THE LAST ROCK

"Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.  But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

NOTE FROM A REFORMED POLY SCI MAJOR

Many years ago, I made a vow to never discuss politics with anyone ever again.  This may seem extreme, but hear me out.  If I agree with you politically, then great, but there is no need to discuss it.  If I disagree with you, nothing you can say will change my mind, and I would hope that your convictions are strong enough that I can't change them, so what's the point?  Friendships can be ruined over contrasting political views when they don't need to.  People should only be judged by their own personal interractions with you, but contrasting political views can screw that up.  Something as superficial as politics should not alienate people.  Superficial as politics?  Oh yes.  Contrary to what your 8th grade civics class, CNN, and the politicians themselves would have you believe, politics are just smoke and mirrors to distract people from what is really going on.  They are the circus which hides the underlying truth.  It doesn't matter who is in office, the capitalist machinery will roll on.  If you don't believe me, consider this.  Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bushy Jr. all had contrasting political views, and yet they all had the same Chairman of the Fed, an unelected post with more power than any president has over the economy.  Economics are far more important than politics, and I will gladly discuss those with you any time you would like!  Instead, we are distracted and polarized by a dog and pony show of sickening proportions.  The lack of education and ignorance in America has reached appalling heights, and the political arena mimics that completely.  Recently, Rep. Todd Akin made some ridiculous comments about "legitimate rape" and that women couldn't get pregnant from it, and yet he is still leading in the polls for the Missouri senate race.  Rep. Steve King made Akin seem almost reasonable with his recent statement that it is LEGAL for a sexual predator who has impregnated a 13 yr old to take her across state lines and force her to have an abortion.  What fucking planet are these people from??!?!  They are in the U.S. CONGRESS for fuck's sake.  Americans elected these brain dead fucking morons!  It's enough to drive you insane.  And that's why I don't discuss politics any more.
Here are Rep. King's comments in all their mind boggling, jaw dropping, outrageously ignorant, insanity:

R.I.P. BLOGS

Reuters News Service- Portland, Oregon

The search for new posts has officially been called off, and blogs were declared dead yesterday.  Searchers and die hard fans had held out hope for the past few months that blogs would be found alive and healthy, but in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they have given up hope.  Blogs had a full and happy life, reaching their personal and professional high point in the mid 2000's.  Some signs of trouble had appeared in recent years, as blogs had been dominated by narcissistic moms writing about their kids and Brooklyn hipsters writing about food trucks, but nobody expected a complete disappearance until blogs went missing a couple of months ago.  Blogs are survived by their younger, sexier, girlfriend Twitter, and their mentally challenged cousin Facebook.
In lieu of flowers, please Paypal a struggling writer money instead.

CHESS TROLL

I play a lot of chess over at Chess.com, and it's fun to compete against people from all over the world.  The internet has caused many drawbacks, including loss of privacy, misinformation, and scammers, but one of the positives is being able to play a game of chess anytime you want, with anyone on the planet.  The other day I saw that I had a message from somebody.  I didn't remember playing this guy, but apparently I must have beat him about a month ago.  It should be noted that my screen name on Chess.com is MinnesotaFats, and my avatar picture is Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazzard.  This is his message for me.  Enjoy:

you fucking fat piece of fucking shit!!!! you dont wanna play a rematch do you fat piece of shit!!!! you play with whites once and run away FUCK YOU!!!! i hope your fucking fat mum and dad die in a carcrash fucking hippo!!! go stuff your fat face with mcdonalds till you get a heartattack fat american mothefucker!!!! FUCK YOU
by Uchiha Susake      28 Days Ago

His acount (I'm assuming it's a he) has been closed, probably by moderators, so I couldn't find out where he was from or give him that rematch that he so desperately wanted.

THANK YOU BUKOWSKI

Thank you Bukowski
for convincing subsequent generations
of writers
that all they had to do is drink too much
and vomit on a page.
Despite not because.
Now all we have are
a shitload of
hungover
bitter
frustrated
dishwashers
with bad livers
and thousands of pages of self indulgent vomit.
Thank you Bukowski.

AMATEUR HOUR

My whole life I have conducted a decades long informal poll about which holiday was a bigger amateur drunk fest, New Year's Eve or St. Paddy's Day.  The overall winner by a narrow margin is St. Paddy's Day, and I have to agree.  The drinking starts way earlier in the day, and is usually more excessive.  St. Paddy's Day almost comes with an expectation of chaos and mayhem, and it usually does ensue.  The thing that puts it over the top though?  Green puke.  I will say that on New Year's Eve, more people get drunk that normally don't drink, adding to it's amateur ranking, but it cannot compete with the classless abandon of St. Paddy's.
Spotted at the parade today in Southie: the Lexington Minutemen (some of whom looked like they may have actually witnessed the shot heard 'round the world in 1775) followed immediately by a Star Wars characters club (imagine 20 Comic Book Guys dressed as Jedis). 
And now to commemorate the holiday, a brief history of the Irish people:    potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, whiskey, potatoes, James Joyce, potatoes, NO POTATOES, move to South Boston, potatoes, more whiskey, potatoes, potatoes, Bono.
Don't let any Leprechauns steal your pot 'o gold!
Happy Amateur Day!

OSCAR AUTOPSY

Every year I do an Oscar recap, but this year it feels more like a post mortem.  What a stinker.  A three hour cure for insomnia.
This is the first year in my life that I genuinely didn't care about the Oscars.  I've hardly seen any of the movies, and frankly I've grown tired of Hollywoods politicized self congratulatory cool kids prom.  I thought this year was going to suck, and had zero expectations for it.  Somehow the Oscars managed to score less than zero.
First of all, Billy Crystal sucks.  He has always sucked.  Every movie he has been in would be better without him.  The one movie I like that he starred in, When Harry Met Sally, succeeded in spite of his annoying, unbelievable acting.  Everybody (by everybody I mean the media, brain adled masses, and Hollywood suck ups) was thanking him for "saving the Oscars" and singing his praise.  Give me a break.  My friend commented that the Oscars were being hosted by the corpse of Billy Crystal.  I prefer to think of it as the ghost of Oscars past.  And a very unfunny ghost at that.  He opened with a wacky "funny" song medley spoofing all the best movie nominees.  How original.  A musical number to open the Oscars?!?  What cutting edge geniuses came up with that one?  It was incredulously downhill from there.  I thought his running jokes about Kodak declaring bankruptcy were totally appropriate cosidering the economy right now.  Who doesn't want to listen to a bloated multi-millionaire joke about businesses going under while there is 10% unemployment?  That's a no brainer.  Actually, that term applies to all his jokes.  No brainers.  No heart and no funny either.  If he pursed his lips like smug Jewish grandmother and waited for the forced laughter one more time, I was going to fly to Hollywood and punch him in his face Stewie Griffin style.
The rest of the show wasn't any better.  Hugo cleaned up all the technical awards, to the point of almost being embarrassing as person after person got up and kissed Scorscese's ring.  At least he deserves it.  Hugo is one of the only movies I've seen this year, and I figured it would do well considering it is a love letter to movies, directed by an aging legend, aimed at the exact people I assume make up the Academy's ranks.  Cirque du Soliel came out and did their cheerleaders on meth routine, with movie scenes projected behind them, which I guess made their routine about movies???  I've already forgotten most of the show, but I remeber that Melissa Leo didn't even swear, the other presenters were equally comatose, and Woody Allen didn't bother showing up again (smart guy).  The funniest moment of the ceremony was when one of the writers of The Decendants (a piece of shit movie that doesn't remotely deserve all the ridiculous praise that's been heaped on it- but that's another rant) mocked Angelina Jolie's insane skeleton pose in her slit dress. 
It's a pretty boring show when a list of dead people is one of the high points.
Why did I watch?  I can't help myself.  I really do love movies, and seeing an actor like Christopher Plummer finally win an Oscar makes the three predictable, bad joke filled, self indulgent hours worth watching.  Sort of.  At least I got to see Sascha Baron Cohen dump Kim Jong Il's "ashes" all over Ryan Seacrest.  It's pretty sad when the highlight of the show comes an hour and a half before it starts.

JOSE, CAN YOU SEE?

What's with all these singers fucking with the national anthem?!?  Just sing the fucking song!!!  It's perfect as is, and not only do your stupid embellishments not improve it, they are downright disrespectful!  For his rendition of the Star Spangled Banner before the AFC Championship game today, Steven Tyler should have his U.S citizenship revoked permanently, and be immediately fired from American Idol.
I haven't seen anything butchered that bad since a pig roast at Stevie Wonder's house.
I've heard better sounds come out of a cat in heat having sex with a vacuum cleaner.
He should be ashamed to pull that shit, especially since his hometown team is called the Patriots!
They should run him out of Boston on a rail (it wouldn't take a very long pole.  I met him on Newbury St. once, and he's all of about 4'3").
He's the only Muppet I don't like.
Dude looks like a lady, but sings like a cum gargling crack whore.
Hey Steven....we've been getting some calls:
- Rue McClanahan wants her face back.
- Janis Joplin wants her hair back.
- Rebecca Black wants her singing ability back.
- Rip Taylor wants both his scarf and his voice back.
I wish there had been three amateur singers there to judge him and tell him he was "pitchy" and that his singing was "the worst thing I've ever heard" and "you will not be advancing."
He made Roseanne Barr's version look classy.
On the up side, he would be absolutely perfect as Cruella DeVille if they ever do a broadway musical of 101 Dalmatians.
Did I mention that I thought his singing was pretty shitty?
That is all.

BLACKOUT FRIDAY

When I worked at the theater, holidays were a nightmare. The days that everybody else had off were our busiest days of the year. Thanksgiving was particularly bad. People would try to escape their families for a couple of hours, or if they didn't have any other plans, we were the only thing open. The Friday after Thanksgiving was the worst. After people had been shopping for hours on their feet, they would come into the theater tired, irritable, and loaded down with bags of crap. They would buy tickets to whatever Hollywood piece of shit was released for the holidays, and shuffle with all the other sheeple into an overcrowded and overheated theater. On top of that, a ton of employees would call out sick for that day. We had them sign a contract when they were hired that they would be available and would work on the holidays, but firing them didn't help the day we were short staffed. After a grueling day of selling tickets, selling concessions, running around and putting out fires, and dealing with complaints, all the employees would go out drinking once their shift was over. That's why we started calling it "Blackout Friday."
Recently I heard Black Friday referred to as "the Special Olympics of capitalism" and I really can't think of a more appropriate description. At a time that we should be relaxing, enjoying food and family, corporate America has decided to turn it into a materialistic feeding frenzy. I'm not saying it's all their fault. If nobody showed up for their stupid sales, they wouldn't have them. Over the past few years the whole scenario has gotten absolutely ridiculous. The time that the sales start has moved back gradually, with every store trying to outdo the other one, until now some of the sales start on Thursday afternoon. What better way to spend your holiday than standing in line in front of a big box store in a parking lot with thousands of other mouth breathing greedy pathetic consumer feedbacks, waiting to buy whatever crap Madison Avenue says we desperately need. Well, enjoy it sheeple, but be careful out there because some people are getting violent about their consumerism as evidenced by this story. It's only a matter of time before we get our first Black Friday shooting.
On the other hand, tomorrow is "Small Business Saturday," so go out and support your local independent, mom-and-pop, neighborhood businesses. They are the ones that deserve your support. Now, a promotion like that is something I can get behind...

IF JEFFEREY DAHMER COULD HAVE RUN A 4.2 FORTY-YARD DASH, HE WOULD HAVE JUST HAD AN EATING DISORDER

It seems like I'm always defending my love of football. I understand that it's a violent, brutal sport. I understand that it receives an inappropriate amount of attention in our society. I understand that athletes get away with a lot of things that other people wouldn't, simply because of a hero worship mentality. Just because millions of people look up to them, that doesn't make them good role models. However, I have a love of the game itself. The mechanics of the plays, the competition and strategy, and above all the teamwork and comeraderie that can only come from battling in the trenches together to accomplish a goal.
The scandal which has unfolded at Penn State over the past week has once again cast an ugly light on football. Penn State has long been considered the pinnacle of college football morality. They have never been charged with any recruiting violations, a majority of their players graduate with a good education, and up until now they have had no other scandals. All of that was shattered in the past 48 hours. The incredibly sordid details that have emerged will erase the legacy of the winningest coach in college football history, and tarnish the image of the cleanest cut NCAA program.
If you're not familiar with this case, then you're probably not a football fan…or don't read newspapers… or don't watch TV… or don't have the Internet (how are you even reading this???). Everyone in America is innocent until proven guilty, but the details of this case are more about moral convictions then legal convictions. Edmund Burke famously said "All that evil needs to triumph is for good men to do nothing." That is precisely what seems to have happened here. But first a little background:
Jerry Sandusky played defensive end for Penn State in the 60s. After graduating, he became an assistant coach, eventually working his way up to linebacker coach and then being promoted to defensive coordinator in 1977. Under his defensive leadership, Penn State gained the nickname "Linebacker U," and stunned Miami University in the 1984 Orange bowl by defensively shutting down the Hurricanes high-powered offense. It was assumed that Sandusky would succeed Joe Paterno as the head coach of Penn State, but when it became obvious that Paterno had no intentions of leaving any time soon, Sandusky retired in 1999 after a shutout win in the Alamo bowl, and the players carried him off the field on their shoulders. He went on to found The Second Mile, a community organization to help disadvantaged children.
Pretty amazing career, right? Well, it turns out that Sandusky was the worst kind of monster. A Monster that outwardly looks like a successful, well respected, pillar of the community, but who uses that disguise to commit acts of pure evil. He is an American nightmare. The kind, grandfatherly, coach who is secretly destroying children's lives. In 1998, Sandusky admitted to the mother of a child he was mentoring that he had inappropriately showered with her son. No legal action was taken at the time. In 2002, a graduate assistant coach at Penn State walked in on Sandusky raping a boy in the Penn State locker room showers. The graduate assistant returned to his office and called his father for advice. His father told him to leave the building. The next day, the graduate assistant told coach Paterno what he had seen. The day after that, Paterno told school officials about the incident. The police were never contacted, no attempt was made to find out who the child was, and the only action the University took was to tell Sandusky that he couldn't bring children on campus anymore. Clearly they knew something terribly wrong was going on for them to ban him from bringing children on campus, but I guess they felt he could do whatever he wanted as long as it didn't happen on their property. Everyone involved simply wanted to keep it quiet and not do anything that would harm the sterling reputation of Penn State. Apparently, nobody had the best interests of the child, or future children, at heart. Nothing was done, and Sandusky was free for the next nine years to continue abusing little boys. Both school officials have since been indicted for perjury for lying about their knowledge of this incident.
Sandusky has been charged with multiple counts of sexual assault to children, ranging from 1994 to 2009. Nine victims have come forward, and undoubtedly there will be more since a man like this is an un-repentant predator. In a horrifying irony, his autobiography published in 2001 is called Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story.
I know there is a presumption of innocence, but the evidence in this case is overwhelming. Joe Paterno has insisted that Sandusky is innocent, but in the same breath he said that he and his wife will pray for the victim's families. If Sandusky is innocent, what victims? More importantly, how could somebody walk into a shower where a child was being raped and do nothing? How could a head coach find out that a child had been molested in his locker room by a man he had coached and worked with for 30 years, and not do anything about it? How could University officials find out about a molestation on their campus and not involve the police? How can all of this be swept under the rug for at least nine years allowing a hideous monster to pray on their community? For the same reasons that the Catholic Church protected, hid, and shuffled around pedophile priests for years. To protect the reputation of "important" men. To shelter a venerable and powerful institution. To not jeopardize a money making machine.
Joe Paterno announced today that he will retire at the end of the season. How noble of him. How nice of him to not force the University to make a tough decision about firing him. I saw an ESPN report today saying how "devastated" Paterno is by all of this. Like "raped in the shower" devastated, or "my precious reputation is tarnished" devastated? Some idiotic Penn State students and fans are rallying around coach Paterno. In their warped and distorted fanaticism, they value football victories, glory, and image over the well-being of countless children.
And that's why I always have to defend my love of football.
Because some crazy fans, overzealous media, corporate sponsors, and big business get their priorities way out of whack and give the game a bad name. I wish our modern culture would stop forgiving or covering up bad (and in some cases despicable) behavior simply because someone can throw a ball or coach their team to a victory, but don't blame the game of football itself for the actions of bad people. As evidenced throughout history, scandals and cover ups are a human condition, not just a sports condition.

….. AND NOW A FEW MINUTES WITH ERNEST

Did you ever notice…...that when a person dies who was annoying, obnoxious, pretentious, self-centered, and humorless, we're supposed to be sad just because they were famous?  Why is that?  It seems to me that the sensible thing is that if we don't know somebody, and they didn't know us, then why should we care if they died?  Especially if that person was a grouchy pompous know-it-all who didn't give a shit about anyone but themselves?  It always amazes me when there's a big outpouring of sentiment after someone dies just because they were rich and/or famous.  Why is that?  It doesn't make sense to me.  You might say that's heartless, but maybe I'm just an old curmudgeon…
I once saw Andy Rooney talk about the cotton balls in aspirin bottles for 2 minutes.   Some people might find that amusing, but I found it incredibly annoying and useless.  I never liked his little "comic relief" nuggets at the end of 60 Minutes.  The whole "I'm a cantankerous old man who bitches about everything" routine got old after the first 10 seconds or so.
I had a friend who grew up in Fairfield Connecticut.  His father work for  Con-Edison repairing telephone lines, and rode into Manhattan every day on the same commuter rail as Andy Rooney.  He said that Rooney sat in the same seat every day and read the papers.  If anybody ever approached him  to say they were a fan or to talk to him at all, he was incredibly rude and told them to leave him alone.  As if he was so important preparing his stupid fucking routine for 60 Minutes that he did have time to say hi to somebody who actually liked his inane bullshit!  I firmly believe that a person's true character is defined by how they behave in the small moments when they think nobody is watching.
One of the funniest things I've ever seen is Ali G's "interview" with Andy Rooney.  One of my favorite lines is when Rooney says that he has " 50 books on the English language if you'd like to read one."  Eventually Ali G asks him if he is ending the interview "because I is black?" and then accuses him of being "racialist." Andy Rooney says that's not even a word , but the jokes on him because it really is a word.  It's a Brittish variation of racism, and was used correctly by Ali G.  Maybe you should've opened one of those 50 books Andy.
Enjoy:

...

RIDE THE DRAGON

The world population reached 7 billion people this Halloween weekend.  If that's not scary, I don't know what is.  I found out that the number of people on Earth has doubled since I was born.  Humans are the worst plague that God has ever sent down.  We make locusts look like child's play.  If this planet had a landlord, he would've called Orkin a long time ago.  Apparently all the wrong people are spawning too.  That's why my dad hated Mother Teresa.  Let me just pause for a minute to let that sink in.  Okay, here's why.  She advocated no birth control in areas that desperately needed it.  But that's a story for another post. 
I finally bought the Dragon voice recognition software that I've been thinking of getting for a couple years.  My weak typing skills will no longer hold me back, and this may mean a rebirth of this blog!  As a happy accident, it also turns out that the headphones and microphone that came with the Dragon software are better than my old headphones, so as I "write" this I'm listening to Pandora, and life is good.  Unfortunately, I look like Kathy, the Time-Life operator in those old ads, and my roommates probably think I'm losing my mind, talking to myself in my room.  I also sound like that old Molly Shannon skit on Saturday Night Live, yelling out punctuation.  Remember that character?  She was a grammar teacher who would say "Correct punctuation is important  EXCLAMATI ON  POINT  Without it COMMA we are like animals PERIOD"  I had to spell all that out.  Otherwise, the voice recognition software would just put in !  , and.  Ha ha ha ha (that's how it actually types out my laugh) 
As I was walking home last night, eager to try out my new toy, the goblins and ghouls and zombies and princesses were all out in force trick-or-treating.  My neighborhood, apparently, is a hotbed of Halloween activity, and the neighbor directly behind my house actually set up a fancy tent that stretched out from his porch.  It was called Fred's Garage, and drew quite a crowd.  Spooky sounds and music were emanating from it all night.  When I got home, I could still hear Fred's Garage through the trees behind my house.  He was playing The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels band, which I thought was pretty funny Halloween music.  I've always had a bone to pick with that song.  The devil clearly wins the showdown!  Everything about his solo is better than the human's.  Just another case of the devil getting a raw deal.  Maybe that's why I like Halloween so much, it's the one day where the devil gets his due. 
Well, that's it for now, but hopefully I'll be back soon with some more ramblings now that I'm not constrained by my suspect typography skills…

MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS

I saw a funny photo the other day, so I posted it on my facebook page.  My friend JJ said that it should be turned into a motivational poster.  I thought that was a pretty good idea, and then I got a little carried away.  Here's the photo, and a few of the posters I came up with:

Feel free to submit your own version!

ONE LINE MOVIE REVIEW: B-GIRL (2009)

If every breakdance movie cliche ever created had a huge orgy at the UPN studios and spawned a baby that was a bad actor, and that baby took a shit, that shit would be the movie B-Girl.

THE BANGOR CHRONICLES: CHAPTER 3

I've been venturing into neighboring Brewer, Maine on my days off.  Bangor and Brewer are sometimes referred to as the "Twin Cities" locally.  I would argue that they are neither twins, nor cities, but that's a discussion for another post.
When I was in Brewer yesterday, I stumbled across the Super Twin Buffet.  Much to my surprise, the "twin" in it's name is not a reference to the two towns, but to the fact that they offer both Asian and American cuisine at the buffet.  I had read online reviews of the fabled Super Twin Buffet on Yelp and Yahoo restaurants.  All the reviews tended to focus on the low price.
Located in a strip mall with a bus stop directly in front of it's front door, the Super Twin Buffet does not have an ideal location for a place where you would want to go, ah, consume food.  Walking in, it resembled a bingo hall more than a restaurant.  The room was cavernous, with long rows of tables and chairs.  The outer walls were lined with booths.  I was quickly led to a table, and silverware wrapped in a napkin was placed in front of me and nothing else.  My waitress asked me what I wanted to drink.  She quickly returned with my diet Mountain Dew, and hurried off again without giving me any directions.  There were no menus or signs on the wall.  I guess everyone knows the drill.  I made my way to the buffet area.
There were six huge islands filled with food.  There was rice, ten different kinds of chicken, fried everything, salad, sushi, veggies, pizza, roast beast, and even mac and cheese.  One whole island was devoted to desserts, and there was a help yourself ice cream chest in one corner.  The decor of the food area was "shabby community center," with cheap linoleum tiled floors, and weathered fake wood paneling on the walls.
I got back to my table with my first plate and assessed the damages.  The crab rangoons were surprisingly good, but it was all downhill after that.  The white rice was passable, but the fried rice was spoiled.  The beef and broccoli was tasty, but the mystery meatballs were....mysterious.  The egg rolls were remotely edible.  Almost everything was straight from frozen directly to the fryer or oven, and I could just picture the huge walk-in freezer filled with generic white boxes filled with mass produced factory food.
On my second trip I tried some mystery fried nuggets (chewy), some onion rings (chewy), asian noodles (chewy), sesame chicken (chewy), and I couldn't resist getting some mac and cheese (chewy and sour).  My third trip involved salad, sushi, and some more rangoons and broccoli and beef.  The sushi was horrifying.  Fortunately, there were no raw fish components to any of it, and at least the rolls looked freshly thawed.  The fake crab rolls and shredded shrimp (??!?) filled rolls were easy to avoid, and I found a veggie roll that was bearable.  I think it had lettuce and rice in it. 
By then it was almost noon, and the place was filling up at an alarming rate.  People just kept pouring through the door.  All of the long community tables were starting to fill up, and the buffet area looked like a Koi pond after they throw the pellets in it.  On the big TV on the wall they were showing crazy Chinese gymnastic teams performing.  It was unsettlingly quiet in the dining room as people choked down their food and stared at each other.  If a prison and a retirement home had a kid, this is what it would look like.  And the humanity!  I felt like a skinny guy there, and if you've ever met me you know, skinny I'm not.
My fourth and final trip to the feeding grounds (yes- I am a glutton and a glutton for punishment) was entirely devoted to dessert.  I had butterscotch pudding (they still make that?!), chocolate cake (sugar air), carrot cake (no taste whatsoever), espresso cake (kinda......good!), a cream puff (delightfully stale), and a sugar cookie (I can neither confirm nor deny it's goodness).
I started hitting the Buffet Wall about halfway through the desserts, and had to hurry to finish before The Pain set in.  The waitress had dropped off my check with a fortune cookie and a curt "thank you" somewhere between my second and third plate after she had refilled my soda, and I got the distinct impression that dawdling was frowned upon.  Even though it was crowded, there were still plenty of seats, but I decided to leave anyway.  I needed to get some circulation going as quickly as possible.
I looked down at the check.  One all-you-can-eat buffet, one bottomless soda......$6.70 total!  Are you kidding me?  You can't get a sandwich and a can of soda for $6.70!  It seemed almost criminal to get that much food for that little.  It defied some sort of physics/economics law!  No wonder the place was packed.  I paid my check and stumbled out the door.  For the next four hours I groaned and winced as I thought to myself "Oh god, I'm so sick.  Oh god, I'm going to be sick.  Oh god, I'm so sick."  My fortune cookie said "You are magnetic in your bearing."  I not only felt magnetic, I felt like I had my own gravitational pull after that meal!
Of course, later that night I began to get predictably, inexorably hungry again.  I started to think about the Super Twin Buffet.  Maybe I'll go back tomorrow..... I mean $6.70?!?  Come on!
The food is atrocious, but the portions are awesome.

THE BANGOR CHRONICLES: CHAPTER 2

Bangor is starting to grow on me.
Underneath a veneer of seediness, roils a current of content normalcy.  Usually, it's the other way around.  People are generally happy and laid back.  One of the things that impresses me the most, is that you don't see impatient people.  When people are waiting in line, they don't sigh loudly or exasterbatingly slouch their shoulders or look at their watch and roll their eyes.  They just wait their turn.  After living in Boston, which is chock full of people who love to be pissed off and in a rush, a more civil atmosphere is refreshing.
Bangor has little parks and benches everywhere, and it's the kind of place that still has a couple video rental stores (unfortunately an endangered species).  There are free movies outside in a plaza downtown every Friday during the summer.
As far as the economy goes, in the worst depression in almost 100 years (and it is a depression- don't let some statistical economist egghead blow smoke up your ass and say it's technically a recession.  It's a full blown depression), in one of the most depressed region of the country, I ended up getting a job at the first place I applied, at literally one of the closest businesses to where I live, at exactly the kind of place I wanted to work, so I can't complain.
Bangor is big enough that it has a couple malls, but still feels and smells like the countryside.  The University of Maine is in the next town over, so there are plenty of educated people, but very few pretentious people.  When you say "designer label" people think L.L. Bean, and those are my kind of fashionistas!  Besides, any town with a giant statue of Paul Bunyan is cool in my book.
The bottom line is that in Bangor, the buses run on time and people smile at you and say hello on the street.  And really, isn't that the most you can hope for from humanity these days?

RISE POKER CAPTION CONTEST

Guess who just won a caption contest??? Did you guess me?!? Good guess.
There were only twenty entries, but 1st place is better than 20th place!

Check out the photo HERE.

P.S. You should be playing on Rise Poker! It's free and it's fun. Not quite like the online games pre Black Friday, but it's Klonopin for heroin addicts. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.....

I DO NOT FREE BASE COCAINE

Thanks to Dr. Pauly for passing along this wonderful, heartfelt public service announcement.....

TODDLERS & TIARAS

Holy crap.
When I found out about this show, my head exploded.  When I got done duct taping my cranium back together, I immediately tuned in to TLC to check it out (yes-  it's on The Learning Channel).
It did not disappoint.
It's never too early to teach young girls about superficiality, eating disorders, spray tans, narcissism, and the failed, misplaced dreams of their mothers.  I don't advocate violence as much as I did when I was younger, but I'll make an exception in the case of these beauty pageant parents.  They should all be taken out and beaten with extension cords, wire hangers, and barbed wire while being sterilized so they can't torture any more children.
The kids in the show are pretty entertaining.  My favorite was the little hyperactive girl who wants to be in horror movies, and punishes her mom by making her wear bunny ears in the audience at the pageants.  She has a speech impediment, so she refers to her beauty dress as her "booty" dress.  A Freudian slip in so, so, so many ways.  She is also on Prozac.
There is one little girl who is missing her front two teeth like a normal 5 year old kid, so they stick fake teeth on her before she goes on stage.
There is the token black contestant who the pageant emcee condescendingly calls a "real trooper" and "a wonderful girl" who just needs "a modeling coach" and "maybe a more appropriate dress."  She must have meant a more expensive dress, because none of those dresses were appropriate for a little kid.
The episode I saw was in Vegas, so they had a "Glitz" category instead of a bathing suit competition (even these nut jobs haven't gone that far.......yet).  For "Glitz," the girls dress up as showgirls, or strippers, or cigarette girls, or blackjack dealers and strut around stage doing horribly suggestive moves while their parents hoot and holler and egg them on.  It was truly a spectacle.  At the end of the pageant, the gigantic trophies are handed out and the tantrums of the losers begin.  Sometimes the little girls get upset too.  They also hand out a cash prize to the top girl. 
Wear a ton of trashy make up, strut around on stage half dressed, shake your ass, and get handed a bunch of cash.  Super positive lesson.  They even have the winner fan out the bills and pose for pictures. 
It's always great to see the next generation of pill popping, attention craving, stripping, head case, future meth heads and plastic surgery victims growing up.
It almost brings a tear to your eye.

Toddlers & Tiaras airs on TLC on Wednesday nights, and former participants of the show can be found in strip clubs and psychologist offices all across America.

THE BANGOR CHRONICLES: CHAPTER ONE

After a couple weeks embedded in the second biggest town in Maine, I have made some keen observations.

Bangor is the kind of town where:

.....all the half decent looking chicks are knocked up, and half the decent looking chicks are too.

.....EVERYBODY still smokes, but apparentely almost nobody showers.

.....every conversation on the bus is either about probation, child support payments, or a social security check.

.....people are small-town-nice, but still have a little bit of a New England chip on their shoulder.

.....you can still find a mailbox and a phone booth.

.....they don't have a rush hour.  It's more of a saunter hour.

.....welfare and disability are both considered viable career options.

.....everything is stuck 50 years ago.  Technology, social attitudes, vehicles, and (fortunately) prices.

.....there is still a video game arcade (look it up on Wikipedia if you've never heard of one) at the mall with a couple functioning pinball games.

.....a high school diploma still means something.

.....the most exciting thing that ever happened was when it burned down one hundred years ago.

.....you've never heard of it, but it pops up in songs all the time.  King of the Road, I've Been Everywhere to name a couple.

.....the most famous resident is the King of Horror (you can read more about Bangor in his books.  He calls it "Derry").