Monthly Archives: November 2005

White House planned to Bomb News Outlet

Via Stallio, I discovered this story being discussed widely in Britain and the middle east — about Bush wanting to bomb Al-Jazeera, the arab media outlet that happens to be located in Quatar, a ally nation of ours, according to a new memo leaked from No. 10 Downing Street. He was talked out of it by Tony Blair.
Yes, you read that right — Bush wanted to bomb the NEWS. In an allied country.
Okay, not only is he retarded, he’s dangerously crazy. Can we impeach him now?

Continue ReadingWhite House planned to Bomb News Outlet

King Kong Game for Xbox Day

King KongI should blog about last night’s city-county council meeting, which I attended to view the introduction of Proposal 622 to amend the Human Rights Ordinance.

But I’m too excited to do that because the King Kong game for Xbox is released today, and I have to go get my copy. According to the King Kong Official Strategy Guide you can either play as the Jack, or as King Kong. You know which one I’ll be. I’ll be swinging through the trees in a matter of a few hours. Yeah!

This is, of course, all a marketing ploy to get us to go to the King Kong movie, which will be release on December 14th. They didn’t need to do all this, though. They had me at “giant monkey.”

Continue ReadingKing Kong Game for Xbox Day

Reassessing Priorities 2

I decided against moving my site to a different URL or restricting access for the time being. Either of those defeat the purpose of what I want for this site, and to me the site is more important than other stuff. I did make a small change that I hope isn’t noticable, and there might be other behind the scenes steps that I take, it all depends.
If you have your own website, reading the Electronic Frontiers Foundation’s Legal Rights for Bloggers is mission critical. This page is really enlightening, and if you e-mail them to ask questions, they do help you out.
I made the decision years ago to use my own name & face on my website, and since my name and URL have been on television, there’s really no going back from that position. For the most part that’s been a good decision, but there are times when I have regrets about doing it, and this is one of them.

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Favorite Movie List

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I answered this movie meme several years ago. I need to update it quite a bit, but since I received another meme recently asking the 10 movies I hate, I thought I’d combine them.

10 Favorite Comedies

  1. Auntie Mame
  2. Amelie
  3. Shakespeare in Love
  4. Twelfth Night
  5. Much Ado About Nothing
  6. There’s Something About Mary
  7. Breakfast At Tiffany’s
  8. The Truth About Cats and Dogs
  9. Southpark: Bigger, Longer, Uncut
  10. The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love

10 Favorite Dramas

  1. Joan of Arc – the miniseries
  2. The Matrix
  3. Fight Club
  4. Life is Beautiful
  5. All the President’s Men
  6. Pleasantville
  7. Sense and Sensibility
  8. The Usual Suspects
  9. American Beauty
  10. Donnie Darko

10 Favorite Musicals

  1. The Wizard of Oz
  2. The Sound of Music
  3. The Music Man
  4. Grease
  5. Singin’ In the Rain (I can’t put it higher on the list, because the others are childhood favorites)
  6. Camelot
  7. Oklahoma
  8. Oliver
  9. West Side Story

10 Favorite Tear-Jerkers

  1. Terms of Endearment
  2. Beaches
  3. Steel Magnolias
  4. The Madness of King George
  5. It’s a Wonderful Life
  6. Waking Ned Devine

10 Favorite Action/Mystery/Thriller/Western Movies

  1. Rear Window
  2. Vertigo
  3. North By Northwest
  4. Dial ‘M’ for Murder
  5. Marnie
  6. King Kong (1933)
  7. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
  8. Wild Things

Movie Characters You Wish You Could Be

  1. Auntie Mame
  2. Tyler Durden
  3. Gina Gershon’s character in Bound
  4. Professor Harold Hill from The Music Man because as a kid I wanted to kiss Shirley Jones.
  5. George Bailey from “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart was a pretty stand-up guy.

Ten Movies You Hate

You have to take into account here that there are lots of crappy movies I didn’t see; these are just ones I did see.

  1. Closer. (read my rant on this movie here)
  2. Jaws (never seen beyond the opening sequence because it’s too scary).
  3. The Piano. New Rule: Harvey Keitel is not allowed to be naked anywhere, even in the shower.
  4. Basic Instinct. Because all lesbians are hot blonde killers. And we have nothing better to do with our lives than chase your lame, paunchy ass around with an ice pick. Right.
  5. Pieces of April (started to watch this dismal movie on HBO, quit halfway through.)
  6. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
  7. Forrest Gump (It’s okay to not think. Smart people will kill themselves.)
  8. Pretty Woman. You don’t need me to explain, do you?
  9. Apocalyse Now. I know I’m supposed to like that “heart of darkness” shit, but I’m sorry, I just can’t sympathize with toxic masculinity.
  10. Chuck & Buck. I’ll admit I only remember this movie after seeing it on other worsts lists. I did hate the hell out of it, though.
Continue ReadingFavorite Movie List

Time’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Bil asked the question: how many of Time’s list of 100 Best Novels have you read?
41 of them. Most of them in high school or college English classes. When I read the list I was disappointed at what was missing and some of the crap they included. These people can’t tell me they actually read Infinite Jest. I don’t believe it. And what the hell is “Are you there God, It’s me Margaret” doing on this list? If they needed to pick a teen novel, there are 30 better than that. I also wonder why they picked the year 1923 as the starting point. What’s significant about that year?

  1. The Adventures of Augie March
  2. Animal Farm
  3. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (what the hell?)
  4. Beloved
  5. The Blind Assassin
  6. The Bridge of San Luis Rey
  7. Catch-22
  8. The Catcher in the Rye
  9. A Clockwork Orange
  10. The Corrections
  11. Death Comes for the Archbishop
  12. The French Lieutenant’s Woman (TOTAL SUCKAGE!)
  13. Go Tell it on the Mountain
  14. Gone With the Wind
  15. The Grapes of Wrath
  16. The Great Gatsby
  17. The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
  18. Herzog
  19. Invisible Man
  20. Light in August
  21. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
  22. Lolita
  23. Lord of the Flies
  24. The Lord of the Rings
  25. Midnight’s Children
  26. Mrs. Dalloway
  27. Neuromancer
  28. 1984
  29. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
  30. Portnoy’s Complaint (SUCKED!)
  31. Possession
  32. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
  33. Rabbit, Run
  34. Slaughterhouse-Five
  35. Snow Crash
  36. The Sound and the Fury (Two Faulkners listed, but not “As I Lay Dying?” Shame.)
  37. The Sun Also Rises
  38. To Kill a Mockingbird
  39. To the Lighthouse
  40. Tropic of Cancer
  41. White Noise
Continue ReadingTime’s 100 Best Novels 1923-present

Show Up Monday Night for the Re-Introduction of the Human Rights Ordinance

From Pepper Partin:

Did you know that walking from your car to the Indianapolis City-County Building will burn 1 million calories? Enjoy a guiltless Thanksgiving and look great in your new holiday wear this year by attending the City-County Council meeting this Monday night. Why? In addition to burning calories so your body will be in a much-needed holiday calorie deficit, you will be showing support for the re-introduction of Prop 622 – the proposal that will add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Human Rights Ordinance (HRO). The added language will make discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity illegal in the areas of housing and employment. Council member Jackie Nytes plans to re-introduce Prop 622 just in time for you to get that Madonna-like body prior to filling up on turkey or tofurkey or whatever macrobiotic diet followers eat on Thanksgiving.

When: Monday, November 21st at 6:30 (be there a little earlier if you can)
Where: City-County Building downtown Indianapolis – (across the street from the City Market) Beurt Servaas Public Assembly Room

As you may know, The HRO was defeated earlier in the year when Eric Miller and Advance America led a campaign against the added language just days before the Council vote. The campaign was successful albeit unethical since Miller called upon his cronies outside of Marion County and even outside of the state to barrage the Council with e-mails and phone calls. His campaign worked, and we can’t let it happen again! If Indianapolis wants to claim that it is a world class city, our City-County Council will need to prove it by following the lead of Daniels, Brizzi and Peterson.

The road to a second vote on Prop 622 may take several weeks and Rock Indiana, along with other organizations, will be calling on YOU to help. It will take all of us to win this battle. So pay attention to calls to action as the entire community will be needed. But let’s start with Monday night.

The Council will not be voting on Prop 622 or even hearing testimony Monday. And that’s the beauty. All you have to do is stand in unison with the Indianapolis/Marion County GLBT community and other fair-minded Hoosiers. You’ll look great doing it since you will have that just-worked-out rosey glow. So show up Monday night along with HUNDREDS who support Prop 68 and know that you can enjoy a guiltless holiday and you’ll look fabu.

Don’t let Eric Miller and other right wing radicals win this time!

A special Rock Indiana thank you to Jackie Nytes for her support and to the Greater Indianapolis Fairness Alliance and IE-Region 8 for their INCREDIBLE work on getting this before the Council again.

Continue ReadingShow Up Monday Night for the Re-Introduction of the Human Rights Ordinance

Reassessing Priorities

This website is one of the the most important things I do. I’m sure no one in particular cares much about it other than me, but for me at least, it’s a creative outlet that I need to survive. I don’t think I could have gotten through this past year without it, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s as much a part of me as my left hand.
So earlier this week, I found out some really chilling information that I’m not at liberty to discuss here at any length, at least not yet. But it has me considering a number of possibilities for the future of this website; among them are a move of the entire site to an undisclosed location, or potentially restricting part or all of the content to a password-protected area. There are a couple of other possibilities as well. I hate to have to do any of this, but considering my current circumstances, I may not have a choice.

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A few words

Looks like I’m not going to get a chance to blog about New York, because I’m going to be working late for a while. But you can get the general idea of the trip from my photo gallery on flickr.
But I do want to say this: the reason the trip was great was because of Stephanie. She is a very competent and accomplished traveler; much more so than I. She’s great at navigating and plotting out trips. She doesn’t get stressed over details that bother me, and she’s a genuinely fun and interesting companion to spend time and see sights with. She’s also much more observant than I am; she will notice the sign I missed telling us where to go, or the piece of information we need to have a fun time. I, on the other hand, will always spot the monkeys.
I had a wonderful time in New York, entirely due to Stephanie, whom I am so grateful for.

Continue ReadingA few words

Home from New York

Stephanie and I are home from New York. It was quite a trip; we had a wonderful time and her cousin Kerry’s wedding was beautiful and fun and amazing. I met most of Stephanie’s mom’s side of the family and they are such nice, fun people.
I have a lot to write about because we did a lot of stuff, but I’ll get to that when I can.
I still have to pick up Spike from the doggie hotel, which I will do in the morning. But since we didn’t get any emergency calls from them, I presume he’s doing just fine.
I did discover that my heart valve repair ring and sternum wiring don’t set off the regular walk-through security sensors at the airport, but they do set off the wands. I got selected for a random search, and they did the whole pat-down thing, so I had to explain my surgery to the airport security, who were very helpful and understanding. But that’s helpful to know for future reference.

Continue ReadingHome from New York