cry_me_ariver

This weekend, I finally finished downloading some recent Saturday Night Live episodes.  First off, it's hilarious how much shorter they are with the commercial breaks cut out.  Now if they would only start cutting the crappy bands...  

Because if you did, you'd have seen Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) deliver an ass-kicking response speech for the Democrats!  It made enduring the the SotU so much easier knowing Webb, a published author and the man who ejected Jim Allen (the idiot who called a journalist "macaca") last November, would be the guy on point for the Democratic rebuttal.  My favorite line was the last:  "and if he doesn't [comply with scaling down in Iraq] we will show him the way."  I also appreciated that he called the president out for wanting additional time, additional troops and additional money after "enduring four years of a mismanaged war".  Great stuff.  You can read up at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/state_of_union_democrats

Also, you can check out the full video of Webb's speech, as well as Senator Obama's comments this morning on ABC news at:

http://news.yahoo.com/

The videos are in a gray box on the right-hand side of the page.  Enjoy!

Anyone who has seen a single episode of 24, or  has a vague idea how the show works from watching ads for it should click the following link.  One of the funniest deodorant ads I've ever seen, and the deodorant is never even mentioned.   

http://www.degreemen.com/men/cturookie/?siteid=dm

Trust me: it's worth it.

If you didn't get to see "The Colbert Report" last night, here's a recap of one of my favorite moments in Colbert's lampooning of the Right Wing:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070119/ap_en_tv/tv_colbert_o_reilly

Both shows are definitely worth downloading via BitComet, BitTorrent etc.  Instant classics!

Here is a copied post from Inara Serra that I think brings up an interesting set of issues about language that I'd like to respond to a bit.  Be warned!  It's a slow day at work, so I had some time to get into it.  But it was worth it, because I've been thinking about this particular issue for a long time.  And there are some links.  And a couple of little jokes.  So, not totally boring.  I promise!

That's right, it's....

MY BIRTHDAY!!!!  Woo-hoo!

Please feel free to shower me with gratuitous expressions of love, outpourings of appreciation, demands for more attention to your journal posts (I know i've been slacktastic here, but you know I always catch up when you get those comments from me on six week old issues), promises of "naked sexytime" as Borat would say, or whatever floats you.  Wicked burns also welcome!

Well, I'm off to have the lovely Sarah treat me to dinner, a movie, and with any luck, a birthday paddling!

Hello there!

Great news about the elections, eh?  Soooooo many great outcomes!  Claire McCaskill even won in MO and then Tester taking MT and Webb taking VA (announced a few minutes ago... Yeaaaaahhh baby!)  was so sweeeeet!  I'll bet the Republicans never in their wildest nightmares thought we would run the table on those six races.  Just beautiful!  Then today, DONALD RUMSFELD RESIGNS!!!   If I wasn't so sick and full of mucus attacking chemical compounds, all of this would have given me a big Man-gasm.

I wish I could have been there for the "come over so I can congratulate you on your victory" breakfast that he invited Nancy Pelosi to.  You know that had to really sting.

*Sigh*  this election was the best medicine of all, it's true, but I still haven't been able to kick this damn cold yet, not even with an inhaler.  It sucks big time.  I wish my white cells would get back from summer vacation.

Anyone else see the Daily Show/Colbert Report "Midterm Midtacular"?  If you didn't, it's worth checking it out on comedy central.  They have the whole thing up for free.  It was hilarious!

Well, this is really just a quick post because I'm still completely wiped out with the plague.  I'm on 4 different medicines, including an inhaler.  So, to anyone I haven't written to, or responded to here, I'm really sorry, but my brain's been a ghost town lately, without even a spaghetti western film crew in sight.

I looked at the election results so far and it appears that several key races are going our way.  I'm pretty sure we'll take the house, and will get very close in the senate. 

I'm especially happy that Rick Santorum is going bye-bye!!!  Yep, it's official, Rick, you can now officially join God Hates Fags, because you won't be able to work your mojo in the senate anymore!  Bob Casey may not be the best guy out there, but he beat Scumbag Santorum, and that works for me.

Looks like Webb may hang on to pull the massive upset in Virgina.  It's still really close, and they can't call it yet.  Even if we don't get it, Menendez took New Jersey, where he was down in the poll this morning, which is great, because the Grand Oil Party spent oodles of cash there.  Similarly,worth mentioning), KATHERINE HARRIS got her ass handed to her in Florida!  Looks like she won't even crack 40%.  LOL.  Best of all, Ned Lamont is holding a 3% lead over Lieberman in CT, which means we'll get a real Democrat in that seat if the numbers continue to play out that way.  Also, Dems appear to be running away with quite a few governor's races (Yay for John Baldacci taking Maine, and John Lynch retaining NH).

UPDATE:  Sherrod Brown just unseated Mike DeWine in OH!  And we're up by 20 seats in declared House battles.  It's a good night, a good night for me and my drowsy drugs.

*Sigh*

I'm writing this so very tired and so very giddy/happy.  My body is currently flooding my cells with all kinds of reward endorphines and they are bouncing around with a 22 hour date's worth of a woman's very cloying, very sneaky, very welcome pheremones.  Coupled with a lack of sleep this whole week, I just feel like every neuron is smoldering nicely. 

So, I'm feeling useless right now, but serenely content.

LJ hi-fives are very welcome, and when I stop grinning and spacing out, i'll send my thanks!

Evanescence's recently released "The Open Door" has been running non-freakin-stop in my car since it Amazon.com'd its way into my hands last Thursday.  It's the best overall start-to-finish CD I've had in a long time.  Sure, there are bands I like more, and songs I like more than individual songs, but the overall effect is like a really great book.  Each song propels you to the next song, and yet each is excellent individually, like a collection of Lorrie Moore or Barry Hannah stories.  The songs sound so different, but are tied together with a level of quality and consistent polish that matches up well with Amy Lee's vocals, which are improved even over their last effort, "Fallen".  The writing is better here too, but in another similarity to the previous album, the feeling of "epic, emotional, important" communications with self and lover touches every track too, and that gives another feeling of unity to seemingly unrelated song lyrics.  And it's done without feeling like the bitter notebook scratchings of some kid in a highschool study hall (I'm looking at YOU, Bright Eyes).   Because of that, I can believe in the dramatic qualities of the singing (the painful cracks of voice, the powerful accusations, etc) enough to follow the development of the implied stories behind songs like "Lithium" or the explicit stories in songs like "Weight of the World" or "Call Me When You're Sober".  Great music from start to finish.   I haven't been able to take it out for close to a week now, even with my ooh-a-shiny-thing attention span.

Well, it's back to catching up on the LJs of others and more nervous flirting via MySpace...

Привет!

I guess Russian users are the second largest community on LJ now, so LJ has decided to create fully functional Russian features.  This should mean even more Russian LJs for me to troll looking to practice reading and picking up humor/slang etc., and now I'll be able to post without doing cut and paste, like the above for "hello".

And that should help me even more with my upcoming dates (at least I think I've arranged for a date.  I'm 90% sure that's what I asked her and about 70% sure that she said yes and then suggested some ideas for meeting up, which I'm really hoping she'll repeat) with Leya, a Russian doctor in the strippercise class.  Heck, even if it's just "cultural and linguistic exchange" then I'll be really happy.  On the other hand, I *think* I've noticed since we've started talking that she gives me "a look" while doing her moves.  Not that I'm looking, fine upstanding citizen that I am...

OMFGZ!

Eragon is being produced as a major motion picture!  Check out this awesome trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449010/trailers-screenplay-E29123-10-2

I'm so excited over this.  This is an adaptation of a book written by a 17 year old that was one of the most original YA titles to come out in about 10 years.  If the movie is anything like the book you won't be able to put it down...  not too sure how that will work in a theater :)

Those of you who have been following the saga of the computer:  These mofos still haven't sent me the correct part.  Though I *did* get another wrong part yesterday.  It's almost 10 days since somebody from the corporate office got involved, and they still have no idea what they're doing.  Isn't that great?

Daring, confident, animalistic You like to have a lot of sex and try a lot of things. You are very kinky and have a lot of confidence in yourself. You like to explore all aspects of sexuality because it is something that interests you a lot.

Take this quiz at QuizUniverse.com

Of course I'm going to put this behind a cut, because it's really long.   This is the letter I faxed to the President of Alienware at the Corporate Office in Miami.  In it, I quote the most recent response from Alienware which borders on fraud and is certainly a lie, and then my response to that, and then some comments for corporate to basically give them a chance before I report them to the BBB, the attorney general, and register a domain name such as www.alienwaresucks.com which is already taken by a guy who had a similar situation.  Enjoy...

So, all I can say about this is LOL.  It's seriously comical at this point.  Here is a letter I received from Alienware yesterday:

Yep, that's right.  It's all still going on.  They have no idea how to provide good service.  After they finally admitted they had to do something about this, they sent me a confirmation email... confirming they would be sending... THE WRONG PART!!!  So I had to write and call again, and although they said they were going to send the actual correct part, they still haven't sent a confirmation that they have shipped the thing.

But that's all I'm going to say about that.  For now. It's been a bizarre week. and it's only Wednesday...

Monday night, at STRIPPERCISE... it's Derand 1 DumbBitch 0...  One of the rude commentors from the previous week took up position with her friend basically right in front of me the whole time.  The whole time, she kept giving me rude looks and chatting with her friend.  At the end of the session, when I was walking over to help them put away their stuff, she turns to her friend and snickers "bet he really gets off on this".  To which I turned to one of the nicer women and said, "Yeah, it's my dream to spend an hour hanging out with snotty people who think they're too good for me to help them for free". 

Today, I discovered that Chloe Sevigny, who some of you know as Nikki on Big Love, appeared in a movie "Brown Bunny" in which she apparently engages in actual (non-faked) sex acts (i.e. porn).  Hmmm... how do I log into my Blockbuster Online queue again?

Here is just a quick little tidbit of how Alienware, 35 days after initially reporting that a part was defective, is still fucking with my life.  First off, I was having a fairly kickass evening, having seen "Jet Li's Fearless" with M and K (honestchick ).  I really enjoyed everything about this movie, especially after I loved "Hero" so much.  So, I was riding pretty high when I came home.

Now, earlier in the day, I had spent over an hour demanding to speak with a customer service manager, because after returning the *defective* video card they had sent me before, they sent me the wrong fucking part.  So I talk with these retards on the phone and the woman asks "well, did you try to install the card?"  And I said, "um, no, what you sent me isn't a video card" and she asks if I'm sure at which point I tell her that I am not an idiot, that I can tell what a video card looks like.  So, we go around a little bit, and at the end of it, she tells me she is going to send me a new card, that will be here by Tuesday, they'll get it out today, etc.  She at first offers me a T-Shirt to make up for this, but after hearing what I thought of a T-Shirt in exchange for 5 weeks without them doing what they're supposed to be doing, she offers a 100$ amazon.com gift card.  So I accept this, but make her assure me that she will take care of this and send me the card by Tuesday and guarantee me that it will be correct and functional.  

So tonight, I come home and have this email with an attached Fedex waybill link.  The letter reminds me that I need to send them the part before they'll send me the replacement.  This made me nervous, so I called up Alienware to have them check the notes to make sure she was going to do what she said she would.  NOTHING ABOUT WHAT SHE TOLD ME.  The notes say that she processed a swap order at my request.  Nothing about sending the part to me, nothing about amazon.com.  She just flatout lied.  

So I asked the guy who I should talk to, i.e. who her supervisor was, and he didn't know.  When i asked who to speak with, he said "a customer service manager".  He didn't seem happy when I suggested that Customer Service was not to be trusted.  But what can you do when you get to management and they lie to you and waste your time?  How many hours can you sink into a shit-ass company that won't honor their service that you paid for?  

I'm so fucking pissed about this.  I'd like to think I could just call up and speak with somebody above customer service, but I just know that's going to take a shitload of my time.  What a waste. 

Yes that's right!  Among the many, many things that have been going on lately, c_m_a is now "muscle" at the Rec Center for Strippercise.  My friend, Teya, who is in the Mythology class teaches "Strippercise" -which means exactly what it sounds like- and was having problems with guys congregating around the windows and doors staring pointing and making crude gestures (like tongue flapping, which I didn't believe until I saw it).  So now I stand by the door and basically just stare back at guys and stand in their view and you'd be surprised how easily this makes them just walk away.  At first (last week) some of the women in there gave me dirty or weird looks and some had comments, but last night, Teya announced me and what I was doing there and now it's fine.  

And I have to say, for all it would *sound* like a great idea to be around 60-100 girls gyrating around, stretching, working those hips, swaying around a pole, and in general acting like they're at Stripper Academy (which is the point- Teya explains all the moves in their stripper context) etc... In practice, it's actually really nerve-wracking to be there.  It's very difficult to *not* look and have my eye caught and brain scrambled for a few seconds.  And even though Teya sold this to me as "the best show in Carbondale", I feel sort of guilty when I do.  BUT DAMMIT, *YOU* TRY NOT BEING DAZZLED BY SOME OF THAT!!!

Some of the girls still look at me like I'm a barely interesting form of tree, and I get the feeling they'd be warmer about it if I were "hotter".  I am after all there by invitation, and do actually have a near total effect on the ogling dudes.  At least I'm not doing that staring and drooling routine.  Oh well, I guess some people are just retarded.

OTHER NOTE:  I STILL don't have my computer up and running, but I should have it all set by this weekend and I have worked out the issues with my transfer to the new account.   If I haven't received/responded to emails sent to me after the email change, just give me a poke or a resend and I'll write back.