Random shit.

Not as in excrement. That would be gross.

Nope, just a few simple tidbits of cool stuff on the Interwebs for you to enjoy...or not. It's entirely up to you. But you will be a silly bitch if you don't. So there.

Our Princess of Hotness, Violet Blue (Gia is the Queen, natch!), turned me on to this website (NSFW) just the other day. In it are some of the hottest and real looking women in all their nekkid glory. Like the url says, it's naked girls photographed in the bed of the artist. I'm a huge fan of the anonymous girl in the fishnet body suit. Oops...I just came a little bit again.

This just might be the funniest and/or scariest picture I've come across in a while. I dunno what is worse. Damien in the background or the 12-year old whores up front. Yeah...probably Damien.

Do you like bacon? Yeah, I'm talking to you. You know you like it. You know you want it. But would you wear it for a bra? You would...wouldn't you? Sicko!

Esquire magazine believes that there are 75 essential things that every man should know. Most of them are crap, but I happen to believe very strongly in #24. Sapphire Gibson...up...dry, but not too dry. Snap snap!

Did you ever think that Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch from the Avengers were a little, um, too close for a brother and sister? Yeah, so does Cracked.com, and they include 5 other creepy comic-book characters for you to ponder. So ponder away, muthafuckahs!

Finally, it's the one you've all been waiting for...the Origin of Booze! OK, it's really not that exciting, but kinda interesting in a stupid way. Leave me alone!

Mad props to the kids over at GorillaMask, by the way. What? Do you think I find this shit on my own?

Bela Lugosi's Dead

The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Red velvet lines the black box
Bela Lugosi's dead

- Bauhaus (1979)

So, perhaps, is the depiction of the modern vampire in literature and film.

This has been on my mind since last night when I watched the film adaptation of 30 Days of Night. It was a perfectly acceptable vampire film, I thought. But like so many recent efforts in the genre, it fell short of what it could have been. "Scary" is the word that comes to mind. While the premise was interesting - vampires descend on the northernmost settlement in Alaska to feed on it's inhabitants during it's extended period of night - I thought it failed mostly for not accomplishing what John Carpenter did so well in The Thing. It didn't play enough with the crushing terror of the cold and isolation of the town while dealing with the worst monsters from our nightmares.

I'm a big fan of the genre...too much so, most likely, for my own good. I've read everything from the classics ("The Vampyre" by Polidori, "Feast of Blood - Varney the Vampyre", "Carmilla" and "Dracula"...of course) to the neo-classics by authors like Dan Simmons, Anne Rice, Brian Lumley, S.P Somtow, Tanith Lee, Robert R. McCammon, Nancy Collins, Stephen King, Suzy McKee Charnas, Fred Saberhagen and so many others. All have a certain appeal, but only a handful are truly terrifying.

I would single out King's "'salem's Lot" as one that succeeds on all fronts. Scary, smart and it works as a Horror story on so many levels. Vampires, haunted house, ghost town...you name it. Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" - not a vampire novel - works for me the same way. Probably my favorite works from either author, although King wrote so many great books back in the day that it's difficult to choose a favorite from his catalogue.

F. Paul Wilson recently wrote a violent and very scary vampire novel called "Midnight Mass". In his forward he mentioned that he was tired of reading about the vampire in modern literature as a romantic figure. A not-so thinly veiled jab at Anne Rice, if you ask me. He wanted to write a vampire novel that brought vampires back to their atavistic, evil roots. Even if that's not entirely true per the classics of the genre. I appreciated his attempt although he doesn't quite hold a candle to some of these other author's in terms of quality writing. It was still a scary ride.

It's a bit more difficult to find a truly scary film in the genre. The classics like Nosferatu (still chilling) and Dracula (still campy) set the tone for the following 70+ years of film vampires with most serving as blatant ripoffs. Some of the Hammer series of vampire films in the 60's/70's and their ilk were actually quite scary and atmospheric at times, but also campy and silly at others.

More recent offerings like George Romero's Martin, Near Dark, The Addiction, Fright Night, The Lost Boys and The Hunger all work on various levels, but none really scare the bejesus outta ya. Then there is the latest trend in vampire films...probably started by Wesley Snipes in Blade. The vampire as the sexy superhero in an action-packed CGI blockbuster. Underworld and it's sequel, the Russian Night Watch and Day Watch (much more human and interesting than their American/British brethren), Van Helsing, I Am Legend and the rest of the Blade films fall into this category. Like I said earlier...action films, not vampire films.

Where is the next scary vampire film or novel? 30 Days of Night was a game try, and the vampires were nothing if not evil incarnate. But I just wish that the filmmakers would have tried harder to give us the more complete feeling of isolation and terror that the premise promised.

PS - Remember to check out the the awful Alba-ness going on at the MovieGrenade. You'll be sorry you did. Huh?

Of things "unread"

BLATANT SELF-PROMOTION - OK, we are down to the finals of Ookami Snow's Favorite New Blog of 2008. It's me against Liz in a steel cage match. If you wanna be involved in the process, you gotta go here to do it - the rules for voting are included in the post. He put up an actual survey now, so if you left your vote in the comments sections before ya gotta go back and vote the proper way now. It doesn't matter who you vote for, as long as it is me. - Earl

Nicked this from Steph of Incurable Insomniac fame. I've also nicked the term "nicked" from Andrew of White Rabbit fame. That's how I roll.

Here goes:

"What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish." I've added a little flourish, as I often do, with some wise-ass comments. Once again, that's how I roll.

1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - and it wasn't easy. Very long book.


2. Anna Karenina


3. Crime and Punishment - don't even know why I tried.


4. Catch-22 - not even a Vonneg..., oops, Heller fan (Thanks Downtown Guy!).


5. One Hundred Years of Solitude


6. Wuthering Heights - wound up really liking it.


7. The Silmarillion - but I tried. I really tried. Over. And over again.


8. Life of Pi: a novel


9. The Name of the Rose - after I saw the film.


10. Don Quixote - read it in college, but turns out I didn't have to.


11. Moby Dick - finally two years ago.


12. Ulysses - ugh!


13. Madame Bovary - I like saying "Gustave Flaubert". It's fun!


14. The Odyssey - read it first on my own and then later for school.


15. Pride and Prejudice


16. Jane Eyre


17. The Tale of Two Cities - my favorite Dickens work.


18. The Brothers Karamazov


19. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies


20. War and Peace - impossible!


21. Vanity Fair - don't remember much though.


22. The Time Traveler’s Wife


23. The Iliad - same with The Odyssey. First on my own...later for school.


24. Emma - This was made into the movie with Alicia Silverstone, right?


25. The Blind Assassin


26. The Kite Runner


27. Mrs. Dalloway


28. Great Expectations - my least favorite Dickens work.


29. American Gods - hard to believe this is on the list. Are there really a bunch of people out there buying Neil Gaiman novels and not reading them?


30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius


31. Atlas Shrugged - I tried reading Rand when researching Objectivism, but I found her to be fucking ponderous.


32. Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books


33. Memoirs of a Geisha - I stopped when I realized it wasn't Asian erotica. Very sad.


34. Middlesex


35. Quicksilver - I've wanted to read Stephenson, but haven't gotten around to it yet.


36. Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West - couldn't get through the sequel, though.


37. The Canterbury Tales - Love me some Chaucer.


38. The Historian: a novel


39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man


40. Love in the Time of Cholera - "It's about girls, right?" - Rob Gordon.


41. Brave New World


42. The Fountainhead - See Atlas Shrugged.


43. Foucault’s Pendulum - One Eco book is quite enough for me, thank you.


44. Middlemarch


45. Frankenstein


46. The Count of Monte Cristo - I think for school. Can't imagine reading it on my own.


47. Dracula - read a lot of Stoker in my teen years. Also attempted to read Feast of Blood (Varney the Vampire) in those days, but never made it all the way through.


48. A Clockwork Orange - once again, after I saw the film.


49. Anansi Boys - what's with all the Neil Gaiman?


50. The Once and Future King - I really wanted to like this series of books, but I found them boring as hell.


51. The Grapes of Wrath


52. The Poisonwood Bible : a novel - how could I have missed out on one of Oprah's book club selections?


53. 1984


54. Angels & Demons - why would someone own this and not read it?


55. The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise) - I own a copy from the 1870's. My oldest book.


56. The Satanic Verses - wasn't Rushdie the guy from the sauna who called himself Sal Bass?


57. Sense and Sensibility


58. The Picture of Dorian Gray


59. Mansfield Park


60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey is a freak. This and Demon Box are his only novels I have made it through.


61. To the Lighthouse


62. Tess of the D'Urbervilles


63. Oliver Twist


64. Gulliver’s Travels


65. Les Misérables


66. The Corrections


67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - never heard of it.


68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - ditto.


69. Dune - Frank Herbert bores the shit out of me.


70. The Prince


71. The Sound and the Fury - managed to avoid Faulkner thus far.


72. Angela's Ashes: a memoir - ugh!


73. The God of Small Things


74. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present - I tried.


75. Cryptonomicon - more Stephenson, eh?


76. Neverwhere - even more Neil Gaiman??? I really don't understand this.


77. A Confederacy of Dunces - it's on my bookshelf...just waiting for me.


78. A Short History of Nearly Everything


79. Dubliners - I wanna know who out there has actually read Joyce.


80. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - "It's about girls, right?" - Rob Gordon


81. Beloved - another Oprah selection.


82. Slaughterhouse-Five.


83. The Scarlet Letter


84. Eats, Shoots & Leaves - there is a joke about pandas or koalas in there someplace.


85. The Mists of Avalon


86. Oryx and Crake: a novel - never heard of it.


87. Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed


88. Cloud Atlas


89. The Confusion


90. Lolita - read this during my Kubrick phase. Not for the under-aged girl. Really.


91. Persuasion


92. Northanger Abbey


93. The Catcher in the Rye - I thought everyone but me had read this.


94. On the Road


95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame


96. Freakonomics: a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything


97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values


98. The Aeneid


99. Watership Down


100. Gravity's Rainbow


101. The Hobbit


102. In Cold Blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences


103. White Teeth - White Fang...yes. White Teeth...no.


104. Treasure Island


105. David Copperfield


106. The Three Musketeers

So I've read a lot more books for school back in the day then I thought I would have, apparently. I would never have remembered reading all of these had I not done this meme. Cool!

My totals out of the 106 books:
Read on my own - 27
Read for school - 24
Started but never finished - 15
Never read - 40

That translates into 62% of the books that I've either read or partially read. Not bad, but it should be higher. Gotta give me credit for trying on some of those. I've noticed that a lot of the books that I haven't read are more recent works, and I don't read nearly as much now as I did when I was younger.

How did you do?

Livin' on a Prayer

I had a dream last night in which I ran into Jon Bon Jovi at a warehouse someplace outside of New York City.

It's not as scary as it sounds. It was during the day and there was a big construction project going on, so lots of people were also around. Jon, as I can now call him, was touring the site with some kind of supervisor and saying hello to the crew. I wasn't working there...I think I just happened to be walking by. But when Jon saw me he stopped and we had the following conversation:

JBJ - "Hey man! It's been a long time. How have you been Earl?"
BBE - "Um...are you talking to me?"
JBJ - "Yeah, man! How you doin' Earl?"
BBE - "I'm pretty good, Jon Bon Jovi. Do we know each other?"
JBJ - "Yeah we know each other. We went to high school together. BBP High...class of '84."
BBE - "Really? I thought you grew up in New Jersey."
JBJ - "Nah! Common mistake people make. I was born there, but I was raised on Long Island where I went to school. Don't you remember me from high school?"
BBE - "Well, yeah...I remember you from high school. I remember your songs playing on the radio when I was a junior in high school. Aren't you 4 or 5 years older than me, Jon?"
JBJ - "Got left back a few times. Spent a lot of time with my music back then so I let the grades slip if you know what I mean. Anyway, I gotta finish this inspection but it was cool seeing you again. We gotta hang out sometime, OK?"
BBE - "Um, yeah...sure Jon Bon Jovi. Bye!"

For the life of me, I have no idea what that was all about.

OK...maybe it IS as scary as it sounds.

NON-JON UPDATE - For all you Battlestar Galactica geeks, you know who you are, here's a little some-some for ya. He's got my vote.

Cloverfield - SPOILERS

Until I have something better to say, this seems to have become a DVD review site once again. For good movies. We already have a review site for awful movies, but I haven't seen any lately.

I watched the oddly title Cloverfield last night in the wee hours of the morning, and I got hooked. I spent more time online reading about it and checking out the viral marketing after my viewing than I did to actually watch it. It's less than an hour and a half long and it felt even shorter. Just like I said yesterday about No Country for Old Men, it left me wanting more...and that's what I want out of a movie.

Now I know that I'm probably the last geek on the block to see it. Most of you (yeah...I'm looking at you) most likely saw it in the theaters when it was released. I couldn't be bothered. I was probably getting laid or something equally as cool that weekend.

Anyway, I've spent a lot of time theorizing as to what happened back on April 27th (towards the end of the film) with the object falling out of the sky in the waters off of Coney Island and I think I have all of the answers. Without and further ado here is my top ten list:

TOP TEN STUPID EXPLANATIONS OF CLOVERFIELD ENDING

1. It was merely some icy debris from the toilets of a an airliner passing over head. The ice melted in the warm waters off of Coney Island (yeah, right) causing an excrement monster of massive size to awaken and terrorize the denizens of New York City.
2. It was Oceanic Flight 815 and the monster that attacked NYC is a mutated Locke. Hell-bent on getting back to the island so he can cuddle with Jacob. I was thinking Hurley at first because of the extreme size of the creature, but he's a widdew puppy dog who wouldn't hurt a fly...much less Lady Liberty.
3. It was just a speck on my TV screen. I gotta clean that shit.
4. I may have had a minor stroke there at the end of the film and I only THOUGHT I saw something plummet into the ocean. That would also explain why I woke up with my head in the cat's litter box. Kinda comfortable, actually.
5. It was a Japanese satellite that fell out of orbit. Upon retrieval of the satellite, the Japanese conglomerate who owned the hunk o' junk discovered a huge reserve of a biological substance that they believed would taste great in their new soft drink, Slusho. What they didn't know is that there was a nasty behemoth that looks like a big cricket whose only source of nutrition was the secret sauce that the Japanese claimed for their own. So it looked for the most Japanese tourists it could find and it wound up in Manhattan - hoping to become the next Godzilla.
6. That last one is one What a lot of fans believe is the actual backstory. Really.
7. It was JJ Abrams now massive ego crashing down to Earth. I mean, does he really get to call this a JJ Abrams project? He didn't direct it or write it, he only produced it. I say that without any knowledge whatsoever of what a producer actually does. I'll leave it to Ginormous Boobs to learn me. I've been very, very bad and I need to be taught a lesson. Hard!
8. It was a space shuttle filled with about one hundred thousand MacGuffins. That's a lot of MacGuffins.
9. It was Will Smith returning to Earth after planting a virus in the mothership that would eventually bring down the advancing alien horde. He arrived alone in NYC to wind up fighting a horde of a different kind - CGI vampire thingies. He was quoting as saying "Aw...HELL NO!" upon arrival. It got even more ridiculous after that! (Note - "horde" is easily one of my favorite words. Just thought you would like to know - Earl)
10. It was the long-awaited return of Xenu. He has come back to claim Suri Cruise as his intergalactic bride. Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

OK...so that was only 9 things. Gimme a break. I haven't had my coffee yet.

Sheesh!

No Country for Old Men

I'm a big fan of the Ethan and Joel Coen. Huge fan. It's no surprise that The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? are way up there on my favorite films of all-time. I'm not ready to put it up there with those two films because I've only seen it once and it usually takes a few viewings of a Coen Brothers film for me to truly appreciate their work, but No Country for Old Men is a fantastic piece of work - in my opinion.

We finally made the time to watch it last night after about three weeks of putting it off. We had it shipped to us from NetFlix in the middle of last month, but we always put if off for some reason or another. Now...I wanna watch it again.

Filled with great characters (performed by great actors), the film is so filled with nuance and intelligence that it almost manages to make you feel like you are reading a really good novel half-way through your viewing of it. It certainly didn't hold to the conventions of a typical Hollywood movie. If you are expecting things to be wrapped up in a tidy little package by the time the film is over, then No Country for Old Men is probably not for you.

But you should watch it anyway. Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin are enough reason alone to watch it. These three leads, while never sharing any screen time, captivate you with their quiet, often introspective performances.

This film, like all of my favorite films, leaves you with almost as many questions as it does answers. It leaves you wanting more. And that's all I really want out of a movie.

Well, that and some gratuitous boob shots.

PS - This was my first post using Blogger's new "scheduled post" feature. It allows you to schedule the posting of a, um, post for some time in the future like so many other bloggy sites out there already. Don't know if I'm going to use it often, but maybe. I tend not to have more than one post written and ready to go at any given time. But it's nice to have the option. Keep going Blogger...you still have lots to fix. Like the stupid way you add pictures to the text editor where it screws up the spacing on the rest of your post. I fucking hate that!

"There can be only one"

Enough of that sad bastard silliness from the past few days. I'm movin' on. It's time to play a game called "there can be only one". Clunky name, I know...but if you are a fan of the film Highlander (and really...who isn't?) then you know the game. I slice your head off with an antique katana and I drink your milkshake. How's that for combining movie ephemera? "Ephemera" is not even the proper word to use, but sometimes I like to pretend that I'm smarter than I actually am by using big words that kinda sound right until someone calls me out on it. So I'm doing it first. There can be only one.

Here goes:

There can be only one Kentucky Derby winner. Yeah, who cares...right? I don't approve of the riding of humans on the backs of any animals unless there is the appropriate amount of sexual tension. What I do approve of is a finely made mint julep. Only the best Kentucky Bourbon, only the finest shaved ice, only the mintiest, um, mint. And your good friend Earl as mixologist. That's what I'm doing later this afternoon. Don't you wish your boyfriend was hot like me?

There can be only one Democratic nominee for President. I've been going back and forth on this, and while Vice President Bob Russell seems to have more experience I think I'm going to have to go with Congressman Matt Santos. His ideas on Health Care reform and his Education initiative are enough to sway my vote. Plus I like the idea of voting for the first Latino President of these here United States. What's that you say? I'm confusing real life with season 6 of The West Wing? Nope...no confusion. I'm choosing fantasy over reality because reality is just too damn depressing with the two idiots we really get to pick. And when I say "we" I really mean a confusing delegate system. Plus I don't really think that either Hilary or Obama can beat Senator Arnold Vinick. I mean, c'mon...a moderate Republican from California? That's just unfair. Am I doing it again? Fuck!

There can be only one winner on Survivor. Yeah, I know....blah blah reality TV sucks blah blah. Fuck that! I still love me some Survivor. And this last episode was a really great one. After two weeks in a row where a contestant with a hidden immunity idol got blindsided and voted off without using it, we finally get a contestant who is smart enough to deserve the idol. Amanda played it on the down low. She knew that everyone except Parvati was going to vote her off. She even got Parvati to say who she was going to vote for in a real intelligent way. Then she turned the tribal council on its ear by playing the idol and blindsiding Alexis. It was a brilliant move. I've already been rooting for her to win, even though she is constantly sporting a sad puppy dog face, but now it's set in stone. She has to win. Either her or that furry bastard, Eric. He's not really that furry, but I would imagine his pubic area is. Huh, what?

There can be only one winner in Ookami Snow's New Favorite Blog 2008. Will it be litle ole' me? Will it be Liz aka FunnyGirl aka Spartanette aka the Kurgan? Ok, that last one was another Highlander reference. Sorry. He is looking for some help (vote for me!), so head over there and voice your opinion (vote for me!). It doesn't matter who you vote for (vote for me!), it only matters that you vote (vote for me!). I'm voting for Lizzie, because I'm too humble to vote for myself. You, oh my readers and only friends, should vote your conscience (vote for me!),

PS - (vote for me!)

Did you dry these in a rainforest?

Eddie Izzard may be the funniest man on the planet. I can sit and listen to him mumble all evening long with nary a break. And I rarely use words like "nary", but there it is...taunting me.

Here is his take on what it would be like for Darth Vader to order food at the Death Star's cafeteria. And someone with a lot of time on their hands made a lego video for the rant. Very clever. {shakes his head "no"...then nods his head "yes"...then shakes his head "no"...rinse and repeat}

Found this on Gorilla Mask, by the way. If you've never been there it is a wonderful source of everything funny and nasty on the Internets. Plus boobs!

3 girls, 1 hot tub

This one is icky. You have been warned.


Embarrassing Hot Tub Accident - Watch more free videos

I'm not sure why, but I've watched this like 10 times now. I tell myself that I am trying to determine if it is real or computer generated. Then I cry myself to sleep.

There will be yawns

Note: Go here and participate in RW's little questionnaire on reading, um, stuff. NOW! - Earl

Am I the only person around who wasn't enthralled with one of last year's Oscar darlings, There Will Be Blood? Academy Awards for Daniel Day-Lewis and for Best Cinematography plus a whole boatload of additional nominations including Best Picture. As of this writing it has been voted on by over 57,000 users on IMDB for an average rating of around 8.5 out of 10 which places it at #45 in their Top 250 films of all-time.

All-time? You have to be kidding me! I know that user-run sites like IMDB often have incredibly skewed results to their polling, but this film was universally loved by film-goers and critics alike.

I watched it over the weekend, and I thought it was merely OK.

And I'm kinda sick of Daniel Day-Lewis, to be honest. He's a talented fellow, to be sure. But does he need to get nominated for everything he does? I thought his turn in Gangs of New York was incredible, but it bordered on the verge of overacting. I thought that he crossed that border in this film with his portrayal of oil man, Daniel Plainview.

You know, his career is beginning to remind me of Al Pacino. Once upon a time, Pacino was a marvelous actor. Then the Academy awarded him for his monumental piece of overacting in Scent of a Woman, and he's been doing it ever since. Let's hope Mr. Day-Lewis avoids this trap in the future. I know he's ridiculously devoted to his craft...some might say maniacally devoted, but there is such a thing as nuance and I thought he lacked any of that in this role. It's the difference between "larger than life" and, well...Godzilla.

Daniel Plainview, portrayed with John Huston-esque bravado and gravitas, was too un-likable and ultimately too boring for me to find interesting at all. I found myself not caring about him, his son, the town, the preacher and just about anything at all in the film. I know it wasn't supposed to be a summertime feel-good hit, but I've got a dark side too that likes depressing films. And my dark side was bored to tears with this one.

I did enjoy one performance in the film. The usually comic/manic Kevin J. O'Conner as Henry was a real pleasant surprise. He usually gets to play the sidekick/comic relief in some semi-big action/adventure films, and it was nice to see him lower the boiling point and really act in this one. Kudos to everyone's favorite "Tooch".

As vampire Willow said on more than one occasion on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Bored now".


PS - I didn't feel like looking for a pic of anything to do with this movie, so you get vampire Willow. Get it? There Will Be Blood...vampires...Allyson Hannigan. No? Crap! - Earl

The Way Back Machine

I've hinted about it before, but I think the time has officially come to tell you all of the infamous Red Lobster Incident. Why is it finally time? Because I had kind of a boring weekend. I've run it by Slyde, and he begrudgingly has given his approval for this tale to finally be told.

Let me take you all back to the carefree days of the early 90's. A time when free love and generous portions of the drugs of your choice were readily available on every street corner. A time when the worst STD could be cured with a shot in the ass at the free clinic. Wait...I think I'm having someone else's flashbacks. None of that is true. Fuck...my 20's sucked ass!

Anyway, as most of you know, Slyde and I raised some hell back in the day. Lots of time spent in bars, nightclubs and whatnot. For Slyde, it was mostly about meeting new women. I was the shy chap of the bunch...not very successful with the ladyfolk, so I was mostly in it for the boozing on the off chance that some young lady having a bad day would lower her standards enough to glance in my direction. I've grown much more confident in my lady-killing abilities since then, thank you very much. And by "lady-killing abilities", I mean I've got a shovel, a big trunk and a secret spot to hide the bodies.

Let me interrupt this story to give the Slyde-man his props for a moment before I knock him down a bit later on. For all the bashing I provide to his manhood, Slyde has never really had a problem when it comes to the ladies. He always seemed to have a girlfriend or one or two on the vine...ripe for the picking. My own legendary single stretches would sometimes last for an excruciatingly long time, while his may have lasted a few weeks...at most. I've lost track of the number of women he dated before he was married. Now he's mostly a eunuch, but back in the day...he was the bitch's bastard.

Back to the story. So he asks me one day to go to a swinger's club with him. Huh, what? Did I hear him correctly? That's right...he wanted to go to a swinger's club with him. It was a joint around the corner from my apartment that catered to the wild and wacky swinger crowd. Slyde was just fascinated by this shit.

I mean I like the little fella, but not in that way so I was looking for a way, any way, out of the situation. But he explained that they had a "singles evening" every Wednesday night, and this is the night that he wanted me to join him there. You all just know exactly what was up in his perverted little mind. Why spend an entire evening at a nightclub trying to pick up women who may or may not be interested in jumping in the sack with you when you could go to a place where everyone's sexual agenda is already boldly displayed on their sleeves? Sounds like a plan and a half, if you ask me.

Now, as shy as I was, I've never really had a problem boldly going where no man has gone before in places like this. I would do it just for the laugh, or for a blog-post 15 years after the fact. My only real concern was running into someone that I know, but then I thought who really cares. I mean they are there too in the same situation. Might as well enjoy it.

(Sidenote: The very first time I ever went to an Adult Novelty store, I ran into a guy I knew. From work. FUCK! Uncomfortable. Me: "Hey, man...what's up?" Him: "Nothing...wife's away so I figured I would pick up some entertainment." Me: "Cool. Um, good luck with that. I'll see you in the office tomorrow." Him: "OK...see ya!" I was mortified. Not mortified enough to never go into another Adult Shop ever again. Hey, I was mortifed but the kid needs his porn, people! - Earl)

So Slyde shows up at my place and we head out to the swinger's club in our very best swinger attire. Which was probably jeans and sneakers on my part and a Members Only jacket with Capezio's on his part (I keed...I keed). I pull into the parking lot of the joint and settle into a spot almost directly in front of the entrance.

I'm set to head in, but Slyde grabs my arm. "Wait" he says. "I wanna sit her for a while to see who goes in." Okay...I close the door and we sit. Not a lot of action going on, I'll tell you that. But he wanted to see if it was mostly couples, single men or single women going in. In case you were wondering, he was looking for the single women. Shocker, right?

After a little while I decide that it's a little too gay for the two of us to be sitting in the car right in front of the place watching people go in. I mean, I don't mind looking gay every once in a while...for the laughs...but I draw the line at looking a little "too gay". The suspicious looks that we were getting from those entering and leaving were enough to make me uncomfortable, and Slyde was beginning to feel the same way. I suggested that we shit or get off the pot. Slyde wasn't quite ready for it, so he asked me to park across the street at the Red Lobster so we could watch the crowds enter from a safe distance.

I'm beginning to think that he may have lost it, but since I'm mostly riding along for a laugh anyway I do it. So there we are. Sitting. In the parking lot of a Red Lobster. Watching people come and go to a swinger's club. On Singles Night. For about a half-hour. So we traded in the strange looks we were getting from the patrons of the swinger's club to even stranger looks from the Red Lobster patrons. And those people are way more freaky than anyone going into a swinger's club. C'mon...all he shrimp and lobster you can eat for $9.99? That can't be good for you!

After a police car passed by us for the third time wondering which business we were staking out for our next robbery, I decided that it was time to make a decision. In or out. He hemmed and hawed for a few moments, but eventually he just couldn't screw up the courage to walk into the joint hand-in-hand with his hetero life partner (me!). Our evening at the swinger's club was over.

Too bad. As funny as it was sitting in a parking lot of a Red Lobster while spying on folks entering a swinger's club, I think it may have been even funnier had we had the nerve to walk into the joint. The club eventually closed its doors not long after our evening, but every time we drove past that Red Lobster we had a good laugh at our own expense.

I still wonder if there was anyone there that night that we knew. Or if Slyde ever manned up and headed into the joint on his own. Hmm? He never did tell me how he met his wife. ;)

Remember when you played that guy, um, in that movie...

...that was great!

So here I am earlier in the week...watching Robocop for the first time in about forever when I started to think about how certain actors will always be associated with a defining (or not) role from early in their careers. And no, I'm not talking about Peter Weller as the titular cyborg cop, but don't you just love the word "titular"?

I'm taking about Kurtwood Smith, everyone's favorite mean dad from That 70's Show. The guy has over one hundred credits on his IMDB page. He's been in a Rambo movie, a Star Trek movie, a John Woo movie...even that movie with a way too young and topless Alicia Silverstone. But for me, the guy will always be Clarence Boddicker from Robocop. Whenever I see him, I think to myself "Hey...Clarence Boddicker!" Maybe because it was one of the first times that I ever saw him, or maybe because he was such an interesting baddie. Or maybe I just like the name Clarence Boddicker. I dunno, but there it is.

There are a bunch of other actors who fit the bill as well. They may have had great successes later or earlier in their careers or they may have faded into obscurity, but whenever I see them it's "Hey...Brundlefly!" or "Hey...Melina!" Some actors never outgrow a role, at least for me.

Here are a few more:

Ted Levine - He's been in a whole mess of movies as well as a co-starring role in TV's Monk, but for me (and I'm assuming for a whole lot of you as well) he will always be Buffalo Bill. C'mon guys...admit it. You've tried the whole "tuck routine", right? Maybe not as an adult, but as a kid. You know, just playing around. Um...just me? Fuck!

Natalie Portman - For some it's her role as the uncomfortably young hottie in Beautiful Girls, but for me she will always be the even more uncomfortably young Mathilda from Leon (The Professional). The game she plays with Leon is creepy even for a dirty old man like myself. What? You liked that scene? Perverts!

Robert Shaw - Yeah, I know...most of you probably will jump to his role as Quint in Jaws. Maybe even a few of you will think of Doyle Lonnegan first from The Sting. But I doubt anyone else but me will immediately think of him as King Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons. I don't know why, but whenever I see him I picture him screaming "I HAVE NO QUEEN!!!" at Paul Scofield. I'm planning on elective brain surgery to correct this condition.

Tom Noonan - Here's a name you might not be familiar with, but he has about 60 credits on IMDB. Just like Ted Levine in Silence of the Lambs, Noonan will forever be remembered by me as Francis Dollarhyde from the first film version of Thomas Harris' novel "Red Dragon", Manhunter. And if you haven't seen it, this adaptation was light years better (huh?) than the Ed Norton/Anthony Hopkins film from a few years ago.

Rutger Hauer - Let me be plain about this...I'm a Rutger Hauer fan. His name, which sounds like not just one but two different type of guns, is reason enough. Add in fantastic movies like The Hitcher, Soldier of Orange, The Blood of Heroes (weird post-Apoc film with amazing cast), Blade Runner and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and he becomes immortal. But the role I will always associate him with is, of course, the natty terrorist Wulfgar in Nighthawks. And in my head, it's Stallone yelling "WULFGAAARRRRRR!!!" for an added bonus. I think I even lip-sync it with my bottom lip curled ala Sly. It's a sickness, people.

Joan Cusack - She's had a bunch of memorable roles. Who can forget her as John Cusack's sister in Say Anything? Or howabout her turn as John Cusack's assistant in Grosse Pointe Blank. Then there she was again as John Cusack's friend in High Fidelity. All fun roles. But she will forever in my heart be Geek Girl #1 in Sixteen Candles. The dance moves, the bib, the neck brace/retainer apperatus. Sigh. Oh yeah, her brother was in that one as well. I sense a pattern.

There are a ton more, but you get the idea. Who do you got?

PS - Mindlessly violent newness over at MovieGrenade for you to ignore. Go get 'em, kids!

Wedding plans

Ha! Fooled you. Not mine, silly goose! But Gia and I are headed out to a wedding celebration tonight at some swanky joint or another. I plan on looking just as suave as the gentleman up there in the pic, but you know...hairier.

We did have a little spat about it. I didn't want to go initially because we really aren't friends with the couple and I couldn't understand why we were invited. Well, there is one reason. People love Gia! And they want to be around her. I can TOTALLY understand that!

So I bitched and moaned about going, and she said she was more than willing to go to it alone since her sister and her parents were going. I, or course, would have none of that so I told her I would go. Then, just kidding around, Gia mentioned earlier this week that she wishes she hadn't replied "yes" to the invite because she didn't really wanna go. I think I burst a blood vessel in my brain when she said that. We fought again....I apologized again. Stupid me.

So we shall celebrate tonight. Here is what I will and will not do:

• a I will drink my silly face off. Maybe I will have the bartender make me some delicious martinis.
• x I will not do any "group dances" like the chicken dance, the macarena, the electric slide or whatever the new happening dance might be nowadays.
• a I will slow dance with Gia anytime she wants. Maybe dry-hump her a bit in the process.
• x I will not order the fish. Who does, really?
• a I will run to the bar to check results on the Yankee game. I'm not dead people!
• x I will not hit on any bridesmaids. Sorry gals, this gem is taken.
• a I will laugh away a few pounds. Because not only is Gia hilarious, but the rest of her family is pretty funny too! And seriously, I could use to lose a few. :(
• x I will not, under any circumstance, get so drunk that I start waving my penis around as a desperate call for attention. I'll wait until we get home for that.

PS - The new template doesn't seem to like bullet points, so I had to add them myself. Pain in the rear end! Harumph!

Phew!

Emma Watson (of Harry Potter fame) turned 18 the other day.

This is much rejoicing in the land. For two reason:

1. She now gets to have the $20million or so that she has earned thus far for her role as Hermione Granger, and
2. I don't have to feel ashamed anymore when I masturbate while thinking about her playing with my magic wand.

Just kidding...I'm more of a Tonks fan myself. Who is she trying to fool with a name like Nymphadora? Rowr!

He's Super! Thanks for asking.

Weathermen are notoriously manly, and this guy may be the manliest of the bunch.

Source - here's the full link.

PS - I'll get back to hetero-blogging tomorrow - Earl

PPS - I'm playing around with my template, but don't get used to it. I may go back. I wanna expand the width of my main block and sidebar, but I'm having issues. I go into the HTML edit and I see that I can change the width of the outer wrapping, the content wrapping and the main and sidebar areas...but I just keep screwing it up. Any advice, blog-o-maniacs? (This is where Slyde will once again bitch at me about setting up your own site rather than use something like Blogger. Watch for it. - Earl)

Reality TV ideas

Last night on 30 Rock, the back story dealt with a reality show on NBC called MILF Island. The stuck a bunch of Mom you would like to...you know... on an island with a group of horny teen aged boys. The Moms would do striptease acts, cat fight with one another and basically do anything to not get voted off of Erection Beach. High class stuff.

So, those cats at NBC know that FOX is totally gonna steal this idea for next November's sweeps, right? Sounds like it is right up their alley.

Here are a few other shows that FOX currently has in development:

• Prison Bitch - It's a reality series based on their popular action series Prison Break. But no one gets to escape, and pretty boys like Wentworth Miller spend most of the time dressed up in halter tops and lipstick.
  
• So You Think You Can Be President? - In this quasi-political reality show, contestants vie for the opportunity to be reviled by the media and both major political parties in the country. The winner doesn't actually get to be President, but he/she does get the right to have oral sex in the Oval Office at a time of their choosing.
• Harmless, Or Not? - Contestants in this ripoff to Fear Factor get to open envelopes that are filled with a mysterious white powder. Could be cocaine, could be anthrax, could be baby powder. The only winner in this show is Charles Darwin.
• Amputee Island - Similar to Survivor and MILF Island, this show features contestants with "something" missing who are sent to an island in hopes of winning love, fortune, prosthetics and a life-long case of guilt for cashing in on their mis-fortune.

I would watch one or two of those shows. Slyde would probably watch all of them.

The second most exciting post ever!

As passionately requested by Liz (and Slyde), here is another post about rye bread. Hehehe.

There were a few of you (White Rabbit, Globus, Lives by the Woods) who claimed indifference or even ignorance when it comes to rye bread. So I thought I would give you all a little primer on the topic. I spent hours of exhaustive research on the subject, and when I say "hours of exhaustive research" I mean a quick search on Wikipedia. The encyclopedia for the masses by the masses. The source for when you absolutely, positively wanna get things wrong.

Seems that rye bread has been around for about 1500 years or so. The Danes and the Saxons introduced rye to Britain upon pillaging, er, settling there around 500 AD. It was because rye was a hearty crop that did well in northern climates. I've never done well in northern climates. I prefer a semi-tropical climate myself. But enough about me...back to the bread!

Rye and rye bread soon spread all over Europe like the plague. Bad symbolism? Sorry. It became the most popular bread in places of extreme mirth like Estonia, Finland and Mother Russia, although real rye bread is German in origination. It was the preferred bread of the Nazi party. Hitler died with a loaf of rye bread shoved up his ass. True story. Look it up. David Hasselhoff, working on his popularity with the German people, has a loaf of rye bread shoved up his ass at this very moment. True story. Look it up.

Rye bread is made only with rye flour, no wheat flour. That's right. A good loaf of rye looks down its nose at wheat flour. No admittance to the party wheat! They will except ground spices like coriandor, fennel and aniseseed, but they draw the line at wheat flour. Hell, in the US they even add caraway seeds (sorry Poppy) to the loafs, and maybe some caramel for coloring...but no fucking wheat flour! Okay...there are some rye/wheat hybrid breads out there, but for purists or Nazis there should never be any integration between the races, er, grains. Did it just get uncomfortable in here?

What else? Oh yeah...Pumpernickel is a type of rye bread. Someone mentioned that in the comments to the last post. Here are some rye bread recipes. I'm sure someone asked for that as well.

I'll leave you with a popular saying in frigid Alaska. When something tastes delicious they call it "eggs on rye". Truer words have never been uttered, my friends.

How's it going with the carb intake, Liz? ;)

PS - I wrote this before seeing that I'm up against Liz on Oookami Snow's blog in his "Favorite Blog of 2008" tournament. Kinda fitting though. Bring it, Liz! - Earl

When all else fails...

...post a pic of one of the cats. Here is Syd looking quite fuzzy and, dare I say, leonine. Huh?


Sorry, but this time of the year my thoughts are all about the Yankees and March Madness/April Anxiety NCAA hoops. It's the "guy gene". I haven't found a way to suppress it yet, but there are a shitload of doctors working on a cure. I am getting a little better. I've made it almost a week without staying up for Baseball Tonight on ESPN

Thank God(dess) Gia is a Yankee fan too! Otherwise we might not speak for a weeks at a time at the beginning of baseball season. Phew!

BLOGGER.COM NOTES

• I see that they are working on another upgrade for Blogger. This one has scheduled post posting, new blogroll featuring Google Reader, Google gadget support and a bunch of other things. It's about time they upgraded around here. I was going to pick up my shit and move elsewhere. Not really...too lazy.
• I don't see it in the new features, but they really should make the comment editor/interface more user friendly. We've talked about this before...so let's move on.
• Maybe I am just stupid, but whenever I upload a picture to a post in the post editor Blogger always puts it at the top of the post and then I have to move it to where I want the picture to be. Why can't I just go to the spot in the post where I want the pic to be and drop it there? This annoys me. Either I'm doing something wrong or Blogger is just plain clunky with this feature. Aaarghhh.

That is all. Have a nice weekend! - Earl

TV is only 20 years old!

Or so it seems by a poll from Empire Online - a film and television review site.

They featured the 50 Greatest Television Shows of All-Time the other day, and it was truly a fanboy''s delight. Just about everything on the list was from the last two decades with most from the past few years.

It's almost like the list was prepared by my inner 12-year old. Lost, The West Wing and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were 3 out of the top 5 shows of all time. Now they are probably 3 of my top 5 shows of all time, but c'mon... Oh, and Firefly, all 10 episodes that they aired, was number 14. Once again, I loved it. But #14?

I know that TV, especially production-wise, has definitely gotten better over the years, but are they trying to tell us that the only television worthy of the list from the 60's and 70's were the original Star Trek and Monty Python's Flying Circus? Even their "old" shows are classic fanboy fare.

Who voted on this list? A million Slyde clones? Wow...a million Slyde clones. That's a scary thought.

162-0

The Yankees perfect season has begun.

I'm off to try to gain access to Hideki Matsui's massive porn collection. - Earl

Here's a picture of the aforementioned Matsui with his new wife. Seriously.