Bush Backs Off Campaign Pledge on Pollution.

is anyone suprised by this?

zounds! i didn't mean to start anything with that last post. i thought Jonno's post was funny.

i'm only blogging this NY Times article on television and teens because it mentions Buffy a few times, and because i think i know some people who'll dispute Jonno's contention that only 12 to 17 year-old-girls and gay men watch regularly.
[channel surfing by Jonno]

God is missing, or in exile. demons entered this world through abandoned refridgerators and Jeep Cherokees with black windows. Satan wears Tommy Hilfiger and smokes Newports, while fearing Bloody Mary, mother of Jesus, who hunts and kills children. the Blue Lady of the ocean can protect the children though, if they know her secret name.

elaborately constructed tales told by homeless children in Miami.

this cracked me up.
[superhero envy by Jean]

my goal in life is to become a billionaire philanthropist by the time i'm thirty.

unfortunately, at the age of 26, i am nowhere close to being either wealthy or philanthropic. i'm not too worried about the latter; the former i blame on The System*, and on the millions of people who still resist forming a cult around me and tithing generously.

* from what i understand, it's similiar to The Matrix, but with less ninja kicking and very few cool fx.

the virtual vibrator

today's a slow newsday.

there's a similiar thing happening in my roommate's room, some kind of odor seeping out. i can't really identify it, save to say that it's uniquely him and that it makes me wonder if he's a bedwetter, or into solo WS.

anti-procrastination efforts are coming along well. i'm shaven (yippee! i don't look like i'm 26 anymore!), i half cleaned as i said i would (dustbunnies are gone. chrome isn't shiny yet), and i read 150 pages of my book last night (it may be light fare compared to what others read, but the important thing is that i'm reading an actual hold-it-in-my-hands book).

is there anyone who thinks i may have been a little optimistic in my goal to learn español by week's end? eh, gotta have one failure.

i have decided to work on loosening the hold procrastination has on me. i put too much off. i now have 31 books queued for reading. at my current pace, i will finish the 383 pager i'm now working on sometime around Chriskwanzukkah time. i have dustbunnies living in my bathroom that are the size of house cats. my car has needed an oil change since August.

to make myself a more productive person, i am setting some goals for myself for this week:

• finish my current read by Thursday evening (which means by Wednesday evening because i have plans Thursday after work).
• oil change on car (half credit for having a mechanic do it)(yes, i can do my own oil changes).
• propose a budget for myself.
• promptly ignore budget by buying new shoes this week, a CD or two, and maybe some new clothes.
• haircut. haircut. need haircut.
• say 'so long!' to goatee growth and return to clean-shavenality. tonight.
• clean up all the little hairs that fall from the pre-shave trim of my goatee. tonight. (if i don't put it on the list, i won't do it).
• clean bathroom. reveal to world that antique finish fixtures in bathroom are actually supposed to be shiny chrome.
• learn Spanish (other than what i hear on Taco Bell commercials, or come ons).

i think that should work for now. i don't want to overextend myself and give up totally in frustration. we'll see how long it take me to return to my procrastinating, underachieving ways.

i love advertisements.

Obsession for Men

Buffy Fans Lobby For Emmy.

they're raising money for a full page ad in Variety. if you'd like, you can send large amounts of cash to me, and i'll *ahem* see that it gets to where it'll do the most good for me.

Bush Visits Florida for the First Time As President.

big deal. this is akin to "Bush Visits Whitehouse Loo for the First Time As President." i may have cared about it if Florida was in the midst of a civil war, or preparing to invade Mississippi.

SNORING-IS IT AFFECTING YOUR LIFE?

Tired of waking up at all hours?
Tired of not getting a good nights sleep?
Tired of waking up every morning to hear how
you snored the night before?
Tired of sleeping in separate rooms?
Just TIRED of being TIRED?

It is not your fault, there is a solution!

CALL TOLL FREE (888) 806-0517 NOW

i love getting email like this.

heh. Google Search: "Pleistocene era" finds me. i'll bet the budding paleoarchaeologist who came across "what's a tolkhan?" was a little suprised at what i say occurred twelve thousand years ago.

last night, i had one of the least interesting dates i've ever had. i went out again with Buffy Hating Typhood Mary, and he wanted to go bowling with his co-workers.

there were two problems with that:

• it was our third date and it was the third time we went with his co-workers.
• i have no interest in bowling.

i explained to him why i don't bowl (there's an actual physiological reason), but he wanted to go, so i gave in.

his co-workers aren't bad people. despite my anti-social leanings, i enjoy their company. i'm just not accustomed to dating an entire group of people, which is what it feels like. bowling, though, is second only to golf in Sports That Are Incredibly Boring To Watch. fortunately, there was a bar within the building, so i kept myself occupied by getting IDed by the bartender every half hour and watching the UH/TU basketball game on one of the moniters scattered about the place.

let me say it again. i watched a basketball game. only in the most desperate boredom would i watch a sporting event (save for collegiate wrestling, but that involves sweaty guys in spandex rolling around on the floor together).

BHTM and his co-workers seemed to enjoy themselves. i started to enjoy myself after the seventh beer. soon after, the night ended, and i was driven home. it's terrible that the most enjoyable thing about the date was going to bed alone.

i just received my copy of the department productivity report for last month. according to the report, all total, i only worked 55.7% of the time. now, that can be adjusted some for the 4 days i was out sick, so it's actually a little better than that. not a lot though.

the problem isn't that i spend too much time goofing off (though i do). the problem is my speed. it's been stepped on so many times that it's not.... oops. wrong speed.

anyway, the problem is that i'm able to finish my work so quickly that i'm left with nothing to do for great portions of the day. i could push my goofing off into those unoccupied times, but the whole point of goofing off is to be doing it while you're supposed to be doing something else. if i did it when i don't have any work, then it wouldn't really be goofing off, would it? so what's a guy to do?

last week, Ritalin Junkie told the tale of a high school kid who was being investigated by his school's staff for writing several Joker quotes from The Killing Joke (a graphic novel, for the Batman impaired) on one of his notebooks. today, the kid updated RJ on events:

"...they decided not to suspend me on the condition that everything I write I have to turn into them for examination, and I have to report what books I'm reading to them."

i realize that minors are often denied things we adults claim rights to, like privacy, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and representation by legal council, especially in this current atmosphere of oh-my-god-kids-are-the-deadliest-fucking-things-in-the-nation, but don't you think people are taking this a little too far?

something like this makes me lean toward the 'hate' side of my love/hate relationship with politics.

oh, yippee. this happened down the street from my house. schools, car washes, coleslaw wrestling matches... are there no safe places left?

Man shot dead after hammer attack.

"...fractured skull, a lacerated liver, a broken rib, internal hemorrhaging..."

nah, he didn't know he was killing her. he was just playing.

they don't kick in your door and force your obedience at gunpoint anymore. now, they find ways to scare you into inviting them in and handing control to them.

and where do two 14 year old boys get $1500 worth of heroin? no, seriously, i want to know. i'm having a party this weekend.

more tragedy. what's this country coming to?

Parachute Accident Mars Coleslaw Wrestling

i found it!

Animaniacs Variety pack!
and it has The Monkey Song!

Buffy can't look good without the help of the Behind the Camera Scoobies.
[this turn on the catwalk by Lots of Co., inspired by the plunging necklines and fun, frisky use of color by Pop Culture Junk Mail.]

Police are searching for a 40- year-old man who is charged with one felony count of failing to appear in court to face a count of being a fugitive from justice.

i probably shouldn't laugh at that but i think it's funny.

eunuch's beauty contest.

hmm. he pulled the trigger to see if the safety was on.

maybe ninja training is the answer after all. get the guns out of the military (and into the hands of school children, apparently).
[second link stealthily captured from Lots of Co.]

forget teaching martial arts to marines. i say they should create a whole new military branch of Ninjas.... no, Ninjas...uh...Ninjas.... Ninjas?

my sister is so lucky. from her front yard, she can see shuttle launches. she always has to call afterwards and tell me about it.

I can Dance if I want to!

y'know what Celebrity Death Match i'd like to see? Kristy Swanson vs. Sarah Michelle Gellar.

if you want to send spam to me, that's fine. i'll delete it without reading it, so you'd be wasting your time, and it's only a mild inconvenience to me since i enjoy organizing my mailboxes.

but if you want to fool me into reading it by entering something legitimate sounding in the subject line (like "I think we may have gone to high school together"), try also to send it from a legitimate e-mail address. i delete all messages from 'hotsluttybitches@msn.com' without reading them.

cthulhu is kick ass cool in its own right, but a Scooby Doo Cthulhu kicks the ass of kick ass cool. though i don't think Scooby and co. would survive the world of cthulhu.

i can deal with the Daphne and Velma, i'm undecided about the Shaggy, but i'm sure i don't like the Freddy. where's his little scarf-kerchief thing?

i think i'd have a hard time taking myself seriously if i was member of ELF. i think other people would have a hard time taking me seriously.

me: i'm a member of ELF.

you: *snicker* So you believe in fairies and stuff? You think you might be one?

me: uh, no. we set fires, and break windows, and spike trees and stuff like that.

you: you're not a very nice fairy, are you?

yippee for me. i received my first email-attachment virus ever. today's such a special day.

Even the batmobile looks like the average vehicle of a homosexual.

heh. i wish my car looked like the Batmobile.
[secret identity revealed by UltraSparky]

why do i have an old Sonny and Cher song running through my head?

those wacky S**di Ar*bian guys... coming to my blog looking for "mom breast pics". i don't think so.

i should watch/read the news more often. i didn't know anything about a blizzard in the northeast. i'm days behind the rest of the world.

as a companion piece to the "Supreme Court Stuff" post, i'd like to point you to The Supreme Court's Greatest Hits.

Supreme Court Stuff
for your enjoyment

The Supreme Court v. Balance of Powers (reg. req.) someone just needs to spank them.

will they being wearing their hoods while picking up litter?

the Secretary of State has too much power, methinks.

score one for the EPA.

and lastly, On this day in Supreme Court history: the decision for Dred Scott v. Sanford was handed down in 1857.

by the by, take a look over at the right side and welcome Grazing Reality to The List (sounds important when it's capitalized, doesn't it?). i meant to do this last Friday evening, but with the DSL problems at home, i couldn't. once the DSL was up, i remembered her name, couldn't remember the name of her blog to find it again. stupid terrence dummy boy.

problem is, i didn't know where i should add her. she's only the 2nd female on The List, and only the 2nd straight person, so i couldn't add her to the bottom of The List. i like to catagorize. like things must be together, so Grazing Reality needed to be up there with Ritalin Junkie. but, RJ is set apart for a reason, so i couldn't do that. i didn't want to create a new grouping (if a blog's on The List, there's a reason for it. no need to subdivide, save for RJ, but that's different), so i just threw her in at the top of the guys, yet close enough to RJ to maintain the grouping of like things.

none of you care about this, i know. just go by and say hi.

i'm glad i wasn't the only one who thought Dawn's art teacher looked a tad too much like Joyce. i thought it was some sort of ghostly-motherly-with-straight-flat-hair Joyce watching over her daughters. i had to see the ep a second time to realize that it wasn't her.

---------

yes, i know this is a week late. i haven't been able to talk about it until now. so nyeh.

oh. so that's what happened to The Tick.

egad. Neelix may be leaving Voyager before the finale. if someone is going to leave/die/evolve-into-a-higher-life-form-à-la-Wesley-Sisko-and-Kes, i was hoping it'd be Chakotay. he's been getting on my head lately.

a writer's strike is really going to suck.

heh. Women Probably Don't Have Souls

i went out tonight and spent the evening dancing. all in all, good fun. i managed to see a Dean look alike (or, what i think Dean looks like, gathered from the pics he posts of himself, mainly this recent pic). he was wrapping himself around a pole at a local queer discotheque, which, while quite enjoyable to see at first, began to bore me when he stopped taking clothing off. bastard.

vicarious blogster thrills.

afterward, i came home to find that (hooray!) the DSL problems i've been experiencing since yesterday afternoon were corrected, and i actually can get online tonight. not that i have much reason to. it's just nice to check my email before bed. which i should do now instead of reading blogs.

ok, i'm gone.

my last name, i've been told, means 'Son of John' in some archaic Flemish way. within the last six generations, i'm not directly descended from a John. therefore, my surname is a misnomer, much as the surnames of many Smiths, Millers, Bakers, and Popes are (i'm certain that everyone named Pope isn't actually a pontif, and i do know a least one Smith who isn't into metalworking). and what about people with names like North, Fry, Tiger, or Pie?

surnames are great for geneological reasons, but wouldn't you rather be known by something more descriptive of who you are? maybe an obvious physical characteristic, like Erik the Red? something more descriptive of your personality, like Ivan the Terrible? a name that commemorates something you've achieved, like William the Conqueror? or maybe one that fools enough people that you're canonized like Edward the Confessor? what makes those guys so great that they get a cool 'the descriptor' name, and i have to settle for a patronymic?

i'm jealous.

so then, what would my descriptive name be? right now, mine would be "Terrence the Pestilent", until i'm fully over this sickness thing i have, then it'd revert back to "Terrence the Pernicious". or "Terrence the Persnickety" (it's appropriate, and a fun word to say), but i'd probably end up with something like "Terrence the Klutz".

what would yours be?

get your weekly dose of Survivor Haiku.

it really sucks when you run out of milk before you run out of bagel. it kind of ruins the bagel for you.

the woman who hired me just came around and handed out these little triangle shaped highlighter pen things that have a different color at each apex. truly, it is nifty.

at Jean's suggestion, i'm adding some "Willow and Tara: witches and lesbians! (aren't they all?)", "Alyson Hannigan and Amber Benson: on screen kiss!", and finally, "Who'd win in a fight: Willow or Alyson Hannigan?".

more keywords = more disappointed searchers

visitors have found tolkhan by searching for "Saudi Girls" and "wet t-shirts." i assure you that i have neither here.

i also don't have any photos or streaming video of nude or naked hot horny sexy slutty barely legal teen girls riding bicylces, swimming, playing volleyball, unneccessarily jiggling and bouncing their breasts or lounging around sipping wine and dribbling it down their bras, nor do i have photos of celebrities Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lucy Liu and Chyna mud wrestling in the buff. i do admit that i do have a photo of Xena and Gabriel, but it's not on this website and it's not a "Xena and Gabriel naked!" or "Xena and Gabriel in hot lesbian action!" (eww. it gave me the willies just typing that) image.

let's see how many searches find me now.

who's gonna join me in a chat with The Mole?

you know, i caught bits and pieces of the show at my mom's birthday party, the only time i'd watched any of the series, and i decided that the best thing about the show was Anderson Cooper. everything else annoyed me.

i'm just not a fan of Reality TV Game Shows.

my roommate forced me to listen to some remixes by one of his friends (speaking of which, i would one day like to see one of these "friends". i don't think they actually exist). anyway, the two remixes were "My Heart Will Go On" (uh... like i needed to hear another of those) and the theme to CHiPs.

afterwards, he asked me what i thought. what was i supposed to say? it's Celine Dion and a bad '70s tv theme laid over a 'dance beat'. "Cool" seemed to be the simplest non-commental comment i could make. he accepted it (and took it as a cue to play some more music for me, but i was able to sneak out while his back was turned). i locked myself in my room the rest of the night. no more Celine.

"The building swayed, and I yelled, `Earthquake!' and jumped under a doorway," said Jon Coney of Gov. John Kitzhaber's office.

did he yell out 'earthquake!' in case no one else knew what it was?

today just hasn't been much of a posting day. i think i have the Last Day of the Month Apathies (similiar to the blues, only with less feeling). everyone gets those, right?

i'm managed to complete twice as much work today as i normally do, yet still found time for a two hour nap before lunch. normally, that would make today a good day, but it hasn't.

i think it's because of my family. i spent a few hours with a large portion of them for my mom's, great-grandmother's, and cousin's birthdays party last night. i love my family, but it can be so maddening and depressing when i actually have to interact much with them.

i'd give some details, but the Apathy just booted me upside the head again. i think i'll return to my work.

if my office is on the first floor of a 15 story building, should i be more concerned about a leak from the ceiling above my cubicle?

Buffy: not going to talk about it. still puts me into a weep-like state.

Angel: didn't see it all. i did see Lindsey run over Angel, and Angel smashing his plasto-prosthetic hand. maybe now he'll get that hook that Jean's always wanted him to have.

they do look something like a boy band, don't they?

went to hospital last night. doc says i have a throat infection of some type (though not strep, the only thing he ruled out). additionally, i'm dehydrated. because i went in so late, i had to go through the ER where i waited for four hours. i was, of course, a lower priority than the trauma patients (i'll never understand how these hospitals think).

for now, i'm off to get my meds and go back to bed.

any Animaniacs related anything does the same thing to me.

what's an "industrial-arts high school teacher"? is that the new title for shop teachers? kinda like that year i worked for Hell-Mart as a CMCCS (Consumer Merchandise Conveyor Convergence Specialist), colloquially know as a Cart Gatherer, Stockboy/Stockman, or Cart Jockey?

ok, so, like, you point your phaser at the enemy, shoot him, and he runs away.

beyond the obvious question of where's the fun in that, to use it, must you be face-to-face with or within line-of-sight of your enemy? that'd kind of limit its effectiveness to invasions or defense of cities, wouldn't it?

also, why would you want your enemy to run away like that? it leaves them to fight again sometime when the Trekkies aren't around, or sometime after they developed some other Treknoir-ish technology to defend against it.

i don't see the Marine phasers being a practical weapon of war, unless you can set them for frag, but i'd like to have one for personal use.
[link beamed in from Lots of Co.]

wow. do a search on Yahoo! GeoCities for s_xygirls and you find my blog. i suppose the person in S__di Ar_bia must have been very disappointed by what he found here 'cause we don't do much talking about s_xy w_men.

speaking of S__di Ar_bia, i seem to be gaining popularity with them. i had four unique hits from there this weekend and two repeats. it's probably more likely that tolkhan means something in Ar_bic like "I will send you large sums of cash for no reason!" or maybe someone's telling all his friends "You gotta see the crap this dumbass writes".

eh, either way. i'm still going to write crap, i'm not sending anyone large sums of cash, and we still won't be talking about s_xy g_rls.

ok, so it looks like something from some cheesey Nintendo or Sega game. i still don't understand the whole "All your base are belong to us" phenomenon.

oh yeah, i forgot to mention that i figured out where i contracted malaria (or whatever it is i'm recovering from now). remember that guy i went out with a little over a week ago? we'll, i ran into him Saturday. it seems that he too has been quite ill, with symptoms identical to mine, and he came down with it a full two days before i did. bah! this little Buffy-hating weenie infected me with his illness. bastard.

as i wished him a speedy recovery and turned to leave, he says "i'd still like to take you out again sometime. what are you doing Thursday?"

doh! i'd forgotten that he wanted a second date.

i try to come up with something quickly, but i'm a terrible lier (damn me for preferring honesty!), and i think i could just be brutally honest and say i could never date a Buffy-hating Typhoid Mary, but i have a reputation as a nice guy (though no one who reads this blog would know it), so i have to be gentle, but really, my reputation says i'm a flake, so maybe i could spout off something about a second date being inauspicious and waiting for the proper alignment in the heavens, but like i said i'm a terrible lier, though he probably wouldn't know enough to call me on it, but still i'd rather not do that, and i'd rathernothavetohurthisfeelingsbutwhatelsecanidosoisay "Give me a call later this week."

sometimes i wish i was more of bastard than i actually am.

i did not mean to imply in that last post that i run a meth lab. i do not now nor i have i ever been involved in the production of a controlled substance. i assure you, if i was involved in such an endeavor, i would not be working at such a boring day job, nor would i be driving the Weeniemobile, nor would i be living with a roommate who so thoroughly annoys the hell out me, and i'm quite certain that i would own a lot more pokemon stuff than i actually do.

today is a "quite" day for me. i'm using that word quite often.

for anyone who's ever wondered, honey-lemon TheraFlu tastes nothing like honey or lemon. it's just all around a nasty flavor. i'd rather suck on an aspirin.

last night, i had the lemon flavor nightime formula of TheraFlu. it was only the second time i'd used this product, so i just assumed that 'nighttime' meant that it helps you sleep. after gulping the not-quite-as-nasty-as-honey-lemon drink down, i read the active ingredients on the package. one of them is pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. as any good (i.e. educated) asthmatic would, i recognized it as a bronchodilator. and as anyone running a meth lab can tell you, it keeps you awake.

a nighttime formula that keeps you awake. and i'd just chugged it.

sometime around 2:30 this morning, tired of lying in bed and sweating (something else a bronchodilator does), i got up and watched Cleo use the tarot to help those in need (such a wonderful, selfless woman).

at 3:30, i went back to bed and finally fell asleep. i promptly began dreaming of the house my grandparents moved out of when i was 7, giant spiders, ancient Mesopotamian curses and Mayan temples (complete with nearly unsolvable puzzles, modern elevators, and floorshows on the main level. i swear, i didn't take anything other than the TheraFlu).

happy me still made it to work at 7:00 (quite a feat considering that i don't have to be here until 9:00). i may be a little grouchy today, but i doubt anyone will notice the difference.

i should get to work. missing four days of an already short month can't be good for my productivity numbers.

i woke up this morning sounding like Barry White.

my throat is raspy, my chest is on fire, and i'm coughing up more phlegm than the Marlboro Man.

in an effort to alleviate my symptoms, i went shopping. i came home with a couple of spiffy new shirts, and a couple of movies (Dune and the pilot episode of Farscape).

i've decided to spend the remainder of the day in bed watching movies (those i bought and whatever else comes on one of my two dozen movie channels). so far, i've seen Boycott and Soul of the Game.

all in all, not a bad way to spend the day when you don't feel like doing anything else.

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

there is a deli in the hotel that adjoins the building i work in. i stopped by there quickly to grab something for lunch, but ended up spending most of my lunch break there.

the deli was full of firefighters, and not just any firefighters, but firemen. lots of them. in their white and navy department t-shirts. with muscles. and muscles. and more muscles. i don't think i've ever before taken so long to eat a sandwich.

Jean and i were talking a little about crocodiles and alligators (there may be a croc attack on Survivor next week, so i'll have to watch an episode). crocodilians are cool, so here's a link to a good Croc and 'gator page, with descriptions and photos.

there's a population of crocodiles "which occupies the brackish water cooling canals at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant in Florida". yea for irradiated crocs.

i haven't seen too much Grammy talk. did no one watch? i saw part of the show while over at mike's. we'd listen to them read the nominees, then we'd both say "who?" after an hour of "whos?" we stopped watching. the show sucked anyway.

i finally watched this week's Buffy and Angel. Buffy wasn't all that great, though it did have some good moments, and one sad one that got me all weepy (i love you, mommy!).

Angel was better. i liked it bunches. it had action, it had drama, it had sex, and it had a dead guy working in the elevator. i think Cordy and gang went too easy on the wench that didn't pay them for getting rid of the third eye on the back of her daughter's head. i'm not saying they should have kicked her ass or anything. something more along the lines of "you know, we broke the charm to get rid of the eye. what makes you think we can't put it back?"

and what's with Angel? he's spent a few centuries as a vampire and he's just now figuring out that people suck? tsk.

that's all the Buffy/Angel comments this week.

why is the plural form viruses and not viri? this is the question that keep me up at night.

wtf? my boss just came by to tell me to "take it easy today. you've been working hard all week." me? working hard? puh-leez.

monday was a holiday. i didn't work. the three middle days these week have all seen me fighting insomnia and trying to stay awake here at work. all total, i've read fewer lines this week than i usually read during a single day.

i've been taking naps, for pete's sake. how much easier could i possibly take it? catatonia?

as much as i would like to attribute my headache to the bucketfuls of wine i must have imbibed last night, i'm quite certain that a hangover does not usually include a sore throat and swollen lymph nodes. boo to the virus and/or bacterium causing this. four times this winter wasn't enough?

something i can blame on the wine is the now-deleted two posts from early this morning. wrong kind of blog for that. bad terrence.

heh

"Does not support" is not the same thing as "refutes". Hooray for Kansas

why is everyone talking about moving the earth farther away from the sun? it's not like we are going to be here in 5 billion years anyway.

after telling me on Tuesday that it should only take 5 hours to repair my car, the Service Guy said yesterday evening that they needed a third day (a mechanic had locked the keys in the car and couldn't get in to drive it into the work bay). displeased, i told him that i needed my car. i haven't been able to drive it for five days. the Service Guy promised to take care of it, then rented a truck for me for a day. a Ford F150. a big truck. a butch truck.

i spent all evening driving around. a truck like that gives you command on the streets. all the little coups and sports cars scatter to get out of your path. all of the little old ladies turn nervously into parking lots. teenagers out cruising the strip worship you. pedestrians flee the sidewalks. stray animals climb trees or run back to the families they abandoned years before. it's a good feeling. one that ends at 5:00pm today. then, it's back to my little Weeniemobile.

this is cool, if you've ever wondered what a sonic boom looks like.

[wave compression by Metafilter]

after my fourth nap today, i think the drowsiness is finally gone.

heh. i stumped the Guess the Evil Dictator/Sit-Com Character database.

would someone be kind enough to explain the "All your base are belong to us" thing to me?

my mother, my sister and my nephew stopped by last night, unexpectedly. my sister had never seen where i live, and normally, i don't have many guests (i don't like to inflict my roommate on anyone), and when i do, it's almost always someone like me (no, not a rude, insular bastard. a gay guy. sheesh), so usually, i don't bother to be discrete about where i keep my...personal belongings. that proved to be rather embarrassing to my semi-prudish sister when, as i show my sister around and we enter my bedroom, my three year old nephew runs straight over and says "What's that?" while pointing at the bottle of Wet on my nightstand.

after that, my sister wouldn't leave the living room. i doubt that she ever drops by again without calling first.

i didn't get to see all of Buffy tonight. i did see where Giles was really rude to Spike. i used to like Giles. now i hope Glory does something terrible him. poor Spike.

but i won't get to see the rest of it until tomorrow night. tell me, though... is it worth all the excitement i've built up for it?

X-title fans can get the low down on the book/team shake up here.

the new line up for X-Force now includes a mutant named U-Go Girl. how the mighty Marvel has fallen.

i just got the call. my order for War In Concordia: the Shattered Dream is in. today is one big changelingey day!

there's something enormously satisfying about seeing an executive on his hands and knees picking up what looks like half a ream because the printer decided today would be a good day to spit paper on to the floor.

this is funny: MenWhoLookLikeKennyRogers.com

you can even get tips on "How to Look Like Kenny." under Beard Tips, it says "keep beard trimmed neater than Richard Simmon' tank top drawer." what the hell does that mean exactly?

[impersonation by Web-Goddess]

all the proof you'll ever need that Changelings are real. ok, maybe not all the proof, but the article mentions the game to which i'm so attached.

[infusion of Glamour and Banality brought to you by Lots of Co.]

anyone know how to tell when ramen noodles have gone bad?

egad. i have much to do today, but i didn't get out of bed until noon.

my need for a new mechanic escalated this weekend when my car decided to overheat suddenly at 3:30 in the morning on a lonely stretch of highway. in my know-nothing-about-cars panic, i called the only person i could think of who could help me: mikey. he wasn't home. if not for the concern of Trooper Frizzel, i'm sure i would have ended up the plaything of some psychotic truck driver, or the victim of a sweet and friendly yet cannibalistic elderly couple.

the next morning, i called my mommie. she came over, took a look at my car, and diagnosed the problem (a missing freeze plug. she then had to explain to me what a freeze plug is).

i thought that maybe i should learn a little about cars, but decided that's what God made boyfriends for. but, because i doubt my ability to find a boyfriend to fix my car by the end of the day, i have to go out and find someone who can do the repairs and have them done by wednesday.

i have only the slightest idea of how to go about it. i'm going to start popping into shops and talking to big butch guys in uniform covered in transmission fluid and engine grease and try to remember that, in this case, i'm looking for someone to fix my car, not a date.

i went out with a guy last that (both) didn't know i existed until 4 months ago, and has been attracted to me for years. i ignored such contradictory statements because of the number of margaritas he'd consumed throughout the night.

other than that, all was going well. we actually had some things in common, and knew some of the same people. conversation was pleasant, until we turned to movies and such.

he really likes Kristy Swanson. being who i am, i have no idea who he's talking about, so he lists some of the roles she'd played, including the original Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (film version). hearing this, i perk up a bit, he notices that i now know who he's talking about, and he decides to continue talking about Buffy.

"The movie was all right, but it's better than the show. I hate the show."

i guess he didn't notice the dumbfounded stare, because he kept talking, even extending his pronouncement of 'stupid' to Angel.

i disagreed with him. "Buffy and Angel aren't stupid," says i. "they're just not something everyone gets into."

but he argues that they are stupid, and can't believe anyone watches.

shortly thereafter, i became 'very sleepy', and sent him on his way, with a vague and mechanical "we'll have to do this again sometime." of course, we won't be doing it again.