The Subject Of Mens Crotches Is Never As Simple As It Seems…

Why a cute hedgehog? Because a picture of a bulging crotch is too easy.

So today for Whack-A-Doodle Wednesday I was going to talk about one of the most ignorant people I’ve seen in a while but that blog turned out to be too long and I have things to do today so it will have to wait until next week.

Today I decided to go with something easy. Mens Crotches. I typed into Google “Men who stuff their crotch” and got the following results

1. Why do some guys grab at their crotch?
2. Why are women expected to shave their crotch?
3. Is it normal to look at a guys crotch when they sit and open their legs?
4. Why do men find it so cool to scratch their testicles in public?
5. Why do wrestlers rub their crotch in my face when I wrestle them?
6. Do male underwear models stuff their crotch?

So many jokes, so little time. Granted, most of these results were returned from Yahoo Answers. So I will give you my answers to these pressing questions.

1. Why do some guys grab at their crotch? Who knows? Some are just adjusting their dinosauric junk. Some are insecure. I knew one guy who use to just casually hold his junk like it was a teddy bear or something. The fact that he did that inside his pants…. yeah but it appeared to be a security thing. He had Mommy issues. Maybe she burned his teddy at an early age and he never got over it. Maybe he feels if he doesn’t hold onto it, it will run off or spontaneously combust or someone will chop it off. Again, who knows?

2. Why are women expected to shave their crotch? I know, this is a girl question but it did come up. Answer – women are not expected to shave. It is a personal choice. Now some guys might like it or think it’s normal because that is the trend in porn or whatever. Bottom line, it’s her decision. Just like some guys shave. Why do some gals shave their arm pits and some don’t? Same thing. What do I do? None of your business.

3. Is it normal to look at a guys crotch when they sit and open their legs? Yes. Not because I’m a perv but because it’s just there. Like a mountain or road kill or something similar. I was on a shuttle once, a guy was wearing no chonies and it was peeping out of the leg of his dolphin shorts… LOOKING AT ME! I screamed. Hey, I could have been a virgin or something! Dude, not cool! Bottom line, you can’t help but look.

4. Why do men find it so cool to scratch their testicles in public? I don’t think they think it’s cool. I don’t think they really think about it at all. It’s kind of like belching or farting or jumping up to hit an awning. It’s just automatic and has nothing to do with anything sexual.

5. Why do wrestlers rub their crotch in my face when I wrestle them? Wow. Ummmm, yeah… I got nuthin. There are all the gay jokes but that is too easy. Personally I think the question that was posted is bogus troll bait but if it were genuine to me it’s obvious this was a blatant dominance move to throw this guy off his game because he is an obvious homophobe. Guys know it freaks you out so they do it to mess with you. Guys do shit like that all the time.

6. Do male underwear models stuff their crotch? Hmmmm, I don’t know if they do. With female models you can tape your boobs higher or together or have them in a padded bra but if you are modeling briefs I don’t see how you can put a hamster down your pants and make it look real. I guess you could get a prosthetic device like Marky Mark used in Boogie Nights if you have really small junk or a cock ring to enhance your goodies. I’m sure that would sell more chonies in the pages of American Male. Not so sure about Sears or JC Penny’s though.

Now I dare you to go through your day and not stare at random guys junk and think about one of these things. I double dog dare you!

Exotic Erotic Ball Cancelled: Hard Times or Limp Management?

So this weekend the long standing Halloween event of the Bay Area, the Exotic Erotic Ball, was suppose to be held right outside my window. It was going to give me new fodder and perspective for my blog and it has but in a sad and unexpected way.

This past Friday, the day it was to open in it’s new location on the water at the Craneway Pavilion, at the Marina Bay/Point Richmond waterfront, it was cancelled. The Ball has always been open the Friday before the blow out event for an adult expo and then opens on Saturday for the expo in the afternoon and then the Ball in the evening.

There has been no satisfactory explanation coming from Perry Mann or any of the other organizers of this 30 year annual event as to the cancellation. Possible explanations that have been bandied about were lack of ticket sales, security costs and the location.

I don’t know about the ticket sales. I do know this event has been at that moldering relic of Daly City, the Cow Palace, for years on end. Attendance for the Ball has always been high. Then it was moved to Treasure Island and now moved here to Richmond to cut location cost. It sounded like a brilliant move to me. Treasure Island had to cost a pretty penny not to mention the lack of parking and the shuttle service to ferry scantily clad party goers across the Bay Bridge to the venue. Granted, when you move an event, you will always see a dip in attendance the first year while people figure out where it is. I saw plenty of signage on this side of the Bay but have no idea if they advertised as heavily in the City where their core audience seems to be.

The cost of security has always been a fixed line item. I worked for a private security team for the Ball for three years when it was at the Cow Palace. I know the organizers had the Cow Palace team, a private company (that I worked for) as well as Daly City PD. The Ball has always had safety as a number one concern and I really don’t think the costs on this side of the bay would be that much higher.

I have heard people talk about the location. They cite Richmond as a hot bed of gang warfare and voice safety concerns. UNSAFE?! Have you SEEN the Cow Palace lately?! The last year I worked security the promoters decided it would be a good idea to bring in more rap/hip hop acts which changed the make up of the audience. I can’t even tell you how many weapons were confiscated from attendees as well as the shooting that happened across the street from the venue. The Cow Palace is right in the middle of a demilitarized zone. The venue for the Ball this year is as tony as it comes.

Wait, don’t believe me, let me step out on my balcony and take a picture!

That is the Craneway Pavilion right across from those nice boats. Sure, Richmond is kinda gross but that is on the OTHER SIDE of the 580 freeway. As a cop friend of mine said “the 580 acts like the Great Wall of China keeping all the gang bangers on their side of the street”. Point Richmond or “Nantucket By The Bay” as I like to call it was where Richmond started. It is a charming, low crime city that hearkens back to a simpler time. As the refineries and the ship yards grew, the city grew out and to the other side of the freeway. The Craneway Pavillion lies to the east of Point Richmond in a suburb called Marina Bay. This is where the old Kaiser shipyards use to be. It is now a marina and home to many condo developments, most of them gated. This is in NO WAY an unsafe area at all. If the Cow Palace was Beirut, Marina Bay would be Solvang.

Now I have no idea why the promoters decided to pull this event on the very day it was set to start. Sure the venue was smaller but they hired a yacht for the VIP partiers which would hold an additional 2,000 people. A YACHT!! What could be cooler than that? Ummm, hot naked chicks on a yacht|? Well, that is what you missed out on. I don’t get it. If ticket sales were so soft that they had to cancel the event, why not pull it earlier to give the vendors an opportunity to find other shows to book? Why wait until the final hour? Perhaps we will never know as the organizers aren’t talking however if location really did play a part and people were too scared to come to big, bad “Solvang” I weep for the weenies the Bay Area has turned into.

Does Jesus Need Telemarketers? Hell No!

So today I was clearing crap off my answering machine which normally consists of collection calls for Geraldo Munez, political recordings and people wanting me to refi my non-existent house, I found this:

Hello, I’m Pastor Hayes, Pastor of the Hurricain Bible Church, home of Truth and Liberty schools. Dear friends we want to be a blessing to you. First of all, realize that God loves you and died and shed his blood and rose again for you. And right now you can receive Christ as your saviour, just say, ‘Lord save me, Lord forgive me’ and he’ll do it. And then pick you phone right now and call me at area 703-722-1078 and we’ll get back with you. God bless you.”

Really? REALLY?! I had no idea that telemarketing religion was now the thing to do. I suppose it was only a matter of time before the evangelicals discovered technology.

Now if, according to Pastor Hayes I say “Lord save me, Lord forgive me” and he does, then why do I have to call Pastor Hayes? I’m already saved!

From a business point of view, I fail to see how this type of scattershot marketing does any good for your organization. The majority of people in our day and age are smart enough to pick their own religion or to have no religion. I doubt that many people will be lured in to joining a Church in West Virginia solely based on this phone call.

From a legal standpoint, my number is registered on the National No Call list. Even if Gerald, who apparently had the number years before me, is not on the list, I am and I will be filing a complaint with the FCC.

I admit I have a cold, am cranky and really want a houseboy to bring me fresh squeezed juice and clean my house right now so maybe I am over reacting.

Nah! Pastor Hayes, don’t call my house anymore. Jesus told me you need to stop bothering people when they are sitting down to eat or watching The Apprentice. Thanks!

Lady GaGa: Satan’s Bitch or Fashionista?

So today for Whack-A-Doodle Wednesday, I was lurking around Christian Chat Rooms (so you don’t have to) and I found this post, telling people that Lady GaGa was a Satan Worshipper and her video “Bad Romance” proved it.

“Greetings all,
Recently I viewed a very interesting video on Lady Gaga. Like most of you I was impressed with the sound of her music, and – while knowing that she is a heathen – I still am shocked to find out how blatantly satanic this woman’s act is. Her videos don’t even try to hide it.

Clearly we can tell that the end is not far away, especially when we see the boldness of satanic influence being peddled before us.

Here is an excellent film that shows the video “Bad Romance” in detail, describing the satanic behavior occurring in the video. Basically, Lady Gaga is giving herself over to satan to be possessed by him. This theme is actually occurring with increasing frequency in videos from other artists as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZXsTRrrjW8

There is more material I would like to present but this is enough for an initial post. Please watch the video and post your opinions below.”

Now I happened to watch all five minutes of the Bad Romance video as I was looking for songs to use in a video project.  I fail to see how women dancing around in  faceless, white latex Bart Simpson costumes, Lady Gaga wearing a chain mail hankie top or a pseudo bondage outfit is specifically Satanic.  Does Satan have the market cornered now on latex or bizarre fish costumes with 8 inch pumps?

Now I must say there was a polite bit of Satanic bitch slapping going on after the original poster uploaded the link to this very dangerous video.  (Note: the quote is lifted intact from the website.) Dan writes,
“If you watch that junk you open yourself up to be attached. As christians were sapposed to refrain from these things, not to go looking for a way to let Satan find a place to walk in. Nobody is without flaws, why would you want to give him the slightest chance. Look at how many strong christians in the past have done just that. We’re called not to be part of this world, but if you straddle the fence, you open to many doors. If you know that she’s under satanic influences why would you give her any credence.We either walk in Christ’s light or we don’t. In Christ love’ I just want to remind you of this.”

Good point Dan!  I mean you should never look at anything people tell you might be subversive or Satanic.  EVER!  THAT is how the devil steals your mind and makes you into The Artist Currently Again Known As Prince.

Now for the sake of fairness and to show you that there are some sane people on this board, I bring you this quote.  Dread Zepplin at least has the sense to make his points logically.

“I just watched the video with the commentary.  Let me first say yes, this video is very disturbing and has clear satanic themes. Now, with that said, the video with the commentary was making some pretty far assumptions about the symbolism of the video. Where he was dead on on a couple I had to laugh out loud by some of the associations he made. For instance: 

– when he says wearing sunglasses means shes hiding something and her leg up is strong sexuality. Really? because sunglasses were a sign of being “bad” (which she was portraying) and a leg up is…just a leg being up. Same could be said of Captain Morgan, but he’s not really that sexy.
– We he claims that when she’s being auctioned that its really her soul. No, when you sell a woman at an auction its for sex, which clearly happened at the end of the video. This is as equally disturbing as his assumption.
– When he states that she is crying out for Gods help. I really doubt they had God in mind at all creating this.
– jewls raining down on her…doesn’t mean satan. It just looks like a cool effect.

Lady Gaga is like Marilyn Manson in the sense that she’s a “shock” rocker. Thats why she wears the outfits she does- it’s made her famous. The problem is that each one she wears has to get more and more and more outrageous than the first, to the point of tastelessness. She’s definately a product of the world. Gross.”

WastingTheDawn seems to understand this bizarre latex, alien video the best of all of his Christian fellows on this board. “I think this is a basic secular over-sexed pop video … the over-sexing is really negative but to make devil-worship out of this is quite awkward?”

Thank you WastingTheDawn.  I had no idea who this Lady GaGa person was until recently.  Actually I didn’t get a good handle on her or her fashion sense until I saw her music showcased on Glee.  She has a good voice, engaging lyrics and the fashion sense of Bjork on steroids.  That’s her hook and ticket to fame.  Cool, whatever.  It seems the people complaining about her Satan’s Bitch status are the same people who insist that KISS stands for Kings In Satan’s Service.  I know better.  KISS really stands for Kids In Silly String, I mean really!

Just be thankful the rest of us live relatively boring lives and be thankful I didn’t post the column I was starting to write, “When Silicon Attacks” about a guy who shot silicon into his junk every day for 8 years until it is now the size of an 8 month old infant.  Yeah, that would have curdled your morning coffee and you’re welcome.

Bi-Coastal Beauty

Today’s Classic Column comes from 2007.  Enjoy.

So the topic of this blog actually goes back to when I was in Arcadia at the Derby, sucking down $10 Pomegranite Martinis these Mortgage Bankers were buying me.   I was out about town under the guise of my secret identity and struck up a conversation with these gentlemen at the bar. The CEO guy told me he thought that people traveling East were less attractive than people traveling West. This is also known as the LA people are better looking than NY people debate. I mentioned that I would be in DC and Jersey soon so he gave me his card and told me to email my findings.

So… here I was at the most boring pseudo airport in California (also known as the Long Beach Airport.  It isn’t a real airport.  It’s two shoeboxes, no decent food and no decent bar. That is murder with a three hour layover. I was seriously considering calling people at 8am just to get them to talk to me and keep me company. ANYWAY….) Here I was and I decided to move over into the adjacent shoebox (also known as gates 1-3, there are only 4 gates in the whole airport) and watch the people board the plane for JFK. Here is what I found.

No attractive people. I know, I know, no one looks good that early in the morning. Hell, I was up at 4am, got to the airport by 5am and there was no way I was putting on make-up. BUT, you can tell. There was this one woman that I swear to God was Yoko Ono or at least her doppleganger. She was wearing a full length mink coat, huge black glasses, pulled back dyed black hair, stretched face and collogen lips that gave her a preditory insect look that was scary!

There was one pretty girl but she is about 6 so she doesn’t really count. The majority of the women were matrons in floor length furs and Jersey girls in Uggs with botulism stung lips, using their ears as barretts. There was one size 0 gal whose black leggings were falling over her non-existant hips, near pooling about her peesh as she struggled to pull them up. Umm, honey – the gays called and they are going to bitch slap you for that. Leggings are sooo 1980’s.

Now since I am trying to kill time I go over to a podium and ask a gate agent when the next flight from JFK or Dulles is arriving so I can eyeball those people and yes I tell her why. The inbound Dulles flight yielded equally unsastisfactory results. Average people. Great, this was not going to be much of an experiment. I decided to look at my flight and YES if you haven’t caught on already only the woman were really being looked at. The guys… well, they were just guys. Not uber smokin gay hot, not Quasimodo, just nice looking guys. We all know that women are much more catty about other women anyway and I figure the bankers really weren’t interested in hot guys flying across the country.

So my flight. Average. Average tired people. However there was one standout. No I take that back, there were two. One on each end of the spectrum. There was one gal who was really beautiful. She had to be a model. She was about 24, light skinned African (actually from Africa, I talked to her in the waiting area), flawless skin, huge eyes, big smile, hair in corn rows. Beautiful. OK we have ONE!

The other was way older than than the look she was going for. She had long hair that was done in a style popular with go-go dancers in the 60’s, make-up so thick it was near flaking off and clothes way too tight. She was an aging, desperate cougar that was not going gently into that dark night. It was so scary it near frightened the children and the animals.

I actually had one gal in my row (no one in the middle seat) traveling with her poodle. We were wearing the exact same Uggs and she said “way cool” a lot but in a way that totally worked for her.

Then I started thinking about this. During the holidays the whole going east vs. going west is a little mixed up. I mean before Christmas it is LA people flying East and NY people flying West and AFTER the holidays it is reversed. So using that model, shouldn’t the Long Beach people be better looking than the Dulles people? They were equally haggard.

So all I can do is put this experiment on hold until (a) I get to Jersey in a few days and (b) get on the flight home next Friday.  I suppose the moral here is not to judge books by their covers or fly out of LAX next time or stop being such a social nimrod but if that was the case, what would I have to write about?

 

I Am A Self-Entitled Asshat

So today for Whack-A-Doodle Wednesday I want to talk about self-serving idiots.  Yesterday in Los Angeles, a rather D-list band, in a bid for attention, acclaim and a reality show contract, blocked the very busy 101 Hollywood freeway during rush hour with a semi truck.  They left one lane open, proceeded to get on top of the truck and play tunes including one from their repertoire about traffic jams.  Fortunately these idiots were arrested.  I really hope they spend time in jail though we all know they will pay a fine and be given community service.  Personally if I was stuck in the line of cars that stretched from Hollyweird out to the San Fernando Valley, I would be praying each and every one of these inconsiderate idiots could be cell mates with MadDog for a week or two.

News flash, your self-serving, idiotic publicity stunt does not give you the right to impact the lives of your fellow citizens like that.  You deserve not only jail time but time in the stocks.  Why don’t we have a pillory and a public square anymore?  Hell, I would PAY to toss rotten eggs and fruit at these idiots!  It could be a fundraiser and raise awareness that idiotic actions have consequences.

Now lest you think that shallow Los Angeles has the market cornered on self-entitlement, here is one from home.  In 2005, a bunch of idiot people from Canada, hung a VW bug off the Golden Gate Bridge, snarling traffic, rerouting shipping and causing the City a lot of money.  Evidently they suspended the car on a cable, hanging underneath the bridge in an idiot stunt designed to “draw attention to the masterful feats of professional engineers and to celebrate the skills of the tradespeople who built the bridges.”  Somehow I don’t think the men who built the bridge or died building it would be amused.

“There’s a little bit of a cheer that goes up when you see someone has found a way to put us on the TV and helped raise people’s awareness about engineering,” Julia Steele, president of the University of British Columbia Engineering Undergraduate Society, said today. “I think we all cheer when students do this.”

You know what Julia?  You have no business being the President of a lemonade stand let alone anything else.  If you think this is so great, why don’t you PAY for the police time, the time of all the commuters who were stuck on the bridge, the cost to the ships who had to be re-routed and the cost to remove the car as well as the recovery of said car (now non-biodegradable litter) that is in the Bay?  How about that?  You and those little criminals can pay for the damages your stunt caused and THEN we can pelt you with eggs and rotten fruit.

It is so comforting to know that Ms. Steele said the pranks are carefully planned to avoid causing injury to passers-by or anyone else.

“Part of being an engineer is public safety,” she said. “That’s the utmost. It’s in our code of ethics — public safety above all else.”

Yeah, it’s all Canadian fun and games until someone gets killed.  THEN what happens?  I know, I should really do something fun and full of engineering savvy to your house!  oooooo, IDEA!  Hey!  Nerds at Cal Tech!  I KNOW for a fact what clever little critters you are.  I will soooo pay you back in mint condition Jedi light sabers if you stack Miss Canada’s house real good!

Another bridge prank occurred in 1993, when a disc jockey for radio station KSOL – Manfred “Mancow” Muller – tied up traffic on the Bay Bridge by organizing vans to block all the westbound lanes while his sidekick, Jesus “Chuy” Gomez, got a haircut.  Muller was prosecuted and given three years’ probation, 100 hours of community service and a $500 fine.

Is it even possible for people not to act out of selfish, self-interest especially in the new world of YouTube, instafame and reality shows?

Rental Horrors

Today for my Retro Monday is a look at rental properties.  Things have not changed much since this happened to me in the 1990’s.

So a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there were two young ladies who needed a place to live. They were in a cheap townhouse in Pasadena that was built with adobe, pressboard and bubble gum. The closet leaked and it really was pretty small. Living Room/Kitchen downstairs, 2 bedrooms and a bath upstairs. Not much in the way of storage but we were actors, worked at AIDS Project Los Angeles and didn’t have a ton of money. It was $800 a month and we wanted out.

When we found a new place a few blocks away we did what you normally do. We bribed our actor friends with beer & pizza, rented a U-Haul and packed things up. Let me tell you, moving a fridge in the pouring rain over New Years weekend is no fun. They are slippery.

Anyway, we went back and cleaned the cheap ass town house. The only damage was the carpet on one stair that was clawed all to hell by the cats. So the pet deposit was shot but everything else was clean.

Now the Landlady was from Vietnam. We’ll call her Mrs. Lu. I have no idea if she was married though who would want to deal with this shrew on a regular basis is beyond me. Her shrill voice was always the highlight of my day.

She provided a “theft proof” mailbox in the garage to deposit your rent check into. You put the check through a slot and you are unable to reach in or open the box. However there was a lip by the lid and sometimes when you put the check in, it would get caught in the lid. Here was a conversation I had with her:

Lu: Where your check?!
Me: It’s in the mailbox
Lu: NO! IT NOT THERE!
Me: Look again, it is there.
Lu: NO! IT NOT THERE!
Me: Look, sometimes with that box, sometimes the check gets stuck in the lid. Look there. I guarantee it’s there.
Lu: NO! IT NOT THERE!
Me: Look in the lid, the lid of the mailbox.
Lu: NO! IT NOT THERE!

Do you see a pattern? After 5 or 10 minutes or an hour – it seemed like an hour – she gave up, looked and … wow, there was the check.

So when we moved out, we got a screetchy call from Mrs. Lu screaming about the damage to the townhouse and we weren’t getting ANY of the deposit back. Why? Because one of the blinds by the window on the landing was destroyed and there was a ring on the carpet upstairs in what was my room. Now when we moved out, we had filmed the townhouse. The “destroyed” blind had one (1) end that was bent. One.

We told her that the blind was not destroyed, it was not “custom made” as she claimed and if she insisted we could buy her another one to replace it ($10). In regards to the circle on the carpet, we were at a loss. I insisted (since it was my room) that there was no mark on the carpet when we moved out.

We decided to meet her at the townhouse in the morning to look at the damage. She opened the townhouse and… it had already been rented. To about 50 Samoans. In fact, she didn’t let the Samoans know we were coming. She opens the bedroom door and there was a guy, IN BED, with her screetching and pointing to a circle on the carpet which was obviously caused by the bottom of a paint can. We told her that when her nephew repainted, he didn’t set the can on plastic and the paint from the rim got on the carpet – so not our fault.

It was uncomfortable to be in the room with some guy that she just woke up that wasn’t dressed. We left as fast as possible. We informed Mrs. Lu that in this country, when you are a landlord the price of doing business was “normal wear and tear”. After a few years, you had to repaint, you couldn’t charge for normal wear on the carpets, one bent blind, or similar. The cat damage is valid and you can keep the pet deposit but you must return the security deposit or we will take you to court and sue you.

We finally got the deposit but were glad to be rid of her.

Anyone else have scary landlord stories?

Job Opening: Exentric Starbucks Oddball

As you may or may not know, I love Starbucks.  OK, maybe not as much as Jones Coffee in Pasadena with their Aztec Mocha or that little coffee counter at the Metreon in San Francisco where they have killer chai but for my regular chai fix, it’s Starbucks.  My drink of choice is a Grande, non-fat, no water chai tea latte.

Starbucks is a place where I can relax, plug in my laptop, write, surf the web and contemplate the Universe.  There is another thing that seems to tie various Starbucks together, the excentric oddballs.  I’ve had the “Camel Toe Lady” in Livermore, the “Crazy Tie Dye Hippie” in Point Richmond, the “Musical Farter” in Pinole and the Trap Door Begger in Piedmont.  Though to be fair, he wasn’t in Starbucks per say.  He camped out in the alleyway next to Posh Bagel but it was close enough to Starbucks to still be creepy.

Now I have found a Starbucks that needs an oddball.  It is the Starbucks on Richmond Parkway between Point Richmond and Pinole.  Every time I have checked in there I have found the lounge to be depressingly normal.  Normal people coming in, ordering their lattes, reading the newspaper, chatting about the Giants game, even a few cops doing their paperwork.  No oddballs, no specimens of the variety that is the human condition.

Then it hit me.  The Voice.  Now I am not categorizing this person as an oddball associated with a specific Starbucks on a regular basis.  This could be a lone soul passing through on the way to another destination, her stop mercifully brief.

Everyone, let me give you a bit of advice.  Just because you have vocal chords, just because you may be very smart, does not mean you need to talk.  All the time.  Constantly.  About nothing at all.  This woman would not shut up.  In fact, I’m not even sure if she paused to breathe the entire time she was there.  She never ordered anything.  She came in with a friend or unwitting soul that had been punished by the Gods and had to cart this albatross around for eternity while she yammered away nonstop about absolutely nothing.  At times these tangents took on the shadings of academia.  It didn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter if you are the most brilliant person on the planet if you are an insufferable know-it-all and a total douche.

I felt so very sorry for the woman having to listen to this but felt more pity for Motor Mouth Mabel.  How was she raised?  I am thinking in a highly competitive environment where if you didn’t get your points in by all means possible, you would not be heard.  If I could tell her something it would be this “The best things are said in silence”.  I just made that up.  Feel free to use it.  It’s true.  I understand you want to express yourself.  I feel for you.  I really do.  You want to feel noticed, recognized, worthy, loved.  We all do.  But you are driving people away, people are tuning you out and that is running contrary to what you desperately want.  The validation of human interest and contact.  In your effort to push for validation and attention at all cost, you are denying yourself the one thing you want.

Stop.  Listen.  Sit a while.  Silence is your friend and your teacher.  Learn now before it is too late and you are left railing at the walls because no one else will be there to hear you.

PC Gaming – A Retrospective

Todays Classic Monday Column is from 2007.

As I was getting ready to play the end of Persona3 on my PS2, I started thinking about my first experiences with computer games.

Let’s go back in time shall we………………………………………………………..

It was long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. There we were. Kids, normal kids, riding bikes, building forts, playing hooker Barbie (don’t tell me you never did it) when along came a marvel. Pong. Just imagine, you could turn on your color TV and two white rectangle “paddles” would bat a white “ball” back and forth. I know, you are thinking that is about as exciting as watching paint dry but back then it was magic. We didn’t care that it ruined your TV with “pong burn”. I mean we didn’t pay for it.

Well the years rolled by and along came PC’s. They were big and bulky. My friend Catwoman use to haul hers around, plinking away on Wordstar *shudder* before I made her learn Wordperfect. Why is this important? Well she had a game! It was called Kings Quest. The commands were all typed in, the characters were crude, the monitor was amber but it was COOL!!!! It had a story and puzzles and it was on the computer. I mean how cool was that?! And then coolness jumped ahead…..

Kings Quest 4 – the Perils of Rosella. This was AMAZING! The monitors were color now, there was sound and a hard drive was 20mg. You could load the game directly onto your hard drive so you didn’t have to swap out boot disks in dual floppy 5″ drives. I was working at a major real estate office on the west side of LA then. I stayed late to use peoples computers and taught myself Wordperfect and Lotus. On the weekends, I would come in and play Rosella all day. I swear it took me hours to get her up those stairs in the tower. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

Sierra made the BEST games back then. The graphics were the best and the stories were great. Ken and Roberta Williams were my heros. We also played all of Al Lowes Leisure Suit Larry games and when Phantasmagoria came out it scared us so bad that we would play in the dark on purpose and YES we were grown but it scared us just the same.

Sierra was bought out in the late ’90’s and it just crashed after that. Gone were all the great games we grew up on and made us game fanatics. Sure we found other games. The last PC game I bought was American McGees Alice by EA. In fact I got my latest system with the caveat that it had to be able to play this graphics heavy game.

So now we have Playstation and XBox and Wii and all kinds of things with life like graphics and amazing sound and it seems so far away from that collection of amber figures I saw on that old IBM. But if it wasn’t for Sierra and the Williams’, I wouldn’t have yet another time sucking hobby that has kept me entertained for way too long.

Halloween: A New Brand Of Stupid

I wanted to write a whole fabulous blog on Friday about Halloween and then write a witty blog today for the election tomorrow. What do you get? Less than that. Why? Today starts NaNoWriMo. What is that? I’ll blog about it later, suffice it to say I will be spending the majority of this month writing my new book, working title: Deirdre Does Disney: An Irreverent Look At The House Of Mouse. As a result the blogs will be shorter and I will have some “vintage blogs” to give me more writing time.

Also my schedule is all whanked up. I have two ideas I wanted to write about. The first is the idiot trend away from trick or treating due to moron parents who want to wrap their kids in bubble wrap for no reason and the second is idiot, slutty costumes. I’m just going to tackle one today and I’ve picked…

Idiot Slutty Costumes!! Yes, we have all seen the female slut party that Halloween has turned into. There are micro mini dress versions of Bo Beep, Hermione Granger, Naughty Nurse, Snow White, Cinderella, Meter Maid, French Maid, American Maid. You name it and chances are, there is a slutty, crack whore version of that costume. Granted, they are usually worn by girls 16-28, weighing about 90 pounds but that doesn’t stop some large gals from getting in on the micro mini Hogwarts craze as well. To me they are all equally bad. Whatever happened to clever? To scary? To clothes in general? I mean, this isn’t Mardi Gras. THAT is the holiday for getting drunk, naked and stupid though New Orleans residents will also argue that point as well. Believe me, I’ve been there, I’ve talked to them and they do not want to see your jimmy.

But having a slutty costume isn’t limited to the girls (though they do tend to lead the pack). Boys can be sluts too! Hence the picture of Mr. Pizza. Please, don’t open that box because I really don’t want to see that sausage pizza. Oh the jokes abound! Pepperoni is too spicy for me to eat personally. If it doesn’t come in 10 minutes its free. Is cold limp pizza still good pizza? Don’t get me started. I’m pounding coffee today and I’m not a coffee drinker. It’s making me crazy and manic. I don’t know how you scary people do this every day.

So should we go back to old school Halloween costumes and leave the vienna sausage/spandex parade for the French Quarter or should we declare a separate “Get Your Slut On” holiday? I’m sure if there was money to be had (there is) and Hallmark can get behind it (why not), we can make it happen.