Hell in Your Living Room

I was talking to the brother-in-law, Chris, yesterday and he hits me with an incredibly disturbing recommendation: "You need to do me a favor -- and just try to trust me on this -- go get Karaoke Revolution for your Xbox." My reply? "Oh, hell no! You have to be kidding me." I begin to shiver as I flash back to my karaoke distaster from my bachelor party.

He continues his argument, though, telling me that "with a few friends you trust and enough alcohol it's about as much fun as you can have in your living room" (paraphrasing, of course).

I'm still not really that convinced, but it does seem to be the next big thing in gaming. The song list looks kind of hit or miss, though.

Besides, the key factor is the friends thing. Chris lives in LA: He has both gay friends and friends in the entertainment industry (with plenty of overlap, obviously). These are the types of people who would be willing to come over and be foolish without embarassment or reserve. My friends like to play poker, make snarky comments about movies, and listen to The Wife cuss like a sailor. I'm not convinced I could get Matt to belt out "Broken Wings" in my living room...

So, yeah, I'm on the fence on this one... And I'm only waffling because his description of "It's all Kate, Scot and I have been doing lately: Irish Car Bombs and karaoke" sounds like a ton of fun.

A Slalom Corpse

In my neighborhood, the prairie dogs have turned into hypersuicidal lemmings. The roads are positively littered with roadkill. Maybe the plague has finally gone to their heads.

Maybe a large portion of the coyotes have really died off (something I've heard, but can't find a reference for...) to some degree and are sorely missed.

Either way, it's gross.

Another one?!

New Monkey Species With Goose-Like Call Discovered

The 3-foot-long tree-living animal with brown fur, a white belly and a punk-like crest of hair on its head has been called "kipunji" locally, and now has a scientific name: Lophocebus kupunji, or the highland mangabey. The animal may have eluded researchers for so long because it lives in high altitudes in the treetops and is generally a very quiet monkey.

When it does make a sound, however, it's a strange one. Davenport dubbed the male highland monkey's territorial call the "honk-bark."

"The honk part of the call sounds like a goose," Davenport explained, "and the bark part sounds like a dog. It's very unique for a monkey."

This is the latest in what seems like a rash of newly discovered monkey species over the past few years.

If you'll recall, the naming rights for one were auctioned off with the Golden Palace Casino winning with a bid of $650,000.

Wookies in the Weeds

Either the beard goes, or I do . . .

Anyone on Camp Vance for more than 24 hours was required to shave. Now, nobody needed to be encouraged to get away from Bagram just as quickly as possible, but usually it wasn't possible to get anything done in a day. If you showed up for supplies or paperwork one day, you'd always be short a signature or a truck until the next. The loophole there was the phrase "on Camp Vance." There was an annex, known as the German compound (because German SF stayed there when they were in Afghanistan), so we stayed there and only ventured onto Vance when absolutely necessary (and preferably under cover of darkness.) That actually lasted several months before anyone caught on, so we considered it a success.

Long, but a great read (check the rest of the site when you have a few spare hours). Gotta love self-contradicting leadership...

The soldier in this photo Andre points out has quite a shrub going.

Hooray Rollergirl!

No, not that one (though she is a good thing, for sure). I'm talking roller derby girls! The recent resurgence of roller derby has finally made its way to the Denver metro region, and I am psyched.

Matt and I desperately want our ladies to sign up. Then not only could we be legitimate rollergroupies to real, live, super-hot rollergirls, we could stage roller husband fights in the stands!! Yeah!

Besides, check out the friends they would make:

The assembled crew suggests there's no typical derby girl. There are women from all walks of life: a mom, a burlesque dancer, PhD students, nine-to-fivers, a former figure skater. Some girls are all of 90 pounds while others are significantly more. They all come together thrice a week to strap on some wheels and smack each other around a bit.

Sweet. They even have t-shirts available at Twist & Shout.

Tattoos: No longer cool

Artists concerned tattoos losing nonconformist lure

Long-time tattoo photographer Charles Gatewood of San Francisco said: "It (tattooing) is so popular that it has lost some of its magic. It was like a club, a secret society and family. Now it's gotten commercialized, co-opted and watered down ... in the opinion of some people."

I've never understood this kind of "mainstream == lame" mentality that is so... well... mainstream among so many so-called "subcultures".

Tattoos are "cool" (and will always be so) if they mean something to the person wearing the ink.

End of story.

Jail Break!

Double your pleasure, double your fun: Monkey escapes from S.C. island laboratory

An escapee from Morgan Island has been captured in a tree in the backyard of a home on Lady's Island - about 7 miles away from where he was supposed to be.

...

"I have been here eight years and this is the first (escape) I can remember in the area," said Greg Westergaard, president and chief executive officer of Alpha Genesis. "I'm at a loss at how it got over there. They probably can swim a little bit, but it really is a long way over there."

A simian SEAL? Very, very bad news!

...

Monkeys escape from La. primate center

Officials captured 47 monkeys that had escaped from the Tulane Primate Center, but six remained on the loose Tuesday and seemed to be hiding out in a heavily wooded area near the site.

They claim none of these escapees are mutant super monkeys, but who's going to believe some talking head administrator of some mysterious primate center, eh? I mean, they learned how to open their own cages, right?

Days Like This

Things happen to Michael Buffington. It's been a long, long while, but I've had days like that. I think they tend to occur more often when one is in foreign territory. Like the time I spent a few days in Seattle. It wasn't as weird as Michael's day in San Fran, but it had a mild taste of the surreal throughout.

Monkey Maneuvers

A troop of Langur special forces are laying siege to an Indian military academy:

The simians have been making life difficult for the gentlemen cadets training at the academy. They have disrupted training exercises, broken window panes and pulled out plants in the academy’s manicured lawns. ‘‘They descend in groups and make a mess of everything,’’ say officials.

This sort of offensive against military forces can only be viewed as an escalation of hostilities.

...

Meanwhile in Huntington, WV, a "pet" monkey took a bite out of a 13-year-old girl:

The man said the monkey climbed upon his arm and shoulder and ran toward his daughter, jumping on her left leg. He said it bit her left kneecap, causing about a 1/2-inch cut. The monkey also reportedly bit the girl on her right hand ring finger.

Troubling times these be...

Nine Inch Nails: With Teeth

While my reaction is quite as extreme as the one at Tiny Mix Tapes, I do have to say I'm a bit disappointed with Trent's latest. What it boils down to it this: The first single from With Teeth, "The Hand That Feeds" is the best song.

That's a shame. The first single should never be the best song (or maybe "the only good song" is a better way to put it) on a disc.

I'm not saying it's a horrible album, I'm just saying I wish it was all as good as the single.