.. I think. Not sure. Try again later.

…now I’m Facebooking, or whatever you call it.

…but. If you must do it (and let’s face it, there ARE times when you need to.) here’s a few helpful hints to ease the process.

1) The Costanza rule. As stated by George Costanza, “It’s not a lie, if you believe it.” (see also the 1986 NY Mets “Ya gotta believe!”) Basically you’ve got to believe in your lie and have confidence it will work, all the time, every time.

2) Have said lie/excuse prepared in advance whenever possible. Don’t lie on the fly. Keeping a mental excuse rol-a-dex is a must.

3) NEVER volunteer information. Keep things simple. Answer any questions with the least amount of information necessary.

4) Avoid involving others in your lie/excuse. Karma counts. It’s perfectly acceptable to say you missed work because you were sick when you just wanted to stay home and play video games all day, but faking a child’s illness as an excuse is bad and WILL come back to bite you in the ass.

… work, school, sleep, XBOX, cooking, cleaning and so on and so forth.
Got no time for you.
The whole “back-east-Christmas-with-the-families” thing a MAJOR ball-buster. Special thanks to Delta Airlines for canceling our flight home on NEW YEAR’S EVE so we had the opportunity to ring in 2009 at the lovely JFK Holiday Inn in Queens. Big ups to Gino’s Pizza on 132nd street for the AMAZING pie. I’d also like to thank the brewers of Blue Moon Ale and whoever got the idea to put TV sets in the backs of airplane seats. I’ll NEVER fly again.

Just lazy. You know, work, home, blah, blah, blah.

Seeing how I spend a lot of times driving desolate desert roads my mind tends to wander. Lately, I’ve been about music. 25 or so years ago (fuck, I’m old.) I spent a lot of my free time hunkered down in front of my turntable, headphones on listening to records. My favorites were The Beatles with The Who and then The Stones not far behind. Hours spent analyzing and breaking down these records as best as I could. I didn’t know an A from a C minor,(still don’t) but I knew what I liked. One thing I was never really able to put a finger on what was it was that made these bands so different and so great. Why was it that in one moment I was perfectly happy listening to Love Me Do and the next I had to hear Sympathy For The Devil or We Won’t Get Fooled Again before going back to A Day In The Life?

The other day I think I figured it out. On the other hand, this might be all bullshit.

The Beatles. You finally find the girl of your dreams but have no clue how to talk to her, whatever you want to say to her, whether it’s romantic outpourings of love or some cool mysticism to make her think you’re hipper than you really are, The Beatles are the guys you want on your side. Confident and cool.

The Rolling Stones. Flat-out bastards. They say girls like the bad boys and here they are. The Stones will insidiously sneak in and whisper in her ear and make her forget you ever existed, all while you’re busy trying to dance to Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Seductive and dangerous.

The Who. She’s gone. You’re crushed. The Who are the guys who come banging on your door at 2am and say “Come on, you sad sack of shit… get off your ass!!” They are the one who drag you out and get you drunk and get you laid and help you break all the stuff she ever gave you all in an effort to raise your spirits, knowing full well what it’s like to have a broken heart. Bold and Defiant.

Anyway, that’s my theory. It’s not much, but I’m gonna hang on to it.

Oh, Zeppelin? They are the guys who’s couch you wake up having no clue where you are or how you got there. They offer to cure your hangover by offering you a fifth of Jack.

A little behind the times as usual, the Wife and I finally got around to seeing the Academy Award winning film Juno.
Academy Award winner?
Really?
I guess it MIGHT be a hit with pretentious kids who think they are that smart, verbose and witty. The same kids who think The Hills is good TV and Good Charlotte is a punk band. The kids who liked Transformers and think Shia LeBeouf is cool.
But an Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay?
Ok, to be fair a lot of shitty movies have taken home the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
Lost in Translation. Thelma and Louise. Even Ghost, for fuck’s sake.
And I’ll argue that The Usual Suspects has, in time become an overrated waste of time.
But look at some of the GOOD movies that won.
Chinatown. On The Waterfront. The Sting. Citizen Kane. Sunset Boulevard. Fargo.

Juno is a fucking John Hughes movie at best. (not that I have a problem with John Hughes, really)

Well, my life anyway. And the lives of about 9 or 10 million of my fellow game geeks. Grand Theft Auto 4 hits the shelves today. Say goodbye to $60 and hello to Liberty City.

Simply put, Hulu fucking rules. Tons of your favorite old TV shows (Dragnet, Adam-12 and Emergency) and plenty of good new shows (Heroes, The Office and 30 Rock) shows that were cancelled too soon (Firefly and Arrested Development) and much, MUCH more (though the movie selection kinda sucks) all free with very limited interuptions. Did I mention it’s free??
Go thou and get your Hulu on.

Nothing of substance to report on lately. Fact of the matter is, since getting high-speed, I’ve been pretty busy looking at porn doing work-related research. At any rate, i have found one or two things to share…

This guy was my neighbor about 20 years ago, good to see his time was better spent than mine.

My buddy Griff has a band and said band has videos on YouTube. Cool stuff, check’em out.

My little girl turned four. Four years as a dad and I haven’t screwed up yet. Yay me.

That is all.