Rock the Bells, yo

This past Saturday I, along with 3 of my cohorts, made the trek to Randall's Island for the 2007 Rock the Bells festival (sponsored by SanDisk, Heineken, Port-A-Potties and the Get Busta Rhymes Lots of Legal Help Fund). The 2-stage lineup was mostly hip-hop oriented, with Rage Against the Machine headlining. I held my head when the beat dropped for Mos Def and Talib Kweli, listened to Flavor Flav blather on about something or other, learned what it meant to be a rock superstar with Cypress Hill, faked dancing to the Roots and threw my W's up for the Clan. Arriving later in the afternoon, I had missed Pharoahe Monch, EPMD, Jedi Mind Tricks and unfortunately Immortal Technique.* Fortunately, that also meant I missed David Banner. Even though my arrival was tardy, I still had plenty of time to conduct research. I was able to prove my theory that high priced rap festivals (according to one rapper, where hip hop lives and not one of those fake hot 97 concerts) are THE place to go if you want to see drunk, shirtless white guys stumbling around.

***
I recently got new glasses, which I was all psyched for. The nice lady at the glasses store told me they were revolutionary, trendy ahead of their time and looked great on me, and recommended them over a more expensive pair. I was hooked and tried them on multiple times. Having picked them up last week, I realized one fatal error I made in judgment: I can't see out the sides of either eye due to a protruding ear piece in the way. This was abundantly clear when I had to yank them off hastily while driving. If these are my "horse blinders," then what the hell was I wearing when I first looked at them?

***
Someone I live with who isn't me recently made a huge, horrible, awful, unforgivable mistake. They bought Aquafresh's Berry Fresh flavor toothpaste. "But L-Bo, what's the big deal? You routinely devour blue, black, rasp, and gooseberries, and love being fresh (to death nothin less)." The big deal is this toothpaste is vile. It's the worst thing I've ever tried to brush my teeth with, it's the Keystone Ice of minty teeth cleaning supplies, and it belongs in the Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans box.

***
In light of this article, I got to wondering: is Pacman a troubled football player who may wind up in a jail, or a terrific criminal who sometimes plays defensive back?


*Immortal Technique, aka Felipe, was the terror of the high school playground. I fondly remember Anthony Roque fondly retelling the time he stood up to Felipe. "He was going to put me in the garbage can, but I was like 'nah,' and I jumped in myself. Take that, Felipe!" Now, Immortal Technique is getting shoutouts from Zachk de la Rocha and the only thing he's kickin is nasty rhymes. Word.

St. Lucia Vol. 3 - Back to the Future

In honor of Pkilla's birthday that I managed to miss while stalking crabs on beautiful tropical beaches, I'm going to predict the events of the last day of my trip. This is no easy task, mind you, as I'm figuring out what will happen...in the FUTURE!!

I see...catastrophe. Yes, it's not quite clear what will happen, but I detect broken glass (everywhere) and a sweet smell. There's much buzzing about the place, but for Human Dynamo, there will be nothing sweet.

My bag will be so heavily laden with delicious LLB that it will take 7 porters to carry it 3 feet, and then they'll have to rest. So worth it.

Psychically, I'm deducing I'll spend the short plane ride from St. Lucia to San Juan exactly as I would hope...by reading about Genghis Khan's treasure and lost tomb, and sleeping. Then, I'll have mediocre mexican food at the airport terminal, and on the flight back I'll watch a movie that I will later forget all about.

Despite my best efforts to recreate the Caribbean feel by constantly saying "ye, man," something will feel amiss. Perhaps losing my minority status?

St. Lucia, Vol. 2 - Are You For Scuba?

Things in list form (and not just because I'm too lazy to make proper paragraphs that somehow flow well):

- St. Lucians don't really celebrate the 4th of July. So rather than draping ourselves in the American Flag, setting off fireworks and eating hotdogs, we ate sugar cane and watched Monk. O yeah, and draped ourselves in the St. Lucian flag.

- Sugar cane is amazing! Unfortunately, it evolved so that white people can't eat it. I had to get a waiter to cut mine and then hire a guide to teach me how to eat it. You don't want to swallow the fibrous parts, apparently.

- It's impossible not to watch ALF or Different Strokes once you know they're on!!

- There's many different kinds of mangoes. None of them are called by their real name by St. Lucians, who insist on naming things in their native Creole and then speaking that language, too. Very inconsiderate, guys.

- Despite mangoes being so plentiful that it was impossible to walk on a trail without one falling into your hand at the exact moment you were hungry or thirsty, no country in the Caribbean is actually a world leader in growing them. That honor falls to India, by a huge margin too.

- On Friday, it's Fish Fridays down in Anse le Reye and up in Gros Islet. Mistakenly believing Anse le Reye to be where we snorkeled the previous day, we had a less enjoyable experience, swimming through silt, getting dragged towards large rocks by the current and seeing (but not freaking out about at all) what we mistakenly believed to be a sea snake . Of course, when I calmed down and gave it some real thought, I realized, as everyone knows, that although sea snakes ARE poisonous, there are none in the Caribbean despite many sightings, and it was more likely a snake eel, or even a snake that decided to go for a quick dip. I also befriended a local fisherman named Leroy, who noticed our two names were remarkably similar. After this stunning revelation, he told me how he captured some fishes named BLAOW (ok, actually, ballaowoo) and if I was staying longer, he'd cook them up for me. The story unfortunately has a sad ending, as I walked around the cookout asking if anyone had ballaow, and no one did. After, we went up to Gros Islet, which was a lot more happening, rowdier and with better and cheaper food, but shitty music that you could hear on Z100.

- Everyone in St. Lucia loves Rihanna's Umbrella song.

- Back to fruit knowledge. Supermarkets in St. Lucia carry ripeness charts for bananas, detailing 9 different levels of ripeness and giving colors. That's just being thorough.

- Sunblock is invaluable if you're pale.

- Human Dynamo was able to get everyone on the island to either feed us in their home or volunteer to drive us wherever we wanted to go. Such are the benefits of being St. Lucia's favorite son and not having been back there in 20 years. Family as well as friends of the family treated us to amazing home cooked meals and provided fantastic company, taking me in and treating me like HD's actual brother. My plate overflowedeth with mangoes, plantains, lobster and local fish, and my cup with LLB, aka nectar of the gods. I even learned a patois phrase: ve sala ca plae wae (not actually spelled that way) which means the glass is dirty. Technically, it means the glass is crying (probably gets teased a lot for being dirty) and it was the ONLY creole phrase to stick with me.

- Much of the island's tourist attractions are, oddly enough, built for tourists. But not the cool kind. More the pasty, over-privileged European/middle-American caricatures of tourists in movies from the 1970s kind. The tropical rainforest walk wasn't a hike, but a path carved out, covered in stones. The loud crunching that occurs while walking on the path all but guarantees you won't see any cool wildlife except for omnipresent lizards who have no fear.

- Our rainforest tour guide took us in a sky air-car-thingy (probably called a gondola, but trying to keep the romance out of it) to see the canopy and all the cool tropical trees and some birds. I learned that everything in the rainforest* has medicinal purposes and can be used by science to help cure people. If they're suffering from impotence. Because EVERYTHING in St. Lucia is used to help men have sex. There's not a single female sex aid. But passionfruit? Good for the erection. Sea-moss, which can't even be a real thing? Good for the erection. Turtle penis or shell or whatever part they have? Good for the erection. Tree bark of any tree with leaves and branches and bark? Good for the erection.

- The sulfur springs are hot and really smelly. Nothing can survive in the area. Or so we were told. I definitely saw large, stone like creatures moving about and trying to hide. But I know what I saw.

- "Bus" "drivers" in St. Lucia are something to be avoided for long trips. For your average Rodney Bay to Castries trip, definitely pay the 2 EC and get in and watch Soca videos with your bus driver and try to refrain from asking him to watch the road instead of the new Soca video. Nobody likes a back seat driver. However, for longer trips, like say to Soufriere, stay the hell away from the buses. Not only do you have to sit in a bus and wait 2 hours for the driver to get enough victims in his death machine, but then you have to suffer through hairpin turns. I don't get car sick, but when I looked out the window while driving through St. Lucia's ridiculously omnipresent hills/mountains and saw only 3 of the wheels were firmly on the ground, I got a little worried. Sharp curves are not the place to pass on 1.5 lane roads, and not having guard rails on the side is not a dare to see if you can slip over the edge. I later found out we had the worst driver in St. Lucia (yelp.com???). I refused to drive back along the route, threatening to whole up in Soufriere for the duration of the trip. We met up with a friend of HD's mom at the Diamond Falls and she told us if we ran through the entire garden and only quickly glanced at the falls, we might barely be able to meet her and get on her boat tour for free or close to it. We didn't make it. Luckily, we found a friend of Dynamo's cousin named Ghost** who was the guide on another catamaran. Next paragraph, please!

- Ghost welcomed us on board with open arms that each held alcoholic drinks for us. We traveled to Anse Concho and went snorkeling. Coral and tiny colorful fish were everywhere, and it was beautiful. Peaceful, too, if you forgot about the 7 other identical boats docked there. Funny story about that...we didn't know it was our boat leaving, so we raced to shore, legs cramping up despite our Olympic swimmer abilities, ran across the sand to return our snorkeling equipment and swam back out to the boat, which had forgotten we were on it. And then I bought a conch shell.

- To read actual detailed stories of what we did and see some photos, read HD's many trip summaries here. It's well worth it. But come back to my blog at some point too, so I don't get lonely.

*By rainforest, our tour guide meant all of St. Lucia and probably the whole Caribbean too.

**Actually, probably nicknamed Ghost

St. Lucia, Vol. 1 - A New Beginning

Me and Dynamo's trip to St. Lucia started off super promising. I was well rested from my 3 hours of sleep and in a very good mood when I stepped outside in the inky black of 4 AM to see our cab not in front of the apartment. After all that, there's nothing like the invasive fluorescent lights while waiting on a line at the airport. Nothing, except perhaps being told there's a mechanical problem on the flight, we can't take off yet, the engineer's in the cabin signing some papers and we're going to miss our connecting flight in San Juan. Oh, did I forget to mention the airport security thought my camera's batteries were a magazine for a gun, and all i could think of to say was sorry?

All bad feelings disappeared once we actually made it on to the 2 PM (wait, actually 3 PM since the plane was delayed) stand by flight, met Dynamo's brother (who seemed like a character off 21 Jump Street), were picked up by Dynamo's friend and didn't actually crash when his friend took his eyes off the road when HD demanded cash payouts. Yes, according to him, St. Lucia was basically one giant ATM machine.

We stayed at the Bay Gardens Hotel, deciding to go with a locally owned and run hotel rather than one of those ubiquitously invasive resorts that all the tourists go to (there's a reason it rhymes with Vandals). Arriving to find our twin beds clearly separated, a tropical motif and an A/C that kept out St. Lucia's humidity, we started to unpack.
"I think I will unpack my clothing and put it in the closet so it is well organized and nothing wrinkles."
"I don't think there's anywhere to hang them though."
*checking the closet* "There's hangars man. Like," *counting,* "11."
"So what, like 10?"
"Are you retarded?"
"Maybe. Does it help me?"

After that clever exchange, we headed to the beach, as we had info from our reliable CI that's where the party was. And she was right. Or it could have been he was. If by party, she meant really really dark night with some tourists partying at an overpriced resort and nobody else around. We took a nice, non-romantic stroll up and down the beach, chasing smaller crabs and running like crazy from larger crabs since they'll attack with them claws. It was during this time that I managed to get a shot of the previously elusive (and possibly unheard of) St. Lucian Loch Ness Monster. We also kept hearing this really weird noise, as if there were birdbats* around, which was explained to us by friendly hotel staff as "what we call crickets here." So, they clearly weren't crickets. Using my clever sense of deduction and realizing that lucians call bananas figs (which are clearly much smaller) I extrapolated "crickets" must be Mothra, or at least something comprable. Vacations are a lot more fun when not petrified of encountering giant flying insects.

*"What are you, some sort of weird half-bird, half-bat?"
"No, I'm 100% batbird!"

LLB for the L - B - O

I came across the most delicious drink in St. Lucia, called Lemon, Lime and Bitters. You'd think this would be a Caribbean version of Sprite, but you'd be wrong. Mostly because you, like everyone else in the world, has absolutely no idea what bitters are. The real problem was, despite the abundance of the drink, it was impossible for me to ever get one, because this conversation kept taking place:

Do you have any LLB?
What?
LLB
*confused look, silence*
Ya know, Lemon Lime and Bitters
*more confused look and more silence*
Random good Samaritan: He wants an LLB
OHHH, LLB. Yea man.

After this exchange, I'd end up with an LLB, so I could never be too upset. Plus, I bought a whole bunch and snuck them through customs (haha, a little joke US government, haha), so now, I don't even have to ask for one. I can just take it out the fridge.

Hence, Cuteness Ensues

This morning, I found 2 kittens curled up outside with a larger cat, presumably their mother. But most likely, their body guard cat, like Heathcliff used to have.

I wondered how the mother cat already had kittens, since 6 months ago she was well tiny herself. This line of questioning ended when I saw the kittens playing around my tomato plants. The tabby managed to climb in and sit in one of the pots, which caused the grey one to try and pull the tabby out by it's tail. This chain of events caused me to form my "kittens are easily tricked by dimensions and barriers in regards to semi-translucent materials" theory, which I also then proved. On the spot.

This whole cuteness saga also led me to finally realize the synergy between kittens and tomatoes when Tab the tabby (named after the soda) curled up around my tomato, sheltering him from wind and providing vital love minerals for the fruits to grow.

On and on and on and...

No, this isn't some set up for me talking about how I rocked it till the break of dawn. This is yet another forum for me to throw in an "I hate Suze Orman" comment. Last night, Dynamo decided it would be "funny"* to play the !Viva Pinata! video game he borrowed from Shiv (note: Shiv is now dead to me and banned from my apt. To be fair, I have an entire policy on banning corpses from my apt. anyway). This was funny in much the same way Dynamo's girlfriend thinks it's funny to make me watch Suze Orman. Who I LOATHE. I've told her, while I love TiVo with all my heart, I will destroy it to prevent another episode from playing while I'm within 200 yards of the apartment. In much the same way, I will sacrifice the XBox 360 for the greater good if I ever hear Leafass give hints as to how to bring more Pinatas into your garden. I wonder, was the target audience for this game chimps with brain damage? Or, worse yet, did someone let David Caruso come up with a video game for kids?


*Note: Why, in Time Out NY, is there an ad for Snapple declaring it the official "Iced Tea" of concerts? Is something sinister afoot in the world of best stuff on earth?

And Justice For All

Not only did Dynamo getting Xbox 360 usher in AX, it also brought many other changes. For one, he's now obsessed with firing on Panzer tanks and has gotten super good at avoiding grenades. In addition, our entire system of ownership has now changed. Thanks in part to a high level of nerdosity on my part, as well as a need to play as Moon Knight and Colossus in video game format, I purchased Marvel Ultimate Alliance (which I may already own for a different system) for what is currently Dynamo's Xbox 360. Then, Shiv came through for my birthday and gave me another game, giving me a grand total of 2. As Dynamo only has 3, it seems to me that ownership is up for grabs. Thinking over the situation carefully, I realized we should employ the Supreme Court Initiative. This is, of course, the principle that 5 is more than 4, so whichever side has 5 wins. Of course, if the side has MORE than 5, they'd win too (unless Justice Alito raised both hands, which would be cheating). Therefore, I only need 3 more games to be triumphant. Or, one Clarence Thomas.

Lost in a fantasy

I finally made good use of Dynamo's Tivo remote Wednesday night during Kate's "Oops, I'm conveniently wearing a thong" scene. Imagine getting on that plane in granny panties, and then crashing on the island. I'd be mortified, and wishing I listened to my mom when she told me to wear clean underwear and pack extras, just in case.

50 something days on an island though, and she's still white as heavy cream. Smooth, luscious, delicious heavy cream wearing a mismatched thong and bra.*
Hmmm.
Sorry.
SPF 5000 much, Kate? At least she could never reject me based on my own whiteness flaw.


*Note: None of this matters much. The owner and sole contributor to this blog is completely in love with Evangeline Lilly. If you're reading this (and why wouldn't you be) come to my apartment and eat marshmallows with me, sans clothing, on my shiny copper naugahyde couch. Though this offer is too good to be true, it's also ongoing.

Go Dynamo. It's your birthday.

We're gonna party like there's a nor'easter on your actual birthday (so not so much, as rain dampens spirits, umbrellas, and once, my wallet. That sucked, and then it took me a long time to replace it.) But the rest of the time was fun. Everybody, have fun checking out a recap of Dynamo's birthday. Everybody, check out Dynamo make adjectives out of nouns too! But mostly, everybody read about his birthday fun!

1 more minute of birthday fun, Dynamo (according to the highly accurate and never tampered with blogspot official timepiece). Enjoy it while it lasts, because tomorrow I'm going to sucker punch you. Just cause.

Lymon Buccaneer

Lymon Buccaneer, Scurvy Pirate, the Scurvinator. No matter what you call it, Captain Morgan's and Sprite is still gross, pkilla!

I found this out at a recent concert that pkilla and Al Franken's stunt double took me to during Tartan Week. Nicole Atkins and the Sea opened, and opened hard. Then came 1990s, whose bassist wore an old school batman tee and whose drummer was like a real life version of the Gorillaz in cartoon form. Sons and Daughters headlined, but I was less than impressed. I almost caber-tossed them, but thought better of it and left.

Lost Wages (NOT!)

I don't understand why people cleverly and ironically call Las Vegas "Lost Wages." If anything, it's nickname should be "City of Secondary Income." I recently went there for another photo shoot for a few days, and came back with more money than I left with. In fact, my first night out there, I played craps for about 20 minutes and playing loosely and falling asleep between rolls, I made 20 bucks. Using algebra, we can discover that $20 in 20 minutes = $60 in 60 minutes. Taking this one step farther, we realize that that's a wage of $60 dollars an hour, quite higher than my actual salary. Frivolous gambling, or working hard for the money?

Things that I want to put into list form:

• It seems my company flew me out there to sit in my room 8 hours a day, backing up hard drives and processing RAW images. Taking photos of myself in a bubble bath probably wasn't one of their ideas.


• Neither was going on Rolling Stones magazine's "best near death experience in Las Vegas": extreme dune buggying in the desert. That's sort of what happens when the company uses both $3500 Macbook Pros as props and I get tired of observing shoots where I feel useless.


• I didn't get to eat at In n' Out Burger, one of the great fast food franchises of our era. Apparently, burgers are not a 24 hour item like casinos. If only they would make slot machines that spit out Double Doubles Animal Style, or Flying Dutchman. With shakes and fries, of course.


• Speaking of slot machines, they assault the senses immediately after entering the Las Vegas airport terminal.


• In fact, most of Las Vegas assaults the senses. It is excessive excess, and one of the strangest places I've been. I'd like to go back, since my time on the strip consisted of sneaking into the MGM Grand so we could shoot in one of their $1600 a night suites without their permission. A building is considered old when it was built in 1990. Hell, if they want to raze a 1990 building and build a casino/hotel, come to my hood and knock down my condo.


• My bosses probably didn't envision me moving the food tables out of the way at the wrap party so I could take crew members money in silo. 4, 5, 6 baby!!


• I found out playing craps by yourself in a mostly empty resort casino on a Wednesday night may be worse than drinking alone. I work hard for my money, though.


• I am not used to luxury. We stayed in an immense resort in a suburb called Sumerlin, where I had a king bed to myself, a rainfall shower with a regular showerhead too and a jacuzzi. Free food, 18 pillows on my bed (actually, 17 of them were useless and weirdly shaped) and maid service? I'm just a simple dude from Queens, but all that after my St. Maarten experience makes it hard to come home to my not finished condo.

You can view photos of the desert adventure, as well as casino adventure and bubble bath adventure here. After teaching 5 people how to play craps, I'm up $30 on Vegas and anxiously awaiting a rematch. And no, I don't have a gambling addiction. I have the Protestant work ethic and urge to make money.

Saint Maarten Photos

Lies I've told

Those avid readers of my blog (hi Pris, Dynamo and sometimes mom!!) also happen to be people who know the real life, flesh and blood me as well. I'm sorry for deceiving the entire online community with that last post. In truth, a lot has been going on.

Right before I had blogged about my hatred for Suze Orman (which hasn't really abated) I went to Sint Martin, or St. Maarten as the Dutch prefer, for a photo shoot with work. We rented a 110 foot yacht for a few days and shot black people living luxuriously. I volunteered to model too, but was politely turned down. Something about being too good looking, and needing to man the computer to make sure everything turned out ok. I got to be the digital assistant, which means ensuring all the digital images capture correctly, checking focus, helping Erik, the photographer out in any way possible, making sure there's a minimum of things for me to retouch and flirting withe the pretty models.

It was an amazing shoot, despite the immediate setback of snow storms grounding our original departure. This slightly messed things up, as we were more rushed on the yacht and I lost out on a full day vacation on the island. I felt extraordinarily useful and an integral part of the shoot. In fact, when we got back the head of the department told me the shoot wouldn't have happened without me. The days were long, as the makeup artist and I stayed onshore while the rest of the crew and cast were all on the yacht. It meant waking up at 6 AM and getting back to the room after midnight, but I was happy the whole time. My room, for what it was worth since I was never in it, was huge, with a kitchen, dining room, living room, double balcony with hot tub, two bathrooms, a stand up shower and tub and a huge bedroom with a comfortable bed. All this for a guy who'd be happy staying on a cot in a Motel 8, just to get to travel. I was definitely psyched for this first job on set, and a little nervous, but I did a good job and it paved the way for my trip to Vegas later in the month.

The crew and cast were amazing people and super nice. I was allowed to shoot the second camera during breaks and take photos of the models with my own camera as well. The photographs were high quality and arty, not typical stock shots of people on cell phones. The first night we were there, Erik did a fashion shot on the boat. Because of the dark, he couldn't focus, so Mike or I would aim a flashlight at the model's face. Growing tired of "on, off," we decided to use "peanut butter" and "jelly" as signal words. We were catered to non-stop, with a crew member whose sole job was to ensure our happiness and would bring us anything we asked for. I'm not used to luxury, so all this blew me away. I discovered that yachts in the Caribbean never run out of fresh lobster or Ting (the greatest grapefruit soda ever), despite me and Mike drinking it nonstop, and there's nothing more beautiful (despite how cliched it may be) than lying on the top deck while the boat's in open water, feeling the cool breeze in the warm night air and enjoying the stars.

The last day of the trip, I had 5 or 6 hours before I had to catch a nearly empty plane back to reality. I'd never been interested in visiting any of the island nations in the Caribbean before, figuring countries in Europe or a road trip across the US would be more interesting. That soon changed when I walked around Marigot, buying some interesting jewelery at the market while laughing at pasty cruise ship tourists, sampling a guavaberry colada (made using old timey island folk liquor recipes), picking up some for the trip home, visiting a local nude beach and wishing I could walk with my eyes closed, and seeing wild cotton and goats. Driving on the island was adventurous (dangerous as hell), and it was disheartening to see all the recent developments that would block locals from having beach access, turning the island over to the greed of the tourism industry. I regret not having been able to visit more of the island, to see the difference between the French and Dutch side, but only because I loved it so much and wanted to spend more time there. I had finally seen the allure to a tropical island getaway, and returned relaxed, if impatient to visit my next Caribbean island.

Still not much going on

It's about 10 minutes later, and I still hate her. It's bordering on loathing. Stop pushing your book, yo. The Suze Orman of my apt. keeps talking also. It's getting difficult to drown her out.

Nothing is going on right now

Suze Orman (pronounced Suuuuuz Annoying) is rapidly overtaking David Caruso as most annoying television personality. She's probably not that smart, deals with morons who can't count or figure things out on their own, and smells like rotten cabbage. I kind of hate her.

Discovering the Cookie Bunny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wqxFJj9V7U

My friend J$ recently passed along this exquisite clip from Sesame Street, which teaches youngsters many important life lessons:

1. White cookies are completely different than blue cookies
2. Both are delicious, in their own special ways
3. Plausible deniability. When Ernie tells Cookie Bunny that one plus two equals three, he responds "It's possible." Just in case, at some latter point, he receives intelligence countering that mathematical claim.
4. Ernie's kind of a prick. He keeps berating Cookie Bunny with "1 plus 2. 1 plus 2," never offering any advice or shortcuts to doing the math, like counting the cookies. Unreasonable pressure to do addition causes many children to turn to a life of crime and alcoholism. I sure hope Cookie Monster won't suffer the same fate. I mean, Bunny.

Nerds Discover Even Smaller Something or Other

Extra, extra! Read all about it! Scientists create even smaller transistor. Most people don't know what that is. Extra, extra!

I came home the other day, and that's how Dynamo greeted me. Well, a little less like a 1930's news-hawking newsboy, but still with great enthusiasm. Apparently, transistors are used somehow in computer chips. Now, since these new transistors are no longer "leaky," in 17 years they will replace silicone chips and nano-technology will be for real. Computers and devices which utilize computer chips (such as fancy cell phones, my blender and my Kate from Lost action figure) will be shrunken down to fingertip size.

This is a scary idea. Has anyone ever seen a movie that takes place in the future where people have finger-tip sized Dells and nothing bad happens? No? That's because bad things ALWAYS happen. In 17 years, we're going to find out the only thing keeping the Terminator and those 3 freaky things from Minority Report away was large computers. You'll see. Don't let the most likelier than likely inaccuracies and blatant falsities written above lead you astray.

Lost

Tonight's episode of Lost taught me that Cheech Marin is capable of making people fat with harmless "live a little, eat a candy bar" speeches. It also taught me never go inside any fictional chicken joints owned by Hurley when a meteor or cruise missile plans on going inside said joint.

Speaking of Lost, I spent no less than an hour and a half on Sunday putting together my super-duper Kate action figure that Priskiller got me. Yes, I'm bragging; it could have taken way longer. The box has no instructions, extra pieces and nothing fits logically together. There's not much shame in being outsmarted by inanimate objects, as long as it doesn't happen more than once a week or so.

My other complaint is that Kate doesn't look as sexy as she does on the show; her arms, in fact, resemble mummified tree branches. Also, the plane prop they threw in is rather a waste. I'd be much happier with a scantily clad photo of Evangeline Lilly instead. The action figure speaks, but so far I haven't heard "Oh L Bo, come carry me away in your big strong arms and let me be the other half of the equation when you sire our children. Please!" I hope Todd McFarlane puts out an updated version soon, like he does for his baseball series when a player gets traded to a new team.

Mystery of the day

Why does my cell phone's alarm, which is set to go off at 8 AM and again at 8:30 AM (due to my propensity to sleep longer than I should) Monday through Friday go off, without fail, EVERY SINGLE SATURDAY MORNING? Will this issue get worse with the whole Daylight Savings time coming earlier this year? Is my phone really that malicious and sinister that it plots to be the most annoying sound early Saturday, even more so than Dynamo's coffee grinder or air-raid-siren-teapot? Did Saturday become a weekday and I wasn't notified?