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| My wife and I just started watching "True Blood" on HBO. The concept is interesting: vampires have "come out of the coffin" and joined society, due to the discovery of a synthetic blood substitute called "True Blood" (vampires can buy this substance in convenience stores or order it at bars, allowing them to freely mingle with humans). Anna Paquin plays the lead character, a waitress at a bar who also happens to have the ability to read minds. Predictably, she ends up falling for a tall, dark, mysterious vampire who walks into her place of employment one evening (interestingly though, she ends up saving his life from "bleeders", who kill and drain vampires for their blood and sell it on the black market). It's worth checking out. Part two... I read a rant on a blog about how "all men love big boobs" and found it to be rather stereotypical and generalizing regarding my sex. Granted, yes, men love breasts: you can read any number of scholarly articles about this fascination, but every man is different. Most men, believe it or not, could care less about the size of a woman's breasts so long as she's genuinely interested in him as a person. So please, please, stop writing about how we're nothing but a bunch of knuckle-dragging cavemen who only want to knock you out and drag you back to our caves. The kind of woman we like, 95% of the time, is the kind who is comfortable with herself. | | |
| ...was never really around when I needed him to be. I often wonder what life would have been like if he had. I know there certainly wouldn't have been any Ward and The Beave moments with him, tossing around the old baseball and getting my hair tousled after, but still...what would it have been like to be able to come home and have a male presense there; one that actually cared about my well-being? What would it have been like to have a dad who took me aside when I was hurting, put an arm around me, and told me that everything was going to be okay, and that he loved me? How different would I be today? Better, maybe? Worse? I don't know. I play "what-ifs" a lot in life. My parents are getting older, year by year. Funny how I used to look at them as if they were the sources of all knowledge, and infallible. Now I just see a couple of older people, who have made mistakes and generally tried to do the best they could. Do I really have the right to punish them for not being what I wanted them to be? I can't help but wonder... | | |
| And so, for good or ill, I've decided to give this another shot. I should begin by saying that I quit my drugstore job and now work at a call center decisioning credit card applications. The work is boring as hell but allows me the chance to do homework (I'm back in school again) or to catch up on my reading. I managed to finish the whole of Joyce's "Ulysses" inbetween applications, which is something I don't plan on ever doing again. "Walden" and a couple of the works of Faulkner have also been my companions in the same manner. So that's about it. More later, perhaps... | | |
| What are the comic strips you hate the most? I'll admit, I'm a bit addicted to reading the dailies and the Sunday editions, and god knows there are a lot of bad ones. Here are ten of my least favorite: (Feel free to add your own.) 10. Hagar the Horrible. (The name says it all.) 9. Garfield. (Someone put this kitty to sleep.) 8. Marmaduke. (Same with this dog. Aren't their hearts supposed to give out after ten years?) 7. Blondie. (Dagwood makes a sandwich. Dagwood eats said sandwich. Repeat.) 6. Mallard Fillmore. (If you want to put politics in your strip, fine. Just make it funny.) 5. The various Far Side Knock-offs. (i.e., Speed Bump, Rubes, etc. Still, funnier than most.) 4. Ziggy. (Just. Not. Funny.) 3. Funky Winkerbean. (Cancer, cancer..'snore'..cancer...cancer..) 2. Curtis. (Does Curtis ever take that damn hat off?) And the all-time worst ever is... 1. THE FAMILY CIRCUS. ('Nuff said.) | | |
| I can't help it. I love Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Noir, and dramas of all stripes, but every time I like a show, it gets cancelled. Why? Because they know I'm happy, and wish to nip that joy in the bud. Scumbags. Witness the fate of the greatest shows ever made: Carnivale. Deadwood. Rome. All fallen prey to the corporate axeman. And all because they were a) too cerebral, b) too violent, or c) too expensive. HBO should be given credit for taking a chance on these shows, but a lesson could be taken from FOX when they had similar problems with The X-Files: just give them a chance! Now we'll never know what happened to Ben and Sophie, and will have to make do with two two-hour Deadwood movies to wrap up the brilliantly written series. Sigh. And crap like "According to Jim" is still going strong. I guess it's true what they say: It doesn't matter what it tastes like, so long as they eat it. (Oh, and I just realized that this is the second time I've used the word "teat" in a blog. I'll try not to do it again.) | | |
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