blog's on a break until i get back from all my visitational obligations... about a week, yeah? i think that's right.
not that hardly anybody is sitting around reading blogs/blogging this time of year anyway. you won't even miss me, you'll see!
i do have a BUNCH of stuff to talk about, though- that's the great thing about school breaks, is you have enough time to go out and have a life for a little while, and lo and behold, suddenly you have something to say! it's a Chrismukkah MIRACLE!!!
poor brittany murphy died from who knows what this weekend, and dickhole ashton kutcher decided to offer up this little brown nugget on his twitter account:
"2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany’s family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon. see you on the other side kid."
he DATED her! he fucking dated her, and he's TWEETING this shit. i don't know what's wrong with some people. i mean, is it so fucking hard for a multi-millionaire to send flowers with a nice card that you have the room to spell out all the words on?
i was going to post the excellent brittany murphy thing they had on SNL's weekend update (a dead-on brutal impersonation) a few weeks ago, but of course now it's pulled from EVERYWHERE :-(
discovery's 'swing tree.' i've listened to their entire album ("LP") three times today- a behavioral throwback to my teens and very early twenties. it's kind of nice to get hypnotized by music in an adolescent manner.
i'm under the impression that pretty much nobody that reads my blog likes my music posts, but i don't care. i'm doing them anyway!
here's some more:
"so insane," which boasts some neat tempo changes that makes it feel like there's a song within a song thing going on, which i enjoy.
"i wanna be your boyfriend," which combines a sample that sounds like it belongs on a hip-hop album (kelis, maybe?) with a mumbly, meandering almost conversational monologue of a vocal.
the album seems pretty straight forward on first listen, and it all seems pretty simple sonically, but i don't know... i really like it, and it's got more going on than i initially thought. *shrug* it's pretty sweet natured lyrically, too- unguarded and charming and it gets a LITTLE bit abstract at times, but not bang your head against the ground obtuse and pretentious, so that's nice.
OH YEAH! they have a neat cover of "i want you back" by the jackson 5. that's a good song- those motown svengalis knew what they were doing- a song that good is damn near impossible to fuck up too bad. it's got good bones.
It opens in Tucson tomorrow, and it looks fucking BRILLIANT. will let you guys know!
The BEST trailer for this movie is on Youtube, but for some reason the embedding has been disabled, but CLICK HERE to check it out.
By the way, Tom Hardy- the lead- is rumoured to be taking over for Mel Gibson in the Mad Max franchise's upcoming reanimation! you can tell from the preview that he just KILLS in this role, and i'm super excited to see more of him in the future.
my best friend rob came down to claim his birthday present this weekend. What did i get him, you ask? Why, i got him a Carol Channing ventriloquist's dummy, of COURSE!
I really like this picture of them together. rob looks so happy!
Carol, however, looks like she's going to come to life and eat people's faces off. which she very well may. we'll see.
You are 57% Rational, 57% Extroverted, 29% Brutal, and 29% Arrogant.
You are the Hand-Raiser, that annoying kid in class who always had an answer for everything. No doubt, as a child you probably sat in the front of the class, anxiously waving your hand back and forth in the air while your teacher desperately tried to avoid calling on you because you were the ONLY fucking kid that answered her questions. Clearly, the key traits of your personality are your rationality and your extroversion. You are like a little talkative calculator, in other words. You also tend to be rather gentle and less arrogant than most people. Your presence is a bane to everyone's existence, because you are too nice for your own good and you absolutely will not shut up. So what is your defect, then? Well, you're boring, and when you're not boring, you are just plain annoying with your ultra-logical responses and constant need to talk to others. So keep waving that hand in the air, son. I'm still not calling on you. You are too logical, you talk too much, and your humility and gentleness only makes me hate you more, because they make me feel like I almost SHOULDN'T hate you. But I do. Big time. And by the way, the more you wave your hand in class--your extended hand becoming nothing more than a blur as you insanely wave it, thinking we can't see it--the more smug satisfaction the teacher takes in watching the look of excrutiating pain cross your face as you agonize over not being called on, and the longer we'll wait to call on you, just because we absolutely love torturing you so.
I came out of my bedroom, errr, i mean the guest bedroom, to tell Germone that to get an A in my statistics class for the semester, i only need to get a 45% or higher on the non-cumulative final, and i found him preparing the ABOMINATION you see above. What THE FUCK is it, you ask? why, it's microwaved hotdog in corn tortilla with sour cream and hot sauce surprise, silly! AND when i asked him if he was going to put the saurkraut he's been having me pick up for him on it (just to be clear, i was openly disgusted at the idea, i wasn't making a suggestion) he was like "OH! that's SUCH a GOOD IDEA! but i'm out of it, but that would be AWESOME!"
He must be pregnant or something, and NO, it's NOT mine.
i went to school this morning for office hours, and i'd been awake since like, 3pm yesterday, stayed up all night studying. my class didn't let out tonight until 5:20pm, plus commute. Germone asked me if i wanted him to go get me a sandwich before he had class and i SERIOUSLY almost started crying i'm so (figuratively) cracked out. i looked at myself in the mirror, and i was like DAMN, self!
Just thought i'd share, because WE CAN'T ALL BE PRETTY, OK?
So my thoughts are with those living with or otherwise affected by HIV/AIDS today, especially my homeslices at Northland Cares up in Prescott, which is the only real HIV/AIDS support serving Northern AZ and i believe some of southern NV and other areas. They do really great work with very little money, and they are struggling right now to continue to provide all of the services they want to provide- all of which are NEEDED services... Deciding what care to cut for budgetary reasons is kind of like deciding which one of your kids you would rather smother in their sleep or picking out which limb is the least necessary for your continued well-being. Anyway, I'm sure that most of you already give to the resources you're familiar with/live closest to, but on the off chance you have a little extra and are up to it, consider going to the Northland Cares Website to find out how you can support this extremely important resource that itself pretty much singlehandedly serves a VERY large, VERY underserved area.
Thank you and good evening. :-)
PS: If you don't give generously, WONDER WOMAN MAY VERY WELL DIE!
i guess this was a big hit in the UK (i've never heard it before today), and smiths fans supposedly LOATHE it, but i am DIGGING IT, and i personally think that theintegration of the lyrics from the Supremes classic 'You Keep Me Hangin' On' is GENIUS, and honestly, it sounds like those words have always been in that song. There's something about it that makes it sound like it's an old O'Jays song or something that came out of Philly 30+ years ago (that got remixed).
Video's pretty good, too... the UK video, not the SHITFUL 'international video' which is basically a fat slice of dirty ass. You know what else is weird, is the pic of mark ronson on the cover of 'versions' is reminiscent of the old smiths album cover 'hatful of hollow.' it's pretty evocative of smiths cover art in general, actually. probably intentional.
and HERE is the original song from 'strangeways here we come' which is probably one of my VERY favorite smiths albums, after 'the queen is dead', of course.
i love this band. Here's a GREAT remix of my favorite song from their album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix." Below is the original song. Below that is a spin.com session where the band performs the songs "Lizstomania," and "1901." Get into this shit, yo.
Charla Nash is the lady who got her face torn off by a monkey last year. Oprah had her on last week, and did a "Big Reveal" where they had Charla in a wide brimmed hat with a black gauzy veil obscuring her face before having her take it off. Does anybody else think that Oprah reads as manipulative and exploitational for the last several years? It's made all the worse by what i think of as "aggressive compassion," which is when a person uses somebody who is FUCKED UP in some way and then makes a HUGE deal out of lionizing them in a public manner in a way that aggrandizes themself. it's sort of Oprah's MO- see Mackenzie Phillips, Mike Tyson, Whitney (talk about SOFT SERVE, Oprah!) et al.
ANYWAY, you can go HERE for Newsweek's cover story about how Oprah has quite simply JUMPED THE FUCKING SHARK. At this point, the nicest thing i'd make a point of saying about her is that at least she's not TYRA. Actually, that's sort of my go-to compliment for anyone who has a deficit of human qualities. Me, i'm watching Wendy Williams. That show is FUN, and she is TRASHY, but she knows it and as she would say, "it is what it is." No posturing for her, she regularly concedes that she is a hardcore gossip, she's a blatant, unapologetic climber, and she even makes jokes about how she looks like a drag queen.
The ultimate, though, was when some crappy C-list guest that was supposed to come on opted to do a phone in interview at the last minute. Wendy acted BORED AS HELL, and proceeded to cook a SLIM JIM with a BIC LIGHTER, while being apathetically dismissive and making back handed comments about her not showing up. ahhh, wendy... i wish you guys could have seen it.
Joss Whedon's (often painfully erratic but potentially AWESOME)'Dollhouse' has been put back in the box. It's said that fellow Fox sci-fi show 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' was cancelled to make room for the doomed 'Buffy' scribe's high concept meditation on um... (human trafficking? ethics in technology and science? eliza dushku's vast array of facial expressions?) whatever?
Summer Glau in a promo poster for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
This SERIOUSLY sucks for actress Summer Glau (Firefly, the Firefly movie known as 'Serenity'), who starred in T:SCC, and was recently announced to be joining the cast of Dollhouse as well. Also unhappy: heterosexual geekboy virgins, who will surely refer to 2009 as the "Year Without a Summer," or "That time that Fox gave me blueballs for 7 consecutive months."
Joss was not at the top of his game with this show (blame fox if you want, but he just didn't BRING IT as much as he normally does), but i am choosing to focus on the forthcoming Whedon-helmed horror film "Cabin in the Woods," which is boasting the following marketing campaign. It's nice to see that JW still has a sense of humor- the absence of which is why almost anybody that watches all his shit likes 'Buffy' the best.
The Peace Corps REALLY hooks it up, especially for education benefits. I haven't even gotten admitted to a University yet (currently thinking NAU, but also thinking of sticking with my goal of UofA) although i should be done with my prerequisites by the end of summer/end of Fall 2010 semester at latest, but i guess it can't hurt to start thinking Master's Program, huh? my current timetable has me getting my nursing BSN in spring 2013, possibly Fall 2012 if i push harder, and if i were to be accepted into a public health graduate program at someplace like Tulane U in New Orleans, i could do the three or four semesters in LA, and then do a 2 year medical resource development/general nursing/health care commitment abroad (which is what i want to do professionally anyway) and come back with a Public Health degree + 2 years of international experience. HOLY SHIT, that's an AMAZING deal. Plus, your education is almost certainly super cheap or free, PLUS you get the hookup with all these job opportunities when you get back, you get preference for federal jobs, etc etc etc. My mind is sort of reeling from all the different possibilities right now... it's the first time i've started really looking into them in any real depth and i'm impressed. Damn.
This is the crazy part of the semester- a lot of people would say finals are the worst, but i find it's the last month before finals, because it's really common for teachers to be behind in their course material (typically because of really stupid students who are either VERY VERY STUPID or worse, because they intentionally drag their feet through the easier, earlier in the semester material because they seem to think that if they gobble up enough time, the teacher will HAVE to drop material from the class, but IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK LIKE THAT, ASSHOLES) and you've gotten to the difficult material by then, and PLUS there's a time crunch, so it's just hell. Finals to me are pretty easy (so far- knock on wood) because if you've got an A by the last week of class, then you've worked hard enough all semester for the final to not be that bad, if you are capable of even moderate retention and/or recall.
ANYWAY, i thought i'd post something. i feel bad when i don't blog, but as i have said before, i am a very guilt oriented person.
I don't like Celine Dion, but this old chestnut is pretty funny. It is also the first official selection for my new feature, "VELVEETA VARIETY!" which will focus on bad taste and overtly tacky subject matter. I doubt that anyone would argue against the reality that Celine Dion is a partially rehydrogenated processed cheesefood (from CANADA, no less!), and exemplifies the medium. These kind of posts are great because they're easy to write, they require little to no emotional involvement from me, they're fun and fast to read (or they are intended to be, at least... not to be PRESUMPTUOUS), they're fast to slap together, AND let's face it- there's a LOT more shit out there than there is high art- and part of me (not all of me, but PART of me) might argue that the processed cheese-esque foodstuffs of the world are a lot more fun.
Ok, so the whole "Nice White Lady" thing is not new by any means. You have your Michelle Pfeiffer Nice White Lady in "Dangerous Minds." You have your Hillary Swank Nice White Lady in the almost unspeakably bad "Freedom Writers." But now we have the new Gold Standard for nice white ladies celebrating their own generosity of spirit while clearly illustrating how incapable (and unwilling) minorities are of taking care of themselves or their families. Because black people are doomed to a life of crime, alcoholism, illiteracy and homelessness without the good fortune of Anglo-Saxonic intervention. Get ready for every white trash idiot hag you know to tell you how good this movie is. I hope the enamel on your teeth is ready for all the grinding that is sure to follow.
If you didn't have a bucket for vomitous and a syringe full of insulin at the ready, just watch the clip below to cleanse the palate.
I thought it was cool. The brown one that i've got is the "lumberjack" and they also have a black one called "the pirate" and a bright yellow one called "the viking." The only thing that sucks is it's a little tight on my BIG GIANT PUMPKINHEAD, but other than that, it's silly hat perfection.
The author of the late, great blog "Famous Like Me" has returned from the ether to bring us, the blogular community, a new blog, full of magical hope and wonderrrrrrrr... Also, in addition to FLM's standby features (including my personal favorite, Mugshot Monday), there is greater focus on Donnie's always entertaining original content- stuff with a higher word count.
It is called hip n edgy. Go, bask... don't be shy. Go to read about the gay, 'not in the face' and 'no fists' Fight Club (from whence the picture above came), stay for everything else.
(OR be Shady Like Me and go there to "borrow" content!)
and since i mentioned hope and wonderrrrrrrr.... let's all take a trip to candy mountain!
SHUN THE NON-BELIEVER!!!!! SHU-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-N!
| i could not possibly care less about american idol, and i have never once watched an episode of it and when people tell me that they're really rooting for somebody on the show and i thusly infer that they watch that steaming shitpile on a regular basis, i seriously think less of them AS A PERSON (unless they're under 12- too young and stupid to know better- or over 50- in which case it's somewhat excusable because it's almost certainly early onset dementia) right on the spot- as in "oh, wow, you're stupid and you have HORRIBLE taste- the kind of taste where it's unjustifiable in any way shape or form."
having said that: i kind of liked adam lambert in the media after the whole thing. making innuendos about topping the guy who won (don't know his name, don't care), talking about his bad skin and feeling fat and wearing makeup, and then confirming his sexuality in a public manner. It was refreshing to see a guy in the mainstream media who is GAY gay, not log cabin republican gay, acting like he actually HAS A DICK, and not being some neutered, carefully sterilized, timid "ok, i'm gay, you got me, but PLEASE don't hate me because i'm really just like you!" CLAY AIKEN. this vague, relatively uninformed affinity (i have never heard him sing before seeing the first 45 seconds of this clip, for one thing) is why i thought i'd throw this out there...
HANDLERS: IT IS NO SURPRISE TO ANYONE THAT YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO MARKET THIS BOY, SO HERE'S A HELPFUL HINT: DON'T MAKE EFFEMINATE, OPENLY GAY GUYS USE WORDS LIKE "AIN'T." THEY WOULD NEVER DO THAT. IT SOUNDS AWKWARD AND RIDICULOUS. LISTEN TO HOW HE'S ENUNCIATING. IT'S PAINFUL.
ok, that's it.
song SUCKS by the way. REALLY SUCKS. plus, it's for a shit movie. i am reminded of the film Armageddon and it's big tie-in single, Aerosmith's "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing" and that is NOT a compliment on either count.
last night i dreamt of a video and record store that had some non-existant (thank god) artifacts. First up was the original Addams Family movie from 1980 starring THE B-52'S in the roles of Morticia (the red head), Gomez (Fred, obviously), Fester (the dude in the B-52s who's not Fred), and Granny (the blond, who was NOT PLEASED AT ALL about her role). Oddly, in my dream the queeny, WAY OVER THE TOP person out of the bunch was the guy who's not fred in his role as fester? when i woke up i was like "what was THAT? out of ALL THE B-52's and HE'S the out of control dramatic one?" i mean, in all their videos the only thing i ever thought about him or noticed him for was "he has the hair that i would most like to have" and that was in 1991 when i was 9 or 10. so yeah, there was THAT. and then there was a lesser known Dudley and Liza romp known as "MOMMA'S GONNA DIE!" which of course does not exist on cosmic planes outside of my own mind. on the cover, which is painted as old movie covers often were, liza is bound to a chair in the center of a room with thick train-track-damsel-tying rope with a white handkerchief tied around her head, making her over-rouged cheeks bulge along with her wide eyes as DUDLEY DANCES AROUND HER PRONE FIGURE WITH A BUTCHER KNIFE?!? TOTALLY resevoir dogs, except with liza and dudley. that would have been a very different movie... which i would absolutely love to see. sidenote: i am the WORST GAY EVER, creating Liza death scenarios! Finally, and this is probably the least interesting of the three, there was the ANDY WARHOL/NEIL DIAMOND musical collaboration, which was called i don't remember what, but featured andy looking all andy-like standing back to back with Neil, who was all rhinestoned out, and they were both doing the arm shelf** and staring directly into the camera.
i didn't eat anything spicy before bed... i don't know what's wrong with me.
A group called Community Initiative, providing Puerto Rico’s only needle exchange program, is testing a new idea. Drug users will now be able to insert a special card into a vending machine outside of the Community Initiative’s office after the program’s functioning daylight hours. This vending machine program is being implemented to stop the spread of diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C, common illnesses associated with intravenous drug users, and to target the population of younger drug users who might be reluctant to ask for clean syringes. The packets will contain items such as condoms, syringes, cookers, cotton filters, gauze and sterile water.
Online Sources: Associated Press, The Body: The Complete HIV/Aids Resource
...or an extremely forward thinking place. At least they're a place that cares about the well being of all of its citizens, even the junkies, and thinks of drug addicts as human beings enough to consider their medical needs. i think that's a good thing, actually. it's a lot better then "if they want to do that to themselves, then they should just fucking die," which is a sentiment you hear a lot... or at least it's something i've heard a million times in the United States. I don't think that that many people really believe that anybody ever gets better from hard core drug addiction, even if they know somebody that got off drugs. they think that that's different somehow, and that you were never sleeping outside and begging for dope money or in and out of jail or whatever other superfun places.
PS: As for the picture i posted, all i did was google "puerto rico drugs" and this popped up. i didn't SCOUR THE INTERNETS looking for brown people in a hovel shooting up to fit my subject matter, ok?
which it uses like a hacksaw to cut through bone, candy and fences.
Sifl and Olly is one of the all time greatest things in the history of life, the universe and everything. This particular clip is my favorite from the entire series. I've seen it maybe a hundred times, and it invariably makes me laugh until i either cry, puke, shit my pants or pass out.
Lyrics to the Panda Song:
After dark, the pandas stalk, Nightmare creatures, with black hearts. Ravenous teeth that glow in the dark, Feasting on bums that sleep in the park!
The pandas are coming! So hide under your beds! The pandas are coming! They'll rip your ass to shreds!
The panda is indeed the most mysterious of all creatures Shrouded in the enigma of his black and white coat What kind of camouflage is this, black and white? Hiding in an Oreo factory? Could be! That's just another chapter in the ominous saga of the panda!
The pandas are coming To rip off your head! The pandas are coming On a rampage of the dead!
Like the shark, the panda has millions of teeth- Which it uses like a hacksaw to cut through bone, candy, and fences The Chinese believe that if you find a discarded panda tooth You have the power to summon Godzilla
I'm drunk on panda mystery!!
The pandas are coming! So hide under your bed! The pandas are coming! They'll rip your ass to shreds!
This has been chapter 1 in my ongoing songs about the panda, which shall cease at number 820. You will see me again, Mr. Sifl!
Not the best song (a bit Proggy for my taste), but this is one of my all time favorite videos... probably top 5. I like how Bizarro-World-Sergio-Leone-y it is. It's got EVERYTHING!
I like the part where he says that he is ruled by Midwestern, Lutheran Guilt. That's one of those "funny because it's true" kind of things. David Letterman is one of my people.
This semester, i've not been operating at the top of my game, and my courseload is harder than ever. I haven't had the gumption to force myself to study as much as i normally would. I have a statistics test tomorrow, and i'm scared of how i'll do. the first test for any class is always the scariest, because prior to that, you don't really know how an instructor is going to test. My saving grace is that i've done the math for the class's points for the semester, and if you attend every class and score perfectly on the online workshops and practice tests (which is possible for EVERYONE because you can retake the exact same test and it tells you the answers, before you email the results to the teacher) then you essentially have what i consider to be a guaranteed "starting grade" of 34% and some decimal change. This means that to get an A, you need to score 56% or higher (on average) for all the other things- REAL tests, etc. to get a C, you only need to get a 36%, and to get a perfectly respectable B, you only need to get 46%. That's REALLY not setting the bar very high... i am pretty sure that i can just read each chapter's review section, do the practice tests online a couple times a piece and maybe go over the in-class powerpoints that the teacher made available online and still get an A for the semester... at LEAST a B, even if i bite it HARD all semester long. I don't like to approach school this way, but with a language class from hell and BIO, it seems like maybe it would be smart to be conniving instead of studious in this instance- especially since this is my last math class for my degree, and it's kind of silly that i have to take it anyway. nurses don't USE statistics, practically speaking, and if they TECHNICALLY do use them, it's so elementary a 5th grader could do it. What kind of scares me and disturbs me is the fact that the way this class is set up, i could get a good grade without ever LEARNING the course material. i'll get a 4.0 for testing... well, at a mid-range F level or higher. I have to admit, i think that's kind of shameful- for myself for taking advantage of a situation like that, and for the school for creating the opportunity for unearned success.
If any of the kids in that class do the same thing, and they're trying for a mid-range to serious science or math oriented degree, they might actually be screwed when they get to whatever comes after statistics. or maybe not... i think stats is kind of its own thing? anyway.
Aquarius: Monday, September 21, 2009 - You might get carried away with your feelings now and announce them at work before you consider the consequences of such an emotional disclosure. It's not that there is anything inherently wrong with sharing your inner process; it's just that you cannot take back what you say once it's out there. Today is one of those days when saying fewer words is surely better than talking too much.
I think that this might be the best film title ever... it totally sounds like an American film's translated title in, like, Uzbekistan or something after it's been translated back into english. EXTRA POINTS for effective use of "More Than A Feeling."
