Quo Vadis Astrology?

My books are at:
Http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow Ive been a bit confused and maybe somebody who knows astrology can help me out on this: Now that the astronomical association has been debating what's a planet and what's not, how does that affect the practice of astrology?

Not so long ago, I was looking up my daily horoscope on Yahoo. Whoever their astrologer is, he really sucks. He gets real technical about which planet is going into which house and really obscure stuff like that and I don't think anybody cares. People just want to know if it's a good day to buy Pizza, or whatever your concern is. Anyways, this guy mentioned that the asteroid Vespa was doing something or other and I thought about that.

The ancients who invented astrology for sure did not know that there was a big hunk of rock out there named Vespa. Neither did they know about Pluto or Neptune of any of the other bodies out there that figure into modern day astrology. Were their astrological readings horribly off because they weren't correctly accounting for these unknown bodies?

The astronomy association is split on what should or should not be a planet. Right now it looks like if it's round, it orbits the sun, and it's not somebody else's moon it's going to be a planet. The problem is that they've since discovered other bodies that fit that definition and we could end up having as many as twelve or more planets. So, what it looks like they're going to do is come up with a category of second class planets which Pluto would be demoted to.

The new class of second class planets would be called Dwarf planets or perhaps planetoids. The term 'Pluton' has already been thrown around, but no astronomer much liked the idea except for the one who came up with it.

One of the new possible planets would be called Xena and is located out in the Oort Cloud and is larger than Pluto and it's moon Charon. There may, in fact, be many such types of bodies out there and who knows? There might be ones as big as the Earth or bigger. Why shouldn't there be?

Do astrologers have some similar association as the astronomical association? And how do they affect each other? The astronomers don't believe that astrologers exist even though the astrologers were the orginal astronomers. I think the astronomers want to disassociate themselves from their roots on this one. But quite clearly the astrologers do asknowledge the astronomers as witnessed by my yahoo astrologer. I think they want to cover themselves as much as possible with the stink of science, if they can.

It's always been a sore point between the two how exactly the planets or planetoids or dwarf planets or asteroids effect our daily lives. It's not gravity or magnetism or anything that's measurable, but nonetheless whether we like it or not, they still might. Just think about centrifugal force. Doesn't that exist because there is something far away and scientists are at a loss to explain that one. In the meantime, I'm going to continue to check my daily horoscope. But not at Yahoo, because that guy sucks.


**You might have noticed that I've highlighted a number of words. I'm seeing if that increases my hit count. Frankly, I don't think it will. But if you got to this through a search engine: Please read my books. They're very entertaining.**

Waiting for Godot and MidEast Peace

**((My books are at http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow))**

I've noticed that I've been getting these spam e-mails with these brilliantly obscure tag-lines which make me click in just to see what they may be. Also, these messages will have a word salad at the bottom - I'm guessing to attract the search engines in case somebody just happens to type in some of the obscure listed words.

Well, hey! Two can play at that game, can't they? So, you will find at the bottom of this entry some of the afore-mentioned word salad that I copied directly off of my spam. Feel free to ignore it and if you did happen to be looking for information on: beggar girls in non-Tuscan Badger boats, I apologize. I'm sorry I tricked you, but now that you're here please read on. This will so much be worth your while.

I was taught the existentialist play Waiting for Godot three different times in college at Minnesota in three different classes. Each time I learned a different perspective on the play, in other words in each of these classes I learned a different way it sucks. If you don't know the play, you don't want to know it. It is a play about 'waiting' (well, duh) where a couple of bums stand around a tree talking, then some other people and a pig come by and they talk. End of Act I. The bums talk around the tree some more, the people and the pig come by and they talk. Godot, who they are all waiting for, never shows up. End of Act II. Brilliant! It's brilliant because between Act I and Act II a leaf from the tree (which is symbolically the tree of life) falls. Amazing! Do you see it? Do you see how incredible that is?

Well, three different professors at Minnesota did and I got to benefit from their insight. Anyways, it's not an entertaining play. Go see Spamalot! if you can. That's an entertaining play, this just isn't and never will be even if it has Robin Williams in it. He's a Julliard trained actor and his judgement of what's good isn't always the best (Patch Adams, Centerniel Man).

The last time was at a Humanities class that I never had much respect for. It was one of those liberal arts distribution requirements (Generals, they're also called) and I was taking it because I had to. As I recall, I signed up for this at the end of two weeks, so I don't know what was taught during those first two weeks and combined with not having any respect for the class I pulled out a 'D-'. A 'D-' that counted towards graduation, thank you, so it was worth my time and the grade didn't pull my GPA down much because it didn't have too far to fall.

One of the books I had to read was by entymologist (bug doctor) E.O. Wilson who theorized that humans, like every other animal, do things for the sole purpose of spreading our particular genes. And suppressing everybody else's genes, natch. This is much like the bugs do, and E. O. Wilson drew parallels between human beings and bugs and other creatures. One of the comparisons was in Religion. You didn't know ants have religion? According to E. O. Wilson they do. He didn't specify who or what they worship, but if I had to guess I would say their God must be a combination of sugar and poo.

Religion in this scenario is the mechanism for species to act to benefit other creatures who share their genepool when such actions might not benefit the individual of the species. Aha! Now we get to the MidEast. What are suicide bombers doing? They're killing themselves to benefit (how, I'm not sure) others who share their gene pool (Arabs) while eliminating those who do not share their genepool (Jews).

One of the symptoms of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy is religious ecstacy or excessive religiousity. The neurologist belief that this is because the area of the brain that is responsible for processing that area of human experience is overly stimulated. Neurologically, they are creating the feelings of religiousity through their disease. Neurologists say that, I don't.

It would hard to believe that God truly has told the Muslims that they should have the Holy Land while telling the Jews the same thing. He's got a sick sense of humor if he did. And if he really did tell one side that they were his true one and only, how come he never bothered to tell the other side that they weren't the chosen ones? I'm excepting all the Christians here because our possession of the Holy Land was pretty brief before we were sent packing with our templars between our legs.

So, after asking themselves that question each side should ask themselves this: God (or Allah) set the Arabs and the Jews both on the Earth for a reason. He's probably angry that he's being thwarted when they insist on taking each other off of the planet. God must have had a purpose for each one of his creatures and it wasn't to stand in front of a bomb.

Okay. Here's the word salad. Enjoy.

beggar girl Non-tuscan honey badgerboat crane tax list by-timeself-inclusive addition axiom Four-powersoft-throbbing summer tanager nibby-jibbyround-edged wall cabbage wonder-excitingdoor spring scroll front argan oildivision sign brush cherry white-barredself-dispatch axle seat heat spotslender-ankled power relay courtesy lightsuave-looking prosecution-proof popcorn flowerMoor-lipped Labrador feldspar half sistertongue worm pony grass grass-carpetedall fives viridine yellow oat grindertail bay knob-billed gazelle brownrate-raising till alarm flame-hairedheaven-sweet grass plover layer cake

The Solution to Mid-East Peace

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The Prime Minister of Iran has just enunciated the way to peace in the Middle East and it's so simple and easy that I've been slapping my forehead all day long. The answer is: The total eradication of Israel. Now, how come no one thought about this one before? It's so easy. Four million human beings need to disappear off of the planet and the problem is solved. There might be some technical bugs to iron out on this one, like how do we get a heavily armed and combat ready nation to agree with this - but I'm sure that Ahmadeenajad et al. already have those little glitches solved.

But I wonder ... if you look at it that way: Wouldn't the total eradication of Iran and Syria work just as well? All that would be required is that you take Iran and Syria's plans for Israel, cross out the word 'Israel' and substitute those two nations and Voila! There you have it. Peace in the Middle East. And I'm sure Iran and Syria would think it's fair since that's what they had planned for Israel and sauce for the goose and such.

It does kind of amaze me that the Prime Minister of Iran did say this in all seriousness. Arab nations don't understand why the United States won't sign onto genocide and religious extremism. After all, both have been part of our history so we must look like quite the hypocrites after our country was founded courtesy of the native populations on two continents pretty much disappearing. However, most of native Americans (North and South) did perish because of infectious diseases spread by Europeans and not by active aggression and slaughter. I know, they're just as dead and that might be a distinction without a difference. Still ...

The Arab argument, as I understand it, is that the Arabs should control the lands that they acquired during the Mulim age of conquests. Therefore, since the Jews and Christians who were occupying the Holy land when they were conquered don't belong there, because the Moslems got rid of them and it should be theirs. That goes for parts of Spain, too, by the way, which partially explains the Spanish train bombings.

The sticky argument always comes down to who was there first, and you know what? It kind of doesn't matter. You have to deal with who's there now. They might have gotten there by shifty dealings and naked aggression, but they aren't going to leave no matter how guilty you make them feel. Where are they going to go, after all?

Think about America. Columbus came and brought disease and slavery to the New World and I can for see how that could be considered a raw deal. Yes, I sure feel guilty about what some people who sort of look like me did five hundred years ago and for pretty much ever after that. And you know what? I'm not going anywhere and neither is anyone else who sort of looks like me.

I wish Israel would stop beating the crap out of Lebanon because I just filled up my gas tank not too long ago. My sympathies are all with them since I don't believe your attacker has the right to dictate to you how you choose to defend yourself from their aggression. If you want somebody off the planet, tell them so, then take actions to make it happen can they really be blamed for wanting you off the planet, also? I don't think so.

Hezbollah and Israel is that Hezbollah is targeting civilians purpose and Israel inadvertantly. Yes, you're still just as dead no matter what was in the heart of the person who sent the bomb that killed you. So, Israel may be slowly disappearing off of the face of the Earth but my money is still on them and if any country leaves the planet it won't be them - at least not with a few others leading the way.

Saint Mel, the Insane

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By all accounts, Mel Gibson lived the Hollywood lifestyle when he was in his prime - booze, drugs, and lots of women. I'm pretty sure that he was married, too, and in the process of having the many kids that a Catholic is expected to have. Then he cleaned up his act, became a good Catholic and now can tell us all how we should live our lives.

Thank you, Mel. I would like to know how to use drugs, drink and cheat on my wife (when I get one). Your experience will prove very valuable to me.

But I was thinking ... it looks like his years of bad living left him with a tast for the kinky stuff. Like especially the S and M. I'm thinking of two movies that he had a hand in here, Brave Heart and The Passion of the Christ.

First BraveHeart. Braveheart was the story of Scottish Patriot William Wallace who opposed the British many years ago and led troops into battle against them, and ... I don't know. Apparently the movie wasn't very historical so I couldn't tell you what actually happened as opposed to what St. Mel says happened. As I understand it, the dying British Monarch did not actually throw his son's Gay lover off of a tower and William Wallace didn't impregnate the wife of the gay prince. Whatever.

At the end of Braveheart William Wallace is being slowly tortured and executed by an evil inquisitor who wants him to say that the British King is wonderful, which will earn William Wallace a quick death as opposed to the long drawn out one we are shown. This is BS because they weren't going to shorten the program one bit no matter what you said. Treason against the crown was the same thing as treason against God, because the Monarch ruled by divine right. The execution started with a half hanging, then they disemboweled you, then they burned your bowels, then they drew and quartered you.

Mel's right then when he showed Wallace being half hanged and and disemboweled, however ... William Wallace never shouted out: 'Freedom!' which caused the angry and frustrated evil inquisitor to chop off his head. Didn't happen. And what on Earth would William Wallace have meant by that even if he had yelled that out? Scottland wasn't going to go to a system of representative democracy with a bill of rights and all that. At best they would just exchange one monarch for another who lived closer to home, but most every person would still live a course, brutish oppressed life.

The Passion of the Christ, you might say, was historical especially with the depiction of the Roman method of execution. And if you accept that the gospels are historical (many dispute this) then it was absolutely historical, even to the language that might actually have come out of the mouths of the people involved. There wasn't a creepy figure representing Satan mentioned following Jesus around, but maybe none of the disciples got around to writing about that.

The truly disturbing part about both of these movies is the almost gloating way they document the torture and suffering of the protaganists. I was definitely left with the feeling that Mel was just getting off on showing all of this blood and gore. I remember in Passion of the Christ where the Roman whipper was selecting which instrument of torture he would use on Jesus and he held up this big club that had sharp spikes coming out of it and leered over it almost. Then he selected the flagellum (the whip with flesh ripping spurs) and he tested it on a table causing it to splinter - just to let us all know what it could really do. Of course, he's just laughing sadistically as he does his job, but I have to wonder about that. I mean, whipping people is his job. Even if you enjoy your job a whole bunch you don't laugh sadistically all day long as you do it, do you? Why would this guy?

Mel made a lot of money out of that last movie, and supposedly he has more Biblical epics lined up to film. But do we really need to see them? There really aren't stories that are so interesting or dramatic as that one, are there? But maybe he'll make a sequel to Passion of the Christ. Jesus did rise from the dead, after all, so the story hasn't been entirely told. Though, I'm wondering how Mel will gore that one up. Well, I'm sure he'll find a way.

Pay Attention to that Man Behind the Curtain

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The Republican administration would like you to believe that the most pressing issues that are facing this country are illegal immigration, gay marriage, and flag burning. They're like bad magicians trying to mis-direct you from the hand that actually has the coin. Excuse me, when you fueled up at the pump and paid a dollar more for a gallon of gas then you did last year were you really thinking about how incensed you were that people of the same sex could wear gold rings in on their left hand in ... let's see, exactly one state?

Or perhaps did you think that your wages in your non-border state were being depressed because of competition from illegal immigrants? Don't tell me that not raising the minimum wage holds down wages because even though it does - that hurts business! And flag burning must have a constitutional amendment to stop it! Cross burning is still okay because that's free speech but flag burning must be stopped because that's ... well, free speech but unpatriotic free speech and brother, we have a patriot act so that by law you have to be a patriot (as defined by the current administration).

The hell of it is, the entire media is pointing out how the administration and the Republicans are trying to change the subject from the ones that they don't want you to think about. Like Iraq. Like gasoline prices. Like the growth of poverty. Like the grotesque budget deficit. Like global warming. Like the healtcare crisis. Like ... oh, there are so many more things that we should talk about before we go back to thosed tired 'energizing the conservative base' issues.

Don't they see how they're being used? Hear this conservative base: If the Republicans actually cared about these things they would have done them, already. They control congress, they control the senate, they pretty much control the courts. The president has vetoed absolutely nothing that has crossed his desk. It's been six years that they've been in charge; they only pretend to care when it's election time, but they don't. They want you to watch their shiny, phoney social issues.

In the movie The Wizard of Oz, the final scene has Dorothy (and Toto, too), the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman in the Wizard's great hall. The Wizard is represented by a big giant head super-impsed on great clouds of smoke and lightening. As the Wizard is bellowing at them, Toto runs away and pulls away the curtain from a small alcove to reveal a little man furiously pulling levers while speaking into a huge tube. The little man looks startled, pulls the curtain back in position and the Wizard say: "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!" Which, of course, they very wisely don't.

That's advice we should all ignore. Please, do pay attention to that man behind the curtain. Pay attention to what they don't want you to look at. Those are the secrets that need to be reveale and that's what we need to be talking about.

More Re-Spamming: It's really Fun!

This is my re-spamming message below.



'Thanks!

My books are at http://www.lulu.com/abeautifulcow

Steve'





Re-Spamming is possibly not my invention but it's a really fun activity and I highly recommend it. If you have something to sell - and who of us doesn't? Then simply reply to your spamm e-mails with your own advertisement for whatever you've got that you want to unload. Here's the thing: There are real people somewhere out there on the other end of that spam and at some point a 'real' person will have to look at it. They buy things, too, don't they? Maybe they want to buy your stuff.

And you're not imposing on them at all because they e-mailed you in the first place and they wanted to hear from you! So, you're not being (possibly) intrusive like they were.

Okay, I don't believe any of them actually have bought one of my books, although they should because every one of them is entertaining - but, start your Steve Sommers library with one of the Lulu books first.

So far, I've gotten three responses to my re-spamming. The first was from a man who said he would tell his friends with children ... I count that as a positive. The second was actually a response to the blog about the respamming. It was from a guy for payday loans who seemed a bit hurt that I was doing this, being critical of the way he was doing business. The third was just
a response to the connection where I could opt out of their spamm.

I re-re-spammed! Oh, that was so sweet. After all, instead of just giving me the option of opting out, why didn't they not send it to me in the first place? Problem solved, wouldn't you say?

Oh well. I can't really say why advertisements via e-mail seem so much more intrusive then other kinds of advertisements. We watch TV and that's alright, or the radio. Every day stuff comes in the mail and just as fast it goes into the garbage and that's alright, too. E-mail (and telephones, too) are more private, I think. You want to use both for your own business and didn't purposely expose yourself to these ads.

They must work, I'm guessing. If they didn't my yahoo bulk mail wouldn't be filled with their stuff. Like most people, I have a few mail boxes; the first one that I seldom ever use now has 20,577 e-mails (I just checked). Yahoo empties it every thirty days so there are a hell of a lot of people spending a hell of a lot of money and getting nothing back at all.

I only ever bought once. It was for business cards and I wanted some business cards and they were cheap. So, there you go. They got some of their money back for their trouble. But the rest of them? Nope.

Speaking of which, since I do have so many spamm e-mails that need re-spamming, I better get to work. Just in that one mail box I have over twenty thousand people I can annoy. One of them must like science fiction.

Re-Spamming

Probably I'm not the first person to come up with this idea, but it's a really fun one. Lately, I've been getting a lot of these E-mails with real enigmatic subject lines, like this latest one: 'Conscious approvingly'. And these enigmatic subject lines are matched with real persons names (Bert Lucero) so even though they are appearing in my yahoo bulk folder I still wanted to check them out - the first couple of ones at least and then I got wise.

I'm thinking that the whole deal is precisely that, to make you wonder what the hell 'Conscious Approvingly' means and then you open up the e-mail to find out. It's day trading, that one. There was absolutely nothing about consciousness or approval and Bert Lucero didn't even send that one. I know, there is no Bert involved with any of this; he's entirely fictional.

But here was my brainwave: I've got something to sell (my books) and they've got an e-mail address and at some point a real person will look at my reply. Voila! That's a list I can use to interest people in my books. Maybe they won't be all that interested in clicking through but guess what? I'm not all that interested in day-trading and I opened their stupid E-mail so ... fair is fair. You wasted a few seconds of my time and I will waste a few minutes of yours.

It's just too bad that the people whose time is being wasted aren't really the ones who are ultimately wasting my time. No, they're just some lowly, poorly paid humps who are earning a living. But my books are fun and interesting so it actually is well worth their time to click on through and they will be well rewarded when they buy and read them.

When I reply to these Spam E-mails Yahoo will usually give me a code to type in as an anti-spam measure, so really I'm actually not spamming anybody since I'm not doing it in bulk and the original spammers actually solicited a reply from me, which counts as a response to them even if I'm never, ever going to buy jack from them. Nope, not ever.

About half the time I get the Yahoo message that says: 'Daemon failure message not delivered' or something like that. Oh well, at least I tried.

I got one response from a real live human (yes, they exist in Cyberspace!). He must have gotten my re-spamming right then, because his e-mail came back within about five minutes. He said that he would forward the address because he knew some people who had 'children' in that age range. Oh boy. I rated these books as teen and above so I hope he doesn't think this is for anybody who doesn't have pubes, but I wasn't being misleading so ... it'll be okay. Nobody's morals will be corrupted who doesn't want them corrupted.

I'm going to continue re-spamming because even though the response is quite limited (one) it is rather satisfying to take up arms against the unwanted e-mail that show up in my bulk folder.

Speaking of selling: Oh please, check out my books. For some reason my link bar sometimes goes way to the bottom and not to the right so, please find it and click on my books and get one. You'll be so happy you did.

And tell your friends, too.

Sick Day

Here's the thing: We all know that there's a certain amount of discretion in the use of a sick day. I could've made it to work today if somebody had put a gun to my head. Perhaps, I would not be at all productive, but I could have done it if it was that important.

After all, you say, Steve is well enough to sit at a computer and type, doesn't that mean that he should be well enough to sit at his desk and do whatever it is that he does? Well ... not really. But I still feel a bit guilty, a bit unmanly. Conan would have made it to his job, wouldn't he have?
Am I less manly than Conan the Barbarian?

Wait, wrong question.

Anyways, the flu's been going around the office and it's my turn.

I spent a lot of my time today flat on my back playing Resident Evil 4 - Awesome Game! That is: it's awesome after you get through it at least once and have the special Infinite Rocket Launcher. Once you have the infinite Rocket Launcher you can cruise through pretty much any situation. The one exception is that you can't kill the bad guys if they're too close to you, otherwise you get a lot of backflash and it takes a whole bunch of your life away.

Before this, I would get stuck at certain points and give up for days or weeks. The problem was never knowing what to do - there are cheats and walkthroughs for that - the problem is doing what you have to do. Situations that require quickness, dexterity and coordination just stymie me. For example: At the very end of the game there's a point where the huge boss is attacking you and eyes pop open on various parts of this creatures anatomy and you have to shoot the eye before it closes again then run up to the boss and stab at a parasite on its back.

Oh, that's just hellish and I almost gave up at that point, because I'd done almost the entire game and there was nothing left to see after that, so what was the point? At best I would win myself a long cut-scene and that's it. I gave up on Resident Evil Dead Aim before finishing the final boss which was a huge creature with heads popping in and out of it's body and you had to shoot those before it got to you. I never could do that.

Resident Evil 4 has a complicated plot (and that's stretching the word, believe me) and some hilariously mistranslated dialogue. At various points the villains - about five of them, I think - will have you cornered in a cut-scene at their mercy, then ... just walk off. For no reason. And speaking of dialogue there's only one way any line is delivered: sarcastically. And all the villains giggle when they do something diabolical - of course. The hero really should have more of a sense of humor about this all.

Never mind, the plot holes are many and ridiculous and that's not why this game is awesome. It's awesome because of the graphics. If I could just go through this world and look around I think it would be a great game. The monsters jumping out at you are even kind of a distraction but now with all my weapons at max and the infinite rocket launcher I'm running out of room in my satchel.

Oh, and please buy my books. They're really wonderful and you can get to them just by clicking on the link to the right ... go ahead ... try it out.

See how easy it is.

Mrs. Zarqawi

You don't hear to much about Zarqawi's wife, do you? I know he had one, but the news doesn't say anything about her other than she was married to him and that's it. Probably she was grief stricken at his death, though I've got to say: he couldn't have been much of a husband. He wasn't all that good looking, he was chubby with bad teeth and a bad complection and he wasn't too tall. Maybe Mrs. Zarqawi thought he was 'cute' but you know what? The guy was no dream boat for certain.

And he was never around. He was always away from Jordon killing people elsewhere. Sure, he came home every now and then to bomb hotels but most of the time he was 'masterminding' the horrible ends of people who had a different philosophy/religion then he did. You know, that might have been a blessing for Mrs. Zarqawi because the guy sure wasn't the master of charm. You never saw him smile much, not even when he had successfully murdered scores of innocents. He must have had what passes for charisma in terrorist circles but how hard can that really be?

Do you wonder how they met? Were they both perhaps at a falafel shop both reaching for the cucumber sauce when their eyes met and she just fell for the souless unsmiling creep? Probably not. This is the MidEast and almost certainly there's was an arranged marriage and she didn't have so much of a say in her future spouse. In fact, I dare say that if he hadn't had a wife assigned to him he'd have a pretty hard time picking up chicks on his own. He doesn't look like he had 'it'.

When he was away from his wife for so long what exactly do you think he did for romance? This was years that he was absent from his marital bed and a man has needs, doesn't he? Maybe he had a girlfriend but more likely ... boys. Zarqawi probably had a young terrorist in training who looked up to him and admired the courageous and dashing monster that he was.

Well, I guess that's all speculation. He ended his life as a martyr devoting himself to what he believed was God/Allah's will. So, in the Muslim scheme (or the scheme of some Muslims) he is in paradise with his seventy two virgins in a garden eating melons and listening to beautiful music. When Mrs. Zarqawi dies I'm not sure whether she joins him in his paradise as his seventy third partner or if she goes to a separate paradise and gets her own seventy two play mates. Whatever happens, I'm sure she's a whole bunch happier that for now she isn't going to have this bum sharing her bed ever again.

And that's got to be paradise for her.

Nature Vs. Nurture: Why is Damien so Evil?

The new Omen movie is coming out on June sixth, making the date written in Arabic numerals as 6/06/06, which is sort of, but not quite the number of the beast in the book of Revelations. Back in the day when Revelations was written (First Century Rome) letters substituted for numbers so that a word also had a numerical value because letters were interchangeable with numbers. Pretty neat, huh? The problem was that it depended on what language you were doing it in, and for all you Apocalypse nuts out there - none of those languages was twenty first century English.

The Omen was a movie that really, really didn't need to be remade. The first Omen, I recall, was sort of scary for its time and kind of a ground breaker with its use of cinematic techniques. Now, unfortunately, that ground has been broken and it's just trite. The story's the same: Damien is taken in as the adopted son of an American politician in England and he seems to develop horrible supernatural powers and he has the '666' birthmark hidden in his hair. He must be stopped or else he will grow up to be the Antichrist (I think) and bring forth the Apocalypse and awful stuff.

My question is simply: Why is Damien so evil? It can't be nurture because his adopted family does a satisfactory job of providing him a proper upbringing. Of course, many respectable families have children that turn out horrible through now fault of their own, and a lot of famililes that look respectable really aren't. So, we can't let them totally off the hook, but I think the point of the movie is that Damien's father is really the devil - so it's all in the genes. Wouldn't you think?

But if it's in the genes, then Lucifer could only provide half of those genes, meaning that Damien can only be half pure evil, because who was his mother? In the movie, I think he was born from a wolf or something, but he doesn't look half-wolf at all. The wolf, I believe, must have only been a surrogate mother and the real mother was somebody else. That person must be a mystery, but still, whoever the Mother is she can't be pure evil because the Devil is already pure evil, so at best she can be only partly evil and Damien must have some good in him being a sort of half-breed.

Supernatural creatures sure tend to lose a lot when they translate into the real world. They can usually move things with their minds by staring at it real hard, but they can't move much. In fact, they'd all be better off with handguns then with their faulty telekinetic powers. And beings like the incarnated son of the Devil are in human form and have human frailties. In other words, they have to poop. How frightening is the most powerful demonic man on Earth when he has to run off and take potty breaks? Not very, I would say.

In the Omen series Damien assumes his full power when he's an adult in his thirties. The thrill of these movies, if you're well versed in Christian lore, is that it might be kind of true. There might an Antichrist out there growing up in obscurity but fated to take over the world and bring forth Armageddon. However, if you're one of the lucky true believers you'll be raptured up into the sky before all this happens. For the rest of us - if you go by the Omen movies - we have about thirty or so years until this all happens, and I don't know about you, but that's plenty of time for me.


**Check out the Links to the right to find both my books**

How to Get your Puppy to agree with Everything You Say

Training dogs to do silly things is a sometime hobby of mine when I have time on hand and a convenient puppy, too. This trick is one that I take quite a bit of joy in, but it was also surprisingly difficult to figure out how to get a puppy to do it like I wanted. The trick is to get the puppy to nod it's head 'Yes' to any question that you ask it.

The first thing you need is the correct treats to bribe your puppy with. It's best to have what's called a 'food motivated dog'. That's usually never a problem since every single one I met was very motivated by food. For treats, I believe in simply getting a different type of dog food then their daily fare and using that; maybe go a little higher end on the 'treat' dog food, something a little tastier and meatier than usual but you really don't have to get too extravagant. What makes the treat rewarding for the puppy is simply you and the way you act.

With your treats handy, sit the puppy down so that it's on it's stomach with it's paws in front of it and it's head up. It's very important that it be in this position so that the only motions it can make are with its head - only. Hold the treat up to it eye level with one hand, with your other hand near the floor. When your puppy is watching it steadily, you ask your question, making sure to raise your voice at the end. Usually my question is: "Are you a smart Girl/Boy?". Then I wiggle the fingers on the hand I have near the floor. The puppy will look down at that, look up towards the treat again, and it's just done the trick. It's nodded its head 'Yes' in response to your question.

Praise the puppy as you give it the treat, showing how happy you are with it. Then repeat this sequence until the puppy stops looking for the wiggling fingers near the floor and nods entirely on its own.

Two things that will not work, by the way, are trying to lead the puppy's head by moving the treat up and down, or physically moving its head up and down yourself. Believe me, both of those strategms are just wastes of time.

The puppy will eventually start nodding its head to any question you ask it, since it will figure out that the main cue is your voice going up at the end of the question. At this point, you can ask your puppy anything at all and it will whole heartedly agree with you - just as long as you keep giving it treats for agreeing with you.

Celebrities Know what's Best for You

We're all getting used to the sight of Irish Rock Star Bono of U2 parading the globe in the company of serious men who take him very seriously. The present US Secretary of Commerce, John Snow, and a former one, Paul O' Neil, both give him high marks for his intelligence and thorough grasp of world wide economics. Right now, several African nations are prospering after having their international debts relieved as a result of Bono's promotion of this solution. So here's the question: Why Bono?

Yes, he knows what he's talking about, for sure. But so do any number of gray un-dashing economists and world leaders. Nobody was making a ruckus when they said the exact same thing supported by graphs, and facts and figures, and PHDs. No, what is took was a sexy rock star to make this whole business look sexy and suddenly everyone's interested - especially the teen-age girls, because if Bono says it: It's hot.

Trooping around not far away from his is the gorgeous and alluring actress Angelina Jolie. The pregnant Mrs. Pitt is the UN Goodwill ambassador who has been touring impoverished areas promoting - I don't know, non-impoverishment. It doesn't matter so much because she is so beautiful to look at that she could be promoting plague and eating dirt and I'd still pay attention. You would, too, I think. It matters little to us that a couple years back she was wearing her husband's blood around her neck as jewelry and tattooing every inch of her skin. Now she's a noble madonna about to give birth to the most blessed child since you-know-who.

For years Oprah Winfrey has been telling people what she thinks they should read. Oprah is an amazing woman and her ability to tell a story through the media is unparalleled. She is a gazillionaire but is that why we assume she has literary taste? If being rich automatically endowed you with taste, then Saudi Sheiks would be the most tasteful men on the Earth, and they really aren't. As far as I know Oprah does not have a literature degree or and English degree and I don't even know that she reads any more than the average Joe on the street. Are we to assume that because we like Oprah we'll also like what she reads? Does anybody seriously need Oprah's help at the bookstore?

My pal Tom Cruise made a lot of enemies when he criticized the use of antipsychotics for the treatment of post-partum depression. He may be right, and there's a good case to be made for the overuse of these medications by the medical community. Tom's simply not the man to make the case. As he lectured today show's Matt Lauer, Matt did not know the history of anti-depressants, but Tom only knew one side of the history and he has no medical degree whatsoever. If I recall correctly, he's a high school drop-out. Not once did Matt Lauer stop to point this out to the TV audience because he knew what we all know: Tom Cruise's opinion is important because his movies bring in tens of millions of dollars at the box office.

It's painful when actors I respect for their acting speak up and say stupid things - well, stuff I disagree with. Charlton Heston gave one of my favorite performances in planet of the Apes, but I absolutely winced when he became President of the National Rifle Association. A brilliant actor was saying some remarkably un-brilliant things and it cheapened my appreciation of the great acting he'd done. I mean, C'mon, Bright Eyes, you don't even know what you're talking about with gun control. Just scream out about the maniacs who are blowing it all up and leave it at that.

Two comedians who used to be funny - used to - have become political hacks of the worst kind. One is Dennis Leary and the other is Al Franken who have each of them taken up positions on the far right and the far left respectively. Both of them are so sour and didactic that it pains me to listen to either of them, forget about belly laughs, because there's not a one left with either of them. They were both guys I liked because they were funny, but I don't any longer because the rhetoric they spought can be found anywhere and done better than they do it.

When entertainers run for office, like Reagan, they truly have a legitimate forum for their views. Vigo Mortenson condemning the war in Iraq while wearing an elf suit is not legitimate. Arnold Schwartzenager winning the governorship of California and having his say is. All politicians come from the citizenry and when the citizenry gives them their vote that means that we also are telling them that we're giving them the right to speak up. Now, Arnold sacrificed the remnants of a fading movie career so it's questionable what he gave up to run California, but we should listen to him now more than we ever should have when he was in a terminator movie.

For the resto of you celebrities who are too lazy to step into the political arena (not Al Franken, he's running for Senate from Minnesota) but for the rest of you I have this advice: All you celebrities just shut up and entertain us. That's what you're being paid to do.

Stop making Britney Cry - You Jerks!

I've got to say that the sight of Britney Spears crying on news show after news show is pretty heart-rending. The latest thing that happened was that she sort of, almost dropped her baby while she was trying to evade the hordes of papparazzi after her. It's all to prove that she's an unfit mother or inadequate as a mother or something like that.

The thing is: there isn't a woman alive who hasn't dropped a child or had an accident happen to her child when they weren't quite looking - something. Every mother's had it happen to them (I'm told). So give her a break already.

Why all the interest anyways? She isn't recording anything or going out on tour or making a horrible, God-awful movie or anything really worth talking about. She isn't even looking all that hot, kind of chubby and rather ordinary looking and not at all the sex-goddess she used to be. No, these days she's just average cute, the kind of girl most guys could marry. I'm not saying she doesn't clean up pretty good - yes, she does! When she's in shape and has her make-up and hair done she looks pretty good, which makes me believe that most women if they were put through the Hollywood machine would come out pretty good.

Let's be honest here: she's not a very bright girl. She's not very educated, either. She sure doesn't sing very hot (and only dances so-so) so why should we care so much what she's doing? I think the answer is that every man wants to think he has a shot at her. And with her, just look at the guys she's married. I know I could step into Kevin Federline's shoe and be a better husband. Couldn't you? Couldn't just about anyone?

So, I'm not giving up hope that maybe one day ... and in the meantime, please stop making my future girlfriend cry, you big jerks!

Desert Sailors

**Before I write my other stuff: Rexroi is now in print. Check it out at the link that says: 'REXROI'. I've also put links to my Australian e-book publisher (he doesn't quite have me up yet, but in another couple of weeks) and the Website to a shop in Wisconsin that sells a lot of fun items.

I had a whole bunch of links to horror websites and such, but they never did me much good, so I don't think I want to junk up my weblog with them. Maybe I'll put a few back just because of the graphics - we'll see.

I didn't do such a good job getting the cover posted. I was having problems with blogger. This is the best I can do for now, but if you really want to see the cover click on the link that says 'REXROI' and you'll see it clearly.

Okay. Here's what I wanted to say about the Navy ...
The Army is now training sailors to perform combat operations, and sailors are right now fighting side by side with soldiers in Iraq. The theory is that this is a method of coordinating combat operations between the US forces so that the military will be better able to work cohesively. It would also be a way to bring less duplication of resources between the different services. Plus, this sort of cross-training gives our combat troops more versatility. Well, that's what the government is saying about this, but you know what?

That's a load of crap.

Obviously it makes absolutely no sense to pluck men and women who have been trained to fight on water and throw them in the middle of the desert. What good are they going to really do, except the ability to provide a heartbeat and stop a bullet that comes their way? The sailors who are doing this aren't doing it absolutely cold, they're given two weeks training at Fort Bragg - as opposed to nine weeks for regular Army - but I've got to say, if my life depended on it I'd sure like more than fourteen days to learn how to preserve it. I believe that the sailors who are doing this are also - and please give them a lot of credit for this - volunteers.

What's happening is that the Army is not able to recruit enough people to join and risk their lives. They also aren't able to find enough reservists or national guardsmen or retired military to fill the ranks. So who does that leave? That leaves anybody who has their name on an enlistment contract, and when your name is on that contract they can do anything with you that they want.

I used to be in the Navy myself so my heart goes out to these poor sailors. I can imagine what my reaction would have been when I was informed of my new duty station in the sand dunes. Sure, I trained for one day on an M-16. But that was so I could put a pretty ribbon on my chest. It sure wasn't so that I could use it against terrorists who wanted to kill me as much as they could manage.

When I was a linguist I trained right alongside Air Force, Army, and Marine troops. Most of my time in the military was, in fact, spent on Air Force bases. There was talk back then about combining the intelligence sections of these services into one and being something sort of separate. The joke was that we would be the Security Service (SS) and could all wear black uniforms with SS on our collars. That was some black humor there (and it never happened, either, by the way - that I know of). Okay, so that was a sensible argument about combining resources because we were all doing almost exactly the same thing.

But this? No. A sailor should fight on the water. Soldiers fight on land. And marines fight wherever they need to. That's the way it should be.

Gigolos of the Midwest

I met Jerry when I was going to school at the University of Minnesota. Jerry was in his mid-thirties, tall, blond and I guess I would have to admit that he was a handsome man. It took me awhile to figure this guy out because he let his personal history out in little dribs and drabs. He'd been a student at the U until he was thirty, at which point his parents decided that he was never actually going to graduate and they stopped throwing good money after bad.

To make ends meet Jerry took up two different professions: He was a dance instructor and then he was a nude model. When I met him he was still doing the modeling thing, but also working at a very upscale grocery store. Eventually Jerry got several months behind in his rent and I wondered what he was going to do, though I really shouldn't have worried much since it looks like he had a plan. I started seeing him in the company of silver-haired woman - maybe about twenty years older than Jerry - and each time I saw him it looked like Jerry was better dressed than the last time.

Then the light bulb went on over my head.

Jerry was a gigolo.

His choice of professions had been dictated by the fact that they allowed him to meet and talk with older, lonely women. And ply his trade. He never told me this in so many words, but it sure explained why he had been able to live with no permanent address for so many years. At thirty five, he was getting a little long in the tooth for his chosen career, so the last thing I heard he had settled down with her and I guess she had settled for him, too.

Most Gigolos here in the Midwest take a different route to living off the earnings of women. We have our pimps, of course, but that's not what I'm talking about. Most of the gigolos here marry their marks. If you want to do it yourself it's pretty simple.

Here's how it works: To be a midwestern gigolo you - unfortunately - have to start by looking like you have something on the ball to attract your future mark. Not everyone has Jerry's looks or charms, so you have to have a job. It doesn't have to be a good one - steady will do. Get your mark to marry you, or if you move in with her make sure that she's paying the rent on the place.

Then lose your job.

That's it. You're a gigolo. Just live off of her for as many years as you can manage until she divorces you. Then collect alimony.

Reverse Recruiting

When I was going to college I had just gotten out of the Navy, and was still in the Reserves so I used to get asked a lot by younger men whether I thought they should go into the military. At that time I had about five years on them, which counted for a lot. Usually, these guys would give me two reasons for their desire to enlist: 1) They wanted to get into shape and boot camp looked like a wonderful way to do that, and 2) They just needed more discipline in their lives.

Unfortunately, my approach back then was to be fair and even-handed. It was a serious question, after all, and it deserved a serious answer. Therefore, instead of screaming out: "Good God, No!!" I would give them a well-reasoned discussion of the pros and cons of the military. Never did I directly address the two main issues above, but I will now, So ... 1) If you want get into shape, join a gym or get yourself a personal trainer, you don't need to ruin the next three or four years of your life, and 2) No. You do not want more discipline in your life, you want less. You want somebody else to wake you up in the morning and feed you and put a roof over your head and tell you what to wear and do every day of your life. If you truly wanted more discipline in your life you would do so by being more disciplined ... you know, setting your alarm clock in the morning, and showing up for classes, and study when your supposed to - that sort of thing.

Nope. I didn't say that. I talked about the commitment of time and the difficulties, but I also mentioned the good things the military could do for you. For example, it can teach valuable job skills, or, as in my case, it can provide tuition assistance and the opportunity to earn extra money - like in the Reserves. The fact that you could die never once entered the equation, but this was long before we were at war in Iraq under President Bush (take your pick which one). The military at that time was viewed sort of as a civil service job where you wore the same thing every day. We were post Vietnam and there wasn't much appetite for US foreign adventures.

As a result of my lack of being totally, clear about a half a dozen of these guys actually did enlist. Really, I should have not said anything at all about the upside, because the downside far outweighed the benefits. Or maybe I should have heartily recommended that they enlist for long, long years so they would do the opposite. Either way, I feel bad that because of my careful approach they each had years of rude awakenings, starting with that first day in Boot Camp.

I'll let you in on a secret: Pretty much nobody who enlisted actually read their enlistment contract when they signed it - pretended to, didn't. I remember that I made a show of looking it over carefully, but that was just for the recruiter's benefit so he wouldn't think I was a naive schmuck. Well, he knew better and the fact of the matter is that I was a naive schmuck. Nobody who understood what was in that contract would put their name on it.

Years later when I was in the Reserves I attended a mandatory Rights and Responsibilities seminar on one of my weekends. As part of this seminar, the lecturer handed out standard enlistment contracts and mentioned that we could keep them if we felt like it. So I did, and I looked over at leisure when I got home that night. I've got to tell you that I was appalled, not only because long ago I had signed the damn thing, but because this was the contract that I was still obligated to. Among the jewels I discovered were these facts: 1) The Navy wasn't required to pay me if they didn't want to, 2) The Navy could extend this contract indefinitely, and 3) They only had to feed me one meal every third day.

So, Young Men here is my advice: Do not join the military because you can die. You will not get into any better shape than you could on your own. If you achieve more discipline in your life, it won't matter because you might die. You can get college money other places.

There. That's exactly what I should have said from the start. Any more questions?

Immortal Turtles

Turtles - in addition to psychically being able to predict the weather - are practically immortal. In Great Britain a turtle who was documented to be two hundred and sixty two years old recently passed on. No particular cause of death was given. The reason turtles are so long lived is that they don't have cellular aging the same way most other mammals, that is they don't have the little teleomeres at the end of their cells that wear out as the cells divide.

Evolutionarily speaking, turtles are about the only animal where there is a reproductive advantage to having older parents. The advantage is that the female turtle gains experience in learning the best places to lay eggs that are safe from predators so that the older turtle parents actually have more surviving offspring. Mostly it's just the opposite with most species where it's more advantageous to breed young, breed often, then die.

So that's the way it is with turtles. What about humans? We don't live as long as turtles, but we live longer than anything else that has a heart beep. Anyways, on Sixty Minutes there was a doctor who does 'age management medicine', that is, he prescribes for his patients a level of hormone supplementation equivelant to a youthful human. The Doctor was sixty seven years old and as far as his physique: he looked pretty good. Apparently he's been a life-long body-builder and his body looked like that of a thirty or so year old body-builder. His skin looked pretty leathery and weather-beaten, but other than that he had a real spring in his step.

Supplementing hormones isn't new, but it's sort of been in the closet, mostly Hollywood stars have been hip to this. There was a book by a Doctor named Regelson called The Super Hormone promise that described this. Basically it's sort of the same as using steroids, but only to the point where they would have been normally. So far there's no real proof that it extends life at all, but it does seem to extend vitality. Dr. Regelson has, by the way, passed on and I can't find out exactly what happened. He was an old guy, for sure, but not a super old guy.

Speaking of which, have you seen Barry Bonds lately? Now that he's off the steroids he looks an awful lot like Kirby Puckett right before Kirby said Goodbye forever. Barry doesn't look like the former buff athlete that he did before the testosterone. He looks like a chubby middle-aged man - which come to think of it, is what he is. Bonds is dispairing of ever surpassing Hank Aaron's home-run record, complaining of physical stuff, like a knee injury, shoulder injury and ... oh, no steroids.

He should be allowed to get them. In fact, all athletes should be allowed to put whatever they want into their bodies so they can be the best they can be. It's their bodies and if they're willing to risk their health and their lives to break world records and become very rich in the process then let's let them do it. It'll be a whole bunch more entertaining and we won't have to spend a dime anymore on testing or pretending we care about testing.

I think I really would like to see government sponsored hormone supplementation for all senior citizens. The one thing that supplementing with hormones does is repair and rebuild tissue, and frailty is a major cause of disability in our aging population. Probably it won't extend life much, and certainly not maximum life span, but it will for sure extend the vibrant part of life. Plus - and this might be my real reason - I'd just love to see eighty year old men bench-pressing four hundred pounds.

Chinese Organ Harvesters

I saw this ad about Chinese organ harvesting - in Discover, I think - and I had to wonder how much of a problem it really is. What the Chinese do is they execute their condemned prisoners with a bullet in the head to carefully make sure that the rest of the body is useful. Then they sell it off for what they can get. We in America like to think that all Chinese that are condemned to die must be Democratic political activists or incarcerated for other noble political reasons, but most likely they're murderers and rapists and other scumbags death penalty proponents would say deserve it. Not all of them, of course, but more guilty than innocent I'm sure - just like here in America. Some innocent get killed - just like in America.

The 'spare parts' argument for the death penalty is a new one in my book. Sure the Chinese have been doing it for years, but now in America there's been talk about not wasting the valuable organs and body parts that go with the life we take. For example, there was a guy killed in Illisnois who wanted to give his liver to his sister after he died(they didn't let him). There was another more recent one where the condemned was allowed to give up a kidney to a sibling before he was executed. And I think some prisoners are allowed to donate organs on their death like the rest of us are allowed to. The difference is that we don't know exactly when it is that we might make that donation, and they do.

There's a lot of money in human body parts. Healthy tissues and organs go for a lot of money, especially after they've been processed into useful products for the American marketplace. So, where there's a lot of money there's also going to be a lot of crime. Believe it or not there's sprung up a new business in body thiefs. Former Masterpiece theater host Aleister Cooke had his ninety five year old bones stolen after his death.

I once read an icky science fiction story along the lines of what the Chinese are actually doing. This story was set in a dystopian future world where there was an authoritarian government who would punish especially despised dissidents by rendering them for spare parts to be transplanted. But - here's the icky part - they kept these people alive while they slowly dismembered them and removed the various organs that were needed so that in the end they would be limbless, sightless, and only had enough parts to keep them barely going. Then they would finally kill them and use what was left.

There was another novel along the same lines only this time it was entire human bodies. In this semi-dystopina future everybody had to take IQ tests and if you scored below a certain level then you had to give up your body when you were twenty eight years old to somebody old and smart, who would then have his brain transplanted into it. Needless to say, there are some huge flaws with this scenario and I can't help but wonder why more dumb twenty-eight year olds didn't complain more about this. The book had them grumbling a bit, but not near enough where it should have been. Still, I recall enjoying this book because as improbable as it seems, that's why it's called fiction.

America has so far seemed to shy away from the Chinese model of slaughtering citizens for profit. Speaking from an economic standpoint, it just wouldn't work. We spend millions and millions of dollars on each person we execute - almost all of that in court costs, appeals and such. To incarcerate one person costs on average fifty thousand dollars a year, which, optimistically is less than could be made off of them. You'd think that it would make sense for us to allow deathrow inmates to donate organs voluntarily - and I can see that. People being executed are still human beings and they still have humanitarian and compassionate impulses, maybe even wanting some good to come out of their deaths. Mostly, in America, we believe in executing all of the person and that means every single part of them. If their heart's still beating in somebody else, that's not really justice, is it?

Judas, Best Disciple ... Ever

The Gospel of Judas has just been discovered - in Egypt - I believe. This was one of those controversial gnostic gospels belonging to one of the early versions of Christianity that eventually lost out to the one we have now. It was long rumored that Judas had his own Gospel and you'll probably not be so surprised to find out that he doesn't come out as such a bad fellow in this one. It makes sense. If there were a Gospel of Steve I can guarantee that I wouldn't come across as such a bad fellow either.

In the Gospel of Judas, Judas actually does not betray Christ for the thirty pieces of silver, but rather he does so under explicit directions from Jesus himself. Since prophecy had said that Jesus must be crucified and so they wanted to make sure that it happened it was arranged that Judas would do it. The manuscript itself is in pretty rough shape and has a bunch of gaps, but I guess it's clear enough what happened.

There are many, many different versions of Gospels and ancient Christian writing which disagree thoroughly with canonical writing. In fact, because every word written back in those days had to be copied by a scribe there are no two versions of anything that actually agree with each other, because every single scribe messed something up at some point or other. The Canon of Christianity were not determined by exhaustive searches to see which ones were most historically accurate, but rather which ones agreed most with the winner's theology. And if they didn't - they were rewritten.

Some of these versions read like bad soap operas - you know, Jesus faked his own death, he actually had a secret family, or (my favorite) it was actually his twin brother that was crucified. The thing is: these all came from the second, third, or fourth centuries so they aren't recent inventions at all. And how do we know which really was right?

I like to believe that Jesus faked his own death, like in the DaVinci code. And, yes, there is evidence of that. Of course, Holy Blood, Holy Grail does a swell job of making the point, but I just think about the Gospel stories of Jesus sightings after his crucifixion - his body disappears and then he's seen up and about talking to different people showing off his nail-holes. If that happened in modern times people would think that he hadn't died at all. Just like Elvis never really died at all. Also, I happened to come across a citation in the Twelve Caesers (by Suetonius) where it's mentioned that the Jews were rioting in Rome under the instigation of Christ under the reign of Claudius, when we all know he was supposed to have been executed under Tiberius.

Okay. That's getting a bit too academic.

Now, I've got to say I was a little bit bugged that the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail had sued Dan Brown, the author of The DaVinci Code for stealing his ideas from them. Excuse me, boys, you're telling everybody that the stuff in your book - Holy Blood, Holy Grail is history, how on Earth can people steal what you're saying is the true account of what really happened?
Well, they can't. And I think the jury ruled correctly on this one.

But by all means buy and read Holy Blood, Holy Grail. It's very convincing if only because it puts the times into a commonsense perspective. Like, the point that Jesus probably did have a family because it would have been extremely weird for the times for him to have been thirty and never married - or even dating, for crying out loud. Back in those times, in that place, every marriage was an arranged one and they married young - fourteen for males.

As far as the Gospel of Judas ... I don't know. I think Judas probably couldn't have been such a bad guy. Because what was his motivation, really, to betray Jesus? Why would he do such a thing? It's not like he could have taken over the organization if he got the Lord out of the way. Nobody was saying that Judas was next in line to be messiah. No, it was definitely in his interest to keep Christ fit and healthy - unless as the Judas Gospel says he was told to go to the Romans.

Rexroi, starring Seth Green and Bruce Campbell

I had posted all of Rexroi (my new novel) on-line, but all I have now are the first eleven chapters, which is really a lot if you ask me. You know, we are talking free here. The reason I did this was that an ebook publisher in Australia picked it up, so that's where it's going to be available in about a month or so - on-line, not Australia. Well, it will be available in Australia, maybe even especially Australia. But not only in Australia - ahhh, you know what I'm saying.

Eleven Chapters compromises about the 'first act' of the story, so I thought that was a good place to leave off.

I guess I'm feeling a bit guilty about removing the last two thirds of the book. I noticed that somebody in Pakistan had spent a whole bunch of time on the free book site, but not enough time to actually read the entire thing. I'm worried that he was planning on reading the rest later and he can't anymore. And that bothers me a bit. I would sure hate to think that my one fan in Pakistan hates me or thinks I'm a dick - I'm not. It was just that I knew that it was going to be commercially available in about a month and I wasn't going to give it away anymore.

You see, I posted it for nothing because it's such a wonderful book that I wanted as many people as possible to read it. I still do; the only difference is that I'll be getting a little support so that I can write even more wonderful books.

You want me to write more wonderful books, don't you?

Anyways, the link to the free chapters (Eleven, Baby) is on my sidebar to the right. I've been having some problems with the sidebar so that it goes all the way to the very, very bottom of the page. It's still there, but I don't know why it does this. If anybody has any ideas could you drop me a line? I'm not the most tech savvy fellow around, but I'm also not the least. At any rate, you can never be too obvious when talking to me. Just keep that in mind.

Somehow, I got into this e-mail group Books to Film, which I thought was going to be helpful since Rexroi will make a fantastic movie. Of course, I couldn't help casting this movie in my mind and I have (in my imagination) cast Seth Green in the main role of Gary 'Kid Guy' Gates.
Please go to the link and read some chapters and tell me if I'm not absolutely right and he wouldn't be unbelievable in this role. The problem is that the character is twenty two years old and Seth is ten years older than that. He could play the role brilliantly, but he's going to start showing his age any day and he'll lose out on a role that was made only for him.

Okay. Seth has the lead. But who else will be in it - what Big name Stars?

In my imagination, I also cast Bruce Campbell as Montaigne, the naked spy. That character hasn't shown up in the first eleven chapters so you can't give me any input on that one, sorry to say. Little Kid Guy's girlfriend, Suzie, I thought could be played by Lindsay Lohan; she would also be absolutely brilliant. Even in my imagination, I don't know if the producers could meet her price, so that role might go to another promising up and comer. John Marriot could be played by any dumb male model - I don't have an opinion on that one. Kristin Cavallari would be his girlfriend Ashley because she seems to have the sweet blankness required.

I never saw her in Laguna Beach so I can't say that I've even heard her talk. I've seen her a lot in magazines and tabloids and I hear she is going to be in an actual movie role. You know what? I'm going to go out on a limb and say that whatever movie it is she's going to be in (I can't remember what it was) Kristin Cavallari will do unexpectedly well at it. Here's why: She's young and plastic and docile. She'll take instruction excellently.

Amanda the stripper might be played by Carmen Electra or - in a bit of bold casting - Sara Michelle Gellar could do it. If Buffy got the role then her husband Freddy Prinz could be one of the fraternity brothers, I'm thinking Joe the fraternity president. Speaking of which: I don't have any of the other brothers cast in my mind. I'm thinking up and coming young studs, maybe not even name studs.

Finally, Heinrich the sinister hairdresser will be played by Jeremy Irons. That's another character who doesn't show up until later. But he's important. And I'd like to see Jeremy in the movie since I've been told that I resemble him - in that Cronenberg film where he plays gynecologist twins.

There are some other important parts I haven't gotten to yet. Give me your suggestions and I'll see if I can fit them into my imaginary movie casting. If - for some reason - you happen to know any of these people that I cast, go ahead and tell them about the fabulous movie that they could be in.