The registration for the Penny-Arcade Expo has gone up, and I’m in. Last year I had a great time, and I believe Ms. Kerry G is also in. I don’t know who else might want to come, but at least some of us are going to brave the madness.

After 69 years, he finally lost a saving throw versus death (Ok, that joke has been told about 1000 times by now). My D&D years were roughly 1981 to 1984. Anyone other former or current gamers here?

Today I buried my grandmother. She died April 28th. It was a hard and long day and I couldn’t get through it with out the support of my family and friends. Dupree suggested I talk about why my grandma was so special since he had never met her. Here it goes. I think I’m going to make a list since that is the easiest way.

1.Grandma would do anything she could for anyone she knew.

2.She was a wonderful cook, everyone usually got a special meal for their birthday of their favorite foods

3.She would call weekly just to check up on me and see how I was doing

4.When I was little we would play Uno and still played even when I was older.

5. Family was very important to her. She talked to her sisters in Mississippi every day and she always kept in touch with people.

6.She would still ask about how people were doing that I went to high school with and whom she had met only once.

7.She’s probably the only person on earth that I knew truly liked everyone. She never said a bad thing about anyone.

8.I loved to hear my grandma sing. She would sing in church all the time. On our birthday’s she would call and sing to us.

9.She loved the food network. She was always telling me the newest shows and having mom download some recipe she saw on Paula Deene’s show.

10.She was very supportive no matter what.

There are tons more reasons why grandma was so special to me. I thought I would stop at 10 as to not go on and on.

I will miss her very much!

(cross-posted at my blog)

The most thoroughly and relentlessly Damned, banned, excluded, condemned, forbidden, ostracized, ignored, suppressed, repressed, robbed, brutalized and defamed of all Damned Things is the individual human being. The social engineers, statisticians, psychologists, sociologists, market researchers, landlords, bureaucrats, captains of industry, bankers, governors, commissars, kings and presidents are perpetually forcing this Damned Thing into carefully prepared blueprints and perpetually irritated that the Damned Thing will not fit into the slot assigned to it. The theologians call it a sinner and try to reform it. The governor calls it a criminal and tries to punish it. The psychotherapist calls it a neurotic and tries to cure it. Still, the Damned Thing will not fit into their slots.

—Never Whistle While You’re Pissing, by Hagbard Celine

Great art is cathartic. Have you ever stumbled across a book, album, movie, poem, painting, etc., that changed your life permanently? That scrambled your mental circuits, pulled all the wires out of the cerebral switchboard and plugged them into different sockets? That changed the very way you perceive the universe around you - forever?

For most people, such profound, life-changing works of art seem to revolve around the concept of belief - ie, they read or see or hear something that introduces them to a belief system of which they had hitherto been entirely or partially ignorant, and suggests an explanation or reason for their existence that makes sense to them. This work of art - whether it’s a Beethoven symphony, On the Road, a Picasso painting, the songs of Dylan or Lennon, the Bible, or It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back - imbues their life with a sense of purpose. In short, it makes them a Believer.

For me, it was the exact opposite. The work of art that changed my life forever caused me to doubt everything.

One day, I was rooting through a box of old books in my mother’s house, looking for something interesting to read, and happened upon a novel (actually, three novels in one cover) called The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It had been written by two guys named Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea, whom I had never heard of before. The jacket and blurbs seemed to suggest that it was your garden variety conspiracy novel. I love a good conspiracy as much as anyone, so I dove in.

I quickly became lost, however. The plot seemed to be going in one direction, only to suddenly veer off in another, often within a few pages (and sometimes within the same page, or even the same paragraph.) Narrative point of view switched, seemingly randomly, between a bewilderingly large number of characters, and often between first and third person. Every time it appeared that the authors were building towards a coherent explanation of who or what was really behind all the myriad plots within plots within plots taking place, they would turn around and deftly destroy their own theory. I was confused as hell, and more than a little annoyed. “If they want me to believe any of this crap,” I thought, “why are they doing this?” Nevertheless, the character dialogue and the events taking place were interesting and often quite funny, so I stuck with it through all 800 pages, resolving to start over as soon as I finished, to see if it made any more sense the second time around.

And then, on the second reading, it clicked. I figured out what they were doing, and it blew my mind.

(more…)

I got my wisdom teeth out today, all four impacted beauties. I do not expect it to go nearly as well as Zandra’s and this is because I fully expect to have at least one dry socket. And despite my vicious come-downs from the hydrocodone, I have really tried to keep a sense of humor about this. In fact, when I was writing the check for the procedure, in the “for” section of the check (you know, the memo section?) I wrote: the exact price of human agony. I also thought of a funny exchange I really wanted to have with my dentist, but I got too groggy to remember to have it. It was going to go like this:

Doctor: Well, Melissa, do you have any questions?

Me: Yes, a few. First of all, how long until I can eat solid foods?

Doctor: About a week.

Me: Okay, and how long until I can workout?

Doctor: Also about a week.

Me: Brush normally?
Doctor: A few days.
Me: Chew gum?

Doctor: A few weeks.

Me: Fellate?

Steve Irwin: we loved your crazy antics–the way you grabbed crocs by their tails, they way you jumped enthusiastically into muddy rivers, the way you hammed for the camera. You’ll be missed you big crazy Aussie.

Steve Irwin, 1962-2006

Gus, you have been, and will continue to be, missed. Adios amigo.

Excerpt from The Stranger (Dec 4 - Dec 10, 2003)

I stole this scan from Nate who has a nice blog entry.

The Fumes ( MySpace / eMusic )

I gotta say, this man was one of the funniest men ever.  Who didn’t love The Apple Dumpling Gang, I mean, come on.  Bye Mr. Furley.