Note to self 363: 02/25/2009

This weekend I decided to take Little J and Big D out to an expensive restaurant, and then a movie, in order to thank them for a ton of shit that they've done for me over the past few months. Dinner was great, and they had never seen Avatar, so I took them to a 3D showing of that after we were all stuffed from the meal.

Well, to set up what was about to happen to me, I think I have to back track a bit. See, over the past 6 months stress and weak will power has allowed me to pack on about 10 lbs (don't look at me like I'm Oprah-sized now, dick lick, I'm 6'4"... 10 lbs isn't all that much on me... It's not even a belt size, fatty). I'm not proud of it, and I've been trying to get back on my bare-fridge diet since at least November... But then the holidays hit, then more work stress, and then an Uber-Week... And well, it never came off, and some more came on.

Okay, back to the movie. So there we were, about 15 minutes early for the show, and they started playing that "First Look" commercial crap that they try to pass off as "entertainment" before the feature presentation. Anyway, the second thing they started showing was Kirstie Alley's new Fat Show on A&E, and my GOD, man, that once hot lass has turned into one ginormous fat ASS. Kirstie Alley (who originally gave me fantastic boyhood dreams when she first appeared on Cheers in the mid '80s) is now roughly the size of Tiger Woods' mistresses... I mean ALL 23 of them put together on one scale. As she was talking about how fat she is (yeah, that's the premise of the show: Kirstie Alley's FAAAAAAAT), her neck was splashing around like the sea in the middle of a hurricane. I swear to Christ that at one point she even jumped up and down and the hardwood floor beneath her pleaded for an uncaring god to end its existence... Sitting in my seat in the theater I prayed for the same deity to put out my own eyes, but in hindsight I knew that would have been a bad thing because the last thing I would have remembered seeing for the rest of my life would have been that fat, fat, fatty brontosaurus of a woman causing a 6.5 on the Richter Scale in her own living room.

It was at that point that I had new resolve: I WOULD take off those 10 lbs, and Kirstie would help me. I vowed to start the KIRSTIE ALLEY DIET. Whenever I feel like a little snack in between meals, or another slice of pizza, or one more cookie, I will think of Kirstie Alley's rippling cankles. Whenever I think, "Meh, I can skip the gym today... It's just one day," I will remind myself of Kirstie Alley's fat, fat mouth chowing down on deviled eggs... I must drop these pounds quickly so that I can stop fixating on her... I just might end up scarring myself for life... But at least I'll be skinny I guess.

Note to self 362: 02/17/2009

Call me callous, but I don't understand one specific thing about the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Yeah, we're getting more snow in the Southern US than they are in the frozen canuck mountains, 100+ miles North of Seattle, but that's not what I don't understand. I find it humorous that some papers published a picture of Pedobear as one of the Olympic mascots of this year's games, but that doesn't really confuse me. I found it really sad (and odd) how lame the Opening Ceremonies were, what with the producers sucking the proverbial Native American dick by making the entire 2 hour show about the fact that there were people in this land before Columbus showed up, but that didn't make me ponder the lameness of it all (I've come to accept that the people who put these things on are PC fags who don't understand what "politically correct" really means [i.e. it means "anybody who tries to be PC is talking out their ass"])... No, what I don't understand beyond EVERYTHING else is how the Olympic Games are being dedicated to an *ahem* "athlete" who sucked so bad at his sport that it KILLED him.

Yes, that Georgian luge participant, Nodar Kumaritashvili — who fucked up every possible way you can while riding on a sled at 90 miles per hour down an ice slide — was a third-rate moron who should NOT have been in the Olympics in the first place. Yes, the media is turning him into a martyr (for ratings), but talk to anybody in the world who's ever ridden the luge before and they'll tell you the same thing that the rest of the Olympic lugers and their coaches are saying today (that nobody is really reporting on because it's not as sensational as it could be): "Nodar fucked up big time because he sucked at the luge. He pushed left when he should have aimed right, then completely screwed up his recovery... He fucked things up so bad that he actually became airborne, and that's when he smashed into that steel pole and died. The course was average (not too fast, and hardly any more dangerous than any other luge course), but he just sucked." And to add insult (to the rest of the REAL Olympians) to injury (to the Georgian), afterwards, the Olympic officials made changes to the track to make it as slow as possible. It's now one of the slowest luge courses in the world... Yeah, that's Olympic right there.

I don't mean to speak ill of the dead... Okay, that's a lie, but here my point is that we shouldn't immortalize this wienie just because his own stupidity turned him into a posterboy for Darwinism. I've known people who've crashed their cars and died because they were too dumb to hang up the phone before putting the keys in the ignition, you don't see them dedicating the Indianapolis 500 to them, do you? Nodar was afraid of the course (no other luger could tell you why); he told his father this just before his practice. He fucked up, he fall down go boom. Yeah, let's dedicate a $1.7BILLION event in his honor. Christ... Well, by that logic, if I die from too much internet pr0n I hope that the World Wide Web can be dedicated in memory to me. I'll start working on it right away!

Note to self 361: 12/30/2009

2009 has been a kind of a shitty year. Of course, some good things happened, but as I said earlier, any year in which you have 12 months worth of double mortgages is not a good one.

I did get to go on a triple vacation though, jump out of a plane again, visit my old stomping grounds of St. Louis, and watch enough movies and anime to put a "normal" into a coma, so I have that going for me. I'm even in the middle of a holiday Uber Week as I type this entry, and I've got a date tonight with a hot computer engineer with a huge rack (who doesn't know about this site), so I suppose I can't complain too much.

But even with everything I've covered this past year, there's still tons of shows and games and books and shit that I started, but for one reason or another (mainly because they SUCKED) I never bothered to finish them or cover them for you. So without any further ado, here's my Year-End Wrap Up:

Tears to Tiara: Absolute garbage. You want fantastic animation quality? Well, it's got that, but it's also got a "one new girl who falls in love with the douchebag protagonist every episode for no good goddamn reason" complex going on in it. Okay, so maybe if I hung around past episode 17 (out of what, 24?) I suppose it might have moved on to an actual story instead of just one new girl per episode wetting her panties over the asshole lead character, but I wasn't willing to find out. Free time was in short supply this year and I really didn't want to blow it on this kind of drivel.

 

Valkyria Chronicles: Fun game on the PS3, and, well, stick with that. Terrible animation, and a storyline that was stretched way too thin. But this'll beat out fantastic shows (like Toradora) to the US market because hey, remember how awesome the Sin and Devil May Cry (based on video games) animes were?!?! AWESOME!

 

K-ON!: Really? Do I need to to tell you why a series about a band that never shows them playing their instruments, or has any good music at all in it, with no plot, and absolutely NO character development is terrible and vile? Do I need to explain how "cute characters" and nothing else make for a pathetic attempt at entertainment and a total waste of your valuable time? Good. Didn't think so.

 

Blue Drop: I cannot BELIEVE that this actually got picked up by a US distributor... Blue Drop has no idea what the fuck it's about, and so no thinking and reasoning individual should give a shit about it either. Yeah, I enjoy mixed-genre shows when properly balanced and when filled with characters that I like... Guess what's wrong with this shitty show.

 

Transformers 2 - Revenge of the Fallen: You could not pay me to see this. Okay, that's a lie; you could PAY me, but that's the only way. And you better throw in a wicked redhead or brunette to sit on my lap and rub her titties all over me during the whole thing, because that is the ONLY way I'd subject myself to such torture.

 

X-Men Origins - Wolverine: For a character with such a convoluted and made-up history you'd have thought that there'd be no real problem filling in the blanks for the movie version of his story. You'd have thought wrong. More than likely you've already seen this and already know why it's awful -- I don't need to perpetuate hate... Well, normally I do, I just don't want to think about this poster-child for movie abortions any longer than I already have... Ugh... I was in a theater that got the "Deadpool's decapitated head saying *Shhhhhhh!*" after then end credits. Were the producers and writers PISSED OFF at the fan community? Why would they spend this much money on such absolute crap?!

 

Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes: There is no way that THIS shitty shit is what the late Mr. Crichton actually intended on publishing... I am so willing to bet that he at most just had a basic outline completed before dying, and the book company just paid an intern to expand the master's 5-page idea into a 400-page novel. It reads like a crappy B-movie the whole way through, with no immersion and no magic. Way to rape a dead author's fame, assholes.

I'm sure there are tons more shows and shit that I started and just couldn't finish, or finished and absolutely hated but just never had the time or energy to write about them, but that's all I could think of now. But just to save your sanity, there is something AWESOME coming out soon. This movie looks to be a mixture of Schindler's List, Braveheart, and Robocop. If this doesn't win any Academy Awards next year then we as a species should all just die.

Anyway, Happy New Year and all that crap. Back to the gaming!

Note to self 360: 12/16/2009

This has been a holiday season for the ages!... No, not because it's been awesome, but just because I've never before come to the realization that it was the middle of December so cluelessly in the past. On top of that, this entire year has sucked diseased whore twat. No, I'm not just being a whiny-cranky-pants for no good reason — why don't YOU try paying 2 mortgages for 12 fucking months and see how YOU feel. Bastards...

Past the bitching, I actually did try to do something about my grinchiness in order to try and get into the Christmas spirit as it were. Well, technically nature started it first. The town was blanketed in about an inch of snow last weekend, and try as one might, it is nigh impossible to stay in a bitter mood when everything is glistening with such goodness. And it was wet, sticky snow too, just perfect for making rock-core snowballs to hurl at little deviants trying to mess up my perfectly glittery landscape.

I then spent the rest of my Saturday putting up my tree (meaning I just took it out of my closet already decorated and lit) and watching all my seasonal and traditional movies that I drag out every year: Scrooged, Die Hard, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Always My Santa, and Sorority Girls With Giant Titties and Firm Asses 5.

Then Sunday came around and I bumped into The Skipper at the Sea Wench Pub... Well, I bumped into him after downing a few too many eggnogs (which got me up on the bar doing some spastic Riverdancing), getting smashed on the head by a thrown bottle, and then toppling onto the gentleman sailor and his table with a sickening "THUD!" Luckily it was The Skipper himself who throw the bottle, so he didn't beat me as much as he could have/would have otherwise; he seemed to understand the reality of "cause and effect" better than say Carl or Hitler would.

After I bought him a few beers I was able to talk the crusty old man into doing some caroling/public urination with me. Things started out well enough (well, relatively), but then Old Lady Barnes had to see us writing our names in the snow and call the coppers on us in a huff. Yes, we were doing it in her yard and on her dog, but it was just a silly prank... Though when The Skipper does pee out something just one molecule away from paint thinner I guess I can see her point, but whatever. At least the cops didn't catch us when we started making yellow snowballs and threatened to throw them at anybody who followed us.

After that we wandered over to Dr. Dave's place, and while still a little sloshed we started demanding that he make us some flying reindeer or some fat, wish-making elves. The good doc said he didn't have time for any of our "shenanigories," but just to "shut [our] pie holes" he did give us a particle-activating top hat that he invented, telling us to "go suck a snowman." Oh man did we ever! I mean, we at least MADE a snowman, and when I put that Abraham Lincoln-looking stove-pipe on his quickly constructed melon our creation did indeed come to life... But because we never put in a snow-brain in the creature's snowskull he didn't wish us a "Happy Birthday!" or anything as jaunty or goofy... Instead he just said "NGAAAAAaaarrrBLTHHHHH! YAAAAAAARRRRP! YAAARRRRRP! BULLTWTHP!!! NGYAAAA! YEEEEEEEAAAAAAARRRrrrrr!" It was ear-piercing and annoying, so The Skipper put him down with a snow shovel to the back of the showhead, and then we used his remains to build ourselves a 6'5" buxomly snow queen who we called Melty Lancer. Boy did she ever!

So in the end I guess I did get a little less Scroogey... At least when the feeling came back into my lil' Rossman. Unfortunately, because he bogarted the snowbabe so much, The Skipper had a pretty bad case of frost bite on his "pirate treasure." Though to be sure, he DID ask her to bite.

Note to self 359: 12/02/2009

This has been a crazy start to the 2009 holiday season. First of all there was Thanksgiving dinner, in which family friends — who fucked up the sale of my home a few months ago, set fire to it, and then peed on the ashes — were invited to my parents' house for the big turkey day meal. They refused to apologize for what they did (because they "meant well"), and I even took the time to try and teach them through parable (just like the Jesus) why they were so wrong (and so dumb).

I said, "So, even though you meant well by barging into my house, interrupting a real estate agent's potential sale to a couple with a pre-approved mortgage loan who were on their third trip to my place, and who were already calling their family telling them they found 'the perfect house to start their family in,' while their agent was busy calling up a home inspector 'to check the place out after they made their offer...' even though you meant well by walking into said house with them there and then exclaiming 'Wow! This house is BEAUTIFUL! This house is absolutely GORGEOUS!! I LOVE this HOUSE! It looks BRAND NEW! We should BUY this house, honey!' and then introducing yourselves to the potential buyers under a false (and completely retarded) name (...Ted Ferguson? Really? What, did you think that the full 'Turd Ferguson was just too much?) and (after they looked at you strange and started asking you hard to answer questions like 'Who the fuck are you?' and 'What the fuck do you think you're doing here?') after getting caught in multiple lies that you made up on the spot (like your answers to 'Who the fuck are you?' and 'What the fuck do you think you're doing here?') you 'Ummmmm'ed and 'Errrrrr'ed a bit before you ran away making the potential buyers think you were crazy-as-fuck neighbors, and thusly scaring them the hell away not only from just my house, but from my entire neighborhood...

"And yes, even though your story changes every time you tell it in order to try and garner as much unearned sympathy as you can from bleeding heart believers in our circle of friends, I know what really happened thanks to that couple's pissed off agent contacting my agent about 'psychos in the neighborhood who are chasing clients away for some god-only-knows reason!...

"But anyway, like I was saying, even though you meant well, what you essentially did is like somebody offering to pooch-sit your dog for you while you're away on vacation, and when you get back he offers you a big, soggy, meaty garbage bag instead of the dog. 'Where's our dog? Is THIS our dog?!' you'd ask, but he'd then flip out on you and spit back in your face, 'What the FUCK!? Yeah, I ran over your dog in my driveway, and that's all that's left of him, but Jesus Christ, people! I don't owe you an apology! I was TRYING to do good!'"

As you might imagine, this analogy didn't sit too well with the tards, and the rest of the dinner was rather chilly and filled with spoon-shot peas and flung mashed potatoes. But then the weekend took a turn for the better when the Anti-Turkey Thanksgiving Party commenced on Saturday, care of Chef Jax and Good Lenin. A good meal was had, and many a bad Sci-Fi Channel original movie was watched by all... And then, it happened: UGA (despite their truly shitty season, and the death of hyper-inbred mascot Uga VII) took down #7 Georgia Tech. It was a terrible fight, and Tech played dirty, but despite our many, many penalties we still dominated the Techie Bumblebees the whole night. Our new mascot, RoboUga XX, helped a bit I think, but whatever the cause, a win is a win, and my God does GT suck a big ole, hairy nutsack.

Oh, and sweet Jesus! Before I forget: Do NOT buy the Ghost in the Shell 2.0 Blu-ray disc... It is atrocious what they did to that grand old movie. No, nothing wrong with the video or audio quality, but Mamoru Oshii went back and George Lucased the shit out of it! Meaning he replaced a good chunk of the original (already very good) hand drawn animation with really terrible CGI for no damn good reason whatsoever. Take for instance the opening scene where the Major is listening in on the diplomat who's trying to get that Japanese ultra-programmer out of the country... It's all in terribly shiny CGI now (the Major, the buildings, the lights, everything). Yes, the opening animation to the GitS: SAC TV show from about 5 years ago is 10Xs better than this crap. And the computer graphics stick out and pull you so far out of the movie whenever they appear. Oshii even replaces the fish in a tank in the background in one scene with horrible CGI fish. Ugh... And yes, they do include the original, un-fucked-with version of the movie on the disc, but it looks like it was just copied from a VHS master — the DVD of the movie looks light years better. Fuck you, Oshii, for this "upgrade," and fuck you Manga Entertainment for such a shitty quality port of the original masterpiece. Fuck!

Note to self 358: 11/18/2009

This past week was so shitty I thought that I had to treat myself to a shitty movie featuring shitty people having shitty things happen to them while the world around them blows up in a shitstorm. So I went to see the Roland Emmerich movie 2012 with Bob From the Future. Yeah, the movie is indeed pretty fucking horrible (holy shit, it made the American Godzilla movie look like Schindler's List), and if you thought watching a man outrun a weather pattern in The Day After Tomorrow was bad, wait till you see a limo outrun an earthquake and a city full of angry, toppling skyscrapers, a Winnebago outrace a giant volcanic eruption, and a super carrier outrun Mt Everest. No, I am not making up that part about Mt. Everest.

Anyway, so after we witnessed the global destruction and tidal waves and entire cities falling into mile-wide cracks in the Earth's crust I asked Bob From the Future if he'd ever traveled to the End of the World himself. He said no, he hadn't, and so we went.

I gotta tell you despite the film makers' vast imaginations, they really had no idea what they were talking about in the 2012 movie — or any apocalyptic flick for that matter. First of all, no, the world does not fucking end in 2012, that's just when the Mayan calendar runs out. Believing that that's a prophecy for global annihilation is like looking at a modern calendar and seeing that *GASP!* there's nothing after December 31st! Holy shit!

Anyway, so we time-skipped to 2013 to see the first (of many) cases of worldwide destruction. The cataclysm of 2013 all begins when a holographic disembodied head of the late Bea Arthur appears over the capitals of all the countries of the world (except for Zimbabwe and Australia, 'cause as Bea says: "FUCK 'EM!"). He/she/it then decrees that because the planet mocked her and her penis her entire life she was the first being in the entire universe who chose "E" on the final exam that one apparently has to take in order to pass on into the afterlife (you know it's gotta be one gigantic fucking test if it took her 4 years to get through all 2,009,421 questions — both essay and multiple choice). The question in question is this: If I had my choice in what I would do now, it would be...

A) Go on to Heaven/Valhalla/Shangri-La/Wherever the fuck my pissant "religion" claimed I'd go if I was good in life

B) Go to Hell/Hades/A place with NO virgins whatsoever

C) Haunt the living as a ghost until the end of time

D) Fade into the fabric of the Universe and become one with everything

E) Become responsible for the deaths of 95% of my world because I was openly mocked about my tranny penis my entire life

or F) Become the next "GOD" and have to deal with all that shit myself from now on.

Her gigantic head appearing above the many megalopolises of the world alone caused over 50,000,000 simultaneous heart attack-related deaths, but then her grating and shrill cackling laugh — as she explained that all of humanity was "Doomed! Doooooomed, I say!" — caused major fault lines to rupture, swallowing up entire cities and islands; Jellystone National Park to turn into a giant volcano that melted the western half of the US; tsunamis to blanket all land within 80-miles of the sea the world over; and Godzilla to erupt from the ocean, covering his ears and stomping around Tokyo in a hissy fit trying to get the terrible sound to stop.

But, I feel I must reassure you that although close to 7 billion lives were snuffed that horrible day, humanity did live on... Well, until the Robotacalypse wherein the cybernetic organisms that mankind created to help them rebuild after the "Day of Bea" rose up and started crushing hu-man skulls with spiked cleats... But that robotic rebellion was eventually quelled too, and humanity then began populating the entire solar system, then the Milky Way... Until the Kralogs from Ventura 7 united with their enemies, the Q'the-PtVrgs of Gamma Quandrant 7-7-B-3 to almost wipe us out again. We did defeat them at the cost of the entire center of the galaxy, and we lost the lives of two of Earth's bravest heroes in the process, but even though most of the night sky is black after that, man lived on.

Until the spherical death beings known as the Vumble-Tazks showed up a few thousand years after that, but that was inevitable.

Note to self 357: 10/28/2009

Karen is awesome. She may have done it just to shut me the fuck up, but regardless, I thank her for her gift. See, for the past few years (10 actually) I've been bitching like crazy every time the Halloween season rolled around. It had been a little more than a decade since I last tasted the sugary, marshmallowy, ultra-sweetness of any of the General Mills Monster Cereals from my childhood. Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Fruit Brute, Yummy Mummy... I missed the hell out of them all.

Well, anyway, this year Karen went out, scoured the stores, and apparently gave a bj to a genie, because this past Sunday she came over with gifts of monster delight!

So it turns out that they're still making this shit, just not year 'round like when I was a kid, and they just stick to the big three now too — no more Mummy or Brute — but that was good enough for me! So Karen dressed the boxes up in old costumes and set them all up for a picture for posterity's sake. Then she made me swear to Buddha that I would only open one at a time and spread my bowls out so that they would last for a few weeks. I swore.

Then she went out to get something else from her car.

I thought this above shot would be just silly fun... but the temptation was just too much for me (well, actually pretty much any temptation is too much for me, and I think I knew what I was going to do within seconds of first seeing these glorious boxes on my counter)... And... well.....

I raped my Monster Cereal boxes just like they were Japanese schoolgirls who got in over their heads and flirted with a group of horny yakuza who were pissed at the world after just getting painful full-body tattoos who also knew that they'll have to go home to their bitchy wives at the end of the night. It wasn't pretty...

By the time Karen came back inside the damage was done. Half of Count Chocula was in my stomach (the other half on the floor), Franken Berry couldn't walk right, and Boo Berry couldn't look anybody in the eye anymore. I had gone through a half gallon of milk too (at least I HOPE that was milk on my upper lip). Karen didn't beat me too terribly because of my weak will (she knew to buy another three sets of the stuff and hide them around my house for their own safety), but I did have to promise to watch Poltergeist with her on Halloween night for my patheticness... That movie scares the shit out of me, and has ever since I first saw it when I was six years old in the theater (seriously, my parents were sadists!).

It was worth it.

Note to self 356: 09/30/2009

Joss Whedon is reading my mind or my private diary. He must be. That's the only way he could have possibly have come up with his idea for one of the greatest TV shows of the past few years: Dollhouse.

Yes, I admit it; when Dollhouse first premiered earlier in the year I gave it 10 minutes to prove itself, and it didn't. It failed me. I mocked everything that was Dollhouse to everybody I talked to. I complained that the once infallible Joss Whedon — the man who gave us Once More with Feeling, Restless, and all of Firefly — had finally fucked up and did the impossible: he created a shitty show based on a really shitty premise. I had lost faith.

But then, the Megaplayboy (with whom I used to share "Buffy Tuesdays" with back in the day) started busting my chops for jumping ship and claiming that "Joss was a pedophilic hack whose newest show was something straight out of a diseased raccoon's anus." He told me to give it one more chance, and at least watch the short 12 episode season with an open mind. Well, I did, and now my mind is considered BLOWN. I should have known better... I forgot the first rule of the Church of the Whedon: In Joss We Trust.

Yeah, the first few episodes of the series are not terribly impressive, but the giant over-arcing storyline is apparent from the very beginning — Alpha, Whiskey, the reason for the actives and the tech... it's all there. And all the missions that Echo (my gorgeous Eliza Dushku) goes on where she goes all dominatrix, or simply gets naked and bones some guy — most excellent. But the last half of the season, and then the straight to Blu-ray episode, Epitaph One, well, that's what really made me see that this truly was a Whedon show. The back story, the pace, the scripts... It led me to understand that Dollhouse is right up there with Firefly. Yes, big words I know, but it is true. The second season premiere just took place this past week, and it looks like they're actually taking things even farther than I had hoped they would. If this thing lasts a few more seasons (despite Fox doing its best to bury it like Firefly before it), we are bound to see some serious shit (to misquote Doc. Brown). Everything is becoming clearer, but because of that everything's becoming very complicated too... In a good way.

Anyway, as I was saying, Joss seems to have read my mind in his making of this show. I had just kidnapped Eliza Dushku and had Dr. Dave hook up one of his many brain scanning/swapping doohickeys to both me and her, and then I transferred my essence into her body (and hers into a used mayonnaise jar... Sorry, Eliza). I then spent one of the most glorious 24 hours alone in a locked room filled with mirrors that I, or any man, could ever hope to. After switching our souls back to our real bodies I then ran back to the same locked room (previously a bomb shelter) while my dear Eliza went ape shit and did her best to tear the good Doctor's lab down piece by piece (due to the memory residue left inside her noggin of what was previously done and done and done to her shell while her ghost was sitting inside a gooey plastic container with "Hellmans" written on the side), despite his assurances to her that "it was all just in the name of science!" Two elephant tranqs later and we dumped dropped her sleepy form back off at her Malibu mansion with temporary amnesia and a smile on her body's face that also must have been left over by me. Good times....

Note to self 355: 09/02/2009

Another year older and what do ya get? Well, apparently another parachute jump and deeper in debt. In celebration/defiance of yet another birthday, I took it upon myself to fly to 14,000 feet and hurl myself out of a perfectly good airplane and into oblivion again. My GOD, what a rush!

Nobody was willing or able to join me this year (especially due to the last-minuteness of my endeavor), but I made a few new friends at the jump school, and a good (expensive) time was had by all. This time it was an absolutely beautiful morning when I got to the small airport (despite the fog that overran the area by my house); the sky was blue, the wind was calm, and it wasn't as blisteringly hot as it had been for the last few weeks prior to the jump. Also, no nerves shaking me like a little girl covered in spiders this time either; I knew what to expect, and was just full of adrenaline based on anticipation of the free fall. Honestly, the buildup this time was almost as much fun as the actual ju-... No, that's a lie. But at least my stomach wasn't doing a dance and trying to get me to puke before climbing into the plane. So that's a positive thing.

After I got fitted for a jumpsuit (had to wear one this time, but I thought I looked like an honest to God superhero in it), I started walking around the skydiving company's hangar, watching people bag the chutes, and laughing at all the first-timers shiver in their shorts. One group of 4 frat guys was walking around, acting all tough, ragging on everybody else, and raising up (what had to have been their 8AM whisky intake) mini-canteens in order to toast themselves for having such gigantic balls. I chuckled, but left them alone.

At 8:15 my tandem jumpmaster (Michael Chiklis, who's apparently seen a big decline in roles offered to him after The Shield ended [and especially after casting agents saw The Fantastic Four movies]) started harnessing me up and giving me instructions on what I'd have to do in order to not kill us both at 3 miles up. I assured him that I knew what I was doing, and despite his look of pure incredulousness, he seemed to accept me at my word when I told him and then showed him everything I remembered that I had to do from the first jump. Actually, he may have just been backing away from me out of pure awe when I started showing off all my awesome poses I planned to make as we floated on down to the bull's-eye in the grass. Or he was just too impressed with my manliness when he saw my "Superman" enacted.

After all my interview questions with Sandra (the girl who was recording the whole event, and trying to find out if I left a will, where it was, if I had any valuables in my house, where I left my house keys, etc), I got my heavy-duty harness strapped on, and away we went. I believe that it only took about 10 minutes to get up to 14,000 feet, but it seemed like nothing due to the jokes the pros pulled on us newbies (like goading me into asking if the burly diver in the purple jumpsuit with pink wings was gay because of his color choices [of COURSE he was, and he thankfully knew I didn't come up with that on my own as it was apparently a running joke], and letting huge, skunk-like bombs loose in the small enclosed tin can and blaming others [Sandra completely denying any were hers since any by her would have "smelled like roses"]). Thankfully we made it to out jump height before I knew it and got sick from the stench.

The flimsy plastic door in the back of the plane went up like a garage door (filling the plane with much needed oxygen), and Mr. Pink-wings and some other pro jumped out like they were just out for a 3-mile stroll. I then put on my goggles and waddled over to the opening (waddling being the only way to maneuver with Michael Chiklis attached to my ass) as Sandra stepped out of the plane (hanging on to a handlebar just outside the door), helmet camera capturing me as I sidled up to the opening. THAT'S when my first taste of fear hit me that morning... But I remembered my jump line and said it right into the camera: "Wait!.... I still function!" It was perfect. I even had Michael Chiklis say "Wanna bet?" as he pushed me out. I doubt he had any idea what it meant or where it was from, but it was cool of him all the same. And yes, I am an uber-geek child of the 80s. My line was much better than Carl's suggestion that I quote Keanu Reeves from Point Break with his "So are we gonna jump or just jerk off?!" Carl's a perv.

The fall was incredible. This time I had full control of myself and got to appreciate every glorious second of hurtling at the Earth at 120MPH. It is the greatest feeling on the planet, let me tell you... Well, the greatest feeling fully clothed at least. The wind pushing against you, the feeling of leaving your stomach a mile above, looking down at the planet and seeing houses and trees growing larger and larger, and honestly feeling like you're flying. When Sandra video-recorded me as I fell I couldn't help but smile — it wasn't just for the camera. It's just a fucking fantastic sensation...

Soon though, the free fall was over and Michael Chiklis informed me (with a vigorous wave in front of my face) that he was about to pull the chute. 120MPH worth of thrust was forced onto my crotch harness, and we came to a standstill in the middle of the sky. The weirdest part was looking down and seeing Sandra continue to hurtle toward the ground. She took so long to rip her chute that I would have sworn she was about to become impaled on a pine tree. Watching her video later, it was clear to see that she was still really high up when she herself stopped in midair.

The parachute part down was pretty fun too. You're not "weightless" at this point, but you still feel like you're floating — like Superman coming in for a soft landing. We had about 4 minutes of chute time where I asked a ton of questions about all Michael's jumps, what can go wrong, if he'd ever "done it" in the air (don't look at me, HE was the one who brought that bit of bragging up), and then just some small talk about the weather that we were smack dab in the middle of. The landing was nice and easy too, though I almost didn't get my legs up enough before the final approach (it's hard to do leg raises in that whole harness set-up). Man, if I ever get the funds I am verily taking this up as a hobby.

After that I went and did a bunch of other shit, but I retired for the night with a nice big bite of my new BSG Blu-rays... Yet another birthday gift for me, from me. Seriously, I just spoil myself way too goddamn much all the time.

Note to self 354: 08/19/2009

My family wonders why I never tell them when I'm dating somebody (well, if you can call an average of 4 dates per woman "dating"). They haven't had a clue about the last ten ladies I've taken out... Well, that is until now.

I made the mistake last week of telling my brother that I was going out with this girl I met at the Barnes and Noble (mostly because he wanted to do something the previous Friday night and I was scheduled to take her out on our first date), and now I don't hear the end of his questions, and even my parents' interrogations after he told them... Curiosity is one thing, but it's a constant "So where are you taking her this week? What did you talk about at dinner? Does she have any family? What's her religion? Did she vote for Obama?! What does she like to do in her spare time? Does she go to the dentist at least once a year? Has she ever killed anyone? If it was an accident, did she still report it? Does she like to watch those gay Japanese animated shows like you do? Does she cook? Have you slipped her the tongue yet? (That one was not my parents' question.) Does she talk to her parents often? (That one was.) Does she like college football? Where did she go to school? When do we get to meet her?" I saw her ONE time before that last question came up. Honest to Christ, for all they know she could be a prostitute I met on Craig's List, and they're already picking out curtains for our love nest, and stockpiling newborn diapers.

Anyway, as for Rita (the girl in question), she was alright, but we really had nothing in common. NOTHING (except we were both hot). Our first date I took her to a very expensive and chic Mexican restaurant. The bill was huge, and she seemed nervous the whole time: barely making any eye contact (constantly looking over my left shoulder while talking to me, and never even glancing at my face); fidgeting with her hands like Lady Macbeth; and acting just kind of "off" the whole evening. The fact that even on our second date she would only talk to me by staring way over my shoulder — never directly into my eyes — kind of made me think that it wasn't nerves, but some sort of major internal complex or psychological condition. And then I really wondered about her choice of movie: 500 Days of Summer. She was all eager to see it after hearing all about it from her friends. She said she usually hates sitting down for "long and boring things like movies" (which made me think she was a keeper!), but this one was "supposed to be fantastic!" Well, 500 Days was decent enough, but not an ideal 1st or 2nd date flick. It's a romantic comedy without any comedy where the unlikely couple breaks up halfway through, and it drives the male lead into a deep depression for the entire second half of the movie where he almost completely self destructs his entire personal and professional life. Fun time for all.

Rita came out of the theater glowing and all smiles... I had to explain to her, "Hey, Rita-babe. You remember that movie was just saw?"

"500 Days of Summer? Yeah! That was the best movie I've seen in years!... Well, it was the only movie outside of taking my nephews to G-Force I've seen in years, but it was so great!"

"Mmmm-hmmmm.... Yeah, you know how the entire point of the whole thing was: Not everybody is made to be with everybody else on the planet? Yeah. Well, guess what...."

Now I feel like when I explain to my siblings and parents that I'm not going to see her again it's going to feel like I'm telling them I'm divorcing my wife of 30 years.... Honestly, they won't know about my next relationship until we have 3 kids.

Note to self 353: 08/12/2009

One more Vision Quest down, and another year under my belt... Oy vey, thank Christ that I haven't had to start using a new notch on my belt for a while now. If that ever frickin' happens I'm switching to suspenders. Fuck it. I'll just give up.

Back to the Quest. This year I got to the mountain pretty dang early — I knew I'd have a lot to think about, and I wanted to make sure that I got all my ponderings done before having to meet Dr. Dave at the usual all-you-can-eat Brazilian Steakhouse, where I would indubitably force myself to become intoxicated by beef once again. I made it up the slope in good time despite the rain clouds that kept threatening, and my worries that I left my plastic parka in my car a mile down below. I didn't care; I got myself all juiced up and trippy by listening to old Duran Duran and Aerosmith on my iPod, and dancing around on my side of the mountain, breaking wind at the storm clouds and daring them to get me wet.

Before I knew it the dream coyote came. I tried to ask him for direction in my meaningless existence, but he kept looking away, and when I tried to confront him he yelped and ran to the other side of the mountain where a few other hikers screamed and booked it. Then Mr. Coyote started humping and biting the leg of some ultra-chubby woman whose fat son was finally able to knock the thing off after pelting the poor foaming critter with rocks. By the time it probably took her kin to roll the woman back down the mountain I figured she was looking at half a dozen rabies shots, and an amputated leg... But if that coyote was real, then where was my Vision Quest beast this year?

My answer came almost immediately when I heard a giant ROAR behind me, and turned to face a pretty damn impressive manticore... Really, the older I get the more bizarre and psychedelic my head trips become. Maybe instead of ingesting MORE roots each year I should cut back a little? Meh. I guess I'm just subconsciously hoping that I do O.D. some year before I become some pathetic old choad who can't even make it all the way up the giant rock unassisted, but I digress. My great manticore told me that this was my year. "Grrrrrrrrrrrr," he said in a voice that reminded me like a mix of Ron Pearlman and Paul Reuben. "Rrrrrossman.... This is yourrrrr yearrrrrr."

"Really?" I questioned like a baboon whose ass was finally about to turn all shiny and red for the first time. "Details! Give me details! Are you talking about that giant orgy I've been planning after turning the swimming pool at the 'Y' into a giant Jell-O bowl? Or do you mean that Just Kidding and I finally get back together and rock the world so much that we knock California into the sea? Tell me, oh all-knowing beast! Tell me!"

"What? Errrr, no," said the manticore. "Ummmmm, sorry, Rrrrrrossman, I didn't mean to get yourrrrrr hopes up... Ummm, this sounds really kind of lame after all that. Really, ummmm, this is just going to be the year that you find a ten dollar bill on the ground.... Rrrrremember back when you were 10? And you caused your first Vision Quest by almost dying by accidentally strangling yourself by getting your shirt stuck on that Tilt-O-Wheel at the traveling carnival?"

".....Yeah. That's when I first began experimenting with autoero--.... Yeah. Uh, I remember...."

"Well, in your daze you wished that you could find ten dollars on the ground so that you could go back into the tent of freaks to ogle the muscle woman two more times."

"Hey! She was HOT! Cut me some slack," I said. "Wait, so I finally find $10 on the ground?"

"Well......" the manticore began. "Really, you kind of steal it from that fat woman's fanny pack... The chubbo who just got jumped by that rabid coyote... But yeah. Just remember to take that $10 and buy a lottery ticket tonight with the following numbers! 10 - 14 - 25 - ....."

"TEN BUCKS?! Gotta run, manticore! Woo-hoo! That'll pay for the tip at the Steakhouse!"

I then tore down the mountain, found that the tubby's fanny pack was still on her by the time I easily caught up to her (seriously, it was going to take the giant waddler 4 times as long as a normal [non-obese] person to make it down the rock before getting her leg all chewed up), but figured I was just speeding up my prophecy by snatching it off her equatorial waist and running away while doing my best Woody Woodpecker laugh.

I made it to the Brazilian Steakhouse a good hour before I told Dr. Dave I'd meet him there, and just began eating as much beef, pork, lamb, and chicken that I could. The good Doc came out of the kitchen and joined me at my table 50 minutes later, and whispered to me "not to eat the filet mignon." I learned a long time ago not to ask questions, but I did see him constantly looking around at all the gaucho waiters, and following the one with the juicy beef wrapped in bacon on their skewers. Then he'd whisper almost to himself, "Yes!... Yeeeeees... Eat it! EAT it!" to whichever table had been unfortunate enough to summon that specific gaucho.

After lunch I wished the Doc good luck on whatever experiment he was conducting on the customers in the restaurant, and then booked it to Mehve's place where Mehve, the Weasel, and I watched bad movies till late in the night. REALLY bad movies. I'm talking My Name Is Bruce bad. I challenge you to watch that piece of dog shit and not get that one song stuck in your head! "Guan-you, Guan-me, Guan-di." Fuck! Now it's back in mine.