The Hottest Centaur Action on the Net

One of my favorite games to play is a little thing I like to call Google Roulette. I pick a phrase and look for images using Google Image Ripper first, and then wind my way down through several other search engines. It's kind of like sticking a rectal thermometer in the creative ass of the internet. Today I bring you nothing but the sweet, hot centaur loving. It's Hot Centaur Action Wednesday (as always clicking on the pictures makes them larger, so you can gaze upon their sweaty glory and truly worship the horseflesh).

First, an evolutionary aid for the mantaur haters and unbelievers out there.

Proof! That centaurs exist...at Renfaires.

Made of manliness...and awesome.

Um. Who took the time to make this picture and why? Why?

HOT sexy centaur pinups.

Twice the unwashed feet and murky odor of manflesh.

Hot sexy centaur singles waiting for your calls!

A PSA for young centaurs.

Disturbingly beautiful.

Just fucking disturbing.

Yipes. Finger-banging your childhood.

Someone actually had a hermaphrodite centaur sex doll made.
Happy Wednesday Centaur Lovers. I hope you're happy with yourselves.

Kisses.

*Princess Out*

The RoBeast vs. Cuntry

The world of popular music is pretty sad these days, but for some reason, I still read the charts every week. Call me a geek, but I could read Billboard for hours. I don't though, because I don't have that kind of time, and I don't buy Billboard. And I don't know how to read.

Instead, my number one source for all quick and dirty information in the world is USA Today, because it's the only newspaper my cafeteria sells and it has lots of pretty pictures and graphs that I can look at for 15 minutes while stuffing my face with yogurt. I get excited every Tuesday to see all these new names and faces of artists that I've never heard nor will take the time to actively seek out and listen to. I also look forward to rolling my eyes as I see USA Today's reviews of albums that mysteriously seem to always be rated between **1/2 and ***1/2. Their ratings just have no edge, and therefore, can not be trusted. Mine, on the other hand, have no room for mediocre. Music is either "The worst thing I've ever heard in my life" or "Awesome." And therefore, can not be trusted either.

Who can be trusted? Not USA Today, not me, and certainly not the Radio Industry. When I look at these charts, the only statistic that supports the airplay rankings are the "number of spins." To me that translates to either "the number of times radio stations played the songs that the record company told them to because they're both owned by the same corporate conglomoration and they're both trying to keep each others' sinking business afloat" or "the number of times radio stations played the songs based on the number of times other radio station played the songs based on what they read in the charts the week before." There's certainly nothing about requests, or sales in there, so the ratings are completely arbitrary and don't prove anything at all. Seether's "Rise Above This" is higher than Puddle of Mud's "Psycho" this week on the Active Rock chart. It doesn't mean "Rise Above This" is a better written song than "Psycho" (technically, they are both the worst thing I've ever heard in my life). It doesn't mean more people like one over the other either. It doesn't even prove that a single person has even heard either fucking song except the DJ's in the US who pressed play in the booth 1500 times. If there are even DJ's in booths that push buttons anymore.

I know this isn't far from the truth. When I was a DJ in college, we our playlists formatted by the programmers (albeit Student Programmers) way in advance. In that hour of music (no commercials in college), we were allowed ONE song to choose of our own. ONE pre-selected track from a rack of pre-selected CD's. It didn't matter if I got 20 requests for "Surprise, You're Dead" because I'd only be allowed to play "Epic." The theory behind that is "Well, we're playing this new Harvey Danger song every other hour, so people are probably just going to keep requesting that because it's all they know, and when you say 'I'll put it on for you,' you're not lying because it will be on in the next hour anyway!" Sometimes it worked in my favor because every douche in college just wants to hear "Blister in the Sun" over and over anyway, but it's still a shitty cyclical system of shit. Much like that phrase. One of the most memorable moments of my entire college radio career was the night the computer fucked up and skipped an hour of programming and I could pick whatever I wanted. JUST LIKE HOW RADIO USED TO BE EVERY FUCKING HOUR BEFORE IT WAS COMPLETELY RUINED BY CORPORATION GAMES. WE BUILT THIS CITY ON ROCK AND ROLL, GODDAMMIT.

Anyway, I don't want to talk about radio anymore. I just want to talk about country music. Every week I look at the Country charts, again, not knowing who anyone is or what their stupid song sounds like. All I know is that to be a top ranking Country artist (they are ranked by "points" not spins for some reason), you have to have a simple yet strong male name.

Typically, the first name should only have one syllable:

Blake Shelton
Jake Owen
James Otto
Joe Nichols
Josh Turner
Tim McGraw
Trace Adkins


Another thing that helps is having a first or last name that ends in "Y" or "LY." (This is also a good tip for naming a dog):

Brad Paisley
Dierks Bentley
Kenny Chesney (double points!)

If want to stray a little from the norm, it helps to incorporate a noun that reminds us of the South or chores on the farm:

Montgomery Gentry
Lady Antebellum
Ashton Shepherd
Carrie Underwood ("Paw made me chop down and carry underwood all day and now I gots me a splinter!")

These people who could've sold a lot more albums if they tried a little harder:

Toby Keith (should have been Keith Toby)
Jewel (should have had a penis)
Phil Vassar (that better not be short for Philosophy.Vassar.Edu, ya sneaky carpetbagger!)

Despite my mother's utter contempt for Shitkickin' Music (her words, not mine), it turns out that I actually have a near perfect Country Artist name:

Rollie Hatch (and hopefully, my stalkers will now subscribe to my blog when Googling me)

The real winner in the name game, and clearly supported by his number 1 ranking with 15,334 points for the week of whatever week this is...

George Strait

Say it out loud a few times. George Strait, George Strait, George Strait, start the fingerpickin'. You can't say it without nodding your head to a fucking Country N' Western backbeat! Plus it's such an everyman name. His last name is strong, simple and reminds us of waters difficult to navigate (definitely more treacherous than the Brooks of Garth). And George is probably your grandfather's name. Or your favorite President. Or the guy down the street that's always working in the yard early on weekends. And don't you worry about those soft G's, his name is as heterosexual and masculine as possible. George Bush certainly couldn't get to the top of the Country Charts.

Well there you go. Country is just as formulaic as all the other garbage out there...

FYI: The top two Smooth Jazz artist this week are Kenny G and Jessy J, but I don't really need to go writing a whole entry about them, now do I? Just look at this for a few hours.

priceLIE

would be the title of this post if Priceline didn't work for me, but the stars aligned for once and the Internet actually worked in my favor! My unbeastly mate (with the non-nipple cannoned Ro-Breasts) and I eased on down the road to Philadelphia this past weekend to learn about jail breaks and cheesesteaks (as documented in my Picasa photo library if you're interested), but the most memorable moment is still when Priceline accepted my bid on the hotel room. Hey, nothing against Philly, but when an advertisement tells the truth, you're damn right I'm going to be impressed.

Because I went that whole week without Internet (gasp!), I found myself watching a lot of television. And when I say 'a lot of television,' I just mean I put A&E or USA on for hours and watch the same shows and commercials over and over. One of those commercials was for Priceline. This one:


I knew we were traveling soon, but still had not booked a hotel room. I never used Priceline before and have always been wary of deals that seem too good to be true. Especially on TV. Double especially on the I-Net. Triple especially when they involve William Shatner (who has tried to convince us that warping around the sun enables time travel). I would try to sleep at night, but kept hearing Shatner whisper in my ear. "Cupcake... mamby-pamby..." This was torture.

So the time finally came to book and I announced to my space companion, "I'm going to do exactly what they do in the commercial." I was jadedly confident that it would not work, but there was no harm in trying, I reasoned. I entered my name, then entered my bid. 4-star. $99. Downtown Philadelphia. (Ok almost exactly the same as the commercial - we weren't staying on the Vegas strip). 45 seconds later we had a room reserved for the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing. I couldn't fucking believe it. A $99 room in a 4-star hotel with only two days' notice. Rad.

Now the catch... The room is non-refundable. Priceline adds $30 or so for tax and fees automatically on top of your bid. They do not guarantee what kind of room you get, other than the promise that it will be set for 2 adults, and in a hotel in at least as many stars in the area you've requested. Considering that rooms at the Hyatt start in the high $200's, I was all right with the risk.

We ended up with a non-smoking room on the 5th floor with two beds and a shower with a curved rod. I don't know why that's important to anyone, but I like saying "curved rod." It was waterfront, but did not have a particularly spectacular view. So what -- Selena was on the flatscreen TV. And look how happy Jennifer Lopez is reading this paragraph. Not as happy as I was getting hotel sex for only $99 while wearing my new Rocky Balboa trunks!

We unfortunately did not get to go to the Star Wars exhibit at the Franklin Institute because I don't know what "We highly recommend that you purchase tickets ahead of time" means. Shatner would not have approved anyway.

The other thing I learned was that Pearl Jam is required to be on every radio station every 15 minutes in Philly. It's in the Constitution or something.

Dear VH1 Thanks.

Have you been watching Rock of Love 2? If the answer is no, I say to you, "Why the hell not?" This is quality television here people. This is the ugly, seamy underside of social criticism splayed out for all the world to see. Next to Flavor of Love...Rock of Love is downright classy, and this season of Rock of Love actually has a very pro-woman and, dare one say, pro-feminist conclusion. Listen, I know that whole paragraph has left your jaw lying on the ground and possibly your panties in a bunch, but I'll say it again. Underneath all the Brett boners and skanktastic antics, the actual underlying message of Rock of Love is surprisingly progressive. I'm as shocked as you are. Let's tackle it together one boob job at a time.

The premise of the show for those of you "too good to watch TV" is that Brett Michaels of Poison is looking for love in all the wrong places and has decided to kill two birds with one stone. He could revive his failing career and reconnect with a new generation of pop culture consumers while doing the rock star equivalent of speed-dating. If I concentrate and tune into the zeitgeist, I can almost hear the pitch meeting for this show still vibrating in the aether. Brett starts with 20 girls and whittles his way down from there. The 20 girls encompass your usual rock and roll stereotypes: the whore, the porn star, strippers and groupies. For spice, there's your psychotic emotionally troubled girl, the naive virgin waif, and the sultry foreigner. Take this heady blend and add in musicians, tomboys, career girls, and sorority chicks; insert a bloaty, bewigged, and fake-tanned has-been of a cock/rockstar, and voilà you have the makings of reality television genius.

Let's take a look at some of the major characters this season. One really has to start with Angelique who is completely and utterly fake in every way; her career consists of porn and exotic dancing. She has had many plastic surgeries which she loves to talk about in her classic Pepe LePew accent:

Zee doctors did my breasts too small, so I had zem redone biggair and bettair. I love my leeps; I had zem done, so they would look really good sucking cock on feelm.

Yes, Angelique is completely and utterly false and a construct of jiggly silicone bits, BUT she owns that shit. She knows exactly who and what she is, and she revels in it. Her favorite pastimes are being naked, sucking ze cock, rubbing her genitals all over the public, etc. She is completely connected with her erotic and animalian side, and she has no shame. She enjoys her life and lives it to the fullest. I personally find her a little gross and skanktastic, but I have to give it up to Angelique for all her false bits; she actually is a real human being with fire and passion. She has a sense of humor; she gets the joke; she collaborates with the society of the spectacle yet does not become a victim of it.

Even with her sex positive attitude though, Angelique gets booted on the 3rd episode. Theoretically, she is the perfect construct for a rock star girlfriend, in the vein of Pamela Anderson gone a little wild, but in reality, she is not the kind of woman many men would want to settle down with and raise kids. She is fun to visit with but not a keeper, but she is true to herself and loves herself and celebrates her sexuality. There is no shame in Angelique, and so you laugh with her and not at her. You become infected with her joie de vivre. You celebrate her as a self-made woman and have to admire her for her honesty and frankness and unabashed sexual joy.

Let us move on to my girl, Kristy Joe. Let's be totally honest here people. Kristy Joe had that shit in the bag, and she absolutely could have won the whole shebang. Kristy Joe took herself out of the race, and like she so eloquently said, "Those sluts should totally thank me." Kristy Joe was the hot emotional mess of the ROL house, and she played her game supremely well. By constantly having emotional storms, KJ monopolized most of Brett's time as he felt the need to comfort her and talk to her one-on-one keeping him from having the free time to get to know the other girls as thoroughly. Is being a hot mess considered a positive here? It is in the sense that it is positive to acknowledge that having emotions and passion makes a person more attractive (I know it makes my panties wet), but drama can get tiresome. I do consider the idea that a woman can have baggage and life experience and that makes her a well-rounded individual and highly desirable as a positive message, since so often the ruling patriarchal culture constantly bombards us with the message that our worth as women and our life experience makes us "used up" or "tainted" and is worth nothing in relation to our ability to look like a fresh-faced and nubile 18-year old.

Of course both our, the viewer, and Brett's ability to consistently put up with KJ's drama is demonstrated in this handy graph, and as you'll see, our and Brett's ability to put up with her shit is directly proportional to her hotness:




It is a sad cultural truth that physical beauty is always a factor, but to be "hot" in the Rock of Love house is not really enough. Everyone is attractive; you have to be to get to this level of play, but you need something more to make you stand out from the general "hotness" of the molded out of plastic crowd.

Besides being a "hot mess", Kristy Joe has children and is a mother figure as well as a divorcé. During the taping of the show, she was "legally separated" from her 2nd marriage and headed towards a divorce. Yet, these common factors that are usually looked at as negative and subtracting to the overall sexual desirability of women, pre-existing children and multiple divorces, does not seem to really factor too much into Brett's obvious attraction and fascination with this woman. The subplot that binds the Rock of Love together this season is that honesty in a person is the most desirable trait and that everything can be forgiven if you are a sincere person underneath all the requisite hotness. Finally, I do give big ups to KJ for choosing to leave the ROL house to get her shit together at home. Finally, a woman who prioritizes her children and her home life above temporary fame and a possible venereal disease.

Let us discuss the final 2 girls as it is the conclusion and final judging of the Rock of Love 2 itself that overcomes any ambiguities to bring a solid message of hope in this far too plastic world. The last 2 girls left to stroke Brett's bewigged bandanas softly into that good night are Daisy and Ambre. There could not be two more diametrically opposed personality types. On the one hand you have Ambre who is admittedly older than your typical groupie girl. Ambre is a fully-realized woman of 37. She is smart, moral and funny. She has her own career path as a TV host. Then we have Daisy DeLaHoya born Vanessa Mossman. There is absolutely nothing sincere or real about Daisy in any way. She is a little girl lost who was kicked out or left home before she was 18. Daisy is a 25 year old stripper. Craving the attention she didn't get at home, Daisy has gone down the checklist and constructed a persona guaranteed to get sexual attention from the males of the species: fake tits, fake lips, fake blonde extensions. She's not very smart, in fact, at times she acts almost functionally retarded and even Brett (not the brightest bulb himself) has to wonder if she even understands the simple questions he is taxing her tiny brain with as her replies make no sense and sort of trail off into either sobs or unintelligible baby talk. Daisy at her best is the human equivalent of an inarticulate real doll. She is a sexual construct that fucks Brett as often as possible, yet tries to tell us and Brett that she doesn't constantly use her sexuality to get ahead. O rly? Then why'd you get those fake tits, honey? Then why did you start hooking up with Brett from day one? Daisy is not a whole person, and she inspires pity. You can tell she thinks she has done all the right things to get attention; she has played by all the rules. Be sexually available? Check? Get giant fake tits? Check? Tramp stamp tattoos? Check. Daisy has no substance underneath the plastic though. She doesn't get the joke or even understand that she is the punchline. Her worth is solely measured by how much other people want to fuck her, and she has kept too many secrets from Brett like the fact that she still lives with and supports her ex-boyfriend in a one bedroom apartment, or the fact that that she had a brief flirtation with CC Deville (barf). Daisy is not believable as a person because she doesn't even know who she is. Poor Daisy is a constant victim, the kind of person that life happens to, and underneath all the trampy clichés you see this fragile unformed child. Daisy is looking for someone to save her and using the only lure she has, her sexual availability, to find that person.

Given the choice between a real woman and a fake sex toy, Brett shockingly chooses the real woman, Ambre, because in his own words, "She is the total package." And Daisy? Daisy is the empty candy-coated shell. Does this stop him from fucking her one last time? Nope. He'll fuck her; shit most men will hit it with a conventionally attractive and sexually available woman, but he doesn't want to spend his life with someone who has no substance underneath all that bullshit. Does he use Daisy? Yes. Does she put herself in a position to be used? Yes. Being available to be used is pretty much all she has to offer, and everyone else but Daisy herself knows it. This is the caption to Daisy's picture gallery on VH1, "Our massive photo retrospective tracks Daisy’s every move on Rock of Love 2, from the first episode to the last. She may have rocked Bret’s libido, but not his world. Do these pictures show how she fell short?" Ouch. Because yeah, they kind of do.

Listen I'm not going to try and argue that Rock of Love isn't a misogynistic trainwreck you can't look away from. It reels you in; it's hypnotizing, mostly because you're shocked that anyone would still humiliate themselves to sleep with Brett Michaels. Yuk. It does not show women in the best of light. This is all true. BUT. BUT. BUT. The final message is a triumph for real women everywhere and is pro-feminist. The idea that an independent career woman over 30 with all her original bits and a functioning brain and an actual personality can be more attractive than this fake whorish construct of nubile idiocy with giant knockers that we have been told by Playboy magazine and Girls Gone Wild and fucking Hooters restaurants is the sexual ideal...is groundbreaking. I applaud you Brett Michaels. I applaud you Rock of Love. I say thank you for all the real women out there, and Ambre, sister, well done. You really took one for the team; thank you for taking Brett off the market. According to the reunion show, they are still dating, and there are no plans for a Rock of Love 3. We'll see how long that lasts, but still, bravo VH1 this once you didn't totally shit the bed.

The Greatest Love Song Ever Written

Martin Scorsese Lyrics

Unfortunately, the only video of the song is the edited version, so here's the original unedited track over some dude's drawings. Christ, I wish I could write something this good.

---

Overheard at Take Your Kids To Work Day (or was it on Law and Order: SVU?) "If you start behaving, you'll see your parents sooner."

Now pretend there's a bunch of pictures of Ice-T looking tough. He may or may not have shades on. Use your imagination.

Fork in the Pork

I'm a loyalist when it comes to a lot of things. It doesn't much to fire me up, but it takes a lot to hit the accelerator. When it comes to music, I'm a real picky bastard, so when I find something that hits the right spot, I get on board for the long haul. I don't necessarily discover every artist on the ground floor, but I often immerse myself in their back catalog whenever possible. I'm a big fan of songs and albums, but I love to hear them in context of a career. I want to hear a group develop. I want to listen to how they deal with limited or unlimited resources of time, space, and money. Or how they handle changes in trends, personnel, their audience. I want to hear them experiment. I want to feel them age.

And sometimes I want to hear them die.

In the past few years, I've found myself suspending artists. Expelling others. I did not buy the last Foo Fighters album. I will not buy the next Queens of the Stone Age album. Tool and Pearl Jam may have received their last warnings.

And it makes me sad. These were all groups that I loved the shit out of for a long time. I would buy into anything they did. Pre-ordering albums, singles, live concerts, DVD's without even hearing or caring what was on it because I just knew they was going to be awesome. Eventually, the music just wasn't up to my standards anymore. I don't know if it was me that changed, or them (Ok, let's be honest, I'm not taking the blame) but while I harshly scrutinized every piece of new music I heard, I was just making excuses for the stalwarts in my collection. I may be the Supreme Court of Musical Taste, but there will no longer be lifetime nominations.

In a two months, Weezer will be releasing their 6th studio album. Will my Weezer collection hit its max at 5 albums (and a DVD and a single or two)? The album's first single, "Pork and Beans" is hitting radio this week, but it's already streaming on the web. I am going to listen to it and decide on the fate of this band that has meant so much to me in past (before they put out that P.O.S. "Beverly Hills").

Is it unfair to make a snap judgment like that based on a single? "Beverly Hills" fucking sucked my ass. I knew it. Everyone knew it. But I still bought Make Believe because I still felt the magic of their first two albums. They were both flawless in my opinion. I like a lot of The Green Album, most of Maladroit, and quite a few of the tracks that didn't make it to Maladroit that I wrongly assumed were going to be on Make Believe. The first time I put on Make Believe, I felt like shriveling up. It was crap. The songs sounded like they written by a 4th grader. The innocent tone was effective on the sombre "Freak Me Out" (a song about being scared of a spider, I believe) but for the rest of the tracks, the simple approach had just worn thin for me. "Perfect Situation" is the only other redeeming track, though I think live versions of that are even more powerful.

And that's it. 2 good songs out of 12. That's even worse than Bush's latest disapproval ratings. This is my hard earned money we're talking about here people (I wasn't blogging during work hours so much then) and Weezer just didn't deserve to get it. Three years ago, Pitchfork gave them a review that was the rock critic equivalent of "I'm gonna hit you so hard your grandkids are gonna feel it":

(and I'm not putting it italics for obvious reasons) "...does Make Believe completely ruin not just present-day Weezer, but retroactively, any enjoyment to be had from their earlier work? I don't know-- I'm too scared to re-listen to those first two albums-- but it certainly appears that Make Believe will expertly extract the last remaining good graces the critical community has to offer latter-day Weezer..."

Oddly, Pitchfork gave this new track "Pork and Beans" a seemingly favorable review. I say "oddly" because I'm listening to it right now for the third or fourth time. I'm very unimpressed. You'd think I would've learned my lesson and not had my hopes up, but I'm bummed out about this. It's just so god damned formulaic. Ugh.

I WANT TO STAB THIS SONG, BUT IT HAS NO HEART.

That's it, that's my review. I'm leaving it there. I had a lot more to say, but I've got music of my own to go play.

God Bless America!

God Bless Arachnids
Man's favorite bug
Come inside her, with spiders
Who will bite what is tight on your love.

Ro-Beast Rollie's Heavenly Parenthetical Monday Morning Mess

I was going to pick up where I left off last week before I started bitching about them greasy Italics (undoubtedly from the land of the Leaning Tower), but as usual I've been distracted. I have a really hard time staying on track. I have several unpublished blog drafts about dranx and Batman and my penis, but I have a hard time going back from whence I came. Even when I drive and miss a turn, I refuse to stop, turn around, and go back, electing instead to keep moving forward and find a new way. Does that mean something larger? I don't know--I only took psychology 101 (and had the most fun writing silly captions in the textbook before selling it back to the Ithaca College Crookstore).

What was I talking about? Yeah, sports drinks, Television shows, newspaper articles... et cetera. I spend 23 hours a day thinking about bullstuff to write here and 1 hour forgetting all of it, so if I don't carpe that diem, we're left with blankimus maximus.

I'll be back in a few minutes.

All right, what was my point here on this slightly lovely Monday morning? I started reading a newspaper letter thread between Steve Albini and The Chicago Reader from 1994 featuring Albini's accusation of the Reader's reporter being "heavily parenthetical." I looked back and it was true! Exclamation point! Then I realized that I am also heavily parenthetical (it's such a fun phrase to form in your mouth, though I keep wanting to say "Heavenly Parenthetical," which is one part poetic license, one part defense mechanism). Ok, I'm fully aware that asides are integral to my writing style (at least I'm not hyphen happy like when I was just a Writing Minor Threat), but not so much because I'm trying to mold that style. It's just how my brain works. I'm really all over the fucking place and can't concentrate, and sometimes I know that when I get to the end of a sentence, I'm going to move on to a totally different topic, so if I don't get my slightly related aside shoved in there, whether it be a parenthetical situation, or a ridiculous run-on sentence, it will be remembered no more forever.

I didn't used to be that way, even when I was a Mountain Dew maniac. I sort of blame my old roommate Will, who has a contagious form of ADD. Living with him for two years somehow made me unable to concentrate on anything for too long. Now I get bored (or sleepy) if I sit still for too long, interrupt people all the time, read sentences backwards, and write blogs like this. I should check my old blogs and journal from at least 100 years ago to see my downward parenthetical spiral. Being intoxicated makes me even crazier. I sort of blame the Double U Double U Double U Dot Internet Dot Com too. My buddy Ken posted a blog last week and about 75 cents down the page, there was a link that I followed but never came back to read the rest of his blog (I'm not linking to Ken's blog post because I have a special post of my own cooking up related to its contents). It's an asshole thing to do, I know. I was genuinely interested in his post too, but I was just a Howly caught in the web surfing coral. I wonder how many people that started reading this post are actually reading the Albini-Reader battle right now, never to return.

That reminds me, I need to finish reading it myself.

Albini the Rapeman has written quite a beautifully scathing letter there, hasn't he? And while I do agree that The Smashing Pumpkins and Liz Phair are soverrated (though I do enjoy several of their songs), I am bothered that Albini goes right for the Ad Litterarium attack against Wymann. I guess he has to squirt the venom somewhere personal before devouring the victim, but dude, how many sentences did you end in prepositions? Hmmmmm?

Steve Albini's not reading my blog though, so I won't be getting a letter from him (besides, this took place fourteen years ago). I want to know if you have a problem with my writing. Do I not make any sense? Is being "heavily parenthetical" looked down upon in the world of publishing? Does it make me sound like an ignorant early 90's alternative rock critic? Or even worse, a mid-to-late 90's alternative rock critic? And what about "heavily quotational"... and is that worse than being "heavily elliptical?" My wonderful girlfriend read my past couple blog posts out loud and they seemed to all make sense (though she didn't attempt to pronounce my keyboard head bash). Truth be told, I'm not going to change even if you do have a problem, but I just want to know where we stand.

As for Albini... criticism's unfortunatley a double edged sword. One of the other letters said "Critics by nature are elitist, as their writings are based on the premise that 'my opinion is more valid than yours'" and, well, yeah, that's true. I'm pretty caught up in calling myself an anti-elitist (see two posts ago), but I have absolutely no problem telling you that XXXXX's* music is garbage and if you like it then you're a complete fucking idiot. There is accounting for taste, and I'm the IRS, you motherfatherchinesedentist. Sorry, but you just can't spell Hypocritical without Critic.

Speaking of China, they're beating us on the internet. If you're planning to boycott the Olympics, I ask you to spend the entire fortnight in August sitting on the Internets in order to read this blog over and over again. Maybe we here at Beauty and the Ro-Beast will do something special for ya.

TOGETHER WE WILL BREAK CHINA!

* pronounced "Linkin Park"

Televishit

No Instanet at home means I can't fall asleep listening to prank phone calls, studying the Encyclopedia Dramatica, or constantly refreshing Michelle Branch's website in hopes that she announces more tour dates. That, plus the unfortunate combination of being illiterate and having acute Netflix constipation, I am now forced to pass out while shitty television "entertains" me.

Luckily, I've been completely exhausted lately, so it doesn't take much to knock me out. I have managed to catch some awesome episodes of SVU and CI, but USA and their Law and Order loving ilk have been feeding me too many repeats. I have to say though, the combination of Law and Order repeats and caffeine-free Coca-Cola is conducive to my creative process. I seem to be able to write a lot of music whenever Goren's professionalism is under suspicion by his friends and foes.

I can only handle so many Law and Orders in a row though, so eventually, I have to flip away and see what the rest of the television world has to offer. It ain't pretty, though.

FrankTV - The Frank Caliendo show. Basically just a bunch of impersonations, which is half of everything I already hate about Saturday Night Live (the other half is the musical "comedy"). Do I need to see another parody of Inside the Actors' Studio? Do I need to hear more Bill Clinton womanizing jokes? Who gives a shit? He doesn't even really look like he's having fun.

Baywatch - Some weird new channel called ION started airing this after The Drew Carey Show occasionally, but I can't seem to get a grasp of its official airtime. Along with a billion other Erfflings, I used to watch Baywatch on syndication in the early 90's. It was instant camp (and it usually aired after WWF). Back then I knew it was so bad that it was good, and it's even worse/better now. The music montages average at a whopping 4 per episode! And the outro is usually a Hasselhoff tune, such as "Current of Love":

Like a ship that's tossed out
On the ocean
We get caught up swimmin'
In the motion
Hearts were sailing, love was on
The right track
Got out so far that
We can't get back
But darlin we can't
Let our hopes go down
It's tough to find out were
There's solid ground

You've gotta reach out
Take hold of my hand
You've gotta reach out
Till you're safe on dry land
You've gotta hold on
Baby never give up
You've gotta reach out
When you're caught in the current of love

I would continue to sing Baywatch's praises right now, but BLOGGER IS BEING A CUNT AND I CAN'T ESCAPE ITALICS. I swear, Blogging should be the simplest fucking thing in the world. But here I am, typing in a white box that can only handle 14 lines because it's a sixth of the size of my fucking screen, I can't post giant pictures, and I can't unitalicize my god damn text. Simple text and simple images... and it's gotta be mutilated. I have to go and copy something from before when it worked, paste it below, and then go from there. Eighteen motherhumping steps to do one douchebag thing.

AND IT'S NOT WORKING. I WOULD KICK SOMETHING, BUT I'M NOT WEARING MY STEEL-TOED BOOTS TODAY BECAUSE I DECIDED THAT I'M GOING TO WEAR SNEAKERS TO WORK ON FRIDAYS BECAUSE WE USED TO HAVE "DRESS DOWN FRIDAYS" WHERE EVERYONE WAS ALLOWED TO WEAR JEANS BUT I DIDN'T PARTICIPATE BECAUSE I DON'T WEAR JEANS, AND NOW THEY'VE INSTITUTED "BUSINESS CASUAL" ATTIRE FOR EVERY DAY (NOT JUST FRIDAYS) AND I STILL REFUSE TO WEAR JEANS, SO WEARING MY SNEAKERS WITH THE DEMONS ON THEM IS MY WAY OF STICKING IT TO THE MAN, EVEN THOUGH THE MAN IS WEARING JEANS AND IS ACTUALLY LESS UPTIGHT THAN I AM.

FUCK YOU BLOGGER. (WHY DO I FEEL LIKE THAT'S THEIR RESPONSE TOO?)

69th Post

You clearly can't read this because Blogger sucks and refuses to honor my jpeg's original size and resolution and The Blue Lioness will mortally wound me with her metallic claws if I upload it to an image hosting site and link to it. Sure, you could click on it to view it in its nearly original form, but we know that I know that you know that no one likes a two-step process.

Anyway, here's what the letters say:

MATTRES SPICALE
ASSORTED BRAND
SMART CHOIEC

They even bought the right letters (and even left off the last "S" for Savings) and could really just peel them off the window and put them in the right place if they wanted to. It's sad that I drive by this place every day and don't help them out, but will make the effort to take my cell phone out while stuck at the red light, upload it to Verizon's convoluted Pix Place bullshit, save it to my computer, then upload it to stupid Blogger.

At the same though, there's no reason to feel bad. I may have been a champion speller in another decade, but I'm no elitist. I'm sure English is not the owner's first language, and the intended communication is still there (though it took me a few red lights to figure out that Spicale meant Special), so I don't wanna bust balls. I'm just extremely obsessed with signage and its influence. In fact, I think the world is more interesting with mistakes. If I drove past this place and everything was spelled correctly, I wouldn't look twice. But with a view transposed vowels, they've managed to infiltrate my brain and got some free air time on the most important blog in history.

OK, maybe their mattresses are as half-assed as their spelling. Who cares? I'm going to bash my head on the keyboard now and hit enter afterwards:

hy uyhubujiuuu76uyhj8huj9kkl67 g5f4 f5g4r

IJHORSUPOIAT "o;'P/;'P[/0:"?)p{;'P/[IFDSIUB JHIOB IJPOQYG53JP[HBRJBwY3WY H3WUQ53 yZJTEAZE TEAUT U4IJ4W YR M IUIJJUJHH HYYY66

Transmissions from the Blue Lion

See, I told you Rollie was only temporarily stuck in the trash compactor that is life. It happens to the best of us. In fact, I don't really have time today to sit and stew and vent my cho-cha at the universe, but I've been up since 2am cursing the pollens and the demons Hagar sends to me every night this week so far --lady, give a princess a break. Since I'm already up, I've been scanning the Galactic Transmissions since about 3am. I was looking for Transmissions from Venus, but Earth is in that direction too, so it's 2 for the price of 1.

It's a new feature. Tasty, bite-sized news chunklets from deep within the Blue Lion. If you've got a good idea for a name for this BRAND-NEW feature, go ahead and leave it in the comments. I'll personally pick out three comic books from my collection and send them to the person who comes up with the best name. Fine. Or not, maybe I'll just keep them all to myself. Meh. Without further ado here's some stray news transmissions.

UC Berkeley student’s Twitter messages alerted world to his arrest in Egypt

"Buck, 29, a former Oakland Tribune multimedia intern, used the ubiquitous short messaging service to tap out a single word on his cellular phone: ARRESTED. The message went out to the cell phones and computers of a wide circle of friends in the United States and to the mostly leftist, anti-government bloggers in Egypt who are the subject of his graduate journalism project.

The next day, he walked out a free man with an Egyptian attorney hired by UC Berkeley at his side and the U.S. Embassy on the phone."

Now, you try and tell me that building a cyber community is somehow less valid, frivolous, and not worthwhile in today’s world.

Please read the full article and take the time to sign the petition to free the still imprisoned Egyptian translator and journalist the student was with. Having an opinion that differs from that of the ruling class and voicing that opinion should NEVER be a crime, much less a crime that is punishable by prison time and possible torture. (via D@n)

Gator blood may hold the keys to curing herpes.

I shit you not.

"Researchers hunting for new antibiotics might get some aid from gator blood. Scientists are zeroing in on snippets of proteins found in American alligator blood that kill a wide range of disease-causing microbes and bacteria, including the formidable MRSA or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Previous experiments have revealed that gator blood extract cripples many human pathogens, including E. coli, the herpes simplex virus and some strains of the yeast Candida albicans. The serum's antimicrobial power probably derives from protein bits called peptides. Widespread among reptiles and amphibians, several such germ-fighting peptides have been isolated from the skin of frogs in recent years.

"It seems Mother Nature has built in a circulating system of antimicrobial factories that protect the animals while they are waiting to develop the cell-mediated response that we would develop quickly..."

Let's ride this wave of good news as long as we can and end on a light and funny note.

Thundercats are loose on the Houses of Parliament!

Last night, the Thundercats symbol for help was projected onto Parliament in London. I love whoever did this. That is twelve kinds of awesome. I can just imagine Lion-o locked in a battle to the death with Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, and thinking, "Oh fuck, they're relentless and cannot be beaten. They're gonna kill me and eat me; time to call for help! Thundercats Hoooooooooo!"

For the record, it was most likely a stunt to promote the new release of Season 2 of the Thundercats on DVD.

Time to head down to Planet Arus. Princess duties call.

A Half Hour Dump

Sorry for being an endangered species lately... I have been Internetless at home for the past week and have actually decided to eat lunch during my lunch hour at work. I've got a meeting in 40 minutes, so this will be a smelly stream of crap.

I went to a dog's birthday party this past weekend. I thought it was absurd. Because she's only 1 and probably won't remember.

I made a prank video conference call last week. I accidentally dialed a number where people were sitting in a meeting on the other end, but they didn't have their monitors on, so they had no idea I connected. After a minute of eavesdropping, I decided to call the regular telephone in the room and hung up just as they reached for it. Then I giggled. Then I did it again. That's entertainment.

I bought some pizza on Monday night. I also bought pizza last night. Saturday night too. Not Sunday though. I don't know how I missed Sunday. Sunday I had meat loaf and mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese and then I slept for 10 hours. I never sleep for that long. I think slices of pizza are my energon cubes.

Anyway, on the way back from getting pizza on Monday, I walked down the always exciting Newark Ave. to my apartment. I saw a dude on the sidewalk with what I think was a physical defect. From afar it looked like he was daydreaming, but as I got closer I realized his neck appeared to be crooked and his head was permanently tilted towards the sky. As I passed by, he said "What's up, man?" That's what I was wondering too.

I coined a word on the way to work this morning, but now I don't remember it at all. My brain is getting more and more useless every day. Back when I used to drink Mountain Dew every day, I was much sharper and way more creative. I also didn't sleep at night because I had the opportunity to nap during the day.

I hate this post right now. I'm also wasting precious time trying to remember what that word was that I came up with earlier. Did it refer to my Internetless household? Going off the grid? I'm afraid it may be lost forever. Curse LG for not having a proper voice memo function on my cell phone. Curse Creative Labs for making an mp3 player that shit the bed after a year. Who instigated this Technological Slave Revolt? I'll hang him with Cat-5 cables.

Fuck, I was wrong about my meeting. It's starting now. Maybe everyone's watches will stop.

Maths Can Be Sexy

V is Vagina, and V is for Venn Diagram. That math looks so sexy on you. Like Einstein's soul threw up just a little bit on Anna Nicole Smith; sexy in a horrible, disgusting and yet funny way that implies either genius or retardation. I ride the fence on this one back and forth endlessly. Are certainly celebrities brilliant or functionally retarded? I should preface all this with the caveat that I was only ok at the maths at school. Algebra I am aces at; I'm ok with the geometry until we get into the 20-step proofs, and then I am out. As Bret Michaels would say, "Me no likey." I can get by in the calculus but we get anywhere NEAR irrational numbers, and I AM OUT. Goodbye. My smarts are not of that kind. I got the words, but not the spatial maths. Eh. I am sure I can date up brainwise if need be. Unfortunately, that's not how my vagina works. No, not at all. I like guys with abs; it is a sad, sick shame. I confess it. You can be fit and pretty and stupid, and much like any man, I will put up with you as long as you keep your mouth shut. Terrible isn't it? Stop talking baby; you're spoiling the moment. Ssssh. Though I have had that trick pulled on me by the Schulze and his very special brand of cynical bastardism, "How about we have less noticing things with our mouths and more noticing things with our minds." Fuck you; deuce up. This from the first man to give me an orgasm, and you WONDER what is wrong with me. It would take from now until the end of time to unravel the wtf that has happened to me. Mostly because I am insane and can obsess and manufacture meaning out of any little thing, so we'd be here forever as I am always thinking about your motivations and even more so when you don't have any conscious ones, but who's kidding who here? There's always a reason, always something to define, and always a sentence to diagram or perhaps a VENN (or Euler diagram) to lay out to clarify any given situation.

Today, I found a site that is all diagrams and graphs jotted down on notecards or napkins or what have you. I am now totally addicted to indexed. It's smart and very tongue-in-cheek, and it does help one make sense of relationships in a concrete manner without actually having to resort to higher maths that I am not good at. Praise be! I have been on a Venn Diagram kick lately ever since I found the best diagram ever which accurately represents my struggle against the endless tyranny of pants:




Unfortunately, that diagram is not actually a Venn diagram because the data sets do not intersect. It is in all reality a Euler diagram which is more useful for showing real world data, because not all sets partially overlap with all other sets. That's the last time I will make that distinction because from here on out, anything with circles I am going to define as a Venn digram because everyone has at least heard of a Venn diagram and has at least a vague concept of what I'm talking about.

Also, in honor of that terrible new commercial wherein Meatloaf sings about his kid wanting a fucking Go Phone every night and day as he throws smoke bombs around his garage and his wife waltzes around nonchalantly manhandling a large, raw leg of meat, here is a Venn Diagram just for you Meatloaf:


Perhaps, that should actually be labeled "Things Meatloaf would do for money".

The beautiful thing about the Venn is that you can truly use them to define any relationship. This one, off of Indexed, is a new favorite that accurately defines Hope for Entrepreneurs and the tacky shit they make.



This one is also a favorite. Perhaps it should be titled: "Spring Cleaning."


I bring all this up because a few weeks a go I met a beautiful girl and kissed her at a bar. I immediately fell ill with a horrific flu mere hours afterwards. She's a 4th grade teacher, so I think I was struck down by filthy, opportunistic 4th grader germs. I really liked this girl, and we were all holding hands and getting kissy, in public. She even threw some noise at a friend of mine who happens to be a girl because she thought my friend was making moves on me, but sadly, as all such encounters with women usually end for me, she was only into kissing girls when drunk. Since that night, I have had no answer to my texts. Oh ladies, it's amazing what 2 shots of Jagermeister will do to your sexual orientations. As for me, your Princess, I am bisexual and far pickier about my women than I am about my men. Double standard, I know. The awesome thing about meeting pretty teachers in bars though is that they volunteer to diagram your gayness for you. In fact, I think it was her idea to diagram my gayness which made me fall even a little bit more in love with her in my alcohol-induced haze. Let me present the diagram of my gayness or lack thereof:

There is some shady math going on here because we were plastered, but we made allowances for errors which we subtracted to come up with a more possibly realistic number. Please remember the state of our brains because we were hammered, but this diagram clearly shows that I am only 10% gay, and she was 50% gay, but still...who is not answering whose texts here? It does me no good to find girls I like at bars and kiss them because such girls are only into kissing girls for as long as the drinks are free. I did really like her though. I would like to kiss her some more, maybe fuck her in the Blue Lion, maybe setup a threesome with Starbuck. I love you KARA THRACE. Oh well, such things are not to be.

Even XKCD has gotten into the VENN game of love with this amazingly touching and yet simultaneously disturbing diagram:


Vanilla Ice should not in any way be near any of those datasets, but hey, to each their own. Take Mr. Van Winkle, who was just arrested for a domestic dispute, off the market, and I will consider you a hero. You are taking one for the team by ensuring no one else has to fuck him. Thank you. I thank you for all women everywhere from the bottom of my heart.

My wonderful cyber friend Puck made a hilarious Venn diagram that works both Sauron and ogling my sweet ass into one beautiful graphical representation that I simply must share:


Since it's a little blurry, let me state that this graph represents: The Things Sauron Would Do for Love. Those being a) create a nice precious ring b) dominate an elf and c) ogle D_S (meaning me aka the dirty_snowflake) at every opportunity.

Finally, I leave you with a Venn Diagram from me to thee that utterly, completely, and accurately represents my sex life or lack thereof as of this very moment:

Rollie will return soon; he did fall in the trash compactor. We're fishing him out as I type this. Silly Rollie always with the nipple cannons and the wacky antics.


*Princess Out*

My Thoughts on Social Media or You Can't Stop the Rain

I am, as always, so very fascinated with the differences between introverts and extroverts and all the gradations between them as I myself am an oh-so quirky blend of both. I am very introverted in the sense that being around people and being "on" exhausts me, and then I feel the need to hermit and hide to recharge. I am not afraid of people or social interactions. You could drop me into any party anywhere with any different kind of people, and I could shift gears and entertain them all no problem if I wanted to...and that really is the kicker. IF I wanted to, and mostly I don't. I hate the cell phone; I hate idle chit chat on it. I answer the phone with what do you want or what's your story or hit me or digame when I am feeling my NM roots. Sometimes I just answer the phone WHAT? If you call me and don't leave a message, I will never call you back. Heck, if you leave me a voicemail message I may not listen to it for a week and sit there resenting its very presence in the icons on my phone as if it was a guilt bomb just waiting to go off. I am weird. I know this. I was not a loner in high school or college. In high school I was in every sport, every single extracurricular activity we had. I was the lead in many of my high school plays, and for fuck's sake I was the stinking prom queen as one would rightly expect of a Princess. I am also the girl that everyone wants to tell their story to. That homeless guy on the street? The cashier at CVS? The chick at the bar? Yes. Yes. Yes. And not just their stories, but their secrets, things they would never tell anyone else ever. These are the things that scarred them emotionally; things they've done or were done to them. These are stories that transfer some of that scar to the listener if you are human and have a heart at all.

I am the girl people feel so comfortable around they think they can take liberties with; thus, I don't go out much. It's not that I don't want to hear your stories or absolve you of your sins or send you down the path to healing...it's just that it takes so much of me to do that, and I need to husband my strength for the people I truly love, or I cannot perform the same services for them. I am not the Jesus, not even fucking close. I can't reach out my hand to everyone and retain myself. That's just not how it works for me, and I've spent my whole life figuring out how it does work for me and learning how to set my boundaries accordingly. I walked to the convenience store the other day and talked to Sapo the homeless granpa for an hour; he told me he was smiling so hard his face hurt and that we'd been talking so long his knees were getting stiff. He had a lot to say and not everyone gives him the chance to say it. I touched Little Big Indian, aka known as Isaac and also homeless, on the hand the other day and promised to mail a letter and a card he had drawn for some girl, and I had never spoken to him before in my life. I won't turn it off if I meet you, but I will try to restrict the moments that it can happen within. It is a taking whether you mean to or not, and I only have so much to give. What I have to give I will, when and where I can, and do it gladly with no reservations in my heart. It takes a toll though because I listen. I really listen. I look you in the face. I hear you. Don't waste this precious time with mindless blather or ask me how I am doing to be polite if you really don't care because you are wasting time and energy and air and such things are precious.

People invariably either love me, or they hate me. They think either that I hung the moon or
that I am an utter bitch and a lot of that is how you approach me or trespass upon me. Sometimes I am in no mood, and I broadcast on a wideband emotionally. I can walk into a room pissed off as hell and not say a word or betray my emotions with body language, and people will still feel it. Sometimes I can't keep it in. The times that I strip all emotions out of my voice and talk calmly and evenly with no emotional inflection are the times when people freeze like a mouse before a snake. Those are the times that people burst into tears and become terrified. I still haven't figured that one out quite yet. I guess the absence of all emotions is more terrifying than someone yelling at you? Is that the serial killer calmness? Does it trigger the primal fight or flight response? Does it hypnotize you to draw you in for the kill? Does the mammal brain remember what it feels like to be prey and reacts instinctively?

All these words, words, WORDS to say that I really value all the digital social networking. It really works for me. It is remote intimacy on my time that I can turn on and off at will. I can get to know you, sift the trivia of your life through my fingers, absorb the data in the details, but only if I want to. We are building communities in new ways out here on the edges of cyberspace, and it definitely overlaps with real life. Facetime is precious in this increasingly busy world; facetime is a commodity not a given or a right. In my book (and I know my book is weird), facetime should be earned. Thus, I use the twitter and the tumblr and the myspace and the blogs and such. I satisfy my extroverted needs for attention by casting my thoughts out into cyberspace; I choose which people I want to interact with; I build cyber relationships that may indeed carry over into real life. I've been reading articles and blogs about people who consider themselves introverts and how they feel about things like twitter and AIM or Facebook (which is wholly evil imho) or Myspace. It's been interesting. Not everyone agrees. Some introverts think it levels the playing field for them with the extroverts, some introverts find it all too obtrusive. I fall somewhere in the middle. I pick and choose what I need because communication, though it is something you do with other people, is still a very individual and specific thing. What I consider obtrusive you may feel is necessary and vice versa. I did my graduate work in Communications. I am fascinated with people's styles and needs and methods of communication, but I never understand why people poo-poo someone else's style because it is different than their's. I guess people, even the most seemingly liberal, are always resistant to change and paradigm shift. We're headed for a big one too. In a hundred years we went from the light bulb to computers, and technology is increasing exponentially. We are all finding our way in this digital world; we are pioneers of new social structures and community clusters. ADD is evolution's way of speeding us up enough to be able to handle a stream of constant communication bombardment and multi-tasking. I can stand here and see and taste the future. I feel sad sometimes for the generations and people that won't adapt. My father refuses to turn on a computer. He can't read my thoughts and feelings, and I think he would love to. I could print them out for him I suppose, but I won't. If he wants it bad enough, he'll adapt. I've offered to help him. There's nothing wrong with being a face-to-face, concrete and rooted in the real world of social interactions person. It's just that you're missing so much. The future is coming. Go read some Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow or Neuromancer by William Gibson. I am ready; plug me in. My father reads a ton of scifi and cyberpunk (as do I), but he chooses not to interact digitally as is his right. He also feels increasingly lost in this modern world, so I or Moo or someone else interfaces for him with the digital and orders the things he wants from Amazon. What a world of resources at his fingertips that he has closed himself off to. I love him; I will never abandon him, ever. Things are changing though and closing your eyes and denying the rain won't make you any less wet.

digital kisses blown on a pixilated wind--

Social networking tools give introverts opportunities to connect, lift careers

Instant Messaging for Introverts

Social Media: Where Introverts Can Shine