Sci-Fi Anthology

Had a weird dream last night. One of those dreams where I'm watching the action, but I'm not actually present in the dream. It was basically a series of short stories taking place on a giant space station/starship in the future. The ship didn't have any form that I could make out--it was so incredibly huge that whenever I saw an exterior view of it in the dream, my entire field of vision was filled with just a small portion of it. The ship was crewed by characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 (though I don't recall which of the B5 characters actually appeared in the dream).

The first story I remember was this tale about a small derelict ship that a Babylon 5 Starfury fighter rescues and brings aboard. The only survivors of the derelict were two women who were portrayed in my dream by Susan Sarandon and Sigourney Weaver. (I had watched a few minutes of The Hunger while waiting for Fox to stop airing all the endless post-post-football game analysis shows and show the Simpsons the previous evening, and I'd watched some of Alien Resurrection a few nights earlier, so that presumably explains their presence in the dream) All I remember is that it turned out they were actually dead, and their ship was really a ghost ship that's doomed to drift through space for eternity.

Then there was this part where Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer had submitted an essay as part of her application to become student class president aboard the ship. Her best friend--who sometimes was Oz, sometimes was Angel, and sometimes was Buffy--was sticking by her, giving her moral support while they wandered around the spaceship, waiting for Captain Picard and Commander Data to finish evaluating her essay. They liked it, she got appointed to the position of class president, and everyone was happy.

Finally, Star Trek's Wesley Crusher had come back to the ship after spending some time far away, where he'd had a crippling accident that left him having to use a wheelchair. He was having some kind of scientific discussion in the engine room with Captain Picard, Data, and a fish-headed alien guy, when the alien noticed that Wesley didn't cast a reflection in a mirror in the room. It turned out that the Wesley everyone was interacting with was actually a hologram. The real Wesley was actually much more horribly disfigured by the accident than he appeared, and he felt too uncomfortable about his disfigurement to reveal to his friends what had really happened to him. Everyone was sad. Then I started to think about how a hologram, being made of light, would certainly cast a reflection in a mirror. I realized I was dreaming, and woke up.

Speaking of silly sci-fi stories and Rusty's comment about PBS in the '70s, anyone remember this thing called Tomes & Talismans? It was this show about how to use the library thinly disguised as a sci-fi adventure serial, produced by ETV way back when. It was all about this librarian awoken from suspended animation who helps a bunch of kids and freedom fighters learn how to use the resources of an old abandoned library to discover the secrets to defeating the evil Earth-conquering Wipers. I vaguely remember being forced to watch it in school sometimes. They showed a marathon of it really late the other night on PBS, and I just couldn't turn away from it. Maybe it was the childhood nostalgia factor, combined with the overall cheesiness of how it took itself so seriously, and how they attempted to make regular interior shots look "futuristic" by just putting a few blinking lights on the wall and having silver-painted cardboard boxes lying around. I tried to stay up to finally see how it ended, but fell asleep shortly after they learned how to use the readers guide to find an article that could tell them whether their horse could track down a missing resistance member by his scent.

Jason Inspires Again

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but Jason's recent artstuff (and Lunchbot selector) reminded me to put up my characters from elementary school. Snoofy, my "homage" to Snoopy. (We were all homaging back then.)

Yes, I realize they sort of don't fit with the as-yet only other thing on the Rusty Art page, the "statements," but it'll be sure to screw up kids as nicely as PBS did in the 70s.

Art Linkletter

Gee, I wish that my try-real-hard-and-struggle art looked as good as Jason's random classroom doodles...

Choco-Drink!

Jason's Turn to Plug Website Stuff

Like Rusty, I too have some of my beautiful art on the web, and I updated it with a few more items recently.

Ever wonder which of the LunchBots characters you are most like? No? Well, now you won't ever have to. This handy-dandy webpage right here can tell you.

Blog*Spot hates me, you know. Every time I go to post something, publishing is unavailable. Suck.

Arty Farty

I decided I'm going to show the world my beautiful art. I realized the magic of Angelfire and 20 megs of space (and 20 more if you keep making more pages), and so I'm going to put up my "I dunno, just had a whim" photo manipulations and things like that. Here it is, anyway. More to come...

Rusty.

I'm Smartest In My Dreams

I made up a new joke in my dream the other morning before I woke up. It was:

"What did the southerner say to his father when his father lost his teeth? Dad, gum it."

Or "dadgummit," not sure the funniest/best way to spell it. It's a joke to be told more than seen, I guess. Similar to the one I made up once (though not in my dreams):

"What's the most literary of all the chicken dishes? The pullet surprise."

The most famous thing I made up in my dreams was the game Pickle, which now exists as a computer game, though it's also a board game. One day Noby will polish off the computer version and everyone can have a nice copy.

The not-so-famous thing I made up was an idea for a gameshow in which only Shakespeare questions are asked, and it's called Outrageous Fortune.

Rusty.

What I learned this weekend

If you play Monopoly with Rusty Spell, he will beat your sorry ass.

If you play Monopoly with Rusty Spell, don't give in to the temptation to go for one of his "deals." It will inevitably come back to haunt you. Don't give in to his evil powers!

Attack of the Boy Bands

For those who want to watch the Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of the whole N'Sync-appearing-in-Star-Wars crisis again (or for anyone who missed it), it can be downloaded at this site.

M*A*S*H Rules, and Other Points

M*A*S*H rules. It rules even better when you can sit down and watch it at your leisure, in order, instead of having to catch it on TV (even though FX is basically the M*A*S*H channel during the afternoons). The movie rules, and the TV show rules. The pilot rules. As I was watching it, and there was a laugh track during the opening credits, I said to myself, "What the fudge was this show?" (Only I didn't say fudge, etc. etc.)

There, just so we all know M*A*S*H rules.

Whenever I talk like Norm McDonald, Liza just tells me to quit. Hey, hey, uh, she just tells me to quit there... like a whore! (That was me doing Norm McDonald, which doesn't translate well into print.)

I agree about the X-Files and Mulder... of course, I've only been following that show for the past ten years (or however long it's been on) through promotional spots between the Fox shows I watch. That's pretty much all the keeping up I need to do, since they seem to tell you everything, kinda like reading a soap opera update. I think I've seen 75% of a complete show once.

Futurama: good show, more or less. 6:00 is just a bad time for me on Sundays, so I never see it.

I liked that drum line T-shirt as well. I remember it, even though I was in eighth grade at the time and wasn't old enough to be able to wear it. I still have all my drumline T-shirts, even the pansy screen printed one that David and Matt came up with, knowing full well that only airbrushing truly rules! Airbrushing, baby!

I don't know any people who are funny without meaning to be. I mean, I know a few who I laugh at (not with) that are funny who aren't trying to be, but none that I'm laughing with (not at). Most of the people I know who are funny really struggle to be funny. Most of my friends; I can feel the struggle. It's a struggle for me too. Liza's pretty funny without struggling too hard, but she's still trying to be funny. I don't know if Todd Townsend is struggling or not, but he's putting out a lot of energy.

Other news? Do I have other news?

I've got dates set for my D-days. Feb 4, 6, and 8 for comprehensive exams... March 1 for defending dissertation... and then partying the rest of the semester! Making 100 albums or more! Steph should cruise into Hattiesburg one day and sing on a record. Graduation day, May 10. And then onward to be a well-educated "head fry guy" at McDonald's.

Anyone got a printer for sale? Mine blew up. And, no, this isn't a cry for MORE junk mail, for those b*stards out there who keep sending me stuff for printer cartridges, loans, and porn!

Russell the Love Muscle.

my wish

I wish I could talk like Norm McDonald, like I was drunk all the time, but no, not really. I knew a guy in school who talked like that, just by happenstance. He was *always* funny, without meaning to be. I wish I had that kind of comedy superpower.

Rusty Gets Toys

In an unheard of spending spree of presents for each other and ourselves, Liza and I go to Sam's to get DVD toys. For my birthday, I get The Godfather Trilogy. For a late Christmas present, Liza gets Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season One (which wasn't supposed to be released until Tuesday, I thought, but there it was). For herself Liza gets Carrie (although I told Liza they would all laugh at her for getting it). And for myself, I get all the M*A*S*H I can handle: the movie and season one.

Now I can sit back and not buy movies again for a long, long time (until Fire Walk With Me comes out, of course).

May he Rest in Peace

Rusty's story

My favorite PHS drum line t-shirt was always the one from my freshman year, with the "skull and crossbones" design, where the skull is wearing a marching band hat, and with drumsticks in place of the crossbones.

I'm pretty sure you're using the right spelling of "fare" there.

Open letter to the FOX network about this past Sunday night's programming

Futurama:
I think this is a good, funny show. You should consider showing new episodes more often than once every three or four months.

The X-Files:
C'mon, just stop pretending there's any chance of Mulder ever coming back. This is sillier than last season when there would be commercials announcing "David Duchovny returns!" only to have him show up for five minutes in a flashback sequence. We know Duchovny's gone from the show and not coming back, so just stop pretending that Mulder's still a part of the show. The only way this could get any more ridiculous is if Mulder "came back" only to have him spend the entire episode unconscious in the next room, or having him be invisible and mute. Just stick to Dogget and Reyes investigating the monster of the week. Those episodes are still fun.

Norm McDonald

When is that guy *not* funny?

Rusty Story

One of the few online Rusty works may be found here at Eyeshot. Read and enjoy. It's not my usual fare, but neither are any of my online stories, it seems. I'll have to put some usual fare up sometime. Am I spelling "fare" right in this sense? I hope so. I don't want to look stupid.

Rusty.

Short Bits of Posting

I imagine the Moldy Peaches are fun in concert since they dress as bunnies and stuff. I'd go see 'em. I haven't seen 'em though.

But, yeah, Tommy's right, I'm not big on live shows. I've seen three Magnetic Fields shows, and like those.

Norm rulz.

Thanks, Jason, for pointing out the archival problemations, and thanks, Steph, for telling me how to fix it. We all rule now.

live music

Live music is fun! But a different fun, I guess, and not a kind of fun that's always recordable (and vice versa). I think I'm gonna try to see more live shows, though, because I can finally get around and stuff. The subway is great.

disappointing points

On the bright side, the world didn't end, as some people (those apocalypsists who kept track of when the real "new millenium" started, that is) thought it would. Sure, some really really bad things happened, but hey, most of us are still alive and kicking.

old rusty posts

I think that Rusty, as the maintainer of the blog, needs to do that "repost archives" thing to get all the archives back up again.

A Very Special Blog

Well, it's my first blog of the year 2002. I want to say a big thanks to all of you who've been around when I needed some friends after some of the not-good events of 2001, and for helping create many of the good memories I have of 2001. I hope we all have a good 2002.

Where are the flying cars???

Overall, I'd have to say 2001 was a big disappointment in real life. I mean, I'm still waiting for commercial spaceflights, permanent outposts on the moon, manned interplanetary expeditions, and the discovery of ancient alien artifacts. (And that Dr. Sbaitso [sp?] is no HAL)

I'm also waiting for all that stuff Conan keeps telling us about that's supposed to happen in the year 2000.

Steph

Heya, Steph! Of course we all remember you. (Though I sometimes have trouble remembering to write to you.... D'oh!)

Bunnies

They've got them hoppy legs and twitchy little noses!

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

The robot appears to be malfunctioning--links to the archives prior to December 23 seem to have disappeared (if anyone cares).

Rusty and Concerts

I think I can speak for Rusty in saying that he doesn't attend to many live shows. He has attended more than one Lately David show, and he may have seen us more than any other band. So, by default, we are his favorite live band. I, myself, love the live music. Especially if it played on guitars and singing is involved.

Why is it always funny when Norm MacDonald does his "Letterman coughing" bit?
Tommy O' Brien

Moldy Murray

Tommy: But you *don't* look like Bill Murray from The Royal Tenenbaums (though I don't know what that's supposed to mean).

Rusty: So are the Moldy Peaches good in concert? Do you know? They're playing here next Sunday, is why I ask.

Bulky Mail Truck

What's this thing called the Bulky Mail Truck? Is it going to usurp the throne of the robot? By no means. They are two different animals. This one's public, for one thing, so that everyone publically looking on right now can have no idea what I'm talking about. Also, the BMT was around before the robot or even before time began, really. Actually, it was on in the early-middle period of my life. Time began in 1989.

So, read both or neither or pick one. We are Devo, after all.

Must Post! New Faces!

I'm not clever or funny, Nyleva, but I post anyway. And I do look like Bill Murray from Rushmore, so that must account for something, right? Q: Are we not men? A: We are Devo.

Will Oldham. He's the man. Visionary. Songwriter. Photographer. Actor. Somebody.

David Lynch. He made the best movie of 2001.

Hope everyone had a very merry new year and a happy holiday. Next stop for Nyleva: The Srimpin' Bidness.
Your friend,
Tommy

HAPPY NEW YEAR!



HAPPY 2002! HOPE YOU ALL WATCHED 2001 WHILE YOU HAD A CHANCE, BEFORE IT WAS TOO LATE!

We all remember Steph the Wonder Kid. We luv her.

The Moldy Peaches are kinda throwbacks to slacker indie music that talk about Hong Kong Fooey and Shmoo, but they're kinda fun. Chick and a dude singing and giggling. Pretty good stuff.

Signed,
Yo Mama

hi there!

Whoa, hey, dunno if anyone here even remembers me (I disappeared off the planet for a few months, or at least off this blog) -- took me some time to feel settled into my new job and new apartment. Geez, actually, I still don't feel settled in.... Kinda fell out of even reading blogs for awhile (though I guess I still managed to keep up with blathering on mine) -- just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a happy new year!

What's Moldy Peaches sound like? I've been on this Death Cab for Cutie kick, but I think I might be on a Beulah kick soon...

Abre Los Ojos was *great*, by the way. Haven't seen Vanilla Sky, partly because I don't want the Vanilla Sky to mess up my (very good) feelings about Abre Los Ojos.

The Man Who Wasn't There, Etc.

While I was in New Orleans at the convention where they fuss over how to make a seven page research paper for high school kids, I saw The Man Who Wasn't There, the new Coen Brothers movie, the best one since Fargo. I never was a huge fan of Billy Bob Thornton, but I think he deserves some sort of award for that one. He may have already. Maybe a Golden Globe, since I've decided they count more than Oscars. Oscars are only a few steps more legitimate, to me, than Grammys, which aren't legit at all.

Tom Cruise: I like him okay, though as Noby phrased it, sometimes he's too "Tom Cruisey."

Do you have the Moldy Peaches or borrowed it or what? Congrats on getting 69LS. I'll be sure to mail you a copy of my version once the entire thing is finished (I'm on song 9 or 10 of Volume 2 right now).

Eric might be happy in knowing that when I bought my audio stuff, I did get a receiver with a DTS decoder (which I agree sounds much better than 5.1 Dolby Surround--it's the setting I always use when I have the option) and digital inputs. I'm sure he might laugh or cry at what I got overall, but -- as I admitted to him -- he's the audio god while I'm just Joe Consumer. My ears are sensitive and spoiled somewhat, but not completely. Eric rulz. I'll be sure to come to Eric when I get all rich (ha ha) and upgrade in a few years.

Oh, and everyone who knows me can be surprised to learn that I'm able to get around New Orleans pretty well by myself these days. I'm not quite the getting lost dunce I used to be, though I still surprise myself sometimes. I think it's usually lack of observation or only knowing one route to take and screwing myself if I diverge.

Bunnies aren't as innocent as everyone supposes.

Nyleva



Nyleva Rulz!

Media Okra

I'm out here! No, over here! I do very much enjoy reading at the robot since I can rarely come up with clever enough stuff to write. Jason mentioned the Vanilla Sky movie; it is a remake of Abre Los Ojos, an Alejandro Amenabar flick from 1997. I'd also like to see the original since I can barely stomach Tom (not Goose) Cruise.

We had an incredibly merry holly day. Eric and I drove down to the bayou in southern Louisiana and had a Cajun Christmas, complete with alligators pulling a pirogue, with his family. Every time we visit I learn new words (like pirogue and parrain). Before you know it I'll be wearing shrimp boots. Eric's family is so sweet and loving and cool. Everyone should be so lucky.

I'm on my way to listen to The Moldy Peaches right now, Rusty. I'll let you know what I think. Also, as an important FYI bulletin for R.W., Eric got me the 69 Love Songs box set. Breathe a hefty sigh of relief. Eric sure is a right nifty fellow.

We are looking forward to seeing Fellowship of the Ring this weekend. We'll attempt a Sunday matinee viewing at the only THX certified theatre in town. Eric's psyched, being the perfectionist audiophile that he is.

R.W., have fun conventioneering in NOLA tomorrow. Send my regards to the literati. And, beware of the bunnies.

Carpet

It's funny what little things do to your life. We got a 5x8 rug for the living room floor the cover the speaker wires for the surround sound speakers, and it makes all the cozy difference in the world to see the rug there. It feels good on the feet and it's a "warm green" color (yes, that's possible: a warm cool color) and it actually seems to give the room space (or maybe it was just that Liza had to clear out that part of the floor to put it down that gives the space).

Twin Peaks DVDs

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the Super Professional Team took care of the look and sound and menus and all that for the Twin Peaks DVDs... and then said to the Wrapped in Plastic team: "Okay, if you want bonuses, you take care of it yourself." So they said, "Hey, we'll start with a interview with Mark Frost..." Good idea, but then they unwisely chose to show their dorky sides. Then they said, "Hmmm, how about a 'Talking Backwards' thing with the little guy?" Not so great an idea. "What about the pie lady?" Desperate. The "Intro to Lynch" thing was more like it, just for the stars, as was the "digital postcards" (which I think I watched all of, though it's really hard to tell since you have to play Six Degrees of Laura Palmer to see them).

Like I said, goofy but mostly harmless, a little nice.

What are the easter eggs? Just finding the postcards?

I've listened to one commentary so far. Dunham was pretty good. The script notes were good too for that ep. Glad they put the Log Lady stuff (even though it seemed like some inside joke between Lynch and himself). I'm also glad they put the "previously on Twin Peaks" stuff and wish they would have put the "next on Twin Peaks" stuff, because I remember those just being dissolves of five or six single frames from the show along with some mixed-up dialogue and sounds (very not telling at all, but still giving a taste--like a movie teaser, the best kind of previews there are).

The Rusty, Jason, Tommy Blog?

Is there anyone else out there? I mean reading, not writing, since I know the answer to that one. I don't mind if we're the only three writing, but I'd like to know if anyone's reading. Maybe I should stick a counter on the robot. If there's anyone out there, write me, even (or especially) if I don't know you.

New Orleans

Anyone want to go to New Orleans with me this weekend? You'll be by yourself for several hours if you do, since I'll be at the MLA convention, but you'd get a free trip... and then we could be free to get all the whores and booze the town has to offer afterwards. I plan on going Saturday, possibly Sunday (but probably Saturday). Probably early. Get there before noon or something, leave whenever.

t*mmy burt*n

It's a good recco. I sing it sometimes too. I haven't listened to it in a while, since I heard it so much when I first helped make it. I like it better than Mailbox probably, my first solo album.

Boogie Nights

Watched it again today. Good movie. Some parts reminded me of Vernon, Fla. this time.

Errol Morris

Everyone should watch all his movies. See what I think.

Jasontown

Noby and I were going to write a tribute/parody of Twin Peaks once to be called Jasontown. I'm not sure where that name came from. It wasn't from Jason Bell--in fact, I need to look over the "cast" to see if he's even in it... I'm getting Noby to email it to me if he has it. We came up with characters which more or less paralleled characters from the series and cast our schoolmates to play them. I think Tommy played the Andy Brennan character. I played the Coop character (of course, since I'm a pr*ck). Can't remember either of their names. Noby played Sherrif "Some Old President" (don't remember that either).

The Carpet Again

I was really just trying to talk about something non-media, but it didn't go too far. It was nice doing non-media last weekend, bowling. The high school kid was nice. He reminded me of someone. Although we still need to make movies. By non-media, I'm not ruling out the creation of media. Writing stuff and making movies and stuff. I think we should make some sort of movie ASAPossible. Maybe soon I'll get me an editing suite for my computer an we can go nuts.

Not to mention, it's vinyl...

That Morton record is just that, a record. I'm talking vinyl, baby. I managed to hook the Jason up with some t*mmy burt*n. Is it as good as Tommy hopes it is? Probably not, but it never is. But the next one. I like it personally. I sing along to it. Then again, I know all of the words.

I got me some Elephant Man (It looks really good in its proper aspect ratio) and some Twin Peaks, so we're all cool now. Twin Peaks looks the best. I think it may be one of the best ever DVD presentations out there. Lots of wacky stuff (Do we need a ten minute interview with the Mar T owner?) and some funny "easter eggs." Now I need Dune and I'll be Lynched, until next year, that is...

The rest of my stuff was really good, but boring for most here. It was a good Christmas.
Tommy

Christmas Again?

I enjoyed my Xmas with the Xians this year. The tooth fairy brought me some stuff as well.

I got The Langley Schools Music Project which is one of the best things put out this year (though it was recorded 76-77). Everyone should get a copy.

I got The Shining as part of my DVD collection as well as Boogie Nights.

And if I weren't crazy enough about Liza, she got me Twin Peaks: Season One, a nearly-perfect box set if ever I saw one. If it were just the shows, it would be fine with me, especially since they look really, really good, but there's also commentary (which I haven't heard yet), script notes, and a few little goodies on disc four (some of which are goofy but mostly harmless, and some of which are nice). I can't wait for season two.

Tommy got me Morton Downey, Jr. Sings, which you can buy at this online store for $25 if you like.

Liza also got me some cool guitar and snare drum ornaments which I'm now using as desk ornaments.

Jason got me Tag and Bink are Dead, bof' of 'em.

I got myself The Elephant Man and a home theater system.

The rest of the stuff isn't as media-based, so one one here is interested.

I thought The Guy Who Rules Over Circles was great as well. A+ from me. Sean Astin rulz!

I saw Scary Movie 2 tonight, which was mediocrely funny compared to the first one which I thought was aboveaveragedly funny. But part 2 has Beetlejuice from Howard Stern, so...

Perhaps more from me later? Perhaps.

Happy Hollidayse!

Hope everyone is enjoying the festive time of year. Santa Claus and the Birthday Fairy visited me (sadly, there was no visit from Hanukkah Harry this year), leaving me some nice goodies, like money and gift certificates for buying DVDs and Gundam figures with, as well as some clothes to wear, a pocket toolkit, and an I.O.U. for some more money because Santa maxed out his ATM withdrawal limit, and the bank wouldn't let him withdraw any more until after the long holiday weekend. (Don'tcha just hate that the bank does that even to Santa.) I got that t*mmy burt*n CD too. Amanda Claus hooked me up with the Twin Peaks Season One DVD set, so if I wasn't crazy about the girl before, I sure as hell am now.

I finally saw that big epic fantasy movie that everyone's been going on about--How High. (At least that's what it said on the tickets they gave us.) Beautiful, enthralling, entertaining, exciting, good, good, good movie. The Fellowship of the Ring, that is. My family and I didn't really go see a movie about rappers smoking dope, no matter what the movie theater people thought we should be watching on Christmas Eve.

Little things often come in small packages--but sometimes someone tries to be clever or funny, or is just really wasteful with packing materials, and puts them in a big package instead.

Saw Vanilla Sky Tuesday night. Slightly more people there than on Monday. It's lots better and much less typical-Hollywood-erotic-thrillerish than the ads for it looked. Cameron Crowe delivers some beautiful visuals and all the obligatory classic rock songs and references you could want, but something was just... lacking.

Maybe it's because I figured out what was supposed to be the big shocking surprise ending (which I won't spoil for anyone here) very early on in the movie. (Though I figured out The Sixth Sense in the first few minutes of the film, and I still enjoyed that.) When the first clue appears in the film, it stuck out from the rest of the film and seemed so incredibly blatant that I could barely suppress the urge to sarcastically shout out "GEE, I WONDER IF THAT WAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT???" Granted, I've probably spent a lot more time reading and thinking about the possibilities of the concept presented in the aforementioned clue than a lot of people have, which certainly helped me to fill in all the blanks.

It also didn't help when the movie theater stopped the film and raised the lights right in the middle of the film's big climax, and we had to wait almost ten minutes before we could see the final couple of minutes.

I need to see the movie this was a remake of (I'm too lazy to look up the title right now)--maybe I'll like it better.

There's some other movie that opened this week that I still need to go see. The Guy in Charge of the Jewelry or something like that.

Somebody needs to get me that t*mmy burt*n album.

I'd like to wish all the X-Men a Merry X-Mas.

3 days 5 hours 45 minutes remaining until X's birthday (observed)
1 day 5 hours 45 minutes remaining until some guy named Jason's birthday

Often the Best Things In Life Are Little, and Sometimes Small

Non-busy movie times are the best. Liza all but refuses to go at night, and certainly not on Fridays. I'm trying to convince her that Thursday night won't be too hectic for Gandalf and Frodo.

I want to see Teen Movie, but I'll probably wait until videotime. I'll be watching Scary Movie 2 soon. I watched Moulin Rouge tonight, which was fun to watch for the music, but not for much else (unless you like the super-frantic-and-flambouyant way Baz Luhhrhisname directs). But the music was really cool.

I'd like to add The Moldy Peaches: The Moldy Peaches to my 2001 album list. I put it at #5. Again, I can't include Tommy's album, since I have to do with it.

So Merry Xmas everyone. Merry Xmas to all you Xians out there!

It's always the little things for me these days...

Well, the solo album is done. I have to admit, I'm both anxious and nervous about it's release. I think there are some fine songs on there, but I just hope somebody likes it. I've never ventured out with anything with just my name on it. I know it wouldn't exist without Rusty's guiding light, but it's still all me. It's great because it's very different from Lately David, but has my stamp all over. I'm positive that my next LP for Love and Letters will be completely different. I'll probably know what the hell I'm doing by then. Let's hope not, though. I'll say the record is like an indie rocking pop Dylan. But it's really probably not as good as all that. I suppose that's for the listeners to decide. I need input, and quickly!

I wish somebody would get me whisky for Xmas. The stronger the whisky, the sweeter the wine. That's what a wise blues man once told me. A blues sage, if you will. I also heard that you're not supposed to rock the do, but keep the do rocky...whatever the hell that's supposed to mean.

Hope everyone has the hap-hap-happiest Xmas ever. They need to. Ask for t*mmy burt*n this year. Then tell Tommy what you think of it after you listen to it twelve times.

My "best of 2001" list is right here.
T*mmy Burt*n

Sometimes it's the little things in life...

I had a good day today.

Tommy and I had dinner in the Northpark Mall food court, and I ordered a salad and Jr. bacon cheesburger from Wendy's. I didn't pay attention to the pack of salad dressing before I opened it and poured it all over my salad, realizing too late that they'd given me ranch dressing (which I don't particularly care for) instead of the thousand island I asked for. That ticked me off. But then I had my junior bacon cheeseburger... This was a damn good junior bacon cheeseburger. Possibly the finest junior bacon cheeseburger ever served at any Wendy's ever. You know how Special Agent Dale Cooper felt when he had a damn fine cup of coffee? That was me and my junior bacon cheeseburger today.

Tommy, Noby, and I seem have discovered the fun activity of going to the movies late on monday nights. There's just something fun about being three guys who've got nothing better to do at 10pm on a monday night than just go see a movie when there's hardly anyone there. We saw Not Another Teen Movie, which was completely jam-packed with parodies of and references to way too many movies that I've seen. Very pleasantly-surprising cameos in the flick.

I gets to hang out this week with the lovely Amanda, who's in town visiting family. I'm a happy boy.

It's sad about Tom and Drew, though. I was hoping those crazy kids would make it. If two normal, clean-cut, well-adjusted, and stable people like them can't stay together these days, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Rusty's use of the word "Japanimation" may not be considered by some to be legitimate or "politically correct" as Rusty says, but it's actually a far more accurate term than "anime." The word anime is simply a word the Japanese stole from the French to describe all animation. Disney's animated movies, The Simpsons, and South Park are all anime. (Yes, they actually do watch The Simpsons and South Park in Japan, and they're supposedly popular over there, too. Everyone knows it's Butters!)

Of course, if you really wanna get technical, the country isn't even really named Japan, but "Nipponimation" doesn't sound as neat.

Michael Jackson's gonna be sad when he notices the Elephant Man's bones are gone.

Who Didn't See This Coming?


Of course. Drew and Tom divorce. That's a rhyme.

I knew normal Tom marrying into Hollywood would be a bad idea.

Anyway, I got the Elephant Man. Not The Elephant Man DVD, but the actual Elephant Man. He came back to life.

Rusty Spell, Owner of the Gandalf the Wizard Goblet from Burger King

Tommy's Guitar

Now Tommy can play the 'nikcuS classic "Accoustic Guitar" [sic] anytime he likes... well, he can play it if he rips off two or three of the strings and breaks it in such a way that it can never be in tune. I mention this, because I know how Tommy loves it when everything goes back to 'nikcuS. You know, that band that's better than The Beatles. And just as beloved and charming.

Tommy's Album

Rusty doesn't love Tommy indeed! Rusty loves Tommy so much that he finished his solo album. That's right! Again, a la The Beatles, Rusty has taken Tommy's nine "demo" songs recorded this summer at Love and Letters Studios and spent a whole afternoon (a long time for a Rusty project) adding drums, organs, flutes, etc. to make a nice little album that Tommy can listen to and pick apart until he hates it (or at least the parts I added). Noby has heard it, and I'll be shipping it to Tommy soon since I wasn't smart enough to just leave it with Noby this past weekend. Or was I even smarter than I thought?

Rusty's Top Eight Albums of 2001

Because I only have eight (not including 'nikcuS, Rusty Spell, and The Mnemonic Devices, which I shan't include so Tommy will be even less mad at me). And assuming that nothing even more cool comes out between now and 1 Jan 2002.

8. R.E.M.: Reveal
7. Radiohead: Amnesiac
6. The Robinsons: Cool Down! Got It?
5. Rheostatics: Night of the Shooting Stars
4. Martin Tielli: We Didn't Even Suspect That He Was the Poppy Salesman
3. Stephen Malkmus: Stephen Malkmus
2. They Might Be Giants: Mink Car
1. Weezer: Weezer

Although the top three are very, very close. 2001 was an interesting year for music, especially since people who hadn't released "real" albums in five years did, like the Rheostatics, TMBG, Weezer, and (yes) 'nikcuS. And we all know how good 1996 was musicwise. Weezer won that year too. Oh heck, watch this:

Rusty's Top Twenty-Two Albums of 1996

Again, because I have twenty-two, not including stuff with me on it (of which there were four--2001 had three).

22. Enigma: 3
21. Sebadoh: Harmacy
20. David Bowie: Earthling
19. Tortoise: Millions Now Living Will Never Die
18. The Cranberries: To the Faithful Departed
17. East River Pipe: Mel
16. Ween: 12 Golden Country Greats
15. Johnny Cash: Unchained
14. The John Spencer Blues Explosion: Now I Got Worry
13. R.E.M.: New Adventures in Hi-Fi
12. Mono Puff: Unsupervised
11. Cake: Fashion Nugget
10. Rheostatics: The Blue Hysteria
9. Beck: Odelay
8. They Might Be Giants: Factory Showroom
7. Modest Mouse: This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing To Think About
6. Nick Buzz: Circo
5. Belle and Sebastian: Tigermilk
4. Belle and Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister
3. The Halo Benders: Don't Tell Me Now
2. Neutral Milk Hotel: On Avery Island
1. Weezer: Pinkerton

Keep in mind that the top eight here are prime cuts for me indeed, and that the top eight here beats the top five from 2001. In conclusion, 2001 was an interesting reprise of some 1996 moments, but 1996 is still the clear winner. As is Pinkerton.

Things I've Bought Most Recently, Which Would Make Me Do a "Top Albums I Bought in 2001" List If I Kept Up with That Sort of Thing, but I Don't, and No One Cares About This List Anyway

The Gentle Waves: Swansong for You -- perty music
Belle and Sebastian: I'm Waking Up To Us EP (EPs weren't included on my countdown)

I guess that's all that constitutes "recently." I plan on getting the new-ish Lambchop rarities collection soon... like ordering it tonight soon. It's one of the things I don't put on my Xmas list for people to buy me since I can't wait that long. Of course, it's been out since September, and I just now found out, which makes me a bad fan. In 1996, I would have known (the looparound!).

Ben Folds

I like the music video (directed by Master Al Yankovich) better than the song itself.

Tag and Bink Are Dead

I'm tempted to get this just because I'm somewhat of a Tom Stoppard fan (not to mention a Star Wars fan, of course). And I thought never the twain would meet.

Jerry Orbach Almost Cries in Dirty Dancing

Thanks to Liza's obsessive TV watching, I know the Law and Order quote for the Japamation series in question (and, yes, I still prefer the politically incorrect term "Japanimation").

My Defense of "Special," Not That I Care To Defend It Necessarily, and Completely See Jason's Point

I guess "Special Edition" for a lone DVD would have to mean special as in "This present you gave me is special because you made it yourself" instead of "This potato chip is special because it's the only purple one in the bag." Maybe like "This is a special edition DVD, because we made it special. We made it count. We could have just put the movie, which wouldn't have been very special, but we made it all nice and special for you by putting the extra junk. Ain't that special?"

Woody Allen

I never saw a Woody Allen movie until this year (maybe last). The only reason I saw the first one was because I rented all the Edward Norton movies, and he was in Everyone Says I Love You. But then I rented Annie Hall because I felt stupid having a movie review page without having a review of that, and I thought it was... special (the looparound #2!). And then rented Manahattan. And most recently, Crimes and Misdemeanours, What's Up, Tiger Lily?, and Small Time Crooks. He's got a zillion, and I'm going to go through them all. I'll never be at a loss of what to check out at the store, and I never seem to be not in the mood for a Woody Allen movie.

I think I just thought I wouldn't like Woody Allen for some reason, but I was wrong. I was wrong. Forgive me, Woody, I was wrong!

Random stuff:

• Ben Folds rocks the suburbs. Just like Quiet Riot did.
  
• THAT.
  
• 
  Star Wars: Tag & Bink Are Dead. Very funny. Good comic written by the creator of the short film TROOPS.
  
• I can't stop thinking about this funny opening paragraph in this review of an obscure (and apparently horrible) anime series: "In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime, and the crazed, profanity-spewing, shotgun-wielding cop with grenades stuffed down his pants. These are their stories." I'm tempted to find this video, just to watch out of morbid curiosity.
  
• Is a DVD "Special Edition" really a "Special Edition" if it's the only version of the film or TV show available on DVD?
  

Hope everyone has a happy Hanukkah!

Let the robot be the first to bear the news: Tommy Burton finally got himself an acoustic guitar. It's an AJ-18SCE. Just go to the "Acoustic Electrics" on the link and click on that model number. That's my new guitar, exactly. Now, I can be Bob Dylan, or maybe I'll get around to that solo record, but probably not...being since hpw Rusty doesn't love me anymore. One day we're gonna make FWN Part 9 and the next day, he's world traveling with Noby, hating my guts. What did I ever do to him?
Yes, IT is pretty funny, but I am amused by the hypre surrounding IT. I'm also quite amused at how IT brings out the funny in Jason. He always has funny things to say about IT and IT's creators. IT amuses me. Epsecially when I wake up and see people like Diane Sawyer riding around on IT.
Records of the year? Hmmm, I've gotten so many this year that I may not have a favorite. Short answer may be Weezer, just because it's the easiest, but I have gotten so many. Most recently, the new Ben Folds. It brings the good.
Apocalypse Redux. New stuff doesn't make the movie any better, but it's nice to see. There is a new scene with Brando that I'm quite fond of. Should he have done it? Sure, why not. At least he didn't airbrush the guns out and replace them with walkie talkies. Now I have my new Willow DVD. Elephant Man...this Tuesday...
That's all,
Tommy Burtundra.

Things That Suck or Are Stupid (In No Particular Order)

1. It -- Here's the dumbest part: "It's got motors that do what your muscles do for you. It's got those tires that do what your feet do for you." We already don't walk enough and don't use our muscles enough in general. We're always having to invent new things (tread mills, walking tracks in the park, those things that zap you) to prove that. The other thing that's dumb is the sentence itself, which says "it's got those tires." It's got those tires..
   
2. Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes -- Rented it tonight. I told Liza before we watched it: "I'm going to try really hard to like it just to spite Noby," but Noby was right. Boy was he. Nothing good about that movie. It didn't do anything. 45 minutes into the movie, and I realized nothing had happened. It looked like something out of a bad dream, one where I'm dreaming about the perfect example of the most empty movie I can think of.
   
3. some other things -- I just really wanted to fuss about those two.
   

On the other hand I finally saw Neil Labute's In the Company of Men which was pretty excellent. I don't like to watch two movies in a row, but I had to wash the badness down. Now I have to wash that down somehow, though, but not for reasons of badness.

Christmas doesn't suck.

IT's here...

And so, the revolutionary invention that we were told would affect all our lives... the item that bigshot technology experts said was guaranteed to amaze and astound us all... the new mode of transportation which, according to its inventor, WILL REPLACE THE AUTOMOBILE... is this:


(Image from the fascinating full story at CNN.com)

Now we can all replace our non-motorized scooters that can tip over if we lose our balance with motorized scooters that won't tip over! Plus, it's super energy-efficient, so if you're too lazy to take your foot off your scooter and give it a kick-powered boost every so often, it'll only cost you about 5 cents a day for the scooter to do what your feet would otherwise have to. Legs? Who needs 'em!

Yep, Steve Jobs sure was right when he said that people will erect entire cities around "IT." Because there's never been anything like it before. A small single-person wheeled transport device that people can use to get around town at speeds of 12 mph with little to no effort? For a price as affordable as $3000? I mean, it's just plain unheard of...



In summary: "IT," a.k.a. "Ginger," a.k.a. "Segway."
A: Clearly not.

Okay, I think we can all go on with our lives now.

ASCII and Ye Shall Receive

I'm worried about whoever did the ASCII Star Wars. I'm also worried about sequels to David Lynch movies. Barry Gifford needs to just fart on himself. Jennifer Tilly's sexy anyway. She wants my bod.

What Thanksgiving Means To Me, by Rusty W. Spell: It means the first day of the Christmas season, when you put up the tree and start listening to Christmas music as much as you possibly can. You might also use the opportunity to take lots of naps.

Your mama?

Hope everyone had fun enjoying the turkeys and what not. I, myself, had a pretty good time. Perhaps things are looking up after all. I was looking forward to a weekend of Lately David rocking, but instead, I got leftovers and Galactice Gigilos. But, all in all, it was fun. Sleep can be a good thing when properly utilized. For all those Crispin Glover fans out there, have a look at this little movie that's being made. A: Clearly not.
Tommy The Burton

Gobble Gobble

I hope everybody enjoyed a happy Thanksgiving.

On the George Lucas thing, one of the best pieces of advice I've gotten from one of my art professors is to not rework something too much, and know when to just stop. You can work a piece of art to death, taking a good idea and mucking it up to the point where it's too busy, too muddied, too refined, too overworked. I thought there were a lot of good things about the Star Wars Special Editions. Then again there was some completely unnecessary stuff.

Was there such a bad problem with people wondering how Vader got from Cloud City to his Star Destroyer, that they had to create the scene of Vader asking to prepare his shuttle for launch and cheaply borrow a scene of the Death Star hangar in Jedi to make us think the shuttle had landed on the destroyer? Were people so confused by the blast doors closing automatically as our heroes were being chased through the Death Star in the first movie, that they had to dub a Stormtrooper saying "Close the blast doors!"? Why on earth would they dub in a cowardly scream as Luke falls inside Cloud City after jumping to escape from Vader? (All of these made worse by the fact that the voices they used didn't sound much like Vader, Luke, or the typical Stormtroopers) And I don't think I even need to mention Greedo & Han...

At least Spielberg is going to release both the original and the new gun-less "we'll threaten them with these walkie-talkies" versions of E.T. on DVD.

Maybe George should just re-do all the movies in ASCII.

IT

In case anyone's wondering what they were making fun of on tonight's South Park with Mr. Garrison's super-vehicle, it's this super-secret invention that will allegedly revolutionize the lives of every man, woman, and child on earth. Amazon.com has IT listed, even though they don't know what IT is yet. I've been following the ridiculously unbelievable hype for months now with curiosity. While I suppose there's a possibility IT might live up to some tiny amount of the hype, I expect IT is more likely to give us all a small bit of amusement for a while before we go on with our completely unchanged lives. (Though, as I told Tommy, it would be cool if IT turned out to be an anti-gravity skateboard like the one Michael J. Fox uses in the future.)

Welcome, Tommy

The heading isn't as funny as "Welcome, Matt," but Matt doesn't seem to want to be part of the bloggy fun trick.

Everyone who wants Dr. Sbaitso should ask me to send it to them (it's a small program). I'm sure SoundBlaster wouldn't mind. He's a psychiatrist robot voice who will help you with your problems, though everyone I know just ends up cussing at him and making him say cuss words after about twenty minutes of legitimate therapy.

Everyone should, indeed, listen to their Lynch movies extra loud, no matter what it is and no matter where you watch them. I just watched his "Dumbland" two and a half minute cartoons, the first of which kinda scared me at one point. You should listen to this loud, too.

Some wag once said that art is never finished, just let go (or something like that), but apparently it's not true for George Lucas. I assume one of his reasons for revising is to make the six parts more like a whole and maybe to fix plot discrepancies. Though, from a technological standpoint, he should have just made the new ones look crappy, instead of making the old ones look new.

I think you should do the crush thing, even if it's just crumbling to the advert idiots.

Some guy on the radio just sang the lyric, "George Lucas... THX... Dolby sound... special effects." Hm.

My Thanksgiving plans, for the stalkers out there: going to folks' house Wednesday night and staying through weekend. Good clean family fun. Anyone want to watch Harry Potter with me? As you all know, I'm hype boy. I somehow escaped the Planet of the Apes hype, but I'll probably rent the movie tomorrow. I've seen every other Tim Burton movie, so why not? I rented Osmosis Jones this week just because it was done by the Farrelly boys. It wasn't too bad. Better than anything Disney's done is several years. It was also more live action that I expected (I expected it to sandwich the movie basically).

Um. Gummy Bears. I don't know. I'm just writing. Rusty.

Obsessive Behavior

To look at that David Lynch note, you need to copy and paste the following URL in your browser:
http://davidlynch.topcities.com/mdrive/pics/prodept.jpg
(It's one of those free website providers that won't let other websites use direct links to images they host.)

Holy fricking crap. George is worrying me. I was expecting some kind of tinkering, but whole new scenes...???

Okay, there are apparently some websites out there for people who have crushes on other people, but are too chicken to do anything about it. The person with the crush can go sign up and provide the email address of the person they like. The site then sends an anonymous message to the recipient of the crush telling them that someone's got the hots for them. The recipient can then sign up at the site themselves, and have anonymous messages sent to people they have crushes on. If the site detects a match, both people are notified that they've made a love connection.

So, what does this have to do with me, you ask? No, I haven't used any of these sites, but I did get a message from one this weekend, telling me that someone has a crush on me. Now, I'm incredibly obsessive-compusive when presented with a mystery. I have to understand and solve things. It's why I've been known to work calculus problems for fun. After going through everyone I know in my mind who could have sent it, and ranking them according to likelyhood, another depressing possibility crossed my mind. There was something in the email that looked suspicious to me. The URL it gave for signing up looked like this:

http://www.SecretlyKissed.com/ukissed.asp?xs=kisses

That parameter at the end could be some kind of referral code or somesuch, meaning that this could have actually been a spam message, sent to lure people into thinking that someone had sent them this, when it was really just an ad. (The part of me trained in advertising and marketing techniques admired the tricky cleverness of such a possible scheme, evil as it may be.)

Searches of the web and usenet didn't provide any evidence that the site was a known spammer, and people do seem to be using it legitimately.

To eliminate this possibility, a test had to be performed. I signed up at the site using one of my alternate email addresses that I use for signing up for things, not caring about having them put on junk mail lists. I then had a secret crush message sent to another email address of mine. The message I sent did not have that ?xs=kisses or any other parameter on the url, and included an additional url to have the email address blocked from future mailings. Evidence (but still not solid proof) that something was up with that original email I got. I suppose there's a slim possibility that in the day that passed from the time I received the original to when I sent my test message, that they may have tweaked their automated message-sender thingy. If they were thoughtful enough to include address removal instructions on the emails sent from the site, you'd think they would do so on their actual advertisements, to conform to anti-spam legislation requirements or whatever.

Now I have a dilemma. Do I assume the original email was spam, and ignore it? If someone I am actually interested in did actually send that message (and there is at least one lady friend of mine I would be absolutely ecstatic to discover it was from, and another I would be pretty flattered by as well), then I risk them thinking I'm not interested when they never get a response. (Anybody wanna fess up?) If I do sign up and try the thing, then I risk being a pawn of some sick marketing scheme designed to capitalize on lonely people's need to feel loved. I may try it. I may not. I may have already, but am cleverly acting like I haven't so no one will know. I dunno. Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about. Probably not. I think about these things way too much. My brain hurts.

I'm sure you're all wondering who the two women I referred to in the last paragraph are, so I'll confess. Here they are:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH
YOUR FRIEND
JASON BELL

Fun Blogs. Here's a note David Lynch sent to the theaters showing Mulholland Drive. I thought it was funny. Man knocks on the door, and I ask who it was. Man says, "Freddie." I ask, "Freddie who?" he says, "Freddie or not here I come..." Thank you very much. Your Friend,
Tommy Burton

It's time to get Bloggy with it. Tommy, like The Prodigal Son, has indeed returned to the famous robot. he knows that he has been missed and is extremely glad to be blogging away like the madman he is. Now that the cheers have settled down, I can share my thoughts on each Blogger present and absent:
Rusty W. Spell--Rusty has been my best friend since high school. I almost feel lucky and nonored to have him as a friend. I always wondered why he hung around me, but I guess after all these years he really does like me. That's good, because I like him pretty good too. We set trends only to smash them down once they catch on as true trendsetters do. And he's still more talented than both me and Jack Halford.
Jason Bell--We took art classes together. He and Chris Ball used to always draw better than me, preventing me from becoming the king of the class and always regulating to me to the third-rate banana. This, in turn, led me to a career in music instead of art, so it all worked for good (I think anyway). He tends to hang out with me quite a bit, which is cool. He also stayed up with all night watching me IM my stalker and going hungry. He also gets to watch me fall asleep during every movie we rent, but then again, all my friends get to do that. I'm pretty sure that he likes me alright (It might be in sick, demented sort of way, in that I entertain him with my small brain).
Danny McGreger--he is the guy that I've chosen as my musical partner. I respect and admire him and his talents. He does make great hamburgers. He's truly the brother I never had. After going through all this divorce business, I discovered that he too, does like me.
Stephanie Tai--She said that I looked like Bill Murray. She came to hear Lately David play twice. I could easily fall in love with her. She might like me, but I'm not very sure. She did talk to me and Jason quite late night, so she might...
Todd Townsend--Todd's got all the ladies these days, so he's too busy to mess with our boring selves. We also met in art class when I pointed out his Van Halen symbol he was drawing on his portfolio. Jason and Chris weren't in this class, so I was the king...Todd likes me sometimes.
Dr. Sbaitso--He's this dillhole that I always cuss at. I don;t like him at all...

Dream Weaver

The show went nice. I'm sorry everyone in the world is sick.

I had a dream the other night that I was watching Mulholland Drive, only it wasn't really the movie, only it was a series of images that bothered me in some way, not necessarily in a bad way. One of them was a man whose face I think I saw on The Human Face special on TLC, which was deformed so much that he had three lumps of skin hanging below his eyes. He also somewhat resembled a mask I've seen in a movie, maybe from Amadeus or Eyes Wide Shut. He had on a crown or something. I keep having that stuck in my head.

I also dreamed about the end of the world last night, and it wasn't so bad. Everything was in perspective finally.

I'm ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. I teach Monday morning and Tuesday morning, and the rest of my time is off. Liza and I want to play poker. I have three weeks of class left and finals week.

I'm not Dead yet

Sorry I couldn't make it to the show, Rusty. I've been having to keep myself doped up on sinus medicine to keep from feeling like my head was going to explode, so I haven't been going out much. Just sitting around in bed watching my new funny Monty Python and the Holy Grail Ultimate Definitive Final Special Edition DVD and reading comic books. I did make it to Tommy's show at Fenian's tuesday night, where he got off to a rocky start (I'm afraid the Rusty song he played didn't go too well, but there's probably not anyone left here who either wasn't there or hasn't been told about it by Tommy on the phone in the past week, so why am I even talking about this, other than to just keep the robot going).

In case Tommy didn't mention what that movie he was looking for was, Rusty, it was Matewan, which he did eventually find, and said was good.

The Tenacious D episode of Space Ghost airs this week. It seems it was originally delayed at the last minute because of complications securing the rights to play a whole song of theirs on the show, so they had to do some creative re-editing. And I was looking forward to a few minutes of nothing but words being bleeped out...

My Fans Are Killing Me

As it turns out, I've been asked to also play a music show at Tals Friday night, so those who feel bad for having to miss Tuesday can make up for it here on a nice weekend show.

I didn't like The Family Guy at first either. And, although I still like The Simpsons, I kinda agree about it lacking something now. I think maybe it's just too wacky and nothing else, where when it first started it was more "heartfelt" and nothing else... they hit the middle in the middle, so they just need to backpedal. Or something. It's been twelve years, so...

Liza and I had the same double feature when Shadow of the Vampire came out. Now I wanna know what movie Tommy was looking for.

Tommy? Apparently, Tommy's back on the Bulky Mail Robot, so he can answer. I told him to read all the archives from everything me missed and make a big robot response.

RUSTY DUSTY

I'll try to make it to the big show tomorrow if I can (though that's looking kinda unlikely). Hope you're feeling better, Rusty

I finally saw High Fidelity this weekend. Why on earth did it take so long for me to see this? (Well, I can partially blame Tommy's convoluted movie-selecting processes for a few instances I wanted to see it but didn't...)

Top 1 thing that bugged me about High Fidelity
1. The part where they mention Evil Dead II, but seem to be confusing it with Army of Darkness, which is actually the third Evil Dead movie.

Top 5 uncool things I saw when I went to a big flea market in Tupelo this weekend:
5. Grocery items that were months past the expiration dates
4. Air in a can
3. Various T-shirts with thinly-veiled in-your-face sexual innuendo and jokes so bad that I felt ashamed to be standing within sight of them
2. Rectangular clocks whose faces were nice little paintings of Jesus, Mary, and angels. They had little red LED lights in lines of varying lengths imbedded into the pictures in seemingly random locations, not outlining anything in particular, and blinking in random intervals.
1. T-shirt depicting the US Capitol building flying a Confederate flag, with the words "I have a dream" printed in big bold letters (being worn by some guy)

Top 5 cool things I saw when I went to a big flea market in Tupelo this weekend:

5. A dead lizard (the lizard itself was cool, not the fact that it was dead)
4. Old vinyl rock LPs
3. Puppies and birds
2. Sugar gliders (little flying-squirrel-like marsupials, the size of your average hamster or gerbil)
1. Amanda (my friend who I was there with, and who spending time with really made up for the lack of cool stuff at the flea market)

The following is a Blog I typed up offline intended to post Friday afternoon, but couldn't post until today, because of the stupid phone company letting the static on our line get worse and worse, and not bothering to listen to our complaints and check it out until it became completely impossible to dial out. Enjoy!

Spam

Well, I check my email today, and wow... I got a message from former Baywatch babe Geena Lee Nolin! I'm like, gee, what is this Hollywood hottie writing to me about? Could she be the mysterious stranger who reads the Blog every day, and want to comment on some anecdote she found amusing? Could she have visited my website? Is she perchance a LunchBots fan? Unfortunately, it turned out to be an advertisement for her syndicated TV show, Sheena, and it wasn't even sent by her at all. I was really disappointed, but then I got an email from CDNOW with a special 15% discount for me, and only me. (It said so in the subject line... "Jason, Just For YOU -- a 15% Discount at CDNOW!" Geena Lee Nolin may not love me, but at least CDNOW does.)

The Smurf web translator is one of the least-impressive ones I've seen, unfortunately. My favorite is The T'inator. The pictures and links to audioclips it randomly inserts place it head and shoulders above other webpage translators in my book. Unfortunately, it refuses to pity Blogspot webpages, so we'll never know how badly the robot here could be pitied.

The Tick: Well, Rusty, you saw the best part of the show, so be glad you turned it off when you did. It was just the pilot episode, so maybe things will improve as the season goes on. And maybe X-Files will be really good this year. And maybe Iron Chef USA will be just as good as the original. And maybe Lone Gunmen will get better... oh, wait.

Family Guy is pretty good stuff. Didn't impress me much early on, but it's really grown on me. It's like it's picking up the creativity and originality that the Simpsons writers have slowly lost over the last few years. I wish Fox would just make up their minds about whether they want the show or not... I mean, it's been cancelled and renewed like a dozen times already.

I first noticed Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane's name in the credits of the early episodes of Johnny Bravo, which had a lot of that same style of humor (though understandably lacking the more adult-oriented jokes) and comedic timing, before Cartoon Network got rid of the whole creative team and replaced them with a bunch of people who completely revamped the show (and not for the better). McFarlane's a lucky guy. According to a news report I read, if his travel agent hadn't goofed up his itenerary for September 11th, causing him to get to the airport too late to board the ill-fated flight from Boston he was booked on, he wouldn't be here now.

Last night, Tommy came over and helped me and my dad replace my vehicle's alternator. (My dad handled all the actual doing of stuff. Tommy held the light, and I supervised and said useful stuff like "Wait, we should put the belt back on before tightening that bolt.") Then Tommy and I went off on a quest to find that movie he's been trying to find whose title escapes me at the moment. Didn't find it, but we did discover the huge DVD section at Hollywood Video, where he rented some other movies. We watched a highly satisfying double feature of Nosferatu and Shadow of the Vampire, saving Cannibal! The Musical for some other time.

To Those Who Hate Rock and Love Gimmicks

Rusty = playing at Thirsty Hippo at about 8:00 pm Tuesday night. Only one musical repeat! The rest is new, baby! Rusty gets bored with music easy, and you get the benefits!

Coincidences

First: Re: Smurf Grammar: It would be "by smurfing here," not "by clicksmurf" which would make no sense in the Smurf world. I should make my millions by writing the Smurf grammar book.

Second: The Family Guy tonight featured their versions of Smurfs. They used correct grammar, using "smurf" mostly as verbs and curse words.

Third: The Family Guy made several jokes that I make most every day of my life, namely "That's what she said."

Fourth: The Family Guy is hilarious, and maybe even more funny (dare I say) than recent Simpsons. Wallace Shawn was a guest star tonight, or something who sounded exactly like him. Someone who sounds like Wallace Shawn? Inconceivable!

Fifth: After The Family Guy, I watched the pre-credits opening to The Tick and said, "Well, that's all of that I need to see." I was only a slight enjoyer of the cartoon to begin with. I imagine the real fans will just think this version sucks. I nicknamed the show, in my head (the only place where my opinion counts), "Another Barry Sonnenfeld piece of poo." Remember Maximum Bob? Yikes!

In other news: I'm sick. Fever sick... at least sometimes. I thought the best way to recover today would be to not do any work and watch the commentary for Snow White and Star Wars which seemed to have worked OK. Also, I'm playing another live show Tuesday, though I don't know what time yet. I'm not making a big deal out of this one (even though the show itself is probably a bigger deal, since it's a "multimedia convention"), mainly because I'm not looking forward to it since I'm too sick/busy to prepare anything smart, but I'd still love for anyone to come that wansta. I'll post/email info when I get it. I don't want to do the same old songs (and jokes, since I think of these things as musical stand-up... sitting down), so you won't be bored... more damn work for me, I'm afraid. All to please my eager fans.

Finally: I'm renaming this thing "Rusty and Jason's Post-It Notes: At Least We Like It."

I'm having car trouble. It must be Thursday.


Note to self, re: Smurf pictures - Don't tempt Rusty like that again.


Kenny Rogers Smurf is no match for the Tick! (But Smurfette could probably take Arthur.)

Continuing the cavalcade of discussion about blue cartoon characters, does anyone think the new live-action Tick series starting tonight will last long? I loved the big blue guy in comic and cartoon form, but I don't know if they can pull this off, even with Seinfeld's "Puddy" in the Tick suit. All the reviews seem to indicate it's a love-it-or-hate-it thing. I'll probably love it even if it does suck. Spoon!

Rusty's Smurfy Post-it-notes

Smurf Grammar

Of course, I think that Smurfs have their own grammar. You always kinda knew what they were saying, how to translate to English: mostly because "smurf" was used as a verb. Seldom nouns, or at least not in places where you didn't know what the noun might be. So a typical sentence would be "Everysmurf needs to smurf together to build this bridge" and not "Everyone needs to work smurf to build this smurf."


Wow, Smurfette, Wow!


More Male Fantasy Costumed Smurfette

Terrorists r dum.

Yes, the picture is real.

Speaking of disturbing imagery of beloved children's show characters--but disturbing in a totally different way--that picture of Smurfette Rusty posted is really bothering me. I can't sleep because of it. (Well, that's not really the reason I can't sleep, but I'm attempting to be humorous or witty or something here, and now I'm probably failing to do so by explaining my attempt. Oh well. Now I'm just expanding this parenthetical comment so that you'll forget what I was rambling about. Have you been distracted enough yet? Good.) Smurfs shouldn't look like that. They shouldn't have sexy bare midriffs. It's just wrong. Of course, if Smurfette had really looked like that, then the thing with that old Colecovision Smurfs videogame with the secret easter egg where you could make Smurfette get nekkid would have been less disturbing. (I've never played the game in question, have only read articles about it and seen censored pictures, and have no desire to find the actual thing.)

A thought just occured to me. If you speak like a Smurf and substitute random words with "smurf," you could go around saying horrible things to people, but as long as you kept a smile on your face, they'd be none the wiser. Maybe that's why Smurf society is so peaceful and idyllic. Everysmurfy thinks everysmurf is smurfy even if it's really a smurfy smurf of smurf smurf.

Smurf!

What's Wrong With This Picture?



My hour hand is screwy while my minute hand is not. Mystery solved. Or is it? What caused the hour hand to be screwy? Obviously goblins.

Just got finished watching ep. 2 of Twin Peaks with Kristina not too long ago. I only watch the show now with new peeps who haven't seen it; that's the best way to watch it. She'll probably have to watch Fire Walk With Me by herself since I get uneccessarily emotional.

Got the new Rheostatics album today. Not sure what I think yet. It's a rock album.

I've been barley sick for about two months now, well enough to still get around and do everything but sick enough to feel bad. Lukewarm sick--it's almost as bad as the real thing. More annoying.

New name for a band: 7 Cases of Plagiarism.

I still wonder if there's someone, some stranger, who reads this blog everyday. That person should write me and let me know.

R U S T I

Flux Capacitor

Rusty, didn't you get the memo? Daylight Savings Time has been expanded so that you change your clocks every three days (except for every third Saturday of the month and dates that are prime numbers). It's all part of the "Make Daylight Savings Time Even More Unecessary and Harder to Adjust to" program the government has established. See, the oft-mentioned Amanda and I had a big conversation the other day about how much we hate switching to and from Daylight Savings Time, and how it's all so pointless nowadays, since who needs sunlight anymore, what with electricity and all. So I'm all up in my Daylight Savings-bashing mood.

Seriously though, is your watch digital or analog? If the latter, it could be something physically jamming the works, causing the hour hand to stick. Probably one of those little gremlins that like to climb in there to lay their eggs. Those are tough to exorcise. If it's a digital watch, then you might have caught that Y2K bug thingy.

Maybe your glasses are acting like Tommy's theoretical dinosaur-viewing telescope, and you're actually looking at your watch as it appeared in the past...

-----

Tommy tells me that Lately David is getting ready to play the Hard Rock Cafe soon, which is a definite step up from grandpa's backyard, and we don't have to feel so sorry for them anymore.

-----

Here's a better picture of me than the one Rusty posted:


And here I am as a ghost haunting my old apartment:


I agree that Lori Berkemeyer is very cute and tall. She was always very nice.

I met Tommy Burton in high school where we were in art class (a.k.a. Mr. Box has us draw posters to enter into contests class) and band together. He's a crazy and fun guy, who's always complimenting me on my art (which is why I keep him around). Nowadays I go with him on trips to Memphis to hang out with him and Danny McGreger (who, as Rusty noted, is a genuinely nice and funny guy, who does make good hamburgers) and their band.

I've never met Nyleva Corley, but I'm sure she's a cool person, because Rusty says she is, and she likes Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (And I wasn't trying to steal away your Buffy connection with Liza, honest! It was all Rusty's misguided idea!)

I've only met Liza Marshall a couple of times, first when we went to see that movie with the funny robot teddy bear, and then when Rusty played at the Thirsty, Thirsty Hippo. She's gonna let me borrow some episodes of Buffy and Angel I missed, so she's a great gal in my book.

The Ninja who attacked Jeff is a mysterious figure. I was lucky to be there when the Ninja attacked Jeff. I believe it was my destiny to take this photograph:


I met Noby Nobriga when we were in the PHS drumline together. Didn't see much of him after high school until this past summer, when he, Tommy, and I got together for a long marathon of DVD and home video watching. He's a funny and creative guy. He and Rusty recently introduced me to the evils of the game of Honopoly, and drew me into participating in the playtesting process for it.

Optimus Prime isn't part of the Happy Fun Blog, but he's got the touch. He's got the power. When all hell's breakin' loose he'll be right in the eye of the storm. He's got the heart. He's got the motion. You know that when things get too tough, he's got the touch.

You know what's scary? I wrote those lyrics all from memory...

Rusty Spell--who's he?

Seriously though, Rusty was a good roommate. Even if we didn't talk a whole lot then--of course, anyone who knows me knows I never have anything to say. Except for rare occasions like right now, when I'm online and write for hours and hours about nothing.

As Rusty explained, I met Steph Tai way back in elementary school, where I discovered she was the cutest and smartest girl in the world. We pretended to be time travelers and she taught me about the signs of the Chinese zodiac, and we'd rollerskate together at Funtime Skateland. The other kids would occasionally sing the "____ and ____ sittin' in a tree..." song with our names in the blanks, while we ignored them and continued to sit at the lunch table eating our sloppy joes and talking to each other. She said she didn't remember that last part, which made me very sad.

Then Steph's family moved to the far-away land of Tennessee, and we lost touch, until years later when I discovered this internet thingy and found her website. (She and her brother had tried looking for me, but with all the Jason Bells out there, it was impossible to find the right one.) Now we correspond by email fairly regularly (except for a few occasions--like right now--when I get behind because I can be lazy and dumb--I'm sorry for being so lazy and dumb, Steph!), and finally saw each other again a few times this summer.

Introducing the Bloggy Fun Club

As almost promised, everyone who's currently signed up on the Bloggy Email Dump Truck, whether they've written or not. With photos. Basically, the amount of space devoted to your name is determined by how big a picture you happen to have.

Jason Bell

Jason and I met in high school when we were percussion people together. We roomed together at school for several semesters. We now make long trips together while listening to Sifl and Olly compilations created during the glory days of Napster. Jason Bell is a very common name, but this Jason Bell is not a common person. No ho ho! No indeed! No one else I know managed to be at the right place at the right time to capture the exact moment when a ninja attacked Jeff.

Lori Berkemeyer

Lori and I met in eighth grade in art class, because I was cool and she was cute (and she still is cute). We talked about Narnia, and we haven't been able to get rid of each other ever since, even though we've tried several times. I have a box of Lori letters that is a priceless literary posession; our correspondence shall be made into a book one day. Lori is very tall, and with special shoes and hair, she looks even taller than me, though she's not -- barely. She maybe could have been a sports star, but she had trouble picking up a bat one day when we were playing sofball. Lori lives in strange countries so I don't get to see her much. I'm still waiting for the day that Lori and I have all the time in the world together. Maybe in Narnia.

Tommy Burton

I met Tommy in eighth grade on the set of a play we did in drama, where he was doing Jesse Jackson impressions and saying "poof poof" when he invisibly applied my makeup for my scenes. Tommy's a really loud guy, and I'm the quiet one. We don't have a straight man and comedy man, we have loud and quiet; that's our comedy. Tommy and I talk about music and David Lynch and the best way to store CDs and how I'm an idiot for filing my DVDs by director. This picture is me and Tommy being Robert Brenton, which is the name of our band in which we perform classics like "Bumper Stickers" and "I'm 100% Sure I'm Not That Baby's Daddy." Tommy and I like to get under the warm covers together.

Nyleva Corley

I met Nyleva in my second year in the graduate program where she was being an English person along with me. She walked me to my on-campus mailbox to pick up a delivery of The Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs which made me cool and her cool. She knew my girlfriend Liza from undergraduate school, and Nyleva introduced us, though she doesn't profess to be a matchmaker in case anything goes wrong. Nyleva is one of the last true riot grrrrrls and she's a really good dancer and has a cute voice and we like similar music, though the girls in her music could kick the guys in my music's butt. Nyleva lives in Texas, which is a long way from here, so we write email or talk on the phone or just pine for each other. Nyleva's a perty gal.

Carrie Hoffman

I met Carrie this semester in the graduate program where we make up stories together. If I never had a sister, Carrie would be the sister I never had. I remind her of her brother, and she reminds me of everyone I know (that I like) rolled into one person. Carrie and I sat on the couch tonight at the English party and told each other each other's life stories, which she was better at doing than me -- and then I got shat on, but not by Carrie. Carrie and I were separated at birth. Oh, and that's her in the picture as a robot singing to the robot audience in my next music show. If I had a non robotic picture, I would put that up because (a) Carrie's a cute girl with glasses and a pony tail who needs to be seen and (b) because she's over robots now.

Kristina Lucenko

I met Kristina this semester in the graduate program where she writes poetry while I'm writing stories, although she can also write stories and everything else because she's all talented. She really doesn't look like Thom Yorke, but she's going to marry him or something. I actually have a picture of Kristina as a little girl, but I haven't scanned it in yet. But I shall, because she was a cute little girl, and she is a cute older girl as well. All of my friends are cute, at least the gals. I have something against ugly people, which is a problem I have. Kristina and I are watching Twin Peaks together, since she digs cool movies and David Lynch and stuff. She's in a band called More Dead Cats which will record an album anyday now at the famous Love and Letters Studios to be produced by me. Kristina rides a bike.

Liza Marshall

I met Liza on 1 Nov 1999, which was two years and two days ago, which means we've both broken our records for keeping boyfriends/girlfriends. Liza is my foil, aluminum and otherwise. We're Sonny and Cher. We're Belle and Sebastian. We're Stephin and Claudia. Our favorite word is "diggy." Liza can paint and draw and manipulate photos and take pictures and cross-stitch and figure out mind-twisting puzzles and she would be the vampire slayer if it weren't for Sarah Michelle Gellar. She's smarter than me, which is saying a lot since I'm brilliant. She's hot: a "hottie," if you will. She allows me to be a beacon of hope for skinny losers everywhere, like Drew Barrymore to Tom Green. That's a picture of us with a poster of Fire Walk With Me above our heads. Judy's gonna get us. Liza makes me feel like a kitten purr.

Danny McGreger

I met Danny sometime as an undergraduate when Tommy introduced us, but my first experience of Danny was seeing him on videotape acting like he was laughing for about ten minutes at a silly little magazine. Around here, most of us see each other one tape before we meet in person. It's not quite screening, but it could be. Danny is a music man. He writes songs of the goodly persuasion. He can play guitar better than me. He can play keyboard better than me. He can play trumpet better than me. I must kill him now. Danny can be really funny while being nice, which is a hard thing to pull off, since most people, to be funny, need to be assholes. Danny keeps a very clean house and cooks good hamburgers. He enjoys a Spree from time to time.

Noby Nobriga

I met Noby in sixth grade when we were in the drumline together, and we were actually in the same class together in fifth grade (though we didn't really meet somehow, only knew of each other) and we had an art class together in third grade, though we barely knew of each other then too. At any rate, Noby is easily my oldest pal that's still around. He taught me everything I needed to know about computers and electronics and music recording and videotaping and editing and things of that nature to help me become the genius I am today. Noby makes games and plays games and knows 48 different languages and he was once known to be in a van. Noby carried the big bass drum in high school. He is 1/3 of our oldest band, 'nikcuS, which we invented and recorded the first album for when we were mere fifteen year olds... but well after we were professionals in the world of recording fake radio shows and video productions. Noby has a hockey stick.

Ray Romano

I never met Ray Romano, except through this blog, but he's a very funny comedian who has a mediocre sit-com. This is a picture of him and his family with Little Billy Cosby. Ray Romano was funny on Dr. Katz a lot, when he was a cartoon. Todd Townsend does a good impression of Ray Romano, and he's the only person I know who does an impression of Ray Romano. Who impersonates Ray Romano? Of course, now Tommy and me and even Liza do impressions, all thanks to Todd. But little thanks to Ray Romano himself, since he's never come up to me and introduced himself, the bastard.

Rusty Spell

I met myself when I was born, but I really came into my own when I was about 3 1/2. I'm trying to get back to that state again. I picked this picture because Liza likes it. It's me and my first keyboard, which I am hugging because it is so dear. When you turn it on, it goes "dinga dinga dinga ding!" That shows how good it is. I'm 26 years old, which is still a rather young age for someone who's been around so long and done so many famously great things. I write stories and make music and my music is so good that people book me for "Conventions" without my even knowing much about it. I make movies and take pictures and make sure that my books are exactly one inch from the edge of the bookshelves. I do things sometimes without thinking and get shat upon. I teach, which is what some people know me as soley: the guy who comes in and teaches them English. Which is an odd thing to think, because it wasn't until minutes after typing this that "teacher" even came to mind, even though it's how I make my money, and how people make money is typically how people are recognized. I have goofy things happen to my watch, which makes me believe in hobgoblins.

Steph Tai

I met Steph in Memphis at a Lately David show when Jason introduced us after he not having seen her since elementary school, which is where she is in this picture (along with Jason himself, or "me"). Since then, Steph and I have been writing emails... about what I can't remember, but we did it pretty regular for a while until Steph started jet-setting all over the place, which I think she's settling down from now. Steph is a fancy lawyer person. She's another cute gal. She likes similar music to me, and likes the fact that I re-made 69 Love Songs. Steph is the reason I'm blogging today. I might not recognize her if I saw her for time #2, since apparently she keeps reinventing/hiding herself.

Todd Townsend

I met Todd at some point in high school, though I should remember the exact day since Todd is the funniest guy I know. Pound-per-pound the funniest, though he claims that Tommy and I are the funniest guys he knows and that he learned everything he knows from us, which I find hard to believe. I watched Cannibal! The Musical at Todd's house, which was an experience. Remember the Ray Romano guy? That was Todd. Todd and I share similar opinions that I won't go into, but which we discussed late nights at Tommy's house. Whenever Todd's name is mentioned, I say, "Whoah... Todd..."

Amy Wilkinson

I met Amy this semester in the graduate program where we write stories about characters that should hook up. Amy isn't really a swanked-up Smurfette, but I don't have a picture of her either, so I looked for a blonde and came across this swanky Smurfette. Amy's as cute as Smurfette, and as nice. People are suspicious of Amy for being so nice. "Why's she so nice? What's she up to?" Some people call Amy "Kim." In fact, I called her Kim once in my head, I think because there are so many Kims around, so why not one more? Amy was one of the first of the new batch of grad folks I met in the English department, and she soon won my respect by volunteering to sing in my show. Luckily, by the time she chickened out, I already thought she was cool -- so her plan worked. Amy is a computer nerd, but she's a tall hip skinny attractive female, so she's all about defying stereotypes.

That's all she (I) wrote. Feel free now to write about each other in a similar way. Avoid looking for photos and links, though, if you want to save time.

Michael J. Fox

I'm getting scared. Here's the situation:

About two weeks ago, I was in my office area of the English department, and I look at my watch (that was correct all day long because I was using it to know when to get out of class, etc.) and I go, "This doesn't look right." So I find other clocks in the department and learn that my watch is exactly one hour behind. Not "about" an hour, but precisely one hour. Weird.

Then about last week I was eating with my dad and he reminds me to set my watch back for daylight savings time. So I look down to set it, and it's already set exactly an hour back. Kind freakin' out.

Then tonight I'm at the English party and I look to see what time it is, and it's exactly one hour ahead. Boing?

So it's not a battery problem, because if it were it would just be all over the face, not exactly one hour behind or ahead. And it's not like some prank either, since it's always on my arm when it changes. It's usually sudden: like I look at my watch to say, "Well, it's about time to let out class," and then an hour or two later I look down and it's changed.

Unless someone can figure this out for me, I'll jump to what I always jump to as explanation: some sort of hobgoblin.

Misunderstood Rusty Tries To Explain

Nay, nay, nay, lovely Nyleva. Just saying that she finally has someone within an hour and a half that also likes Buffy, so that she can feel slayer energy in Mississippi as well as Texas. I should have said "in addition to Austin, TX." In fact, Liza even said the long distance tape-relay was "working just fine" even with the new developments of Jason the Vampire Slayer. We know that Nyleva and Liza are Good Willow and Evil Willow (I won't say who's who) and we'd never want to break that up.

This is Nyleva, a visual. When I have time, I'll stick visuals up of everyone I have visuals of (or make some). She's rad. To her right is Liza, but I cut her out when I cropped this picture because I didn't know she would be my full-time lady (or who she was) at the time.

Squiggle.

She Felt Compelled, Or the BtVS Comment Riled Her Up

My dearest Rusty: My heart is broken in twain. Has something gone awry in my long-distance Buffy affair with Liza that she has to go elsewhere to satiate her desire to discuss the latest developments on BtVS? It hurts that much more that I had to read about it on the daily blog. I can't go on. I won't go on. Surrendering to despair in Austin, TX.