any paranoia I should be feeling has long since vanished.

Here we go...

Okay, the narcissism I get. While I do care about other people in general, my complete uncaring about how others perceive or react to me goes a long way toward explaining that (and why my other scores are so low). But schizotypal? What's that?

Oh, okay then. I prefer to call this type of behavior "genius," but to each their own. I don't mind being at high risk for genius.

Well, Neil has gone and done it again... dug up another huge meme that I don't really want to spend time participating in, but feel compelled to nevertheless (and he got it from Richard, so he's equally to blame). This time it's the infamous "Internet Movie DataBase Top 250 Films" (as ranked by IMDB Voters). The idea is that you take the complete list of 250 films and then check-off the ones you've seen. Surprisingly, I've seen all but 77 of them (and only two on the list are unknown to me completely).

It's a terrific idea for a meme and, since I love movies so much, I just can't pass it up (as I have twice before). But TWO-HUNDRED FIFTY?!? Ah well. I've kept the IMDB links, so you can click to learn about the movie if you are so inclined. I've also added my personal rating to those I've seen (Bomb to 5 stars) and, like Neil, have also noted which of the films I own on DVD...

For those of you who could care less about my movie habits, I've put the list in an extended entry.

I am seriously behind in my blog reading. NetNewswire reported that I had 427 entries waiting, which is pretty bad, so I decided to just dedicate my morning to getting caught up.

About 100 deep, I run across an excellent idea for a meme over at Rob's Cucucachoo blog (which he got from an episode of Friends)... where you list the top five celebrities would you have "relations" with, even if you were already in a relationship. I don't think it would surprise anybody if my list looked like this:

1. Elizabeth Hurley.
2. Elizabeth Hurley.
3. Elizabeth Hurley.
4. Elizabeth Hurley.
5. Elizabeth Hurley.

I mean, COME ON!! Have you ever seen anything so delicious in your life?

But, in the interest of being diplomatic to all the women out there who are not Elizabeth Hurley, I suppose it's only fair that I give some other celebs a shot at my sweet, sweet lovin'... here's a slight revision for the moment:

1. Elizabeth Hurley.
2. Katie Holmes.
3. Halle Berry.
4. Jessica Alba.
5. Angelina Jolie.

A pity that you can't go over five... there should be a way to fit Kelly Hu in there somewhere. Oh well, it's not like if Kelly Hu ever made a move on me that I would go "oh, so sorry, but you're not on my list!"

For the past year, I exist on about 4-5 hours of rest each night. Apparently, that's all I need. I go to sleep around 1am and usually wake between 4:30 and 5:30am. I have no idea what has changed in my life to shift me away from the 7-8 hours I used to get, but that's the way it is. Usually I don't mind, because it gives me a lot of time to catch up with work, watch TV, and surf the internet, but right now I just want to sleep.

But I can't. And there's this sinking feeling that this might be one of those nights I can't sleep at all.

So I randomly blog-surf and find out that Michael Sean has this massive Xanga journal that pre-dates his current blog. After a while spent poking around his site, I come across another one of those "Things to do Before You Die" lists that I like so much. I really need to update my own list one of these days. My answers to Michael Sean's list are in an extended entry.

As an eternal optimist (brought forth from my Buddhist studies which dictate that all things turn out as they should in the end), I am always looking for the good in any situation. But it's kind of freaking me out how difficult it is to actually be an optimist now-a-days. Most times I have to be content that I can make up something funny around the situation, rather than actually having something good come out of it. Even then, you have to look really hard.

Three recent examples have me trying to find "the funny" in war, in elderly poverty, and in illiteracy...

The Sad: Soldiers in their desert camouflage saying goodbye to their families at the airport so they can head back to Iraq. The Funny?: One soldier, somehow holding it together for his sobbing wife, turns to her and says: "... and no sleeping with my brother while I'm gone!" More tears... and laughter... as she kisses him goodbye.

The Sad: An older gentleman at Dennys ordering not according to what he wants, but according to what he can afford. Even worse, he probably skipped out buying some medication he needed so he could afford to eat in the first place. The Funny?: The guy sure got bang for his buck. When I returned an hour later to pick up a chocolate shake for take-away, he was still there eating his breakfast value meal and reading a book with his free-refill coffees.

The Sad: The woman discussing her new reading club and saying "it's written in ancient English or something, so it takes a lot longer to read than real books." The Funny?: The book in question was The Invisible Man, written in 1897 (you know... back in ancient British times when Stonehenge was being built and the wheel was invented! I think H.G. Wells carved the story on stone tablets did he not?). Oh well, at least she's reading the original novel rather than renting the Chevy Chase movie spoof. That's got to count for something (though I rather enjoyed Memoirs of an Invisible Man myself).

And in my own life...

The Sad: My job is going to run late into the night tonight, turning this into yet another long day (22 hours+) of nothing but work. The Funny?: By getting work out of the way now, I will have time to stop by "Goblin Valley" tomorrow on my way to a few days of much-needed vacation time in Southern Utah. Goblins are funny.

And, lastly, a musical-baton meme I saw at Neil's World that he got from Hicksdesign:

Total volume of music files on my computer: 22.54GB.

The last CD I bought was: Well, I don't buy CDs anymore, but the last album I bought off of the iTunes Music Store was With Teeth by Nine Inch Nails. It's not Pretty Hate Machine and doesn't reach The Downward Spiral brilliance, but is still pretty kick-ass.

Song playing right now: That would be Halo by Depeche Mode off my iPod Shuffle.

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: Like Neil says, these are songs that I've been listening to a lot lately - not necessarily my favorites - as seen in the "Last Played" column of iTunes...

1. Edge of the Ocean by Ivy. I heard it (again) on the most excellent television show Grey's Anatomy and can't get it out of my head. Beautiful, beautiful song.
2. Somewhere Only We Know by Keane. Oh how I love this album. Yet another song from Grey's Anatomy.
3. Everybody's Changing by Keane. So beautiful that I get chills every time it hits on my play list.
4. I Wish I Cared by a-ha. My personal anthem. Off of their Minor Earth, Major Sky album which I cannot seem to stop listening to (for over a year now).
5. Steal My Sunshine by Len. I recently rediscovered this song, and play it a lot. You can't help but feel good when you hear this one.

A good meme... but I wish there was a question about upcoming stuff, like "what new release are you most looking forward to" (which, for me, would be Coldplay's upcoming album) because I am always on the look out for new stuff, and am curious to know what everybody else has on the horizon.

Why is it I have absolutely no motivation to do anything on a Sunday? It's 10:00am and I have not yet gotten out of bed. But now that I've spent the last two hours catching up on blog reading, I suppose I should consider it. I need to get a bed with a built-in toilet, refrigerator, and microwave so I can spend Sunday as it was intended (and here comes the hate mail from the church-goers!).

Neil has put up a few bizarre Google searches he's received. I was going to do the same, but find that the searches people enter once they're actually here are even more bizarre than what people Google (mostly "Lindsay Lohan Boobies" and the like).

Here are twenty of the more interesting Blogography searches as of late...

• Most Powerful Good Mutants On Earth (which is odd, because I consider myself to be the most powerful EVIL mutant on Earth!)
• show poop (I get a lot of "poop" searches because of this stupid entry)
• www.showpeoplespoop.com (What the-?? And I got this search from more than one person too!)
• diagram of poop (I have no idea...)
• britneyspearsnude (BecauseIwritewithallthewordstogetherlikethis?)
• granny sex pics (uh... disturbing)
• why is martha stewart in jail ? (Because she's a bitch and must be made an example of to women everywhere... luckily men don't get sent to jail for being a bastard, or else I'd be in a "pound you up the ass Federal Penitentiary" right now)
• ellen degeneres favorite shoes (wonder no more... it's a pair of Air Jordan Retro XII's)
• keanu reeves gay (I wish! Keanu is sooooooo hot!!!)
• is dave gay? (Only for Keanu Reeves, though these guys also have a shot)
• dave sexy pics (Hey, ALL my pics are sexy! I just can't help it!)
• dave naked (Why would somebody want to see this? As an FYI, there is a photo of my bare ass on the internet... somewhere... I'm not saying where. I can only guess she thought my ass was perfect, and needed to be shared with the world - anonymously, thankfully)
• sexy photo (Ah, you must be looking for Elizabeth Hurley)
• You are guests in my corn (a quote from my favorite movie of all time)
• mature adult photos (because looking for adult photos on the internet is such a mature activity)
• mix chicks fliks in the park (Picks six tricks for kicks!)
• paula radcliffe peeing (I know she's the Brit marathon gal, but I didn't know that her urine has mystical healing properties)
• vampire women (Aren't they all? Well, at least the ones I've dated)
• stockholm women (I wish)
• how Rhodeisland got his name (Rhodeisland got it's name when our founding fathers forgot to press the space-bar while naming the States of this great nation)

That's only the tip of the iceberg, of course. People come here and search for the strangest stuff.

On behalf of a grateful nation, my thanks to all who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom this Memorial Day... and every day.

Neil is on a roll, with the meme du jour being a run-through at Blog Ideas. I have alread done this one before, so here's hoping that there are new questions in the mix.

• What is something scientists need to invent? A replacement for fossil fuels would be nice. Preferably one that is renewable and not harmful to the environment. Will it be biodiesel? I have no idea. Better work that one out really quickly.
• My life as a cartoon. Bwah ha hah. I draw too many cartoons of my life as it is.
• Boxers; Briefs; Commando? I mostly wear boxers, though I do own some briefs as well. I have gone commando exactly twice (once because my underwear was forgotten... once because it was stolen).
• Vanity Search @ Google: does your site come up? Both my name and my blog ("Blogography") come up first. That's kind of nice, I guess.
• Pickles: Friend or Foe? Pickles are my friend. I love pickles. I especially love pickle chips, but not on my burger... I always take them off my veggie burger and eat them separately.

Ooooh... time to pack my suitcase. See you in Seattle.

Ack! I've been tagged!!

The latest blogosphere craze seems to be the "Book Meme" which I've been tagged with by James Bow...

How Many Books Do You Own? I am not at home to count them, but it must be at least a hundred. If you include comic books, then the count would be around two to three thousand.

What is the Last Book You Bought? Just One Look by Harlan Coben on May 21st. I rather like it, but haven't had time to finish it.

What is the Last Book You Read? Well, since I haven't yet finished Just One Look yet, I suppose I could say that the last book I completed was yet another reading of Noble House by James Clavell. This is my favorite contemporary novel, and I have read it at least a dozen times now... probably more. Brilliant, brilliant book... and complex enough to demand multiple readings.

Name five books that mean a lot to you. Oog. Narrowing it down to five only? That's tough...

1. Nobel House by James Clavell. As I said, I love, love love this book. I will probably read it ANOTHER dozen times before I die.
2. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The first book I can remember to make me laugh out loud while reading it. A lot. Actually, I love all of Adams' books, and could probably make a strong case for putting one of his more serious books (but still hilarious) called Last Chance to See on this list. Fantastic book.
3. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This is not my favorite of the Burroughs "Barsoom Books," but it is the first in the series, and responsible for the ten that followed. So worth reading.
4. Watchemen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. The ultimate graphic novel... so utterly brilliant that I loathe to even call it a "comic book" (although it is) because people get the wrong idea. Completely changed a genre, and its influences are still felt even today.
5. Illusions by Richard Bach. Totally changed the way I look at life after reading it. Very few books have affected me as deeply as this one, and I consider it (along with Bach's other amazing book: Jonathan Livingston Seagull) to be essential. If you can ignore the new-age hijinks, and focus on the underlying themes that Bach so beautifully weaves into his stories, this is well worth reading.

Now "tag" five individuals to provide their own lists. Errr... I'm not caught up on my blog reading because of work, so I have no idea who might have done it already. Perhaps Tonya, because she is ALWAYS reading something cool. I have no idea what Mr. Jerz is reading, so that might prove interesting. Gary has similar taste in television shows, so I'm naturally curious as to what he reads. Kachina has a "what I'm reading" graphic on her site, but I'm curious to know what else she might be into. And lastly, how about Anthony McG... I wonder what they're reading in Dublin now?

Writer, student (and self-proclaimed Lord of The Dance) Cavan Terrill has come up with an interesting meme over at his "The Blurred Line Blog." He is basically asking how important the personality of the blogger is to your reading, and which of the bloggers you read would you like to hang out with.

The short answer is that I would like to hang with everybody listed in my blogroll (along with a dozen other bloggers I've forgotten to list, or those bloggers who write so infrequently that I've dropped them). Since I find each person listed there interesting enough that I keep going back for more, I can only guess that they would be interesting enough that I would like to hang with them in person. Nobody on that blogroll is there just because they link to me, or write nice comments... they've earned a spot on the list (I really do need to update it though).

The long answer is a bit more complex because of another question Cavan raises: How well do you actually get to know the bloggers you read every day? And that's the trick, isn't it? Because you can only interpret who a person really is based on what they write. But even the best writers aren't going to give you all the details of their life. When you read a blog, you don't get the whole story... only what the writer wishes you to know.

In the case of my blog, this is actually more true than in others, because I leave quite a lot out. I do not write about my friends and family. I do not write about my work. I (usually) do not write about my more personal problems. There's a lot of things happening with me that will never show up in Blogography. Cavan calls this "quasi-personal" which is exactly right... there's just enough of "me" here that you can probably figure out what type of person I am, but not enough for you to truly know me.

Unfortunately, there is a danger in this... some people don't realize that this blog is "quasi-personal" and think they know all about me just because of what they see here. I'm guessing this would make Blogography "pseudo-personal." I give the impression that this blog is an open book unto my life when, in reality, it isn't (I wrote about this in more depth here).

I will tell you that people who know me in "real life" who also read Blogography often tell me that I seem much angrier in my blog than I am in person. This is true, for obvious reasons. Here I can vent my frustrations knowing that if people don't want to hear it, they just won't read it. If I was bitching like this all the time to my friends, I probably wouldn't have many friends for very long. I am a fairly easy-going guy, and I know that this doesn't always come across here. This will be a relief to some of you (and grave disappointment to others).

Knowing that about myself, I have to wonder why I would want to hang with anybody whose blog I read... because there's always the chance that the person I like so much from their writings will turn out to be entirely different in real life (well, except for Girl on a Glide... she rides a motorcycle, and what else do you really need to know about a person?).

I don't know... would it be worth the risk?

Of course it would. Let's all meet next Thursday and hang out. Mr. Jerz is bringing the beer (happy birthday by the way!).

And, speaking of "happy birthday," best wishes to the love of my life, Elizabeth Hurley, who turns 40 today!

I had seen the "Google Image Meme" someplace, then promptly forgot about it. But then whilst catching up on my blog-reading this weekend, I ran across it again at Chronic Listaholic, and decided to give it a go. It was supposed to be for Sunday, but I ended up having something to write about, and put it off until now.

How it works is this... you are given ten questions, and then have to enter your answer into Google Images to see what comes up for each one. You can either take the first hit, pick a favorite, or however you want to do it so that your answer ends up being a picture...

1. The place you grew up. Cashmere, Washington. I selected a photo of downtown that had a pickup truck and a bunch of flags in the shot, because that pretty much sums it up.
2. The place you live now. Same place, so I used the same photo.
3. Your name. Despite having a pretty good Google Index, my full name does not result in any photos of me popping up (I suppose I should be relieved?). When I simply enter "Dave" I still don't show but, oddly enough, my friend Dave does show up, so he gets his picture here.
4. Your grandmother's name. Despite the fact that my grandmother's name is not "Marilyn Monroe," that's the photo that comes up. Odd.
5. Your favorite food. This is such a toss-up, but I'd have to say the top-three are "Pasta Salvi" (from Salvi's Bistro in Columbus, Ohio), The Da Vinci Pizza (from David's Pizza in Spokane, Washington), and the ORIGINAL Fettucini Alfredo (ONLY from Alfredo alla Scrofa in Rome, Italy).
6. Your favorite drink. It's usually Italian hot chocolate, but given that it's summer time, I chose my current obsession... Coke with Lime.
7. Your favorite song. Would be something by Depeche Mode. But since I didn't want to spend hours trying to narrow it down to a short list, I just picked my current fave song... Everything's Changing by Keane. This is a photo of the lead singer, I think.
8. Your favorite smell. Always grandma's apple pie.
9. Your favorite shoes. Despite being made in a sweat-shop somewhere, my Nike ACG Boots remain my favorite pair of shoes ever. Unfortunately, my favorite fave model has long-since been discontinued, so these are a different pair of Nike ACG boots.
10. Your favorite number. Four. Which is considered hugely bad luck throughout most of Asia. For reason's unknown, this really cool stealth bomber SR-71 Blackbird shot comes up when I type "4" into Google Images.

And there you have it... a cool meme to fill up space in your blog!

Ack! I've been tagged by Neil.

This one is about stress and anxiety, which doesn't happen to me very often. About the closest thing to stress that I've had recently was a strange disturbance in the force yesterday afternoon... as if thousands of people were crying out in suffering and pain... but then I realized it was just Dave Winer landing in Seattle for Gnomedex, two hours away from here.

List five things you enjoy, even when no one around you wants to go out and play. What lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level? Make a list, post it to your journal, and then tag five friends and ask them to post it to theirs:

• Take a ride my motorcycle. It doesn't matter where.
• Watch a mindless movie on DVD that I've seen a dozen times before.
• Leave the country for a week.
• Play video games set on the "easy" level.
• Write a rant on my blog.

Okay, I lied. Now I am stressing trying to think of five people to tag. Since this is kind of a list thing, my first instinct is to tag SJ at Chronic Listaholic (who would make it 10 things instead of 5)... but she is in the middle of starting the "100 Things About Me" meme, and so I don't want to interrupt.

How about I just grab some random recent commenters?

• Ástríður at Venus Ice.
• Michelle at Moonshine is Pretty.
• Peggy at Totally Unauthorized.
• Carl at On My Planet.
• Delmer at What's a Delmer Look Like?.

Why did the rat cross the road?

I don't know, and apparently neither did he.

On the way home from work today, I had to slam on the brakes because a rat ran out in front of my car from the opposite side of the road. He got all the way across, took a look around, then turned around and ran right back to where he started. Perhaps he thought that things would be better over on the other side, and finally worked up the courage to run across... then found out that the other side of the street wasn't all he had hoped it would be.

I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. Hopefully it involves looking both ways before crossing the street, because that rat very nearly became road kill.

Speaking of rats, I am fearing that the guest list may be slightly altered for Dave's Bad-Ass Blogography Show (whenever I get around to working on it again)...

I'll keep you posted.

Elsewhere in the blogosphere, SJ is forever coming up with cool list ideas for "Chronic Listaholic," but her current list idea is so cool that I'm going to steal it:

Ten Phrases I Hope To Say Someday...

1. "Why yes, I'd love to go out with you Elizabeth Hurley!"
2. "Why yes, I'd be happy to make love to you again Elizabeth Hurley!"
3. "Why yes, I'd be thrilled to move in with you Elizabeth Hurley!"
4. "Why yes, I'd be overjoyed to marry you Elizabeth Hurley!"
5. "Why yes, I'd be delighted to let you iron my shirts Elizabeth Hurley!"
6. "No, I hadn't heard that I'd won 500 million dollars in the lottery. So that's my check then?"
7. "Really? BOTH Judge Judy AND Jared Fogel were decapitated by ninjas? You don't say!"
8. "I never thought I'd see world peace in my lifetime, yet here it is."
9. "I am tickled pink to announce that Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall are reprising their roles for a contracted ten new seasons of Cupid! Oh, and Dead Link Me, Wonderfalls, and Oh Grow Up! are also coming back to television."
10. "I humbly accept the title of 'Overlord of the Universe' as a lifetime appointment."

Hmmm... I had a rant ready for today, but I want a slice of chocolate cake now. Maybe tomorrow.

After a grueling day at work (thank you Adobe!) I have a grueling night of work ahead of me. It wouldn't suck so much except that I've got some great DVD rentals that I've been wanting to watch. I also would like to make ice cream a few times before summer is over. Homemade ice cream on a hot summer day kicks ass. Waaah.

I found this meme over at The Shape of Days, though it will be tough to top Jeff's answers... 

Five things I'd like never to do again:

1. Use a Windows-based PC.
2. Watch FOX News.
3. Date a psychotic bitch.
4. Hear bad news.
5. Eat natto.

Five things I've lost that I'd like to have back:

1. My best friend.
2. Reality-free television.
3. My pre-dot-com-implosion income level.
4. Adobe customer support.
5. Hope for the future.

Five things you can totally have for a song if you make me the right offer:

1. My piece of shit Panasonic DVD recorder.
2. My piece of shit Panasonic cordless phone.
3. My piece of shit copy of Microsoft Windows XP.
4. My piece of shit Dell Inspiron PC.
5. My endorsement of your product or service.

Five people to whom I owe apologies:

1. Elizabeth Hurley.
2. Elizabeth Hurley's kid.
3. Elizabeth Hurley's fiance.
4. Elizabeth Hurley's extended family.
5. Oscar.

Five people who can totally lick my balls:

1. Jared Fogel.
2. Judge Judy.
3. Ann Coulter, everybody at FOX News, and the entire Bush administration.
4. Whoever canceled Jeremy Piven's Cupid and subsequently refuses to release it on DVD.
5. Elizabeth Hurley's fiance (though I wouldn't refuse Elizabeth Hurley herself, if she was so inclined).

Argh. It's been five days and I still haven't unpacked my suitcase. I should really do that before the clean underwear runs out. It's too hot and sweaty to be going commando. Bleh. One more thing I have to do.

Have you ever been tagged with a meme that you could swear you've done before... but can find no trace of it in your archives? Yeah, me too. Maybe it's just that, after two years of rambling on, I've talked about all this stuff at one time or another and it just seems that way.

Oh well. It's nice to get it all out in one place. Anthony, this one's for you:

Seven things I plan to do before I die...

1. Stand on the Great Wall of China.
2. Touch the waters of the Aegean.
3. See Michelangelo's David in Florence.
4. Gaze upon the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
5. Visit New Orleans reborn.
6. Complete an episode of Dave's Bad-Ass Blogography Show.
7. Rule the earth as master of all I survey.

Seven things I can do...

1. Feel comfortable in unfamiliar places.
2. Accept responsibility for my actions.
3. Laugh in the face of adversity.
4. Make a pretty good plate of enchiladas.
5. Talk to complete strangers.
6. Build a cool fort with couch pillows.
7. Be supportive of those who try.
8. Find happiness when there's nothing to be happy about.

Seven things I can not do...

1. Tolerate cruelty.
2. Accept ignorance.
3. Understand violence.
4. Embrace stupidity.
5. Condone laziness.
6. Endure David Caruso's "acting."
7. Eat meat.

Seven things that I find really attractive about the opposite sex...

1. Kindness.
2. Smile.
3. Eyes.
4. Laugh.
5. Touch.
6. Boobies.
7. You're Elizabeth Hurley.

Seven things I say the most...

1. "I'm sorry but you just aren't right for our band, INXS."
2. "Entertain me."
3. "Please."
4. "Thanks."
5. "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!"
6. "Logan and Veronica 4-Ever."
7. "F#@%."

Seven Books I love...

1. Noble House by James Clavell.
2. Dune. by Frank Herbert
3. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy by Douglas Adams.
4. Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams.
5. Lightning by Dean Koontz.
6. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
7. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Right about now, I'm suppose to be tagging a bunch of other people for this meme, but I've sworn not to do that anymore. That being said, doesn't this seem like a job for Chronic Listaholic? And I must admit to being curious as to how Karla, everybody's favorite Textpatriate would answer these questions.

A week ago, just as I was in the process of flying back from Hong Kong, James tagged me with an excellent meme: "If I Were a SuperHero." As a long-time fan and lover of comic books, I was duly excited, and spent the two hour layover I had in Japan coming up with a few ideas and sketching them out.

But then I couldn't stop.

All week, whenever I had a spare moment, I worked up dozens of heroes I thought would be a good fit for me. Pages and pages of them. Ultimately, I knew that something had to be done... my life was being destroyed over a meme. So I decided to narrow the choice down to my top-ten favorites...

...and make it into a collectible card game.

Since this is going to be a pretty big entry, I'll post the first half tonight, and the remaining five tomorrow. James, I hope you're happy!

Supreme Pontiff. Elected to the head of the Catholic Church, Dave became Supreme Pontiff... The Ass-Kicking Pope! Armed with the psychic power to explode people's heads and backed by his faithful followers, Dave uses his Papal Power Staff to smite evil non-believers and people who piss him off. Weakness: flying spaghetti monsters.
Strength: 3, Agility: 4, Charisma: 9, Intelligence: 7, Fighting Ability: 6, POWER RATING: 7.

Dave-Devil. Consigned to hell by his right-wing, conservative, religious wacko Blogography readers, Dave quickly rose through the ranks of Satan's army to become Dave-Devil... The Unholy Terror! Able to crush his foes with his fists of flame, Dave-Devil has near-impervious skin, toughened by the fiery brimstone pits of hell itself! Armed with an evil glare and demonic laugh to paralyze his prey, Dave uses his demonic touch to burn his enemies to their very souls. Weakness: televangelists and holy water.
Strength: 7, Agility: 4, Charisma: 4, Intelligence: 2, Fighting Ability: 7, POWER RATING: 4.

The Lone Dick. As one of the most irritating, annoying people on earth, Dave trained in the monasteries of Los Angeles to become The Lone Dick... a shining shaft of light in the fight against crime! Able to control his molecular structure, The Lone Dick can harden to become impenetrable... but, when nervous or upset, can become ultra-limp and slippery, making him impossible to catch. Dave blasts his foes with his dual Dick Pistols, which spray forth a viscous liquid to immobilize all who would dare oppose him. Weakness: nuns, Bea Arthur, fat chicks in spandex.
Strength: 3, Agility: 7, Charisma: 2, Intelligence: 6, Fighting Ability: 3, POWER RATING: 6.

Tube Dude. After becoming so addicted to watching television that he used to his superior intelligence to merge his brain with a TV set, Dave because Tube Dude... the televised avenger! Able to instantly recall complete episode guides for any television program ever aired with his satellite uplink, Dave uses this vast knowledge to defeat his foes with the power of television. Tube Dude attacks his opponents with his cable whip, and a nuclear-powered remote control that can emit a powerful laser force field. Weakness: dead batteries, stupid network executives with cancelation powers.
Strength: 3, Agility: 3, Charisma: 5, Intelligence: 8, Fighting Ability: 2, POWER RATING: 2.

Stalkerman. Finally succumbing to his overwhelming love of Elizabeth Hurley, Dave used his vast fortune to become Stalkerman... the teleporting scourge of the underworld! Able to instantly teleport to any location on earth, Dave uses his stalking skills to defeat those who would oppose his will for world domination (and to secretly stalk hottie movie stars). Stalkerman is all but undefeatable when using his flash-punch to pummel his enemies from afar. Weakness: paparazzi, tabloids, restraining orders.
Strength: 3, Agility: 9, Charisma: 9, Intelligence: 7, Fighting Ability: 8, POWER RATING: 8.

Tune in tomorrow for the rest... it only gets worse from here...

Comic books have been a very large part of my past, and continue to be a source of enjoyment for me even today. They've changed over the years, of course, trying to compete in a world of ever-escalating violence and fun-time alternatives like videogames... but the idea of escaping into the utopian world of super-powered heroes is just as appealing now as it has always been.

Actually, the escape is more necessary now that it has ever been.

Anyway, onward to concluding the saga of the "If I Were a SuperHero" meme from yesterday...

The Davenator. Modified by aliens from the future, Dave received an impervious endoskeleton, giving him fantastic strength and transforming him into The Davenator... unstoppable force against injustice! Armed with every conceivable weapon he can find, The Davenator mows down his foes with bloody abandon. Weakness: The Governator.
Strength: 8, Agility: 6, Charisma: 3, Intelligence: 3, Fighting Ability: 9, POWER RATING: 7.

Monkey Boy. Bitten by a radioactive monkey, Dave became Monkey Boy... the simian protector of the innocent! Armed with his bananarang, Dave boldly goes where other heroes fear to tread. Infused with radioactive monkey saliva, Monkey Boy received a number of fantastic powers... including his fierce "monkey bite" which can gnaw through bones, his ear-splitting "monkey screech" which stops foes in their tracks, and his "howling bitch-slap" which can annoy even the deadliest of opponents. But the most frightening tool in his arsenal is the deadly "Poo fling" where Dave can throw his radioactive monkey feces at villains, temporarily blinding them (and making them smell like crap). Weakness: Buckaroo Banzai, Lord John Whorfin, Black Lectroids.
Strength: 3, Agility: 7, Charisma: 4, Intelligence: 4, Fighting Ability: 3, POWER RATING: 3.

Captain Road Rage. Fed up with the number of stupid drivers on the road, Dave tricked out his automobile with deadly devices to become Captain Road Rage... motor-powered predator of the streets! His faithful Saturn is armor-plated, and able to tear through even a soccer-mom's Hummer with ease. For those driving slow in the passing lane, Dave often uses his "Sonic Death Horn" to liquify them until they're nothing but a stain on the pavement. Lauded by good drivers everywhere, Captain Road Rage uses his network of "road warriors" to stay one-step ahead of the law. Weakness: road blocks, highway construction.
Strength: 4, Agility: 3, Charisma: 7, Intelligence: 5, Fighting Ability: 8, POWER RATING: 5.

Anger Lad. For years Dave absorbed all the stupidity in the world until one day it exploded within him as all-consuming rage, causing him to be reborn as Anger Lad... furious avenger of sanity! With no real superpowers, Dave has to rely on his righteous fury to batter his foes into submission. Armed only with a foul temper and deadly ranting skills, Anger Lad can easily dispatch common idiots, politicians, talk show hosts, spammers, and whack-jobs, in a flurry of obscenities. Weakness: kittens, rainbows, Betty White.
Strength: 3, Agility: 3, Charisma: 5, Intelligence: 8, Fighting Ability: 2, POWER RATING: 2.

UltraDave. The epitome and culmination of the perfection that is Dave, he has evolved to become UltraDave... glorious overlord of all mankind! Using his god-like powers, Dave can pretty much do anything he wants to do. Dave spends his time making the world a better place for his loyal followers, and bringing blessings and prosperity to all who serve him through his divine might. ALL BOW BEFORE ULTRADAVE, OUR BELOVED RULER!! Weakness: none.
Strength: 9+, Agility: 9+, Charisma: 9+, Intelligence: 9+, Fighting Ability: 9+, POWER RATING: 9+.

Okay then, that was fun! Though, if I start spending this kind of time on future blog entries, it will seriously be time to give it up and move on to something more productive!

I always seem to get memed just as I am leaving the country. It must be a conspiracy. And since today's entry is running a little late (it's a long, boring commentary on all the television shows I missed while I was in China), I thought I'd grab two that I've noticed so far, as I catch up with the blogosphere.

James has tagged me with the "Thinkers. Leaders. Doers." meme that, apparently, is all the rage in the Canadian Blogosphere just now. The task is to choose eleven smart and famous individuals to "rule the world" from a list of 100 individuals listed on a BBC website. You must select a leader, a thinker, and an economist, with the other 8 being anybody you wish. Needless to say, I'm rather pissed that I am not on the list, but whatever. Here are my picks...

Thinker: The Dalai Lama. This was a very tough choice. My gut instinct was to select the Dalai Lama, as I am a huge fan of his teachings (specifically) and Buddhism (in general). For me, the entire concept behind Buddhism that I find so appealing is to "do no harm" whether that be by thought or action. But, unfortunately for us, we live in a chain of escalating violence where the Dalai Lama's peaceful ways simply could not rule the world very effectively. I was all set to choose somebody else, but kept coming back to the fact that a world ruled by the Dalai Lama would not be "ruled" at all... it would be a world governed by mutual respect for life. Such a dream is so appealing to me, that I simply could not choose anybody else.

Leader: Nelson Mandela. Believe it or not, I was very close to selecting former President Bill Clinton for the spot. If you can ignore his womanizing and the entire Lewinsky affair, he was actually a decent leader who did much for many people. Unlike President Bush, who I honestly think doesn't give a crap about 98% of the people he is supposed to be representing, I always had the sense that Clinton actually cared. Another contender was Vaclav Havel, because he was always so forward-thinking in his motives for political action, and we could certainly use some of that. But in the end I chose Mandela because he is such an icon for reform against oppressive elements, and a living embodiment of dignity and respect in leadership. How can you argue with that?

Economist: Steve Jobs. This should surprise no one, as I have made it quite clear that I worship the ground His Steveness walks on. He drives success from innovation and beauty as much by economic factors, and this is the way it should be. I loathe the idea of stagnate economics driven by the likes of Bill Gates, who keeps us mired down with a shitty OS (Windows) to run shittier programs (MS Office) and then builds a fortune not by innovation, but on the basis of entrapment. Apple keeps releasing amazing stuff which makes life more interesting, and what do we get from Microsoft? More bloated, buggy crapware that's pretty much the same old shit with a new name or version number. F#@% Bill Gates. F#@% him up his stupid ass (which I would gladly do for even a fraction of his unfathomable wealth).

As for the others... I stopped paging through the endless list of 100 individuals, because many of the people there, while worthy, are simply not in the realm of possibility for me. I decided to just toss out eight additional people that I feel are smart/famous enough to rule the world with the above-mentioned persons (and, granted, I did not give this as much thought as I probably should have... choosing instead to just write down people who popped into my head).

• Elizabeth Hurley (Actress, Business Person). Who gives a crap whether she actually has leadership qualities or not... she would look simply smashing running the world. Admit it, even if she came on television and announced that all right-handed people in the New World Order were to be executed, you'd love her for it.
• Matt Groening (Comic Genius). Creator of The Simpsons, Matt Groening gets the nod for one reason: his short-lived show Futurama. If this is truly his vision for the future of our planet, count me in.
• Luc Besson (Film Director and Writer). I think that a diverse imagination is important for leaders to have, and the man responsible for The Big Blue and The Fifth Element definitely has the imagination for the job.
• Jonathan Ive (Designer, Apple Computer). If all the world could be made as beautiful as an iPod, I think I would very much like to live there.
• Jeremy Piven (Actor). Hug it out bitch! I would want an entertaining world leader, and who could handle that better than Jeremy Piven, who steals every scene he has ever been in and is responsible for the greatest television show of all time: Cupid.
• Richard Bach (Writer). Anybody who can create something as lyrical and beautiful as Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions can rule my world any day.
• Allison Adler & Anya Epstein (Writers, Commander in Chief). Geena Davis' new drama about being the first woman President of the United States, is kind of boring. But there is a quote from the first episode that is so dead-on target, that I rewound and listened to it several times. I don't remember it exactly, but it's something along the lines of "a true power does not seek to rule the world, but to serve it." Anybody who understands this simple concept should have a place in running the planet.
• Me (Evil Genius). Screw the BBC. I am the most capable person I know of to rule the world, and I shall not let the glaring oversight of my omission from their list stand in my way to global domination. Bwaaah ha ha haaaaah!

Anthony has tagged me with the "23rd Post Meme" where you search your blog archive for your 23rd entry, then excerpt the fifth sentence. He wonders if I have stopped doing memes, which I haven't... I just don't tag other bloggers with them anymore.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from my 23rd post... "Of life and Arizona".

This amazing, amazing place was supposed to kill 2 hours on the way to the Big Event, but ended up sucking an entire day... and I would have dearly loved to stay longer.

This was said in reference to the Sedona area of Arizona (near the Grand Canyon), which truly is one of the most amazing places on earth.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got another 8 hours of television to watch...

Anxious to have a post about Kool-Aid Man's penis no longer be the first entry on my blog, I am picking up Kevin's Halloween Meme (oooh... say that out loud... "Halloween Meme" and then follow it with an evil "Bwaaah ha ha haaaaahhh!").

Sorry Kevin, but you missed the perfect name for this one: Hallowmeme! Get it?! Ha ha ha! I kill me!

Anyway, I like Halloween well enough, but it has not always turned out to be the best night of the year for me. Something unexpected (and not in a good way) always seems to happen. I guess that's why this year I'll be hidden away in my apartment catching up on television shows I missed from my recent travels instead of heading out to a party or something.

1. Do you prefer "trick" or "treat"?  Please explain. Depends... if I am the one doing the "tricking" then I like tricks. If the big-breasted whore on First Avenue is the one doing the "tricking" then I definitely like tricks. But if I am the one BEING tricked, I don't like them so much (as to why, you might want to read this). I think anybody would rather be on the receiving end of a "treat" wouldn't they?
2. What year did you quit trick or treating?  How old were you then? I honestly can't remember. I was fairly young still... because once you get older you go to Halloween parties instead of trick-or-treating.
3. What was your favorite costume?  Did you make or buy it?  How much did you spend on it (money or time)? My favorite costume was either a home-made Robot when I was a kid, or the time I went to a "sex switch" Halloween party as Wonder Woman (and girl, I was fierce!). The robot was my own design made out of cardboard boxes and tin-foil. I spent weeks on it, because it had motors and lights (that were all battery operated) plastered on it. Not a lot of money on that one. The Wonder Woman costume was much trickier... I didn't want to look like a cheap Wonder Woman, so I ordered a quality outfit. And then certain, ahem, "modifications" had to be made to it so that I could fit into the thing (or fit my thing into it, depending on how you look at it). That was an expensive costume once all was said and done... probably $100 (and that wasn't including the cost of the wig I borrowed).
4. What are/were your five most favorite things to receive when trick or treating? For treats, it goes in descending order... Uno candy bar, Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, Candy Corn, mini boxes of Dots candies, and Hershey's Chocolate Bar with Almonds.
5. What are/were your five least favorite things to receive when trick or treating? For treats, it goes in descending order... Almond Joy Bar (I hate coconut), suckers (how cheap-ass can you get?), Bazooka Joe gum (how cheap-ass can you get?), Pixie Sticks, and any of that gross hard candy.
6. Have you ever been chased by cops or unruly mobs of costumed children on Halloween? Chased? Not really. The cops showed up to a party I was at just four years ago (they were there to halt the noise, and it was only 8:30pm!). They were perplexed at us having a Halloween party where nobody was in costume, and I think they just decided to give us a hard time because of it. I once got caught up with a bunch of kids invading a mall for trick-or-treating... they didn't chase me, but I was trapped in a Hallmark store until they got their candy and left.
7. What's the worst thing you've ever done on Halloween? Killed a man. Ha ha ha... no, not really. Well, maybe. I once got so drunk at a Halloween party that I woke up in a total stranger's house, had no idea how I got there, and had to sneak out and find a phone at a local mini mart to be picked up. I suppose that I could have killed a man that night, but nothing showed up in the papers.
8. What is your biggest Halloween disappointment? A girl I was was semi-dating got so mad at me that a big night of fun turned into a big night of disappointment. It didn't help that I was being yelled at whilst dressed in a Wonder Woman costume. How is a golden lasso supposed to help in a situation like that?

Lovely. Now the entire internet knows that I like to dress up as Wonder Woman... ahem, I mean that I once dressed up as Wonder Woman for a costume party JUST ONCE and I didn't enjoy it at all. No sir, not one bit... with my sexy satin hot pants, my shiny bustier, and my kicky tiara and golden lasso... nuh uh... nope, that was no fun at all. Hated every minute of it.

But I must say, my ass was looking mighty fine in those pants!

Thanks a lot Kevin. I'm sure I've just added a few more gay percentage points to my profile because of this. What am I now... 25%? I dunno, 25% to 28%... somewhere in there I think? Damn those satin hot pants and my fine-looking ass!

Winter travel is always interesting, because you have no idea if you will actually reach your destination. Flying out of the small airport at Wenatchee this morning presented even more of a problem, because a snowstorm had just hit. Fortunately, gallons of de-icer dumped over the plane allowed us a departure only a half-hour late, which was better than I could have hoped for. Once in Seattle, it was a relatively quick three-hour hop to Chicago, which was having a snowstorm all its own. As we pulled into the gate, all the planes were getting deluged in de-icer. I can only hope the stuff is biodegradable.

Once I had arrived in the Windy City and waited a half-hour in the bitter cold for the hotel shuttle, I was shocked to see that I was not the only one waiting for a ride... a full dozen people were crowding on the small bus. This seemed unreal given that other shuttles were leaving with only one or two passengers, and I couldn't figure out why the Wyndham Hotel should be so popular.

Until I arrived to find that there is a huge Dr. Who convention here.

Apparently this one is particularly meaningful to fans because the "Fifth Doctor" himself... Peter Davison... is in attendance. This stroke of luck has me wishing that I was a bigger fan (sorry James!), though work would prohibit me from attending anyway.

Why couldn't it have been a Veronica Mars convention? I would have skipped work for that! I'd probably get fired, but at least I would have Kristen Bell's autograph to console me during unemployment!

I'm not so much into memes anymore, but Kachina has come across a musical meme I haven't seen before, so here we are...

1. Of all the bands/artists in your cd/record collection, which one do you own the most albums by? I am not at home to count, but I am guessing it would be The Thompson Twins. I have an exhaustive collection of singles, maxi-singles, albums, imports, specials, collector editions, bootlegs, picture discs, and the like. Along with Depeche Mode and a-ha, they were an 80's favorite.
2. What was the last song you listened to? A Pain That I'm Used To by Depeche Mode. I was almost finished with it when the stewardess asked me to turn off my iPod.
3. What’s in your record/cd player right now? Well, I don't have a record or cd player anymore, but my PowerBook here has an exhaustive collection of 6784 tracks that would be far too long to list here. If it help, the last cd I bought (because it was unavailable from the iTunes Music Store) was How Can I Sleep With Your Voice In My Head, a live album by a-ha.
4. What song would you say sums you up? Oh man... how can I pick just one? Katrina got three, so I'm taking three as well! First would be I Wish I Cared by a-ha, second would be Nothing by Depeche Mode, and third would be Hard Road by The Shore (an amazing band that I have absolutely no idea why they aren't massively popular).
5. What’s your favorite local band? Well, it was Nirvana. At the height of the grunge scene in Seattle, I was lucky enough to see them in concert a few times. But Nirvana is no more, so I guess I'd have to say "The Retros" which is a funky 80's cover band that's always a lot of fun to see live.
6. What was the last show you attended? It was a club in Seattle, but I forget the name of the band. Heck, I forget most of what happened that night!
7. What was the greatest show you’ve ever been to? Depeche Mode's "Music for the Masses" tour in 1988.
8. What’s the worst band you’ve ever seen in concert? Well... that would probably be Chris Isaacs... but it wasn't his fault! His set was actually pretty good, but he was being booed off-stage, which kind of killed the mood.
9. What band do you love musically but hate the members of? Oasis.
10. What show are you looking forward to? Depeche Mode's "Playing the Angel" tour next week!
11. What is your favorite band shirt? It's an old, ancient Thompson Twins 84 Tour shirt that has their terrific Satori logo on grey. Love it. Still own it. Need to photograph it.
12. What musician would you like to hang out with for a day? Any of The Corrs sisters would do nicely.
13. What musician would you like to be in love with for a day? Any of The Corrs sisters would do nicely.
14. Metal question-Jeans and Leather vs. Cracker Jack clothes? Neither... though you would probably see me in jeans and leather first.
15. Sabbath or solo Ozzy? Sabbath.
16. Commodores or solo Lionel Ritchie? Uhhhh... do I have to choose?
17. Punk rock, hip hop or heavy metal? Rock. Though there was a day punk was the world.
18. Doesn’t Primus suck? Except for their South Park song, I guess.
19. Name 4 flawless albums: a-ha, Minor Earth, Major Sky. Depeche Mode, 101. Nirvana, Nevermind. The Cure, Disintegration
20. Did you know that filling out this survey makes you a music geek? Uhhh... okay.
21. What was the greatest decade for music? For me, it would probably be the synth-pop days of the 80's, but the "Seattle Sound" in the 90's was absolutely revolutionary, so I'll go with that.
22. How many music-related videos/dvds do you own? About 15.
23. Do you like Journey? Not really. I don't think I ever did, and have never owned any of their music.
24. Don’t try to pretend you don’t! Really, I don't.
25. What is your favorite movie soundtrack? Depeche Mode 101. Which counts, because it was the soundtrack to the Pennebaker concert film of the same name.
26. What was your last musical “phase” before you wisened up? I never seem to get any wiser.
27. What’s the crappiest CD/record/etc. you’ve ever bought? It was some crappy CD by Jermaine Stewart, because I needed that equally crappy song "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" for some project I was working on.
28. Do you prefer vinyl or CDs? Neither. I'm all digital now and have converted everything over to iTunes.

And on that happy note, I'm off to bed. Is it too much to hope that Chicago weather will be kind to me tomorrow morning when I pick up my rental car?

BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Love
BLOGDATE: March 22, 2005
   
In which Dave professes an unnatural attraction towards his PowerBook and contemplates the merits of loving a Mac vs. loving a girlfriend.
Click here to go back in time...

I have a strange amount of free time tonight, but nothing really interesting to write about. That almost never happens. I guess that means things are going to be pretty random this time. If I were you, I'd skip today's entry.

One thing I DID do was go see the new movie The Family Stone today, and found it fairly entertaining. The only thing that really, really bugged me was the last five minutes of the film, where they decided to tack on an incredibly stupid and condescending "happy ending" that was completely unnecessary (and unbelievable). Why is it that films made for American audiences feel compelled to wrap-up and explain every last little detail? Are audiences really so stupid and unimaginative that they need it all spelled-out for them? It's really quite sad, because the movie was pretty good otherwise. The casting was perfect, though I think Luke Wilson completely stole every scene he was in.

And, in other news, Fed-Ex told me that I need a reality check...

Yes. Thanks for the tip. Always best to make sure that the roads still exist before driving on them. I'll be sure to keep that in mind.

Oooh... now here we go... Anthony has tagged me with a "List Five Weird Habits of Yourself" meme! I'll go ahead and answer, but I have a policy to not tag others, so feel free to tag yourself if you want.

Five Weird Dave Habits...

1. Whenever I have a job where I am working a cash register, I have this nasty habit of bitch-slapping people who don't trust me to count out their change. The minute they start recounting it, I can't help it... they get slapped (just kidding Anthony!).
2. I am in the habit of stopping at every magazine stand I pass so I can check to see if there is anything new happening with Elizabeth Hurley. This isn't so weird until you understand that I will gladly stop at three separate stands in the same mall just in case one of them has an Elizabeth Hurley magazine that the others somehow missed.
3. I cannot pass up watching Star Trek's I, II, IV, or VI when they air on television. This is particularly weird habit considering that I own them in extended DVD editions that are commercial-free.
4. When traveling, I have the habit of packing a pair of "lucky underwear" for the return-trip home. They're a pair of "Tiki Bowl" Joe Boxers, and have been traveling with me for years. I am starting to get worried that they will wear out, so I rarely wear them except on travels.
5. I have the expensive habit of buying every new iPod model that Apple releases. I always give away the older version when the new one arrives, but that still adds up to a lot of money spent on iPods. I haven't got the iPod Video yet, but I'm guessing that will happen eventually.

Hey, how about that, I actually managed to scrape together enough stuff to post an entry after all!

CHAPTER 18: Little Bummer Boy.
LEGO ADVENT CALENDAR TOY OF THE DAY: Kid with a walkie-talkie.
   
After the murder of his good best friend Barky the Dog, Lego Dave sets out for revenge against the evil Lego Buzz...
   
"BAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRKYYYYYY!" yells Lego Dave, his fist shaking in the air. "I WILL AVENGE YOOOOOOOUU!"
   
But where to find Lego Buzz? He could be anywhere by now! Not knowing where to go, Lego Dave decides to wander back to the demolished jewelry store where he first met him to look for clues. But, along the way, he spies a mean-looking kid with a walkie-talkie playing with precious gemstones... just like the ones that Lego Buzz stole from the jewelry store safe he broke into!
   
"Hey kid! Where did you get those precious gemstones?" asks Lego Dave.
"None of your business, loser!" snipes the little jerk. "Why don't you get lost!"
"Well I'm a fireman, kid, you have to tell me, because it's the law!" proclaims Lego Dave.
"If you must know, my dad gave them to me!" snaps the mean kid...

"Dude!" exclaims Lego Dave. "Your dad is Lego Buzz?"
"Yeah? So what, you dick!" quips the brat. "I'm Lego Buzz Jr.!"
"Wow!" says Lego Dave. "I'm a good friend of your dad's. Where is he at?"
"Bite me!" Junior retorts with not an ounce of respect. "I ain't telling you anything!"
   
His first clue is a dead-end! How can Lego Dave track down Barky's killer now?
   
FIND OUT TOMORROW WHEN DAVE'S "A VERY LEGO HOLIDAY TALE" CONTINUES!

I don't really make New Year's resolutions.

Mostly because I am exactly perfect the way I am, and wouldn't change a single thing about me.

But the meme du jour for the last day of the year seems to be either resolutions or "best of" type lists, with many people listing out what they are looking forward to in 2006 as well. I figure I'd just save some time and smoosh them all together in a single meme that covers Movies, Music, Television, and Travel... all those fun and exciting things that make life worth living.

Or something like that.

Nothing is happening. Nothing at all. Must be time for that "What are you looking forward to" meme?

Today: I am looking forward to breakfast right now because I'm hungry. I think it will be Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and some toast.

Tomorrow: NEW VERONICA MARS!! Finally.

This week: I read the original short story Brokeback Mountain and found it to be slow, boring, and pointless. I had no intention of seeing a slow, boring, pointless film based on it, but everybody and they're dog is telling me that I simply must see it, so I am going to do that later this week. I'm kind of looking forward to it.

Next week: After watching James Lipton kiss Elton John's ass for two hours straight on Inside The Actors Studio, I was a bit shocked to see that next week's guest is Dave Chappelle. The interesting bit is that Lipton somehow mustered the balls to ask Dave about his freak-out retreat to Africa in the middle of filming the third season of Chappelle's Show. I will definitely be looking forward to that.

This month: The months almost over, so I guess I am looking forward to the month being over.

Next month: A good friend whom I haven't seen in a very long time will be in town next month. Sadly, she's only around for a few days, but I am absolutely looking forward to seeing her.

This year: Believe it or not, I am looking forward to the release of Windows Vista. I know, I know... I'm a Microsoft-loathing Mac whore, so why would I even care? Because I am tired of having to work with Windows as it currently exists. Windows is a bug-ridden, virus-laden pile of crap that I've found to be faulty and unreliable. And since Vista is supposed to fix so many of the problems I have with the OS, I can only assume that it will be easier for me to deal with. That's a good thing. It would be nice to work on a Windows machine and not have to be screaming the entire time. It would also be nice for Apple to have some renewed competition so they continue to push ahead. So yes, I am looking forward to Vista, which I think is supposed to launch this year.

Next year: Futurama, my favorite animated show of all time, is coming back for a series of four feature-length, direct-to-DVD films. Bender is the most brilliant animated characters ever, and I've missed him terribly. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that (much more than the news about the possible new Friends movies)...

What? Is that it? I'm done? Okay then, I'm off to breakfast.

BLOGOGRAPHY FLASHBACK ENTRY: Dental
BLOGDATE: March 9, 2004
   
In which Dave is captured by the enemy and subjected to oral torture.
Click here to go back in time...

You know the satisfaction that comes from a job well done? The sweet victory of completing a project you can be proud of? Knowing that you took the time to do something right, and it shows?

Yeah, me to. It's a great feeling isn't it?

Unless you are building a web site.

Because no matter how much time you spend making sure everything is compliant with web standards... no matter how long you take to validate every line of hand-coded HTML... no matter what you do to ensure that everything will appear exactly as you intended it to look...

It all falls apart when you look at the site in Internet Explorer...

Suddenly, all the hard work... all the hours... all the painstaking attention to detail... it's all turned to shit because Microsoft's browser sucks ass. Sometimes the Internet Explorer Effect™ is so heinous that sites which render perfectly in every other browser on earth become unusable. I could go into details (the box model is f#@%ed up, floats aren't handled properly, no support for max-width, etc. etc. etc. etc.) but none of it really matters. The simple fact is that Internet Explorer is garbage. Unfortunately, people don't seem to realize it...

HALF the world is using Internet Explorer, so it doesn't matter that the browser sucks donkey balls. You pretty much have to hack your site to work around all the bugs, omissions, inaccuracies, and f#@%-ups in IE, or else all these people will think it's your fault things look like crap.

There's always the hope that the next version of IE will fix all the problems, but it doesn't really matter because so few people will bother to upgrade. This makes Internet Explorer the equivalent of a case of herpes that will never go away completely. All you can do is put a condom on your site and hope that it doesn't mess things up for the browsers that don't have an STD.

I dunno. Maybe if enough IE victims are convinced to make a better choice, the percentage of users will drop so low that designers won't have to worry about the Internet Explorer Effect™ anymore. Finally, the internet will be beautiful once again (and mostly disease-free).

Oh well. Since I've spent most of my day being beaten into submission by a crappy web browser, I might as well get that "FOUR THINGS" meme out of the way. I've been tagged a couple of times before, but now Gerry and Karla have nabbed me in a weakened state, so here we go:

Courtesy of being tagged by Kachina over at A Whiter Shade of Pale comes this meme asking you to list your top ten favorite love songs. I think it was originally meant for Valentine's Day, but is only just now making its way here. This meme is more difficult for me than most, because most of my adventures in love have ended up being the absolute worst times in my life. It would be all too easy to pick the most depressing songs I could find and shove them in a list, but that's kind of like cheating, and so I'll put a little more work into it.

So as not to offend the meme-hating masses, my answers are in an extended entry...

Kevin found something fun over at his Kapgar Blog and, even though I actually had a topic today, I decided I wanted to play too.

The deal is that you upload your photo to this MyHeritage site and they match you to their star-studded celebrity database of images to see who you most resemble. In Kevin's case, it ended up being a bunch of women. This had me terribly worried, because he's far more butch than I am.

Anyway, if you want to see my results and read my conclusion, it's all in an extended entry...

Blogging is an effortless endeavor for me. I've read about bloggers who struggle with every new entry, bloggers who get burned out, bloggers who can't think of things to write, bloggers who ramble on because they don't have anything to say... but it's never that way for me. I just sit down to write and, 10-20 minutes later, it's over. Results may vary, but that's all there ever is to it.

But not today.

I woke up, had a few minutes to write... but didn't feel like it.

The twenty minutes I take for lunch... didn't feel like it.

Home from work and done with dinner... didn't feel like it.

Now I've watched a couple hours of TiVo-recorded television... and still don't feel like it.

Maybe if I make a toy boat from a photo I took in St. Thomas...

Awww, cute. But I still don't feel like it. Maybe a dippy internet qiz will help... like "Which of the Seven Deadly Sins Are You?"

Uhhh, no. Stupid quizzes are still stupid. How about a meme I found at Blue Goo Ate My Mom?

• When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was behind you? The bathroom door.
• How much cash did you spend yesterday? Around $30.
• What's a word that rhymes with mist? List.
• Favorite planet, which you would live on, if you could? Kashyyyk, where the Wookies live! Or maybe that planet in Star Trek where the hot green bitches are.
• Who is the LAST person you kissed? Mary.
• What is your favorite ring on your phone? Vibrate.
• What is the last band shirt you wore? My Thompson Twins "Into The Gap" tour shirt which I wore on Sunday from a concert I attended in 1984.
• What do you think of yourself? I am astoundingly brilliant, and should totally be ruling the earth.
• Name the brand of your shoes you're currently wearing? Nike.
• Night light or pitch black? Pitch black.
• What do you think about the (previous) person who took this? He has one of the sexiest blog templates ever.
• What were you doing at midnight last night? Working on the BloggerPeeps sidebar widget.
• What did your last text message say that you received? I don't know... it was Verizon trying to sell me something so I deleted it without looking.
• Where is the nearest Valero? WTF is a Valero?
• What's something that you say a lot? "Crap!"
• Who told you they loved you last? My grandmother.
• Last furry thing you touched? A towel.
• How Many Drugs Have You Done In The Past three Days? Uhhh... none.
• Favorite age you have been so far? 30.
• Your worst enemy? Jared Fogle, the Subway Sandwich whore.
• What is your current desktop picture? My friends, from a trip I took with them to Expo 86 in Vancouver.
• What was the last thing you said to someone? Bye.
• How do you like your eggs? Over medium.
• Do you like someone? I like a lot of people.
• The last song you listened to? Nothing's Impossible by Depeche Mode.

Eh. I give up. :-(

I first saw this meme at Chronic Listaholic, and misunderstood it to be that you have to answer every question using only the title of songs by The Eagles. Now I see that Kevin over at Kapgar has done it, and apparently you get to choose the band you want to answer with.

Now that I can do...

Choose a band/artist and answer ONLY in titles of their songs...
Based solely on question #5, I'm going to have to go with Depeche Mode. I should try it again with either a-ha or Erasure, because they both have some songs that are perfect for this kind of thing.

1. Are you male or female?
"Somebody"? (see, if I was going with Erasure, I could have answered "Boy"!).

2. Describe yourself:
"People are People" (hey, I should have said "Sweetest Perfection"!).

3. How do some people feel about you:
"Just Can't Get Enough" (because can you ever really have enough Dave?).

4. How do you feel about yourself:
"Dangerous" (I could be dangerous if I wanted to).

5. Describe your ex boyfriend/girlfriend:
For the last one it would have to be "Now This is Fun".
For the one before that, "A Pain That I'm Used To"".
For the one before that, "Lie to Me".
For the one before that, "Barrel of a Gun".
(Thankfully, I don't have to answer "Shake the Disease"!)

6. Describe your current significant other:
"Nothing".

7. Describe where you want to be:
"Behind the Wheel" (I was going to say "In Your Room" but thought that might scare you).

8. Describe how you live:
"It Doesn't Matter" (because so few things in life actually do).

9. Describe how you love:
"I Feel You" (or, on occasion, "Strangelove").

10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish:
"Never Let Me Down Again" ("Policy of Truth" would also be nice).

11. Share a few words of wisdom:
Either "Nothing's Impossible" or "Everything Counts".

12. Now say goodbye:
"Leave in Silence".

Funny, I just went back to Chronic Listaholic so I could link to SJ for starting this, and see that she had asked to see me answer with Depeche Mode songs in the comments. Cue Twilight Zone theme here.

This morning I had set my alarm an hour early to 4:30am so that I could write my first "Lost Blogs" entry. As it turns out, that was hardly necessary, because I was awoken by a loud pounding on my door shortly after 4:00am. "Mr. Simmer? Mr. Simmer are you there?" a voice shouted from outside. Worried that the racket would wake up my neighbors and give them even more reason to torment me, I rushed to answer.

Standing there was a smallish man with a pink face who was dressed in a drab, wrinkled suit and a brown overcoat that was too big for him. Without an invitation, the man (who introduced himself only as "Professor Blattenthorp") rushed passed me to the dining room table, talking a mile a minute.

It turns out that professor had purchased a book at an estate sale, and found the last page of a letter inside of it. It was undated, faded, and badly torn, so the author was not known. The only thing that could be identified was my name, and a web address for Blogography! The letter appeared to pre-date the internet by a wide margin, so the professor was quite anxious to know about it. The contents of the document seemed wildly impossible, yet all evidence pointed to it being real...

The professor had written out the contents as follows...

I find myself in a state of disbelief as to what has just occurred.
   
I was tending to my dismal finances, as is my custom most evenings, when suddenly I see a golden glow emanating from behind me. In haste I turn around to discover a rather tall gentleman has appeared as if from thin air! He is dressed in strange attire, the likes of which I have never seen. He is ruggedly handsome, with a tousle of dark hair and a well-trimmed beard. There is an aura about him which I cannot explain, but I had an immediate sense to trust him implicitly.
   
Once I had gathered my senses, I bade this stranger to tell me his name. I learn that he is called "David Simmer" and he has a favor to ask of me. From out of his satchel he hands me a smooth metal box with rounded corners. It is of a dull silver color... aluminum perhaps... and I am guessing it measures approx. 14-inches by 9-inches and is an inch thick. Mr. Simmer tells me that this is a "Macintosh" (though it looks nothing of apples!) and it possesses a magical connection to the future.
   
I scoff at his unbelievable tale, yet he assures me he speaks the truth. As if to prove himself, he presses a small latch on the metal box and it opens and comes to life! It seems all at once impossible and magical, but I soon learn that this "Macintosh" is indeed a link to the future. "And what would you have me do with this device?" I asked. The stranger laughs warmly, and then lays a gentle hand upon my shoulder. "My friend", he replies, "I want nothing more than your thoughts of life in this time. Your hopes, your dreams, your experiences... all the things you find interesting about your world here. I ask that you keep a journal, as a link from my time to yours, so that I might know better how you live here in this primitive past!"
   
And then David Simmer vanished, as if he had never been.
   
I must admit to being skeptical of his ask, but the overwhelming trust and affection I feel for this stranger forbade me to decline. And thus I have begun to write in this wondrous device as a matter of course. I am told that if a future-person wishes to read of my journal, he has nothing more to do than to navigate his own Macintosh to the address that follows:
https://www.blogography.com/lostblogs
   
Yours very sincerely,
???

Naturally, I know nothing about it. The "ruggedly handsome" part certainly sounds like me though, and so I can only assume that this is a reference to my future-self or something. But, despite it all, I tell the professor that it is absolutely impossible for there to be such a URL on Blogography, because I just moved hosting companies, and would have seen it. He then tells me that he verified the link in the document immediately after finding it, which was just around midnight. After that, he drove straight from Idaho to my door seeking answers.

I laughed in his face, because I was certain that such a link does not exist at Blogography, and decided to prove it to him. I wake up me beloved Macintosh G4 Cube and type it in.

It turns out that the link is real.

I don't know how. I don't know why. But it's there: https://www.blogography.com/lostblogs is an actual, working URL on my site.

I have no idea what is happening, but it seems that the "me" from the future has decided to take care of this "Lost Blogs" thing for me. So, as it turns out, I get to play along with the rest of you in an attempt to figure out the identity of this "lost blogger". I can only guess that new entries will appear every day this week, but you can read the first one here.

Those of you wanting to make guesses as to this "lost blogger's" identity should send me an email at the address in my sidebar. Comments with guesses will not be approved! Who knows, there might be a prize for the first person to guess correctly! But remember the rules... you only get ONE GUESS... so make sure you're sure about who it is before contacting me, because any subsequent guesses by the same person will be tossed out.

If you want to learn more about Pauly's book (or pre-order a copy), visit The Lost Blogs site!

Blogs are so cool.

Originally, I liked having a blog because it was a way to let my friends know where I was at and what I was doing. Then I liked having a blog because it let me bitch about stuff that was bothering me. Then I liked having a blog because the comments allowed me to interact with readers and find other blogs to read. Then I liked having a blog because of all the nifty people I was meeting.

And now?

Now I like having a blog because of free socks.

Yes! Free socks! A couple days ago I got a comment on my entry "I Want a Gun" from Jon, who runs a most excellent site called "Drive Right, Pass Left" (which is all about those dumbasses who drive in the left-side passing lane WITHOUT PASSING ANYBODY, which drives me insane). He was nice enough to send me a few stickers (one of which is now on my backpack), a license plate frame (which is going on my car ASAP), and a pair of socks with his site's logo embroidered on them...

At first I thought that the socks were just a fun novelty, but I tossed them in the wash and decided to try them on today. HANDS-DOWN THE MOST COMFORTABLE SOCKS I HAVE EVER WORN! Seriously, they stretch-fit so there's no bunching in your shoe. The seams are imperceptible, so they don't rub against your toes. They have some kind of miracle fabric that keeps your feet cool. These are NOT some crappy novelty... they are truly awesome socks. Jon didn't cheap-out here, he went for "Sock Guy" socks, which I had never heard of, but am now in love with.

Naturally, I am so jealous of Jon and his personalized socks that I can barely stand it. I want custom socks of my own!

Unfortunately, I don't have $650 burning a hole in my pocket to place a minimum order. Oh well. I'll just have to be happy dreaming of socks. Thanks Jon!

And in non-sock-related news...

It looks as though another "Lost Blogs" entry has appeared over at DaveSpace!

I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that out of all the participating bloggers, I've guessed just ONE "lost blogger", and even that one I'm not 100% sure about.

Those of you wanting to make guesses as to my "lost blogger's" identity should send me an email at the address in my sidebar. Comments with guesses will not be approved! Who knows, there might be a prize for the first person to guess correctly! But remember the rules... you only get ONE GUESS... so make sure you're sure about who it is before contacting me, because any subsequent guesses by the same person will be tossed out. Good luck!

If you want to learn more about Pauly's book (or pre-order a copy), visit The Lost Blogs site!

Cheaters! I have cheaters reading my blog!

Ever since moving to a new hosting company, I've been closely monitoring my error stats to see if there's anything that needs to be fixed. Today when I checked, I noticed a bunch of people typing in "lostblogs/daythree.html" and "lostblogs/daythr.html" and "lostblogs/day3.html" - apparently looking for the next "lost blogger" entry a day early (even though it didn't exist yet). Cheaters!

Ha! I can only DREAM about being organized enough to write something a day in advance.

Sorry, but everything at Blogography is baked fresh daily, baby!

Most of my entries are written first thing in the morning (like today!). I wake up, grab my trusty PowerBook to check my email, and something pops into my head to write or draw. If it turns out okay, I post it. But most of the time I let it sit until my lunch break so I can read it over and make sure I didn't say anything stupid. But since I always say something stupid, I usually try to make it less stupid and then post it. On rare occasions I can't think of anything to write about, and it's not until dinnertime that I get around to writing. In any event, I don't write ahead. Even while lost-blogging, which I'll be cooking up after this.

Oh, and before I forget... I have the bestest blog posse ever (yes, this means you!). Two days ago I was lamenting over my broken links and got a suggestion from Blogography reader Wejn on how to fix it. When I didn't understand what to do... he wrote the fix for me. I've installed it, and now my problems are solved. How cool is that? Thanks Wejn! An extra Blogography cookie for you today, fresh from the oven!

And while I am passing out cookies, I cannot forget about Bre, who left the 7000th comment here yesterday. Congratulations Bre, You just won a Blogography T-Shirt! Email me your address and the size you want to claim your prize.

And in non-baking-related news...

There's another "Lost Blogs" entry over at DaveSpace! Click here to read it!

I am hopelessly addicted to reading all 40 participants now, and many of them are getting really interesting!

Those of you wanting to make guesses as to my "lost blogger's" identity should send me an email at the address in my sidebar. Comments with guesses will not be approved! Who knows, there might be a prize for the first person to guess correctly! But remember the rules... you only get ONE GUESS... so make sure you're sure about who it is before contacting me, because any subsequent guesses by the same person will be tossed out. Good luck!

If you want to learn more about Pauly's book (or pre-order a copy), visit The Lost Blogs site!

When I was younger, I had braces installed by one of the finest orthodontists money could buy. Unfortunately, he was a bit of a quack, and never managed to fix my teeth properly (particularly my lower teeth). I went back years later and he tried again, but his dumbass "solution" to remedy the situation just made everything worse. My teeth are now falling apart because of uneven pressure points. Every once in a while, I bite wrong and pieces of tooth break off that I then have to go get fixed.

It really sucks ass. And, because of all these problems, I hate going to the dentist with a passion.

So can you guess where I got to go first thing this morning?

The only thing worse than the actual work being done is the bill that follows. Argh.

Needless to say, I am not a happy camper today.

And in non-tooth-related news...

I am way behind in reading my email. So totally behind that I probably won't be caught up until Easter. I promise that I am not ignoring those people who are patiently waiting for an reply... but I've just been really busy trying to get all my work done so that my half-day at the dentist doesn't make me have to work the holiday weekend.

Of all the lost bloggers, I've only identified eight (I think). I'm not good at this game at all, but remain surprised that nobody has guessed my historical figure yet. I suppose not everybody looks at things like I do, or expresses themselves like I do, so they are missing the clues? Oh well, since tomorrow is the last day, I'll be revealing just about everything...

Oh yeah, the penultimate "Lost Blogs" entry is now up over at DaveSpace! Click here to read it!

Those of you wanting to make guesses as to my "lost blogger's" identity should send me an email at the address in my sidebar. Comments with guesses will not be approved! Who knows, there might be a prize for the first person to guess correctly! But remember the rules... you only get ONE GUESS... so make sure you're sure about who it is before contacting me, because any subsequent guesses by the same person will be tossed out. Good luck!

If you want to learn more about Pauly's book (or pre-order a copy), visit The Lost Blogs site!

My historical "lost blogger" has been identified!

Congratulations to Firda and Alexis who wrote in with the correct identity within minutes of each other. They will each be receiving a fashionable T-shirts from the Artificial Duck Store for free!

But don't despair! You still have a chance to win a shirt of your own! You still only get ONE guess, but if you email the correct answer before midnight tomorrow (PST/Seattle Time), you'll be entered in a drawing to win a runner-up free-shirt coupon. Tomorrow's entry reveals even more tasty clues as to the identity, so you might want to wait until then before sending in your ONE guess! Good luck!

UPDATE: I should mention that everybody has a clean slate now. If you sent in a wrong guess before, you have another shot to get in the drawing if your new guess is correct.

Helpful Hint...
I am a very visual person. The best clues are NOT in the words... look elsewhere. EVERY SINGLE IMAGE ON THE PAGE MEANS SOMETHING. With the exception of the header and the header ad, everything is a clue!

Yesterday on the way home from the dentist I stopped at K-Mart to get a pizza. That sounds strange, I know, but I kind of like the "Little Caesar's Pizza Station" there. It's the best of the worst pizzas in town, and a 14-incher only costs $5. K-Mart is kind of a strange place. Once upon a time, it was the "bargain basement" store in town, and people put up with the low quality, imitation-brand merchandise because it was cheap. But then along comes Wal-Mart, and suddenly K-Mart is caught with their Wrangler's around their ankles. No longer are they the best bargain in town. Wal-Mart has blue-light specials on every item all the time.

So K-Mart hunkers down and retools. They can't really compete with Wal-Mart (who can?) so they start getting exclusives (like Joe Boxer and the Martha Stewart stuff) and tries to serve the middle ground with good merchandise as decent prices. But it's a crowded field, because there are a lot of stores in that arena. I don't shop K-Mart very often because my favorite store in that space is Target (nothing personal, I just prefer their stuff).

So when I get to K-Mart, I order my pizza and then go shopping while I wait for it to cook. Most of the bargain shoppers frequent Wal-Mart, but you still get an occasional penny-pincher.

Like yesterday.

I make my way back to the grocery aisle so I can get some Pop-Tarts on sale (3 for $5) and find an older woman on her hands and knees, spreading out boxes of crackers on the floor. At first I think that she fell while carrying an arm-load of crackers, so I run up to see if I can help. But she waves me away and says that she's "doing fine". This puzzles me greatly, because none of the boxes are marked with prices and there's no special offers printed on any of them. The price is on the shelf. And then I realize what's happening... she is actually looking at the UPC codes and comparing them. At least I think that's what it happening. I guess that she thinks a UPC code with a lower number would be cheaper?

I suppose I should have found a way to explain it to her, but she made it clear that she didn't want my help. I still have no idea what was going through her head. A part of me hopes that wide-scale deployment of RFID technology is a ways off yet, because I can't imagine what this woman is going to do once price tags AND UPC codes aren't used anymore. She won't have anything to look for.

Anyway...

Here it is... the final "Lost Blogs" entry is now up over at DaveSpace! Click here to read it!

Those of you wanting to make guesses as to my "lost blogger's" identity should send me an email at the address in my sidebar. Comments with guesses will not be approved! The "main prize" has already been won, but everybody who sends me a correct guess between now and midnight Seattle time (PST) will be entered in a runner-up prize giveaway for a free Blogography T-shirt. But remember the rules... you only get ONE GUESS... so make sure you're sure about who it is before contacting me, because any subsequent guesses by the same person will be tossed out. Good luck!

If you want to learn more about Pauly's book (or pre-order a copy), visit The Lost Blogs site!

The identity of my "lost blogger" from this week is revealed and explained in an extended entry. Don't read any further unless you are totally stumped! If you are new to the game, and want to give it a try, read the introduction here and then the entries are here: Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, Day Five. And for those 40 of you who entered a correct guess in the runner-up drawing, I'll be posting the T-shirt winner tomorrow (Sunday) after I've found somebody to draw a name out of a hat for me.

Thanks to Kevin for coming up with such a great idea, Pauly for writing The Lost Blogs book, and to all of you who participated. I had a lot of fun with the project. But the fun has only just begun here at Blogography! Starting Monday, it's another week of entirely new big fun...

And now... it's time for the reveal...

I've been so busy with my job lately that everything else has taken a back seat to work. I was going to write a long rant about what a whiny douche-bag loser Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser is, then continue with a dozen other things that fill me with rage... but I don't have the time. So instead I've decided to do the "Memes for Adults" meme that I'm lifting from Avitable.

Oddly enough, it probably took more time to answer the forty questions than it would have taken to write my rant. Oh well. I put it all in an extended entry for those of you who like to skip these things...

Today was Towel Day, which was kind of inconvenient given my work schedule... but I stuck it out all the way until dinner because I love Douglas Adams more than sliced bread. Fortunately, there was no nasty note from housekeeping when I got back. I guess we'll see if they try to bill me for borrowing their towel when I check out tomorrow.

And... uhhhh... I guess that's it?

Well that's just sad.

I suppose if I have nothing else to say today, it must be time for a meme that I stole from Neil...

This morning there was a major panic attack when I couldn't find a clean pair of underwear. Eventually I did manage to find some in my flight carry-on bag but, as I was searching, it did get me to wondering what I would do if I couldn't find any. Wear a used pair... or go commando?? Fortunately, I didn't have to choose, but I really should make up my mind in case I'm ever faced with this problem again.

Underwear aside, there was big fun to be had today. I finally got the little buttons I ordered...

They turned out great (much better than this photo will attest), which was a pleasant surprise because some of the stuff I order from CafePress ends up looking like crap. But every button was beautiful, had bright colors, and looks professionally made, so I'm happy. Now all I have to do is wait until the weather turns cold so that I can pin them on my jacket. It'll be just like the 80's!

Speaking of orders, I am dangerously close to FINALLY filling all of the T-shirt orders from Blogiversary III week... I have a mere 64 left to go! Thanks to everybody for their patience, and everything should be shipped out by Monday.

Since it's Friday, I'll be picking up a meme from James to finish up the day. You are supposed to come up with eight random things about you which most people might not know...

1. I was approached about turning my blog into a set of mini-books. At first I declined, but was eventually talked into it. Unfortunately, the deal has recently fallen through because we could not agree on the direction of the project. But since I've already put a lot of work into the books, I'm toying with the idea of self-publishing them at Lulu or something (once I find time to start finishing them up). You can take a look at the cover concepts here.
2. When I was in high school I started collecting comic books. Though I don't buy as many as I used to, I still read some titles and have amassed a huge collection of books. My current favorites are Age of Bronze, All-Star Batman & Robin, The Avengers, Superman/Batman, Powers, and Usagi Yojimbo. My favorite comic book of all time is Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes.
3. I've always got something smart-assed to say, and am rarely at a loss for words. Given this, you would think commenting on other people's blogs is a piece of cake... but this is not the case. I like to comment on other blogs when I have time, but sometimes it's difficult. Take one of my long-time reads: What's a Delmer Look Like. Delmer's writing is great and he's always got something entertaining to say... but I always feel that his entries are perfect as they are, and any smart-ass remark I might add would be an intrusion. And then there's Tonya at Adventure Journalist. I eagerly await her every word, marvel over her astoundingly beautiful photography, and have been a fan of her blog forever. To read Tonya is to love her. But eventually you run out of ways to say "beautiful" when looking at her pictures, and so I usually just end up looking at the latest additions to her jaw-dropping gallery, and sneaking away without a word. I don't know why some blogs have this affect on me and other's don't.
4. I love to paint with watercolors. If I were to win the lotto and become obscenely wealthy, I'd do nothing but travel the world and paint.
5. I am a huge movie-buff, but am humiliated to admit some of the films that I like. Off the top of my head, they include The Associate, in which Whoopi Goldberg plays a woman trying to break into a job as a stockbroker, but finds that prejudice keeps her shut out. Eventually she invents an alter-ego of an old white guy, but finds that her new success makes the deception difficult to maintain. And then there's Earth Girl's Are Easy which features Jim Carey, Jeff Goldblum, and Damon Wayans as furry aliens who crash-land in Geena Davis' swimming pool. And, of course, Exit to Eden which has Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Aykroyd as undercover cops at a private island sex resort run by Dana Delany (and Iman as an ultra-hot bad girl assassin). There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of others.
6. Likewise, there are also musical groups that I am downright embarrassed to admit I listen to from time to time. Probably the most scary is A-Teens, who sing bubblegum pop at its absolute worst. Then there's even more tragic groups like Bananarama, Erasure and even Flock of Seagulls. Even more odd is that right after listening to this stuff, I can turn right around and pop in Rage Against the Machine or Pantera without skipping a beat.
7. I choose not to eat any kind of meat, fish, or fowl... and choose to ignore broccoli, cauliflower, and any other vegetable that smells bad when you cook it. There is one food I cannot eat however, and that's mushrooms. They make me violently ill and seem to cause my throat to close up if I eat too many of them. That's a fungus for you.
8. What I am looking forward to most of all next week is an appearance by Betty White on Game Show Marathon, which is a freaky show which dredges up old game shows that are played by quasi-celebrities. Betty will be an actual celebrity guest on the Match Game segment on the 22nd. Naturally, I can't wait.

Argh. I've been working all day and it's late. I think I'll go to bed and slip into a coma.

Yesterday as I was picking up a Coke with Lime at the local mini-mart, a youngish guy comes running up to me, slaps me on the leg, then say "HI" with a big smile. "Hey buddy," I say. Out of nowhere a girl (older sister?) appears and says "Is he bothering you? Sorry, he's special".

The fact that she said "special" in a very condescending tone did not upset me half as much as the fact that she used air quotes when she said it. "Oh really?" I replied. "Well I think people who use air quotes are special". This went right over her head, as she just stood there staring at me. After a sigh, I added "no, he's not bothering me at all," which is when she grabbed her brother(?) by the hand and drug him off.

The constant lack of respect that people seem intent on showing their fellow humans is really starting to piss me off. Sure the kid was mentally impaired, but did the bitch have to be so demeaning about it? Doesn't the kid have it hard enough without having to put up with this crap too?

Yargh.

Anyway, because I have to go into work today, I am going to swipe the "62 Questions" meme from Mikey (though he actually made it a 59 question meme by neatly avoided questions 27, 36, and 39, which I had to get from Google). I've put it in an extended entry so the meme-hating masses can skip it, if they so desire.

You would think that the internet age would make travel planning easier.

You would be wrong.

I just spent the past four hours arranging flights, hotels, rental cars, and all the other crap that makes travel so much fun. Nothing ever matches up. Flights always have ridiculously long layovers. Hotel check-in times are always too late and check-out too early. And meetings are never in the most convenient place. The good news is that in-between it all, I get to be in New York for a few days...

Then it's off to Wisconsin...

And finally back to Chicago...

And that's only for the first two weeks. I haven't got the energy to plan the rest of the summer.

And now, because it's Saturday and nobody seems to read my blog on Saturdays... AND because I'm a total meme whore... AND because I'm a total music whore... AND because I'm a total whore for Karla's Tales of a Texpatriate... I am stealing this rather cool "Three Songs Meme" from her in an extended entry (because it is MASSIVE)...

I was sent an interesting "Thierry Ardisson Interview" meme to think about. Since it's in French, it's taking a while to decipher because my French language skills are quite poor (and long-forgotten). But one thing is immediately apparent... most all of the questions are introspective. They force you to take a real look at yourself as opposed to asking how others look at you (or asking how you look at something else). The second question is this: "Quand vous vous regardez dans la glace le matin, vous vous dites quoi?" - which translates into "When you look at yourself in the mirror in the morning, what do you say to yourself?"

My answer would have to be "I don't say anything," because I never really look at myself in the mirror. I put my contact lenses in by feel, and brush my teeth while doing other things. I never care how my hair looks, and so it never occurs to me to look. So this morning I decided to give it a try...

And all I could think to say to myself is "you look like shit, buddy!"

Having not slept in a month has really taken its toll. I have bags under the bags under my eyes. I am also in bad need of a haircut. I should cancel my upcoming travel plans and check myself into a spa or something. Or perhaps start shooting heroin, so at least then there would be an excuse for looking like a heroin addict.

And speaking of questions... my best friend Karl has answered my five "Barbara Walters interview questions" over at Secondhand Tryptophan. I must say, asking for questions to fill up blog entries is a pretty sweet idea. I would steal it and have people ask me five questions... but, considering some of the emails and comments I get, that is a very scary prospect. Perhaps it would be better to ask "If you were to GET to ask me five, questions, what five questions WOULD you ask?" That way when somebody asks me something particularly frightening, I can just laugh and say "wow, that WOULD be a good question!"

I am such a weenie.

But since I won't talk about my friends, family, or work... I'm guessing those are the questions most people would ask, and so I really can't go there. I did get a question in my email yesterday that I WILL answer, however...

"Hey did you make any money from that Google ad you put in your RENT entry?"
Wow, that's a good question! I never bothered to look! Let's see shall we? ... ... ... HOLY CRAP! I made $9.54!! That's pretty good isn't it? This is 1/10 the current cost of keeping Blogography running each month on 1/30 the entries I write in a month, so it looks like the site could support itself if it had to. Kind of nice to know that I have options if I should need to use them. Still, I would much rather remain ad-free for as long as possible. Media Temple has mentioned that they will be increasing their bandwidth allowance, so maybe that will take care of my current troubles?

Ooooh, look...

Costco is selling Crunch Master 6-Packs! That's enough to last me almost an entire week! Now all I need is Coke with Lime in 60-Packs, and I'm good to go!

In my previous entry, I had asked if anyone had questions that they might ask if I were to ask for questions, and some of you actually sent me some!

So here's a "Question and Answers" session with Dave....

First up, Exposed left me these...

1. If you had 24 hours to live and could do whatever you wish with it - even outside the bounds of time/space etc. what would you do? I would bounce through time to watch Michelangelo create his most famous works. The Sistine Chapel, David, Moses, La Pieta, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, and so many others. I would want my last day to be filled with beauty, and that would pretty much do it. Why? I just love Italy... everything from the art and architecture to the language, people, and food.
2. If you had to redo high school (had to - no one would ever do this by choice) what would you do differently? Not much. There are some classes I took that I wouldn't bother with now that I know they're useless, but that's about it.
3. What is your biggest regret and why haven't you fixed it? I really have only one regret, but it's not something I ever really discuss with anybody. Seriously though, life is really too short for regrets and worrying about the past doesn't do you any good anyway.
4. You love to travel - you have 3 months with all expenses paid to do with whatever you wish - where do you go and why? I'd probably stay in Italy for the entire three months. I would live in Tuscany for a month, then head south and explore the Amalfi Coast and Sicily.
5. Will you marry me? =) Elizabeth Hurley? Is that YOU?!?

And Wayne (of the Blog of Whall fame) left me these...

1. How old is the picture on your gravatar? The Gravatar is from this entry in March, 2004.
2. Which was your favorite Matrix? Are you kidding? The first was mind-blowingly amazing. The sequels had their moments, but were pretty much crap.
3. Do you really hate our President? If yes, please rate on a Scale of Hatred, like the Hotness Scale, and make sure it includes Jared, bad parents, dumbasses who can't use a turn signal and Clay Aiken. I don't hate anybody, including President Bush. The problem is that I lost any respect I had for him after his utterly asinine comments at the 2004 Radio & Television Correspondents' Association Dinner (which I wrote about here). It's only gone downhill from there. I honestly think he is very narrow-minded in that he has no interest in representing all Americans... he only wants to give voice to those who think like he does. He also seems to be of the opinion that the USA is the entire world, and other countries shouldn't have a say in what happens in it. Overall, I find him very ill-suited for the job... and, though I don't hate him for his incompetence, I do dislike him for it. A lot.
4. Did you know that 'Lovely Lady Elizabeth Hurley' could be 'HELL" backwards? No! I did not know that! Must be why she got to play The Devil in Bedazzled.
5. Do you think I should trademark the term "BlogBerry"? I'm using my blackberry 8700c to compose this right now and I'm starting to use it a lot more for blog review more than email and phone. While that's a clever term, and I think you should use it all you like, I don't think you can trademark a phrase unless you are using it as the name of a business, or a service, or the name of a product. Sorry. :-(

And Alexander left this one question...

1. I'm just curious. What are your thoughts on gaming? As a hardcore gamer I simply must know. I love video games. I've owned dozens of systems over the decades, starting with Pong and the Atari 2600... all the way to the Xbox and Nintendo DS. Unfortunately, I pretty much suck at gaming because I never have much time to play them. My favorite titles are usually strategy Advance Wars DS or StarCraft), RPG (like Sid Meyer's Pirates or Fable), or adventure games that kids can play (like Lego Star Wars, which is probably one of my favorite games ever). I also love board games (especially trivia games, where I kick ass) and card games (everybody should get a group of friends together and play the computer version of Apples to Apples).

Annette also sent me a single question...

1. Is your diet a healty one? Probably not as much as it could be, as I eat way too much sugar and not enough fruits and vegetables. Though I don't eat meat, which I consider to be much healthier than a diet where one consumes steroid-laden animal flesh. Darn that Coke with Lime all to heck!! :-)

And, for my last questions, SJ asked me to try out her "Movieographeme" meme, which I've put in an extended entry...

Oog. Today is going to be a very full day, and I'm not sure I'll have time to blog anything. Just to cover my ass, I'm going to whip out a meme really quick.

Before I get to that, however, I have to say that RocketBoom managed to pull it off. When Amanda left, I was sure the show would suck and die. This would be a real pity because, along with Ze Frank's The Show, RocketBoom is one of my favorite daily internet video haunts. But here's the thing... I never realized that Amanda Congdon, while cute and fun, was actually kind of annoying until Andrew got cutie Joanne Colan with her kick-ass accent to "guest-host". She is perfect for the job and, though I'd like to see a few more shows before passing final judgement, I'm kind of hoping she fills the spot permanently...

Anyway, I've been tagged with this "MEME-OLOGY" meme by a couple of people now, and have neatly tucked it into an extended entry for your reading pleasure...

Today I was pelted with apples.

Little green apples falling from the sky.

Well, not me personally, but my car. To say it was shocking would be an understatement...

Turns out it was not quite the miracle I had first thought.

Every day I drive by the fruit packing sheds to get to work. It's so commonplace that I completely ignore the scenery. Today they were dumping rejected apples into a big truck (for juicing, I'd imagine) and a few of them over-shot the bin and rained down on my car.

It's the little surprises that keep life interesting.

I've been tagged with the BlogMe interview meme by Belinda and Mocha Momma, which I have put in an extended entry for those who should care to read it.

w00t!!

PRAISE BE TO KRYPTON! FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY... Richard Donner is going to be given the cash to re-cut Superman II into the movie it was supposed to be. I have been dreaming of this for over two decades, and cannot WAIT to see it when released on DVD this November 28th!

I have written about Donner's Superman II here. And there is also a Wikipedia entry on it as well.

In other totally sweet DVD news... my copy of Pinky and The Brain: The Complete First Season arrived today!

I love this cartoon and have been waiting for YEARS for it to show up on DVD. Something about mice plotting for world domination just fills my heart with joy.

And now, since I want to watch my DVDs rather than figure out what else to write, I've filled out a meme from over at Avitable's blog in an extended entry...

   
From RW over at Chasing Vincenzo comes Things You Don't Usually Tell Anyone About, like...

• ...a strange combination of food you like to snack on. Cheese and potato chip sandwiches. I put chips (or "crisps" for you Brits out there) on a lot of things. Potato chips are also good when mashed and put on potato salad or pasta. Corn chips are great when crushed and sprinkled on pizza salad or Mexican food. There are very few foods that I've not put chips on at one time or another.
• ...something you do that other bloggers who read you might find odd if they saw you doing it. Draw or paint. I am guessing that most readers assume that the crappy cartoons on my blog are all I am capable of creating. The truth is that DaveToons are very, very different from the stuff I usually do. The style was chosen because I can draw much faster this way.
• ...when you were 7, what you wanted to be when you grew up - that you never told anyone about. Probably a fireman or an astronaut. Though I think I've mentioned that in my Hundred Things.
• ...the thing you don't tell people at work about yourself. That I collect comic books (though I can hardly imagine anybody being surprised by that fact).
• ...what you like to do when no one else is going to be home for a stretch of time. Organize my comic book collection or play video games.
• ...the thing you believe - politically - that you don't admit to people who think you think like they do. That I have absolutely NO political association what-so-ever, and vote for a person, not a party.
• ...that one thing from your childhood, outside of your parents, that you try to maintain some kind of connection with, and how. Children's books. I love Curious George and Doctor Suess, and still keep their books around for inspiration in my life.
• ...a song or group or singer you secretly like that everyone else groans about. The A-Teens. Don't ask me why, because I honestly don't understand it myself. Totally not my kind of band. Totally not my kind of music.
• ...do you close the bathroom door when you're the only one home? Yes, out of habit.

Back to Sunday cleaning...

Today's entry has been rated R by the Blogography Review Board for graphic violence, mature themes, sexual situations, and massive use of profanity. Imagery contained within may be upsetting to younger readers, persons with heart conditions, pregnant or expectant mothers, overly religious nut-jobs (this means you Pat Robertson!), dumbasses incapable of comprehending satire or parody, those with an IQ under 80 (including idiots, morons, stupid-heads, imbeciles, dunces, dimwits, dorks, chowder heads, or raging dumbasses), fans of the television show 7th Heaven, and all those people who are already offended by my blog (but read it ever day anyway)...

Do not proceed if you fall into any of the above categories. And, if you should choose to proceed anyway, don't even think about sending me an email or leaving a comment telling me how much you hate me and my blog. Because after I've gone to all this trouble to warn you about the atrocities within, that would just make you a major douche.

So please don't click the extended entry link below. You've been warned.

Avitable has run across a meme too intriguing to resist. Unfortunately, it's a long, difficult, time consuming meme... which wouldn't be a bad thing, except I am preparing for TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY and don't have the time to spare. DANG YOU TO HECK AVITABLE!!! The idea is to come up with your 25 most favorite television characters that aren't cartoons or puppets (see, I told you it was tough).

I managed to come up with 96.

Once I weeded out the hottie chicks that had no other reason to be there, I was left with 54. Then it got really difficult. How do you narrow it down? What's the criteria? Eventually I found myself mostly picking out characters that were smart asses or quirky or otherwise oddly entertaining.

The complete list is in an extended entry...

WARNING: CRANKY PANTS ALERT!! CRANKY PANTS ALERT!!

In an attempt to figure out why I've been plagued with headaches for the past few weeks, I went to the eye doctor today. My vision has been freaky lately, and I'm not sure if it's because of my headaches or if it's the CAUSE of my headaches.

In any event, it involved my eyes getting dilated, so I spent the afternoon like this...

The only thing worse than having your eyes dilated on a sunny day is having to drive home with your eyes dilated on a sunny day. And the only thing worse than that is having to put up with DUMBASS BITCHES while you're driving with dilated eyes on a sunny day.

As you exit the great city of Wenatchee, there is one final stoplight. Just before this stoplight is a Starbucks Drive-Thru. It's the stupidest place in the universe for a drive-thru because you can't get out easily. When the light is green, traffic is flowing heavy with people leaving town and you can't get out. When the light is red, traffic is backed up in front of the Starbucks exit and you can't get out then either. Basically, you can check-in to Starbucks, but you can never leave.

So today I am stopped at this light just before the Starbucks exit. The light turns green and I slowly start to move forward. This causes some bitch who JUST GOT TO THE STARBUCK'S EXIT to lay on the horn (honest, she hadn't even STOPPED yet!). I instantly become enraged because I have a headache, my eyes are dilated, and I don't need some whore WHO WASN'T EVEN WAITING TO EXIT honking at me. If she was in such a big hurry, she shouldn't have stopped for coffee. This is what I scream at her...

I HAVE A GREEN LIGHT AND AM NOT GOING TO BLOCK FIFTY CARS TO LET YOUR COFFEE-DRINKING SHIT OUT, SO WHY DON'T YOU TAKE THAT GRANDE LATTE AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR F#@%ING ASS YOU STUPID BITCH!!!

There's no chance she can hear me. Even with my window down, hers are rolled up AND I'm driving past her as I yell. I know this, but I don't care and decide to yell anyway. It will make me feel better.

But I forgot about the cars in the lane next to me. With their windows down, they can hear me just fine. So when a bunch of people start cheering and honking their horns and waving at me with a "thumbs up" I realize that I am destined to rule the earth. There is no denying that my inspirational words appeal to the masses, and it's only a matter of time before I climb my way to the top... one dumbass coffee-drinking whore at a time.

And because I'm in even a worse mood now that I've had to remember all this crap, it must be time for a meme in an extended entry!

My day started with a trip to the dentist for my 6-month cleaning, and only went downhill from there. By the time I finished work at 8:00pm, I was so sick and tired of life that I was seriously contemplating taking a handful of sleeping pills and crawling into bed. But that seemed kind of stupid... how much worse could the day get at 8:00pm? Because, hey, Ugly Betty, My Name is Earl, The Office, Grey's Anatomy, and CSI are on tonight!

So I plop myself down in front of the television in anticipation of good TV.

Instead I am inundated with stupid-ass political advertising for an hour. I'm guessing it's the same everywhere but, here in Washington State, it's particularly nasty because of the senatorial race. Heaven only knows I'm not a big fan of incumbent Maria Cantwell... but Mike McGavick and his never-ending attack ads is no better. Politicians don't inspire anymore. They just sling mud. They're not interested in solving problems. They're only interested in getting elected.

It just makes me want to bitch-slap them both.

But what's the point? They're doing far worse to each other...

Who wins in these things? No matter which one gets the office, I'm mortally embarrassed to have them as our senator.

I'm too depressed to blog anymore, so I'm stealing a meme from Kentucky Girl which you can find in an extended entry after this really cute picture of me as a tyke...

My hairstyle hasn't changed in decades... there's just less of it!

Nothing interesting happened today.

I was rudely awakened at 3:30am by some idiot hammering on metal outside my window, then couldn't go back to sleep. I hoped filling out a meme would make me sleepy but all it did was make my brain go numb (which, I suppose, is a meme's entire purpose). Unable to get any much-needed rest, I decided to start in on my work.

And that's all I did for the entire day. Work. Right up until now (which is 10:30pm).

You'd think that I got a lot accomplished today but you would be wrong. I'm just as buried as ever, and will undoubtedly be working this weekend to try and get caught up. I'm turning into a work-zombie...

And now, since I am falling asleep at the keyboard, here's that meme I filled out this morning which I've seen floating around various places, but picked up from Adena...

James has tagged me with the "Three/Three Christmas Meme" where you have to list three things you would like for the holiday, and three things you wouldn't. I don't really celebrate Christmas, but that's not to say I would refuse a present from Santa if he were to give me something.

I've seen this meme around, and most of the time people are selflessly listing lovely things like "world peace" as an answer. As desirable as this might be, it's totally unrealistic. Instead of mucking about in fantasyland, I've instead decided to list things that are realistically obtainable.

So, without further ado, here are three things I would like for Christmas...

1. My own television network and fifty billion dollars start-up capital... Nothing pisses me off more than television networks who end up with totally brilliant shows, but then cancel them because they are too f#@%ing stupid to know what to do with them. DaveTV would feature only the best programming with NO commercial interruptions, NO station identifiers in the corner of the screen, NO pop-up advertising, AND NO F#@%ING EARLY CANCELATIONS!! Every show creator would be guaranteed a minimum number of shows to tell their story, and viewers would never have to worry about falling in love with a show only to have it canceled before the story ends. The first thing I would do is offer Rob Thomas, Jeremy Piven, Paula Marshal, and Jeffrey D. Sams a million dollars an episode to bring back Cupid, the best show ever to air on television, as the cornerstone of DaveTV's schedule. Ooh! And Wonderfalls. And Dead Like Me. And... and... and...
2. My own airline and a hundred billion dollars start-up capital... Okay, there is something that pisses me off more than television networks, and that would be airlines. Flying now-a-days is a horrifying ordeal with cramped seats and nothing to do. DaveAir would be totally different. You'd pay a little extra, but you'd have comfortable seats with actual leg-room. The schedule would be a little restrictive, but there would be free internet, movies, video games, and plenty of magazines. Flying with DaveAir is like a vacation before your vacation.
3. My own country and a trillion dollars start-up capital... I would probably be happier if I could just take my television network and my airline and set up shop as king of my own country. That way, I could just make everything be exactly how I want it to be, and not have to worry about dumbasses screwing everything up. An island archipelago paradise with lots of beaches and sunshine would be a great location for Davenia.

And here are the three suck-ass things I would NOT want for Christmas...

1. Any book by Ann Coulter.
2. Any CD by Clay Aiken.
3. Any DVD with an appearance by David Caruso.

And there you have it. I'd link to an Amazon wish-list so any billionaire readers who are feeling the holiday spirit could buy me something... but, alas, Amazon doesn't carry television networks, airlines, or countries.

Thanks to my good friend Harold... a longtime Blogography supporter, former co-worker, and ruler of Las Vegas once I conquer the earth... I was tipped off that the local ShopKo had Nintendo Wii in stock. I didn't have my hopes up, because last time I heard they were available at Target, they sold out in the 15 minutes it took me to get there. But I decided to take a stab at it, and asked my mother to stop by when she was in Wenatchee and see if they had any left. Luckily, they had two, and one of them was going to be mine.

MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE!!

When I got home to hook it up, I had just over an hour before I had to get back to work. This was fine, because all I wanted to do was send a WiiMail to Avitable to let him know that I got my Wii on the same day he did... so he could feel MY Wii-ness.

So I unwrap everything, get everything set up, turn it on, configure the internet, and then.... wait.

Wait for 20 minutes while the Wii updates itself.

Then wait ANOTHER 20 minutes for it to perform ANOTHER update.

By the time I construct my "Mii" avatar and punched in Avitable's "friend code" I am running late for work and am starting to get pissed off. Then I find out that I can't send Avitable WiiMail after all, because he has to enter my "friend code" on his machine too. Shit!!

After I get back from work, I'm finally able to send my WiiMail and play around with my new Nintendo...

The first box is the Mii avatar for myself (The Chad created an avatar for Lil' Dave that I'm going to have to get him to WiiMail to me). The second box is a WiiMail with Avitable's Mii on it (it looks JUST LIKE HIM!). The third and fourth box show that Blogography renders perfectly on the Wii web browser... which is no surprise since it's built on the excellent Opera browser. The fifth box is Wii's Global Weather Channel. And the last box is the Wii Photo Channel displaying an image loaded directly off my camera's SD memory card.

Overall, the Wii is pretty sweet.

I am looking forward to the day I can sit down with my Wii and play games with fellow Wii bloggers over the internet... I'm sure it's not too far off. In the meanwhile, I'll have to play by myself. Right now my favorite game is "Elebits" where you tear apart your house searching for tiny electrical creatures that hide everywhere and in everything...

Images taken from the incredible IGN Wii site.

The game is a total riot, and showcases how truly unique a Wii is from your "typical" video game systems.

I just wish I was going to have time to play it.

Anyway, in addition to making cool Mii avatars, The Chad also makes memes. You can see my answers to his latest in an extended entry...

• Bullets... If I thought about it long enough, I'd probably be taking today's bullet points and shooting myself in the head with them. Yesterday was a disaster. My migraine kept getting worse and worse despite my taking The Special Pills. But The Special Pills just made me nauseous on top of feeling like my head was going to explode. So I was hurting and puking while trying to work, which did not make for a very productive day. Now I'm way behind, and will probably have to work straight through the next 36 hours. Still with a headache.

• Relationship... I finally managed to scrape together the money to pay off my "90-days-same-as-cash" Apple credit balance before the deadline. So I call to be sure that I have the pay-off amount correct (last time they tried to screw me by slapping on a $2 "billing fee," not telling me about it, then slapping me with $130 in accumulated interest). While on hold, a recorded voice kept telling me that a "Relationship Manager" would be with me in a moment. "Relationship Manager?" That sounds like somebody whom busy yuppies hire in order to work out their complex schedules so that they can find time to have sex. I don't know about you, but this is a much closer relationship than I am wanting to have with a bank.

• O RLY?... And, combining my first two bullet points, I am reminded of a time I attempted to build a relationship while battling a migraine headache AND being nauseated by The Special Pills. It all started when I was set up on a date with a girl who I really, really liked... but from a distance. I didn't know her very well at all. A mutual friend asked her if she wanted to go out with me, and she said something like "oh, he's funny!" and agreed. But, on the day we decided on dinner and a movie, I was hit with a huge migraine. Desperately not wanting to break our date for fear I would never get another one, I doped up on The Special Pills and went on my way. Dinner was painful. She talked and talked and talked about... well, nothing, really. My head was throbbing, and she simply would not stop talking. After paying the check I went to the bathroom so I could throw up. Then we drove to the movie with her talking all the way... I was SO looking forward to the film starting in anticipation of finally getting some peace and quiet. Alas, it was not to be. She talked through the entire film...

*Those unfamiliar with internet-speak can get an "O RLY" explanation here.

It was the longest night of my life. Puking in the bathroom was actually a hilight. The funny thing was that she thought the date went great, and asked my friend if I would be asking her out again. Sure she was fun to look at, but the thought of having to endure another night of her non-stop talking without guarantee of a sexual return was more than I could take. I didn't make just one excuse to get out of asking her out again, I made five.

• Hindsight... YOU IDIOT! Do you know how rare it is to find a woman who would be willing talk to you... AT ALL?!?

• Memes... What's with all the memes lately? This latest one comes from Neil, and I've put it in an extended entry...

• Lost is Lost... This morning I awoke to find a couple of emails from people pointing me to a story in The Washington Post about how Lost has plummeted in the television ratings and may be facing cancelation. I could try to act surprised, but what's the point? The show sucks ass. It was a brilliant concept that started out as a lot of fun, then disintegrated into boredom when the writers were either too stupid or too lazy to try and come up with cool new mysteries, choosing instead to drag out the same old shit... FOREVER. I mean, holy crap... I was pointing out this problem ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO, and I'm not even in television! Are the people running the show on crack? It's like a lesson in what NOT to do, where everybody sees the wreck coming except the people driving the bus. Next up... Heroes! Or will they learn from Lost's mistakes in time?

• Best Breakfast Ever... Snack-Pack Chocolate Pudding, five Golden Oreo cookies, and a glass of chocolate milk.

• Spirit of Vengeance... One of the cooler comic book creations, Ghost Rider, has finally been given the movie treatment starring long-time comic fan Nicholas Cage. And here's the thing... despite the shitty reviews, I enjoyed this film. Cage totally had a handle on the character, injecting humor where appropriate and not taking the role too seriously. The special effects were kick-ass. The story was entertaining. But, most importantly, there was enough action to keep things moving and the film was fairly faithful to the comics. What's not to love? It amazes me that reviewers are going to a movie about a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle thinking it will be about something else, then are disappointed to find out it actually IS about a flaming skeleton riding a motorcycle. Well, duh. It's not supposed to be Shakespeare, it's just a cheesy popcorn flick. Taking it for what it is, I found it brilliant, and will be buying it on DVD.

• Not-So-Daily Show... Whilst clearing old shows off my TiVo, I ran across the October 26th, 2006 episode of The Daily Show which I've saved because it is one of my all-time favorites. Remembering that The Daily Show can be purchased at the iTunes Music Store, I thought I would just buy the episode so I could free up some space on my TiVo box. Well, it was a good plan, except that you can only purchase the last 8 episodes and nothing before that. WHY? I would think that one of the benefits of selling shows online is that you have a library of archived shows to offer for sale. Both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have segments and guests that demand future exploration... why not offer them? Once again I am put in a position where my only option is to acquire the show "unofficially" — not by choice, but by stupid circumstance.

• Un-Trekable... Speaking of the iTunes Music Store... I was thrilled that the new "re-mastered" episodes of the original (i.e. "real") Star Trek were being offered for sale. Now, for reasons unknown, Paramount has withdrawn them. Which means last week's brilliant update of The Doomsday Machine and this week's beautiful tweaks to the classic Amok Time are nowhere to be found. WTF?!? So here I am, again, perfectly willing to pay money to get something I want, yet my only option is to hope somebody has uploaded it to BitTorrent. Oh well, T'Pring is a total bitch hottie at $1.99 or $0.00, so it's all the same to me. The only loser here is Paramount. Dumbasses. They will, of course, blame internet piracy for lost profits when it's their own stupid asses who are refusing to take my money.

• Six Meme... After avoiding the "Six Weird Things About You Meme" like the plague, Kyle descended like the Black Death and infected me with it. So here goes... 1) I don't like coffee or coffee-flavored products, which I don't think is weird, but others sure do. 2) I am perfectly happy watching the same movies over and over again... I've seen such films as EuroTrip, The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Fifth Element, and Bedazzled dozens of times. 3) I have written exactly one fan letter in my entire life... it was to 80's Atari Computer game programmer Tom Hudson, and I still have his kind reply stuffed in a box somewhere. 4) My love of all things Betty White is not a joke... I really do think she kicks ass, and am a huge fan. 5) I am a total comic book geek, and own over 12,000 of them. 6) Weirdest of all? I write in my blog every day and this is the one-thousand-six-hundred-and-thirty-fifth time I've done so. FINI) I'm breaking the rules by not tagging six people now, but I don't tag.

Three weeks until TequilaCon...

As a possible side-effect of the insomnia I've been suffering for the past two decades, I don't dream like "normal" people do. To my knowledge, I never have. Whenever somebody tells me that they had this great dream where they ate chocolate pudding at the Eiffel Tower and then ended up having a sex orgy with a half-dozen movie stars (plus Angeline Jolie) at the Louvre, I just nod my head appreciatively as if I know what they are talking about.

But I don't.

My dreams are very different. For one thing, I always know that I am dreaming because I am never actually in the dream. Instead, I am merely an observer... kind of like watching a movie. For example, if I am having a dream where a naked Elizabeth Hurley is laying in bed reading Batman comics to me as I'm being given a full-body massage by Princess Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin while floating in a cloud castle... it's not really me. It's just somebody who looks like me. In the dream, I'm the one floating outside the window watching it all.

Yeah, dreaming pretty much suck ass for me. The bastard...

So when somebody sends me a meme that's asking about my dreams, I cannot help but be a little depressed.

Because it's not like I can whip out some great dream about the time I went skydiving with Halle Berry and ended up landing in a giant ice cream sundae where we made sweet love on a bed of chocolate fudge brownies while SpongeBob Squarepants dances around blowing bubbles out of the whip cream. That would be cool, but it just doesn't work that way.

Oh well. My feeble attempt at the "Dream Meme" is in an extended entry...

A couple of days ago, Karl had written about running across an entry by Alissa about an NPR show entitled This I Believe, where people get air-time to talk about their personal beliefs. Well, Karl went ahead and typed out what he believes, and it was a fascinating, beautiful read. I left a comment saying "I wish I had the guts to do this," and then moved on to the next site on my blogroll. It's not that I don't have the guts to write my beliefs, I'm just not comfortable sharing them on my blog.

But then last night when I was at the grocery store, something happened to change my mind.

I was walking down an aisle looking for microwave popcorn, when I spotted a Hispanic woman shopping with her two children. She was carrying her youngest child, an adorable girl with wide eyes in a cute little sun dress. Trotting along ahead of her was an equally adorable young boy wearing khakis and a bright blue button-down shirt. His hair combed, belt buckled, and shoes cleaned, he looked like he hopped out of the children's section of an Eddie Bauer catalog. As the little boy walked down the aisle, he would point out objects and speak its name in Spanish and English. "MAÍZ! MAÍZ!" he would shout, quickly followed by "CORN! CORN!" It looked to me like he was teaching his mother English, as he was constantly looking back at her as he pointed and spoke, but he could have just as easily been practicing his own English skills. Whatever he was doing, it brought a smile to my face, because he showed such enthusiasm in his never-ending task of translating everything in the store.

The moment was too good to last, of course.

Coming from the opposite direction were two skanky bitches who took great delight in giggling "UNEMPLOYMENT! UNEMPLOYMENT!" and "WELFARE! WELFARE!" as they passed.

I was immediately consumed with rage, and was about to point at them and scream "BITCH! BITCH!" and "SKANK! SKANK!" but realized that this would only bring myself down to their level, and ultimately accomplish nothing. Instead I stood there fuming as the boy, only temporarily interrupted, continued on with his efforts. "JUGO! JUGO! - JUICE! JUICE!"

It was then I realized that what I BELIEVE is that nobody should be looked down upon or thought less of because of how they look, where they come from, what they believe, or who they love. And anybody who would persecute somebody for any of these things... particularly a child... is pretty pathetic. Who knows what the future may bring? Assuming that his intellectual curiosity isn't crushed by redneck racist bitches at the grocery store, this little boy could grow up to become President of the United States one day. His potential is limited only by the confines society would choose to place upon him. Knowing this disgusts me to my very core, because I've just witnessed first-hand the adversity he will be facing every day of his life. Everything else aside, this little boy... so happy in a world full of possibilities... can be dismissed, ignored, crushed, or tossed aside based solely on his heritage, without so much as a second thought.

What a waste.

It's not that crap like this is something new to me, it's just that seeing such a vivid example of this despicable shit really puts a damper on your day.

It also makes you want to blog about what you believe, even if it is in an extended entry...

Yeesh. Another night of writing my entry just as midnight approaches. I guess that's what happens when you are slaving away morning noon and night to get caught up with work.

I suppose there are lots of things I could write about, but it's late, so I think I'll just grab that movie meme that's been floating around. Kevin has done is now, so I guess I pretty much have to...

Oog. Time for bed. But before I go, I was pleased to see that the plans for the first "Hard Rock Park" in Myrtle Beach have finally been released. It's looking pretty sweet, and bigger than I had thought it would be...

The juicy details can be found at Myrtle Beach Online (which is where I snagged these photos). I guess that will be one more property to add to my list when it opens in 2008.

F#@%ING VERIZON DSL PIECE OF SHIT!

For the third time in two weeks, my DSL is down and, as if that wasn't frustrating enough, calling Verizon tech support results in a recording that directs you to their website before you get to any menus. IF YOU ARE CALLING FOR SUPPORT BECAUSE YOUR INTERNET IS DOWN, HOW IN THE F#@% ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO GET TO THEIR WEBSITE?!? Who is the genius who came up with this logic? Once I do finally get through, another recording tells me that Verizon is aware of the problems in the 509 area code, and it should be resolved in 24 hours.

TWENTY-FOUR F#@%ING HOURS? WTF?!?

Yesterday as I was writing my daily blog entry, it was announced that sublime novelist Kurt Vonnegut had died. As a huge fan of his work, I was sad to hear this. I've learned so much from his writing, and had thought it would be swell to write a nice long entry about him. I started a few times, but couldn't find the words to adequately express how much he meant to me. In the end, I kept coming back to a quote of his that just about says it all...

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center".

Indeed.

So it goes... rest in peace Kurt Vonnegut. Time for me to read Slaughterhouse-Five again.

And speaking of utter brilliance, I ran across this "Interview Me" meme on Avitable's blog. Unfortunately, I don't have time to interview anybody, and had to pass on the fun. But Avi, bless his heart, was nice enough to send me his five interview questions anyway...

1. Out of all of your travels, what is the most interesting place you have been to and why? This is a really difficult question to answer, because I have been lucky enough to see so many amazing places. Ultimately, I'd have to say that Thailand was the most interesting, because my trip there changed my life. It was Thailand that taught me what was important in life, and introduced me to the Buddhist precepts which helped me find my path.
2. What do you do for a living? You don't have to give identifying specifics, just what it is that you do all day long. I'm a graphic designer, and I pretty much do whatever people are willing to pay me to do (I am such a whore!). I design advertising, brochures, web sites, catalogs, pamphlets, packaging, product instructions, clothing tags, book covers, album covers, media kiosks, and bunches of other stuff. People also hire me to create drawings, illustrations, maps, 3-D models, animation, and other creative endeavors like retouching or editing photos. From time to time I also edit and assemble video footage, design DVD menu screens, and write musical scores for them. In the past I have been lucky enough to work on storyboards for films, illustrations for comic books, character design for video games, and other cool stuff. Pretty much anything and everything.
3. If you had a chance to hook up with Elizabeth Hurley or save four orphans in a burning building, which would you choose? Well, Elizabeth Hurley is married now, so hooking up wouldn't be a very nice thing to do. I think I'd save the orphans so that Elizabeth Hurley would hear about my story, be impressed with my bravery, divorce her husband, then hook up with me.
4. What was your favorite meat when you did eat meat? Do you ever miss it? Pepperoni. There is simply no vegetarian equivalent that is worth a crap. Even worse, the fake stuff doesn't crisp up like a nice thin piece of real pepperoni on a slice of pizza does. A delightfully delicious piece of authentic 100% USDA beef pepperoni. An orgasm-inducing, mouthwatering, finger-licking, lip-smacking, slice of sublime pepperoni. Do I miss it? Nah, not so much...
5. What is your philosophy on life? Forgive me for once again quoting Buckaroo Banzai here, but this is what I come back to again and again when trying to summarize my philosophy on life: "No matter where you go, there you are." What this says to me is to accept things for what they are rather than trying to make them into something they aren't. Wonderful in its simplicity, really.

Excellent questions Mr Avitable! I'm breaking the rules by not inviting people to be interviewed by me, but you can go get in line behind the 75+ people awaiting questions from Avi.

And tomorrow, I'm back to Seattle. But first I'm off to work so I can post this entry.

UPDATE: Well that's odd. Just as I was getting ready to head out, the internet came back on. Bizarre.

I am not a morning person.

Even though I get up before sunrise, my daily routine is such that I'm not good for much during the early hours. Most of the time I'll just grab my laptop and either read blogs or work for a bit until I am motivated to get out of bed. Usually this is dictated by my need to pee, but sometimes it's because the phone will ring or some other disturbance. In any event, asking me to do anything at 4:30 in the morning is a pretty bad idea. But Jessica over at Daughter of Opinion has asked people to take a photo of themselves when they first wake up in the morning, and she's pretty hard to refuse anything.

So last night before bed, I put my camera on my night-stand on top of my glasses so I would not forget. Here is the terrifying result...

Since it's still dark when I get up, I just turned on my desk lamp and snapped the photo. It's a bit off-center, but considering I am practically blind without my glasses, I feel lucky my head is even in the shot at all.

I find it interesting to note that Jessica looks like she just walked off the set of America's Next Top Model in her photo, which is why I suppose she came up with the idea for this meme in the first place. If I looked that good first thing in the morning, I'd want people to know about it too.

Though, to be honest, I would probably be a lot more crass about it than she is. I'd use it as a pick-up line or something... "Hey baby, I look totally hot in the mornings. But don't take my word for it, why don't you come back to my place so you can wake up and see for yourself... heh, heh, heh."

Men are such pigs.

I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about my photo... I'm just happy that there's not a welt on my face anymore.

Yesterday I was driving down the road while messing with my seat-belt. I needed both hands to turn a corner, so I let go of the belt only to have it slip out of the restraining loop and smack me in the face. Hard. It left a nice red mark that was still there when I went to bed last night.

Nothing quite like being bitch-slapped by life after a hard day at work.

Because I love Mocha Momma more than life itself, I'm joining in on her BlogMe Ten Second Intro meme!

But before I start... the best new reality show ever has just started airing: Victoria Beckham: Coming to America! The one-time Spice Girl is moving to the USA after her super-star soccer player husband, David Beckham, was awarded a gazillion-dollar contract to play for the L.A. Galaxy. I've always loved Posh Spice, but now my infatuation has escalated to an entirely new level...

Scorching hot Victoria Beckham photo taken from Just Jared.

There's just something about seeing Posh take her drivers license exam at the DMV that's totally compelling television to me. I think I actually squealed a little when she passed. By the time we got to the Victoria Beckham dress-up sex doll, I was hooked.

And now on to the introduction (which might be 10 seconds if you read really fast)...

I am a graphic designer, which is a career I fell into entirely by accident. I've designed or worked on just about anything you can think of over the past 20 years... catalogs, advertising, packaging, video games, architecture, clothing, book covers, album art, movie storyboards, posters, magazines, logos, web sites, software, user interfaces, children's toys, comic books, DVD menus, airplane graphics, board games, instruction manuals, maps, and much, much more.

I love to travel in my spare time, and enjoy visiting Hard Rock Cafes around the world.

I am a vegetarian, and have been since a girlfriend dragged me into it back on Earth Day, 1986. After becoming a vegetarian, the relationship lasted four more weeks. The diet stuck, and has lasted over 20 years. I can't give up dairy though, because I love cheese and chocolate pudding.

I am not religious, but study Buddhism and try to live my live according to Buddhist precepts. My friends and family mean more to me than anything else. I still think Elizabeth Hurley is the most beautiful woman on earth, even though she went and got herself married.

I'm Dave. Nice to meet you, and goodnight!

On top of having the ebola virus (or whatever), I find myself to be in a really cranky mood. I was forced to leave work early because my eyes would not stop watering, and so now I'm even farther behind than ever. Just writing this blog entry is a huge effort that's probably going to take forever. Since I am mostly incoherent, I should probably just lay down some bullet-points full of whining and be done with it.

• Desktritus... Avitable has picked up on a meme whereas you share a photo of your desk. Of course, anything Avitable does seems to propagate through the blogosphere like a wildfire, meaning that if I don't participate there must be something wrong with me (even RW is doing it!). The problem is that there IS something wrong with me and I'm at home sick. This means I can't snap a photo of my nicely-organized work desk... oh no! I have to use a photo of my home desk, which is pretty much a disaster area that should be condemned...

Here you go Avitable, you bastard!
0) Business cards from people I will never contact, 1) A stack of books to read (probably recommended by Vahid), 2) A bottle of melatonin, 3) A pencil cup with my Maui shark keychain and assorted pens, 4) A plastic bag with a defective camera lens in it, 5) Two tarot card decks (I'm making my own Bad Monkey Tarot, and need them for reference), 6) An unused plastic rain poncho I got from Disney World, 7) A shot glass from my trip to the Hard Rock Lisbon, 8) Coin cups from the Hard Rock Casino Las Vegas with loose change inside, 9) My Rosetta Stone French course, 10) My Mac G4 Cube that I can't bear to get rid of, 11) A container full of Lego pieces, 12) A spare blanket from my car, 13) A container with Farscape trading cards and autographed photos of the cast, 14) A bag of rejected shirts from the Artificial Duck Store, 15) A box of souvenir crap from my trip to China, 16) A bag with an original Chris Ware print from a trip to Chicago needing to be framed, 17) A container filled with Japanese manga comics, 18) A tube with a poster from my trip to The Vatican Museum, 19) A hardcopy of my book, 20) A stack of comics I've read and need to file away, 21) A mess of cables and a LiveStrong bracelet, 22) A voodoo doll from my trip to New Orleans that really works, 23) My Sully plush from Monsters Inc., 24) My old Nintendo DS, 25) My Batman alarm clock that Karl gave me at TequilaCon, 26) My iPhone and glasses, 27) My MacBook Pro, 28) Old film negatives that I need to send in for scanning, 29) Comics to read, 30) Buttons left over from Davecago2, 31) Comics to read after I have a few more issues.

Yeah, that's pretty bad. But, in my defense, I've been traveling and working a lot and haven't had much time to clean it up around my home.

• Theft... I am constantly getting emails from people telling me of dumbasses who steal stuff from Blogography and try to pass it off as their own. Whenever I confront these idiots, it's always the same story... "I just wanted to share it with my readers!" Well, if that's all you wanted, then why not link to the original source? Or, if you simply must post it on your site, why not at least credit where you took it from? Otherwise, you're nothing more than a douchebag thief, passing off somebody else's work as your own.

My Creative Commons license is very generous. As long as you aren't a commercial site making money off my stuff, go ahead and take anything you want... as long as you credit me as the creator with a link to the source material. If you don't credit the source, you're breaking my copyright and the law. If you post my material on a site whose primary function is selling advertising, that's a commercial site and your're breaking my copyright and the law (even if you credit the source). It's not rocket science, it's the difference between right and wrong, and I'm tired of it. If you are totally incapable of saying anything original and have to steal all your content, then just give it up you thieving hack.

• NBC... I pay for DirecTV, so I don't buy many television shows online. I prefer to wait for the DVD. The only exception are those times I miss an episode, or I'll buy shows just to have something to watch when I'm stuck somewhere without entertainment. This is why Apple's iTunes Store is so great... it's so easy to buy a shows whenever you want. The $1.99 price tag is a bit steep for what you get, but I'm willing to pay the money for the convenience of it all. Except now NBC Television has decided to pull out of the iTunes Store because they want $4.99 per episode, and Apple (quite rightly) said no. IS NBC OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MINDS? Let's take a look at current options for obtaining television programs. As an example, I am using the first season of NBC's hit program Heroes...

Who in their right mind would pay $4.99 for a television show that's of low quality, has DRM crap encoded in it, is more expensive than a DVD set loaded with extras, comes without any storage media, and is more expensive than even HD-DVD? NOBODY! That's who! Digital delivery of files is the cheapest possible method of distribution with practically no benefits (except convenience) yet the legal options for buying it always cost the most. That is totally fucked up. Fuck NBC. Fuck them up their stupid, greedy asses. And bravo to Apple for not caving to idiocy, and being willing to lose money rather than compromise to a no-win situation.

• Adobe... After having had to get my MacBook repaired because of a TSA agent dropping my battery on it and denting the case, something was wacky with the hard drive and I had to reformat it. This is no big deal, I keep full backups of my data, and I don't mind reinstalling my software. Unless that software comes from Adobe. Because of their new online activation bullshit, I ended up having to call in to get technical assistance so I could access software I PURCHASED DIRECTLY FROM ADOBE. This idiocy is meant to stop software piracy, but all it does is piss me off (meanwhile, cracked versions of the software are available on BitTorrent, which means that it doesn't stop piracy in the first place). What kind of company purposefully initiates a scheme whose only effect is making their loyal customers hate them? Why do I pay these idiots to treat me like a criminal?

• Finale... Eh, that's enough bitching for one day. I'm going to see if a couple of tubs of chocolate pudding will make me feel any better.

Leave it to Hilly to come up with a new meme I can't refuse. Her "How Well Do You Know Me" entry is a bit more personal than I get here on my blog, but it still seemed like a fun thing to do while catching up on TiVo. Though, since nobody seems to read blogs on the weekend, maybe I should have waited until next week? Probably. Oh well, here we go...

1. My current dream vacation would be...
   1. Touring through Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.
   2. Taking an icebreaker cruise to Antarctica from South America.
   3. Exploring the Amalfi Coast of Southern Italy.
   4. A trip from Brisbane to Sydney to Melbourne in Australia.
2. My biggest pet peeve is...
   1. People clipping their fingernails (or toenails) in public.
   2. People making crunching noises while eating in TV commercials.
   3. People that let their kids run wild and unsupervised.
   4. People who smack their gum while chewing it.
3. No matter how bad I feel, doing this one thing will make me feel happy every time...
   1. Painting a scenic picture in watercolors.
   2. Bitch-slapping random idiots at the grocery store.
   3. Watching the last 5 minutes of the movie Millions by Danny Boyle.
   4. Eating a bowl of chocolate pudding with a stack of graham crackers.
4. My DaveToon sidekick character of Bad Monkey is based on...
   1. Robert, my motorcycle-riding psychotic friend.
   2. Max, the homicidal rabbit from Sam & Max.
   3. Curious George, friend of the Man in the Yellow Hat.
   4. Calvin from Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes.
5. The first blogger I ever met in person is...
   1. Jenny from Run Jen Run.
   2. Jeff from Geekable.
   3. Kazza from Kazza the Blank One.
   4. Kevin from Kapgar.
6. Total number of webfeeds I read, and the number of those that are personal blogs...
   1. 188 / 131.
   2. 227 / 170.
   3. 362 / 256.
   4. 390 / 316.
7. The traits I most admire in people is...
   1. Honesty & Intelligence.
   2. Conviction & Compassion.
   3. Bravery & Strength.
   4. Hotness & Charisma.
8. The person I would most like to beat severely with a baseball bat...
   1. Jared Fogle, the Subway Sandwich Whore.
   2. Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music.
   3. Ann Couter, evil incarnate.
   4. Pat Robertson, hate-preaching bastard.
9. The travel guru I most like to use as a resource for planning my trips...
   1. The Travel Channel's Samantha Brown.
   2. 1000 Places to See Before You Die author Patricia Schultz.
   3. Famous travel writer and TV personality Rick Steves.
   4. Brilliant travel storyteller Bill Bryson.
10. My greatest phobia would be...
    1. Nosocomephobia: Fear of hospitals.
    2. Entomophobia: Fear of insects.
    3. Ophidiophobia: Fear of snakes.
    4. Acrophobia: Fear of heights.

Here's the really strange thing... on some of these, I don't even know what my answer will be!

Alrighty then... it's my first video entry!

I recorded everything this morning, but didn't post until the afternoon so I could transcribe the audio. This way, anybody who might be deaf or hard of hearing will be able to follow along. This has the side-benefit of also helping out those people who can't play movies on their computer, or those terrified at the thought of having to watch me on video (and who could blame them?).

You'll have to forgive the crummy video quality, because it was recorded with my mini iSight camera with crappy lighting. While you're at it, you might as well forgive the bad audio and horrible graphics as well. This video is total crap, and should be avoided at all costs.

But if you're a glutton for punishment, look behind the curtain...

A video transcript is in an extended entry...

→ Click here to continue reading this entry...

Two weeks ago, I made an appointment for this morning at 9:00am to see if my satellite TV could be upgraded. I received a phone call yesterday confirming this appointment. This morning I get a call at 8:50am telling me that they don't have the equipment and have to reschedule.

WTF?!? They certainly knew they didn't have the equipment yesterday... why the hell didn't they call me then? Why wait until I've already scheduled my day to call and totally f#@%-up my plans? This kind of thing is completely unacceptable, yet is so commonplace in the repair/installer industry that I don't understand how anything ever gets done.

Dumbasses.

Well, not after last week's game, but we'll see...

The good news is that the weather cleared up a bit for my drive over to Seattle. And speaking of Seattle... on Sunday the 28th of October, I am flying back from the east coast and staying downtown. I know that Sunday isn't the best day for this kind of thing, but would any Seattle bloggers want to get together for an early dinner in the city? I have to work on Monday morning, so I can't stay out until midnight or anything, but it still might be fun to get together. My email address is in my sidebar, let me know if you would be able to come. I'm thinking 4:30-ish, so we have plenty of time to visit and stuff.

And lastly, before I head out the door... a meme!

Bre (of "Win or Lose, We Go Shopping" fame) has come up with a list the words or phrases she uses too often. Then Hilly posted her list too, and a meme was born. Below is a list of the 15 things I find myself saying (or typing) far too often...

1. "The Whole Taco" Which I use instead of "the big picture" to mean "everything." — e.g. "You can't obsess on the details, you have to look at the whole taco!" or "This is only part of my blogroll... click here for the whole taco."
2. "Wrecked" Takes the place of "broken" and "sucks" for me. — e.g. "I fell and wrecked my back!" or "Windows Vista is wrecked."
3. "Totally" Rarely used in conversation, but constantly used while writing, as a modifier to signify extremeness. — e.g. "I would so totally go to a Spice Girls concert!" and "Windows Vista is totally wrecked!"
4. "Sweet" Which took the place of "cool" and "awesome" for me. — e.g. "Your new iPhone is sweet!" or "My trip to Vegas was totally sweet!"
5. "Serious" Another modifier to signify extremeness, and is often hyphenated (much like some people are using "crazy" now-a-days). — e.g. "Elizabeth Hurley is serious-hot!" or "Chocolate pudding is serious-delicious."
6. "Bank" Which took the place of "money" for me. — e.g. "That Porsche must cost some serious bank!" or "I wanted to fly to Paris for the weekend, but didn't have the bank."
7. "Bitch" Mostly used with inanimate objects (as opposed to people) to express frustration. — e.g. "This bitch is the wrong size!" or "How do I get this bitch to turn on?"
8. "Bitches" Takes the place of "people" or "friends" for me. — e.g. "Those bitches are going to be late!" or "Hey bitches, thanks for the birthday presents!"
9. "Whore" Used to indicate that you'll say, do, or buy anything a person or company wants you to. &mdash e.g. "I just bought the new iPod even though I already own four of them... I am such an Apple Whore!" or "Jared Fogle, the Subway Sandwich Whore."
10. "Touched Down" Used to mean the time that something happened. — e.g. "Apple just touched down with new iPod models!" or "That new television show touched down three weeks ago."
11. "Hurricane" A person who causes frustration, destruction, problems, or disgust... mostly due to their being annoying. — e.g. "I wish they would fire Hurricane Caruso from CSI Miami so it would be watchable!" or "Hurricane Britney just lost custody of her kids!" or "Hurricane Trump just touched down with a new building in Chicago."
12. "Weather Delay" Used to describe ANY problem or when something is totally fucked-up (just like the airlines use!) and often used with "Hurricane" (see above). — e.g. "My stupid Windows Vista machine is experiencing a weather delay... AGAIN!" or "Sorry I'm late, there was a weather delay in the parking garage." or "Hurricane Bush has caused a serious weather delay in Iraq."
13. "Heinous" Seriously bad. So bad that there's no justification for it. — e.g. "David Caruso's 'acting' is heinous." or "The CW Network's heinous cancellation of 'Veronica Mars' haunts me to this day."
14. "Delusional" Somebody who routinely says something unbelievable, unrealistic, or just plain stupid. — "Pat Robertson says that Hurricane Katrina was the wrath of God on the sinners of New Orleans... he's delusional that way." or "Ann Coulter is totally serious-delusional."
15. "Dude" I rarely say this anymore except when I'm having a conversation with Bad Robert, in which case we both use it constantly to refer to each other. — "Dude! We should totally order out pizza and play Xbox this weekend!" and "Dude! I know! I so totally have to kick your ass in Halo3! and "Dude! Dream on!" and "Dude! I can SO kick your ass in Halo3!" and "Dude! You're delusional!"

I'm sure there are many more (I am forever using the phrase "well that sucks!," for example) but these are probably the ones that annoy other people the most.

And, on that note, I'm off...

Ooh, look! SJ from Pseudotherapy came up with a new Hallowmeme... Behind The Mask: Who's That Blogger?

The Official Rules: "This is, appropriately, a meme of many faces. The basic idea is to present info on other bloggers and see how many of your readers can guess who’s who. What info and how you present it is entirely up to you! Choose your victims (famous or obscure, as you wish), decide on a concept and get busy!"

As a visual-type person, I decided to snap a small square from everybody in my "Bloggers I've Met" list (found either in my Home Page Sidebar or my Blogroll Page) and see how many of them people could guess...

I think I could probably guess most of them... but there's three or four that might give me some trouble.

Happy Halloween everybody!

This morning I was walking to my car so I could drive to work when I saw something laying in the flower bed. Stopping to investigate, I realized that it was a knife(!).

From watching hundreds of episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, my mind immediately started thinking that this must be evidence in a murder, and needed to be preserved before somebody came along and destroyed any fingerprints or traces of blood...

Running back to the kitchen, I grabbed some plastic bags. Two smaller bags I wore on my hands so I could put the knife in a larger bag without contaminating it with my own fingerprints. Gil Grissom would be so proud.

Except when I picked it up, I realized the knife was made of rubber, and only then did it occur to me that it was probably just part of somebody's Halloween costume. Robbed of my big murder mystery, I threw the "knife" in the trash bin and just stood there with a plastic bags on my hands, staring into space.

So much for a morning filled with excitement and danger...

Anyway... I have the answer to yesterday's Hallowmeme Challenge in an extended entry...

Well then... thanks to some help from people far smarter than me, Blogography appears to be up-and-running again. Here's hoping it stays that way for a little while.

Yesterday I was handed a movie meme and, since I had nothing better to blog about, I decided to fill it out. But after a few questions I realized it was just a variation on a half-dozen movie memes I had already done before, so I decided to toss it out and write about unclogging my shower drain instead.

But then, just as I was getting ready to take a photo of the bottle of Liquid Plumr that had saved my day, I noticed one of the movie questions was different. It asked: "Name three characters from the movies you can personally relate to and why." Interesting! That's pretty much an entry all by itself, so I'll blog about my shower drain another day.

And now, three people from the movies I personally relate to and why...

"Mark" from Love Actually (played by Andrew Licoln).

Love Actually is one of those films you either fall in love with immediately... or you despise because it is so contrived, manipulative, and filled with one-dimensional characters. On first viewing, I was firmly in the latter camp. I was disappointed that Richard Curtis would slap together a bunch of short bits from stories we've seen a hundred times before (including his own Notting Hill) and call it a film. The result is a patchwork of fantastic actors doing their best to add depth to characters that are so ill-defined that it's almost impossible to care about them.

But then it grows on you. You see it at the rental store and remember it had some funny bits so you watch it again. And again during the holidays because it's a Christmas film. And again because it happens to be on HBO. And soon you're watching it for no reason at all, when suddenly it dawns on you... the characters don't have to be three-dimensional, because the characters are you. Or your family & friends. Or people you know. You don't need the details of their lives to become invested in them, because you already know them.

This revelation dawned on me as I came upon the scene where Juliet has just discovered that her new husband's best friend is secretly in love with her. Mark is all at once overcome with the heartache, longing, shame, and the crushing disappointment of being in love with somebody he can never have...

Yeah. Definitely been there, done that, and can totally relate. Watching Andrew Licoln's brilliant, wordless interpretation of his character's agony is eerie, because it's as if he reached into my own experience and is expressing it on screen for everybody to see. Unfortunately, the director didn't allow his performance to stand on its own, and felt the need to blast music (Dido's lovely Here With Me) over the top... trying once again to manipulate the viewer unnecessarily... but it's still a scene that strikes me at my core every time I see it.

"Bob and Charlotte" from Lost in Translation (played by Bill Murray & Scarlett Johansson).

There are very few moments in Sophia Coppola's masterwork Lost in Translation which don't resonate with me. She managed to capture with almost supernatural accuracy exactly what it's like to be a foreigner in Japan... Being surrounded by millions of people yet feeling completely alone... The bizarre yet captivating world of Tokyo at night... Seeing your fellow foreigners over and over again because you're all stuck in the same loop... Not being able to sleep... Trying your best to fit into a culture which you will never, ever be able to fit into... The language barrier facing you at every turn... Feeling like an alien because you're so tall and freaky-looking compared to everybody else... It's all here. When I first saw Lost in Translation, I related so closely to Bob and Charlotte that I felt as if the film was speaking just to me. Like it was made just for me. Numerous subsequent viewings haven't changed my mind...

Scene after scene I find myself mentally going "that was me!" and the memories of my trips to Japan come flooding back. It's not often that a film so totally enters my psyche and consumes me, but this would definitely be one of them. Many people I know didn't care for this movie at all, and something in the back of my head is always wondering if the only reason I love it so much is because I relate to it so well.

And now, because I feel it's a public service to mention it, the Lost In Translation soundtrack is sublime, and available on iTunes. Each track is an atmospheric piece of magic that haunts you long after the last track has played. Of course, the song that everybody wants from the movie, Fuck the Pain Away by Peaches, is not on the soundtrack, but is also available on iTunes if you're looking for it.

"Joe" from Idiocracy (played by Luke Wilson).

Yeah, like a movie about a guy trapped in a world filled with morons is really that much of a stretch from my life of being trapped in a world filled with morons (present company excepted, of course). While not up to the impossibly high standards set by Mike Judge with his first film, Office Space, the not-so-implausible future depicted in Idiocracy is still brilliantly realized...

Everything run by dumbass politicians... Corporations taking over the country... Starbucks expanding into the sex trade... Tell me that this is anything but an accurate portrayal of the world of tomorrow! So yeah, seriously I can totally relate.

Brawndo. It's Got Electrolytes. It's What Plants Crave!

First of all, OMG, Zack Snyder has posted some promo shots of various characters from the upcoming Watchmen movie, and they kick-ass! It's going to be agony waiting a year until this film is released... I hope it's worth it.

Second of all, it would seem Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has run out of Hit Points. As a former hard-core D&D geek, this is sad news indeed. I wasted a lot of time in my high school years battling monsters and seeking treasure, which is only moderately better than doing drugs I suppose.

And lastly, it's Avitable's Querypalooza! The rules say you have to answer these five questions on your blog, come up with five new ones for your readers to answer on their respective blogs, then link back to the original post. Here we go...

1. Out of all of the posts you've written, which is your favorite and why? That's difficult to answer... I'm really proud of entries like Wings because it took so much planning to make things happen, and it totally paid off. But my favorite posts are always those that are the simplest. Just a little illustration or something. Like Ride or Friends.

2. Out of all of the posts I've written that you've read, which is your favorite and why? Too many good entries, but my favorite is easily Halloween 2007 Recap Part 2. Great memories of a great party, and I was there!

3. Which do you find the most frightening and why... A radically fundamentalist Christian, a moderate Muslim, a pretentious atheist, or a Scientologist? I think a radial anything is inherently dangerous.

4. Rather than discuss the typical characteristics of someone you'd desire (sense of humor, good body, etc.), I'm going to focus on the little details. Rank them in order of preference, with #7 being the one you consider more important than the others and #1 being the one you consider the least important: Okay!

1. Ability to dance well.
2. Good fashion sense.
3. Encyclopedic knowledge.
4. Odorless feet.
5. Quick-wittedness.
6. Likes the same music, movies, and/or television.
7. Even tempered nature.

5. If you were going to be trapped on a remote island for the rest of your life with one other person, which would you choose and why? MacGyver would probably make life more comfortable, but I'd pick "B"... ELIZABETH HURLEY!

1. Your spouse or S.O.
2. Your celebrity crush.
3. Your best friend.
4. MacGyver.
5. One of your parents or children.

And now five questions for my blogging readers...

1. Which entry of yours is sexiest?
2. Which entry of yours is darkest?
3. Which entry of yours is funniest?
4. Which entry of yours is laziest?
5. Which entry of yours is baddest?

Answer 'em if you've got nothing better to blog about (my answers are in the first comment). And, if you decide to do Avitable's Querypalooza, be sure to let Avitable know.

I've been working like mad to get the last of the orders packed up this weekend so I can mail them out at long last. Unfortunately, this has resulted in me getting a nasty paper cut down the length of my index finger, which makes it hard to type. I'd say that I just can't catch a break, but my vision is almost back to normal again, so I'm rather relieved about that.

Since I am in pain and all cranky, I decided to cop a meme that's been making its way through the blogosphere where you are supposed to list five things on your mind just now. Apparently this does not include what you're blogging "just now" or else it would be pretty redundant.

Five Things On My Mind Just Now...

• Contemplating going to Hawaii and Thailand. The former because I miss it, the latter because the only Hard Rock Hotel in the world I haven't been to is located there (at least until Penang opens next year). Of course, coming up with the time and money is the real trick, isn't it?
• Wondering for the millionth time why somebody would belittle a person for the job they have. When I see somebody working hard and taking pride in what they do, that's far more important to me than how much money they make or what they're doing to make a living.
• Depressed that my MacBook Pro is constantly overheating so the fans have to come on. It's not hot in here and I'm not doing anything processor-intensive, so why?
• How much I positively loathe Microsoft for unleashing the pile of shit browser known as Internet Explorer on the internet. It has ZERO redeeming qualities, and has set back web standards a decade. Every fucking time I build a web page, it ends up looking perfect on every browser I can find... until I get to IE and have to deal with their buggy shit. I spend more time tweaking pages to work in IE than I actually spend designing them in the first place.
• Wishing I had a week with nothing to do. I am so tired of killing myself with 20-hour days and not making a dent in the work I have piled up. And soon I'll be traveling again, which just makes it twice as hard to get things done.

Bleh. now what's on my mind is wishing that the stuff on my mind wasn't so depressing.

Switching to happier thoughts...

If you are planning on joining up with a great group of bloggers at Davecago3 (August 9th) or Dave Louis (August 16th), please let me know ASAP. I'll be leaving soon, and need to get reservations and name lanyards taken care of before I go! Just send a message to me at dave@blogography.com and I'll get you hooked up with all the details.

Hmmm... now I'm thinking that I need a before-bedtime pudding break...

Last night I was on Twitter bemoaning the fact that I had no clean underwear left and would have to wash some.

@Gooster thought it was a much better idea to go without (but, then again, he would).

And thus I declared that today COMMANDO FRIDAY, and Gooster made it official. This is just me doing my part for a greener planet by eliminating a pair of underwear that needs to be washed. Some have said that it might be smarter to recycle underwear rather than go without. To this I say "BEGONE YOU FOUL UNBELIEVER FOR COMMANDO FRIDAY IS HERE!

I hope I don't get denim burns on my bits and pieces.

The latest meme du jour is to tell about your worst date ever.

Unfortunately, my "worst" date contains classified information, so I can't spill the beans on that until the statute of limitations expire. What I can do is talk about my second-worst date. Compared to some of the stories I've read by other bloggers, it's relatively tame... but it does have vomit in it, which should be grounds for immediate qualification... shouldn't it?

Lucky for me I already blogged about it a couple of years ago, so I get to cut and paste today's entry. This is good, because I have to get up in 4-1/2 hours so I can drive to the airport. Stupid early morning flights.

Anyway...

When talking about "worst dates," I am reminded of a time I attempted to build a relationship while battling a migraine headache AND being nauseated by The Special Pills. It all started when I was set up on a date with a girl who I really, really liked... but from a distance. I didn't know her very well at all. A mutual friend asked her if she wanted to go out with me, and she said something like "oh, he's funny!" and agreed. But, on the day we decided on dinner and a movie, I was hit with a huge migraine. Desperately not wanting to break our date for fear I would never get another one, I doped up on The Special Pills and went on my way. Dinner was painful. She talked and talked and talked about... well, nothing, really. My head was throbbing, and she simply would not stop talking. After paying the check I went to the bathroom so I could throw up. Then we drove to the movie with her talking all the way... I was SO looking forward to the film starting in anticipation of finally getting some peace and quiet. Alas, it was not to be. She talked through the entire film...

*Those unfamiliar with internet-speak can get an "O RLY" explanation here.

It was the longest night of my life. Puking in the bathroom was actually a hilight. The funny thing was that she thought the date went great, and asked my friend if I would be asking her out again. Sure she was fun to look at, but the thought of having to endure another night of her non-stop talking without guarantee of a sexual return was more than I could take. I didn't make just one excuse to get out of asking her out again, I made five.

One day I should be reminded to write about my third-worst date. It has Vaseline in it... but not in the way you might be thinking.

Wah. I have a headache. And on Bullet Sunday too.

• Arbitrary. There is right and there is wrong and there is that murky gray area in-between. And yet, it is all a matter of perspective. Where lines are drawn and on which side things are placed is entirely dependent upon the person in question. And that's okay. I understand that, I accept that. But when people define their lines in one breath... then move them to suit their situation in the next... I call bullshit. Moral high ground affords a terrific view, but it's lonely up there when nobody will stand by your hypocritical ass.

• Clarification. No, that wasn't about you.

• Foggy. There's a lot of fog out tonight. I do not like fog...

• Sullified. Thanks to Dan, I now have Sully both at home and at work. My new Sully is very cool because he comes with his own Mike Wazowski...

• Experienced. Memes, once the backbones of most every blog on the internet, have been dying a slow death. I did a grand total of six last year, and half of those were in the first quarter. But every once in a while they pop up, so I thought I'd jump on the "Have You Experienced..." meme which I first saw at Badger Meets World, then again at Anyhoo... As always, to spare the meme-haters out there, I've dropped it in an extended entry.

Now back to a very busy week, already in progress...

I have been having serious digestive problems since returning from Europe. Everything I eat seems to make me sick. I'm hoping this problem sorts itself out soon, because it's making it really tough to get through my work day.

Speaking of work, today is rather jam-packed, so I've decided to sponge off the "Ten Honest Things About You" meme that's been going around. Because if Iron Fist can be convinced to do it, what chance do I have of resisting? I mean, seriously, the guy doesn't have an "About Me" page, and his "Contact Me" page is permanently under construction... getting him to reveal anything online is paramount to a miracle!

Away we go...

1. I have to really struggle to remember anything from high school, and rarely think about my time there. It's not that I hated it or didn't have friends or anything... it's just that it's not particularly memorable in any way. This year will be my 25 Year High School Reunion, and I just don't care. I haven't attended any previous reunions because I was traveling, I probably won't attend this one either.
2. I am deeply disturbed that I know who Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag are despite never having watched a single episode of The Hills. Talentless douchebags who become rich and famous for being talentless douchebags make me want to beat the shit out of the people responsible for injecting them into the social consciousness. There is no reason for me to know who these dumbfucks are, and yet I do. Surely that storage space in my brain could be put to better use.
3. I am too easily irritated by stupidity. Idiotic things morons do which most people would ignore tend to set me on edge. Particularly while driving.
4. Even though I try hard to cherish all life, there are too many times I catch myself wishing somebody dead for the betterment of all humanity. Or just me. Either way, wishing people dead is something that goes against my beliefs, so this is a continuous source of conflict in my head.
5. I am ready to die. It's not that I want to die or am looking forward to dying, it's just that I'm ready when my time comes. I try to make my friends and family understand this... partly because I do not want to be kept alive on life support machines or in a coma or anything... but mostly because I don't want anybody feeling bad about me being dead.
6. My favorite sandwich is cheddar cheese and potato chips with mayo. It bothers me greatly that I can't recall when, where, or how I came up with the concept of putting potato chips on a cheese sandwich. It seems I've always been doing it.
7. I have absolutely no faith in politicians and political leaders. In fact, due to being constantly and consistently disappointed my entire life, I've been conditioned to loathe them. All of them.
8. Whenever somebody tells me I have an interesting life, it's cringe-inducing. Yes, I get to go to a lot of interesting places and have done a lot of interesting things, but I don't think that means I myself am interesting... my surroundings merely makes it appear that way from time to time.
9. Nothing really angers me long-term. Sure I care about stuff and can become upset over a situation, but it's all so very temporary. A lot of times I have to work myself up to feeling angry about something that's in the past. Not because I really feel that way, but because I sense people expect me to feel that way when it comes up.
10. The most honest and revealing thing I've ever written on my blog is this: "I've thought I was in love three times. I have actually been in love just once." And this: "My first love ended very, very badly when it turned out she was a psychotic bitch. Since I would rather be alone the rest of my life that go through that kind of pain again, I am much more cautious now (which is probably why love hasn't found me again)." Both were listed on my "100 Things" page, and explain more about who I am now than I care to admit.

Time for another swig of Pepto Bismol...

If that can't cure me... what can?

A trip over the mountains this morning has ultimately landed me in one of Seattle's finest hotels. A hotel which I have enjoyed many times in the past... but that was when I was placed in rooms on the "quiet side" of the hotel. Being stuck on the "noisy side" is paramount to torture, and has given new definition to the phrase "sucking ass." If I manage to get any sleep at all tonight it will be a full-on miracle.

Finn over at A Life Less Ordinary has done the Proust Questionnaire. It seemed like a good idea, so I thought I'd steal it from her. The problem is that there are so many variations of the quiz, that I had no idea which one to take. Eventually I just compiled the most agreeable questions from all the various flavors I was able to dig up...

1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? Being able to bring happiness to others.
2. What is your greatest fear? The core of my philosophical beliefs hinges on eliminating fear as much as possible from my thinking. That being said, it is impossible to eliminate fear entirely, and my greatest is that I will let somebody down who is relying on me.
3. Which historical figure do you most identify with? Gautama Buddha.
4. Which living person do you most admire? His Holiness the Dalai Lama on most days. Steve Jobs on the other days.
5. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Judging others based on my principles.
6. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Judging me based on their principles.
7. What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Virtues, by their nature, are above such trivialities. But, if forced to pick, I'd probably say beauty. Only because most people tend to have superficial views as to what makes something/someone "beautiful."
8. What is your greatest extravagance? Apple products.
9. On what occasion do you lie? My beliefs are such that "wrongful speaking" such as "lying" is abhorrent. The only situation where I would lie is when telling the truth would cause greater harm. That being said, I strive to avoid any situation or condition which would put me in the position of needing to lie in the first place.
10. What do you dislike most about your appearance? I endeavor not to dwell on negatives, but instead strive for acceptance in all things, even in myself.
11. When and where were you happiest? Anytime I am able to escape and explore this planet is when I am happiest.
12. What is your greatest regret? I try to live without regret, but do have things in my past I wish had not occurred as they did. Not one of them is something I feel comfortable discussing openly on my blog.
13. What or who is the greatest love of your life? People. More specifically, my family and friends who bring me joy, and I love them for that.
14. What is your current state of mind? Striving for acceptance in all things.
15. What do you consider your greatest achievement? Striving for acceptance in all things.
16. What is your most treasured possession? When I was able to ride a motorcycle, it would have been my BMW F650. Now it would probably be my MacBook Pro or my iPhone.
17. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Politics.
18. Where would you like to live? Edinburgh, Scotland.
19. What is your favorite occupation? If I could choose an occupation for myself, it would be a doctor... probably pediatrics. If you've ever spent time with sick/abused/damaged children, you'd do anything to be able to help those who are most innocent among us. A veterinarian would be good too... for exactly the same reason, only with animals.
20. What do you most value in your friends? Acceptance and loyalty.
21. Who are your favorite writers? Richard Bach, Edgar Rice Burroughs, James Clavell.
22. Who is your favorite hero of fiction? Batman.
23. Who are your heroes in real life? Members of Doctors Without Borders.
24. What are your favorite names? Ellis for a boy. Emma for a girl.
25. What is it that you most dislike? Selfishness. Most discord in the world can ultimately be traced back to somebody thinking of themselves without regard to others.
26. How would you like to die? Alone.
27. What is your motto? No matter where you go, there you are... (many thanks to Buckaroo Banzai for that gem).

Hmmmm... it's been a long time since I've done a meme. I had forgotten how easy they make life for a blogger!

I can't help myself. I love Crasher Squirrel!

I don't understand why somebody hasn't him to a picture development deal... he's Oscar gold!

Uh oh...

The next two weeks are going to be nothing but work, which presents a problem for this blog. With nothing interesting going on that I can write about, what happens to Blogography? I could go on hiatus, but odds are I'd never come back. I suppose I could scour the internets for YouTube videos and other crap to post, but that's not really me. So what to do?

Looks like it's going to be the TWENTY/TWENTY meme! Every day for twenty days you get a word, and it's up to you to post something related to the word. It's not the most imaginative way to blog, but at least it's a starting point at a time when I don't have anything.

Today's word is MIRROR!

For which I'm going to post a picture I took of myself when I was in Reykjavik on my way to Stockholm on September 25th, 2003. I had been traveling and working for five solid days, and was looking a total mess (I nearly had to check those bags under my eyes at the airport). I took this photo so I could show my girlfriend what she wasn't missing...

Little did I know, things would get even worse the next night in Stockholm when I would cut my chin open in a tragic karaoke accident. Can't. Catch. A. Break.

   
In other news, I installed iOS version 4 on my iPhone. I can't say that it makes a lot of difference since I've got an older iPhone 3GS, but the ability to combine apps into folders makes it well worth the time to upgrade. I feel at least 223% more organized now. What more could you want in a phone? Well, except to be able to make phone calls, of course.

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is ANCIENT!

This is kind of cool, because I'm a bit obsessed with seeing the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World"... which is mostly impossible, because many of them don't exist any more. In an attempt to rectify this, they came up with the "Seven Wonders of the Medieval World," which is kind of crazy because some sites (like Stonehenge) vastly predate structures in the "ancient" list (like The Great Wall of China). But oh well.

Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, I've been to the Pyramids at Giza and the site of the Statue of Zeus at Olympia (now just ruins)...

Of the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World, I've been to Stonehenge, The Great Wall of China, The Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and The Hagia Sophia...

I don't know exactly where The Taj Mahal and Machu Picchu fit into the scheme of things on these lists, but they would be my next choices to visit.

   
In other news, one of my favorite television shows, Tales of the Gold Monkey, was released on DVD two weeks ago and I finally got around to watching it. The good news is that it totally holds up nearly twenty years later. In fact, with the exception of rubber monkey suits in the two-hour pilot, I'd say it's just as fresh and entertaining as it was back in 1982...

Tales of the Gold Monkey is set in the South Pacific in the days prior to World War II circa 1938. The show stars Stephen Collins as "Jake Cutter," an ex-Flying Tiger who has become a cargo pilot based on the fictitious island of Bora Gora. Plenty of intrigue, espionage, and adventure ensues, and it's a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

I have plenty of great night shots of illuminated objects, but the first thing which came to mind when I saw today's word for the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is the Apple Store Fifth Avenue in New York City. It is beautiful in photographs, but positively captivating in person... a beacon of light and hope to Mac Whores (like me!) from around the world...

   
In other news, my internet has been horribly slow and choppy all night. At first I thought it was my internet connection because, let's face it, Charter Cable Internet pretty much sucks off-and-on... but investigating the problem led me to believe that it's my wireless network. When I first moved to the neighborhood, I was the only person with WiFi. Now there are eight of us broadcasting in the area. Manually choosing an empty channel, enabling "interference robustness," and restricting access by MAC address seems to have helped... but for who knows how long?

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "Spy."

I had to really wrack my brain on this one, because it's not like I know a lot of spies to take their photographs. Eventually I decided to find something vaguely James Bond-ish in my photo library and make it work. Then, just as I was starting to look, I remembered that I had a photo that was totally James Bond... namely, my visit to "James Bond Island" in Phang Nga, Thailand...

The real name of the island is "Ko Khao Phing Kan" and the skinny rock there where the evil Bond villain, Scaramanga, mounted his Solex weapon is actually called "Ko Tapu" or "Nail Island." My brother and I took a boat there while visiting Phuket in South Thailand. It was a very cool trip, because the scenery was pretty incredible...

Wow. I really need to go back one of these days.

   
In other news, I had pancakes for dinner. They were crazy-delicious.

Dinner break! Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "closure."

Though my heart has always been with the Hard Rock Cafe when it comes to obsessive-compulsive behavior in a restaurant, I do make an effort to visit the other "theme cafes" when I run across them... places like "Planet Hollywood" and "Fashion Cafe" and "Harley Davidson Cafe" and "All-Star Cafe" and the like. It's more a habit than something I actually seek out, but it doesn't happen much anymore because most of them have closed.

With that in mind, I decided I'd go through all my old photos and make a collage of all the closed theme restaurants I've been to for today's meme.

I didn't get very far, because I came across this...

My favorite theme park ride ever, Back to the Future: The Ride, was closed in 2007 and replaced by a ride for The Simpsons.

This still upsets me to this day.

The ride was pure genius. It integrated into the Back to the Future movie trilogy flawlessly, and even expanded upon the story a bit... kind of like a sequel. If that wasn't enough, it was a lot of fun. I rode both the Florida and California locations dozens of times, and never got tired of it. When I found out the attraction was closing, I even made a final trip to Universal Studios Orlando for one last ride.

The good news is that the ride is still running at Universal Studios Japan.

I don't think I'll be able to get full closure until I've seen it.

Hopefully before it's gone too.

   
In other news, there is a parade going by my office window. Since most major cities are having "Gay Pride Parades" in support of Pride Month, I was a little taken back at the idea that my small redneck city was progressive enough to have such a thing... until I remembered that it's actually a "founders' festival" that happens every year.

Oh well. Back to the future... and work.

In celebration of Pride Month for all my GLBT friends, welcome to an all-gay edition of Bullet Sunday!

   
• Icky. Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is being more stupid and intolerant than usual, which shouldn't surprise me... but somehow does. Because just when you think there's a limit as to how ignorant somebody could possibly get, they come along with something new to prove you wrong. In an interview in The New Yorker today, Huckabee unleashed such gems as "Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same." — And yet, against all odds and despite their "biological incompatibility," gays manage to have lasting, meaningful, committed relationships just fine. Which leaves us with the real reason Huckabee opposes homosexuality... it's "icky." Well you stupid fucking tool, I feel that eating meat is "icky" so does that give me justification for forcing my personal vegetarian beliefs on the entire country? So much for the Land of the Free... where you're free just so long as Mike Huckabee doesn't feel the freedoms you choose to enjoy are icky.

   
• NOH8. I am happy to see that the NOH8 Campaign shows no signs of slowing down, and has released a beautiful new advertisement which shows that support for marriage equality is universal...

I couldn't agree more...

I hope I live to see a day where people are afforded the right to be who they are and love who they choose. The inhumanity of consenting adults being told their love is worthless and undeserving of marriage is a disgusting violation of personal liberty that sickens me to my very core.

   
• Platform. Heaven only knows I love Texas, but the latest turd crapped out of the ass of the Texas Republican Party has laid a stench over the entire state. It's a stunning 25-page platform summary which advocates everything from rescinding the USA's membership in The United Nations and opposing a worldwide currency, to eliminating hate-crime legislation and banning legalization of sodomy (i.e. no marriage for you, gay blasphemers!). It's a largely entertaining (if not outright hysterical) read... that totally scares the crap out of me. Given the massive anti-gay stance of the Texas Republican Party, I am fully expecting a massive number of homosexual scandals to rock the organization any minute now, as history has thus far shown.

   
• 20/20. Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "panic." Fortunately, this is an easy word to work into today's gay-themed Bullet Sunday, because it encapsulates so nicely the opposition to gay rights...

These people are so terrified of anybody who is different from them... so horrified at the existence of anything which is contrary to their beliefs... so frightened of that which challenges their weak faith... that they live in a constant state of panic. Unfortunately, it's a panic they are unwilling to keep to themselves, as these photos from Philly Pride 2008 so readily show.

   
• Fight. When it comes to equality, there isn't much more for me to say above what I've already said...

...except keep fighting the good fight, my friends!

   
And now I suppose I had better get to bed since I have another bone-crushing 18-hour day ahead of me again tomorrow.

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "prayer."

It would be easy to comb through my photographs for one of the dozens of amazing cathedrals and churches I've visited in my travels, but that would be cheating a bit, because those are buildings where people pray... not really a prayer. But what is a prayer? According to the dictionary on my MacBook, it's "a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship." And since most people think of God as being an omni-present being looking down on us from heaven, I ran outside and snapped this photo...

It was a beautiful day today... definitely one worth a prayer of thanks!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "heaven."

Which is easy, because I've been there...

   
"Is this... is this heaven?"

"It's Iowa."

"Iowa? I could have sworn this was heaven."

"Is there a heaven?"

"Oh yeah. It's the place where dreams come true."

"Maybe this is heaven.""

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "rock."

And it's kind of strange exactly how many ways that this word can be interpreted for a photo meme like this. It's music. It's a stone. It's a motion. It's an assault of the senses. It's a lot of things.

But the first thing that came to mind was when @CopaseticBeth and @HoustonsProblem were nice enough to take me to Stone Mountain, which happens to be the biggest rock on earth. It's indescribably massively huge... and yet most of it is buried, so you're not even seeing all of it. As you look down from the cable car, people are like ants on the thing...

   
What probably should be first in my mind is the Hard Rock Cafe, seeing as how I've been to 128 of them around the world...

   
In other news... something which doesn't rock today would be Wonder Woman's new costume. Writer Michael J. Straczynski apparently desired a tougher more modern look, and wanted to address fan outrage over Princess Diana not having pockets. So what do we get? Wonder Woman as a biker chick, complete with retro 80's mini jacket, throat choker, and latex pants. It's apparently a more feminist approach to the character's look, but I'd argue that with her tits hanging out of that jacket and all those prominent ass shots, it's a giant step backwards for woman-super-hero-kind...

Wonder Woman is one of the most powerful heroes in the DC Comics Universe. She's a frickin' AMAZON WARRIOR! She's the equivalent of Marvel Comics' Thor, for heaven sakes. She is not a biker chick! Want to make her tougher? Just add armor and big-ass weapons to the iconic costume she already wears, like George Pérez did...

And then there's that giant battle-axe she carries. Would you fuck with somebody who was packing THIS...?

It doesn't get much tougher than that!

I admit that I am interested in what Straczynski has planned for the character, but don't feel the costume is that great. It's neither memorable nor iconic... and is a complete disservice to Wonder Woman's roots as an American hero. George Pérez did a masterful job of reinventing Princess Diana of Themyscira back in the 80's, but this time it smells of desperation, looking kind of cheap and sad... like she's wearing Black Canary's 80's era hand-me-downs or something.

Oh well. Something tells me it will not last...

You know, the next time I participate in a meme that requires using my iTunes library, somebody please remind me to delete Duran Duran's Love Voodoo. I like the song, but it's always popping up and screwing me on these meme things.

Or maybe not, because I actually have a really good voodoo story to tell. And, though you will probably not believe a word of it, I swear on my iPhone that it's all true.

Back in 1983, I won a regional high school DECA (Distributive Education Clubs of America) competition that sent me to the nationals competition in New Orleans. Unsupervised. This made for a very interesting trip. But, oddly enough, the most interesting thing to happen did not involve drinking, partying, or sex. It involved voodoo. Real voodoo.

It all happened while I was souvenir shopping on my last day with some friends I had made at the competition. One of the girls had found a shop advertising "love potions" and didn't want to visit alone, so I went with her. As we wandered the shop, I saw some cool writing on little scrolls that were tied to some tree bark. They looked like some kind of good luck charm or something, so I decided to buy one as a souvenir. When I asked the odd lady behind the shop counter about it, she asked me what I wanted it for. "Uhhh... what?" I queried. She rolled her eyes and said "for what you want... love, luck, protection, money... whatever you want!" I couldn't make up my mind, but then something occurred to me... "can you get rid of warts with one of those things?" The woman said "for ten dollars!" without batting an eye. That was pretty pricey for a souvenir back then, but it looked cool, authentic, and unique, so I said yes...

...mostly because I had spent the past dozen years struggling with a few warts between the fingers on my right hand. They had been frozen off, cut out, and medicated with everything the doctor could think of, but they always came back. I didn't believe in voodoo or witchcraft or whatever but, so long as I was buying a souvenir, the least I could do was curse my warts while doing so. After explaining the situation, the shop lady told me she needed some of my hair (which she cut a small bit off my head) and that I was to come back in one hour. I wasn't expecting a wait, but I agreed.

And when I returned sixty minutes later I was shown the "voodoo charm" (or whatever) she had made me, and it was wicked-cool. I was certainly going to get my $10 worth, and so I handed the money over with a smile. That's when the woman grabbed the piece she had made... AND LIT IT ON FIRE WITH A CANDLE! That's right... the souvenir I just bought was burning. Not knowing what to do, I just stood there for a minute as my ten bucks went up in smoke. Eventually the woman gave me a look that said "you're welcome!" so I left the shop dazed and confused.

The next afternoon I was shuttled to the airport so I could catch my flight home. As I was taking my seat, I happened to notice something strange about my hand. The never-ending warts were GONE! All of them. Overnight. No bullshit. No lie.

And I've been wart-free ever since. Believe it or not.

   
And now, since I need a photo I took for this meme, I present "Voodoo Man" from the delicious Voodoo Doughnuts in Portland, Oregon...

And now I want a donut.

In other news, HAPPY CANADA DAY to my friends in the Great White North...

Hope everybody had a good one!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "concern."

Right now, my main concern is that I will collapse of exhaustion before my projects are completed. There's only so many 18-hour days you can work before your brain starts to rebel. This afternoon I forgot how to double-click with my mouse. I'm pretty sure that hallucinations are just around the corner. This is a darn shame, because I've got another week of this torture before I can even think about getting back to my usual 12-hour work days.

But this is an image meme, so a run through my photos turned up this...

Which only elevates my concern that a lack of decent sleep will make me stabby.

And this would be very bad week for that...

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "mystery."

Mysteries don't interest me much. Sure I like an occasional film or book with mysterious elements... but when it comes to the grand scheme of things, there's no burning desire in me to seek out mysteries and solve them. This is unfortunate, because ancient mysteries seem to be a big tourist attraction no matter where I go. Over the years I've been to a lot of so-called "mysterious places," and appreciate them as interesting remnants of the past, but that's about it.

Places like Newgrange...

And Stonehenge...

And Tulum...

And Delos...

And, of course, the Egyptian Pyramids...

   
But the mysteries surrounding these places pale in comparison to a modern-day mystery that is going on right now... how in the hell can a film which has a romantic triangle involving a choice between necrophilia and bestiality be considered "romantic?" I've never understood the fervor surrounding all this Twilight bullshit, but the whole "Team Edward vs. Team Jacob" crap has me completely baffled...

Stupidest vampire and werewolf ever. Where's Professor Van Helsing when you need him?

   
In other news... I like the way that my iTunes "Genius Mixes" arranges Third Eye Blind's Blue on top of Eve6's Horrorscope in order to paint in the top of the manga babe's head... WITH FIRE!!

Bwah ha ha haaa! Sweet!

Hooray! It's a Bullet Sunday dedicated to three people I loathe on this Independence Day!

   
• Larry. One of the single worst interviewers on the planet, Larry King, has announced he's retiring. I have never, ever, understood his appeal. Every time I've seen one of his shows, I'm left wondering if he even knows who he's interviewing, since half the time he seems completely bewildered as to whom he's talking to. As if that wasn't enough, he's always looked like some kind of pervy alien to me...

Here's hoping that Larry's replacement is somebody who's worth a shit. If CNN is going to get all the interesting people to interview, it would be nice if the actual interviews weere worth watching.

   
• Night. If there were ever an example of somebody who started with a bang, then faded to ridiculousness with an even bigger bang, it would be M. Night Shyamalan. Even though I figured out the "twist" in The Sixth Sense well before the reveal, I still enjoyed the film... mostly because of the performances which were terrific all the way around (in particular Toni Collette, who totally sold her unsellable character). I didn't necessarily think Shyamalan was genius for it, but I did think there was some talent there. Then came Unbreakable, which was a film I loved. I loved the story. I loved the performances. Sure there were some spots that did their best to sabotage the ideals of a non-super-hero super-hero film, but it was a good movie, right up until that awesome reveal at the end that is dropped on you like a bomb by Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson being all amazing and stuff...

Unfortunately, every single thing that M. Night Shyamalan has released after this film has been stupid as shit. Signs? Stupid, nonsensical shit. The Village? Stupid, predictable shit. Lady in the Water? Stupid, self-indulgent shit. The Happening? Stupid, stupid, STUPID shit. You'd think I'd have learned my lesson after The Village, but I keep going back for reasons even I don't understand.

Until now. Because Shyamalan's latest film is based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is one of my most favorite cartoons ever...

There is no way I am going to watch as something I care for so much is utterly destroyed by Night's hackery. And, not that I really needed to go there, but the pitiful 8% Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes only confirms that it's yet another stupid as shit film in a chain of stupid as shit films. Netflix has the REAL Avatar on Watch-It-Now, so I'll just watch that instead. What is it going to take for movie studios to stop giving M. Night Shyamalan millions of dollars to crank out more crap films? Aren't there other filmmakers out there more deserving?

   
• Mel. I find it scary that Mel Gibson has turned into the very racists he made fun of while playing Riggs in Lethal Weapon 2...

Unfortunately, I'm quite sure that racist tirades like Mel's recent N-word meltdown are anything but rare. Reprehensible stuff like this goes on all the time behind closed doors of all races, religions, and creeds. But Mel Gibson's celebrity status has made him somebody with influence, and this is not the kind of crap that deserves the spotlight. Hopefully these repeated offenses will be enough to bury the asshole back to obscurity.

   
• 20/20. Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "wrong."

Something that I've always thought is very wrong is when restaurants and butcher shops use happy animals to advertise their meats. Which basically means that the animals are inviting you to eat them... like in Restaurant as the End of the Universe. The cutest suicidal animals are in Asia...

And I don't think this needs any explanation...

   
And now, before I go, something mostly right...

Happy 234th Birthday, USA!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "promises."

About the only promise I feel like making right now is that I will never, ever eat another Hot Pockets product again. Last night after eating their Three Cheese "Stuffed Crust Pizzeria" pockets for dinner, I ended up about as sick as I've ever been. It was if my insides decided to explode non-stop from both ends, with paralyzing cramping as a bonus. I felt like I was going to die which, given the agony I was enduring, would have been a blessing...

I was still not fully recovered this morning. So I guess what they say about Hot Pockets is true. So horrible.

   
Anyway... this is supposed to be a photo meme, so here you go...

This is a photo of Master Fortune Teller I visited in Hong Kong Central. I asked him how long it would be before I returned to Hong Kong, to which he promised "next year."

That was in 2005.

I haven't been back since.

So much for promises.

Which is a shame, because I really like Hong Kong, and would very much like to visit again. If, for no other reason, so I could eat buttery McCorn and FRIED McPies again...

Mmmmmm... FRIED McPies!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "clocks."

Tonight I crossed a major milestone that left me with a vague sense of light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully by the end of the week my life will return to semi-normalcy. Until the next time. Which is pretty much what the past two weeks of my life have been about. Time. Mostly the lack of it as I struggle to have a life and still get all my work done.

Which brings us back to clocks. The first clock that comes to mind is, of course, Big Ben!

But I kind of fell in love with the Astronomical Clock in Prague...

Isn't she beautiful?

   
In other news, I am bitterly disappointed that Lindsay Lohan got away with a mere 90 days in jail and 90 days in rehab... and even more disappointed that she'll probably only serve a fraction of that time. I was really hoping for the death penalty, which is what you'd have thought she got when you see her reaction...

BUT WHAT ABOUT MY COCAINE?!?? ©2010 by Getty Images

I am sick and fucking tired of wealthy idiots and worthless whores continuously flaunting their many violations of the law and getting away with it. These morons live without consequence, which is grossly unfair to the public at large. I cannot fathom why society puts up with this bullshit and doesn't demand that the law apply equally to everybody.

Which is to say that I am horribly jealous I'm not one of these privileged persons.

Maybe one day...

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "move."

I spent most of my day moving... down the highway... so this was an easy one.

Usually, I drive over the day before I have work in Spokane, spend the night, then start fresh in the morning. But time is so scarce now-a-days that I couldn't afford to do that. So I drove three hours over. Worked for 25 minutes. Ate at David's Pizza for 20 minutes. Then drove three hours back home. All in one day. It's not an ideal situation, but the work is critical and must be performed in person, so whatcha gonna do?

I constructed a rig out of an old GPS window mount to hold my iPhone. I then use a photo app that lets me take a photo with a simple tap to the screen. This allows me to easily snap photos of my journey safely, since I don't need to look at the display to shoot. Occasionally I stop and relocate the mount to my side window just to mix things up. Most of the photos end up looking like crap, because they're not composed in any way, but I do end up with enough shots to tell a story of my day...

   
In other news... I finally got around to watching The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo tonight...

Hands down one of the best films I've seen in quite a while.

And I'm including the awesome MacGruber, so you know I'm serious.

The Swedish film is actually called Män som hatar kvinnor ("Men who hate women" in English) but it's based on Stieg Larsson's 2005 book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In some ways, the movie title is more appropriate, because the story has some rather shocking violence in it. Fortunately, it's anything but gratuitous, and serves a very necessary purpose to the plot (a shamed journalist is hired to solve a 40-year-old murder where things aren't as they seem, and gets help from a remarkable and unexpected ally).

It also has one of the best revenge scenarios I've seen since Kill Bill.

What's amazing is that the two sequel novels in the "Millennium Trilogy"... The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (2007) have already been filmed. In fact, remarkably, all three books were filmed as a six-part mini-series for Swedish television and aired in 2009. Apparently, both sequels are coming to the USA this year as a theatrical release in bigger cities first, then on video at the end of the year. Sweet!

Due to the massive success of the books here, Hollywood is planning American adaptations, with actors like Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney rumored as leads. It's an interesting idea (though central plot elements seem like they'd need changing if the story is relocated domestically), but the originals are so good that it seems a bit pointless. Unless you factor in American's hatred of reading subtitles, in which case it makes perfect sense. Oh well.

In any event, if you can handle a bit of violence and can read subtitles, the movie is worth a look. If you're a Netflix customer, you can even watch it instantly!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "love."

And I decided to take it to heart and show some love to myself for a change. I made plans, made time, and made decisions that benefitted me today. Sure it's selfish, but I've been working so hard for so long that I think I've earned it.

It was a great two hours.

After that, I needed to think of something other than myself to love so I could post an appropriate photo.

I decided that I love breakfast. Mostly because I so rarely have the time to have a good one. Like this order of Banana-Macadamia French Toast I had in Maui a while back...

Or this fantastic Scrambled Egg Breakfast Burrito I ate for Carb Appreciation Day a few years ago...

Or these sweet Mickey Mouse Waffles I found at Walt Disney World...

Breakfast is awesome!

But tomorrow it will be a can of Coke as I rush out the door, as usual.

If I really loved me, I'd make time for breakfast.

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "many."

After this weekend, it's all over. I'll either complete my many projects before Monday's deadline and emerge victorious... or I will crash and burn horribly and be buried beneath the wreckage.

Except I'm mostly done, so victory is pretty much assured. I've been killing myself for the past three weeks, so victory had better be assured.

When thinking about what photos to use for today's word, I didn't even have to dig. A series of photos I took while in Shanghai immediately came to mind, as I remembered the many red ribbons decorating the city.

Most of the time they're in a wishing tree. People write their desires on a ribbon, tie it to a coin, then toss it into the tree as an offering to the nature spirit living there to grant their wish. My favorite was this beautiful golden tree at the Yuyuan Market Street...

But you can also find them tied around temples on statues, doors, trees, and such...

So many wishes.

I wonder how many of them come true?

   
In other news, I've decided to re-read James Clavell's Noble House for the millionth time once I'm caught up on Monday. I've been thinking about it ever since I posted that photo from Hong Kong four days ago, and posting photos from China today has only confirmed it. I never tire of reading the thing...

Ooh... time for cookies in bed!

Today's word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "chemistry."

Well, the valley is on fire. Again.

The blaze here near my town is mostly contained tonight, but the bigger fire up Swakane Canyon has reached 3,000 acres (and growing). And now there's a fire in Entiat as well. I can only guess somebody decided to play with leftover fireworks or something. What's worrisome is that we've still got two months of summer left, and the hottest days have yet to come. I can only hope that it doesn't get as bad as last time.

Anyway... "chemistry" was not an easy assignment, but eventually I figured out what to do...

NaCl is the chemical composition of... SALT!!

It's... The Bonneville Salt Flats!

Interestingly enough, I passed on visiting the flats once because I thought it would be terribly boring. But then I was on a road trip driving through the area back in 2001 when we decided to stop and take a look. It was surprisingly cool. I had big fun just running around on the brilliantly white surface and gazing out at sparkling salt for as far as the eye can see.

All I needed was Buckaroo Banzai's Jet Car, and my life would have been complete at that very moment.

Which raises the question: Buckaroo Banzai... great movie... or greatest movie?

Annnnnd... scene. It may have taken me a while longer than expected to finish up today, but I finally managed to get most everything completed before my deadline tomorrow. It has been a difficult three weeks, but I've somehow managed to survive. Barely. I don't think I have many bullets in me this Bullet Sunday, but here we go...

   
• hAx0rEd. After reading about a massive number of WordPress blogs being violated, I checked out the WordPress install at my other blog and found out that I was among them. After changing all my passwords, removing all the offending hacks, reinstalling all my system files, and running through my database looking for malicious code, I finally called it a night. Only to find myself hacked AGAIN five hours later. This resulted in me taking rather drastic measures to secure everything a second time but so-far, so-good.

   
• Realty. My new favorite show is Selling New York on HGTV. It's kind of a reality show about realty, where brokers show amazing properties that regularly cost millions of dollars. Along the way they have to deal with finicky clients, unrealistic expectations, and interesting situations that can only be found in New York City. As for me, I just like living vicariously through people who have such obscene amounts of money that they can even afford to look at real estate like that.

   
• 20/20. Today's (final) word in the TWENTY/TWENTY meme is "human." And nothing quite captures humanity quite like Michelangelo's breathtaking works...

The human emotion he can coax out of a piece of stone is pretty miraculous.

   
• Finale. Just in case there's anybody interested in which twenty random songs from my iTunes library were responsible for my meme assignments, here they are...

• 01/20 - MIRROR: The Mirror Song by Thomas Dolby.
• 02/20 - ANCIENT: Justified & Ancient by The KLF with Tammy Wynette.
• 03/20 - SPY: Spy of Love by INXS.
• 04/20 - ILLUMINATED: Illuminated Mind by ATB.
• 05/20 - CLOSURE: Closure by Aly & AJ.
• 06/20 - PANIC: Panic by The Smiths.
• 07/20 - PRAYER: Like a Prayer by Madonna.
• 08/20 - HEAVEN: Fly from Heaven by Toad The Wet Sprocket.
• 09/20 - ROCK: Rock Your Body by Justin Timberlake.
• 10/20 - VOODOO: Love Voodoo by Duran Duran.
• 11/20 - CONCERN: To Whom It May Concern by Duran Duran.
• 12/20 - MYSTERY: Sunny Mystery by a-ha.
• 13/20 - WRONG: The Right Kind of Wrong by Leann Rimes.
• 14/20 - PROMISES: Promises, Promises by Naked Eyes.
• 15/20 - CLOCKS: Clocks by Coldplay.
• 16/20 - MOVE: Move Your Feet by Junior Senior.
• 17/20 - LOVE: Love, Etc. by Pet Shop Boys.
• 18/20 - MANY: How Many Times by Erasure.
• 19/20 - CHEMISTRY: Chemistry of a Car Crash by Shiny Toy Guns.
• 20/20 - HUMAN: Human by The Killers.

   
Annnnnnd... I'm spent. Looking forward to better days ahead.

At least they had better be.