Well, Bush was elected again, thanks to Ohio. (Hey, everyone else is blaming them, too. I’m just jumping on the bandwagon here.) Hooray! We’re all going to hell in a handbasket!
Shrek 2
I missed out on seeing this movie in theaters, and we got the DVD on the 7th, and I watched it yesterday morning. It’s hilarious. Way better than the first. Puss in Boots is great.
Jane Eyre
I’m reading Jane Eyre, again, for like the third time. However, I have the Tor edition (which was the only one I could afford at the time, as I only had five bucks), and it has A LOT of typos. By the end of the book, Rochester starts calling Jane “Janet.” Nobody else calls her Janet. The first time I read the book I kept thinking “Is Rochester seeing someone else on the side? If it weren’t like 1830-something I would half expect Jane to bitch-slap him and demand who this ‘Janet’ whore was.” I don’t know what the process of printing books is, but I have one message for Tor publishers: Don’t print books at 3 am or while you’re drunk or stoned. Oh, and you might want to think about possibly getting a competent editor.
10.28.04
Birthdays and Eclipses and South Park, Oh My!
Yesterday was my brother’s birthday. He turned 20. We didn’t go anywhere, but we did get cake. Hooray for cake!
Also, yesterday there was a total lunar eclipse. What? You say you didn’t know about that? Well, that’s just too bad for you. Anyway, it was really cool.
The eighth season of South Park started (continued?) last night with one of the funniest episodes I’ve seen since the John Edwards episode. It starts out with the kids at a school pep rally, and all of a sudden some hippie PETA assholes come and tell them that they can’t have a cow as their mascot because it’s degrading to cows. So they have to vote for a new mascot. Kyle and Cartman each say that they should write something really funny in the blank spot, and vote for that. Kyle picks “Giant Douche.” Cartman picks “Turd Sandwich.” The rest of the episode involves Stan not wanting to vote for either of them, and getting banished from South Park, where he goes to live with (gasp!) the PETAs, who love animals a little too much.... Eventually, Stan learns that voting for either a douche or a turd will be like that in every election, and ends up voting for the turd sandwich, even though his vote ultimately won’t matter, as all the PETAs get killed and they are allowed to be the Cows again. Yay!
The Witches
I watched the movie “The Witches” the other night. I remember in sixth grade, my homeroom teacher read that book to the class, and I saw the movie not long after that. I’m pretty sure it scared the crap out of me. I remember being more frightened of “normal” Anjelica Huston than I was of “transformed Grand-High-Witch” Anjelica Huston.
Calvin and Hobbes
I was, and still am, a HUGE Calvin and Hobbes fan, and was as pissed as anyone else back in 1995 when I learned that Bill Watterson was going to be hanging up his drawing board. The first C&H book I got was “The Essential Calvin and Hobbes,” for Christmas when I was seven or eight. However, I’ve since lost it. Nearly fifteen years of turning every room in the house upside down searching for it, except my parents’ room and my brother’s room, have yielded no results. I have a sneaking suspicion that I accidentally left it in a car we sold in the early ‘90s. If that’s the case, then I should buy it again. But I don’t know for sure if I did leave it in that car. But if I haven’t been able to find it for fifteen years then it’s highly unlikely that I ever will find it, and I should just buy it again.
Green Day’s coming to Portland on Nov. 18. I really, really, really want to go. Hopefully I can get tickets to it.
Buddy got his bandages off on Tuesday. Now he looks almost normal, except for the bandage-tape residue on his ear. I got a picture of him with his bandage and I’ll upload it to my deviantART page and link to it. Probably tomorrow.
10.13.04
Bandaged Buddy
My dog had to go to the vet yet again last night. No, no fleas this time. His ear was all puffy and swollen and felt like there was fluid inside when I squeezed it gently (which creeped me out when I did, so I only did it once). Anyway, long story short, it turned out he had a hemotoma—a blood vessel had burst in his ear, probably from him shaking his head and whapping his ear against his head. But now he’s got an Ace bandage wrapped around his head, because he has to keep that one ear up on top of his head, and he’s just got the one ear sticking out from the wraps and it is so fucking hilarious. I can’t look at him without just cracking up. He doesn’t like it but he has to wear it. Last night when he came home—I didn’t go to the vet with him, just my parents—he was still groggy from the anesthesia and my brother and mom were in the kitchen and my brother said “Buddy, shake.” Buddy flopped his paw up in the air and back down again—it was so funny. Before the anesthesia wore off I was up in my room and I could hear him barking at something—he went “Roo ... rrooehhh, it’s not worth the effort.” My mom took some pictures of him all bandaged up and I’ll have to get one so I can put it up here. It’s the most hilarious thing ever.
Arachophobia
My brother is afraid of spiders, and the other night I was watching Scare Tactics—I don’t watch that much anymore because Steven Baldwin is The Baldwin that Can’t Find Other Work—and he comes downstairs with an I-just-saw-a-ghost look on his face.
“There’s a HUGE fucking spider in the bathroom,” he said. “It’s like, this big.” He made a circle with both his hands. “It’s gonna eat me, I swear to god.”
“Where is it?” I said, meaning where it was in the bathroom.
“It’s on the wall. Come and look at it, it’s fucking huge.” So I went upstairs and there, on the wall under the window, was a huge, marble-sized orb weaver. We stared at it for a while and then my brother said “Get a cup.” I grabbed a Dixie cup out of the holder and handed it to him. He tentatively crept toward the arachnid and suddenly stopped.
“Can these things kill you if they bite you?” he inquired.
“Probably,” I teased.
“God dammit,” he sighed. “Gimme another cup.” I grabbed another one out of the holder, and also one that was on the counter. He put one cup inside another one and put the third cup’s mouth against the mouth of the double cup, making a sort of trap. He crept toward the spider again—backed up—crept toward it again—“God dammit, this thing’s going to eat me alive”—backed up and crept toward it again, and just to tease him I blew on it, sending it scuttling back up the wall where it nestled comfortably (at least I think it was comfortably) on the back of the towel rack.
“Dammit!” exclaimed my brother. “I almost had him.” He poked at the spider’s protruding legs with the cups, eventually sending it on a thread toward the floor, where it landed in a corner behind the bathtub.
“Where’d it go—oh, there it is. I see it,” he said. He finally scooped up the offending arachnid, trapping it inside the Dixie cups.
“What should I do with it?” he said, thrusting the cups jokingly toward me.
“Throw it outside! Get it away from me!” I squealed. So he tossed it out the bathroom window, where it is hoped that it scuttled away and made a web somewhere where I can’t run into it.
10.10.04
My dog and late cat
Here’s a picture of my cat Pookers (who died in August) snuggling up against my dog, Buddy. My brother took this picture about three or four months before my cat died.
Fat-ass dog, huh? I swear he’s the most fucking spoiled dog in the world. He lives indoors (he’s a Lab, which is really an outdoor dog), he’s got his own upholstered chair to sleep in, and he’s even allowed to sleep on my bed (although he takes up half of it and I can’t stretch out). I hate people who leave their dogs chained up outside in the rain. People like that shouldn’t be allowed to have dogs.
10.03.04
Volcano Watch 2004
They’re saying another eruption at St Helens—a bigger one this time—is pretty much imminent. Nothing’s really happened since Friday, but I found a Volcano Cam while searching Google:
10.02.04
St. Helens “Erupts”
Okay, “erupts” is a pretty strong word. It happened about noon yesterday, and it just ... well, to use a term someone at gamefaqs.com used, “farted.” But they’re saying there might be a larger event (they’re throwing the word “event” around a lot) later, since there are still earthquakes happening.
It would have been funny, though, if instead of actually reporting on the “eruption,” all the newscasters just ran around their respective stations in circles with their arms up in the air shouting “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!” over and over again.
9.30.04
Volcano!
No, this is not about the horribly, cheesily wonderful movie Volcano, this is about a real volcano. Mt. St. Helens, to be exact. According to the news, there’s been lots of little earthquakes around the crater area, and they’re saying “THE VOLCANO IS ABOUT TO BLOW! RUN! SAVE YOURSELVES! AAAAHHH!! HUGE EXPLOSION COMING!!! [tiny fast low disclaimer-type voice] or maybe it’ll just burp a little steam.”
Doggy Fiascos
My parents had to take our dog to the vet the other day. He was scratching and biting his ass region a LOT lately, and we couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, and also he had a few lumps around his body. The lumps turned out to be benign lympho-something-er-nothers. And the itching was ... fleas. We didn’t even know he had fleas! The vet said the little bloodsuckers like to hang out where it’s warm, so naturally, they hang out right under the tail. Anyway, we got some medicine for him, and he hasn’t scratched nearly as much, so the fleas are probably mostly all dead.
Deviant Art
I’ve decided to become a member of Deviant Art (deviantart.com), which is where I’ll be putting all my artwork from now on. I linked to my gallery up there in the links section.
9.17.04
Survivor: Vanu-whatever
The ninth (or is it tenth?) Survivor premiered last night. As always, my first order of business is Picking Out the Hot Guy(s), and there’s a guy named Brady who seems to be filling those shoes quite nicely. The guy who was kicked off last night, though, looks like one of my cousins (but he isn’t).
Second order of Survivor business: picking out the bitchy “misunderstood” girls. I can’t remember her name, but Dark-Haired Ponytail Girl is a contender for that category.
They also have a one-legged guy there too. Is everyone going to play the Sympathy Card and keep him in? Or will he be knocked on his one-legged ass next week? I call the second option.
9.09.04
Big Brother V
(Because Roman numerals kick ass, that’s why.)
Every year I watch the reality show Big Brother, which is ironic, because it’s like the Real World, except they kick someone out every week, and I hate the Real World. But I love BB. Go figure. Anyway, Tuesday night’s episode was especially amusing for one portion (scene? do they call them “scenes” in reality TV shows?) in which Michael, aka Cowboy, and Drew, aka ... well, nobody’s nicknamed him yet, are getting ready to participate in the Veto competition. They are in the exercise-equipment room and they pray to God to help (let?) them win the veto. Uh-huh. I’m sure Jesus was sitting there chillin’ up in heaven, looking down on Earth, and thought to himself as Cowboy and Drew were praying: “Let’s see, there’s war, famine, disease ... oh, but wait! The remaining Big Brother Horsemen need to win veto competition this week. Well, screw those starving African children, then! The Veto is yours, Cowboy and/or Drew!” (Ultimately, they did not win the veto, Diane did, goddammit.)
Mmm... tastes like chicken ... but it’s not!
You know what I hate? Food that supposedly tastes like other food. [clenched teeth]Why... not ... just ... eat ... the ... other ... FOOD?![/clenched teeth] We have a can of raspberry-flavored-peaches in the pantry. Why? For God’s sakes, why?? You want something raspberry flavored, eat a fucking raspberry! (Or many, many raspberries. Or if you don’t like raspberries, you can give ‘em all to me.) I think they used to have beef-flavored-chicken (or was it chicken-flavored-beef?) in the stores, although, thankfully, we never had any. And I’m positive they used to have pizza-flavored-vegetables for kids. In the words of Lewis Black, “If there was a just and loving God he would not allow this kind of thing to happen!” What the hell is next? Chocolate-flavored-pork?
9.01.04
Mall Shenanigans
I just love that word, “shenanigans.”
I went to the mall on Saturday and bought nothing but books. Actually, one legitimate book (Jurassic Park) two manga (Inuyasha), one newspaper-comic-collection book (Get Fuzzy—Bucky Katt’s Big Book of Fun), and one Inuyasha artbook. I was considering buying Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life, for my GCN, but wasn’t sure if I wanted it. I also considered buying a DVD box set of MST3k, but I was a freaking dollar short. Damn you, Suncoast. So anyway, yeah, I just got the books. I’m about halfway through Jurassic Park right now. It’s during the part where Grant (Homer Simpson voice: mmmm ... sam neill) and the kids are walking through the park. I haven’t gotten to where the gallimimus (sp?) part in the movie is though, and I’m not sure if it’ll be in the book.
I’m hungry now, and it’s almost time for Good Eats.
8.21.04
RIP Pookers
My cat died this morning. It was between 8 and 8:30, my mom said. We knew she was going to die either last night or this morning, since she was really lethargic and hadn’t been eating very much lately. And her ears didn’t “flick” when I touched them—you know how when you touch a cat’s ears they’ll go “flick flick”? She wasn’t doing that last night. I think I’m more accepting of her death than I was of my dog, Sugar’s, back in 1993, since I was expecting Pookers’ death.
She came to live with us in the spring of 1990. She lived down at the chicken coop at the beginning, hunting mice (there were a lot of mice down there) for food. I’m still not sure what she did for water. Probably drank from puddles or something. She’d let you pet her for a few minutes, but she didn’t like to be picked up. If you picked her up she’d push against you with her paws. She didn’t scratch, though. She NEVER scratched. I honestly can’t recall any times when or if she scratched me (at least on purpose). Anyway, after a while—about six months or so—she started slowly coming up to the house. She didn’t want to come inside yet, but she’d venture into the garage every once in a while, so we left some food out there for her. She would follow me EVERYWHERE. If I was outside she would come trotting up to me, tail up, and rub around my ankles. Once I was trying to get a picture of her, and I ultimately got the picture, but it took forever since she kept following me and getting too close for a good shot.
I remember once on Easter, I don’t remember what year though, but I think 1991—we were coming home from a friend’s house and there was Pookers, calmly eating a bunny. Ironic.
After several years of living in the garage, she finally decided to come inside the house in probably October of ’02. (This may have been due to the gargantuan raccoon that kept eating her food.) She loved to sit on laps and purr like purring was going out of style. She lived nearly two years inside the house. Outdoor cats—which is obviously what she was at first—generally don’t live very long, about 3 or 4 years maybe. This cat lived for 15 years, 13 of them outside.
My brother’s going to dig a hole and bury her in the backyard, if he hasn’t already. We already got a box to put her into and my mom lined it with a towel. I’m not sure if she put a pillow in there, too, or not.
8.12.04
I Made a Language Error? Surely you Jest!
Okay, no beating around the bush here. I thought “heretofore” meant “from now on,” but a look through our crappy dictionary told me that no, it means “before this time.” Ack. Although I’m pretty sure I have referred to LTTP as “Zelda 3” “before this time,” so it’s not entirely wrong.
Perseids
I went outside last night around 2 am to watch them. My mom and brother were out there too. We saw a bunch of little dinky ones and three or four really bright ones—the kind that leave a long trail that lasts for about five or six seconds. My brother was cracking jokes though, so I kept laughing, and when I laugh, I close my eyes, so I missed a bunch of them (“There’s one!” “Oh, crap, I missed it!”) I’m going out again later tonight so I can see more.
I seriously considered sleeping outside on the hammock last night. It was really warm (around 70 degrees), not a cloud in the sky so I knew it wouldn’t rain (although Oregon weather is pretty unpredictable at times—the other day it was sunny, then it started POURING and I think hailing, too, for about thirty seconds, then it just—STOPPED—and it got sunny again. Weerie.), but I ultimately decided not to. Maybe tonight.
8.09.04
I Finally Own Every Single Zelda Game. (Well, sort of.)
So I went to the store yesterday with the express purpose of buying The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (heretofore to be known as Zelda 3) for my new Game Boy Player, which works like a Game Boy Advance. (I also got Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3, which was one of the first video games I ever played, over at a friend’s house.) I’ve played the original, Super NES version of Zelda 3 many, many, many times, and I immediately noticed that things were different in this version. The basic layout of Hyrule is pretty much exactly the same, but the text of what people say is very different. For example, I seem to remember instead of Link’s uncle telling him “Link, I’m going out for a while. I’ll be back by morning. Don’t leave the house,” I think he says something about five paragraphs longer (okay, so that might be a slight exaggeration). I just beat the second dungeon yesterday and entered the third, which I’ll beat today. Zelda 3 is the only Zelda game that I’ve never needed a walkthrough to beat. And HOW can people say Turtle Rock is hard? Turtle Rock is easy!
I also got Mario 3 (as previously mentioned), and a new CD, “Stray Cats Greatest Hits” (I really wanted Born to Run, but they didn’t have it, the bastards).
8.06.04
Not Suitable for Viewing by Japanese Schoolchildren
I’m STILL dizzy. You WILL get queasy. And a headache. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Now I have to go pop some goddamn Advil. Fuck you, 1987.
8.04.04
New Archive, Finally. And New Quiz.
For all of you who have been bombarding me with emails demanding a new archive*, you will be happy to know that I’ve finally made a new one. Also, I’ve made a new (very, very short) quiz; just click the Quizzes link up nyahh (that was my terrible Cartman impression).
*Which would be “nobody.”