Aside from not (currently) being rich... Reason number one: tee shirts. I love them...when you see these rich women on TV & in the tabloids, how often do you see a tee shirt? Don't they ever just want to look casual? I can get dressed up & dolled up with the best of them, but day to day life calls for tee shirts. Reason number two: Prada. I like Prada bags, but other than that--their clothing is atrocious! I just can't see myself in those God-awful duds in the name of fashion. Sorry, it's fugly. Reason number three: dramatic girlfriends. Sorry but it seems like rich ladies are friends with other rich ladies. I'm just not a "girl friends" kind of girl to begin with. I have a few, but I'm more of a Guiness & action movie type of girl, not a $300 let's-bitch-bond lunch. Reason number four: the places rich people live. I don't need 45 bedrooms for me & my beau. Our house would be the smallest out of all our rich snooty friends. Of course then they would look down on us. Whatever. Reason number five: small dogs. Don't like them, don't want one! They are alright to look at, but I really want a german sheperd an I'm pretty sure it would eat a chihuahua, and that would be bad, plus chihuahuas are ugly.

Have a great new year & don't forget to check out http://www.geekcrafts.com tommorrow for my first post as a contributor! (I hear it's great for hangovers).

Tom Cruise may have given his career & public opinion a lifeboat with his role in Tropic Thunder, but I think it's safe to say Valkyrie will be the dues ex machina he's been waiting for since the Oprah/couch incident. It was an incredible drama full of suspense that made my heart rate speed up, even though anyone with a history book knew how the film would end. Based on a true story, the film tells the story of one of many assasination attempts on Adolf Hitler and does a great job of showing the side of Germany that was not blindly following the Fuhrer. Highly reccomended, just don't expect Hollywood to change history, no matter how much you want these men to succeed.

You all know me as the angry blogger, handing out awards for those people in this world that really, really piss me off, but this is the time of year when we take a deep breath, come home from the crazy shopping centers, and remember the important things in life.

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season and that we can all step back and be happy for a few days, remembering the reasons behind the holidays we are celebrating and looking forward to a New Year filled with many twists, turns and happy surprises!

Hey all, I know I disappeared and left all my myspace buddies hanging, but I'm back & better than ever--or at least half as good!

I will begin posting random blogs & samplings of my writing here again, but sadly, the Sucks At Life Awards no longer live on myspace. I was talking about the blogs I had written here and got a great response, so now the SAL's have their own home here: http://recklessasher.wordpress.com  Please go check them out & comment away, I love the feedback!

My writing career has started to take off, and I only say that because recently money has been deposited into my accounts in return for my writing skills. WHOO! Not enough to pay the bills, but a great start! If you want to see what I've been up to check out www.teenormous.com. I've been writing some of the funny little lists of shirts featured on the website. As of January first I will become a regular contributor to www.geekcrafts.com so look for me there, too! Even if you aren't geeky or crafty, you're support would really be appreciated!!

For personal projects, I have put the skinhead novels on the back burner for awhile and I am working on a semi-sci-fi novel with the working title of "Holly". In a nutshell it is about a scientist who loses his wife tragically and creates a holographic image of her that he becomes dependant on, putting his career on the line. The story picks up with a biographer he has hired to write his life story meeting him for the first time and follows their dynamic and sometimes volitile relationship as she tries desperately to understand him, and he tries desperately to self destruct. I'm pretty excited about it!

Lastly, my beau and I have decided to work on an online cookbook (for those of you who don't know, I am a trianed "cook" and a professional baker). We are working on ideas for what to call it and I will update with that as soon as we figure it out!

Well, thanks for reading my update! I'm off to try and catch up with all of you!

The Surgeon General may not be the most coveted, or even most well known positions in US government, but it is relatively important. We all know the Surgeon General has control over the nifty warning labels on cigarettes and alcohol, warning us against lung cancer and birth defects, but the Surgeon General also has a lot of say about what health concerns are taught and how. He (or she) brings this into our public schools, onto our television in the form of federally funded PSAs and basically in our kid's faces. Which is why President Bush so carefully researched his nominee and made sure that the man was a respected physician and scholar...right?

WRONG.

Hold on to your handbasket, honey, because we are hitching a ride to Hell in it! Aside from Dr. Holsinger's position as founder of an anti-gay ministry. His track record of supporting churches in preventing homosexuals from joining congregations or holding positions in the church--there's more. Because in reality, the above mentined things don't deal with medicine. They don't affect his ability to do the job of Surgeon General of the USA. Okay, you got me...but OH! What's this? The Pathophysiology of Homosexual Males. Why, that would be a so-called "medical paper" authored by Holsinger for the United Methodist Church. In addition to half truths, skewed statistics, and twisting the sources he quotes, it is blatantly anti-gay and takes a medical stance on the issue.

I'm sorry, I do believe there is a bigeffing problem here. I can forgive a lot of what our President does, I can forgive his inability to speak publicly and I can turn my head (or at least not publicly discuss) many things he does that piss me off, but this is so absolutely ridiculous! To nominate a man for Surgeon General who's scientific paper on the medical consequences of homosexuality isn't fit to paper train a puppy with? The man picked and chose bits and peices of real medical data, threw in some horrible metaphors, took statistics from STD clinics that only referred to people visiting said STD clinic and whipped it up into soemthing that if you're not too scientifically minded, and very anti-gay you may be able to pass for a viable document_

As for the rest of the educated universe it is sickening and disgusting at best, and ignores the real health issues we should be focusing on. I encourage you to follow some of the links you will see at the bottom of this page, read it for yourself. You don't have to be a gay rights enthusiast to see that having this man in charge of our nation's health interests is a slippery slope at best and absolutely inconcievable in a democratic, free nation.

I can't even begin to describe the shock and disgust I am feeling at this moment.

And so, to President Bush, for being bound and determined to be unpopular with everyone, and to "Doctor" James Holsinger for being a blatant bigot, I unceremoniously award both of you the first ever joint Sucks At Life Award, along with the special "Hell in a handbasket" device.

Box Turtle Bulletin on Holsinger

ABC News (look for the quote about plumbing--because plumbers know ALL about health concerns!)

The Nation-On Holsinger & His paper

Carpetbagger--History on Holsinger

Haven't seen enough? GOOGLE it here.

Cigarettes could be defined as the one evil no one in my generation has any right to whine about being addicted to.

We knew they caused cancer. We knew they were addictive. We knew they were laced with everything from rat poison to formaldahyde. But still, some of us picked up a pack, lit one, took a long drag and started down the road known as "being a smoker".

Even, I, who was Straightedge as Ian McKaye as a kid became "a smoker". And by saying I am (was) "a smoker" I do not simply mean "one who smokes". There is more to it than that. There is the socail aspect (a smoker rarely smokes alone, especially now that we're all pushed outside). There is the oral fixation, the careful choosing of brand and flavor. The Marine in me that hangs around the other 75% of the USMC that smokes. In other words, sXe me, became smoker me. I identified myself with my cigarette (Marlboro Reds aka Cowboy Killers).

So when I smoked what was to be my last cigarette yesterday, I took a long moment to appreciate it. The really good cigarettes happen the way that one did, I had been busting my hump all day and had a few minutes of pristine silence and rest. And I thought, "I smoke a lot when I write" and "I sure do like a cigarette when I've had a big meal" and "What the hell am I going to do on my breaks at work?". And realized that maybe those are all valid points, that I associate smoking with so many big things in my life, and maybe that's a good reason to STOP doing it.

I was straightedge because I hated feeling controlled, but here I am having anxiety over my ability to write because I don't have a Marlboro yellowing my left index finger as I type...yeah.

Wish me luck!!!

It's a broad group to award the not-so-coveted sucks at life award, I know. But because the media sucks at life so unabashedly, I actually have no one to award this week, and have not for a few weeks. I refuse to blog about the Virginia Tech killings, for one, everyone is, and secondly, I can't really get enraged over the incident, because it is such a tragedy.

Paris Hilton popped up in the news, but everyone already knows she sucks at life and for crying out loud like I need to write a blog about her driving recklessly. And, I , as many of you, am really pissed about the Imus thing, but how many times are you going to read another blog about how hypocritical Al Sharpton is, or how stupid it is to punish a shock jock for being shocking?

Why is the media so focused on just a few news stories? I won't write a blog about the war, so cool it, don't even expect it from me. My views on it clash with each other and quite frankly, its been overdone. But the media only wants to focus on VT, Imus, and the war...and Paris Hilton along with her other vapid Hollywood idiots.

I did read a great article about how hormone replacement therapy may up a woman's chances of ovarian cancer, but let's be honest, we already know cancer sucks (by the way, that was your pulic service announcement). I guess we are entering a brave new world, where the media only allows us to be pissed off about the things that seem safe. Oh! Sanajya got kicked off Idol. Like any of us really give a...anyway.

So, raise a glass, to THE MEDIA, the media who not only sucks at life but encourages society as a whole to suck a little more at life than most of us already do.

Where to begin? When an organization sucks at life even half as much as PETA does, it is hard to know which points to bring forth first. I mean, should I point out that they are going against nature istelf by insisting we not follow the food chain? Should I point out the senseless and dispicable practice of comparing the Holocaust to the meat industry? Or, how about pure hypocriscy, how about I point out that PETA MAKES A PRACTICE OF KILLING SHELTER ANIMALS?

And how about that?

In a recent North Carolina trial, two PETA employees were charged with, and eventually admitted to killing animals they had taken from local shelters. They told the shelter employees that they were taking the animals to "find homes" for them. The animals they took were healthy, friendly, and very "adoptable" pets, and in one instance, a shelter worker offered up his own terrier, in hopes that the employees could find it a home where it would get more attention.

They often killed these animals while still in the shelter parking lot (as you can tell, they out forth a valiant effort to find homes for the animals), when a shelter employee saw them injecting the animals and asked what they were doing, they assured her that they were only "sedating them for the ride".

How nice of them.

As if the pure brutal hypocrisy of that story wasn't enough, PETA president and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk is a jewel. Not only has she been involved directly in crimes of arson committed by the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front (both recognized by the FBI as domestic terrorist groups), she also wrote a letter to Yassir Arafat in reference to the use of donkeys used as suicide bombs, she aslked him to "leave t he animals out of it". She openly admits that she is not against deaths of humans, as in her eyes the human race is a "cancer" and a "blight" on the Earth.

Her co-workers are fantastic, too. Gary Yourofsky has compared himself to Ghandi and Jesus Christ. Bruce Friedrich had the audacity to compare Timothy McViegh to "the world's greatest visionaries" to include Einstien and (again) Ghandi, because he became a vegetarian for his last meal.

And here is a fantastic quote from Ingrid Newkirk found on activistcash.com: "I don't believe that people have the right to life," Newkirk has said. "That's a supremacist perversion. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy."


Well, she got part of it right, SOME people should NOT have the right to life. I.E. those people who support burning research labs and butcher shops "even if humans may be inside". Those people who are against companion pets or even seeing eye dogs. Those people, who compare eating pork to participating in the Holocaust, and then, without blinking an eye, euthanize animals that had very good chances of making it into loving homes.

PETA, in addition to making me sick for several years with your dispicable antics, in addition to having your volunteers harrass me at concerts, and having Pamela Anderson as a spokesperson (I mean, come on, that would be like having Angelina Jolie be a UN Ambassador...wait...), in addition to all that, PETA you just plain SUCK AT LIFE.

Congratulations, you did it! You won my weekly SUCKS AT LIFE Award and hereby have a chance of winning it for the year (a damn good chance)!!.


LINKS:
www.peta.org
www.technorati.com/wtf/peta
www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/21
www.petakillsanimals.com

In having the unfortunate experience of living in one of the less desirable areas of Baltimore City in the not so distant past I can say without a doubt, the police have plenty of fish to fry. Starting on the fringe of the city and increasing as you get further in there are textbook "crackheads" doing the shaky, wildeyed dance that is universally understood by dealers as "stop here, I need a fix". There are neighborhoods with buildings not fit for rats, that house people, yes, people and Lord knows what they do in there. Drunken people meander around the streets, bums hassle people for money, and off in the distance (or sometimes, not so far off), there are gunshots.

It would seem like the Baltimore City Police Department has plenty to keep it busy.

Of course, not too busy to yank a 7 year old boy off of a dirtbike, scream at him until he ran crying in to the house, then slap handcuffs on him and make him spend a night in jail.

Wait..WHAT?!

Okay, so apparently Baltimore City has a "dirtbike problem" and the police felt like this seven year old was contributing by "riding" said dirtbike on the sidewalk...of course, by riding, we mean that the dirtbike was off, on its kickstand, the key safely in the house with mom and the boy was just waiting for his dad to pick him up. Well, maybe they wanted to make an example, show how hard they're cracking down on the "dirtbike" problem.

Here's a suggestion: WHO GIVES A FLYING &^%$ ABOUT THE "DIRTBIKE PROBLEM"!? HOW ABOUT THE HIGHEST MURDER RATE IN THE COUNTRY PROBLEM? TOO BIG FOR YA? OKAY, HOW ABOUT THE CRACK PROBLEM??? AND WHILE I'M ON THIS RANT, I KNOW THE POLICE DON'T HAVE TOO MUCH TO DO WITH SCHOOL SYSTEM, BUT HOW ABOUT GETTING THOSE KIDS SOME G@DDAMNED BOOKS?

If you forget that the person they were harrassing was a seven year old, who is still trying to get over being made to sleep in a jail cell, it still doesn't make any damn sense. Now we remember it was a little kid who was literally yanked off the bike, then chased into his home and cuffed, to be brought to the PD, fingerprinted, had a mugshot taken and generally treated as though he had killed a family of four, it begins to blow your mind even further...

And so it is, with shame, frustration, and general punk rock pissed-offedness, I present the Baltimore City Police Department with the second weekly "Sucks at Life Award"...

(No worries, I'm sure this one will be in contention for the "Lifetime Acheivement in Sucking At Life Award" if this little article ever goes that far.)

link to news story: http://www.examiner.com/a-622111~7_year_old_s_arrest_draws_outrage.html
more links on the page.