deep hurting

There are very few qualities about myself that I find interesting. Like at all. I find most of my life to be mind-numbingly boring. Mostly because I've lived it. I guess. Or something. Anyhoo, one of the few things that I do find interesting or "cool" about me is my memory. Like I pretty much actually remember everything that has happened to me while sober. Ok, not totally everything. But at least a good 70%. My sister seems to think that I have an Eidetic memory. Which I don't totally believe. But, hey, anything that compares me favorably with Matthew Gray Gubler I'll take.

Anyhoo, this may seem like a great thing. And for the most part, it is. It helps me at work. It helped me even more when I was in sales. Hell, it helps in remembering random stuff, like Wonderbear3000's love for Toto's "Africa". But for the most part, it's a burden.

For example. Let's say I was dating someone. You know, ever^sd. And I forget something. Like the anniversary of our first kiss. Or the first time we made out. Or something random like that. I'd get grief for it. And deservedly so. I'm the one running around telling random people I remember everything.

That's a kinda hypothetical stretch though. That would never happen.

Ok. Let's try this. What if your cousin, who was also one of your best friends died? Like unexpectedly? I mean, sure, most people would remember that. Maybe even most of them would remember the exact date. Or how they heard. Or where they were.

Me on the other hand, I remember all of that. I remember vividly. And I remember it every year on the day it happened as if it was happening all over again. August 20th, by far, is the worst day in my life. Well, it used to be at least. But I'll get back to that last point.

I didn't go to Ron's funeral. I was at school, it started like 3 days later^sd2. And I wasn't coming home for it. Because I prefer remember people like the last time I saw them. And if I went to the funeral, the last time I would've saw him would've been dead. And I don't want to remember him like that.

What I do remember most about Ron, if I had to pick out one specific time. One specific moment is listening to this song with him for like the first, or maybe 50th time. I don't know. I do remember that I just got back from a program at Kenyon like two weeks before, I had to actually go to school at Kenyon like 5 weeks later, and we were just hanging out, driving around the streets of Cleveland. We were listening to "We Are the Streets" and we were stopped outside some random friend of his', and this song came on. It was lightly raining, and for some reason, we started dancing. I remember for some reason someone brought up the line about the Air Force Ones with yellow checks.

It was a great day. Restropectively, one of the best times we spent together, actually.

Anyhoo, "Fuck You" by The LOX has, subsequently, become one of my favorite songs ever. Like to the point in which if I ever run for election, I want it to play when I win. Hell, the term "Fuck you" is probably my favorite thing to say ever. And I'm not sure if the two are connected.

But back to what I was saying earlier. I know that for a while this day and subject, and other days and subjects were days and subjects that I was horrible about. Like overly emotional and otherwise intolerable. But you see, today, 9 years later, I did a wonderfully good and probably stupid thing. And because of this a) I learned that on some things I just need to move on. and b) that I will not have any opportunity to have any fun ever outside of State games besides this blog.

I know I haven't been writing, or doing much of anything w/r/t cofabg, OMWD, "2160 Fulton" and "Attack of the Moving Bush". It seems as though I've been on a little break. Worrying about, you know, my personal life. Whether or not i should look for a new job. Breaks are good. It's not a bad idea to take a break every now and then. I mean, this isn't the easiest thing to do. Write something. Put some thing of yourself into something so public, so all can see. But it's probably something I need to do more often.

So I'm telling you like this. Break's over. I start getting more awesome on Monday. Or thereabouts.

Also: sorry about the youtube. Hopefully, I'll fix the grooveshark thing, and change this later.

Also: there might be some profanity in these lyrics. Just sayin'

Fuck You
The LOX
We are the Streets

Past Week: 17-13 (.567)
Previous Week: 17-10 (.629)
Rolling 3 Week: 45-28-1 (.608)
YTD: 34-23 (.596)

I always did love to dance.

Wait. Sorry. Watching Serenity. Good movie.

Anyhoo, I know I didn't do rabbit week. Semi-Long story. I'll be sure to tell you about it. Sometime. Hell, the way I started the week, I'm happy I was over .500. But that's in the past. Let's talk about about the Tams this week's picks.

Because it's only barely funny.

I have found it.

PETA leadership probably aren't the absolute craziest people alive, but their ratio of Money/Respectability to Insanity is unmatched.

They also have the highest ratio of lying to self-righteousness of anyone outside the Discovery Institute. Probably comes from having the same mission: convince people of something you do not yourself believe.

We here at COFABG have a few side projects going at all times. The chance of one of them turning into something useful is ... well the math is beyond me.

But our latest involves hunting down and watching obscure, goofy vampire and zombie movies. And that well goes very, very deep.

I found this one around where our canary died. Back from when Roman Polanski was having sex with adult women.

Who wants to give it a watch?

(touches nose)

There is no Game.

Seriously. Nothing is happening at 2000 today.  Go to a park or something. Hug a tree. Cry alone in your room while drinking low grade beer. With pelicans.

…

Not like anyone you know will do that.

And while it should come as no surprise to the good people of Ohio, to whom Tebow did a good deal more than nip the tip of our manhood two title games ago, the big goofball spent his spring break doing this. (Wizard of Odds].

I can only hope a conversation like this happened at some point:

TEBOW: Howdy Susan! Good to see you. How was your break?

SUSAN: Oh, hi Tim! It was great! I went down to Mexico, had some tequila, some sex. I think my friend Betsy is still down there with some really hot members of a drug cartel. I think it might work out for them in the long run. How was your break?

TEBOW: I spent it circumcising Asian children.

SUSAN: ...

TEBOW: It isn't the kind of thing you can do legally in the US, so I had to go all the way to the Phillipenes to do my part.

SUSAN: ... I guess I never thought you would take the Gator Chomp quite so literally...

GOD FUCKING DAMMIT. I HAVE TO LIVE HERE NOW LBJ. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT SHIT?!?!?!?

fuck this. I'm going to go drink beer and watch the spring game.

You Scheisskopfs better win the next one dammit.

I love Hersh. He was the face of veteran leadership on the Indians teams of the mid 90s. Pitched well in the 97 postseason, though he went 0-2 against Fat-Cuban-Fuck Livan Hernandez in the Series, and was involved in back-to-back-to-back home runs against he Yankees in Game 1 of the ALDS. So all my prominent memories of Hersh's playing days at the corner of Carnegie and Ontario are bad, yet I still am very fond of him. He moved on following the Series Tragedy, and eventually retired. I wished him well and generally find his announcing vastly preferable to Joe Morgan.

However...

Living in Cincinnati now, I don't get to see the Tribe on TV that often, so when ESPN picks up the game, its an event, an event usually commented upon by Hersh. In the first game, against the Sawx, I actually found it somewhat endearing when Hersh mentioned two or three times how he is still haunted by losing that Series, how he still hates to even look at a Marlins uniform, and so on. I feel the same way. It was a reopening of old wounds, but done by someone who loves me, and was ripping off his own scabs at the same time. This made is somehow better, though also infinitely more creepy. Hersh is back in town to do a game in the Yankees series, and again he brings up his lingering pain from the 97 season, in part of a montage of the general futility of Cleveland sports. It was 11 years ago. Can we please stop mentioning it? It is nice to spend a night every decade or so amongst a community of the survivors of tragedy, but to make such a place one's home is to at best to become as crazy/scary/cool as the Israelis, and at worst as crazy/crazy/crazy as Buffalonians.

Edgar Renterina is the only man other than my father, my brother, and myself who I have seen make my mother cry, but I can't change that he brought in that Series-clinching run (though I do continue to wish ill upon him and every single last member of his genetic family tree).

Can't the dead just leave us in peace?

It is a well known fact that being a consistent author on a blog and churning out quality work day after day takes its toll. Don't believe me, just ask the New York Times

Thus I have decided to give some authors a pause to refresh their creative engines and renew their efforts. Hopefully they will not use the preferred refreshing methods of Thompson and Bukowksi, but who am I to judge, particularly a fellow Nortonian.

The pressing matter that I have decided to bring before the assembled sets of eyes (maybe four of them if I am lucky) today, is that of Uwe Boll. This man is to the film industry what Danielle Steele is to the literary world and he must be stopped.

In his humble beginnings Uwe Boll was proof that if you keep the budget low enough on a movie, it will be commercially viable no matter the artistic quality or lack thereof. As a writer, producer, and director he has rolled together more than 24 balls of fecal matter, enough that he would easily be mistaken for a dung beetle. I am not going to attack the amount of effort it takes to bring together a film. I am also not going to mock him for being German and having a silly name, some of my best friends are German and...have polish names from Enders Game. As a writer I understand the creative struggle that all "artists" must go through and bringing together a film is certainly a herculean effort. But, the proof is in the pudding. Here are the results at a glance of his rottentomatoes reviews:

Heart of America 2 rotten 1 fresh (inconclusive)

House of the Dead 49 rotten 2 fresh (4% fresh)

Alone in the Dark 113 rotten 1 fresh (1% fresh)

Bloodrayne 44 rotten 2 fresh (4% fresh)

In the name of the king: a dungeon siege tale 42 rotten 1 fresh (2% fresh)

While rotten tomatoes may not be the best judge of a film's artistic merit, at the very least it is democratic, allowing the most humble of peons with a computer to post on the same page as the critics who are wined and dined by the film industry. The man has brought further ignominy to the names of academy award winner Ben Kingsley, Jason Statham, Burt Reynolds, Matthew Lillard, Ray Liotta, Christian Slater and Leelee Sobieski. He has also unleashed on this world the horrors of Kristanna Loken, whose acting abilities and effect on the heterosexual male populace can be described in one word: wooden.

During the course of his circus-like media existence, Uwe Boll has: fought a boxing match with the editor of somethingawful, proclaimed himself a genius, and made 6 movies based on video games. If his tremendous ability to churn out terrible work after terrible work, was not enough proof of the need for him to be taken out of the film industry, check him being smarmy here on TV.

Call me out for kicking a dead horse, but he has made terrible movies that are nowhere near as good as Michael Bay or Eli Roth. Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell are actually self-conscious of the fact that they make terrible movies and play that up to great effect. Uwe Boll was trying to make serious horror movies and failed and is now parodying himself.