To whom it may concern, I never proclaimed that I wasn’t a little sick in the head, nor have I ever denied having said, or at least thought, poorly timed and inappropriate comments in a period of bereavement.  I’m the kind of gal who laughs in the middle of a funeral.  I can’t help it.  It just pours out of me like a burp and fart all at once.  I’m sure armchair psychologists out there would label it a classic defense mechanism.  They’re probably right.  I am not, as some have assessed, emotionally detached.  I just take the winding path through grief, which always starts (and eventually ends) with my poking of fun at death and even the dead.

Earlier this week the world lost a memorable Australian caricature named Steve Irwin in a truly bizarre accident.  I’ve never really participated in the Steve Irwin phenomenon, having been more of a Jeff Corwin fan, but I found myself strangely saddened by this news.  Despite some of his more irritating quirks, I always regarded him as I would a crazy backwater cousin, charming and amusing even if a bit gorky. 

Mr. Irwin did some risky (yes, even down right stupid) stunts.  And while I rather not speak so personally on behalf of someone I didn’t know beyond the boob-tube, I’d vouch that the man understood the risks and the potential consequences.  They all know the risks: the daredevils, adventurers, and civil servants of the world.  Unfortunately, people are more incline to berate and admonish the daredevil only upon his/her untimely demise. C’est la Vie.  C’est la Mort.  So let it not go unstated, Steve Irwin was not just a boisterous stuntman/obnoxious idiot.  He was a passionate conservationist who used his global notoriety to educate and stir an equal passion for the environment to his viewers. In addition to documenting and promoting animal welfare, Mr. Irwin campaigned for the protection of endanger species and land preservation, using monies earned from his celebrity to buy tracts of land for wildlife reserves in Australia, Fiji and the United States.  He was, at heart, a naturalist, wherein no creature on this earth is ugly, worthless, or dispensable.  Not even those goddamn fuckin’ stingrays.  I never thought I’d actually say this, but I’m going miss those ear-bleeding “crikeys!” of his. 

It should also be noted for the record that Mr. Irwin had his own twisted sense of humor.  He named his kids after his frickin’ dogs, for Christ’s sake!  So keeping that in mind, and for all the reasons and defenses given above, I have absolutely no shame in making the following statement:

So Steve Irwin walks into a barb… 

*ba-dump-bomp-ching*

Thank you, good night!

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Comments

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2006-09-07T14:40:21.000Z

It’s good to have you back in the world of the bloggers. I miss spewing water on my screen while reading your posts.

I know my loyal fans are screaming for an update.  My agent called up this morning and told me that my lack of an update is beginning to have an adverse effect on a global scale.  Apparently a massive riot broke out last night in Quito that destroyed a television set and left the El Zulu bar with three broken glasses.  I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am to hear about this devastation.  Those poor Ecuadorians.  They love me more than their llamas.

So to my admirers, both present and future,…Peace.  And as soon as I have five minutes to myself, I shall provide an update that you shan’t forget.

…Unless there’s something really good on TV.

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Comments

Anonymous

2006-07-13T17:28:02.000Z

Just as a mountain of rock,
is unwavering, well-settled,
so the monk whose delusion is ended,
like a mountain, is undisturbed.

Udana III, 4

How many of you have been handed cards to sign and pass around the office? Let’s face it, you really don’t care, you just do it to placate the false sense of unity in the office. I have standard responses to these cards, typically along the lines of:

Marriage: Congratulations on your marriage, may you enjoy many happy years together.

New Job: Congratulations and good luck on this exciting new path in your life.

Baby: Congratulations on your new addition, may he/she fill your house with joy.

Funeral: My condolences for your loss. May you find comfort in friends and family during this time of grief.

You get the picture. If it was actually someone I cared about, I’d get him or her my own card and write out something a little less cardboard. Yet, my apathy has just caused a rather embarrassing predicament involving synchronized cards circulating about the office. One is for “Barbara”, who is leaving FOL for a better paying, less degrading job with the Attorney General’s office. The other is for “Lisa”, who just lost her father after a long illness.

I think it is unwise to use blank cards with generic, vaguely attributable scenery on the front…and I think it is even more unwise to not label these cards appropriately, because what I wrote was, “Congratulations and good luck on this exciting new path in your life.” to a woman grieving the death of her father, and “My condolences for your loss.” to a colleague getting out of this fuck hole.

That blur you see running through the office is me with a pen in one hand and correction tape in the other, desperately tracking down aforementioned cards before I become a spectacle of public ridicule.

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Comments

t

2004-10-29T13:39:54.000Z

Holy crap!  I didn’t know your office was located in Sitcom land.  Does the canned laughter ever get annoying? 

By the time those cards make it around to me, there’s usually hardly any space left, so I typically have to scribble my name in a corner.  My signature is so illegible I could be writing “Kill Your Parents” and it wouldn’t make any difference.

ashley

2004-10-29T14:59:53.000Z

your little slip up makes ashley laugh and laugh, and cringe, and then laugh more.  It could have been anyone of us making that mistake.  At least you caught it.  I quickly scanned to the end of the post to see if you were able to remedy the situation.  whew.

julie

2004-10-29T16:14:01.000Z

that is fantastic!  Travis is right, how has this not happened on a sitcom?  I guess the Office is calling it quits, so they wouldn’t work, but I bet you could sell this to someone.

(Insert witty entry here.)

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Comments

The Colonel

2004-08-20T17:41:17.000Z

“In 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.”

(So I’ll be abroad for the next few weeks and didn’t want to leave my blog all passe and shit…and since I’ve done so much ranting lately that my head hurts, I’m just going to have some good ol’ geeky fun instead.)

Twelve series, fourteen movies, a few dozen random episodes, nearly three-hundred hours of Japanese animation…and this is what I learned:

1. Gravity isn’t a law, just a recommendation.

2. The only proper way to combat evil is with a Japanese sword, even if that evil is armed with laser canons and AK-47s.

3. During the heat of battle, the villain will inevitably start running his mouth, dissin’ everyone’s mama and babbling some incoherent crap about ruling the world. It boggles me why the hero doesn’t take this opportunity to stab the bitch in his fucking cry hole.

4. The human body contains approximately 40 to 50 pints of blood, which is why even minor flesh wounds spurt like geysers.

5. War is 90% philosophy, 10% blowing shit up.

6. Avoid residing in Tokyo. In addition to roving street gangs and astronomical living expenses, it has a propensity to blow up unexpectedly.

7. I have no idea what this “ki” stuff is exactly, but two men going mano a mano will boast about it before proceeding to beat the living shit out of each other. I think it has something to do with penises.

8. The power of one’s ultimate attack is directly proportional to the length and complexity of its name. If said name is more than ten syllables long, it will be repeated no less than 25 times during a single battle.

9. In space, everyone can hear you scream…vacuum schmacuum.

10. No matter how old or how lame, grudges pose the greatest threat to one’s personal safety. Remember that girl you slept with in college? The one you promised to call but never did? Don’t be surprised if one day you come home to find her waiting with an army of super ninjitsu androids programmed to do nothing but whoop your ass.

11. A virtuous heart is a noble thing…but it will only get you killed.

12. Even something as nasty as a 300-pound, demon possessed, renegade samurai with bad hair and a giant sword can be easily felled by applying the right psychology.

13. Life is about tough choices, like having to choose between two totally hot guys with two radically different personalities. It just sucks when said guys occupy the same body…or does it?

14. Speak softly, pilot a big mech.

15. So the girl you like is actually the illegitimate daughter of your arch nemesis, recently discovered to be the long lost father who abandoned you to pursue a life of crime and who hates your guts, because what you don’t know is that his brother is actually your shadowy syndicate boss whom big daddy discovered was bonking mom full of you some 18 odd years ago. That makes said girl your cousin and that’s still incest, so get your damn hands out of her panties!

16. The pick-up line of a brooding fatalistic hero is usually something like “I’m going to kill you” or “Follow me and you will die”. For some reason, the chicks really seem to dig this shit.

17. Girls, if you discover that you date has phallic-shaped tentacles where phallic-shaped tentacles do not belong…RUN!!!

18. The seductive licking of a sword blade is an adversary’s way of communicating the true extent of his wickedness…or perhaps his latent homosexual proclivities.

19. How come the fate of the world rests in the hands of teenagers? Does this not bother anybody? Why does no one question it?

20. Never assume someone is dead just because you “killed” him. No one is ever truly dead until they are shot in the head, their body burned to ashes, the ashes scattered across the four corners of the earth, and the earth destroyed by aliens. Even then, there’s a 5% chance they’ll reemerge to seek revenge.

21. Honor is sexy. Bravery is hot. But evil is just damn irresistible.

22. Did you know that swords are flammable?

23. Transformation is an important aspect of anime. I find this very interesting. I’m waiting for the day when I am just shuffling along when suddenly I (a) get sucked into a vortex and end up in a parallel universe (b) discover that I’m the long lost queen of said parallel universe (c) sprout wings I never knew existed (d) resurrect my half-demon powers when someone pisses me off (e) turn into a jeep.

24. “Aiiieeeee! Gundam!” is Japanese for “Holy fucking shit! I can’t fucking believe that giant fucking robot is about to royally fuck my bitch ass up!”

25. There is no such thing as too many bish. J

I just had my first “low carb” candy. No, I did not buy it, it was free for the taking, which just goes to show that there’s truth in ye ol’ adage about how the best things in life aren’t free.

How should I describe it?…it’s like eating manic depression. Before you is this perfect little chocolate cup wrapped in tantalizing, vibrant foil, and the color and shape alone causes taste buds to jump up and down in fits and squeals of girlish glee, salivating for that burst of cocoa goodness, the dizzying highs, the inebriated joy of ooey-gooey confectionate sex…until you take a bite. That’s when the bottom drops out…

and you fall…

way…

way…

down.

There is no joy in caramel-flavored lard, saccharine chocolate and the most pithy pecan pieces picked from the good green earth. All the tea in China cannot wash this foul taste out of my mouth.

What evil spawned this misery and called it candy? I can picture some sweatshop in Taiwan where blind, leg-less orphans are forced to solder lard and chocolate together while being beaten with wet bamboo to an endless loop of Robert Smith’s mournful wailing. You can taste the sad, sad tears of pathetic, hopeless third-world defeat. It’s an abomination. Candy is suppose to be a good thing. Personally, I’d rather have a micro-bite of real chocolate than a whole candy bar of suicidal tendencies. Life is just too short to eat inferior food to please some misguided notion that the scrawny skank on TV is actually a better person because of her size-four jeans.

And while we’re at it, I believe we’ve had just about enough of this low-carb fad. For me, the breaking point was a “Low Carbys at Arby’s” ad. Something just snapped. Now, I’m not saying that the low carb diets are bullshit. It is true that cutting out excessive sugars, starches and filler carbohydrates is key to successful weight loss. But frankly, people are morons. They don’t bother to learn the science behind the diet, or why and how it works. They want fast and easy weight loss without any effort, just like their hamburgers. Even worse, they think that they can lose weight without exercise. Well, a pish and a posh to that notion. Hey, remember the fat-free fad where as long as it was fat-free you could eat as much as you wanted? It’s funny to witness some dumb bunny picking his/her way through a salad and then wolfing down a jumbo bag of Skittles because “it’s fat free”. And I don’t mean funny ha-ha, I mean funny oh-that’s-so sad.

First of all, unless you are clinically obese, it is not about losing weight, it’s about obtaining a healthy body. With that in mind, remember:

1. Fad diets are like fad fashion…it is briefly lived and reflected upon with utter embarrassment. If you don’t believe me, when was the last time you wore stirrup pants?

2. Get your flabby ass to the gym/park/class/sports team/etc.

3. Moderation is a beautiful thing.

4. Don’t feed the beast, and by beast, I mean the Crapadillo Corpo Monkeys charging twice as much for bad products by taking out everything that makes them taste good and slapping an Atkins logo on the packaging.

5. Eat well, get some exercise, have fun, be happy. You’ll look good and feel great.

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Comments

Tarv

2004-04-19T18:13:06.000Z

I totally agree with your post, though every time I look at the title, all I can think of is “Full of Sorrow” from Goth-Talk on SNL.

Julie

2004-04-19T20:26:17.000Z

I have this on tape somewhere.  It’s a sketch from the MTV Comedy Hour where Robert Smith is like crying and eating this chocolate that tastes really bad.  I think it’s made of like really bitter chocolate and lard or something.  It’s very amusing and I am happy to see Erin reference it.  Of course, now I know what I’m doing next week, trying to find this clip!

Erin

2004-04-20T19:37:38.000Z

Rock!  I was wondering if anyone would catch my obscure reference to the MTV half-hour comedy hour skit that ran so many, many moons ago.  I’ve never forgotten “Chunks of Sadness”…I seem to recall that it was something like metal chunks covered in lard and dipped in unsweetened white chocolate.  If you find that tape, call me up, cuz I’ve gots to sees it.

Anonymous

2004-05-17T21:03:38.000Z

I guess I didn’t watch enough TV…I feel so culturally depraved.

Dude, I think Warren Zevon is exerting his ghostly influence to rub me out. I have no idea what Mr. Zevon has against me, yo. First there was the whole accidental-suicide attempt with the garage. Then, while recounting that particular story to a coworker (complete with song lyrics), my foot gets caught in an extension cord, and I nearly pull a broken fax machine down onto my noggin’. The next day, I almost took a header down the stairs while humming along with “My Dirty Life in Times” on the radio. Eeeire, yes…but I still hadn’t made the connection.

So the other day, I’m driving home from work, traffic is pretty light, I flip the radio to KGSR and good ol’ Zevon in on the radio again. And it’s a good tune, so I turn up the volume, hit the gas and head down the homestretch. Just as I’m bop-bop-bopping along to an angry chorus about the CIA…or marijuana…whatever, Asswipe swerves out onto the road at breakneck speed, careening right toward my car. So I scream and hit the breaks. Asswipe decides to right the situation and proceeds to sideswipe Mr. Volvo. Mr. Volvo screams (assumingly anyway) and hits the breaks, both Asswipe and Mr. Volvo try to get the hell away from each other by ingeniously swerving into the same goddamn lane, thus creating one giant road block in front of my screeching-to-a-halt car. I’m screaming obscenities, wishing my tires were in better shape so that I could avoid impact, when Asswipe and Mr. Volvo execute a beautiful break away into opposite lanes, just before I rear-end the mother fuckers. Of course, it happened a lot faster than that:

“I’m down on my luck-”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

“The shit has hit the fan-”

*Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech* *Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerve*

“Send Lawyers, Guns and Money-”

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKIIIIIIIIING

“Send Lawyers, Guns and Money-”

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Send Lawyers, Guns and Money-”

ASSHOLE!

“And get me out of this.”

I think I’m gonna puke.

Is Mr. Zevon trying to tell me something? Is there a ghostly message involved, like “Errrrin…you siiiiiing all my soooooongs…why do you not buy my albuuuuuuuum? I need renuuuuuuuuumeraaaaaaation. Ooooooooooo.”

Sheesh, talk about pushy sales tactics. I’m sort of afraid to buy any of his albums now…but then again, I’m kind of afraid not to.

But maybe it’s something else entirely, like that movie where the guy hears the John Denver song and then someone kicks the proverbial bucket in the most gruesome manner possible. If I recall, the guy actually survives, but all his friends get bumped off. You frogs better watch yo’ backs.

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Comments

Julie

2004-04-14T16:02:59.000Z

I’d recommend not listening to Mr. Zevon anymore.  Anytime he comes on the radio, just change the channel.  Because he has it out for you and he is apparently not going to give up.  And I remember Final Destination.  And that movie was very scary.  And you don’t want to die like that, no way Jose!

Brett

2004-04-15T18:29:31.000Z

I think I will buy you every Warren Zevon album he made so that you can ceremonially smash them in an attempt to rid yourself of this haunting.

Tarv

2004-04-15T18:58:08.000Z

Sounds like we’ve got our horror play right there…the curse of Warren Zevon.  Imagine if you woke up in the middle of the night to see your toy clown standing in the window sill singing “Werewolves of London.”

This may come as a shock to some, but my work/school schedule means I average about four to five hours of sleep a night, so by the end of the week…let’s just say that I’m not the sharpest cheese in the deli. Like yesterday, I left work tired as shit, hopped up on caffeine, just singing along to the radio at the top of my lungs. As I’m about to pull into my garage, this great tune comes on, and it’s just a perfect song at the end of a long day because it gives you an excuse to howl, and howling is such a great stress reducer…I highly recommend it. Anyway, I pulled into the garage, closed the door and this song comes on, so I started singing along:

Ahwoooooooooooooooooooooooooo werewolves of London, ahwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Ahwoooooooooooooooooooooooooo werewolves of London, ahwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

And after a few verses and a chorus or two, I start feeling a bit off, head going all loopy and my eyes burning, and I’m thinking: Gee, I’ve had a long day, not enough sleep, all this howling is givin’ me a head rush…

Ahwooooooooooooooooooooooooooo werewolves of London, ahwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

*yawn*…damn, I’m tired…I think I need to take a nap…

Ahwooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

…so sleepy…*sniff sniff* what the hell is that smell?!

>

>

Confusius say, secret to happiness is good heart, secret to success is noble soul, secret to long life is TURNING OFF YOUR GODDAMN ENGINE WHEN THE FUCKING GARAGE DOOR IS CLOSED!!!!

Sheesh! I cannot convey how embarrassing it would have been to die in such a stupid manner and have everyone think it was some dumbass suicide. Stupid, stupid, stupid!…plus, there’s stuff in my room I wouldn’t want my parents to find.

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Comments

Tarv the corpse-kicker

2004-03-26T21:50:15.000Z

…that secret to honorable departure from this world is not dying in such a foolish manner and making your friends have to give your coffin a swift kick at the funeral.

In other words, BE CAREFUL!!!!

Julie

2004-03-26T21:53:43.000Z

Never, never never do that ever again!  But don’t worry, we would have come in and cased the joint for embarrassing items before your parents went in.  Which, by the way, is a pact we should all have.  If one of us dies, we will, in our grief, case all crevices for embarassing items like pornographic materials and drugs before the parentals show up.

I quite often listen to music in my car in the garage, but just turn off the engine, that’s all.

Yo Mama

2004-04-04T02:54:13.000Z

You can sing in the rain, whistle in the dark, hum a tune in your head…however, you cannot listen to a song in a garage with the door closed!!!  Get some sleep!     Your Concerned Mother

PS  Julie, I promise to call you before I call the funeral home…there are some places a mother doesn’t want to go!!

bs

2004-04-07T21:18:06.000Z

There’s a good scene in Final Destination 2 when one of the guys hands his keys to the lead character. He asks her to clean out all his porn and bongs and stuff if he dies before her, so as to save his mother the grief.

You’re all getting keys to my apartment in the mail. Be on the lookout.

A steamer is great for your everyday meal

A tasty delight with delicious appeal

But of all the good things you can put in your pot

Don’t steam your mochi

Your mochi steam not

For mochi is sweet and chewy and good

But under the heat and covered by hood

It fades like an icicle in mid-noon July

Dissolves into nothing and leaves you to cry…

“Mochi, oh mochi, what have I done!

You were not some mere dumpling or pork filled meat bun.

You were perfect and round and white as the snow

Mochi, oh mochi, I want you to know…

That you crapped up my dinner, you suck monkey bitch!

Your sticky spilled innards made a big fucking glitch!

So pardon my tantrum, my screams and my fit

But what shall I do with this big pile o’ shit?”

Yet, when tempers waned from the ruined platter

I realized my error in this glutinous matter

For steam makes cod tender and sprouts remain crisp

But mochie will melt, It will melt in your dish

It will smother your veggies and gooey your tray

It will turn your rice into red bean melee

So the truth has been told, and I’ll steam them no more

And the lesson I’ll share as was stated before

Food is delicious when steamed in a pot

But don’t steam your mochi,

Your mochi steam not.

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Comments

Tara

2004-03-17T07:43:23.000Z

That is one of the most wonderfulest poems that I’ve read in a long time. I had to read it to Jeff. I love mochi ice cream, especially strawberry flavor. Thanks for the poem.

Brett

2004-03-23T03:31:37.000Z

I’m stealing Erin’s words here… “You scream, I scream, AIN MOCHI ICECREAM!!”

At least it really did.  I stumbled across that bit o’ fact versus fiction the other day, and I think it’s just neato!  Yea!  History is fun.

Actually, this is just a test post to make sure my diary is going to stop acting like a little bitch-bunny.  So if you are reading this, thank the Oniwabanshuu, destroyer of bitch-bunnies everywhere.

…well, technically thanks go to Tim and his army of ninjutsu techno monkeys.  But the Oniwabans supervised.

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Comments

Tim

2004-03-11T04:49:53.000Z

sadly my techno monkeys are more the sloppy-drunk backyard WWF variety.

brett

2004-03-15T04:08:41.000Z

Hanya, Beshimi, Hyottoko, Shikijou!!!!!! AAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH