The Wyoming Circle

The Wyoming Circle: Starting from centrally located Riverton, going west to Dubois, to Jackson Hole and the Grand Tetons, up thru Yellowstone National Park, to Cooke City (in Montana), back down through the mountains to Cody, to Thermopolis, and right back to little Riverton.... the Wyoming Circle. This is a trip I first went on in 1988 when I was 11 years old, when Yellowstone burned and burned... I remember the smoke from all the fires just starting to fill the sky as we left.

I returned to Yellowstone National Park twice more in my life before this year, but I was never lucky enough to travel "the Circle" again. This time I was able to share this wonderful trip with Jessica. This time it was snow, rather than smoke, that filled the skies of Yellowstone. This time... I saw grizzly bears.

Many thanks to Wesley James Bell, who carefully organized and narrated this trip for Jessica and I, and for good measure, even drove us the entire length of the trip. His knowledge of biology, geology, history, and local lore proved invaluable and indispensable. It would have been little more than a long car ride through pretty scenery without his presence and presentation. Thank you Porkchop, we couldn't have done it without you!

Wyoming 2008

Those Heartless Bastards

Netflix just sent the following email to my girlfriend, who is the primary account holder in our apartment, and who has been kind enough to share her account control with me by giving me my own profile and queue:

"We wanted to let you know we will be eliminating Profiles, the feature
that allowed you to set up separate DVD Queues under one account,
effective September 1, 2008.

Each additional Profile Queue will be unavailable after September 1,
2008. Before then, we recommend you consolidate any of your Profile
Queues to your main account Queue or print them out.

While it may be disappointing to see Profiles go away, this change
will help us continue to improve the Netflix website for all our
customers.

If you have any questions, please go to
http://www.netflix.com/Help?p_faqid=3962 or call us anytime at 1 (888)
638-3549. We apologize for any inconvenience.

- The Netflix Team"

How the FUCK will taking away the already established and successful practice of separate Profiles help improve their website? Where will all my ratings and all my reviews and all my Netflix friends go to now? What did I do to deserve this suffering, this humiliation? Must my queue and my ratings now be mixed with those of another? No offense to my girlfriend's taste... but by my taste I will be recognized, and without purity of profile how can my taste be determined... those thousand plus films that I have rated on a five star scale system help create a vital part of the truth of my identity, of who I am to me and to others!!!

This aggression will not stand! Rise up fellow Netflixerians, and call them

                                                                 1 (888) 638-3549

and make your voices heard! Don't let them do this to us! Identities will be blurred and obscured, marriages will crumble under the stress of decisions, children will weep and gnash their teeth when dad's Film Noir shows up instead of their "Finding Nemo"... stop them before they ruin our lives (real and electronic)... you can make a difference... call now!

All Day at Work

It has come to my attention that there is a nasty rumor 

going around about me, and I want to dispel this 

patently false information before it gains any further 

semblance of authenticity. First, it has been said that I

took the day off of work this Friday, ostensibly to prepare 

for my trip to Wyoming. 

This was the plan as I originally designed it, but was 

not what actually ended up happening. If this 

misinformation was all that was being spread, I wouldn't 

bother to contradict it. It is neither here nor there. I work

hard, and if I need a day off to prepare for my vacation,

then so be it.

But sadly the vicious slander that has reached my ears, and 

probably yours, suggests a second fallacy which is that

I not only stayed home from work, but actually spent the

day home from work playing violent video games... 

specifically, GTA IV. 

This is a complete lie, and I have the photographic 

evidence to prove it. 

See below:

These pictures clearly show that I arrived early that morning

for work, like always, and left after the sun had already set,

again as per usual. That's just how I roll at work... dedicated,

focused, part of the team, present and at 100 percent every

day of the work week to make the Columbia experience the 

best it can possibly be for all of our guests.

I hope this has cleared up any confusion, and destroyed the 

false structure of lies being constructed against me by my 

enemies.

I am not paranoid.

Have a good night.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend

A four day weekend for me, that was much needed after the 

full-on insanity that was Commencement Week. Friday I spent

playing GTA IV, and found innumerable pleasures in running 

over pedestrians and stealing cars and bikes from unsuspecting 

residents of Liberty City.

Then Saturday came, and with it, a plethora of friends and options.

Jason and Heather came in from DC, and we went to Tom's Diner 

for a quick and friendly neighborhood brunch. Then we drifted 

down into the Slope and did some shopping, and some drinking. 

Eventually we found ourselves in the backyard of a lesbian bar 

called Ginger's.We were met by Jessica's friends Scott and Danni, 

also from DC.

Sunday we all awoke hungry and hungover. So we took Jason and 

Heather to Le Gamin, which is a personal favorite of Jess and I, and

happily I believe J&H enjoyed it thoroughly as well. Brunch led us to 

the Botanic Gardens, and then to Prospect Park, where Will & 

Christel & Lil Geneva joined us for some Aerobie acrobatics. 

Then Will & Christel went back to meet with Laurel & Matt, and the 

rest of us headed to Bushwick. Snezan, a strict vegan, was 

apparently grilling meat and needed us to come and eat it. 

He had never yet had the pleasure of meeting J&H, and fittingly,

he was drunk and up a 30 foot ladder on the side of 

his building when we first arrived. 

First impressions...

The grilling was fun, if a little over-run by pretensions and pets. 

On Monday morning, we went once more with J&H to Le Gamin. 

I transfered 300 stolen songs from my laptop to theirs, and then

we sent them on their way.

Nothing fancy, nothing worthy of too much note... but I did spend

four days without ever once thinking of work or school. And that 

was a blessing. Thanks to all those who travelled and entertained.

Do I have to put my handcuffs on you momma?

Purity Ball in Colorado Springs

Well, I just read about a popular new trend in Christendom... the Purity Ball. Fathers and their daughters go and eat a nice dinner, pray for each other's sexual purity, and then dance the night away in front of a large wooden cross. 

I am not making this stuff up...

And all I am wondering is why we've given up on the most effective means of sexual purity... handcuffs and chastity belts. 

I must admit that after reading "Discipline and Punish" and "Genealogy of Morals", physical restraints seem a lot less creepy, and a good deal more honest, than spiritual constraints. 

At least the body is an actual physical reality that cannot be denied, as opposed to the metaphysical construct of the soul which it can be argued is an invented concept used to dominate the populace through morality/karma policing.

But no need to get esoteric about this.... lets all remember what George Clinton taught us; sometimes the threat of physical restraint should be enough:

"Do I have to put my handcuffs on you mama,
do I have to keep you under lock and key?
Do I have to put my handcuffs on you mama?
Now we both know that's not how it should be!" - Parliment

No More Margaritas

That's it... I am done with Margaritas. Two times in a row this spring they have knocked me sideways, and left me blacked-out drunk. And on neither occassion did I actually imbibe very many of these delicious blends of tequila, triple sec, and lime juice.

The first time I lost my virtue to this devilish drink was on the opening night of GTA IV at my apartment... all I remember of that night was that the cops and pedestrians were quite a bit more aggressive than in GTA III, and I found myself continually running for my life. Running from mere pedestrians, rather than gleefully destroying them without fear of reprecussions... this Liberty City was going to be a challenege. But very soon I let Will Smallman take full control of the game, becuase I couldn't seem to stay focused enough to even run away succesfully. Keep in mind, I only had 3 or 4 margaritas that night, and that is a fraction of my normal consumption of alcohol. But the proof of the margarita's newly corrosive affects on my mind and body were abundantly clear as I quickly lost control of both mind and body, and both suffered painfully all of the next day.

(This was the day I wrote my final paper for my Literary Theory class... for which I recieved an A, which is wonderful and surprising, and either says a lot about what passes for Literary Theory, or for my ability to write with a hangover.)

Then this Friday night, which was the last night of the regular semester operations, I visited the Heights Bar&Grill near Columbia University, ran into some co-workers and staff, and again lost my mind to margaritas. I also lost my new Razor phone becuase of those nasty South-of-the-Border monsters, and have no idea how I ended up in a cab heading downtown several hours later. Again, I was caught off guard becuse I only had a few... and in between the GTA night and the Heights night I have drank all sorts of different types of drinks on numerous occassions with no problem... but after years of enjoying pitchers of margaritas on warm summer days, they have decided to exact their revenge. Is it the triple sec, the tequila, the lime juice? No matter, I'm done.

So that's it... I'm swearing them off, and will never touch another margarita again.

Now, who wants a mojito?

Austria 2008

Austria 2008

(Warning: Contains a few historical pictures of a disturbing nature. Not meant to offend, merely to provide proper context. )

As with the the Romania pictures, there will be further commentary forthcoming... but better to get this out now, as I am about to go on another trip in June and will then have to sort those pictures and post about them as well. It never ends...