Amen
I got this off of CNNSI.com.

Gary Sheffield recently lost 10 pounds in two weeks –- without trying. "I thought it was called 'Hotlanta' because of the women," he said. "I didn't know it was called 'Hotlanta' because of the heat. I got it confused."

All I gotta say to that is "WORD". The SouthEast, in July and August, is hotter than a MOFO.

I had completely crazy dreams yesterday....

Evil
I'm going to take a short break from the gay discussion today... not because I have anything against gay people mind you, I mean, some of my best friends are gay (we know who you are!)... I want to pitch an idea for a TV cartoon series in the off chance that television execs are reading on.

Get this (remember, it's a cartoon series)... the premise is that two puppies are adopted from the pound. The puppies are brothers from the same litter and they are adopted by two late-20's women. The women are friends who went to the pound together. The entire show is shown and told from the perspective of one of the puppies. He is the one who has been adopted by the less-confident, more-neurotic, chunkier-legged of the two women. Since the women are friends, our main puppy character gets to visit with his brother often, during which he likes gripes about how he got stuck with the "crazier" of the two owners. (Underlying theme for you academics: Puppies don't choose their owners just as we don't choose our parents.) The puppies will discuss the antics and histrionics of their owners -- single and urban, professional, with biological clocks ticking, cellulite accumulating, and innocence quickly fading.

For example, in one episode, our main puppy character recounts how his owner struggled with whether it's OK for her to have sex while the puppy looks on. (She nets out deciding that the puppy can watch if the man is decent looking and has potential for a serious relationship... but the puppy is scuttled out of the room when she brings home a slobbery, one-night, late-night hookup.)

That's the general idea. Hopefully, someone will pay me large sums of money to develop it further. Wooooo!

Evil
Little known fact: X-TIAN's new favorite website is NJGuido.com. Someone spent the better part of today sifting through all the photos on that site and re-living memories of the old neighborhood. Actually, the site IS pretty damn entertaining. Have a look at those photos and see for yourself. BTW- I think I spotted Mr. Shoulders on that website!



SAL: is that you on the far left???

Last thing: check out this ambiguously gay guido photo gallery.

Norm
As I am wont to do, I read the "Watch with Kristin" article on eonline to stay plugged into whats going on with TV. Apparently Norm McDonald crashed the press briefings for "the Simple Life", that show where they give Paris Hilton (heir to the Hilton Hotel fortune) and Nicole Richie (Lionel "Dancing on the Ceiling" Richie's daughter) jobs on farms.

Anyway, read the hijinks here.

Evil

SNAPSHOTS FROM MY TRIP TO ROCK BOTTOM

One. Fruit flies! You damn fruit flies! Where did you all come from? I don't remember inviting you to come over and hang out. There are hundreds of you! You know what, I wouldn't even mind it so much if you all just kept to yourselves and loiter around my garbage cans. But man, is it REALLY necessary for you to prance around my laptop screen when I'm trying to surf internet porn? C'mon man...

Two. How did this package of ground beef find its way into my fridge? All I have in the fridge is a Brita filter, half a watermelon, half a bunch of scallions, and a package of ground beef. How random, but I'm not questioning it. I'm starving. I am thinking burger. No bread? No matter. Atkins style! (*Pats ground beef into patty shape. Pat, pat, pat. Salt: Sprinkle, sprinkle. Cracked pepper: Grind, grind.*) Tosses burger patty onto grill pan. Mmmmm. Longest 5 minutes of my life. (*Flips patty*) Damn, 5 more longest minutes of my life. (*Scoops patty off of grill pan... right onto the kitchen floor.*) ARRRRRGH! Screw it, I'm eating it anyway.

Three. On the phone with The Korean Drew Barrymore:

KD: Hey, what've you been up to?
Me: Oh nothing. Not working or anything. What about you?
KD: Actually, I've been working for a couple of weeks now.
Me: Oh. Congrats!
KD: What kind of work are you looking for? Maybe I can help you...
Me: I'm sure I'm beyond help at this point, but thanks.

Four. On the phone with my mom:

My mom: It's getting hot again.
Me: Yeah, it was hot today.
My mom: Is it hot in your apartment?
Me: Yeah, pretty hot. Sweating up a storm.
My mom: Don't you have air conditioning?
Me: Not right now. The air conditioner is stashed in your basement. We took it out in the winter, remember?
My mom: Oh right.
Me: Can you bring it back at some point?
My mom: (Sighs heavily) You live on the 5th floor. The air conditioner is heavy.
Me: Mom, you're not going to bring it back for me?
My mom: No.

Evil


What's going on in this picture? I'm completely baffled.

BTW- X-TIAN: thanks for posting a link to an article that requires a password. As if everyone has a subscription to WSJ. You elitist bastard.

Pretty good interview with the author of MoneyBall, Michael Lewis. You can find that on WSJ.com or by clicking here. My folks got me that book for my birthday and I plan on reading in during my flight to LA in a couple of weeks.

I took my laptop to work today because my resume is onhere and i need to update it for the Berkeley Resume book, oddly enough I am noticing today that there is some gunk on this thing. What's the cleaning staff at my hotel doing?

man, someone just raised the bar on single-entendres per paragraph, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. I am still trying to figure out why you picked hanged and then put it in quotes.

How enigmatic.

Also, I have actually been railing against the attractiveness of the Olsent twins for about a year now because they are done growing and sadly their arms seem to be too short. Just my observation....

Evil

You got some really serious issues man...you need some serious help. You are a freaking pedophile...What is wrong with you?

Then again, the X-tian and his brother Bump are always talking about the Olsen twins so they are not far off from the pedophile tree themselves.

Stock Options
As of Sunday afternoon, I am officially working for "The Man." Everyone at one point or another says that they are working for the Man or that the Man is oppressing them, that the man is keeping them down (Chuck) but I can safely say now that in my case is true. Warren Buffett bought the real estate company I have been working for in Miami for an undisclosed sum of money. We had this huge fancy breakfast at the Biltmore Hotel where the whole deal was announced. Anyways, at one point I grab Warren and asked him about getting some stock options for Berkshire Hathaway. I told him about the Class A stock ($72,000 a share) being a little out of my reach and if he could help a brother out...Anyways, he patted me on my shoulder and gave me a hearty laugh. I am going to have to go buy one of his books as I don't know if now I am in his part of his new circle of friends or I am being blacklisted as we speak...

ManWhore
In other news, I have been kind of hanging out with this girl that mainly uses me as a boy-toy. You know, she invites me to parties, buys me dinner and gets me drunk and such. You know, kind of like a sugar-mommy. Afterwards, she ravishes the Manolo temple over and over again. This is something I do not mind at all. Anyways, as a "favor" for her, I have "hung" out with a couple of her friends for some good old-fashioned clean fun.

Anyways, my question is: How does one find out if one is being pimped out for profit without insulting anybody? If so, what is the appropiate cut I should be asking for? Is there a ManWhore guide I should be reading?

Huh indeed!

Public Transportation
As a rule, its pretty scummy for a man to sit in a seat on any public transportation if it is more than 3/4 full. Just stay standing you avoid any such confusion. Unless you are hung over or falling asleep then do what you want. I was hung over once and fell asleep on the shoulder of the 50 year old woman sitting next to me. For some reason she did not mind I think she might have liked it. My hair smells good sometimes, so I can see why.

The stuff that gets me is when people get all possesive about seats.

Total sidebar about public transportation, the only really scummy move I have ever seen on some public transportation is this. One saturday I was going to work (that's a giveaway it was 1999 or 2000) and it was early. I was standing there reading the paper or something and this crazy white lady gets on all frazzled and crazy and white. She sees this Latino dude with his little boy. The little boy is passed out and taking up two seats. The woman gets all worked up and entitled and jsut picks the kid up and tosses him on the dad. The guy is dumbfounded and says something to her in spanish. The lady just sits down and ignores him. THEN she friggin gets off 2 stops later. SHE CANT JUST STAND FOR 3.5 minutes? She's gotta put her hands on someone's kid? WHAT? I was so pissed off that when she was getting off she walked by me, I stuck my foot out and tripped her as she got off the subway, she stumbled around a bit while I laughed and pointed safely behind a closing subway door.

Evil
My apologies for yesterday's post! It's true... I have a really bad gauge as to where "the line" is. It's like how some people can't tell they're talking WAY too loud or how other people have really bad gaydar. Even before Sleave's comment, I had been thinking about "the line." See, I was on the crosstown bus the other day... I was sitting down, the bus was somewhat crowded and a woman with a bulge in her belly came and stood in front of me. I glanced up at her real quick but I couldn't immediately tell whether she was pregnant or just a little chubby in the lower tummy area. You know how women tend to get that little paunch down there. Anyhoo... the girl next to me stands up and offers her seat to the woman, who I GUESS was pregnant. They both shot me a dirty look. It made me feel like a bad person.

But really... where is the line for giving up your seat to a pregnant woman? If you do it too early, the woman might not be actually pregnant and would thus be insulted, right? Someone give me a pointer here. I only want to be a decent human being.

So as not to end on such a morally ambiguous note, I'd just like to point out that an Indian man has Elizabeth Hurley wrapped around his little finger. Hmmm... let's see... Indian man + hot English woman. MR. SHOULDERS: you know what you have to do! Now go do it.

It might make sense to leave any mention of women 10 years younger than the Bumpasaurus off this blog...I am not going to sensor it but you know its a matter of taste...

Though a talented player I might have to execute a multi-blog trade and move EVIL just to get back a tall white guy with no heart.

Evil
At one point in your life, you've either listened to Love Line or watched the show on MTV, right? You know, Love Line is the show with Dr. Drew and Adam Corolla. I used to listen to the radio show when I lived in the Bay Area, mostly while in my car, driving home from work late at night. Ah, those were the heady days of startup fever. But anyway... I always wondered about the 14 and 15 year old girls who would call in and ask questions about BJ and pregnancy tests and morning-after pills and all that crazy jazz. Who were these girls? And why didn’t they go to MY high school? I always wondered what they looked like and if I could spot them in a crowd. OK, hey, sure... that MAY BE a little perverted but listen, I was driving home from work late at completely crappy hours and living in Silicon Valley where sausages outnumber coochie by like, a million to one... at least. What do you want from me? But back to the topic... so yeah, what did these girls look like?

Now I know!

Has anyone seen American Juniors... particularly the chick contestants? DUDE, those chicks are dirty 14 year olds. I am almost positive that they have better BJ technique than a lot of stuck-up Ivy League girls who you might or might not know.

I've decided to stop watching American Juniors, not because I suddenly turned gay, but because in my heart, I know that watching the show is a ding on my Heaven Application.

Just for the record: I think Lucy Hale is my favorite.

Not much going on

Anybody else confused by the Kobe coverage? Lots of rush to judgement one way or another, which really defeats the whole purpose of you know, having a trial.

Just felt like mentioning that.

That's the official end of the sports moratorium. Sleave is apparently en route to the Vet right now to watch the Phillies vs the Mets and get sick off $1 hotdogs.


In a couple of weeks I will drop a report from Bucs camp in Celebration, Florida. Right now, the guys at CNNSI are already at Jets camp filing reports. In the meantime, did anyone know that Hunter S. Thompson (Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas etc) wrote for ESPN's PAGE 2. Find his postings here.

I am still an exhausted mess from this past weekend. When did I get old?

Evil
There's this Italian company called Powergen. I'm not sure what they do, but it looks like they stole the AT&T logo. But anyway, they have a funny URL:

www.PowerGenitalia.com

Hahahahaha...

Evil
I made a startling discovery this weekend. No, you nerds, I didn't discover the squark. (Please! My work in supersymmetry and string theory is top secret. Put a lid on it!) What I discovered was:

Even in Manhattan, it's pretty hard to get food delivery before noon on a Sunday. WHO KNEW? I used to think that only outer-borough losers had to deal with things like this, but there I was, 11am on a Sunday and really jonesin' for some food. Any food, really. As long as it was hot. My refrigerator was completely empty except for some milk that I'm sure had gone bad, several bottles of Gatorade, and a Brita filter. I sat around from 11am til noon, munching on a handful of pine nuts that I found in the cupboard and at exactly 12 noon, I phoned in an order for an 18" pizza with sausage and peppers. Mmmmm. I ate that thing in 2 sittings and didn’t even feel it. When did I become such a slobbery mess? When did I stop loving myself?

Speaking of which, has anyone noticed all the recent bad news about fat people? There was some study that came out about how fat children are these days, as compared with previous generations. Then I saw this article about a 15-year old Sumo wrestler who died from heart disease.

Oh! Speaking of "the Japanese" (use of quotes to imply some sort of racism?)... KEN: are you up in arms about that Banzai show on Fox? Dude, I'm not even Japanese and I was offended on your behalf. That show is out of control.

I am making all sorts of associations today... Speaking of strange TV shows, I recently noticed that there is a cartoon called Angry Beavers on Nickelodeon. Angry Beavers? Tell me about it...

Pleasant Surprise: The Return of Lex Luthor

A couple of years ago, I was pretty hung over one day at work and spent 3 hours writing something about the purple suit shirt I was wearing and how much I liked the color purple and how people thought I was kind of a freak for not being that guy with the Blue (hey its the new white) Suit shirt was really popular at the time. I still have the story somewhere, and may put online for goofs when I get situated again. Anywho, that was then, Today, I woke up and looked through my closet which the cleaning lady was kind enough to organize for me and what did I discover, but a NEW Purple shirt that I had totally forgotten I owned. I bought it on sale at Express men shortly before I got to Brazil. Anyway, I am so pumped. I think purple will be back as my color. I might even shave my head before school starts and push the Lex motif to the fullest.

Also, I am going to start throttling people that say "Hey ---, its the new ---". That's been irksome for like 4 years already.

Whatever happened to posting on this thing?
Is everyone in a coma?

Luckily, I think EVIL will check in later with a review of the new Mandy Moore Film "How To Deal"...Let keep our fingers crossed

Is anyone else wondering if EVIL was the inspiration for this story?

Evil
Even though I've lived in New York for most of my life, I seldom witness anything out of the ordinary. For example, I've never seen a celebrity. And I'm not talking about Madonna or DeNiro... I haven't so much as been in the same bagel shop as Regis Philbin. Two summers ago, I ran the Central Park reservoir anywhere from 3 to 5 times a week, usually in the middle of the day. I figure the odds were against me NOT running into Howard Stern, but hey, it didn't happen.

It's sunny today, so I was at the Great Lawn, tanning, and generally minding my own business when two chicks, who were about 20 feet to my immediate left, dropped their bikini tops. WHAT? Is today Nudist Pride Day or something? Am I being disrespectful by wearing shorts? Let me tell you... these two chicks were smokin'. The blonde girl had breasts like right out of an x-rated Anime film. If she had a nickname, it would be The Girl With The Perkist Tits in Manhattan. The other girl was a redhead (no "firecrotch" comments from the gallery, please) and had great nipples in her own right. They started rubbing lotion on their boobs and it was at this point that I had to turn over and lie on my stomach, if only out of respect for the little kids who were also sharing the Great Lawn.

Evil
There's a site that takes long-ass URLs and gives you back a short URL for easier use. I think that's pretty cool. For example:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/14/
international/worldspecial/14CND-IRAQ.html?hp

becomes: http://tinyurl.com/gxha

HOW DOES THAT WORK? Since I know there are at least three computer science majors out there, I thought this might be an interesting thing to think about. According to the site, the short redirection links never expire, so they are not recycled. To be honest, I don't really expect Big Head or Mr. Shoulders to come up with an explaination, but Ken is Japanese, so Ken... don't disappoint!

(Unrelated...) By the way, X-TIAN: that girl's official nickname is "No Incidental Contact Girl." Missing the "No" part makes a big difference. It's like the time that I had knee problems and told my Crazy White Friend that the doctor had prescribed "inflammatories" (as opposed to anti-inflammatories). Needless to say, she laughed at me for being a clown.

(Unrelated still...) Lastly, here is picture #2 from the "Bad Parenting Photos" series.

I am still confused about Manolo and Ken hanging out together driving around in a Camry with underbelly neon. Who wore the pattern black mess shirt tight sh*t?

Did the Incidental Contact Girl get married? Is that why you guys were in Portland? Damn, Mr. Shoulders still has not gotten within 10 ft of her.

Evil
Hey Manolo! Congrats on getting laid in your car. Was it as good for you as it was for him?

Two posts for the price of one...

Smells like sex and candy

About a month ago, I started to write my first post on the site but my computer crashed. Being the lazy bastard that I am, I took it as a sign and went to watch TV or something. Besides, I was still upset that Manolo and Scarface were both taken as user names. How am I supposed to represent the Dirty South if I don't have the appropiate user name? How can I? YOU TELL ME....

As many of you know, if you are not in NYC, you need a car to get anywhere. That meant I had to put some money down for some wheels. I went to the store to look at some Escalades and Beamers but alas, I am not rolling in the dough like Evil who is selling enterprise software left and right. I had to settle for a 1998 Ford Explorer which is doing an okay job of taking me around. (By the way, I don't want to hear from anybody how I am supporting terrorists because I spend $45 a week on gas...if you are going to blame somebody, blame Detroit for holding back the engine that runs on water.)

Anyways, being this my first car ever, I am having all sorts of first-time experiences which I am truly cherishing. You know, checking the transmission fluid, changing the oil, rotating the tires, risking rollovers by turning too quickly, having sex in the back of the car, etc. Did you know that the funk from such an adventure, even after thoroughly cleansing the car over and over again, lasts for almost 2 weeks? That is a crazy amount of time...

Notes from Portland
In other news, I spent July 4th weekend up in Portland, Oregon for my friend's wedding. Did you know who was there? None other than the Japanese wunderkid (1/4 of Team Rachel) exhibiting a Lobster red tan from his stay in San Diego. The fact that he is not a Hertz express member meant I and the rest of the party had to hold his golf clubs and wait like an hour for him to get this very stylish 2Fast 2 Furious Camry LE with Neon lights in the bottom. After that brief delay, we were styling and ready to take the city by storm.

On our way to the hotel, we decided to grab some food which mainly ended up consisting of 8 pints of beer from this local microbrewery. After this, we checked into the hotel where we promptly proceeded to see what porn movies were available. We debated the merits of Asian Gonzo and Throbbing Threesomes, and failing to reach an agreement, we went on to watch one of the Williams sister in her semifinal match.

Not being overly excited by tennis, I fell asleep and woke up a couple of hours later (with my shirt untucked and pants unbuckled ???) finally ready to take the city by storm (it actually reminded me of the little TV break Xtian, Little Big Head and I took about a year ago before we wrecked havoc in Miami and got chased off by the Russian Mafia).

Anyways, our main activities consisted of eating food and having informal symposiums which involved jugs of cheap Chilean wine (Gato Negro) bought at Rite Aid. We debated again such topics as the hotel's selection of porn and Xtian's all-encompassing Metrosexuality. We also debated how Japanboy should have responded to the hippie that yelled at him for unknowingly trying to crash a Blues Festival whose entry fee consisted of $5 and 2 cans of food.

By the way, on this trip I found out that JapanBoy is a closet Metrosexual himself. He had enough fancy gels and moisturizers in that bag of his to mummify David Beckham himself...Metrosexuals of the world unite...

LXG

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is getting killed in the reviews. Did anyone realize that Elvis Mitchell reads comic books. He made an allusion to issue 2 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (vol 2), the scene where Mr. Hyde rapes and kills the Invisible Man which I thought was pretty grim. Obviously, stuff like that can't be in the movie. Grow up Elvis, this is meant to be for kids. Roger Ebert in his review pointed out that there are no streets in Venice, which is true and will now prevent me from enjoying the movie. Thanks.

I like James Robinson, he wrote my favorite comic of the late 90's, Starman for DC Comics. I like Steven Norrington, he did Blade, an underrated movie. I like placing blame. Its what I do best. So I am going to blame Don Murphy and the ego of Sean Connery for this travesty of a movie.

Addendum
NY Times continues to dump on LXG and they give the Comic Book props while doing so.

Read that HERE.

Here is what I was going to write today.

"Is everyone else as blown away as I am by the revelation that Britney and Justin had sex? Not that I don't think that Britney is a dirty girl, but I always thought Justin was gay. I think I took a straw poll with my family and we had it going 8 to 1. The only decenting vote being my brother, the Bumpasaurus, Pacey Witter. Read into that what you will. Who is taking bets that the next revelation in "W" Magazine will be something about X-tina and the Ringling Bros. Circus?

BTW, i am going to shoot myself. Apparently, Ashton Krutcher is being considered for the role of Clark Kent. God, I'm sick of that guy. Dude, trucker hats are over..."

Whlie on the subject I'd like to point out that the first nude scene i ever saw in a movie was Demi Moore in "About Last Night"...i was like 9. Bump was there too...he was like 4.

But I digress, I think "The Hose" is getting a little too vicious. Don't you? I don't know Britney, Justin or Ashton. They seem like nice people that I just dislike irrationally because they are more famous than me. That's just wrong. I am going to work on doing better. I am going to avoid making generalizations and not considering other sides of the story when shooting my mouth off. While on the subject. i would like to say that EVIL was out of line yesterday making fun of the gross little fat boy. It's not his fault he looks like that. I blame the parents. They should be strung up and beaten for being bad parents and bad people.

Evil

Yo, it's write-your-own caption time! Email me your submissions or post them to this site! Here are my entries:

"Hey, don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for my mom's vagina."

"Does this singlet make my ass look big?"

"If I'm so fat, then why does X-TIAN call me Mini-me?"

I am pretty glad that Charlies Angels: Full Throttle is not as big as the studios had hoped. At a 120MM (USD) price tag i think it needed to generate a lot more money than it has to this point to merit a third, increasingly annoying sequal. I imagine that price excludes marketing, which had to be expensive for this friggin movie. I mean jeez is there anywhere aside from my toilet bowl that I have not seen Drew Barrymore telling me about girl power, and being friends with Lucy Lui, and about how great Demi Moore looks and giggling incesantly, (shut up! shut up! shut up!) ugh...

Too bad about The Hulk, though, I thought it was a noble, if somewhat flawed effort. Hey Avi Arad, Here is some free advice. Focus on making a good spiderman sequal as opposed to rushing what will probably be a bad Punisher film to the big screen.

Right now, I am at work...not wearing pants.

Evil
Please buy me something. In exchange, I will refrain from posting a picture of myself not wearing pants. I think that's fair. Thanks all!

Evil

How come the Japanese come over every July 4th and kick some American ass in the international hot dog eating contest? Where's the pride?

Full Article

By the way... although the international hot dog eating contest is held at Coney Island, it isn't the only such competition. I hear that the international sausage eating contest is held at Fire Island on June 10th each year (Judy Garland's birthday). Haven't found any official links on the web, so I'm not entirely sure it's the real thing. Hey, X-TIAN, can you verify?

Template for a Paulista's first conversation with X-Tian

I might stop talking to people and just walk around with copies of this dialogue, with a special Independance day theme...


Note: A Paulista is anyone from Sao Paulo.
Paulista: Oui, todo bem
X-Tian: Todo bem. Desculpe, Voce fala ingles
Paulista: A little, some
X-Tian: Great I am sorry, my portuguese is pretty bad. I thought my spanish would be more helpful
Paulista: No probelm I understand. I thought you were brazilian for a second
X-Tian: No, my family is ecuadorian But I grew up in the US. So its a common mistake...
Paulista: Ah I see. Where in the states?
X-Tian: I grew up on the east coast. Lived in NJ and NY Now i live in Berkeley, in...um...california...northern california
Paulista: Close to LA or San Diego?
X-Tian: No, not really...um....no
Paulista: I have been to San Diego and Orlando. I love disney world. Don't you love Disney?
X-Tian: I have only been once...odd because my parents live so close. I don't really know San Diego
Paulista: Only been to Disney once? Why? its so great.
X-Tian: Ok
Paulista: .....
X-Tian: .....
Paulista: Were you in NY for 9-11? Is everything ok now? How horrible
X-Tian: Yes I was; and yes I suppose it was. I am sure the city is umm...fine now...I have not visited in a while. New Yorkers are a tough lot.
Paulista: How does it feel to have an imperialist for a president? Who do you guys think you are?
X-Tian: It feels the same I suppose as before. I was not down for the war. I did not vote for Bush. I voted for Ralph Nader and until I think bettter on it I am supporting Howard D--
Paulista: ...I mean do you think its ok to just go and invade another country
X-Tian: No, not really no.
Paulista: But all americans agr---
X-Tian: I guess. I don't read a lot of polling data. There were a lot of protests....
Paulista:....
X-Tian:.....
Paulista: ...nice meeting you
X-Tian: ..um...pracer...

Evil
Falling apart. FA Index fell and fell hard. Like Christopher Reeve at an equestrian exhibition. Nothing to say today (falling apart... what do you want from me???), so just read this IM session from yesterday...

X-TIAN: dude
X-TIAN: my future roommates are wack

EVIL: who?
EVIL: why

X-TIAN: they are putting 0 effort into looking at a place
X-TIAN: i hate them all

EVIL: what do you expect

X-TIAN: i am going to show up and not have an apartment

EVIL: no one puts in any effort unless they really need to
EVIL: also
EVIL: remember that you are all bschool students
EVIL: everyone is working on a high level

X-TIAN: everyone will be out on their ass 8/1

EVIL: you need to find some undergrads to do the work
EVIL: why dont you just room with 2 undergrad chicks
EVIL: that would be the way to handle it

X-TIAN: right
X-TIAN: hhm

EVIL: "welcome to my apartment... meet my roommates... this is tricia, she's a music performance undergrad. this here is allison. she's a history undergrad."
EVIL: (under your breath) "they are both sluts"

X-TIAN: "allison strips for money"
X-TIAN: "tricia was abused by her dad, whenever she is not getting drunk and hooking up with bikers she is giving me blow jobs"

EVIL: "whenever i talk about Net Present Value, it makes allison wet"

X-TIAN: "i dont ever penetrate tricia because she got syphillus"

EVIL: HAHHA

Dumb American Move of the...um...day? week? Month?
So my breakfast scenario is pretty straight forward. I show up to work and go find a pao de quiejo and a cappuchino (cheese bread and cappuchino for y'all not in the know). I will digress for a moment and share that breakfast is called "cafe da manha" or morning coffee, which is odd because in spanish you can get away with a colloquiel "cafe" but people call it "desayuno" which literary translates to "break fast", which seems a little classier if you ask me. I am not sure why. Anywho, love me the pao de quiejo because it makes me think fo pan de yuca (yuca bread? Who knows how to say yuca in english...) which my moms and grandmoms are all about make...But I digress (yet again). Anywho, yesterday afternoon when I went out for my late afternoon coffee (not to be confused with my breakfast coffee, or my mid mornning coffee or my afterlunch coffee) and i saw someone eating what i would call, a "butter roll, hot" if I were in a deli somewhere on the upper east side! So I resolve to have one for breakfast the next day, because these are the types of things I have to plan out way in advance. What's the word for butter? "mantieja" What's the word for hot? "Quenta" Got it good.

So this morning i find the vendor

Me: Oui
Her: bom dia, todo bem ?
Me: uhhh...sim..um...todo bem
Her:...
me:...
me: ummm.....um cappuchino com um pao com mantieja
Her:... Pao de Quiejo
me: no (i should say nao, because no actually means of in portuguese or something and the nasally no or nao, means the negative, and at this point I am almost crying, and she is looking at me wierd), esse
Her: Esta
me: no (see above...on the verge of tears)
Her: ah, pao frances?
Me: sim... ISSO
what? oh it is french bread, I couldn't say pao frances? what am i stupid? I'm stupid! I am now beating myself about the head in anger.
Her: Quenta?
Me (thumbs up...i'm thru talking...everybody's getting thumbs for the rest of the day)

Ugh, all that for a freaking coffee. There are far too many possible permutations for a conversation, you can't even properly prepare to order a friggin cup of coffee, someone asks you if you want creme, you say yeah sure and they friggin put cool whip on it like a bunch of MOMOs. Stop the madness! Its too much to bear. This is how much thought I have to put into anything. I am going batty. I wish people spoke english or at least spanish like the rest of friggin LA, who are these maniacs. Here's another quick example. Someone accused me of speaking Portu-nol, I corrected him and said it was more like Espan-uese. It was worth a good laugh. Then what? Beats me! I can barely friggin communicate. We started at each other in awkward silence.

Evil
MAN GRIPES THAT ACTING EMPLOYED IS PRACTICALLY A FULL TIME JOB

New York, NY -- Thomas Chang, a 27-year old casualty of the dot-com fallout, was overheard complaining that "acting employed is practically a full time job." With an obvious weariness in his voice, he added, "Man, I'm pretty sure I'm getting burned out. I don't know how much longer I can keep up this pace."

Full article

food arbitrage
I just pulled a George Soros/Ralphie May. I just went to a Churrascaria for lunch and ate 20lbs of beef. Someone may need to transfer that into Kilos for the folks in Latin America. While on the subject I also downed 2-3 passion fruit Caipirinhas (shut up! shut up! shut up!) ANyway, the whole thing ran me about 30 reals (approximately 10 bucks USD)

Excuse me, i have to go purge then take a nap under the desk.

Evil

Ralphie May (above), from "Last Comic Standing." Estimated weight: 550 pounds Ruben Studdard (right), from "American Idol." Estimated weight: 350 pounds

I had a pretty big plate of pasta for dinner last night and being that it was a warm summer evening and also because I had an 18-pound watermelon chilling in the fridge, I could hardly help but be pretty jazzed about it all. (+5 on the FA Index!) I sliced up half the watermelon and brought it to my bed --in TWO plates-- to eat because at this point in my life, I can't be bothered to eat sitting up. One plate in and I knew I was in trouble but I resolved to be tough and finished off the second plate anyway. And besides, I didn't want to walk back to the fridge. It's much easier to drop plates at the foot of one's bed and fall asleep with the lights on, all the while wondering why watermelon tastes so good but has to hurt so bad.

I'm not sure if being overly stuffed had anything to do with this, but I had a really bad dream. I was in my old high school building and rushing around trying to find room 189 for biology class, but for the life of me, I couldn't find it and it was pissing me off. At the peak of my frustration, I run right into both Ruben Studdard and Ralphie May in the hallway and without any explanation at all, they turn around and put their asses in my direction and made an ass sandwich with me in the middle. At one point, Ruben was shouting "Back that truck up!!!" as he leaned in with all his weight.

Luckily, I managed to wake up before dying.

Log Cabin

I just read that one of the more prominent gay, republican groups is called "the Log Cabin Republicans". This is funny to me because I am 12.

NO DADDY NO!

I went to watch The Hulk on sunday and have some thoughts. My first, as I walked out of the theater, is what would have happened if the 4 year old Bruce had tried to do anything during that scene with his parents? Would he still be carrying around the repressed guilt and rage? Dunno... ANYWAY, on to other thoughts. Overall, I must say I liked it. Ang Lee did an interesting job filming what was a tough movie to make and the CGI Hulk that ILM put together was sufficiently realistic in his movements and his facial expressions. Although, like with all CGI animation I get creeped looking at their eyes. They look kind of empty don't they? Also, they don't always seem to be looking at the right place. CREE-PEE. Anywho, there were some awesome touches, like the split panel scenes, that was designed to resemble a comic book, the gamma irridated poodle also rock quite hard, as did Nick Nolte and his overe the top, BAD DAD, David Banner. The casting of VICTIM MOMMY BANNER was also interesting because she looked a lot like Jennifer Connoley, and kind of threw a whole creepy mother love, greek tragedy thing into the mix for me. I'm not sure that was intentional or not. Also, how awesome in Jennifer Connoley. I can stare at her for hours.

There was also bad. Firstly and most importantly, the first 30 minutes or so moved about as smoothly as me trying to drive stick shift. That is to say, not at all. The first 30 minutes blew. It was kind of like Ang just said, "let's just pump through the background and into the hulk smask as quickly as possible". I had a hard time guaging the Hulk's weight. When he was doing his Hulk Jumps, I kept expecting more ground to break under him. At times it looked like he did not have any weight. That bugged. Also, at one point BAD DADDY Banner reveals himself to be some sort of anarchist type, except that came out like 2 hours into the movie and did not seem terribly consistent with everything else he said. Also, why were they allowed in a room together? Who thought that the Army would let that happen...no way...

I would have handled it differently. To address pacing, I would have opened the movie with both Banners in capitvity. The opening line would have been a therapist saying something like "Tell me about your father" and we could pan to reveal Bruce all captured Hannibal Lecter style and telling his story. The story would the be intercut with Bad Daddy, delivering an oral manifesto to his therapist talking about whatever and what not. Each telling the story from their own perspective. We would have all been spared the clunkiness of the openning scenes and one or two awkward lines that made me flinch. All the events could have gone down the same way, but told in flash back and glossing over some stuff. At the end of session, BAD DADDY would reveal himself and then go after his son. The last 20 minutes of the movie stay exactly the same. What would this do
(1) hopefully improve pacing, especially early on
(2) set up Bad Daddy's motivation minute one, as opposed to retro-fitting
(3) kind of give you a bit of tension that certain parts of the movie lack
(4) Set up a sequal, because all familiar with the Hulk mythology know, that the split personality stuff is what makes banner and the hulk separate. The sequal would then be about the merger of the personalities or the emergence of the third personality. As it is, in the movie, this whole idea is touched on only once, when Banner looks int eh mirror and the hulk looks back and tries to choke him.

Anyway, I liked it. Flawed but good. Ang Lee rocks.

Best Comic Book Movies EVER!!
While thinking about the Hulk I started wondering where it fit in relation to other movies in the genre. Here is a list I came up with. Anyone got a better one?

(1) Spiderman - Just perfectly executed. A movie for everyone. Four year old Isaiah Abreu's favorite flick! Occasional wack CGI be damned.
(2) Road To Perdition - I probably should not rate this this highly, just because i never read the comic. But still, it was really pretty and the photographer scenes really added a cool "splash panel" comic book effect.
(3) X2 - Best open 35 minutes of any movie on this list. Period. On point characterization, and no need for too much exposition
(4) Unbreakable - Not based on a comic book per se, so it gets dinged down to the 4 spot as a result. Pacing issues aside, its an awesome homage to the genre
(5) Superman 2- Not a great film, but perfectly executed and true to the mythology. The only time, there was a credible threat to Superman, which is always cool.
(6) Batman - Tim Burton brought the Dark Knight to Life in a way no one thought possible. The fore father to the modern comic book movie.
(7) Blade - Disco blood sprinklers, nuff said.
(8) X-men - "We're the future Charles, not them." Best Line reading ever! Of course, the worst line reading ever is also in this movie, thanks Halle...
(9) Hulk- Yah! Hulk makes the list, I could stare and Jennifer Connely for ever.
(10) From Hell - Very cool, flick set in Victorian England. Try your best to ignore the crappy accents.

Anyone got a better List? Let's hear it.


LXG
Message to the crew at Fox, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen would be LEG not LXG. Do X's really equal ticket sales? is this porn? If you need a compressed title, i would have suggested, "League..."