If you mosey over to my music blog, you'll see that I've posted a couple of music lists (The Rolling Stone Top 500 Albums of All Time and Pitchfork's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s). To continue that trend, I present this: Lists of Bests. (via Travelers Diagram).

Johnny Hart can lick 'em.

My friend Carl told me about this at the Black Cat on Saturday night and now has it in his blog, and I am with him on this. Johnny Hart sucks. One of the unfunniest motherfuckers around. (You'll notice I take the less eloquent route; I defer to Mr. O and the smarts out there for academic tones, unless I'm discussing the brilliance of CPO Sharkey; then I'm all business.) This man wouldn't be funny in the Catskills. And it has nothing to do with his religious beliefs. My best friend from college, Mark, is a methodist pastor, yet he's not Ned Flanders. People think that religious folk are automatically saccharine. But let me tell ya, few people have made me laugh as much as Mark, and he does it all without working blue. Perhaps it's an generational thing, then. Whatever it is, I've never liked B.C.. Even the old BC game on the Commodore 64 sucked. (I still have that, FYI.) I'm willing to believe it's just his god-awful (see what I did there?) attempt at potty humor, just because that man wouldn't know funny if he was getting DPed by the Rowan and Martin while the re-animated corpse of Tiny Tim sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" with ukelele accompaniment.

Anyway...

Other news ("news"): my umbrella got stolen. So much for the honor system at the Y. It's my own fault, of course, but that shit ain't making me feel better. Aside from the sentimental value (it was a gift), it was also a damn good umbrella. Just compact enough to fit in my bag (only the handle stuck out), but big enough, when opened, to provide me with more than adequate coverage. Just sad, stealing a man's umbrella. Now I'm going to have to find a new one. In the meantime, it's back to the small, barely useful umbrella I had as my back up. Great. I'm sure the downpour tomorrow morning during my walk to work will be torrential.

I hope whoever stole my umbrella gets struck by lightning when he uses it. Well, not really.

So here was Saturday:

Woke up, checked email, went to the gym. That's only significant because it was my first Saturday morning (I usually wake up too late) and because it made it my first three-days-in-a-row. I think I've become addicted to the workout.

Got home and turned on the Michigan/Ohio State game. Talk about going from peak to valley. Fucking Michigan. Just as I was getting to the point where I had come to terms with Miami being out of the National Championship picture, I get this. Poor Buckeyes. Would Maurice Clarett have been the difference? Who knows. Probably not.

After that, I pretty much just chilled. Threw on Disc 2 of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force DVD and crashed on the couch, watching and napping. Then, 'round 6:30 or so, I got the call (actually a followup call, as I got the original call earlier in the afternoon), I hear from Mr. O and we make arrangements for dinner, followed by a trip to the Black Cat for drinking a-go-go. We wound up going to Luna Grill for dinner (got me some french toast, I did) in Dupont, then walked to the BC. Get there and pull up two stools at the end of the bar, the only ones available. This is fine, as we are only expecting Caren to join us. Naturally, this proved to be incorrect, as Jarod showed up with a couple of his next door neighbors. Some spots opened up at the end of the bar near us, but there was a buffer of three people between us who would just not leave. So the evening was spent shuttling between the groups for conversation or shouting across the three clowns, not that they noticed or cared. My friend Beth also showed up with her friend Jose, but they were there for the show upstairs, so we didn't really hang out much.

Highlights: I talked to a 19-year-old au pair from Germany and a completely hammered blonde chick who wound up leaving with a guy who looked like a morph of Greg Gumbel and Jermaine Jackson, whose wingman looked like a blonde Jeff Foxworthy with a flattop. I only mention this because I was roundly mocked for having no game (I, of course, introduced my lack of game into the conversation, so it was really my own doing), particularly with the blonde, who was extremely touchy feely, as only really shitfaced women can be. I was more disappointed in the disappearance of the 19-year-old German au pair, which is the rarer occurrence in these heady times of ours. A drunk blonde at a bar? You can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. A cute 19-year-old German girl? You're more likely to find a hipster that hates Eggers in this area. Celebrity look-alikes at the bar: Matt Groening, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (thank you for that, Carl; now never speak to me again) and, as always, Mena Suvari.

Anyway, we (Carl, Caren and I) broke out of there and rolled back to my spot, where we watched a little Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Family Guy, before The O's bailed for the night 'round 3:30. In all, a solid evening.

And now I do football!

I think this may be the album cover of the year. God bless the diabolical one.

Craftster: "Crafty hipsters share clever ideas." (via Reenhead) Hate that motto, but otherwise, a pretty nifty site.

I got this and this tonight. Lord help me, I may not leave the apartment for the next month.

That's all I can post now...Mooninites on my screen.

UPDATE: As you can see, everything is back in order.

NOTE: Something got fucked up with the template and it got saved before I realized it. Consequently, I had to hastily recreate it, leaving out the sidebar of links and the comments. I will restore the full version when I get home tonight. (Sorry.)

Are the Beatles overrated? That's basically the argument being made in this article from the Guardian. (via Reenhead) Yeah, this should probably be posted in my music blog, but I'm not going to speak of the music so much as their seemingly untouchable status in popular culture.

For the most part, the article, though its arguments are not very original, is pretty spot on. The Beatles never rocked. Their songwriting was often simple and many times pretentiously obtuse (their psychedelic phase, basically). I think the writer underestimates their musical influence, especially when you look at some of the more recent indie psych-pop bands (take the former Elephant Six clique, for example), who minedthe psych-era Beatles catalogue every bit as much as they did Pet Sounds era Beach Boys or 70s Canterbury prog. But perhaps he was just being cheeky, trying to work in a Rutles reference. At any rate, musically speaking, while they might not have the enduring influence of Black Sabbath, for instance (possibly the most influential band in the last 30 years), it's certainly not a slim as suggested.

The preceding aside, though, the big problem isn't really with the music, but with the cult of Beatlemania. Their (pop) cultural impact has rendered all of their music bulletproof to criticism. More vexing is that nobody seems to question this. The closest any Beatle fan (both actual fans and the numerous people who believe they have to think the Beatles were the best ever, despite their actual exposure to the music, lest they be ridiculed for being a pop culture philistine) will ever admit to the Beatles being less than the rhetoric that surrounds them is when they speak of the early Beatles period. Their reasoning (or what they've been taught to believe) is that this period isn't particularly worthwhile because they had not developed their own sound yet, their music still owing too much to various rockabilly and blues artists. But that contingent is relatively small, and their rabid defense of the latter period's music (generally considered to be everything post, and sometimes including, Rubber Soul) is just as oblivious to actual musical quality as any hardcore Beatlemaniac.

Why is it like this? Well, the easy answer is that the people who came of age with the Beatles are/have been in charge of documenting that era and are doing their damnedest to make sure that history will look upon that era as being the pinnacle of culture. In short, it's shameless self-promotion. Not unique to their generation, or course, but their control of the history books comes at a time where it's easier to influence more people than ever before.

It goes beyond this, though. What about those who were born post-Beatles, who still hold the company line that the Beatles were the greatest ever? That's a tougher question to answer. Part of it, as I mentioned before, is the fear of being mocked for not agreeing with the findings of their elders. Another part, also previously stated, is that the chroniclers of that time pretty much control the media right now (not control in the conspiratorial sense; they just represent a signficant portion of the media). Therefore, even if you wanted to dig deeper than the rhetoric of "it's the Beatles, you're supposed to like them," much of the information you're going to find is going to be very favorable to maintaining that image of cultural ubersignificance.

Beyond that, there's a third reason why younger listeners are taking to the Beatles, and that's a need to feel like their part of something culturally significant. Let's face it, popular culture is letting down the youth they are allegedly serving. With less artist development than ever before, the cultural phenomenon of the Beatles could never happen today. They would have had to hit on one sound and stick with it; even if you question the quality of the music, there is no doubt that their music certainly evolved. Plus, because there is inevitable backlash against celebrities once they reach a level of media saturation (akin to Beatlemania), by the time they would have released Revolver in today's climate, they would have been pushed aside. It's a short attention span world we live in; we wouldn't have the patience for them to start taking LSD, let alone be impressed by the music they created once they were on a lysergic bend. Therefore, since today's culture is not conducive to creating any sustaining entertainment juggernaut, there isn't much for today's music fan to cling to that will match the impact (good or bad) of The Beatles. U2? REM? Pah. The early part of U2's career was way too "earnest" to appeal to the youth (not to mention that, in my own not-so-humble opinion, U2 sucks), while REM has something of a cerebral edge (they are pretty much the godfathers of that insidious genre known as "college rock") that will immediately turn away mass culture. Nirvana came closest, and could possibly followed the same evolutionary path (in pop culture terms) as The Beatles, had Kurt not eaten that shotgun. And believe me, the media tried their damnedest to make it happen. Ultimately, I think it would have fallen short, because Kurt's music was too much of a downer to really ignite a mass youth movement.

So to what do the kids who desperately want to feel part of something culturally significant turn when their current generation gives them nothing? The past, the established phenomena. And the easiest (and most obvious) phenomenon upon which you can get your wagon hitched is The Beatles.

But, I've prattled on, giving a fairly obvious and unoriginal article (about an all to obvious and semi-unoriginal band) too much thought. The bottom line is this: The Beatles music does not live up to the heaps of praise it has received. Thirty years of that rhetoric going unquestioned has only made the disparity between quality and legend more glaring. This article won't be the last to try to slay the myths of the past (particularly the 60s). Sadly, the future chroniclers of popular culture will surely do it again. If music and art are eternal, so too is the mythmaking that seems to go hand-in-hand with it.

Jodi hooked me up with a couple of pictures from the Halloween party. I'm going to see if I can score the duplicates of the ones in which I appear, as well as any with Carl, Caren Jamie, or Jarod.



This is Jodi (as Wednesday Addams) and me (as Jesus Christ Superfly, or Jack Osbourne). The bearded gentleman on the left is Carl, as Dead George Plimpton.



Jarod (as a gas station attendant/hippie/shiftless layabout) and Jamie (as a priest).

Unfortunately, Caren (as Dead Joan Crawford), or Miss America 1973 for that matter, is nowhere to be found.

Site redesign has begun. Not much, really. Perhaps more soon.

Tomacco! (via Reenhead) I hope the guy decides to tackle hamburger earmuffs next.

Watching Waking Life at the moment. Came in at the middle, but that's okay, because I've seen it before (snowbound President's Day weekend with M) and I also own it on DVD ($10 at Barnes and Noble, and that was before the discount!). Came in right before the line "On really romantic nights of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion." That line always cracks me up.

If you're an arthouse goon and/or animation buff (as I am from time to time), this flick is definitely worth checking out. It's a Richard Linklater film, if that means anything to you. (And it should, consarn it!)

Speaking of fine cinema, I picked up Finding Nemo tonight, plus two CDs (about which I will go into further detail in my music blog at some point), One AM by Diverse and Let's Get Serious by Party Fun Action Committee. That's a nice haul.

Blogger fashions a response to this recent Onion article. (Thanks to SR for giving me the heads up on the Onion article.)

Thank you to Jarod for this. People are just plain stupid, aren't they? Though, I now pose the question: if you had to name your child after some product or brand name, what would you choose? If it's a girl, perhaps Starkist, or Dinty Moore. A boy? Panasonic or Appleby.

Third graders review "Autumn Sweater" by Yo La Tengo. (link via Slatch) There are some other kid music reviews at the top, but this is my favorite. (My own review of the song: it sucked. It sounded like YLT were trying to be U2, and nobody should want to do that. Especially bands that are superior to Little Bono and his Gang of Fools.)

Some bits and pieces:

National Corndog Day (via Carl): This has to be done next year.

Currently watching Quick Change. I love this movie, and why not? Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Bob Elliott, Randy Quaid, Phil Hartman, Tony Shalhoub, Stanley Tucci, and Kurtwood Smith in the role he was born to play. "You goddamn straphangers are ruining Mrs. Crane's beverage service!" Gold.

I've seen the Paris Hilton tape, or at least part of it. Hot? Not particularly. Hilarious? Oh, you bet. All celebrity sex tapes seem to be, though. Except the Tonya Harding video. That was kinda dull, though, strangely titillating. Must be the trashiness of Ms. Harding. I guess I just got a thing for chicks who are comfortable in stone-washed jeans with the zipper on the back of the ankles.

The new Pink album is pretty good. I'm not feeling it as much when things slow down a bit, but overall, a satisfying listening experience. She has a good voice, too; I never realized that.

This site, as well as Musica Generica will probably get a facelift in the next few weeks.

Michael Totten takes on Ted Rall.

Also liked this line from Totten's blog: "Ted Rall isn't some anarchist punk spraying digital graffiti on Indymedia. He's a syndicated columnist. Just liked the first part of that; spot on.

Become a SCRABBLE Expert!. Saw this in the City Paper. I'm tempted to go, but really, I haven't played Scrabble in a few months. Plus, there's a chance of some paths crossing; don't know if I should take that chance. Besides, I'm more of a Boggle stud, anyway. Hoo yeah!

And for those of you who are new to this blog, I want to reiterate one of the central tenets of my belief system: monkeys are hilarious.

Also: Survivor Series is this Sunday. I haven't ordered a WWE pay-per-view in three or four months now, but I may get this one. Besides it being one of the major PPVs, there will also be a couple of old school, five-on-five elimination matches on the show, not to mention the possibility that The Undertaker may return as the old, evil Undertaker, jettisoning his more realistic biker image. I think I'd mark out for that. So, there you go. We'll see. If it turns out to be great and I don't wind up ordering it, I can always get it on DVD. The turnaround on those things are pretty amazing.

Lastly: start Sage Rosenfels!

Holla!

Game Watch

A couple of weeks ago, I talked about a couple of games to which I am looking forward. These are definitely my most anticipated. However, there are a few other titles that I think also deserve mention.

True Crime: Streets of L.A.: Yet another game that is trying to grab some of the Grand Theft Auto audience. This review isn't exactly glowing, but I've read others that were more positive. Overall, it seems like it could be a lot of fun, if not exactly on the same level of GTA. (Note: this is already out, and I saw a couple of commercials for it tonight.)

Manhunt: Does Rockstar have another hit on its hands? If you're talking about the gaming community at large, the answer is probably yes. If you're asking casual gamers, the answer is probably no. Naturally, it will pull in some casual gamers based on the Rockstar name alone. But I gotta tell ya, most of the people who like the free-wheeling, smash 'em up, shoot 'em up nature of GTA, or the adrenaline rush of street racing of Midnight Club, aren't going to cotton to sneaking about in the shadows and relying on stealth to survive. I can only imagine the frustration rising, the brows furrowing, as the Doom generation gamers try to blast everything in sight and fail miserably. Let's face it, casual gamers don't care much about story lines; the gameplay ultimately pulls them in. And while that's the way it should be (gameplay should always be paramount in the design), casual players are going to be more attracted to action packed titles than they are to subtler fare. Anyway, this looks like it could be a game of the year candidate, depending on how balanced the gameplay is. It's one thing to make a game rely on stealth to be successful; it's quite another to make the game so difficult that your every move has to be perfect in order to advance.

Final Fantasy X-2: Yeah, I'm still a FF mark. Final Fantasy X, for which this game is a direct sequel (the first time this has happened in the FF universe), took a while for me to get into, but when it was all over, it turned out to be a very fun and satisfying gaming experience. However, it did not leave me looking forward to the next installment as much as previous installments had. In a way, it was like Final Fantasy VIII, with its very realistic characters, deep sidequests, and saving existence storyline (though, that last part is really in all the games). I liked that game as well, but it did not leave me expecting much more from the next in the series. Luckily, Final Fantasy IX furned out to be a great game, with an incredible story and the usual solid gameplay. Anyway, before I get too sidetracked, I am certainly looking forward to picking this one up, but hope that the story is immediately more engaging than its predecessor.

Others on the horizon are Secret Weapons Over Normandy (from LucasArts/Totally Games), Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (Konami, due out November 2004 I believe), and Mafia (Take 2 Interactive/Illusion Softworks, due out January 2004). If you're a console gamer, try to check these out.

Oi....fucking Metro.

This was today:

I woke up early (for a Saturday) today so I could shower and vacuum before my friend Mark would arrive. Sadly, I only got the former accomplished. Luckily, Mark isn't a neatnik and I just vacuumed whilst he was here. (Besides, he lived with me for a couple of years, he knows the drill.) We went out and got some chow, came back and basically gamed for the afternoon, wrapping things up with some Family Guy viewing in the evening. We left and he dropped me off at the Metro, where I went out to Galaxy Hut to meet with my friend Jackie and her husband (Dave), who I have not seen in 4 years, basically when she/they left this town for Denver. Naturally, a number of others (many of whom are part of the local indie rock community, including Dan, who was in Free Range Pilgrim with Jackie and is now in City Ghosts with Patrick, one of our bartenders at The Black Cat) were there as well. Wound up getting wedged the corner (Galaxy Hut is fucking small), so the only beer I had was the one I ordered when I first got in. Stayed there a couple of hours, which is longer than I wanted. The plan was to then go to Old Town and meet up with the crew at Bugsy's.

That didn't happen. Why? Because the Metro fucking sucks. First, I underestimated the time it would take to actually get to King Street, so I was going to be later than expected. But still, it was a 10 minute wait at Clarendon, another 5 minute wait at Rosslyn (where I had to switch to the Blue Line), and then, we get to Pentagon and we sat for like 10-15 minutes. At that point, I wasn't going to reach Bugsy's until 11:30, a good 45-60 minutes later than I initially said I would be there. Even though that's early, the other part is that I had to get up early (again, a relative term) in the morning to meet with Jackie* again, and I didn't want to put up with a long ass metro ride back at 1:30-2 in the morning. After an entire week (including last night) of about five and a half hours of sleep, I had to draw the line. So, I just came straight back. It's a shame, because I was really looking forward to seeing everybody. Oh well. At least I'm getting dinner now.

In other news, the Hurricanes lost for the second week in a row. Bye bye national championship.

And today (well, yesterday as of this writing) is when it all began a year ago.

* Jackie just finished dental school and is licensed out west, but because she is planning on moving back to the East Coast next year, she needs to get licensed over here. Therefore, she is trying to find people to test on (next month, I believe), but they have to have a certain amount of plaque or what not (look, I'm not the dentist here) before they can qualify. Tomorrow, she will check to see if I qualify.

Some more late night blogging...

[Note: I'm not going to provide links because it's late, and I'm getting sleepy and well, fuck you. You need information on anything listed here, you can just look it up your damn self. It's a Google world, dammit!]

First, the new Smackdown video game (the third for the PS2 and the fifth in the series) is one helluva game. One drawback: as in the real WWE, if you're doing career mode on Raw, the storylines are dominated by Triple H, and he will do his damnedest not to job to you. Outside of that, it's a great game. The AI is solid, the career mode is actually worth a damn, the create-a-wrestler feature is as good as ever, and the gameplay is balanced and easy to pick up, not to mention featuring more depth than ever before. Hats off to THQ; they've done it again.

Next topic: Kid Notorious. Full disclosure up front: I haven't seen The Kid Stays In The Picture and know nothing about Robert Evans except for what sites like All Movie or IMDB tell me. (Okay, I lied about the links...sorta. I know these by heart.) Anyway, the first episode was decent. Seemed to be trying too hard to push the envelope in terms of content, not to mention, slagging Hollywood is just too easy to really sustain a series, right? Well...

Episodes two and three have converted me. I really can't articulate what makes it for me, but I've actually laughed out loud several times while watching. (Especially the third episode, which aired tonight...Rummy's characterization was worth the price of admission alone....you know, if you had to pay to be admitted somewhere to watch it.) Sure, the characters are ALL stereotypes: the sleazy/megarich movie producer, the sassy, black female maid, the stuffy-but-dedicated English butler. But there's just enough outrageousness and sly twists to each archetype that they don't come off as too predictable. Plus, the shit is just plain funny. And that's always a good thing.

Anyway, that's all I have the time for. I'm actually going to bed before 2. Haven't done that since, um, last Thursday? Fuck. (It's job related...not going to get into it now.)

It's So Much Like My Dreams It's Scary

To use another Simpsons quote (this time courtesy of Prof. Frink), "That monkey is going to pay."

I shouldn't make light of this, as it's obviously a dire situation. But dammit, it's hard for me not to laugh. Monkeys are always comedy.

Boo!

Today has had an auspicious start. Woke up just before noon when Jarod's parents arrived at his spot (I crashed at Jamie and Jarod's; more on that later). Flipped on the TV and what is just about to begin? Why it's Commando! Yet another movie I have not seen before. While not as essential as either of the Terminator films, Jamie still insisted that I watch it, and I'm glad I did. For the next hour and forty-five (or however long that movie is) I was treated to one of the most appallingly bad movies I've ever seen. Of course, that made it one of the most hilarious films as well. "Let off some steam, Bennett." Total classic.

Came home, got my shower on, got my BK on, talked to moms, and now I'm killing time playing the new Smackdown video game (a review may be in the works) until I have to go back out to meet with the boys (Jamie and Jarod, at least) to see another movie I never saw when it came out, Alien. We're going to the Uptown to see it on the giant screen. (It just occurs to me that I should be linking some of these things I mention, but, you know, I can't do everything for you. Lazy bastards.)

Now, the reason I crashed with Jamie and Jarod last night is because we went to a party. The place: my friend Jodi's spot out in Arlington, a nice place she shares with two other ladies. It was, naturally, a costume party, and I did dress up. After kicking around a few ideas the last few months (Meatwad, a pirate priest), I wound up going as Jesus Christ Superfly, which is basically just a Jesus outfit with an afro. I had a goatee working as well, but it fell apart early on and I stopped wearing it. Just as well, as I couldn't really talk or drink with it on. The downside to that is that afterwards, I had a lot of people calling me Jack Osbourne. Now there's a kick in the crotch. At least this time I had a costume on. The previous two times I was just in me everyday streetwear. That's when it really hurts. The crew went as dead George Plimpton (Carl), dead Joan Crawford (Caren), a priest (Jamie), and a hippie/lumberjack/gas station attendant (Jarod). Quite an alliterative group I hang out with, eh?

The party was a lot of fun. A good number of people, a good ratio of women to men, and free hooch. What more can you want? Ahhhh, I see you thinking it. (Hey, you think that's impressive, I can hear pudding.) The more, of course, is a spirited game of backslap. I gotta tell you, I feel I came closer than I usually do to closing the deal last night. For starters, I kind of had that mindset going in. Not that I'm ever truly without that mindset these days, but there was concerted effort not to get hammered right away, or to the point where I knew I would be the braying jackass and have absolutely no shot.

So, the party is good, we're getting our drink on, I housed about a half dozen or so Jello shots over the course of the evening, a few beers, a shot of tequila (served up by a loud, drunken nun no less)...over all, feeling good. Can still maintain a decent conversation, and only drove away one person all night with my words (Rebecca Lobo....sorry Jamie). Then I start to socialize a bit more. To that point, it was basically me hovering about my crowd, striking up small conversations when questions about my costume arose. (Or with cute vampire chicas like Sherrie.) Actually...the sequence of events are a little fuzzy. Here's what I do remember, Miss 1973 (as she will be called) was there, along with a few other Miss America's (one from each decade). Seemed like a nice girl. She and the "white Nelly" were out back smoking with the crew at various points during the evening. She may have not been the brightest (caught the tail end of having the Jim Jones thing explained to her, as she didn't get an earlier reference to it), but she seemed like decent people. Anyway, wind up sitting with her on the front porch later in the evening and well, she's kinda buzzed, to say the least. Not arms folded in front of you, puking on the chest drunk, but she's certainly uninhibited. Like the male that I am, this piques my interest. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not Capt. GHB here. I'm not looking to violate women who don't know it's happening; she wasn't that hammered. So I'm being the witmonkey, cracking jokes, cozying up to her, have her bring me a drink. (Actually, she volunteered the drink, as she wanted some punch with something mixed in and insisted that I have the same.) Get the drinks, continue the chit chat, and then she goes inside. I drink a little of what she concocted (damn that was strong), spill a little, then leave it. Go inside, blah blah this, blah blah that, head to the kitchen, where she's holding a microphone she brought (you know, for the question and answer portion of the Miss America pageant), singing some song that I don't quite recall. Then she says she has to sing something from the 70s. I suggest "I Will Survive." (Why, I don't know, because I kinda hate that song.) She proceeds to sing it in this really hushed and breathy voice, while she slides all over Jesus' body. It's quite a spectacle, and we're getting some looks from the others in the kitchen. She stumbles her way to that songs conclusion (meaning she starts to forget the words and just stops) and starts to sing something else, again, I'm not remembering what exactly. I'm still being treated like a dancing pole. I break this up and go downstairs, mostly to see if she'll follow. No dice. I go back up, and she's gone from the kitchen and to the front porch, where she and white Nelly are cozying up. Now, in his defense, he had been trying with her earlier in the evening, and intermittently throughout, so it's not like he was trying to kill my game. He was just playing his. Within minutes, the game is over: they're grabbing a cab. Oh well. The next 20 minutes or so is me looking for a consolation prize, namely Jodi. She, however, is lit up and of a single mind. Unfortunately for me, that single mind is focused on finding her lost camera, and not images I would like to capture on that camera. So, after she hits rock bottom by digging through her garbage for the camera (and I am, like an idiot, holding the flashlight), I decide to concede. The crew, who were being extremely patient, were waiting on the front porch. We gather up, say goodnights, and we're off. Drop off Carl, and then return to the spot, where I snack on some chips, then call it an evening.

And that was Halloween. Overall, I can't say I'm disappointed. The party really was fun, and it's always good to be out with friends. Sure, some dirty sniz would have capped it off right, but that's like complaining that your lottery jackpot isn't big enough.

It's Alien time. (Jesus this all took a long time to write. Damn multi-tasking.)