Dear Sketchy Greaseball who approaches me in the parking lot/pulls
up next to me when I’m driving, honking and waving wildly to get my
attention:
I get it. I have a dent in my bumper. And you want to fix it. Cheap.
No.
Not going to happen. Not even after you berate me and tell me I’m stupid if I go anywhere else.

continue reading the rest of this blog at hollywoodphony.com...

On this historic day, when the nation’s first African-American President takes office, I echo his call to change.

The channel, that is! LOL!

Seriously though. Don’t watch this show. It is awful.

It really is all that’s wrong with today’s youth and the media and the music industry, rolled into one.

The first half consists of delusional idiots, who’ve been lied to all their life, being corralled into humiliating themselves on live TV, in front of an audience of millions.

continue reading the rest of this blog at hollywoodphony.com.

“If I had to pick just one value that my father instilled in me, above all else, it would be the winning spirit that this country was built upon and continues to make it the greatest nation in the whole world, to this very day.

I guess that's innocuous enough, right? Nobody's offended by that, still, right? Right?

Anyway, I haven't posted in a while, been busy shuttling myself all over the country for the holidays. Lots of babies and baby mommas to visit. You know how it goes.

Here is a genuine question I have, this isn't a bit. I seriously want to know why people drive in the cold with their windows down? I know people crack the windows if they're smoking or for various other reasons, but when it's 40 out and you have the window all the way down, that means you're crazy, right?

Is there some logical explanation that I'm missing?

The best answer I've gotten so far is that the only people who do this are poor and stupid and blast the heat while they do it, to counteract the wind. But this doesn't really explain WHY they do it.

Are they just cracked out or psychotic? In my informal study of the subject, I noticed there aren't many brand new Lexuses or Mercedes doing this. Lots of shitty cars and trucks.

Are poor people just awful? I seriously would like to know.

Thank you and happy holidsays, unless you're poor, in which case, go fuck yourself.

The problem with most "get rich quick schemes" is that they are for people who want to get rich, but do it in a quick way.

I have pinpointed this as the exact reason that most do not work.

My plan is more of a "get less poor slowly" scheme. That might not sound as appealing or glamorous, until you realize that its chances of success are much higher. Aim low, that's my philosophy!

As long as you play your cards right and give me that 8 dollars that you owe me, this plan is guaranteed not to fail for me!

Do you see what I did right there? I asked for 8 bucks.

"8 bucks? Who cares about that?" You ask.

Exactly! Right? What?

You see, if you ask for an amount like 8 bucks, it flies under peoples' radar. People who normally might be on the lookout for a scam. In fact, they might even think you're scamming them, but by asking them for 8 bucks, you're dealing them fifteen dollars worth of awkwardness, if they were to try and get out of it, so really, it's a deal for them. A win-win situation for all parties involved.

Now, you might encounter some resistance, for example:

"What the hell am I going to give you 8 bucks for?"

Now, here's where it pays to think quick on your feet. Just tell them "I bought you lunch that time, remember?"

For 99% of the population, this will be enough reassurance that your friend owes you 8 bucks. For the rest, forget it. You don't need their dirty stinking money. You're not gonna beg or even justify their attitude problems.

If my friendship isn't worth 8 bucks, we're not really friends and you are a bad person. So pay up, cheapass.

This is a shirt I bought in the Los Angeles International Airport on a return trip from somewhere.

You see, I saw it in the store and debated buying it, but then chickened out.

On my way home, I thought to myself, "You know, how many times do you get a second chance in life, like this?" So I bought it.

This is the kind of shirt I wish I had 20 of.

Not that it fits that well. It's a little short and tends to ride up on me.

It's just rare to find a shirt that so perfectly sums up your whole philosophy of life, like that.

I mean, not only is it a shark wearing a Hawaiian shirt who is from Los Angeles (just like me!), it's a shark wearing a Hawaiian shirt who is from Los Angeles who has sunglasses on!

I mean, how often do you come across a shirt like that? That's my thing! I always wear sunglasses! So perfect.

Anyway, the surfer part isn't so much like me, but hey, 4 out of 5 isn't bad, as far as shirts go.

So I really wish I had 20 of these, because I am sure that they will soon sell out and never be printed again, because everything about it screams "limited edition".

Way to go. Remember back a few years ago when people were abandoning Friendster in droves to join you, instead?

Apparently not.

For all the talk about how things have to stay "fresh" and "cool" and "23 skidoo" with the "kids" these days, a part of the equation gets lost. Namely, that Friendster had become impossible to use.

You know what they say about history repeating itself? No? Oh, well that explains it.

Seemingly, ever day I get a new message from someone on here saying they're quitting Myspace for good, that they can be found on Facebook.

The media has focused on teens' fickle obsession with staying ahead of the crowd, but I think that's only part of the story. Myspace is a mess. There are too many fake spam people on here. There is no control over anonymity. Messages get lost. Errors run amok. And now the blogs don't work, which is what I'm going to focus on right now.

I've been posting my blogs with the text-only editor for something close to a year now. Every time I hit 'post new blog', I am subjected to this friendly message:

"Blog advanced editor can't run on your current browser/OS. Hit 'OK' to change to plain text blog editor"

All because I use a Mac. Why bother making something work for that? You know, because nobody uses those.

So, each time I want to re-post from my regular (read: "real") blog, (you know, the one that lets me do something as basic as upload pictures), I have to cut and paste and then add in the html codes myself. And once I'm done spending that extra ten minutes to reach the 20-30 readers I still have left, it usually doesn't work anyway.

Now I'm at the point, where I have to ask myself, why bother? All that work to be presented with an error code, telling me that Myspace has been contacted about the problem? Sure, I bet Tom is right on that.

The final straw was the time I went to publish my blog and kept facing the same error. Determined to best this monster, I kept at it, re-doing the final step over and over, until I was finally forced to admit defeat. I hit 'view my blog' to see if any of the posts had snuck through, but they hadn't.

That is, until I started getting messages from people asking me why I posted the same blog 30 times. Well, why I posted a blog that showed up in their blog list 30 times, without being able to be viewed at all.

So, congratulations, Myspace. You've gone from the Belle of the Ball to the village skank in under three years. Hopefully, Facebook is paying attention so I don't have to go through the trouble of grafting all my clever quotes about myself and how unique I am into a new profile.

[addendum: as I write this and I'm trying to post it, I'm getting more errors, so I'm not even sure if this will even reach the light of day]

I've written about this thing before (here and here), but let me state, for the record, that the G.I. Joe U.S.S. Flagg aircraft carrier is, without hyperbole, the greatest toy in the entire history of the universe.

You may have noticed that my mentioning of it mostly centers around the fact that I didn't have one, but other, richer (or more loved?) kids I knew did. I think this could be, very well, one of the defining moments of my life, which has indelibly shaped my worldview to the point where I am no longer able to be truly happy.

If you're completely lost at this point because you're not between the ages of 28 and 34 or you're a girl, you can read more about it at this link. Basically, it's an 8 FOOT LONG, GODDAM FUCKING AIRCRAFT CARRIER!

There's really no way to explain the appeal beyond that. If your mind doesn't instantly go to "Holy shit, that sounds awesome, I would kill six babies for that thing!" then I don't know what else to say. I don't mean stranger babies, either. I mean your own flesh and blood.

You see in the ad how those kids get shrunk down and start running around as if they were action figure size? That's how you felt when you played with this thing, or so I would assume from the six minutes I actually got to spend doing that. I did mention IT'S GOT ITS OWN LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEM?!

If I had gotten one of these things, I would probably still be playing with it right now. In fact, I wouldn't be writing this blog because I'd be in my feetie pajamas, doing take offs and landings in my Skystriker XP-14F while the family who had moved into my parent's house 11 years ago screamed at me to leave.

But, I never got one of them and now they go for thousands of dollars on eBay. So, opportunity missed. Of course, if you're feeling generous and have one in your house, just sitting around, you could always give yours to me. Let me start holding my breath while I wait for that to happen.

I was forced to beg my so-called "friends" to let me play with theirs. The problem is, these spoiled brats didn't appreciate what they had. By the time I came over, they were sick of it already and looking to beat up some immigrants or huff paint fumes or whatever.

"Hey, I'm rich and my parents love me, what do I care? Let's light this thing on fire, that would be funny!"

Yeah, real funny when I rip out your fucking intestines and use them to choke you.

What? Anyway. The worst part about this whole thing is that my parents, who seemed to have just enough cash to buy a new Audi every 2 years, couldn't quite scrape up the dough to have Santa get me one, even though I sat them down and explained to them that, short of moving to the Polynesian Resort at Disney World, this is the only thing that would ever make me happy. They told me it was simply too expensive.

You know how much this marvel of fantastic toy engineering cost? ONE HUNDRED AND NINE MEASLY FUCKING DOLLARS!

$109?? Are you kidding me? These yuppie scum probably probably dropped that much in coke onto our endangered seal skin carpet on a daily basis.

Look, I'm not here to bash my parents, but they are awful, selfish people who have never thought about anyone but themselves. I have constantly paid the price for their numerous mistakes they have made in rearing my brother and I. IT'S GOT AN EQUIPMENT ELEVATOR TO RAISE UP THE LITTLE CART THAT REFUELS THE JETS! I mean, c'mon, looking back, I assumed this thing must have cost at least five hundred bucks, that would at least partly justify their indifference to my suffering on some level, right?

I'm so agitated right now, I can barely figure out where I am. Needless to say, this is going to be a Christmas to remember. And rest assured, I will do everything in my power to make sure you celebrate it from the comfort of your new rest home, Mom and Dad. Once you are safely locked up, I will use my inheritance to start to make things right, I don't care how much of your money it takes.

Because, though you two monsters may disagree, I am worth it. Go, Joe!

9:43 EST - Fox News is reporting that Republican candidate, John McCain has been elected President of the Real United States of America by a historically significant margin of 100% to 0.

This victory should come as little surprise, because polls conducted in the days leading up to the election had shown President-elect McCain's overwhelming popularity with people looking to ignore the issues of the economy and the War in Iraq in order to focus on more important things: like which candidates were secretly of the Muslim faith or have names that sound vaguely Muslim-ish or who once wore a Muslim-looking outfit while visiting a foreign country and therefore, must be Muslim, which is bad.

Of course, these are the vital issues affecting Real Americans, the ones who had the patriotism to cast their vote for a candidate they are sure is not a Muslim.

The McCain campaign, addressing a group of supporters waiting to hear from their candidate, said that "Thanks to your efforts, the culture war against anything new or different (and therefore 'scary' and 'evil') would continue to be fought in the name of divisiveness."

More to come as late-breaking details become available.