Best hair day ever...

The greater Charlotte area is just plagued by hotties.

I go to get my hair cut today, I'm a few minutes late, so I walk into the salon, and my two favorite stylists, A and B (OK, maybe I like B about a hundred and eight times better, let me tell the story already!) are sitting in their respective chairs, toying with their hair. Naturally, this is too ripe an opportunity to pass up, so I remark some lame remark about how it must be nice to get paid to mess with one's own hair all day. Both their faces dour for an instant, before they look up and they light up when they realize that they get to mess with mine now as payback.

We're off to a good start. We chit chat a little while about minor nothings, and since we all had such a good time last month, I figure it's OK to flirt with object-of-my-make-out-fantasy B. They both seem to be in good spirits, and there's no one else in the place. Talk a little about travel, and the determination is made that I can't flirt with both of them while A is cutting my hair, it's too distracting. Fine, I say, B will be sole target until A finishes, then she gets a turn.

B finds a reason to remove her smock at this point, under which she's wearing this pastel striped baby tee...I just about have a coronary (all those prime ribs finally get their revenge...) but immediately notice that she's got a hot tattoo around one of her biceps...kind of played out, I know, but it works on her. I also notice that with as many times as I've seen her, I've never meen made privy to her magnificent rack...ouch. The giant mirror definitely helps in the stealth ogling department. Naturally, at this point, the flirting gets cranked to eleven.

They proceed to tell me that I should become a hairdresser. My only natural reaction is that hey, what if I have no skill cutting and styling hair? They're like "oh, it doesn't matter, plenty of stylists suck ass. You're cute, and Asian, so you'll rake in the dough." Would I need to be gay? or at least bi? "Nah, it might help, but you're good looking enough that it wouldn't matter. [swoon!] Somehow it comes up that it might help earnings if I were to dance a little, and should they go ahead and get a pole installed? I tell them no need, I know where they have poles, and what are they doing tonight? The girls giggle, and A does something where she sorta rubs my head, and I say "ooh, do that again..." She does, and I wonder aloud how nice it might be if they did it together. I'm chastized for being so bad...[sigh] (But I DID get B to fondle my head later...as I sat in her chair for the first time.) (!) [shudder]

I innocently inquire as to why B doesn't just take her "old man" to the Bahamas with her on vacation (She'd mentioned that she's going with a girlfriend...might have to find out where/when and "accidentally" be there...), and A chimes in "she doesn't have a man!" To which I respond, Hrm, what did you say your number was?" B demurely says that she's divorced, but does have a boyfriend. "Well, at the risk of repeating myself, what did you say your number was?" A remarks that it doesn't matter unless you're married, and I add, "...sometimes not even then..." The visit went on for over an hour (actual hair cutting time: 23 minutes), but it felt like the shortest amount of time I've ever been there, alas.

I so wish I had a camera with me, the mood was ideal for an impromptu photo session, the better with which to capture that heavenly baby tee and that spectacular rack. [sigh] Perhaps next month...

She also has the cutest pedicured toes, but that's an obsession for another day.

How did my haircut turn out? No clue. Don't know, don't care. Might have to go back next week and get it shaved off. [titter]

The ride over to my brother's was largely uneventful, and once again I'm faced with the reality that I can't stand beign around his kids for more than about 8-13 minutes, absolute tops. Naturally, they've completely wrecked my truck...i'ts full of dirt, unidentified kid goo, and crumbles of every substance known to mankind rubbed into every square inch of the luxurious cut pile carpeting. Ah well, I guess it IS a truck...still...grumble...

Made eye contact and elicited smiles from a few random beautiful, beautiful babies in other cars, and with one statuesque blonde walking down the street as I'm pulling out of the greengrocer's on the way home. I just love it here!

In other news, this was seen on and then subesquently misappropriated/stolen from AllthingsChristie, which was then in turn yoinked from somewhere else (BBSpot). While I'm generally against all manner of movie hype whatseover, let alone all this Star Wars silliness, but in this case, I think several of them are quite clever. I know, the originas of quite a few of them, but there are a couple I just can't place...chime in in the comments if you know the original quotes and/or their sources...


Top Eleven Misappropriated Star Wars Quotes: Episode II

11. "Sometimes you eat the wookiee, and sometimes, well, he eats you."
10. "No, Obi-Wan, I expect you to die!"
9. "One time... at clone camp..."
8. "My name is Luke Skywalker. You are my father. Prepare to die."
7. "I'm thinking about taking that new chick from Alderaan. If things go right I might be showing her my Obi-face. You know: Oh. Oh. Obi-wan."
6. "You're the Emperor? I thought you'd be taller."
5. "I'll get you, my Jedi... and your little droid R2!"
4. "Yes you did, Qui-Gon. You tried to fuck him. And Darth Maul don't like to be fucked by anybody, except Mrs. Maul."
3. "Saturday, Anakin, is Shabbos, the Jedi day of rest. That means that I don't duel, I don't get in a landspeeder, I don't ride in a landspeeder, I don't reprogram the droids, I don't turn on my lightsaber, and I sure as shit DONT FUCKING ROLL! SHOMER SHABBOS!"
2. "If you want to be a Jedi, you've got to REALLY hate the Empire"

...and number one...

"Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Yoda, Windu, Kenobi? Morons!"


[pause here for things to sink in, wait for chuckles of recognition. Comment.]

Bon weekend kids, play nice.

Guaranteed bad karma...

Things to do tomorrow:

- Wake up at the ass crack of dawn (OK, 10 am, but still...it's early for me, goddamnit!)
- Don't be late for 12:30 haircut appointment
- Treat self to lunch in Rock Hill? What do I like that's out there? Hrm...
- Pick up Land Cruiser and trailer
- Check trailer wiring and taillights
- Root through bro's shed for palm sander, air compressor, and blower attachment bit thingie...
- Try to not get sucked into his inevitable foul mood (if he's there)
- Stop by that farmer's market in RH that I like...yummy tomatoes! And maybe bananas...
- Find out if it's cool with the ultra-picky association here to park the trailer in visitor parking overnight

Busy day tomorrow. TGIF (even though I hate that phrase) anyway though.

I need to stop eating these chocolate-covered graham cookies, or else I'm going to weigh 900#...

But they're so chocolatey delicious!

Don't know when this went up, or how old it is, but this OddTodd cartoon so perfectly exemplifies my life that it's scary. #1 outtake afterward is also hilarious.

Spoke to Rosie online a little bit ago, she informed me of an item of web news: apparently, some kid's sister's ex-boyfriend planned to rob her, but ended up killing them both. Story here. Police then used the kid's blog, (entry here) which mentioned that he (the sister's ex-boyfriend and alleged murderer) was "...already in the house. He is still here right now, smoking, walking all around the house...Hopefully he will leave soon..." to first identify the suspect, and then get him to cop to the crime. Nice work guys, nothing makes for good policework like when you need to have the victim finger the perp for you. (I love that word, "perp".)

What strikes me as really odd, is that the entry in question has 255 comments, of which, 99.9% of them say just some iteration of "RIP". Is this really necessary? Kids who don't have blogs don't get comment-field RIP wishes? Naturally, I had something to add. My comment went thusly:


Hrm, I don't think they have broadband internet access in the afterlife. All the RIP wishes and personal messages (aside from being so much electronic posturing) might be better expressed in a church somewhere. The remaining members of his family are not likely to be here reading comments. Send flowers or something!

Just a thought...let the backlash begin...

-Gene, a self- admitted blaspheming, heathen sinner...


Was that insensitive and/or in poor taste? Guess my karmic account balance just dipped into the red. In retrospect, I can see where the personal messages might have therapeutic value for the grieving. However, for people the kid didn't even know to post "RIP" comments on the blog that no one of the family will likely read, smacks of self-serving e-posturing.

Although the entry from Monday is interesting: "Life has been really hard lately...". The irony of his not knowing just how carefree his life was on Monday as compared to Thursday, or how easy things would become shortly thereafter is staggering and disturbing.

Just can't trust those Asian kids...savages! When will yellow-on-yellow violence end?

Nomadic routine...

Time is a little bit like beer goggles. It can help cloud your judgement, only in retrospective as opposed to beer goggles' more immediate effects. As is the case with former girl/boyfriends, the passage of time tends to cause most people to romanticize to some extent; ask anyone about a former lover, and more often than not, the accounts will be fairly one-sided, and skew toward the positive rather than the negative. Memories fade, events are glossed-over, and stories evolve just enough to make things sound better looking back than they might actually have been.

Living in Chicago, I always liked it just fine, and when I moved to Minneapolis circa 1996 (Eden Prairie, home of the Eden Prairie Center, the mall in Mallrats) I liked it well enough there, but missed Chicago. Upon my return in 1997, I was genuinely happy to be back, and swore I'd never move away again, much less for work's sake. (Best Buy Co. ponied up the cash for my generous relo package to the Minnie.) In 2001, the theater company I was working for (on a fluke) in Chicago offered a promotional position in Hartford, CT. I had previously made it clear that I was happy where I was, and that I was a company man insofar as I could stay where I was (#2 guy at the company's flagship operation, making a relatively obscene amount of money for the little bit of work I had to do (and by "do", I mean delegate)), and that if any promotional opportunities came about where I was, that would be just fine, but I wasn't interested in moving. I was told that unless I liked doing what I was doing (since I'd be doing it forever) that it would be in my best career interests to take the promotion. Needless to say, I took the job, and moved (with a much less generous relo package) to Hartford in the fall of 2001. I hated it there. It seemed alright at the time, but the northeast to me didn't seem particularly friendly. I'd lived in the big bad city of Chicago all my life, and it took moving to Hartford for me to experience my first violent crime, an attempted carjacking/robbery in downtown Hartford. WTF? The weather was just as bad as Chicago, I was working too much and had no social outlet, work got to be a drag (as a result of personality clashes, corporate middle management shuffles, and being too close to the corporate offices), and the ultimately, the only people I ended up meeting were in NYC, a two-plus hour drive each way.

The only things I miss about Hartford:

- The absolute best wings I've ever had, from Wings Over Hartford (Hrm, maybe I need to open a franchise here...
- Utterly amazing cajun food prepared by the genuine cajun chef Armstrong at the Rajun Cajun (his family-run dive restaurant across from my theater)
- My kickass Main Street, downtown Hartford, penthouse apartment with capitol building/city view bachelor pad apartment (that I only ever got to take maybe eight? chicks to the whole time I was there, because I worked so much, damnation...(if only I had that apartment here, now, sigh...)
- Knowing the Chief of Police and just about every officer of the Hartford PD (and speeding in the town with complete impunity)
- Not having to pay for anything with cash, but movie tickets...that was sweet, since they didn't cost me anything personally (misappropriated as a perk of the position)

Once I left the theater gig, I took a couple months to travel...went to Chi for a month or so, then down to Rock Hill, SC for about a month...decided it was silly to pay exorbitant rent on an apartment I wasn't living in, plus, it'd be a good opportunity to spend some quality time with my beloved brother (ultimately a mistake, more on that another day) so got a trailer, headed up to CT, picked up my crap, and down to the Carolinas I went. I then proceeded to travel some more, for months at a time...specifically, to Atlanta, Memphis, Dallas, Chicago, and points in between.

Now that I've been away for about 2.5 years, it's been just long enough that I've forgotten some of the things I disliked about Chicago, and have perhaps inadvertently romanticized that relationship as well.

Spoke with Amy (Esq.) tonight after quite a little hiatus (we've spoken briefly in the past couple weeks, but nothing of substance...it was weeks, perhaps even months before that) and she relayed a horror story about her show business hottie baby sister and her Chicago parking ticket woes that just made me cringe in rememberance of the numberous times that I myself butted heads with the peons-that-be who live in that archetypal bureaucracy. In a nutshell, the political machine that is the Richie Daley administration has a little cash-generating operation that is otherwise known as the Department of Revenue (at least there's truth in advertising there), who in turn, controls the city's parking enforcement. They've got this whole little scam cooked up where they administer parking "rules", "laws" and "statutes", but all it basically is is a framework wherein they get to do whatever they like and take people's cars. I myself have fed several cars (of not insignificant value) and several thousand dollars' or my hard-earned (OK, well "earned) cash into said machine (I'm oversimplifying here, but I'm sure the idisyncracies have been dissected ad nauseam on other sites that I'm too lazy to look up at this point in time, and would make this already highly tangental post even more incoherent and incomprehensible; perhaps another day.) Anyway, suffice it to say, this surreal secondhand account of the three-ring circus that M's (Amy's hot sis) altercation with the DoR had become, reminded me of just how much I hated numerous aspects of life in the big city (shitty) they call the Second City: (some of which I'll no doubt explore in later entries)

- No handguns!
- Rapid/mass/public transit (I understand it's actually a pretty good system, but I still hated using it)
- The aforementioned DoR
- Absolutely HORRENDOUS 2/3rd day (5am-10pm) "rush hour" (seriously, don't try to go anywhere unless it's 3am...)
- Bah (my dad) is there, and while that's good from a pious son perspective, there's something to be said for the parental "buffer zone" extolled by Seinfeld and gang.

There are others, but my brain tires.

The point of all this is that I ended up in the CLT as a lark, a visit to my brother's gone horribly, horribly awry. Now that I've actually spent some time here (I can't believe it's been...13? months?! Crap...although that first six or so in Rock Hill really shouldn't count, as it's all the way down in SC, and I barely ever wandered North of the border, and of those six, I probably was on the road for three or four) and seen more of what life here has to offer, learned about the impending regional boom, and perhaps most importantly, built an increasingly strong social and support network of dear friends, I can honestly say that there's nowhere I'd rather be. Granted, travel to and from the area could be easier, as I believe that CLT is still one of the most expensive and inconvenient (from a flight continuity standpoint) airports to fly in and out of, but the recent arrival of a couple/few discount carriers (ATA notwithstanding, the bastards...well, not that I'd still be working for them anyway...damn those flight beneifts were tough to give up) should help alleviate that situation. Ah well, maybe start it's time to start thinking about looking at houses/lots, (and/or work as that last thing will necessitate) pretty soon, begin forming something resembling longer-range plans (insofar as my seat-of-the-pants mentality will allow) and see what happens.

Finally managed to delve into back taxes a bit, made more progress today than in the prior 7 or 8 years...however, I have now learned for a fact that while there is offically no penalty for filing late if one is due a refund, one loses any right to claim a refund three years after the original due date. In short, the last five weeks' inactivity has cost me in excess of a couple G's a week. Ouch. Expensive lessons are always the hardest learned, but my procrastination has cost me similarly on many occasion over the years, and no doubt will do so again in the future. It sucks, at times, to be lazy.

Turns out my old buddy AlanJ from way back, has taken a page from my experiences (check out the address) and started his own blogspot/blogger site, at http://vuewithin.blogspot.com. I learned this by his posting of a comment yesterday...

I've known this guy for probably about...maybe 8 years now? Perhaps longer, that number was just pulled out of the air. We basically never really talk, but clicked from the word "go", and the few times we've gotten together, have been great times...almost went into business together (remember BPS TechWorks? Haha...Where the hell is Jobe these days, anyway?) All-around good guy, seems to have a pretty interesting life (not altogether unlike myself, he shares a penchant for cars, gambling, and strippers...heck, he might even be the white version of me...hrm, actually, I'm not sure how that would work out, since I'm already basically white...), don't keep in touch with him enough...blog should make for interesting reading. Sounds like he's in a transitional stage, should try to get him down to the CLT to be a partner in crime...I'm sure we could stir up some trouble...hrm...or fire up that business idea again...hrm...

Right on AJ, it'll be good to hear about your crazy-ass shenanigans.

OK, late night munchies have gotten the better of me...a little bit of research finds that the Wings Over... people have, in addition to what is perhaps the worst web presence ever, at www.wingsover.com, a location in NC! Greenville though...266 miles by Google...and a "coming soon" store in an unspecified "Fayetteville"; let's hope they mean NC...still 135 miles, but at least it's closer than a White Castle! Road trip!

Ack! Dawn! off to bed...

Building electronics at home...

Now playing: DJ Tiesto featuring Kirsty Hawkshaw - Walking on Clouds

So I got my first issue of Wired magazine today. One would think I'd be overjoyed by this, but unfortunately it's April's issue. What day is today again? oh yeah, it's the MIDDLE OF GODDAMNED MAY. Nice. It's basically two months overdue, and I've already read all the articles of importance online, (Probably of the next issue I get too) WTF? Humbug.

Cathay Pacific Airlines is running what I think is their annual All Asia Pass promo again, and damned if it isn't kicking up my wanderlust...basically, the premise is for $1099, you can fly from NYC, San Francisco, LA, Vancouver, or Toronto to Hong Kong, then have 21 days of unlimited travel to 17 Asian cities. Added-cost options include service-class upgrades, pass extension to 30/45/60/90 days, and added destinations (Australia, China, India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, or Vietnam.) Sigh.

Been thinking about building a couple/few cantennas, just for the hell of it, and to see what I can learn from the process. What's a cantenna, you ask? Basically, it's a ghetto style homemade high-gain directional antenna made from tin cans and other random crap. I like the idea, primarily because it seems to be the perfect combination of the following:

-Ghetto hacks
-Backyard/redneck jury-rigging knowhow
-Geek black magic (math/science)

With just a dash of Mr. wizard-type hey,-you could-maybe-really-fry-your-ass electrocution potential.

Here are some links (when you google "cantenna"):

Linky one
Linky deux
Linky san
Linky quatre
Linky V

Spent the evening with T, headed out to meet a friend of hers at a bar in Rock Hill. Unfortunately, there were nowhere near as many Winthrop college-age hotties as last time. Did, however have a fabulous evening, complete with stimulating discussion on relevant topics and everything!

In other news, my old (in that we've been seeing one another for a while, not that she's old) girlfriend had a date with my new girlfriend, and because my cell phone has recently seen fit to not continue to work, even in it's previous slipshod fashion, I had to hear about it on a voicemail message at 3am. grr. Overnight is a long time to wait for news of this magnitude and bi hotness...all I know is that it involved a 4-hour "dinner" (albeit at a public dining establishment, so likely no funny business. Although knowing these two, anything's possible...) followed by a digestif parking lot make-out session...hrm...Although the caveat is that I've not spoken to either party involved, I've pieced this account together from the collective information I received back from the private investigators I hired to individually follow both of them. Developments as they occur.

I think they're doing better with one another than I did with either of them individually. Where's the justice in that?

Well, off to bed to dream of girlfriend sandwiches...I'm sorry, did that come out sounding tawdry?

Mad props to the ATL...

Well, busy weekend as usual, and also as usual, I've come home too late and too tired (further exacerbated by coming home and chatting/flirting for several hours with my new best friend) to do a real post...so instead, updates and/or weekend synopsis will have to wait until tomorrow, and in it's stead, I humbly sumbit this reconstituted (that is to say altered to make sense within this context) comment, originally left on a friend's blog. It's about my first strip club experience ever, which happened to take place in that fair city, and my subesquent love for it. original post in italics, enjoy. (My notes here non-italicized)

OMG, I [heart] Kenna!(Kenna was mentioned in her post.)

I also [heart] the ATL. Went to my first strip club ever there, yessir. I was there on business, opening Best Buy # 513, Northlake (?), when my partner in crime, this middle aged guy from OH named Mike, suggested we go. The Goldrush showbar, yes indeed. Once there, I proceeded to break the cardinal rule of strip clubs, and that is I promptly developed a crush on the first girl who danced for me. In this case, a statuesque blonde named Tabitha. I spent every available moment (over the next couple days, anyway) at that club, along with every available dollar of my per diem, and then some. I did end up figuring out that I was being a complete and total ass about the whole thing, and thankfully, came to my senses prior to my departure of that fair city. To this day, I still have a weakness and unnatural affinity for dancers...[sigh]... (I really do seem to have a thing for dancers...go figure...)

I'm listening to Kenna - Love Hate Sensation now in tribute to your weekend.

It should be noted that I also had the misfortune of being out there at the exact week of "Freaknik", or, as it was explained to me, black spring break. And then we decided to hit Atlanta Underground, an underground mall that's apparently predominantly frequented by patrons of a darker persuasion to begin with, hilarity and madness ensued, but I think that's a story for another day.

I've been meaning to officially link to this site for a while now, as I've read it on and off for a bit, and find it consistently amusing and enlightening, AllThingsChristie. To say that she's a hottie Canadian geek chick with a blog would be to do her a grave injustice, but yet not at all affect it's truth content. It'll be on the sidebar from here on out, read it, enjoy it, check out other links in the sidebar, these are the people to whom I look for inspiration. Or something like that...

Wardrobe malfunction of the week goes to Sophie Marceau, who is actually (and for a refreshing change,) hot...thank god this finally happend with someone who's marginally attractive (OK, maybe notsomuch in that second linked photo, but overall, definitely as compared to Tara and Janet...) and has breasts (or even a breast) that I'd want to see! Yay Sophie, you're still hot, and now a even a little inadvertently slutty.

I'm not what one would call a Paris Hilton fan, but I love Hardee's/Carl's Jr. burgers (yum), and this just makes me want one all that much more. And it's nice eye candy.

Oh yeah, and by way of completely random yet edgy thought of the day that goes in the blog for shock value and/or comedic effect, racial equality will never exist in a world where someone can say "big black cock" (in whatever context really, it doesn't matter all that much) and be taken seriously, but not "big yellow cock" and not be laughed out of the room. That's a hypothetical, by the way. Maybe.

More tomorrow...

Really just F-ing (effing?) WEIRD...

Ok, so I finally get around to googling the term "vueaskew" just to see what there is to see. No big surprise when only five resulting links come up. However, one that's listed doesn't look familiar, at "blogshares.com":

http://www.blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=http://vueaskew.blogspot.com%2F

It looks like a stock ticker entry, but my blog is the commodity in question. Upon closer inspection, it appears as though my blog's valuation is 1000 blog dollars, divided by a total outstanding share count of 5000, for a per-share price of 20 blog cents.

A quick link to their homepage reveals that "BlogShares is a fantasy stock market for weblogs. Players get to invest a fictional $500, and blogs are valued by incoming links." Hrm.

What's amazing here is that there's an automated tracking system in place to keep tabs on all these blogs...and this is all happening automatically...how bizarre is that? Naturally, my interest is piqued, as it's all fascinating, so I look up some of the blogs of those I know, and it's pretty interesting the way this works.

D's blog ($3,150 high, currently $1,000) and Practicing Hedonists ($1,122) both have/had higher valuations than I do, [partly] because I link (or linked) to their sites, but Rosie and Capricious Acumen aren't even represented. The Superficial ($126.233), Rollertrain ($33,048), News of the Weird (Daily) ($2,855), Hedonistica ($1,409), and even AllThingsChristie ($1,356, a link I'll be adding to the sidebar soon...funny stuff) are MUCH higher, due primarily to the nature of those sites and the fact that they're a lot more established, and thus have link traffic both in and out.

It appears that my blog was added to the index on January 05, 2005, at 18:21, and D's was added 40 miutes later, a 19:01, though she started hers months before I did. Practicing Hedonists was added sometime in February, a couple weeks after he started it in January.

Hrm, more research is called for, and I've registered as a user on that site. This could be very interesting, and I feel a whole new level of time sinkholeness coming on...

Incidentally, to check any blog's value, or if it's in the system at all, just follow this link:

http://www.blogshares.com/blogs.php?blog=http://vueaskew.blogspot.com%2F

then replace the vueaskew.blogspot.com in the nav bar to any blog address you want. Post interesting finds in the comments, if you so desire...I can seriously totally see myself wasting all kinds of time on this...

Ooh, it's Friday the thirteenth [insert lame Jason Voorhees reference]...

Police blotter fodder...

Police blotter news...

Sunday, May 08, 2005:

Huntersville: An exceptionally well-endowed Asian man, 32, was arrested today after an extended police chase on northbound interstate 77. Gene Chang, a transient, was observed traveling at a high rate of speed, according to NC state police. Upon further research, it was discovered that he was not in possession of a valid driver's license, registration, or documentation of any kind. Mr. Chang allegedly has outstanding warrants in several states, and a lottery system will be in effect to determine order and priority of extradition.

Needless to say, that's not exactly what happened, but Trooper Emmons was really cool about the whole deal (despite the fact that I'd just lost my money clip and only had a Sam's Club card by way of ID), and rather than arresting me, issuing the five or six tickets he should have, and effectively making any sexual interactions I might be having that day exclusively male, he graciously knocked my speeding charge down to 84 in a 65, and driving without an NC operator's license, and sent me on my merry (albeit cranky) way. Oddly enough, getting stopped only served to lighten my mood...Not all the way, though, and ultimately, I arrived at the resort in dour spirits. The rest of Sunday went swimmingly, with many precious moments of friendly bonding, and it was soon after my arrival that my outlook changed greatly and for the better.

Monday consisted of a late rising, some picking up of post-party disaster, and a lovely Mother's Day dinner with dear friends. Jeffrey's in Mooresville has a succulent New York Strip with a particularly tasty gorgonzola bacon glaze, a light and nutty/citrus-y tilapia filets, and an exceedingly juicy spinach-and-brie stuffed pork chops. The patio was fantastically suited to the absolutely amazing day, and in all, it was a wonderful experience.

Spent Tuesday afternoon/evening with the lovely Ms. T, wherein lovely conversation was had, and a late-ish trip to Midtown was called for. Their buffalo shrimp was an utter disaster, with six little anemic shrimp vying for attention on a large bed of shredded lettuce. The crumbled bleu cheese sprinkled atop them was fine, but they themselves were overcooked, the breading was soggy, and the hot sauce was tepid at best. Fortunately, however, we inadvertently picked half-price wing night to cruise in, and a frighteningly large platter of barbalo (Bar-B-Q/Buffalo mix) wings was designated, delivered, and devoured. Yum.

Soylent Green...is people! I saw this film last night, after hearing about it many, many years ago. Charlton Heston, even in his heyday, was not an attractive man. Nor was Chuck Connors, for that matter...now the chick, Leigh Taylor-Young, is kind of hot even 32 years later...she reminds me of someone, but I can't quite place who...we should remake this movie with William Shatner in the lead...and with far less shittiness. Seriously, I was led to believe that this was a much better movie than it was, but the effects were crappy, the acting was crappy, the storyline and premise were crappy, flow was bad, and just flat all around.






So I downloaded the pilot episode of "The Ultimate Fighter", a reality show featuring hottie Willa Ford (with whom I've wanted to do filthy things for years now) as the host. The premise of the programme is that sixteen mixed-martial arts fighters live in a house, a la The Real World, complete with requisite drama, while individuals are eliminated until two are left, one in each of two weight classes, and these two individuals will then assume a "three-year, six figure" UFC contract. Woo friggen hoo. Go on a crappy reality show, sell your anonymity for the mere 12.5% chance of "winning" a contract worth just over $33K/yr? Fuck that shit. Hell, I don't even like most sports, let alone so-called "ultimate" fighting.

With that being said, the show itself looks somewhat promising (in it's way) in the first episode, even though Willa's featured in all of about 60 seconds of footage. Granted, she looks fantastic, and is dressed in a suitably slutty fashion, with some manner of cleavage-baring, ass-clinging, ab-exposing, leg-flashing, or hip-hugging low rise, deep v, cutoff, too small, or generally inadequate attire. Just enough to get the male audience drooling. To make a long story short, I've become inadvertently hooked on the show, if for nothing else, a pedestrian curiosity to see who the last two are. Plus, there's a ton of the requisite reality-show drama, joy.

It really amazes me that no matter how seemingly original the premise of the show is, ultimately (no pun), they fall back on the cookie-cutter reality show formulas and devices. It's almost inspiring how true to the recipe they are too, perverting even the most straightforward of ideas in order to bend it to the format of the reality magic bullet, ah well. Although I will say I wish I was the president, this Dana White guy (in the suit in the above photo.) I don't know the first thing about him, as I've not done any research whatsoever, so any or all of this is conjecture and I could be completely wrong. Here's this guy, who's clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer (nor even the second sharpest), who's basically invented a sport and the marketing machine to go around it. Now he's rich, with a relatively high profile, and assloads of cash. Nice. I need to invent a highly marketable sport. Hrm...

Stayed up way too late (to the tune of 8am), as stated in yesterday's non-post post, watching the macho show, Soylent Green, and playing that maddening air hockey game. As a result, happened to sleep in until just after 3pm, with a complete inability to wake up and de-fog from the grip of slumber.

Meet T for dinner, cruise over to the SouthPark area for patio goodness at the Village Tavern, where the nice black girl at the patio hostess station politely informs us that they "don't quote wait times". Lovely.

"Well, off the record, miss, what would you guess (as an industry-trained professional) would be a rough pull-it-out-of-your-ass ballpark guess as to what you might think our wait time could potentially think about being?"

"Sir, we don't quote wait times."

"Outstanding, thanks for your help and wisdom."

As it turns out, the reason they don't quote wait times is because mankind has no timing mechanism where the increments are long enough that she might be able to express them to me in a convenient manner. The place has an absolutely gigantic area, but an obscene shortage of tables. They invite us to sit an any of the numerous chairs (no shit, there must have been fifteen thousand chairs not associated with "official" tables), where we could still order drinks and/or appetizers, but not a meal, heavens no. I mean WTF, really? would it kill them to get more tables? They've already got the real estate, the chairs, and the waitstaff, why make patrons wait two hours for a "table"? And you'd think that with this dearth of horizontal surfaces at serving/eating level, they'd hustle a little at clearing and turning the tables. Not so. I've seen slugs and sloths move with more efficiency than these guys. Not that I'm bitter. So we cursed the campers, people who'd gotten their checks hours ago, but were still sitting around gabbing away. Naturally, this just made us want to do the same thing once we were seated, and I'm happy to say that we became those very same bastards a short (ok, not really short at all) time later.

Once we were seated, the meal was nothing short of amazing. The day and weather was perfectly magnificent, the entertainment/performer was absolutely terrible, food was delicious, I can't wait to go back.

We shared some crab dip and crab cakes, both of which I thought were heavenly (need to learn how to make those items), the blackened mahi mahi special, and a gargantuan slab of prime rib, followed by the most decadent chocolate torte I've ever seen. I'm having a coronary right now thinking about it all.

What we initially thought was a "band" setting up, was apparently the guy who was an actor, then used to do those Dodge commercials where he'd walk around the cars going on and on about something (no, not Ricardo Montalban, a white guy), but has now decided to pursue his love for mangling classic elevator music type songs. Our first red flag was a stirring rendition of what I finally figured out was Billy Joel's "Piano Man". Played on a guitar. Nice. He continuted to butcher otherwise classic songs, form all manner of innocent artists like Sting, Steely Dan, Journey, Cat Stevens, the Beatles and lord only knows who else. I think my next TV show pitch will be a reality show where music lovers will be put on an island with this guy, and he'll play beloved songs that the contestants will repeatedly and incorrectly try to guess in vain, then at the end of the weekly show, the person with the most pathetic guesses will be unceremoniously be fed to sharks, then the requisite hottie of the show (what's Willa Ford doing these days?) will win a trip to Monte Carlo with me.

Upon the return home, lounged, chatted, then watched Ali G Indahouse, featuring the deliciously yummy Rhona Mitra, seen below...





Film itself was predictably lame, but did have some redeeming moments (seen above, two more photos here and here) and occasional funny bits. The vernacular of the quasi-hip British Ali is almost worth seeing(/hearing) in and of itself.

In the Art-Imitates-Life-(Or-is-it-the-other-way-around)-Department, it appears that Dave Chappelle has become one of his crazy-ass skits by flying to South Africa, checking into a nuthouse there, and screwing the proverbial pooch on the Season 3 Chappelle's Show launch scheduled for the end of month. Way to blow $50 mil, Dave...hope your contract had the usual "crazy clause/rider" written in. But I can't say I blame the guy, you wouldn't wanna be seen in, let alone be admitted to one of those crappy asylums, in say, North Africa or somewhere crazy like the U.S. or Europe, I hear they're dumps run by quacks. I guess this means Rick James and Charlie Murphy will be parodying you on Comedy Central next year...it was fun while it lasted, eh?

"I'm Dave Chapelle, bitch! Fuck yo psychiatrist couch! Darkness!"

Talk about your time sinkholes...

No post today, as I've been up too late doing this. And watching stupid inane train wreck reality shows. More on that later.

Yawn.

Longish weekend...

OK, please to forgive on the lack of posts since last week, it's been an exceptionally busy several days:

So they're resealing and restriping the parking lot at my inner-city housing project, and naturally, wherever a public project like that intersects with my life, havoc ensues. Project was supposed to be finished in two days, but due to rain on the second day, they took an extra day. Fine, except that I have to park like a block away and walk over to the car every time I need to go out. Then, when they finally get the job done, and there's allkinds of things wrong with the job (in my opinion): one of my stripes (the one on the left) is painted in two strokes instead of one (with a visible and unsightly overlap zone), and is perhaps as a result, crooked. It also extends beyond the chalk line where all the other lines end, and is thus about 8 inches too long. There's a dollop of tar/asphalt that uncannily resembles a turd melted and solidified in a spot directly behind my right rear tire. The numbers are all painted willy-nilly: the stencils they use are incinsistent from space to space (there seem to be no fewer than three "2" stencils, some of which may or may not be upside-down "5"s, two different "8"s, two different "1"s, at least two different "7"s, basically it appears they just mixed and matched a couple/few sets of stencils and went crazy with no regard for continutity or uniformity. My inner OCD/anal retentive persona is mortified. And I'm constantly reminded of how much it bothers me every time I park my car. Grr! Deep breaths, calm blue oceans...gotta let go...

Thursday, Cinco de Mayo, was somewhat eventful; Numerologists will tell us it was 05.05.05 (05^3?), one of those interesting dates to write...Geeky, I know, but hey. Fitness Kel stopped by quasi-unannounced (she still has keys to the place and will drop things off for the roommate), in that she tried calling me, but I'm having service issues with my cell phone (no voicemail and inability to send text messages...receiving them is working), and she wasn't able to reach me. As a result, she comes walking up the stairs as I'm sitting around in my bixers, watching TV and chowing down on cold pasta. Nice. Had a lovely chat with her, then bid her godspeed on her road trip to the ATL for the Mother's day weekend. Visited with L for a bit shortly thereafter, then met T out for drinks...got to meet her friend Theresa (Teresa?), who is supposed to be this wild child. Sure enough, by the time I get there around 11pm, she's stumbly drunk and will not shut up about how gorgeous I am and is it okay with T if she kisses me (repeat 5x). Anyway, it was a good time regardless, and quite amusing to boot.

T spends the night, as she's off Friday, and we enjoy the day together. Dined at a waterfront (Lake Wylie) place just over the border into SC, T-Bones. Quite a nice establishment, the crab dip was delicious, accompanied by absolutely heavenly garlic bread. My mushroom swiss burger was quite sad, however. No more than eight sorry little pieces of canned mushrooms, sitting forlornly atop the most anemic hamburger patty I've seen since the Chicago public shool system. Yum! Afterwards, took a walk down to the marina on the NC side of the bridge, singlehandedly resurrecting my desire and intense need to get a boat, or at least get in with some people who also want one. A medium-sized (23' or so) cabin cruiser, ideally. But I digress...

Friday evening, we decide to stop by the club to see what's going on, but it's completely dead, not a thing going on. We cut out after a little over an hour, and head over to my new favourite hangout, The Graduate, a bar and grill near my place. We'd been there the night before after parting ways with Theresa/Teresa and her date, and there we were served by a most delectable young (mere weeks away from her 21st birthday) thing named Michelle. Due to my inability to hear people, combined with a need to flirt with any girl with a cute ass, when I couldn't hear her say her name, I made a tremendous project out of asking her to repeat it (I swear, she said "Mick-elle" the first few times). So much so that she quickly became exasperated, turned around, scooted up her shirt, and pointes at the very poorly-inscribed "Michelle" tattoo on the small of her back. It's at this point that I notice she's got these cute little ass dimples, and is wearing what may well be the shirtest, clingiest shorts in the tri-county area. I'm absolutely stunned, and make it a point to either ask her to show us the tattoo every time she walks by, or pull her shirt up a little whenever she's bent over to help or speak to the couple at the table next to ours. To her credit, she didn't once slap me or threaten to have us forcibly removed. At one point, I even went so far as to tell her that she shouldn't take this the wrong way, and I'm normally not this much of a pervish clod, but those are the hottest shorts I've ever seen in my adult life, and she should be allowed to wear nothing but them for as long as we both shall live. To my utter disbelief, rather than clocking me, she replies, "Why thanks, I do wear them for a reason, you know". Upon our return the next night, we sit at the same booth, but are helped by another waitress. However, I don't feel that this should preclude me from stopping her every time she walks by, and continue with the shirt thing every time she helps this same table next to us. Life is good.

Saturday is devoted to catching up on a few things here and there...cooked a little, did some laundry, got a couple tasks completed, lounged a little, met T to head to the club at around nine, got ready and arrived at a little before 10. Not super busy, but a good crowd, saw some acquaintances, hung out, generally had a good time. Drank a bit, smoked a little and was generally feeling pretty good. Finally got home around 7am, where I promptly crashed and slept til noon.

Sunday, prior to leaving for the LKN, was looking for my digital camera, when I remembered that I'd loaned it to the roommate to take some pictures at a wedding on Friday, but she's gone out of town for the Mother's day holiday. I call the number where she's staying to ask if my camera was here where I could still grab it and bring it with, but there's no answer. Grr. Decide to take the bike up the the resort, head over to Fitness Kel's (remember, she's out of town) to see if there was a roommate (she's got four, I think) around to let me in the garage. No go. I try calling her to see if there's a home phone I can call to just get someone to let me in the garage for 10 seconds! Also no luck. Grrrrr. By now, an hour's gone by, and I'm going to be late to the ball. So I'm feeling pretty cranky at every plan being defeated for any number of reasons, at what seems like every turn. One thing that always calms me down is small bursts of speed on the interstate. 30+ mile drive to LKN, I should be feeling pretty good, traffic's there, but not badly congested or slowing down, I'm ducking in and out of cars, going at several intervals, well in excess of 100 MPH, when what should I notice rushing up [FAST] in my rearview, but a black Camaro...with the reverse stencil on the hood "ecilop etats". Lovely.

Story continues (and spelling/grammar/punctuation fixes) tomorrow...stay tuned (well, check back then, anyway...no tuning to be had here...)

Del cincoest de mayos...

Oh yeah,...in my sleepy haze last (last last?) night, (it must have been good though, there are still piles of clothes scattered everywhere...yeesh!) I forgot to report that a disproportionate number of readers seemed to get hooked on the Crimson Room "puzzle", so here's the next room, the Viridian Room...I haven't done this one yet because I find the whole experience maddening, but since y'all seem to enjoy it, i'll give it up (I'm easy like that). Mikey worked on it on and off for part of today, and he said it's even less rewarding than the first one to finish.

Alos, I had the weirdest of dreams yesterday...so very vivid, but since it was like 16 hours ago, I've just about forgotten it all...I was in a deserted darkish grocery store type place, maybe a butcher shop (been watching too much Sopranos), and some unknown person was disposing of a body or bodies, some of which may have been moving...they tried to explain it away by saying it was for Soylent Green, which made little or no sense, (heard of the film, but never seen it, downloading as we speak/I type) so I needed to get the hell out of Dodge, something something, then arguing pretty fiercely with my brother. Weird. When I got my wake-up call at 11:30am ish, I was thoroughly discombobulated for a good couple of minutes. My caller suggested that it was aftereffects of the E, esp when it's particularly good/potent, but I dunno...could it be? Here it was very nearly 72 hours later...hrm...need to research it a bit...

Two great posts on Rollertrain today (and yesterday), read them for big laughs and poignant insight. Read the comments for my inane remarks.

Spoke with my dear Eurobuf today, think I got her convinced to start a blog, as we don't talk nearly enough...hopefully, this will be a way for us to keep up on one another's adulterous (I think she's a bit against the use of that word) dalliances...here's to hoping that she (we) can convince her to make it public. In honour of her creation of the account, I've inserted a link under the "co-conspirators" heading to the right. It doesn't work yet, but we're looking to change that...

Also spoke with the lovely E today, apparently she's joined the ranks of the auburn locked beauties in my life of late...what is it with all the redheads all of a sudden? Also looks as though we're still on for next weekend, I'm looking forward to having her up. Spoke a bit on random things here and there, she drops me a couple photos, and we call it a night. I need to find her a deal on a fare to Chicago for a weeeknd in June, if it wasn't over a weekend, I'd offer to go with, as I'm still overdue on a visit myself, but eh, I'll get around to it...

Had quite a lengthy IM conversation with Hottie Asian (California) Jen (remember her?!), neither of us has been great with calling and/or keeping in touch, but apparently she's been without internet for the last couple months...still, good to reconnect with her, hope it sticks this time...

Linky love: (or "More shit ganked from Rosie's old posts")

-I about pissed myself watching this flash animation...it's like OddTodd's take on nuclear holocaust...too funny! (Especially all the colloquial vernacular...FU, STFU, WTF, dude, 'sup, "The Chinese sons of a bitches!", etc.
-Semi-amusing (yet mortifying) Lip-syncing Asian boys. (Page loads kinda wonky...alternately, try this link. I think these guys are Chinese (Probably Taiwanese, which is even scarier...I'm fairly certain this is meant to be satirical, but goddamn, it's seriously mortifying to watch...consider yourself warned...At least they don't have perms...

OK, guess that's it for now...

Grr, the concurrent user tool to the right seems to be broken, how ghetto. Hrm, now I'm a liar, as it appears to be working again...tres bizarre...

Now running through the 'pod: Tweak featuring Robina - Watching You (12" Mix)

May Day & other commie devices...

One of my favourite lines in the classic film, Office Space, goes something like this:

Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston, in the performance of his career): So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.
Dr. Swanson (Some guy I don't recognize from anything, ever.): What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah.
Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.

My life thus far this year is kind of like that, but at the other end of the spectrum. Every weekend you see me, that's the best weekend of my life. This past weekend was no exception, with the pathetic lack of posts over the last several days as my most readily visible proof. That and I'm still unemployed. And my taxes are still nowhere near completed. However, many heights were reached, limits were explored (!), and firsts were racked up, and ultimately, isn't that all that really matters? While I can't say that no animals were harmed in the making of this weekend, (rest in peace, little junior opossum) I can say that his (yes, I'm sure it was a he, thanks) demise was through no action on the part of any of our band of merry revelers.

Awoke at a leisurely hour on Saturday, made a call to confirm tentative afternoon plans, and headed out to enjoy the simply gorgeous weather and some very fine company. Spent the day alternating between basking in the glory of the day, preparing a leisurely meal, and discussing some of the life-altering events of the past fiscal quarter-and-a-third.

That evening found us at the club with the usual suspects, minus our brave and adventurous creative director, Skip, who was at the time taking his chances with battling the elements in a tube of aluminum some might call a private jet (bastard!), living it up (bastard!) like the proverbial rock star (and by that, I mean shouldering the terrible burden of being surrounded by scantily-clad, borderline anorexic women making out in largely unsuccessful (and transparent, but no less hot) attempts to curry favour with car-show judges...it's a rough life, non? (Bastard! But thanks for taking pictures, Skippy)) And I'm the one people think is the drug dealer. Please. But I digress. After several weeks of a somewhat "off" energy at said club, things seemed to be very much back in the full swing of things. Attendance was way up, the crowd was largely good-looking, friendly, and familiar, yet new at the same time. Met some new people, got reacquainted with others, vigorously probed (and with twice the normal concurrent diligence) the depths of certain relationships, with exceptionally copious and pleasing results, all aboveboard and without any shady backdoor shenanigans whatsoever.

At this point, I should probably also make note that my prior observations on the effectiveness and/or cross effects of the alc/E/V cocktail were perhaps a bit premature (at best, completely unscientifically derived at worst, and in either instance, should be immediately discarded,) and that more research will definitely be needed. Developments as they occur; procedures and control groups must be planned and organized...

A couple three new prospects were unearthed, and the coming weeks will tell which, if any should come to fruition. (Fingers crossed here)

Witnessed some drama among some other peripheral acquaintances, but being the friends we were, we jumped in after the fact to see what could be salvaged of the regrettable situation. This relates to some extent to the last paragraph.

6am came far too quickly though, and the drive back to the resort post-party was an excercise in multitasking, as one of our newfound friends was intent on testing the limits of Skip's and my navigational/focus-on-the-job-at-hand abilities, and my ability to drive with no hands, keep the rubber side down, not exchange paint with the 'hoe, and master the art of digital still/motion photography, all while maintaining some semblance of normalcy on a phone conversation, and not draw the attention of the boys in blue. I did pretty damn well, if I do say so myself: 'hoe and ghetto fabulous Lex made it away unscathed, phone and digicam didn't get chucked out the window, photos turned out pretty damn fine (again, by no one's determination but my own,) and I got a decent story out of the deal. While the story value in and of itself probably doesn't beat the time when I drove my 5-speed stick shift Datsun 280ZX while on the phone, eating an ice cream cone (soft serve), and approaching a toll booth without any change (and this is before the i-Pass or any sort of electronic collection device), the pictures and memories of this particular instance were MUCH more memorable. (I wish I could show you, really!)

This weekend also wins the dubious award for "Latest night out", with the last survivors of our Saturday night group (myself included) finally crashing at something like 12:45-1:00pm Sunday afternoon. However, being a recovery Sunday, being up again at around 3pm, however difficult and contraindicated, seemed to have little to no effect on the partygoers' collective staminas.

Sunday recovery efforts were well-received by all that I'm aware of, with stellar performances from J (of the J^2s, and miss strawberry (She needs a new moniker, that's too much of a pain to type) with her exceptionally cutely filled-out polka dots [shudder]. Really, I wish I could show you pictures.

Party to the wee hours, crash, head back early afternoon Monday, and the proceed to do absolutely and completely nothing. No blog entry, no late Sunday paper reading, no movie, no TV, nothing. Well, I did manage to rent a 16X dual-layer +- R/RW DVD burner from CompUSA, and went ahead and started moving some of this glut of internet-sourced TV programs to DVD (Sopranos S1-5, Scrubs S1-4, the full Futurama series S1-5, etc.)

Tuesday morning (just barely) finds me in good spirits, catching up on some e-mail, a couple phone calls, and a reconnection with the lovely Ms. T. She and I have barely spoken in a week, after a torrid and very prolific first couple of weeks, and she demonstrated admirable restraint in not having chased me down, despite my very insensitive lack of any calls or correspondences whatsoever. Fortunately for me, she's free for the evening, and we make plans to head out for an evening, and meet up with a friend/co-worker of hers at a bar in Downtown Rock Hill she frequents. So THIS is where all the Winthrop college hotties hang out. For a podunk dive bar in the middle of a deserted quasi-downtown area, this place was packed to the rafters with hotties.

Great time, very glad to see T after a considerable absence, here's to hoping that this month as the rest of the year is filled with balance and happiness. Lord knows I should be the absolute last one to hope for more and better luck, but eh...whatever works.

With that, I'm off to bed, kiddies...take care of one aonther, and we'll see y'all soon...

-Gene