No, fuck it...

Because everybody should see me in lady clothes.

Oh yeah, spread that love on thick.

An Adieu

Greetings blog land.  I've been quiet... but so has Starspider.  This is probably going to be my last post on this blog account.  The background's tacky and I think the source code wants to shove glass in my vagina.  Don't think on that, just accept it.  I am a gay man, and I have a vagina.  A vagina full of code glass.

So, for my last post I figured why be edgy.  Why be crude, or go on about how you can totally be asking for it, or wax poetic about how Miley Cyrus was wearing pants so tight the pvc was literally touching her anus.  No, fuck that.  I'm going for something a lot simpler, a lot more... personal.  Last night my boyfriend texted me at... god three something in the morning.  He'd googled my name.  And he found... *sigh* my elfwood account.

I can assure you, there is nothing that will make your asshole clench tighter than your significant other, out of no where, saying "Look what I found" and then showing you an account you signed up for before you were old enough to get laid without it being a felony.  I turned so god damn red the room was cast in a terrified, amber glow.

This... fuck.  This was painful.  I barely recalled what I had even posted as work... but something deep, deep in my gut told me that my memory had elided elfwood intentionally.  Maybe it was the fact that I signed up for this account when I was 17... or maybe it was because the more I thought on it, the more I realized I trotally tried to delete that once.  And, I mean, sweet merciful fucking Buddha my boyfriend, he read things.  Things I had long forgotten about.  Things I may be ashamed of; things I may want to hide like a dead prostitute.

Gems like this: 
"You know what sucks, dislocating both your knees, havign (sic) a fever, and being attacked by a cat that looks like a minion from hell and not being able to bat the little thing off. I plan on writing an epic poem about that...but since I am a lazy little man, I wont. I have decided it is time to stop bashing tolkein. I am not doing this because i am a fan of his work, nor because other fans get angry with me. I do it because it is time ot bash Laurel K. Hamilton. Now, i have read all of her work. I can say, without so much as a second though that this woman needs to find a man. Why you ask? Read Narcissus in Chains, Kiss of Shadows, Caress of Twilight, and whatever book it was that came out before Narcissus in chains. Now, I, like all human beings, enjoys the occasional steamy hot raunchy Faerie/werewolf/ratkin/zombie love fest...just not an entire book about it. Ok, lets see...msot recent bio. Yes, I know, the basics. 17, male, Pagan, sophomore, not angsty (i have been this way sicne i was two, my mom says I'm satan). I have not had a girlfriend since I was 11. This would bother msot people, but not me. We have established long ago that I not only lack emotion, but any semblence of humanity...now, onto the men in pink dresses and hair curlers..."

Jesus-fucking-Christ

Was... was I really that bad as a kid?  I remember myself being way smarter than this.  And an epic poem?  And... Tolkien?  I hated Tolkien?  I'll give myself this point, the guy is a boring fucking read.  But, hey, younger me, settle the fuck down.  Not about Laurell K. Hamilton, though.  That bitch needs to fire her editor and then hire a real one... and then she could actually benefit from finding a good source of steady cock.  I'm not even going to take the time to correct this bubbling horse shit for grammar and spelling rules.  I'm just so deeply, deeply ashamed of myself.  This is just the opening blurb about me, too.  It's not even the part where I tried to get creative, just where I wanted to be funny.  God willing I won't find this in 2025 and think to myself how much of a dumb ass I was.

That was so bad I needed to go take a breather.  What the literal fuck?  If only I knew what I know now, perhaps back then I would have had the ability to string together a coherent sentence.  Maybe?  Possibly?  God, probably not.  I know I certainly would have choked myself to death if I met 17 year old me today.  How have I never punched in the face?  I want to hit me, and I'm me!

Then I looked at the writings, and I found something I forgot I had ever even written down.  It was... so... I can't say good.  I want to, but I can so easily see the places I drew inspiration from.  I can also see myself making the kind of mistakes amateurs make.  Mistakes like giving somebody a feminine name without ever realizing it.  All the names were Celtic, so at least I had that going for me, I guess?

The thing is, I read it.  I read the whole damn thing.  I had talent.  It was raw, admittedly, but it was talent.  My boyfriend even commented it wasn't bad when he read it.  I, naturally, want to go back and just fix the shit out of it.  Replace every fucking thee and thou with the proper ye and you, remove a few things I don't like... add a ravaging sex scene.  Good shit like that.  At least maybe make it a little easier to read past the 4th paragraph without cringing at myself.

I judged myself hard.  Really, really hard.  I cringed, I winced... then I read the single comment.  And I discovered something.  I was reading a story that I wrote when I was 11.  Fuck me running.  I already felt kind of old.  Now, after seeing something that was actually scribed down in the 90's... now I felt like this decrepit  withered old husk.  How do women in their 50's handle this?

I'm rambling now, but there is still a point here.  Delete your shit.  I don't care my boyfriend found this, but sweet Christ what will happen the day he finds my FTP porn stash?  What of the day I find it again?  I never, as a kid, thought I would look back on this shit and feel a twinge of embarrassment.  Seriously, delete your shit.  All of it.  Delete it.  And then drink till you forget. 

Rambling... ramblings

So, it's around 3:20 in the morning and I been thinking; why is it so hard to maintain a blog? I mean, when you think about it, it's not difficult. Not really, at least. Still both starspider and I seem to have perpetual trouble remembering two, you know, update it.

This is something that's been kind of bothering me recently, so I figured I should do something about it. What I decided to do about it is learned to dictate. Dictation isn't exactly hard; I think this way I'll probably update a lot more. So this will be the first post, and maybe the last, where I am just going to speak it and let the stream of consciousness so forth.

So everybody is clear, this post is going to be a shitty movie review. The shitty movie in question is Ted. We all know how this goes; I blatantly spoil the plot for you and you guys, my devout puppet audience, sit there and take it. You take it and you like it. This review will be no different.

So, what is the plot to Ted? The plot itself is actually pretty simple and, well, shallow; the titular character, Ted, is an animate teddy bear brought to life by the power of wishes. Yeah, you read that right; wishes. The film itself stars Matt Damon as a barely functioning man baby, sort of like Will Ferrell only somehow more crass. Mila Kunis stars as his girlfriend who is, like, at least nine leagues above him, and clearly quite interested in marrying down. Oh, and the animate magical teddy bear? Yeah, that horror right there, he's Peter Griffin. It's cool too; Seth McFarland totally acknowledges that he's not that original.

I have to admit something here people, I was actually expecting this really be maybe a little funnier. Don't get me wrong, this movie was funny! Or I expecting just a funny movie that would've been fine, but I wasn't. I was expecting "the funniest movie of all time". Now I know what you're thinking, "dude, it's just review on the box seriously. Don't take this shit so seriously." Well, you know what, fuck you in the mouth.

That's really pretty minor gripe though. Truth be told I don't really have many genuine gripes This movie – I mean, yeah, it had some pretty stereotypical RomCom goals towards the end, but so did The Hangover. This is Hollywood we're talking about; everything here is formulaic and ultimately just the same old rehashed crap. We don't release to see something new, that would be frankly retarded, we see movies because fuck it we want to be entertained.

Here's the real secret to watching a movie like Ted. Are you ready for this? Yeah, you're ready for this. You have to you stoned out of your fucking mind to really get this movie. The best part is, in my humble opinion, the fact that it's not that hard to keep up with Ted the animated teddy bear. Oh, did I mention that? Yeah, so that magic wish fueled teddy bear that should not be also has a crippling drug problem. Apparently Ted, in his youth, was quite the celebrity; now that Ted's matured into a repugnant self-centered Antichrist, he's gone the route of so many child stars before him. This is around that eventually leads to hard drugs, but that's okay, because that itself as a gateway to an illustrious job selling cars. Okay, that is entirely true; Ted starts work at grocery store but the moral is ultimately the same.

What's weird though is that the movie itself tries to sneak a bull ship message in there with funny. It is a terrible job of this mind you, but it's there. I think that's what the entirety of my review really is. I don't want to spoil this movie for you, and more importantly I won't spoil it for myself. Ted is sort of like Harold and Kumar; you'll watch the movie time and time again but at the end of every screening your not quite sure if you actually watched it. Maybe that's because you're drunk, maybe it's because you're stoned, maybe it's because the movie is a steaming, heaping pile of fly struck horse shit. I can't with any real certainty say. What I can say is this; I did actually enjoy this movie. There you go that's my review.

Fuck this, I tried. Maybe it's because I have to talk so slow, I don't know, but this software that I'm using a makes it seem like kind of a burdensome process. It's not to when I really think about it. I've actually been able to talk at my normal pace and for the most part the system has never keep up with me. What's weird though is trying to compose out loud. That when I'm not such a huge fan of, but I think I'll get used to it.

So yeah. I think this will be new to the blog. I'll be doing all my post by voice from this point forward. Dictation is just way way way way way way easier, and you know if I wasn't so inebriated last time I actually watched a movie this might have been a good review. As it stands I don't think it's bad, but I guess it could be way way better.

I also feel the need to know that it is 4:09 AM, and I should probably be getting to bed. Unfortunately, Star Wars the Old Republic is still down for maintenance. This means that I can either sleep or stay away for the next three hours until it actually comes back up. I think I'd rather sleep. Yeah, sleep. That sounds totally hot.

Crappy Movie Review: Black Dynamite

Here we are again.  It's been a while, but I'd like to think the wait makes these posts all the better.  I wanted to write one of these a week, but it is amazingly hard to find a good B movie when you've become so jaded to their... uniqueness.  I thought so, at least.  Last week I watched a movie that joins the blood sucking clown monsters on my list of favorite crappy flicks.  The movie in question is Black Dynamite.

BD is not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination.  The characters are flat, the acting is terrible, the shots are all poorly done, and the overall quality is so low it has to have had a budget of roughly $45 and a can of 4loko.  This is intentional, by the by.  BD takes all the hallmarks of a good Blaxploitation film and mocks the shit out of them.  Michael Jai White is so good as Black Dynamite (yeah, that's the lead character's name.  Stop acting so surprised) one might make the mistake of assuming he is legitimately a bad actor.

Only jive turkeys underestimate Black Dynamite!

So, plot synopsis?  Black Dynamite's brother gets killed by the mob and Black Dynamite leaves a river of blood finding his killer.  Oh, and there is malt liquor in there too.  Seriously, that's... that's basically it.  It's not deep, but again that isn't the point.  We're looking at a parody here, done by the man who played Spawn.  It is ridiculousness if the very essence of ridiculousness could be distilled down and injected into a b-list action hero like steroids into the ass of an aging Sylvester Stallone.  What comes out is greater than the sum of its parts.

Also afros wide as a midday sun.

The entire movie is action sequences, diner scenes, and weirdly fitting stock images from 40 years worth of blaxploitation.  Oh, there is also that whole malt liquor shrinks your dick so the man can keep you down angle.  For the record, I'm white, I work for a major corporation, and I am male.  So... that makes me the man... and I love big black cock... so I am not entirely certain where this weird ass rule-them-with-tiny-penises angle comes from.

Ok, now I'm rambling.  So, let's wrap this up; just go rent/pirate Black Dynamite.  Just go do it.  I can't give a synopsis that does this masterpiece justice.  I mean, I could... but not without a boat load of work and the creation of some weird ass new words.

Crappy Movie Review: Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Right off the bat I have a confession.  I love really terrible movies with a passion almost unparalleled by all but my love of weird food.  Naturally a movie about blood drinking monster space clowns (klowns?  I guess the spelling might matter in a universe specific sense) was a first choice.  I adore Killer Klowns from Outer Space in a very special way.  The titular Killer Klowns are a race of extraterrestrials who at first glance just so happen to resemble the Whiteface clown we are all familiar with.  As with all terrible low budget B-movies disbelief needs to be suspended.

The plot synopsis is actually pretty simple.  Predatory aliens land in a small town, harvest the locals, and are dispatched by a motley crew of teenagers and a cop.  The clowns wreak as much havoc as you would expect with a few ridiculous clown powers they use to capture/kill people.  As far as sci-fi horror movies go, this one doesn't stand out for its top notch characters, expert level acting, and complex plot.

What shines, you may ask?  It's by the Chiodo Brothers (Elf, Critters, and Team America are all under their belt), and they are unmatched in puppetry.  The clowns themselves are upsetting to look at.  They are a monster version of a clown with makeup more befitting skin patterns than grease paint.

"I've also got a pretty serious drinking problem..."

See that picture up there?  Sexy, right?  For such a low budget movie, though, the clowns are pretty damn good.  An interesting tidbit: a couple of the clown heads were re-purposed in Earnest Scared Stupid.  As an adult the clowns still bother me a little bit.  They look so menacing, so much like a person but just not.  They hit that special part of the uncanny valley where they look like corpses and monsters at the same time.

The characters are pretty special, too.  They are all one dimensional archetypes.  You've got a jaded elder police officer and his younger, roguish superior officer, a helpless '80s blonde, a typical every-man roped into it all, and a couple of high school dropouts cum ice cream truck drivers.  They're all acted just shy of passably but that adds to their charm.  The clowns all have their own special personalities too.  My favorite has to be the ugly bastard above.  He's the midget.  They are all acted surprisingly well.

They've also got British teeth.

There is a menace to these guys as the movie progresses too.  What we see first is a space ship they may have just had to land out of emergency.  The clowns stumble out of their ship and into the town.  They nab an old man and his dog and terrorize the main characters on their way out, but they don't yet really convey any signs of genuine malice.  As the film progresses we see a clown luring a child out of a diner.  He is the first sign that these clowns know what they are doing.  He doesn't just try and sneak up on her, but goes to the length of playing pee a boo with her through a window.

The main character eventually theorizes that these clowns come to earth every so often and harvest us as food.  In the KKfOS universe it is apparently important to note that our modern clowns were originally based on these space horrors.  At least enough so to make the leading male say exactly that.

The movie itself is a gem.  I can't give it praise based on genuine cinematic worth, but it doesn't need that.  This is a movie that was made to be just terrible.  It's funny, the characters are amusing, the clowns are terrifying and the plot is easy to follow.  If you like cheesy movies or just need something to feel up your date to you've got a perfect one right here.  The bonus is the few parts of this film, components if you will, that are genuinely upsetting.

Like this thing.

Gruit: Or, the problem with bitters

NGIEWSASDASDAGHK:LJELSAKRJER.
So. Corey hates bitter. I’m trying to find him a beer that he’ll enjoy so we can find a beer to make and the only things that I can find are mild ale, Gruit (flavored with not-hops) or developing some bastard brew technique that doesn’t leave the hops in long enough to make the brew bitter, but does leave the hops in long enough to sanitize.
Ugh, okay, let me explain.
As opposed to making wine or mead, beer classically has way less alcohol content. While wine classically has enough alcohol in it to “keep” indefinitely (the alcohol acts as a preservative) beer normally does not. When you smell stale, sour beer, it’s because the sugars that are leftover from the fermenting process (and what has all those delicious, empty calories) can spoil as the alcohol content isn’t high enough to keep the drink from going bad.
Enter hops. The essential oils and whatnot in the humble little hop-flower and its associated parts not only act as a flavoring agent (yum) but also as a botanical preservative. Add in the fact that the other job that this plant performs is to add a little bitter to counterbalance the sweet of the malted barley (or whatever grain) and you get a beverage which is complex and delicious on the palate.
So, let’s say you dislike hops, or (bless your poor soul) are allergic. What do you do? Well, there’s Gruit, which is beer made with the same principle as regular beer but instead of using hops, they use other botanical ingredients. There’s apparently some historical controversy involving the church but basically the facts are this: Once upon a time we got all our preservative for beer from botanicals other than hops. Sometime during the castle-and-peasant-burn-the-witch time period (Look, we’re not discussing the dark ages or the middle ages and what is what, we’re just not, okay? Let it go. It’s not going to happen.) somewhere in Germany (apparently, plz not to crucify, Mister Internet, thx) a movement came about and tadaa, we started using hops.
Lots of people these days prefer to make their homebrews with Gruit, which is all well and good! I’m totally down with that, but the problem is this: It’s not the hoppy flavor of flowers and grass and aromatics and citrus that Corey doesn’t like. It’s the bitter.
Fuck. Me.
Okay. Okay. We can do this. We can look at the math and sit down and figure out how long and in what stage to add what botanical, be it hops or fucking heather or whatever to make the beer just a little bitter. Just a little. Just enough to be clean, just enough to be sweet and light and balanced.
I am so swamped with halfassed information that I can’t begin to tell you guys where we’re going to start. So, for now, as is the truth with all beer brewing, we must start with beer drinking.
We need to get some good milk stouts and I dunno, a mild ale, or just say “fuck it” and do us up something he can’t possibly bitch about and devote some serious time to making a lambic. HAHA. IT WOULD BE EASIER TO MAKE FRUIT WINE BUT NO. NO.
Corey has the palate of a seven year old. And hey, he’s a lot of people. Lots of folks can’t take the bitter and honestly it’s something you have to let grow on you. An acquired taste.
But for the love of God, if he can come to terms with the nasty ass cheese he’s always buying (Look, cheese shouldn’t be runny and smell like something died in something else’s butt, okay?) and trying to foist on me he can come to term with something complicatedly simple and bitterly delicious.
Or, you, my dear readers, are going to be treated to a lot, lot, lot more swearing as time goes on.
Anyway, cats and kittens. Until then I shall get back to trudging through the muck and trying to find a resolution to this conundrum.

Finally.

I mean, it’s been a while, right?

It’s been a long while since I’ve really sat down and posted and I really wanted to let you guys know what’s been going on. House Blarg/House Quiet Chaos has split up some, and right now it’s just myself, Corey and Geoff living the life in a tiny little apartment a stone’s throw from my office. The bad news is the walls are thin and I hate apartment living. The good news? Why, I’m Dana’s neighbor!

(Linkity)

Swing by and say hi to Dana. She loves new posters. In case you guys don’t know, Dana’s this lovely writer and fantastic blogger (and drinker of that vile substance, tah-kill-ya) whom I happen to have the dear honor and joy of living near and working with. Her blog is chock full of geological fangirldom ramblings, excellent music choices, and atheist, free-thinking kickassery. She’s a partner in crime and an all-around good time. Maybe someday we’ll get her over to do one of the podcasts—which reminds me….

The podcasts are coming back. I promise. They’ll be a little less shout-y, and maybe a little more write-y, on account of being in an apartment complex but with one as huge as the one we just moved into, you never know who you’re going to bump into at the mailbox.

It’s been a long, hard, unpleasant year in some respects, but an adventure in others. I have to remind myself that my life is filled with beautiful wonderful people, and that where I live is paradise. Is it an even trade off for some temporary discomfort? I have photographic evidence.

And here it is.

But for those of you who don’t believe in following links, here’s a sample:

 

Just a little taste. Too many beautiful things to show in one simple post. I just wanted to say thank you all. It’s been a beautiful, educational year. Painful, terrifying, upsetting, but in the end, I am stronger for it.

All my love,

 

-stars.

The Flicker Stream

Uh. So.

Hey, guys.

Did I mention we're still moving and I still have a metric TON of photos to organize, but these are my favorites so far.

((CLICKY-CLICKY!!))

I'm not yet a superawesome photographer or anything, but these are the ones I think have turned out the best.

Anyway, kids, I'll have something worthwhile soon. In the meantime, behave yourselves.

-C

House Blarg Moves

Hey, cats and kittens, just a quick heads-up, House Blarg has come apart and been reformed--smaller, leaner and meaner. Corey and I (and the Geoff) are going to be back soon with more amusement, tauntings, and the like.

Stay tuned!

You Probably Annoy Me, Too.

 
I want to talk to you all for a little bit about something that has been bothering me.  An election year is around the corner, and that means its time for the three ring circus to begin.

Most of my dear readers, most of you are too detached from the whole political process to give two expressions of fecal matter, but allow me to rant for a little while—because I do care.

I’ve gone on and on about this on Facebook, and I’m going to rant right now about it loud and clear.

Politics are not something that you can just disregard as Someone Else’s Problem. They are your problem. If you ever hope to hold land, if you pay taxes, if you have an above-room-temperature IQ, it is in your best interest to be aware of the politics and to get motivated.
I blame part of your disengagement on the media. I blame part of your disengagement on the hyperbolic rhetoric that gets spouted out of both ends of each party like a never-ending stream of vomit and feces. It, like diarrhea and nausea are not a disease in and of themselves; they’re a symptom of some bigger problem.
Gastroenteritis of the mind and of the sociopolitical self, it is a symptom of our increasing dysfunction as a nation.

We are coming apart and it’s not because of the politicians and the media—they’re just the clowns in the circus.

It’s become the fad not to care, to act like we’re so far above it all.
Guess what, kids? It’s your health insurance they’re talking about. It’s your retirement they’re talking about. It’s your future they’re talking about. It’s your science, your planet. It isn’t someone else’s problem, it’s ours.

Look at the politicians who are making your choices for you right now. They’re old men and women who are too slow behind the tech curve to keep up with Twitter, for God’s sake. These are the people that you and you alone are allowing to rule this nation in your stead. These men and women neither understand nor care about you. They don’t understand your views, your needs, your wants. They don’t like your art and they hate your music. They don’t understand the Internet. They wouldn’t know an IP address if it walked up to them and pinched them on the testicle.

These are the people who have spent the last four years fighting to keep your eye off the ball, to keep us so entertained (or repulsed) by the circus of the media that we’re missing the parts where they’re smashing scientific advancements against the rocks like the heads of small children. There’s a Biblical reference for you.

It is our responsibility to fix this situation. It’s our time to demand wiser politicians, to speak up, to refuse to be party to their games of distract and distrust.

It’s time that we inherit the earth.

In each of us is the power to begin anew, to refuse to watch the mess become a bacchanalia of political comedy and to most of all stay engaged in the conversation.  It is unbelievably important to stay involved in the conversation. Nothing is more important.

By not watching the news, you don’t make it go away, you just make yourself stupid.

The Dalai Lama  says that whether one believes in a religion or not and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.

The Bible says that the meek will inherit the earth—and we have had enough of being meek.

When you hear someone start to talk about rhetoric or hyperbolically about whatever their political opponent has begun to blabber about—raise your hand and say as politely as you can “I’m sorry, I don’t have time for this. What they’ve said has come and gone. What do you have to say about this particular piece?”

Get involved. Get engaged.
Stay involved. Stay engaged.

This is your problem, it’s your responsibility now to deal with it.

In My Backyard: Letters D and E.

Here comes letters D and E, kids, recorded on 7/25, a special double header for Dan's birthday!

We discuss Amy Winehouse, Dan's birthday, and more matters of the heart.

Click here, cats and kittens, to be geeked for Letter D.

Click here instead for letter E.

Why Verizon's Strike Is A Big Deal

Unions.

They're under a lot of fire recently, because big business doesn't want you to organize. They don't want you to have a say in what goes on in your workplace. They believe if you don't like it, find a job elsewhere.

In a struggling economy, though, there is no elsewhere. Major telecommunications corporations are taking in money faster than they ever have, hand over fist, and rather than rewarding the hard work of their employees upper management is telling them to tighten the belt. Make sacrifices.

Those sacrifices go straight into management's pocket and we never see a dime of it.

Don't get me wrong--in a tough economy, I am 100% down with cutting costs and saving money wherever we can in order to remain profitable (that's my pension, thankyouverymuch), but when we go to the lengths that we do and the company does turn a profit, we don't see it. That makes me angry.

So we go to the bargaining table, asking to be treated as if we have some value. For AT&T, it didn't come to a strike.

For Verizon, it has.

Verizon's gross negligence is staggering. I can rant all day about how cell phone companies rely on their ability to maintain service (all cell calls eventually go into or pass through the land line system) and how it will take them regularly two or more weeks to complete a four hour job.

Let's not start there. Let's start with the numbers:
http://www.newnetworks.com/UnderbellyVerizonStrike.htm

Then we can talk about employee treatment:
http://www.cwa-union.org/issues/entry/c/verizon


Look, just as an army marches on its stomach, a company's treatment of its customers and the profits they make, the company's very performance comes from the way the corporation treats its employees.

It's time to stop this blame shit on the poor people thing we've been doing. It's time to stop blaming the voters, stop blaming the employees, stop blaming the teachers, stop blaming the unions and start blaming the politicians, lobbyists, and the corporate assholes that are responsible for this mess.

Your actions do have repercussions. Examples need to be made. Accountability MUST become the name of the game.

Sigh. Every day is the end of the world, folks. It's what you do after the end that matters.

Signing off for now, this has been Caeli. Don't burn down your neighbor's house.

LEAVENWORTH (Washington)

Molly loves turkey dog!

See?

So very, very messy.

Today Brad, Dan, Molly and I took a drive up to the tourist-trappiest of tourist traps in Washington--Leavenworth.

Now, with a name like that, you'd expect some sort of tie-in to a certain famous city, but that is not the case. When people in Washington hear "Leavenworth", they don't hear "Cowboys", they hear "Tiny little Bavarian wonderland."

Buhwuh?

Allow me to explain...

Dear World:

Look, I know this week has been a bit of a doozy. We watched some seriously messed up stuff happen in Norway and it's seriously got to have some of my good friends broken up. Remember how we felt after Oklahoma City?

Our thoughts are with Oslo. We all know that. That's not even a question, because we're a world of mostly good people who have very little actual tolerance for assholes.

We also woke up today to learn about the unsurprising, and yet still tragic death of troubled songstress, Amy Winehouse.

People are outraged that we seem to have forgotten Oslo in the midst of all the sudden star-fever, and some are even speaking and acting with hostility--toward Amy.

I want us to stop and think about that for a minute. We're all pissed off at some poor girl who made one too many bad decisions and threw away a gift because she had the gall to die.

How fucked up is that?

Is it terrible we've taken our eyes off the ball that is what the attack on Oslo means for European politics to stare slack-jawed at the rubble of the life of a genuinely talented vocalist? Yeah, yeah it is.

But it's not her fault. All she did was die. Its something someday each of us (without fail) will do.

So, at the risk of coming across all Chris Crocker, can I ask everyone to just leave the dead be? Lay off Amy. The kid clearly had too much on her plate in this life--whether you believe in an afterlife or not, can we just agree to not blame her for the fact that our country is so star-obsessed that we let the media drop the ball in order to stare at a famous corpse.

Please stop. You're supposed to be grownups.

Judas

Over the next few weeks and months, I will be laying out for you, my dear readers, a story I am writing real-time.

Those of you who know me know I have a love of tabletop roleplaying games--especially those from White Wolf Publishing. Vampire: the Masquerade has been a great outlet for my creative urges for a while and recently I've decided to in Second Life pursue running a roleplay sim, based on this fantastic system.

I've decided that I'm going to add a new villain to the already-rich world White Wolf has written for me, and the protagonist/antagonist of this story is going to be the oft-misaligned Judas.

The story will start simple, and will probably piss some people off, but I'm going to lay it out on the line. Judas will be a man who follows his heart and does what he thinks is right until his heart is betrayed and his whole world crumbles around him. I will torture my readers with his suffering. I will make you love him.

I will kill him.

I will bring him back.

We will start, my darling ones, here and now.

From My Back Yard: The Letter C (or: Shannon, I swear to God you must listen to this episode)

Click here, cats and kittens for the Letter C.

Today's episode honors casual racism (well, at least it starts with C this time) and our dear friend Shannon, Who Shall Remain Unnamed.

Caeli, Corey, Dan, Brad and Crystal join us for a backyard corn-eating bonanza.

Stay frosty.

-CaeliMonster

From My Backyard: The Letter B

https://vr.shapeservices.com/play.php?hash=7cb7ea4f1ca30a020e08d3ca15d9cffb71bbc84cb3beba7e2

Casual racism, apologies to Anonymous, drunken ramblings. welcome back, gang!


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Sent via VR+

From Our Backyard: Special Guest Brad

https://vr.shapeservices.com/listen.php?hash=f8a6103a5614ae7aaf2d6274d25577d71a8d3cf12c35f0cca

Any Given Weeknight's Corey and Caeli and special guest Brad discuss arson, Toby Keith, and high school antics.

This is a test. This is only a test.

https://vr.shapeservices.com/listen.php?hash=86ac30323f47725359ccb58308d732bc66402843461e383ff

testing!

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Recorded on iPhone and posted with VR+ Lite.
http://vr.shapeservices.com

What can you buy with 1k $L?

I set out on this endeavor to attempt to figure out what, exactly, I could do with 1000L.

I built a newbie, and got spat out into a starting area looking like... Well, looking like this:


Something about the hair makes me so very, very angry.