The name says it all...

Stupidvideos.com
The first(embedded) video goes out with a giggle to my friend Gerard, who just retired from the Marines, served for many years as a master drill instructor at Camp Lejune. Merry Christmas, you slimey little communist so and so's! Errm, again, a timely jinglebell gives this an R-rating, but still, I wouldn't play this in mixed company or at work. Or, if you do, don't blame me please, I have enough people pissed at me already, thank you kindly...
Moving right along, This next video goes out to Jack Bauer. Another person a lotta people are pissed at currently, including Canadian teetotalers, of all things. Actually, in his mugshot HE looks pretty pissed. Yes folks, he is an actor, but then again, a professional bull rider, among other things, he is built Ford tough. My wife likened him to me, but I don't think I am even that crazy, and I have not one drop of ink on me, among other contrasts. I am better looking though....
After spending time in that Chinese prison, I have the funny feelin that he could handle 48 days in county, standing on his head.

The baddest mo'fo ever

Yes folks, that is a twelve string. If you don't understand, I can't explain it to you...
I have a shoebox full of all the stubs from all the shows I have seen. I was able to see him twice before he caught that last ride to the hereafter, before and after he got cleaned up. First time with Robert Plant(and Joko Ono AHHHH!! People were booing and pelting her with Christmas presents as she screeched out "So This is Christmas", hilarious...), the second time with Jeff Beck. I have been to punk shows, death metal shows, whathaveyou(CAUGHT, IN A MOSH!). I have never seen a crowd get so out of hand. The second time, after the houselights came up and stayed on, people were so pissed that the two of them didn't do an encore, the crowd rushed the stage, hurling folding chairs and wrecked all of their gear. This was probably one of the top ten most intense people in the history of bad-ass, my man was born in a rude mood. Crazy glue on his fingertips, so he could tear skin off of his forearm, so he could keep playing after he had worn all the skin off his fingers, damn man. R.I.P. brother.

It Figures...

We had a RIDE to the party, they were here parked out front, and my wife sent them away, dammit. Dumbfounding. So, once again, I need to be fake-ass philosophical. We weren't meant to go, the roads were dangerous, it probably would have sucked, etc. bullshit bullshit bullshit. Speaking of bullshit, this Writers Guild strike has got to end. It is going to wreck the Oscars(not like I would watch anyway), it took The Daily Show, Letterman and Leno off the air. Leno's only recent facetime was rolling up to the picket lines on his bike with doughnuts for the writers, like "Please, PLEASE go back to work?" Any movies that weren't out(rushed) of pre-production before this past Halloween are going to suck. Entertainment, basically is not going to entertain for like the next year. The guy who is adapting G.I. Joe to be a live action movie(again, wouldn't watch if you paid me) felt rushed with 8 months to work with. When the studio heads told him 6 weeks, he probably stroked out. The first time around, 19 years ago is what soured me on TV to begin with, and paved the way for such groundbreaking entertainment as American Gladiators, i.e. non-scripted shows, the beginning of mindless crap like Fear factor, etc. ad nauseum(Note. Several stupid bastards are heralding it's return in the comments. One said he wished it was like American Idol, and would come to his town, half-a-fag! HOORAY! Guys in tights beating each other with giant Q-tips!). I mean, these are the kind of people who were cheering as Rome burned. HOORAY! Down with civilization! Screw a bunch of philosophy! American tv is turning into one big Japanese gameshow. And all of this is over internet royalties. Damnit man, I just wanna have a little fun before I die, is that too much to ask? The hillarious part is that my wife keeps making the (True) statement that we need to get out, and have some fun. AAAAAHHHHRRRGG!

What a wonderful day...

Of course I am being facetious, but what the hell. The temperature has been steadily dropping since about 4 a.m. It is gray outside, the mother of all snow/ice storms is just to the northwest of us, fast approaching. In my old stomping grounds, they are measuring the snow in feet, almost 1.5 million people are without power at last count.
Once again, I have a party to go to, and another conundrum. See what we are probably going to end up with is a thin sheet of ice coating everything.(Update. 4/10ths of an inch, here anyway. My friend Nina drove her BMW Z4 to NoVA, headlong into the worst of the storm, hope she made it o.k. It is a sweet ride she's got, not exactly built for a winter nor'easter, plus didn't sound like it was running right when she left...) Anyway, on the roads they call it black ice. A mitigating factor is that the people at VDOT either don't have the budget, or(as is the case over at Tech) are too stupid to know how, i.e. when to put salt down. No, they usually spread ashes, (if you don't believe me, question your beliefs) that works MUCH better. Now me being from up north, and the aforementioned behind the wheel training I have had, enable me to drift a car safely. As for the rest of the folks in the New River Valley...
Lemme put it this way, when we have even slightly inclement weather, I turn the scanner up, and laugh my ass off.
So, my dilemma, do I go to this party tonight, and risk life and limb, or just chill here? The funny thing is that it is all people from the hospital at this party, so if we do wreck, we will essentially be heading back into work, at the emergency room. I'll let you know how it turns out...
Oh yeah, almost forgot, here's some music to drift(wreck?)your car by;
Velvet Revolver-Slither

Moving right along now...

I have gotten over myself. One more layer piled on my already thick skin, probably a good thing. If for nothing else, it's because I am under mind-bending stress, details of that later, maybe. But anyway, I had a moment to reflect on my life, I have seen some hard times, seen a lotta things that I wish I hadn't. The price of living an intense existence, wishing you could un-see some stuff. Most of us don't know the true meaning of pain and regret. It even says somewhere in the Bible that we should strive to see the world as through the eyes of a child. See, most of my hard times were self-imposed, not thinking things through and whatnot. Some truly do have bad times thrust upon them, REALLY hard times. I don't wanna learn all I need to forget either. I have been in the soup, to be sure. But most of what I have been through pales in comparison to what the brave men and women serving our country are into. This one goes out to all of the active duty men and women in our armed forces, and their families, along for the ride, waiting, hoping for them to come home. Listen up peeps, it's some heavy, heavy shit folks.
God bless all of those heroes.
Audioslave-Doesn't Remind Me

Am I Laughing?

I am not. The only real reason I am even posting this is for me. See, I am this creazy-ass, happy-go-lucky kinda guy. It is however, possible to piss me off. It is a feat, and usually takes something of monumental proportions, involving a person imposing their will on me. Long story short, it takes a conscious act of something, I dunno. Much longer story short, I did not make it to my friend's party, even after trying my level best to accommodate other people. Seeing him again, especially in that given setting, is something I have been looking forward to for probably at least 3 or 4 years. For almost 20 years, I have regretted not seeing him graduate from consecutive trips through boot camp. I wouldn't have missed this for the world, but I did. There isn't any point in going into details. I will get over it, but saying I am disappointed and hurt is an egregious understatement. I am pissed the fuck off.
Nuff said.

I like when he's doing the Crip walk...

Short People - Mini Me Vid - misteranderson
I am sorry. Not a whole lot to say about this clip, aside from it is decidedly not p.c. Music by Randy Newman!

Soft tissue damage

Well, at least I don't need to have a cast on my arm, and I got to finally meet the elusive Dr. Baum. Anyway... Damn man, this whole Sean Taylor thing is bumming me out. 24 years old with a 18 month old daughter w/Andy Garcia's niece. It's kinda funny beacause my wife knows Pierson Prioleau, he's got a house right around the corner from me. She met his wife first, and was like, "Oh, my husband plays football, safety as a matter of fact", and she was like "For what team?". Thinking she meant pro ball, kinda funny. I always wore number 21 too, like Primetime, kinda my lucky number too. Anyway, at some point, I'll throw some links up here to some really nice Taylor tributes that I have come across, like this one...

Here's the story...

I promised I would tell you about the crash and burn that was the demise of Bluestone, here goes;
On an extremely windy, but otherwise beautiful spring morning, an Asian dude decided he'd had enuff, having traveled up to Roanoke, purchasing two pistols, and a couple hundred rounds of hollowpoint ammunition. Bright and early, on a Monday morning, he started exacting his revenge on the campus of Virginia Tech, first in a dorm room, then at Norris Hall after mailing off his manifesto to WNBC in New York. I was working in student's apartments, and they all had their tv's on news channels. It was unreal, "Two students were shot and killed". Then it was ten, then twenty, then thirty... We were all like, " WTF? Is this really happening, right here on campus?" At some point, in a daze, it was like, ok. Hang on. Why the hell aren't the cops or anyone else double tapping this guy in the head? It seemed that I was the only person in the New River Valley that didn't have a permit-to-carry, everyone I knew was armed to the teeth. Turns out he had chained the doors shut, and students weren't allowed to carry weapons on campus, all of this having taken place in classrooms. I didn't even know my cousin Christina was an Engineering professor at Tech, her classroom in Norris hall. I still haven't spoken to her about the ordeal yet.
My wife was working at Mongomery Regional's ER. It was where most of the victims, and then eventually all of the press, satellite rigs, etc. ended up. It was too windy that day for them to airlift people to other level-one trauma centers in Roanoke, the ER was a madhouse. President Bush rolled into town, unannounced, and headed over to the hospital. I spoke with some of the staties from his motorcade that day at the Sheetz in Christiansburg. Things got surreal soon after. In the words of the immortal Hunter S. Thompson, when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Reporters were EVERYWHERE for weeks, jamming microphones and cameras in everyone's faces, all vying for the most slack-jawed of podunk commentary they could compile. Eventually people were like, "Everyone's dead, could you go back to wherever the hell you came from, PLEASE!?
The Virginia Tech massacre
April 16th.
Many brave, good, innocent people died.
Scores more were injured...
Deadliest school shooting in recorded history.

The candlelight vigil

The Virginia Tech geospatial team's satellite Hokies Thank the World Tribute
Cut to early September, 2007. On a chilly Thursday night, the Dave Matthews Band headlined a show called "A Concert for Virginia Tech", I attended.
The setlist
It was spiritual.
It was cathartic.
This show was one of the most beautiful things I have experienced in my brief, jaded existence. Dave is from right up the road, in Charlottesville, Va. I have been to scores of concerts in my life, this ranks up there with the most legendary of performances I have had the pleasure of witnessing. Trust, I have seen some bad headliners, Dave and company nailed this one, to put it mildly. This was also one of the last shows they did with sax player LeRoi Moore, who died soon after, regrettably. The show seemed to mean something special, the group performing after spending the entire day with the victims, their families, and first responders. Dave's performance was heartfelt, a bonding communal effort. It was one of those rare, fleeting moments that you absolutely had to be there for. The poet Keats penned "A thing of beauty is a joy forever", that axiom fit like a glove ...
During their first encore, with steam rising off the crowd and the lights, Dave and friends played a rendition of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds , which we were all screaming along with at the top of our lungs. One by one, the instruments dropped away until all that was left was the crowd singing along. The stage cameras turned around and peered out onto the stands, and the screens filled up with the image of Virginia Tech singing to itself: “Don't worry, about a thing, 'cause every little thing, is gonna be alright." over, and over, and over, and over, clapping and stomping up and down on the aluminum bleachers. The recording really doesn't capture the intensity of the moment, but still,
Wow...

From My Pictures

Dave Matthews kept saying that "More than anything, he loved us all"...I know that this all loses something in the translation, sounds corny, "Hokey" or whatnot, but a simple turn of a phrase such as that was gut wrenching at that point...
The really weird, wonderful part of it all, for me at least, is that I don't even really like Dave Matthews. Don't get me wrong, I have always been awed by the wild eyed one, and his amazing band's skills and raw talent, just never been a fan. I would change the station if Crash or something would come on the radio. Well, when they did Stay(Wasting Time), I think we all felt like he was singing to each of us individually, guitar ringing out, not ever wanting this thing to end, everyone singing back, pleading, STAY! STAY! STAY! STAY! STAY FOR A WHILE! as if there was a chance that this blessed event would never need to end...
I cried.
Fifty thousand people joined me. I have developed a very thick skin over the years, yet this performance had permeated it to my very soul, indescribably incredible. My buddie Keiron was charged with FOH security. As a result, we were backstage following the show, but Dave and company departed directly onto their bus, the meet and greet having transpired earlier in the day. A minor disappointment, but still an incredible experience all around. My mind was blown. We had all witnessed something blessed that night.
I left this show with a glow that didn't leave me for DAYS, a sudden peace had come over me. Nothing, I mean NOTHING could get me down, I was so high. I am trying my level best to put it into words, yet it defies description...
Fifty thousand people screaming LET'S GO, HO-KIES! Over and over. Surreal...
Anyway, after all that, the entire New River Valley, specifically Blacksburg, Hokie Nation, wanted to PARTY. I can't even begin to explain how passionate the folks in Blacksburg are about Virginia Tech, they personify the term fanatics. We all ended up at a bar called the Rivermill, great place. Gaskins was performing. Wouldn't have gotten in if I didn't know people. Every bar and club in the entire valley was filled to way beyond capacity that night, thousands of people milling around the burg. An insane scene, even for one of Playboy mag's top ranked party campus towns in the nation. Anyway, my friends and I shut that place down(left a hoodie there) and continued onto a ginormous party at an upscale condo complex. The entire place was out in force in the parking lot, raving, music blaring, chimneas and grills fired up. Again, tons of people, a party to end all parties. I was like, "I know the cops are going to shut this down". Everyone there proclaimed, "They could try", snickering.... Long story short, we ended up partying long and loud, grilling and playing beer-pong until dawn, a gathering that would have made Bacchus blush, Dear Lord Almighty,
The story only gets better from there...