And I don't really care all that much, as long as I'm sportin' a rubber bung

These days, I find myself looking Florence flask...

but I feel Erlenmeyer flask.

All that aside, deep down in my soul, I have little doubt I'm 100% volumetric flask!

Yup.

I wonder...

with this coming Tuesday bringing the swearing-in of Barack Obama as our nation's 44th President, will "Howard Stern Show" Wack Pack-er King of All Blacks feel compelled to abdicate his "throne"... or at least assume a less audacious appellation?

I wonder.

Good God Almighty!

This coming Monday, my little sister turns 30... my little baby sis, who used to pee on me during diaper changings; whom, as a toddler, I used to delight in tormenting, mentally and physically (for no better reason than she completely lacked the ability to seek recourse); who, at the age of three or so, clobbered me on the back of the head with a brass cat statue when I wasn't looking for no readily apparent reason (as you can see, she got her revenge!); who used to sing songs that she made up as she went along; with whom my friends and I used to play the "Potty Monster" game; who was identified as "gifted and talented" back in elementary school (she was, and is, quite "special" in a lot of ways actually... haha!); who horrified me beyond words the first time I heard her use profanity, saw her smoke, etc., etc.; for whom I felt responsible when we were young, and who is now my drinking buddy and best friend. 30 years old... wow!

It's not that I consider 30 old, not by any stretch. I'm 35 (I think) and I still feel (and act) like a stupid kid (the people that will confirm this are legion), and, where it counts, she is much more of an adult than I... She has a "real person" job (complete with actual professional obligations), a husband of soon to be six years, a home, two cars and two dogs (meanwhile, I have no less than three stuffed plush monkey toys). All that being said, as stunted maturation leaves me in my perpetual, and mostly blissful, state of delusional youth, I always feel at my youngest (and my happiest) when spending time with my sister... and as young as I feel, I look upon her and see a joy and exuberance of youth even greater than my own (even when she gets really drunk and cries for no reason!) and I know that regardless of age, health, fortune... whatever, she will always be my little sis.

But, shit, 30 years old?!?!? When the hell did this happen???

From "The Thing That Only Eats Hippies"

What do they taste like... Some kinda treat?
How many hippies can this monster eat?
It ate Stills and Nash before they could shout
And then it chewed on David Crosby but it spit him out!

All the punks are gonna scream "yippee!"
'Cause it's the thing that only eats hippies

There it goes...
Gonna send 'em all to that big Folk Festival in the sky
So long suckers!!!

Fit as a fiddle... and ready for love

Rather...

Fat as a firehouse... and ready for fudge.

Um... I should probably drop a pound or two.

"Only sick music makes money today." Friedrich Nietzsche

Even as out of touch with what's popular today as I am, I realize that, these days, it's not unusual for a rap album to top the charts... and, to that end, I see that hip hop "artist" Lil Wayne had 2008's best-selling album, an opus entitled "Tha Carter III". Now, allow me to backtrack for a moment... I grew up in the 80's, listening to rap music at a time when most suburban white kids didn't listen to rap music. Amongst my favorites were Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie and the rest of Marley Marl's Juice Crew All-Stars, Eric B. and Rakim, EPMD, Whodini, PE, A Tribe Called Quest, LONS, Boogie Down Productions, Kool Moe Dee, LL... and then there were groups such as NWA, 2 Live Crew, etc... the stuff I could never let my parents hear. I was a huge fan of rap, and I still enjoy those artists to this day, however, I cannot stand, more or less, anything that's been released in the last decade plus. I contend that my tastes haven't changed, rather the genre as a whole has gone down the crapper. Having made this assertion, I must acknowledge one thing about hip hop that hasn't changed... the nature of most rap lyrics: extremely profane, violent, pro-substance abuse, misogynistic and homophobic. It astonishes me that as rap has entered the mainstream, and arguably become the most popular manner of music today, the degree of all variety of vulgarity inherent to the genre has not been toned down at all... it is even seemingly flaunted. This is, of course, the observation of someone admittedly on the outside looking in, and for this reason, I thought I would, using the marvelous medium of the world wide web, present some lyrics from the songs of 2008's top-selling album to see if they back up my claim. Let's see what we have here...

From the track "3 Peat":
A fuckin right hoe I might crazy go on these niggas I don't give a motherfuck Run up in a nigga house and shoot his grandmother up what! What I don't give a motherfuck get cha baby kidnapped And ya baby motherfuck It's tha Carter 3 bitch better put ya supper up Hollygrove I throw it up like I'm tryna lose my gut Fuck is up beat him up like a million uppercuts Got a million duffeled up for the fuck of it Shit get on my level you can't get on my level You would need a spaceshuttle or a ladder that's forever However I'm better if not now than never Don't you ever fix ya lips unless you bout to suck my dick Bitch swallow words taste my thoughts And if it's too nasty spit it back at me (Please forgive the complete lack of lyrical structure, but I couldn't sensibly sort this garbage out were I inclined to do so)

From the track "Got Money":
Bitch ain't shit but a hoe in a trick But you kno it ain't trickin if you got it You know we ain't fucking if you not thick And I cool your ass down if you think you're hot shit So rolex watch this I do it 4 5 6 my click Clack goes the black 4/5 And just like it I blow that shit Cause bitch I'm the bomb like (tick tick) Yeah!

From the track "Playing with Fire":
They say you're nobody til somebody kills you But where I'm from you're nobody til you kill somebody And you kno what they say When you're great it's not murder it's assassinate So assassinate me bitch Cause I'm doin the same shit Martin Luther King did Checkin in the same hotel in the same suite bitch the same balcony Like assassinate me bitch

Poetry... pure poetry. Bill Shakespeare's got nothing on this guy!

Must be a heart-warming moment for a parent... your reason for being, your sweet little baby, who you've raised to be an asset to humanity, your ten-year-old child asks for Lil Wayne's "Tha Carter III" because all his / her little friends have it. How can you say no? After all, it's 2008's best-selling album!!!

December 21, 2012, baby!!!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Frequently, someone will ask me, "What is your favorite movie?" Or, perhaps, "Who is your favorite band?" And if they're a woman, "Won't you please just get the hell away from me?!?" At the moment, I'd like to address the first two of these sort of questions. I really have a wildly varied set of enthusiasms, and, due in large part to this, I've never really been concerned with identifying my favorite this or my most adored that. Hell, there's a lot of material to chose from here, folks! Anyway, world, due to your fascination with my fondnesses, and subsequent endless inquiries into such, I've decided to relent, and thus, I am about to give you a very brief and hastily compiled list of some of my faves. Please enjoy... and leave me the hell alone!

Favorite Films: Star Wars, The Godfather, Sweet Smell of Success, The Usual Suspects

Favorite Bands: At the moment, I'll go with The Anniversary / The Only Children, Tilly and the Wall, The Velvet Underground

Favorite Books: "Naked Pictures of Famous People" -Jon Stewart, "The Odyssey" -Homer (Fagles translation), "The Idiot" -Fyodor Dostoevsky

Favorite Comedian: Brian Regan... in a runaway

Favorite Actor: Joseph Cotten

Favorite Actresses: Eleanor Powell, Rita Hayworth

Favorite Restaurant at Which to Avoiding Dining: Chili's

Favorite Sub-Saharan African Country: Tanzania... in a close one over Botswana

Sports Favorites: MLB-Houston Astros, NFL-Dallas Cowboys (I hate you, Tony Romo!), NBA-Houston Rockets, I guess... I mean does anybody like the NBA anymore?, NHL-New York Rangers, NCAA-University of Houston, Non-American Football-Arsenal, Athlete (Overall)- Vince Coleman, Golfer-Paula Creamer (YUM!!!), Hot Oil Wrestler-Miss Candy

Favorite German Political Party: Christian Democratic Union / Christian Social Union (CDU / CSU) Coalition

Favorite Roman Emperor of "The Twelve Caesars": Vespasian

Favorite Cheese: Gruyere

Favorite Bar: Kay's Lounge, Houston, TX

Favorite Beer: The one in front of me

Favorite Child-Labor-Exploiting Sneaker Manufacturer: Nike

Favorite Political Pundit: Kirsten Powers (AND I'M A REPUBLICAN... GO FIGURE!!!)

Favorite Networks: Food Network, Discovery, History Channel

Favorite Pastime: Sleep / Belching (Tie)

Favorite Fruit: Apples / Paul Lynde (Tie)

Okay... ENOUGH, DAMN IT!!!

Goethe said...

"Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless."

And that brings me to today. I've spent the last several hours efforting (TV TERM!!!) a decision on just where my friends / coworkers and I should go this evening for beverages of the fermented variety. We have our regular haunts, but tonight, we all seem to be of the "let's do something different" mindset. Keep in mind, "something different" will, more than likely, be an establishment I've only been to 75 times in the last 10-15 years, as opposed to 350. Anyway, after stating that I felt like frequenting someplace somewhat "Bohemian" tonight, my friend threw out a solid suggestion, and I signed off on it. So, in short order, we're heading off to Cecil's... and, my dearest Goethe, I pray that the decision to do so does not have long-term ramifications on the remainder of my days.

I realize that there are varying degrees of gravity inherent to the types of decisions an individual must make in life, and that choosing where one wants to drink for the evening would probably not be considered one of the more significant selections to be made, but hey, we are talking about alcohol and me, after all! :-) I could meet my future wife; I could very well be blinded in a knife fight; I might just get off easy and only lose my pants during the course of the evening... one thing is certain, The Velvet Underground's Heroin and Venus in Furs will be played on the jukebox.

Golden MySpace Classics... Texas' Citadel of Stupidity's Greatest Hits, Vol. 6

Original post date: July 24, 2007 - Tuesday

The path to a man's heart...

... is to start with an 11 to 12 inch incision in the chest... then, the breastbone is split in two. A retractor is then used to pull back the breastbone and ribs in order to open up the chest...

...or so I've read. Please keep in mind, I'm no expert or anything... about this... or much else really.

Please love me!

"Sex is an emotion in motion." -Mae West

Despite the recent economic downturn, and a subsequent dismal holiday season for America's retailers, the video game market continues to boom... and the Nintendo Wii is a huge part of this surge in sales. Especially popular this Christmas, the Wii Fit... a platform that further ramps up the virtual / interactive gaming experience... the latest step in the process of further immersing the gamer into the game. As I contemplate how this computerized course continues forth, my sick mind begins to wonder... how far removed are we from the roll-out of the Wii Kama Sutra mat? I eagerly await the sort of fanfare that will surround the debut of this inevitable, initial mainstream foray into the realm of "sensual gaming"!

Let's not go Krogering

So...

I'm on my dinner break and I'm wandering around the Kroger located adjacent to my place of employment, looking for some sort of sustenance. In a cooler case near the self-checkout kiosk, I see a nice looking tray of seven-layer dip. Hey, while admittedly not a well-balanced meal, some tortilla chips and dip would certainly sate my hunger for the evening... so let's see what this seven-layer selection is all about. I pick up the container and realize it's a healthy amount of dip, somewhere between a pound and a pound-and-a-half I would guess... certainly more than I would eat in one sitting, so I'm thinking I'll purchase it and munch on it all weekend at work. Flip it over to check out the label... $17.99 FOR THE FREAKING SEVEN-LAYER DIP!!! Yes, you read that correctly...

$17.99 FOR SEVEN-LAYER DIP!!!

Apparently, the folks with the Kroger company are not aware of the fact that we are in a bit of a deflationary cycle at the moment... either that, or they're of the opinion that seven-layer dip is worth it's weight in gold. Sheesh!

Hey... We're off to a great start!!!

Nobody dressed up as Baby New Year, went to a holiday gathering and slaughtered a bunch of partygoers, then burned the house down... at least not to my knowledge. Congrats, mankind... 2009 has gotten underway swimmingly!!!