It seems as though I am only number 17 in MSN’s search engine for Muscular women who spank
.
Nuts! Maybe I have to hire a highly paid professional consultant to ensure I get all the irrelevant search hits.
To be able to say "Noggle," you first must be able to say "Nah."
It seems as though I am only number 17 in MSN’s search engine for Muscular women who spank
.
Nuts! Maybe I have to hire a highly paid professional consultant to ensure I get all the irrelevant search hits.
Last Man Standing = A Fistful of Dollars.
You see what cinematic sophistication I can achieve when left to my own devices, when “my own devices” means a Playstation 2 DVD player and a phone to call Pizza Hut?
This month’s Barron’s asserts that the cover girl mutual fund Tara Reid has a sexy voice. I performed a bit of due dilligence so that I could properly compare her voice to another luminary of the field: Joey Lauren Adams.
Both have a whisper quality to them, which conveys an immediate intimacy. You have to pay attention (of course, it helps that both Tara and Joey rate highly on the *.that
scale) to their words.
However, in head-to-head (or larynx-to-larynx) competition, Joey’s voice is a little smokier, a little huskier, a little more babada-babada-boom (sorry to borrow your expression, Mrs. Griswold, but understand you are not up for consideration tonight). Advantage: Joey Lauren Adams!
Thankfully, though, both women have chosen to use their powers for good (acting) and not evil (telemarketing). If they had chosen the dark path, undoubtedly they could have wreaked havoc. Undoubtedly, men’s households would have more Time-Life Books and the back windows of their vehicles would have more law enforcement association stickers on them.
“The future [is] dead; long live the aimless present.“
If you’re not reading Lileks every day, you should. Bird is the werd.
Get your LotR fix with the hand puppet show.
Beer for the Homeless. Can’t you help?
Based on recommendations from “Burning Eye” Cullina and Robert Prather, I borrowed Donnie Darko on DVD from Adam’s House of Grilling and DVDs last weekend. I watched it tonight as part of the “Heather’s Not Here Watch DVDs Until I Collapse Feature.”
Well, I was very disappointed. I thought there’d be some barking and crawling around by a sexy chick, but then I realized this movie starred the wrong Gyllenhaal. Hey, cut me some slack, if you didn’t know there was more than one, how many Gyllenhaals would you expect to find in show business? Granted, Maggie had a small role in this film, but it would have been so bad to….. well, never mind.
So I popped in the DVD and was treated to what amounted to 113 minutes of Gothic John Hughes meets American Beauty.
Actually, you want to know the movie to which I want to compare it most easily? Pump Up The Volume for the sheer quantity of red wine drunk by the authority figures when lounging at home. Do a double feature of the two and you’ll agree.
Perhaps I am reflecting upon the movie too quickly after viewing it. Maybe this is, in fact, one of those movies that you need to think about and discuss. However, I have quite a bit of faith in my perceptions of storytelling (of which moviemaking is a subset), and when confronted with a movie that makes me think too much, I just assume the artiste with the bullhorn on the set was incompetent. Sorry, such is the case here.
I am being gracious and avoiding spoilers, friends, because I realize that you might enjoy the film otherwise (you simpleton). Still, the matter’s open for debate over a couple of yummy Guinness Draughts, Adam or Robert, should you choose.
Well, friends, I am pleased to have made it through the entirety of The Long Goodbye, a Robert Ctrl-Alt-Deleteman travesty based on a novel by Saint Raymond Chandler. And by made it through, I admit it’s not the first time I tried.
You see, here at Honormoor, tradition holds that when Heather leaves town, Brian J:
This time, though, I made it through. Last time Heather was AFT (Away From Town), I only made it to the conversation between Wade and his wife describing the impotence of the writer with the innovative use of the reflection of Marlowe on the beach. When I passed that mark this time, though, I startled a cat with a loud “Huzzah!”
So what’s good about the film?
What’s bad?
So if you’re a Chandler fan, I’d recommend viewing it. It’s not The Big Sleep or The Big Sleep, but Gould might make a better Marlowe than Bogart or Mitchum. Until The Blue Dahlia comes out on DVD, we Chandlerites have to choose our battles among those who would dare interpret his work on screen.
The Chicago Tribune’s John Kass has uncovered the story of a raging pack of Chihuahuas, over 150 strong, on the rampage in California.
Who’s laughing about this horrible force of nature? Probably everyone not in California.
The venerable Chicago Tribune has a story about the dangers of Aspartme.
Of course, aside from the headlines and assertions, the story does indicate:
But does it really cause headaches or, worse, seizures, lupus and multiple sclerosis?
Most experts and studies say no.
Anyone who’s been to Snopes knows that “Warnings about drinking too much diet soda have circulated on the Internet for years” but that the warnings are bogus.
So it’s good to see the Chicago Tribune wasting column inches dignifying these assertions by exploring them (next week’s e-mail undoubtedly will say As scene in the Chcago Tribune!!!).
I am looking forward to upcoming hard-hitting Tribune investigative exposés (what you don’t know might hurt you):
As part of the “engagement” curriculum in my Honors English I class in high school, the teacher roped us into a discussion of the short story “The Scarlet Ibis“. However, instead of extensive discussions of the white patriarchal hegemony’s oppression of the differently-abled which a true “college prep” curriculum would have enjoyed, we got to do a mock trial that prosecuted the narrator of the story in Doodle’s death.
I got to play the defendant, which sucked because my public-defender quality lawyer didn’t object enough. The prosecutor kept pulling out information from within the story that only the defendant would know. As a seasoned veteran of many Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, I knew how to expose “player knowledge” from “character knowledge” in other players while masking my own exploitation of this systemic flaw. So, to make a short story long, the defendant was convicted.
So what’s my point? (Ahh….here…it….comes….) That although the Internet has made cheating easier, as early as seventeen years ago, public schools were formally teaching
(Ahhhhh…..compulsion….relieved……)
MSN’s running a list of five tips for an effective first date. It looks like a pretty good list, undoubtedly compiled by a trained therapist or whatnot (all right, I did not Google “Jim Sulski” to find out, dear reader; I leave the in-depth show prep to Rush Limbaugh).
Instead, dear reader, I offer my tips for a first date. I think I am qualified, since my last first date worked out okay. So here’s the StLBrianJ tips:
In other words, I had no idea what I was doing or why it went so swimmingly.
Ever wondered what goes on at an Atari Party? Here are the blackmail photos I will be using for my extra income this year.
It has been postulated, or it will be in the next clause of this sentence, that geeks who gather (GwG) to celebrate arcane electronic amusement systems also share certain aesthetic preferences and interests. As most (but not all) of the GwG share the male gender, it has been postulated that certain seemingly-stereotypical male-centric P&I might be anticipated. That is, that the GwG would prefer, in information sources, those sources which offered:
To prove this hypothesis, an experiment was devised wherein a GwG collection would be exposed to a number of information sources; individual members of the GwG herd could then select and inspect information sources. This collection was meticulously contrived to include a broad selection of information sources and to expose them adequately so that the GwG group members could conceivably select from among them.
The magazine rack used within the experiment looked like this:
The visible magazines include:
This magazine rack was presented to the subjects as part of a domestic environment, albeit a GwG-friendly domestic environment that contained three television/Atari 2600 sets as distractive stimuli. The magazine rack was carefully designed to be unobtrusive, but arrayed as noted above with several titles visible. Thus, although the subjects were not informed of the nature of the study, it was assumed by the research staff that the subjects would observe the magazine rack and would select information sources suited to the subjects’ natures.
The results of the experiment are as follows: as expected, during the course of the time period allotted for the experiment, a subject discovered the FHM information source and perused its contents and commented to other subjects. At this time, some the subjects passed the information source amongst themselves and reviewed it. In one exit interview, a subject claimed “the magazine was a hit!”
This experiment would seem to prove the hypothesis that GwG P&I, in a social environment, tend to information sources characterized popularly as “laddie magazines.”
This experiment has not delved into actual cause of the P&I, nor has this experiment explored what might be termed the “irony” construct, which might indicate that the most vocal of the GwG members who perused the magazine might have actually performed an “ironic” social ritual of displaying mockery or good-humored contempt of the information source to establish social rank within the GwG sample. Further, it is unclear to what extent the subjects would have sought out the magazine, or what portion of the magazine could have been obscured from view with the same result of the subject accessing the information source.
Further research will be required, including other experiments, to uncover the answers to these questions. In the future, the following experiments might be conducted:
Additionally, comprehensive study of information sources of this class is warranted, including comparisons of British versions to their American counterparts and, if possible, personal interviews with the owners of the anesthetically-pleasing anatomies.
A grant from the National Institute of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, or Center for Disease Control would help in any case. Please make that check out to StLBrianJ Laboratories, care of this Web site.
christmasList.add (videoGameSystemDevelopmentKit);
// *******************
// As seen on SlashDot
// *******************
This year’s Classic Gaming Expo is only going to draw 1200 people. I apologize; I realize that the Fourth Annual Atari party is siphoning some of the attendance.
(Link seen on Fark.)
Today was my last day at my current job, and the end of a personal era. Let me explain.
I entered the work force in 1990 when I moved from a forsaken Marcellus (that is, not a town, not a village, not even a Hamlet, but rather a minor character therein) to Milwaukee to attend the prestigious (to those in Milwaukee) Marquette University. I worked my way through college since I screwed off my way through scholarships (quickly), so I held that first job for the four years it took me to complete Writing Intensive English (WINE–who could ask for a better degree?) and Social Philosophy degrees.
After that, though, I graduated with degrees that “prepare you for anything” but give you little in terms of an actual job path. As such, I held a number of positions, many in retail and many part time overlapping with other positions.
I’ve often told stories of my varied resume for the amusement of my co-workers. However, the allusions to my resume can fail to capture the nature and breadth of the job bouncing I’ve done, so I provide the following accounting for their reckoning and your amusement:
Company | Title | Duration |
Gold’s/Sheridan’s Shop Rite | Bagger/Checker/Produce Clerk | 47 months |
Blue Horseshoe Productions | Telemarketing Fund Raiser | 1 months |
Price Chopper | Utility Clerk | 3 months |
National Systems, Inc. | Marketing Research Assistant | 1 months |
Better Business World | Guy Friday/Computer Assembler | 3 months |
Artmart | Shipping/Receiving Clerk | 8 months |
Sappington Farmers Market | Produce Clerk | 15 months |
The Paint Dealer | Assistant Editor | 4 months |
Drug Package, Inc. | Class II Web Printing Press Operator | 24 months |
TALX Corporation | Documentation Specialist | 8 months |
Data Research Associates, Inc. | Technical Writer/Automated Tester | 21 months |
MetaMatrix, Incorporated | Technical Writer | 35 months |
Tripos, Incorporated | Quality Assurance Engineer I | ? |
It’s a lot of job bouncing, undoubtedly, but a lot of it took place in the early part of my “career,” when an extra fifty cents an hour meant a ten percent pay raise.
Overall, within my employment history, jobs have been fluid, plentiful, and easily changed. In today’s economy, it’s important to keep this in mind. I’ve never felt that a single job’s going to provide for my retirement (nor will a single government system like Socialism Security). I’ve also been comfortable moving forward as well as backward or side-to-side to find something new, and I’ve worked at crummy jobs enough to realize that you can always find something if you’re willing to be honest and to work earnestly.
It’s a big step, though, leaving a place I’ve worked for almost three years. Don’t laugh; these have been three important, formative years in my life. They represent years 2-4 in my marriage and 1-3 in home ownership. I wrote my best novel manuscript yet, John Donnelly’s Gold, while at this last job.
So I’m moving on, and as I reflect on my job history, several things clarify:
Here’s a quiz for you.
Personally, I am a:
Congratulations! You’re a black velvet! What Drink Are You? |
“Smooth and dark, you are potent and bitchy yet seductive and irresistible.”
Smooth, check. Dark, check. Potent, check. Bitchy? I prefer demanding or standards-based, but check. Seductive and irresistable? You have to ask someone else who can be objectively seduced.
(Link seen on Suburban Blight, whose author finds all the coolest quizzes.)
As some of you know, the fourth annual world-reknowned Atari Party takes place tomorrow. Unfortunately, you still have to wait until tomorrow, and you’re stuck at work today.
To tide you over, I recommend you visit this Fark Photoshop thread: Computer/video games that were never made.
And go to bed early to ensure your reflexes are sharp tomorrow.