Cretin Reunion '07

So our old band got together for one more hoorah this Thanksgiving. Everyone had a great time (I think) and we were all surprised how tight everything was. Anyway, here's some video.

Shake:


Walk Away:


That's all i'll post for now. You can check out the rest by clicking here .

Thanksgiving & Iron Bowl pictures.

Who knew my nephews would show up in more pictures on this blog? I'm surprised. Are you?

Aiden and I being goofy:


Isaac and I being photographed:


Deer in headlights:


Laura, her sister Missy, and me, decked out for the ball game:


Isaac, Dad (kinda), Kate (almost) and me, all orange and blue:


And finally, how do Alabama fans feel about the '07 Iron Bowl?

like that.

I BROKE MY HEAD

So here's how it goes:

The first near concussion came when Kate and I were disassembling a bed frame. Long story short, a very heavy piece of wood that we thought would stand on its own did not. It did, however, stand with the help of my head. I had a good sized goose egg for a few days, saw stars, nearly got knocked out, and all that jazz.



A few weeks later i guess i decided that i didn't want my past self to show up my present self. I could describe the scenario for you, but i'll just say i hit myself on a very sharp piece of wood. On the head. It bled EVERYWHERE. I screamed expletives. At work. Oh yeah. When the bleeding finally stopped I went woozily back to work and finished my day with a huge blood clot in my hair. Yummy. Got it cleaned up, and guess what? As Laura says, i'm branded.



yeah. L for Laura. I would rather have taken a ring. Over a week later and it's still there, albeit somewhat smaller. Looks like it's going to scar, and i definitely have a depression in my skull. Yea!!!

more nephew video

Halloween

We had a ridiculously good time this halloween. This is the first time i've been off work for it for roughly ten years. Yeah. Damn right we got down and boogied. Here's all of us at the start.

Brian, Bucho, Parsons, and Jess. 2 DC's, 2 Marvels. Awesome.



Laura and I. Ready for adventure. At least, any adventure that can be taken on with three fake guns and a crappy bullwhip i don't know how to use:



Ran into Lewis, who had a truly awesome Doc Holliday costume (he even had a little silver cup he was drinking from).



The Green Lantern. Badass.



Lantern and Lara:



Stop or she'll shoot. I mean it man, she's got you covered.



MIGHTY THOR. Or Fabio. Or Thor.



So that's the first stop. Every year in Five Points they do a poker crawl, where you go to five different bars and get a playing card at each one. Then whoever has the best hand at each location when it's over wins $100. We lost to two laffy-taffy sorority girls that weren't even wearing costumes. This made Thor MAD. So mad that when we got to Zydeco (our final stop) he smashed The Green Lantern with his hammer Mjolnir.



Shortly after we were all friends again.



While at Zydeco, we met a few more friends.



Meow! I'm a kitty cat! And I dance dance dance....



This picture was supposed to be a close-up, but the wind was too intense. Ease up, Storm.




I've wanted to be Indiana Jones my whole life. I don't just mean for Halloween. Putting on the costume made me giddy (like a schoolboy) so you can imagine my surprise and delight when we ran into this guy. What are the odds? Apparently 100%, but i wouldn't have believed that.



He called me Dr. Jones. Anyway, here's some kitties:



So after the poker crawl we went to Phil's house for a tiny little party. That's when things got crazy.

Shaw, the inflatable buckaroo:



Laura and a man witch (get it?)



Phil as Wolverine. He had a mask to wear, but it was LAME. He had a wig that I spent an hour cutting and styling. It was too hot for his head, apparently. Christy was just AWESOMELY beautiful as Storm, and tied with Brian for best homemade costume.



Mike built his costume around a voice. If you know him, you'll get it. Most of you won't.



Shizz was a starving artist. It wasn't much of a stretch. All she had to do was starve herself. Her sign read something like, "5th year BFA. Will paint for food or booze."



Laura and Shizz, being beautiful:



"my beer, dude...."



Phil says no smoking inside, or you get the paddle.



Trying To Look Natural, with Jay and Adam:



Notice Shizz looks bored and unhappy



Until now:



BATGIRL!



EAT IT! EAT IT NOW!!



We'll wrap up the picture show with my favorite pic of the bunch, one I like to call GOD OF THUNDER:



Hope everyone had a great Halloween. I'll be posting video as soon as it's edited.

MOVIE MAGIC

I want to take a moment to highlight one of the GREATEST MOMENTS EVER FILMED:

Lt. Ellen Ripley (Yeah, yeah, played by Sigourney Weaver) spouts a huge gout of flame over the eggs being laid by the mother Alien (played by none other than Stan Winston's greatest creation, the Mother Alien). For the moment, it seems to be a stalemate.

Shortly thereafter, one of the aforementioned alien eggs folds open, breaking the stalemate, and giving way to possibly the greatest moment of acting to be captured on film in the last twenty years:

Ripley (yeah, yeah, Sigourney Weaver) shoots the Mama ET this big fat HELL NO OH YOU DIDN'T YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THAT I'VE GOT A FLAMETHROWER AND YOU DID WHAT? look that in my opinion is one of the most convincing and eloquent moments ever to be filmed. Happy Halloween.

Winter takes two

in the petals of the rose
i've seen how it goes
i've seen an idea never tasted
go from sweet to sour
and seasons tolling every hour
have left your life to end unflowered
and here's to those predicting seasons:
Winter gives no fucking reasons--
:-----:
She gives then takes and takes away
a quarter of four hundred days
She gives us time to ruminate,
to busy, schedule, plan, and date
to fill in slots we left unfilled
to do undone and shutter sill
to pack unpacked and unpacked done
to plant the seed becoming Sun
and what she takes while we don't look?
The only measured breath we took.

I'm a pro.

My week:

Sold a painting for $300. Quit Fox and Hell and started training at a different restaurant. Located illustration board for The Four Horsemen comic i've been dying to write. Finally got a tan. Learned how to lose at 7 ball. Ate, drank, and was merry. Life is good.

My Nephews+Video Camera=Check it out.

Thought I'd share some (semi) recent videos of my nephews with all 4 of you guys. Here's the first, a longish clip of Isaac on his first day of freedom from the womb:


Here's Isaac at home, enjoying a pacifier.


And here's me and one of my favorite people on earth (he's tied for first), Aiden, takin' a dip in the ol' swimmin' hole.



More later.

Mark Z. Danielewski

I don't care who you are, or what you do. I don't care if we still hang out from time to time or if I haven't seen you in a year. Buy Danielewski's novels. Buy them and love them and read them and love them more and then read them again and then call me and tell me what the hell is going on.

I finally figured out his first novel, House of Leaves. Should you care for an explanation, too bad. This puzzle was finally pieced together after two straight reads and one follow-up "scan."

The newer one, Only Revolutions, turns the conventional novel format on its head. Literally. While it's doing that, it employs a linguistic style i've only ever encountered once before, in Priscilla Marron's short short story My Dear How Dead You Look and Yet You Sweetly Sing, which has always perplexed and slightly terrified me.

Mark D. is one of those authors (like Chuck Palahniuk, whom I adore) that you just shouldn't read while trying to write a story of your own. The power of the work is such that you'll inevitably be drawn to imitate the inimitable and it will show. Guess that means I won't be writing for the next two weeks or so.

Yeah, that's right. Two weeks. For those of you that know how I read, that alone should be testament to the complexity of Only Revolutions.

By the way, it's not Only Revolutions. It's also a spiral.

chapter 12.

So in a drunken, tired haze, I wrote the next installments of my little story about the finger-biting guy, and posted them here. After a sober (and sobering) review of these pages i've decided to delete the posts. They're just not for the faint of heart, or those with a weak stomach. If any of you out there would like to read them, leave me a comment or email me and i'll happily send them to you.

a survey...

I was asked to describe my ideal partner. Thinking of Laura, I wrote:

"beautiful. headstrong. my match. equal. challenging. beautiful. sweet. persistent. sloppy. worthy. adversary. love. life. breath. dream. waking. back rub. relaxation. tension. relief. beautiful."

I like that. I especially like that I sandwiched "back rub" in there. Yeah, right.

Jobs.

Heard back from US Foods today. They were having problems with my references, since I had listed my current department head as a personal reference. I got that straightened out yesterday, and they've already acted on it. Hooray!! Drug test results got back and are clean (why are you surprised? I've been saying i'm clean for a long time.) so that's taken care of too. All that's left is a D.O.T. physical to prove I can lift 50 pounds and stand for an hour and I'll be on my way. Thank GOD.

The situation at Fox and Hound has worsened significantly. Last Sunday I had a total of 5 drinks over the course of 6 hours. This is in violation of our 4 drink limit for employees, which even the general manager has said he doesn't enforce. I've never seen anyone enforce this, and it isn't really an issue if you don't get wasted, embarrass your co-workers and make an ass of yourself. Enter Tori Hale, hostess manager, the low one on the totem pole, desperate to make a stand in our temporary power vacuum. So what happens? I'm written up (for the first and LAST time), suspended for one night and told I can't drink at Fox and Hound for a month. Oh, damn.

The whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth. The punishment was a slap on the wrist, so big deal, but what irks me is that these rules only apply when someone is pissy. They're here one day and gone the next, and the hypocrisy is driving me MAD!
So i've turned rat. I told my managers that I have no problem with the punishment, but these things have to be fair, and that I would be doing my part to insure that. So I'm now a tattle tale, and I couldn't be happier about it. Nobody's breaking a single rule during my shifts without paying for it, no-sir.

Hmm. Bastards. That bridge is gonna burn.

Graceland....

For some reason I woke up today with perhaps the strangest waking craving ever. I usually act on these things pretty quickly, and this was no exception, and I must say I recommend this one for everyone if you have the means. First thing in the morning (or afternoon, if you're one of us) before caffeine, before even talking to anyone, before you rub your eyes-get on ITunes, or whatever service you use if you have to, and download this song if you don't have it. If you do already have it, then dig out the CD, pop it in, and get ready to bob your head and smile a lot.

"You Can Call Me Al," by Paul Simon.

For that matter, I just realized the experience could have been even better. I could've Youtubed it and watched the video. Oh well.

summer fun.

I'm in love with the Transformers movie. It's the best piece of summer shit you'll ever see, and in that vein, i give you this:



Yeah, yeah. I know. This is quickly becoming a "youtube through the eyes of this guy we don't like that much but can't help visiting his blog" kind of thing. I'll write something important soon, i promise.