"Ladies And Gentlemen, The Clown Show Has Been Put On Hiatus For Retooling."

Taking a much needed break; I hope to resume my blogging duties in about a fortnight.

Hasta!

"Possessions Are Fleeting."

As you might have read over at my honey's blog, a dear friend of ours commited suicide last Friday. I chose the title of this post because it was one of her favorites (I always got a laugh out of her when I said it), but also because it's true...the cornerstones of my beliefs are impermanence and non-attachment, but even though I can understand that rationally, living it is something else entirely ("Possession", of course, is not the appropriate word here, but it loosely refers to anyone or anything we hold dear). This morning I drove by her house and saw her car in the driveway, and just the sight of it hit me like a ton of bricks. I still don't think I've wrapped my head around the fact that I'll never see her again.

I am really going to miss her. I'm still catching myself thinking, "I wonder if K would like to go to the movies with us" or "let's have lunch with K" and stuff like that.

No matter how sad all this is, though, I'm really glad to have known her. Material possessions, and even our human bodies, may be fleeting, but she really did make a lasting impression on those of us lucky enough to count her as a friend. She was a kind and gentle soul. She was good. And I hope that wherever she is now, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.

"Liberty Bell...Liberty Bell...D'oh!"

Ah, there's nothing like the feeling of pulling into an empty convenience store parking lot, all set for a quick dash in, grab a Squishy, pay at the counter, and off you go. Unfortunately, convenience stores aren't really that convenient anymore. Seems like most times I enter one lately, I get stuck behind some glassy-eyed, slack-jawed yokel, their face held mere inches above the glass display case where they keep the lottery tickets. You see, they don't keep them behind the glass to prevent theft. That sheet of glass is a drool-guard.

I don't really care if you're looking for ways to dispose of your hard-earned cash, but please, MAKE YOUR DAMN MIND UP ALREADY!!! Lottery is a game of chance; any time you spend hovering over the tickets trying to somehow psychically "read" them is wasted. Please, if you do have any sort of psychic ability, go locate some missing children and stop wasting everyone's time.

And, dear lotto-zombies, once you've (eventually) made your purchase, move the f*#@ along. Don't scratch off the tickets right there. That is rude and you are an asshole. Hard as it may be for you to believe, the rest of us waiting in line aren't shifting around restlessly because we are just so damn anxious as to whether or not you will win; we just want to pay for our shit and get on with our lives. And we don't need any of your damn lottery ticket scratch-off residue all over our Big Gulp cup either. This is why I like My Name Is Earl so much...in the first two minutes of the first show, someone who buys a lottery ticket gets run over. Sweet, sweet Karma!

Speaking of ways to take the "convenience" out of "convenience store", now some of the stores in my area are offering to renew your license tabs. I can hear the business strategy planning meeting now: "Let's see...how can we ass-rape our customers at the pump, and then make them feel like they're in line at the DMV?"

By Jove, they've done it again!

"Look At All Those Non-Skybox Losers Down There Watching Hockey Without Sushi *pfff*-If You Can Call That Hockey."

Well, on Wednesday, the Carolina Hurricanes are poised to win the Stanley Cup if they can defeat the Edmonton Oilers just one more time. Lord Stanley, I presume, is spinning in his grave. The last time a team from the South took home the Cup, you'll remember, they canceled the next season. Two Cups in a row? I think that signals the Apocolypse...

The real tragedy here is that the Hurricanes used to be the Hartford Whalers, one of those special small market teams that I just couldn't help but root for (Aside.... my favorite line in my least favorite Kevin Smith movie: "If I want to call the Hartford Whalers a bunch of fairies in the privacy of my own living room, that's my own damn business!"). Now they're just another lame southern franchise backed by fair weather fans that can't understand what the two-line passing rule was or how the game changed when they got rid of it. Makes me sick just thinking of it!

If you caught Game 4 on Monday, you saw the game open with a beautiful rendition of both countries national anthems (and you noticed that many Canadians knew the words to The Star Spangled Banner...how many of you Yankees can belt out Oh Canada!?) I, of course, teared up like a little girl as I sang along to them. I don't know why, but that stuff always gets to me. Luckily, the Oilers supplied plenty of violence as the first period opened to get the old testosterone flowing again. But then they went on to lose, the no-good bastards! Arrgh, if only Dwayne Roloson (formerly of the Wild) hadn't been injured in Game 1...

I know the World Cup is going on right now, but I'd urge everyone to catch the Stanley Cup while you still can. I have it on good authority that large sheets of ice will be hard to come by in the coming decades.

"Hi, I'm The Electric Car, I Can't Go Very Fast Or Very Far, And If You Drive Me, People Will Think That You're Gay."

What with all the talk about flex-fuel this and hydrogen-cell that, I'd completely forgotten all about the electric cars they were hyping about a decade ago. Well, there's a film about them coming out this summer. Sorry, but it's not by Pixar...here's the preview:




What, I ask y'all, became of the electric car? Did our wise leaders catch that episode of The Lone Gunmen where they decide to destroy the water-powered engine because it would have resulted in an unrestrained orgy of global expansion and deforestation? Were they paid off by "Big Oil"? Did they think that people would think that they were gay? Gays are the new commies, you know. Or maybe it was simply the potential nightmare of trying to plug an American car into a European socket.

So who holds back the electric car? The same people who control the British Pound, keep the metric system down, keep Atlantis off the maps and keep the Martians under wraps, if you ask me. But forget about the damn electric cars...what the hell ever happened to Ed Begley Jr.?

"You Can't Weld With Such A Small Flame...Stupid Kids!"

Since everybody else is doing it...here's a MST3K short for your enjoyment.




This one is probably my favorite short of all time, despite the fact that this one features Mike rather than Joel. I can't watch it without singing "Tool Operator" for the next couple of days.

"And Now, The Man Who Puts Young People Behind Bars, Where They Belong...TV's Matlock!"

Today is Andy Griffith's birfday! I'm actually watching Matlock right now, so if this post reads a little incoherently, that's why. This stuff is riveting!

Oh Snap! The late, great Don Knotts just made a cameo appearance!

I think one of my favorite parts of this show, aside from the cutting edge 80's fashion, the hackneyed dialogue ("I believe that this one of the best hot dogs I've ever put in my mouth!") and the way the judge just belittled the lawyer with a speech impediment, is the way Matlock sends his African American friend to break into various offices and warehouses, or commit other acts of dubious legality.

I also like that they never seem to run out of ways to get cherry pie splattered all over his white, Southern lawyer suit.

Now, I'm no fancy, big-city lawyer, but I do declare that I'd like to wish Matlock a happy birthday, and many more!