Tuesday, November 26th, 2002
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11:59 pm - 12A1970
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I found a piece of paper in my pocket that had that written on it and I have no idea what it means. Absolutely none. Perhaps it's the serial number for the alien tracking device in my left arm?
I'll unveil my secret project tomorrow. Flee in terror.
I picked up the new System of a Down album, "Steal this Album!". Of course when I'm walking out the store I set of the alarm because the cashier didn't demagnetize the case. The guard had a slight laugh at the album title. The album kicks serious ass. The only problem is that it is completely impossible to sing along with most of the songs. For example he spits out this verse in well under four seconds:
Peter's pecker picked another
Pickle bearing pussy pepper,
Peter's pecker picked another
Pickle bearing pussy pepper. Why,
Try to sing along with that shit. But it still rules. It should get me good and pumped for the game. Redskins @ Cowboys 3:30 on Thanksgiving day. Oh I hate the Cowboys so bad. It's Dallas week in D.C. and it's a good thing it's a short one because it's the one thing that drives me into a completely inarticulate rage. If the Skinz lose, something is getting broken.
I wonder if google can tell me what 12A1970 means? It can. Isn't google amazing.
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(Get in my head)
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Friday, November 22nd, 2002
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2:28 am - LAN Party
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I did the LAN Party thing again tonite. A lot of people today. There were 20 males and zero females. I expected it to be lopsided but not that lopsided.
The LAN party needs more gals like Morgan. Actually... every facet of my life needs more gals like Morgan. But then the dye wells of the world would run dry :(
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(Get in my head)
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Tuesday, November 19th, 2002
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11:57 pm - It didn't rain today...
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but I still got in some more work in on my secret project. It's coming along better and much quicker than I expected.
The new System of a Down album comes out in a week. w00t! It's title: "Steal This Album!" I love SoaD, but wouldn't it be ironic if it had the evil copy protection on it. Check out the actual cover art:
In the meantime however I'll just have to content myself with listening to Tool's Lateralus for the 666th time :)
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(Get in my head)
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Saturday, November 16th, 2002
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11:42 pm - Rainy Day
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It rained all day today here in Northern Virginia (not to be confused with the broke-ass rest of Virginia or W. VA) So I went to work on my ultra-secret project. All I'm going to say is "Be afraid. Be very afraid." That and leave you with yet another TLA for everyone to memorize: MHN.
BE AFRAID!!!
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(Get in my head)
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Friday, November 15th, 2002
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2:57 am - Chuck is everything
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You knew it was a matter of time before I tied my regection of anti-depressants to Chuck Palahniuk right? Well if so then give yourself a gold star. From the Onion:
O: All of your protagonists are angry and disaffected with some aspect of society. Do you ever see yourself writing a book about someone who isn't inherently miserable?
CP: Wow. Someone that's happy? Shouldn't that be enough? Wouldn't that be sort of a comfort book? I'm not really into comfort books. There are too many of those as it is. Just sort of narcotic books, like my grandmother used to read. They have value like Paxil has value, but there's plenty of them in the world already. There's a shortage of confronting, stimulating, exciting books.
Let's what has actually happened in the real world now. My DSL went down last night at 1:30am and didn't come back on until 9:30 pm. That pissed me off real good, I was real twitchey around hour 15. The last two weeks Matt & I hijacked a GMU computer lab to do Counter Strike LAN party. On Thursdays too just like The Screen Savers.
Oh, yeah. I'm not sure if it counts as the real world but next Monday they're having Megan and Morgan host TSS. That should be interesting. At least it'll be better than Pirillo & Larson or Woz & Mitnick (sorry guys). I hope that no matter the ratings boost from having attractive women on screen full time is, that TPTB don't be stupid like the Battlebots guys did and add Carmen Electra. That woman should never be allowed to speak. No one is good enough looking to excuse that level of stupidity.
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(Get in my head)
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Wednesday, November 13th, 2002
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3:46 pm - One Play
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The Sporting News had a good article today fully explaining just one play in the NFL. It shows how football can be maddeningly complex and simple all at the same time. I love it!
The opening:
"On a brilliant November afternoon in Oakland, Eric Barton's profession demands that he recognize and react to at least four important variables in the next three seconds, all under the raucous roar of 62,660 fans at Network Associates Coliseum."
And the conclusion:
"Yes, NFL football can be a maddeningly complex game. But sometimes the explanations are pretty simple. "Today," Woodson says, "he just kicked my ass." "
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(Get in my head)
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Saturday, November 9th, 2002
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3:53 pm - Drug me
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I discovered that my mother is on the anti-depresant Paxil. I had noticed that she had been acting a bit more chipper lately and I guess I now know why. Of course I’m so fucking self-absorbed (or introverted if you’d like to be nice) that all this does is make me consider getting on some pills too.
I am almost certain that I could get a prescription fairly easily. My depression and social anxiety is enough to make a psychologist’s mouth water. I have little doubt that the drugs would make me a happier better-adjusted member of society. But yet I can’t stand the idea of popping Prozac in the morning.
I don’t think it’s the social stigma that concerns me, I’ve got practically every other stigma attached to my ass, one more that lessens every year is no big thing. I don’t think it’s denial because I admit my neurosis freely. No, it’s something far more troubling.
I believe that I am nothing more than a sustained chemical reaction. Even my thoughts are the inevitable result of a thousand sciences we haven’t even invented yet. The future is wholly predetermined even if we can never divine what it will be. It’s so damn depressing and I hate the hell out of it.
So on some level I think that going on medication would be as good as suicide because I just wouldn’t be myself anymore. That’s not really a big deal either though. I guess that what I’m really afraid of is that if I did go on medication I’d never really be able to reject my horrid beliefs. If I was on drugs and rejected the theory then the old me would just argue that it’s only because of the medication, and that rejecting it while on drugs only proves the theory.
So to sum it all up, I’m reject something that I firmly believe would improve my life because of a belief I hate having. Ha! It’s almost ironic enough to prove that a greater being must be controlling the universe, but not quite.
current mood:  contemplative
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(Get in my head)
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Thursday, November 7th, 2002
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11:23 am - Damn you Leo!!!
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I’m officially transferring all blame for what transpired inside my head last night to Leo Laporte. Last night at the opening of the show Megan was hosting too so he made a joke about how he was having a baby. He made a joke about how he was already showing and showed his gut. I smiled and thought I forgot about it. Then I had this dream…
I dreamed that I was just watching TSS like always. Megan was there and she was pregnant. Then Jessica was back too and she was pregnant. Then Morgan announced she was pregnant. Then the camera went back to Pat & Leo and they announced that they were both pregnant. Then Martin came on and he was very pregnant. There is only one way to describe a pregnant Martin: fucked up. It was all very fucked up. I don’t know what was more disturbing, the dream itself or the morning wood I woke up with after it.
Just kidding about the last part, I’m nuts but I’m not that nutty.
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(Get in my head)
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Wednesday, November 6th, 2002
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12:17 am - Getting out the vote
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Yep, I went out and did it today. I don’t like the current system. I’ve actually come up with an alternative that I call Direct Representative Democracy.
This is a form of government that could only exist in the information age. It would allow anyone with an internet connection to securely vote. With this you could practice pure Democracy but most people would be very uneducated voters.
So what I propose is that citizens be allowed to give their vote to somebody who volunteers to give up the right to a secret ballot and would then vote with as much weight as he or she has supporters. Each supporter can overrule their representative on any specific vote or change representatives at any time should they desire. All votes would not be final until a week has passed for supporters to withdraw their support and the self-represented to vote themselves. The representatives with the most supporters would assemble to function as the body they replace (Congress, City Council) and draft legislation.
I really have no idea how this would work out or how to work in Executive offices with this concept but I like it. It eliminates the fundamental problem of a Representative being able to essentially vote with vote of someone who did not vote for him. It would also allow for minority opinions to have their voices heard. I think it could destroy party politics because any ally is just someone who you could steal sponsors from. Without specific election times campaigning would become a virtual waste of time and money, thereby reducing the effect of money on the political process.
The problems with it would be if it went to either extreme. Obviously if one representative had 51% of the vote he would have near total power but still be beholden to his sponsors. The greater threat would be a likely gridlock if power were equally shared between several thousand representative.
Other ideas that no politician would support:
Legalize all victimless crimes
Reduced copyright lengths
Make lawyer a public position and free to all
Public health care
No guns except for police & military (my opinion but only if majority of public agrees)
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(Get in my head)
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Monday, November 4th, 2002
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10:26 pm - I was right
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I was crazy. I am now posting from Red Hat Linux 7.1 and looking at some ugly-ass font rendering. Over the past week this is an approximate estimate of how many times I've attempted to install the following Operating Systems:
Windows 2000 - 10
Solaris - 1 (gave me a terminal error in 5 mins and I didn't have much heart)
Windows 98 - 5
FreeBSD 4.7 - 4
Various flavors of Linux - 20
You add that all up and it's about 40 OS installs. That was enough to make even my normally chilled blood boil. Will now be satisfied with dual-boot of 2000 and a newer distro of Linux (if it would just stop fucking with me).
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(Get in my head)
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Wednesday, October 30th, 2002
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12:53 am - Damn it
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Stupid-ass windows 2000! I'm too tired to go into details but suffice to say that it doesn't like (or even allow) itself to be installed on a secondary hard drive without installing a loader on the first. Even when you set the BIOS to boot from the second. I discovered this after about 3 re-installs.
I'm still determined to get three more OS's which I have virtually no experience with running by the end of the week anyway. Oi!
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(Get in my head)
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Tuesday, October 29th, 2002
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4:44 pm - I'm now posting from windows 98...
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... and I feel so dirty. At least it's not Windows ME.
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(Get in my head)
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12:15 pm - I'm nuts
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Sorry that I haven't blogged in a while but I've been lazy...
I'm embarking on a strange journey into the world of multibooting. I'm trying to boot Windows 98, 2000, Red Hat Linux 8, FreeBSD 4.7, and Solaris 8. Why? Why not. So I ordered a new 80 gig Western Digital "Special Edition" (8mb cache) 7200 rpm hard drive and a lovely 400 Watt Antec power supply to handle the extra load. While installing the PS this weekend I discovered that Gateway had decided to dispense with a standard ATX form factor for the power supply and do thier own funkyness.
I had to get a dremel tool to enlarge the hole in the case. After chopping out a 3/4" x 4" section the Antec would fit well enough. Surprisingly even cutting through steel with a dremel tool was a breeze, only taking about 15 minutes, mostly due to my unfamiliarity with it. However drilling the screw holes was a very different experience. The drill bit for the dremel wasn't supposed to be used on steel so I pulled out the big old trusty power drill and just tried to power through the steel with a standard bit.
Bad idea, it wore down the bit, leaving hardly a dent in the case. So I had to go the hardware store and pick up a steel cutting bit, which apparently is made of cobalt. Even with the proper bit it took about 40 minutes per hole, partialy due to the fact that I never got the hole quite in the proper place the first time around and had to widen the hole a little.
So the new power supply is whirling away, as is the new hard drive. If everything goes properly I won't have to recover any data from CD but just copy from hard drive to hard drive. This is my final goal.
Hard drive 1 (30 gig)
10 gig Windows 98 partition
20 gig Data backup partition
Hard drive 2 (80 gig)
GAG boot loader in the Master boot record
28 gig Windows 2000 partion
20 gig Data partition
10 gig Linux partition
10 gig Linux partition
10 gig Solaris Partion
4x 512 meg swap file partitions.
I must be insane, oh well.
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(Get in my head)
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Monday, October 14th, 2002
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12:58 am - We are all gonna die!!!
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Wednesday, October 9th, 2002
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11:27 am - Google diving.
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Saturday, October 5th, 2002
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10:15 am - Teacher of my dreams
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I had a rather unusual dream last night (even for me). I'll try to hit as many plot points as I can remember. First I was in some sort of paramilitary boot camp or school whose idea of discipline was to hold ice on my balls. Then I escaped that hellhole and fled to Bora-Bora, which in my otherworldly version of geography was a city controlled by monkeys. Then I was magically transported to my old high school. I was just walking around when I noticed the classroom of my all-time favorite teacher Mr. McMenamin. So I walked in and there he was looking at me. I tried to speak but nothing came out, I was choking up. But he recognized me from three years ago and what I call a compressed conversation. That is where, in my dreams, a large amount of information is exchanged without any actual talking happening. It just occurs. Then his class was about to start and he had me fill out a form. It was mostly standard fare: name, email address, graduating class. But there was an odd place for Social Security Number, which I meant to fill out correctly (he is my favorite teacher and I trust him) but now that I remember it I screwed up the last four digits. As I was trying to complete his form it kept getting longer and harder to read. It went from black ink on white paper to red ink on black. I could only read it at an angle. The information got stranger and more personal, like favorite band, song, TV show. I was screwing it up and then I woke up.
Mr. McMenamin was the greatest teacher I ever had. I can't even imagine how a teacher could be better. He taught Government and Sociology at WSHS and did both very well. He was the master of lecture. Once he explained something it stayed in my head, even to this day. Even more important than giving us knowledge he helped to spark thought and debate in our minds. He only taught the "regular" classes, not the gifted ones; so many of his students didn't quite fit that student mold. But once they finished his class, we all knew more and thought more.
He would often abandon any lesson plan and just read an article out of the paper and then have a discussion about it for the entire period. He had a great sense of humor, and was never happier than when a student disagreed with him on an issue. The only negatives about him were that he didn't like new technology (he was pretty old) and the administrators hated him (which only endeared him to the 'troublemakers')
The last time I had any contact with him was after September 11th last year. I emailed him this wonderfully pro-American editorial from 1973. He said that he read it to all his classes. I miss him.
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(There's 1 voice in my head | Get in my head)
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Wednesday, October 2nd, 2002
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11:53 pm - Give me your autograph!
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I went to a few signings recently. On Saturday I went to see Patrick and Leo of The Screen Savers and today I went to a Chuck Palahniuk signing. Here's my report, good lord this thing is long. It's over two pages single-spaced in Word.
Pat & Leo
I didn't get in until 12:50 so I had to wait nearly three hours to get up with the dynamic duo. I brought the side panel to my computer for them to sign. I was fortunate enough to receive a TechTV sticker, which I placed on the panel and a T-shirt for answering a trivia question, as if knowing the original hosts was trivial. The Comcast people who were trying to sign up people for Cable internet were complaining that nobody was biting. A funny thing happened when I got towards the front and I could see their booth showing TechTV's current feed. Cybercrime came on and was being blocked by their parental controls until somebody bypassed it.
When I finally got up there I told Leo who I was and he was kind enough to compliment me on my postings. They both signed my panel and a 3x5 for me. I wonder if their signatures would boost the E-bay value of my PC or if I'd need Morgan's sig for that? I left at 3:45 and there was still a fairly long line. They were probably signing up until 4:30 or so.
Chuck Palahniuk
I arrived at Olsson's books & records at 6:15. Chuck was already there signing books. I got in line and waited patiently. I got up to him at 6:45 to get my copy of Survivor autographed. I went up to him. "Hi, I'm Terrence. 2 R's and no A's" and open the book to the signing page. He signs it:
To Terraence-
1-2-3-
Test yourself!!
Chick
Chuck Palahniuk
He tells me that when he messes up someone else's name he screws up his own too. I look around for a good place to stand because the seating area is already full. I'd estimate that there were about 180 people crammed into the fairly small bookstore. Chuck takes a ten-minute break from signing to get ready to speak. He comes back out and tells us that he's not going to read tonight and instead just tell dirty stories. He opens by comparing the Shining to being on a book tour and gets funnier from there:
Good old Mr. W________ (I can't remember his name):
His mother used to make everyone close the curtains when it got and wouldn't explain why until he was an adult. She finally told him that one day while doing some yard work she noticed that underneath his sister's window were a bunch of cigarette butts and nasty used tissues. Apparently Mr. W_____, from next door had been using that window as his personal porno web site for months.
His mother tried to grow Douglas fir trees on the property line between the Palahniuks and Mr. W______. However since this was the middle of the desert it never worked. She made Chuck haul large five-gallon things of water and dump them on the trees to get them to grow. He noticed that there were tons of matchbooks around the trees. After a while he finally opens one up and looks inside. Inside is written, "You being a lady and all, I'll give you $50 if you'll let me eat you." Chuck was only eight at the time and didn't know what it meant. So he went to his mother with the matchbooks and said, "I think Mr. W______ wants to take you out to dinner."
Gall stones, Vicodins, and the Ya-Ya sisterhood:
Chuck had a gallstone back in 1997 and when he went to the doctor was told that the stone was 10 millimeters (about the size of a marble) and that it had to come out his dick. The doctor gave him a giant thing of Vicodin and told him when he feels it start just start taking them. He also needs to keep the stone so they can analyze it later.
He's at home alone and feels it start. He gets in the bathtub naked, stoppers it, and starts downing Vicodins and cheap wine. A few hours later his friends find him passed out, nude, in the tub with a pool of his blood and urine around him. They think he's dead and are shocked to see him wake up a few hours later with a giant gallstone in his hand. The next day they tell him, "Dude, the rest of us have to use that tub too."
He still had some spare Vicodins and carries them on book tours. When he went to England for the tour two months ago the ticket agent was being a real prick and Chuck asked why. The ticket agent replied that his back was killing him and he couldn't even sit down. Chuck offered him a Vicodin and the agent asked him, "Are you a doctor?"
"No, I'm a writer."
And then the ticket agent took the Vicodin anyway. On the flight he was making small talk and Chuck thought to himself that this guy is never going to say anything interesting so he offered him a Vicodin. Chuck later got him to take two Ambiens (prescription sleep aids). The guy follows this with a few shots of Scotch and Chuck realizes he's fucked because now he has to watch this guy all night to make sure he doesn't stop breathing. The in-flight movie happened to be the Ya-Ya sisterhood. Four times over. He did get the guy to loosen up and tell him a whole lot about his prostate biopsy :-)
Then he took a few questions, and there was a constant noise coming from back towards the door and Chuck told another story. You know how at restaurants there's always one table where everyone is laughing loudly and everybody in the restaurant wants to be sitting at that table. He and his friends came up with a game where whenever that happened they'd all try to laugh even louder. The problem was that once they started they couldn't stop and they'd just keep laughing for no reason the whole night.
At one point he asked who it was that was making so much noise and somebody replied "Jehovah's witnesses". He told them to send out some books to burn and recommended the Ya-Ya sisterhood. Someone asks what movies he recommends and he suggests Jesus in Montreal, the 1964 version of The Haunting and anther film I just can't remember right now.
After only forty-five minutes a staff member comes up to him and says that they're way over fire code and that they need to cut it short. As I'm leaving I notice about fifty angry people standing at the door because they weren't allowed in. I guess they were the ones making all the noise.
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(Get in my head)
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Thursday, September 26th, 2002
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4:31 pm - Igby goes down
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I saw Igby goes down yesterday. It was an excellent film. It and had very witty writing and excellent acting. It was very funny but mostly in the snigger because I'm smart enough to get that joke way. My only complaint is with the direction. Many of the transitions felt rushed and didn't give one enough time to appreciate the moment. I saw a few reviewers claim that IGD was quite disturbing but I wasn't disturbed at all. But that's likely due to my slightly morbid tastes.
I loved Clair Daines performance as Sookie Sapperstien the adopted child of a Jewish theologian and a professor of metaphysical poetry.
"I feel this great, great... pressure coming down on me. It's just constantly coming down on me. It's crushing me."
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(Get in my head)
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Monday, September 23rd, 2002
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4:21 pm - Every time you lose, you die a little bit.
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"Every time you lose, you die a little bit. You die inside. A portion of you. Not all of your organs. Maybe just your liver."
That was a famous quote from George Allen a former Redskins coach who is the only head coach to coach for more than ten years without a losing record. And with the way my teams have been playing lately I've been dying more than I'd like. The 37-7 loss at home against the Eagles was absolutely horrid and the 20-10 loss at San Francisco was only marginally better. I don't know how they could let the 49'ers rush for 252 yards and sit on the ball for the last eight minutes of the game.
My fantasy teams have done just as poorly this week too. I just can't get jack shit out of my receivers. Three wide receivers and a tight end have combined for less than ten points in both leagues the last two weeks. It's just been ugly.
Now it's time for revenge. I watched the Count of Monte Cristo today and it was quite good. I've never read the book or known the plot so it was very fresh and brilliant to me. >>Spoiler<< My favorite moment was when the Count led the prosecutor into the prison carriage and there was a pistol inside. "Mercy for a nobleman." The prosecutor put the gun in his mouth to commit suicide and pulled the trigger. It wasn't loaded. That's revenge!
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(Get in my head)
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Monday, September 16th, 2002
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12:50 am - Curses
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My fantasy teams got raped today. The Space Monkeys had an average day and losing was no big thing but it didn't help to go up against a team that scored 91 (teams average around 55 in this leauge). In my Gut Busters league I deserved to win but got screwed hard between 7 and 7:45 EST. When I stopped watching to read up on Leoville I had a 69-60 lead and his games had already passed the midpoint of the fourth quarter. Next time I check Peerless Price caught two touchdowns and 100 yards and the San Diego D scored a touchdown. suddenly I'm down 69-85 with 2 WR left to play and he's still got Oakland's kicker. The kicker scored another 14 points and my Wide out succeeded in fumbling on his only catch for -2 points. So unless Rod Gardner has a really good game (4 touchdowns) I'm fucked.
So after watching my fantasy teams get thrashed today I need some new swear words. I need to shape my shrieks of outrage better than "Garfungaa!". These are my current favorite curses:
Insults:
Cannoli with legs (I love the Sopranos)
Ass-clown
Butt nugget
Cunt mother-fucker (I don't know what it means but it just feels good)
Bastard
Bugger
Son of a Bitch
Exclamations:
Jesus tap-dancing Christ
Goddamn
Sweet mother of Marian Barry
Great googly-moogly
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(Get in my head)
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