"I feel like their personalities are open sunny meadows with wildflowers blowing in the breeze and white sheets drying on a clothesline, sort of like a detergent commercial, and my personality is a hooker in a torn leather coat smoking a cigarette on a fire escape, in the meat-packing district, and it's raining, sort of like an anti-drug educational film."

"Like most bar snacks, cheeseburger fries pack quite a dietary wallop. Each individual fry has about 75 calories and 4 grams of fat. The fries for schools have less beef per serving but still have about 60 calories and, in fact, more fat - a total of 6 grams - in each fry. And nobody eats just one.

[...]

"All this, of course, pleases the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "We want beef in dessert if we can get it there," Hogan said."

lengli: "Revelation! Ok, if I'm Buffy, then Dr. XXXX can be Giles."

Kristin: "LOL. Yeah you are absolutely correct. It's actually a very good match-up. You can bring him the problem and he will tell you which god/goddess it is and why they are doing it. Then you can go out and make sacrifices to that god to ease his troubles. Ha ha."

l: "I think it's kind of hubristic to go around slaying gods though, don't you think? Zeus would probably strike me down. Oh wait, never mind, I guess we wouldn't be slaying, only sacrificing - well, that doesn't make for an exciting show. Booo!"

K: "LOL. Not unless you are sacrificing little children and ex-cons! And you have to run around chasing them in your prom dress or whatever outstanding outfit you decide to wear that day. You must use special power from 'Giles' to conjure the gods to appear in the physical. I think the ratings will go through the roof!"

l: "Well, you know the gods certainly can wreak vengeance and probably send all sorts of evil lackeys that I can battle. I need a posse though. No WB show is complete without a posse. Hmm, I especially need a Spike. Any ideas?"

K: "Let's see, for your posse aka Scooby Doo's we'll have XXXX (ROTC Hair) be Xander because each one were in the military. I would be willing to donate my services as Willow (ha ha). Coughy Miss Coughy can be the evil professor = Maggie. Spike can be that kid in the back corner --> as a regular human he's not all that cute, but in costume as Spike, he may have potential (and he has spiky hair)."

l: "Well, I was thinking "Apollo" (you know who!) could be Spike, even though he's not in this class, and I need some kind of cute romantic interest. Little Hands Girl has to be someone, but I don't think she's bad-ass enough to be Faith - ah ha! She can be Cordelia coz she's prissy like that. How about Anya? Who do we know that is sarcastic and abrasive enough?"

K: "BROOKE could be Anya based on above criteria (LOL). Little Hands would be better as Cordelia. XXXX could be Faith because I'm sure you wouldn't mind fighting her sometimes. Your romantic interest can be "'pollo', why not? (As well as Spike)"

l: "Well, what if Apollo and Spike were one and the same then? That's parallel to the show, with Spike being a vampire and all. Good conflict of interests. Where do each of our loyalties lie - to me or to the gods for him? Or to slaying or to him for me? Instant ratings. True to the original show. All right, Brooke as Anya (so she has to date ROTC Nazi, mwah!) and XXXX as Faith. [...]"

K: "LOL, sounds like we need to sell this to WB! I agree, Apollo and Spike are the same. Kinda like the real Spike has a loyalty to you, but must occasionally do his job as Apollo and you have a loyalty to him as Spike and occasionally have a responsibility to Apollo as a god. It's going to be a complicated plot, but I feel Buffy watchers will understand."

GRAVEYARD ZOMBIES TRIED TO BURN DOWN MY HOUSE!

Dear Serena: You've got to help me before I go crazy -- or get killed. I recently moved into an old house I picked up for a song because it needs a lot of work and it's situated behind an old graveyard. Everything was fine at first. But then I started hearing screams and moans at night that I'm sure are coming from the graveyard. One time I walked outside to investigate and saw what looked like hundreds of zombies carrying torches in a big circle around my house. I fired my shotgun at them and they disappeared. But I have a gut feeling they'll be back -- and this time they'll burn down my house with me in it. I hope you don't think I'm crazy, Serena. Please help me -- before it's too late.
-- Worried in Baton Rouge

Dear Worried: Everything will be fine if you follow my instructions to the letter. First, purchase a big box of rock salt and spread the crystals in a circle around your house. Second, buy pine or juniper incense and burn a few cones as close as possible to your front door. Third, clip my photograph out of this week's paper and take it into the cemetery by light of day. As you enter the graveyard, shout: "In the name of Serena Sabak, I forbid you to enter the land of the living!" As you finish speaking, raise my photo high over your head and then drop it, letting it drift to the ground. As it does, turn and walk back to your house. You'll be safe from then on.

"My friend Sloan believes that he was a Puerto Rican prostitute named Rosita who died of a drug overdose in the seventies."

LAUREL TREE ABDUCTED BY ALIENS!!!
BANKS OF THE RIVER LADON, Greece - On the night of June 23, waitress Lucindia Gracchi stopped to pick up what she thought was a hitchhiker on a lonely road outside of town - and wound up face-to-face with alien spacecraft!

"The lights were just so bright. It was all I could do to keep from shielding my eyes," the 24-year old widow says. "I was driving my carriage - I have to do that, you know, ever since Wilburus, my husband died - on my way from the night shift at 'Dennyus's,' which now, by the way, has a Seniorus Slammus Specialus! Anyway, I halted the horses because it looked like someone was flagging me down, and when I came to a stop, these lights came on full power, nearly blinding me! When my eyes finally adjusted - which took quite a bit of time, it being the dead of night and all - I saw these little critters hoisting up a laurel tree from a river bank and loading it onto their ship."

Mrs. Gracchi is outraged with these beings. "That there was Daphne's tree and no little foreigners from wherever they're from have the right to take away our beautiful tree." Mrs. Gracchi, of course, is referring to the laurel tree, now legendary in the story of Apollo, the god of light and music, who pursued the nymph Daphne in dreams of courtship. The beautiful Daphne had sworn never to marry, so Apollo's pursuits were in vain - she would not listen to the music of his lyre and so fled. However, as she ran, Apollo became more enamored with her, and chased her. As Daphne approached the river bed, she pleaded for help from her father, the river-god, Ladon. The instant Apollo caught her, Daphne's feet became roots, her arms branches, her head became the crown of a tree, and she was transformed into the laurel. Apollo broke off twigs from the tree and made them into a wreath, asking the nymph, since she would not be his wife, to consent to be his tree. From that day on, the highest honor for any hero is to be crowned with a wreath from the laurel, Apollo's sacred tree.

"Now, I can't understand how that Daphne could of been all right in her head to withstand Apollo there. She must have really hated the idea of being tied down to resist that one. Now, if I hadn't met my Wilburus first, I certainly would have been keen on being the wife of Apollo, but that's just me." Though Mrs. Gracchi does not agree with Daphne's views, she keeps true to her position against the aliens and is rallying fellow citizens to show their outrage at the next Town Board meeting.

Now that the tree has been taken, the citizens of Rome are frightened as to what the aliens will steal next. Fellow citizen of Ladon, Lanceus Aurelius, and friend of Mrs. Gracchi says of the incident, "The big question is how can people like you and me protect ourselves? And the sad fact is, we can't. Great thunders of Jupiter, what next? As soon as Caesar's Palace is missing, I'm moving to Clevelandus."

In my life, I have been many things: trapeze artist, sculptor of Spam, mime, karaoke singer...each with unusual results. There were things I felt I didn't want to do, didn't feel comfortable doing, and things I loved doing but just wouldn't let me survive. Let's face it...no one has ever been able to make a living by sculpting Doris Day out of deviled meat with an X-Acto Knife.

As a child, I was in the circus - first, selling peanuts to the crowd. Eventually, the ringmaster noticed my dexterity and my skilled peanut throwing technique, and promoted me to something more difficult: a clown. As a clown, I could act any way I wanted and never worry what anyone would think. One night I might squirt seltzer at the elephants, dodging their trunks with ease, other nights I might perform tumbling acts across the center ring. The audience ate it up, and so the ringmaster once again offered me a new challenge.

This time, I was to be part of the trapeze act! I, a lowly clown, was to be soaring through the air as part of "The Flying Jiangs"! I should have known that it would be too good to be true. I never felt like a part of the Jiangs - they were from Shanghai, where they had been revered as almost a national treasure, and had come to America on tour. I, on the other hand, had been born in a boxcar somewhere outside of St. Louis, joined the circus, and had never looked back. The Jiangs didn't speak my language, I didn't speak theirs, so it was more than a little troublesome when they told me in Mandarin Chinese to pay attention and that I needed to catch little Gan, the youngest Jiang, now.

Shamed, I left the circus. In Pennsylvania, I was hired at an elementary school to serve lunches to the children. One day, as I was serving Spam sandwiches, I found that the meat was strangely malleable. I was inspired, and I created a small, crude, sculpture using the plastic eating ware that was readily available in the cafeteria. In time, I had perfected my style and was able to chisel out scaled models of the human digestive system. The children loved learning about digestion, but my savings from the circus were running out. That money, and my weekly salary could not cover the cost of Spam, thus once again I had to leave my livelihood in search of a better life.

I travelled along the Pacific coast, looking for ideas. I thought about my previous experiences in clowning after seeing a mime perform in a San Francisco marketplace. Using the rest of my savings, I perfected my act. I claimed a corner in a park in Seattle as my own, and put out an old top hat that my friend the ringmaster had given me before the trapeze disaster, and used that to hold my earnings. My act was top notch - all the other performers nearby had to find business elsewhere because no one was able to tear their eyes away from my show. I was soon asked to perform at children's birthday parties, and newspapers interviewed me for makeup tips (which can be troublesome when you're not supposed to speak). As much of a success as I was, though, I couldn't stand the job. Even if you're the best mime in Seattle, if you've been afraid of mimes all your life, there's no hope for you. I packed up my bags, my finances once again secured, and left to find my true calling.

In Illinois, I found a new vocation - singing. After being kicked out of performance halls around Chicago, I discovered the karaoke bar. Forgetting my woes, I stepped up to the microphone and, hands trembling, began to warble the first notes of "She's A Bad Mammer Jammer." The audience was mesmerized, and I soon lost my inhibitions as I remembered my circus days. I performed tumbling acts across the floor, all the while hitting each note perfectly. The crowd egged me on to sing another tune. No longer nervous, I belted out "Kung Fu Fighting" as if my life depended on it. The bar went wild as I performed every kick, block, and punch to the beat. I knew, that night, that this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life. The owner of the karaoke bar signed me on as a weekly act, and people came all the way from Nebraska and Iowa to see my show.

Though it has taken many years to get to where I am today, I know that each of my occupations has contributed to my success as a karaoke star. I have never stopped loving the applause that I achieved from the circus and my miming days. It is what makes me get back to that microphone and enables me to sing along with that glorious canned music. My talent with Spam has not left me either. Sometimes, when the crowd really gets going, I'll yell to the owner of the karaoke bar to throw me some meat. I will sculpt the faces of Donna Summer, the Bee Gees, Donny Osmond, and other stars from days gone by that are responsible for my success today.

You arrive inside Total Request Live just in time to see Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera announce their "Identity Crisis World Tour" billed as "the tour that thinks it's black but is actually a white kid from the suburbs."

I know it's too late for Halloween, but don't you need a costume for your ferret?

posted at 13:38 by lengli | |

 

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Your personal guide to crap wines.

posted at 19:53 by lengli | |

 

The Matrix: Retarded

posted at 19:20 by lengli | |

 

posted at 19:18 by lengli | |

 

Monday, November 03, 2003

Ohhh, I've been a bad and neglectful blogger lately. Well, you all should be happy now that I am posting instead of studying for a Physics test. Who can think of diodes and transistors and NOT gates and NAND gates when there is blogging to be done!

I've been kinda Friendster slap-happy lately. Everyone should go make a profile and put me down as their friend so that I can seem more popular than I really am. It shall be a happy occasion. The only problem it seems is that after a while, the site gets really slow and people's pictures don't want to load. I don't know what that's about.

This is an amusing article about what today's coddled and spoiled children think of the classic video games such as Pong, Donkey Kong, Tetris, and Super Mario. One whippersnapper called Kirk says, "I'm sure everyone who made this game is dead by now." Brats. A good chuckle though.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It's not simply a question of Halloween candy versus Christmas presents - as a young child, I was more into the ghost story thing than the whole Santa thing. I enjoy being scared and watching all the "Haunted Everything!"-style programming that comes on TV. Also, Linus was a whole lot less preachy with the whole Great Pumpkin schpiel than with the retelling of the birth of the baby Jesus in the Charlie Brown specials. My brother and I just laughed hysterically when he said that the shepherds were "sore afraid."

So anyway, for Halloween, since my parents are on vacation, I was in charge of handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters of the neighborhood. Kristin and my friend Jackie came with me to keep me company, so we watched "Halloween" and "Hocus Pocus" and whatever else was on TV that was in the spirit of the holiday. Kristin and I painted our faces vampire-like so we could be frightening when we answered the door, and eventually Kristin got feisty and decided to hide in the bushes and jump out at the kids when they went to knock on the door. One girl literally screamed like she was in a 50's B movie, with the hands by her face and everything. I didn't know people actually screamed that way, but that's how she screamed.

Here are some late Halloween links, and then just some links in good fun as my treat to you.