Saturday

Yesterday, Saturday, was a very nice day. The weather was nice and sunny. Pete and I spent almost all day hanging out in the backyard. We did yard work in fact! Trimmed some trees back, trimmed some bushes, cleaned the garage and worked on the sprinklers in both the back and front yard. I dare someone to tell us that we aren't incredible house renters! I enjoy renting a house. Cuz its a great learning experience. We know about having to clean windows and work on broken sprinkler heads. And if we mess up or can't fix it ourselves, then we have a back up....the landlord! Pete has knowledge on the HVAC and i can program the sprinkler system. Its very rewarding to do things yourself. And by the end of the day, your kinda beat and very dirty. Like i said, its very rewarding. So now that our backyard is in pristine condition, who want's to come over and bbq?!

A friend for Barney??

Pete and I keep going back and forth about getting another dog. A friend for Barney to play with and to get into trouble with while we are both at work. We both constantly check the Pasadena Humane Society website to see if there are any cute dogs. We wouldn't get a Pit Bull or a Chihuahua, even those are the most needed dogs to adopt, but more of a smaller dog like Barney's size. We'd want to get a dog that is at least 2 years old already cuz then we won't have to worry too much about all the puppy hijinks. The dog would have to be pretty mellow to be able to mesh with Barney's personality too. Then there's the whole baby factor to consider. Is it wise for us to throw in another living thing that needs taking care of? But then again, will Barney need a friend cuz we will be too busy taking care of the baby? All the "what if's"!!!

oohhh

Hey Pete, nice change on the page. I think we needed a new background. I also think we need to start posting some stuff. yeah yeah i know, i'm all talk cuz i haven't contributed since.....well its been a while. Just curious, does anyone even check this blog anymore? If you do, add a comment. Just say, 'i do, once a week/month/randomly, etc". Maybe its time to give up and live only in Facebook land? *sigh*

I don't fucking sleep anymore. I haven't fallen asleep before 2am for months. And if I do you can be sure that I wake up at 3am and can't fall asleep again until 5am.

Response to Jeff and Dave (Not because I'm angry or overly excited, only because I like to argue)

My Argument is that what the framers had in mind with the First Amendment was to protect the expression of unpopular ideas and to protect political dissent.

My point is that there is nothing in animal cruelty videos to protect. It is a recording of crime being committed. I understand that it was a weak law that was being struck down, and that's fine we'll have to come up with a better law, but I don't think there is a First Amendment argument to be made here. Like I said, if someone were to depict realistic images of dogs fighting or or squirrels being crushed I wouldn't have a problem because there is no "act". In my mind the First Amendment protects the expression of an idea not an action. For instance, I respect someone's right to say in any medium or public forum "everyone named Pete should be killed" I don't respect their right to actually kill me and sell the videos.

I think of this way:
If someone rented a theatre and billed their act as crushing small animals onstage. They are protected. Everyone who bought a ticket to this event is protected. That's protection against prior restraint. However, as soon as the show begins and chip n' Dale get squished, the performer is no longer protected and can be arrested. In a video, the crime has already been committed so there is no prior restraint protection, the video is simply evidence of a crime being committed in which the person holding the camera is complicit. And whether someone buys the video or not a crime has occurred.

The First Amendment

The First Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Supreme court crushes law against animal cruelty videos and photos

Which one of the protections of the First Amendment covers Dog Fighting? Which one covers crushing small animals to death?

Free Speech you say? What then, do these activities say? If they "say" something, could the something not be said and not shown?

If a person where to release a book, video, podcast what have you extolling the virtues of watching two dogs maul each other to death I would not dream of trying to suppress such a publication. Likewise, I would not endeavor to suppress anyone from expressing the opinion that crushing small animals to death is a legitimate form of sexual arousal. It is the act of doing these things that is reprehensible and, in fact, criminal. We have existing laws against animal cruelty just as we have criminal laws against murder. Selling a video of someone being murdered is illegal, is it not? Why then should selling a video of someone committing an act of animal cruelty not be considered a criminal act?

I am not a vegetarian and I understand the concept of nature "red in tooth and claw" but this is willfully causing prolonged pain and suffering and exploiting that suffering for money. I don't see how this could have been the intention of the framers.

Enlighten me.

Upon Watching The Empire Strikes Back...

"Lauri, what do you take away most from Star Wars, whats your favorite part?"
"Yoda"
"Like what? His philosophy?"
"I like his puppet... I also like the Ewoks cuz they're, like, fuzzy little bears"
"sigh"

The Gift of Gab...

It's a good thing for me that we don't live in ancient Greece. If we lived in the time of Homer, I would be shit out of luck. I can't relate a decent story verbally to save my life. Sometimes, I'll try to tell a story about a funny thing that happened to me, and I'll realize half way through that I have totally lost your interest or that frankly the story wasn't great to begin with and I try to wrap it up quickly which ruins it. I think however, that I can't spin a decent yarn in written form.. I think it must be destiny that I was born into an age when blogging is possible. Writing and re-writing, that's my style. Yes, I do make up certain facts for dramatic effect, but admit it, so do you when you are telling your stories. My strength, I like to think, in the social situation is listening. I love to here a good story retold and I respect the skill it takes to do it. Please don't take me for being aloof when we are sitting there have a beer and I can't think of anything good to say, it's just that...well, I can't think of anything good to say. But I'll gladly listen to, and be genuinely interested in anything you might want to tell a story about.

Seeking Serious Advice

So when we first moved into the house, a lady came knocking at our door at 9pm one Tuesday night with her hand waving furiously. My first impression was that she was a new neighbor come to welcome us to the neighborhood...not so much as it turns out. When I opened the door she held up her hands with seven fingers. After several attempts in broken English I was informed that she had seven children. I further came to understand that she was seeking permission to take the recyclables from the bin on the curb. To this I said, "fine go ahead." and began to close the door. As I closed the door she said, "okay you remember me when I come back" Very quickly I realized she had taken my affirmative to be my acceptance of a contract between the two of us by which she would rummage through my garbage at my curbside every Tuesday night. I immediately regretted every aspect of the interaction.

In the weeks that followed we realized that with a three bin system (Trash, recycle, Yard Waste) we really weren't generating enough trash to necessitate putting the recycle bin on the curb every week. (Well, that and the fact that we routinely forgot to put the trash out altogether) After a while I had nearly forgotten about the wayward (and overly reproductive) dumpster diver.

However...

Last week I was heading out to work at about 6:30 in the AM, and who do I see not only going through the recycle bin but chatting up the garbage men...you guessed it. Lets forget that I am notoriously surly at this time of day anyway, but something about having turned the front of my house into the garbage buffet REALLY got under my skin. So as I walked to my car I said, in a not overly unkind tone of voice, "Please don't through my garbage anymore". Her response was that I had given her permission. I said, "Well, please don't do it anymore." She fell back on what must be her standard mode of pleading and held up her seven fingers, and again informed me that she had seven children who all went to the school in front of my house (as if that was some sort of endearment to me). As I got in my car I again repeated, "don't go through my garbage anymore." My rear views revealed her moving quickly toward my car.. She was at my side window again holding up her seven fingers. I gesticulated wildy for her to get away from my car. She put her palms together and bowed to me. Had we reached an understanding or had she just sworn a blood oath to her god against all things Pete? She moved away from the car and went back out to the parking. As I drove by she gave me the creepiest smile I've ever seen. I was not at all happy about how the exchange had gone. Surely I could have conducted myself better and turned on the charm and calmly informed her that I was uncomfortable with her going through my cast offs, numerous though her offspring may be. Still, perhaps I had made my wishes clear and this would be the last I would see of her?

At this point your asking, what's the big deal? Let her go through your garbage and get on with your life. To you I say..."Yeah, but...." Look, there are several issues at play here that bother me about the situation, taken individually you will think me a hard hearted bastard and dismiss me, but perhaps taken together you can see my side?

First, with a stranger going through your trash you now have to be careful of what you put in the trash. Identity theft is a real thing and I have a lot to lose.

Second, someone who knocks on your door at 9pm asking to root through your trash clearly has boundary issues.

Third, had I opened the door to making my new neighborhood a haven for trash diggers? Not a very nice legacy to be sure.

Fourth, basic human nature says give a person an inch and they will take a mile. What was to stop her from deciding that if my aluminum cans were up for grabs, what about these rusty old aluminum rain gutters. And what about the bottles and cans that I had surely left in the back yard, why not hop the fence just to take a peak, after all she has seven mouths to feed.

Fifth, rubbish hauling contracts are in my purview at the job so I know that trash haulers use revenue from recyclables to offset the cost of operations, if all of sudden there would no recyclables to collect, trash hauling costs could conceivably go up. I can't have that on my head. I know that's more of big picture concern and, admittedly, it was distrust of strangers in general that led me to call an end to the smorgasbord of rubbish.

On Saturday there was a home invasion robbery, that ended with my neighbor a few doors down chasing the would be burglar into the nearby school and the Sheriffs having my block on lock down for a few hours until the police dogs found the suspect in the dumpster. Scavengers, burglars, oh my! You can see how paranoia might be setting in.

Then...

Tonight a knock came at my door at about 8:30pm. Guess who? She was back now with 3 of the 7 in tow. Presumably for the purpose of softening my hard heart into granting access to the remains of the past weekends shenanigans. I hadn't even brought out my bins yet. I did NOT open the door this time. When I saw it was her through the side window, again waving furiously with that, "there is really something wrong with me" smile. I simply looked in the eye and said "Go Away". She moaned a pleading "Nooooooo" as I secured the chain and locked the deadbolt. She left. She is about a 5 foot tall mid fifties Asian woman and at this point I have to admit, I'm nervous.

I know I've made light of some aspects of the situation for the purpose of holding your attention but in all seriousness I find the whole situation worrisome. And I also realize the person I am talking about is REAL person who clearly has REAL problems. But none of those problems are immediately mine or my neighbors. Recyclables can be accessed in any manner of ways (see previous posts) that don't involve knocking on my door or hanging around my house.

I don't worry about my own safety but for those under my care, especially the friendly dog who puts anything in his mouth including any manner of poison handed him by vengeful trash digger while I'm off making money in a more conventional manner than knocking on stranger's doors begging for access to trash. I know I'm probably being overly worrisome...but that's just me.
Any advice from the group on how I can solve the situation or at least some thoughts to put my mind at ease?

Jumping off a tall Building while staring in a mirror and having cake that you can also eat

"No matter what we fear, we MUST fear the moment of truth"
That's the opening of the Gang Starr track "Moment of Truth" that legitimizes that whole cut and it has relevance here I think.

Ahhhh....(that's a sigh of relief) It's the tapping sound of keys being punched that reminds me that it has been too long since I've done this.

Life has certainly changed since we started this blog in 2005. We've gone from "Life Outside the Rat Race" to...hell I don't even know what to call it. In fact, I won't attempt to analyze the ups and downs of trying to make a comfortable life in the free market society. I will share something I've learned, having a little loose change in the your pocket can really alleviate some stress, and if the price is getting up every morning and putting in your eight, as long as you're not hating your job, then its well worth it. I've been wanting, for a long time to acknowledge how much life has changed in the few years since we started this and my fear has been that I wouldn't be able to entertain with words with much less of my time being spent Outside the Rat Race. But what I've come to realize is that it wasn't what we did back in '05 that was all that fun, it was the flourish of words we put on it, that made everyday an adventure. I also recall that every experience was approached with the intention of putting it into words, in doing so you tend to look for the fascinating in the mundane. I think, if we want to keep this thing going we, (or just me maybe) have to try to do that again, despite how different things are now.

Having said all that, I'm still not sure what direction to go with this blog. It might take sometime to get the grove back. I realize now that with Facebook here, this thing will have a much wider audience and I have to decide whether or not to be careful with words and what stories to tell. But...I suppose you all know me well enough, so if I decide to fret, hem and haw, or openly rant you just have to remember, that right now...life in general is good and the various humours of the passionate soul are all part of life. I will, however, put a word of warning in for my younger readers if you are out there...
*All stunts physical and psychological are performed by a professional. Don't try anything read here at home.

THIS IS BORING!!!

Hey everyone from Alaska I think we should get back to writing on the blog about what we are doing right now and stop putting our 2 cents in on facebook. Don't get me wrong I love facebook but rememeber when this blog was our way of telling a story about what we are thinking. I'm so bored and I'm wishing I was famous I could catch a plane and head down south. I should be reading for my history class but I don't feel like I'm in the mood to hear about WWII and Alaska's role in it. I'm half watching the Olympic Opening Cermony and I'm wondering...who comes up with this crap?! Really the Native dances were fine I've experienced them up here before. There was horrible side dancers wearing lights like they just bought them at Target. But what was with that trapeze on the fake mountain was that any good because I thought it was a reject number from Cirque de soleil. Whoa I just thought KD Lang was Micheal Buble...my bad. Now a opera song?! Nelly Furtado and Bryan Adams was a horrible pairing and their song wasn't that great. Then the talking for a hour about how Canada is so great we get it you got the Olympics and we didn't. I just hope the U.S. team can forget about this show and bring in a new gold rush into the U.S. (that means win a lot of gold). BTW it was sad that Georgia Republic Luger died on a practice run!! On an unsafe track...I think I would say I'll pass on this run. Anyway this ceremony is boring and I feel like I can't leave or change the channel cuz something cool might happen and I'll miss it.Wait a minute the lighting was messed up that one persons thing didn't raise. I know what to do BLAME CANADA!!! HAhahahaha. A lot of these big expensive shows at sporting events are not great anymore The Who was horrible at the Super Bowl too. I should quit whing but really I wish I could do these shows they would be the shit. Anyways hopefully this rant can get more people to write on the blog maybe Randy can start up his haikus again. One more thing I'm trying to come up with a title for my high school drama soon to be tv show cuz "Hamilton Hell" wasn't working I was thinking "Crossroads of Our Lives" or "Lives At The Crossroads". I know they are both kinda the same but they aren't also. Well the ceremony is over and I'm over too. Talk to all of y'all later.

The Rolling Underbelly

Last night on the drive from my house to Blockbuster Video I saw a homeless guy with 2 dogs. That was the second time I witnessed that unhappy sight in a few days. There was some other homeless guy camped out by the wash who also had 2 dogs. And they are both different from the homeless guy with 2 dogs you see in Sierra Madre and East Pasadena.
I also saw 2 trucks (both personal vehicles) loaded down with cardboard headed to the recycling center by Ralph's /Ichima. This was at like 9:30 at night so they weren't there to drop off their recycling, they were there to steal what they could out of the recycling center. How they planned to split up the loot I can only imagine. When I got home I brought out the trash barrels, it only took 15 minutes before someone was rooting around in my own recycle bin. (A veritable treasure trove after having Alex for a week, but don't get used to it). At work, we can't put on enough security to keep the collectors out of our recycling cans. I recently had to reprimand an employee on the dangers of crawling into a trash compactor, on duty or otherwise There is a seedy underside to the Crown City, The Rose City, and the poor economic conditions are only making worse. I'm wary of a city where the middle class is becoming scarce and times are only getting more desperate.

It's Saturday night and I am friggin' bored. There is nothing on TV and I don't feel like putting a DVD on. I keep opening up Facebook to see if there is anyone (Alex) to chat with, but there never is. I could check my Fantasy Football line-up for the 3rd time today, but I don't think anything has changed on a Saturday. My poor dog is even more bored than I am. He takes little naps and then wakes up like a huge ball of energy. I feel bad. I would walk him, but we keep getting these intense bouts of rain. I walked him this morning but this dog needs a lot of exercise I guess.
I hate Charter Cable. This is the worst cable I've seen in years and my super high speed internet is crap. How have we allowed these mini-monopolies that the cable companies have over certain regions. I know, I know, sattelite. I'm getting there, maybe after the holidays.

"On the east side, thats where I met my Ramona" remember Sublime? do you remember the album 40oz. to Freedom and how many great songs where on that album? Do you also remember how KROQ repeated played that stupid date rape song over and over again? I've often wondered how the worst song on such a great album got so much airtime.

I just discovered that I have the Independent Film channel, Gangs of New York is on. Daniel Day Lewis is the only good thing about that movie. I always thought that he would have made a great Aragorn.

One Bad Apple

So I'm feeling better now. In fact, I'm feeling great. Being sick helped jump start some much needed weight loss that I've been trying to keep up. I've been on the wagon since right after thanksgiving and haven't had any fast food since then either. I have to get some more exercise though. I've never been able to maintain weight loss doing just one or the other, its always had to be both eating like a rabbit and exercising like crazy. Anyway, I'm just glad that I'm not in and out of doctor's offices anymore. Those guys are dicks who don't know what they are doing. Maybe if they spent more than 5 minutes in your presence they might come up with something useful, but as it stands your just a ball of symptoms to them and whether they can make you feel better or not, they seem to get paid either way.

So for lunch, I'm eating an apple of unacceptable quality. I got it from Ralph's. So there you go Ralph's you sell shit apples and now the whole world knows it. It's a granny smith. It tastes as though someone took all the meat out, put in in a blender and then stuffed it back into the peel. I had a granny smith from Gelson's the other day and it was exquisite. I was everything a granny smith apple should be. It was crisp and tart. It was delicious. Not like this mealy shit apple I'm choking down right now. What's wrong with you Ralph's? Don't you have any pride? Don't get me started on the Ralph's brand banana peppers I bought before the holidays. That's right, the ones that gave me the shits. If you are going to put your name on something, hadn't better be at least edible? The worst part is that I've three more of these crappy apples at home, just waiting to disappoint me. I can see them there now, just laughing. Now that they know I know they don't have to hide their glee at making me suffer. When you are that bad of an apple, there is no sense in hiding how bad you are behind your shiny green peel. When I get home, I'll find they have morphed into their true forms; rotten and ugly twisted into grotesque smiles. The second worst part is that now lunch is over. My hunger has not been sated and I didn't even have the pleasure of having had at least a little flavor. The third worst part is that my triglycerides are high so eating fruit is not really a good option for me...too much sugar. The fourth worst part, is that my lunch break just consisted of sitting at my desk eating a shitty apple and writing a blog. Not that I need a lunch break from staring at my computer. There is a packet of tuna in my office fridge and a plastic fork in my drawer. I could eat that tuna. Although, eating the tuna would probably mean consuming more calories than I'm likely to burn today. I think I'll leave the tuna alone.
Alex comes out on the 27th. I'm looking forward to the re-unification of the tri-fecta. It's going to be a veritable orgy of bad food, bad movies, laziness and shit talking. It's hard to contain my excitement.

Randy is a Dumbass (Tim and Pete's 10 reasons why) Part 1

1. He is too lazy to comb his own hair.
2. He thinks his bed head hair is a hair style.
3. His bedroom looks like it's been ransacked by the police.
4. He is excited that the McRib is back!
5. He thinks G.I. Joe is the best movie since Transformers 2

BTW Randy was present when we came up with this.

The Argument

Here's a little exchange that I found kinda funny. it illustrates how much Randy likes to argue. This isn't one of Randy's fantasy adventure stories, sorry. These quotes may have happened, not quite all at once I've taken a little license there, but the spirit of the argument is the maintained.

Randy: "Modern Warfare 2 is the best game ever. I don't like Halo, I only like games where I can see my character."
Pete: "you can't see yourself on Modern Warfare 2 its a first person shooter."
Randy: "what are you TALKING about...I can see my gun."
Pete: "You can see your gun on Halo"
Randy: "I don't play Halo so I wouldn't know"

I'll leave it there. You should be able to find this funny without being a gamer, but it might help. I wasn't arguing that HALO was better than MW2 because it's not, I was just trying to say that his logic for not liking HALO was shoddy.

Rumble in the Jungle's 35th anniversary

Watching some classic ESPN tonight I had recorded via DVR (thank you, God!) I had an interesting realization: my dad, who was an immense fan of Muhammad Ali aka "The Greatest," was about 24 years old when the Rumble in the Jungle between Ali and George Foreman happened in 1974. Here was a man (Ali) who talked huge and fought ever-larger. The Congolese in Zaire ADORED Ali, and during the fight they were vocal about each strike, however perceptible, to Foreman's dome. They wanted Ali to kill George Foreman. How much of this affected my Dad is certainly unknown, though I can guess: if this American man could somehow win the affections of a whole nation against another equally talented American man in a contest of strength, it deserved thought and perhaps even some great consideration.
For me at least, I remember three things about this fight the very first time I saw it: George Foreman at one time in his life looked Pretty Mean! The image of him hawking his wares belied the fact that he at one time really was a beast. Though his grills are no slouches, he in his prime was machine-like. I'll never forget how Ali used that fact to his advantage: the way Ali made it seem like he was losing and then finally strike his adversary like uncoiled cobras was pure mastery. But the thing that really makes me think is this question: once the cultural icons of our youth have passed on into selling stuff on infomercials and commercials, does that mean that we too have passed into old age? If it matters at all to ask the question, have we then lost it, what does it mean?
I wonder what my dad thought of when he saw Ali send Foreman to the canvas. That man who had fought only two rounds for most of his fights because he had knocked out the opposition so quickly. Though Foreman was mean and strong, the most important factor was that Ali was quick, quicker to deflect all blows to his head by shrugging off Foreman's powerful punches, thereby letting the champ tire himself out.

ROPE A DOPE!

I don't quite know where I was going with this but that I started writing a couple of weeks ago after watching the replay of the fight. I conclude that

1) Sports TV has come way too far and how much farther can it go? I wonder
2) Muhammad Ali is one of the closest things to Jesus we have on the planet.
3) George Foreman grills aint nothin to Fuck With.

The Zombie Catfish...a TRUE story for Halloween

The last thing we had to do before being officially moved out of the apartment was to move our aquarium. Moving an aquarium is never a pleasant task. We have a 29 gallon tank, and to move it we have to empty it down to about an inch of water with the fish still in it. Its still weighs about 100 pounds at that point, but its manageable. There's one thing that makes moving the aquarium a little bit more tricky than normal. I have this elusive little catfish that is now on his third aquarium. He outlives everyone. The problem with this guy is that he basically spends all day hiding in a log and only comes out at night or in the early morning. I go for months without seeing him. But I assume that if he died he would finally float to the surface so I don't really worry about him. So when I go to empty the tank, I pull his log out very slowly, jostle it a bit in the hopes that he'll swim out. He doesn't. I pull the log a little farther out and still nothing. there is no flapping or flopping in the part of the log that's out of the water. I figure he must have swam for cover and I just missed it, so I take the whole log out and look into all the cracks and crevices and listen for any signs of struggle and nothing. So I put the now air exposed log in the sink and do a visual inspection for the catfish. He's nowhere to be seen. I have seen him move quite a bit of aquarium rock so I start sifting the rocks with my hand to make sure he's still among the living. Believe me when I say, I sifted every inch of that aquarium and there was no fish to be found below the surface. I do a cursory search of the floor around the aquarium to make sure he hasn't pulled a Nemo and is heading for the nearest drain. Still nothing. At this point I'm resigned to the fact that Lauri's son of a bitch cannibal Angel fish devoured my 10 year old catfish like every other fish we try to put in there. Usually we find the skeleton, but Lauri had just changed the filter so I figured the bones got sucked in. Or that son of a bitch couldn't help himself and ate the bones too.
When Lauri showed up to help me, I gave her both the news and a strong admonition about that god damn cannibal fish killing the old wise man of the aquarium. Lauri however refused to believe that the cat fish could just disappear with out any physical evidence being left behind. She needed to see the body. So she went to the log, now in the sink and practically dry and inspected the nooks and crannies just like I had. We even ran it under the tap to try and flush him out on the off chance we couldn't see him. No luck. Lauri resigned herself...sort of.
Anyway, we took our time after that, taking apart all the equipment, gathering up random stuff from around the apartment and loading the aquarium accessories into the back of my truck. We drove to the house got everything set up. no sign of said catfish. End of story.

Until...

Lauri comes running into the bedroom this morning as I'm getting ready for work and says, "your catfish is alive and he's out eating" I couldn't believe it but there he was.
There is only one explanation for this. I sifted through every pebble of that aquarium and that log was out of the water for at least 45 minutes.
I once knew a fish that survived a double flushing, an impaling by a kebab skewer, and 3 months under the kitchen sink with no food in a tupperware bowl. The same fish went on to decimate my aquarium when I brought him home from Tim's.
But I cannot conceive of my catfish or any other fish surviving out of water for that long.
Here is the only explanation I can think of. My fish was raised from the dead in some voodoo ritual and is in fact undead. A Zombie. A Zombie Fish.

Randy Strikes Again

Randy tried to piss in my eye tonight because I suggested that he take nap AT work rather than having to take nap AFTER work. We were sitting in my backyard and he was kibbitzing about not being able to take a nap before going out on Saturday and I said "just take a nap at work." He said, "How would you like it if I pissed in your eye right now?" And I was like "What? Just cuz I said you should take a nap at work?"
"That's it!", he says, and the dude stands up on his chair, unzips his fly and start to whip it out, I start to say, "I don't know what impression I gave you but I'm not gonna suck tha..." but before I could finish the dude start urinating! Fortunately, I have the reflexes of a cat and got out of the way before the stream caught me in the face. I don't what about sleeping at work got Randy so riled up but I'll never suggest that again.
He calmed down later and I made him clean the piss off my/his table.

Star Wars used to be good

Have I ever told you guys that I'm a bit of a Star Wars fan? Well I am. So I'm home on a Friday night and it's the premier of the new season of the Clone Wars series on Cartoon Network. Having little better to do, I record and watch it. I've seen snippets before, and I promise I ALWAYS try to go in with a fresh perspective. But there are just so many problems with the whole concept of the only new Star Wars stuff focusing on the Clone Wars. Here are but a few: The "good guys" in the Clone Wars turn out to be the bad guys in, lets call it, Classic Star Wars. Clone Warriors become Storm Troopers, Anakin becomes Vader, Republic officers and pilots become Imperial officers and pilots. They even wear uniforms that look like Imperial uniforms.So, how are any of these characters sympathetic? Why isn't there one character that questions where the Republic is going? What is the goal of the "droid army" or the "Trade Federation" its never made clear except for the fact that they keep trying to take over planets? None of the Jedi's seem to be able to discern that there is something wrong with Palpatine. I know Lucas thinks he took care of that with that 30 second conversation between Mace Windu and Yoda in the Attack of the Clones (God what a stupid title) movie, but really? All the Jedi's in the galaxy and no one can tell Palpatine is a bad guy? They call the bad guys "separtists" isn't that kinda like "rebel"? Weren't we rooting for the Rebels? In 30 years the mythology completely changed philosophy, once it was admirable to rebel against a corrupt system of government, now its admirable to defend it. And worst yet all the old leaders from the classics have become complicit, Yoda, obi wan kenobi are made to carry out the machinations of the emporer. Weak. Super Weak.
The biggest point of contention for me is that there are so many more interesting stories to be told when it comes to Star Wars. Like ummm, the Rebellion. Presumably the Rebellion was goin on for some time before Luke came on the scene, why not show some of those stories? I know these ones are supposed to be for kids, but Classic Star Wars was good when I was a kid and its good now. It would be cool if the current custodians of the Star Wars mythos had the longevity of saga in mind.