Tikkabik

Time again for the Friday Five, it seems.

1. What do you most want to be remembered for?

My amazing accomplishments. Most of which I *cough* haven't accomplished yet.

2. What quotation best fits your outlook on life?

"Free your mind and your ass will follow." - George Clinton, Parliament Funkadelic

3. What single achievement are you most proud of in the past year?

I am drawing a total blank.

4. What about the past ten years?

Having a family of my own.

5. If you were asked to give a child a single piece of advice to guide them through life, what would you say?

Love yourself.

(No, not THAT way. God, Corey, get your mind out of the gutter.)

Posted by flargh at 11:16 AM | Permalink

When I cook pudding or gelatin, there's one part I really don't like -- the "skin:" that crusty, rubbery stuff that seems to form over the cups as they cool in the fridge. Apparently it's related to drying, because Bonnie taught me a while ago that if you apply plastic wrap to the tops of your bowls/cups/parfait glasses and thus keep the moisture in, skin won't form.

Now Kraft Foods, makers of Jell-o brand products, have come up with a snack for kids that is basically nothing BUT pudding skin. They're called Jell-o Pudding Bites, and they do indeed bite.

Basically, what Kraft's mad scientists have done is genetically mated fruit snacks with pudding. Inside the boxes you see above are six hermetically sealed foil bags, each with a handful of these Pudding Bites inside. And while they're unquestionably pudding-flavored -- vanilla, strawberry and chocolate -- the rubbery, semi-solid consistency is just all wrong.

I love how Kraft's marketing droids let you know that they're "Made with REAL Milk." I didn't realize that products made with PHONY milk were taking over our store shelves. Is this really a perfidious nutritional issue? And just who are these heretofore unknown purveyors of faux milk? Do they draw their product from the udders of artificial cows? Is congress aware? Are there hearings to study the problem? Is Al Qaeda involved?

And Pudding Bites are a "good source of calcium!" So is Tums. Which you'll need after you eat these foul, sweet-flavored quivering dollops of tallow.

Posted by flargh at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

So there's this asshat teenage boy who lives in my neighborhood. He has a mid 80's Mustang GT not unlike this one. He's the kind of kid who thinks he's doing power slides by stepping on the gas turning corners when the pavement is wet, breaking the rear tires loose. The stereo is loud enough to shake his fillings loose, but distorts like hell. Basically, he's a real MENSA candidate.

The car isn't in the best shape, like any Ford with more than about 50 miles on it -- there's body rot and damage that he's tried his best with Bondo and spot primer to patch and cover. It doesn't help. The car's still a frigging piece of shit, and as someone who spent his wasted youth in a Fox-body Mustang only 7 years older than this one, with friends who did the same, my teeth gnash every time I see him driving down the road, because I know damn well what happens when you mix youth, testosterone, and a car with a 5 liter engine together. Stupid things happen.

Anyway, this car started life as a black and white model, reverse skunk style: Primarily white body, with a big black stripe running down the middle. Skippy decided that this wasn't up to par with what he wanted, so he painted it.

Himself.

Using red spray paint.

Without even bothering to prime the whole body first.

I saw him over the weekend, proudly pulling the masking tape off the windows, after spending the afternoon applying the paint in his driveway. I'm sure his dad is thrilled that the azaleas next to the driveway now cast an odd red hue, even though they flower white.

It's clearly the best paint job that $25 can buy.

So, now that Gomer has an arrest-me-red hot rod, I'm wondering how soon it is before he wraps it around a tree, a telephone pole, or a stoplight. There are only two stoplights in town, so I suspect chances for a tree or phone pole are higher.

Anyone wanna lay down a bet?

Posted by flargh at 04:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This was, arguably, one of the most egregious examples of bad professional management I can ever remember.

The company I was working for had just gone through a round of very traumatic layoffs. People who had worked there for years suddenly found themselves without work and jobs -- those that remained grimly realized that unless they were able to turn the business around, they wouldn't be far behind.

It was then that the boss at the time gathered us into a conference room to talk about our next step. And to open the meeting, he quoted Quintus Arrius from Ben-Hur:

Now listen to me, all of you: You are all condemned men. We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well, and live.

This is apropos of absolutely nothing, for what it's worth. Just one of those anecdotes that makes me chuckle as I look back upon it now, but at the time made me want to throw up.

Why is it that the bad lessons are always the ones that stick with you?

Posted by flargh at 06:28 PM | Permalink

So Apple updated iTunes yesterday with a new version that disallows users to share each other's playlists over the Internet.

Playlist sharing was introduced with the 4.0 version, and as a function through Rendezvous, it works swimmingly well -- anyone on your local network can see whatever playlist(s) you've chosen to share and can listen to them on your computer, from their own system.

It was an undocumented feature of this original release that you could do the same through the Internet, too -- all you needed to do was to know the IP address of the target computer.

Well, that's understating it a bit. If you were sharing your playlists, you had to know how to open a port on whatever firewall you were using to connect to the Internet, through your router or whatever. But eventually pirates figured out that you could download a stream to your own system, and the process was ripe for abuse.

So Apple closed this gap by removing this feature all together, making it only possible for users on a local network to share their files. Presumably, it'll be easier for most of them to just rip copies of MP3s to disk or CD-R than it will for them to go through the trouble of streaming and downloading.

I personally think that this is all a losing battle against piracy. Kazaa, Limewire, iTunes 4.0 -- it doesn't matter. Just like someone who's desperate and predatory enough will break into your house and steal your TV, or hold a knife against your throat in a dark alley and take your wallet.

Ultimately, technology can't police human nature. It's just a crying shame that human nature has to be like that at all.

Posted by flargh at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So convenience foods have been a big trend for years. It's bitter irony that as more and more parents put in longer hours to actually put food on the table, they have less time to do it. Agrobusiness is only too happy to oblige by charging more for less product, partially or wholly preparing it, and sticking it in shrunkwrapped trays you can find in your grocer's freezer.

For a lot of this, I can understand, whether it's vegetables that appear to already be marinated and grilled, or a gourmet meatloaf that I have to just heat and serve. And actually, for my harried wife, when I'm away on business trips and can't cook, these items are a godsend. For her, the less time spent in the kitchen, the better.

But there's a point at which it becomes ridiculous. Case A in point: Smucker's Uncrustables.

Uncrustables are the perfect "grab-and-go" sandwich for families on the move, says the Smucker's Web site. Simply keep them in the freezer, then pack them in your lunch in the morning. By lunchtime, Uncrustables are thawed and ready to eat.

Well, thank GOD that someone at the J.M. Smucker Co. realized that there was a way to recover all the MILLIONS of man-hours lost in the course of a year preparing PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SANDWICHES. I mean, they are RIDICULOUSLY labor intensive, between getting out the loaf of bread, removing the jam or jelly from the fridge, finding the peanut butter, and locating a knife to spread said condiments onto said bread. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Why, I'd rather make FOIE GRAS than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

My other favorite bit of marketing-bullshit is this little blurb on the Smucker's site:

Smucker's has discovered a new way to seal homemade goodness into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich ? without the crust!

Well STOP THE FUCKING PRESSES. Smucker's has come up with a high-tech alternative to CUTTING THE CRUST OFF THE BREAD, because lord only knows THAT hasn't been effective enough since the damn things were invented. Again, thank CHRIST that the braniacs at Smucker Co. are hard at work solving problems like this. I just wonder how much faster we'd find cures for world famine, SARS or AIDS with these GENIUSES on the job.

At $2.50 for a box of 4, it doesn't take a PhD in math to figure out that the cost of Uncrustables is hellishly higher than a conventional peanut butter and jelly sandwich either.

Case B: Philly Cream Cheese's new bagel to go thingie, which I can't link to directly or even reference articulately because Philly's Web site is b0rked at the moment. But here's the rub: You take a bagel, package it in with a mini-tub of cream cheese, and you have the latest in convenient foods. All pitched to you in prime-time with a choir of heavenly angels singing "hallelujah" in the background.

Clearly, the same company that does Smucker Co.'s marketing has Kraft's ad campaign, too.

I am relieved ... nay ... ECSTATIC ... that Kraft has found a way to save precious moments of breakfast preparation in the morning with this INGENIOUS system of instant food preparation. Because up until now, my mornings have been positively MIRED in the COMPLICATED PROCESS of getting a bagel from the bag, putting it in the toaster oven, then getting the cream cheese from the fridge, spreading it, and wrapping said bagel in a paper towel before heading out the door. THIS IS TIME I'LL NEVER GET BACK, and I'm positively orgasmic with joy that Kraft has found a way to shave precious milliseconds from my morning routine.

Okay, I'm done.

Posted by flargh at 08:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So my friend Corey recently insulted a fine New England institution: Dunkin' Donuts. He likened their coffee to swill.

This is the same guy who was beside himself for days when his wife used his coffee bean grinder to grind spices instead. So clearly he's got more sophisticated tastes than I do when it comes to coffee. I buy it pre-ground, in a bag, by the pound.

From Dunkin' Donuts.

Now, I recognize that Dunkin' Donuts isn't the best coffee in the world. I've had a lot of better cups elsewhere. But I was raised on the stuff. I've been drinking Dunkin' Donuts coffee for as long as I've been drinking coffee, so I associate Dunkin' Donuts' blend of beans with home.

More than a decade ago I was living in California, where Dunkin' Donuts were -- and still are, largely -- a rarity. Sure, there were Winchells and other spots around, but Dunkin' Donuts, no.

So when I was cruising around one afternoon and I saw one, I almost caused a traffic accident reversing direction across a six-lane thoroughfare to pull into the parking lot. I ran in, ordered myself up a medium regular, and sipped.

I practically puked on the spot. It was then I saw a sign that has been burned into my memory:

We proudly serve Maxwell House brand coffee.

The horror. The horror. The franchising bastards didn't bother to get the real stuff. And they dared call themselves a Dunkin' Donuts.

One of the first things I did when I moved back to New England a few months later was to get myself a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Like I said, it's a taste of home.

I learned when I was a teenager that "regulah" means different things in Dunkin' Donuts in different regions. Walk in to any Dunkin' Donuts in Mass., for example, and ask for a "medium, regulah." You'll get it only one way: Swimming with an aorta-blocking amount of cream and enough sugar to give you periodontitis on the spot. I'm serious: It's enough to give the coffee a totally different texture, more like syrup. It's good to warm you up on a cold February morning, though, especially when your metabolism is that of a sixteen year old. I miss those days.

Go to New York, though, and they'll give you the same thing black, no sugar. Weird.

Now, Dunkin' Donuts donuts, on the other hand, are ass. Total ass. Their breakfast sandwiches are passable, but their donuts are usually stale, tasteless lumps of lard and sugared icing that leave you craving a high colonic afterwards, just to shake the suspicion that you've just lubricated your digestive tract with enough grease to unsqueak the hinges of a thousand rusty gates.

The other odd thing about Dunkin' Donuts -- especially in Mass. -- is how ubiquitous they are. Dunkin' Donuts are as common in Mass. suburbs as ATMs, and usually more plentiful than McDonalds or any other fast food chain. Heck, my town -- a burg more than an hour outside Boston -- has two Dunkin' Donuts. I'm pretty sure we only have two stop lights in town.

Posted by flargh at 03:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

We spent a good part of the day yesterday at a friend of Bobs' named Wyatt. He was having a birthday party and had upwards of 15-20 kids over, and it was a great time. It was an outdoor cookout, and intuition would tell you that a Memorial Day weekend cookout would be a surefire bet for a nice outdoor time.

It didn't get above about 50 yesterday. It was freezing cold, there was a chill wind, and it was just generally unpleasant for anyone who wasn't wearing a jacket.

It occurred to me through the course of this that there hasn't been a week so far this spring where one of Bob's little league games or practices hasn't been washed out because of rain. It's just been a rotten, cold, wet spring so far, near as I can tell, although there have been a few beautiful days here and there.

Nothing much more to it than that. After a long and snowy winter, I was looking forward to spring, but so far, it hasn't been all that great. Blah.

Posted by flargh at 11:37 AM | Permalink

"One man's trash is another man's treasure" is a concept I can intellectually grasp but just emotionally never took hold. I find very little good in stuff other people throw out; I figure that unless they're daft, they're probably throwing the stuff out for a very good reason.

My wife thinks differently. She loves yard sales. She's also great at thrift shops, consignment stores, and other places where you can find bargains, usually by sifting through mounds and piles of other people's used dreck.

Now, I don't fault her for this. In fact, I'm quite jealous. Her ability to find bargains is, as near as I can tell, as highly developed a mutant superpower as Cyclops' ability to shoot lasers out of his eyes or Nightcrawler's bamf.

We're a family of five struggling to make ends meet on a single income, and I'm desperately thankful that she can do this. She's managed to outfit our kids with some great clothes that cost literally nothing or next to nothing. Designer dresses for my daughter for free from a clothing drive a nearby church does a few times a year, for example. Or the jeans she's wearing today, which fit well and look good, for a buck.

I, however, have no such skills.

in that generates a positive emotion while shopping. I do not enjoy shopping. Categorically.

But more than that, I can see Bonnie get this thrill, this rush of adrenaline, when she finds something cool for free or cheap. Try as I might, I just cannot share the enthusiasm.

I'm put off by the whole experience: The jostling for space against blue-haired pensioners who smell of mothballs and denture adhesive; the sifting through piles of irrelevant crap looking for that one thing that might be useful; the sorting; the ability to distinguish meaningful patterns in noise, like finding one decent pair of Osh-Kosh-B'Gosh overalls for James amongst other stuff that's just not worthwhile.
I just wish I didn't have to be a part of it.

See, for Bonnie, this is not a solitary activity. It's a group thing. It's something we have to do as a couple, and by extension, that means as a family. Part of it is because she likes it when I can carry the stuff she buys. Part of it also is because she just doesn't like to do stuff alone.

Day in and day out, however, season to season, Bonnie makes this work. It's one of those great examples of where one spouse's shortcomings are totally compensated for by the other spouse's strengths, and I love her for it.

Posted by flargh at 01:45 PM | Permalink

I feel the need to expound on my comments about Bloodrayne yesterday. Here's the story:

Bloodrayne has been out for a while on other platforms, and when I first saw it I checked the reviews, thinking that it looked like a cool little game and something I might get a kick out of. It was cheap to start with, a Majesco title after all, so it drew my interest.

And I'll admit, it drew my interest on a puerile level. Terminal Reality managed to craft together a heroine that instant calls forth something from the primal lizard-brain of any male or female with even a passing fancy for goth chicks. Rayne's red hair and comely figure is a mix of Franka Potente from "Run Lola Run" and the alternative-universe-vampire version of Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She drinks blood. She's hot. She wears black leather. Insert fap noises here.

What I'm surprised about is that the console reviews of this game are, on the whole, fairly complementary. There have been a few odd comments about the overwhelming banality of the story or the rather mediocre presentation, but it certainly hasn't been reviled.

Now, after playing through the first half of the game, I'm desperately unimpressed with Bloodrayne. And part of my disgust is because I'm playing it on a Mac, and the Mac conversion is, in my professional estimation, subpar from what we Mac gamers should expect. I'm seeing graphical glitches, hearing audio problems, and suffering various other indignities that I'm going to have to talk with Aspyr about to see if they're aware of or plan to fix.

But more than that, I find the game itself to be a tawdry, muddled, boring, hackneyed mess -- and that translates the same regardless of what platform it's played on. The game's story is crap. The voice acting is purely second-rate. It's just ba-a-ad.

Here's a cinematic analogy: Roger Corman has made decades worth of B-movies. Hell, he's the master: Attack of the Crab Monsters, the original Little Shop of Horrors, all those Edgar Allen Poe movies featuring Vincent Price, Carnosaur, Humanoids from the Deep, Deathrace 2000. Any level you slice it on, this is second-rate material. But you know what? It's fun. It's fun for two reasons: A) Corman has an eerie ability to find talent (Francis Ford Coppola, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese -- all of them cut their teeth on his projects, sometimes when no one else would give them a chance) -- and B) the material is treated with a sense of irony and humor.

No such luck here. If Bloodrayne was at least a bit tongue in cheek, I'd probably like it. Hell, that's half the reason why I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer all these years: Because behind every cheesy plot twist, there's a wink and a nod that lets you know that Joss Whedon knows *you're* in on the joke. This is just empty, vapid, blah.

If this was a movie, it wouldn't be a approachable unless it was a rainy Saturday afternoon, all your friends were out of town, your TV was stuck on the Sci Fi channel, and you'd just finished doing some massive Nyquil-fueled gravity bong hits.

Even then, you'd laugh your ass off at just how atrocious it was.

It's certainly been enlightening, if for no other reason than to be able to frame the reviews I check out on occasion in a new perspective.

Posted by flargh at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Today's Friday Five:

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

Tom's of Maine. Fennel flavored. Love that black licorice-y taste.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

Charmin Ultra. Truly revolutionary.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

Sandals. It's a statement on the condition of my feet more than a lifestyle choice.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

Caffeine free diet coke, or, as I like to think of it, "What's the point?"

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

Whatever's sugar free and either spearmint or peppermint flavored. I have no brand loyalty.

Posted by flargh at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I've been a longtime NewsWatcher user. Started using it back in the MacTCP days when it was still John Norstad's baby, and when I transitioned to OS X, it came with me. I use MT-Newswatcher now -- version 3.3b1 -- and haven't been all that impressed with Simon Fraser's support of it. The interface is creaking, the user preferences are occasionally obtuse, and while it works, it's just flaccid.

So, I'm wondering what you'd recommend for an alternative. For what it's worth, I'm not necessarily looking for something optimized to pull binaries from usenet newsgroups -- the 50 or so groups I subscribe to are actual old-fashioned discussion groups, like comp.sys.mac.games.action and rec.games.video.sega.

So what I'm trying to say is that I'm really looking for a newsreader that's well-configured to handle threading and discussions more than pr0n, and preferably something that's actually regularly supported by its developer.

Posted by flargh at 05:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After spending a few hours with Aspyr Media's Mac conversion of Bloodrayne, I have only one thing to say: The console reviews I've read of this game clearly don't know fuck-all.

Even avoiding some of the Mac-specific bogosity I've seen with this $30 turd so far, this game is crap. It could be running at a solid 60fps with the most beautifully rendered graphics in the history of computer programming, and it would still be a double-decker poop sandwich.

Poop, I tell you.

At least Rayne is hot. Kinda.

Posted by flargh at 02:15 PM | Permalink

This is the more-or-less accurate transcript of a conversation I participated in last week.

A: "So my sister started shooting smack again. Dude, she's like six months pregnant."

B: "That's bad, man."

A: "Dude, she shouldn't be having that kid, man. I just wanna cut that baby out of there..."

B: "Man, don't talk like that. That shit is wrong even to joke about. That's fucked up, man."

A: "But, can't they, like, transfer the baby to another mother or whatever? In-vitro?"

B: "Man, you can't do a womb-to-womb transfer. I mean, you can do like fertilized eggs in a different mother, but you're thinking STAR TREK, man."

A: "Oh, shit, yeah, like that time when Kira had to carry Keiko's baby to term, cos she was just going to do it for like a little bit but then she couldn't give the baby back."

B: "Right."

C: "Well, it gave the producers a good way to write Nana Visitor's pregnancy into the show."

A: "Haw, dude's into Star Trek."

Posted by flargh at 09:52 PM | Permalink

So Corey pointed me towards the Belief System Selector, with a caveat that it's for entertainment purposes only.

It's basically a twenty question quiz that attempts to divine what world religion you should adopt, based on your own personal views. I wholly agree with Corey's assessment: Some questions are either so vaguely worded or provide such little wiggle room that you're forced to give an answer you don't want to.

Having said that, I too found it eerily disturbing that the three religions that the selector chose for me as top hits are, arguably, the only three religions I've ever been able to personally identify with.

Apparently I'm batting .1000 for Mahayana Buddhism, which seems subtly ironic given my capacious belly and penchant for head-shaving. But, I can tell you this much: What little I've studied of Buddhism has always rung true for me. Always. Ever since my first exposure to it, oddly enough on a field trip for my Sunday School, when I was a kid. Maybe it's time to look more into this.

The other two, still well within the ninetieth percentile by a safe margin, were Neo-Paganism (Wicca, Druidism, and a whole bunch of other stuff all lumped into one neat package) and Unitarian Universalism -- the only religion I ever practiced as a youth with any regularity, mainly because it was the one my mum was drawn to -- and, not coincidentally, the source of the Sunday School field trip that interested me in Buddhism in the first place (which, by the way, my mother was teaching at the time).

Okay, I think I've neatly tied this together into a closed loop.

Posted by flargh at 04:40 PM | Permalink

I don't pretend to be a sushi expert by any stretch of the imagination, but last week I had the best sushi of my life. It's a place in Studio City, Calif. called Sushi Nozawa, and it's a totally unassuming little shop in a strip mall on Ventura Blvd. at Tujunga, a short hop west (I think) of Lankershim. Google it -- you'll find plenty of glowing reviews.

Nozawa-san has a reputation for being a sushi variation of Seinfeld's famed "Soup Nazi" -- act insultingly towards the food and you'll be thrown out. Which is, near as I can tell, the mark of a sushi chef who is supremely confident of his abilities and deservedly so: I've heard of a few other spots like this, and they're all coveted by diners who visit their establishments.

Sushi Nozawa has a big sign behind the bar that says "Special of the Day: Trust Me." And you do. The menu is basically whatever Nozawa-san thinks is good that day, and it's all good.

So, make a point to stop there. You won't be disappointed.

Posted by flargh at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Every time I write an article about a Mac game release these days, there ends up being a flood of posts from readers who bitch about the system requirements, because the game won't play on their G4/400 with RAGE 128 card, or because -- heaven forfend -- Mac OS 8.6 isn't supported.

These gimps are living in a fantasy world, and they either need to buy new hardware to play -- what their PC brethren or doing -- or they just have to get a console and be content with that.

The game market more than any other single market except maybe movie-quality 3D animation and video editing pushes the fuck out of the hardware, folks. I mean, brings it to its knees. You can do gaussian blurs in Photoshop as the day is long, you can reformat text in Microsoft Word, you can recalculate tables in Excel, you can do all those things on slower machines without really suffering TOO much, but if you get behind the curve on game performance, you're screwed. Period.

Don't get me wrong. Some people get it, I mean, really get it. But it's patently obvious to me that a lot of people just don't.

The PlayStation 2 is based around a CPU that clocks at 300MHz. The Xbox's is 733, and it's an Intel chip. The GameCube's is 485MHz. All these systems have graphics processors and other discrete chips, and they're wholly designed as game-specific processing systems, not as general-purpose computers. Expecting to be able to satisfactorily play a game designed for any of these boxes on a general purpose computer whose clock speed is only marginally faster than these other system is patently ridiculous, and it illustrates one of the basic problems in the Mac game space right now.

One of the big benefits that PCs have had for a while now is that they're operating so much faster overall than Macs are, and that gap keeps widening. The Megahertz myth ain't. And dual processors do not a faster game machine make. SMP is pretty much a waste on games. There are a few exceptions where Mac game programmers have been able to put dual processor systems to good use by making the second processor churn data that the first doesn't have to, and they've been able to pick up a few frame per seconds here and there, but it's nothing like the 2:1 ratio you'd intuitively expect.

I have a dual processor 1GHz system with a GeForce4 Ti card. For a Mac game system, this is a kick-ass rig. And it plays games great. But looking at Half-Life 2's demo at E3 on a Dell XPS system with a Radeon 9800, I realized last week just how far away the Mac is from being superlative for gaming. The horror stories I'm hearing from game developers and OEMs alike aren't giving me much hope that things will change very quickly, either.

What is giving me some hope, however, are the rumors I'm hearing about WWDC and what will happen in conjunction with Panther's preview. If the stuff I've heard is even half-true, June ought to be a tremendously exciting month.

Posted by flargh at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It's been the subject of past blog entries: My office is a pit.

I don't know what happened, actually, but about eight years ago or so I completely lost all ability to organize myself. Lost my chi, maybe, or just stopped caring. Anyway, I've been on a downward slide when it came to getting my shit together.

This has been evident nowhere more than my office -- my one sanctum sanctorum in the house. When I left for LA, there were stacks of crap everywhere, boxes filled with crap, and piles.

I bought a treadmill weeks ago at a yard sale and had yet to set it up. What's more, an old love seat I had in the office was totally blocked by piles of boxes filled with books, paperwork, stacks of boxes sent to me by software vendors, and other crap. Some foam tiles my mother picked up for me on sale at a local discount store went stacked on their side and unused. A 20 year old 50 inch projection TV my father in law had given me ostensibly as parts for the one that we have set up in our bedroom also lay derelict in the middle of the floor.

When I got back, a cleaning tornado had hit the office. It's quite remarkable.

Bonnie had cleared most of the stuff out of that half of the office. She'd set up the love seat, laid down the tile, put the treadmill in place, pushed the TV off to one side. I barely recognize the place. And I love it.

I should go away more often!

Posted by flargh at 08:04 AM | Permalink

I had an epiphany last week: Processed food makes me sick, really sick. Usually, my diet on the road consists of fast food, gobbled down quickly. It's no wonder that at previous E3s I've spent a good deal of my time in the bathroom. With the proliferation of Taco Bells, Carl's Jrs and In and Out Burgers across the Southland, it's amazing that anyone in southern California has a reasonable waistline.

Last week I mainly stuck to salads and tried to cut down on meat as much as possible, and was quite successful: I had less digestive problems than I even did at home the week before, let alone at E3 two years ago, which was fucking wretched. I joke a lot about John Han poisoning me. It's closer to the truth that I probably poisoned myself.

As a result, I'm making a commitment to cut down on the amount of processed food that I eat. I've been relying on frozen, fast food a lot because it's so damnably convenient, and intellectually I've long known how crappy that food is for you. It's just that in the last week of actually watching what I eat on a fairly regular basis, I realized just how shitty I felt while eating that bad stuff. GIGO, after all.

I'm not going to make any great resolution about losing weight or lowering cholesterol or blood sugar, although those would be terrific side effects of a healthier lifestyle that I'd love to benefit from. I just came to the realization that I've been poisoning myself with the crap I've been eating, and don't want to do it anymore.

Posted by flargh at 01:24 PM | Permalink

So a few months ago I bought Bonnie "No!" by They Might Be Giants. They've been one of our favorite bands since longer than we've been together, actually, and I picked up the disc to cheer her up after our cat died this past January.

Although it was purchased under sad circumstances, it's a cheery disc -- in fact, it's the first album than TMBG have ever produced specifically for kids. And true to form, it's become my kids' favorite disc to listen to, like, EVER. It's probably partly because we regale our son Bob with stories of how he went to his first TMBG show only a few weeks before he was delivered, and he danced along to the music at the time.

If you're unfamiliar with TMBG, they're fantastic. First of all, their cover of "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Band is one of my favorite covers, and it's one of the hardest-rocking songs with an accordian in it ever. Some of my favorite memories of live music are TMBG shows, too: I remember a Halloween concert they did in NYC once, where they encouraged folks to show up in costume with guitars -- the first fifty or so got into the show for free. During the show TMBG then called up their old NYU prof to direct the folks in the audience with guitars via chord charts to play along with "Horse With No Name" by America.

But more than that, they mix a geeky, intelligent sense of humor together with a great songwriting ability to produce memorable tunes. Tunes so memorable that they exhibit a staying power comparable to that which baked macaroni and cheese exhibits on the colon.

The unusual thing about "No!" is that although it's TMBG's first disc specifically for kids, there's nothing outwardly obvious that marks the content so: It's every bit as esoteric, weird and fun as every other TMBG disc we have in our collection. Hell, this is a band who make "Why Does the Sun Shine?" -- an odd science song made for schoolkids from the 50s -- into one of their own cult hits years ago.

So, as we're driving home from the store yesterday, Bonnie fires up No! and I proceed to hear my kids -- all three of them -- sing every single lyric in about five or six of the tracks. Laughing their asses off all the way through. I mean, they were into it. They were into it like stoned college sophomores are into a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast at 3am.

This is a retention they don't even exhibit with real kids' music, like Bill Harley or The Wiggles. This is hardcore.

If you have kids, buy this album. Hell, if you don't have kids, buy this album. It's great.

Posted by flargh at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here's my response to The Friday Five:

1. What drinking water do you prefer -- tap, bottle, purifier, etc.?

Purified, chilled in the fridge or iced.

2. What are your favorite flavor of chips?

The plain old regular Cape Cod Chips variety.

3. Of all the things you can cook, what dish do you like the most?

I make a good lasagna. Don't make it very often though.

4. How do you have your eggs?

Over easy, with sides of wheat or multigrain toast and bacon, of course.

5. Who was the last person who cooked you a meal? How did it turn out?

Excluding restaraunt cooks, the last "real" person to cook me a meal was Bonnie. It was basic, but filling.

Posted by flargh at 05:49 PM | Permalink

The $180 price drop was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. I went out and bought a PS2 today. Along with a used copy of Kingdom Hearts, a couple of "lite" games for Bonnie, and a racing game. So far, it's awesome. Gotta pick up an optical cable to connect to the receiver, however...

Any recommendations for games that must be added to the library? I'll consider anything, even that gay DDR crap that Remy plays.

Posted by flargh at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, I'm back from Los Angeles and feeling surprisingly good for a change. Usually, when I get back from trade shows, I'm a train wreck for days afterwards. Long nights, early mornings and unusual diets usually add up to a bad combination for me: I often get back and need a week to recover.

Well, this show was a bit different. Although the long nights and early mornings were there, I took much better care of myself dietarily than I usually do. What's more, this is the first E3 that I've done on medication to control my blood sugar, and I expect that made a huge difference.

My friend John told me that this is the first time he's seen me not looking both wired and exhausted at the same time -- oddly enough, he hasn't seen me since I've started to get the sugar under control, so I guess that's a good sign. A lot of salads, not a lot of carbs or meat, and very little alcohol also helped.

The other thing that was different about this trip was that I didn't run myself to the point of exhaustion at the end of it. I got back to the hotel from the convention center right after the show closed on Friday, at about 5PM. I put my head down on the pillows to take a nap and woke up at 1:30AM. Realized I wasn't going anywhere at that point, went to sleep, and didn't wake up again until 6:00 the next morning. I expect that 13 hours or so of sleep I got did some good, too. It would have been nice to see some people one last time, but I guess I needed the rest.

Posted by flargh at 08:46 AM | Permalink

... is just getting started, but I wanted to drop a line anyway. Day one of the show wrapped up without any bombshells going off; general consensus from grizzled E3 veterans is that this isn't one of the better shows.

Most of the momentum coming from the gaming industry is coming from console developers, and E3 2002 was absolutely huge for software releases. It's because 2001 had been all about the hardware itself, and 2002 was an opportunity for third-parties to follow through.

There isn't a similar momentum this year. For the most part, caution seems to be ruling the roost at many major publishers, some of whom have reorganized themselves, are in the process of being divested from their corporate benefactors, or have rebranded themselves with new monikers in search of a new identity all together.

Last night was Nvidia's chance to blow off some steam. They'd rented a place called The Highlands, on the fourth floor of this shopping mall on Hollywood Blvd out near Highland Ave. The party was eerily like Apple's parties at Macworld Expos past -- complete with glow-in-the-dark dancers gyrating wildly with lightsticks and an appearance by Smashmouth, which rocked for quite some time.

I split early and went back to the hotel -- Wednesday was a really early morning with little sleep, so I caught as much rest as I could and I'm back at it today. I don't think I'm going to be able to dig up as much Mac news as what fell in my lap over the past two days, although I know more is coming soon.

Posted by flargh at 11:45 AM | Permalink

I've got some wireless Internet access from a quiet spot on the show floor, so I figured I'd stop and post some initial impressions from E3. First of all, Halo 2 looks like it's going to kick all sorts of ass. Leave it to Bungie.

The PSP -- the portable PlayStation -- is a solid idea, but I'm left to think that it's a day late and a dollar short. I'm not sure why exactly I don't think it'll succeed as well as Sony seems to hope it will, but only time will tell.

Spent a lot of time with the LucasArts people checking out all they had to offer, and I'm totally amazed by Star Wars Galaxies. Looks like it's going to pull MMORPG's in new directions, plus give Star Wars fans a real place to "live" in games too.

America's Army looks totally solid on the Mac. Ryan Gordon handled the port, and is kicking all sorts of ass between that and Unreal Tournament 2003. The Apple folks deserve a big nod for their help in getting OS X in a good state for that engine, too. I hope that proactivity continues -- it'd be great to see Apple really putting its back into making Macs and Mac OS X the most kick-ass game platform imaginable.

Nokia's N-Gage is an interesting idea, and it's a solid little piece of work. It's awkward as hell to use as a cell phone, though, and while the graphics and screen are awesome compared to some of the ghetto, second-rate phones out there, it really can't hold a candle to something as finely optimized for gaming as a Game Boy Advance SP.

I've seen a ton of people I know, and I've missed a ton of people that I know aren't here. Eerie coincidences abound, too. For example, the fellow standing across from me just happens to be the president of a company making an online trading card game that's coming to the Macintosh. Never met him, and a casual look at my badge caused him and me to start talking. Never know where these things will lead...

More later.

Posted by flargh at 07:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

One thing that sucks about travelling is getting stuck at a hotel without high speed Internet access. I realize that they're still the exception to the rule, and I'll fully admit that I've been spoiled a bit after a few stays at Marriotts that have it.

But going from home, where I use a less-than-perfect but generally reliable broadband service through Comcast -- to the indignities of slow, unreliable dial-up connectivity in an otherwise decent hotel -- is unnecessarily frustrating. I really wish more hotel chains would get with the program and drop Ethernet or Wi-Fi in their hotels.

The only other complaint I have about this room is the complete dearth of electrical outlets. There isn't even a courtesy outlet on the base of the lamp at my desk -- I had to move the credenza to plug in my PowerBook's AC adapter!

Posted by flargh at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Greetings from sunny and warm Los Angeles, Calif. I arrived late this afternoon -- about fifteen minutes late, due to unseasonably strong headwinds, according to the pilot.

I infinitely prefer traveling from TF Green Airport in Providence to going to Logan Airport in Boston. Logan is busy, and Boston is a mess -- TF Green is, by comparison, smaller, more convenient, and about equidistant in terms of overall mileage from where I live.

Unfortunately, because Providence is a smaller airport than Logan, there are no direct cross-country flights, so the few times I year I have to come out to the West Coast, I inevitably catch a connecting flight. My company's travel agent usually books us on United Airlines flights, which I've had good luck with. A few things worked against me this time, however.

First of all, I decided that I didn't want to have to hassle with rush-hour traffic in Providence, so I caught a later morning flight than I usually do. That was convenient in one aspect, but it also limited my options for flights. Rather than connecting through Chicago, I ended up catching a connecting flight at Washington/Dulles.

The plane they put me on was tiny. "This is more like carpooling than flying," I said to the lady sitting next to me. Like the Apple ad showing Yao Ming grabbing his 12 inch PowerBook from his overhead luggage without moving from his seat, I too could grab my backpack from the overhead bin without leaving my seat -- and I'm more than a foot shorter than he is.

Fortunately, we were up and down in about an hour and ten minutes, so it was a relatively easy burden to bear.

Dulles to LAX is a long trip -- more than five hours. Normally, this would be okay, but something happened between United and my company last year, and I got dropped from Premiere to regular Mileage Plus standing. I still accrue frequent flyer miles, but I'm no longer entitled to perks like sitting in the Economy Plus section, which has extra leg room.

To add insult to injury, they stuck me in a window seat in the ass-end of a 757. Behind a lady that decided to take a snooze. So there I sat for about five and a half hours. Unable to move. Thinking about all the news reports I've seen about people who suddenly die from deep vein thrombosis while traveling in cramped coach cabins.

On the flip side, I'm in LA. The hotel room is reasonably comfortable (although the Internet access sucks balls) and the weather is fine. I'm happy to be here and looking forward to this week.

Posted by flargh at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've had these bags of leaves sitting in the front yard, in some cases since January. The bags are the thirty gallon, black Hefty plastic bag variety.

I can find a million excuses to avoid doing things I find unpleasant, and that list officially ended on Saturday morning after I got back with Bob from baseball. I don't know why, but I think the expectation of seeing the fucking things in the yard when I got back from LA next weekend finally depressed me to the point of motivation.

The local transfer station processes leaves and lawn clippings as mulch. You can see the transfer station's huge front-end loader turning over the steaming mulch at various times of the year into these long lines of black material that residents back their vehicles up to and grab by the trashbarrel load at planting season.

It costs nothing to drop off your leaves if you have a dump sticker, so I finally hauled the leaves off to the transfer station on Saturday. I drafted Mom's assistance as she dropped Emmeline off from an overnight stay at her house.

It took us three trips to get them all -- about ten bags or so on each run. The process went fine except for one thing: One of the bags had gotten some rainwater trapped in it. Maybe about three or four gallons' worth -- enough to make a signficant difference in weight, at the very least.

On the last trip to drop off the leaves, I hefted that water-drenched bag into the back of the van on top of some others. As I heaved it into place I accidentally tore a hole in its overloaded bottom. The rainwater had mixed with the leaves, and percolated a rich, hearty tea that smelled somewhere between dirty underpants, vomit, and humus. That dark witch's brew cascaded out the bag and into the back of the van, directly onto the rug in the cargo area.

The other bags of leaves channeled the bulk of the waste water out the back, where the sewage streamed out and down onto the pebbles of our driveway. Still, there was enough fluid to saturate the Aerostar's rug to the point where we spent a fair amount of time mopping it up with beach towels, applying carpet cleaner, and vacuuming it out.

We thought we'd had it licked, but Bonnie returned this morning from church complaining that the van smelled of vomit. She's right.

Well, I'm on a jet plane for LA in a few hours and fumigating the van seems beyond my reach right now. So after dinner tonight I'll buy a few industrial strength air fresheners and position them in strategic locations around the van, and hope for the best.

Posted by flargh at 06:53 PM | Permalink

Played UT 2003 tech beta demo at length today. Discovered something: If your sound system's bass is deep and loud enough, force feedback in the controller is wholly irrelevant.

My god, I love the Monsoon PlanarMedia 14 speakers.

Posted by flargh at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So Monday I fly out to take in the sights and sounds of E3, the world's biggest trade show dedicated to video and computer games. As usual, I am sick to my stomach about it.

I've done the show before, and I've always found it to be brutally overwhelming. I don't usually get involved too much in post-show parties, mainly because I don't rank high enough up the food chain. As a Mac journalist, no one except the edutainment companies is really interested in speaking with me, and they don't usually throw mad parties, obviously. Even the PC companies keep it pretty low-key -- most of the revenue from this industry is generated by the console companies -- Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, as well as the hundreds of game publishers, accessory manufacturers and other hangers-on that make their living feeding off them like remoras on sharks.

For whatever reason -- travelling westward three hours; being exposed to the high-energy stimulation of video games for three days continuously; and so on -- I always feel physically, mentally and spiritually tapped out by the end of the week.

My other problem with E3 is that I usually get brutally sick in LA. I like to blame it on my friend John Han's hospitality, and it's true that he did get me sick once. But the real truth of the matter is that I don't travel well. I'm a creature of habit, and pulling me from my mole-like, Hot Pockets-nourished existence in my basement office often has negative repercussions: Physical ailments, digestive problems, and just general discomfort.

It's not a hard burden to bear, I admit. For someone who loves games as much as I do, E3 is like a trip to Mecca. You get the first glance at the stuff that's going to make headlines throughout the next year. Games, accessories, the latest in technology. It's fabulous.

Traveling alone to cover the event as I do, however, is totally terrifying. So much stuff happens in such a compressed period of time that it's virtually impossible for one person to assimilate anything more than a fragment of what actually happens during the show. In the days and weeks following E3, my game-savvy friends will ask me what I think of this or that, and I'll inevitably be numbed and desperately disappointed with the fact that I have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, because I never made it to that vendor's booth.

One of these days, I'll get my shit together.

Posted by flargh at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Matt Leblanc probably won't win any Oscars -- so far his contribution to cinema has consisted of a rather tepid beefcake hero in the movie version of Lost in Space and a starring role in a light comedy opposite a simian, if memory serves.

But I fully admit he's a guilty pleasure in his role as Joey on Friends. The writers hand him some of the best lines on the show, and his comic timing, facial expressions and delivery always make me laugh out loud. Every damn time I watch the show.

Posted by flargh at 08:06 PM | Permalink

... for a Far Side cartoon:

A sedan driving down the street, with a squirrel and a raccoon in the front seats. He's wearing a baseball cap and she has on horned-rim glasses, and there's a pair of young sprogs in the back seat -- maybe an opossum and a cat.

There's a couple of crumpled human corpses on the side of the road, squashed in the middle, with tire tracks running over them.

Posted by flargh at 08:03 PM | Permalink

James is sick today, and it doesn't have anything to do with yesterday's cookie pilferage. He went to the dentist for the first time, and Bonnie stopped at the drug store on the way home to pick up a few items. James, as per usual, demanded a tribute of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (his favorite candy), then changed his mind and said he didn't want chocolate.

This was the first clue that he wasn't feeling well. James ALWAYS wants chocolate. He opted for a Ring Pop instead, but didn't eat it. On the way to the van, James promptly vomited all over himself. And Bonnie.

He's been lying down on the couch for most of the day, napping and watching TV. Bonnie stepped out to the hairdresser's, so I'm sitting with him. James is watching one of his favorite tames, called "Toy Trains, Big Trains." It's basically just a jumble of footage from model railroad train sets spliced with videos of real trains hauling passengers and freight. He tells me he loves it because of the trains in it. Which seems to be a fitting reason.

There's a stomach flu that hit the neighbor's kids, so I'm not surprised James caught it. I hope I stay away from it long enough to get on my flight Monday...

Posted by flargh at 03:21 PM | Permalink

So my mom watched the kids yesterday, and kept them occupied by making cookies. I had a mix for some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the cupboard, and she used it. After she was done and they'd cooled, she'd placed the cookies in a big plastic bag. I had a couple last night when Bonnie and I got back. They were good.

This morning was fairly routine -- we got the older two kids onto the bus and Bonnie and I went about our usual business -- I went downstairs to the office and Bonnie went off to her iMac to check e-mail and then to do other work around the house. James, as usual, was left to watch Max & Ruby on TV.

In the space of about a half an hour, James managed to eat one entire bag of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies, and was fast at work on the second bag when I popped into the kitchen to pour myself a second cup of coffee.

James just stared at me, eyes big as plates.

"James, how many cookies have you had?"

"Two," he said, hands outstretched, fingers splayed, showing me both hands, now smeared with chocolate chip stains.

Then, after a moment, he thrust them forward again, blinking.

"And two."

Again.

"And two."

"And two."

"And two."

Posted by flargh at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

So Bob's first baseball game was on Saturday. When we left the house it looked like rain; in fact, there were even a few drops on the windshield. As the first game of the season it was a big event; a parade around the field, an opening game ceremony and other festivities.

By the time the game actually got started -- more than an hour and a half after we got there -- the clouds had blown away and it was a bright, cool, New England spring day. Blustery and a bit biting when the wind blew, but all together pleasant.

I didn't wear a hat. Totally forgot. Didn't realize I'd be standing in direct sunlight for a couple of hours, either.

Managed to twist my ankle, too. In the farm league, which Bob's a part of, the adults pitch and catch, and the kids focus on fielding and batting. Coach Coyne asked me if I'd catch, which I obliged -- only the third pitch or so I managed to fall and mess up my right ankle.

Every few years since I was an adolescent, nature has reminded me I'm totally melanin-deprived and burns the living hell out of me just for spite. Saturday was one of those days.

By the time I got home, the stinging and tightening on my scalp let me know that I'd gotten burned, and pretty badly. We had to go out again to church to drop Bob off for his first communion practice, which was the following day, and I'd taken Bonnie and the other two kids out for ice cream while he was doing that.

When I get burned that badly, my skin gets hypersenstive to any additional sunlight, and as soon as I stepped from the car I could feel my scalp pulsing as the sun beat down on it. I didn't dare put on a hat at this point, because I knew it would do horrible damage to my already ravaged skin. So I just made it a point to dance my way through as much shade as I could.

By Saturday night I could feel the heat coming off my skin and felt the blisters raising. I felt disturbingly like the infamous roasted pig's head I'd seen M. Dubiard, the chef de cuisine of the BBC reality series Manor House, serve the Olliff-Coopers, much to the family's chagrin, it seemed.

I woke up in the middle of the night and the right side of my jaw was throbbing. I'd been unconsciously grinding my teeth because of the discomfort on my scalp, totally unable to find a comfortable way to lie. I guess it would have been helpful if I'd had one of those neck-braces the ancient Egyptians used instead of pillows.

By Sunday morning my scalp was a seething mass of angry, running blisters, which would crack every so often. So not only am I burnt to the point of disfigurement, but it looks like someone's been dripping hot candle wax on my scalp too.

Then, during the first communion mass on Sunday, Bonnie managed to hammer the foot of the padded kneeling bar of our pew into the big toe on my left foot.

It figures that all of this happens a week before E3, one of those weeks when it really pays off to be in top mental and physical condition. Bah.

Posted by flargh at 08:59 AM | Permalink

Bob's first holy communion was today, and the church pastor, Father Costello, gave the kids one of the best explanations for transubstantiation I've ever heard. Father Costello brought forth a wicker basket with various forms of bread, and briefly recounted the tale of the Last Supper.

Holding forth a piece of bread, Father Costello grabbed the kids' attention when he showed them everything you could do with it. A piece of toast came next, then a fluffernutter sandwich. Then a hot dog bun, followed by a hot dog in another bun, then a portuguese roll, followed by a roll with a thick slab of linguica, or portuguese sausage. Likewise with a burger bun and a cheeseburger. Even Bonnie and I were laughing at this point. Well, I was laughing in between my Homer Simpson-like drooling. "... mmm. Linguica sandwich..."

But then the punchline came, and I thought it was deftly handled. Just like these other breads contain things and help to nourish us, so the Eucharist contains the Body of Christ and nourishes one's soul.

Now, I'm not in the slightest bit religious and don't buy into any of that stuff in the slightest, but I thought that's about the best explanation you can give second graders about the mystery of transubstantiation without completely losing them. As long as Bob doesn't go asking me for any Jesus sandwiches for lunch, I think we're okay.

I like this guy. The fact that he rides a motorcycle and has a couple of dogs is good, too.

Posted by flargh at 04:28 PM | Permalink

Yep, it's a pain in the ass according to Apple's own Knowledge Base.

When I mused about the iTunes Music Store the other day, I pondered how the three Mac authorization system worked, and that question is more or less spelled out in this new Knowledge Base entry. According to Apple itself, it's advisable to de-authorize your computer before you sell or donate it, implying that the DRM is locked to the actual hardware itself, rather than any three Macs.

That's a real pain in the ass. There should be a more effective way of handling this, because it's something you have to remember to do before you stop using a computer. There are a few worst-case scenarios where this could be a real problem, such as a complete failure on a system, necessitating a motherboard replacement (different serial number) or a complete system replacement.

Or imagine, for example, that you set your home Mac up in your router's DMZ and share your own playlist with your computer at work, authorizing your work computer to play your protected home stuff -- then you get laid off or fired, and you're prevented from de-authorizing that system first.

There are a few other permutations that bother me, too, but that should give you the general idea.

A better way to do this would be to make de-authorization of remote computers possible from the "master" from which the music was purchased to begin with. Right now, as near as I can tell, iTunes doesn't permit this. I wish it did.

Posted by flargh at 04:47 PM | Permalink

... to find the strangest image EVER posted to the Internet. And for some reason, it makes me absurdly happy.

Posted by flargh at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Happy May Day, or, as my dear ol' mum taught me when I was still a wee sprite:

Hooray, hooray, it's the first of May
Outdoor fucking begins today!

Whatever you call it -- May Day, Beltane, Cetsamhain, Walpurgisnacht, Roodmas -- May 1st (or May 5th, if you're in a coven that celebrates Old Beltane instead) is the first celebration of the warm half of the year, and the traditional start of summer according to the old pagan calendar. (Though the solstice now marks the official start of summer on our calendar, it's really midsummer, according to the ol' Druids.)

So, wrap a maypole, pass your livestock between the bonfires, or go have a lusty shag on a nice lawn someplace, and rejoice!

Posted by flargh at 09:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)