Date:	2008-04-11 17:58
Subject:	Dear Internetz
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

I mostly only look at friends' posts on LJ anymore, but I got tired of seeing my last post at the top whenever I do log in. So Ima post something.

Dear Internet:

My stuff is good. How is your stuff? Work is good. Weather nice. You? Good, good.

Oh, so on the off chance I didn't mention this 500 times yet, I love www.mytalkingstain.com . I also got the MP3 on my phone as a ring, but it starts too quietly to be good for that. I haven't actually practiced this yet, but I did tell my friend Stephen that if anyone around us asks either of us anything about ourselves, the other one of us should mimic the stain's monologue while the asked person is responding. Like in the commercial. Just the chance that this might happen really lightens my already fairly levitated day.

Newest new guy at work starts Monday after months of immigration wrangling. I'll be training him, but I think RJ is going to interview him for a role as his personal go-between for all the portfolio companies, which is a great way to train and to show value. It will also be a good way to move up in the organization or to crash and burn quickly. Sharp, sharp guy. Wharton MBA, fantastic range of experiences. I'm feeling good about myself just for hiring him and the other new guys. I realized that completely without paying any attention to this during the interviewing process, the 4 new guys I hired are all of different racialpursuasiontypes. Latin American, White, Black, and Indian. If I were the diversity police, I'd have made one of the strong candidates be female, but there wasn't such in the applications we recieved.

I'm going to Richmond next week for a black tie event with the Governor honoring RJ and the other awardees. We're flying there in our own jet, so I must be a pretty big deal. That was sarcasm. I rented my tux and am a dork. When I went to the local men's store to rent the tux, I browsed some winter clothing that was on mad sale, and bought a couple of awesome jackets including a denim jacket straight out of 1981. I used to borrow my high school GF's denim jacket all the time, and dont think I've owned my own since I was 5 years old.

I asked if they had any sweatervests, and he said there haven't been a lot of those at the clothing shows recently (except for a few ones for golf). I told him I was going to change all that. Soon, very soon. Also, he sold me two pairs of Tommy Bahama sunglasses at 75% off or more because no one buys them. $140+ sunglasses that I got for like 30 bucks. I gave one of them to Smitty for his recent birthday and one to Scott Patterson for his birthday later this month. And I wore two different polo shirts this week to work (on different days) that I bought for $5 each at Wal-Mart that are as cool and nice as anything I get from my custom clothier who visits me in my office whenever I let him. Bronzed uber-Christian who flatters and small-talks me in a really icky way all the time in a misguided attempt to be the ultimate in professional salespersons. Either he lacks the ability to understand my personality, or he doesn't care to. Or he's too much a shiny happy person to understand that some people don't like forced and otherwise baseless friendliness. I am a very warm and chatty person, but if the genuine emotion's not there, I really dont like pretending that it is.

You can't really trust people who are very polite and nice, can you? At the very best, they would hide their feelings from you so that you run a greatly increased risk of minor (or even major) infractions against them. At worst, they are deliberately misleading you for some reason.

I've had like 3-5 practical conversations about corporate counter-espionage tactics in the past couple of months for those of you counting at home. And by practical, I mean, "Maybe we should do X, Y, and Z and have the electronic surveilance sweep come in and do their thing just to be safe," not, "Wasn't Mission Impossible cool? I wonder if Emmanuelle Beart was cast using the criteria 'We need a chick who is super, super hot but who makes Tom Cruise look a normally heighted person.'?"

Date:	2008-03-17 14:28
Subject:	Weird Facebook Moments
Security:	Public
Mood:	embarrassed

When I was in sixth grade or so, a girl named Jenny Sutherland started going to my school. She was a classic nerdy type. Awkward socially, very intelligent, skinny, and not athletically gifted, etc. She would brag on the school bus that she could say the alphabet backwards (and then do so at a high speed, even if you said you believed her) and she would also spell "encyclopedia" backwards frequently for some reason, and she found reason enough to spell "antidisestablishmentarianism" for me/us like 15 times over a couple of years. She was the older by a couple of years than her brother I think, and tried to act the part, but she didn't have the make-up of an Alpha in a wider school environment, even one as small as ours. I dont think I was generally mean to her, but I was certainly not overtly nice to her. She was sometimes the butt of classmate jokes, like in any middle school, and I admit that I probably teased her as well, although I was not intentionally mean or jerky to anyone (at least in my mind). That would not have fit my self-determined role as king of the (male) dorks.

She recently reached out to me on facebook and a Yahoo! group for that high school class, including me even though I left after 9th grade (after 7 years of being in that class of about 20 kids). That was a couple of months ago, and Facebook told me last week that it was her birthday, so I posted a happy birthday message on her wall. She sent me a message back that thanked me, and said, "This probably seems petty, but do you remember that time you asked me to homecoming dance? I was so happy, and then at the end of class you came back and said you were kidding." Sigh.

Oh, I remember. As a moment of intense scrutiny and embarrassment for me, it is hard to forget. A bunch of girls were chatting about homecoming at the beginning of class in night grade, and as class clown, and while using a funny, obviously sarcastic voice>, I said, "Will you go to homecoming with me, Jenny?" It was supposed to sound like a Grover voice, but sarcastic instead of friendly. This was HILARIOUS to me because I was making fun of the girls for gossiping and fixating about a stupid dance, and making fun of guys who ask girls out to them. This was juvenile ego-protection at its worst. I was FAR too afraid and shy (despite my brashly confident veneer) to even think of me possibly ever asking anyone out, so I honestly had no idea that anyone would take my request seriously. In retrospect, it's easy to see that I was being a horrible ass. In my panicked embarrassment, I stuck to my guns on it being a joke (I wasnt smooth enough then to reverse course as I should have) and hurt her feelings, and had all the girls in the class thinking (correctly) that I was a jerk. I feel like I should apologize to all geeky girls for being "that guy". So I hereby apologize.

And if there's a funny part, it's that I most likely spent the night of homecoming dance in my room playing dungeons & dragons BY MYSELF.

Aside: Yay Floyd County Lady Buffalos, State Champs!

Date:	2008-03-10 21:35
Subject:	My Great Triumph/The Unsinkable Molly Brown
Security:	Public
Mood:	proud

Totally cool thing I forgot to mention! A few years ago I coached a team of fourth and fifth grade girls in a recreational league in Floyd County, VA. It was my first time and I wasn't a great coach, but I had a great time. I like to think I helped all of them improve their fundamental skills. Most of them couldn't even walk and dribble the ball without looking at the ball the whole time when we started. By the end, they could all run at almost full speed while dribbling and looking down court. So long as no one was standing in their way or trying to stop them. Anyway, it was fun, and at the end of the season they gave me a basketball with all their signatures. We had one player in particular who was really good for her age, who I played at center, point guard and anything else we had to have. Her name was Molly Brown. She would cry if she missed a couple of shots in a row.

The other night we were watching television and the evening news came on afterward, and they led with the Floyd County high school girls' team, which had just won the regional championship. And they showed and mentioned Molly Brown! She's not even the best player on the team, STATSWISE, but her great defense is clearly the key to their forthcoming State championship. It practically says that on this link http://www.blueridgemuse.com/rss.xml

I'm going to go look at the basketball they gave me to remember the rest of their names and see if any others are on this year's team. Anyway, so now I am the father of nations, creator of basketball champions, and contributor to the zeitgeist of Floyd County women's basketball championship way of life!

Date:	2008-02-13 10:28
Subject:	bassetball jones
Security:	Public
Mood:	excited

So my team played what is probably the second best team in the league on Monday and we kept it close. We played the best we'd played all year. I think we outscored them in the second half and lost by somewhere between 6-10 points. Tonight we play the city team, which is the next worst team, and our best shot at a victory. I'm pumped already.

Date:	2008-02-11 13:31
Subject:	A blog requires posts to be considered active
Security:	Public
Mood:	cheerful

A giant tree fell across my driveway Sunday, blocking it from wheeled traffic. This morning I called a tree removal service, and they charged me $200 to saw up my tree and stack it in firewood. That part was great. But they left the giant stump lying next to the driveway. I think it's probably too big for me to move. And it is quite unsightly. OH THE CURSES OF LAZY HOME OWNERSHIP!!!

Em, Anthony, and Scott and I went to go see Brian Regan in Roanoke on Saturday. Check him out on youtube - I recommend the clips "Doctor" and "UPS" although he didn't do those. It was a good show, but I'm not sure I enjoyed it any more than I would have had watching it on tv.

I've decided to proceed with a new dock so that I can have it this summer at the lakehouse, even though the house wont be done until Winter at the earliest. So long as it's neutral colored (not white though, if that is considered neutral) and 100% maintenance free, as well as having a sun deck, boat lift, swim platform, and 2 jet ski lifts, then great. It doesnt have to match the look of the house precisely.

I'm starting to enjoy my new role at work, and am slowly starting to get some things accomplished. They've recently added security liaison to my jobs, so I actually discussed "safe signals" vs. "duress signals" in a meeting on Friday.

My over 30 slow break basketball team is winless for the season. We lost to a team last Wednesday that only started 4 people, and one of them got injured at half time. I've never been a part of such a bad team, but I'm certainly (or nearly) as bad as any of them, so it's really a team effort. And all of us know more or less how to play, and where to go on any given play (especially once I installed a set offense and defense, leveraging our only strategic advantage - IQ, which is not to be confused with "basketball IQ"). Apart from being collectively terrible shooters, it's hard to say why we are so, so bad. The one and only game we have a serious chance of winning will be played on Wednesday of this week. We have another almost-guaranteed loss tonight as a tune-up.

OrdinaryWhirled: "You haven't posted an update in two-plus months. Way worse than me, dude. Thoughts on football? The 2008 elections? Chuck? Liz Phair? Sandwiches?"

Football: What gives with the Patriots playing so poorly and conservatively in the domed SuperBowl? Why couldn't they have played this way against the Redskins? The commercials were pretty good, but I think I might have been alone in deciding my favorite was the "talking stain" commercial. I laughed so hard I cried. CREATIVE GENIUSES on that ad. Who was it, Molly? It was true, made a good point, pimped the brand, and was so, so, so, funny. I felt like the humor was specifically geared to kill me. I want the audio track. I want my cell phone ring to be that commercial.

I hope the Redskins hire either the Giants guy or the Patriots guy. I like Fassel okay, and it wouldn't be terrible to have a head coach nicknamed "Mooch", but they are 4 and 3 on my list, respectively.

2008 Elections: I hung out with former VA Governor Mark Warner last night. Really good guy. He's running for the Senate, and if it were today he'd win, but he points out that anything can happen. He was a favorite for a VP nomination, but I guess Senator is more appealing to him than that possibility. He was staying at my dad's house, even though dad is out of town. Weird. I welcomed him as a representative of the Kirk family, and sat around having some drinks and finger food with him and some staff members. I forgot to make a comment I thought of the other day. Some guy in congress is saying he wants to check out the Spygate scandal and protect America's interests with regard to the monopoly NFL. But this same guy in the same press conference said he wouldn't be watching the Superbowl. Um, I am not okay with an ill-informed, haughty, meddling government official who doesn't even watch the superbowl f*cking TOUCHING the NFL. STFU, commie! Let some meat-eating, beer drinking football fan committee look into it, or something. Also, if 80%+ of your constituents watch something that happens but once yearly, maybe you should, too, if you want to really understand and represent them? Self-important fat cat idiot asshole. I got pretty mad about that, obviously.

My only other political comment at the moment is that I believe that although both sides are forced to play the game and say things they may or may not feel strongly about, it seems to me that the Democrats, in particular, are forced to say some crazy, incorrect, and misleading things because they are populist official Democratic positions. Economic things, mostly, that have been shown to be short-sighted and wrong-headed time and time again. Does anyone think that the populist strategies that get left wing nuts elected in South America are sound economic policies? No. They are crappy and harmful economic policies. But they are popular with the voters, and to give the candidates the benefit of the doubt, there are also moralistic issues about wealth. I dont know which candidate I might prefer on either side of the aisle yet (need to read more about their positions) but I have to say that although I've read that Romney is a better pro-business candidate, I have to admit that I am very glad that the religious conservative movement he's apparently banking on has yet to win the day. Leave religion to personal choice and base the laws of the land on rational, economic-oriented theory.

Chuck: I watched the first episode of the new year and it made me question why I'd ever liked the show. I'll watch the second and try to remember. I've been watching Terminator* and House and liking them, and am looking forward to the return of Pushing Daisies and Life and Reaper and Heroes and whatnot. What's the deal with the writer's strike? Dont they know they are spawning more and more reality TV? Fold, writers! Get what you can and go back to work! Unless of course the strike is working economically, in which case, Fold, producers!

Also, I thought the pre-episode teasers for House were abysmally bad. They had a naked Mirah Sorvino (sp?) and all they can think of to tease is "frozen" and "remote medicine" and "drillbit to the head"? Moronic. This was no "code black" marketing gimmick. If I hadn't already liked the show I probably would not have watched it. If they'd teased the naked remote physical with "Let's get it on" playing, I would have tuned in even if I'd never heard of the show before. Newsflash! SEX SELLS, Fox.

What's up with Liz Phair? I havent heard anything new about her. Musically, I'm going to see the Hives and the Donnas in March in DC, which is awesome. Also, I'm going to see comedian Brian Regan this Saturday in Roanoke, and I encourage you all to check out his clip "doctor" on youtube. I'm also contemplating taking a day off work to go see the Black Keys in DC, at least if my friend Anthony does, too. They're playing like a Monday and a Tuesday show. What? Needed to get up to Hoboken for the weekend? What gives with that?

Sandwiches: Footlong BMT, toasted, lately.

* Ed. Note: I dont actually think that Terminator is a good show, but it's sci-fi and it's SO PRETTY to watch in HD. Summer Glau and whatnot.

[Regarding the rise in value of the Canadian dollar to the US Dollar and its impact on Canadian marijuana importing]

“The upshot is that the Canadian marijuana is now less competitive against marijuana grown elsewhere,” Easton said. “This is a cost-driven business. With exports no longer viable, the British Columbia marijuana industry has certainly taken a hit, so to speak.”

Date:	2007-11-01 13:15
Subject:	Oh, the varius and sundrie perils of SLUT-O-WEEN!!!
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy!

So last Friday, Emily wakes up at 4AM with stomach pain and cant go back to sleep. I decide to stay home until she decides if she needs to go to the hospital. At 10 we made our way to the emergency room. Lots of waiting and some poking and prodding later, they decide she has appendicitis and they're going to operate. Em's under the knife at 3:15, recovering by 4:15, and in her room by 5. Surgery went well. I got to do something I've always wanted to do in an overly-romantic story-book way, which was spend the night sleeping in a chair at the bedside of an unwell sweetheart. Wasn't so bad, and she was released the next afternoon. Her recovery is no driving, working, or lifting for a week or something. And no sex, either. This is important backstory.

So, Halloween night, Em is home-bound, watching scary movies with her roommate, and I'm off to my dad's Halloween costume party. I'm dressed as a dashing, yet humble swashbuckling sell-sword. Not rich like a musketeer, but well compensed for my skill with a blade. Eleventy thrive other people were in renaissance garb. There were two POUNDS of caviar at the party. I think I ate about .75 pounds myself, num! I've always liked how 75% of girl costumes are "sexy ____" costumes. Angel, kitty, nurse, etc. One of the caterers was dressed as "Sexy Freddy Kruger". Slinky tube-dress going down barely to mid thigh with the same bands of colors as Freddy's sweater. Freddy's hat, a glove with claws, and there were 4 parallel slashes on the lower front of her dress that displayed her flat abs, the top of her hip bones, and from the vantage of anyone taller than her waist looking down, the waistband of her black underwear. I saw at least 5 men try to chat her up (most of them married, and none with any real success). Given my recent state of ongoing personal denial, I was tempted to throw my hat in the ring for the sake of competition at least, but quickly remembered that I wasn't going to do anything, so why bother even chatting? Nietzsche would surely compare me to his thoughts on Christianity - taking a weakness (not being able to score with Sexy Freddy Kruger) and pretending it's a virtue (being a good boyfriend). But I, a successful sell-sword, could surely have prevailed even when a doctor, a big bad wolf, a pepper shaker, and a robed demonic guy had failed. But there was all this caviar to eat anyway, and when I did talk to her when I got a beer, I decided she wasn't too smart. She asked Ankit if he was a doctor. To her credit, he WAS dressed as one, and is Indian. But on the other hand, it was a halloween party.

Oh, and I did the joke where I stand with my back to a girl's butt (Kelly Crisp) and accidentally goose her with my sword which is stuck through my belt, and then comically over-apologizing. It went perfectly - big laughs from the appreciative crowd and Kelly.

Way back when James lived here, he had a (different) friend named Kelly, and when he moved away she decided that she still wanted to be friends with me and Scott P (who calls her Rainbow Bright) and while I was gnoshing on caviar, she texted me to invite me to a "Slutoween party" at her sorority. I'm already dressed up, right, so why not? I head over there, and even though I was alone, I didn't feel too awkward walking into a crowded college sorority party. I chatted with a drunk but friendly frat guy on the porch, who thought I was some sort of "Squash Buckler". I didn't bring any alcohol and the punch was gone, but one of Kelly's sisters gave me some swigs of her vodka, koolaid, and Mt Dew concoction. Tasted like sweet tarts, which masked the taste of the handle of cheap vodka in there. Her name was Cinnamon (after the Neil Young song), and she was hammered. She asked if I liked her costume (I think she was a "Sexy Deer Hunter" or something. Not sure why her camo t-shirt under her safety orange vest was sliced across the chestal region (maybe Sexy Freddy Kruger had been there before me?) but she inadvertently showed me her ample decolletage. 30 minutes later or so, a bunch of us were talking on the porch, and the two guys drifted away and Kelly went to the restroom, and Cinnamon(suddenly alone with me) told me her hip was double jointed, putting my hand on her hip to demonstrate some weird and (to me) unnerving popping. She told me that it came in very useful..., and I did that thing where I pretend not to understand someone trying to hint at something in order to see how far they will go to explain their tawdry communique. As I said, she was hammered, and was willing to go pretty far trying to lead me to understand her. I asked her if it helped her walk faster. We must have gone on like that for a couple more minutes, but I eventually got her to say that it was handy in "riding the cock". She asked me if I liked that and I said no, but I did like sex quite a bit. She said she could put her right ankle above her head, and I speculated that might help someone have sex while standing up, and she responded, "I know! If someone could just push me up against the shower wall and screw me, that would be great." And I reverted to classic Julian at this point, and said, "Yeah, that's awesome" or something else lame, and she realized I wasn't taking her meaning, and said, "Seriously, if you could do that, we should go in there right now." And I was at a loss for words. I'm happily in a relationship (with a sexier-than-her girl who is fun to hang out with) and stuff, so it was mostly amusing, not tempting, but still. Who gets propositioned like that? She was even kind of cute, if not exactly my type, and didn't strike me as a particularly slutty girl. All I can say is that Slutoween has powers, and I encourage all single guys to take advantage of this phenomenon.

The cops showed up to quiet everyone down and basically everyone went home. I decided to meet Dr. Ankit at BT's, where the girl as "Sexy ____" rule was in FULL effect. Just off the top of my head, there were two sexy NFL refs, a VERY sexy baseball player girl, a sexy playboy bunny?, a sexy cat or rat or something, two or three sexy angels and devils, and two sexy 50's style gangsters with their pinstripe suits unbuttoned to their bellybuttons to reveal matching pinstripe bras. I couldn't help myself but say to one of them as I shouldered past on my way out the door, "Damn it feels good to be a gangsta," which elicited a genuine smile. I think chicks find swashbucklers and sell-swords attractive. Wyatt, who is a white bartender at BT's, was dressed as Mr. T (real mohawk included) and it was awesome.

Then I drove home about 2AM to my sweetie. Last year she wore the slave Leiah costume which was fun. But apart from that lack, this was a very fun Slutoween.

Date:	2007-09-10 16:21
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

I think that it is a new, high form of comedy to synopsize things oddly. Please do not judge me too harshly, but on a lark, I recently read an article about Britney Spears' recent "comeback" performance. It would have been a complete waste of 20 seconds of my life, but then I discovered the synopsis at the top. I wish now I wouldn't have read anything else, and I may never make the same mistake again. Just imagine how funny the article would be that would generate the following bulleted synopsis:

Story Highlights

* Britney Spears' performance met with disbelief and mockery
* Observer: "She soooo should have stayed home. ...What was the point?"
* Jermaine Dupri bought tequila for everyone

ESPN columnist Greg Easterbrook (Tuesday Morning Quarterback) wrote some interesting and troubling thoughts on Vick's punishment:

( Read more... )

I sent myself a two word email from my cellomophome a couple of weeks ago. What was the content of this message that had to be emailed to myself so as to not forget it or its importance? Here is what the message said:

8 o'crunk

I'm not sure now why this was so important at the time. Probably because this is now I plan on telling time from now on. "What time is it?" someone will ask, and I shall respond, "Why, it is eight o'crunk!" and they shall know not only what the time is, but also that I am ready to party.

Beach vacation was pretty damn awesome, hot tub bacteria notwithstanding. I think my top 5 things of the trip were: the food that Ashley and Jake cooked, reading on a folding chair right where the waves met the beach, girls naked hot-tubbing and pooling, the movie theater, skinny dipping at night in the ocean, and spending a relaxed week with friends and my sweetie. We almost barely fought at all. =P I even liked having to work some days on a project that I was running point on, and winning my first ever game of cranium, and going on long walks down the beach with Miah-with-child.

Thinking about renting it again next year if there's an open week.

I bought 6 VIP tickets to the Saturday show of Virgin Fest August 4th. The Police, Beastie Boys, LCD Soundsystem, Fratellis, Modest Mouse, Cheap Trick, Fountains of Wayne, Peter Bjorn, Felix da Housecat and a few others. I figured Virgin likes to coddle the VIP market, so it might be worthwhile. I'm missign the smashing pumpkins and yeah yeah yeahs among others on Sunday, but I didn't really want to get home at 4AM Monday morning and turn around and go to work. i.e., I am old.

And traveling to Seattle this Friday to see my friends Elizabeth and Martyn get their wedding on, which should be fango fango.

Date:	2007-07-05 11:33
Subject:	July Fifth
Security:	Public
Mood:	content

Transformers is Fango Ango. It walked very successfully on both sides of the awesomely camp / actually awesome line.

I decided that it's very funny to substitute random words for military-style initials. Like instead of "victor tango whiskey" I might say, "velcro ta-tas woolyworm" and this amuses me greatly. James and I then decided that since "tango" was like the best sounding one, we might as well have all the letters do that ("ango, bango, chango, dango, etc.) and since then, we've been using them for just about everything we can think of. Our names (mine's Juliango Kango), and scriptkiddie abbreviations (Wango Tango Fango).

July 4th was nice. My grandfather's memorial services were nice. The weather has been great. Alex has been living with me while I hired someone to look for apartments he can move into - we're having trouble finding anything available before August 1. Which is a problem, because he can't walk to any potential employers from my house. Well, I guess he could, but it would probably be a 3-4 mile walk or so. And he'd be unsupervised in my house during my beach vacation week, which is sub-optimal. It may be unavoidable, but we'll see.

Work has been busy, and I've also been constantly distracted by figuring out where/if I want to move, or as I would prefer, build a new house. On the lake, hopefully. I've looked at about 30 houses/lots on the lake, and I'm down to one potentially acceptable lot if we figure out some things. It doesn't even technically have lake frontage - the front piece is owned by the power company who owns all the lake below 1850 ft of altitude (the water line) but the lot comes with an easement to get to the water. My realtor is going to find out if they would let me build my own dock there on their land and lease it from them. And if so, then the next step would be to talk to some architects and see if they think a great lake house could be built, and if I could have workable direct access down to the water, given that it's so steep - it drops 150+ ft over a pretty short distance. If not, I'd have to get a golf cart or use my segway to ride down the road and around to a communal water access. That would be okay if the neighbors were nice and cool, etc., but the neighbors don't yet exist, and I'd have to rely on the developer to build and maintain the communal dock area - likely at my expense until other people built in the 5 lot division.

Or there's this townhouse on the lake. It's nice. It's not big, but it would be a nice place to live until I find the perfect lot (or hell, maybe I'll decide I dont like living on the lake, although I doubt that.) They have the good cable system there, so broadband internets access wouldn't be an issue. All of my neighbors would be older, but apparently they are all nice and not crotchety fuddy-duddies. It's FAR more reasonably priced than the other one I was looking at, although it's a lot smaller, and I'd need to put some money into it for a little rehab, hot tub, new appliances, etc.

I bought a couple of anime box sets on a lark and had them sitting beside the couch ready to watch. One is called Rune Soldier, because it sounded funny and maybe good and the other called Elfen Lied. After we had both been put out of poker early (although I'm still in first overall), Anthony sat on the couch and picked up the Elfen Lied box and asked what it was about. I started to respond at length, "It's about this government-created race of beings that look like hot teenage girls with weird colored hair and horns who have psionic or maybe magic vectors which- " at which point Anthony interrupted me and said, "Cause it looks like it's about devils and boobies." And Emily and I started laughing because that's exactly what it's about, and was a way better way of explaining it. So, yeah. Really nice artwork, but it probably has the highest combination of gore and nudity of anything I've ever seen. It's definitely weird, and a little hard to look away. As Peter Cook once joked about a book he was writing, the character progression can be described as, "Every day they get more violent. Every day they get more nude."

I went to look at a few houses and building lots on the lake Thursday, and it was very disappointing - the few lots I found were ridiculously expensive, 30-45 minutes drive from work, AND basically had cliffs down to the water. Most of the lots are a full SEVEN HUNDRED FEET above the surface of the water. Even if I had a freaking ski lift to get down to the dock, the construction costs would be a multiple of what they should be. We're going to expand our search and try to think creatively. As in, if I want to live on the lake in a nice house, I might have to create a lake somewhere else.

Emily and I are going with James and Em's neighbors Chapter and Jessie and her roommate Shannon to A place called Metro in Roanoke tomorrow night. Jessie has instructed all the girls to dress slutty. It's a sushi bar and dance club. So when girls dress slutty, what are guys supposed to wear?

At movie night at the neighbors last night, we all had white russians and watched The Big Lebowski. A perfect movie to watch while talking and drinking.

James sent this NSFW link: http://www.destructoid.com/the-mii-lebowski-28211.phtml

Date:	2007-06-08 17:01
Subject:	Not Thundercats. Lolcats
Security:	Public
Mood:	SunnyFridayz

http://www.lolcats.com/view/30

http://www.lolcats.com/view/69

Date:	2007-06-06 13:24
Subject:	karoke an update
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

Last night tennis was cut short due to rain, so I had dinner at Emily's neighbor's house and then we all went in a big group to karaoke. Our waitress asked me if I was going to do "Mary Moon" (sic) again.

I was the first to sign up, telling the KJ that it was a dare, which was partially true. TRUE COLORS by CYNDI LAUPER that is! The KJ described it as "really not bad and kind of scary".

My next one was Copperhead Road by Steve Earl, and it did not go very well and will be stricken from the list. At some point William from work (who Emily now resents as my "work boyfriend") showed up. Emily and Shannon left a little after Copperhead Road because they were sleepy.

One of the guys who is there every week and who is a very talented karaoke singer got up and did a great rendition of Hotel California, and then it was my turn again and I did One by U2, and it was FUN to sing. I think I rocked it.

Cousin James did that Celine Dion song from Titanic, and then did a great rendition of Just a Gigolo. The crowd was very appreciative of his scatting.

Toward the end of the night I did Mama Said Knock You Out, and the folks at my table were kind enough to say "HUH!" at appropriate places during the chorus, but I need to prep them to respond appropriately when I say "FARMERS!" ("What?" they should respond) "FARMERS!" ("What?" respond they again.) I love doing that song, although it wrecks my voice for the rest of the evening.

I was drinking schooners of miller lite, which are giant bowl-glasses that hold about half a pitcher. There were 4 on our bill, but I only remember drinking 2.5, not 3.5. But in either case, despite not feeling drunk, I decided not to drive home, and tried to sleep at Emily's but I was ill and spent most of the night on the futon, the bathroom floor, and then in bed. I'm still recovering, although I had Thai for lunch and didn't throw up yet, so I guess I'm better.

Yeah, so anyway I like karaoke. Still want to do Zombie, Linger, or You're So Pretty by the Cranberries, Paul Revere by the Beastie Boys, Kiss Off by the Femmes, and then find some other good suggestions for good vocally dynamic songs I can do.

Date:	2007-05-17 14:22
Subject:	Veronica Mars canceled!
Security:	Public
Mood:	flibbertygibbetted!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/05/17/tv.newseason.ap/index.html

Of COURSE it's canceled! I HATE YOU, TV!!! STUPID STUPID STUPID. I'm NEVER WATCHING TV AGAIN!!!

Bounty hunter for the devil, eh?

Date:	2007-05-17 11:54
Subject:	hee hee
Security:	Public
Mood:	amused

Long time readers will remember the girl Courtney who was really hot that I was a little mooney over for a while, but we never really dated and as everyone including me knew, I was lucky that she wasn't all that interested because it would have been a terrible, terrible idea for me to go out with her because of all her problems?

If you go onto Myspace and look up Matt Crisp (his profile has a picture of him and his blonde wife) you can see Courtney's left a comment on his profile that says something like, "Where's Julian these days? I haven't talked to him in a really long time and I'd definitely like to get back in touch."

Dear Ego: Here is some food for you to eat so you can get big and strong.

And since we never got it on, which I may have lamented at the time, I know it's not a paternity/she has AIDS thing. Which is a bonus. Thankfully, I found hotter, slightly less crazy and much nicer girls since then, but it's still nice to get reckanized, even by some girl whose life isn't what she wanted, and now wishes she would have captured me when she had a chance.

Date:	2007-05-16 11:33
Subject:	Karaoke
Security:	Public
Mood:	happy

I played tennis last night until 9:15, and then Emily and the karaoke/swingers crew talked me into coming out to Macado's, even though I was gross and hadn't showered. I stopped at the office on the way to change clothes in the darkened parking lot. I hope we dont have cameras, because I dropped trow and got naked. I think the only person in the office was Doit, one of the other MDs (He was the one who Em and I ran into at the mall Christmas shopping and he "forgot" to introduce me to his daughters, one of whom is very cute in a youngish way and I was flattered.) but I don't think he was looking out the window.

At karaoke, my first song was the Humpty Dance. It's usually about 40-50% country there, so I didn't think it would go over well, and I followed a karaoke classic, "I Will Survive", so I didn't have high hopes. But the crowd responded very, very well. The song wasn't truncated at all, and even included the part where he's saying, "Samoans - do the Humpty dance...." and he repeats the chorus so frequently, by the end, I was ad-libbing a little bit. PLEASE PLEASE do the Humpty Dance, etc. I got a lot of cheers at the end.

Emily left to go to bed a little later, so she missed my next two. First was Girlfriend, by Matthew Sweet, only the KJ had put Girlfriend by TLC or somebody, which I didn't know, and the crowd was disappointed that I wasn't doing that one. So the next time I went up there, I did Mama Said Knock You Out, which I'd always wanted to do. The KJ said I PWNED it. The big table full of rednecks and trolling women in front of the stage even all got up to dance! It was so much FUN! If I had done another one, I would probably have picked "Da Butt".

So what does it say about me that my two best karaoke songs are Shadowboxer by Fionna Apple and Mama Said Knock You Out by LL Cool J?