David Letterman Grills Paris Hillton Video - Awkward!

This whole video is the reason that I'm so much a bigger fan of David Letterman than Jay Leno. But this isn't about that.

It's about Paris Hilton being a dumb twit. I love it. Actually, my palms are sweating because this is so awkward. I Effing love that DL is getting all Dan Rather or whatever on her.

Basically, what he did was bring her on to talk about her new perfume and then he just talks about her going to prison for about six minutes. I absolutely couldn't kep a straight face.

I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself

I don't know what to do. This isn't a situation, or a conundrum, a vexing problem I've met with.

It's more of a philosophical issue. I just don't know what to do anymore. On the weekends, I get so hyped-up that I have a little extra time to do anything that I want...that I can't figure out what it is that I want to do. I know of some things I should be doing, but nothing which I really, truly want to do.

Well, let me correct that. There are plenty of things that I can think of that I want to do. I want to watch The Transformers Movie. I want to lie around and read. I want to just veg out and watch television. I want to work on the newest novel I'm writing. And on and on and on.

I don't know what it is that is so unsatisfying about being indecisive. If you have any suggestions on how I might rectify this strange bout of whatever it is I'm going through, please be my guest. Sorry if I've bummed you out.

What the F&$K is Halo 3? And Who is Master Chief?

With all of the hoopla surrounding the $170 million in the first day behemoth that is the Halo 3 release, let me be the first to remind you that there are other games out there in the world.

I know you don't believe me, but it's the truth. Just look around, man! This year has been an exciting one for gamers, so I shouldn't have to tell you that...IT ISN'T OVER!



That's right. There are still SO many games to look forward to, you probably shouldn't blow out your 'O-Ring' on you-know-what-game.

After all, Super Mario Galaxy is gonna rock. A new Contra! Street Fighter. Call of Duty 4. The list goes on and on. Nothing against Halo 3 - it deserves the props it gets - but there are plenty of things to be excited about.

So, if you're not into Halo or just don't get why it's so popular, don't be down, little ones. Just watch the video I've bestowed upon you.

Thursdays Are For Couch Potatoes

I found out today that I will not be taking on work as a cat burglar, locksmith, or part-time criminal. It's a long story. Suffice it to say that I really had to use the bathroom.

Just kidding. The file cabinet I needed to get into was locked, and I decided to look up how to pick locks to see if I could do it.

What kind of nerd looks up that nonsense on WikiHow? This guy right here, I guess. Luckily, LP is a lot smarter than I am, and she found the keys before I could ruin the lock or the tools I was using.

Back on topic. Sorry. Today is the day I've been waiting on for about, uh, three to four months. All of my precious Thursday television is back! Wait. No hell it is not. WTF? 30 Rock isn't premiering - is that spelled right? It looks weird - until October 4th. And at 8:30? What the hell is going on with comfort level?

Oh, well. I guess I should be glad that it's coming back at all. The Alec Baldwin daughter bitch-slap and mediocre ratings notwithstanding, I still love 30 Rock. It's like a mischievous relative at whom you just can't stay mad.

Speaking of Thursday night television, LP actually got asked if she had ever heard of The Office - I won't mention names - but I think that's funny. What's even funnier is that the person also said that the ratings will get better now that people like her know about it, because she and her 'sisters' will watch it.

Priceless. Wait. Sorry. I think that joke should go away too. Priceless. How lame. I apologize. I give myself two demerits.

A Nursery Crime

I read a lot - at least a book a week - but I try not to force my reading habits on you. However, in this case, I think I'll have to break my unwritten, unspoken rule.

I am currently reading a book about the murder investigation of the lascivious, alcoholic, womanizing, depressed, dead-broke Humpty Dumpty (no pun intended). PI Jack Spratt is an aging cop, fresh off a missed conviction of the three little pigs on a murder charge - apparently, boiling th Wolf was a bad idea when he came down the chimney. The Gingerbreadman is a serial killer. It's basically a noir version of Shrek, with all the characters you could shake a rhyme at.

I'm about a third of the way through the book, and even though I think that part of it is a little too formulaic, the characters are real enough and interesting, so I'll recommend it to anybody who's a fan of crime fiction.

Clawing to Stand Still

Time just goes by so fast. I want things to slow down a little bit, so I can enjoy life more...on the weekends. And, while weekends fly by, the actual work week seems to drag on for years. I wonder why that is. Hmm. It's almost three times as big - a six to one ration, if you work on Saturday - and that's a shame. So I propose that the weekend now start on Friday. Everybody with me? Okay, here's the plan: Just don't show up on Friday. I've already called and let all of the bosses know. This has got to be a change by the People.

Just kidding. But I'm twenty-five, man. If I can't stop and ponder life every once in awhile, I'll be forty before I know it.

And that's scary, forty being the new twenty or not.

BUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM-BA-DUM - Go BAMA!

Just kidding. I just felt that I had to rub Bama's node in the piddle a little bit, after what Wallace Gilberry had to say this past week.

I don't know anything about him. But after the game Saturday, I can tell you anything you want to know -- his birthday, his phone number, his home address. I'm serious, because I will know.

I've got to know where to send the flowers.

Flowers, indeed. The only thing that would have made last night's victory even better would be a Wallace Gilberry injury. Or if Matt Stafford could have made him look stupid. A crazy juke during one of his scrambles or something like that.

Wallace Gilberry is a moron. Terrell Owens Lite. And now he looks really stupid, so thank God for that. Like Pat Dye. And he's only given us a reason to have a chip on our shoulder for the rest of the season.

Back to You...Countdown to Cancellation

Well, it's official. The new Kelsey Grammar FOX sitcom, Back to You, about a Pittsburgh television station anchorperson, is really funny. It's really funny, actually, and it's a 'classic'-style sitcom.

And, since it's on FOX, I can't get attached. It might get canceled next week.

Sometimes Having a Pulse Just Isn't Enough

A Professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep.

~W.H. Auden

I know this shouldn't piss me off, because it doesn't surprise me, but sometimes I just can't help it. I have to be obtuse just to make a point.

How is it that people can actually not remember what year the September 11 attacks happened? I mean, come on, it only happened a few years ago. It's not like it's the 2000 election, of which a lot of people are unsure of the year.

I'm kidding. But seriously, TMZ - that bastion of journalistic integrity - camped outside of a trendy LA night club (those who watch The Hills know which one), asking people if they could name the date of the September 11 attacks.

One girl actually said, "It doesn't matter." Which, the more I think about it, is actually a pretty deep statement.

Isn't the fact that it did happen enough, people? Won't those images forever be burned into our minds? Leave history to the historians, man. What does it prove to stump a dozen or so braindead socialites with such a trival question?

What year did September 11 happen indeed. It's not important. Like Independence Day. When is that? If not for the kick-ass day of drinking and not going to work, would anybody even know when it is? Do they know it anyway? If they don't know it now and wouldn't have known it were it not a national holday, then would the date be important?

Answer: Yeah, to smart people. So who cares when Lincoln was shot or when the bomb was dropped, whatever that even means. If you can get by in life by knowing the names of all of Brangelina's children, then so be it. I mean, fuck, the President doesn't even have to know the difference between Austrians and Australians, and he's the President! Maybe the adoption sagas of celebrities will be great fodder for elections in a couple of decades.

Please kill me now. Paint the walls with my brains.

Cuts Like a Knife

I could be referring to Poison with the above quote, or it could be Bryan Adams, if you remember the song 'Cuts Like a Knife.'

Either way it hurts. I don't necessarily think that the first loss of the season always hurts the most, but you can't tell me right now that this one won't.

The Dawgs lost to South Carolina today - whose mascot is a chicken, if you didn't already know - and it hurts pretty bad, not because we lost, but because we didn't even deserve to win that game.

The Gamecocks played their asses off, and we didn't. Plain and simple. We didn't adjust at halftime; we had some bad play-calling; Steve Spurrier is USC's coach. I could go on and on.

I'm sitting in pajama shorts - ladies behave yourselves, I'm taken - and drinking a Woodstock IPA, just FYI. I didn't even bother to go to the game today. Scalpers make it very difficult to make it to a highly contested game (like the one today) without paying dearly for it.

And, believe me folks, I didn't have the money to play that game. No pun intended. 50$/ticket was the going rate. I figured that, since I'm paying well over a hundred bucks a month for cable, I might as well take advantage of it today.

But yeah, so we've lost to post-Florida Steve Spurrier for the first time. So what. Let's just not make it a yearly thing, and I think I'll be all right.

And there's still hope for us winning the East, if USC loses a few conference games. I'm hoping that the Gators will beat them and we will beat Florida. Then everything will be on a more even keel.

I know that most of you don't care very much about college football, but I do, so I had to have an outlet for my displeasure with the way the game went. The last ten minutes of the game, I was pretty much pacing around the apartment - in my undies - mumbling to myself like Dustin Hoffman from that movie he did with Jerry Maguire.

We need a turnover. Yeah, a pick or a fumble. Why haven't there been any turnovers tonight? A pick or a fumble or an incomplete pass. Any of that will do.

And so on.

Anyway, everybody enjoy the rest of your weekend, and we'll see ya very soon.

I Hate to Use an Olde Expressione, but...

...thank god it's Friday. I've had a not-so-good week, and thankfully it's coming to a close. Friday's are hardly bad, because only assholes are in bad moods on Friday, and I usually only get into bad moods when people around me are in bad moods.

Enough about moods.

But I did get some great news today. Not personal news, but news nonetheless. A bill is - let's cross our fingers - going to pass, resulting in "A Student Loan Overhaul".

I wouldn't go so far as to call it an 'overhaul.' It's an incremental step, at best, and I will accept an incremental step in the right direction any day over a step backward. Companies dealing in student loans have bent students over for long enough, so it's good to have a little equalizing in the matter.

The biggest steps are that the Pell Grant will be raised and the minimum payment for graduates can be no higher than 15% of their income on accrued loans. Which, I think, is a great step. Furthermore, the debt forgiveness provision has been strengthened for people who work in service industries.

And another thing about Student Loans: Go Dawgs. I hope we beat the Cocks tomorrow. The Gamecocks, of course. Tailgating will be fun. If you're not from the South, then I don't think you can be given any idea of what true tailgating is like. I say that not to be exclusionary or snide, but because it's pretty crazy down here. Almost all of Athens shuts down for the day, and nearly every law is conservatively enforced, especially where open containers are concerned.

Besides work and drinking - er, uh, 'tailgating' - there's writing. I'm still editing the first novel. A whole overhaul is going on with 'BloodMuse' - not to be confused with the Student Loan 'overhaul'. I'm over 200 pages in, and I hope that it's not going to be too terribly much longer. Another hundred pages and then this book is DONE! I hope to never see it again until it's in print.

If it ever goes to print. Oh well. If it doesn't, then I'll at least self-publish it, and then all of you can buy it and make me (not)RICH.

Other than talking about student loans and drinking - er, uh, 'tailgating' - and writing, I've been drinking some good beer. Not a lot of beer, but a higher quality beer. Leinenkugel, actually, makes a great Oktoberfest, and I've been addicted to that. I guess I shouldn't use that language with alcohol, but it's pretty tasty.

In fact, I've become a Homer for beers made by Leinenkugel. The Summer Shandy, if you haven't had it, is great. It's a summer ale made with Lemonade. It sounds gross, but it's a really good beer. And cheaper-ish, like 6.99 a six-pack. But you should hurry out to get them, though, because the Summer Shandy and the Oktoberfest are both limited release.

Other than talking about student loans and drinking - er, uh, 'tailgating' - and writing and drinking some good beer, I've been playing Wii. Although, hold on. What's weird is that I've been playing the games I bought for the Virtual Console (i.e. the Intendo Games). Now, even though it's a cool idea, I feel stupid playing Intendo Games on a console LP and I paid over 300 dollars for.

'Castlevania' rocks, though.

Have a good weekend, all. WATCH COLLEGE FOOTBALL!!!

I HATE peta SO MUCH

I hate PETA so very much. Hate is a strong word. I wish I could think of something more harsh, but hate is all I have.

I've never been a big fan of PETA, but now I think I hate Michael Vick even more. You know why? Because Michael Vick has finally made PETA acceptable and has made the organization actually sympathetic.

I liked PETA more when they were an underground organization and broke into places to contaminate food for animals. Or when they adopted animals and then killed them. Oh wait, they still do that.

Bunch of hypocrites. They are the 'anointed' ones, and no matter if you know more than they do, they still pretend that they have dominion over 'their' topic. Like animals. And they don't. Many of those people are so goddamned crazy that they have no idea what they're talking about.

Ingrid Newkirk once compared animal farms to Nazi death camps and actually had the gall to pen a letter to Timothy McVeigh, asking him to 'die a vegan.'

Ingrid Newkirk wants everyone to look beyond the organization's absurd tactics to see what lies beneath it all. Impossible. Granted, I am a dog-owner and I love my pets. But that's it. They're pets. If they ever harmed a human being without provocation, especially a family member or friend, I would be the first to put them down.

Because I love them. And I wouldn't want to remember them as violent.

PETA would have you believe that putting animals down is wrong. Yet the organization has put down over 10000 animals over the last several years. Of course the article I'm using has a fair share of propaganda to it, and I do believe that what Michael Vick did was abhorrent, but I also think that PETA can take no moral high ground here.

PETAns believe that interfering with animals is wrong. HOw much more can you interfere with an animal than to kill it?

"PETA has shamelessly used the horrific Michael Vick case to pad their group’s coffers, even though their track record of slaughtering thousands of helpless, adoptable animals is far more damning,” said CCF Director of Research David Martosko. “Americans need to be aware of how PETA treats animals in their care and reject the group’s overt hypocrisy.”

Documents obtained by the Center for Consumer Freedom from the Virginia State Veterinarian show that between 1998 and 2005 PETA killed more than 14,400 dogs, cats, and other animals.

In addition to the thousands of animals that were killed at their headquarters, two PETA employees in North Carolina admitted to killing dozens of dogs and cats in a roving “death van” and tossing their bodies into a trash dumpster."

Happy Labor Day!