Hi there!

I've just finished the next installment of my seminal fictional vampire-hunting blog.

No, I'm not going to drop you all a note every time I write something, I was just concerned that some of you may have missed my last entry, when I announced this.

The new blog is at: http://chretiensmith.wordpress.com/ Be sure to read both entries. :)


The lovely, lovely arkady even made an RSS syndication for it at: chretiensmith.

I swear that I'll shut up about this now. Unless I have a really really good reason for mentioning it again. (Like, if Neil Gaiman starts talking about it on his blog)

Hi there!

A month or so ago, my dad was talking about running in the Belmar 5 Mile Run this weekend. Now, my dad runs MARATHONS. He's been in the Washington DC Marine Corps Marathon, New York City Marathon, and the Boston Marathon; not to mention the Paris Maraton, and the Rome Marathon. He's been in more marathons than I can count. 26.3 miles is a short jog for him.

So when he suggested a 5 mile run, I casually offered: "Y'know, I think I could DO 5 miles with no problem, if I could powerwalk it".

I powerwalk nearly every morning. I usually walk about 4.3 miles, so another .7 miles shouldn't have been any problem for me. My father said: "You could walk it. If you kept up a moderately quick pace, you'd probably come ahead of half the RUNNERS there". So I was confident that I'd do really well. There were 3 things that I was NOT counting on:

1. That extra 7/10ths of a mile will kill ya,
2. When you're behind 8,000 people, (I assume) and you turn around and see 8 people behind you, you're very much inclined to pick up the pace a little.
3. You tend to overexert yourself when there are cute chicks watching. (if you're me)

So here is the photographic evidence:



This was the sea of humanity that took off from the starting line. I began the race pretty close to my dad, so I wasn't that far back at this point. The picture was taken by my favorite cute chick, the lovely chucklebug.



Finally, here I am, attempting to mug for the camera. Notice how refreshed and energetic I am at this point. I'm wearing my bright red "SUPPORT LIBRARIES" t-shirt, so that paramedics can find me easily.



Rounding the corner at about the 3.5 mile mark, at this point, I broke into a jog for my hunnybunny and my mom, who were cheering me on.

Usually, it takes me about an hour and change to do my 4.3 miles. I keep a regular pace of a fast walk, seldom running, seldom jogging, and NEVER trying to look manly for the cute chicks. In this race, I actually did a fair amount of jogging.



And this is me crossing the finish line at 1:05:38, drenched in sweat and water from the various water stations along the course. I had meant to just gradually come to a slow pace and walk it off. The middle-aged woman in front of me came to a DEAD FUCKING STOP, forcing me to do the same. It was then that I felt file miles of inertia come slamming into me. I was actually fine before that. I saw my dad, mom, and wifey at the finish line, at which time I brought them news of the Greek victory at Marathon. Well, at Fivemileathon.

But I made it. In less time than it usually takes me to do 4.3 miles. Go me.

Hi there!

Rachel Maddow filling in for Keith Olbermann: Librarian gets the boot at McCain rally!



Feisty old bird. But she's a Librarian what do you expect?

On a totally unrelated note, I had a dream last night that I was hanging out with a cute girl who turned out to be a psychopathic serial killer. So I had to try to convince her that we were just visiting the police station for a few questions and absolutely nothing else. (it helped that she didn't quite have all of her mental faculties) They served us brownies and fruit salad, and they let us have sex in the interview room one last time before they came around to lock her up and throw away the key for her homicidal rampages.

Hi there!

So Scientology has apparently suffered yet another crushing defeat, to the tune of some 8 million bucks.

By now, Scientology has become a complete joke. Everybody knows the story about the Galactic Overlord Xenu, and the DC-10s full of nuclear bombs, and volcanoes, Thetan levels and Dianetics and such. No one really really regards Scientology with any degree of credibility. It's only for wackos like Tom Cruise, John Travolta, and Chef. If one of your friends claimed to have joined the Eastern Orthodox Church of Reformed Jedi Santeria; Minnesota Branch, you might nod placidly and commend him or her on following their own spiritual path. But if they announced their intention to become a Scientologist, you'd likely glare at them as if they were certifiably insane. We all KNOW that Scientology is crazy.

My first brush with Scientology came about during my brief stint at the University of South Florida in Tampa. I was away from home, away from my parents, out on my own as a responsible young adult. I was living in FLORIDA. There were palm trees right outside my door and a swimming pool less than 50 paces beyond that. I had a new girlfriend, who was not only hot and Japanese, but actually let me see her nekkid. (she never actually slept with me, but that's another story) I was feeling GOOD. Life was perfect.

So, I was passing by the official USF Flea Market that set up shop on the quad every Tuesday, and there was a stand giving away a FREE personality test! Well, I'm always really big on introspection and self-analysis, so I signed right up. I was curious to see what my personality was really like. I've always been a bit of a weirdo, so I was sure that the Personality Test People would discover that my personality was ... different. So I answered the questions as truthfully as I could, and the results were ... disappointing.

See, apparently, I was depressed. My life was full of angst, and stress, and deep psychological depression. I had led an unfulfilled life, my existence was meaningless, and I was wrought ... wrought, I tell you! ... with melancholy. (but not the Infinite Sadness, since that album wouldn't be released for three or four more years)

Only ... no I WASN'T. I was willing to admit that not everything was sunshine and rainbows, (although ready access to a nekkid chick came pretty damn close) but I just could not accept that I was "DEPRESSED". I'm a laid back guy. Feel free to ask Charlene about the last time that I really lost my temper and started screaming at her. That would be never. Actually, ask any man, woman, or child on the PLANET about the last time I got really angry. I don't think you can find one. (Okay, my Mom will tell you about the time that I missed Batman and she had to show me the TV guide to prove to me that it would be on again tomorrow. I was 3) For me, life has always been a fun ride. I adore life. Even when my life sucks, and things aren't going my way, I can usually manage to find SOME kind of silver lining. Batman will always be on tomorrow.

So when the Personality Test Lady told me that I was OMG SO DEPRESSED, and that my facade of happiness and joy was just a pretense to cover up my heartache, I knew that she could not possibly be anything other than completely and totally full of shit. :) Then she tried to sell me a copy of Dianetics, I refused, and I never looked back to Scientology.

Although, the thing that gets me about Scientology are the number of people that fall for it. Okay, sure, if I had been a college kid, living away from home for the first time, scared, unsure of myself, terrified of the future, that sales pitch might have dragged me right DOWN! But this was some 16 years ago! The Internet As We Know It didn't exist, South Park hadn't even debuted, and those commercials with the exploding volcano were really kind of cool. (they didn't mention the Alien Overlord Xenu) But now when you look at the Church of Scientology, it's just so OBVIOUSLY a cult of wackos, that I can't imagine anyone falling for it.

But are they really?

A lot of people fear Scientology, and with good reason. They are a powerful organization, very litigious, and their connections run deeply within the celebrity community. They've had the power to get some really bad movies greenlit, TV episodes pulled from the air, and have managed to keep their tax-exempt status in many countries. Are they really a religious organization, or a Secret Society?

Do the Freemasons honestly believe in all the ritual and symbolism, or do they join because the organization opens doors? How many Bishops and Cardinals have lost their faith, but stay within the Church because of the status and power it brings? Does Vinnie Barbarino honestly believe that Xenu exists, or is it because so many important people in Hollywood are "in on the joke"? Maybe it's just one big mutual admiration society. I know that Satanists don't really believe in the devil, after all. It's all a pose, a red curtain draped in front of the REAL machinations of the group. Maybe all of the Xenu claptrap is just to keep the rabble out.

Maybe they're all just a little less crazy than we think?

Nahhh ... :D

Hi there!

The PNC Bank Garden State Arts Center is a very large concert venue located right smack dab in the center of New Jersey. (more or less) They feature a diversity of acts from Toby Kieth to Motley Crue. Ozzfest is usually held here, when it's in town, and tonight they're showing a double bill of Chicago and The Doobie Brothers.

The entrance to the Garden State Arts Center is accessed from the Parkway. Near the entrance is a large electronic billboard which displays the names of the various bands, both present and "coming soon". Along with these messages are paid advertisements for Arts Center sponsors, and public service announcements, ensuring that you have a better than even chance of driving right past the place without ever knowing who is playing there, but being acutely aware that Geico can save you more money on your car insurance and that you should always choose a designated driver.

Yesterday, as I was passing, I noticed a very peculiar message. You see, the Arts Center has had some issues with underage drinking in the past. This has been mainly due to the fact that the parking lot is often host to pre-concert tailgate parties, the fact that there are approximately 35,092 booze kiosks inside the venue, and the fact that many of the teenagers that attend concerts at the Garden State Arts Center are, in fact, from Jersey.

So they put a message up on the big flashing billboard outside the Arts Center, just to let everyone know that this sort of thing will Not Be Tolerated. The message reads:

UNDERAGE DRINKING IS PROHIBITED AND STRICTLY ENFORCED

It was at this point that my head actually exploded. :(

Hi there!

Driving home from work this evening, I was passed by a black luxury car with tinted windows and a New York vanity license plate that read: XCELSIOR

That was probably just Stan Lee, right?

Hi there!

Sometimes when I bring up the subject of polyamory, critics characterize it as selfish. People who believe in polyamory just want to have their cake and eat it too. (Or more correctly, want their Kate, and Edith too) They just want to schtupp anything that moves, and who cares about anyone else's feelings?

Well, leaving alone the prospect of having cake and eating it, I've always felt that polyamory was more defined by a serious genetic defect in jealousy. It's not that poly people don't FEEL jealousy, but that we don't seem to validate it quite as much. There are even some people who go so far as to assume that jealousy is PROOF of love, and that if you aren't jealous, you obviously don't LOVE the person. But we won't talk about those, because they are clearly deluded.

But there's one little monologue that I've always felt describes the heart of polyamory, the inner workings of the fevered brain of someone who actually -eschews- jealousy. It comes from the musical: Camelot, written by Lerner & Lowe. The play itself is rather an over-simplification of Arthurian Mythology, and definitely over-romanticized. I like to think of it as the extreme opposite end of the Arthurian spectrum from John Boorman's Excalibur. In this scene, Arthur is angsting over his lovely wife gettin' it on with his best friend. He KNOWS that it's going on, he just can't really prove it. He's sitting along in his throne room, addressing the Sword Excalibur and the empty darkness. Throughout the play, he's been using a kind of dialectic form of argument (doubtlessly taught to him by Merlin) to resolve the various issues of his rulership. It proves remarkably well in resolving issues of justice, but fairly useless against the illogic of best friends schtupping your wife. And yet the solution of his problem is, to me, the finest moment in the play: (It's a little long)

Arthur: "Proposition: If I could choose from every woman who breathes on this Earth, the face that I would most love, the smile, the laugh, the touch, the voice, the heart, the very soul itself, every feature and detail to the last strand of her hair, they would all be Genny.
Proposition: If I could choose from every man who breathes on this Earth, a man for my friend, a man for my brother, a man for my son, they would all be Lance.
I love them. Yes, I love them, and they answer me with pain and torment. Be it sin, or not sin, they have betrayed me in their hearts, and that's far sin enough! I can see it in their eyes! I can hear it when they speak! And they must pay for it and be punished! I shall not be wounded and not return it in kind! I'm through with feeble hoping! I demand a man's vengeance!
...vengeance...
Proposition: I am a king, not a man. And a very civilized king. Could it possibly be civilized to love myself above all? Could it possibly be civilized to destroy the thing that I love? What of their pain, and their torment? Did they ASK for this calamity? Can passion be selected? Is there any DOUBT of their devotion to me, and to my table?
My God. Excalibur, I shall. Be. A KING.
This is the time of King Arthur, and we shall reach for the stars! This is the time of King Arthur, when violence is NOT strength, and compassion is NOT weakness! We ARE civilized!
RESOLVED!: We shall go through this together. They, you, and I.
And may God have mercy on us all!".

To me, that is the essence of polyamory. Loving someone enough that you just can't bring yourself to hate them, even when jealousy is telling you that you SHOULD. That, to me is ... Love. It's the kind of love that puts your lover on a plane with Victor because the problems of three little people doesn't mean a hill of beans in this crazy world. That's love. I realize that it's still different from polyamory, but it's where my polyness comes from. Even if it doesn't work out quite so well in the movies. :)

Hi there!

Okay, so ... World of Warcraft.

Biggest Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game ever, right? I don't even LIKE WoW, yet I play it regularly, because it's a decent way to get together virtually with a bunch of friends and pretend to role-play for a few hours. Plus, it's IT. It's the biggest time-wasting activity out there, and "ignorance of one's own popular culture is no virtue"^*.

At recent estimates, World of Warcraft has a population that rivals ... Sweden. So it isn't just the most popular MMORPG, it's one of the world's most popular PASTTIMES.

Now, at my workplace, I've been trying to get people to use Second Life as a way of communicating with students and colleagues in a vibrant, three-dimensional virtual environment. I've been trying to show how virtual worlds are the next phase of the Internet, how chatting and IM aren't good enough, how people need to interact "on the grid", to get the most out of their social networks. Usually, when I give a presentation on this, I mention the close-knit communities of WoW guilds, the socializing that goes on, the mental connection that one makes between avatar and "personness". I like to illustrate how the virtual internet is bringing us all a little closer. Many educational institutions have a presence in Second Life, because it's possible to have your entire class meet in a virtual world while each of them are sitting at home in their pajamas. Second Life just lends itself to Distance Education.

Which is fine for Second Life, but what about WoW? Are there any educational applications that could benefit from students who spend 20% of their lives riding through Azeroth on the back of a giant chicken??

Well, what about sports teams?

What do college sports teams teach us that will be helpful for us in our future careers? The importance of teamwork? Leadership skills? The kinds of problem-solving skills that require creativity and non-linear thinking? Very few college football champions actually go on to make the big bucks in the NFL. How many college baseball players even make it to the minors, much less to the big leagues? But being on a team in college often translates directly to future career success on your resume. When you're hiring a fresh new entry-level manager out of college, you know that the athlete has an edge over the wallflower. You know that he or she can think under pressure, and works well with others^tm.

Well if running a touchdown can make you more capable of facing an important deadline at a big business corporation, then what about spearheading an attack through Arathi Basin with a rag-tag group of Gnomes and Night Elves? If you want to hire someone who can pull your business through a fiscal crisis, don't you want someone who knows how to work the Auction House to rook every last bit of epic gear for the least amount of gold pieces? If you need your business to be a part of a global presence, shouldn't your managment know how to use telecommunication resources to network with people all over the world? (such as VoIP platforms, etc.?)

Why are there NOT World of Warcraft Intercollegiate teams? I mean, this isn't some little thing that the nerds are playing in their parents' basement like D&D was in MY day. This is a game of epic proportions. EVERYbody is playing WoW, even Jocks, Preppies, and Mister T.!

I'm gonna try to form the world's first Intermural WoW team. Someone try to talk me out of it before I go TOO crazy... :D


* Stephen King, I think, or someone else. But certainly not me ...

Hi there!

The internet really IS for Porn!! :)

(work-safe, though)

Hi There!

If there was ever a bandwagon worth jumping on, it's the post-a-Carlin-video one. Sorry for dragging my heels on this, but this is one of my faves.

Hi there!

Truly, what the fuck is wrong with people?

http://jezebel.com/5017256/what-patriotism-isnt

Hi there!

--- From @mak506 on Twitter



The speech in it's entirety is HERE.

Hi there!

Welcome to Brick, NJ. Temporarily Venice.



This was a 45 minute thunderstorm. In the time it's taken to me to upload this photo and post it on LJ, the puddle is nearly gone. :O

Hi there!

We got the new couches, delivered about 30 minutes ago. I took a few pics. Let me know what y'all think.

( pictures! )

Hi there!

Okay, so we're getting new couches today. As for the OLD couches, we're giving them away to a cute college student that Chucklebug works with. We've moved them to the office, so that the couch movers can bring the NEW couches upstairs into our living room.

Because the couch guys have not seen fit to give us a delivery window, we have no idea when the new couches are getting here. So we have an empty living room, an office full of couches, and nowhere to sit.

Charlene SOLVED this problem by moving a single couch cushion to the middle of the living room:





Ginger is wondering what happened to the old couches. :)

Hi there!

Went for a walk in lovely Allaire State Park this morning, because I am a nature boy!

Photoessay here: ( Read more... )

Hi there!

Ooooh, I like this meme. I mean, "Baaaaaaaaaaa". :P

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Hi there!

Okay, so I stopped at the Cheesequake Rest Stop this morning on my way to work. Despite it's funny name, Cheesequake is one of the major rest stops on the Garden State Parkway. The GSP, as well ye all know, is the major artery through the Great State of New Jersey. Usually when someone laughing says: "Yer from Jersey? Yo, what exit!?", they're talking about the GSP. Either that, or they're talking about the Jersey Turnpike, which makes no sense to me, since the Jersey Turnpike really only goes from Newark down to Philly and has 18 exits, unlike the GSP which stretches the entire length of the state and has an exit every few miles.

So I like to think of the Cheesequake Rest Stop as a major way station for any inter-Jersey commutation. Sometimes I'll see tour buses loaded with old people on their way down to A.C., sometimes I'll see limousines parked outside, and sometimes I'll see middle-aged Italian men in expensive suits having heated discussions on a cell phone. I try to avoid eye contact in those situations. But this morning, I saw a Very Tall Girl entering the building just ahead of me. She had reddish blonde hair and was long and lean. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her walk into the building. I stopped first at the men's room, and then headed over to the Starbucks kiosk to get a Venti White Chocolate Mocha. As I ordered, she came out of the ladies room and took the place behind me in line. I stole a few more glances at her face, and noticed that she was a little older than I'd first suspected. Maybe my age or a bit older. I thought that maybe she used to be a model. Then again, I reasoned, models are never as gorgeous in person as they are in magazines. That's sort of the POINT of being a model. As I picked up my Venti White Mocha, I smiled at her, and she smiled back at me, as if expecting me to say something. But I just muttered a polite: "Hi", and when on my way.

Of course, by the time I was safely in the car and a few miles away from the scary gorgeous woman, I thought: "You know, I SHOULD have said something". I mean, I wouldn't have started hitting on her or anything, but a nice, genuine: "Hi, you are disarmingly pretty"! wouldn't have been out of hand, would it? I mean it's not like I'm ever going to see this person again, a brief compliment might have brightened her day, no? I started running the scenario in my head, and somehow, in my imagination, as I was driving up the parkway several miles away from the Cheesequake Rest Stop, I pictured the long and lean mystery woman shake my hand and say: "Hi, Elle MacPherson, pleased to meet you".

So then I started doing the math in my head.

Slightly older than me.
Long, reddish-blonde hair.
Tall
Thin
Deep brown eyes.

Hrm. It probably wasn't, and I honestly didn't analyze the details of her face closely enough to really say for sure. I think the only thing that makes me think that it might have been was the smile she gave, as if she was already expecting me to start talking to her. The kind of smile that people who get recognized frequently must develop. I keep looking at photos of Ms. McP online now, and it DID look a lot like her, but part of that is me just wanting to believe that Elle Freaking MacPherson smiled at me in a Parkway Rest Stop this morning. That couldn't have been her, right? I mean, it's not like supermodels are ... REAL. They're just imaginary people who live in magazines and TV commercials and never drive down the Garden State Parkway, or drink coffee, right?

It was probably someone else. [nods]

Hi there!

Bringing a little bit of surreality to everyone's morning ...



I have no words for this one, for good or for ill. Just ... uh, yeah.

Hi there!

Okay, so I'm in the shower this morning singing "The Time Warp" to myself. I am very wisely refraining from any jumps to the left or steps to the right. But I'm thinking about The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I was fondly recalling the first few times that I saw it in the theater, and how, despite its absurdity, it did have a few moments of genuine horror. So I thought: "Wouldn't it be cool to REMAKE The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but take out all the funny and replace it with creepy?" Remove all of the musical numbers, make Dr. Frank and the gang some kind of weird demented sadistic creeps, and play the whole thing for straight horror. Something more modern, closer to our 21st century horror offerings! It'd be more like House of A Thousand Corps--

• Innocent teenagers...


• Car breaks down...


• In the rain..


• Scary old house...


• Creepysexy brother and sister...


• Satanic doctor working on strange experiments...


• A dinner scene...


• A FLOOR SHOW!?!?

FUCK!

All right, so who wants to start writing the audience participation parts? [sigh]