What has become of the world these days? Everyone has become politically correct. Overly sensitive to others feelings. Tippie-toeing around so as to not anger anyone. Eliminating perfectly good words and phrases from their vocabularies for the sake of politeness.

Why? Why bother? I mean, it’s all a sham. It’s a false front as a means to an end. It’s the most damnable form of dishonesty to lie to someone to their face, and that is exactly what you’re doing when you put on the sickly sweet "nice guy" persona. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be polite to people in general – I advocate that, but you shouldn’t suppress your inherent personality because Bob’s wife Freda doesn’t like people "who joke around a lot."

Being politically correct means using appropriate words and phrases which are engineered so as not to offend the subject of discussion, or possibly the other members in the discussion. For example, terms like African American piss me off. Are you African or American? You can’t be both, so pick one and cruise off to the appropriate locale. If you’re a voting, tax-paying, freedom loving denizen of this cohesive bundle of "States" primarily located within this northern continent… you’re a fucking American, and I don’t really give a heap of shit what color your skin is or where you originally came from. If you moved to this country and successfully navigated the Naturalization process, you’re an American. Period. If your ancestors came across on a boat – by hook, crook or free will, and your family has been here for generations, you’re an American. Period. Don’t like it? Hit the road, Jack. Anything else is just a diluted form of racism with a happy, shiny face put on it. I don’t truck with racism – on either side of the fence. I believe that everyone should have the chance to hate others for valid, genuine reasons. Racism is a cop-out.

We should also stop coddling the "sensitive" people in this world. Sometimes, folks just need to be told the ugly truths about themselves and the world around them. Knowing the truth allows us to change things as we see fit, if we see fit. If you’re too scared to tell your buddy that he has atrocious body odor and that he would do well to have a bath more frequently and some industrial strength deodorant might be a nice idea, he’ll never know. Then, he’ll go through life known as "that stank guy", or "Gorilla Pit", and that would be cruel. Especially since you came up with those names for him yourself.

Suppressing your emotions so you don’t upset others is another lie a lot of people live. What about yourself? If you’re all pissed off, you should at least be able to express it, shouldn’t you? I don’t mean throwing Buicks around like the Hulk or anything, but at least let it be known that you’re not a happy camper. If you’re ecstatic about something, let it out! You shouldn’t have worry if those with less or nothing to celebrate are going to feel like a smaller person because of it… hell most of those folks will cheer you along just to see someone happy, if not themselves.

If you try to go through this life trying not to make anyone angry, you’re doomed to fail. The object is to piss off as few people as you can, but deal with the ones you do in a straightforward fashion when you do. You don’t have to go out of your way to rile anyone up – well, not all the time – but it’s going to happen anyway. Folks are also going to make you very, very angry too at some time or another. Own it. Deal with it. Move on if you can, but be honest with yourself about it when it comes down.

Here are a few details about myself some of might or might not know. I’m pretty straightforward and easy to read. If I’m happy, you know it. If I’m depressed, you know it. If I’m angry, you r-e-a-l-l-y know it.

I’m a mellow guy who is always quick to help in times of need. I’m a smartass, with a sharp tongue. I love words. I am in love with the English language, every last syllable of it. I am especially enamored with the naughty, sinful words you’re not supposed to use in mixed company or in front of priests, children and other small mammals. I really groove on the combination of complex structures that evoke strong emotional responses… any emotion.

Here is where I have the most trouble with the so-called "polite society" we live in. We have such a rich vocabulary at our disposal, and yet we’re being told that there are certain words we shouldn’t say in the presence of some people, or at all. There are special words we must say in special circumstances. This isn’t a freedom of speech issue. It is not so much a matter of censoring words as it is censuring thought.

Why shouldn’t we use the oft condemned words of cursing? They are as much a part of our language as any other colloquialism deemed acceptable in everyday speech. What? Someone might get offended? Only if they let it offend them – it’s all in their minds. I know lots of people who are put off by the C word. They can’t even bring themselves to say it. Here, I’ll say it for them. Cunt. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt. It’s a lovely word. You know where you stand when someone says "cunt". It’s gritty and has a handful of connotations all of which allow you to clearly express yourself.

What I don’t get is these same people who shun the C word will gladly, even giddily use other naughty words like "fuck" and "dick". Let me demonstrate something:

"I rubbed my dick on her cunt, then I fucked her."

What makes the middle of that sentence any worse than the beginning or the end? Granted, the whole thing licks… er, lacks finesse, but it gets it’s point across in an execution style, elementary school dropout sort of way. Isn’t that what language is all about? Communication? Exchanging ideas?

Why limit yourself or others to a cattle-call of acceptable words and phrases, or worse yet, ban select ones that universally evoke a strong emotional response with their simplicity and straightforwardness. I can respect the man who can successfully convey a thought with a contrived, conservative and simple statement as easily as a spontaneous, convoluted and polluted one. I know folks who wield curses as precisely as DaVinci could wield a brush. It’s a beautiful thing.

It all boils down to this:

Say what you mean and mean what you say.

Words can destroy countries and tear down mountains. They can kill, maim and rend. They can also heal, bring together and mend. They make the weak strong, and lovers fall in. They are magical things, but are only as strong as the thoughts behind them. That’s the crux. It’s not the words that do the damage, so why twist, emasculate, or mute them?

Our collective skins are not so thin that we can’t deal with a little straight-shooting. If they are, then we need to build calluses on our souls to protect us a little better. Let’s drop this entire political correctness pretense and get down to the business of communicating.

Cunts!

As most of you know, I’m a humble man.

You can stop laughing any time you like.

I truly am. There is a considerable difference between pride in your skills and accomplishments, and bragging to build yourself up, or just to show off. Nonetheless, this is a conversation for another day.

*ahem*

As most of you know, I’m a humble man. Just this once I’m going to step aside from that and say "Check this shit out, bitches. Lookie what I built that you don’t got. Try not to drool on the paint."

Ok, this project is no big surprise to most of you out there, but I’ve finally reached a point where I can say that it is complete. Not to say there isn’t work I’m currently doing on it and will be doing in the future.

*** WARNING: LONG-WINDEDNESS IS INEVITABLE ***

Meet PAC.

PAC started life as a Bally/Midway Pac-Man cabinet manufactured in 1984, signed, sealed and serial numbered. By the time I got my mitts on him, he had seen seventeen years of hard use and had been stripped of all parts not wooden or insignificant – basically an empty cabinet.

Why did I acquire this empty shell of a once great and mighty arcade game, one of the classic arcade games that defined the genre?

M.A.M.E.

Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator – the program that takes the original programming from the ROMs used in arcade games and emulates everything else using your PC: mainboard, sound, display, controls, etc. The upshot is that you’re playing the original games you enjoyed in the arcade, using your computer. Currently MAME supports 3936 ROM sets, 2254 being unique games. Lots of you have heard of it and no doubt installed and played with it on your own PC. It always lacked something. That one of a kind tactile feel and the clickity-click of the buttons and joysticks that you only get from standing and playing on true arcade games.

I stumbled across a whole society of people we never knew existed. Folks who live in the space between dimensions. Clever individuals who figured out that you can build a set of controls using genuine arcade parts and interface them with a computer.

Now, by the time I got on the scene, this community had already evolved through several stages:

• In the beginning there was the the "keyboard hack". Essentially, you dismantle a computer keyboard, trace out the contacts to map the keys, solder wires to the control board and connect them to the switch contacts of arcade buttons and joysticks. Take this whole rig, bang it into a box of some sort and whammo – you have an arcade control panel. While this is still a popular way of interfacing the controls, it has some drawbacks. The first is ghosting, which is the fact that all the keys on your keyboard share a common connection with some other keys, and pressing two of those keys at the same time can cause some unpredictable results… not good in the middle of a game. The second is keyscanning. There is a set interval – usually 16 times a second – that your keyboard scans for key presses and relays them to the computer. While that sounds pretty quick, it isn’t in the grand scheme of things. It’s not an instantaneous response to an input and can cause lag, and in some cases loss of input as the keyboard buffer floods.
• Not long after, someone also developed the "mouse hack". They figured out how to interface the optical sensors of a good old fashioned ball mouse to arcade trackballs and spinners, allowing them to plug straight into the PC. No real drawbacks to this except it’s a pain-in-the-ass to do, and the PC mouse is a lot more sensitive than a trackball and has a tendency to freak out when you give the ball a good, fast spin.
• It didn’t take long for people to fall in love with the idea of using real arcade controls. They grooved on it so much that they quickly made the next logical leap: "If I can make the control panel, why not put the whole shebang into an arcade cabinet and get the full experience?" And so it goes. Folks started modifying cabinets, and even building their own cabinets from scratch to give their arcade capable PCs a home.
• Later on, as the hobby started catching on, some exceptionally clever and enterprising guys who were pretty darned good with designing electronics developed keyboard emulators. Basically, several companies designed interfaces that the computer accepted as a keyboard and you could wire your buttons and sticks directly to without tearing up a keyboard – they even included little labeled terminal blocks you could run your wires to. The big advantages were ease of installation and no ghosting or keyscanning. Response times are faster and there is no key buffer to worry about.
• These same guys also developed optical interfaces for arcade trackballs and spinners that you could tie into the serial or USB ports of your computer. No more pain-in-the-ass hacking.
• There are some arcade equipment manufacturers who are now offering products that are specifically built with the MAME gamer in mind. Direct to PC arcade controls. How’s that for acceptance?

Evolution is a good thing. Now there are more sites you can go to for homework, research, tips, tricks, how-to etc. than you can shake a stick at. Controls are easy and cheap to get. Public forums are jammed to the rafters with friendly folks who are more than willing to help feed your habit. And it is a habit. It’s a mind-bending monkey that staples itself to your back and fills your thoughts to the brink of overflowing! Ain’t it grand?

So, fueled with this knowledge, the scales falling from my eyes as I discover this "hidden in plain sight" society of arcade-gamers-on-the-next-level, I set off to start my project.

Long story short – too late – I acquired my Pac-Man cabinet from a local ex coin-op technician named Bob Roberts who is still in the market of selling controls and replacement parts to the emulation and restoration communities. He’s a nice old grizzled guy, who is genuinely interested in helping the folks who are pursuing these hobbies. He has a wealth of knowledge and gives freely of it. He sold me the cabinet, all of my controls, an original Bally/Midway coin-door and an original Pac-Man marquee. Oh, and replacement monitor parts for my Nintendo Play-Choice 10 system – but that’s a different story.

The cabinet was in good structural shape, but was pretty shabby in the appearance department. The yellow coloring was fading, and the artwork had rubbed off near the front where years of leaning and playing had taken its toll. Hey, whadda ya’ expect for seventeen years of use? Still, it was a classic and I could have used it as was – it didn’t look that bad. Yeah, y’all know me well enough to know that I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I restored the exterior of the cabinet. I patched a few spots where the wood was bad, I filled in some holes, had the yellow, blue and red color-matched from a spot that had never seen the light of day and re-painted the entire cabinet and it’s artwork by hand. I also restored the coin-door and added working coin mechs to it so it will accept coins to trigger a credit in addition to my "coin-up" buttons (which I can disable, forcing people to pay-to-play if I so choose) and replaced the old T-molding with some fresh, bright orange new material. A lot of work, but fun.

I then proceeded to layout my control panel. I wanted a four-player control panel, with as many buttons as I could spare for each player. I had to have a trackball, and a spinner was a necessity as I am a Tempest player from way back. Due to evolution, I added a dedicated 4-way ball-top Pac-Man style joystick to the panel for games like, well, Pac-man and Q-bert, etc. where the common 8-way joystick would cause problems when you hit a diagonal direction. The big problem I had to face was the sheer size of a four-player control panel. How do I balance it on a cabinet originally designed for one player, and how do I get this beast through doors when I need to?

I eventually designed a decent layout, and beat the size problem to boot. I then commenced to build the removeable control panel. I ended up with a very satisfactory layout. It’s a lot of wiring, so I used Cat-5 cable to wire all the switches from the buttons and joysticks to the control boards. The trackball is a PC "Crystal Trackball", and the spinner was custom made for me by my friend Jeff out of solid stainless steel, with a Microsoft Optical mouse employed for tracking. In the bottom of the control panel I have two Ultimarc IPAC (no, not the Apple device) keyboard emulators in tandem to take all the button and stick inputs and translate them to keypresses and send them along to the PC.

I built a PC from spare parts, and is currently a P-III 600 with 384MB of RAM, a 15GB hard drive (7GB of which are just MAME ROMs) and an ATI Rage II video card with TV-out capabilities. Originally I had a 17" monitor in there that was rigged to rotate 90° so that games like Tempest and Pac-Man could be played in portrait mode, and games like Joust and Marvel Super Heroes could be played in landscape mode. It was a complex arrangement that I never had time to finish (i.e. it rotated by hand, but I was going to motorize it eventually). I’ve just recently put a 25" television stripped from its plastic housing into the cabinet, hooked it into the ATI video card and never looked back. Operating in Windows is a little fuzzy, but I’m not in this for Windows – the games look spectacular. Here are one or two examples of the games as they appear on the new display. Photos don’t do it justice.

The next item on the list of things I’m going to be doing to PAC stems from ideas I had in mind from the start of the project. I’d like to install other emulators like the Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Playstation, etc. Recently, after I got the TV installed, I had intended to hook-up my real SNES to it and stick it in the cabinet and trail the controllers through the coin-door. Gonzo recently reminded me that I should just run the emulator and use the nice arcade control panel to play the games. Doh! I had forgotten that’s what I set out to do 18 months ago when I started this project.

Yeah, I babbled on this time around – no big shock there – but I’m really proud of this project. I’ve even infected a few folks with the desire to build their own (and you know who you are). Those who won’t build will still come and mooch play-time on PAC. It’s a good thing.

The fact of the matter is I didn’t lose it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get mad, but I didn’t have to put pictures of my temper on milk cartons, staple flyers to telephone poles or contact the local authorities to let them know it was lost. I kept my cool and didn’t kill anyone.

I wanted to. They had it coming, oh how they did.

But I didn’t. More on this in a bit.

So, like the rest of the cool people in this country I saw X2 on Friday and was extremely pleased. The good folks who made the movie did what I had hoped they would, and what I hope the second and third installments of The Matrix will do. They basically said: "You know all that shit we did in the first flick – all that background information, character development, groundwork about mutants and the way they fit into the world and our little team of heroes? Well I hope you do, because we aren’t going over that again. Sorry, Jack. Watch the first movie." They got down to the business of making a two hour and fifteen minute entertainment extravaganza. They expanded on character relationships, fleshed out a few things and added some new people and twists – most notably Nightcrawler. Sure, they distilled a few things down for the viewing audience, but they only have a few hours to work with, and they kept the parts that counted, and changed the things that could be done so without disrupting the X-Men franchise. I’m with Phreeq on this one – I was wanting to see X-Men III the very second I walked out of the theatre. Either that, or I would have gladly sat through a 4½-hour movie rather than 2¼-hours, if it meant the story continued. I say "bravo" to any filmmakers who can so thoroughly spellbind and entertain this jaded and critical moviegoer. Oh, and Wolverine dies. Gone. Never to return. Why are you still reading this paragraph? Weirdo.

Sunday night we celebrated Krazy’s birthday by having a tea party and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Aw, who am I fooling. We hung out and all went drinking at The Dock. Krazy, Slinky, Lisa, PickleScoop, Goofy, RhondaLady and myself all had a loverly time inebriating ourselves – yea Guinness! After a while Slinky and Lisa bowed out to go perform some illicit activity elsewhere, and even later Pickle, the gay Eskimo, took his giraffes and left. That left a well-fed (thereby removing any chance of complete intoxication) Krazy, a well-drunk (thereby removing any chance of complete coherence) Goofy and a well-satiated RhondaLady and myself (maintaining a good, if not low-level feeling of warmth). After a while, we decided to move to the top floor so Krazy and Goofy could ogle women more thoroughly in the thicker crowd. I made the executive decision to go and "pay the rent" (i.e. chip a hunk of porcelain from the urinal with the force of my straining bladder). RhondaLady wanted a Corona, and asked if I’d pick one up upon my return from the euphemism.

So there I was standing at the bar, basking in the glow of a mild buzz and the euphoria earned from relieving myself of approximately 37¼ gallons of used beer. Around me on all sides were people clamoring for a drink from the bartender, mostly college age harlots with way too much cleavage for their emaciated frames. I’m patiently awaiting my turn for the red-haired fellow behind the bar to get me RhondaLady’s beer. I realize after a few minutes that the crowd of nubile toothpicks around me has cycled out a few times, and that I’m the only one who hasn’t been served. I’m gradually starting to feel that familiar prickle in my brain. The adrenaline is starting to slowly drip, as though from an IV into my cerebral cortex. I’m rapidly losing by carefully cultivated buzz. I make a very conscious effort to remain calm and see if this red-headed little prick behind the bar will bother to serve me, even with the distinct lack of a pair of hooters surgically Velcroed to my chest. How long can he hold out avoiding my eyes as I all but drill my initials into his forehead with my laser-vision? Twenty minutes later I turn and walk away with a great deal of effort, empty-handed. My impulse was to reach across the bar, fold this Irish prick like a handkerchief and stuff him into the olive jar in front of me. Fuck physics, I’d have done it.

So I return to the table hot. Real hot, but in control of myself. That carrot topped buzz-kill sucked the joy right out of me, but I was damned if I’d let it ruin the remainder of the evening – which a bar-fight and subsequent arrest most certainly would have. So, I commence to calm down. Goofy, who is seated to my right, is loaded to the point where he has ceased to notice where that cigarette in his left hand is weaving around. Namely, almost into my right arm. So, I pluck the lit cherry bare handed from it’s tip and flick it from the table as he attempts to reattach it. He threatens me with a few slurred bodily harms and relights his smoke. Again, he’s not paying attention to where he’s got that cigarette and nearly burns me again. He’s faster this time and manages to pull his hand away as I reach for the tip. I steeple my hands under my chin, rest my elbows on the table and smile at him – check that – I present him with a smile that holds no joy and promises pain. I’m already aggravated, and with no satisfaction. Nearly having a cigarette extinguished on my arm – twice – has me no less giddy. Goofy says "let me show you a little trick I learned", and proceeds to pick up his Zippo, flick it open, light it and press it to my arm. A flash low in my peripheral vision, the distinct smell of burnt hair and the distant sensation of hot metal tell me that he has burnt away some of my arm hair and is getting a good start on my actual arm. No pain – the IV drip in my brain won’t allow that, and I never break my smile and eye-lock with him. As I sit there unblinking, looking into Goofy’s mildly glazed eyes, all I can think about is how quickly I could snatch them from his skull and eat them.

The burning was meant to be a scare tactic, but Goofy’s brain, laced with booze wasn’t moving his body as quickly as it should and that Zippo hovered there for a few seconds longer than I’m sure he intended. Again, I managed to resist the temptation to hurt, maim, kill and generally blitzkrieg a human being. Several factors played into this. One: Goofy is, well, goofy. He earned that handle for a reason – and I don’t think he intended to be more than a niggling asshole. Two: It was Krazy’s birthday party, and I didn’t want to ruin that with a trip for him to visit an old friend at the morgue. Third: Goofy is generally a decent human being and a valued member of the little society we have all created amongst our friends.

I, uh, didn’t let it just go. I needed some satisfaction. I managed to restrict myself to a bit of juvenile revenge. I swiped the flint from Goofy’s Zippo when he stepped away to use the phone. Hey, my first two impulses were to throw Goofy in the lake, or at least his "A" grade 2003 Zippo. What a lovely sound either of them would have made as they splashed into the water – "bloonk!". Later reports have told me that he was confused and inconvenienced by the inability of his precious lighter to work. So that’s something, I guess. Oh, and he did apologize to me as well, but only after threats of harm to his person made by Krazy. Apology accepted with one stipulation – do it again… I don’t give a rat’s ass how drunk you are… and we’ll see how well you can flick the flint wheel of a Zippo with your prostate.

C’est la vie. It’s in the past. I do believe that both incidents suffered without sufficient response, coupled with a lack of sufficient sleep put me into the foul mood I was in yesterday. But nobody died, and I stayed out of jail, so it’s a small price to pay. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be this well behaved in the future.

*sigh*

Ah, well.

Can’t… breathe!

*gasp* *choke*

Laughing… too hard!

Going into… cardiac arrest!

See for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s two video files, and you must watch them in order.

Here’s the first video, and the background for what you’ll see. He has a link to the second video, but it might not work and that’s OK…

… because Papa DmentD has taken care of you with a working link here. Some rotten fucker took the time to edit, add visuals and sound effects. I only wish I had gotten to it first. Sheer genius.  Be sure to go back to the first link and read the comments that follow – that’s entertainment all by itself.

I, for one, love to have a laugh at some poor, unsuspecting bastard’s expense. I just filled my quota for this month in the space of five minutes. Email me if you need me to call an EMT for you.

Real quick like, here’s some funny shit I thought I’d pass along.

The Chipmunkz express their discontent after a career laden with sex and drugs… and nuts.

I’m sure that Ray Harryhausen would be turning in his grave at the thought of a tribute like this. Maybe ‘ol Ray hung out at the Blue Oyster. Hmmm.

Bless the sick and twisted fuckers in this world. Digest and enjoy, my peeps

Holy smokes! This guy gets the "Dad Of The Decade" award for making one of the most original treehouses/forts I have ever seen. Basically he constructed a 38% scale BattleMech – a MadCat to be specific – starting with a few shipping crates he was just going to screw together so the kids could climb on them. Needless to say, that idea changed. All told it was seven months worth of work, it looks pretty sharp and I’m envious.

"Daddy, can WE play on the BattleMech now?"

"Not yet, Daddy’s almost to his next waypoint. DmentD to base, I’m going in."

Honda made a commercial for distribution in the UK that is absolutely stunning to watch. I’ve always been a fan of Rube Goldberg and his unusual contraptions, and this commercial had me spellbound. Bear in mind these few details when watching this: this was done in one take – no CGI or film cuts, and it took 606 takes.

Get the Quicktime version of the commercial here. It’s a mirror on a UK based message board. Look for the link at the end of the first paragraph.

The absolute worst part of taking a vacation is ending it. I don’t give a crap if it was a good one or a bad one. You could have had five incontinent, gas-bloated, farting and screaming kids jammed into a station wagon with no air-conditioning and windows that won’t roll down and you’d still be dreading the day you have to return to work.

Fortunately, the above scenario was as far from what my little break was as I could make it. Nadia and I are fortunate to have friends that either live or have property in groovy places. Our pals Genghis and JOA have a family farm up in north Louisiana. I mean WAY north. City of Colquitt, Parish or Claiborne, spit on Arkansas north. It’s a six or so hour drive (with minimal stops), and the fastest route brings you through Mississippi and you brush-burn through Jackson before heading west. Not a bad drive all told, but if you’re not familiar with the territory, you’d better make it during daylight hours or you’ll be saying "hello" to the little feller with the banjo and a grin like a jack-o-lantern who’s awfully fond of pig noises, should you get lost. The trip also provides this below sea-level city boy with something he doesn’t see often – hills. Not giant ones, not huge piles of rock, but rolling hills nonetheless. You CALI folks practically live on the side of a mountain, so I don’t wanna hear from you about how it’s no big deal. I live in a fucking bowl; the closest I get to hills are the interstate overpasses.

Genghis’ farm is on a good-sized piece of land that was once used for cattle farming, but is now used for tree farming (a single stampede now takes ten years). Lots of land means privacy and silence – take into account that going "to town" is a fourteen-mile ride. There is a beautiful private lake, small and made by the damming of a stream that cut through the property. The house was built by his grandfather, and is as far from a shack as you can get. It’s a cozy and sturdy place with modern conveniences like central A/C and, get this, a good sized flat screen TV with a satellite feed. Hell, we brought a DVD player and a crapload of movies to enjoy during the trip.

You can spend your days doing a number of things. Napping is a good one. Very important. You can just lounge around and read if you want – Nadia got in two books while she was there. You can take one of the boats out on the lake and paddle around for the sake of doing it. There are also a few good paths through the property that you can walk, like a nature trail.

Fishing is a biggie with me. The lake has an abundance of bass and perch practically daring you to catch them. I’ve learned more about fishing at the farm over the years than I have from all of my other fishing experiences put together. We’d go out a few times a day and hit the deep areas, and we did pretty well, including a few alligator-gar that we either strung up for target practice (more on this later) or chopped their jaw hinges and tossed them back in to be a productive part of the "circle of life". What? The gar and turtle population needs to be kept in balance or the lake ecosystem gets way screwed up. Trust me.

Shooting is my other favorite activity – isn’t it yours? There’s enough space that we can go out to one of the back pastures and set up targets and other fun objects and have a fiesta sharpening our firearms skills. I typically bring my .22 rifle (with scope), my Winchester 12 gauge pump and my trusty .38 Special revolver. There are also other lovely weapons to choose from as well. We can spend hours shooting without the bother of time or caliber limitations, worrying about a neighbor being bothered (or shot) or fighting for target time. Hell, pack a lunch and make a picnic of it.

The .22 rifles are handy elsewhere too. We’ll take them with us out on the lake when we fish and help to thin the turtle population. On sunny days the turtles will come out in droves and sun themselves on logs and stumps along the banks of the lake… making mighty fine targets indeed. My .22 is sighted for about 75 yards, which is plenty of distance to not spook the turtles while lining up a shot. It’s almost comical to watch them go flipping sideways off of a log like an Olympian ice skater botching a somersault. A note to all you folks who just *gasped* and think we’re horrible for killing these harmless little creatures: go to hell. These "harmless little creatures" are exceptionally destructive little fuckers that happen to be one of the highest things on the food chain for this lake. There are no semi-aquatic critters to act as predators, and left unchecked the turtles will destroy the lake’s fish and other creature population pretty quick, as well as burrow and erode the land around the lake. Plus, they’re just so much fun to shoot.

The alligator-gar, while not as destructive to the land, are equally, if not more destructive to the fish population than the turtles. Once caught they are removed from the loop, most popularly as carbon-based targets. Slim and long, they’re challenging to hit. The big contest is to see who can saw one in half with .22 rounds first. Fun for the whole family!

Alas, the day came when we had to leave the farm and head home. Pretending to be smart people, we left ourselves with an extra day off to spend, well, taking a vacation from our vacation. We were able to run a few errands we usually can’t do during the work week and the time off ended perfectly with a beautiful evening spent with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra and their Swing In The Oaks open air free concert in City Park. The weather was very nice, the music was great and we got to pretend that we’re mildly pretentious by sitting on a blanket in the open field drinking red wine, eating fresh fruit and wheat crackers with pâté. Ok, we really do enjoy that stuff, but just can’t muster up the energy to be genuinely snobby on a day-to-day basis. We have to be snobby now and again or the Pâté Eater’s Association will revoke our membership cards. You know how it is.

For a change I don’t feel like my time off was rushed, but I wouldn’t have minded a few extra days. I feel moderately relaxed, even having spent a cumulative fourteen hours on the road with the other morons-on-wheels. Fishing is good, shooting guns (safely) is better and extra sleep with naps in-between is the best. Wine and pâté are not just for elitist pigs, and I’m a very common man to prove that.

Incidentally, you shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers in a prison area. Yes, this is for real, and was on the road into town.

That is all.

Exercise. The "E" word. I’ve avoided it for years, and my current shape reflects it. I’m a tall guy with broad shoulders, so I’m allowed by nature a little extra weight on my frame. I took that concept an ran with it. Granted, I’m not obscenely obese – not 700 pounds of angry man looking for the next herd of pizzas to decimate with my gaping maw. I’m just a lot heavier than I’d like to be, and I can feel it every time I move. I grunt when I get up off the sofa, I’ve grown lazy because I don’t feel like making any efforts that require me to lift, move or walk distances to anything. I have a tendency to eat everything I put on a plate, but have a bad habit of piling a lot on my plate. I don’t eat poorly compared to the rest of the nation, but if a burger and fries sidles up to me and says "hello sailor" who am I to refuse its compelling advances?

But I’m trying hard to change Ringo… I’m trying R-E-A-L hard.

I’m playing a tricksy game of chess – my brain on one side of the board and my body on the other. I’ve come to know myself over the years, and I know what I will not do, and what I will respond to. I know that if I go balls-out into an exercise program and start getting into it hardcore, I’ll burn out faster than a vegetarian’s fart on steak night. It starts to bore me, I find excuses not to go, I get distracted and stop. I also know that if I try to start up an exercise regimen by myself, I’ll do the same thing. I’m an inherently lazy person and like water, will seek the downward path and settle in a pool. So to speak.

How do I get around these known barricades do you ask?

First, I will never, ever start an exercise program solo. I need the help to focus. I need the encouragement to go, especially on those days when I’m sore and sleepy – it’s way to easy to just go home a sit in front of the TV and turn into a mushroom. I need someone to share the experience with, that I can count on to entertain me while I entertain them in return. To make it fun.

Second, I will always start s-l-o-w. Start nice and easy, letting my body get accustomed to the idea that it’s gonna be moving around a bit more frequently. If I get a wild hair up my ass and hit the gym 5 days in a row, each day making me more sore than the last, I’m going to get awfully tired of being that sore in a big, big hurry, regardless of the fact that I’ll stop being sore after a while.

Third, I need an exercise program of some sort. I require someone to tell me what’s next on the agenda, even if it’s some big-necked gorilla named Gunter. Point a finger at the floor and tell me to do ten knuckle pushups and I’ll hit the deck, snap off ten and pop up looking for the next instruction. Left to my own devices, I’ll disassemble the rowing machines just to see how they tick, then wander off to the cafe to confirm my belief that health foods taste like gritty cardboard.

Fourth, severe dieting and major swings in eating habits don’t take hold well. Keeping an eye on how much I put on my plate, and steering the "hunger boat" into healthier water rather than into the dock or over the falls is a safer bet for me.

To start the ball rolling, I’ve enrolled into a martial arts program. Kuk Sool Won to be precise. Attending Kuk Sool Won classes is the brainchild of Phreeq who consequently is trying to get into a better shape as well. I’ve enrolled with Phreeq, S and Rhondalady – a happy little mob that can keep each other going and bolster spirits in times of need. We go twice a week, and every other Saturday (as available). We have skilled and patient instructors who give us plenty of direction, attention and many other -tions. I feel pretty darned good after the classes, even being a little sore. I’m immensely entertained because studying a martial art is something I’ve wanted to do for at least ten years. It’s almost too perfect.

The downside is that right now I have a gimpy thumb. Purely by accident (so she says) Rhondalady managed to smoosh my left thumb in a car door. Pain. Let me say that again. MOTHERFUCKING PAIN! So, it hurt a lot. The nail turned black. The finger became swolen. I’m looking forward to a 95% chance of losing the fingernail in the near future. So, all-in-all I have many months of inconvenience to deal with. Hardy, fucking har. Makes grappling and pressure points a little difficult to execute with when you can’t use your left thumb.

Who knows where this will lead. In six months I will have either stepped up my Kuk Sool classes to more days a week and supplementing them with home exercise, or I’ll be sitting on the sofa doing some major damage to a bag of chips.

Time and willpower will tell.

(a lone figure walks up to the podium in a smoky room filed with people)

"Hi, I’m DmentD."

(the crowd speaks as one)

"Hi DmentD!"

"I’m an internetaholic. I have been for so long that time is a blur. I can’t even tell you when or how it started. I’m a hopeless lost cause. You see, I didn’t come here for redemption, reform or rehabilitation. No my brothers and sisters, I came here to reaffirm my addiction – to bask in it’s soft radioactive glow."

"I love the web with all it’s useful and useless information. I relish the fact that I can shop from home, while away the hours then turn around and push a big red button that does absolutely nothing. Ahhh, bliss."

"Email is another great form of entertainment too. I can keep up with my friends, write stinging commentaries to my congressman and learn how to enlarge my penis – just like John Holmes. Spam is the greatest sometimes. Have any of you actually read some of the stupidity that hits your inbox? It’s hilarious."

"I live for filesharing – well, partaking from people who share files anyway. There are one or two really good P2P programs out there that make my life complete. I just can’t get enough of my favorite animated shows, TV series and old martial arts movies. I can collect them to watch at my leisure and trade with my friends. I won’t go into the whole music side of it."

"I’ve only just scratched the surface, my friends. You should give up this folly of giving it up and join me in my pride."

(someone approaches the podium from the darkness of the room)

"Gonzo, what are you doing here?"

"Uh, Stuff, when we say that this is an internetaholic support group, we meant that we’re helping each other to use the internet more frequently and efficiently."

"Ah, I see. So I don’t have to hand out these porn-site password leaflets then – you know, as an incentive to fall off the wagon?"

"What? Are you on crack? Of course you have to. Do you forget your audience? We’ll just call them… door-prizes."

"Solidarity, my brother."