text:
|Lookup the index of a workspace id in the user's config, return Nothing if that workspace does not exist in the config.
|A comparison function for WorkspaceId, based on the index of the tags in the user's config.
|A simple comparison function that orders workspaces lexicographically by tag.
|A comparison function for Xinerama based on visibility, workspace and screen id. It produces the same ordering as XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog.pprWindowSetXinerama.
|Create a workspace sorting function from a workspace comparison function.
|Sort several workspaces according to their tags' indices in the user's config.
|Sort workspaces lexicographically by tag.
|Sort serveral workspaces for xinerama displays, in the same order produced by XMonad.Hooks.DynamicLog.pprWindowSetXinerama: first visible workspaces, sorted by screen, then hidden workspaces, sorted by tag.
|Produced by Haddock version 2.3.0


text:
The personal information of one individual. It implies that something is personal, and that ability of being personal can be retained.
If you post something on facebook, it retains its PERSONALATIVITY if your have, indeed, personalized your page making any personal information adding to the PERSONALATIVITY.
by Koshey August 19, 2013
buy the domain for your cat vlog

subset: commoncrawl


text:
We have more art festivals than we know what to do with. We have fancy food festivals, world-class theater, legendary surf competitions and dozens of other Laguna Beach events.
But no festival for popular music.
Little Dana Point, only slightly bigger than Laguna, has two major festivals — Doheny Days and the Blues Festival — along with several other smaller events. The lineups are stellar with bands like Weezer, Ben Harper, Cake, Ziggy Marley and Donavon Frankenreiter.
Granted, Dana Point has a state park right on the beach, so the venue is very conducive, but we have a beach. We have two festival grounds, an amphitheater and, with a little imagination, enough open space to host Coachella West.
But for many reasons, some murky and prejudicial, a major music festival in Laguna is unlikely. Rick Conkey, founder of HelpBlueWater.com, is a local music promoter who has tried off and on over the years to get music more established in Laguna.
"Music is a controversial part of the arts scene," he said. "It's never been recognized."
Conkey said it's ironic, given the city's long-standing arts history.
"Laguna Beach has always been known as an artists' town, but music has always been left out of the equation," Conkey said. "The music scene has always been here and might be one of the most powerful parts of the arts scene but never been acknowledged."
When asked why, he basically said people are afraid of it.
"Music is a lot more spirited, and it creates a lot more energy and excitement that surrounds it," he said. "It's like people are afraid to acknowledge it or put their minds around it."
Conkey did manage to throw a local party in 2005 at the Festival of Arts with the "Blue Water Music Festival."
While somewhat successful — it broke even financially — there were challenges and sniping from various locals.
The major problem in getting a legitimate festival is a venue. The obvious choices, the Sawdust or the Pageant, are problematic.
"We started with strolling minstrels and worked up to the bands but never had a concert," said Tom Klingenmeier, general manager of the Sawdust Art Festival.
Klingenmeier said it's largely because of timing and logistics. Between the summer and winter festival, there's little time left.
Nonetheless, Conkey is optimistic that he can resurrect the Blue Water Music Festival at the Sawdust.
Years ago, the site was considered as a possible location for a new music venue, according to Klingenmeier.
"Our grounds, where the waterfall is currently, was going to be an open amphitheater, kind of like the Hollywood Bowl or Red Rock in Denver or something to that effect, but it never materialized, mostly because of the neighbors and sound ordinances," he said.
Indeed, music has sound, which proves to be a challenge for people who like quiet.
It's no secret that local nightclubs have made significant, ongoing investments to keep their neighbors happy: Mozambique, Marine Room, White House, Hennessey's and the now-closed Royal Hawaiian.
In many cases, however, it is working. Mozambique has recently brought in marquee diverse talent like Macy Gray, George Clinton, Bill Medley, the English Beat and members of the Rolling Stones. Marine Room showcases strong, emerging independent artists, anchored by the very popular local band, The Missiles of October.
In addition to the clubs, clearly there is other music in the city, with local parks and other sites hosting small events. But on a festival level, Laguna Beach is not on anyone's radar, except maybe Conkey, who continues to plug away and even pulls together private home concerts "to promote outstanding musicians in an intimate atmosphere."
Getting anywhere from 35 to 250 people, Conkey usually wraps a local worthy cause around the effort to help provide an additional incentive. He is gearing up for another local concert on July 15 at the Cliff Restaurant that he's calling "Music Matters."
"I think the town's becoming more conservative," he said. "I think we're turning into Carmel very quickly, and the history of Laguna Beach is not like that. This is a town that has a history of music and the arts."
Music matters to Conkey. It matters to a lot of people but not enough, apparently, to do it big. Not enough to complement Doheny Days. Not enough to complete the artistic of picture of Laguna Beach.
It's as if we are looking at a beautiful plein air painting of Main Beach, but the water is missing.
DAVID HANSEN is a writer and Laguna Beach resident. He can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.com.


text:
LoveKnot (formerly Homemaker's Heart)#adoption #christian #infertility #gardening # family life
12 votes
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text:
Vanes "Nightmare" Martirosyan has been chasing Saul Alvarez for more than a year and a half now.
To be precise, he's more after the hardware around Alvarez' waste, as Martirosyan's been hovering near the top of the World Boxing Council light middleweight rankings for much of the time since the 22-year old Mexican sensation known as "Canelo" first became the champion in March 2011.
Martirosyan (32-0, 20 knockouts), an unbeaten 26-year-old former Olympian out of Glendale who is the No. 2 WBC contender, will become the mandatory challenger for the WBC belt should he defeat current No. 1 contender Erislandy Lara (17-1-1, 11 KOs) Saturday night at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas — by no means an easy task. But just who he will have to go through next if he is successful, and how soon that title shot may come, remains as murky as ever, as the winner of Martirosyan-Lara seems to be the furthest thing from the minds of Alvarez and his Golden Boy Promotions handlers.
With the paint still fresh on Alvarez' Sept. 15 title defense against Josesito Lopez, Golden Boys' Richard Schaefer was already gushing over the possibility of a May 5 super fight between Alvarez and one of several of the biggest names in the sport, telling Fight Hub TV the night of the fight that, "[Alvarez] is ready to take on anyone. Obviously there are three names which jump out. One of them, of course, is the pound-for-pound king, Floyd Mayweather. Another one is Miguel Cotto. And another one is Sergio Martinez. I think these are the three big names."
No inclusion of Martirosyan or Lara, even though their fight had been signed to determine a mandatory challenger for Alvarez, likely in January, some three weeks earlier.
As the talk of Alvarez blowing off the eliminator persisted, WBC president Dr. Jose Sulaiman took it upon himself to issue a stern clarification of the WBC's position on Tuesday, stating in a release posted on the organization's official Website: "Saul is committed to a mandatory fight with either Vanes Martirosyan or Erislandy Lara, who will be fighting Saturday for the chance to challenge the world champion. After that "Canelo" can choose who will be his next opponent. So Saul's plans will have to wait, until he has fulfilled his commitment of this mandatory fight."
According to a report by the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, Schaefer called the WBC proclamation "not a big deal," adding, "If you have a chance to fight the best fighter in the world in Floyd Mayweather Jr., and you get that opportunity, doesn't that take priority?"
Whether or not Alvarez (41-0, 30 KOs) can pin down one of his preferred opponents for a blockbuster in 2013, the idea of him tangling with Top Rank-promoted Martirosyan or Golden Boy stablemate Lara in the interim would seem to have little appeal to his backers. Not only would it generate a fraction of the revenue of a Mayweather or Cotto fight, but the risk of losing would far outweigh the reward of beating a lesser draw. With the first big pot at the end of the 41-0 rainbow one fight away, Golden Boy has little incentive to expose to harm a fighter it has carefully cultivated and protected until now.
That would leave Alvarez with two options: vacate the title to control his own destiny, or more likely, find a way to string along the WBC even further, as far as 2014, perhaps, before honoring his mandatory challenge. Despite Sulaiman's bravado, there would seem to be ample precedent for the latter, as the WBC has tried keep to Martirosyan tied up in multiple so-called title eliminator bouts over the past two years, while Alvarez extended his WBC reign against such challengers as a well past-his-prime Shane Mosley and Lopez and Alfonso Gomez, who were going up in weight class.
"In my opinion, he's going to vacate the belt or he has to face the winner of Vanes and Lara," Martirosyan's uncle and manager Serge Martirosyan said. "That's what the WBC has been pushing for.
"I don't know if [Alvarez] deserves that fight now [against Mayweather, Cotto, or Martinez]. I think if he goes through the winner Vanes-Lara, then I would say he deserves it, but for now I don't think he beat anybody that he deserves to get a shot at Mayweather or Cotto."
Vanes Martirosyan said he is only focused on beating Lara, but has long expressed a desire to challenge Alvarez and admitted he's excited by the prospect, which he still sees as a strong likelihood.
"I think so because [Top Rank CEO] Bob Arum was at the gym when I was training and he told me, 'After you beat Lara, I promise you I'm going to get Canelo and I'm not going to let Sulaiman play any more games with you,'" Vanes Martirosyan said. "I'm happy that he said that and I just can't wait."
If Alvarez remains staunch in pursuing a career-making fight now, Martirosyan's best hope for a WBC title shot might be Alvarez simply vacating his title and ending the gridlock. But even in that event, it may be hard for Martirosyan's camp to take anything for granted, as earlier this summer he was all but ready to wash his hands of the WBC and pursue a different title after the WBC refused to guarantee him a title shot if he defeated Lara.
"Just count up how many eliminators Martirosyan has fought in," Arum told The Ring in April. "So we look at it as, like, a joke. You can't take any of this seriously."
Things may have changed now, though, Serge Martirosyan said.
"Depending on the interviews that Mr. Sulaiman gave, I am really, really confident that this time Vanes is going to get a title shot," he said. "Whether it's going to be against Canelo or somebody else, I don't know that, because Canelo wants a big money fight and might leave the belt, so Vanes might have to fight one of the top contenders for the WBC belt, whoever they decided."
One thing is certain: whether it leads to a title now, later or never, Saturday's fight is a career-defining fight for Vanes Martirosyan and a night he would be well-served to put Alvarez, the WBC and all surrounding drama out of his mind, if only for a few hours.
"After we beat Lara, then we'll focus on Canelo," Vanes Martirosyan said. "I'm not even thinking about Canelo right now, I'm just thinking about Lara. I haven't won the fight yet, so let's not count our eggs before they hatch."


text:
Rockstar_Dragon wrote:rob55rod wrote:Rockstar_Dragon wrote:Nope. DI 9.r was the most recent thing I installed, and nothing else changes the editors besides my mod
Have you installed anything that doesn't change the editors recently? (Also you cut the file sizes off of the GA Data folder screenshot...I kinda need those at this point)
The last mod I installed was DI 9.r. everything else was installed a week ago or more.
sure, I will send you my folder again with the file sizes this time.
I'm almost not sure what to suggest next...uninstall all other mods one by one until the problem is resolved? Redownload the Beta and reinstall it from that? Ugh...this is weird...


text:
mostly blood and bones and pain
diary of a professional antagonist
300 Miles South of Salt Lake City
Selina was standing outside my front door, pressing a shotgun against my chest. Barb, Barbrilla, was on her knees in front of me, undoing my flies. A camper van full of what looked like rednecks was parked by the curb and, inside it, some old bastard was filming the whole thing. Worst of all, my parole officer was coming to.
Selina's tongue ran across her upper teeth as Barbrilla snapped what looked like a flying saucer-shaped department store security tag through my foreskin. I squealed until my voice gave out and the stars on the ragged flag over my door took flight then burst into a thousand more. Selina whispered in my ear – "miss me, baby?" Next thing I knew I was following the disappearing stars into darkness.
The day before I'd been released from county; broken record, I know. I got a year of hard time after some cop decided my driving wasn't too hot when he found me completely hammered, mercilessly grinding the gears and revving the last living shit out of my Chevy, which was tipped upward and balancing precariously on the window ledge of a grocery store.
A new man, I'd returned to the world with a fresh perspective, a decision made to get a solid nine-to-five and I was gonna do all of this after I'd gotten myself a brew and blowjob. When you're in the joint they do all they can to reform you, try to steer you in the right direction and some of that shit can stick, but what they don't do, and should, is a frontal lobe lobotomy to stop creatures of impulse from taking the first dumb-ass step toward repeat offense.
Hot off the bus, I jogged down to the West Valley Motel and a couple of minutes later I was out back with a working girl trying to convince her I was good for the balance of the cash. Her bigger, burlier buddy – read pimp – wasn't half the conversationalist she was, which is saying something. After taking the few dollars I had, he did the bulk of the talking with his fists. So, fresh from my first broken nose of the month, no biggie, the year in prison had more or less flattened it out anyway, I figured I should get some cash or things weren't exactly going to go so smoothly.
I robbed the 7/11 just around the corner a few minutes later with a bag of dog shit. The CCTV wasn't gonna have a hope of ID'ing me with the amount of lumps and blood on my face, and after taking one look at the little old lady cashier I knew she wasn't gonna want a pile of dog shit in her mouth.
Admittedly it wasn't my proudest moment, or my best robbery. My total haul amounted to $23.20 but I did grab a pack of Trojans on the way out and after jacking my load into one of them in an alley across the street, I figured I'd head home and see if anybody had been squatting in my shit-hole house.
Nobody. Even the rats and woodlice had abandoned it. The swelling had gotten worse on my face and my head was throbbing so I pulled a couple of floorboards and retrieved my hidden alcoholic stash, and so, ten minutes later, with a fifth and a fifth of vodka working its numbing fingers over my aching body, I passed out.
The door was pounding like a jack-hammer bouncing around in an echo chamber when I woke. I crawled to the door and wished I hadn't opened it. My parole officer didn't think the beat-down I'd managed to pick up or my barely intelligible state was quite as funny as I did and decided it was going in her report.
She started to ask me a whole bunch of questions I couldn't answer, or understand, then started to quote the law as if that was gonna help, so when her head suddenly snapped forward and she toppled to the ground beside me I was initially relieved, that is until I looked up to see Selina standing in the doorway, a drop of my parole officer's blood sliding off the butt of the shotgun in her hands.
It was a confusing moment in time for me… my balls were running for shelter and my dick was trying to get hard… then Barb said "heya there, Chuk, uh huh huh hee, I gotta gift for ya". Selina leveled the shotgun with my chest. Barb dropped to her knees and clamped my cock. I blacked out.
I woke in absolute agony. I'd pissed myself, that is, into and onto myself and through my open wound, and experienced a pain so severe that the thought of passing large gall stones was a luxury I couldn't afford myself. Selina, her mind drifting further out onto the reservation by the second, explained that my new junk jewelry was the only way she could protect me from the 'frequency' – which made a ton of sense.
She introduced the rednecks as her family. Most had the mental capacity of a peanut if they were lucky, and I'm pretty sure I'd seen some of them on America's Most Wanted over the years. I still can't piece together how Selina had emerged as a result of two or more of them bumping uglies… Barb kinda made sense, but Selina was a ten, even if she was a few sandwiches short of a picnic. This fact became more obvious the more she spoke about why they had picked me up and what they were planning.
Selina said that three hundred miles south of Salt Lake City some guy had proof of extra-terrestrial life. For only six hundred bucks he would give her the location of a UFO hiding beneath the Earth's crust, which had been transmitting an undetectable frequency that was responsible for global warming, the sole purpose of which was an attempt to slow cook the human race and have them ready to consume when the alien overlords arrive.
Naturally when we met this prophesier of doom he greeted us by pissing on our legs and rolling around in his own feces. I was the only one who found this troubling and wasn't surprised when I was the only one who recognized the location of the UFO. Five hundred miles further south by south-east lay our destination… the city of Roswell, New Mexico.
According to this deluded space cadet, the UFO was in a highly fortified base protected by aliens who dressed in US army uniforms. Selina naively asked him how they should proceed, to which his response was, "with extreme force", as he handed each of them an 'alien ray-gun'. These were rusty gun barrels wrapped in tin foil, sellotaped to plastic statuettes of Jesus Christ which were subbing in for the missing grips.
Back on the road, Selina revealed that she had been following me since I was released from jail and had witnessed my 7/11 gig, after which she decided I was a thief of some skill and would be the perfect candidate to join their gang and steal the weapons they required for the attack from a high security gun shop. Hence my abduction. She then handed me my 'weapon' and I realized just how much I had impressed her, because clearly I was about to try to take down a gun shop armed only with a bag of shit.
I don't know which was worse, the five-mile journey to the gun shop thinking about the hail of lead that was likely about to fly toward me, or being stuck in the back of the camper van having to listen to the old bastard saying, "U-fo", "now we go u-fo?", "I see U-fo!", "when is u-fo?".
I prayed that we would find an angry alien race characterized by a complete lack of sympathy for stupidity as the camper pulled in outside the gun shop, the sight of which quickly returned me to my natural place among the semi-sane of the world. I settled for Gramps's head being blown apart by .44 Magnum fire within the next few minutes as I walked through the doors. The odds were stacked in favor of that outcome and I found it difficult to hold onto my little plastic bag of shit as sweat began to pour out of me.
As I stepped inside the owner handed a jacked up looking overgrown teen lunatic a pump-action shotgun then said, "take him out back to the range there, Jeb, let him give her a whirl." Jeb, a backward, dangerous looking man-beast led the way and they disappeared out back. Then the owner noticed my mashed in face and the doubt about whether he was just encouraging another nut vanished and was replaced by suspicion as I tried to look like a casual gun shopper.
I noticed that the security tags on the hunting jackets were the exact same as the one weighting down my masculine gland and, in my rattled state, I figured it would be a good way to start-up conversation. "Excuse me, sir", I said as I put the bag of shit on the counter. He frowned then his face creased in disgust. "I was hoping you could help me." The second I reached for my crotch he tasered me in the neck.
I fell into a crazed dizzy nightmare and tried to keep up with the room as it spun around my head. The owner tried to drag me toward the door when, suddenly, it slammed into him. He screamed, "JEB!" The rednecks rushed in, all carrying their alien ray guns. Selina and Barb weren't far behind. Then, the door to the back room opened and overgrown teen with the pump-action shotgun raced out, racked his new toy and opened up.
The rednecks, all stunned by the noise, stood still and exploded one by one like retarded piñatas, much to the joy of the deluded solider of fortune. Selina dragged Barb to the ground just outside the door and one look told me that a crumb of sense had found its way into her head. Shotgun Psycho had turned his attention to me when the old guy fired the taser at him.
It wasn't enough to put him down and with the barrel pointing directly at my face, and his finger about to squeeze the trigger, Jeb came to the rescue and wrapped a steel shovel around his head. Selina and Barb were gone in a trail of dust. The hunt for UFOs was officially over.
Once things calmed I cut a deal with the owner and Jeb. They would remove the security tag from my penis and I in exchange would not prosecute them for tasering me and placing my life in danger without just cause, seeing I didn't even have a weapon, was clearly in need of medical care and was carrying a bag of shit which was obviously a cry for help. I'd even back up their story that a bunch of lunatic rednecks carrying guns burst in and they were left with no choice. They thought about it for a second then Jeb set about wiping the security cams.
After I'd done my duty I hit the road, thumb out praying for a lift that'd take me anywhere that resembled civilization. Two hours in my face had proven itself a major deterrent. Night closed in, masking my fucked up features and finally a pick-up tooted its horn and slowed to a stop. Wearily, I thanked the driver as I opened the passenger door. Of course Selina and Barb were the occupants.
Selina said she was sorry, that she'd made a mistake and that they were about to start off, start fresh on the straight and narrow. "Baby, your family are dead", I said, "doesn't that bother you?" She shook her head and smiled that beautiful bat-shit mad smile and said, "you and Barb are all the family I need, Chuk."
I had one last act of stupidity left in me, so I got in, and as she drove us off into the darkness I somehow felt at home.
Guess I'm just a sucker for romance.
Murder Blues
Standing over his coffin wasn't the hardest thing. Putting him there was. Despite my success, something felt wrong, didn't add up and as my presence as a mourner began to cause a disturbance, the pieces began to click together.
A week prior I was on my way home from another failed script pitch I'd made to a barely C-list production company, to a bottle of cheap label whisky with the power to pile drive my consciousness into a dark abyss for at least three days, when a young lady approached me. There wasn't anything remarkable about her, a bit dumpy, a bit needy looking and it seemed like she had tried to make an effort to spruce up, though the lipstick on her teeth and the mascara in her eyebrows said she didn't know too much about how. She slapped me in the face then screamed that a man like me had fucked her life up completely as she attempted to claw my face. I was in no mood to take the blame for some other fucker's mess and even if I could turn the situation around into a quick lay against an alley skip I figured that considering the day, there was only a case of something itchy at the bottom of it. I cut my loses and gave it to her straight and hard.
"Fuck off back to the Crayola box you fell out of."
As I walked away, the reality of just how bad the studio rejection was had begun to fester. Feeling like a hooker who offered a free one to a convict on death row and got a "maybe next time" response, I continued on home, slammed the bottle back and fell into another, warmer world, though that was likely down to having periodically pissed myself while out for the count. I woke up smelling worse than a chemical attack and while this wasn't unfamiliar, the slender, if slightly stubbly pair of crossed legs a few feet away, were.
As the deep set crust on my eyes dropped off and blur gave way to focus, I followed those unkempt pins upward and it soon became clear that they belonged to the young lady from before. She hadn't figured out how to paint her face during my downtime but with half a skull-load of old brain cells continuing to slide out my nostrils onto the solidified remains of their already departed cousins, my sharpness was back and I figured I knew her face from somewhere. Then it hit me, she was a pretty damn close fit for my wife, Selina. This was not necessarily a good thing but, considering the neurological gene pool, it made the lack of make-up expertise and the incompetence with a razor make a lot more sense.
Last I'd heard Selina was trying to fight her imprisonment seeing as she'd been locked away on testimony taken from one of the motel employees who was under heavy sedation at the time of trial, and as her lawyer argued, was therefore susceptible to being coerced into telling the truth the jury needed to hear. It was bullshit but she had nothing to lose and a new date had been set for the plea three months down the line. Judging by the facial ticks and the inability to retain gas, or at least pass it silently, the unshaven 'babe' before me was her sister. Somewhere inside me I felt responsible for her, which says a lot about my own mental function. In an effort to bond, and at least have something to defend myself against Selina with, and buy time should we ever cross paths again, I struck up conversation.
"What's your name, honey?"
"No, just Barb, y'know, like, Barbrilla."
Fish in a barrel. She admitted the kinship with my ball and chain and told me that Selina had said that if she was ever in trouble to come find me. The heat of the moment had gotten to her three days earlier and just finding me had given her hope that her nightmare was about to end. Some guy she'd been banging had slapped her around and tossed her out on her ear, and he'd taken the last bit of cash she had – fifty bucks. I couldn't understand why the idiot would put any amount of time into a tray of nuts like Barb and was about to throw her out myself but then she mentioned that 'Ol Garth didn't need her cash and it began to make sense.
He was relatively new in town, had moved from a more tropical climate, and was loaded. A payout from an accident at work had left him crippled and somewhat deformed. She didn't get into details, I didn't care enough to ask. All she said was that once his bosses cut the check he severed his ties and decided to move back to his old stomping ground. But 'Ol Garth had been reduced to Barb after he was ripped off by a couple of hookers who got wise to his fortune and were tag team bleeding him dry until he shot one of them then claimed it was self-defense after having been broken in to by two prostitutes. Naturally the cops found enough at the second hooker's pad to lock her away and 'ol Garth went looking for a more long term, reliable female. Enter Barb, fifty bucks in her purse and kinda dumb – jackpot. Turns out she was the penance he had to pay for his previous wrongdoings and after a month he'd had enough and pitched her out of his house with two black eyes and an option to visit the dentist. It's a shame his crippled ass didn't think to look up the family tree online.
Brass tacks, the guy had close to a quarter mill at his fingertips and kept a lot of it in his attic. We cased the house over a couple of days, she showed me the ins and outs, his favored places to watch T.V., and most importantly the routine of the meals-on-wheels he had going. In all fairness, she had the vengeance thing down and even had a nine millimeter of 'Ol Garth's with a full clip, with which he was to be killed. It was damn near poetic. I was still debating whether to get involved but Barb's instincts proved similar to those of her sister's and she blew me stupid me for the guts of two hours before draining me dry through the night. Sperm nor scruple was left when she put the nine milli in my hand and told me that I had a five minute window to get in and hide while the meal man was on site. I hobbled across the road, a big stupid fucking smile on my face, as if the twenty four hour bout of coitus was somehow going to make everything run smooth.
Once inside I settled on upstairs as the best place to find a hiding place, seeing as the meal man wouldn't be going there and 'Ol Garth wasn't about to jog up any time soon. It was, of course, a mistake. I settled in a wardrobe on some rolled up linen and before I knew it I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of my car horn blaring outside like a fucked alarm clock. All over the place, I staggered out into the bedroom where Garth was sitting, buck naked, using one of those elderly person can openers to twist the last bit of jizz out of the remains of his fucked up looking johnson.
"What the fuck?"
"Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing in my fucking house?"
"I, uh…"
He'd heard enough and smashed me in the face with the can opener. Garth was spry, there was no getting away from that, and he quickly sent the nine milli flying out of my grip before cracking two of my ribs and loosening a few teeth for me. I had mobility on my side though and in my panicked state, shoved him out the door to buy time. What followed was the sound of springs, something rolling then crashing down the stairs. Garth was lying at the foot of the steps, a wheelchair wrapped around him, the can opener in his hair and a pool of blood growing larger by the second. I found the attic, the shoebox with the cash, it was going to work out. I opened the box, there wasn't a quarter mill, more like five grand. Why was I even surprised? Then the doorbell rang and instead of biding my time and making a clean escape, I jumped through the bedroom window into a hedge and compounded the damage to my ribs. Back at the car, no sign of Barb – then she came running, from the house.
"Where the fuck were you?"
"I rang the doorbell to create a distraction."
"Fucking idiot, get in."
"I don't know how to drive."
"Get out."
"Is that the cops?"
"Gimmie the fucking keys, you clown-faced cretin!"
Somehow we made it out of there. Two hours later after I stopped shouting at her for exaggerating the truth about the amount of money in the house I felt very ill, remembering that I'd neglected to collect the nine milli before leaving. The cops would have it, I was a goner. Reluctantly, I turned on the news. There wasn't too much coverage then the story of a local man found dead after an accident in own home started up. No foul play was suspected, the victim seemingly died during a sex act. Turns out the quarter mill wasn't an exaggeration but 'Ol Garth had blown the majority of it on hookers and porn. I figured I was off the hook and wanted to let it go but knew a gun with my fingerprints was still in the house of a deadman and it wouldn't be long before his kin started to pack up his things.
The funeral was scheduled a couple of days later. An open house for mourners to pay their sympathies. I had Barb iron my suit. She made a complete fucking mess of it, but all I needed it for was a half hour so let it slide. Barb said she was going to stay home and count her share of the loot – fifty bucks, that's all she wanted. Honest. I didn't argue seeing as I was secretly hoping she'd be gone when I'd get back so I wouldn't have to actually use the gun. That said, I wouldn't get the chance if I didn't find it. Into the lion's den I walked.
I furled my lips together, nodded sympathetically, raised my eyebrows, all the cliché body language as I made my way through the mourners toward the coffin. I closed in, noticed a few odd looks, some whispers but paid no mind. Of course I was the stranger in the crowd and would draw some attention, but all I had to do was fit in then slip upstairs. I looked down at 'Ol Garth and couldn't help thinking that the mortician had done a pretty decent job to get all the cum out of his hair. The murmurs got louder then I thought I heard my name. I looked around, saw a picture of 'Ol Garth from his heyday and something sank deep inside me.
I wish I had been on acid and that it was all a fucking insane flashback, but I was clean and this was a legit memory kicking in. 'Ol Garth was a face from the past, a past I'd tried to distance myself from but one which Barb had clearly been trying to force back into my life. Selina was the accident that left 'Ol Garth deformed and crippled, he was the motel employee whose testimony sent her down. This wasn't about fifty bucks, or a quarter mill, this was about me in the house of a dead man whose violent past I and my wife were very much a memorable part of. I'd been set up. As if figuring it out wasn't bad enough, or the fact that everyone in the room had simultaneously tuned into the same frequency, the cops had also just walked in and I knew then that Barb had made the call, and had done the same on the night when they showed up just as we were leaving, far too soon for anyone to have known.
They found the gun in the linen. Chance had landed it there. Barb was nowhere to be found, the money was gone with her and I knew that in three months Selina would likely be free or in a facility with much lower security and far more options when considering an escape. As for me, I stooped to a new low in a desperate attempt to maintain my freedom. When asked what I was doing there I said I was hired by 'Ol Garth to strip for him. I mentioned my lack of success as a screenwriter and having been reduced to giving hand and blow-jobs out the back of a 7/11, which is where he picked me up, I agreed to go back to give him a private show.
The gun I had was his and 'Ol Garth wanted to whack off while I threatened him with it. I also felt it necessary to tell them that he wanted me to pretend I was the hooker he shot when he caught her stealing from him. Naturally this didn't go down too well with his surviving family members but the gun checked out and every studio in town wholeheartedly backed up my inability to get a writing job. They had no choice but to let me go on condition that 'Ol Garth's story die with him and the family be allowed to move on. Dignity, reputation and self-worth all flushed down the fucking toilet, I agreed.
I decided to 'celebrate' by buying a bottle of pile driver and driving home at speeds which would normally result in a fatal collision with a wall, or into an embankment, but no. Of course Barb was there, waiting for me when I walked in. A thin trickle of piss leaked down my leg as she kissed me, then whispered in my ear:
"Selina said to tell you that she'll pay you back when she gets out."
She left me with the bottle, my sorrows and a bad case of the blues. Penance, it would seem, was only just beginning.
Desert Death Rattle
It was gone when I woke. She'd taken it. There was no doubt in my mind. I stumbled out of the cot, legs still working their way back into sensation. My head was pounding and I was numb from the waist down, that is until I pulled on my slacks, wrenched the zipper and tore a landing strip off the shaft of my still erect prick. My legacy, my name, my next two weeks were fucked, and catching the bitch wasn't going to be easy.
The engine rattled a strained growl as it barreled down the highway. The desert sun was hot as hell, crossing lizards popped beneath the rubber and bugs kamikazied into my windshield. All this ending life and impending death didn't cost me a thought, all that was on my mind was the box. All I hoped was that she hadn't undone the leather belt that held it together. All I knew was my crotch was warm with blood and I hadn't yet taken the time to piss out the last bottle of dollar wine. I prayed I was still limber enough to bend around the stream and save myself the sting, but with God in absentia and my middle aged legs shriveling under the weight of time, win or lose pain was on the horizon.
Then I saw saw a flicker just ahead. Was it a mirage? And if it wasn't, was it even her? I jammed my foot down hard on the gas and soon realized it was. The taillights were broken, one on each side, just like I'd left them. The rusted silver side panel jarring against the sun bleached red of the rest of the machine. That blonde hair trailing in the breeze off a head so fuck-me-now beautiful even the man in hell would be tempted to ignore the conniving glint in her gold digging eyes and take a dip. I decided to play it cool. This time she wouldn't get the drop on me. I eased off and followed until she stopped at gas station then pulled in the other side of the cashier building, grabbed the tire iron and carefully negotiated the side wall.
The cashier was a dope in his late teens, drooling over the counter at her tits like a sloped fucking yak as he handed her a pack of cigarettes. She'd probably already done enough to convince him to say "on the house ma'am". I convinced myself this was the case as she kissed him on the cheek then collected a pack of chips from a low shelf. He was good as dead the way that short red skirt was bobbing and weaving off her hips and didn't even notice when she collected a bottle of suds from the fridge on the way out. I don't know what made me madder, the fact that she was getting away with it again, or that I'd fallen for the same routine twice already and was still watching her in action instead of taking it.
I bucked up and slid into the passenger seat just as the car pulled away. She wasn't even shocked, just looked at me like another bump in the road she had to run over. But at least with the tire iron I had her attention. I asked where the box was. She didn't have it any more, she'd stashed it somewhere safe and if I wanted it I was going to have to do something for her. I asked what, considering I had a tool worthy of trying my hand at dentistry in my grip. Naturally she used the tools at her disposal but the second her hand contacted my crotch I yelped like a scolded pup. Most people would retract, but she knew the score and spun the wheel into off-road terrain and dug in. The car filled with dust and in the blinding pain of confusion and with gravel adding to the problem I suddenly realized I was alone.
The trunk creaked open, a shotgun was racked and a deafening boom of buck pelted my door and shattered the window. I crawled over, knocked it into drive and revved hard. Dust sprayed everywhere. I couldn't see her. BOOM! This time the back window exploded into pieces. I sliced my hand open on the seat debris then out of nowhere there was clarity and a drop into a drainage ditch. Two teeth hung from my mouth from a long, thick glob of blood then parted company with me once and for all. I shoved the door open and toppled out. The sun vanished as she stood above me then cracked the butt of the gun into my forehead. All I hoped was that when I woke I wasn't tied to a cactus getting gang-banged by a bunch of vultures.
Consciousness came before sight. I figured I was in the trunk of a car, which had to mean that she had an accomplice. Just then the car slowed to a stop. Two people got out and I waited until their footsteps had cleared earshot. After some more kicking sunlight washed over me and when my retinas had adjusted I clambered out. We were at a junk yard, a lost and forgotten wasteland filled with every trash and crap-mobile since the forties. I saw her disappear into the hut set in the center of it all a couple of hundred yards away. They were going to sell the box – had to be why they were in such an isolated dump. I was fucked, then, realized the car was the heap I'd driven to the gas station, I grabbed the spare key from the glove box, started it up and turned to face the road. "Get far away" ricocheted inside my skull but then something came over me. Maybe it was pride, or self loathing at my cowardice, or just that plain old nasty instinct that usually put me in that position, but as I looked in the rearview I knew that I couldn't just let her get away with it.
My brain started working around two seconds before I plowed the car into the shack, but by then it was too late and when the dust settled I'd slammed some fat guy I didn't know into a spike on the wall and was face to face with the shotgun, in her hands. She told me to get out. She was teary eyed, it looked like genuine sorrow but it might have been rage, I wasn't sure. As I got out I stumbled on something rubbery and only after I found equilibrium again did I notice the gas station cashier's head sticking out from under the chassis. It was rage. I took another shotgun butt in the nose, it broke, and given the number of previous breaks I knew that after this I was going to resemble some sort of a retarded puffin for whatever number of days I had left. She didn't like that notion, though and as she racked the gun one last time I knew I was seconds from oblivion.
SNAP. All out. SLAP. Knocked out. I caught her before she fell. Bad a bitch as she was it would have been a crime to let that body bruise. I tied her hands to the wheel then looked for the box. She came to after five or so minutes and laughed in my face. This wasn't a sale, this was a negotiation. The box was not here. The money was not here. There was nothing here except two dead men one hot broad and a retarded puffin. I'd killed the only party interested this side of the Grand Canyon and her partner in crime, the only one who could safely retrieve the box without drawing unnecessary attention. She was out of friends and I was out of luck so against my better judgement, which I'd last seen the night I turned twenty one, I teamed up with her one last time.
The gas station was quiet at night. The passing trade was slow. Then the night cashier came into view, resembling an aggression repressed MMA fighter, which was just perfect. She was about to take him down all by her lonesome, one bat of the eyelids and a long deep breath and he would be in the back toilet working her for all she was worth, but then the law rolled in. They questioned Mister MMA, showed him a photo or two, then pointed at the CCTV. Someone was looking for the goober I'd crushed back at the junk yard, and the only person of interest on those tapes was my red hot passenger. It was only a matter of time before they searched the place and found his locker. It was all or nothing time, so I headed for the back toilet window.
Once inside I could hear them bantering away out front. The muscle bound freak manning the desk was doing a wonderful job of not making the cops' job easy, simply because he had the mental capacity of a grape and was getting pissed at the questioning.
"Go in back and get the God-damn feed from today".
"Fuck you, pig – make me"
"I'll get it myself."
"Not on my watch, mother fucker."
"Get outta my way, dummy."
SLAP. SLAP. SLAP. I couldn't help but look. MMA and the two cops were fighting full tilt. I found the locker, nabbed the box and got out the window without any of them noticing a thing. Everything was golden, all I had to do was get around the corner, back in the car and drop over the horizon before the next squad car arrived and I was made. The only problem was that the car was gone. Bitch.
I ran off into the desert, knowing that if I was caught with it that'd put me down for everything and clear her slate. I made it as far as the Canyon just before dawn. I stank and vultures were circling overhead by noon. A tour bus had pulled in a few hundred yards ahead. I couldn't risk exposing them to it, fuck that, letting anyone near enough to swipe it so I decided to climb down into the red rock and hide it. I didn't get far before my sense were crippled with fear but luck was on my side and I stashed it in a crevice. The markers were decent, a flagpole, a wood cabin and a memorial plaque for some dead guys who went down the canyon river in row boats back in the day. I was choosing a forth when I saw her.
Taser in hand, approaching at pace, she jabbed it into my side, knocking me to the ground. I scrambled to stay clear of the edge. This time she wasn't letting me get any sort of a second chance and kicked me in the face. I gripped pathetically at the earth as I slipped over the side. Then I felt the pain. She dropped her stiletto hard, stabbing it through the bones in my hand and pinning me to the wall. Some of the tourists noticed the activity and unsurprisingly started to take photos and video as gravity conspired with her stiletto against me and began to tear a slow line through the tendons, inching me closer to death by the second. She looked at me, didn't have to say anything by way of stating the obvious. I nodded. She dropped the taser, reached down and took my free hand. Dumb broad. I fucked her into the canyon and climbed to safety.
The stiletto came in handy. I managed to latch onto the leather belt around the box and drag it up as distant sirens rang out. I had no choice left but open it. Fuck the fortune it was worth, fuck the loss, fuck the death it had brought by my hands – if I was going to walk, this was the only way. I crawled under some shrubs, unclasped the belt and wrapped it around my hands. The latch broke apart on contact. I sat there for a moment, listening to the rush of footsteps on approach. The words I picked up indicated that the cops knew what I had. They were cordoning off the area. The flesh on my fingers slipped between the lid and the bulk then prized it open. The last thing I remember is the blinding light.
I woke in the desert, close to the highway, the box lying empty by my hand. A tour bus was pulling away. The windows were blacked out. I sat up, scanned the horizon until I saw the flashing blue lights way out in the distance. It's value was gone, she was gone and I was back at square one again. I sat by the highway until sunset when I began to slump. Maybe it was the dehydration setting in, but the last time I looked the belt was clasped tight around the box and a car was on approach. The driver's blonde hair was trailing in the breeze.
Night Shift at the Morgue
There's something comforting about a dead body. A few years back I took a job in a morgue out of necessity. They needed security and didn't care much if I had any sort of ability when it came to handling myself. They also liked that I didn't care that they were scrimping on the electric bill by shutting down the fridge overnight. Why would I? It was Christmas, and if the dead weren't cold enough already they weren't likely to complain.
The job paid enough to cover the bare essentials, and after arriving early one night only to catch the boss fingering a cadaver I was free to bring my own booze, was given a small black and white TV and enough coupons to keep me in vending machine snacks for the night. Ideal and all as that sounds, the morgue can also be a pretty lonely fucking place, and the first couple of months were only made bearable by an unhealthy nightly cocktail of bourbon, vodka and whatever lukewarm tab cola shit was in the machine. And so, morning after morning as I fell onto the mattress on the floor of the 12×15 'studio' apartment I was renting, I wondered if when I woke up I'd finally have been checked into the funny farm. Luckily enough, after a major pile up on the freeway, I arrived for the night shift, semi-suicidal, at the end of my tether, only to find a familiar face lined up to work with me in that empty, damp, dead-zone.
Kristy, an old-flame, had fallen on hard times and was drafted in by the owner to push through some general admin that came with the freeway crowd. Boy it had been a while since we'd bumped uglies. My six pack had been replaced by a keg, some of my hair had committed suicide and a bite mark scar adorned my dick; a jack russell the perp, don't ask. Kristy hadn't faired so poorly and though her hair was stuck to her head and her tits were sagging a bit all I really missed was the glint in her eyes that drew me in all those years before, but I guess life will do that. She acknowledged me with a jaded look as I held up a Styrofoam cup then her head bobbed. Some people you just pick up where you left off and get on with it.
We didn't talk much, we'd said it all before. Truth be told, back then we just got drunk, shouted at each other then fucked until we were sober and didn't know what started it. Neither of us had any interest in working then or in our current positions, this was a strictly 'collect the check, vomit once outside then fall asleep in a sticky mess with a bottle of malt liquor' type deal. Thing was, having Kristy around that night probably kept me from unloading a bullet on my brain. The little I said to her was uncharacteristic, my God-damn memory was bringing up shit I'd long forgotten but her presence had now sparked back into life and I guess I wanted to say sorry. For once she listened and I felt a weight lift off of me. She didn't refuse when I followed up by asking if we could do the bad thing to seal the make up deal like old times.
It was just what the doctor ordered and I knew I'd turned a corner, even though she was tired and didn't really get into it that much. I figured she'd matured in the years in between and taking pole was no longer the glory ride it once was. Fuck it, at ninety, if my gland is willing and able, I'm betting I'll still be grinning. This time, though, I was exhausted and the smile soon slid off my sweaty, panting face. I knocked over the last of my scotch trying to light up a cigarette while trying to keep my head on Kristy's mammaries and before I knew it I was out for the count. Time passed, however much I hadn't a clue, but I was brought back to consciousness by a piercing siren.
Horror invaded my senses in the moments following my waking. A red light was pulsing through a thick plume of smoke, water was falling all around me and a harsh white light was darting through it all, ultimately settling on my face. The morgue was on fire. The fucking scotch and cigarette was enough to set it off. A firefighter suddenly accompanied the white light and grabbed my arm, then he quickly let go, looked down, then looked back up at me. A couple of more firefighters joined him and stopped dead in their tracks. I looked down. Kristy was lying under me, butt-ass naked, she was unconscious. Scratch that, she was dead, and by the looks of it had been for a while. The firefighters roughly took a hold of me and dragged my naked bod out of there into the street and planked me down in front of the onlookers. I admit I was somewhat confused and may have made a move on a fifteen year old Puerto Rican girl before being battered around the temple by a crotchety old cop. I woke up in hell.
Hell is communal cell B in the fifteenth precinct when you're brutally hungover, have no clothes and are desperately trying to convince yourself that you fell hard on your ass when that cop knocked you out as you John Wayne it toward the wall with a cacophony of whistles and laughter your only soundtrack. The arresting officer informed me that I was being charged with drunk and disorderly, arson, indecent exposure, necrophilia, – the list went on a bit, and in short I was looking at a ten year stretch minimum. My instinct told me to plead ignorance, so I worked that angle hard enough until they put me through a few psych tests and determined that I was mentally unbalanced.
After consulting with the lawyer assigned to me, a total ball-busting prick looking to reclaim his professional name by embarrassing the cops – his practice crashed and burned after he was caught getting blown by a hooker and the arresting cop refused to play ball – I followed up by playing the good old reliable coward card and blamed it on the morgue owner, that I'd not been given any orientation and that I was driven to drink given the smell in the place when the fridge was turned off at night. Once I knew they thought I was nuts I went whole hog and claimed I was following the bosses lead by fucking a corpse, seeing as I'd witnessed him doing similar.
When they learned that I had a legitimate history with Kristy it tied a neat emotional bow on the whole package. Kristy had unfortunately perished in the freeway pile up and they assumed I'd been so traumatized on sight of her that I temporarily lost sense and reason. My lawyer made it look like they'd tried to pin the charges on an incompetent, semi-retarded innocent rather than pursue due process. He claimed that the press would need only one look at me and it'd be over. I was out in no time.
The great thing about happy endings is that the moment you acknowledge them karma usually steps in. In typical fashion I developed complications in a sensitive area as a direct result of my behavior at the morgue. I pissed puss and razors for weeks, and it nearly fell off a couple of times after turning colors I'd never seen before, either in the rainbow or the Dulux catalogue. Years later, though, I can laugh about it. Time is a great healer and I've adapted to the challenges posed, eventually finding my own natural motion once again. Let me tell you, these days, I don't even think twice about it. Pissing sideways is a breeze.
And Now I'm Married to a Serial Killer
Two months ago I got some unexpected work out of town. The pay was good, the location warm, and the screenplay I was commissioned to write had a pretty decent premise. Admittedly when I got the email congratulating me on a successful pitch I hadn't a clue what they were on about. A fifth of vodka later my brain pain began to lapse and it slowly started to come back to me.
Six months back I participated in an online screenwriting workshop. The pitch was just one part of the day. Nobody told me that what I was pitching was an actual project and a writer was being actively sought, so I sat back and churned out a fairly stock plot with a mediocre twist that seemed to please and excite the moderators. I was proud of my virtual success and made a mental note to adopt the 'sit back' method for future projects and wait for the green bills to break down my door. Flash forward to the moment the email was delivered – sitting in stained, three week old boxers, hungover from the dustiest discounted Czech six pack I could find, and flicking away belly button fluff. What money I'd had evaporated somehow and I couldn't get sober enough to figure out how I spent it, but the odd stint at the racetrack preying on unsuspecting winners kept me in cash and booze, so I didn't think of it too much. Before signing contracts the producer wanted to have a quick video chat, so I obliged and cleaned up a bit before facing the webcam. It turned out to be the smartest move I'd made in three months. She was stunning.
Selina. Strawberry blonde, perfect teeth, eyes that lingered a second too long and a smile that curled at the edges and put a giddy twitch in my dick. I remained silent for the best part of four minutes while she talked about me, how she admired my previous work and that she liked my 'disappointingly' irregular blog entries (not this one, I'm not that fucking stupid). The story idea was hers so there was an emotional investment on her part and the twist I'd come up with had made her toes tingle. Since then she'd been raising money and now that she had enough for further development I was the man she wanted, and she wanted me in Aruba, immediately. I knocked down two old ladies which may or may not have been mannequins and slammed through the walkway tables of a cafe where a bunch of school kids may or may not have been as I careened toward the airport… I convinced myself that the car wheels had clumsily rolled across tables and dummy body parts and so, for peace of mind, and seeing as I couldn't afford another lawsuit, I accelerated hard.
On arrival it quickly became clear that we were compatible, well at least from my point of view. I was a man and she was a woman. Compatible. This was a humdinger of a match, though, because she was built like a porn star and seemed to have the brains of a Shih Tzu. I quickly negotiated my way to the bedroom after blowing her away with a new twist I'd stolen from some show I saw on TV on the flight in. Man was she good in the sack. I kept pinching myself. An average to ugly like me getting this kind of action at this stage in his life was unheard of and getting paid to write something I'd ripped off from somewhere else as well, and in Aruba. I didn't really notice that she was on the phone a lot and organizing meetings with other guys. I figured it was something to do with the movie and asked no questions. Then one night she didn't show and I was left with a blank page, a blinking cursor and a seriously confused penis.
At five in the morning she fell into my hotel suite in a major hurry. Her hands were covered in what looked like red paint and she was pale. I fixed us a drink and asked what all the ruckus was about. She jumped in the shower and I joined her, even though I got the feeling she was resistant to company. Regardless of the time, I'd had a dry day and now that she was here it was time to reset my balls. When she realized that's all I wanted and didn't care how she got so fucking messed up she responded with aplomb. Afterwards she asked me to say that she was with me all night if anyone came by asking.
With clarity of mind setting in I tried to figure out why but she just wrapped herself around me again and I was beginning to give less a shit all over again. She told me I was a big dick player and made her come harder than Niagara Falls. I hadn't a clue what either meant but I felt like a ten story tall porn star. She said that all those times I'd experienced erectile dysfunction was a major turn on and that it'd make her work harder – I couldn't have been happier. I was the man and I couldn't give a shit what lies I had to tell to keep it that way. The next day I became slightly concerned when I turned on the TV and the cops were looking for information about a female suspect in a multiple homicide two blocks from my hotel. I looked out the window and could see the cordoned off mayhem flashing below. At that moment Selina wrapped her cold hands around me.
I wanted to go out for breakfast but she ordered room service. I had to tip the waiter. Then she insisted we work the script all day. I tried to worm out of it and investigate my suspicions but then she handed me an envelope with an advance of three thousand dollars in it so I was happy enough to stay put. Fuck it, I didn't know those dead people, and it's not like they were going to offer me a better deal anyway. We stayed holed up for a week and I only went downstairs to pay for additional nights in the hotel out of my advance, which pissed me off a bit but I suppose I was getting a pretty good deal considering the company. Despite being in her presence all the time I got to know nearly nothing about her. It was all work, all phone calls organizing some sort of gathering and then she vanished again. I found myself distracted and desperate to not think the worst, so I hit the casino to see if my luck was good or not. I blew two grand in twenty minutes. Back at the room, she was waiting, in aggressive form, full of questions, oh, and covered in blood.
I explained myself, the fact that I'd lost some money and was sorry. She was in slapping mode and started to assault me. Now, I'm a gentleman as far as opening doors and shit matters but I'm also a louse at heart and so, after being hit six or ten times I hit back. It was epic. We kicked the shit out of each other. I landed some sweet right and left cross combos, she battered the living piss out of my balls. Both spent and semi-conscious we gave fucking a shot but that wasn't going to happen in such a black and blue state, never mind the erectile dysfunction. When I came to she had her face looking pretty decent again and told me she wanted to get married. Fuck it, I thought, she's the best lay I've ever had, she's built, loaded and can handle herself. We found a chapel in the casino and got hitched in the presence of a man dressed as Gumby who was about to marry a woman dressed as Spongebob. The deal was sealed in one of the private dealer rooms down the hall. Selina excused herself while I tried to cover up the mess left on the blackjack table. Looking at the ring I couldn't believe I had gotten married for the third time. Then the screaming started.
I ran down the hall and stopped at a conference room where a pool of blood was flowing out beneath the door. I called her name. Suddenly she opened the door, stepped out and shut it behind her. Her hands were dripping blood, none of it her own. I asked what was going on. A siren rang out close by and she grabbed me by the balls and dragged me up the corridor. She kicked open a janitor's closet and as the rushing stomp of cop feet approached she dropped her panties and tore open my slacks. "Fuck me, stupid, or I'll fuck your face with this ice-pick" was all she said and raised said implement over her head. Man, that was motivation enough to kick me into gear.
A rookie cop swung open the door as I was mid-thrust then immediately left us alone again. Selina pulled free of me and dragged me down the service stairs, out the back and into a nice cadillac with a 'just married' on the back. We drove off as cop cars swarmed in and just missed us. I heard about it on the news. Heads lopped off, limbs thrown around the room, torsos disemboweled. All by my sweet, blushing bride's hands. All the dead people were involved in some fraudulent internet scam where desperate morons signed up for online seminars, many of whom were defrauded of their life savings. She was one. Selina was to be considered dangerous and mentally unstable. The murders were linked to others in different states. Then my face was plastered onscreen in a related story for using counterfeit dollars to gamble, tip and pay hotel bills in Aruba.
Being a coward I did the only thing I knew would ensure that I wouldn't end up on the chopping block next so I turned myself in. It wasn't long before the cops were speeding down the highway toward Selina. Realizing I'd slipped out of the motel during the night she started chopping up the owners but luckily, with the law already en route, there weren't so many dead this time. I pleaded guilty on the grounds of ignorance and general stupidity. When they found out that I was one of the morons who had been taken in by the same internet scam that defrauded Selina and set her off on her rampage they figured I was probably going to get hacked up sooner or later seeing as she was working off a list of names related to the scam. It was that or she was going to let me hang for the whole lot and use me as her patsy. They gave me a two month stint in the joint with a month suspended conditional on community service. Selina was sent to a nut house for the criminally insane.
Once home I checked with my bank and they mentioned that my account had been wiped about six months back. I'm told there's a chance I'll get some of it back. Last night I hit the racetrack again, swiped a sawbuck and won another. For a moment I thought my luck had turned. At that moment I noticed my likeness on a bulletin board. Seven seconds later I was cracked on the head and arrested. 'Guess not.
James Bond Cat Turns Bachelor Pad into Piss Pot
Cats get my goat. First off they're conceited, wicked, sly-eyed bastards whose purpose on this planet seems only to kill the odd mouse and cadge food off every sad son-of-a-bitch who thinks an act of generosity will earn them some feline affection. In the wake of feeding, cats are more likely to slice open your scrotum with their razor sharp claws and then playfully knock your bloody dangling balls against each other just to cause any additional amount of pain in order to punish your neediness and total dependence on a life form that hasn't learned to walk on two legs, or grow opposable thumbs, as your primary source of love. Second, their aloof nature reminds me of the French.
It's no wonder that ancient Egyptians worshipped them as gods. I guarantee you that some pharaoh was doling out whippings, or overseeing the administration of a good torturing in front of his subjects until he reached over to pet his cat and was subsequently hissed and scratched at. The subsequent sight of a pharaoh dripping blood made the retarded, superstitious types within the populous see the cat as some all powerful being. The truth being that the little fucker was probably in the middle of one of it's countless butt-licking routines and didn't appreciate the disturbance.
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that cats brought down that civilization, or were the true reason that the black death spread in Europe. I wouldn't blink twice if I was told that cats were behind the Kennedy assassination or were responsible for global warming. In a nutshell, I'm not a fan, and if you haven't got that at this point then you're probably a cat, purring away proudly to yourself right now.
A friend begged me to look after his cat the other day because he was heading to LA to talk at a screenwriting convention. His cat is a bigger celebrity than I am; it has been in countless movies including a James Bond, it understands multiple commands in three different languages, has it's own stylist and does it's own stunts; it can also lick it's own balls which comes in handy in the industry when the sycophants aren't around. So, naturally I was predisposed to not liking the little prick. Any animal whose success ridicules my lack thereof, who eats better than I do on any given day, and who earns more in a year than I do in a decade is not considered a welcome house guest, but my buddy was desperate, promised me a half decent wedge of cash and that he would pass one of my scripts on to his agent who is a relatively influential industry gatekeeper. I figured the long term payoff would be worth the short term hassle. I was wrong.
On arrival, the fat, bewhiskered fuck ran free into my home as if it were his own and disappeared up the stairs while my buddy, who might as well be the cat's bitch, handed over it's luggage and recited instructions.
"Give him one of these salmon steaks every day, three of these pills, make sure he has plenty of Evian water, comb his fur with this brush, give him plenty of affection and positive reinforcement about his image and, oh yeah, here's the cat nip".
"What the fuck is that?"
"That's where he shits and pisses, Chukk. He's been a bit loose in the bowel lately. We're trying to shed a few pounds for a commercial so you might need to clean it fairly regularly."
"You're joking?"
"I wish. Listen, I gotta run. 'Preciate it, buddy. See ya in a few days."
The instant the door closed I heard a sound that reminded me of an exorcism I attended a few years back. It was coming from the bedroom. Pure horror set in as my eyes took in a sight worse than anything I'd ever seen before. There he was, James Bond Cat, squatting while simultaneously dragging himself across the middle of my king size bed, pinching off a gynormous shit which was easily the length of an adult boa constrictor. My immediate reaction was to introduce my size eleven loafer to that fucker's butt by force. This was of course a mistake and ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes, although the brown imprint left behind looked like some sort of abstract painting of a dirty bomb explosion.
In my despair I neglected to take care of business and string him up while I had the chance but by the time logical thought returned it was too late and he had already escaped. I ran downstairs to find my sofa shredded, my best gentleman's magazines flittered and my banzai overturned. Revenge was on the cards so I took the salmon steaks, his pills, cat nip, the lot and booted it out the back door. Movie cat was going to leave my house on my terms, that is with a tail heavily matted in shit and starved down to the requisite weight for his commercial.
My next move was surprisingly logical. I decided it was best to hunt by eliminating rooms one by one, shutting them off and narrowing the arena of conflict down to as small a space as possible. The plan was undone almost immediately; James Bond Cat was one step ahead. I'm not entirely sure if it's just Evian my buddy was giving this fur-ball or if he was dosing it with battery acid to burn off it's excess weight, because when I stepped into the kitchen a squirt of piss blasted me in the eyes that was so hot I thought I had been permanently blinded. He had taken up a strategically brilliant position, primed himself on a shelf, waited on me to walk in and then fired off a shot of nuclear urine on sight of his target.
It took two hours for ocular function to return to normal. In this time my feline adversary had rifled through my cabinets eating anything it took a fancy to and then took to pissing and vomiting up hair-balls all over the house. My haven, my bachelor pad, had been transformed into a steaming, post plague infection zone that smelled like the grey hairs on Satan's nut-sack after a month without showering.
Sadly, it became evident that I was no match for this cunning bastard and so in my darkest hour I left my home in search of hope and a savior. After a solid day of thinking about it I finally figured out a way to overcome my home invader and headed off down to the dog pound with a crusty ten dollar bill and a bloody steak. I went from pen to pen looking for the most abused, vicious, bedraggled canine and finally settled on Penny, a German Shepherd with an eye that said "fuck me over and I'll tear out your throat".
In the car on the way over there I explained the situation to Penny, that my house, which would thereafter also be her house was under attack by a spoiled cat and that I needed the cat neutralized and alive. I gave full permission to run riot if necessary; the house was in need of a complete overhaul already. I looked in Penny's eyes and knew that she understood. I fed her the steak, and promised her another one every week on completion of the mission. I opened the front door, cracked open a beer and waited.
Ten minutes of furious battle later and all became silent. The war zone was almost impassable, remnants of my life pre-cat glimpsed through the rubble. I found Penny in the bathroom, standing alert, scratched, soaked in sweat. James Bond Cat, nowhere to be seen. "Where is he, girl?" Penny glanced up at me with one of those oh so clever looks and only then did I notice the toilet lid down and one paw holding it in place. I secured the room and then lifted the lid. James Bond Cat was alive and well, no major wounds to speak of, shaken and stirred, cowering in the toilet bowl. I felt like flushing the fucker but thought about opposable thumbs and that I was the better species here and instead took the moral high ground.
Penny, who I've since renamed Moneypenny for obvious reasons, acted as prison guard to James Bond Cat for the rest of his stay and made sure that he got plenty of exercise by being chased around the back yard at least three times a day, depending on how good a mood I was in. Cat nip and cleaning never became an issue, simply because the fucker was usually shitting himself while on the run, and, he behaved when indoors from that point on because he was too fucking exhausted to do anything else.
I slapped my buddy with a hefty bill for damages and repairs when he returned. He told me to meet him at the end of the rainbow to collect, so I countered with a right and left hook, blackening his eyes. Then I took a slash on the front seat of his car and managed to get Moneypenny to shit all over his back seat. We're about square as I figure it but he's not been in touch since to confirm this.
How Not To Fight for Your Life
I recently participated in a fight-to-the-death styled competition. With the rent looming and an ever increasing debt the only two things to my name that anyone really cared about, I figured I had nothing to lose. Besides, when that's all you've got you're in pretty decent shape to knock ten colors of shit out of anyone. Thing is I've never been much of a fighter. Sure, I'd been in a few scrapes and predatorily attacked some homeless men for kicks, but as I committed my John Hancock to the flimsy looking contract I realized that in a fight-to-the-death competition the opposition are likely well equipped for battle, and also have just as much to lose. Fuck it, I thought, you only live once and it's good to try new things.
This post has been two weeks or so in the writing, simply because my hands are fucked beyond belief and half of the time the damage done to my brain sends signals to the wrong nerves, and so, for example, the desire to press the 'A' button can very easily result in my doctor getting a kick in the balls as he checks my chart. I've managed to land more shots and do more injury to the hospital staff since I was admitted than I did in the entire tournament, which had a particular bent to it that I wasn't entirely aware of at the time of signing up.
I was brought to a house in the hills, blindfolded and led down a corridor with a selection of doors. I was then told that an opponent was behind each one and I would have to 'do battle' against three to be awarded the title 'he who shall continue living his shitty life' and get the $200 prize money. $200? Something was off. The poster outside the 7-11 had clearly stated a $50 entry fee and a winner takes all $1,000 grand prize. I queried this and was told that overheads, admin costs, charitable donations and the cleaning bill had to be factored in. The logic was sound on their part and I started to do the math on how far two hundred bucks was going to carry me.
Opponent one revealed the particular twist that this tournament boasted. I entered the room only to be faced with a chair made out of teak wood. The red L.E.D. of an old fashioned CCTV camera was blinking high up in one corner of the room and a voice blaring through a cacophony of feedback on the busted, old intercom said that in no more than two strikes was I to render the object before me useless or I would be beaten with it until a member of their staff called 'the score settler' had achieved the same result. I asked how that qualified this as a fight-to-the-death tournament. All the cunt on the intercom said back to me was that the printer had made a mistake and the wrong posters were put up – it was in actuality a fight-to-stay-alive tournament, which to me still sounded like the potential for death was there, except the odds were now totally loaded against me. Bad enough the prize money was down, it suddenly had become clear that I wasn't even going to get a chance to beat the piss out of some stranger – I was the stranger.
The teak chair didn't give at all, not even a creak out of it. I might as well have been trying to break water; not like a pregnant woman fit to burst, I mean literally 'break' water. Then some big, masked fucker trudged in, who I pegged as the score settler, and, panting, out of breath from my feeble effort, I watched as he picked up the chair and hit me so hard that I was momentarily transported to a tunnel of white light where all of my ancestors and dead relatives were standing looking at me, shaking their heads and chanting, "seriously, you stupid fuck?" Someone then turned out the white light and I was back scrambling about in my own blood and knew I was probably in trouble.
As you've correctly guessed by now, the other two rooms were no different and it seemed my desperation to cause harm to someone else, just so I could feel good about myself, had backfired and brought me considerable pain. Words cannot describe the pain and violence which followed, so I'll spare you, and my struggling fingers, the attempt. All I'll say is I don't believe in karma or that 'do unto others' lark, but for some reason that's all that was bouncing between the two neurons that were still operational as I came to. Through the blood in my ears I could hear what sounded like a bunch of frat boys watching repeat footage of my endurance test, at which point the penny dropped and the legitimacy of said tournament became clear. I probably should have seen it coming.
After feeling made its unwelcome return in the form of agonizing pain I was forced to look on the bright side and told myself, so what if those bastards laughed and chugged beers and so what if they go on to upload that shit to the internet and make a bunch of money off it? That doesn't count for shit long term because I know that I showed those fuckers what a real man was made of, and I know that I was the only man who could hold his head up high as he dragged himself out of there with $200 of their hard earned cash in his back pocket. Remember, having paid fifty bucks to enter I left there having quadrupled my money! I guess there are some men you just can't keep down, and now I'm one of them, even if I'm pissing blood and look like a fucking microwaved jellyfish. Renewed and replenished with this new confidence, and a justified sense of manliness, I'm hell bent on returning for revenge some day, but for now I've a colostomy bag that needs emptying.


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Having a nervous breakdown isn't on many people's wish lists, but for Todd Patkin, it was just what the doctor ordered.
"It was the most wonderful experience — after the fact," said Patkin, whose book, "Finding Happiness: One Man's Quest to Beat Depression and Anxiety and — Finally — Let the Sunshine In" (Step Wise Press), was released this year. "I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but when you feel enough pain, then you make change."
Prone to depression and anxiety from the time he was a young child, Patkin said he managed to cope by staying busy and being an overachiever. But for him, the turning point happened at age 36, during the height of his career.
"I'd fractured my foot and I was addicted to exercise and I couldn't exercise anymore," he said. "Then my wife and I suffered from infertility issues — we have one son, Joshua, but we wanted more children. But we suffered a miscarriage, which was devastating."
Patkin said the pain of that loss and the problems with his foot — one doctor even warned that he might never walk again — he went to a "dark place."
"And I didn't have the endorphins of exercise to help me out of it," he said. "I mean, I had this beautiful wife, a successful career, a son I loved more than anything, and I didn't care if I lived or died at one point."
Patkin said that after two months of despair, the right doctor finally gave him hope.
"I finally said, 'Enough is enough! You have the woman of your dreams, the most wonderful son, you have money, you're healthy and you wanted to kill yourself for two days—what is going on?' So I got to the right psychiatrist, and began to lead a different life."
Patkin said the first step to changing the tide was learning to love himself unconditionally, which wasn't easy.
"My wife is from Venezuela and she was born with all this unconditional love," he said. "We aren't wired that way in America. You have to think of it as giving the same love and kindness to yourself that you'd give to your spouse or your child. The fix is simple, but it can be really hard to do."
If you're struggling with similar life woes, don't wait to hit rock bottom. Here are Patkin's tips on avoiding that breakdown and finding happiness:
Exercise. "I truly believe the single most important thing is exercise. It's a natural antidepressant. Even 20 minutes of walking. It gets the endorphins going, helps with sleep. That's really important."
Turn off the news. "We need to feed our minds as well as our bodies, so if someone only watches the news headlines, it can create fear and anxiety in your brain, which is what we are trying to rewire. I want you to spend at least 20 minutes a day listening to something motivational — a different angle on why life is beautiful to help you look at things differently."
Remember it's not always about you. "In high school I was bullied by a girl. She made my life miserable. Later in life I ran into her and I asked, 'Why did you do that to me?' She said she was so insecure and unhappy with herself that she picked three people and decided to destroy them. She has three little boys now, and she said she realizes that what she did was awful and that she was so sorry. We have to know it's not us. The whole time I took it personally, but it had nothing to do with me."
Be present in your relationships. "I spent so much time with my son being there physically and not personally. We need to stop thinking about that promotion, or that speech in a week — so we can really be with our (loved ones) when we are with them."
Focus on what's working. "For the one thing we do wrong, we do 100 things right, yet we only focus on what we did wrong. This might make us successful, but also extremely neurotic. We are human. You'll always make at least one mistake. Yet we shoot for perfectionism. I don't know too many happy perfectionists. If you can master the way your mind works, life is amazing. And when you can't, your brain can destroy you. "
Twitter: @jenweigel


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Anything aviation related, to include planes, helicoptors, glider, or weather balloons.
Went to The Finger Lakes Region of NY this summer for a long weekend in the town of Hammondsport. It was great. While there, we took a trip in a Hot air Balloon with Liberty Balloon company, great bunch of guys. We had a blast, the weather was great and we got to see what its like to really fly at...
Went to the Keene air show yesterday, took a ton of pics. I still havent gone through them all but here are a couple so far....
An F-15 Falcon from the Barnes ANG Base in Westfield, MA lands after a training exercise.
See I shoot more than just trains ;). Here is a FedEx Airbus A310 landing at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, CT this evening.
Was at Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge Tuesday afternoon when this KC-135R aerial refueling tanker came in to land, actually it did this a few times, was most likely practicing approach or touch and go landings.
The NH Air National Guard is based on the same property as the Wildlife refuge.
Here's a couple photos from my visit to the Wings of Freedom display at the Groton/New London airport yesterday (9/15/09). The lighting wasn't ideal - I was there near noon - but I did the best I could...
1. P-51C Mustang
My first time shooting hot air balloons. Wasn't really sure what to expect but I did some research before I went and that really paid off. Now if only the breeze would have cooperated and kept most of them within running distance after launch...
Inflation (the good kind)...
Two golden...
On my way over to the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Milton, Delaware on Monday there was this pilot crop dusting a large farm just down the road from the refuge. To say the pilot had "testicular fortitude" would be a gross understatement. This guy was doing maneuvers that the Red Baron...
man i have a ton of stuff to post, i dont think i have posted anything in the last month or so. here are some shots from the local balloon fest a few weeks back.
HDR of the Space Shuttle Endeavor on the launchpad.
STS-400, the rescue mission for STS-125 with the Space Shuttle Endeavor on launchpad 39B at Cape Canaveral. The orbiter had been struck by lightning and was being inspected by NASA.
Here are a few shots from the Space Shuttle Atlantis this afternoon.
After my interview I went over to Winthrop to shoot the big birds taking off from Logan. Here are a handful.
Delta Airlines 1416 on final approach to Runway 33 at Bradley International Airport.
Boeing 737-832
40D, 70-200 f/4L
I spent an hour down at Bradley this morning. The light was perfect for the planes landing on Runway 6.
I took a ride down to Bradley International in Windsor Locks this morning. I was fortunate to catch a parade of landings.
1. US Airways Embraer ERJ 190-100 IRW
2. A private chopper; Sikorsky S-76C
3. American Eagle
I just found out that the Blue Angels are scheduled to fly at a free airshow that is about an hour from me in April. I'll have to check that out. Any tips on shooting them? I am thinking of getting the 100-400 IS so may have to pick it up for this event.
a few shots from the Syracuse Balloon Festavile.
we went up to check out the balloons yesterday... i think i got a few decent shots.
here are just a few i like....
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Thomas Niblock is a Public Affairs Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Last week, I was invited to distribute soccer kits to a dozen Afghan girl's soccer teams. You should have seen those girls pounding it out on the field against a mish-mash (and out classed) team of women representing the various ISAF military contingents. As I consider these first six weeks in Afghanistan, that experience helps frame my impressions. Six years ago there were virtually no girls in school in Afghanistan, and certainly none out building confidence on the soccer field! Today, there are about a million and a half female students, not yet even half of those who are eligible for school, but the numbers are significant and growing.
Probably everything negative you may have heard about Afghanistan is true, at least in part. Most Afghans you speak with have a litany of complaints about high prices, the lack of reliable electricity, bad and sometimes corrupt officials, and concerns about security. The newspapers (which reach only a few), and the much more widely available radio and TV programs are filled with criticisms and complaints of all kinds. Yet, several surveys have shown that over 95 percent of all Afghans don't want to go back to the dark days of the Taliban and that they overwhelmingly reject the Taliban culture of violence and repression. I have become fond of telling people that it is not so much a question of the glass being half empty or half full here, but of there being at least some water in all of the glasses, be that security, development, or education.
For our part, I have been incredibly impressed with the quality of the men and women who have volunteered to come to Afghanistan to try to be a part of that better way forward. Days ago, one of those exceptional individuals, Tom Stefani, an employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture assigned to our PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) in Ghazni, was killed when the vehicle he was in was hit by an IED. I didn't know Tom personally, but those who did speak of his deep belief in the work he was doing. There is a spirit here that is uplifting. That's where I am after six weeks in country.
S in Syria writes:
"...Yet, several surveys have shown that over 95 percent of all Afghans don't want to go back to the dark days of the Taliban."
LOL, you do not need a single survey to know this fact. Specially asking the Soccer playing Afghan girls.
Peter in California writes:
Are you a quiet American?
Zenpundit in Illinois writes:
"The newspapers (which reach only a few), and the much more widely available radio and TV programs are filled with criticisms and complaints of all kinds."
That is in itself, no mean achievment, considering the state of political freedoms in most of Afghanistan's neighbors.
Moreover, it is an exceptional level of public expression given the prior history of Afghanistan under the Taliban, the Mujahedeen coalition, Karmal-Najibullah, Taraki-Amin and Daoud regimes and even the distantly remembered royal government of Zahir Shah.
Is there any effort by State/USAID/CENTCOM to give moderate Afghan political groups an online presence that can compete with the cyberjihadi propaganda sites?
Parfait in Cote d'Ivoire writes:


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SIFMA, the U.S. securities industry's largest trade group, named former Senator Judd Gregg as chief executive officer, in a move that may signal a desire to mend fences with ordinary Americans and U.S. Congress.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association had been expected to give the post to interim chief executive and president Kenneth Bentsen, a veteran lobbyist, said a person close to the group.
Continue Reading Below
Instead, it split up the functions, naming Bentsen as full-time president with a mandate to influence a slew of rules regulators are now writing to govern trading, investment banking and mutual and hedge fund investing.
Gregg, whose bipartisan credentials include two terms as governor of New Hampshire, three as senator, four as congressman, and one-time nominee for Secretary of Commerce in U.S. President Barack Obama's cabinet, said he will leave legislative maneuvering to Bentsen while he rallies the public about the need for preserving efficient U.S. capital markets and cheap access to credit markets.
Republican Gregg left the Senate in 2011.
The trade group, whose members include large and small brokerage firms, banks and asset management firms, has long worried about losing the trust and confidence of individual investors. But since the 2008 financial crisis, the issue has moved beyond retail brokerage firms to the industry as a whole.
At a hastily convened news conference in New York on Monday, Gregg said capital markets and access to inexpensive credit are the core fuel of the U.S. economy. "There won't be jobs on Main Street" without them, he said.
Gregg, who said he was a prime supporter of the multibillion-dollar bailout of banks in 2008, withdrew his nomination to serve in Obama's cabinet when he realized he would not be able to support the president's budget policies to stimulate the economy. On Monday he said he will have to make changes in his investment portfolio and possibly resign from other commitments, but will remain co-chairman of the bipartisan Campaign to Fix the Debt.
Gregg has served as a senior international adviser to Goldman Sachs Group Inc . A Goldman spokesman did not immediately comment on Gregg's current role with the firm.
Gregg liberally dropped the names of current legislators at the news conference and said he is aware of pressure from "populist" corners of the electorate against the markets.
"My personal view is we've taken a lot of hits as 'those nasty bankers' responsible for the Great Recession, and that much of it has been politically motivated," said Curt Bradbury, president of Stephens Inc, Arkansas's biggest brokerage firm and a member of the SIFMA board.
Bradbury was not on the search committee, which won full board approval last Friday for the Gregg appointment. He said he supports the hire as well as the "promotion" of Bentsen, a former congressman and nephew of former Texas senator Lloyd Bentsen, even if it should moderately drive up SIFMA's compensation budget.
SIFMA has not previously separated the roles of CEO and presidents, but had co-CEOs as late as 2006.
A trade group spokesman declined to comment about compensation.
Gregg replaces Timothy Ryan, a banker and former regulator who resigned as president and CEO in February after almost five years to rejoin JPMorgan Chase & Co . A former savings and loan company regulator, Ryan also previously worked at JPMorgan as vice chairman for financial institutions and governments.
At SIFMA, Ryan earned $3 million in 2011, the last year for which the group's tax forms were available.
(Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Matthew Lewis)


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Who does Ricky Rubio think he is? The best point guard in the NBA Draft? A Spaniard? Spare me, says Brandon Jennings, who can't even front when it comes to hating on his European brethren.
Jennings isn't sold on the Rubio hype, so he blabbed to SI.com that Rubio isn't all that. NBA executives love his trashtalking upside:
"Well, put it like this: If he was in a workout with me [and fellow point-guard prospects] Jonny Flynn, Jrue Holiday, Tywon Lawson, Stephen Curry, he wouldn't probably be at the top," Jennings said Friday.
When asked if he thought Rubio, who has received great attention but has not worked out for NBA teams, is all hype, he said without hesitation, "Yes. Because he played in the Olympics, he's been playing pro ball since he was like 14. So there it is right there. ... I can't wait to play him, though, in summer league. I'm just letting you know that now. I can't wait.
"Yeah, I think I'm a better player than he is. I just shoot the ball better than he can. The only thing I've seen him do sometimes is when he has a home-run pass or something like that. I think the dude is just all hype. I can't even front. I'm just going to be real with you guys."
So there you have it. Jennings goes to Europe and comes back for the NBA Draft when all along, the trick was to actually be from Europe and bigwig the most interested NBA teams. Oh, and Jennings might have a point: When the two squared off on 11 December (Euro!), Rubio went scoreless with three turnovers in eight-plus minutes.
UPDATE: All that stuff Jennings said about Rubio? He didn't mean any of it, he informed the world on Twitter. He would never disrespect Rubio.
Jennings calls Rubio overhyped [Sports Illustrated]


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Witches, Cross Country and FFA
Happy Halloween!
Hello! Sorry I have been missing in action the last few weeks, but there has been lots of personal doings. Amidst these doings, I have kept up with designing and crafting. That's my job, so to keep up with the bills I had to do what paid. Unfortunately, that didn't leave too much brain power for my little place in the blogging universe.
What's been keeping me so busy? So glad you asked…
My baby is in his senior year of high school and his extracurricular activities have paid off big time.
A couple of weeks ago we attended the regional meet for cross country that he was participating in. That's him with the pink socks for Breast Cancer Awareness. Yes, he was the only one that showed support that way, but I'm proud that he wanted to.
Have you ever been to a cross country race?
Honestly, it's not a spectator-friendly sporting event. You definitely don't sit on bleachers or a chair to watch the race, and there is a lot of the race that you can't see. Much of each race zigzags and loops back on itself, so once started, the spectators scurry like mice across the fields to the next available viewing spot before the racers get there.
This was right after the race. He was dripping drool and snot, so I thought it best to take a pic of his sock.
The results! My baby (Colby) was 6th. Two other teammates came in 1st (Josh) and 3rd (Riley).
The team placed second and were headed to State.
The girl's team also qualified for State!
I couldn't pass up getting a shot of this great witch decoration. It was wrapped around a huge power pole next to the road.
This was another great display we passed on the way to the meet. The homeowners were in the yard, but didn't seem to mind a stranger pulled over at the side of the road taking a pic of their home.
Once Regionals were over, my son was off to Indiana for FFA Nationals. His poultry judging team won 7th in the nation. Woo Hoo! This wasn't a trip we attended. Unfortunately, I have no pics. One of his FFA judging teammates is also a cross country teammate. The two of them had to fly back early (without the other FFA teammates) to make it to the State Cross Country meet in Wamego, Kansas.
My husband and I made it a teen-tiny-mini vacation…sorta…We went early and visited the Wizard of Oz museum in Wamego.
Then, the next day was the competition.
Get ready! Get set! Go!
It was so cold. It has taken me a while to edit down my pics. I had my camera set on sports mode, and with frozen fingers, sometimes I got a gazillion shots of one thing instead of the one or two I was hoping for. Oh well, it's better to have too many, rather than missing the shot altogether.
You're doing great!
Check out the mob of spectators on the edges of the course.
Check it out! Colby placed 12th! Josh took 1st and Riley took 9th! Great job guys!
Colby and Josh-The Running Chicken Judges
We are so proud of all the kids, and especially happy that my son will have great memories of his last year of high school.