I’m Going to Be an Emo Star

I've got the chorus down, now I just need lyrics and maybe 10 other songs to fill an album.  Or maybe I'll just release this on Zune and become a modern one hit wonder.

I've got an XBox, but not a 360
I've got Nintendo, but not a Wii
I've Playstation, 2 not 3.
Why oh why, can't I be
Hip to technology

Currently reading : SHROUD OF THE THWACKER, THE By Chris Elliott Release date: 05 October, 2005

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Bling Blong Blog

Currently listening : Sex Style By Kool Keith Release date: 03 February, 1997

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What's Gnu with Mark?

Sitting in my hotel room, painfully sitting through a David Arquette/Jonathan Silverman "show" as I wait for Lost, I figured now would be as good of a time as ever to re-enter the blog world.

First off, I'm in Atlanta.  It is my first time in the City that Coca Cola built, and it has surprised me in many ways.  First off, the hills.  Maybe I have just spent too much time in Chicago and Philadelphia, but I expect all cities to be flat.  That way, people can ride their bikes, ditch their cars, eat granola and recycle their old couches.   I figured that Pittsburgh and San Francisco were the exceptions to this rule.  But apparently there are more out there.  Atlanta being one of them.  I could never live in a city with this many hills, and apparently a lot of people agree with me.  Because it doesn't appear as though anyone actually lives in downtown Atlanta, with the exception of those in the income bracket that call the closest bus stop their mailing address.  It is just a ghost town in this city any hour except lunch  hour.  Speaking with some people that live around here, apparently everyone just drives into the city, works, and then leaves.  How awful.

But they do have a kick ass aquarium.  Much better than Shedd or the piece of garbage in Camden.  I haven't been to Baltimore since I was a young scrapper, so I can't compare that one.  It has a lot of exhibits like in Jaws 3.  And a whale shark.  Yes, I know the picture is of a beluga whale.

..

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Christ, this David Arquette show is awful. Just pure shit.

24 is bad.  Jericho is awful.  Outside of Friday Night Lights and Lost, my television has not brought me much joy lately.  If the Shield lets me down, I might have to re-think my upcoming child-rearing book, "Friends are Overrated;  How Television Can Raise Your Child and Will Give You Free Time To Do The Shit You Want To Do"

Why is it that every Presidential Candidate I like ends up getting 3%?  Bill Richardson needs to reveal that he has super human powers or maybe admit that he smoked heroin while huntin Nazis as a teenager.  Otherwise, he is not long for this race. 

Currently reading : The Walking Dead Book 1 (Walking Dead) By Robert Kirkman Release date: 19 July, 2006

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John Kerry

If I had any pull with John Kerry or his people, I would have suggested he issued the following apology:

"I'm not very good at telling jokes. Probably because I'm not a very funny guy. And for that I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that my verbal slip made it seem like I was disparaging the troops. That was completely not the case.

My assistant suggested I use the joke and I agreed with him, because not only was it funny, but true. So here is the joke once again.

I can't overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don't study, if you aren't smart, if you're intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq."

And then go on every cable news show, take your hits, and keep saying the joke. 

Instead he just comes out, gives some sort of lame apology, and will now duck his head until 2008. 

Currently reading : JLA Vol. 7: Tower of Babel By Mark Waid Release date: 01 August, 2001

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I'm Running for Captain America

Last night on the local news, they had one of their silly polls and it asked the question, "Which party is better suited to win the war in Iraq?"  After they showed the results were fairly split between Republicans and Democrats, I expected them to ask other similar questions, like "Which party is better suited to develop time travel technology" and "Which party will count to infinity first?"  because they are about as answerable as the first question that was asked.  I mean, how long has it been since Saddam was captured and we restored order?  If someone, Democrat or Republican, had some sort of  actual plan at this point, don't you think he or she would have spoken up by now?  But hey, let's ask people this impossible question and give them two simple answers to choose from.  That's the News.

Obviously there are real issues facing the country.  But watching campaign ads, you would have no idea this is the case. 

You've got one set of ads telling you how not only is the person's opponent going to try and rip your unborn fetus out of the womb, but if the baby somehow makes it out, their opponent will also try and rip the baby's spine out whenever the opportunity presents itself so it can get those vital stem cells.  Those same stem cells that the government wants to spend all your tax money on, which is just a waste because if these "scientists" haven't had any progress in the last three years, then why are we to think that they will make any in the next sixty?

Then you have another set of ads that will basically say the candidate's name, then see how many times they can mention or show an image of George Bush in 90 seconds.  It's quite informative. 

Currently reading : Ultimate Fantastic Four, Vol. 6: Frightful By Mark Millar Release date: 01 November, 2006

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Oh Mr. Foley

    Now I am not one to judge.  We have all made some mistakes in our life.  For me, it was hitting my dear brother Dave over the head with a baseball bat.  Sure it seemed like a good idea at the exact time I did it, but then I immediately regretted it.  On a similar note, I'm sure Representative Foley is sitting in his house, in between failed suicide attempts, thinking how quickly his life did a 180 based on his pure stupidity.

If you ever meet a homicide detective, I'm certain that they could tell you the way to pull off the perfect murder.  So one would think that a guy who has spent years in Congress pushing sexual predator legislation would at least have a clue on how to meet young lads discreetly.  This shows you how strong the power of the boner is, that he would risk everything and throw caution to the wind at the prospect of getting a young lad to go down on him.  Instead of taking a fact finding trip to some Far Eastern country and satisfying his disgusting desires there, the guy has the stones to approach kids  that work in the Capitol.  That is boner crazy.

And then the pages themselves.  In a city that breeds gossip like Flavor Flav does children, did he really think that hitting on the pages would not eventually be leaked to the press?  I mean, I bet there are hundreds of gay interns working in Washington that would kill for the chance to move up the political ladder just by sleeping with this guy.  I mean, pages are the lowest of the low in Washington and there is absolutely no explanation for him carrying on any sort of conversation with them.  His explanation that they were all innocent IM conversations holds about as much water as when Thomas Jefferson would tell his wife that he was just making sure that the female slaves had enough butter for the week. 

Foley will disappear for awhile, then write a book, appear on Oprah, then disappear again for good to "fight the real predators" in Thailand.  Then in like ten years, he'll end up on Dateline.  And the story will have a good conclusion.  Or at least a better one than this blog. 

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The Answer to the Oil "Problem"

In case you missed, and you probably did as it was buried in most newspapers, President Bush this week came out and announced a plan to address the soaring price of oil.  Now, most people dont pay attention to how much they are paying for gas, they just go to the pump, put their credit card in, smoke a cigarette, fill their tank, and head off.  And those people that do actually check the price of the gas theyre buying still dont realize how much the price of oil affects our economy.  I mean I didnt even know how much it affected my everyday life until I started reading about the issue.  Everything from the price of Skittles, to how much Im paying to sit in First Class from Chicago to Nashville, to the cost of college tuition is affected by the price of oil.  So what are we doing about it?  Not much.  Thats why Im writing this, to try and get peoples attention to what could be a major problem looking at us square in the kisser.

But Mark, if we run out of oil, how the heck are we going to get around.  Great question Lionel, and Ive got some answers for you.  Big Answers.

 
Answer 1:  Invade Jupiter

Question:  Have you ever looked at one of those solar system maps?  Jupiter is gigantic.  In fact, Id be willing to wager that Jupiter is at least twice the size of Earth.  And you mean to tell me that, on that giant green sphere, there arent billions of barrels of oil just lying around up there waiting for the American driving public to consume them?  Im not very worried about any opposition that the life on Jupiter may pose as they are so far away from the sun, they are probably a very lazy lifeform.  Well Mark, thats nice and wonderful that we can invade Jupiter, colonize the planet, eat sandwiches, and take their oil.  But how do we get it back to the good ole US of A?  That brings me to Alternative 2.

 
Answer 2:  Star Trek Technology

Companies, like Toyota and Exxon, spend upwards of One Million Dollars trying to discover a reliable alternative fuel source, whether it be hybrids, solar energy, or garbage.  Just a waste of time if you ask me.  Because whatever fuel source is chosen whether it be electricity or the sun, well eventually run out of it.  So why dont these multi-million dollar companies, who we all know are just in it for the almighty dollar, take some of their cash and invest in what I like to refer to as Star Trek Technology, the technical term being multi-molecular simul-transfer.  Do you have any idea how much time we would save if people were able to cut their commute from 2 hours back and forth a day to 2 seconds?  Everyone would have time for a blog, maybe even a video blog!  Sure, the Beam Me Up, Scotty jokes will be tiresome for the first few months, but its a small price to pay.  And eventually well be able to set it up on Jupiter to transfer oil so that senior citizens can still drive their cars.

 
Answer 3:  Rocket Packs

There is one thing that keeps the Personal Rocket pack from being a live product:  Nerds with Egos.  They refuse to sit down, watch an episode of The Jetsons and go, Thats pretty cool.  Im going to invent that.  Movies get re-made all the time, so why cant inventions?  These nerds need a wake-up call, but I think  some idle threats should do the trick.

 
And these are just off the top of my head.  Its time the American Public gets their head out of their borrowed copy of The DaVinci Code and into a newspaper so this problem can get the proper attention that it deserves.  Do I think getting the word out about the oil shortage will have any significant impact on the countrys awareness of this problem?  Not really.  But maybe, if one person reads this, then tells one other person about the issue, then that person will tell one other person, in about two years, that will be a shitload of people.  And then we can change the world.

Currently listening : St Elsewhere By Gnarls Barkley Release date: 09 May, 2006

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Important Issues Facing Our Country (Part One)

With the important mid-term elections fast approaching us, I have heard a lot of posturing by our electorates about immigration, the war in Iraq, helping old people not die as quickly as they probably should, and more rabble about immigration.  All rhetoric.  Yes, these are important to some people, but there are much more important issues that face our country as a whole, and every single person running for office is ignoring each and every one of these issues.  Hopefully, this blog will help re-focus both the electors and the electees on the real issues facing America.

SPECIES DOMINATION

I have read a lot of articles over the last year that discuss our countrys position on a global scale and what potential adversaries lie ahead, whether they be Al Qaeda, Iran, or China.  While I conceptuallys agree with strategically plotting out our place in the future, I strongly believe that we are being very short sigted towards possibly the most important issue that faces us in the upcoming year. We, as human beings, need to maintain our position as the dominant species on this planet.

Now you may be thinking, Duh Mark, were already at the top of the food chain, what do we have to worry about?  In case you didnt know, that was the theme of the Kennedy Family Reunion in 1960 and Im certain we want to have a better decade than they did.  Sure, were unquestionably the top dog so to speak on Planet Earth, but exactly how do we as a species react if suddenly a dolphin evolves and grows a thumb?  Or mutates so it can live on land?  Has anyone started to think about this?  Or what if insects suddenly unite and work together in a war to bring the human reign down?  Do you know how many insects reside in this country alone?  I mean, at a bare minimum, they have to be at least, at least, one million in number if you were to count them all up.  Let alone the possibility than an extra terrestrial life form decides to attack the planet and enslave us all.  Has anyone looked at trying to develop some sort of bullet proof wall that we could build around the entire globe?  Or at least develop some sort of virus that we would be able to infect the aliens with, but at the same time not harm us? 

Its time that our leaders start to look out for our future and address this issue.  Or fifteen years from now, there is a very good chance that I could be in a dress, serving fresh fish to our regional dolphin governor while he sits atop his mighty human skull throne.  That is not a memory that I look forward to having.

SOCCER

Now in the upcoming months, there will be a lot of stories in the news about how soccer is becoming the fourth major sport and how we, the United States, is inching closer to countries like England and Brazil in terms of establishing ourselves as a soccer power.  Rubbish, absolute rubbish.  It is time that we end this decades long fraud of an idea that we, as a country, are ever going to truly embrace the sport of soccer and advance to a point where we can consistently compete on a global scale.  Sure, soccer is a great activity for young kids to participate in when theyre seven and dont know any better.  They get the chance to run around for an hour, compete against their friend even though no one other than the coach cares who wins or loses, and practice their social skills.  But once kids reach the high school years, they need to face the cruel reality that we adults all have come to grips with:  there is no future for them in soccer.  Instead of running around for months at a time after school playing soccer, couldnt these kids time be better spent preparing themselves for a life of military service?  And why waste college scholarships on a soccer team that no one is ever going to go watch when there are more deserving sports like football and basketball that could really use the scholarships.

But, of course, no matter how hard we try and dissuade the youth of our great country from wasting their time with soccer, some rebels will refuse to listen to reason and try to pursue it as a career?  How do we deal with these bad apples?  Simple.  Any kid over the age of sixteen who wants to continue playing soccer more than once every six months can do so once they board a plane with all their belongings and are relocated to Mexico City.  Here we will establish a special charter school for American soccer players.  This is where our leaders need to step in and develop a special trade agreement with Mexico in which we agree to allow the one or two baseball prodigies they produce every century to play in American youth leagues and ignore their lack of citizenship, and in return they accept the black sheep of our society and allow them to play soccer down there.  Mexico is also allowed to claim any of these traitors as part of their national team as long as the players grow a thin, wispy mustache and gets tan enough so that no one recognizes that the player was actually born in America.  We do not need to be further stained by this failure of an experiment any longer.

 (Part 2 Later this week)

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Trannie for a Day

In my head, I have fond memories of a very normal childhood. Two parents who never fought, one sibling who I got along with the majority of the time, the usual acting out as a teenager, and a middle class upbringing. Obviously there are probably some pieces to the puzzle that my memory has conveniently left out, but I didn't think it was anything significant. But then...

It was a Friday on a drive up to Milwaukee and I was just staring out the passenger window, daydreaming about whatever. Enjoying the traffic and reading the abnormal amount of vanity license plates in Wisconsin (which hopefully I will one day be able to do some sort of study on. I believe two out of every three cars in WI have a vanity plate). Then Van Halen's 1984 comes on the radio and I suddenly have what one could call a flashback.

My mind takes me back in time and suddenly it's the spring of 1988. Gary Hart is challenging the media to find anything wrong with his campaign. People are flocking to the theaters to see OJ Simpson make them laugh in the Naked Gun. And in the midst of getting ready to make the jump to middle school and preparing for the annual Mike Scioscia spelling bee (which I choked at big time), I'm participating in the school's Gym Show. Gym being short for gymnastics.

From what I can remember, the actual gymnastics part of it was quite standard. Maybe a little bit girly, but all in all standard fare. Some tumbling, some rings, maybe a balance beam. Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe a little prancing and that thing where you have to smile after you finish a routine or whatever. But the actual gymnastics themselves weren't that bad.
 
It was the outfits that we had to wear that originally upset me when I thought about it. We had on these tight blue shorts and like sleeveless white shirts that had some sort of lightning pattern with glitter on them. We didn't have shoes either. I think it was just socks, but we may have been barefoot.

Now the scary picture in my head is a group of innocent ten year old boys in sleeveless shirts with glitter on them and tumbling around in shorts that did not leave much, if any, to the imagination, for those that imagined what a ten year old's twig and berries looked like. For good old Springfield in 1988 it was just a regular event. These days, the school administrators would be arrested for child endangerment.

So I called my Dad and was like what were you thinking? He said he had some concerns about it originally but didn't think it would screw me up too badly. When I asked if he thought if there were any creeps in the audience who were just there to look at young kids prancing around, he was like, "Of course".
 
This is Parenting 101.
 
But I thought that was the end of it. My dad said he'd send a picture, I'd tell my friends about the story, everyone would get a chuckle, and that would be the end of it.

Unfortunately, this story gets much worse.

I didn't remember the rest of the story until a few days later. I warn you this is not for the weak at heart.

You see, the sadistic gym teacher that was in charge of this farce of an event felt that children flopping around on mats with their peaches and cream showing did not offer enough unintentional comedy. So she decided that she needed to add her own Comedic Stamp on the show.

With clowns.

I guess she picked the four best gymnasts, if you can call us that, and gave them the role of the lifetime entertaining a bunch of clueless parents who were all towing video cameras the size of microwaves. The routine just called for us to do basically Three Stooges type physical comedy, just run into each other, slap each other around a bit, etc.
 
Only we were to do it in drag. And not like Kids in the Hall Drag. We had to wear the girl's gymnastics outfits, which was essentially a red one piece bathing suit. Put in fake boobs, throw on a wig, and put makeup on. All for the purpose of getting laughs at a stupid 4th grade gym show.

Now if two years later, I had gone to a shrink and he had asked me if I had any weird sexual experiences and I had told him that in 4th grade I dressed up like a girl gymnast but with fake boobs, I would have been in social services quicker than you can say my last name. But instead I just completely buried the experience. Never talked about it again and just entirely forgot about it. Until hearing "1984" in traffic brought it completely back.

You may be thinking, "That Mark, what a crazy embellisher". Well, the proof is in the pudding. Singlet pudding. Just click on my pictures, pick the one of me in red, and be proud of your hard on.

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Marketing 101

I was using the electronic picture machine the other evening and along came this commercial for some super food processor.  The name of this item?  The Magic Bullet.  Granted, I only took one marketing class in my fancy college, but I believe that when the name of your product reminds people of a)a dead president or b)a powerful vibrator, maybe there are some alternative names that you should have investigated.

So not only is the name flat out terrible, but they are marketing the product's precision.  A cup of fruit?  Three seconds!  Chop an onion?  Seven seconds!  Shred a kitten?  YOU CAN CHOP UP A KITTEN IN ONLY 24 SECONDS!!!!  I mean, how long does it take to chop an onion?  45, maybe 60 seconds?  So for the two onions that I chop a month, I could save two full minutes by using your product?  Where do I send my cash?  Because you so often hear people say, "You know, if you save enough of those seconds, eventually you'll have some minutes.  And who knows what you can do with those minutes?"  Fools.

Word of the week:  Hippocratic

Currently listening : Other People's Lives By Ray Davies Release date: 21 February, 2006

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