old skool posse

It's astonishing to me, especially considering the absolute loathing that I feel for the city of Springfield, just how many truly amazing friends I have from my years there. I think a lot of people would consider themselves extremely lucky to know and be friends with... oh, say half a dozen of the kind of people that I'm talking about. I can think of at least two dozen without even trying. We're talking friends you'd take a bullet for, friends you've been through everything life can throw at you with, friends that enrich your life just by the very fact of their existence. And it wasn't like I just luckily stumbled across a pocket of them one moonlit night when the planets were all aligned - every year I spent there just somehow seemed to add two or three new people to the Cool As Shit List.

The wedding I went up there for this last weekend? These people go waaaaaaaay back to the beginning. I met Justin (the best man) during the first few weeks of my time in Springfield, Jimi (the groom, and one of Justin's best friends) within a few months of that, and the core of "the group" - we never had, or needed, any more of a name than that - really formed pretty quickly from that point.

Hoo boy, you want to talk about a bunch of people who went through it all together? You name it, at least one of us either did it or had it happen to us. We made more than our share of mistakes, had more than our share of happiness, and lived way more than our share of life. Looking back, the period of time when we were a tightly-knit little community unto ourselves (Long Live Mortal Kombat 2!) was actually surprisingly brief, but even after we splintered off into our own little subgroups and started collecting different people around them, our paths still managed to keep crossing and recrossing in the strangest of ways. I mean... Jimi and I were carnies together, for crying out loud! That probably says all you really need to know about what a long strange trip it's been.

And here we are, thirteen years or so later, celebrating the marriage of Jimi and Connie. I'm not the only person who escaped Springfield like they were strapped to a rocket as soon as they got a chance - as a matter of fact, there's nobody left there now except for Dave, and I think we all agree that he stopped mattering a long time ago. Somewhere around the time when he turned into pondscum. But I digress. We scattered to the four winds years ago, and so there were noticeable holes in the lineup - but everyone was there in spirit. It was obvious as soon as you got even a small number of us in a room together. And whether a few more people had managed to make it or not, I don't think it would have been possible to have any more fun than we had. (And the fact that every waitress in Springfield apparently wants to sleep with me doesn't affect my opinion of this the tiniest bit. That's just a bonus.)

I truly miss these people. I miss 'em a lot. No other group of people, and I've found myself in the middle of a number of great ones, can make me laugh quite like these guys still can. We need to start holding yearly family reunions or something. And if Jimi and Connie are as lucky in love as we've all been in friendship, they're going to be together forever.

I wish them nothing less.

Gabrielle Anwar, you're so much better than this

Flying Virus
4:00 PM Channel 175 SCI-FI
120 minutes

Genetically altered bees carrying a deadly virus terrorize airplane passengers. Gabrielle Anwar, Rutger Hauer, Craig Sheffer.

I love this listing. It's so schizophrenic. Is it a bee movie? (The summary, along with the name Rutger Hauer, has already told us that it's a B-movie.) Is it a deadly virus movie? Is it an airline disaster movie? You can just see the scriptwriter sitting alone in his little studio apartment late one night, thinking "disaster movies have been pretty hot lately... the Sci-Fi channel will always buy them even if they're bad... hmm... and if one disaster is spectacular, then multiple disasters have got to be the absolute shit! I think I'm onto something here!" *frenetic typing*

See also: Snakes on a Plane. Although I'm not going to make fun of that, because Samuel L. would probably come to my house and kick my ass. Also, I happen to plan on seeing it. Promptly.

I admit to being somewhat disappointed, however. Why stop at just three? Such wasted potential. Give me a listing like "Genetically altered bees carrying a deadly virus terrorize airplane passengers over the Bermuda Triangle while a meteor strike during a Category 5 hurricane causes earthquakes and tsunamis." Now that would inspire me to turn on the television. I'd probably even make popcorn. Everybody would win. Well, except for Gabrielle Anwar. She needs to fire her agent.

Springfield stories and thoughts to come! May has been amazing.

Carolina!

Woot! What a vacation. My friends, I love you all.

So many stories! Like the lack of gravity in England. The evil pagan "priest" wishing the happy couple all the best in their "lifetime of head." It burns, burns, burns, the ring of fire. Slimy mating conchs doing it in plain sight in the surf. Thieving from cupcake towers. Not speeding on the island. Uncle Sonny! Liking pink no matter what color it is. The Jesus trailer. A barefoot walk down the moonlit beach with a totally groovy chick. Hijacked wi-fi connections. A pool in the backyard! Every one of our flights in actually landing *early*. "You'd love my bacon." The Tuesday morning sunrise over the Atlantic. More Corona with lime than you can shake a stick at. And Katrina stuffing us with food, food, food, so much good food. Not to mention... hey! A couple of really great people tied the knot!

Ah. I'm still high on life.

There are pictures, of course, and those of you who I count as friends are more than welcome to check them out if you so desire. I'm not going to post them (or the link to them) here on the blog, however, as I question whether or not the people I shared my time with would like having random shots of themselves floating around the internet for just anyone with some time on their hands to check out. So! Email me or drop a comment or something and I'll get the link to you post-haste. Or at least semi-post-haste.

When's the next roadtrip?

stinkin' muties

I had absolutely no idea that the Hardy Boys ever fought Magneto.

Because people like to say salsa

I learned something new at Target this afternoon. Well, actually, no, I didn't learn it at Target at all. I learned it once I got home from Target and sat down to tinker with my new mp3 player. But anyway. They have a store brand, Archer Farms, which I've bought in the past and is usually pretty darn good. Which, you know, is why I continue to buy it. Apparently, however, it's owned and operated by a group of five year-old girls with overly sensitive palates. That is, if I'm to believe the evidence before me in the form of a jar their "hot" salsa. Yeah, yeah, so it's got corn and black beans and real herbs and such in it. Whoop-dee-doo. The jar doesn't say "fancy" salsa. It says "hot." Keep your hoity-toity vegetables to yourself and just give me some freakin' Scoville units.

In semi-related news, I think I'm just about completely shopped out. But I'm finally all set up for the Carolina trip (which is this week! rawk), including some things that I've needed for a while and just never got around to buying, such as the aforementioned mp3 player and a digital camera. The only thing left to buy is a haircut, and that's not exactly the same.

Jive ass dude don't got no brains anyhow

Thanks to Katie and her quest for a CTU (as in 24) ringtone, I decided to get off my ass and finally figure out how to make my own ringtones for the phone I got like six months ago. And thanks to the power of the internet, elbow grease, and a little ingenuity, the following conversation is now my ringtone:

First Jive Dude: Shit man, that honky mus' be messin' my old lady... got to be runnin' cold upside down his head. You know?
Second Jive Dude: Hey home, I can dig it. You know he ain't gonna lay no mo' big rap up on you, man.
FJD: I say hey sky, s'other say I wan' say?
SJD: Uh...
FJD: Pray to J I get the same ol' same ol'.
SJD: Eh. Yo, knock yo'self a pro, slick - that gray matter back live performas down now take TCB'in, man.
FJD: Hey, you know what they say... See a broad, to get that booty yak 'em?
Together: Leg 'er down 'n smack 'em yak 'em!
FJD: Cold got to be! You know? Shiiiiiiit.

Hurray! The only problem now is that I'm just going to let my phone ring and ring...

It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage.

On the minus side: I spent the day in Tahlequah, stuffing books into boxes. Because the bookstore doesn't have enough books (untrue) and all of the employees just sit around on their asses all day long (also untrue), loafing their way to their enormous paychecks (so completely untrue as to be ludicrous). I'll be doing this for a number of days. Along the way I'll be loading and unloading a pickup truck, using said boxes, and then once everything is finally all boxed up there will be a day or two that involves some sort of rented truck. This is not something that I see as being a particularly good time.

On the plus side: A bunch of people that I truly miss are, as of this evening and an invite from a guy I hadn't talked to in forever and a subsequent surf through his friends list, now on my myspace list. Would that I were going to North Carolina in nine days and not South, because then I could meet up with at least a couple of them. (Not that I have any problems with the SC trip, because it's gonna kick so much ass.) I do a lot of bitching about Springfield, mainly because it sucks. But I did meet quite a few great people there. I mean really awesomely cool people, people you'd take a bullet for if the situation called for it, people you should stay in much closer touch with than I currently do.

On the minus side: I had to kind of "break things off" with someone that I wasn't officially "dating" anyway, and it was a little rougher on both of us (I think - it was on me, anyway, and I get the impression I'm not alone in that) than it probably would/should have been if we really were just kinda "having fun" and "not really interested in getting attached." Or maybe it's just been long enough since I've been in that situation that I'm misinterpreting things entirely, because that's possible. Anyway, now I feel kinda sad. Hopefully we can at least still be friends. Because she really is a cool person.

On the plus side: There's a reason for the previous minus, and that reason has a feminine name. But I'm not going to jinx things by talking too much about that. Just... happy yay joy whee!

On the minus side: feeling kinda sad + happy yay joy whee = mental confusion and steadily accumulating tiredness.

On the plus side: I've got a bed upstairs. Which should take care of that pesky tiredness. Me and Neal Stephenson have a date with that bed in pretty short order.

Also today, I:

• found like six books I've been looking for forever.
• saw the most disgusting "sushi" I've ever seen at a Chinese buffet in Tahlequah, OK (which is a perfectly logical place to see the most disgusting "sushi" ever, actually).
• almost fell asleep on the clock. I was, however, in the bookstore's truck between cities, which isn't exactly like falling asleep at my desk or anything.
• found out that Stef is in town for like a month, which is cool. I think she's the one I'm going to drag to "Poseidon," since my roomie works like all freakin' weekend long these days.
• made Mug root beer come out of somebody's nose.
• almost took my left eye out with the corner of a cardboard box.
• used the word "obstreperous" in conversation.

All in all, it felt a lot like a Monday. I'm glad it wasn't, though. The weekend's far enough away as it is.