Here is what I am thinking right now. If you cracked open my skull and looked inside... well, it wouldn't look anything like this. If you would like to comment on anything here, please click on the date for that Random Thought. Bah weep graagnah weep nini bong. If you arrived here from an outside site, please click here to go to the main site, or you'll miss lots of great stuff.

09.11.03: Is this page getting a little too long with my inane ramblings? It probably is. I'm gonna write this here as a note to myself to get off my lazy ass and start a new page tomorrow. Anywha, here's what's up...

I just got done watching a movie called Townies. It starred Harvey Pekar's "genuine nerd" buddy Toby Radloff. It was really weird, seeing him in American Splendor, then seeing him in this awful black-and-white movie fucking a corpse. Not sure how I feel about all that yet.

In recent bad news, Tommy Chong got 9 months in prison for selling something I am now afraid to mention here over the internet. You can read more about it here; living in Ashcroft's AmeriKKKa has got me a little skeered to talk about this sort of thing anymore. I'll get off my l'il soapbox now.

In not-necessarily-good-but-halfway-decent news, Christian Bale is to play young Bruce Wayne in the upcoming Batman epic Warner Bros. is vomiting on Christopher "Memento" Nolan's lap in hopes that he'll bring a whiff of prestige to the extinct franchise (perhaps trying to follow the excellent example set forth by X-Men's Bryan Singer). You can read more about it here, and have a dry laugh at the sport they have at Joel "Ass" Schumacher's expense before the sting of the $7.50 he stole from you returns to your memory anew. Poor Warner Bros... when will they learn:

With Marvel, the TV cartoons suck ass but the movies are good (generally), and
With DC, the movies suck and the TV cartoons FARKING R00LZ Y00!! R00LZZ!!11!

Sorry. Hey, who knows, maybe we'll get a good Batman movie this time around.

HA!! (sincker!) Yeah, I know. It's hopeless. Harhar.

09.09.03: R.I.P. Warren Zevon. I know it was a long time in coming, but that doesn't make it any easier. Allow me to quote the man himself: "The hurt gets worse, and the heart gets harder."

If you look closely at the front page, you'll notice I've added some small stuff, the first stages of a major site update I'm planning for the next few months (I'm lazy). Now with a click of a button you can access the Invisible Inc. home page, where you can check out a comprehensive (more or less) Checklist of the first 2 series, see pics of figures that aren't for sale for one reason or another, get Inviso news, and order Invisible Inc. figurines (as seen in Art-O-Mat machines across the country). Enjoy, 'cause I stayed up until 5 am last night slapping the whole bastard together.

09.07.03: Just in case you've had nothing but sleepless nights since your childhood because you've always wondered what Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget looked like (I'm talking pre-Rupert Everett), here you go. Hopefully you won't be as disappointed as the guy who runs that site was when you see it. I was all meh all about it, but then, Inspector Gadget was never really my thing.

09.05.03: Happy Birthday Wampus! Yesterday... whew. I discovered Unicron at Target, and, after a ride home fraught with box-humping, I ripped the box open when I got home and I am still in awe. This is truly the best Transformer I have ever laid eyes on (you should see how his badness is posed in the box... shudder), and is absolutely worth waiting 17 years (SEVENTEEN YEARS!) for. His eyes and right hand both light up and glow red, his fingers are two-knuckle articulated, he's got little storage crannies to imprison Mini-Cons in all over him, and when you push a Mini-Con onto his back, a gigantic cannon pops out of his chest with great fanfare and noise. Last but not least, HE TURNS INTO A PLANET. About the size of a volleyball. The "mouth" of which chomps when you squeeze his horns together (kinky). And the Mini-Con he comes with is a little moon. AND, Unicron is 15" tall, and both his modes look damn near like they did in The Movie. Everyone who has come into our house and seen him (currently the house has two, with another on the way) has had to fight off the sudden urge to throw him onto a bed and fuck him, so fantastically fantastic is this toy. Go ahead, buy one if you don't believe me. I dares ya.

Now that I've gotten the good news out of the way, just so you know, the Apocalypse is on its way. After you read that link, you can wile away your final hours pondering the fact that Bill Murray is playing a part in a movie that Lorenzo Music played on TV, when Lorenzo Music (Rhoda's Carlton-Your-Doorman) played Dr. Peter Venkman on TV... which of course Bill Murray played in the Ghostbusters movies. Maybe it means something. Maybe it doesn't.

In any case, there's no denying that this is the Greatest Mug Shot Ever. Also courtesy of The Smoking Gun, here is that 1977 interview that's coming back to bite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the ass during his gubernatorial campaign, if you care at all about Arnold getting bitten in the ass. Which he probably did, judging from the amount of group sex he enjoyed back in the day.

09.03.03: I don't know how many of you out there have been keeping up with the Warren Zevon story, but here it is in a nutshell: the very talented singer-songwriter Warren Zevon has been dying of cancer for some time now, and, much in the manner of Frank Zappa, he is flashing his middle finger at the Reaper and working up until his last moments, even on his deathbed. You can read more here about this occasion that is truly fit for crocodile tears. Just imagine how difficult his version of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" is gonna be. Amazingly, it will be less difficult to listen to than Guns N' Roses' monstrously wretched "cover" of the song from a few years back, but for different reasons.

Okay, now that I've depressed you again, here's a theme song from a fictional Japanese childrens' show that I just made up. Make up your own melody. It's fun! Here we go:

Super Kitty Meow Meow, go go go
Super Kitty Meow Meow, yeah yeah, yeah
Crazy man in street! Running wild! Watch for safety!
Super Kitty Meow Meow, GO MAN GO!

There now. Don't you feel better? I know I don't.

09.02.03: So, how was everybody's Labor Day Weekend? Didja have lots of fun? I tell you what, you could not have possibly enjoyed your Labor Day Weekend as much as I did mine if you didn't take in the utter cinematic perfection that is American Splendor. I know, I know, every friggin' movie nowadays comes out with "American" in the title (American Pie, American Pimp, American Wedding, American Psycho, American Beauty, American History X, American Outlaws... did I miss any?), but American Splendor is named for the classic Harvey Pekar comic, so it laid claim to that syntax long ago. Seriously, see this movie. I'm not even going to review it, or say anything about it, other than the fact that Paul Giamatti and Hope Davis (and the enigmatic Mr. Pekar himself) are astonishingly brilliant. It is easily one of the greatest movies I've seen in 20 years. One more thingy: it's got an amazing new form of narrative that seems at first like it may not work, but by the film's end you realize that it's worked perfectly, and with very moving results. And boy, does it warm my heart to see "obscure" comic figures really get their due. SEE IT. NOW.

08.28.03: I just committed mass cricket genocide outside the window of my room. I have had it with those bastards. It's not enough that they barge into my house, and cut loose with their piercing goddamn racket intermittently at all ours of the early morn, but one was outside my window, emitting a screeching, unbroken tone for what seemed like hours, long before my comfortable waking time of noon. So, spurred on by a recent viewing of the uberclassic Full Metal Jacket (first time I've ever seen it! Everyone else was surprised too!), I descended upon the front yard first with the garden hose, unleashing a maelstrom of H2O upon the little fuckers. No quarter was given, even as they crawled desperately to drier climes up the porch wall- I knocked them off with a flurry of the wet stuff into the flood of death below. Then, before they had a chance to recoup, I set into them with a torrent of poison. Now, all is quiet. Blessed, blessed quiet. Within which, I make the noise, dammit. I AM A MINISTER OF DEATH, PRAYING FOR WAR! MOOHAAHAHAHAH!!!

Yes, I hate crickets. With a passion. I wish I could pop off a bomb that would eradicate all insects for a 15-mile radius. Or, at the very least, I wish I could hire that scabby cricket-eating guy from Hellraiser who turns into a cheesy special-effect dragon at the end to come over and scarf up all he can. 'Cause them crickets gotta go.

On another subject, Carrie Fisher is following in the footsteps of Demi Moore and shnogging a much-younger guy. There's three critical differences here though, betwixt Ms. Moore and Ms. Fisher: 1) Fisher has the good taste not to fuck an errant boob like Ashton Kutcher (her paramour is a secret... that's wise); 2) read this article about it- Fisher is funny as hell about the whole thing, and doesn't seem to take herself too seriously, and 3) Carrie Fisher used to be Princess Leia. Which means maybe, just maybe, she's still got that costume she wore when she was held prisoner in Jabba's palace tucked away in a closet somewhere, and with the right amount of persuasion... of course, she is old enough to be your mom. And it's kind of weird to think of your mom dressed like... ew. I'm not even gonna finish that sentence. So... you go there, Carrie.

08.26.03: I was thinking earlier that if I was a rapper, I would definitely rhyme "Charles Mingus" with "cunnilingus". But being that that's really the only rhyme I've ever come up with, I obviously don't have what it takes to be a rapper.

Anyway... I'm sure you've been waiting to hear this with bated breath (yeah right), but the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants has stated that the frigging sponge "is not gay". I don't know why this is news, but it's not the first time; our local rag, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, ran a story a year or so ago- we're talking front-page news here- about how SpongeBob was extremely popular with gay men. I'm really not sure why it all matters- I can't believe anyone at all, gay or straight, could make it through the screaming in that opening theme song. Which is now stuck in my head. Fuck.

Besides, if you want gay cartoon characters, check out Ren & Stimpy's Adult Party Cartoon on TNN-- I mean "SPIKE TV". They're gay as a day in June, apparently, but no one cares because no one is watching it.

And here's a follow-up to that bit about the Anna Kournikova Sports Bra that I was blathering about on the 22nd... check out this picture of Kournikova with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. I swear to god, between this and the fake nude pictorial scandal from a couple years back, the men of this earth are going to turn her into a lesbian faster than you can say Rosie O'Donnell. I know Jeff has to think about Anna's titties all day because of the sports bra and all, but jeez. Try not to get any on her there, Jeffy.

Finally, to put an end to today's stream of crap, here is the cold, hard evidence that Krispy Kreme donuts are the finest donuts in the fucking universe. I arrived in the Southeast United States over a decade ago thinking Dunkin' Donuts were Big Shit, and was roundly ridiculed by my new Southern peers. Then I was taken to a Krispy Kreme, where I promptly injured myself nearly to the point of requiring an ambulance upon discovering these sublime halos of dough, so many was I compelled to hork down. The bottom line: you'll never hear of anyone taking a Dunkin' Donuts truck hostage.

08.25.03: Sigh. I had all these great links ready to go for tonight's entry, like an article about the 12-year-old kid who's starting medical school, and a site of common film mistakes (such as people diving through plate glass windows unmutilated), and a bit about the huge decrease in spam since they caught the New Zealand spammer (an asshat who's claiming harassment, in a masterstroke of irony that should result in lethal injection). Then I was on this link site from the Netherlands that had linked to me, and I was checking out the other (very cool) links, when suddenly unremovable porno replaced my desktop. It wouldn't go away with any amount of ctrl-alt-del or keyboard punching either, so I had to shut my computer off manually (thanks to the stupid fucking Norse porn blocking my taskbar), thus deleting the mass of internet windows cluttering my screen, anxiously awaiting their turn at exposure within the hallowed halls of this incredibly boring blog.

C'est la vie. I'm sure I'll find some manner of stupid crap to entertain you with tomorrow, somewhere. 'Til then, try not to get "Sunshine Of Your Love" stuck in your head like it is in mine.

08.23.03: Here's today's bad news (let's go ahead and get it out of the way)... the wonderful Wesley Willis succumbed to Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia at the downright appalling age of 40. Wesley was a 300-pound schizophrenic who sang songs about whatever popped into his head, which bore a permanent knot from years of head-butting people (his special way of saying howdy). You can read more about it, along with a special farewell note from the legendary Jello Biafra (which really choked me up), here. No more demons, Wes. Say rock.

Now here's the good news... convicted pedophile/piece of fucking human garbage/center of Catholic Church scandal John Geoghan was killed in prison by another inmate, likely because they found out about his misdeeds. You know how it goes for child molesters ("short eyes" is the usual nickname) in stir... they cut your balls off and stuff 'em down your throat. I don't know if ol' John went out that way, but I'd say there's a fairly decent chance. YOW!!!

08.22.03: For you Delta House fans out there (I mean Animal House, not the short lived and terrible TV spinoff with Josh "Stoogemania" Mostel as John Belushi's brother), the remaining cast got together in a parade recreating (safely) the final scenes of Animal House. (By the way, if you click that parade link, you might want to tell the Miami Herald that Tim Matheson played OTTER, not "Otto", as any idiot could plainly tell you. It's all to promote the nine millionth re-re-release of Animal House on DVD. The Deathmobile was there though. I wish they'd contacted me to drive it, I would have flown out there in a heartbeat.

Speaking of heartbeats, when I went to Amazon.com to find that DVD link, I found this: a special sports bra developed specifically for Anna Kournikova, "because only the ball should bounce." FASCISM! What's next, is someone going to black out the sky, or sully some other natural wonder? Free the Kournikova Two!!!

08.20.03: Holy jeesh. For the third time this month I had to add more bandwidth due to increased traffic. Hugely increased. So I haven't updated until now, because really, there's no point in doing it if the site is down. Seeing that "Bandwidth Exceeded" screen when I try to access my site is a sort of bitterrsweet thing... it means that (yay) a gazillion people are checking out my stuff, but (boo) I have to go purchase more bandwidth. So it's really not something to complain about, since by nature it's a good thing. Like an apple. That's nature's toothbrush.

Goddamnit, I have David Bowie's "Station To Station" stuck in my head (from the album of the same name). Great stuff, but it's been stuck there all morning. According to Bowie, he has no real recollection of recording that album. That's what happens when you do coke in pile form a la Scarface. And oh yeah, the Germans have a name for when music is trapped real good in your noggin: "ohrwurm". It means "ear worm". Them lovable bratwurst-eaters, they even named a record label after it. I have to go check out everything they've ever released. I'm excited.

I'm also excited because a friend gave me a recipe for absinthe. More on that later.

Back to the subject of music, if you "love" the Red Hot Chili Peppers and all their homo-erotic sock-dangling antics like you know I do, be sure and round up a whole bunch of hairy, snarly, toothy dogs if you're going to be around lead "singer" Anthony Kiedis. Dogs love him. Dogs don't know it's not bacon. And on a completely different subject, here's where you can get more information on the Sobig.F virus.

08.17.03: A late-night attempt made by us to take in the cinematic splendor of Freddy vs. Jason last night was aborted, due to mile-long lines spilling into the parking lot from the front of the theater. So I returned home, semi-drunken, which, in addition to the ill-fated excursion, served to sap my energy for the night. Meaning I didn't go to see my friend Spencer's band, and now I feel like a dick, 'cause everyone said they were great. So Spencer, if you're reading this, know that "It's Now Or Never" is stuck in my head, and it's not even Elvis Presley, it's Rob Schneider impersonating Elvis from that Saturday Night Live sketch making fun of Natalie Cole. I consider that suitable punishment.

That was weird. When I typed "suitable" I misspelled it, and when I retyped it properly I heard Crispin Glover yelling the word in my head, like he does on his album when he's ranting about leaders during "Oak Mot". If you don't have that album, you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really should.

Great. Now "Oak Mot" is stuck in my head. Oh well, it's better than psuedo-Elvis.

08.15.03: If you were in NYC or anywhere near the blackout last night, my heart goes out to ya. I usually flip out if I'm working on the computer and the power goes kaput (which is often, due to our house's shitty wiring and the overall power consumption of the big city), so I can't really imagine what that was like, to suddenly find yourself strolling home over the Brooklyn Bridge. But hey, a lot of New Yorkers kicked it in high style... I'm gonna head over to Odd Todd's website in a bit, because I guarantee he's got some interesting tales about the whole experience (maybe even a cartoon). Then I'm gonna cross my fingers that we here in the sweltering South don't get some of the same.

And, as I neglected to mention a few days back, one of my favorite people in the whole wide world has departed... Back when I was in the first few months of grade school, my parents put me in a tap-dancing class for some inexplicable reason (although I was the only boy in a troupe full of girls, years before I would realize the value of such a ratio), and seeing Gregory Hines- and how out-and-out cool the man was, not to mention how funny and wonderful, made the stigma of being a boy dancing to "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" so much less painful. (Plus I got pretty good.) Not to bring the page down, but I'm really gonna miss the guy.

Speaking of bringing the page down, I again ran out of bandwidth yesterday. These are truly boon times here at The Pod. However, it is costing me money, so I may have to look into advertisements in the future (unless you all are planning to buy all sorts of Pod goodies, hint hint). Don't worry, I'll try to avoid using those shitty "interstitials" and anything from those "Gator" cocksuckers. If you don't know who Gator is, you seriously need to look into downloading a spyware-blaster from somewhere (I use Spybot Search & Destroy, which is completely awesome), if your internet usage is even moderate-level. Install and run it, and then tell me how much you love those Gator fuck-sticks.

08.13.03: Here's a bit of advice for those of you who have to fart in public. Before you do, recite the line from Rain Man, where Dustin Hoffman is in the phone booth with Tom Cruise, and he says "Uh-oh. Uh-oh. A fart." Usually farts are better accepted by strangers when they hear that, providing they've seen the movie. Otherwise they just think you're retarded.

The wound on my hand is on the exact spot where I would shoot a blade out if I were Wolverine. But it looks like I only shot the pinky blade out, and then my "healing powers" didn't kick in so I have a scab there. So now I'm picturing Wolverine with only his pinky blade sticking out, like he's about to snort coke off of it. Which leads me to think that if Wolverine actually existed in reality, he'd make a great cokehead 'cause he could snort bumps off his knives.

Okay, now I'm retarded.

The song "Kid Charlemagne" off of the Steely Dan album The Royal Scam... is that song about Timothy Leary, or what?

08.12.03: Yesterday, Rando, the Mexican and I went to the local Sweetwater Brewery, makers of some of the finest beers here in the ATL, to partake in one of Atlanta's best-kept secrets. Here's the deal: you show up around 4:20 in the afternoon (heeheehee), they give you free beer. Don't ask me how or why. Who cares. Free beer. Not just any beer, but Sweet Georgia Brown, and IPA. From Sweetwater. Yes, this is truly a golden age.

Plus someone placed an order for 20- count 'em, 20- Invisible Inc. figures from the site yesterday (which means I better get back to work). Truly the largest order anyone's ever placed here, and boy is that a good feelin'. Yesterday went kinda sour, though, at around 5 in the morning when, still working and dealing with a program crashing (much like the total piece of shit program I do these pages in, Adobe GoLive, does every fourteen seconds), I pounded my right fist knuckles-first into my keyboard. This is never really a problem, as my Gateway keyboard is, although five years old, apparently made of adamantium, for I have punched it many times hard enough to send keys flying, and it still works beautifully. (The GoLive people could learn a thing or two from Gateway.)

(Oh yeah, just a side note... if you think you're the fucking Dalai Lama and are clucking your tongue disdainfully at the fact that I occassionally get pissed and smash an inanimate object, go goddamn FUCK yourself. Obviously you don't benefit from an incendiary mixture of Scottish and Italian blood as I do, or maybe you're just an anger-management class pussy-fart, so save it. If you think you can limbo lower than my current blood pressure- 100 over 30, I kid you not, step up to the mic, bitch. Otherwise save your bullshit psuedo-medical lectures about how you're gonna outlive me just because I'm in touch with my anger for Mister Rogers. Go exercise your control-freak tendencies on your significant other since you're so fucking perfect and healthy, and do those of us who happen to have a temper a favor and SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. Unless you REALLY want proof that you won't "outlive" me.)

Ahem. AAAAAnyway, off the soapbox. Sorry about that little rant there, just something that's been chapping my ass for a long time. But here's the thing- I pretty much learned my lesson about punching the keyboard. Because last night I missed by a country mile and landed a punch, full-force, on the edge of my desk, between my pinky and ringfinger knuckles, splitting the skin open and revealing a layer of subcutaneous fat. Curlicues of pain ran up and down my arm as I pushed and prodded my seemingly-looser knuckles, checking for career-ending breakage. Nope, just bruises and cuts from hell (duh, obviously, or I wouldn't be typing this). But that was a scary few minutes there, wondering if my stupid little hissy-fit over a goddamn program crashing was going to put me out of work and kill me with medical bills. So, I guess you could definitely say I learned my lesson.

When punching the keyboard, aim a little better.

Hahahahahahahaha!!! GOTCHA!! Zing!!

08.10.03: Wowzers. The past few days have been a new and exciting experience for me with the ol' website here. If you tried to access this site before the weekend, you no doubt got an error message stating that my bandwidth had been exceeded. That's right- I got so many hits at once that I exceeded my alloted bandwidth for the month of August in under one week. So, I bumped my hosting plan up to the next level, and purchased some more bandwidth on top of that just to shore up. So it really wouldn't hurt if you'd click that much-ignored "Leave A Tip?" button up top there, and help me defray some of these costs, especially if you're digging what you see here. Sorry, that sounded a little whiny. The bottom line is that the site is blowing up super-size, and I couldn't have done that without all of you.

Also, as I've forgotten to mention consistently since the beginning of this month, John's Arm 4 has a limited-edition mini-CD soundtrack from Tailothepup you can get your hot little hands on for only $3. It contains the single "I Want You To Die" (from the latest album, Insincere), as well as "Prism" (from Misery), the "Theme From John's Arm 4", and the exclusive track "You're A Retard", available nowhere else. You can order it securely through Paypal here.

08.06.03: I'm anxiously awaiting some new strings for my bass from the UPS man... they're flat-wound Fenders, smooth like a baby's fat behind, which means far less blister juice all over the neck during practice. And boy do I need to practice, because Tailothepup is coming up on something MAJOR. I don't want to drop the news just yet, not until all the details are worked out, but I will soon, so stay tuned.

In other news, my Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic character, Scroticus Wang, became a full-blown Sith Master last night. I'm so proud of him. He's worked so hard, cheating people, killing innocents, and betraying his partners. He even poisoned a major ecosystem, causing a massive part of the galactic economy to collapse. Whereas he was a handsome young man when I met him, with his dull Aryan good looks and fascist/Maxim brush cut, now he is beautifully hideous, with sunken, milk-white eyes and a pale complexion over-run with black veins. When you look at his profile, flames, sparks and black smoke swirl around him. I'm hoping he'll eventually go on a mass killing spree, much like my Morrowind character did (he nearly killed every single NPC in the entire game, before he/I grew bored). We shall see.

I remember a few years back this guy sued a stripper who performed the "Mickey Mouse" on him, "injuring" his neck. The "Mickey Mouse" is done when a stripper with massive, disgusting silicone boobs stands behind you, and plops them onto the top of your head. Now there's another bizarre, stripper-related "injury". Hey guys, let me impart a suggestion- if you go to a strip club, and some skank does you dubious harm with her tits, go home and laugh about it with your buddies. If you're one of those men who gets a lawyer in these matters, maybe you should also consider having "UBERPUSSY" tattoed on your forehead. You fucking moron.

On a lighter note that still involves squirting of some manner, here's stuff being squished on a scanner. My favorite is the Cadbury Creme Egg. My friend Jeff used to eat those monsters whole when we were in grade school. Talk about spit-bridges.

08.04.03: Okay, I'm finally back. I think I can get back into the swing of posting an update every day. Hope spring's eternal.

Yesterday was Lollapalooza at the stupidly-named Hifi Buys Amphitheatre here in ATL. I enjoyed two free passes and crew status, as I was there representing the Art-O-Mat Project. Shabadoo and I dragged our lazy asses out of our respective beds at 7am, and made our way to the show, to meet the guy with the machine and set up our booth, so that all the half-naked, pierced and tattooed juvenile patrons of Perry "I sucked a guy's cock once to see what it was like" Farrell's pseudo-quasi-Woodstock could be exposed to the splendor that is Arto. Then the fun began.

With our expected arrival time (9am) long past, the store-employee we'd entrusted to tote our machine hither was still a no-show. After a few phone calls I discovered that he was totally MIA, and no one knew where he was (the machine was still safely residing where it had been). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as around 11 the skies opened up with a torrential downpour, flooding the second-stage area where our tent was. If the machine had been there, it would've been drenched and covered in mud splatter. We even saw Mr. Farrell making the rounds, but he never got to us unfortunately, because we had all sorts of bad ideas for photo opportunities with him. But despite the rain, we persevered, and waited until the storm and the amazingly cold chill it brought with it subsided. As I watched the Lolla crew desperately try to keep the giant-screen "Lolla-Tron" and all its attendant wirey power boxes from getting soaked, I again breathed a sigh of relief that the Art-O-Mat machine had been cosmically spared.

Once the skies cleared, providing a very pleasant sunny/overcast environment, Shabby and I decided to bother his friends Vanessa and Amy, who had a booth for Witness. If you've never heard of the organization, as I hadn't, check the website out. It was founded by Peter "Sledgehammer" Gabriel, and it puts video cameras in the hands of third-world peoples, so that they can provide uncensored, unbiased and often horrifying films of what their lives are truly like. We spent most of the day there (well, when I wasn't loitering near the Titty-Painting Booth), probably doing more harm than good, helping them hand out brochures and drunkenly getting concertgoers to sign petitions. I tried to get Shabadoo to tell people that we were getting signatures to give children tasers and cocaine, but cooler heads thankfully prevailed.

So, after almost everything went wrong, we ended up having a blast. Tons of half-naked/topless-with-painted boobies/overall wet girls, fun people to hang out with, overpriced ($7.75 for 24 oz.!) beer, the works. I didn't give two shits about any of the bands (except Steve-O, who was to perform stunts with CKy as "Don't Try This At Home"- another no-show), but we stayed for MC Supernatural. He was AWESOME- he freestyles EVERYTHING, and he asked for words and objects from people in the audience, then rapped about them brilliantly, without missing a beat. I mean, people held up whatever was in their pockets, and he busted a rhyme on it. Astonishing. Plus I got a bunch of free rubbers (one of which is strawberry-scented... why??). I'm sure I'm leaving something out. It was a wicked day. Even if we didn't get to tell everyone about the Art-O-Mat (unfortunately). I still had the shirt on though, so I could still shill somewhat.

And oh yeah, John's Arm 4 made the Daily Feature on NewGrounds. For those of you who've been asking, I'll have the soundtrack order page up in a day or so.

07.31.03: I guess some explanations are in order... suffice to say I switched both my DNS servers and my hosting server, so things have been a wee bit on the chaotic side here in Podland. Luckily, the matter coincided perfectly with the much-feted (ha) world premiere of John's Arm IV:Armed And Dangerous, so that I could enjoy the full measure of heart-bursting panic attacks and nervous breakdowns to try and bring the movie in on time. (This is why I relied on my buddies at NewGrounds to host the movie, since the transition is STILL happening.)

But never mind! The important thing is, once the dust settles, MTP Online will be 200 MB strong! This means more animation, more Tailothepup, more more more, how do you like it, how do you like it! Plus interactive web polls, just like back in 1995! It's all coming, and soon, so stay tuned. In fact I would suggest not going to any other sites, ever. Just keep this window open until we all eventually die. I swear to god I'll do everything in my power to keep you entertained. That's the Mike The Pod promise.

For now, I'm going to try and decompress from the whole JA4 production experience. I hurt all over. And not just because we were out in the backyard at 3 am last night lashing each other on the back with wooden rods. From the stress, I mean. Yeah, the stress. STAY TUNED!

07.26.03: Here's a little tidbit of information for all you Flash users out there, so you won't have to learn the hard way, like I did earlier today: Just like there's a limit of 16,000 symbols in the Library, you can only have 16,000 frames in an animation, before the program goes haywire and freezes up. (Actually, 16,000, as it turns out, is the limit for just about anything in Flash.) The insult added to injury in this matter was that I hit 16,000 frames around ten seconds before the credits were to begin rolling. So, to test the new, truncated version of JA4, I had to wait through almost the entire twelve minutes of the animation to see whether the cuts I made (MORE CUTS!) fixed the problem or not. Joy joy, I get to sit through a movie that I've seen about a billion times at this point. All for you. Oh yeah, and the Easter Egg games that were in there suddenly decided to stop working properly, even though the motherfuckers were working just FINE about three days ago, and I haven't even touched them. So that's another mystery I get to waste time solving, on top of all the other work I still have to do before this hateful lump of shit is finally, at last, forsaking all others, FINISHED.

Sorry to be snippy, but this was not really welcome news since I've been working 14-19 hours a day every day this month on this thing. I was taking weekends off, but I've gotten so freaked out and obsessed about finishing the thing that I stopped even doing that. (I learned to work drunk.) So here I was, thinking I was about to be done, and able to get on with my life, and things like eating and communicating with other humans, when lo and behold these new and mysterious problems arise. And after ALREADY trimming everything I felt I could lose in the interest of length, I had to cut ADDITIONAL scenes because of a program quirk. Boy did THAT hurt. I may resolve the issue by putting in a "Cutting Room Floor" Easter Egg, with access to the audio from cut scenes (just like a DVD! Sorta!), but the bottom line is that I won't be 100% happy with the final product. Sorry to whine. But hey, if you like the final film, who cares anyway...

07.25.03: Just checking in, so that you know I'm not dead. Nope, not dead, just working non-stop on the movie. Looks like it will be finished this weekend. Here's some things you might be interested to know about the latest adventure of our hero John's Arm...

1) At this point, the final film will be over 3.5 MB. I have done everything in my power to optimize it. It is simply a monster. I apologize, this was WITH trimming of scenes in numerous areas (sadly, the Abortion Clinic Gay Nightclub scene and the fight scene in the third act wound up on the cutting room floor).

2) Speaking of which, it's over ten minutes long. It may as well be an honest-to-god short film at this point. It is freaking huge.

3) This is the first MTP film to have blatant cursing in it, in addition to the usual visual vulgarity. Of which there is a lot. Put the kids to bed before you watch it. I don't want any angry emails.

4) Despite its massive length and file size, if you watch the film all the way through without clicking anything, you've missed half the file. It has more Easter eggs than a church picnic. Even games you can play. Plus the return of some familiar faces, if you know where to look. So poke around.

5) You will be able to order the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, performed by our own Tailothepup. Numbered, and certain to become a collector's item. Somewhere. For some reason.

So be here JULY 31st, 2003 and see this unholy debacle for yourself. Because it's the last time we'll see John's Arm for a few months, until I forget the relentless workload of this chapter, and start on the next one, like an idiot. (By the way, those of you that have sent them, don't worry, Bear-With-Searing-Gas-Pain has been getting your letters.)

Until the 31st. Damn Your Nachos.

07.19.03: Dialogue and sound recording sessions for John's Arm 4 (tentative groaningly punny subtitle: Armed And Dangerous) are now completed, with the exception of the final theme song and two more Easter Eggs that I still have to record voices for. With any luck, the final film will be under 3MB. (I frigging hope.) So, in a moment of unchecked hubris, I am officially going to announce the World Premiere date: JULY 31, 2003. Yes, into the world of Charlie's Angels 2, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Matrix Reloaded, X-Men 2, Dumb and Dumberer, etc., etc., Mike the Pod is tossing its own unnecessary sequel. This one was over six months in the making (beating out JA3's three-month gestation period), and once it's ready you'll likely understand why I've decided to only put one of these monsters out a year. So be here THURSDAY, JULY 31, 2003 for the World Premiere of John's Arm 4: Armed And Dangerous. Bring popcorn.

Speaking of sequels, here's our predicted line-up for The Surreal Life 2, if the WB wises up and decides to do another year of it, which by god they sure as shit should: Corey Haim, Tina Yothers, Carrot Top, Adam Rich, Tori Spelling, Mr. T, Vanilla Ice, and Yngwie Malmsteen. YEAH! Think about it. How great would that be? Now check back with us when they DO do another year, and see how many we got right. I'll wager it'll be... more than four.

07.14.03: What the hell?!? It's the 14th already? Where in god's name is this month going? Where is this year going??

Alright, I'm calmer now. Anyway, not like I'm trying to be a role model or anything, but here's a very very good reason you might want to avoid drugs if you don't think you can handle them.

07.13.03: Just a quick entry before I have to get back to work: Dread P. Roberts has reviewed today's most popular book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Yeah, that's right. We review books now. We also drink espresso, wear black turtlenecks and snap our fingers in unison. We likes ta read them books.

07.12.03: The other day I brought up the fact that 1982's ill-fated Twilight Zone: The Movie was an indirect sequel to 1978's Animal House. Don't believe me? Fine. Nobody here did either. Here's another one: 1988's Coming To America was an indirect sequel to 1983's Trading Places. You may have an easier time swallowing that one, because odds are you noticed Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy (the rich guys from Trading Places) as homeless bums, exclaiming "We're back!" after Eddie Murphy gave them the bag full of money. (Who knows why they didn't recognize Eddie from their earlier, career-ending encounter with him in the first film.) Now, about Twilight Zone...

The "sequel" reference comes up in the segment of the film directed by John Landis (who also directed the other three films I mentioned, and apparently has a thing for this sort of stuff). Wait for the part with the battered platoon moving cautiously through the jungles of Viet Nam (I think it's early on in the film, so you don't have to sit through the god-awful lump of Spielberg pap about old people turning into toddlers). Remember Douglas Niedermeyer's caption at the climax of Animal House, where it says he was killed by his own troops in Viet Nam? Listen closely to the soldiers, and you'll see why it's a sequel. That's right. Rent it! You don't believe me? You vill become a true believer, Dr. Jones!!

How 'bout that, you came by Mike The Pod and ya learned sumthin'.

07.11.03: Okay, I'm not gonna fall all over myself apologizing for not updating the site these past few days. I've been seriously hump-busting on the new John's Arm for around fifteen hours a day (it's STILL not close to done). How much hump-busting have I been doing? I'll put it this way; I spent all day today working on an Easter Egg. A frigging EASTER EGG. (A game/secret hidden within the timeline of the movie itself.) So once August rolls around, assuming I'm not totally insane by then, and you see the finished product, with its bounty of hidden goodies, you'll understand why I had to miss a few updates here and there. Or a lot of updates. After all, I'm sure you don't want to keep having to read "Jesus I worked all day on that fuckin' thing" every morning. For those of you good folks who do visit the site every morning. Your check's in the mail.

And no, the fact that we drank 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes the other night has nothing to do with the lack of updates, either. Nope. Nuh-uh.

07.07.03: Looks like I've finally recovered enough from the holiday weekend. Back to work! Here's a brief rundown of this weekend's events, from what I've been able to piece together through the time-fog:

1) A keg of beer was emptied in a matter of hours, prompting a scramble to a nearby liquor store for another, which finally breathed its last yesterday.
2) Four trays of Jell-O shots were snorked up. The first two were actually cubed up and put in shot glasses. The last two were merely spooned into waiting drunken mouths, or simply snatched up with sticky fingers.
3) Randy, one of my housemates, made the mistake of passing out early, so a metal bucket containing many Black Cat firecrackers was lit off in his bedroom. Somehow, I slept through it. Luckily my door was locked.
4) Our friend Nick lit off fireworks in his pants not once, but twice. The sight of a shower of sparks blasting through his fly, coupled with the resultant screams he let loose with, are memories we will all treasure forever.

Maybe things got off to a weird start because we listened to Slayer's classic album Reign In Blood not once, but twice. From what I understand, on Saturday, Shabadoo ate Commander's vomit after a Melt/Banana show, but I haven't seen the video footage yet, unfortunately. In stark contrast to those events, Jenn and I took in the Atlanta Botanical Gardens all that day. If you've never been, it's completely awesome. Tons of weird Star Wars-looking plants, froggies, and weird little fat birdies scurrying about. I didn't eat anyone else's vomit there.

Speaking of Star Wars, here's the latest rumor. I don't see why there's a fuss... doesn't everybody know that twenty years pass between Ep3 and Ep4?

07.04.03: Happy Fourth of July! This entry will be a short one, as it is already noon and I am not yet drunk, or on fire. So you can see there's a lot of work to be done. Anyway, here's an update on that Chilean blob thing. And if you heard about this incident, rest assured it was not perpetrated by Bear-With-Searing-Gas-Pain. Although he is a fan of Doritos, and the whole thing does reek of his M.O....

I have David Lee Roth's cover of "California Girls" stuck in my head this morning. Why? Why is God angry? What does God need with a starship?

07.03.03: Here's something that should freak you out real good... a giant 40-foot blob washed up on shore in Chile. Scientists don't know what it is yet. How about that? I repeat, giant blob goes plop, scientists go "Wha?" Here's where you can read all about it, complete with scary picture.

A couple months back, my girlfriend gave me a cool little Lego Bionicle dude for my birthday. He's grey and white with blue fangs, and when you flip a switch on his back he pecks the crap out of anything. He came with a tiny CD-ROM, which I lost for a while and just recently refound. I checked it out this morning and there was all sorts of kooky stuff on it. The coolest thing was, it sent me to the Bionicle website, and I spent the better part of two hours watching all the Bionicle story episodes they had there, all done in Flash. You should check it out, it's some of the best Flash animation I've seen (and if you do watch them, watch them all in sequence, and resist the urge to skip ahead. The storyline is actually pretty good, with an excellent payoff). The names of the characters and races are still a little hard for me to keep straight (they all sound like bastardized Hawaiian), but I have a better grasp of the whole Bionicle dealie than I did when I woke up this morning. Plus I now have the urge to race over to Target and buy more Bionicle dudes. Mission accomplished, Lego.

Speaking of Flash animation, John's Arm 4 is still slated for August. It won't look anywhere near as good as the Bionicle cartoons. This is because I have a team of enslaved children drawing it up. However, you can be sure that what they're putting together tops the woman-kissing-a-flying-penis climax of the previous John's Arm installment. (And wait 'till you see John's Arm 5:Five Fingers Of Fury in summer 2004.)

07.02.03: Check it out- I made Artist Of The Week at Entertainmail! No, I mean seriously. Check it out now. 'Cause, it's like, a weekly thing, and if you read this in a week, and then check it out, I won't be Artist Of The Week anymore, obviously, and I'll look like a huge fat liar. But, honest and for true, it's there, I swear. Thanks very much Entertainmail!

Now, if I could only find a bag of potato chips like this...

07.01.03: Remember that commercial from a couple decades back, where a chubby fellow in a raincoat is handed a fudgsicle by a mysterious man and ordered to "destroy the evidence", whereupon he shoves the whole thing in his mouth (no doubt bringing on a brainfreeze that would kill a lesser man)? That man was Buddy Hackett, and he exited for the great fudgsicle factory in the sky last night. To me, what's eerie in light of this news, is that last night our local Fox affiliate played the "Homer The Vigilante" episode of The Simpsons (Episode 1F09), which closes with an affectionate parody of the classic 1963 screwball romp It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which starred Buddy Hackett. You can clearly see a caricature of Hackett in the episode towards the very end, to the left of the caricature of the also-late-great Milton Berle, as the mob begins digging for the treasure (in a nearly shot-for-shot pastiche of the original movie's climax). I'm not saying there was any supernatural foul play, it's just an interesting coincidence.

Unlike the other day, when a friend of mine who lives in South Carolina said he wished Sen. Strom Thurmond was dead. The next day, he was! My friend did that with his mind.

If you look at this picture of Christina Aguilera, you will get a host of scorching STDs. Reading the accompanying article may make you feel better, but won't cure it. Just a caveat.

06.30.03: Okay, a few months back I believe I remarked with some fervor what a piece of junk I thought Martin Scorcese's film Gangs Of New York was. I'm a huge Martin Scorcese fan, and I was really looking forward to seeing the film, especially when I heard how nuts ol' Marty went with the sets and stuff (he had an entire church built to exact historic specifications, and it's not even completely in the film!). But I felt the acting (except for Daniel Day-Lewis' fabulous performance as the murderous and punly-named Bill Cutting) and the script were rather piss-poor, despite the overall look of the film, which I liked a lot.

Here's why I bring this all up again. Gangs Of New York had, in my opinion, what I like to call a "first-quarter foul"; something in the first few minutes of a movie that ruins it for the remainder. It could be an outright insult to your intelligence, such as saying that monkeys infected with a virus that kills just about everybody are "infected with rage" (28 Days Later). You sink into your seat, realizing that the eight-to-ten dollars you spent on your ticket could have been used more judiciously by, say, wiping your ass with it. I knew I was in trouble with Gangs Of New York when, during the opening melee, a woman with metal claws was running around slashing people up. Later we see her with a jar full of ears. So I thought, that's just stupid. They threw that in as a crowd-pleaser for your typical dumb-ass popcorn-scarfing American moviegoer.

Turns out that was a real person! (Supposedly, it may still be just a legend.) Her name was Hellcat Maggie. They say she filed her teeth to points like Dee Snider, wore brass claws, and kept a jar full of human ears as trophies. So now I feel bad that I thought the movie was dumb pretty much from the beginning, even though what I was seeing was intended as accurate! Here's a badly-designed webpage where you can read more about the legend of Hellcat Maggie. So my apologies to Mr. Scorcese, even though I still didn't like the movie. I won't criticize it for making stuff up anymore. Sometimes stuff in reality is just dumb.

06.28.03: Kind of a quickie for today, because I'm just heading out the door, but I got a bunch of cool links for ya... Here's where you can get on the "Do Not Call" list later this year, and them pesky telemarketers won't bother you ever again... Here's a very good reason why you shouldn't pirate satellite signals (you might have to pay a fine for 30,000 years!!!)... and here's where you can go if you've got a dog that's stressed out. (How can you tell?) Enjoy.

06.27.03: I've got some food for thought for you while we're waiting for Star Wars: Episode III, thanks to our friend Dave. Here is a very interesting theory about what I hope will be happening in Ep3, because it makes a whole lot of sense to me. It's even backed up with references from Eps 4-6, for all you asshole anti-prequel "purists" out there. So nyeh nyeh. Dave and I also discussed the idea of a Jedi traitor, not just because of the obvious examples, like the Clone Army being commissioned in secret and the planet Kamino having been erased from the Jedi archives (both from Ep2)... think about this. How did Darth Maul know the Jedi were on Tatooine in Ep1? Who was responsible for the "trace" he was talking about? And ultimately, is the Clone Army a trick, or a set-up, to turn the galaxy against the Jedi and the Republic by portraying them as blood-thirsty warmongers? Check out that forum, there's a lot of good question-and-answer to wrap your head around.

Anyway, the John's Arm 4 preloader is finally done. While you wait for the movie to load (when it's done, I mean), you can peruse a G.I. Joe-style card file about the characters, or simply be entertained by some pre-show antics. And gee, since the PRELOADER took me two days to do, how hard can the rest of the movie be to animate?! Heh... heh... more on this as it develops.

06.26.03: Okay, I admit it, the NYC slideshow still isn't done yet, but I should have it done by this weekend. I literally worked on John's Arm 4 from morning until midnight last night, with very few breaks in between. And this was after staying up until 4am the night before working on the script (which is still unfinished; I'm using the "Hollywood" method of putting the movie together before the script is even done). Also, get this- I spent most of yesterday (around six hours) working on the PRELOADER. (When you see the finished film, you'll understand.) I can't believe it's almost July, and the once-far-off deadline I set for myself to allow for plenty of time (August) is looming ever closer. I promise you though- the goddamn thing WILL be done. Mike The Pod has to have a summer blockbuster, or at least what passes for a summer blockbuster around here.

By the way, did you know in Florida, it's illegal to have sexual relations with a porcupine?

06.25 03: The 2nd Annual MoCCA Art Festival was INDESCRIBABLY AWESOME!!! Once I at last found the Puck Building and made my way inside, I was treated to an astonishingly crowded version of my idea of HEAVEN. Hundreds of professionals and fans, all from the field of alternative comics. Here are some of the folks I met: Peter Kuper, Bill Plympton, Kim Deitch (!!!), Justin Green, Evan Dorkin, Kaz, Charles Burns, and TONS MORE!!! Not only that, but they all not only graciously accepted a copy of the new MTP Comic (proffered with fumbling doofishness by yoours truly), but consented to a photo with me as well!!! So in the days to come, look for a likely-boring slide show here as rock solid proof that I got to meet these absolute IDOLS of mine. I missed Art Speigelman and Jay Lynch though (the latter I saw outside, but he looked like he was taking a break so I didn't wanna bother him), and my final plane trip home was on a shoebox-sized commuter plane with no air conditioning, but nothing could dampen the sheer joy of the trip. Alternative comics dead? HELL NO, SUCKAH. Also, Ariel Bordeaux is fuckin' HOT. Last but not least, I scored a whole bunch of barf bags from the plane rides. HUZZAH!

06.20.03: Alrighty- the updates will be even slower in coming than usual, sorry... I'm going to be in NYC until the 23rd for the Second Annual Museum of Cartoon and Comic Art Festival! And I got plenty of copies of the exclusive new Mike The Pod Fifteenth Anniversary Retrospective (48 pages! Want a copy? It's $5...) to give out. I'll let you know how it went when I get back.

06.18.03: Well, according to a survey by Harlequin Romance (heehee), southern women are the sexiest in the USA. You can read about it here. This is, of course, what I've been saying for YEARS, but now I have the hard work of the brilliant scientists of Harlequin Romance (heehee) to back me up. Take THAT! WAPPO!!!

I mean, come on. As a kid growing up in the, how shall we say, unforgiving wilds of suburban New Jersey, whenever I'd see an overtly sexy woman in a movie or TV show, she'd always have a breathy, honey-thick Southern drawl. Then I moved down here almost fifteen years ago, and practically every woman I met talked that way. Surely it was a test of testicular restraint. Now, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against women from any other part of the country, or world, as it were. But for me at least, a female with a Southern accent is a lot more pleasing to listen to than the Gilbert Goffried-esque vocal stylings of the Jersey region. Those of you who aren't from Jersey, and don't know what I'm talking about; watch The Sopranos, and listen to Drea De Matteo's character Adriana. That's what I'm talking about. Sorry if a voice like a golf cleat skidding against a chalkboard is your aphrodisiac. To each his own, anyway.

Or maybe a Lesbian Cheerleader University is your thing. I hear they have a course in Twister that's very stimulating.

06.17.03: Since I've been too consarn lazy to do the daily business here on the site lately, I'm going to drop in an important notice emailed to me from a friend:

TAKE ACTION: Stop the FCC!

On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission intends to lift restrictions on media ownership that could allow your local newspaper, cable provider, radio stations, and TV channels all to be owned by one company. The result could be the disappearance of the checks and balances provided by a competitive media marketplace—and huge cutbacks in local news and reporting. Good, balanced information is the basis for our democracy. That?s why we?re asking that: ?Congress and the FCC should stop media deregulation and work to make the media diverse, competitive, balanced, and fair.?

And here's where you can take action about it. I probably should have posted that link for you before June 2, but that was a weird week for me (we had a keg again). Besides, what did I tell you about me being lazy. More stuff tomorrow. And hey, I posted another Tailothepup song from the new album, Insincere, above under Stick This In Your Ear. Enjoy.

06.15.03: Happy Father's Day! Be sure and give Dad a call and all that good stuff. I don't know if I'd send a card. That's Mother's Day stuff. Dads don't seem to like cards that much. They like Dremels. I guarantee you can't go wrong with a Dremel.

On another note, I found this really cool website about Honore Daumier. Daumier was a brilliant French caricaturist and political cartoonist, one of my idols for shizzle. I've admired Daumier's work for a very long time, not just his cartoons but his wonderful sculptures. Plus, he was put in prison for six months for drawing King Louis-Philip as Gargantua. I made an enemy of the mayor of Savannah, Georgia for drawing him as Jabba the Hutt on a dare for a cartoon that was eventually published. I didn't go to prison obviously, but I always felt a sort of superfluous kinship anyway.

06.14.03: Last night I saw this crap-ass movie called 28 Days Later. I was all excited about it, because it appeared to be a zombie movie directed by Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. We got in the theater and it was packed. A handful of suits were handing out promotional merchandise; my friends scored a biohazard window sticker and some official 28 Days Later band-aids in their own dispenser (I'm not kidding), I got a movie poster that found its way into a theater trashbin as we left the place. If you do decide to see this movie, know that the first five minutes will ruin it for you. I'm convinced the original version of the movie started with the main character getting out of his hospital bed, and they tacked on the incredibly stupid intro for incredibly stupid American audiences. Watch for yourself and see if I'm wrong. The opening is stupid. Stupid. Stupid. (Not to spoil anything, but "infected with rage" has become a bit of catch-phrase around here. Pay eight bucks to see this thing. You'll be "infected with rage" too.) And for the rest of the movie, though it wasn't horrendously bad, I wanted to give the cameraman some goddamn Ritalin. I don't care if it's "cinema verite". HOLD THE FUCK STILL.

Anyway, it's not really worth me writing a whole review about. Guess I wasn't that infected with rage.

06.13.03: Here's some weird news concerning that Vincent Gallo movie The Brown Bunny; (I mentioned it on 06.05): now Gallo is telling some people that the penis Chloe Sevigny was sucking was not only a prosthesis, but a stolen prosthesis. You can read all about it here (scroll down a bit). Sounds kind of like a desperate ploy to get people to see the movie; first it was "Is she really sucking his cock in that scene?", now it's "Does it look like a real cock?" See how little it takes to get Hollywood into a tizzy? WEENIES! Weenies make Hollywood all a-twitter.

Eh. I'm real tired. I was gonna write stuff earlier, but I've been listening to Radiohead's new album Hail To The Thief over and over and over. If you haven't heard it, just go buy it. If for some fucked-up reason you don't like it, give me your copy. I'll give it a good home, yessiree poop.

06.11.03: Hey, remember back on the 5th when I said I'd remind you about the Star Wars Website overhaul? Yeah, well, I forgot. So head over there today, I don't really think it makes a difference when you go. It's still two fucking years until Episode III comes out.

Anyway, I spent yesterday hammering the final draft of the John's Arm 4 script into shape. I should have it done by the end of the week, then it's voice recording time, then we go into full production. This one has been a lot tougher to write; I didn't expect John's Arm to become so popular, and I really only planned to do a trilogy. (Though maybe in twenty years I'll renege and do three prequels, which the public at large will do nothing but whine about. Wink-wink.) Now, with the 4th one, I actually have to bother with character development and such things, and the jokes and visual gags I relied on for the first three films have to be rewritten or replaced. And guess what, kids: since the deal with the Sci-Fi Channel fell through, and Cartoon Network's Adult Swim doesn't want JA (for now... heeheehee...), John's Arm 4 will have an "R rating". That's right! Cusswords! Nudity! Romping! All manner of vulgarity! C'mon, how can you have character development without cursing and vulgarity, I ask ya? How, fucker?

Ahem. So, I'm shooting for an August release date. Sure, August seems like a long ways off, but I originally said April, before I even had a decent script ready. Ha! A fool, me! (And by "decent", I mean "at least having a treatment written", not "clean".) So I may get it done sometime before then, but I ain't promising anything. Frequent visitors to this site will know I've made that mistake before. (Though Peeper will eventually debut here, if we ever whip the code into shape.)

And for god's sake, check out MC Paul Barman. Not only should he be more popular than Eminem right now, but he grew up a walking distance from where I did.

06.09.03: if you live in the Atlanta area, and you'll looking for a little feline companionship, our friend Shabadoo is looking to part ways with his kitten. It seems the kitten started up a meth lab in Shabadoo's spare closet, and his landlady frowns upon that sort of thing. At least, we think it was a meth lab. It might have just been a big pile of poo. In any case, if you want a little kitty, email Shabadoo. Here is a picture of the li'l darlin' that Shabby sent me last night, along with this missive:

Hey,

Please take this kitten. I can't keep him anymore. I don't want to put him down, and by put him down I mean keep him. Fo Real. He and I don't click. Pass this on to your friends, ask everyone you know, make this your sole purpose in life. Is that too much to ask? Liberals.....

WJS

Post scriptum: I swear to god I will kill him. Dead.

So put in your bid now and help out. Every time you masturbate, god kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens.

In other news, Shabadoo and the other members of the household concocted some sort of vile disgusting matter in the kitchen last night, because Commander and I said we would eat it. We're talking meatloaf sauce, olive oil, butterscotch, powdered donut dust, anise seed, grenadine, tonic water, garlic powder, Velamints, assorted condiments, and god knows what else. This was all heated up on the stove, then we were escorted outside, where we were given one bowl each. Both Commander and I put one spoonful in our mouths and it was technicolor yawn time. I forgot how fucking nasty it is to puke when you're not drunk. I didn't even puke most of the time, it was mostly dry heaves, allowing chunks of the lovely mixture to find their way inbetween my teeth and into my sinus cavity. I'm still nauseous this morning. Commander did a better job, getting the stuff down for at least a few nanoseconds before blasting it all over the carport. Then out of desperation we both pulled a "supermodel" and jammed three fingers down our throats, just to get it all out of our systems. Of course, it's all on tape. Stay tuned.

06.07.03: I finally saw About Schmidt with Jack Nicholson last night, and it was as amazing as I thought it was going to be. I kind of unfairly wrote Jack Nicholson off a few years back, because I thought he was becoming a caricature of sorts, but in About Schmidt he turns in arguably one of the greatest performances of his career, and at no point does he "act like Jack", as portrayed by countless hack stand-up comedians nationwide. Plus, if you like Kathy Bates, I mean not just as a monstrously talented actor who exhibits a Gene Hackman-like ability to be great in anything she's in, no matter how bad it is, you get to see her stark raving nude. So she's definitely got bigger and brassier balls than you or I, compadre. (Metaphorically speaking. You'd have seen them if she really had them.)

Anyhoo, the movie was pretty astonishing. It's also indescribably depressing for most of the way. Once you get to the film's climax, you may need a whole box of tissues. I mean to dab your red, teary eyes, but if you like to think about Kathy Bates naked, you may need them for another reason. Ya pervy bastid.

06.05.03: Anybody have any idea what's up with Vincent Gallo? Since Cannes, I have heard nothing but howls of rancor towards his new film, The Brown Bunny. I haven't found it playing anywhere locally, but as soon as I can, I'm going to review it here, especially if it's as bad as everyone says it is. And I'm not just wanting to see it because it has the luminous Chloe Sevigny performing hardcore oral sex. You read that right. Isn't that worth the price of admission?

Anyway, Gallo has apparently gone a bit nutty, as they say in the ol' blimey; one moment he's rueful with regret over his creation, vowing never to watch it again, the next moment he's in the throes of apoplexy, calling Roger Ebert a "fat pig" with "the physique of a slave-trader". (You can read all about their little lovers' quarrel here.) He even scared the crap out of one reporter with his tirade. Not to put down Vincent Gallo on account of his stalkeresque behavior, but I've dealt with pretentious, megalomaniacal pseudo-artists with big mouths and lots of free time on their hands. It's priceless entertainment to watch them continually embarass themselves.

In other, less blowjob-oriented news, The Official Star Wars Website is going through a major overhaul next Tuesday, on the 10th. (Don't worry, I'll remind you.) There's going to be exclusive content from Episode III, as well as an unused rough-cut scene from Episode II to pore over, plus much more. Lucas heads down under to Oz in two weeks to begin principal photography on Ep III. Remember: after 2005, that's it. No more new Star Wars. (There are no Episodes VII-IV, unless the jokes Lucas made about shooting them in another 20 years weren't jokes. Deal with it.)

And lest we forget, also in two years, the valiant Autobots retake their homeland of Cybertron. We plan to party the whole year. We've even gotten started early; the housemates and I have built a quite-handsome "keggerator", or keg-refrigerator, complete with bar-style tap and CO2 tank (and currently home to a keg of delicious Sweetwater 420, one of ATL's finest brews). That's right: we now have a beer tap in our living room. If you want to come by and sip some brew, make sure and behave yourself, because the Keggerator is closely guarded by a good friend of ours; a Mexican who occasionally wears a kilt, used to run with the Houston Crips, and is just looking for an excuse to make you bite the curb. Plus if you're gonna snorkel up our suds, you might wanna throw some green in the donation box on top. Keggies don't pay for themselves. I might post some pics of it here, but I don't want anybody copying our design; I get enough of my ideas ripped off as it is.

06.03.03: Happy third of June, Magoo! Here's your Third of June present- a brand-spankin' new review in our Review Dept. Check it out!

On a sadder, less celebratory-of-Third-of-June note, legendary wrestler and wrestling manager "Classy" Freddie Blassie passed on to that great squared circle in the sky early last night. You can read more about it here. If you've ever been called a "pencil-neck geek", you have Freddie to thank for coining that phrase. (You can also ask Dr. Demento for Blassie's novelty hit "Pencil-Neck Geeks", in case you've worn out your vinyl copy of Piledriver and need your musical-wrestler fix.) I'll always remember Blassie from Andy Kaufman's parodic opus My Breakfast With Blassie, from back in 1983. You can order it here. If you're feeling brave, why don't you rent and watch My Breakfast With Blassie at 9am one morning, follow it up with Naked Lunch at 12 noon, then take in My Dinner With Andre (with Wallace Shawn! You LOVED him in The Princess Bride!) and around 7pm. Then have one of your buddies perform a suplex on you. Blassie would've wanted it that way.

06.02.03: I ironed a reflective Transformers "Smokescreen" patch from 1986 on a cap a few weeks ago and now the strap has finally broken thanks to my fat, stinky head. For some reason I decided to stop getting haircuts a ways back, and am working on a nice little Caucasoid Afro, and I guess it was just too much for the hat. And to think, it was a "Fruitopia" hat that I got for free at a retail job I worked half a decade ago, and I felt I'd rehabilitated it by adding some 80's toy-store kitsch. (That, and I didn't want to walk around in public with the word "Fruitopia" emblazoned across my forehead.) Now it lays dead on my bedroom floor. Oh well. On the bright side, my girlfriend gave me Brute Force for the Xbox for my birthday, and Jesus Christ it rocks all manner of ass. I thought I was close to beating it last night, when I realized that what I perceived as the final bout of the game was actually somewhere in the middle. That's right- the game officially wore me out. Why the fuck aren't there more games like this?!?

And by the way... did you know that Harrison Ford wasn't the original Harrison Ford? How the hell does that happen? I can understand when I meet or discover someone with my name (it happens quite often- "Matty Boy" is actually more a necessity than a term of endearment), but a name like Harrison Ford?

05.29.03: So, whew. The 27th was my birthday, and I'm still piecing together the past few days. Hope you had a good Memorial Day and all that. I got a bunch of great stuff for my birthday, like a tricked out Dremel, and a set of big foam Hulk Hands. You've probably seen them at the store. They make smashy noises when you put them on and punch things. When I first got them I couldn't take them off for a few hours. So much fun, smashy smashy. If you see them, buy them, no matter how shitty the Hulk movie turns out to be. You owe it to yourself.

05.24.03: Here's something that truly sucks clown dong: "Director" Tim Burton, in his unending, lifelong quest to fuck up everything, is in negotiations to do a remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So maybe it will end up being that head-up-the-ass version that's been bandied about amongst D-twerps over the past few years, with Will Smith in the titular role, and rapping Oompa-Loompas (I'm not making that up). I can only surmise that Burton will apply the same magic touch upon Willy Wonka that he did on once-proud properties like Mars Attacks! and Planet Of The Apes. You can read all about this bullshit here.

Okay, those of you who don't know me personally are probably a bit taken aback by my rancor towards Mr. Burton. Here's the deal: Tim Burton is not a director. He is a brilliant visual artist. But like many brilliant visual artists, he is terribly introverted (voluptuous girlfriend notwithstanding). His malaise around other humans is woefully apparent in every film he makes (with the exception of the wonderful Ed Wood, his solitary good film, outside of too-hard-to-hate joys like Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, though they have their share of massive flaws), from the beautiful "There's the entire film crew's shadow" shot in the opening of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure to the howlingly misread lines courtesy of Kim Basinger in Batman. Watch Batman again (if you can stand to see a classic comic book character ass-raped once more). Wait for the scene where the tragically miscast Michael Keaton and the heavily lacquered Kim Basinger are talking about Alfred. Basinger says that Alfred "reminds [her] of my grandfather." She puts the accent on "my", as though Alfred was Bruce Wayne's grandfather. ALFRED IS NOT BRUCE WAYNE'S GRANDFATHER! ALFRED IS NOT BRUCE WAYNE'S FUCKING GRANDFATHER! Look, I'm not a film director. But I know that if you are hired as a director of a film, and you're, oh, I don't know, awake, you should catch a glaring error like that. I don't expect somebody like Kim Basinger to be an authority on a 64-year-old comic book institution, but I do expect the director of an adaptation of it to at least have a cursory knowledge of the subject. As a director, Tim Burton sucks. And until Danny Elfman rekindles the orchestral genius he displayed in the 80's and stops churning out what sounds like the music to Batman XXVIII, he needs to retire for a while.

And I don't just hate Tim Burton because he went to CalArts and I got rejected. Who told you that? I'll stomp their ass flat.

05.23.03: Hey, I found this unbelievably great site featuring an unbelievably great art exhibit here. You gotta check it out, you will absolutely love it. I don't know about you, but this is my favorite kind of art. Plus if you go to the video section of the site, you can download the outlawed Karen Carpenter movie filmed entirely with Barbie dolls. Bon appetit.

05.22.03: Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, we saw The Matrix Reloaded the other night and I'm taking some time off to get over it. I posted a review to ease the pain a bit. It's not one of my better ones, but I had to do something to get back on track. Jesus. What crap.

05.18.03: Happy Afterbirthday Jenn! Haha, get it? "Afterbirth-Day"? YEAH!! Chew on THAT, SUCKERS! AFTERBIRTH!! WEEE-OOOO!!!

Okay. Thank you for letting me get that out of my system. Ah. Anyway, have a gander at the Ol' Review Swimmin' Hole, there's a couple new reviews posted, including one for the very site you're peepin' at! Mmmm-mmm good.

05.17.03: Happy Birthday Jenn! And we celebrated by doing an abbreviated version of the "Power Hour" (a shot of beer every minute for 60 minutes), where we drank a shot of beer every minute until the number of minutes equalled her age. Except for those of us who drank double shots every minute, until yours truly excused himself to the porch and blasted the driveway with vomit. And of course, it's all on film. Salud!

05.15.03: In today's bummer news, Robert Stack passed away at the young age of 84. Maybe you remember him as Eliot Ness from "The Untouchables" TV series, but I'll always remember him as the legendary Ultra Magnus, commander of Autobot City from Transformers: The Movie. You can read more about it here.

05.12.03: So I woke up this morning (relatively), and I sat down to a nice bowl of Honeycomb cereal, and AGGGHHH!! WHAT'S THIS?!? BLOOD?? ALL OVER MY CEREAL?!? BLOOD OF THE INNOCENTS!! WHY IS GOD ANGRY?!

Okay, so it wasn't blood. My Honeycomb cereal was "strawberry blasted". And though that sounds like an entry from the almighty Dictionary of Obscure Sexual Terms, it isn't. See, nowadays, everybody's ADD is so bad, you can't just say that something is "strawberry flavored", that's for pussies. It has to be SAVAGELY PENETRATED WITH FLAVOR. Americans like to know that their food was held face-down and violated against their will. By Cherry. Or Watermelon. Or that bad-ass mutha-[SHUT YOUR MOUTH!]-I'm just talkin' about Chocolate. Witness the latest varieties of Gator/Powerade (and not the miserable piss Powerade makes that comes in those silver dildo-shaped bottles, and has faux-highbrow names). Their flavors kick you in the FACE! They're EXTREME! Wat-AAAHHH!!

And let me tell ya, Strawberry Blasted Honeycomb is grand. If you scoop up a bunch of red Honeycomb pieces on your spoon- it's not hard, Honeycombs are racists and segregate quite easily- SHAZAM, you got STRAWBERRY TO THE TENTH POWER. They make the regular Honeycomb taste like shaved air. And as I mentioned earlier, a big bowl of Strawberry Blasted Honeycomb looks like GWAR got to it. You can fancy yourself a rampaging Hun, freshly returned from the battlefield, bearing the spoils of war: your enemy's cereal, spattered with your enemy's BLOOD! Ah, the sweet taste of victory! Honeycomb! Honeycomb! ME WANT HONEYCOMB! That's your battle cry. Or maybe not.

Check it out here... did you know that stupid hairball from the Honeycomb commercials had a name? It's (highlight to read): Cock-Gobbler

05.11.03: Last night was utterly mawsome. Our buddies Joey and Commander paid us a visit, and we filmed them both attempting to drink a gallon of milk each in an hour. Joey finished his gallon of 2% in 12 minutes: Commander pulled in a close second at 13. And oh, what a grand orgy of vomit it was. The plastic trash can we designated specifically for ejectamenta was only partially utilized, as snow-white vomit descended upon the majority of our carport. Yours truly almost followed suit, as the smell of spew hit my nostrils, and the burping I thought was a result of the Tropical Sprite Remix I was guzzling turned out to be a prelude to some rather intense dry heaves (I eventually sought refuge in the downstairs bathroom, where I rode the porcelain bus like a goddamn Duke boy... or a Bush daughter). In any case, the entire momentous occasion was recorded for posterity, and I'd say there's about an... oh, 100% chance it'll end up on this site. Next weekend we have the "Cool Hand Luke" hard-boiled egg-eating contest coming up, as well as the "Power Hour", so stay tuned. Rumor has it we're compiling a non-stop spewathon video, and you don't want to miss that.

05.07.03: Here's how wonderfully I started off my day. I woke up, and went through my usual routine of gathering up all of last night's empty beer bottles from around my room and my desk. While I did that, I grabbed an empty cup from my desk as well, so I could get my morning beverage on. I took all that shit upstairs, dumped the bottles in the garbage, and filled the cup with some nice and cold sweet tea (are you bored yet? It gets better). The tea was the last in the pitcher, so you know it's the best sweet tea there is. So I'm working on my newspaper cartoon, sipping my tea, until it comes time to finish the glass off by tilting it way back...

Which is when I see the whitish-yellow residue on the bottom of the glass from the milk I drank out of it, roughly a week ago. I didn't even think to check the glass before I filled it up. I think I may have even ingested some solid sour-milk chunks. So, I made a conscious decision not to get nauseated to the point of vomiting by this little excursion, but instead walk calmly to the sink, wash out the glass, and do my best to forget the whole thing ever happened. Besides, the camera was put away, and it's a house rule here that if you toss your cookies, it has to be on video.

Anyway, as I was washing out the glass, trying to think happy thoughts, I remembered that for some reason, Down And Out In Beverly Hills was made into a short-lived TV series in the 80s. In the family of main characters, there was a stereotypical rich-yet-sullen white son, who used a video camera to film metaphorical (read: hackneyed) versions of what he was feeling, instead of talking it over with his admittedly detached parents. His name was Max, or Maxie, I can't remember which. At one point he finally gets a girl in his room, and as he welcomes her into the splendor of his lonely teenage room, he says:

"This is my room. I call it my Maxie-Pad."

As a pre-teen I thought that was pretty uproarious. Here's proof the show actually existed (and it had Hector Elizondo in it!). I'm gonna make sure things are a little bit cleaner in my Maxie-Pad.

05.06.03: Hey, everybody, guess what! We here at MTP got off our butts and reviewed a movie. Check it out, it's in the Review Section!

Okay, I didn't really get off my butt. I was just lucky enough to have a guest reviewer submit a review. I mean really. The last time I reviewed something was back in frigging February. Sorry. Anyhow, enjoy a guest review from Raging Flab!

05.05.03: Here's something really stupid. When I was a kid, my mom and dad would watch M*A*S*H, as was the style of the time. Everytime I would hear the theme song (instrumental version, for TV, of "Suicide Is Painless"), and it would begin with that acoustic guitar melody, I always noticed the intermittent "ting" of the triangle that followed it. As a boy I always pictured the cast of the show performing the theme music in my mind's eye. Loretta Swit, a.k.a. "Hot Lips" Houlihan (always a pale substitute for the wet and naked Sally Kellerman from the movie, in my opinion), provided the "ting". It's hard to describe, but she would do it with this really silly smiley look on her face. And I would crack the hell up.

Anyway, I just heard the theme song again, and I thought of that. It's burned into my cerebral cortex.

Here's some stuff abour "Radar" O'Reilly, the only guy to make the leap from M*A*S*H movie to M*A*S*H TV show. Did you know he has three fingers smaller than normal?

05.04.03: Hey, if you ordered the new Tailothepup album, Insincere, it's on its way to your doorstep right now! How's that for speedy delivery? And I'd like to thank all of you who ordered! Uhm, thank you! (And how about that "Ale Of The Pup" headline in tonight's episode of The Simpsons? Pretty neat, huh?)

And if you're new to the Tailothepup experience, you can order the new album for only $5, securely online using PayPal. $5 for 70 minutes of music: what a deal! Check it out here.

An another subject, I don't know if any of you out there used to watch The Ben Stiller Show. It came on Fox in the early nineties, and was a great showcase for the sketch-comedy talents of Andy Dick (pre-insanity and rehab), Bob Odenkirk (of the greatest sketch show EVER, Mr. Show with Bob and David), Janeane Garofalo (cute as a BUTTON), and of course, Ben Stiller. The show didn't run for very long at all, but was chock full of great stuff, such as the Eddie Munster/Cape Fear parody, and that bit that lampooned Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place and The Heights all in one fell swoop. They rerun it on Comedy Central (ask your cable provider) at some ungodly hour of the night that I always seem to be awake around. Okay, so, here's my question... see if you can answer it...

Dweezil Zappa did the music for The Ben Stiller Show. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm one of the biggest Frank Zappa fans you'll ever meet. Dweezil's stuff always came a little too close to hair-metal/Saigon Kick territory for my tastes, but that doesn't mean he's not a musician that I have a lot of respect for. So here's the thing- who told Dweezil to rip off the instrumental tracks from the Beastie Boys' classic 1992 album Check Your Head almost note for note? Listen to the album, then take in Ben Stiller. Whenever there's a "bumper" (you know, a part of the show that introduces a sketch), usually with the cast talking and wandering around somewhere like the streets of L.A., listen closely to the music. You'll hear a carbon copies of songs like "POW". Was this another case of network/advertising executives hiring someone to do a near-perfect imitation of music they can't afford the rights to? (For example, the MasterCard commercial where they totally ripped off the E-Z Listening version of DEVO's "Beautiful World", as though nobody would notice?) Any ideas?

Here's more on The Ben Stiller Show. Eat your Lucky Clovers.

05.02.03: Pup Update: The new Tailothepup album, Insincere, is now available in the Ordering Depot. It's only $5 (as always, we will not be undersold!), and you should definitely check it out. There's also a little promo animation I threw together on the main page. Enjoy.

05.01.03: It's Bad 80's Jeans Day. Today I got Clone Wars for the Xbox. I was really excited about it coming to the X, and truth be told, I'm not disappointed. But it is a really glitchy port. A lot of the cutscenes look like they were simply compressed to FMV and then played on the Xbox, so you get that shitty mega-pixelated look, as though you're watching an MPEG on the internet that you've maximized to the size of your screen. The glitchiness doesn't generally affect gameplay, mainly the video. They tarted it up on the package like it took advantage of the Box's advanced graphics capabilities, but it most assuredly does not. Still, it's a pretty solid title (though the system link option that convinced me to buy it is sometimes weak, save for Conquest Mode- but only one of the vehicles has shields! How the hell is THAT fair in multiplayer?!?), and you get to see the beginnings of the Clone Wars where Episode II left off. That, and you get to zip around in all manner of cool vehicles, from the Republic arsenal, to speeder bikes, to the Confederacy of Independent Systems' crazy shit.

Here's more about the game if you're interested.

Oh, and I declared today "Bad 80's Jeans Day" because it's "05.01", meaning "501", as in those hideous 501 Buttonfly jeans Levi's brought out back in the day. Remember? They had that commercial where Bobby "Don't Worry, Be Happy, Until This Song Makes You Kill Yourself" McFerrin rewrote his "Fast Car" song to extol the virtues of Levi's 501 Buttonfly jeans, and how they shrunk to fit his body? Have you ever worn a pair of these things and attempted a bathroom break? Why do they always mess with the fly, man? Why the fly?

Here's where you can read about the history of Levi's 501 jeans. I tried to find an MP3 of "Fast Car" for you, but couldn't. Too bad. It's pretty impressive, especially when he gets to the part where he starts shifting gears and stuff.

04.30.03: So I took in the fine bit of modern cinema known to those on the "inner circle" as Scooby Doo the other night. I was actually surprised to find it... funny. Don't get me wrong, it's without a doubt a kids' movie, but if I was forced to take a kid to a movie, this would be it, since there's enough borderline-naughty stuff thrown in to keep adults interested. The actors (particularly Matthew Lillard as Shaggy) were all totally dead-on in their roles, even Sarah Michelle Gellar, who I admit I've never really been able to stand for very long (nothing against her or her massive and rabid fan base though).

One caveat however, if you haven't seen it and are planning to for whatever reason: you will begin to notice as the film rolls on that Velma Dinkley is... CRAZY FUCKIN' HOT. Here's the actress who plays her if you're skeptical. I hadn't heard of her before this movie, though I believe she was in that Freaks and Geeks show I refused to watch (why the fuck would I watch a TV show about people like me in high school?! Was living through that hell once not enough?). I used to have a "thing" for Velma back when I was a pimply pre-teen, and seeing this grand a physical realization of an admittedly dowdy 2-D Hanna-Barbera femme unsettled some weird feelings for me. My personal nadir was about 2/3 through the film, when Velma sheds her sweater for some glorious reason (I can only assume it was spook-related), and I turned to my friends and said, "Jesus, Velma's got a beautiful fuckin' rack." See the movie and tell me I'm wrong. Just remember this for the rest of your life: The "Velmas" (quiet, intelligent girls, often with glasses) are always hotter than the "Daphnes" (ditzy, overtly shiny and exhibitionistic chicks). You heard it from Scooby, fucker.

In Pup News: Advance copies of the new Tailothepup album, Insincere, have just gone out. Be here on Friday (5/2) for the official release! There'll be song samples to listen to, and maybe even cake! Well, cake for us. But the thought is there.

04.27.03: Okay, I'm back... I had some family bizness to take care of, so I kind of used it as an excuse to take a break from everything. So, back on schedule and all that... there's new cartoons on the way, and May will bring the new Tailothepup album, Insincere. I'll keep you posted, and there'll be song samples you can listen to and all that good stuff. 13 songs, almost 70 minutes... and only $5, as always!

Speaking of the Pup, my girlfriend Jenn and her fellow bartending pal Dave have concocted an original drink entitled... you guessed it, Tailothepup! Here's how you make it:

• 2 oz. Jamison Irish Whiskey
• 5 oz. Orange Juice
• Splash of Grenadine

So now, when you're hungover, instead of saying you're having the "hair of the dog", you can have Tailothepup! Plus it'll make the days until the release of the new album just float by. This is because you'll be drunk! Life's grand.

Speaking of life being grand, it looks like I'll be accompanying an Art-O-Mat on tour with Lollapalooza this summer! Given the fact that I've never been able to stand Jane's Addiction, this should be a real blast-a-roonie! I will post more information (dates I'll be there, etc.) as I recieve it, and I'll probably keep an online diary. Mawsome, huh?

04.23.03: Art-O-Mat Update: Here's an article about the new installation in Boise... and check it out, we made the May 2003 issue of Reader's Digest! Now people can read all about the Art-O-Mat in their doctor's office!

Speaking of which, I got a new tooth! I thought that I was gonna have to endure root canal surgery, but I lucked out- they cleaned out my mashed molar real good, and sculpted a new tooth on top of it. Now it's the best looking tooth in my mouth! Damn! And now I have to take care of the four other cavities I apparently have now... sigh...

04.22.03: Yayyyy... I get to go to the dentist today! And gee, it's only been about... ten years since the last time! This should be great! Can't wait to see what they do about this molar I have that cracked in half about two years ago. Goody goody gumdrops, though there won't be any more gumdrops for me... so prepare for lots of drugged-up whining in this space in the days to come. YEAH!

On a less horrible and painful note (depending on how you look at it), the Sordid Hollow Easter Special made the front page at Newgrounds! Good to see some people love the vulgar, peurile stuff as much as I do! Thanks Tom and Wade!

04.20.03: Happy Easter! And Happy Four Twenty! As promised, Mike the Pod presents a very special Easter cartoon, just for you. How about that. I actually got off my ass and finished a holiday cartoon in time for the actual holiday (unlike Elric, The Magical Elf). So pull up a chair, kick the kids the hell out of the room, and enjoy Jerky Rabbit and Bear With Searing Gas Pain in the Sordid Hollow Easter Special!

And if you just watched the film, and you're wondering, yes. I am very, very, very ashamed.

04.18.03