Double Tap

Good Afternoon Ladies & Gentlemen,

I'd like to first & foremost thank those of you who have offered me Halloween costume suggestions (Jlee & JL Clyde specifically) and they are being taken into account. So far the suggestions consist of Hef, Chewie and a Clown Zombie...but there's still plenty of great ideas out there, I just know it. Let's see, what else has gone on since Saturday. Well, super great news is that last night I was told by my brother that C-Word finally called him back...and she's willing to talk about Adoption & Joint Custody...and basically rewind to what we've been doing since January and waste time & tax payer money yet again. Therefore, I want to thank all of you out there who prayed for my little niece because that may have played a small yet significant factor...along with the fact that C-Word may have just realized that the plan before was exactly what she wanted (and I hate to say it...but it was the first weekend after she took her...as predicted). The important thing is...that she's come to her senses...and my brother & mom are overjoyed...as am I...but I'll wait until everything's in writing before I get my hopes up. I mean...it's not like we're not exactly where we were this time last week except she's got my little niece probably being watched by a friend of hers that I don't know but based on past interactions with her friends, I probably wouldn't want within 100 yards of THEIR OWN child...but we shall see. Still great news that she at least called back & didn't run off to Mexico or some stupid sh*t like that. Again, thank you all for praying. It's greatly appreciated.

Saturday night, JL Clyde, the Wingman & I went to go see "Zombieland" starring Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone & Abigail Breslin. Upon the end credits, I basically leaned over to my friends and said, "This may very well be...the greatest movie ever made." As I've mentioned before, I'm not a huge fan of zombie movies...at least from a movie perspective. Sure, the gore & horror sequences can be entertaining...and who doesn't like to see a corpse get blasted with the biggest gun that you can find? However, usually the director either takes the movie too seriously (and let's face it, I'm more concerned with live psychos and shark attacks than the walking dead hungering for my brains) or too ridiculously (I love Shaun of the Dead because it's hilarious...but yeah, it's poking fun at the genre) and that's why I have yet to do a Zombie Movie List (though you know the Resident Evil ones would probably be at the top, just because of my baby's mama Milla). However, that was before this movie. Though it was obviously a comedy, they still took it fairly seriously...or at least as one really can in the situation. There's human elements that come into play without being overly dramatic and/or cheesy. For those who don't know, it's about a virus that's spread across the globe...and turned the vast majority of people into brain-hungry animals with no frontal lobe capacity (or something like that) but yeah, basically zombies. We pick up about two months into the epidemic...and meet up with a young nerdy man (Eisenberg) named Columbus (PS Columbus Day SUCKS!!!) who has developed a set of rules to survive this event. Along the way, he meets up with Tallahassee (Harrelson) who's basically Ted Nugent and a pair of sisters (Stone & Breslin). It goes from there...but just trust me, it's a great flick with plenty of jokes, slow motion destruction and just a great time. I would highly recommend it.

Sunday, the Wingman & I spent the day running errands mostly...but did get to have some wonderful meals at Yanni's Greek food (their special, gyros & dolmathes) and the Texas Roadhouse (pulled pork, ribs, sirloin steaks and a sweet potato with caramel sauce that tastes like pumpkin pie). One thing about hanging with the Wingman...is he knows how to eat. We always go to the great restaurants...or he'll whip up a meal of his own...or he knows how to find the good fruits to snack on. The man knows his grub. Anyway, fairly uneventful night...but we had a good time. He's also looking into the possibility of packing up Mrs Wingman and going to LA with me in November to go visit Lilie and see the sights...but we shall see. It's around Thanksgiving...and he does have a gaggle of kids & responsibilities. Man, what would that be like? Anyway, good times were had...and he really needed it...because today he was in court yet again for similar reasons that my brother has been in a horrible mood the past week...but this has been going on for YEARS as most custody battles do. Gotta love it when family meets the judicial system. Anyway, here's some news...

2012: More Like Y2K? - One of the previews that I saw Saturday night was for the action flick "2012" starring John Cusack and a bunch of special effects. Now, the movie itself looks like it's going to be really bad...but that's not the point...because there was a lot of money put into it...and Hollywood doesn't want you to know what I'm about to tell you. The whole December 21, 2012 being the beginning of the end...isn't exactly what the Mayan calendar is saying...and if any of you are having flashbacks to Y2K (can't believe it's been almost ten years since then) it's perfectly normal...but here's the clarification. Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world. Or is it? Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff." It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House (really?). At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared. "It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die. We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up." Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas. A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years. But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?" (By the way, saw it...and wasn't impressed) It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis. One of them is Monument Six. Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted. It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation. However erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible. Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky." Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012, including one that roughly translates into the year 4772. And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012. "If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain." So you see? Nothing to worry about...and I sincerely doubt that John Cusack, as awesome as he might be, probably wouldn't save us all from...what I can only tell from the preview...is the world crumbling...even if he's on an airplane. I dare say, even Gary Oldman AND Bruce Willis couldn't save us from that. So no worries. Then again, what if it is true? What if we only have three years left? My God!!! We should get to a motel as quickly as possible and enjoy what little time we have left. You're right, that's ridiculous. Let's just go to my apartment. It'll save money AND I know where those sheets have been. Besides, I'm a firm believer that the real apocalypse won't come from the sky...but rather it will slither along the ground.

Donkey Dye-Job - Two white (Caucasian) donkeys dyed with black stripes delighted Palestinian kids at a small Gaza zoo on Thursday who had never seen a zebra in the flesh (and technically, still haven't). With their long ears, drooping heads and sleepy eyes, the impostors probably would not have fooled the zoo's only lioness...but the effect achieved by the zoo owners' dye job looks not so bad -- to the unpracticed eye, and from a distance. On closer inspection it resembles the classic striped convict suit of cartoon strips. Nidal Barghouthi, whose father owns the Marah Land zoo, said the two female donkeys were striped using masking tape and women's hair dye, applied with a paint-brush (so professionally then?). "The first time we used paint but it didn't look good. The children don't know so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new." A genuine zebra would have been too expensive to bring into Israel-blockaded Gaza via smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt (Operation: Zebra Moles), said owner Mohammed Bargouthi. "It would have cost me $40,000 to get a real one." Gaza's Palestinians are impoverished by their isolation under an Israeli embargo against its Islamist Hamas rulers, who refuse to give up armed resistance against the Jewish state. Bargouthi's zoo charged an entrance fee of just $15 for a full busload of children. Not a bad price...and it involves tricking children, which I'm always down for. Just thought I'd share this with you. I really don't have any other opinion about it...other then I get to have you look at the picture of a painted ass. It's probably the closest to a bleached a-hole that you'll find on this blog.

Moonlight Express - Speaking of buttocks-based humor, a German man (of course it's a German man) mooning at railway staff in a departing train got his trousers caught in a carriage door and ended up being dragged half naked along the platform, out of the station and onto the tracks. The 22-year-old journalism student shoved his backside against the window (aka a pressed ham) of a low-slung double-decker train when staff forced him off in Lauenbrueck for traveling without a ticket, a spokesman for police in the northern city of Bremen said. "It's a miracle he wasn't badly hurt. This sort of thing can end up killing you." Instead, dangling by his trousers, the man got pulled along for about 200 meters, all the while managing to keep his legs away from the wheels of the train. The ordeal ended when a passenger pulled the emergency brake. Rescue services were called in, causing rail services between Bremen and Hamburg to be suspended for over an hour, delaying 23 trains...and all because a college kid wanted to be funny. The man (unharmed except for cuts and bruises) now faces charges of dangerous interference in rail transport, insulting the train staff, and may face a sizeable compensation claim for the delays he caused, police said. "He was full of remorse when I talked to him and he advised others not to try the same thing." I'll bet. Don't you hate it when a practical joke becomes a felony? You surprisingly pick up a frat brother in your van and test his loyalty, creating an eternal bond of brotherhood...and then a month later, you're being investigated for kidnapping. You take one FANTASTIC picture of you taking a dump next to the Lincoln Memorial...because let's face it, he looks like he's taking a dump & poop is funny...and then before your mom can even take the picture, the cops are tackling you with your pants down & taking about desecration of a national monument. I didn't even prairie dog, it was just for the picture. Don't talk to me about intent. You have no idea what was going through my mind. Anyway, some people just don't get it.

Anyway, that'll do it for today. Glad to be able to share the good news about Kairi with you...and I'll keep you all posted...because I know how much you enjoy the pictures and stories of that beautiful little princess...and I'm more than happy to share as the greatest uncle on the planet. Have a great day everybody!!!

P.S. Speaking of Mayan stuff, check out the sweet fertility idol that the Wingmans got me!!! I'm trying to find out her proper name...but in the meantime, I'm going to call her Hipnotiti.