I just found out Porn killed BataMax.

For our local pirate:

Chinese Pirate Queens!

I have the uncanny ability to fuck up my finger without really even trying. It's amazing the damn thing is still attached.

...

Seriously, I was bleeding like hell. Apparently it's still not healed up all the way yet, and so it's easy to rip open and cause huge amounts of blood to squirt from it without warning. And yes, I am a baby when it comes to seeing my own blood.

...

But I'm fine now.

...

I think...

...

Shit.

I'm trying to show some support for some dear friends. I'm not asking you to agree with me sight unseen, but rather I challenge your intellect to look at the situation from both sides and state your opinion. Thanks!

Just in case, the sites are:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_6692311
and
http://www.howtokillpeople.com
_____________________________________________

Some fuckhead newsreporter decided he wanted to slander my husband.

Most of you know Travis, who's a model citizen whose worst characteristic is a wry sense of humor. Everyone who knows him loves him, even if they choose not to read his website.

So fuckhead in question wrote about his website, howtokillpeople.com, which is a bit vulgar, but definitely humor-based. Anybody who's EVER had a sense of humor at all can tell that his tongue is planted firmly in his cheek whenever he makes fun of anyone, including himself.

So, here's the skinny:
Now his job and future jobs are in jeopardy due to outright slander on the part of this "journalist." He writes misleading statements, using Travis' words completely out of context. Anyone who reads JUST this article is sure to think that he's a psychopath. Hence the problem.

Here's what we need:
Go, read the article, and if you can, post an intelligent response that supports Travis. Someone left a very articulate comment earlier tonight that phrases the situation perfectly. Please, don't post things like "Fuck this guy! Travis is super awesome! lol!" We need to point out the flaws in the journalist's reporting, not perpetuate them...

Travis is on administrative leave, pending an investigation due Monday. His job has investigated his website several times, and has never found anything to be wrong with it. But, we fear that public scrutiny might change their opinions. He could lose his job because someone was out to get him and happened to know someone who works at a newspaper.

Please, this is an issue of freedom of speech. He's no psycho, and no one should allow a 27-year-old newlywed with a wonderful heart but a vulgar sense of humor lose everything. THAT'S crazy.

Here's the article:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_6692311
(copy and paste it into your browser... I'm not fancy and I don't speak html)

Thanks.
Bless - Hillary

And pass it on - forward, whatever.

Same as it ever was...



"You may ask yourself, 'Well, how did I get here?'"

"And you may say to yourself... 'My god, what have I done?'"

------

For the record, nothing wrong, but iTunes popped this song up and I remembered how weird the video was, and how I hadn't seen it in years... enjoy the weirdness flashback, via the Talking Heads...

I'm a tropical storm! Woo!

Well, I'm still having vividly memorable dreams, but at least I'm starting to feel a bit better, which I suppose is good. I'm not anywhere near as drained as I was earlier in the week. I'm thinking the extra rest has done me good. Still, had Michael Shelling being played by Ving Rhames in a dream of mine last night, so I can't be entirely well. (Hysterically enough, Greg Dean was played by Eddie Izzard, Erin was played by Devon Aoki, Christy was played by Angela Bassett, Ian Johnson was played by Christopher Eccleston, Sean was played by Sung Kang and I was woefully miscast as Kevin Bacon.)

The new William Gibson novel showed up here yesterday for me. I'm going to hopefully start it soon, but I'm trying to bide my time a little bit, as I'm sure I'll devour it in no time flat. That typically happens with books I'm anticipating for a bit.

Anyhow, no reason substance to this update -- merely a checking in and a reminder that I'm still alive, I'm still having weird dreams and you may, in fact, be in them. Please tip your waiter, but set him upright after that.

Am-I-Dumb.com - Are you dumb?

Quiz time!

Am-I-Dumb.com - Are you dumb?

Go and watch this immediately. It's so much awesome, awesome itself fails as a word.

Well, it looks like I'm still fighting a cold. Woke up this morning with a runny nose. Let's hope it passes soon.

Also, I've remembered my dreams for the last three nights in a row, which is odd. I usually get a memorable dream once a week or so, and two in a row is odd enough, but three in a row is extremely odd. Just to give you the short, short versions:

Dream One: I'm at a party with a friend, and it's almost entirely made up of Japanese businessmen, who are doing some weird sort of line dancing. (It actually seems to be a surreal combination of country and medieval court dancing... it's hard to explain without actually drawing it out -- two lines moving in sort of a Buzzby Berkeley kind of thing.) The person I'm with there is very drunk, and she has some of the people there, who she knows but can't seem to communicate with, hold me steady as she gives me some LSD. I explain to her after they let me go that the idea of LSD has never really scared me that much and I probably would've taken it without coercion. She wanders off and a few minutes later, one of the Japanese men comes over and says something to me in Japanese, which of course I don't understand. There is, however, an Arabic gentleman there, who also seems to be at this party. (We're all in tuxes, don't know why, except my friend, who's in a formal evening dress.) He doesn't speak much Japanese, but thinks that the man has come to get me for my friend. So I follow him and go over to my friend, who is sitting on a stool, looking extremely wobbly. She has me stand next to her then promptly falls asleep with her head on my shoulder.

Dream two: I'm wandering the halls of a hospital. I'm in one of those horrible gowns that could come open at any moment, and I'm sure you can imagine how thrilled with that I am. I wander from room to room before I finally find what I assume is my room, and then sit down on the bed and pick up an acoustic guitar. I then play U2's "I Will Follow" on the acoustic guitar, about half the speed of the original, transforming it from the reckless teen anthem U2 originally wrote into a more somber, almost dirge-like song. It was around this point in the dream I noticed that I've got a great deal of bandages on my arms, legs and head, as if I was in some form of accident. After I finish the song, there's a knock at the door, and a doctor, in his early fifties by the look of him, with big bushy eyebrows and a greying walrus mustache, says to me "Your friends are here, and I think they're ready to see you now."

Dream three: This dream is personal and I'm not going to share it, for a variety of reasons. But I can say that I remember it fairly vividly, and there were both bad and good aspects of the dream. It started sadly, got better, got a lot better, got somewhat worse and then went back to being good again, albeit somewhat oddly.

Like I said, it's unusual for me to remember this much about my dreams, so I'm wondering if I'm sicker than I think I am. Typically to have this much detail of dreams is usually only common if I'm having fever dreams, but I don't feel that sick. Let's just hope I'm going through a period of dream clarity and not coming up on a very bad cold.

(For the record, two of my unusual fever dreams -- one involved me in a full suit of samurai armor cleaving my way through a field filled with hundreds of businessmen in suits; the other involved me being put in an internment camp because I'm partially German, and we were transported from camp to camp by putting us into a giant cannon and firing us from state to state... like I said, odd dreams...)

That should be enough morning madness to keep you entertained...

So, either fall melancholy is hitting me early or I'm fighting off a cold -- or both. Regardless, I've woken up the last few days with a sense of ... I don't know, really. Not depression, thankfully, but just sort of... well, a lack of energy. Typically, when the weather starts changing to autumn, I go through a few days of lackluster emotions, where I'm ... see, again, I'm stuck on words. I'm not glum, or blue, but I'm not myself. It's not defeatist, but it's certainly more cynical that I generally am. (And, for the record, I am not half as cynical as some people seem to think that I am. I'm secretly a closet optimist who hopes for happy endings and the like. I simply prefer not to let that side of me take over, as he always gets let down.) I would have liked to stay in bed a few more hours this morning, just laying there and resting, but, alas, work beckons.

I did survive Comic Con, which is good. I realized, however, that I rarely have my picture taken at these things. It's not so much that I avoid pictures as that people rarely take pictures of me. That both amuses and saddens me, more amuses than saddens, though. I have to figure out the hotel for next year, since Keith isn't able to provide lodging next year. It worries me, a little, making plans for something so far in advance, as a year is a lot of time, and a lot can change in a year.

Tristan ran into me at Comic Con. That was... a little bit of a shock, to say the least. The last time I saw Tristan was 1999 and he was getting married. Well, he was at Comic Con with his wife and two kids, and that's had a bit of impact on me. I remember Tristan when he was a scrawny teenager, trying to figure out where he wanted his life to go. Now he's got two kids and a sense of purpose. Maybe I'm simply envious, as I don't have that kind of clarity in my own world. I know, I've heard a dozen times, life isn't a race and I shouldn't compare myself to other people, but the funny part is that no one ever seems to take their own advice. Me, I'm trying not to think about it too much, but it does get to me in moments of weakness. I've heard people say 30 is the new 20. I hope they're right. I know a lot of married people now. But seeing Tristan was good. He literally ambushed me and I just turned around to see him there. I'm sure I was loud and obnoxious, but what the hell. It'd been nearly ten years. I'm going to try and go down to L.A. and visit him and some of the other people I know down there at some point in the near future. We'll see. Right now, I'm rather anti-planning anything. I've done too much of that as of late, with little in the way of benefit or thanks.

"I am in the twilight of my youth, not that I'm going to remember... / And have you seen the moon tonight, is it full? / Still burning its embers / The people dancing in the corner, they seem happy / But I am sad / I am still dancing in the coma of the drinks I just had / Does anybody want to take me home? / Does anybody want to take me home? / Take me to your house, and I'll leave you alone / Of course I will / Of course I won't / It seems so tragic... but it disappears like magic / Like magic..." - Ryan Adams, "Anybody Wanna Take Me Home"

The summer madness is mostly past us now, with nothing big on the horizon for several months. Megan's leaving for Japan, Erin's going to China, I'm going nowhere. Not yet. One never can tell, though.

The car nearly died yesterday. Took it into the shop, got it repaired, lost $350 in the process. I'm frustrated by the fact that I had to repair the car I'm going to be getting rid of in a few months, but sadly I needed it to run until I get a new car, which is still a little ways off.

It's Friday, though, which means I have two days of (mostly) rest coming up. I'll probably go back to the gym again sometime over the weekend -- I've mostly been recovering from Comic Con so far.

"So here we are reinventing the wheel / I'm shaking hands with a hurricane / It's a colour that I can't describe, / It's a language I can't understand / Ambition, tearing out the heart of you / Carving lines into you / Dripping down the sides of you / We will not be the last..." - Bloc Party, "Pioneers (M83 Remix)"

Several people have been asking me if Curt still lives in Minneapolis and if I've heard from him. He lives in Omaha now, so there isn't any concern for him. I haven't had a chance to talk to him since then, but he's fine, so don't worry about him. He's enjoying his internship and trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life. I keep telling him, thinking about it will only make your head hurt and not do you any good. For the most part, you only get to control a small bit of your life, and the rest of it is how you handle what happens to you.

I watched "Millions" last night, Danny Boyle's movie about a couple of kids who find several hundred thousand pounds right before the changeover to Euros, and have to figure out what to do with it. It starts a little slow, but is very touching at the end, and I recommend it to everyone.

Also been rereading some of my Hunter S. Thompson lately. Not sure quite why. Maybe just in the mood for it.

"This could be a movie / And this could be our final act / We don't need these happy endings..." - Funeral For A Friend, "Drive"

Anyhow, I've probably rambled on long enough for all six of you who read this weird little thing we have going on. Make of it what you will.