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."

Ok ladies and men-folk, I, like many of you who are "in the know", am a big fan of Don Hertzfeldt’s little insane animated gems such as Rejected! and Billy’s Balloon. I also like to wear t-shirts with things that strike me as amusing emblazoned upon them. Don has a line of t-shirts for sale on his site with art from the cartoons. The problem is this – Don is a decent animator and a funny guy, but can’t design a t-shirt for shit. His cartoons are simple and clean, but his t-shirts are either poorly laid-out, too cluttered or everything in-between. Trust me, I’ve done this for a living.

Here is my proposal. I am going to design a bootleg Rejected t-shirt (just one to start) for my friends, family and myself. I’ll design and execute all the artwork, printing arrangements and other fine details… all you guys have to do is give me money for them. I am not going to be making any profit off these, I’m just interested in getting a few cool shirts for my wardrobe without having to pay a fortune for them. The more I order, the better the individual price will be.

DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to take money away from Don, I just refuse to buy a product that isn’t what I want. I love his cartoons and fully intend on buying his DVD that’s coming out soon with all the cartoons collected on it. I am also not starting a wholesale Don Hertzfeldt bootleg t-shirt product line. I’m only ordering as many as I have orders for, only select people will be able to get these and no profit is generated… I’m only recouping what I’m spending on them.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, I want to point out that this is still a hypothetical scenario. I want to gauge how many people are interested in this to see if it’s worth my time (which is at a premium these days). Also, if enough people are interested, all orders will be pre-paid – let me repeat that so I’m being very clear – all orders will be pre-paid, for a few reasons. The first reason is so I don’t get stuck paying for a handful of shirts some joker said he wanted and decided later he didn’t reeeally want. Secondly, I don’t want to have to chase anyone down and collect money from them. The third reason being that I’m not a rich man and can’t afford to bankroll this project. All in all this will prevent any hard feelings and make my life a hell of a lot simpler.

The proposed design is this:

Shirt Style: Single color print, front and back design. Black shirts with white ink and/or ash/heather shirts with black ink (with a possibility of off-color sleeves). All shirts will be 100% cotton heavyweight – I want these to last.

Shirt Front: The spoon man, all by his lonesome with only his bowl – no banana. It’ll be printed as big as I can get it -likely around 15" or so tall.

Shirt Back: The phrase "MAH SPOON IS TOO BIG!" nice and big – again, up to about 15" – in a very rough hand-written type of font, maybe tilted a bit to add to the effect.

I’m not going to pester my printer for a price until I’m sure this is a go. More than likely it’ll be comparable to a concert t-shirt price. Also, I have a few follow-up designs in mind for a future time – a banana shirt and a "I’m the Queen of France!" shirt, both in a similar style as this.

If you are interested in ordering one or several of the "Spoon Man" shirts, and have any suggestions for minor improvements you can email me here. Be sure to let me know how many you’d like so I can get a feel for what the first order will be like. Also, be sure to specify who the hell you are in your email so I won’t instantly delete it assuming you’re some random loser from the internet who I don’t know – nicknames are acceptable, considering a lot of people only know me as Stuff or DmentD. Friends and family only to make orders for these, folks.

If the response is good, I’ll move to the next stage and put together some artwork for everyone to see.

Here I am, the front man, administrator and one of four people who operate a public LANParty known as the Geek-O-Rama. I’m faced with a metric ass-ton of inner turmoil. I’m a man divided.

I’ve been doing this LANParty thing for, jeez, more years than I care to count – the last three being open to the public – each event spaced out about every two months or so. I didn’t set out to make my fortune while running these events – my greatest hope was to break even and have some extra cash left over to increase and update my networking and server equipment. Pretty much everything we have been working with is either computers and equipment I already owned or scrounged, donated for temporary use, or I had a few pennies to rub together after an event and used them to buy what I needed. We host the events at a local hotel and have never seemed to break the 40-ish person mark. My ultimate goal was to bring together and build the local gaming community and have a little fun at the same time.

Here’s my dilemma.

On the one hand…

Attendance. It’s dwindling. People are getting burnt-out on the whole dismantle-and-drag-around thing. There aren’t enough people in this city who attend LANParties to be able to have folks cycle in and out of attendance. There’s nowhere around here to really advertise the events – no real "gaming" shops aside from Babbages and Electronics Boutique, and they won’t let us post any flyers – the bastards, a sprinkling of comic shops, and the massive papering we’ve done on all the local campuses is for naught. All other efforts yield nada as well. It’s not for a lack of trying. If nobody comes to the events, we can’t pay for the events, we don’t have more events. Simple math, really.

Competition. There is one other public LANParty in town. If you’ll remember what I said above, there ain’t enough people to go around. Now, this other LANPary has a different goal than we do. They want to become the "pro-circuit" event. They want to be CPL qualifiers and have the massive tournaments and attract all the foaming-at-the-mouth über competitive gamers and blah, blah, blah. I, on the other hand want an event that attracts people that want to come and play, regardless of skill level, regardless of the game.

Attitude. I like folks that enjoy gaming for shits and grins, not merely for the dick-stroking thrill of victory and huge cash prizes. Gamers that are willing to give a new title or mod a try. Quite frankly, I’ve developed a big chip on my shoulder with regard to CounterStrike. CounterStrike is the only game that has nearly caused my attendees to come to blows. The really good players take themselves way too seriously, refuse to play anything else, and will be belligerent, rude and mope if you don’t have a tournament. If a game stops being fun, I stop running the server for it. If you can’t laugh at yourself, you don’t earn the right to laugh at others. I mean, c’mon, what’s funnier (or more pathetic) than sitting behind a monitor pretending to be the person in the game. We’re all guilty of it and we all enjoy it so damned much. Lighten up people, life’s too short to go through it without trying new things, or having a few laughs.

Weariness. Let’s face it, this shit can get old after a while. I have five computers – sometimes six – that I have to break down, load into the car, unload from the car, haul into a hotel, reassemble, run for fourteen hours, break down again, load into the car again, unload from the car again. haul back into the house and reassemble… again. Add to that list about ten containers of miscellaneous gear, a dry-erase board, prizes, a 150-pound power distribution unit and other bric-a-brac. All of this gets done by four people with the occasional help (and I thank all-that-I-don’t-believe-is-holy that I have those folks that do help). Aside from the physical aspect there is also planning the event, updating the servers (hardware, software, new games, patches and mods for the games), running the servers during the event and running the tournaments too. We really don’t have a lot of help in this department… I once had someone help me with the servers. For one event. He then got busy and distracted and I was on my own again. What I really need are people who will not only be there the one or two times, or at the beginning and end of an event, but to be there in the two or so months in-between. Dedicated folks who want to help… a lot. So far, I’ve had one offer. Not a whole lot of people standing in line to help. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Time. Two months may seem like a long time to prepare for a decent event, but between work and sleep (what little I get) it’s a hard choice to make between preparing for the event and having a real life. I forget what my friends look like after a while. It gets real hard to motivate yourself when you have little assistance and a houseful of shit to move looming in your future.

Summation: A lot of damned work, hassle, research and bullshit for very little return. Spiritually, financially or satisfactorily.

On the other hand…

When the event goes juuuust right and everything gels, it’s like magic. I feel like a wizard of the highest magnitude who just performed the spell of a lifetime. There is a full house, everyone has a great time, the tournaments go off without a hitch and all is well with the world. It makes all the pain and hassle seem worth it. Seem.

I’m weary. The wind is out of my sails, I’ve lost my spark and am rapidly losing my taste for it. I can’t motivate myself to think about the next possible event. We haven’t even set a date.

I’ve got a hard decision ahead of me concerning the future of the events, or the lack thereof.

*sigh*

Chalk another failed venture up on my board. Shit. I’m running out of chalk.

Mardi Gras is over and done, and for a change Nadia and I didn’t try to escape the tourons and locals alike. We used this as a prime opportunity to catch up with old friends who usually gather in one place around this time of year to party and… well, catch up with each other. Our friend Krazy is the crowned King of Mardi Gras. He is a host extraordinaire. He arranges, organizes and agonizes over the annual Mardi Gras extravaganza, ensuring that everyone keeps safe, has a place to stay, gets to the parades on time and generally has a good time. He’s very good at his job. Krazy’s apartment was the local hub of activity and general all-around meeting place – and our destination on many a night during the festivities, much to the chagrin of his neighbors. The place was jumping and filled to the rafters with people, all of us laughing, joking, drinking (of course) and, well, catching up. I’ve taken a number of fond memories away with me from this Mardi Gras, and I primarily have Krazy to thank for them.

It was also a golden opportunity to visit with Heather and Gonzo. Gonzo is Krazy’s brother and one of my many good friends who pulled up stakes and moved to California (you cowards!). Gonzo, like Phreeq and myself, is a technology fiend and aficionado of some of the finer things in life. I stocked up on some good cigars, scraped the last of my precious Dancing Bear tobacco from it’s jar (forgetting completely that Phreeq has a full jar at home) and filled an ice-chest with Guinness in anticipation of enjoying them all with Gonzo and Phreeq. I was not disappointed. The best of it all was standing on the landing, talking and smoking the twisted trio of Davidoff Special "C" cigars that I saved for the last possible moment before having to depart the night before Gonzo and Heather were to leave for home.

I am also and single-handedly responsible for planting a dangerous seed in Gonzo’s brain with regards to a certain arcade contraption of mine. That is a story for another time.

We also made a handful of other friends from out-of-town. Two more temporary immigrants from California were Andy and Dawn. Andy is a closet processed-cheese loving pervert, and Dawn had been known to kill a man over a piece of sushi. There were also some Michigan-ites in the hizouse. Trevor, Ivory and Sonic were great fun to hang out with. Greets, guys! If I forgot anyone, I apologize, my walnut sized memory can only hold so much.

The only unfulfilled wish I had for this Mardi Gras was to see two other special folks from Cali who have been known in the past to come into town for the festivities. Maybe next year. Till then, greets and love to you. Keep safe, sane and satiated.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Happy Birthday, Cuz! Snap, I don’t want to see you freebasing any of that Angelo Brocado ice cream. Pounders, me want mead!

Now to catch up on all that lost sleep.

The demons are back.

The little winged purple bastards are back, if only for a little while. They sit on my shoulders and perch on my head whispering evil things to me, strumming the invisible strings connected to by brain. Their names are Irritability, Anger, Irrationality, Moodiness… and Heartburn, oddly enough.

I am in no mood for bullshit today, and I’m doing my damnedest to not lop anyone’s head off for no reason – for the most part, they really don’t deserve it. I feel like a raw nerve being prodded by a dentist’s pick and it’s getting harder by the minute to be even a tiny bit congenial.

I don’t want to be crowded, chided, babied or concerned about. If another motherfucker listens in on my phone conversations and doesn’t have the good sense and manners just to keep the fuck quiet, instead of waiting for me to hang up and clue me in that they were eavesdropping by commenting on the fact that it sounds like I’m in a crappy mood and having a bad day, I’m going to unmercifully bludgeon them into a bloody shattered mass of loosely connected tissue and bone shards.

I woke up this morning in this mode and I have no rational explanation for why. That doesn’t make the fact that I’m in it any easier to deal with, and it doesn’t make the world piss me off any less. More than likely I’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed come morning, but all I care about is the here-and-now.

The repetitive, obtuse tasks I’ve been engaged in all day have left me with too much time to think. My co-workers have taken the available opportunities to engage in a little good-natured ribbing which otherwise I would have reveled in, but only brought me closer to a homicidal episode. I was "let off the hook" for a dinner get-together that I was looking forward to, and have interpreted it as a kind and gentle blow-off. My mind’s eye isn’t seeing 20/20 today, so I might be way off base on that one. Fuck it. Don’t care. Throw it on the heap.

If I can make it home without killing anyone, it’ll be a miracle.

FUCK! Heartburn.