Figured I needed to make a blog post so people don’t think I’m still on my death bed 🙂 I am finally getting better. Still have a cough and some congestion, but much improved. Poor John is sick now, which is his karma for teasing me earlier in the week asking if I was ever leaving the house again.

John is leaving the house tonight, leaving me all alone here. He is going in for a sleep study because he’s having sleeping problems. Basically he’s developed a snore. I guess I shouldn’t share that with the world, but oh well. His snoring actually has gotten better since he’s lost a lot of weight he put on, but he’s afraid of sleep apnea or something. Also no matter how much he sleeps, he is tired all the time. I told him that is cause he works too much, which is probably what they’ll tell him too 🙂

Anyway, I’m alone tonight, and I hate that. I always feel creepy when I’m stuck in this house by myself. Well I’m not by myself, I have the animals and the ghosts. The later are who I don’t like being alone with 🙂 I was gunna take the doggies to bed with me tonight, but they need a bath, I don’t feel like giving them one, and they will just wake me up. So I’m taking Percy Cat to bed with me, as he will just sleep there nice and quietly.

Well that’s about it. I now have to go proof 75 some pages of 2 chapters and then send them to my adviser for his reading pleasure.

By the third day of Monster Mania, the novelty of seeing the movie stars had worn off. I got everyone I really was wanting the first day, and didn’t want to spend much more money on it. By the third day I was could tell I was catching a cold.

John Landis, director of An American Werewolf in London and Thriller

Myself and David Naughton, start of American Werewolf in London
As you can see, I’m not my normal shinning self 🙂

I’ve basically been sleeping the past two days, and am just now trying to get myself back up and to a normal routine. I hate being sick!

Adam West, Batman!

Kelly “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful” Lebrock. Weird Science.

Desiree Gould. Aunt Martha in Sleepaway Camp.

Dee Wallace Stone! E.T., Cujo, The Howling. . . .

Figured I should give some updates as to what is going on.

I have still avoided said establishment, and being stuck in my house is driving me nuts. I went to Chili’s for lunch on Friday, then out with Emily to Bahama Breeze on Saturday. I am currently on “Oh My God Look How Much I Weigh” Sunday 🙂

I’m pretty sure unless I be shady with the dates on my Wii that I’m gunna fail my EA Active Sports 30 Day Challenge. I am not planning on trying it again, I will simply just use preset workouts (or design my own) and move forward. You have to do 20 workouts in 30 days, and I think if you have too many “rest” days in-between a workout you fail. I think I might just put my Wii Date back a few days and “cheat.” You see I have a nice blister on my hand (accident with the stove of course), which forced me out for awhile (because of the straps the game uses). Frankly I don’t want to start over mainly because I have to do the same workouts over again (the 30 day challenge uses a course of workouts), and I’m bored as hell with them (having already restarted them once). Way too many lunges for my tastes, and I’ve cursed the poor lady trainer out enough as is for making me do so many. I’m so glad she can’t hear me and talk back!

I went to see “District 9” this weekend. I wasn’t sure I’d like it, as the trailer was just bizarre. Plus I’m not really an alien movie fan. However the movie was fantastic. A little slow in the beginning with the set-up, and a little dragged out at the end, but well worth it. Just don’t see this movie if you are squeamish. This is a gory movie, with blood and guts and oozing and bodies exploding left and right. Yes, bodies explode!

Anyway, to get out of the house, as well as help facilitate my writing and concentration, I’m going to the local library starting tomorrow to do my work. We’ll see how it goes, whether or not the space is “too big and too busy” for me. Yes it’s a library, but this is a huge library and they don’t have little private nooks for people to work in. Your stuck at a giant table, unless you snag a corner chair, in which old people seem to just sleep. If it doesn’t work out I could always try Panera, but then I’ll probably go broke and get fat 🙂

And now I have bi-color hair 🙂

The following is a clip from a special feature of the “Designing Women” Season 1 DVD. This clip was from the Paley Media Center reunion of Designing Women (not to be confused with the one that Lifetime TV did, which is all over YouTube). This is my favorite clip from this reunion, for reasons you will soon see.

Fun Facts: Delta blurts out that she loves when Dixie was telling off the jury (which Dixie speaks about, a great episode I will say). Meanwhile the show’s writer speaks about Imogene! Imogene was the character from the AIDS episode who Julia blasted after she said AIDS was “killing all the right people.”

This whole clip is classic, and mad props to Linda Bloodworth-Thomason for what she says! Also Annie Potts for the zinger she delivers, as well as Jean Smart and Delta Burke’s comments about gay parades and bars. Even though she’s a republican, we love the Dixie Carter too 🙂 We love you all! You are classy ladies!

Remember in middle school how kids would chant that? Yeah that’s what is going on lately with me.

I don’t know how much I can say or should say. Too many locals are following me and could see this post. I don’t wanna cause drama for people, at the same time I’m so over the high school drama others perpetuate around me. I already unchecked this from being announced on Twitter. Sometimes I think it was easier to blog under a pseudonym 🙂 I think I might have to start making a password for some posts. Yeah it’s another post about “that person,” you know, the one who has no issues slandering me to anyone within earshot. Why do I feel the need to protect them? I’d like to think it makes me a better person 🙂 Then again, anyone who reads my blog knows what this is about 🙂 Hey I also kept it off facebook, where even more people in the know would find out the drama! Maybe they should really . . . .

Let’s just say this person didn’t like that I was playing with their kids in a pool a few days back. This person basically told me I wan not welcomed, to leave and stood there until I did so, because you know a gay person near kids in swimsuits with no one else nearby is just a molestation waiting to happen. Okay, that last part wasn’t said, but I am not stupid and I know that was a big part of what was probably being thought by said person. At least that’s how I was made to feel, like some dirty child molesting pervert. That really hit a nerve with me. Needless to say, this person succeeded in making me feel like a walking pile of shit in front of their kids. BRAVO!

I was furious, but bit my tongue. I wasn’t starting a scene in front of the kids. I was at least somewhat above their tactics. I also knew this would lead to a fight if I said anything about it to anyone else. It’s a bad habit I have, but I will bury things inside me to avoid drama around me. I just made up my mind to avoid a certain local and to no longer have anything to do with it, including offering the free internet service I have been out of my own time and pocket. BTW, we are talking spending around $300 dollars of my own money last month to update/purchase new software! Look for a new wizardworks.net sometime in the future, I have to use it somehow!

Well John found out from the kids what happened, he’s pissed at what was said, he’s pissed I didn’t tell him, and he planned to start an issue about it in front of people to call said person out on his views. Yeah it’s nice he wants to defend my honor and all that, but it will do no good. Said person’s mind is made up, nothing will ever change it about me, John or any gay person. I fear that he’ll just turn around and cause major drama and shit for others in the family. That’s why I told him I’m not gunna suffer, your not gunna suffer, others are.

Whether John did it, I don’t know. I didn’t ask him tonight, I really didn’t want to know. I’ve already had one employee come over and talk to me. I simply said I had made my mind up and was sticking to my decision. I was later told by John that said person was getting ripped left and right from a lot of people. Again, I feel it will do no good. Said person will just target me more, thinking I blabbed and that I a fucking pansy faggot caused him grief, and will just spread more lies to people around him (oh is that inflammatory? MY BAD). This has been blogged about before 🙂

Frankly at this point it’s better for my sanity to just stay on my side of the street. I told John as much, cause otherwise I’d start a fight and hit said person, which would result in me being the bad guy and going to jail. John says then he’s won, and I’ve isolated myself from other people who care about me. John however grew up in a much more liberal and accepting surrounding. I’ve blogged about this one before. I was called a gay-wad and teased that I would get a sex when I was in 3rd grade (7 years old people!), simply because my friends were all girls. Clearly yes I was gay at that age, as most rational people realize one is born gay. Said person just brings back all those old feelings of nastiness and bullying in me. When I graduated high school, I gained the freedom to say “I don’t have to sit in this room with you, I don’t have to be in the same building with you, I can walk away and not be punished, buh-bye!”

Sadly though I am stuck in a house with no one but animals all day, but oh well. Has he won? I don’t know. Maybe yes and no. He may keep me away, but I have now forced them to pay for services I offerd for free. Services they won’t match without bucks because I could have been there everyday offering fresh internet updates! I was also prepared to offer a whole lot more, more they won’t get without paying even more for. Oh well, who has lost now? Probably both.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for fighting for gay rights, but he’s one of these assholes that you can’t win the war with. So why should I put myself through such torture? Every time I see this person my blood boils and I just get angry all over again. How is this good for me? It’s not. I told John that he chooses to associate with this person, why I can’t fathom. I however will not, I can at least choose that much. Again graduating high school finally gave me the power to say “Why the hell would I want to be around someone like you” and be able to walk away. This is in fact a major reason as to why I will never work at said establishment period. I can not work with or for such a person.

Anyone from said establishment or the kids are always welcomed to come visit me of course. I just will not walk into that building anymore, because of the off chance I have to see said person. It’s not worth my sanity. Cearly I’m going to really now have to make the effort to get my ass out a lot more and make new friends! Fortunately I’ve already started on that 🙂

In case you haven’t figured, I also told John that he needs to find someone else to provide all the internet services I have, because I’m done with it. I won’t be treated this way and turn around and provide services for free to an establishment which this person is a major player in. I actually fired off an email 30 minutes ago officially informing many of my “resignation,” if one can resign from a free job lol. Yes sure I’m screwing some innocent people by doing this, including John, but again . . . that’s what happens when you associate with someone like that. One rotten egg does spoil the bunch, and the good eggs have to suffer if they won’t deal with it. I know I’m not the only person out there who has refused to associate with friends or family members because of an asshole in the midst 🙂 Hell, I know I’m not the only one who has walked out of said establishment 😛

Because I am a good person, no information from this post or blog as a whole (pertaining to said issue) can be used in any kind of story published on the net, print, radio, televised, etc.. without my permission. Should someone violate this, they (or said publisher, station, etc) agree to pay me the amount of $10 million dollars . . . . . Make my day please! 🙂

I should start this off by saying I loved GI Joe as a kid. I watched all the cartoons, my brother and I had all the toys. Make that we have all the toys, they are still in my mom’s basement! When the trailers came out for the movie, I had to say I thought I was gunna be in for one stupid movie. The “accelerator suits” were just stupid and took up the entire trailer basically. Thankfully they have one scene in the movie!

I’m trying to make this review as spoiler-free as possible 🙂 So if you plan on seeing it, but haven’t, this shouldn’t ruin too much.

After the hype and then the thud that was “Transformers 2” this summer, I worried “GI Joe” would be another clunker. I didn’t even bother to see “Transformers 2” actually, I’m waiting for the DVD (to be fair I didn’t see the first in the theaters either, but did like the first movie).

In short, if you were a GI Joe fan as a kid, I think you’ll like the movie. If you go into this movie expecting it to be a masterpiece of cinema and storytelling, well you are going into the wrong movie. Either that, or I think you built the old cartoon up to a masterpiece in your head 🙂 This is a movie based on a kids cartoon, if you keep that in mind, you’ll probably have fun. If you were not a fan of the old cartoon, well . . . . you’ll probably think it was just a movie where a lot of stuff got blown up!

Some liberties were taken with the story and characters, most notably who was involved with who in terms of love stories. I think this might piss off old-school fans the most. I wasn’t too horrified, except I did not like one of the characters/actors at all, so I found their love story a tad annoying.

The plot itself wasn’t too terrible, but no it’s not award winning either. It’s more however of an introduction to the characters and as the name of the movie indicates, the rise of the COBRA organization. Hence you know they are banking on a sequel. There were a lot of back stories going on, like how Duke knew the Baroness from the past, how Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes became enemies, how Cobra Commander came into being.

Cobra Commander might be the second thing to piss off the fan boys. I know the figure annoyed me, as it looked nothing like the original Cobra Commander. Then again, remember the source material we are dealing with. The original Cobra Commander was a snake-man in a silver mask (sometimes a hood) and has an annoyingly shrill voice. They try and act all “secret like” with who Cobra Commander is throughout the movie, but it’s no secret at all. Anyone interested in this movie at all already knows who is playing the role and which person on screen he is. His look through most of the movie . . . leaves something to be desired. His voice is great though (and no it’s not that horrid shrill voice from the cartoon).

Sienna Miller, who plays Baroness, is probably the highlight of the film. She’s just fun to watch, and she really looks like the Baroness! The only thing she’s missing is darker and more horned-rimmed glasses (but then she might look like Sarah Palin!) and the accent. The accent I can understand them ditching though, it did make her cartoon counterpart seem more like a transvestite than a sexy villainess. Rachel Nichols, the actress who plays Scarlett, I thought was the other highlight of the film. She really looks like a real-life Scarlett.

They guys . . . . ehh . . . . Not to much to write home about. Christopher Eccleston as Destro was fairly good. Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes are the two that the fan boys will drool over for sure. Channing Tatum plays an okay Duke, but I would rather have stared at Brandon Fraser for the majority of the film. He makes a small cameo, I believe he’s supposed to be Flint. I didn’t stay for the credits, as I had to pee like a MoFo. The guy who played Breaker was good, and seeing Adabisee from Oz (or Echo on Lost) as Heavy Duty was . . . interesting.

The one thing that annoyed me to no end was the casting of Marlon Wayans as Ripcord. First of all, Ripcord was a white Irish guy! Second, it’s Marlon Wayans. The man is funny, but funny wasn’t needed in GI Joe to be honest. If they wanted humor, they should have brought in someone to play Shipwreck.

The end sets up a second movie, which I’m sure will be made. This one will probably make enough money to warrant it. Given I liked this one enough, yeah I’d see the second . . . especially if Brandon Fraser is given a bigger role 🙂

In one month I turn . . . gulp . . . 34! I am also about 8-10 pounds heavier than I was last year, according to the CalorieKing chart/program I have on my Mac. Not very happy about that! Of course I was running almost every day last summer too, which I have slacked on this year for a multitude of reasons. I really need to get back to it, but I seem to find myself keep saying that 🙂 The last time I started up I pulled something unfortunately.

I had bought EA Active Sports back in June, but got sick shortly after starting it, then the boot camp started, and well I didn’t use it as much as I should have. It has a 30 day fit challenge, which as the name suggests, you are supposed to use it every day for 30 days. It does let you slack off a few days, but only a few. I have to reset mine at this point since I failed it 🙂 I think I’m going to use it and maybe report back on my progress with it. We’ll see how well it does. While running last year gave me a weight loss, I wasn’t as toned as I’d like to have been. We’ll see if this can achieve that.

For those who have the Wii Fit and maybe bored with it, give this game a try. The exercises and routines I feel are much better (but it doesn’t have Yoga if that is your thing). The music is great, and the exercises for the most part are a lot of fun as they mix games in with the exercises. You can use prebuilt routines or make your own, and they string together nicely. So unlike Wii Fit you aren’t taking a few minutes between exercises to choose something new. After 30 minutes with EA Active, you will be tired, and the next day you will be sore!

For those who like Wii Fit just fine (or are into Yoga), a new Wii Fit Plus disc comes out this fall, which is more customizable apparently, allowing you to string exercises together and make routines.

Okay, I think that’s all I have to blog about right now.

Post Note: The EA Active Sports comes with a very light “resistance band” which is actually just a pilates type body band. You can pick up a whole kit of light-medium-heavy bands on Amazon for about 20 bucks, or just get medium and heavy bands for about 12 each at TarJay (along with a workout DVD). If you find the band the game comes with too easy (which I did) it’s worth it to get a heavier band. Do NOT get the rubber tubing workout bands though, as those come with specific handle attachments and do NOT play well at all with the Wii controllers. Trust me on this one! Get the pilates body bands and simply put them in the handles that come with the EA Active game.

Don’t have too much to say right now. I am still hoping to be done with the dissertation by September. I’m currently in the “plow through writing mode” to make that happen.

I know I said I wouldn’t, but I did. I booked us another cruise in January. We are going on a similar boat to last year, which is now cheaper because newer bigger boats are out (which I refused to blow savings on at this point, I did have some restraint!). Plus we are going on a Western Caribbean cruise. The last 3 were Eastern, which stop mostly at small little islands. Frankly I was getting bored as I’d seen all of them, and I’m not a beach and snorkel person. I think being trapped on the boat most of the time the last trip helped add to my issues 🙂 This one stops not only in parts of Mexico, but Belize. I haven’t been there since my first cruise with John 7 years ago, and it remains one of my favorite stops to date. So I jumped. I think every port offers Mayan ruins, should I care to do them every port 🙂 I won’t, but the option is exciting 😛

Of course the final (ie BIG) payment is due at the end of October, which isn’t too far away. So again I’m realizing I need to get me a job and soon! I finally sat down to apply for the Halloween store, only to get the feeling that they were basically looking for high school kids. Shocking I know, it’s a seasonal job for 2-3 months. They required three references, wouldn’t let me not submit any less than three, and the options were “Teacher, Mentor and Other.” I worked around it 🙂 I was not about to submit academic references though. I want to teach again, and I think having the Halloween store calling up the heads of university departments might just be . . . awkward.

It kinda sends me/one into a panic attack having to apply for retail jobs when your in my situation. I don’t have a normal resume by a long shot. It’s a mix of a resume and my CV. I have tons of teaching experience, conference/public speaking experience and even a few publications. Then I have self-employment for 10+ years, as well as employment via other website companies writing weekly columns for them. It makes getting references . . . tricky 🙂 Especially since I can’t be my own reference 😛

Fortunately a bit of job relief came this week, I confirmed that I’m not only teaching the same class I just finished again next spring, but a second class as well. That’s a big relief! Whether I’ll get the Halloween job to tide me over, I don’t know. I’m thinking not given the resume I submitted 🙂 Sadly there was no option on the application to explain why I thought I would be a good employee at their store!

Other options? There is a small independent pet store around the corner that is always looking for people to work there. I actually go there so much they know me and John, so I think I could probably get a job there. John’s sister keeps commenting I’m always welcomed to work at the farm, but I really feel that should be a last resort. I just think mixing a relationship and work is probably a bad idea. I would have to do something there basically no one else could do, or would want to do. Oh the jobs are there 🙂 Otherwise I would feel I was “given” a job for who I was, and other employees might have issues with that. Frankly I would too, I want to earn a job or be able to do something nobody else can or wants to, not just given a job.

Finally coming up this month is another Monster Mania! I’m so excited. I’m actually going to take not only tons of photos this time, but videos. I really want to use these conventions for a paper next fall at the big Anthropology meetings. The convention has a web board set up, which I could use at a later date to ask for anonymous interviews. There is normally an event in March or April as well, so I might try and set real interviews up then with staff and people.

Okay, yeah, I think that’s all I have to say 🙂 I did have a lot to say after all.