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| | I had a peice of Japanese grape bubblegum the other day. It really freaked me out... it tasted like grapes. Not "grape flavor" like you d expect from Hubba Bubba or a Nehi soda, but actual grapes off the vine. Weird.
It led me to the train of thought that it s probably more weird that we just accept "fruit flavors" instead of the taste of a fruit... grape, strawberry, watermelon... there are a lot of examples. Kristyn explained to me in Japan that everything tastes like its source material not a manufactured flavor vaguely related to said item. Double weird.
Japanese people disturb me. They just ain t right.
-b | | 2/26/2004 10:53:59 AM Converted to Anti-semitism | Comments (5) |
| Does anyone else feel like committing acts of violence on jews for protesting The Passion of Christ? Seriously. The stupidity of it all is infuriating to me. If they are concerned about the film cauing a rise in anti-semitism in Chrstians indicting the gospels upon which the faith is based is not the way to go about it. Sheesh. I m absolutely convinced the backlash of them protesting in the first place will be much worse than anything someone could take away from the movie as essentially what they are protesting is the New Testement. Nice one, there. Way to bridge the gap between the two faiths. Morons.
Anyway, I m very excited to see the film. I have truckloads of respect for Mel Gibson for staying true to his convictions. Doing the whole film in latin and aramaic is friggin awesome... maybe not as cool as Shatner doing a film in esperanto but still pretty friggin cool. He has also really impressed me in interviews he s given about the movie. There was a special on last week where Diane Sawyer asked a volley of assinine questions (as you would expect from a ignoramous like Diane Sawyer) and Mel answered everything with intelligence and wit and sincerity.
I m hoping to take in both Passion and Bubba-hotep this weekend... that in itself may be a mortal sin, but that s the risk I m gonna have to take.
-bampf
PS...
Dear Jew.
We are heartily sorry for having offended thee.
Jew.
You should be free to ride your Jew bike.
And wear your Jew clothes.
Without people making fun of you.
Jew.
It doesn't matter that you killed God's only son.
It doesn't even matter if you blame the Romans....
--Antoine, Upright Citizens Brigade | | | Never a dull moment round here, lemme tell you. Just to bring everyone up to speed, Kristyn started having some nasty neck pains Monday... lots of stiffness... the sort of thing you get when you sleep in a bad position. However as time passed it got worse rather than better. Tuesday her co-workers conspired against her and surreptitiously made her an appointment with an orthopedist that her law firm represents.
The orthopedist did some tests and noted numerous symptoms indicative of meningitis. He recommended she go to the hospital asap for a spinal tap. At this point Kristyn calls me and I immediately start freaking out and leave work in a rush (I hazily recall lividly cursing all vehicles travelling in the left land of the Blue Route going less than 80 mph... slow-ass fuckers).
So anyway, I take Kristyn to the hospital (Taylor, which is conveniently situated in our backyard). By this point she can t move her head at all, can t extend her arms, and the soreness was starting to move into her hips. Yeah, lovely, huh.
I guess our Emergency Room experience wasn t too bad (I ve certainly had worse). They were relatively quick to get her on a gurney and into an examination room. Some doctor with a minimal mastery of the english language gave her a quick examination and seemed to ignore most of what Kristyn told him. However he did order an exhaustive battery of tests (luckily no spinal tap, which we were both really dreading).
So two blood samples, 2 urine samples, an X-Ray AND an MRI later, we re back in the examination room awaiting results. A couple hours later all test results come back negative, so no need for the spinal tap. The doctor diagnosed torticollis... some kinda muscle spasm affliction. Having read the descriptions on WebMD it really doesn t sound anything like what Kristyn has, but then again she also isn t demonstrating all that many meningitis symptoms either. So she was perscribed some muscle relaxers and some pain killers.
I took off yesterday to play Florence Nightingale. We spent a lot of time watching Star Trek (I guess I was trying to indoctrinate her). I m never been one to doubt the therapuetic powers of Jean-Luc and company. Today she has gotten only marginally better (but at least hasn t worsened) so I m back at work. Hopefully she ll gradually return to normal over the next day or so.
So that s been the last two days for me. Like I said, never a dull moment.
-bampf | | | Really gluttony truly is the grandest of the Seven Deadly Sins. I ve been a big fan of Sloth all my life and Wrath has its uses, but Gluttony is truly where it s at.
The latest grand episode of gluttony occurred Saturday evening as we traveled with Kristyn s family to some dive restaurant in Fredrick, MD for all you can eat seafood. We were accompanied not only by Kristyn s dad, who is a monumental eater, but also her uncle whose untamed hunger shames even Chris.
I had eaten light that day and the night before so I was on my game as well. Even Kristyn was in pure eating machine mode (despite spending most of the day in bed recovering from a hang over from a party we were at the night before). Tray upon tray of dungeness crabs were offered up to us for wholesale devouring. Accompanying the crabs were helpings of shrimp, scallops, clams, oysters, crab cakes and of course lots of melted butter.
The surrounding areas were covered in crab offal. On several occasions I had to fish crab bits out of my iced tea as the mound of discarded crab parts sat right in front of me and plenty of run-off ended in my way.
I m sure between Kristyn, her dad, her uncle and I, probably three dozen crabs met their doom. That was on top of a couple dozen shrimp, a small bucket of clams and multiple helpings of fried scallops and clams.
It was glorious. As we finished we marveled at the battlefield, strewn with vanquished crustaceans. The taste of victory was sweet indeed. To further accentuate our feat of absolute gluttony we ordered double brownie, chocolate fudge (with ice cream) desserts.
I think just about everybody involved was feeling relatively ill for the trip home... but it was well worth it. Mmmmm... crabs.
As for other events over the weekend... Sunday I did manage to make it to the store for the first time in a long while. Played a half of BloodBowl against Evan as we tried out our new teams in preparation for the spring league (orcs for me, skaven for him). My orcs faired pretty well, although it was disapointing that I couldn t manage to injure a single rat. It was just nice to play again... BloodBowl is life after all.
So that was my weekend. Good stuff. Hope everyone else was able to exploit a deadly sin to its fullest.
-bampf | | | Been a great weekend and it ain t over yet. For what seems like the first time since high school I m off for President s Day... sweet. So I ve been able to extend an excellent Valentine weekend.
Friday I took off early in order to surprise Kristyn with a romantic Valentine evening. I won t go into the mushy details, but everything went off nearly perfectly (here was a lot of preperation and even some subterfuge involved) so I was extremely happy. And Kristyn loved it so all was good.
My pre-emptive Friday Valentine Day freed up Saturday to go hang out at King of Prussia. We saw Return of the King (for the fourth time) on the IMAX screen... friggin amazing!! I recommend to everyone reading to make the trip... it s definitely worth it! We had a nice dinner at some new micro-brew/pub place and headed home to watch some movies... picked up Underworld and X2. I forgot how much I enjoyed Underworld in the theatre. What a fun movie... the sound and visuals are just so well done. If the story was just a bit more cogent it would be first rate.
Anyway. Sunday we hosted Rick and Chad for a evening of board gaming. That was every cool. Got to play Cosmic E and Settlers... hadn t played either in maybe over a year... sad considering I used to play both at least weekly. Anyway it was a good time and hopefully we ll do it again soon.
Today, has been an excellent day off. I was up late painting, and did some more today. My orc team (tentatively titled the Punchin Pugilists) is coming along very nicely. Jeff Corwin has been on Animal Planet all day so that was an additional bonus to the day s festivities.
Need to do some more painting and drawing tonight... need to make some headway on illustrations for Dan s book... sweet.
One other important note from the weekend. It seems all future safaris have been pre-empted. Some kids were snooping around the crackhead s house on Friday and some one called the cops. So there were 4 or 5 cop cars and even people from the fire department here en masse Friday evening. I guess they decided the place was a safety hazard to inquisitive neighborhood kids (and next door neighbors) so the cops hauled off some of the more bulky detritus (a lawn mower, a gas can etc) and then had the broken down car that had set in their back yard for months hauled away. Late into the night they had contractors boarding up the entire place. So all the windows are now covered by giant sheets of plywood. Alas... no more safaris indeed.
Oh well. I may never get my manual push mower back.
-bampf | | | Pics from Goth night.
For your viewing pleasure:
Here
Tell me what you think. I hadn t donned the dog collar yet (there were some technical difficulties getting it to fit around my enormous neck) so the look isn t quite complete, but you certainly get the idea.
Dan and Jimbo are in there as well... Karri somehow eluded inclusion by being the photog.
And yes, everything about Kristyn s dress was inapropriate.
-bampf | | | So... it s been a long while now since I last played BloodBowl.
I feel empty inside.
Sigh.
There s a possible game night in the works for this weekend. Maybe that will sate me for the time being.
-bampf | | 2/9/2004 11:39:00 AM Bampf Goth mode-- Activate! | Comments (6) |
| Very excellent and eventful weekend. The highlight of which was definitely Saturday night: The Goth Club.
A couple of weeks ago Karri had promised to take Kristyn to a Philly Goth Club (or more accurately, a Philly club on Goth night) in celebration of her reaching the legal drinking age. I quickly volunteered to come along. Typically if Kristyn is going out with friends I stay at home... I have a well documented disliking of the whole bar/club scene... plus any time I m given the choice between a social event or staying at home for a night on my PC... I will always choose the PC (with the exception of events involving Argent Lupe or a likewise small circle of friends). No contest. However the goth club thing was just too intriguing... definitely one of those things I felt I should experience at least once in my life.
So I happily agreed to go and even allow myself to be gothed out (gothified?). So, Saturday was the night.
My attire:
My black glow in the dark Punisher shirt (which I allowed Kristyn to slash repeatedly and saftey pin back together)
My black SCA pants
An old pair of work shoes that I shoe polished black
A studded black leather dog collar burrowed from Karri
Hair and make-up:
Hair completely spiked (I m about a month over-due for a haircut so I had some pretty lengthy spikage going on)... tripled gelled and shellacked
Black Eyeliner and grey eye shadow
Black tears a la Dawn for both eyes.
Kristyn thought I looked really really good... like distrurbingly so. I kinda liked it... not a look I d don to go to work... but maybe at SCA events. Karri has promised some pics before long. I ll be sure to share.
So we wondered around South Street for a while (for once rather than pointing out the South Street freaks we were the freaks). Nice. Of course I ve gone out into public more strangely dressed (SCA garb, Civil war kit, corsetted damsel in distress etc) so it was no big deal. The best part was when I pulled into WaWa to hit the ATM alongside 3 cop cars. I actually held the door for them to go in. We exchanged pleasantries and as I garnered some interesting stares I simply added, "Don t ask."
The club itself was cool... I guess. Lots of freaky people. Lots of dancing by rythym-less white people (sadly, no moshing). The music was excellent. I heard at least half a dozen songs that I ve included in CD mixes I ve made. But it was still a club... smoke, too much noise to have any kind of conversation, over-priced alcohol... etc etc. all the reasons why I normally choose to stay at home. So I won t say I had a bad time... it was a cool experience. Got to meet some cool people, re-affirmed that Goth chicks in giant goth boots are super-hot. It was cool getting gothed out, but next time I ll probably stay at home just the same. I m just not a social creature and have no delusions or aspirations otherwise.
None the less thanks to Karri for all the assistance in the experience!
Rest of the weekend was pretty mundane in comparison. Friday Kristyn went out with Zephrin and Mena so I had some quality time alone in the man hole. Saturday during the day we made a trip to King of Prussia to get Kristyn new contacts and did some shopping and took in a movie while we were there. We saw Monster... very cool. I highly recommend seeing it... the physical transformation of Charlize Theron is amazing. Plus Christina Ricci is awesome as always (and she looks really good now that she has eschewed that Kate Moss thing she was doing for a while and put some weight back on).
Sunday we never left bed... seriously. getting in at 5 AM the night before had a lot to do with that. So it was a good laying in bed and watching movies kinda recovery day.
So anyway, excellent weekend. Sounds like I missed an awesome fighter practice back in central PA... unfortunate, but I should be able to make the one in two weeks if all works out as planned. Sweet.
-bampf | | | Forgot to mention... again. Superbowl Sunday we had planned a group safari back into the hellish abyss that is the house next door. Alas the borough was determined to deny us. They installed new bolt locks on all the doors... I guess to discourage squatters probably moreso than nosy neighbors. Anyway, I would not be denied. I jostled open a back porch window and climbed through with Kristyn (Mena and Zephrin were unwilling to go to such lengths to gain access to the wretched place... maybe the sheriff s notice on the front door threatening prosecution for trespassers helped sway them).
Kristyn was immediately petrified and begged to leave the place from that point till the end of the safari. We made a hurried tour of the place by flashlight as it was getting dark. I snapped a few pics as best as I could in the low light conditions (I ll post em later). We did retreive one more peice of booty... a wooden bowl thing that Kristyn liked yet refused to touch for fear of contamination. So we made a hasty retreat as Kristyn refused to linger a second longer.
I m still planning to make at least one more sojourn into the belly of the beast. If nothing else than to retreive my manual mower thing that I lent them and they never returned. What fun.
-bampf
P.S. If you are a member of or in any way associated with the Ridley Park Police Department, the above writing is a completely fictional acocunting. I am a law abiding, tax-paying member of the community you work so diligently to safeguard.
Nice cover, huh? | | | At long last... BUBBA HOTEP!!
I did a quick search... the movie was first mentioned on the bampfblog nearly a year ago and have been pining for it (and cursing the Hollywood establishment) ever since.
But finally, the Prince Theatre is our savior (same guys who played Gigantic)! Starting Feb 21 Bubba Hotep will be there! Yes!!! It s an absolute crime that is has taken this long, but I m just glad I finally can see it.
-b |
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