Talking Jesus Doll Hotter than Flapjacks

For those of you fretting over what to buy me for Christmas, this is not what I want. And even if I did, you might not be able to find one.

It is a 12-inch talking Jesus "action figure." I actually wrote about it in July, when it was reported that a limited number of Wal Mart stores would begin selling Bible figures in order to test for "interest in faith-based toys."

And apparently the interest is there, as WalMart now claims they have sold out of the lil' plastic saviors, and Target.com is also running low.

Here's the product description from Target.com:

• This colorful and richly detailed talking figure brings the New Testament to life with a Jesus character that kids can play with and move
• God’s only son, Jesus helped people by teaching them God’s lessons, healing them and performing miracles
• The Biblical character comes with a vibrant mini storybook that kids may follow and use to recreate the tales
• A delightful "action figure" and fully interactive way for children to learn and participate in religious education
• For ages 3 yrs. and up


And lest the Lord be a dick about it...

• Batteries Included!


Oh, praise God! My child doesn't have to burn for all Eternity in Hell just because I forgot to stock up on double-a's!

(And am I to understand that kids under the age of three are just doomed, hellbound?)


Now, if you're still wondering what to get me for Christmas, besides a mustache cup, maybe you could convince the makers of these toy messiahs to make some fucking Bee Gees action figures. It would only take a few modifications.



See?

A Constitutional Defense of Titty Bars

From the AP:

Austin: A coalition of strip clubs has filed a lawsuit seeking to block a state law that would add a $5 surcharge for every strip club visitor.

The new fee, which was approved this year by the Texas Legislature, is set to take effect on Jan. 1. It's expected to raise about $40 million to be dispersed for sexual assault prevention programs and health care for the uninsured.

The lawsuit argues that the fee would amount to an unconstitutional tax on nude dancing, a form of expression protected by the First Amendment.


So listen up Cherry, Destiny and Candy - you aren't just strippers anymore. You are beacons of free speech, defenders of democracy, and you must never let your important messages, expressed via a complex set of impressionistic movements and minimally-jiggly fake titties, to be hindered in any way from reaching the public consciousness. These are such important messages, in fact, that you are often tipped for them. I mean, how often are we stuffing dollar bills down the belts of our Congress men and women, or even our religious leaders? (Then again, I'm pretty sure most of them aren't above excepting money in such a manner.)


Apparently the Texas legislature does not see the important First Amendment ramifications here. I mean, I understand that the gradual disrobing is actually a metaphor for our own slowly stripped away rights to privacy in this post-9/11 world. I get it. Although I still haven't figured out the symbolism of the schoolgirl outfit. Then again, maybe a schoolgirl outfit is just a schoolgirl outfit.

So Candy, grind on the groin of that dollar-bill clutching gentleman this evening, and don't forget to whisper something all hot and sexy about the unconstitutionality of this accursed tax. It might just teach him something.

It’s Crystal Clear, McAllen, TX is the place to be

For those who never had the pleasure of visiting McAllen, rest assure, you are not missing much.

I went home for Thanksgiving. This was the first time in several years that I have been home for Thanksgiving. It was nice. I had a good time, for the most part. Went to the border and did some fishing and drinking. Was supposed to do a fishing photo shoot (hence the reason for being on the border fishing), but it was too overcast so we just hung out, drank and fished. Good times. I don’t know anyone in McAllen, since my parents moved while I was already in college, so it was nice to go and do something with my dad and some of his friends. The shoot was actually for a local fishing magazine my dad's friend puts out.

This is not about my trip home or my fishing trip on the Texas/Mexico border. This is about a trip to a flea market in McAllen, TX.


Now, again, I am not from McAllen. My parents moved there when my dad got a new job. So basically, when I go home, I sit around with my parents and watch tv. I don’t have any high school buddies to hang out with and I don’t really know the area that well so I don’t go anywhere by myself. Which is fine by me…for the most part. It’s nice being with my parents, but sometimes boring.

Anyway, when I got back from Mexico on Saturday (again, another story for another blog) I decided to go exploring. Truth be told, I wanted to go to a local CD store. Not like a Best Buy, more of a Ralph’s Records type place. So, I was driving around, trying to find any stores, basically getting lost, until finally I found a little flea market type place. They had records so I figured I would see what they had. Keep in mind McAllen is pretty close to the border, so there are a lot of Hispanics there; most people speak Spanish; when I go home I feel like the minority. So I was not surprised to find mainly Hispanic/Mexican/etc music.

But I did find something that tickled my fancy:


Fucking Crystal Pepsi! A six pack of it was sitting in a old fridge they have in the back of the shop. I was blown away. This stuff must be so old. I was about twelve when Crystal Pepsi came out. I remember me and my friend used to ride our bikes to Albertsons and buy so much of this stuff. From what I remember it did not taste too good, and definitely did not taste like Pepsi.

I then remembered the awesome commercials. The ones that had the "Right Now," song by Van Halen.





I wanted to buy them. I dont know if I would have tried them, but still I think it would something cool to have around. Now, they did not have a price on them so I had to ask someone. The guy running the store told me I had to buy the whole six pack (which I expected) and he told me it was $20.

Twenty fucking dollars for a six pack of Crystal Clear Pepsi!!! Are you kidding me? I mean its probably not even safe to drink anymore and he wanted twenty dollars! I could not believe it. He said it was a collectors item now and the six pack was supposedly one of the first to arrive in McAllen. Right. Even if that was true, I do not see how that would warrant charging $20 for a six pack of nearly 15=year-old soda. As much as I would have liked to have them, I could not justify paying so much. Plus, I only had $5 cash and they did not take credit cards.


On a side note, while searching YouTube for Crystal Pepsi commercials I found these, ads for "new" coke starring Bill Cosby:






Classic stuff. And to think, I just thought Bill Cosby did commercials for pudding and pudding pops.

Also, does anyone remember Max Headroom? He used to freak me the hell out. But he also did a coke commercial:

The Films of Andy Sidaris

Andy Sidaris is an unsung hero and genius, and definitely a student of Roger Corman. He is the director of the films you will see in the following clips. All of the movies are a part of the Trible B Collection, which stands for babes, bombs and bullets. I'll go ahead and give you a minute to fail at coming up with anything else you could possibly want in a film. ...

....there. Now, watch and enjoy. These are fucking hilarious. First you'll see the trailer for Hard Ticket to Hawaii, then some clips, then some more trailers.



This scene might be the best ever.


This one's none too shabby.


Fit to Kill Trailer


Day of the Warrior Trailer


And maybe the best for last, this one is called, simply enough, GUNS! The narrator alone deserves a serious bevy of awards, and the writing is knuckle-bitingly hilarious. And did I mention the star power in this one? I didn't? Oh, well, we'll let the badass narrator do that.

moving sucks. life decisions suck. then you die.

So, for those of you that don't already know...or for those that care to know...I have moved to a different house.

Still in Lubbock. Still in the Bible Belt. Don't worry, I may not be leaving for a while.

Back to the moving part...

I would say I was pretty happy with where I was living. It was a pretty central location in Lubbock. Decent neighborhood. Nice neighbors. Oh, we had a Korean Baptist church across the street and on Sunday's after church we would sit in our front yard and watch them play ping pong in the church parking lot...very shibby! I paid about $400 total a month ($300 rent + $100 bills roughly) which wasn't great, but was affordable; plus having an extra room for whatever made it worth it. I planned on staying here until I left Lubbock; I was no longer in a lease and could leave whenever I wanted/needed to.

The our landlord starting having health issues. Basically, he is pretty close to
kicking the proverbial bucket. I feel bad because he is a good guy. Granted, he took a while to get shit fixed around the house, but still...a good guy. Well, because of said health issues, he was moved into a old-person hospital. Basically, a retirement home type thing. Sucks. Well, we kept paying rent by simply giving the rent check to his wife...who took them without thinking twice. We then started having some minor problems around the house. Our bathroom lights went out (not just the bulbs like something electrical) and our screen door pretty much got ripped to shit by some of the bad wind storms we have had. Both minor inconveniences, we (Eric and I) figured out ways around the problems.

I mentioned the problems to the landlords wife and she knew nothing. She told me she would try to ask the landlord, but guaranteed nothing. This went on for about three months. Finally, since we weren't in a lease, I figured the best situation was to move out. I was afraid that if something major happened (ac goes out, major leaks, etc.) she would know and do nothing. Well, the second I mention moving out to her, she very quickly gives me the number for the landlords son, the son who has been taking over the rent houses they have. WELL FUCK!! This would have been great information about two months ago. I could have called him and gotten shit fixed and not moved out. Well, I then find out that they are turning over the house to a leasing agency. I then reassure myself that it is time to move out. I was sure that if we stayed, we would be forced to sign a lease and they (the leasing agency) could possibly raise the rent.

I would have stayed, but I do not want to sign a lease anywhere. I don't know when I am leaving Lubbock, although it looks like later than sooner, but I do not want to be tied into a lease.

So Eric moved into a pretty fucking sweet efficiency. This efficiency was once a pool (with water type pool) house and was converted into said efficiency.

I moved into a house with my friend Kyle. It is a pretty sweet deal. I would stay a long or short as I wanted. It is closer to work (I could ride a bike if it hadn't been stolen). And it's the same I was paying at my old house.

Now I hate moving. I mean hate it.

Sure, there is the whole "starting over" aspect. And it gives me a chance to get rid of a bunch of shit. Especially since the house I moved into is fully furnished.

But I am lazy. I waited until the last minute to move. I really didn't pack much. It finally got to the point where I just started throwing shit in my Jeep and going. I will mention, having a Jeep made it a little easier to move, although I still needed the assistance of David and his truck. Well, like I said, because I waited so long and pretty much threw shit in my Jeep I didn't go through much. I have been doing that lately, once I got everything out of the old house.

Fuck, this has been a pretty depressing weeks. Apparently, I held onto a lot of shit from my past. Here is a list of some things that I found that really put me in a bad mood:

- pictures of family - back when things were good, everyone was healthy and happy.

- pictures of my dogs which we no longer have - I know it may sound gay but since my parents raised Golden Retrievers and I had no brothers or sisters, the Goldens kinda were my siblings. I would run around with them and whatnot. One of them actually played soccer with me...I'll have to explain later. But they were great. I always felt happy with them.

- pictures of deceased family and friends - I think this one pretty much defines itself.

- senior high school yearbook - now this isn't that big of a deal, although I kinda miss those day, but it reminded me that all my other yearbooks along with all my childhood pictures, etc; families belongings; family memories; basically everything that me and my parents owned was in a storage place that gotten broken into and everything was stolen. So basically, all we own is the few things we have had for about the last five year. All our physical memories, except for what we have for the last five years, are gone.

- unused college graduation invitations - basically this was a reminder that I really haven't done much with my life in the three+ years since my graduation. In fact, I am still working in the same department that I got my degree from. Sure, I am doing something and my be impacting some students somehow, but I feel like I have done nothing. When I was in high school, I was making about 50k a year just bartending. I would go back, but the place I made this much money at has been closed...for several reasons.

- pictures of my ex gf - I do not know why I still had them stashed away. But they helped me remember how things are now...sad and lonely. Damn cheating whore.

- many other little things that just made me remember my past and how much happier I was then.

I mean, I always knew moving was a pain in the ass, but I never know how depressing it could be.

I am still slowly in the process of unpacking and honestly don't want to finish. The idea of living out of boxes for a while seems like an interesting concept to me. Unfortunately, with the amount of crap I still have, this will be somewhat impossible.

Plus, there is no telling how long I will be staying here in this house.

I had a plan. And I was going to follow it no matter what. Move out of Lubbock in January. Great plan. If I didn't find a job elsewhere, I would head to Dallas; surely I could find something there.

Then more duties at work came. Then came shitty employees I had to cover for and eventually fire. (I have fired two people this semester, and it felt damn good too!) Basically, I really did not have time to look for any jobs anywhere. Well, I still decided I would just move to Dallas and find work and save and look for better employment. Still an OK plan, until...



NEW CAR!!! yea! But with this comes car payments and insurance payments. BOO!!

Yeah, I know it's a shitty picture, but still.

But I didn't have much of a choice. My old car was dying and was costing me more money to fix than will my new car payments.

So, having a steady paycheck, while it may not be much, sure helps a lot. It also, has really got me thinking about future plans. Near future at least.

Plus, there is grad school. I have always planned on going back, eventually. My parents are constantly pressuring me to go back.

OH, did I mention I get a free class from being a Tech employee? Well, I surely do.

Plus, since I would be going to get a Master's in the same department I am working, the same department I already know everyone in, might make things a little easier in terms of getting help, etc. Sure they would bust my ass more, but I would appreciate the challenge more since I know them.

I know it is probably not the best idea to stay. But I have too much here right now with my current situations. Mainly the steady paycheck and somewhat easy job. AND there is a lot of shit going down at my department and there have been talks of moving me up.

So, I don't know where my life is going. I am going to try to get into some grad classes in Spring and see if this is really what I want to do. I know I have several people in Mass Comm backing me to go to grad school and teach. Part of me wants to. Part of me whats to leave and find something else, possibly something better.

I do know this: If I do stay another semester. Which will most likely be my last (I know, I have been saying that for two years now). I need and will get my shit together. If I do decide to go to grad school, I may stay at Tech. But I doubt I will be working at Tech. Unless things change greatly, Spring (if I stay) will be my last semester working at Tech.



Wow, I really did not expect this to be so long. And kinda boring. I would apologize, but fuck it. It's my blog.

I am sure some of you, maybe many of you, are unhappy with this. Possibly angry and you think I am dumb for staying at Tech any longer. But I really feel, at least with the way things are right now, this may be a better situation for me; certainly not THE BEST, but for where I am both financially and emotionally, it may have to do.

Damn. Sometimes I am really dumb about life decisions.



Oh, on a side note, I have started therapy again. Fun times.

An Observation About My Job and Other Jobs

I work with two other gentlemen. One is the boss and the other, well, he's also my boss. I'm certainly the grunt of the operation. The "hired hand." As a matter of fact, I learned recently that I'm below the boss's pit bull in rank, but just above the cat that lives in the barn.

Which got me to wonder, since I most likely started at the bottom, does that mean I got a promotion? Success!! Take that Boo! (barncat's name)

But, still I pet you...

Anyway, the thing I like, considering the type of work and the type of people, is that there's no damn way I'm going to get tangled up in any awkard situations with a coworker over buying summer sausage or popcorn tins to support their kid's fucking debate club fundraiser.

Which I think is Fucking Awesome.


Rob, you know what I'm talking about.

And christ, the worst thing, the worst fucking thing is when they just leave the order form laying there on the breakroom's snack-table, and they'll have put some homemade brownies or something beside it to lure and guilt you into action. There will probably be a note too, about Madison's debate topic this year or Chad's score for his soccer team last weekend, and by that point, fuck, you'd have to walk out of that breakroom with your head down if you didn't buy anything.



Or, I suppose, greedily and quickly with brownies in pockets.

Josh Runs the Voodoo Down

It's official - my parents go out more than I do.

They went to drink some adult beverages at the home of a friend, while I travel lazily and half-assedly around the Internet, literally shrugging my shoulders at the sites I typically check daily. I don't know, I haven't even been able to muster much political or news-type reading lately. After reading the headline, that's it, I'm too beat down to chance my blood pressure with the actual article.

I tried to talk to my social life last night, see if it was still awake. It didn't say anything, so I poked it with a stick to see if it was even alive, only to have it elicit some unclear grumbling and what may have been a burp. It's not dead I don't think, but it might be in a vegetative state.

I'm guessing the Republicans will stop what they're doing and convene an emergency legislative session to keep me from completely pulling the damn plug on the whole thing.

The other day I was discussing life plans, or a complete lack thereof, with a fellow friend and Alpinian. His concern is that he’s 25 years old, lives with his parents, is basically unemployed, and he shares my wonderful ability to never commit to an idea for long enough to make it an actual opportunity for employment.

Basically, we’re together at this whole quarter-life crisis, beached on some shore of indecision and fear. We constantly reflect that Orson Welles had finished Citizen Kane and moved on to other ventures at this age. Truth be told, we’re afraid we’re aging without anything to show for it.

Except justifiably concerned parents.

But then I got to thinking…People of other ages - 30, 40, 50 - are always told nowadays that their age is the new 20, 30, 40, respectively.

For example, "You're 50? Ah, don't worry about it. 50's, like, the new 40!"

So, by that logic…

25 is the new 15.

That’s right folks, if your parents are starting to eye you suspiciously as a failure who may continue to eat their frozen goods when they’re not looking for a frighteningly undetermined amount of time into the future, just relax and tell ‘em that’s no way to look at somebody 15 years old, dammit. You’re sensitive, going through some serious changes, and are confused. You can then run to your room, slam the door and crank up loud music that embodies that abstract and hormonal rage inside you.

Then, if you’re like me, you can go about your 15-year-old way of trying to lose your virginity and passing chemistry. (I settled for the less exciting but probably more important latter challenge.)

I guess this whole being 15 again thing means I should start thinking about what college I want to go to, maybe what field of study interests me most. I’m thinking something with the Internets. I hear they are not unlike tubes, but quite unlike dumptrucks.

As for a college, I figure I’ll just base my selection on the quality of sports team that I will spend drunkenly supporting every weekend. Or I’ll base it on Playboy’s ranking of colleges’ percentage of attractive women, or a combination of both. Oh, and how could I forget? The real clincher will be whether or not the school has a leisure pool…

On a different note…

Have you people lived with automatic, self-cleaning litterboxes?

First of all, do you live with a box of shit in your house? I do. But this box of shit is no ordinary B.O.S. (for brevity-sake), oh no, it’s got computers in it, or robots, and it apparently converts feline waste into pure energy. I just can’t figure out what nefarious, intergalactic projects it plans to fuel with this abundant resource.

One of the cats I live with, who we’ll call Tom, is endlessly fascinated with it, often running the length of the house at the first sounds of its magical self-cleaning ritual just to watch it work, often with his head at an angle and whiskers all atwitter. Another cat, now deceased, used to be terrified of the damn thing, forcing the placement of an old-fashioned, non-self-cleaning B.O.S. in a different part of the house. I’m not unconvinced that the mechanical terror of the dark, new age of robotic feline waste management didn’t send his elderly heart racing even faster toward that light at the end of the tunnel.