FOR FUCK'S SAKE

GO VOTE.

Cockpunching 2005 into 2006

Whew. Saturday night, a new year's party of epic proportions was held at the home of one Drew Tiberious Harmon. High(meaning low) lights of the evening included but were not limited to:

1. "Happy Fucking New Year" sign.
2. An Armageddon-level new year noisemaker battle. There were no survivors.
3. A plethora of party-centric foodstuffs including a big sandwich and taquitos.
4. Hiding a fifth of vodka inside my tummy.
5. DINOSAUR chicken. When combined with the big sandwich, the flavor almost killed a bystander.
6. Seeing Mary, Quinn, & Lance who I don't see nearly enough.
7. Making new friends
8. Stroked out Dick Clark. Seriously, who the fuck put that man back on the air. I didn't really need to be reminded of my own mortality while I was drinking a gallon of White Russians.

I think I shit a pterodactyl the morning after.

In other news, the hotel that my grandmother usually stays at in Kalamazoo when she visits had 4 guys shot to death in the parking lot. Rad.

Late Night Reading

So I'm reading Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, which is an anthology of short stories collected by David Sedaris, encompassing some of the best work of his favorite authors. I've genuinely enjoyed Sedaris' work for some time, so I figured this would be a pretty decent way to blow a couple holiday hours out of my ass. All of the shorts have been worthwhile so far, but I will admit to being surprised by Sedaris' apparent addiction to angsty tales of uneasy relationships between family members, close friends, and so on. This is not to say that any of these stories are bad, they've all just had the misfortune to be piled into a row. I wouldn't presume to tell Sedaris he should alter his Greatest Hits collection, but I've always been of the opinion that a great short story anthology is paced like a quality mixtape made by someone who is thinking about a road trip. You don't put Gwar's Rag-Na-Rok after Electric Six' Dance Commander, because while you are trying to introduce your audience to new things, you're trying to entertain them at the same time, not put your dick in their ear. You have to change the flow to keep it lively, like say, Del tha Funkee Homosapien's Love is Worth after the Electric Six. Something with just as much in the bottom end, but serious with smart lyrics. Unless you're reading a Poe anthology, you shouldn't run into The Tell-Tale Heart right after The Raven. Sedaris' introduction mentions his taste for angst (excuse me, tragedy- lah de dah), so the collection isn't entirely a shock. Even still, taken individually, these are really excellent stories. Of particular note was Jincy Willett's The Best of Betty. I don't want to ruin it by describing it, so I'll simply call it a definite must read.

Re-Re-Re-Launch

What's up everyone... er, no one?

I'm officially relaunching this bitch one more time. I'll be keeping it to the personal stuff here and posting my political rants over at the Excelsior Reader and Spacefarm Report.

Shall we, then?

Education & the Mind of the Nascar Dad UPDATE

Ted Rall must be reading my mind. That or my page. Well, either of those really, or he's just as capable as I am of being disgusted by the non-stop threats of violence by right-wing wackjobs. Read his latest column here to see what I mean.

Hunter S. Thompson

I'm sure you have heard by now that Hunter S. Thompson has died; apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot. I'm not sure I even know how to respond to this. The man was such an inspiration to me. I can't really picture a world with out him, and with all the shit going on in the world today, I wish I didn't have to. I'm sorry as hell things were that bad for you Hunter, but did you have to leave so soon?

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Hunter S. Thompson

Freedom is Gay

John Avarosis is the writer of AMERICAblog, a lefty blog about American politics, specifically with a focus on the Bush Administration and Gay Civil Rights. John has done much of the investigation into the past of "reporter" Jeff Gannon, and has recently come under fire from the mainstream media because when a Republican is in office, suddenly nobody is allowed to ask personal questions about figures in the public eye. John is a well-known figure in the internet activism arena, having helped launch one of my old favorites; the wildly successful StopDrLaura.com. John has written a rebuttal to the political news magazine Hotline's hand-wringing over Gannon's privacy. It is essential reading.
Go check it out.