Doomtown

One day, while sitting in the cafeteria at the casino where I used to work, I happened to overhear an argument between two coworkers that made me laugh fit to bursting. Joe, a dyed in the wool Republican who could have given Dick Cheney lessons in far right conservatism, and Frank, a man whose liberal leanings ran somewhere to the left of Lenin, were sitting at a table, loudly debating whether Ronald Reagan was, “the best dang president this country has ever had the brains to elect” or, as Frank would opine, “a senile old fascist who increased military spending at the expense of public school funding and whose administration tried to classify ketchup as a vegetable to keep the costs of school lunches down.” Frank went on to blame Reagan for the sorry state of affairs that is our nation’s public school system including its “nutritional and physical decline”.                 “We’ve raised a nation full of...

As mentioned before, I am attempting to read 50 books by the end of the year and I've just made it to book #10. Here's a list of all the books I've read so far including their descriptions: 1. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, a book about a lazy, apathetic brat who is transported to a magical land called the Kingdom of Wisdom (kind of like Wonderland, but with more academia and less allusions to trippy mushroom drugs) through a mysterious tollbooth he finds in his bedroom. Because why not? 2. John Dies at the End by David Wong, a book about the inadvisability of accepting strange drugs from fake Jamaicans. 3. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. Bland characters. Slow plot. Sparkly vampires. The plot can be summarized as such: Nothing happens. Nothing happens. Bella gets in trouble. Edward saves her. Rinse. Repeat. 4. The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy. A clever retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story that takes place in Nazi occupied ...

Luna: Honey Badger just takes what it wants. True dat.

Being of a sagacious turn of mind, I sense some of you are reading this blog entry scratching your heads and wondering to yourselves, "Something's...different. Wonder what it is?" Unless you have a Y chromosome, in which case you probably took one look at the title and started thinking something along the lines of, "Boobs? Where? I have to pay for them now? Can I have some please?" To answer the first question you need only look to the right of your screen to spot the funky yellow PayPal donation button I recently installed. It's towards the top. It might be hard to find what with the numerous other link buttons cluttering up that half of the screen, most of which I no longer have a clue what they all do. But trust me. It's there. Somewhere. Declaring my shame. This newest addition is the result of dwindling finances. As mentioned before , I'm going back to school to get my English degree and my checking account is suffering for it. The books alo...

Finished reading Twilight and boy is my sense of self respect tired. It was everything I expected and more. Leaden plot, check! One dimensional characters, check! Sparkly vampires, alas, Check! The plot can be summed up as such: Nothing happens. Nothing happens. Bella gets in trouble. Edward saves her. Nothing happens, Nothing happens, Bella does something stupid and gets in trouble. Edward saves her. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. Vampires play baseball. The villain is introduced. The action rises for fives seconds while Bella is hunted by said villain and almost dies. Edward saves her. The end. That's the plot in a nutshell, interspersed with the main character's constant fawning over Edward's god-like beauty and just plain spiffiness. It was enough to make me want to hurl, and I swear I have a headache from all the eye rolling. My eyesight may never recover. My coworker Misty claims the series gets better. I love ya Misty, but I'm gonna have to take your word...

I'm about to read Twilight for the first time. Yes, you heard me. Twilight . Let me explain. I'm doing the 50 Book Challenge this year which means I have to read 50 books before the end of the year. This in itself is not much of a challenge seeing as I can't go more than 24 hours without a book in my hands. I once heard a rumor that I squeezed my way out of the birth canal holding onto Green Eggs and Ham.  The details regarding how I accomplished this feat are sketchy, but I wouldn't put it past my mother sneaking me the reading material. I inherited my love of books from her after all. But I digress. So far, I've read The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (a book about a lazy, sullen little punk-not an emo kid, strangely enough-who decides to stop moping all the time and become a productive member of society after he is transported to a land called the Kingdom of Wisdom through a mysterious tollbooth he finds in his bedroom...bec...

According to Dante, there are nine circles of suffering waiting for all us unrepentant sinners. The way it works is you're sent to one circle or the other depending on what terrible deeds you did in life to deserve this shit. You've got your upper levels for self-indulgent sins like lust and gluttony and coveting your neighbors ass-a sin that could be greed or lust or both depending on what context you're using. Circles six and seven are for heretics and violent assholes. I can get behind number seven, but six is going to be pretty damn crowded considering the multitude of religions that consider you a heretic if you even think about the others with any sort of tolerance. The eighth circle is for frauds and TV psychics like John Edward. And of course, we all remember the ninth circle is for traitors like Satan, Judas Iscariot, and that kid who ratted me out in the third grade. Dante ends the suffering at nine...

Aha! Thought you'd heard the last of me, eh? Not today bitches! I promised a review before the end of time and by gum, you're going to get it. Does it...does it shrink in cold weather? So, what can I say about The Hobbit ? It was alright, you know, for a close to 3 hour movie full of unpronounceable, hard to remember names for a group of characters whose unexpected journey seems to include lots and lots of exposition. And a monster with testicles on its chin. Yeah. That was creepy. I think I'd like to see it again-the movie, not the testicle monster-when it comes out on Blu-ray. I want to watch it in the privacy of my home where I have the luxury of pressing the pause button when I need to get up to pee. It'll also give me more time to decipher whatever the hell all those characters-don't ask me their names-were talking about. Maybe I need to reread the book or get some Spark Notes or something. Perhaps a graph would help. I ...

I'm going to see The Hobbit tonight. D's been wanting to see it since he heard it came out. This movie is two hours and forty-six minutes long. Not quite as long as Titanic (three hours and fourteen minutes)-a movie, by the way, that branded me a heartless bitch when I turned out to be the only woman who left the theater dry eyed. I was crying on the inside, okay! No, not really. Anyhoo, The Hobbit is definitely long enough for me to take caution not to drink anything before the movie starts. I have a notoriously small bladder. Yes, this is going to be fun. The things we do for love, eh? I've heard the reviews for this movie were less than stellar, but I liked Lord of the Rings , so here's for hoping. When I come back, I'll be sure to tell you just how god-awful it was. Or how delightful. Or how sexy Bilbo Baggins' hairy feet are. I'll try not to do like I did for Sucker Punch and leave you hanging for an ete...

I don't remember ever cheating on a test, but if I did, this would be the way I'd do it...you know, if I had friends.

From The One-Minute Writer : FFF: The Belt Buckle and the Necktie: The pants were starting to fall around his knees. The starvation diet was finally working but this pantsless lifestyle was not going to win him any friends. "I'll use my neck tie!" he exclaimed much to the annoyance of the other passangers on the train.

Towards the end of October, I issued my significant other a warning. I was going to be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Chances were good that I would be so wrapped up in my writing that certain people in my life-namely, him-might get to feeling neglected. I assured him that I still loved him deeply. Passionately, even. It would only be for a month and then I would be back to admiring his magnificence and telling him how truly awesome he is...or something of the like (insert eye roll here). I made it clear that this wasn't another repeat of that Cityof Heroes fiasco where I got so caught up in the game that he eventually threatened to end the relationship on grounds of abandonment. Yes, I got so into a game, my boyfriend threatened to dump me...his girlfriend . I hear from many of my female coworkers and my older sister that this situation is usually reversed and some have even gone on to advise me to seek professional help for this terrible affliction. Since I don't ...

Rest assured, this post isn't about my trip to Disney World or that stupid song that got stuck in my head to the point I thought I would die of an animatronic induced aneurysm. That's a rant I'm saving for another day. No, this one is about bumping into old friends in the least expected places and how you can make new connections from old ones and vice versa. I was at Tastee Donuts on Transcontinental tonight. For those of you worrying that I went there to take a high dive off the diet wagon into a shallow gutter filled with sweet, delicious chocolate covered donuts with sprinkles and lots o' calories, let me set your mind at ease. The NaNoWriMo group met there for our last chance write in and I tagged along even though I'm technically finished. I had one plain cake donut. Don't judge me! Any way, Rob Cerio, one of the participants and a friend of James, a guy who used to game with us on Sunday nights, showed up late with his ...