New GYWO.

I'm not living in my car for a year, though; fuck that shit

I woke up at about 2 AM Tuesday morning starving. You remember that Onion Point/Counterpoint "I am so starving"? Yeah, I am so starving. I realized why -- because on Sunday I had waffles for breakfast and quite possibly nothing for lunch or dinner; then on Monday I had waffles for breakfast, pretzels as a snack around dinner time, and a Lean Pocket later on at night. I'm usually good about keeping myself fed (this was an exception -- gotta throw that in in case my mother ends up reading this), but this wasn't so good.

Of course, I've got my excuses. On Sunday, I worked. This is no big deal for many out there, but I usually don't have to work weekends. I ended up getting home late and just wasn't hungry at all, plus I had to get up early on Monday for the beginning of (what should be) a couple of very busy months. I put in like 11 hours on Monday and got home late once again. I wanted to write up the first draft of my contribution to our first Spike Lee Joint; if I hadn't been busy with that I would have mixed some chips in with that Lean Pocket.

So I'm sitting there at 2 AM in my dining room stuffing myself with bread, oatmeal, and Gatorade, and I have an epiphany on my starvation: I am suffering for my art. My job and my 'blog, which for me are my worthless, shitty art that no one cares about. Well, okay, some of the people at work care about what I do, but no one considers it art (even though my primary job function is a kind of nerdy art, but I'll spare you the details for now). The 'blog, on the other hand, is at least writing, and there have been at least a couple of writers who were considered artists. Like that one guy, the other guy... And that bitch who killed herself. But virtually no one gives a shit about my 'blog, 'cept for ETP, BOETP and I since it's pretty much written for us (as opposed to the critics) and maybe a handful of others.

You know, I'm just going to keep rambling on about personal bullshit until the rest of the world gets interesting again. Aren't we due to start another war soon or something? I should be careful what I wish for, and I certainly shouldn't joke about things like that, because it'll happen and I don't want get drafted. But yeah, same shit, different day. Even -- especially -- around here.

I went back and re-read last year's NDK wrapup, and man. Night and fucking day. I like how last year it was all happy and positive. This year? Not so much. Last year I had some nice things to say and talked about the fun we had. This year? ATTACK. Just go after everything we can -- even though we, for the most part, weren't there.

At NDK time last year, I was living at my parents' house, was driving a Civic, had no solid job, and had no friends. Right now, I own my own home (which the bank actually owns), I drive an Audi (which isn't mine), I have a "real" job (which I'm going to lose), and I have no friends (no qualifier needed). Despite the drastic improvement in (partially artificial) scenery, I'm pretty sure that I'm more bitter, more pissed off, and overall, just a bigger asshole than I was a year ago. I take great amusement in this fact. Being a dooshebag is just my natural state of being, so why fuck with it.

Anyway, let's get back to this con shit, if only for a moment. If you want to read an amusing NDK tale from someone who was actually at the con, you can check this out. See, that's the kind of shit the three of us would do if we had balls. Actually, I'll bet we'd do entertaining stuff like that if I had balls. But no, I just prefer to talk about people behind their backs, like a real man.

Whenever we get together and engage in some assholish activities, we end up asking: how did we get so bad? I blame myself. Now, I'm not saying that I'm any kind of ringleader or that ETP and BOETP just follow along with what I do, but I'm pretty sure that I have definite influence. I've known ETP for like half my life, and he's a good guy. I mean, he's a bad person; that's why we get along so well. But he's still a good guy. He'll spend five minutes trying to flag down a homeless guy to give that leftover slice of Gino's. Me, it's not necessarily that I don't want to help (although often times I just plain don't), it's that I won't because I'm afraid of people. Regardless of reason, the end result is the same. This, of course, is just one example. There are countless others.

As for BOETP, I haven't known her anywhere near as long, but I can't believe she's just naturally this bad. Sure, women can be vicious assholes -- one of the reasons I like 'em. But this is a completely different level.

Anyone remember the Beavis and Butthead X-mas special It's a Miserable Life? I think it's kinda like that, only nowhere near as extreme. Even if it is that extreme, I'd rather have ETP being a prick than being some total candy-ass in a Winger t-shirt.

I think the fact that I'm dragging everyone down is evident in what happens when I'm not around. They can get shit done when I'm not there, even if it's just something as simple as asking around to see who has sushi-grade fish. Again, just one illustrative scenario.

Umm, where the fuck am I going with this? Nowhere, really.

WHY?!?!?

Just because things are still slow around here doesn't mean BLM doesn't care about 'ya. Just so we can keep the feelings of joy and positivity alive, here's one of those fucked up stories I'm all to fond of sharing. Like usual, if I'm going to suffer though reading about something like that, I'm bringing everyone down with me.

"I'm very hurt because my son was raised as a good boy."

Quite clearly he wasn't, and that's all there really is to say about that.

Get your Chicago, err, what the hell are we getting on again?

Calling all freaks.

As a forewarning, this post is a collaborative effort between BLM, ETP, and BOETP. Hereafter referred to as a Spike Lee Joint.

So yeah, this past weekend was NDK weekend in Denver. NDK is Denver's anime con, forever destined to be shitty since it is, well, Denver. For the none of you who care, here's what BLM had to say about last year's con. Let's see how the aftermath of this con compares to the previous con, shall we?

To start, why does NDK blow such hard ass? Well, for one, Denver is a nice place to live, but no one wants to fucking come here. Basically because there's nothing to do here but play with your prick and eat at Wendy's until the end of time. Maybe mix in some People magazine. Nabeshin wouldn't be caught dead here, that's for sure. We could probably get more Japanese guests here for the con if we were put in charge of entertaining them, though. We have no social skills just like all the people who are involved in making anime, and we are down with drinking and looking at schoolgirls and leg fetish photos. We all know that this list pretty much sums up Japan's raison d'être. But does the con tap the resources available to them? Shit no.

In addition to being in Denver, NDK is held at a completely irrelevant time as far as everyone is concerned. The con is also run by this fat stupid bitch who really needs to bathe (and once made a reference to cooking that probably didn't have any relevance to anything). You know, an anime fan.

NDK never can and never will be the glory that is ACen, that's for damn sure. You know, the con we showed up at, shopped at, went to one whole event at, and then blew off because we were in FUCKING CHICAGO. In the short lived battle of Chicago vs. Anime... Chicago Wins! (Excellent.) Partially because it's one of the greatest cities in the U.S., but also because, as a population, anime fans kind of have a sour milk, urine and BO stench to them. We've demonstrated that we can find a way to handle unpleasantries like that for reasonable periods of time, but when stacked up against Chicago, we're going with Chicago.

Back to NDK... Alright, so we had fucking plans. That's unheard of; we hardly ever plan shit. But it was like, yeah. BLM'll get off work early and pick up mom and dad since it's their day off, dooode. We'll get down to the con, get a Friday admission pass, hit the dealer's room, and get the hell out of there and never look back.

We were ON IT. Doin' it in style, too. We show up in BLM's Audi, with two-thirds of us decked out with the power of The Horse, the other a walking billboard for BLM (and it wasn't BLM; lazy little shit can't even be bothered to do his own self-promotion). ETP had the "It's never going to be good again" t-shirt coupled with a "Visors Are For Losers" visor. Next to him is his wife in her Ralph visor, a juxtaposition that was fucking sweet. We were just dying for some dipshit to come up and say "Uhhh, you say that visors are for losers, but your wife is wearing a visor." To which we would have said something like "Yeah asshole, thanks for getting the joke -- or becoming it."

Anyway, as we go to get into the queue (let's get some British flair in here...) for admission, we see a familiar sight -- a huge fucking line. A nice long one coming out of the hotel and snaking around the corner. Each and every one of us (that's including all you fuckers) is a big fan of certain long, snaking things -- you just NEED it! -- but this wasn't one of those certain things.

This was also change-up from last year, where the registration line was all inside and in a different part of the hotel. That was a much better option than this year's stupid fucking idea. Yeah, let's take a bunch of bloody unwashed anime fans... And let them bake in ninety-plus-degree heat. Sure, it sucks being stuck indoors in line with these scumbags, but at least the environment in there isn't doing as much to exacerbate the situation. Not to mention inside we would have access to booze (pronounced boo-zay) at the nearby hotel bar if the situation required... Which it probably definitely would!

So we're like, fuck this. Let's go get some food and see if maybe things have started moving by the time we get back (knowing full well that they wouldn't). We hop the street over to Qdoba's. ETP brings up the fact that Qdoba's sells beer. Should we start drinking before the con? Yes, we should start drinking before the con. In fact, there's a liquor store next door; we might be back. Why didn't we bring our flasks?

After eating, drinking, and probably making people at nearby tables wonder why we were using phrases like "child fucker," we head back to get in line once again. On approach to the hotel, we immediately see someone wearing a costume that they have no business wearing. Along with the general odor, this is one of the worst things about any anime con. Not only are you surrounded by a bunch of fat ugly people who are way bigger losers than you are, but a bunch of them think they're all hot and clever with their costumes on their horrible bodies.

This particular, uh, whatever you want to call it, thought that it would be a good idea to show off her thunder-thighs in a leotard... I'll let that image sink in for a moment so you can get to where we're at... There it is. Look, bottom line is that if you don't look something like this or this, you have no business doing any kind of cosplay. The sad part is that even if they were not in a costume they would still offend the eyes because people do not dress for their body type. If you don't have a good body, cover it the fuck up.

To sum up the whole cosplay experience, which truly is for sucks: STOP THAT!! STOP THAT SHIT!!!! Either stay the fuck home, or put on a goddamn beekeeper suit.

Okay, sure, there are a couple of people that can float, but for the most part the genre sucks. The best you can hope for -- when it comes to the women, at least -- is for a girl who has an average to decent body but a face that looks like it took the brunt of Hurricane Ivan. Otherwise, maybe a couple of costumes that look cool and/or actually clever, but that's as good as it gets.

As always, getting a bit off-track here. Thirty minutes after seeing patient zero of bad cosplay -- once the vomiting and shakes died down -- we made our way to the back of the line. After about six seconds, BLM decides to scout on ahead and see if it looked like there was any movement at the head of the line or not. While seeing that there wasn't, he notices another line at the other side of the hotel, which he realizes is for pre-regs. They're not moving either. Fantastic.

Why the fuck do cons always pull this shit? If someone goes through the trouble of pre-registering, just send them their fucking badges. One of the only logical reasons we could come up with for not doing that is because they don't want people making copies or some shit, but there are ways around that. If cost is an issue, just build it into the ticket price. Whatever the case, it's ridiculous to make people stand in line when they helped your ass out by paying in advance. Even ACen fucked this up horribly, and we're tired of it. We're flaming pissed about it and we didn't even pre-reg for this con.

Anyway, BLM gets back in line, and shortly thereafter stupid people start talking to us. The first was this utterly atrocious specimen with teeth that made the Japanese and the British look like dental and orthodontic masters (... and now let's rip on the British). We start talking about how bad the line sucks, and she's like "It's a great time to make friends!" To which BLM replies that we really don't care much for friends. Then she talks about how we should have pre-registered! To which BLM replies (smooth as shit through a duck's-ass like; seriously, he wasn't even up from tying his shoe when he got the line out and damn... it turned ETP on) that the pre-reg line looks like hell, too. "But you don't have to fill out any forms!" Yeah, the forms that ETP and BOETP had to fill out last year which took all of ten seconds.

ETP makes the mistake of asking about how long the line is, and someone else starts in with how it's going to be an hour or two and blah blah blah and last year blah blah blah and some shit about pandas. ETP apparently tuned out the part about pandas and now wishes he told the girl about the time he killed a panda because it looked at him funny. Fuck pandas... And bees! Upon reflection, perhaps BLM made up the part about pandas because he was trying desperately to tune the bitch out as well. But none of us would be surprised if that's how it went down. Upon further reflection, BOETP has indeed confirmed some nonsense about pandas having been in there.

Flashback to White Castle: "I'm done." ETP makes the final judgment on what BLM has been calling for, and we pile into the Yuppiemobile and get the fuck out of there. Which, to be honest, was better in a lot of ways, just like Portillos was better in a lot of ways. To start, we could all do with cutting back on the discretionary spending. Sure, each of us went in with a short list of stuff we were looking to buy, but the past two cons we really went into with no list -- and we all know how that shit turned out: with mountains of legally-sanctioned, thinly-veiled child pornography!

In addition to the monetary benefits, it was probably for the better just in terms of general mental health. Not being bombarded with the aforementioned awful cosplayers for the rest of the day was a definite plus. In addition to just plain not wanting to get sick, there's always the potential that you can see something so incredibly awful that it can ruin something you really, really like -- such as girls in sailor schoolgirl outfits. There are quite a few of those running around any anime con, but of course they're almost entirely low-quality outfits on correspondingly low-quality gai-jin girls. BLM has become kind of a purist on this whole sailor girl thing; unless if you're A) Japanese (or at least Asian since they all, uh, nevermind) and B) cute, you're probably just wasting our time and quite possibly our lunch.

Things smelled a whole hell of a lot better, and we didn't have to deal without all of the morons talking about things only they and their loser friends think are important... SHUT UP BITCH!!! This is something we never do, and would appreciate everyone else knocking it the fuck off.

Once we high-tail it out of there, we're like, now what? We came all the way out here, so no sense wasting the day. BOETP suggests doing something pretentious -- we're good at that. So we head down to Cherry Creek, an upscale (for Denver) shopping district. BLM is just itching to check out the brand-new Crate & Barrel, BOETP needs to see the new fall Ralph line, and ETP needs Tweekend because, let's face it, that's the name of the game. Plus there's plenty of other shit in the area to hit, so we go ahead with our Creek plan, and yeah, it's better. By day's end, we've spent next to nothing. Sure, we went around looking at things like furniture and stereo equipment, but we didn't buy any of it. In the end, the con helped ETP and BOETP save some cash for other high-end merchandise that they're going to buy, and it helped BLM save money for shit that he's already bought.

By day's end, we felt pretty successful. Minimal money spent, only a few dipshits and awful cosplayers seen. All we could do was look at one another and say, "Good con guys!"

Oh, and just because BOETP wants to say it: "SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS SIDEWAYS!!! LET ME KNOW HOW THAT WORKS OUT FOR YOU!!!"

Speaking of sterilized bullshit... Look, I understand not wanting to wallow in victimhood and all, but pretending shit didn't happen doesn't change what happened. I also find it slightly distasteful having a museum in the capitol of the country that was founded on the near annihilation of the people whose "history" the museum is putting on display.

Man, if I were even slightly in touch with my Indian roots, I might be even more irritated by this. But I don't really have any credibility there seeing as how I can never even remember what tribe my family descends from. Of course, I could swear that the reason for that is because every time I ask my grandmother, the answer is different. But it's probably just that I'm a forgetful shit.

Quick adventure in racism for 'ya. This one kid I knew back in high school started calling me Running Bear for some reason at one point. This was before he knew that I had Indian blood in me (yes, I'm going to keep using the non-pc term, partly because I can... that's what my family uses, so fuck everyone else). Once he found out that I was part Indian, he felt pretty bad. But he didn't give a shit before he knew (part of) my lineage. I've mentioned this kid before; he's a good guy for the most part. He was (and still is) just way too fucking white.

The two campaigns have agreed on rules for the upcoming debates. And yeah, those'll be bullshit, too. I'm biased, of course, but can't help but think that a good deal of those rules were lobbied hard for by Team Bush in an effort to keep him looking as not retarded as possible.

I'm telling you, someone at The Onion has been reading my site. That, or, not. I also cared a great deal for this comment in the "What Do You Think?" on antidepressant use in children, which some say actually causes kids to kill themselves:

"Kids with depression see through all the bullshit that everyone else accepts. The Prozac just gives them the clarity of mind to follow through with what they need to do."

"September 11 has served not as a starting point from which to better understand the world but as an excuse not to understand it at all."

Yeah, pretty much.

Hey, what's up? Let's get shit rolling again around here by posting a link on a combination we can all get on board with: booze and guns.