Reason #14 I like City of Heroes more than FFXI: My Storm Summoner character is now in great demand for his abilities as a "living, breathing smoke machine" in the impromptu dance parties that are popping up all over Paragon City.

My favorite review ever has been published.

It's here. Read the Gadget Lab, dammit!

Houston, we have transmission fluid.

Theendisthebeginningistheend.

Death sings a happy song, one filled with springs.

Tick tock goes the sound of my Spock.

Nihilism is for amateurs.

Can you tell me how to get the hell out of here?

Through this wall lies another wall. Beyond that is another wall. Beyond that, another wall. And walls on forever, folks. Better get used to it.

This rambling nonsense brought to you by Uber-Nostrum.

Best. Note. From a copy editor. Ever.

"remove all the parentheses () from each of the woo woo doo doo parts and capitalize the first Woo or Doo of each."

You'll see why in a week or two.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahahahahahaha!

I can die now. I've seen everything.

I had the coolest dream last night.

See, in the dream, my parents moved to the UK when I was around 4, and we were there for a year. While I was there, I made friends with a boy and a girl in kindergarten. But, I moved back to California, and over the years, I forgot all about them. But upon my return to London at age 19, I discovered that they remembered me--and recruited me into their fight against demons. Oh, and the girl was red-hot. Not that I actually did anything, given that this is ME dreaming here, but I just wanted to mention.

As you can tell, the dream started getting weird and action movie-like from there. See, they were the members of some secret organization or other that wore these marble (yes, marble) armbands, which they clapped together Captain Marvel-style before fighting against the forces of evil to, like, activate their holy powers. I didn't have said holy powers, but given their association with me the devils would try and get me to get to them, so they inducted me in all quick-like and put me through a fuckload of trials, from religious (which revealed that while I wasn't religious worth a damn, I was at least moral) to intellectual and... ah... physical. Which I failed mightily. But that's not the point.

The point was that it was lucky they got me in, because while we were touring the new Globe theater (which, by the way, I've never seen in my life, not even in pictures, so it was replaced by the Collosseum in my dream) the secret organization's headquarters got razed, leaving me and the two other people "my" age (19) as the only people who could stop the world from falling under the unending rule of Shaitan. What followed was a whole bunch of butt-kicking (mostly coming from them, though I had my moments of mighty backstabbing and diversionary tactics) and... that's about when I woke up.

That was a fun dream. Either the prospect of unemployment has my imagination working overtime, or that Western Bacon Cheeseburger from Carl's Jr. REALLY messed me up.

Oh, HELL yes... 12 is the new 11... I'm sooooooooo fucking there.

Happy of the Birthday to the Dean of Greg.

BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY!

GREG!

PIE!

(I think I covered everything there)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREG!

Happy Birthday Mr. Dean!! ^_^

Looks like someone may win the X-Prize....

I would just like to point out that Father's Day sucked. Sigh.

And Dr. Devious is officially back on line... whew.

"Forget it, Jake... it's Chinatown."

Goddamn, that was one hell of a movie... Now I may have to track down "Two Jakes" just to see if it's even half as good...

So I was lying in bed last night reading, and I look off the page for a second...

...and see a CATERPILLAR crawling along the edge of my blanket!!! @==/\==/\==/\'

How wrong is that?? O_o

From the family files: A picture of me as a baby. Check here

I remember when this was all fields... yeah, that's San Jose, back when, y'know, they had actual trees. Why is it that all my cutest baby pictures involve me eating? And I used to be so cute as a baby, just a little orangutan! What happened in the past 21 years that made me so... me? :)

Well, we have three strips ready for next week's relaunch. Let's hope Kris has more coming still....

I was going through the archives, and I realized that I hadn't said "hi" to Cliff's mom lately.

HI MA!

In other parental news, my brother is going to be one in a few months. This proves that birth order means nothing in the grand scheme of things.


And I miss my icon.

Conversation from this morning:

Mom: So have you talked to John [your cousin's fiancee who works Marketing for EA] about a job yet?
Me: Nope. It's just not what I want to do.
Mom: So what DO you want to do?
Me: You've known this for five years, I want to write. I'm looking for magazine jobs.
Mom: Pssh. You'll starve to death.

That's it. I'm fucking out of here. Come June 30th or so, I'm staying with family in San Francisco. Sane family. I'm fucking gone.

For those of you who are interested, Dr. Devious Vs. Lincoln High will be returning on June 21st. We have a placeholder image up and new newsposts to inform people as to that.

Ralph Wiley, one of the only black writers in Sports Illustrated's history, author of "Why Black People Tend to Shout", frequent contributor to ESPN, and a personal inspiration to my writing, died today.

When I say sports writing, I don't mean beat writers like the San Jose Mercury's Victor Chi or other things like that--I mean the big-name columnists or journalists, like Peter King for Sports Illustrated, Peter Gammons for ESPN, Mel Kiper Jr. to anyone who'll listen, the guys whose word is law and whose opinions, while not always yours, are always interesting.

I'll miss his writing. But first I have to pick up a copy of "Why Black People Tend to Shout".

Wow. Talk about bad timing for a post. O_o

Well, shit. Apparently, I opened up a can of monkeys with my post below.

To clarify: Yes, I complain about being single. No, I don't date. Why? To date, someone must actually ask you out.

Okay, now I know of several people who have just screamed "WE HAVE!" The problem: I'm not going to date someone I have absolutely no interest in dating. All the people who have asked me out have been FRIENDS, and people I had no interest in becoming anything more than that with. Getting that through their heads was probably the most painful thing for me to go through. Doing it 4 times has made me think that I should just leave well enough alone, and that some higher power has decided that I'm to be a spinster for the rest of my life. You think you felt like shit guys? Yeah, I felt worse. I guarantee it. The guilt I have at this point is insane.

For me, to date someone means YOU HAVE TO HAVE INTEREST. And I'm not talking *pant pant* type interest, I mean just plain interest. Not having interest, but going and letting him pay for everything, and think that since you accepted you must like him somehow? How wrong is that? I've made enough mistakes. I'm not going to let some poor guy think I'm interested, only to have me avoid him for months afterward when it turns out horribly.

And even so, other than a few guys I could count almost on one hand, I've never really been asked out. And the one person other than the four mentioned above who asked, that was a disaster, and he ended up hurt, and I ended up once again realizing that I should never even think of the opposite sex, much less date. And don't fucking tell me that I should ask them out, because that involves having some sort of self confidence in my body, and ability to ever have any guys interest, other than the ones I don't want.

But you know what? Yes, I'm fucked up, I have problems with men. But I can go to places where women are a minority, and no men will bother me. a/a, they will flock to you, and you might have to push them off with brooms, but they will never approch me. So why even bother when no one is interested, except people that you're only going to hurt?

So fine. Have your own opinions on how I should just date every fucking person who doesn't ask me, or that I should drink myself into someone's bed, or that it's my own fucking fault, and it's not for the lack of others trying to fix/convince/modify my thinking. You know what? You're all right. Congratulations.

And I've probably hurt a bunch of people again with this post. Fucking great. I'm going to go cry now.

Berkeley Breathed has brought back Bill the Cat. I am pleased.

No, I'm not just pleased, I'm ecstatic--more than Garfield, more than Mickey, more than any other popular cartoon animals, Bill the Cat and Opus the PuffinPenguin defined my childhood. Which would explain why I'm so weird.

But anyway, BILL IS BACK. Oop ack thbbft!

I know not a lot of people will recognize the importance of this (or care) but Robert Quine committed suicide on June 5th via heroin overdose. It looks right now that it was not accidental.

Quine was a great guitarist who played with dozens of people including Matthew Sweet, Tom Waits and the Velvet Underground. He was even chosen one of Rolling Stone's 100 most important guitarists earlier this year. Apparently, Quine had been having difficulty handling the sudden death of his wife last year.

He will be missed and his influence never forgotten.

Ray Charles passed away. Man... we're losing more musical talent than we know what to do with...

Okay look...

I know he was a popular president, I know people think he was spiffy and all...

But putting his picture on the $10? Let's get serious, folks. There are endless numbers of Presidents more suited towards that position, not the least of which would be JFK. Beyond that, though, there are more than a few people I'd put on that list before Reagan. I dunno, how about, for example, Roosevelt (take your pick of the two)? Eisenhower? Good lord, even Truman! This overgrandizing of Reagan is really rubbing me the wrong way. I understand he was liked by a lot of people, but with other more deserving presidents NOT on the bills, why are we even thinking about Reagan?

Fine, you want to put Reagan on a bill and move a president into the $10 position (remember, the big stink the Reaganites are throwing out is that Hamilton wasn't a president)? Put Reagan onto the $2 and move good ol' T.J. onto the $10. Let'em work their way up the ranks a bit.

I've been proposed to twice today. O_o

Men are weird and confusing.

I've spent the entire day without being sleepy. Yet this feels so wrong to me. I haven't yawned, haven't felt any down time whatsoever. Does this mean that there's something wrong with me? I'm not used to this whole "being awake and alert for a whole day" thing.

I'm going to feel really stupid if today isn't Keith's actual birthday. So to cover my own ass: Happy unbirthday Keith!

I'm not an ass. My rememberory is very astute.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm Greg's personal crack dealer.

It feels good.

Yay! Happy Birthday Keith! ^^

Wow... June is a popular month...

In other news: THANK YOU GREG!!! You made my day. ^_^

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go read Real Life today.

Happy Birthday, 3d-Pdac!

Pimp on, playa!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH!!!!!!!!!

The archives should be functioning again.

I take everything I said about suprises back, and my friends are the best fucking people in the whole world.

Thanks guys. ^^ Best birthday ever.

Thanks for the b-day wishes, I appreciate them. ^^

Unfortunately, I'm not really in the birthday mood. Something's happened as I've gotten older, in that days like today have sort of ceased to have their magic. I used to be excited for months for my birthday to come, and on the actual day, I'd be ecstatic. But today, it's just like any other day. I know nothing special will happen, I won't be surprised by anything, and it'll just be another day, except for a nice dinner with my family, and a few presents. And presents, while nice, aren't really a surprise anymore, with me usually getting whatever I put on the list my parents asked for.

I guess I'm sorta jaded. I don't care about my age, I know I'm as old as I feel, and I usually feel somewhere between 15 and 18. But it's lost it's spark. I'm just another day/year older, and there are thousands of other people out there who are having their birthday as well. It's just not an exciting thing anymore, and that makes me feel kinda old... like my actual age... I'm 23 today. My friend was saddened by the fact that I wasn't excited anymore, but the thing is I know exactly what will happen, what people will say, and what we'll do, so there's nothing to be excited about anymore. I'm at work, I'll get nice wishes (which again, I do appreciate), and I'll wake up tomorrow morning and the world will be exactly the same, and nothing will have changed. I'll still be single, I'll still have a job, and I'll still have all my friends. I'll have a few more things I'll have to find space for in my ever cluttered room, but overall, it'll still be the same world.

So, just not much to get excited about. *shrug*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ERIN!!!!

Happy Birthday, E.