Nate's Weird Little Dog -or- How I Missed the DeKalb Townie Christmas Party

It started off as a simple plan:  Head out to the hinterland, get the dog acclimated to new surroundings, run some errands, head out to D-Town, drink festively, return the next morning, head back to Chicago, the end.  Sounds nice, huh? Well this is what really happened:

We've been watching my good friend Nate's dog (pictured above) since September while he and his kids are in the process of moving.  It's a good deal.  Nate doesn't have to worry about the dog and Jenny gets to mollycoddle something other than the X-Box 360.  The dog is super-sweet, but how to put this mildly... um, er... nuttier than a sack of squirrel turds.
So, now Jenny is in Williamsburg, VA for the holidays and I'm home alone with the dog.  The parents were up in Wisconsin, so I figured that I could just take the dog out to their place and use that as my base of operations for some festive wassailing.  I headed out of the city around noon.  Well, noon-twenty. I should have known to end the adventure when it took 20 minutes getting the dog into the back of the Jeep.

I solved that challenge with an elegant flying tackle into shot-put technique after ten straight minutes of creative swearing failed to do the trick.
We got on the road and despite my repeated suggestions the dog insisted on standing for the duration of the trip.  This wouldn't have been a big deal if the traffic hadn't been stop-and-go for the first half of the journey and the dog didn't have the sense of balance of a turnip.  So what happened was: Accelerate - Dog slams into back window, Decelerate - Dog slams into safety gate, Turn - Dog slams into side window/spare tire.  Motorists were actually pointing and laughing, and I began to feel and equal mix of anger and humiliation often reserved exclusively for 14 year-old girls with their families at the beach.  I tried reasoning with the dog and even went so far to try and explain Newton's three laws of motion to her but it was no use.  We finally made it there just as I suspect she was just starting to grasp the concept of linear momentum.
I suspect she grasped the basics of linear momentum, because once I opened up rear door of the Jeep she shot off like a furry missile. FUCK. So I'm running through 2 feet of snow (in Converse) trying just to keep her in my line of sight. After much pleading, cajoling, and a bit of creative swearing I finally got her into the first fence on the far side of the house that wraps around the pool. Her first order of business was to run out to the dead center of the frozen pool and defaecate. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!

Flash forward 10 minutes - I'm exhausted from chasing the dog in a circle around the pool, swearing, and waving a frosty pool skimmer trying to get her to go into the fucking yard. I give up, prop the gate open with a shovel, and head into the garage for a beer.  She finally wanders into the yard, I leap out of the garage, slip on the ice, spill my beer, lunge toward the gate, and slam it shut with an "A-HA, GOTCHA!".
I took her into the yard, set out some water for her (which horrified her beyond description for some reason), and attempted to show her how the doggie door into the (heated) garage worked. I sat there for another 10 minutes sticking my arm through the dog-flap and gently trying to nudge her through it.  It didn't work at all.  Fuck it.

With that ordeal in the rear-view, I unpacked some stuff and focused on some holiday-themed projects such as fishing frozen dog turds off of the pool with aforementioned skimmer, emptying several mouse traps, and affixing my new MP4 Smith & Wesson Q3 tactical flashlight onto my Rock River Arms LAR-15 rifle.  After I finished up my festive tasks, I left the dog out in the yard while I ran into town to pick up another one of my bad-ass machines that was out for repair:

I returned not even 45 minutes later and it looked like the dog had spent the entire time alone trying to jump over/dig under the 5 foot fence.  When I found her she was standing in a hole with her front legs poking through the chain-link fence looking like she was awaiting the sweet embrace of death.  We went inside and I filled up one bowl with food and another with water which she stared at with a look of unbridled horror and ran into the other room wherein she saw a vacuum cleaner which she stared at with a look of unbridled horror and ran into the other room wherein she saw a chair which she stared at with a look of unbridled horror and ran into the other room, etc. (repeat for one hour).
I was starting to suspect that my DeKalb drinking adventure was probably in jeopardy at this point, so I decided that I just make a run to WalMart and call it a night.  What to do with the dog?  I looked around and realized that I could put her in the entry way with her food, water, and a doggie bed.  It was about 8 foot square, so she would have plenty of room, and the doors shut on both ends, so she wouldn't wreak havoc in my absence.  Hell, this was nice enough that I could leave her there later and run to DeKalb, make a showing, have a couple of beers, and come back in time to let her out and go to bed.  I'm a fucking genius.  I left for the store incredibly pleased with myself and picked up some festive items from WalMart such as 4 bags of water-softener salt, Windex, paper towels, sugar-free Red Bull, a carton of Winstons, and a couple boxes of mint tea.
I came home to URINE... and lots of it.  I have no idea how one animal can piss so much.  It was rolling out from under the closed door.  I guess the trick is to miss anything absorbent, as the dog-bed remained unscathed.  I cleaned up that mess, did a few odd-jobs, made myself a sandwich, switched on the Steelers game, and settled down - my hopes of making it out to the party utterly crushed.  I got into the second quarter of the game before I figured out that the dog had planned to spend the entire night wandering around in circles, crying, and being horrified by every item in sight.
Fuck it, I'm going home.
I made good time heading back, the dog doing the hairy pinball act the entire way home.  I let the dog out of the back and she was ECSTATIC!  She was running around, hopping about, and looking at me like: "OMG! That was the funnest trip EVER!"  Fuck you, dog.
I went down to Fireside, grabbed a beer, hung out with Jimmy, watched the end of the game, and tried to put the whole fucking ordeal behind me.
And that's why I didn't make it out to the DeKalb Townie Christmas Party.

The End

Here's Your Change Back

I'd just like to take a moment to point out that I called it.
That is all.

New Little Big Planet 2 Trailer

I'm way jazzed for this. I just preordered the deluxe version from Amazon.

Heaven is Failing

Burning Qur'ans and building mosques... I don't get it.
I find it endlessly entertaining to watch both the left and right drape themselves in the 1st amendment and go apoplectic while completely missing the point.
The right is in a tizzy about heathens building Park51 (better known as the Ground Zero Mosque) next to America's gaping freedom hole, and the left has their pretty little panties in a bunch about some backwoods preacher burning paper.  I hate to break it to all of you, but these are both 1st amendment issues and you're both wrong.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf admits that he chose the location for Park51 because the existing building was severely damaged in the 9/11 attacks by debris from United 175.  He stated: "(It) sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11" and "We want to push back against the extremists."  Yeah, and then we'll all join hands and enjoy a Pepsi while skipping though a field of posies.  He seems like a smart guy, and can't be so blindly naive to think that there wouldn't be opposition to raising a Muslim religious center from a building destroyed in the 9/11 attacks.  He did it (by his own admission) for the publicity and to make a statement (whatever that might be).  Period.  End.  And you know what?  He has every right to do so.  This is America.

Terry Jones (not the guy from Monty Python, the Florida pastor) runs a small church of about 50 people named the 'Dove World Outreach Center' because (as everyone knows) doves are notorious for reaching out and whompin' up on the asses of the heathen masses.  Before the media picked up on his Freedom Day BBQ plans, he was relegated to hanging out with his buddies and making up anti-Islam t-shirts and holding misspelled "God Hates _" signs.  Now he has his 15 minutes.  Thanks a lot.  Still, if he wants to burn a pile of Qur'ans he has every right to do so.  This is America.

I don't see how this becomes a matter of Left -vs- Right.  It seems almost reactionary; as soon as the idiots on the right profess to support/oppose something all of the idiots on the left immediately take up the contrary position (and vice-versa).  Then every-fucking body else blindly chooses a camp and derides the other faction for being a bunch of inbred mouth-breathers or effete sheep (respectively).  Really?
Even more confounding is that both sides seem to be betraying their deepest held convictions in their opposition.  The right is essentially advocating government intervention in the regulation of private property, whereas the left is opposing the right to peaceably protest and acting to protect a work that is used to promote misogynistic and homophobic teachings worldwide.

Fuck 'em all.  I just don't get it.  Don't look for me at any of your Freedom Day protests, anti-protests, anti-anti-protests, or anti-anti-anti protests -  I'll be in my backyard drinking a beer and burning a copy of 'L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics'.  Take that, Scientology!

What Comic Books I'm Reading (WCBIR)

A couple of months ago at Mr. Randy's bachelor pub-crawl I struck up a conversation with Devin about our nerdly pursuits. I decided to do a L&E post on comic books as a thread for *everyone* to share recommendations - Here it (finally) is:

Here are the series that I'm reading right now:
100 Bullets: I currently have all 13 volumes and am working my way through 'em. I'm between vols. #7 & 8 at the moment. If you're looking for a single volume to start with, I LOVED volume 5 'The Counterfifth Detective' - It's a great stand-alone volume with an excellent plot, plus you can read it out of order without missing out on too much background.

Y: The Last Man: I'm 2 volumes into this one, and am seriously jonesing to read more. So much so that I may be tempted to break my rule and buy the next few volumes of the trades at full-price. That's saying something.

The Walking Dead: Zombies, FTW! I've had these for awhile, and decided to get to reading a few volumes before the AMC television series came out. It took a few books to get into, but now I'm hooked. I really appreciate the way this series cycles through "main" characters. It is a Zombie apocalypse, after all.

The Boys: Gundy turned me onto this one and I'm loving it. Garth Ennis always does good work, but this one is a shitload fun to read.

Transmetropolitan: Another Gundy recommendation. Imagine Hunter S. Thompson living in a Neil Stephensonesque dystopian metropolis. Good stuff.

Here are a few stand-alone Graphic Novels/Collections I'd recommend:
Marvel 1602: I love Neil Gaiman so much that I'll even buy his Marvel title (the only other Marvel trade that I own is that mediocre Kevin Smith Daredevil book). I really, really, really liked this one. I never followed any of the superhero comics, but managed to piece together who was who from all of the terrible Marvel films I've watched on cable while hung-over. The fact that I loved a book filled with characters I'm ambivalent to (at best) speaks volume about how good this is.

Black Hole: Since Gundy is always giving me advice on comics, I loaned him this one because I really loved it. He hated it. To each his own - I still say it's brilliant.

Superman: Red Son: Written by Mark Millar and penciled by Dave Johnson. Sign me up. It's about Superman in the USSR? With a soviet Wonder Woman... and Batman is a German anarchist?!?!
*Nerd Spazz*

EC Archives: I'm in love with these collections of the old 1940's-1950's EC comics. The collections are exceptionally well done and a lot of fun to read. Even if you don't recognize "EC Comics" you know the titles; Tales From the Crypt, Weird Science, Two-Fisted Tales, etc. My favorite of the bunch are the Shock-SuspenStories collections. I just wish that I had grabbed more of these before Gemstone went bankrupt and the price of these collections shot through the roof.

Here's what I have on my wish-list right now:
Batman: Year 100
Neil Gaiman's Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader
DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore
Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness

Any other recommendations?

Don't Order the Steaks at Google Chicago

-Click to Enlarge-Either a) Google fucked-up and merged its Chicago office info with that of some crappy restaurant -or- b) They've given up on the whole world-domination-through-technology gambit and decided to open up a mediocre steakhouse instead.

Introducing the Revolutionary iHold

The big buzz in the tech world today is that holding your new shiny new iPhone4 renders it unusable. Never fear, you iFlock of sheeple, I'm introducing the iHold so you can have your useless shiny toy and use it too. I'm cranking out these stylish bad boys for $750.00 a pop and I guarantee that with this miracle product your iPhone4 will be somewhat usable.*

Just send cash or checks/money orders made out to cash to: 2600 Worthless iCrap Blvd. N.W. Chicago, IL 60647.
*Guarantee void if using AT&T as your service provider.

Slider Army

- Yeah, It's another compilation.
- The artwork is an Animal Crossing reference (ask Old Dog).
- Y'all are gonna have to get this one from me directly, or beg like hell. Postage is expensive.Liner Notes:
1) KISS - Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?
from the 2003 album 'We're a Happy Family (a Tribute to the Ramones)'
I wanted a KISS song to go with the artwork - I settled on KISS covering the Ramones.

2) Teenage Bottlerocket - Bigger than KISS
from the 2009 album 'They Came From the Shadows'
I put on this one to balance out the previous selection.

3) The Yum Yums - I Lied
from the 2008 album 'Whatever Rhymes With Baby'
You like Swedish pop-punk? Ja!

4) The Manges - Another Day
from the 2006 album 'Go Down'
You like Italian pop-punk? Sì!

5) The Riverdales - Gemini Man
from the 2009 album 'Invasion USA'
You like Chicago pop-punk? Yea!

6) Akaikane - Fighting Spirits
from the 2006 album 'Kasumisou'
You like Japanese pop-punk? Hai!

7) Shoukichi Kina - Jing Jing
from the 1980 album 'Blood Line'
I've been trying to fit in this track on various comps for years. It sorta fits here.

8) Polysics - Hot Stuff
from the 2001 album 'Hey! Bob! My Friend!'
These guys are known as the Japanese Devo. You decide if that's a good thing or not.

9) Bad Livers - Death Trip
from the 2000 album 'Blood and Mood'
This song was played during the closing credits of an episode of True Blood last season. The Girl demanded it be include once she found out I had the album in my collection,

10) Gob Iron - Nicotine Blues
from the 2006 album 'Death Songs for the Living'
Jay Farrar redeems himself, now that Son Volt has devolved into some sorta weird hippie jambaroo band.

11) Tim Barry - Avoiding Catatonic Surrender
from the 2006 album 'Rivanna Junction'
I fucking LOVE this song. The lead singer of Avail flies the roots flag for several solo albums.

12) Against Me! - Holy Shit!
from the 2005 album ' Searching for a Former Clarity'
Damn! Check! Out! All! Of! The! Exclamation! Points! Up! There!

13) The Roman Line - Dawn After The Wreck
from the 2009 promotional EP '100% Bullshit Free - Album Preview'
I saw these guys open up for a Methadones side-project over at Ronny's last year. I really like them a lot. Can't wait for them to come back through, so I can pick up the full-length.

14) Lucero - Nobody's Darlings
from the 2005 album ' Nobody's Darlings'
No maybe Dena will shut the hell up on the topic of the lack of Lucero on my comps. Probably not.

15) Armchair Martian - Statler #3
from the 2000 album 'Hang on Ted'
Because every single compilation I make has to have at least one Armchair Martian/Drag the River track on it.

16) Two Cow Garage - Not Your Friends
from the 2008 album 'Speaking in Cursive'
Good band - Stupid fucking name.

17) Kepi - Down We Go
from the 2008 album 'American Gothic'
The Groovie Ghoulies are defunct (for now), but Mr. Kepi's last few solo projects have been much better than anything the Ghoolies have done in quite awhile.

18) The Raveonettes - Sad Transmission
from the 2008 album 'Lust Lust Lust'
Zombie kid likes turtles -I like the Raveonettes.

19) Electric Six - We Were Witchy Witchy White Women
from the 2008 album 'Flashy'
E6 keeps on rocking their way right up in you.

20) Future of the Left - Wrigley Scott
from the 2007 album 'Curses'
Remember McLusky? Same guys (more or less), new band.

21) Dillinger Four - Shiny Things is Good
from the 2000 album 'Versus God'
And they is.

22) Murder City Devils - Dear Hearts
from the 1998 albim 'Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts'
One of my all-time favorites.

23) The Dictators - Stay with Me
from the 1978 album 'Bloodbrothers'
Another of my all-time favorites. I put the Hudson Falcons cover of this song on one of my early comps -Here's the original

24) The Jags - Back of My Hand (I've Got Your Number)
from the 1980 album 'Evening Standards'
I've been listening to a bunch of late-70's early-80's power-pop lately. Good stuff.

25) Ben Weasel - Got My Number
from the 2007 album 'These Ones are Bitter'
I dig this song, but the reason it's here is because I really like the way it plays with the previous track.

The Travoltas - One for the Road
from the 2002 album 'Endless Summer'
Here's some more Nord-Punk for your sound-holes.

Milo: 1997 - 2010

He was a good dog.

The Liar's 10 Favorite Films (For the Time-Being)

Note: I started this post back in April of '08 and never got around to finishing it (yay, me!). I started thinking about it lately and finally decided to rework it and post it. I kept the original list (more or less) intact, fleshed it out, and added 5 'honorable mentions' at the end. Here it is, two years in the making:

This isn't a list of the greatest films I've ever seen. This list is of those films that I just love. Some are truly great - some I just think are great. This is my list of films that I can't get enough of, each one of these films I've watched multiple times and will probably watch numerous more times. I'm sure that I missed a couple of films that should be up here - those ones that were so awesome that I forgot them entirely, but I think that this is a damned good list as it stands.


1) Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) - 1964
Hands-down my favorite movie of all-time. Leave it to Stanley Kubrick to craft a jet-black comedy about nuclear war right at the apex of the Cold War. Peter Sellers turns in one of the great performances in the history of celluloid by playing three separate characters flawlessly. George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, Keenan Wynn, and James Earl Jones round out the exemplary cast. This an absolute pitch-perfect film from start to finish.




2) Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari) - 2004
I LOVE this film - It's like catnip to me. I could watch this film three times in a row and still consider putting it in for a fourth viewing. The tagline for this film was: 'The extraordinary adventures of a Lolita-look aficionado and a tough biker gang chick', but that only scratches the surface of this frenetic blender-ride of a movie. This might not be Akira Kurosawa, but it's my favorite Japanese film.
Note: Just watched this one again last night with Jake & Maria & it's still awesome-as-all-hell.




3) Hedwig and the Angry Inch - 2001
Easily the best transgendered rock-opera of all time. Before this film hit the theaters, I got a free pass to preview this film in DC. I had no idea what it was all about. I just knew that it was a chance to see an indie-film for free, and that was good enough for me. This film hit me upside the head like nothing I'd seen before - Great film, incredible soundtrack, and possibly the most fun movie of the last 20 years.
 




4) Kwaidan - 1965
This film is truly a work of art. Masaki Kobayashi's stunning expressionist stylings make this not so much a a movie, but rather a moving painting of indescribable beauty. This collection of four separate Japanese folk tales is eerie and stunning with incredible visuals and surprising depth. Truly a superb film.







5) The City of Lost Children - 1995
Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet create a beautiful Jules Vernesque dystopia punctuated by a wonderful Angelo Badalamenti score. The dreamlike nature of this film lies between the worlds of Caro's Delicatessen and Jeunet's Amélie - A perfect middle-ground for an outstanding film.








6) The Man Who Laughs - 1928
This was one of the last great expressionist silent films directed by Paul Leni. By the late '20s the industry was moving away from the surreal styling of German expressionism toward a more realistic portrayal. Too bad. If you look at the Lon Chaney film of the same year, 'Laugh Clown, Laugh", it's amazing how two films of similar subject matter and released in the same month (April 1928) could be so different. Huge props to William T. for turning me onto this gem.




7) Altered States - 1980
This might not be a great film. Hell, it might not even be a good film, but I love it. Take the script from some forgotten Universal monster film from the '40s, load it up on psychedelics, add the overly verbose hyper-technical dialogue of Paddy Chayefsky, and stir. Not for everyone, but it suits me perfectly.








8) Kung Fu Hustle - 2004
I really wanted to include one of Zhang Yimou's wuxia films (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower) on the list, but the more I thought about recent Chinese period dramas, the more I thought about how much I love this film. Sorry Zhang. Roger Ebert described this film as "Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny". Yeah, that sounds about right.





9) Santa Sangre - 1989
I saw this movie in its limited US theatrical release back in 1990, and it changed my perception of what film could be. Alejandro Jodorowsky's films led me into the films of Werner Herzog, David Lynch, Luis Buñuel, Kenneth Anger, and countless others. This film still has a lasting hold on me, but it's influence has far exceeded its scope. I just wish that they would release a half-decent DVD of this film (ie: not the R-rated Blockbuster cut, or Chinese bootleg). I'm waiting.




10) The Iron Giant - 1999
Back in 2008 (when I started making this list) I was hard-obsessed with this movie. I was going to bump it, but the picture (left) was just too damned cool. Brad Bird directed this film after his work on the (golden-age) Simpsons and before his reign at Pixar. This is a smart, funny, touching movie that far exceeds expectations. Too bad Warner butt-fucked-up the release and tanked the movie out of the gate. Which left Bird to move on and make a bajillion dollars for Disney. Way to go, guys!




Honorable Mentions:
The Fog of War
Giants & Toys
The Night of the Hunter
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Sullivan's Travels

Censor FAIL

Those m*****fuckers over on Drudge need to pay closer attention.

Big Brother is Undressing You With His Eyes

The above image (left) was taken straight from the Drudge Report header accompanying an article on the push to get advanced imaging scanners in place in every airport ASAP. The above image (right) is that same image with the colors inverted. That's some crazy shit right there. All I did was load up PhotoShop, hit Ctrl+I, and got government supplied nudie pics.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all about public nudity, but I like having the liberty to pick the time and place when it's appropriate to whip it out (ie: bars, taverns, saloons, bar-mitzvahs, bat-mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, baptisms, etc.). Do we really want the TSA to have unfettered access to this technology? These are the same slack-jawed motherfuckers that think that everyone's trying to down planes with yogurt, sandals, and bottles of Dasani (apparently, TSA training consists entirely of repeated MacGyver marathons). You're telling me that those glorified mall-cops arent going to find a way to patch all of the images into an EHD? Keep dreaming - We're dealing with TSA screeners here, these are the flunkies willingly embrace the most hated vocation since IRS auditor. They're a monomaniacal mob of mongoloid masochists - This is sure to end well.
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Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety - Richard Jackson