The Seven Biggest Narcissists in America: Real World Denver

www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow

I know that sounds a little harsh to label these cast members as narcissists when so far we know little about them. But we do know this: They all believe that the whole country should pay attention to them and that they are so important that they need to be filmed all day long so that we know what they're doing every minute of the day. They sure aren't modest. Of course, most narcissistic - okay, debatable - they're just the seven narcissists that were chosen. Probably lots of people in America are more into themselves than this crew. Or not.

The real world almost always casts a bunch of 'types'. They deny this, I know, but nonetheless that's what you get and it's so well known that each cast on the first day tries to figure out what type each person represents. On the first episode they were asking each other who the gay one was. Yes! There's always a gay cast member. If you can think of a recent Real World that didn't have somebody gay, please let me know.

The producers, of course, say that they cast because of who they think will be the most interesting. Alright, but they for sure cast for interaction between the Real-Worlders if not downright conflict. For example, one of the casts had a Mormon girl on. What would that season have been like if it had been seven Mormon girls instead of one? That's right. Dull.

Here's the new Real World Cast.

Jen: On her voice-over Jen introduced herself as a former Oakland Raider's cheerleader which she goes on to explain is the 'most prestigious team in the NFL'. Yeah, right. Everybody in America agree with that? Didn't think so. Besides, I notice that the New England Patriots won the last two SuperBowls (on this list I just looked up. I never watch it). Aren't the Superbowl winners considered the most prestigious?

She's pretty, of course, but way into herself, shallow, and kind of stupid.

Alex: He's already graduated college with a bachelor's degree in psychology. I've got a friend who has a bachelor's in psychology. Know what he does? He's a real estate appraiser and it's not the building's mental health that he's appraising either. Alex seems to be the stock frat boy type - good body, ordinary looks thinks that he's extraordinary. He hooks up (makes out) with the next cast member who is ...

Cotie: I believe I spelled that name correctly. Cotie looks to be like she is the crazy chick in the bunch. Hard to say just from one episode, but stay tuned. I'll bet there's a whole bunch of psycho drama that's going to becoming from her direction. Cotie says her hobby is 'making out'. Mine's writing. Her's sounds funner, but on the other hand I've never caught any diseases from writing, so I'll stick with mine.

Brook: At least I think this one's name is Brook since I can't read my own handwriting too well. Brook says she likes to party. She asked the Alpha Male Black Dude which character she was and he called her 'the Southern Belle'. She's short, dark-haired, looks a little gothy, body looks untoned but not exactly out of shape.

Alpha Male Black Dude: Crap. I didn't write this guy's name down, so I can't tell you who he is. Just go with my description there. This guy said that the first thing he was going to do was unpack a box of Trojans. Nice. From the preview it does look like he gets a bit of trim, so he's not just bragging. He's not the gay guy and has nothing against the gay lifestyle. Why should he? Every gay guy is one less competition for him.

Dave: The other black guy. He's shorter and more ordinary looking and very religious. What is he doing here, you ask? Conflict, Baby, conflict. You got to have somebody in the house to disapprove of what everybody else is doing, don't you? When he finds that the last cast-member is also religious (there's a twist coming) he suggests that they find a church they can go to together. That is until he finds out that ...

Steven: is the gay one. Steven is, in fact, a Southern Baptist and very strong in his faith despite the fact that his faith considers him filled with evil demons and that despite what he thinks, he is a Godless Sodomite. Dave more or less tells him this in very clear terms and this is the first stand off with both guys toe to toe staring each other down.

Steven is blond and muscular in an esthetic way and he does have a bit of the community accent. He intends to be a plastic surgeon.

The Real World House: I kind of like this one for a change. It looks to be in what must be the Denver warehouse district and must be a redone warehouse. It's very spacious and done up in a somewhat tasteful psuedo-Northwoods theme. There's a lot of exposed brick and flowing space except when it comes to the one bathroom and three bedrooms (one 'guest' bedroom). As usual, the house is designed to facilitate interaction so even though the place is a monstrous seven thousand foot cavern everybody can not have their own bedroom and there is one unisex bathroom with multiple sinks, showers and toilet stalls. I would so hate that.

Everybody drinks and everybody drinks a lot and they have a hot tub and people make out. Not religious guy or gay guy, because he has a boyfriend.

Looks pretty boring so far. I'll probably watch, but only when I can't find anything else on the TV. This will for sure not be my favorite Real World season. That is and always will be San Francisco.

Deer Season

(my books are at:
http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow) or Amazon. Check them out when you have time. You can get signed copies on Amazon, by the way)

I was woken by the sound of gun-fire this morning, which made me wonder to myself what it's like to be living in one of those dangerous big cities. Of course, I did live in Minneapolis when it was the most murder-prone area of the country and had the title: 'Murder-apolis'. Somehow, I always still felt safe and wasn't murdered or otherwise assaulted or killed. In fact I never even locked my door. That went for my useless car, too. None of my room-mates locked their cars either, so that led to the only sort-of crime we encountered. One night some dangerous criminal shuffled all of the loose objects from one car to another so that one person's sneakers and change had been moved into another and so on.

Horrors! Even then nobody locked their doors because we weren't so concerned about this happening again. The cars themselves? Forget it! These weren't valuable cars, folks. For awhile I even had the title for mine (an '86 Renault Alliance) in the front seat. I wanted to just get it gone out of my parking lot and my attempts to give the damn thing were frustrated. It kind of started but not reliably and people have standards even for free cars.

The deer population is a bit overpopulated at the moment so if you don't get one (you're allowed three) then you're a real yutz as a hunter. My take on this, since I don't hunt. I just hide in my house and hope I don't get shot. This came about because there was chronic wasting disease and for years there were restrictions allowing the population to grow almost out of control. Deer are hunted during their rut, which means they're all of them out looking for a piece of tail (literally) and just don't care about orange people nearby carrying guns. Or, if they aren't looking for a piece of tail, they're bucks looking for a fight. That's one of the ways you can get one, by the way, you just rub two sets of antlers together and any nearby bucks think there's a fight going on and they want to get in on the action.

FREE CHAPTERS!!!

It stopped snowing but the road's aren't plowed and it's late in the day. Screw it. Since I have extra time, I'm posting a few chapters.

At one time I had the entire book posted elsewhere and I think somebody from Sunnyville, California read the whole thing on-line. A guy from the Netherlands, too. I visited his site, but it was all in Danish (Well, Duh!)

Here's a picture of my cabin when it's not covered in a foot of snow.

REXROI

The Fraternity has an old tradition that all of the out-going brothers should write down their experiences and important advice in the form of a lesson book for the newer brothers.
Here is a very curious example.






LESSON ONE: A good night’s sleep is very important

There was this dream I used to have at the frat where I would be a soldier who was fighting in a war. And it was a really strange war because the other army never fought back, but instead just stood and waited for us to slaughter them. We had to fight for all eternity, just killing over and over again.

The worst part of this whole deal was that I knew it wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be real and that it was a nightmare. But I could never seem to wake up from it. My whole being was under the command of someone else, but I didn’t know who - except that he was my lord and master.

And I loved him more than anyone or anything else.

I had to do what he commanded - my evil beloved master - no matter how indecent and obscene. More than that, I wanted to obey because serving his will brought me such joy. Night after night I gave my dark Lord what he desired most.

Murder and death were my gifts to him.


LESSON TWO: Assign a designated driver when you go out for the evening

That was the dream I was having; only it wasn’t the dream itself but me dreaming that I was having that dream. So I would wake myself up inside of the dream into another one and I would still be that same soldier fighting in that endless war until I figured out that this, too, wasn’t real - and I would wake myself up again. And I would be in the same horror that I couldn’t ever escape.

It kept going on like that until finally from the depths of my dream within my dream I heard this: “Hey Dude, wake up.”

And I screamed: “Ahhh, a burglar! Oh, don’t hurt me, burglar! I’ve got money; it’s in a sock under my bed.”

Then I opened my eyes and found, of course, that I was not in an unending bloody war but in my frat house bedroom on the third floor, safe and sound - more or less - with Vic, our Newest Fat Guy breathing beer fumes on me as he shook my shoulders. Behind him in the room I could see some of my other fraternity brothers, real unsteady on their feet, looking like gargoyles in the dim light.

“C’mon,” Vic said, pushing at my shoulder. “Get up so we can go get some eggs. We’re all hungry, Little Kid Guy.”

Little Kid Guy.

That was me. That was my nick name in our frat, so called because I was only five two, blond, freckle faced and looking about ten years younger than my true age, which was twenty two. My real name was Gary, but only my family ever called me that - and my girlfriend, Suzie, too. She reserved ‘Little Kid Guy’ for when she was really pissed at me. Like earlier tonight.

I’d taken her to a nice restaurant - the Monte Carlo - really expensive place that was hard to get reservations for, and then in the middle of the meal I had the brazen, bald-faced effrontery to take a cell-phone call. Oh, that was the worst thing in the world! Because I was ignoring her, you see, spoiling our special night, our private time together and for what? Frat business, which set her off even more when she found out. My God, I swear if I’d been standing in front of her making out with her sisters (both of whom were younger and hotter, by the way) she wouldn’t have been so outraged.

I made the mistake then of trying to reason with her, explaining the importance of me taking this call, which was about the party next night that she and the rest of her sorority were planning on attending. Didn’t she want me to make sure that everybody - herself included - had the best possible time? That’s all that I’m doing, Honey, Sweetie Pie, Dearest, Love of my Life, My one and only reason for living, Snookums...

Oh, crap.

Why did I even bother? I should have just shut up; or rather I should have just said how sorry I was and then shut up. But for some reason I didn’t and just went on and on doing the thing all women hate the most more than anything - being logical. My points were clear, concise, and well thought out. The problem was that I was making my case to a woman; and they have a different way of looking at things, you know.

She wasn’t buying it and the more I tried to show her how right I was the madder she got. I mean, how dare I try to make a little sense? How dare I try to put things in perspective for her? How dare I take her our for an expensive night on the town blowing big money to make sure that everything was absolutely perfect? No, no, no, I took a phone call for maybe a maximum of two whole minutes and I was scum.

After I’d said too much - after I realized I’d said too much - it was a pretty cold and quiet dinner and in the end all I got for my money that night was two pricy lobster dinners and a bed to myself - all alone.

My girlfriend Suzie - unfortunately for me - happened to be really hot. She was one of those Scandinavian-looking blondes that’re common here with the pale, pale blue eyes and milky skin. Her overbite might have been a little bit too much - might, but she made up for it with a bust that was surprisingly large for such a tiny girl. She was about an inch or two shorter than me, which didn’t detract at all from her attractiveness, or wouldn’t anywhere else in the world except here in Minnesota where Amazons are the rule for both men and women.

The thing you got to know about all beautiful women is that every single one of them is going to be a pain in the ass. The only questions for you are: When is she going to be a pain in the ass, how much of one is she going to be, and how is she going to do it? Also, all beautiful women have at least one gigantic glaring flaw and, Brother; you won’t have to look very hard to find it.

In Suzie’s case it was her meanness. When I first start dating her, her unrelenting cynicism amused me. Biting sarcasm can be rather fun when you’re not the constant target of it and I wasn’t at the beginning, which changed over time. Believe me. Later on I got mighty tired of it - might-ty tired - but never enough to call it quits because I still liked her a hell of a lot.

So, the evening ended a lot sooner than I expected, and that’s how I came to be the only sober guy at the frat-house at two o’clock in the morning with a gang of sodden buffoons troubling my precious slumber.

One of them had the sense to turn on the overhead light and I sat up in my bed, rubbed at my eyes and scowled real hard at them all.

“Eggs?! What are you boys going to do with eggs?”

Vic squinted at me like that was the dumbest question in the world. “We’re going to eat the eggs,” he said and pushed at my shoulder again. “Hurry up and get dressed, we gotta go.” A shock of his messy brown hair fell into his eyes as he looked around my room. “Where are your clothes, Dude?”

“Jesus, you’re not going to dress me, are you?”

He didn’t say anything and I got worried that maybe that really was his plan. So, I put my feet on the floor and looked around to see who else was with him and saw Skip, Biff, Max, the Old Fat Guy - who was last years fat guy at the frat (but slim now) - and Vinny. Vinny I knew I could deal with because even at his drunkest his mind still worked, somewhat.

“Hey Vinny,” I said. “What is this? I’m trying to sleep.”
Vinny was my absolute best bud in the frat and I knew he would look out for me. He was sort like me in that he was little bit different than your run of the mill fraternity brother. His difference was his heritage, which was half Italian, half Irish and half Korean which meant that he counted as a minority to the University of Minnesota, despite the fact that his eyes were only slightly slanted and most times you couldn’t even tell. He had dark red hair and a devil-like goatee which the girls seemed to like, although they didn’t seem to care for facial hair on anybody else but him.

He shrugged his shoulders and told me. “We need a sober driver, Kid Guy and you’re all we can find. Remember the frat meeting last week? We got too many guys here with too many DUIs and it’s starting to become a problem. Everyone else is already out so let’s get going.”

And that was the last word. Even though Vinny was my best bud, he was also a senior while I was still only a junior. In the frat that meant his word was law. And you know what else? They needed me to look out for them to make sure they didn’t get into trouble, or maybe further trouble - technically that’s what Vinny should have been doing, but it was Vinny so that wasn’t happening. Of course it occurred to me to wonder how these drunken clowns had gotten to where they’d been and back without somebody having already driven drunk, but I wasn’t going to ask.

Instead, I held out my hand. “Keys, someone, I’m not taking my car.”

Vinny gave me the keys to his blue Thunderbird and I dressed, and we all went to our back parking lot, piled in and took off. We headed down University Avenue and it was a really beautiful autumn night with the leaves just starting to turn a golden brown, but not near ready to fall yet. I would have enjoyed the scenery a whole lot if I hadn’t been so grumpy about fighting with my girlfriend and then being shanghaied into chauffeur duty.

The drive to the place they wanted to go to was about twenty minutes through some pretty bad areas of town, and I made sure that the windows were all rolled up and all the doors locked. It wasn’t that I thought that any of the seedy characters lounging at the bus-stops were going to rush our car when we were idling at a stoplight. Rather I was worried that one of these idiots inside the car would yell out something ‘racially insensitive’ at an inopportune time. And that would be trouble, especially for me since I was a small guy.

We ended up in downtown St. Paul, which was pretty dead this time of night except for the remaining bar rush, and a few vagrants and such staggering about. We parked on the street outside a kind of burger joint, the Harmonica Café, which turned out to be near the Mississippi, not too far from the Orpheum Theater and a pretty wooded park. The restaurant was made out in the style of one of those old fashion dining cars, in a sort of shiny art deco style.
The inside was newly redone with about a dozen booths with red Naugahyde, and yellow Formica and about twice as many swivel stools around the main counter in the center. Along the walls were pictures of fifties hot rods, fifties drive in theaters and fifties sock hops, with chrome and splashes of color. The theme was the nineteen fifties, in case you didn’t get it.

In the café that night were maybe about a half a dozen or so customers of the sort who inhabit the night and have no where else to be at two a.m. They had pale skin and dead eyes, these people, and looked as if they’d just stepped out of a zombie movie. Me and my fraternity brothers all sat down on the stools at the front counter while a huge fry cook with a sweat stained paper hat kept his back turned to us, hunching over a couple of hamburgers sizzling on the grill in front of him.

We all sat there together behind this guy and while we sat there I noticed something the other boys didn’t seem to, which was that this happened to be all that we were doing - just sitting there while the fry cook on the other side of the counter wasn’t doing anything at all to help us, but rather seemed too preoccupied to even notice us sitting there waiting for him to decide that we were important enough for him to pay attention to.

The big important fry cook had better things to do, you know. He was busy, and we could just wait until he was ready to notice us.
The clock was situated almost directly over his head above the grill and I watched the clock’s second hand as fifteen seconds went by, then thirty seconds, then forty five and finally a whole minute.

So, I sat there and mused about customer service and what the standard for receiving good customer service is and it’s this: The standard for receiving good service in any place is that you’re supposed to be greeted within thirty seconds - not necessarily served - but acknowledged, greeted, at the very least. It’s only common politeness, you know.

And guess what? We hadn’t even gotten that. No, no. I wasn’t expecting good service here - I’m a reasonable guy - but perhaps some service some time that would have been nice, wouldn’t you think?

Well, I wasn’t going to say anything. From sad experience I knew that it was almost never a mistake for me to shut up when I felt in an irritable mood. More often then not the result of ‘speaking up’ in circumstances like this was only humiliation for myself and later regret and shame when my fraternity brothers retold the story of whatever stupid thing it was that I said and did.

I’d leave it to someone else to get this guy’s attention. Since it hadn’t been my idea to come here in the first place one of the other guys who wanted to eat this food could deal with this, right?

Hey, if they all wanted to sit around in a stale grease pit all night long starving, that was their business, wasn’t it? I had the patience of a saint when I wanted and I’d just sit here and sit and sit like a frozen cucumber for as long as it took them to come to their senses, which they were bound to soon enough. This was their idea in the first place and they sure couldn’t enjoy being ignored like this. Whatever they wanted to do was fine because I was not going to embarrass myself by making a fuss.

I fidgeted in my seat and took a few deep, deep breaths and felt a peaceful almost Zen-like calm come over me.

“Excuse me, Lard Butt,” I said. “Are we invisible or something?”
Okay, so much for Zen.

I mean what the hell? What the hell was that big oaf doing over there, anyways? He had to know we were all here. He had to have seen when we all came into the restaurant. We’d sure made enough noise and you’d think that since his job was to notice the customers who come into his establishment he would.

Right away, the other brothers were all on my case.

“Oh no, Kid Guy, not here.”

“Not again.”

“We can’t take you anywhere.”

And I just looked at them in disgust. “Is it me? Am I the only one that sees that our order is not being taken? I’m ready to order. Is anyone else ready to order? You boys didn’t haul me out of bed to sit in a restaurant and starve, did you? Why the Hell are we here? It sure isn’t for the service, because we aren’t getting any. Are we? You wanted to eat. So, let’s eat already.” I raised my voice. “Hear that Lard Butt? We’re ready to order.”

I would have said more, but Max stopped me. “You can’t address him that way, Kid Guy. He won’t respond.”

“Oh?”

Max shook his head. “Nope: Let me.” He cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “Your Magnificent Glorious Omniscient Majesty: May we humbly request your attention?”

It was only then when the short order cook turned around to look at us (taking his time, too) that I got a good look at him. And I’ll say this about him: for a big guy, with an obvious weight problem, he wasn’t all that bad looking. He was kind of youngish, my age maybe, six and a half feet tall or there abouts, dark hair, Roman nose, grey piercing eyes under thick brows, and a cleft in the first one of his double chins. From the front he didn’t look quite so overwhelmingly fat, either, maybe like only two fifty or two seventy. He had on a grease stained apron, with a name tag pinned on it which said ‘Alex’ but I saw that he had written something else in red magic marker on the front of his paper hat.

It said: ‘King of the World’.

“Sergeant Major,” he said to Max. “I see you’ve brought companion soldiers of my mighty army with you. I salute you. I congratulate you.” Then he nodded to each one of my fraternity brothers in line and greeted them with similar titles. Biff and Skip were privates, the New Fat guy was a corporal and Vinny was a Colonel. When he got to me his eyes widened and a sly smile came over his face.

“Ahh, General! At last ... You’ve finally decided to visit.”



LESSON THREE: Never complain at a restaurant until after your food’s been served

I suppose I should have been flattered that this guy considered me a General, while all my other brothers had lesser ranks, but you know what? I really wasn’t. He leaned forward across the counter and supported himself on his hands while staring me in the eyes.
“It’s a great surprise to see you here. I thought you were going out with your girlfriend. Did you have another fight with her, perhaps? You know you should be more attentive to her needs, but none the less, it’s an extraordinary honor to see you here. What may I prepare for you tonight?”

I pulled out one of the menus - which were on metal clips at the counter - and perused it while he watched me.
“Steak and eggs,” I told him and replaced the menu. “And black coffee. Think you can handle that?”

He nodded slightly. “As you wish, General, but you must address me properly. It’s ‘your majesty’.” And then to the rest he asked:

“Are you other soldiers ready with your orders?”

They gave their orders and as they did so, he acknowledged this with the same military rank as before. Only I was a General, which was a curious distinction. Each of the boys, by the way, when they gave their order ended it with ‘Your Majesty’ and then gave me a dirty look. I guess they were all kind of mad because I wasn’t playing along with their game.

Well, I wasn’t going to. They were messing with this guy, and you know what? That wasn’t nice. It was dishonest and I for one wasn’t going to be dishonest.

I shook my head. “No, no, no. I know what you want. I know what you all want and I’m not going to say it.” I looked The King of the World straight into his grey eyes. “Listen: I don’t care if all the other guys feel like humoring you. That’s fine, they can do that if they want, but I’m not going to.”

He cleaned off his metal spatula on the grill edge before answering. “They aren’t humoring me. They call me ‘Your Majesty’ because I am the King of the World.” He tapped his paper hat where those words were written. “And you should also call me that, just as I call you ‘my soldiers’ because you are all in my Secret Army of the Night and with me, you rule the World and do my bidding. You, General, are my right hand man, who will one day lead my army against the farm.”

He didn’t smile or laugh at all as he said this, but kept looking at me steadily for several seconds as I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stiffening.

Oh boy.

I could see how my fraternity brothers would find this guy amusing - he sure was one rare nut, all right. Though, I couldn’t say it was quite as funny to me as it was to them, because this guy was huge and therefore dangerous, more dangerous to me because he was double my size.

“All right,” I said struggling to find some tactful words. “I can see where you’re coming from. What you’ve told me is very interesting. Your view of things is certainly unique to say the least - very unique. Thank you for sharing. Now ... if you don’t mind ... I’d like to share with you: What I think you should know is that I’ve had enough of this, you big jerk. You’re clearly deluded and need some sort of professional help, but I don’t care. That’s not my problem. My problem is that I’m in a restaurant and I’m hungry and I’m a paying customer and I deserve to get some service. So, here’s what I want you to do: you cook my order: Steak and eggs. Cook it now or I swear, I swear to God I’ll call the manager.”

I kept staring him in the eye and heard snickers coming from Vinny on my right.

“Are you going to cook my order?”

“As you wish,” he said. “You’re only making it harder for yourself. Eggs over easy?” He raised a bushy eyebrow and I nodded at him.

“Steak medium rare?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought so.” He turned his back on me and hummed to himself, throwing sizzling things onto the grill while I watched his every move very carefully, just to be sure. I was damned if I was going to let him hock a loogie into my eggs or wipe my toast on some part of his anatomy that I’d rather not think about or perform any of the other little acts of revenge that cooks have for ‘difficult’ customers like me.

I so regretted my little outburst just then. You never, ever want to get people who handle your food mad at you before they handle your food, because that’s just stupid. But somehow that’s exactly what I’d done. Man, If I’d kept my cool - like I should have - I wouldn’t be doing this, standing bleary eyed guard over my meal. And you know what? Even with my vigilance I knew, he’d still probably manage to get some of his DNA in there.

Mmm, yummy.

“I’d take care of that cut on your left arm,” he told me.
I looked at my arm and there was nothing there. “What?”

“Nothing.” He continued humming.

The boys talked more about their night out, as I watched him. They had gone to the usual places, then to a strip club or two, which I chided them on. Because why would they pay just to look at beave when there was so much free around the University? We had a sister sorority, which for all practical purposes was almost exactly like having our own private bordello, except one where we never had to pay - at least not in outright cash, although, over time a sorority girlfriend could get a bit spendy, especially when you were talking about non-monetary factors like dignity and self respect.

When our food was ready, the insane fry cook put our plates in front of us and it wasn’t bad, all greasy and fat and just what you wanted to fill you up after a night of drinking - and no loogies or anything else, either. I checked carefully for that, believe me.
We dug in, finished our meal, paid up and everyone but me merrily thanked The King of the World in the most extravagant terms and they even left him tips. Then as we were all heading out the door the King of the World called out to me.

“Hey, General!”

But I wasn’t going to answer to that, and I continued on my way.
“Gary,” he said. “Gary Gates. I want to talk to you.”
That stopped me short and I turned around. “How do you know my name?”

He smiled smugly. “I’ve been thinking that it’s about time that you got yourself a puppy.”

“What do you mean?” I scratched my head. “A puppy you say? What on earth would I need a puppy for?”

“Puppies are very good companionship,” The King of the World said. “They’re excellent for stress reduction and if you don’t mind me pointing it out to you, you seemed a might edgy when you came in tonight, otherwise I doubt you would have addressed me so insolently.” He shrugged. “But it’s all right. I understand. I forgive you and will not punish you for your transgression, except for some extra monkey dancing.”

He took a moment to ponder on that. “Yes ... much monkey dancing. Perhaps you were suffering from battle fatigue or some such. But, you see, a puppy would take care of that. When you felt unreasonably angry like this, you could just pet your little puppy on the head or play fetch the stick with it and you would feel instantly more relaxed and not feel like you needed to be impertinent to your lord.”

I gritted my teeth. “Thanks so much for the suggestion.”

He smiled crookedly. “You’re more than welcome and I’d take care to put a bandage on your arm so that awful cut heals well.”
“Okay. Whatever.” I let the door slam behind me. “You big Jerk.”
I walked out to the car and examined my arm once again just to be sure. Nope, nothing. Good Lord, why was I even looking? There was no way there could be anything there.

Afterwards while riding back; the boys couldn’t talk about anything except getting the damned puppy. Why it was such an unbelievably great idea, all of a sudden, I don’t know. It was as if they’d been hypnotized or something. They acted like so many overgrown kids excitedly discussing what type of puppy they would get, what tricks they would teach it, who would feed it, who would walk it and so on. Me? I said nothing at all, although I was anti-puppy right from the start.

Now don’t get me wrong: I think dogs are great. After all, who wouldn’t love a creature whose only purpose in life was to do whatever you told it to? Not me that’s for certain, but a fraternity mascot? That was an entirely different matter because it was way too problematic.

First of all, you had to look at who came up with the idea. Hey, shouldn’t that tell you something? Look whose advice you’re taking. Then think about the dog, itself. How fair would it be for some unlucky creature to be put under the care of these boys, who couldn’t care for themselves much less another living breathing creature? Any dog would be better off in a good home with a family and little kids to play with it, not a rowdy group of sociopaths who would probably molest it if they paid any attention to it at all. And most likely this wasn’t allowed at all in the national fraternity charter, either, which I’d be sure to check since the point might already be moot.

All of them thought that a cute puppy would help them out with women, which you got to know was just plain silliness. I mean it might be good for attracting women but why bother? We had all the motivated women we needed in our sister sorority and didn’t need aids like cute furry animals. And hypothetically, say it worked and someone did get laid by use of a puppy, who would she really be sleeping with? Them or the puppy? Did they ever think of that?
I just smiled and nodded at this nonsense, like I should have been doing earlier that evening, like I should have been doing my entire life. My hope was that by staying mum this would die out all on its own and be just one more thing that would be forgotten by tomorrow’s hang over. Hopefully, they would also forget about this little small drama that I was involved in, but you know what? I didn’t think so. Almost certainly I had added to my already miserable reputation and it would be making the rounds before long.
Oh well, I couldn’t do anything about that now.

What I could do was discourage further visits to the fry cook at the Harmonica Café. You never knew what an obviously unstable guy like that might do, although I had some nagging doubts about him and the way he was presenting himself - like he wanted us to think that he was off his rocker.

This ‘King of the World’ acted like a mad man all right and if I were qualified to make a licensed psychiatric diagnosis I would definitely say he was a nut. But he seemed too sure of himself and despite the fact that the crap he was spouting seemed to be genuine lunacy, I was suspicious that maybe he wasn’t as out of it or deranged as he seemed.

Maybe he wasn’t a lunatic at all.

Author's note: That's it for now. That one, and others, are available at:
http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow

Gonna Miss You, Bob

It looks like this is going to be my first snow day here in Wisconsin. I called in to say that I would try to make it later on in the day when it lets up ... but I don't think that's going to happen. Of course, if the East Coast ever got this much snow it would be the 'Blizzard of the Century'. Pussies.

Anyways, since I was home I thought I would turn on The Price is Right with the soon to retire Bob Barker. He'll be turning 83 and he thinks that's plenty old and he's going to hang it up. No, it isn't Bob! Hang in there. I need you at the helm in case I ever have another snow or sick day. God, Bob's been old ever since I was a child. No Bob Barker with Price is Right is unimaginable. Whoever takes over: I will not watch it. It will never be the same.

Back in my day, Bob had only three regular models and he had these gals for decades. They were Holly, the dark-haired girl next door; Diane, the voluptious blonde sex-bomb; and Penny, who was, I don't know, somebody's Mom but attractive in a bland way that never appealed to me. Penny's husband was some sort of spy and she wrote a book about it, which I read. Her husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances and was never heard from again.

As I said, Bob kept these three models on forever even after they started showing their age - and how! After Bob's wife passed on Diane (the sex bomb) took up with Bob. She was forty seven, then - a really hot forty seven with an amazing figure, but when you got in close you could see what years of the California sun can do to a woman's skin. Nevertheless, I would have done her. Like Bob did. The affair ended badly when she sued Bob for sex discrimination. Then Holly gained some weight as a side effect to some sort of medical treatment, she got let go, then she sued, too. I think eventually Penny sued because she was let go, probably just because she was old and no amount of face-stretching could hide the fact.

You know, they really have to give Bob a hell of a lot of credit for giving them a job when their age would have given them a boot out the door anywhere else. Now, his models are just three hot bimbos and I'm pretty sure that if they ever gave him the slightest trouble or put on an extra pound or two he'd give them their walking papers. Pronto!

I sure hope Direct TV doesn't go out. Do you know, Once I was on the phone with these clowns for an hour and forty five minutes and got transferred thirteen times?! Jerks. Let me tell you: call centers are the worst! Their only motivation is to get you off the phone and they don't care how they do it. Period. Of course, I could always switch to DISH but who's to say their service is any better? And cable blows. Any company that has no competition blows and besides, I can't get it out here.

Still snowing. I don't think I'm going to be working today.

Damn.

Not 'Damn' because I don't get to work, but 'Damn' because I have to use a vacation day.

By the way: My books are at http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow or Amazon. Evil Super-Villains Need Love, Too has been getting the best reviews. But all of my books are extremely entertaining.

Space Hippies

Every now and then when I get the chance, I like to check out the Star Trek Slash stories, which are amateur fiction stories that pair various characters from the Star Trek Universe - most often same sex - and then the writers tell stories where these characters have loving/sexual relationships. Kirk and Spock are favorites, although every combination is pretty much present. For the longest time I've been trying to find Wesley/Worf stories, but I think they just must be surpassing sick by so much that they're seldom written.

I can't say that I'm a real 'Trekkie' or 'Trekker' or any such. At best, I'm sort of borderline. I've seen some shows from every series depending on how easy they were to find because some of them (Enterprise for example) were on lesser networks, UPN, now CW I believe, and I just couldn't find them very reliably.

Anyways, it made me think. I can't recall seeing any openly gay characters on any of the Star Trek series. Definitely there weren't recurring ones, although, admittedly, I'm only a borderline Trekkie so there might be a lot I might have missed. Let me know if I'm wrong there.
I can think of two episodes of The Next Generation where it was addressed obliquely. In one Riker falls in love with an alien who is a hermaphrodite, but who can develop either way depending on circumstances. As I recall. So, Riker sort of falls for somebody who is or can be partially male.

Another Next Gen one that sort of addressed this was where Beverly falls for an ambassador who turns out to have a sentient parasite inside of him who is the actual 'person' she's in love with. (A Trill). After much drama the parasite is implanted into another host - a woman this time - and the parasite is quite puzzled why Beverly won't go for it, since 'he' is the same person.
The old Star Trek ... well, just forget it. Through the medium of Science Fiction and the use of heavy handed metaphor Star Trek addressed some of the burning issues of the day, but never it seems was Gay rights addressed. Or maybe they did and I just missed it.

One episode that might be a possible candidate is one where the crew takes on a group of six space hippies. The Space Hippies have stolen a space ship and the Enterprise apprehends them. Of course, the space hippies are all in a band playing out of this world instruments and they take over the Enterprise under the cover of a groovy rock concert. The music just sucks as it always does when fake musicians are part of the story line.

One of the space hippies might have been gay. That's my theory. This guy was wearing a mini-skirt, thigh high go-go boots, a cape and just a touch of tasteful make-up. He was also barechested with some real sexy hairy nipples. And he was real 'friendly' with the young male crewmen if you know what I mean.

In the internet slash universe what was really happening was that behind the scenes everybody was secretly bi-sexual - and how! Oh sure, Kirk was trying to deny his attraction to other men by having multiple romances with multiple hot alien women, but all along it was really Spock and only Spock. And Spock might have the occasional Pon Farr Sweetie but there was only one true love for him, also.

I've never heard that either actors who portrayed Kirk or Spock (Shatner and Nimoy) have publicly commented on the slash stories. They certainly must know about them, but here's a wild thought: Lots of actors are, in fact, gay and hiding the fact. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are actors. Do you see where I'm going with this? Is it beyond the realm of reason that two actors - who may be secretly gay, I'm not saying they are, but secretly they may be - in their younger experimental days might have engaged in the very activities that compose the fantasies of all those slash writers.

Okay, I know that's wild speculation. There's no evidence that either one of those men had had a loving or sexual relationships with each other (they are good friends, though).

On the other hand: They've never denied it.

Who is Big Foot?

**Some of my books are at: Http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow **

Without a doubt many Big Foot sightings are, in fact, guys in furry suits like my old college Room-mate Jed. People in the country get very, very bored and dressing up in ape suits to make people believe they're big foot is just one of the things they do to entertain themselves. Another thing, of course, is to drink lots and lots - which, come to think of it, might be another reason people tend to sight Big Foot way out in the country.

So, the number one explanation for Big Foot is: Fakery. And I think I hinted at number two, which would be hallucination or confabulation under the influence of something or other. Crystal Meth is pretty big around these parts so I'm guessing that on your third or fourth day awake with the Meth pipe you might see a lot of Big Feet (and elves and unicorns and hippies in the trees).

Third explanation is mistaken sightings. Something looked like Big Foot to you, like perhaps a bear or a big hairy hunter. Something. But not the 'real' Big Foot.

Number fout on my list is the one given by supposed psychic ghost-talker-to Sylvia Brown. She says that Big Foot is actually an Eastern entity called a 'Chulpa' which is a creature that starts in the mind but is made real through the act of conscious creation. Sounds pretty crazy to me, but I won't dismiss it out of hand. If you know anything about quantum physics you know about the uncomfortable relationship between consciousness/observation and reality. Personally, I think sub-atomic particles are actually Chulpas since quantum physisists look for them so hard, they ultimately create them. My theory, only.

Finally, last theory: There is a real Big Foot and he's really out there. Okay, I don't buy it. You'd think with all the sightings some hunters would eventually stumble onto a dead Big Foot sooner or later. Actually, you'd think they'd come back with Big Foot meat every single hunting trip. But they don't, do they?

Big Foot proponents say that this is because Big Feet bury their own dead. Well, you know what? Even the Mafia doesn't hide their bodies that well. You're saying that these huge clumsy Gorillas are better at it then they are? C'mon!

The Philosophy of the Matrix

**Some of my books are at http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow**

The Matrix trilogy is being shown in it's exhaustive, tedious entirity on Turner tonight. The first one was good, very ground-breaking in so many ways and also very philosophical, but not in a pretentious, solemn goofy way like the next two movies but in a kind of engrossing way. It reminded me very much of Plato's parable of the caves, where what we think is the real world is simply the shadows of the real world, wherever or whatever that is. In the case of the Matrix, the real world that Thomas Anderson (Neo) thinks is real is actually a computer construct of super-intelligent machines who create this illusion while keeping the humans in pods and sucking off the energy they create to power themselves.

It's very attractive because you can for sure enjoy imagining that you are not really you and your hopelessly ordinary life cannot in truth be your 'real' life. No, you must actually be a messianic hero, wouldn't you think? Just like Thomas Anderson actually is.

Well, I have problems with the computer world because if all they want from the human beings is the energy they create, why are they so nice to them? If I were the machines, I would put every last human on a tread mill and I would urge them on with well timed electrical shocks and I would not care one fig that they knew they were actually providing the energy to run us. But that's me. The actual matrix world is in like this dark fog which is never explained, but if the fog is always there, then where does the sunlight come from to grow the plants that are ultimately be used to feed the human batteries? And here's another thing: why not just solar cells? Even if there's a constant fog enveloping the planet, you'd think the machines could just float them or build tall towers or something.

Anyways, first movie I loved, maybe because they were purposely vague about all that stuff and really you shouldn't need to know so much. You should be able to let your own imagination fill in the blanks.

Here's where the Matrix sequels fail and why other sequels also fail. They make the mistake of trying to get you more into their world, which means that the plot has to be more complicated. And more into their world means more into their characters and more characters, so you not only have to keep track of all this extra complicated exposition, but also more about the old characters and then all of the new characters. In Science Fiction this is called an 'information dump' and is usually an awkward device.

When you read my book, Rexroi, see if you can spot where I've cleverly placed my 'information dump'. So far no one has come back to me and complained about that section of the text, so I think I did, in fact, do it rather adroitly. But let me know. (Link at the top of the post).

The Matrix sequels are still rather fun to watch just from the visual aspects. Usually with special effects there's a big drop off in the wow factor when newer and better special effects come out. I remember one of my brothers-in-law telling me that he wanted to see Close Encounters of the Third Kind for the special effects. Tell me if you don't laugh at those special effects now. Yes, Spielberg's a genius when he isn't being annoyingly sappy and sentimental, but Close Encounters of the Third Kind doesn't stand the test of time. The Matrix movie special effects do.

But, the sequels have a steep learning curve. I'm sorry, it's science fiction to start with then when you add dozens of characters with their own obscure sub-plots - I can't do it. I'm just not going to make notes for myself like I did when I read War and Peace. (I finished it in twenty four hours, too, by the way). You're watching a science fiction movie basically because you don't want to use your brain. You want to be entertained and diverted and you shouldn't have to study up for it like the SATs.

The Problem with Werewolves

**Breakfast with the Antichrist is doing well in the UK. Hey, Americans, you can buy it, too. It's on Amazon. The others are at http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow . Not to play favorites, but I'd recommend the last two**

This is sort of a companion piece to: The Problem with Vampires. I think one of the reasons I don't get so much web traffic anymore is because I severed all of my recipricol links when I changed the title of my Weblog to The Golden Age of Dog Biscuits. It sounds friendlier, don't you think? Maybe I'll put that HTML back in just to see what happens. Anyways, I've put some word salad at the bottom of this post to try and attract searchs. The word salad I've selected is from the top ten Tecnoroti searches. If you came here by that way: Please stay and enjoy.

Okay, werewolves: I really enjoyed the first Underworld movie. Yes, it was Kate Beckinsdale that had me most interested and I recommend that movie just on the basis of watching Kate Beckinsdale hopping around in a tight shiny black outfit. It's well worth the price of a rental, believe me. Aside from that, I thought it had a nice involving plot with a beautiful twist at the end. And if they had stopped at that one movie that would have been just fine.

Of course, they had to mess things up with a turd of a sequel. Oh sure, she's still hopping around in a shiny black tight outfit, but there isn't enough of that to make this one worth the rental. The plot is so complicated and obscure that I didn't know who anybody was or why they were doing anything and worse ... I didn't care. I watched the entire thing so that I wouldn't have wasted my money, but really, I shouldn't have wasted my time.

Beware of sequels, that's all you have to know.

The problem with werewolves is this: when they make their transformation into the giant fangspewing monsters they are, where does the mass come from? Suddenly a normal sized man is at least twice his size and strength and the raw material has to come from somewhere. Where? Are they just sort of inflated like balloons and there actually is no more mass but just air? But if they're inflated by air, then where does their strength come from? See. It's impossible.

The second problem is that werewolves apparently go on killing sprees every month and nobody seems to notice. Are we expected to believe that the police are so incompetent that they could miss a twenty nine day murder cycle. Also, the werewolf inevitably wakes up naked somewhere out in the open when he turns back into a human in the morning. Well, the police can certainly not notice repeated violent crimes but a naked man out in the open - they can always catch that guy. (Don't ask me how I know this).

Third, and probably finally, the numbers don't add up. This is somewhat the same problem with vampires, only on a lesser scale. Every vampire victim becomes a vampire and in a geometric progression it wouldn't take long for the whole world to be vampires. Then who's left to suck on.
Same thing with werewolves, though, granted, it doesn't seem that as many people survive the attack to become werewolves themselves. But some do. And those some are going to go out and create a geometric progression of werewolves, who make more, then more, and so on and so on until the whole planet is nothing but werewolves.

What then? It would be slower than the vampires, for sure, but it would still happen.

Heres the word salad I promised.


Lonelygirl15
Steve Irwin
John Tierney
The Unslammed P...
Dreamhost
Pinky
Path to 9/11
Google
Video
Suri
Brazil
9/11
Second Life
Black
Youtube
Top Tags
Microsoft
Steve Irwin
Sex
Search
Online
Bush
web-20
Shopping
Iraq
crocodile hunter
newspaper
Terrorism
Porn
11
web2.0
Top Blogs
Engadget25,379 blogs link here
老徐 徐静蕾 新浪BLOG21,521 blogs link here
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things20,495 blogs link here
Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide13,798 blogs link here
Daily Kos: State of the Nation12,928 blogs link here
100 Top Blog
Lonelygirl15
Steve Irwin
John Tierney
The Unslammed P...
Dreamhost
Pinky
Path to 9/11
Google
Video
Suri
Brazil
9/11
Second Life
Black
Youtube
Top Tags
Microsoft
Steve Irwin
Sex
Search
Online
Bush
web-20
Shopping
Iraq
crocodile hunter
newspaper
Terrorism
Porn
11
web2.0
Top Blogs
Engadget25,379 blogs link here
老徐 徐静蕾 新浪BLOG21,521 blogs link here
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things20,495 blogs link here
Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide13,798 blogs link here
Daily Kos: State of the Nation12,928 blogs link here
100 Top Blog
Lonelygirl15
Steve Irwin
John Tierney
The Unslammed P...
Dreamhost
Pinky
Path to 9/11
Google
Video
Suri
Brazil
9/11
Second Life
Black
Youtube
Top Tags
Microsoft
Steve Irwin
Sex
Search
Online
Bush
web-20
Shopping
Iraq
crocodile hunter
newspaper
Terrorism
Porn
11
web2.0
Top Blogs
Engadget25,379 blogs link here
老徐 徐静蕾 新浪BLOG21,521 blogs link here
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things20,495 blogs link here
Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide13,798 blogs link here
Daily Kos: State of the Nation12,928 blogs link here
100 Top Blog
Lonelygirl15
Steve Irwin
John Tierney
The Unslammed P...
Dreamhost
Pinky
Path to 9/11
Google
Video
Suri
Brazil
9/11
Second Life
Black
Youtube
Top Tags
Microsoft
Steve Irwin
Sex
Search
Online
Bush
web-20
Shopping
Iraq
crocodile hunter
newspaper
Terrorism
Porn
11
web2.0
Top Blogs
Engadget25,379 blogs link here
老徐 徐静蕾 新浪BLOG21,521 blogs link here
Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things20,495 blogs link here
Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide13,798 blogs link here
Daily Kos: State of the Nation12,928 blogs link here
100 Top Blog