Hello friends and lovers. I bring tidings of goodwill + franky sense and mer cat. As I sit here at 2:37 AM on Tuesday 27th December 2005 I find myself bored out of my brains yet unwilling to sleep. So instead I have decided to write a tale. This will be a glorious tale full of bravery and depravity. Brace yourselves, for your hearts shall spontaneously combust at the tragic nature of this romantic action comedy horror noir drama thriller family western. I have not yet decided what it will be about, lets see where ye olde fingers take us. Ok. ______ Jason was an argonaut. Such were the facets of his indisposible pant; the crinkles and sheaves imbued with incantations fit only for the halls of a demon king. When the time came to change his pant, hours upon hours of focused thought and surreal chant were required in order to safely remove them from his grey decaying corpse of a body. His voice froze and shattered the very air the soundwaves traversed, hollow and torn by the years, an effort course and rough like the gravel upon which he tred. "Wayne, you fuck-wit, get these midgets out of my compound. What the hell are these little critters doing here?" he said, swaying around incredulously in order to gaze upon the little people scuttling around him, his encrusted joints no longer boasting the mobility of the standard quadribed. "Oh, they are soldiers from Midgland" Wayne replied from his perch up in a tree not but five hundred yards from Jason. "AHH, lower your voice, you just blew my eardrums from way over there, how the hell did you get up in that tree anyway?" With a million quick flicks of the wrist, like the wings of a fly, Wayne was by his side on the pathway in the Quearlen Abbey. "The usual way, Jason." He said with a grin. "Fair enough, by the way, reset your voice box volume back to minimum. King Lopus the 19th could hear you from Kuntonia as it is. Wait... is this blood seeping out of my ear? You piece of shit Wayne, look what you've done. You ruptured my godamn eardrum with your quadzillion decibel superpower." "Woah now, gimme a break, it's not myfault you have paper cups for inner ears, those flimsy styrofoam structures were bound to break any day now. Speaking of styrofoam cups, how about a coffee?" "Yea, alright," Jason said, dabbing at his ears. "Quadruple expresso thanks. It's kinda strange isn't it, that I can hear you right now after you just blew my brain apart with your Hiroshima voice. Do not do that shit again." "Whatever, asshole. Be right back with that coffee" 0.025 seconds later Wayne returned with two Starbucks cups, full of the steaming hot gourmet elixer of the gods. He handed Jason his quadruple expresso. "Thanks, Wayne. Hey I've got a question for ya" "Shoot" Jason took a sip and then yelped like a kelpie as it singed his tongue. "Ouch, yea the question was, where the hell is this story going?" "What story?" "This one" "You call this a story? Are you sure that's not your brains coming out of your ears. Story, don't make me laugh." "Actually it's a possibility, I do have a fairly impressive headache. Yeah maybe your right. Let's quit while we are behind and go to bed. It's 2:56 and we have to pack our bags to go to Adelaide tommorow!" "Yay, that sounds like an awesome plan. Let's do it! Here Jason... " Wayne hands him a skipping rope. "Take this, and let it become a part of you. Be one with the rope Jason, grasp the handles like they were the arms of your girlfriend." "But I don't have a girlfriend" "Whatever, so the skipping rope is your godamn girlfriend. Now unfurl it, and let us ride like cowboys into the desert. You be Clint Eastwood and I'll be John Wayne. Hah - John WAYNE. Hah-hah-hah" "Shutup Wayne. Keep your fucking rope. I'm going inside." "What? You can't go inside, GET BACK HERE DIPSHIT. GET BACK HERE AND PICK UP THIS ROPE. YOUR GOING TO SKIP GODAMMIT, YOUR GOING TO SKIP RIGHT HERE AND NOW. GET BACK HERE YOU PIECE OF CRAP." "Fuck you Wayne, eat shit and die." "I'LL EAT SHIT AND DIE WHEN YOU COME BACK HERE AND SKIP LIKE CLINT EASTWOOD." At that Jason looked back and walked over to the rope. He picked it up and started skipping, and then started going in circles mumbling "Mmmhhheh" and other Clint Eastwood vocal trademarks. Wayne proceeded to eat shit, and then he died. Upon his death Jason found himself uncontrollably upset, and tears rained throughout the kingdom. The rivers swelled and the dams blew, flooding the lands and ultimately exterminating the midgets Jason had been so adament about removing from his compound. But did this little victory over the midgets quel his grief over his fallen comrade? Had Wayne deserved to eat shit and die? Tune in next century for my great great grandsons next entry into this epic tale of conflicted comradery.

Petty Peeves with Parking

Parking! How much does parking suck in this day and age? I say it sucks more than a Vax vacuum cleaner, now that motherfucker sucks hardcore. I bet you parking would have been a lot easier 200 years ago. Those were the golden years of the automobile. It’s one of the major cons of going out. The fight for the free park. It’s an everlasting struggle, and with the world becoming overpopulated this problem isn’t going to get better fast. People are dicks. They aren’t getting any better either. So not only is the world becoming overpopulated with people, it’s being overpopulated with dicks. These dicks learn to drive, then that’s where we have a serious problem. I’m sure everyone out there has had a horrific story of a bad people in parking lots. Whether they are inconsiderate or just plain nutcases. One of my pet peeves is when people have finished shopping for their groceries, so they go back to their car, unload all their shopping, then go back inside. Hey, that’s cool, if you want to watch a movie after you shop (although it would be cooler if you watch a movie before you get your groceries) do it, it’s a free world. But the thing that gets to me is, when I see them start to unload their purchased goodies, I turn on my indictor lights to tell them "HEY! I WANT TO PARK HERE. PLEASE.". The person unloading the groceries will look up, and then keep going. But when they are finished, they lock their car and walk back inside! They could’ve nodded their head to tell me that they are not leaving. They wasted multiple minutes of my time! That makes me angry! GRRRR. That was minutes wasted on complaining about something else! Then you get your pricks that try to overtake you when you are waiting for a spot only to get in the way of a person trying to get out of their park. That doesn’t help anyone doesn’t it? There are people that need more patience! There are many more that need to get some common sense! Seriously, I am waiting for a reason, not just to hold up traffic. Because, that’s where I get my kicks, holding other people up. Yay. I also hate it when people park over two spots. Most of them are too much in a rush to take five seconds just to correct themselves. But instead, they want to get in quickly, so they just leave an empty spot to be forever empty, all because one person couldn’t spare a few seconds. SHEESH. Readers, friends and loyal parkers. We need to learn different tactics and strategies in understanding the psychology of the parker and how to make the most efficient method to scan and park in a parking lot. Whether it is in a shopping mall, or off-street parking somewhere in town. "LINTHICUM, MD, March 22 - Drivers who want good parking spaces at malls and parking lots can follow two time-saving strategies, according to an article in this month's edition of a journal published by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)" That’s right. There has been some scientific research put into the field of Parkology. Why did you think Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity? FOR FUN!? "The first and more conservative strategy, called Pick a Row, Closest Space, turns out to be slightly faster. Upon entering a parking lot from any of its entrances, the driver selects a row flowing in the correct direction. The driver then proceeds to that row, enters it, and selects the closest available space. A second strategy, described with a more aggressive driver in mind, is referred to as Cycling: The driver enters the closest row to the entrance. If any of the 20 closest parking spaces are available, the driver selects the closest one. Otherwise, the driver cycles to the next adjacent row. If any of the 40 closest parking spaces are available there, the driver selects the closest. Otherwise, the driver returns to the first row and parks in the closest available spot. A comparison showed that the average time spent by a driver using the first, speedier approach is 61 seconds. In contrast, the average time using the second approach is 71 seconds. Drivers who have trouble on their feet, though, should note that the first approach requires less driving but more walking". So according to the INFORMS study, an aggressive search will yield an excellent position, but it will take longer to find. On average, of course. According to this study, if you are too lazy to walk, you will have to wait. Makes sense. I then came across another study reported by American syndicated broadcaster MSNBC. "Connecticut-based Response Insurance surveyed its drivers and identified what it says are the four main species of mall parkers: "search and destroyers," "lay and wait," "stalkers" and "see it and take it." But in the asphalt jungle, it turns out, it's the least aggressive who are getting the last laugh. Search and destroyers roam the aisles, cruising endlessly for the perfect spot. Lay and wait parkers position themselves at the end of an aisle and wait for a space to open up in what they start to believe is their territory. Stalkers, the most predatory, slowly follow shoppers leaving the store back to their parking spot. The three methods risk situations that can lead to stress or conflict. In Hrynyk's case, he was lucky he didn't run into another search and destroyer waiting for the same spot, said Ray Palermo, a spokesman for Response Insurance. "It's not like road-rage, but it can cause a lot of stress, nevertheless," he said. The favored method is to see it and take it, where shoppers don't care how far they have to walk. The company said it's less stressful and helps drivers save the most time." According to this study, it pays off to be an asshole. So what is the best approach? I believe it depends on your character and your needs. Are you lazy? Can you be stuffed to walk? Or are you the stubborn person that will go around in laps looking for that ULTIMATE PARK (a la George Costanza, aka Costanza Syndrome). People with new cars may be hesitant to park in a densely packed section of the car park and may opt to park further out for that piece of mind. It's an individual thing. However, for me, parking spaces is a status thing. The people that can park next to the entrance (legally, no disabled parking cheats) are KINGS OF THE EMPIRE. Clearly they are above us mere mortals as they have the power to find the perfect park… YOU TOO! Can be a King Parker, only if you plan ahead. Do you want to park on the fringe of park near the entrance? Are you lazy or born of high nobility? Remember, the secret is to be an aggressive BEAST of the urban jungle. That way you don’t have to complain of all the idiots on the road, because you will become one. So that’s my opinion, parking already sucks, make it better by taking control of your destiny and try to be the ultimate King Dick. Word out. Related Links INFORMS Study MSNBC Report More Parking Tips