( Small talk. Breaking the ice. Whatever you call it, it's definitely a learned skill, and it's definitely one that I don't have. )

To be, or not to be: that is the question ( Read more... )

I like Obama. I really do. I didn't vote for him (I voted for McCain, probably the one Republican I would have voted for), but I'm glad Obama's President and am excited about what he represents ( Read more... )

I'm far more of a dog person than a cat person, but this story might brighten the day of people like seraphbriar.

It has come to my attention recently that virtually everyone I know, including people five and six years my junior, make more money than I do. This has led to one of those "What-the-fuck" moments. I mean, it's not like I have an easy job. It's not like when I was driving for Pizza Hut and I could turn my brain off and go into autopilot. The ( Read more... )

I'm not usually one to follow memes. In fact, in the small, backwoods West Virginia town where I grew up, I am known as totahatanka shanka, or "he who is not usually one to follow memes." Somewhere in Nigeria, there is a dictator with buckets and buckets of money, unable to spend any of it because I didn't give him access to an American savings ( Read more... )

This past weekend, goodbyebartleby, my old nemesis--the Myrna Minkoff to my Ignatius J. Reilly--persuaded me to watch "Teeth", a film about a girl who... well, about a girl who possesses a...well, let's just call it an "unusual biological adaptation".

( My Anti-Feminist Tirade Continues Behind the Cut... )

I consider myself a conservative, and I have liked McCain since 2000, when he ran against Bush in the primaries, but Barack Obama is very, very hard to dislike. His speech today--in response to revelations of controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his "spiritual advisor"--was, I thought, exactly what it should be.

( The full transcript of the Mar 18 speech )

( Two Heroes-themed motivational posters )

A killer amoeba, living in a lake, encounters a young boy who's just going swimming with his family. It enters his nostrils, latches on to his olfactory nerve, and from there attacks his brain tissue. It literally eats away at his brain cells until he dies.

Sounds like a horror movie, doesn't it?
But it's absolutely true.