first we take manhattan

Foreword: This SIBHoD realllly sucks, especially compared to the last couple, which were Not Bad. But, as I've said before, if You don't like it, write Your own goddam blog.


(I just saw this guy wearing a "UPS" parody tshirt that said "DPS: What can PWN do for you." He disappeared before I could inquire about the nature of this pwn4ge.)

I was listening to this show called "Over Easy" on an unnamed classic-rock station . Terrible name, GREAT music. I think it's a nationally-syndicated thing. We get it on Saturday mornings. I typically hear at least one song I Like on every Saturday. Today they played Van Morrison: "Into the Mystic" and another, newer Van tune.

There should be the following question on "personality tests": "Van Morrison or Jim Morrison". ("Trick Question Sterling Morrison.") That reveals a lot about a person. Van is such an ungetawaywithably awesome person. His music has all the profundity and realness which 99.99% of music lacks. I don't care how many groupies he banged. His songs will hit you right in the Soul, immediately. Van's existence makes this world a better place, and the world will hence be Worse when he passes. Like Tom Waits, he's one of those people that are really Too Cool To Exist. And if You don't like Van Morrison, You don't deserve to exist.

Then, in between listening to Talk Radio and NPR Weekend Edition, I switched back to "Over Easy" and they were playing "Sugaree" by the GRATEFUL DEAD. Now, this may be surprising, but I had a Huge Grateful Dead phase many years ago. "Sugaree" is de rigueur for this phase. Now, the Grateful Dead were all-too-human - not AS uberhuman as Van M - but they do have moments which Surpass The Sublime. "Sugaree" is one of them. ("Box of Rain" is another. Natch.)

See, I DO like Music!

DEFIANCE

It's been almost a week since I went to the Cheep Show, and I'd spent two full days locked-up in my room playing FFX, so, might as well get out and enjoy a movie uh. I'd heard this one was pretty good, and I'd completely forgotten about it, until it resurfaced to the face of the earth again.

It was actually pretty good. 1.45 thumbs up. It's over 2 hours and drags a little in the 2nd/3rd Act, but what 2hr+ movie DOESN'T? Also, Daniel Craig is about THE least credible Jew on the face of the Earth. This guy, with his blond hair, sharp jaw, and piecing blue eyes is more Gentile-looking than Ed Harris. How is any Semite-Savvy Audience expected to believe that he's the jewish brother of the Obvious Jew Liev Schreiber? (A very Masculine-Badass-looking Jew, but a Jew-looking Jew nonetheless).

But it's no big deal, really, because Craig's performance is rather good. Again, he reminds me a lot of Ed Harris. Whom I Like. It's good to see Craig doing something other than James Bond.

The story: 1941 Belorussia. Nazis are starting to "liquidate" Jews (STATES OF MATTER EUPHEMISM FAIL). The Bielskis escape from their bucolic "shtetl" (is it technically a "shtetl" if there's some Gentiles in there?) and into the woods, and more errant Jews start glomming onto what becomes an Otriad ("independent brigade") and gradually a full-blown community. Especially as the Bourge City Jews start escaping from the Ghettos, when the Nazis begin liquidating the Ghettos.

It's a quite watchable movie about a rather compelling topic, a topic which I'd never really investigated. Plus the movie is done by Edward Zwick ("Glory") who has a pretty well-validated hardon for respectable Wartime Movies.

I was the only person in the theatre who recognized Iben Hjejle. I am the only person in the world who knows Who she is, AND how to spell her name without looking it up (ok, I just did look it up. And I did spell it wrong. But I still know who she is.) For shame, because dontchya know she had a big role in an even bigger movie once.

"High Fidelity", you stupid assholes.

FINAL FANTASY X

All I can say is "whoa." I am blown away. I've been completely pulled-in. This ps2 system, this Game, has filled a Gaping Abyss in my life, which heretofore I've tried, and failed, to fill with Women, with Booze, with The Political/Economic/Libidinal, and with the SIBHoD. Who'd-a-thunk all I needed was some intense rpg action.

It's pretty cinematic, and it can Sometimes be tedious with all the "movie" scenes. And it does take a while to really get started. It's at least 5 hours before you start getting the foggiest idea of where the game/story is going. But I think this is a great thing. It speaks to the depth of The World of The Game, i.e., this may be a 60-hourer folks. And that bodes very, very well for Filling The Void. Because FFIV was a great start, and itself a great game, but that's a mere 25-hourer. (And the Final Boss Zeromus is Ridiculously, Unbeatably hard. I've stopped even playing the game. This is possibly analogous to the life/professional stage of being an ABD Student.)

And, comparatively, FFIV is very straightforward. Lacking in Depth, even. The technological advances allowed by the ps2 allow for huuuge advances in the Story of FFX: It's way bigger and way more complex. Or at least it Seems that way.

I'm also finding myself developing some Libido for Yuna. And probably for Lulu as well. And lately I've really wanted to savagely rape Rikku's little green butt. Hell. I'd have a Massively Multiplayer Orpgy with Yuna, Lulu, and Rikku. Now THAT would be a good 60-Hourer!

It hasn't gotten Controller-Throwingly Hard yet, although I've faced a couple Bosses where I got clammy palms and had to get up - stand up - nervously in front of the tv. And where once the Movie/Story scenes were tedious and cloying, I now enjoy them. And at first the procedure used for building your characters (A huge "Sphere Grid", rather than a simple process of "leveling up" with Exp Pts) seemed ridiculously complex and difficult, but now it's become second nature, and kinda fun.

The only way this game could possibly disappoint is if:

1. It ends before 40 hours

2. The bosses get unbeatably hard.

But there's a Nets Full O' FAQs out there, and I haven't even sought them after 14 hours. Not bad.

I am going to get so much mile4g3 out of this playstation. It's also absurd that you can get these absurdly-entertaining'n'time-consuming games for absurdly-reasonable prices. I think I paid 10 bucks for FFX. I.e., far less than I'd pay for a damn SNES cartridge.

Talk about a great Financial/Entertainment/Life WIN! Things are starting to finally come up Classwar!

In the next 2 weeks or so, I would like to invest in a New Game. Variety and all that. I didn't get the ps2 for FF alone, after all. Here's the franchises that are compelling my interest, time, and money: Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, and probably "Need For Speed" (or whatever The Reigning Racing Game of Awesome is.) And something Monkeyball-esque (i.e., rolling balls, taunting The Abyss). Silent Hill is urging me the most fervently, due to my desire to immerse myself in "the terrifying world of survival horror", with less zombies and more nightmarish ghostscapes. SH 2 or 3 seems to be the way to go. Suggestions?

Recently, I closed the SIBHoD to comments, because, Lawd, I just haven't been able to accomodate all the comments lately. You got to allow all, or allow none.

But seriously folks. I'm turning comments back on again, if only because it gives me the illusion (delusion?) that comments might Vault me closer towards the Vaunted 30 Readers.

But even more seriously: I reserve the absolute right to delete comments, and to ruthlessly, publicy EXCORIATE any commenter who does not leave a 100% Constructive Comment. Snarkery, sarcasm, and anything that comes even remotely close to rubbing me the wrong way will not be tolerated. It's time to take my Blatant Disdain for my audience to the next level.

But uberseriously: I appreciate anyone who sacrifices their precious time to read any of this self-indulgent pablum. (This doesn't mean I'm gonna take any public scheidt, though. Let it be known that I think the majority of comments on the majority of blogs are insulting, offensive, womanly crap.)

EARTH

The new Disney Nature "documentary." It looked pretty exciting. I was in the mood for a "the majesty of majestic nature" type movie. And indeed the photography was breathtaking, spellbinding, etc. But overall, it was kinda boring. Like watching a overly long tv programme. It wasn't bad though. Worth seeing on the big screen. A few of my favourite scenes were the super-slo-mo predator-catching-prey scenes: e.g., the cheetah bringing down the gazelle, and the great white SHARK (carcharodon carcharias) leaping into the air & seizing the seal.

That shark was ridiculous. The way the light was in the scene made the shark appear BLACK. And I have a secret fetish for BLACK SHARKS. Sharks - these assassins of the sea - are probably the grimmest, most unfuckwithable creatures on the planet, and I like that the shark could appear BLACK and still be called the "great WHITE shark." Because then you get the "white power" thing going, too. Best of Both Worlds.

Still, I was a little bit disappointed, and I can't entirely articulate this disappointment. The movie was like a woman. I was left Just Wanting More.

Did I mention the Music for Final Fantasy X also lives up to the FF Standard Par Excellence? Muuuch more subtle than the music for the old-school ffIV (really, my main point o' FF Reference), but it grows on you. Nobuo Uematsu does return as Maestro, fyi. My favourites are: the opening theme, the "hymn", and the "village" themes. It's very, very chillaxed. Uematso's influence might even reap some aural dividends in The Solo Project!

I finally got the Tape Player in my car working again. Who'da thunk it. It was the tape that was f'ed, not the Player. So I haven't been listening to Tapes in the car because I was too ignorant to remove the tragically-destroyed "Pink Floyd: THE WALL" tape and to try another one. D'OH!

Recently I was tired of morning talk radio and I did some excavation in the tape collection, unearthing a James Taylor tape. I found that James Taylor is a great way to start off the day. This probably has to do with his skeel at keeping it Really Real, which tends to converge quite a bit with overall Awesomeness. He can even get away with singing the unintentionally-hilarious line "feelin' just like a friend of mine, to hit me from behind", and the song ("Carolina In My Mind") is still classic.

It's finally starting to sorta get "Nice" outside, i.e., meeting my personal minimum levels of Atmospheric Acceptability. So I'm dead over half the year with S.A.D. (need to get a Lamp or something), which makes me supergrateful for the nice weather. It's only responsible, though, to use this time to Prepare For Winter: to get as much Accomplished/Achieved/Done before, say, October/November (the beginning of The End), and to make sure I will have enough Indoor Toys to keep me sane during Those Tough Times Ahead. This is the way to do it. During the Summer. Making up for Lost Time.

Ideally, I would have bought this PS2 last year and played it all winter. Or I would have taken Accounting and Business and IT Classes during the Winter and been useful. Or done any of this several winters ago. But my financial and motivational situations have been completely off the chains until very, very recently. And I don't mean "off the chains" in the good way.

I'm kinda nervous because every year, there's this period where I don't even know how to APPROACH the winter-spring-summer transition. It's like being "Reborn" every year. Not in the religious way, thank christ. More of a spiritual/biological thang.

So basically it's gonna be about Five Months O' Mania over hurr.

Frank Booth: "I'LL FUCK ANYTHING THAT MOVES!"

(Tire Music)

Music Festivals. Rothbury. Bboonnaarroo. Coachella. I don't even think I need to say anything about these. I'll let You try to read my mind. Hint: how might I feel about:

1. Bands

2. People

3. Lots of bands and lots of people

?

And, then, how might The Spreadsheet feel about paying through the Nose to experience these things?

I've been thinking about making a Conscious Effort to be more Social. I'm about as Antisocial as it gets right now. And Medical Health Professionals, Experts, and Scientists recommend that you get at least a little bit of Socialization in. Even if you don't Feel like it. That's apparently when you need it the most. Weird, weird, weird.

I've never been Real Good at Socializing, though. I never want to talk about anything other than how much I hate everything and everyone. I can talk about the weather, but you only get a couple minutes out of that. I can talk about Current Events, but then my Hatefulness and Radical Socialist Political Stance comes out fairly quickly. So I guess I'm Fucked.

Well, at least a man can Buy Prostitutes. That's almost like Socializing, even if you don't get it up.

So, on a lark, I went to Ticketmaster to see if tickets for Leonard Cohen were sold out (how could they not be!), only to discover that 65 dollar tickets are still available. 11 dollar service charge of course.

Like an "idiot", I'm considering this. Jesus, if I can afford a playstation, I should be able to afford 76 bucks to see LEONARD COHEN. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a good idea. I would have paid $80 to see Tom Waits . . . . Right? Maybe? If I could?

I wish I hadn't been so fatalistic about it earlier: "Shit. NO CONCERT is worth 50 bucks. Not even Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits together, with Van Morrison opening. Maybe toss Mark Kozelek in there for kicks."
Now I'm kicking myself wishing I had gotten one of those 50 dollar tickets which are now, of course, sold out.

This will be The World's One and Only chance to see L.Cohen. I missed Tom Waits 2 or 3 years ago. And that was probably my last chance to see Waits. And Cohen makes Waits look like a SPRING CHICKEN. Cohen is older than his own damn fucking jewish god yahweh. It's a miracle he's still alive.

That's it. It's a done deal. DONE.

I'm a Summertime Man. Summertime helps me gain that all-too-crucial Perspective.

(Plus, saying that I actually saw LC has to entitle This Writer to @ least ONE sesh of semi-tepid m.o.a.)

If I were a woman and "in a rel" with a guy, I would totally dump his ass if he didn't buy me a ticket to LC. Then I would Hate myself for being such a damn woman, only to take my self-loathing out on his lame ass by Totally Dumping him anyway. (And then taking both tickets and going to see the show as a first-date pre-fucking event with a big meathead who doesn't like these kinda chick-lovin fag singers.)

There's lots of other fish in the sea. It's not you, it's me. I'm just not in that Place right now. I just can't do this right now.

Women talk like it's so hard to get them off. This is a pernicious myth. Women don't want men to find out how ridiculously EASY it really is to get them off, because then they'd finally be held accountable for their totally no-account feminazi man-hating. It's easier to get a woman off than to get a man off, for christ's sakes. All you gotta do is rub the clitoris. The clitoris only happens to be harder to find than a man's cock, because Women's Genitalia are a hideous unnatural clusterfuck. But once you do find it, you just bump it a couple times and the woman Gushes all over the bed.

Also, The Clitoris is 6,000,000,000 times more potent than The Cock. That's why women can just sit there for 10 hours bobbing up and down on the cock without getting it off. Because The Cock is dull and prone to impotence. Whereas, if you touch the Clit a few times...

GSSSSSSH!!!!! The Woman Gushes The Bed.

Women: "Oh Yeah, Classwar? If it's EASIER to get women off than to get men off, how come so many men have such an hard time finding this supposedly-easy-to-"accidentally"-discover clitoris, and women don't get off, and then the dude splooges after 2 seconds - not "10 hours" - and then he falls into a deep sleep, leaving the woman completely unsatisfied?"

Classwar: "I don't know, and I don't give a flying fuck. I have a hard enough time getting my own self off. Go fuck yourselves, you fucking whores."


Wow. That's not a bad Misogynistic Rant either!

A few days ago I actually found myself honestly pondering, "Do Women Have Taints?"

No. They have nothing between their shitholes and their fuckholes (A shithole can be a fuckhole, but not the other way around, right? RIGHT?!) other than a big gaping Epeziotomy Gash.

Just an entire crotch which is nothing but a huge Shredded Asshole.

But seriously folks. I thought you actually needed a ballsack as a prerequisite to having A Taint. Until I sat there and pondered it for a while.



Yup. It's official. I'm Goin' to Cohen. I got the ticket. The ticket sez "An Evening With Leonard Cohen" on it. Sweet.

Why not, eh? I don't do exciting stuff all the time. Might as well. Do it to it.

Think of it this way: it would provide far more entertainment and enjoyment than a hooker, and would be less expensive than a hooker. And I'll be able to tell people's grandchildren about this when I'm old. While their grandparents were too busy getting knocked-up with accidental buns in the oven, (hopefully whilst gushing to that Jeff Buckley song Cohen wrote), I'll have been busy seeing what some journalists call "an iconic folk poet."


One thing's for certain: It's WAAAY cooler to see Leonard Cohen than it is to see Bob Dylan. Leonard Cohen wipes his ASS with Bob Dylan's FACE.


F. T. W.



I hadn't counted on Final Fantasy X getting hard-as-shit. I guess that's not a bad thing. But I keep getting killed by a big flying wormdragon named "Evrae." I would like to get a second game soon just so I can "take a break" during such times of frustration, and incinerate hookers with a flamethrower. Christ, I hate women. Women are such worthless, stupid, piece-o-shit whores.

I hate "artists."

I hate people who have actual full-time jobs, complete with medical benefits and a retirement plan, and they aren't so stressed out by how intolerable their job is that they become pill-popping alcoholics. EVERYONE should become pill-popping alcoholics.


Here's the relatively new Leonard Cohen "Live In London" album, recorded in 2008, released in 2009. It's a pretty good set of songs covering many highlights from his FORTY YEAR career (although I would have liked to have seen "Chelsea Hotel", "Famous Blue Raincoat", "Avalanche", etc etc, but I really can't complain.)



I apologize for this SIBHoD Sucking. I promise once I hit The Big 30 Subscribers, I'll re-prioritize my focus onto quality; but, sadly, quality never won as many subscribers as Quantity. People want New Shit on a New Day. Even if the Shit is the Same Shit-As-Usual.

Why am I pandering to the Lowest Common Denominator, you wonder?

Because there's so goddam MANY of them, and in order to become a Professional Wrtr, I need their monay.


I'm looking for a place (i.e., Public House) that has extremely cheap pitchers or mugs on Thursday nights. As of late, Thursday night is my Beer-Drinking Night O' Choice. But Dear God does the beer have to be Cheap and the place have to be Chill.

Hope the midwestern readers have been enjoying the nice weather lately. And that the non-midwestern readers have been reacting favourably to whatever kind of weather it is they've been having lately.

And I hope everyone has been behaving in ways that would enhance the effect of Natural Selection.