A Personal Prohibition

Last night was a “thank god I still have my wallet, cell phone, and bag” kind of night. Bruises cover my body from some late night fisticuffs with my friend outside the Winter Garden, but that’s what happens after you see Jackass. I passed out awkwardly on the couch after eating a leftover fish sandwich from Maggie Browns while trying in vain to focus on Wedding Crashers which was playing on the television. When I woke, the fish sandwich, content with its brief four hour stay in my stomach, resurfaced, this time accompanied with beer and stomach acid. So that’s why I had the quick youtube post earlier. But I’m feeling mildly better now and have a new mission.

I’m going into training (stop laughing.) Exercise at least 4 times per week. No beer for one month. No more cigarettes, ever. I will chart my progress in this space. All of my successes, relapses, and boredom will be documented here. The hardest part will be the beer, followed closely by exercise, and then smoking. I enjoy the occasional beer and there’s really no way I’ll make it the whole month, but I’ll try. Although, I have five cold Modelos waiting for me when I get home, and who is supposed to drink those? Every Friday for the next 4 weeks I’ll post my progress, or more likely, lack there of, for your reading pleasure. Wish me luck

Here's a before video, and in 4 weeks you'll get the after.

Something to Tide You Over

Beep Baseball = Amazing

Check out this video story that appeared on ESPN.com today. This is great.

Kneecapped Question of the Week

This week's "Kneecapped Question of the Week" comes via this article on ESPN.com


Supply answers to kneecapped@gmail.com.

Reader Mail Answered Here!

Let's open the olde mail box and answer a rare letter, er, email. If you want to participate and have your email shown on our forum send it here: kneecapped@gmail.com

"Ever since going daily your posts pretty much suck balls. Why don't you just write when you have a funny story to tell or some news to report? Or why don't you go out and do things so you can write about interesting stuff instead of commenting on Yahoo! articles, the definition of Thursday, and Wikipedia? Don't you have better ways to spend your time? Your review of the Flaming Lips concert was despicable, 8 words!"

Stanley, Glenn Falls, NY

Thanks, Glen and a humble apology. The reason is because, mainly, I've been drunk. By the time I post mid-afternoon, scrambling for ideas, I'm down to the last sip of my 1/5 liter of SoCo. I like to chase that with 7Up, because 7Up is all natural. Then, in order to wash the booze smell off my breath and the taste of 7Up off my tongue I chase that with Black Haus.

The crippling strain of maintaining a daily blog has taken a toll on my psyche, no doubt. It has stretched my writing thinner than a hipster on a coke binge. But because of you, Glen, I’ll search high and low for amusing anecdotes to share with my small and uncomfortably critical, yet obsessive readership. I OWE this to you, my fans. With every fiber in my body a swear I will find the strength to write at least 100 – 150 words on the Backpack Kid A.K.A. Cheesy Mustache Guy that I promised you YESTERDAY. Thanks for reading, Glen, and for prying open my eyes, forcing me to acknowledge the dark, sulfuric depths that this blog is plummeting towards.

Best,
Knee

Wiki-Wednesday

It's Wiki Wednesday where I catalog five consecutive "random article" searches on Wikipedia to see what turns up. Last Week, I ended up getting three articles that could fall into the category of "geekdom" A comic book character, a full description of an item found in a role playing vampire game, and 1,000 words on Earthworm Jim of videogame fame. Leading to the question, who enters stuff on Wikipedia anyway? Also, although this feature first appeared on a Thursday post for the sake of alliteration I moved it to Wednesday. Here are this week's five:

Explodingdog - You don't understand how great it is when you're doing a random article search and the first article you get is "explodingdog" especially when this line is written next to it, "For dogs used as anti-tank weapons, see anti-tank dog." "Explodingdog" is a website that has to do with drawing on demand and sounds pretty cool, check out the link. The definition of "anti-tank dog" is too horrible to mention, but I recommend clicking on it as well.

Three places came up next, they are:

Choptank, Maryland Founded in the 17th Century!

Salon High School, Ohio Someone loves their high school; there are about 730 words here. Fun Fact: Salon High's three notable alumni are all football players. I checked to see if my high school was on Wikipedia and of course it was. There were no "notable alumni" listed, but I think Matt Leblanc went there. Or, did "Joey" knock him off the notable list?

Decatur, Michigan One more place in Michigan I'll never visit.

And lastly:

Buffalo Bob Smith The host of "Howdy Doody" and apparently, according to Wikipedia, that's all he ever did.

That's it we only do five random articles here on Wiki-Wednesday. But I'll leave you with pneumatic weapon. Tune in next Wednesday for more Wikipedia fun! Better yet, play at home and save me the time. Just kidding, I love Wiki-Wednesday! I invented the damn thing.

This Week in Bread & Circus

I saw this on Gawker via Rising Hegemon. The War in Afghanistan, is that thing still going on? Apparently, bad news on the War on Terror only sells in foreign markets.




Time counters with this:


This photo makes me feel icky and it dampers my urge to spend money.

A Kneecapped Review (The Flaming Lips)

As promised a review of The Flaming Lips show last night at Hammerstein. How to encapsulate a concert that had: balloons, confetti, Wayne Coyne in a hamster ball crawling right over me, Santa costumes, lasers, smoke, a cool-video-projector-microphone-cam-thing, a strong set, crazy lights, and an altogether groovy atmosphere in under, say, 5,000 words? I’m not sure, but here goes:

It was good. I really enjoyed myself.

Later, I'll post a review of the people at the show including the Backpack Kid A.K.A. The Cheesy Mustache Guy who almost drove me to violence all while Wayne Coyne spoke of the positive energy and love out in the audience. I'm not sure that it will top this last review but be sure to catch it.

Horray for Boobies

Well, I just checked my email and it was almost full with people demanding a Monday post. Considering it’s a Gmail account with over 2700 MB of space it goes without saying, yet is flattering to point out, that the outcry is overwhelming. So without further ado here’s a lackluster Monday blog. If you don’t watch videoblogs, which is probably about 99% of you then please hold off until Tuesday. You can do it. I believe in you.

Have you seen this video blog, The 9, with a more polished Amanda Congdon clone? I think the planning for this video blog went something like this.

Unimaginative lackey #1: “That there Rocketboom seems to be doing well”

Unimaginative lackey #2: “Yeah, how did they manage that? We’re Yahoo! God damn it! Surely we can do better, but how?

Unimaginative lackey #1: “Well we can dumb it down with gossip, stay out of the political realm, works for Gawker.”

Unimaginative lackey #2: “But the boobs, we gotta keep the boobs”

Unimaginative lackey #1: “Boobs are key.”

Unimaginative lackey #2: “So we’ll keep the hot chick showing off the rack and use her to point to funny video and scoops, usually a day later than everyone else.”

Unimaginative lackey #1: “That’s great, but make sure to hype all things Yahoo! Flickr, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Video.”

Unimaginative lackey #2: Yahoo! Video is so much better than youtube.”

Unimaginative lackey #1: “Video blogs are neat”

Unimaginative lackey #2: “I love you.”

And scene.

There you have it. That was an honest to goodness blog, with opinions about the happenings on the World Wide Web, not just ramblings of my life. I felt that this was important to share with you despite the fact that I lose serious “cool points” for a) admitting I watch video blogs, b) having opinions about video blogs, and c) using the phrase “cool points”. But what do you expect out of a Monday post the day after the Patriots were humiliated on a nationally televised night game?

Tomorrow a review on the Flaming Lips show.

Can You Feel the Excitement?

Well, we made and I couldn't have done it without your feedback, support, and daily emails of encouragement. Thank you. A FULL WEEK OF DAILY POSTING! It wasn't easy and the quality suffered mightily, but baby, we did it. I only liked 3 of 5 posts this week and by "liked" I mean I'm not that embarrassed by them. Let me know what you thought of the first full week* of Kneecapped posts at kneecapped@gmail.com.

Now my weekend begins. I wish a Happy New Year to those who celebrate and a Happy Autumn to the rest of you.

I'll leave you with my favorite ebaums video, now conveniently on YouTube



*Note: I just realized that last week I posted everyday, so this isn't the first full week of posting. This is the just first week I noticed.

Fun with Wikipedia "Random Article"

Wikipedia is amazing, a wonder. So what if some of the information is suspect? It's still fascinating what people take the time to enter into this online encyclopedia. My friend recently opened my eyes to the "random article" feature. It's a good way to see what's out there in WikiWorld. Here are the first five results when I hit "random article" this morning.

1) Pied Piper (Comics) 625 words on a DC comics supervillian that you have never heard of. Why would someone ever search for this information? I don't know, but is was kind of interesting.

2) Seal's Rock The author must live here because who cares?

3) Barry Yelverton, 5th Viscount Avonmore - Sadly, of all the Barrys I could have gotten, I didn't get Barry Lyndon, Barry White, or Barry Williams.

4) Ordo Dracul - "The Ordo Dracul is one of the five covenants in the World of Darkness role-playing game Vampire: The Requiem published by White Wolf." Got that?

5) Earthworm Jim - 1000 words on a video game and cartoon character of minor importance from the mid 90's.

So what do we have? Out of the five random articles I got one comic book supervillan, one "covenant" from a vampire role playing game, and one video game character. Not exactly the hard hitting historical figures in most reference books. What does this tell us of the folks who enter information in Wikipedia? Exactly, they're geeks. Not that there's anything wrong with that, without geeks we wouldn't have the internet, it's just an observation.

A Thorrible Post (I'm Sorry)

Loyal reader(s), who I will now call THE FORCE, today is Thursday. For some of you this means going out and getting bombed, maybe playing a little beer pong, smoking the reefer, or hitting the crank. For others, Thursday means curling into a ball and crying because Friends is no longer on the air. But did you know that Thursday really means "Day of Thunor" or Thor? Yes, the reason Thursdays are so great is because its named after Thor, the hammer wielding Nordic diety popularized by Maia Brewton in Adventures in Baby Sitting.



So while you're drinking at Off The Wagon, taking part in the college ritual of "Thirsty Thursday", be sure to pour out a drop of Bud Light for your man Thor who made it all possible.

Perk This! (Holds Crotch of Pants)

For some reason this really annoyed me today:


The fact that it's a featured article on Yahoo!, the most visited site on the internet, is beyond belief. Well until you cut through the bullshit and realize it's really just a way to drive traffic to Flickr, and sell cheesy goods to us poor ass cubicle slobs who need troll dolls and paper ribbons to brighten our horrible and mundane working conditions.

For example, the Babble Voice Privacy Machine. If you work in a cubicle should you be dropping $395 on a Babble Voice Privacy Machine? First off, it probably doesn’t work. Second, I usually don't by things that expensive for my apartment and I care about that, screw my cubicle. If you can't stand your co-workers talking then quit. What are you holding on to? And with the $395 you save by not buying this useless device that, I’m no doctor or anything, probably gives you cancer, plenty of time time to find a new job. Probably about a day.

Then there's this needless and wasteful invention

Fuck you Ambient Weather Beacon, fuck you. I don't need to be reminded of how great the weather is that I'm missing while sitting in my fucking cubicle. Why don't they come out with an audio device that plays a live stream of obscenely rich heiresses parting on a yacht in the Mediterranean? That would really knock the point that your life sucks right out of the ballpark.

I've Got Nothing

I've got nothing today. I'm an empty vessel, a void. But since I'd like to keep this daily here's a summary of Amanda Peet's performance on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which can pretty much be summarized by this picture:


Notice the wry, knowing smile. The self confidence that says, "I'm a winner, I know what I'm doing. I will prove you wrong. I’m better looking than you. I’m the good guy.” It would have worked, but then every scene with Amnada Peet ended the same way, with her stupid grin, staring into space.


It finally became a running joke for the show. If this continues it could be good fodder for a Studio 60 drinking game.

Do the Queue

I wandered down to the Orchard Street Picklefest yesterday and I met with great surprise, long lines. Not since the Depression era has the Lower East Side seen so many people waiting in line for free salty foods. I for one, don’t understand the obsession New Yorkers have for standing in line, but from Trader Joe’s to the Rick’s Picks Pickle stand, lines are apparently where New Yorkers want to be. And they got a beautiful day for it. The sun was shining and the soon-to-be-autumn air was fresh and sweet. Definitely not a day to queue indoors. Some say my ranting against lines is un-hip, un-Cosmopolitan, even un-American. “If you don’t like standing in line why don't you just move to communist Russia?” they say. It’s not that I hate lines exactly, it’s just that there’s too many goddamn people around.

Wu-Tang Again!

Yes, a 6:30 Friday post. I'm trying out a new time slot. TGIF worked for ABC!

Ask anyone who knows me and most will tell you that I had a quite the affinity, er, obsession* with the Wu-Tang Clan in my younger days. It wore off when I reached my early 20’s, mainly because the group couldn’t reach the heights of 1993 – 96, and who can blame them? Not only is that the Golden Age of “East Coast” rap, but they were the coolest, strangest, and most talented group in the bunch. My appetite for all thing Wu-Tang was insatiable: trips into Boston to find WuWear (I didn’t get any), buying any magazine with them on the cover, that awesome (now embarrassing) day when I actually bought a C.R.E.A.M. shirt at Newbury Comics. These were my teenage years, for better or worse. By the time *NSYNC dropped No Strings Attached in 2000, giving birth to a new obsession, the Wu were all but a memory.

Well thanks to MySpace, The Wu-Tang Clan are more accessible than ever. Each member has their own page full of songs new and old. It’s been fun reacquainting myself with them. Their later stuff wasn’t as bad as I once thought, especially in light of the current “rap” offerings. During the past five years, Ghostface, for the most part, has carried the Wu-Tang torch, but I have to say Raekwon the Chef is stepping up his game with these two outrageous photos, enjoy:

This blows my mind. Check the copy of the Robb Report.


This is a new photo, I think it promoting his new album Only Built for Cuban Linx Part II (Which is delayed like all Wu albums)



* As proof of my obsession, while I was posting this very post you just read and enjoyed a co-worker came over and said, "Is that the Wu-Tang Symbol on your desk?" Next to me on my desk was a little doodle I had drawn during a meeting. The doodle was the Wu Tang symbol, still the only thing I can draw.

Is It Too Late To Make Blogorrhea?

Just kidding, I'm not going to suck Gawker's cawker. Frankly, having that many people read this blog is intimidating. I've gone 28 years without being exposed as the fraud I am and I'd like to milk it for a few more. My MySpace was fuct up and I lost my friends, all 6 of them (including Tom and myself.) So I'll invite you guys back and I apologize for having to add me second time. I wanted to post for my one fan that sitemeter tells me is from Wayland - Geoff, thanks for reading. And since I'm posting so late in the day I'm going the youtube route. Here are some 80's commercials that you've probably already seen, now neatly packaged for your viewing pleasure:

Check the v/o on this baby


I really wanted to be this kid when I was younger

Child's Play Come True

I'm not one to make fun of other people’s appearance, but my friend sent me this picture from snopes.com today and...holy fuck! I think I just shit my pants.


His name is Brian Peppers. The bad news is, he's a sex offender. The good news is, he's registered.

Doubting Blogger

I recently got a Sitemeter because I read about it here, then here (I'm a cheap linking whore). At first, I was anxious, people could see how often I checked their blogs!? It was like when Friendster first allowed you to see who visited your page. The nervous tension that washed over me the day I found out was horrible because I didn't realize for a week or more. Who did I visit, ex-girl friends, enemies, random fuckers from high school? This is why I like the MySpace, you can stalk like the web intended, anonymously. But Sitemeter is quite fascinating, and I can't imagine how fun it must be examine the stats of a site that actually gets traffic.

I don't write a lot of political stuff on here (more like I shouldn't write anything political because I'm an idiot), but it seems every time I do my blog is viewed by someone in a RED state. RED Staters intimidate me because they're so confident in their values. Pro-life, pro-death penalty, anti-stem cell research, pro-war. Their logic is sound, mine is iffy at best. When they visit, they stay for about 3 minutes or so, enough time to skim my latest lefty rantings. When they leave it's usually after viewing my profile, probably to look to see if I have a bleeding heart in my photo, or perhaps a vagina. At this point I'm embarrassed. Here I am, a big city East Coaster fulfilling the stereotype of the lefty, blogging, whiney-little-bitch. Worse, no one reads my blog so I'm just crying into my pillow, alone. Pathetic. Maybe I'm not strong enough to blog after all, but it's probably all in my head. Sometimes too much information is a bad thing.

Does the "E" Stand for Exploitive?

Here’s a special “thank you” to the sports reporters of ESPN.com for finally giving me perspective on 9/11. Gene Wojociechowski tells me that sports shouldn’t matter on 9/11. Thanks, Gene. This is a conclusion that I never would have reached on my own. I, like many of the ESPN generation, take sports much, much too seriously. And I know how ESPN just hates that, taking sports seriously that is. I spend most days pushing old women into traffic to get to the sports bar a little bit faster. I’ve been known to punch strangers in the gut who wear clothing of a team I despise. I start the wave in church. But Gene your words have taught me that there is more to life than sports. Thank you for freeing my mind and my soul.

To Bob Harig and his heroic story of 9/11’s everlasting impact on the sport of golf, thank you sir. The story of a golf event cancelled after 9/11, golfers stranded in their private planes, circling, looking for somewhere to land, brings my own memories flooding back. Your coverage of, gasp, increased security at golf events causes me to think that possibly the terrorists have won at least a small victory. Golf has always been a sport of the people, white, black, rich, poor, men and women treated fairly and equally, it’s a shame that this increased security takes away from the intimate fan experience.

It’s good to see in the days surrounding the 9/11 anniversary that every media outlet is got into the act. Each channel caring more. Each channel remembering more. Each channel doing more. Each channel fighting to be the authority on 9/11. Everyone attempting to be the most pious and one-upping each other until the day ceases to have meaning. Thank god for the media, because if it weren’t for you I probably would have been roaming the streets for crack on 9/11. I simply would have forgotten about it.

And ESPN, you saw this happening and you said to yourself “we’re not news, we’re sports, but we can out-care, out-pious, out-do anyone better than anyone. Why not spin the sports/September 11 angle. Let’s own it.” And you do own it. With years of experience exploiting your audience you do it with a style and a grace like no other and I thank you for it. No more full body paint for me, no more swearing at Little League games, no more clothes-lining elementary school students in Yankees gear, for now I, after five years, finally have perspective.

Travel from New York to New England (Three Different Ones)

I just got back from my third consecutive weekend in New England. I hit every state except Vermont. Plus, we only really drove through Connecticut, the Thruway of the North East, peeing at its rest areas. Sometimes I feel bad for Connecticut because all it really consists of is a piece of land on which highways are built. But then I think of the rich douche bags of Greenwich, the McMahon family of the WWE, the rich, pompous douche bags at Yale, and ESPN, and realize that Connecticut really is a place you just want to drive through. Not to mention the horrid condition of its urban centers. Let’s just say I’m glad the Patriots didn’t move there, and the Patriots play in Foxboro/Foxborough! No offense or anything. Each trip to New England we took a different mode of transportation and here's how it breaks down:

Weekend number one - Bus. For our trip to Maine with a detour in Newton we took a bus to Boston (gladly not the Chinatown/Sadly not the limoliner), rented a car and drove to Maine. Yes, that sounds about as awful as it actually was. I know the bus well. I’ve taken the New York to Boston trip more than any man has any right doing. It sucks the life out of you and leaves you a deflated shell of a human being. By trip’s end your ass feels like you've spent a month in prison. The cinnamon smells used to deodorize the cabin stings the nostrils. Your knees, due to the asshole reclining in front of you are bruised like you’ve spent a month in prison. If you’re lucky enough to have a movie it’s usually some piece of crap children’s movie that features chickens of the “run” or “little” variety. If the bus didn't stop in my hometown I would have ceased taking it long ago. But it does, so I endure the pain, much like a man sentenced to a month in prison.

Weekend number two - Borrowing a car and driving yourself. This worked out great for me, not so much for my wife. I didn’t have my license at the time (since remedied) so she did all the driving. She went to Jersey to pick up the car, drove it to Brooklyn, drove Rhode Island, drove back home and dropped me off with our cat, drove back to Jersey and returned the car, took the bus to Port Authority, and finally the subway home. Not good times for her and I felt terrible. I don't know who had it worse. Who am I kidding? Me. I offered to go to Jersey with her, but being the trooper she is she did it on her own. The other downside of the drive was the ride out of the city on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. It's the stuff of nightmares. Hours of stop and go traffic up that asphalt root canal they call I-95, but at least we had Ernesto to keep us company throughout the drive and weekend.

Weekend number three – Flying. On our third straight trip to New England we decided to treat ourselves and fly to Boston. Flying is relatively painless, the flight being only 35 minutes or so, but all told, it takes about as long as driving. Getting to the airport early, checking in, security, flying, baggage claim, taxi. God forbid they cancel your flight in the five minute window between when you check in and walk through security. In these rare cases they have to book you on a flight that leaves one hour later, adding more time to your travels. But, the airport has televisions. The airport has televisions in bars. The airport has televisions in bars on the opening weekend of the NFL season, so it’s not a bad place to waste and hour or two. In fact, I kind of liked the delay.

So to quickly sum up:
Bus - Bad, similar to a month in prison.
Car - Okay, but better to have your own car parked in your neighborhood, not your mom’s car in New Jersey.
Flying - Delays/cancellations = bad. Television, bars, football = good.

How to Save Your Marriage During Football Season

Tonight is the start of the NFL season, but it also marks the beginning of another season, the Trying to Stay Married season. Other than moving and maybe in-laws, nothing puts more stress on a marriage than the six month pro-football calendar. Tonight, I start my second post-marriage season, and I'm looking to build on last year's results.

My wife can tolerate football, but she's not setting the Tivo, signing up for Direct TV, or checking her fantasy line-ups. She doesn't have a lot of knowledge about the game, and to tell you the truth, I like that about her. So I'm starting out ahead of the curve. The trouble is sometimes it's me she can't tolerate. Now, I'm not going to stop watching football all day long on Sunday, but there are little things you can do to keep the pressure off yourself. So here are a few things I learned last year, as well as a few pointers to those who are beginning their rookie year.

1) Don't get (too) drunk - I don't have Direct TV (see above) and I root for a team outside of the area where I live. My team is the Patriots which makes things easier because they're awesome and they get a lot of nationally televised games. One year, I caught them here in New York about 7 - 8 times on free television, not bad. But for the other games I head out to a local bar with Direct TV and watch the games there. This is a problem for several reasons. I drink fast so the number of beers I can drink during a three hour period is substantial. If it's an early game I’m pretty much useless the rest of the day until The Simpsons come on. If it's a late game, then I'm drunk during dinner and that's not good, trust me. I learned early on that I need to pace myself. No Bloody Mary's (well, one, but only if you’re hungover.). No Stella (or other strong beers.) Drink some water. Eat a pizza. Eat some wings. Eat. Three beers max in the first half. This is a recipe for success, a good buzz, but nothing that will last the day. I'd advise the same thing to you.


2) Take advantage of Saturday - I don't care about college football so I plan for my Sunday's by taking advantage of Saturday. Go see a movie. Go apple picking. Take in a museum. Have a nice dinner in a restaurant of your wife’s choosing. Pay. Make Saturday your wife's day. Not only does it feel good that you're making your wife happy, but it buys you some leeway when you're still wearing your sweatpants at 7:00 PM on Sunday night.


3) Shower, get dressed, look active - Note my sweatpants comment above and don't make a habit out of it. Nothing makes you feel like a useless piece of crap more than the look your wife gives you when you've sat around the apartment all day in your sweatpants. Save the sweatpants for that cold and rainy Sunday. Maybe even encourage you wife to put on some comfortable clothes and watch football together. No one’s saying get rid of the sweatpants, just play that card at the right time.


4) If Monday night or Sunday night football blows and your team isn't playing don't stay up and watch the whole thing - This would be my rule even if I wasn't married. The Sunday/Monday night commercial marathon that happens to show a football game in-between car ads sucks the life out of you. It bores you and angers you. You contemplate killing the play by play announcer by beating him with your bare hands. Forces you to go to bed past 1:00 AM. More than half the time these games are a disappointment anyway so just go to bed and spend that time with your wife. I’m not saying watch Desperate Housewives, but it’s a long season and you don’t want to waste your good graces watching a typical night game suckfest. I don't care if you call me lame, or old, or a pussy whipped little bitch, this is how I roll.

5) These rules do not count towards the playoffs - Playoffs are a different matter altogether. I’ll get drunk at the bar in my sweatpants during the playoffs.

Blogger Beta Blogger Blows

I made the mistake of upgrading to Blogger Beta before they perfected the technology. Now, commenting doesn't work with other blogs, Technorati doesn't ping, and no one is reading my blog. Two of those things are due to Blogger Beta. I don't need much. No bells and whistles. No rack and pinion steering. Just a blogging software that works. So here are some kind words:

Dear Blogger,

You are good to me. You nourish my desire to publish blogs, and you nurture my lack of HTML, but you need to launch something when it's ready and compatible with Technorati or other non-Beta blogs on your site. Thank you.

The 9th Circle of Bureaucratic Hell - A Trip to the DMV

I got a letter from the DMV
the other day.
I opened and read it
it said they were suckaz!

-The Pharcyde

Seven months ago my license expired, unfortunately, I just realized. Luckily, by living in New York I avoided blatant, although ignorant, law-breaking. But I did have to venture into the New York City bureaucracy and renew and transfer my license from Massachusetts.

Few things in our mass-marketed-over-hyped world live up to their reputations. You will sit in stop-and-go traffic on I-95 during a holiday weekend. You will wake up on March 18th with a hangover. And you will wait and wait in line at the DMV. So here are a few observations and thoughts while standing in line in a downtown Brooklyn DMV.

One minute in line and someone is already storming out having been turned away after a good 90 minute wait in line, muttering under her breath, "mutherfuckers, you could have told me that while I was standing here." The DMV, ladies and gentlemen! Now I'm really looking forward to my stay in line and beginning to second guess that I'm in the right one.

I sympathize with the workers a little bit. If I had to deal with stupid questions from even dumber people for 8 hours a day I probably wouldn't smile much either. Case in point, the man who’s arguing that his birth certificate should count as identification despite the fact that it is clearly marked on the website and the wall as counting for “zero points” towards your ID requirement. The workers don’t make the rules, but they do need to enforce them. There's a reason they made the two most loathsome and miserable Simpson's characters DMV employees.

90 minutes later I'm at the front of the line and I can't wait for my moment to shine. My palms sweat when I'm called, praying I've filled out the proper forms and have "six points" worth of identification. The woman scrutinizes my forms, passport and SS card, clips them together and tells me to wait for my number to be called. The good news, I'm through stage one! The bad news, there are two more stages.

20 minutes later I'm at stage two. I have a friendly chat with the Yankees fan employee who ribs me about the Red Sox. I take the punishment, he wields too much power at this point to call A-Rod gay or call Giambi a steroid abusing dickwad. He takes an awful photo of me (I look like I aged 10 years since my last photo taken only five years ago. Maybe it was the blinding light they shine in your face after telling you to stare at it.) Swallowing my pride get ready for stage three, the eye test.

I'm dreading the eye test and I brought my glasses along just in case. I always wear my glasses when I drive, but I don't want it noted on my license, because sometimes I forget my glasses. The eye test is taken at the cashiers desk. There's an eye chart about 5 feet away just behind the cashier and consists of one line of inch high, bold, capital letters. In other words, the eye test is a gimmie. After acing that I breath a sigh of relief. I also make a note to myself to keep a better watch of the cars in my surroundings because in all honesty Stevie Wonder could probably pass that test. I pay, take my temporary license and check the time. Two hours and five minutes since I first stepped into line. Not too, too bad and I feel like I've done my patriotic duty, withholding our nation’s great bureaucratic tradition, The DMV.

Taking a Stroll Through The Liberal Media

With our liberal media running amok it’s amazing that gays aren’t running around all married, without access to hand guns, and paying taxes that support schools and infrastructure. So let's take a stroll through (big echoing voice) The Liberal Media.




Rush’s lefty rhetoric poisons our children. He needs to be stopped.



Bill O’Reilly is a lefty communist who should fucking move back to Russia already.



Glenn Beck is a typical bleeding heart douchebag. Actually should CNN Headline News count as media? That’s a tough one.



Neal Boortz is all class, if class is defined as “liberal-homo-pro-terror-shit-fuck”



I’m pretty sure Sean Hannity takes it from behind and wants to marry his co-host. Thankfully Alan Colmes is a right thinking American, who just happens to look like a breathing corpse.



Tucker Carlson, typical pompous, over-educated, Hollywood-catering, anti-American liberal. But the bow tie is so darling.

What Died and Landed On John Norris's Head?

I've been reading Gawkers coverage of the VMAs and haven't seen anything on MTV's John Norris.
Something has always bothered me about John Norris A.K.A. the poor man's Kurt Loder. Is it his relentless celebrity ass kissing? Or how he tries a little too hard to be cool? Maybe it's his overreaction to the most banal music news of the day? Or that somehow he still works for MTV despite never fitting in with the channel? Well, yeah, all of these things bother me I guess. But what really bothers me is the fact that he looks like the walking dead. Like a zombie, or a skeleton even.

But last night whatever that was on his head took things to a new level. That poofy, orange, Bobby Brady on crack wig(?). That clump of hair that resembles a slaughtered baby orangutan loosely attached to his scalp with theatrical glue. What was that thing? If that's a wig (it’s just got to be something like that, it’s not natural) his friends need to tell him to stop. If not I will.

Dear John,

John, stop. Just stop! Go bald, John. You’ve never been a looker. You’ve never been hip. MTV apparently doesn’t care about this. Go bald, John. You're 46 years-old, it's okay, just go bald. Anything is better than this.

Best,
Rick