OK, so I can't NOT go in costume to my own party. So I'm recycling an old idea into a new costume...

I thought I would post my competing Before & After Party in the spirit of choice and a free-market economy. My house is small, I'm turning 30, I have cats, and I'm not bothering with a costume for the first Holly-ween in seriously 29 years (even at the tender age of 3 my mother dressed me up as Pancho Villa, complete with moustache and sombrero. But I just can't ask my evil twin Polly to come out for yet another monster bash.) So please come by and celebrate with me, before and after your wilder engagements!

October 29th
623 Parkside Ave.

I thought everyone whow knows Judy, my mom, would like to know that Wednesday night she had a hear attack and was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in Erie. She's going to be okay. Only one of her arteries was clogged and they've already cleared it out, but she will have to stay in the hospital until Monday, and she will have to give up the salty snacks and creamy goodies that are her only joy. The last thing she ate before she started to have severe chest pains was a bowl of peanut butter ice cream covered with chocolate syrup, if that gives you any indication of her usual fare!

You could tell how much everyone loves my mom by the number of people who rushed to Erie at 11 at night to be with her. I came with my boyfriend from Buffalo, my cousin came from Hamburg, my sisters and my nephew were already with her, my niece came from Toronto, and my mom's brother and sister came from Bradford, PA. My mom heard the doctor say "she has a consortium in the waiting room," only she keeps saying consor-ti-um instead of consorshum which makes it sound so cute. I think the morphine helps too. She said a number of funny things while in intense pain, another testement to just how tough that old bird is. One of the orderlies in Bradford used to party at our house when my sisters were younger. My mom was the only one who recongnized him and said "Roger Ludwig, I'm doooomed." Then she told all of us, a la Monty Python, "but I don't want to go on the cart!!"

I can't tell you all how relieved we are that she is going to be okay. It's too terrible to see your Mommy all yellow and cold and contorted with pain on a hospital gurney. Please, everyone, quit smoking now, exercise, eat right, all that shit, so that the people who love you so much never have to worry like we have about our mom. I finally managed to quit smoking now a month, and I was so glad that I wasn't standing outside a hospital sucking a cigarette while my mom (ex, but one-time heavy, smoker) was inside having a heart attack. I know death isn't preventable, but preventable death is preventable, so like, shape up everyone, or ship out, as they say.

If anyone wants to pass a message on to my mom, send me an email, and I'll bring them to her on Sunday. I know she'd like to hear from you.

So I have fallen off the wagon already. On Saturday I drank one beer and smoked one imported cigarette. Ahhhhh Gauloises. I felt guilty and recommitted to the goal. But then today I really started to try to do my Application to Candidacy, which is a really friggin' lame paperwork nightmare that you have to go through in order to begin working on your MFA thesis project. Paul I'm sure wrote about what a positive pain in the ass this is. For me especially, since I transferred from another Master's degree program at UB, I have a ton of classes outside of Media Studies. And for each one I have to find the syllabus and write a justification of why it should count toward my degree, and for some of those, I have to get the signature of a teacher who may have moved (out of the country) or who I have possibly pissed off and never want to speak to again. That's so me. Anyways, I called our advisor, a man many know and love but who has always told me encouraging things like I'll never graduate and maybe I shouldn't even be a graduate student. Which is so ridiculous. So today he told me the same thing again, that despite the fact that I have completed everything except the actual thesis project, I shouldn't have "gone out on my own" and yes, I still won't graduate. Well, I might just follow the lead of some greater minds than mine, like say, T.S. Eliot, Getrude Stein, Bill Gates, and complete all my course work, at a cost of $25,000, and tell them to file their formwork where the sun don't shine and let me go my merry way, with no degree to show for all my hard work. Needless to say, it was either break down in tears or break down and smoke. Since I won't give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I begged someone for a Marlboro Red. And then I smoked it. WHY! WHY?! WHYYYYY!!!??? I got a lot of nice and encouraging comments from people who read my Quitter post, but the best and most honest one was, don't say you've quit until 2 years have passed.

Day 6 with no cigarettes. The (e:strip) party was my last hurrah with the smoking. I think it was an appropriate way to end it all; after 10 years of partying and puffing, to toke some last rollies with my old crew. I smoked a smorgasborg of borrowed butts that night, and since I had been cutting back for two weeks before that, they made me dizzy and kinda sick feeling. The next day I think I was more hungover from cigarettes than anything else. This week has been intense with rehersals (one of my ideas was pretty over-the-top and I got grilled by the whole troupe and in the end I had to just cut the skit) but I have still managed not to give in, even though people around me are smoking. Really what I feel like is I've lost an old friend (I almost typed 'fiend'), My Tabaccy, and though I miss it now it's gone, it was time to move on. There just weren't any surprises anymore. Puff puff butt, over and over. The good news is, according to everything doctors have told me, now that I'm not a smoker, I'll live forever, right?

[size=l]Hello Strippers![/size]
[size=xl]This is an invite to the
Real Dream Cabaret's[/size]

[size=xxl]Super Intense Decision Show

at Squeaky Wheel! [/size]

Thursday
August 4
8:00 p.m.

Friday
August 5
9:00 p.m.

Saturday
August 6
2:00 p.m.

Sunday
August 7
4:00 p.m.

The Super Intense Decision Show is part of the Infringement Festival. All performances held at Squeaky Wheel 175 Elmwood. Admission is your hourly wage.

I will be performing with the group, in case you are my friend and would like to see me. But even if you are not my friend or would not like to see me, you should come and just close your eyes during my parts!

More Info:
Real Dream Cabaret Webpage:
Infringement Festival (Buffalo):

Calling all Hackers! Calling all Hackers! Do you like people, especially women? Do you deplore and denounce violence, especially against women? Of course you do. Otherwise you'd be a dickless motherfucker who should rot in hell.

So if you like women, and you think beating them up is about the most disgusting thing a man can do, then I have a job for you. I would like someone to take down sliceoftheday.com for as long as possible, if not permanently.

Basically it's a celebrity nudes site. I was surfing it because this is my boyfriend's favorite kind of internet softporn, so I'm curious and thought maybe I could recommend the site to him. Alright, so I also wanted to see nude pictures of Scarlett Johannsson. Who wouldn't. Anyway, they have a section of the site called "Pieclopedia" where they define different types of women as different flavors of pie. Innocent enough. But then I saw this definition, complete with a bruised picture of Paris Hilton:

"Black and Blueberry
This is a very tricky flavor. Every single slice of pie can become Black and Blueberry, but none of them will ever stay that flavor. This flavor is for those pies that have been "kneeded" or "tenderized" to bring out their full flavor. If you miss your chance to taste this flavor, don't worry my friend. You can always create it out of any slice of pie you see."

These fuckers are not only recommending beating women, they are getting off on it. I'm so pissed I think I could make their dicks shrivel up right now just by thinking about it. I can't even say anymore, I don't think I have to. Women die everyday at the hands of their so-called "lovers". So if you want to hack-attack this site, you would be doing the world a favor. Or if there are any women out there who want to join me as I track the site owners down and beat the shit out of them and then ask how sexy *they* feel, I'm all for it.

I should know better than to think that I can skim even the surface of filth on some men's minds without becoming totally sickened by it. I'm all for looking at naked pictures, it turns me on too, but jokingly suggesting that beaten women are attractive hurts not just women but men too.

Warning: Harry Potter is crack! Millions have suffered from Harry Potter addiction before me, but now I've fallen prey too. So I'm here to warn you, children, if you've somehow managed to remain free of its influence up to now, do not touch, smell, or even look too closely at any Harry Potter books or the words may leap into your eyes and infect your brain.

Symptoms of Harry Potter addiction include but are not limited to:

--> An inability to concentrate on anything not related to Hogwarts, the Ministry of Magic, character arcana, or minute clues spread over 6 novels. In general, sufferers are prone to "magical thinking" and may refuse to go to work, eat, or even accept that "none of it is real." Once at work, they often spend hours combing through fan sites and repeatedly checking the current date to verify the ETA for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2 days, 13 hours, 50 minutes, 30 seconds).

--> Waving your pencil like a wand, trying to make your car fly, and seriously considering what position you are best suited to play on your house Quidditch team, which may result in attempts to actually play Quidditch, which may result in death. Warning: a broom can NOT fly, even and especially when one leaps off a rooftop astride one.

--> An intensely irritating weeping rash between the toes and around the heel of the foot that is resistant to all forms of OTC treatment (Although I haven't been able to determine conclusively that this is Potter induced... could be poison ivy.)

Suffers can be recognized by their glassy eyes, dazed expression, and incoherent speech. If they respond to questions by starting "Well, Dumbledore says..." or "My life is a lot like Sirius' in PoA" then they should be immediately diagnosed with the affliction.

Unfortunately, no cures have been established at this time, although symptoms do seem to be relieved by periods of unconsciousness (sleep, drug induced torpor, or coma) and vigorous shaking (either of the victim directly or by earth quake). One can only expect for this epidemic to become worse with the release of book 6, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", in only 2 days, 13 hours, 47 minutes and counting, or movie 4, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" which doesn't come out, alas, until November 2005.

Okay, so I'm on the road to becoming a financial wiz, and not a moron, but gosh, it's only taken me 29 and 3/4 years to figure out how to save money. And I've committed some real doosies along the way that make me feel so stupid, I have to get them off my chest. Mostly my problem is that I have been paying outrageously inflated prices for basic life services because I was too lazy to change, i.e. deal with bureaucracy and phone calls and forms and all. When I look at how much student loan debt I have, I wonder how much of it was the result of my willingness to pay inflated prices since money was so easy to come by. I mean, who of us with more than $20,000 in student loan debt didn't, on some level, think of it as "free money." Well, let's hope you consolidated, honey, 'cause $40,000 at 8.25% interest over ten years would cost you an additional $18,873. How's that for free? (Calculate your loan: )

Okay, so as a kind of financial numbskull confession, and a word of warning to everyone, here are my big mistakes.

Banking Fees: When I opened my bank account, I had just received my inheritance from my grandfather, which was fairly substantial, but not huge. So the account I got was some kind of Gold thing, with a monthly minimum of $2,000. Well, after a year or so, I had spent all the money and was below the minimum balance pretty much all the time. So I was charged fees of about $40 a month. Once, the fee even overdrew my account. By the time I figured out how much this was costing me, I was out over $500. Pretty lame, huh? But changing my account type did indeed take several months, since my bank is so crappy with the customer service. It was a real hassle, but kind of initiated me to the process of being pissed off at underlings who have no power and therefore bear little blame. I managed by continually harrassing one woman who made the mistake of giving me her extension number. Today, I have free checking.

No Collision Insurance: Part of what I blew my inheritance on was a used car of about $6,000. I paid cash for it. I had never owned a car or even learned how to drive prior to that point. I actually thought it was a "prudent" idea to skip the collision insurance on a car that had over 50,000 miles on it. So when I rear-ended someone and bent the whole frame of my car, it was pretty much totaled and I was out the cash I had spent on it. I sold it back to the used car dealer who had sold it to me. For $100. He fixed it up and put it back on the lot. For three grand.

Car Insurance In General: Pretty much the same story; having no experience, I took the first recommendation of the dealer and went to Ron Giovino in Kenmore and got a GMAC policy. Guess what? I just saved a ton of money on my car insurance. Yes, by switching to Geico. Over $400 a term, or nearly $900 a year. GMAC and the Giovino agents can go fuck themselves too, because they are the most backasswards and rude mo'fos I've ever dealt with. DON'T BUY YOUR INSURANCE FROM THEM!

Cell Phone: Last but not least, my cell phone catastrophe. Oh, God, you will think I'm so stupid. But really it takes a long time for these things to sink in with me. My mom had bought me a pay-as-you-go phone for Christmas in 2003. At first, I hardly used it and it was a good deal. Well, over the last 6 months I've been using it more for business. And personal calls. And then I moved and it became my only line for the time being. Well, I started to notice how often I was adding more money. Often. Finally today I switched to T-Mobile, so I can talk to my boyfriend for free and unlimited weekends and yadda yadda, sales pitch... for about $35 a month. My old Pay as you Go rate for the past 6 months? Average of about $86 per month. Yup. That's how dumb I've been. How really, really dumb.

So that's like what, about $10,000 wasted since 2003? A quarter of my debt, in fact. Just blown with the wind. But now, I am reforming. I'm becoming a serious coupon clipper. A "cheap Swede" like my sister. My new motto is "Never Pay Retail." I can tell you what's on sale at Tops right at this very moment. I do not have a credit card, nor do I want one. I am half way to paying my car off. And my debt, intimidating as it seems, is actually about average for someone with a professional Master's degree. So, you live, you lose, you learn. Hopefully now that I'm about to turn 30 and become, like, you know, a grown up, I'll be better about this shit. I mean sheesh. It's not like America is built on debt, or anything. Is it? (US Debt Clock: )

Lobsters of the world united today to protest the development of a robot lobster they fear will take their jobs trolling the ocean floor and fighting with claws. The robot lobster, called the "Lobot," was designed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, more commonly known as "DARPA" or "the DoD's tech spooks." The Lobot was revealed at a recent Wired convention, when it sparked outrage in the lobster union ranks. "What makes them think a machine can replace us? I mean look at its sorry excuse for claws! And it isn't even red!" remarked one upset lobster, just before being tossed into a pot of boiling water. He followed up by adding "Aaaaaacccccgghhh!! Boiling water!" but couldn't be reached later for comment.

Lobster labor lobbyists are organizing rallies around the world's oceans to prove to consumers and employers alike that there is no crustacean like a real crustacean. Thousands of lobsters were seen trundling around the shoreline and bobbing their eye stems angrily. Like many workers in today's technology-driven economy, they fear being replaced by a bigger, better, faster, mechanical sea-bug.

But DARPA designers seemed more interested in making their worm wiggle. "It was all about making them squirm," one DARPA developer said, referring to their prototype robot, and not the anxious egg-born versions. "The difference between animals and robots is robots get stuck while animals squirm their way through," said inventor-engineer Randolph Pinky of Phoenix Online University. "It's amazing what you can do with a glob of nerve endings." Pinky wouldn't comment on whether or not lobsters feel pain when boiled. "That's too metaphysical for me," he said "I'm a scientist." He then wrestled a fellow engineer to the floor for control of the joystick.

In their defense, DARPA representatives stated that the Lobot was not designed to replace natural lobsters. Instead, it will be employed by the Department of Defense to scan the sea floor for under sea mines. "As with most cutting edge technology" said one DARPA official "the robot lobster is all about 'kill or be killed'. We have to make sure we keep the bottom of the ocean free from terror. There are caves down there too, you know."

As for lobster connoisseurs, they say there's nothing better than the real thing. New York City chef Lalique Quizlo obtained a version of the $2 million robot lobster, as well as a two pound beauty he bought for just under $20 at the fish market. He boiled them both and smothered them in butter sauce. After the sparks died down, he attempted to take a bite of the metal and wiring of the robot lobster, but soon spit the bits out onto his plate. "No doubt about it, I support the natural lobster's fight" he said, while enthusiastically ripping its tail off.

Calls to Red Lobster went unreturned, although rumors that they will partner with the government to open a "Red Lobot" continue to circulate. The B-52's are said to be considering a "Rock Lobot" remix in time for DARPA's annual Summer Fun Strategic Redevelopment Retreat in Ogunquit, Maine.



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